Welcome 2024

It’s that time of year when I take a moment to look back at the old year and plan for the new…

The video is up! If you’re a regular on the blog then there won’t be very much different from the post, but the cute critters are fun! 🙂

This year will be a bit unpredictable when it comes to finishing my goals for this year.

Why?

Well if you’re a regular here you’ll know I recently introduced Baby #6 to the world, and if you know a thing or two about babies (especially newborns), then you know they can be very unpredictable little humans.

Since Baby brings a lot of chaos into the mix, I will be keeping my goals for this year top secret, and instead focus on looking back on what happened last year.

For the year of 2023 I had some big goals!

Fix the short story collection and republish it on Amazon
Library Storytime
Outline entire picture book series
Update the dummy book for Little, Quiet Dinosaur (working title)
Add new critter to the shop

Some of these goals turned out to be much more complex than I thought, or led to rather meandering paths I hadn’t expected. All were an excellent learning experience, and help me learn how to make better goals I am more likely to complete.

Editing Dinosaurs Don’t Play Fetch and publishing on Amazon:

Editing the short stories and details in the book was full of technical details. Since I am not a professional editor or book formatter, I always have to relearn how to use the programs like Adobe InDesign anytime I want to make a change.

The good thing about this is that each time I have to get a refresher it takes less time to relearn those tasks, and so I’m getting better overall. I was also very happy with how intuitive Amazon’s system is compared with Ingram Spark, and I will definitely continue to work with their system for now.

I wish Amazon was a bit better about quality control, because my second order of books was not as high quality as my first order. Perhaps I can look into my image files to see if I can find out why the quality of the images is inconsistent. For example, I can make sure the white of an image is true white, and black is true black.

It sounds a bit silly, but you’d be amazed how much a printed image can vary if you don’t keep this in mind. I thought I had, but with so many illustrations it’s very easy for small things like that to fall through the cracks.

Hopefully this will avoid any misprints where the white parts of an image are dirty-looking and gray.

I’m so glad any edits on files are free on Amazon!

Goal complete.

Library story time:

This goal was the biggest one by far, because it included so many different elements. In a way, republishing the book on Amazon was part of this goal, but it also included updates for nearly all of the critters in the shop, activities for the kids, and things like bookmarks, stickers, and fliers for the event.

The greatest thing about this goal were the unforeseen benefits.

I was able to see how much the kids really enjoyed the stories and critters, and being able to connect with real people was something I didn’t realize how much I missed until I was exposed to it.

It makes me want to find other ways to connect with people in person. And so it was absolutely delightful that it led to the second author book signing last year, because then I was able to connect with other authors.

My local library is a valuable way to stay connected, and I will definitely continue to be an active patron this year. I truly appreciate the lovely people who work hard to make the library a welcoming place, and I’m excited to continue working with them in future events, or simply enjoy spending what time I can there.

Paleo Petshop series:

Outlining the picture book series and updating the dummy book are kind of related, since a big part of both these goals was to figure out why I keep procrastinating on them.

Ultimately I discovered that I’ve been creating a lot of mental blocks for myself.

For example, the idea of a PICTURE BOOK is quite daunting. A bit like the concept of A NOVEL or A MASTERPIECE.

It’s too large a task. It’s a blank canvas with huge expectations of magically turning into something amazing.

And no matter how I tried to break it down into smaller, more manageable tasks, it still felt too big and intimidating. Plus it was not a priority like library story time, so it was very easy to put it on a back burner.

On the bright side, I have figured this out, so that’s the first step to conquering an obstacle.

Another good thing is that I did complete the task of outlining a general plan for the series as a whole (because it’s important for books in a series to look like they go together). So there’s one stumbling block measured up at least, even if I haven’t done a lot with it since.

These goals were good learning experiences, and something worth taking a closer look.

Add a new critter to the shop:

I know that technically this goal was supposed to be a completely new critter to the shop, but this year six critters got a complete makeover, and five more got all cleaned up with new backgrounds.

I loved breathing new life into the characters and exploring new techniques. I’ve learned so much about light and how to create the illusion of detail, and I still have so much to learn! Each painting has something I love that I want to continue to practice this year.

Tango is joyful to greet the day, and I love the story hinted at in this illustration. I’ll practice better storytelling in future paintings.

Skippy has great layers and clear shapes between the different areas of light and shadow. I’ll practice more defined shapes in color and light in future paintings. It makes the story of a painting clearer, and feels stronger and more confident.

Rosie’s quiet, sweet character really shows in her painting, and I really like how some shapes are defined by the light outline. I’ll practice character design and letting the critter’s personality shine in future paintings.

Opie is easily one of my favorite pieces. He has awesome back lighting, and I love the overall colors and feel of the painting. I keep coming back to it and smiling along with Opie. I’ll practice choosing colors and everything that influences how I feel about a piece in future paintings.

Gertrude makes me think of hot summer days and the sun beating down on my shoulders. I also found some really good brushes for some of the plants and background “paint.” I’ll practice texture in future paintings.

Bella was a great experience simply playing with the different brushes and seeing what would happen. I’ll practice staying lose and experimenting with brushes until I know which ones I want for different shapes and textures.

Overall I’m very glad I took on the challenge of updating the critters and giving them backgrounds. Now a few of the other critters, like Bowser, Dippy, and Tigger, look like they need to be polished off!

I consider this goal to be a success, and hopefully this year I can truly add a new character to the shop.

My lessons for this year…

This year has been full of all sorts of exciting twists and turns, like Baby on the way, unexpected opportunities for sharing Pete’s Paleo Petshop with my community, and connecting with other authors and learning from their wisdom.

The lessons I wish to remember most from this year are…

Stop talking about taking that next big step and just jump. The best opportunities come from getting out of your comfort zone. At some point I need to stop talking about it or procrastinating with checklists and steps to take…and just DO it!
Time, opportunities, and inspiration all have something in common. Time must be carved, opportunities must be hunted, and inspiration must be mined from consistency.

Critter of the Month will return March 1st…

One always expects the first few days or weeks of having a new baby to be the hardest. After all, the first few days are when Baby is the most dependent on Mama right?

The thing is, the first few days you still have the benefit of at least some amount of sleep! Yes they definitely have their challenges, but for the most part you’ve just started the race and you’re sprinting along with full confidence…

And you’ve completely forgotten that it’s a marathon that lasts several months, possibly years, not a sprint of a few days.

And then the weeks go by and you lose all track of time. The cycle of sleeping and waking becomes a hazy, abstract concept, and the sleep debt piles up higher and higher until you start falling asleep in random places…

So I truly appreciate your patience during this time of unpredictability. It’s chaotic, difficult, often overwhelming, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. This truly is such a short time, in the grand scheme of things, and just like any other challenge we can just take things one step at a time.

Each month will be a bit different, just as it always is for any of us really.

Until next month, I hope you enjoy the last critters of the Christmas countdown!