Friday Jean came home with a letter saying her costume needed to be in school by Monday - I had obviously missed a letter somewhere a long the line and didn't even know what she was supposed to be. She informed me that she was an angel and that she had to have silver wings.
So one Sunday afternoon, gaffa tape, cardboard and a trip to tesco's for some tinsel and we had a pair of angel wings complete with a mechanism for attaching them to her without pain!
If I ever get around to writing this up the instructions and step by step photos will go on Salaric Craft. The angel dress was a rehash of last years snow cloud costume.
Ok this is a follow on from why I've decided to not worry about my first publishing rights. I have expanded this to my poetry first off - this is now going up on Turquoise Monster this renders the poems I post useless for most anthologies and competitions but I'm sick of sending off all the poems wasting all that paper and enverlopes to get like £20 $6 etc... of course I still have a few poems that can't go up yet due to them being published in newspapers and stuff.
I decided it would be better to produce a book of my own - of poetry - I'll still send stuff off to the charity anthologies as I feel thats important but I feel that this sending off to have the poem appear once in something read by like 150 people is really starting to stunt my growth as a poet.
I have observed that most sales come from doing slams and talks and conferences and even those poets published the traditional way have ended up having to wave their books around saying 'please buy'.
I am also a 'niche' poet so finding someone willing to publish a poetry collection would be difficult. I plan to illustrate the poems for the actual 'books' and have infact been producing a visual poetry journal for sale in Ammerica.
I origonally decided I had to have a poetry website as people have been asking me where they can get my poems to read - and [A Picture of Words}(http://turquoise.monsters.wigglypets.co.uk/?p=12) has been taken by two seperate teachers to use as a classroom aid which made me very happy - they did ask first 🙂
I think obsqurity is more of a danger to my poetry career than piracy to be quiet honest - plus poetry really isn't a big earner - the top poetry books still sell minute numbers compared to say fiction books.
So that is why I am doing this with the poetry - [Orange Monster}(http://orange.monsters.wigglypets.co.uk/) on the other hand is where I am putting out my Children's books ideas.
There is a slightly different reasoning behind this one and it has nothing to do with the publishing industry and everything to do with Jean.
I came across a picture book alternative to NaNoWriMo called Picture Book Idea Month or PiBoIdMo the idea is you produce 30 picture book ideas in 30 days - I thought why not.
And I thought this becuase I've got lots of picture book ideas rattling about and none of them have been brought to completion and Jean is actually starting to get a bit old - at least for the board book ideas. After having made her the Little Book of Spoogy Poetry I thought I can use PiBoIdMo to give her all these stories - most of which she has inspired.
This way they might actually get written and enjoyed by her before she's too old. Weather I will go on to publish any of these I do not know but I plan to make the little books like I did at Halloween and one of the ideas you might all be getting for a christmas presant so you have been warned!
Right I suppose I should actually get on and do some work now!
I've been quiet sick this week again - as in I've had several days where I couldn't function at all - today I'm a bit better though still having dizzy spells and being very very tired but I decided to create for Jean The Little Book of Spoogy Poetry.
Spoogy is the word she tends to say instead of spooky and she really likes Halloreen stuff and kept asking for stories and rhymes - so this morning I wrote the first half of a story I hope to have finished for Saturday for her it's called Hetty Peglar's Tump after a local earthworks.
Anyway I realised I wasn't going to get a chance to illistrate the story for her before then and I really wanted to do some halloween drawings for her so I thought I'd do a poetry book instead.
No I wrote all the poems today and I junked about 1 and half times what I've put in and they are well... mostly rhyming and Jean specific so I ain't going to win no great prizes with them but Jean seems to like them.
I'll be putting the poems on Turquoise Monster and how I made the book on Salaric Carft. But until then here are a few of the pages with the pictures pre-binding.
I awoke and me and dad got Jean ready for school - there were books to find and lunches to make and teeth to brushed and Jean's to be shouted at when they flop and make dressing them hard and so on and so forth.
It was dark when I got up and I thought - hmmm bout time those clocks change.
And we struggled our way to school.
And it was deserted the playground desolate and forlorn - empty of childs hurtling around it was a grey expanse of tarmac with a dreary fence. Where was everyone?
No cars in the staff parking - no lights in the windows - cold and empty - I look at Dad 'When do the clocks change?'
'Not yet'
'Surelly its soon?'
'Your mother didn't say anything about it and I would have expected a sign in the playground'
'Hmm well they must have changed - there's no one here'
So we come home again and I look up daylight saving and find out the clocks change this weekend - so then I'm panicking - have I missed some school trip? Were they all supposed to be at some train station somewhere or something?
No - its half term - yesturday was the last day - Mew 🙁
So then Dad's annoyed cos he could have still been sleeping and Jean's annoyed becuase she doesn't want a holiday - she wants to go to school and play with her friends!
And I ment to talk to some of the mothers about the half baked plans for them to visit during half term :/
Sigh - I just can't manage with the amount of stuff I have to remember for school - and yet I know that other people manage this stuff perfectly well :/
Fortunatly I had got in lots of craft stuff and that to do with Jean and Co during half term anyway- she is currently happily colouring a dinosaur sticker and colouring book and has a spooky ghost one waiting for her attention 🙂
I also have wooden skulls for decorating - and skull bags to sew and ghosts to glitter! I love pound shops and the like 🙂 (Plus I cut alot of the stuff out myself from my craft paper collection!)
I've got cooking activities and everything lined up for Jean but am sad to be two days shorter on sorting house out time 🙁
Today when I went up to the school the teacher told me that Jean has been doing really good drawings and paintings - so much so that the Head Master has commented on it - she is being very careful and precise with it and generally doing stuff that is beyound her age range 🙂
I had noticed these last two weeks that Jean's drawings and colouring in have really really improoved - instead of random scribbles and things there is structure and now there is secondary, tertiary and even quarternary structures. I even found her drawing a map though she insists its not a map:
'It's not a map! It's what things look like if your up up all the way in the sky.'
Unfortunatly she has also been drawing war machines with whirrling blades on them - not entirely sure where she's got that one from!
I showed her how to draw stick men and she drew one and then added a stomach and a face and hair and things and it was recognisable as a person!
She also drew aload of circles and said they are what's blood :/
I'll try and photo some of these and put them on the blog as I think they are interesting!
But then I am her mother 😉
I was a whole year older than her before a teacher commented on my use of perspective! Plus I'm glad she's drawing and stuff becuase she had started saying she didn't want to becuase they weren't good like mummy's pictures 🙁
Art and Craft, Domestic, Jean | sarah | 
Tue 8th Dec 2009 5:11 pm | 
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