It’s been a month full of surprises and momentum…

It all started with an article in the local newspaper. Remember the library story-time a couple of months back? Well it was right at the end of August that I saw it featured on the local news.

That was a lovely surprise, because after so much time had passed since the story time event I had almost forgotten about the paper and wasn’t expecting anything at all. But wait, it gets better.

Mr. Mendell Morgan, the local library director here in Uvalde, is fast becoming a good friend of mine. He is a very generous person who loves supporting local talent, and I always love an opportunity to visit with the kids for Wednesday story time or one of the many interesting events they host there.

Mr. Morgan reached out to me about attending an event featuring local authors, and of course I was absolutely thrilled to say yes! To have another chance to meet more parents and children coming to the library, and have the opportunity to meet other authors in my area? I was over the moon!

The book signing event was a wonderful learning experience! I spent more time making the rounds with the other authors than at my own booth. Being able to talk with them and learn from their experience was truly amazing, and I loved all of their personal stories.

A few of the authors there had a good number of books and even have a few bestsellers on Amazon, so I was very grateful that they were willing to share their experience with me. It’s inspiring to discover how many years they have been writing, how many books they have written in that time, and how they have developed both their craft and their connections with readers along the way. A few gems of advice really stood out for me, and I will definitely be taking it to heart.

• Modify priorities based on life’s seasons. Most of these authors are retired, or at least their children are already grown. They reinforced my goal to make my family my first priority, and write books at an easy pace. Little raptors grow up so fast!
• Focus with connections on social media. One author in particular only has a Facebook page, and he takes the time to answer every comment and connect with his readers personally as much as possible.
• Create what brings you joy. That will bleed through into anything you make, and others will be able to share in that joy.
• Connecting with other authors and creators is just as valuable as connecting with one’s readers. We can build each other up, encourage each other, and lead each other to opportunities that would be more difficult to find alone.

So I’ll definitely be getting a Facebook page together, even if the only thing I use it for is to stay up to date with the local libraries and my new author friends. I’m looking forward to staying in touch, hopefully seeing them again at other events, and building friendships.

I’ve also been doing a bunch of stuff behind the scenes that will hopefully help me better share the prehistoric fun. Nothing big or overly scheduled, since I definitely need to focus on getting more books out (and keeping the other author’s advice in mind), but I think it’ll be a lot of fun. I can’t say too much about it yet, but maybe you can pick up on the little hints I might’ve dropped along the way…

Like this book trailer I posted on YouTube just over a week ago. 😀

It’s the first time I ever do anything like this, so there are some things that could be smoothed out if I had more experience. As short as this little trailer is, it took me a solid week of work!

The biggest part was animating the illustrations. Hopefully with experience and practice I can get better at it, or find out ways to streamline the process. If you happen to know anything about animating keyframes on video-editing software I’m all ears!

The work was well worth it. I absolutely love seeing my illustrations come to life, and now I want every excuse to animate all my critters! If you’re interested, I can dedicate a post to the process of animating illustrations. Especially once I’ve done it a few times and I’m a bit better at it. Unless you like the messyness of a newbie learning the ropes…

Wait. That’s this entire blog!

Thank you so much for stopping by and being a part of this with me. It really means a lot to me to see you here!

My lessons for this month…

• It’s ok to set things aside for a day or two (or maybe more) to get a fresh perspective and figure out problems.
• Meeting in person is so important for a sense of human connection! It didn’t matter that we all wrote in different genres, I gained so much that is often lacking on forums and other digital platforms.
• Persistence, putting in the work, and patience are key…keep on keeping on and you never know when opportunities will come.

And the Critter of the Month is…

It’s Skippy the Hoplosuchus!

He was a feisty little bugger, and took me quite a while to paint. So many scales and scutes! All in all though I’m very pleased with how he turned out, and I highly recommend watching the video for the full rundown of my process and everything I learned while painting this little guy.

If you really want to help out my channel, then the best way to see it would be to search for the title on YouTube directly. Searching for videos, then liking or commenting on them tells the YouTube algorithm that my videos are worth supporting. I would deeply appreciate any comments or feedback to make them better. That will help me share the prehistoric love with more people. 🙂

Thank you for joining me today! If you really like Skippy’s painting and wish to support me, you can find him on Redbubble. Just click on the picture below or CLICK HERE to go to Redbubble and take a closer look.

See you Nov. 1st for the next Critter of the Month!

This fluffy guy loves to curl up in his bed with his favorite teddy.

Share your guess in the comments! He’ll be one of the critters over on the critter page. 🙂