I wake up, eat, check my email and surf the net under the guise of "industry research," which usually meanders its way to "book idea research." Then, when I am horrified at the amount of time I have spent sitting on my bum "researching" (probably while eating at the same time), I go outside and ride my bike or go to the gym for an hour or two. Then I return home and either write, draw or paint -- trying all the while not to get sucked back into "researching." Of course I inevitably do, and the rest of the day is filled with the back and forth battles of concrete work vs. pretend work. This usually goes on until I go to sleep at night, unless I am seeing friends for dinner or someone comes over. Depending on deadlines and/or the next day's schedule, I go to bed at around 11 p.m. - 2 a.m. Of course everyday errands such as cleaning, groceries, etc., get jumbled in, but all in all, I have a pretty quiet life. I hope that wasn't too disillusioning!
But recently, I have been surprisingly social. Meeting rock star illustrators like Melissa Sweet:
who gave an inspiring talk at the North Shore Reading Council meeting. Other than oozing with envy over her studio (it's a whole separate house!), I loved when she talked about taking a risk with each book that she does.But before I could ponder too much on that, I went to a school visit at the Gordon School in RI, where they treated ME like a rock star:
They even made a little photo essay about the day. Thanks, Gordon School! You were great!But no sooner had I recuperated from the visit, that I took off for VT to have lunch with rock star author An Na (and her beautiful daughter):
and then an event at the rock star bookstore The Flying Pig:
which is a celebrity to me because I am a regular reader of the Shelftalker blog. Here I am with rockstar blogger Josie Leavitt:
And from there...I went to bed and slept for 10 hours before I returned to my quiet life. I was tired. I'm not used to all this excitement!