Chris Howard's Writing & Art

The Very Tall Gods of Mars

The idea here is that one of us--humans--is out exploring a canyon on the Red Planet and finds very tall humanoid shapes etched into the canyon walls.

Painted this on my iPhone with the Brushes app, about an hour.



Video:


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"Wee wee wee all the way home"

As in, she's going to make you go "wee wee wee all the way home" ...You know, this little piggy went to the market...etc.

Sketched this on my iPhone with the Brushes app.

I was thinking about doing some foreshortening and hey, how about a foot right in the middle of the work?  So I went with that, and drew this character around it.  I'm also playing with verticals and horizontals with her arms--which I think came out interesting.

I'm also posting the video for this one if you're interested in seeing the recorded strokes.



Video:


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Video of Blue Scarf painting

Brushes app on my iPhone.  Video showing every step in the work, and a detail crop below.

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Mermaid progress video

Here's what it looks like from start to finish.  And here's a link to the final work. Also posted it below--so scroll down.

 

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Mermaid on my iPhone (Illustration Friday: drifting)

Painted this in Brushes on the iPhone over lunch today, a little over an hour, a lot of save and duplicates, but I like the way this ended up.  I was planning to make the water a bit rougher, a little stormy, but...I ran out of time.

 
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Soldier with Blue Scarf

A quick sketch on my iPhone using the Brushes app, fingers (no stylus on this one), about an hour. 

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Dryads don't like zombies

Especially zombies from space.  Painted with the Brushes app on my iPhone, about forty minutes.  A couple more things I've painted on my iPhone here and here. 

Here's my initial sketch and first save:

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Young Dryad on the iPhone

Painted on my iPhone, Brushes app, finger painting (left my stylus at home), about an hour.  Also posting two of my saved work in progress.

 

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Painting Purple Vampires on my iPhone

Just painted this on my iPhone using the Brushes app.

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If you had to come back as an insect...

...you'd definitely want wings like these.  Shot this beauty in the garden fondling all the flowers.

Readercon

Registered for Readercon--way late, but I'll be there.


Readercon 20

July 9-12, 2009
Burlington Marriott, Burlington, Massachusetts.

Guest of Honor:

Elizabeth Hand & Greer Gilman

Memorial Guest of Honor:

Hope Mirrlees

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UltimateSF Workshop Poster

Okay...still tweaking, but nearly done.  Taken me a little longer than I'd planned, but a lot going in this piece.  I've posted the art, and below a peak at some of the titling I'm working on.  For detail crops of each of the characters, see the prior post here.

CLICK FOR THE FULL VIEW:

And here's one with some titling--still working on this:

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Poster Details

Here are some detail crops for the poster I'm doing for the UltimateSF Workshop 2009.  Click for the full view.

What I'm working on...

Here's a screenshot of my Art Rage space with one of six characters in a scene I'm working on--the main characters for the six writers in the latest UltimateSF Workshop in Boston.  We had our final meeting on Sunday, and I'm putting together a poster for this session.  UltimateSF is a workshop run by Jeffrey Carver and Craig Shaw Gardner in the Boston area.  They put it on a few times a year, and it comes in various flavors. This last one was critiquing for novel writers.  I workshopped the first 16 chapters of Winterdim (my latest book) in this last session.

Still have a long way to go with this poster, at the sketching stage, and still making a lot of changes. 

Click for the full view.

 
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IF: unfold

I continue to tweak this one, starting out as from the perspective of someone looking over a vast forested landscape from above, and from there, drawing it deeper until we're now looking up at the figure at the crest of the tree from below.  Also playing with the reflection.

That's what reflections do, right?  Mirrors, prisms, the surface of water--they show you where and how reality can be unfolded.

This one's really big. Click here to see the full view.

Jokingly Moscow

Jokingly Moscow
Originally uploaded by chrishoward.author

I even created a new Flickr Group called Captcha Book Titles!

Building Platforms

I have just sent my fifth novel Winterdim to my agent.  Now what? 

Okay, the obvious thing.  I'm three chapters into the next one, so, yes, I am continuing to write, but I still have this store of energy around the prior story. 

Last night I set up a web site for Winterdim here.

Add to the platform

If you're writing, you should have a blog or web site, a place where readers, reviewers, the rest of the world can find you, point to, link to.  That's your platform.  Even if you prefer Twitter or some other social transient content service, you should have a site, blog, journal, Facebook page, something fairly stable and configurable to direct the reading world--even from your Twitter profile.

I think there are a couple ways to go from here.

Say you're on Typepad, Wordpress, Blogger, LJ, etc., and that's where you expect to send readers. Just finished or sold a book?

1. Site redesign: bring the look and layout of your blog up to date with colors, info, styles to match your new book.
2. New site: create a new site (really just a web page or a set of them) to show off your new book.

Domain names

Do you grab domain names for your titles?  Or at least try to?  (A domain name is like google.com or saltwaterwitch.com).  I still do, and my experience has shown me it can be a waste of time for two reasons.  First, your editor may change the title--Seaborn and Sea Throne had different titles when I sent them in, and second, chances are, unless you've struck something really unique, the .com domain for your book title is already taken.  (seaborn.com was long gone.  SeabornBook.com was available, as well as other variations and compound forms, but I ended up going with SaltwaterWitch.com, which I still think has a nice ring).

Selecting a domain name…some rules

Learn from my mistakes.  I've made gigantic mistakes in selecting domain names, user names, and other identifying words.  My major blunder: the0phrastus, the location of my blog is http://the0phrastus.typepad.com, which may not seem that crazy until you consider that the "0" in the0phrastus is a ZERO.  Big mistake.

1. Do not settle for anything but the .com domain unless you absolutely have to.  The other top level domains that can at least be considered are .org and .net (not .edu, .mil, .gov), but the .com is so fixed in our web-using consciousness, any other can become a hurdle,

2. Your domain name must pass the shout-across-the-room test.  That is, select a name you can shout back and be understood--over your screaming fans--to a person across the room.  If you have to explain how to spell it, you'll lose people.  My example above, the0phrastus, I have to say "It's theophrastus with a PH and the 0 is a zero"--and nine times out of ten I'll just get a blank stare back.

Buying domain names can be a crazy experience, but there are a number of registrars that make it fairly easy: GoDaddy.com, DomainBank.net, to name a couple.  You go there, sign up, search for domains and buy them.  Prices range from $7.99 to around $35 for a new domain name, and can be a lot higher (into the thousands) if you need to buy the domain from an existing owner.

URL Forwarding

If you already have a web site through a hosting service (e.g., pair.com) you don't typically need to buy another domain account from your hosting provider.  In most cases, you can hang many domains off of one site using your domain registrar's URL forwarding services--usually free. 

Here's an example of what a piece of my SaltwaterWitch.com site looks like on the inside:

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/winterdim

The root (that first / ) is where all the files sit for the site's top level.  So, if you click, http://www.saltwaterwitch.com that's what you'll see in your browser--the index file at the top level.  If you click http://www.winterdim.com the URL Forwarding stuff I've set up with my domain registrar will direct you to http://www.SaltwaterWitch.com/winterdim/

I've even set the URL to be "masked" so when you click http://www.winterdim.com you will see winterdim.com in the address box of your browser.

Here's shot of what the URL Forwarding set up screen looks like at my registrar.  You should see something similar:

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First scene painting of book 2

Got up early this morning, and went right to work painting this scene from the next book.  Art Rage, tablet, about 3 hours.  The boy's her student, holding an arm out in a let-me-handle-this motion, while his teacher has her arm protectively over his shoulder--and, just in case, the big ass gun over her shoulder.

Click for the full view:

 
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illustration Friday topic: Craving

I painted this one in Art Rage, about 2.5 hours.  A scene from the last book, main character's a dryad, and here she's up in the trees, in the rain, staring down her man, and she's a bit...uh...anxious.  This one's a little wilder than I typically paint, but the topic called for it.  Art Rage, if you don't know is one of the smoothest, most natural, least expensive digital painting apps around.  (There's a free version, but the full version is only US$25!)  I usually work in Photoshop, and occasionally Painter, but I think Art Rage feels better than both.

Sun goddess

This is a couple year old digital work of mine that I recently touched up and cropped.  It's a character study for my current series--that went by several titles, Pele, Fire Goddess, etc. Finally, it's time to bring this character to life--actually she's in the next book--the third in this series, but I'm plotting and thinking a book ahead.  Not a main character, but she's part of the plot.

Click the pics for the full view.

Cropped:

Is it me, or is it hot in here?
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You lookin' for the East Pediment of the Parthenon?

Yeah, I got one of those right here.  You got Athena herself (my all time favorite goddess).  See my "Athena Rocks!" post with an old watercolor. You got Zeus, his brother Poseidon.  The whole damn gang's here.

Anyway, here's the east pediment--click the image for the full size:

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Novel writing and bowling--like fire and gasoline?

I've been thinking about a physical analogy for the writing process, and here's the sort of lame idea that came to me:

If you bundle the plotting, characterization, everything that goes into writing a novel, then the process looks like this:

You have an infinite (or nearly so) stretch of flat ground in every direction (imagine standing by yourself on the salt flats with no distinguishable features, nothing but blue sky and white sand to the horizon) and an infinite number of bowling balls, as well as a just-in-time manufacturing facility for any color or size bowling ball.  You want solid gold with swirls of purple ice?  Done. 

Page one...You got your special bowling shoes on?

So, you're standing in the middle of nowhere, white sand in every direction, and there's one of those bowling ball delivery systems...just coming out of the ground with any number of bowling balls.  You can talk to it, too, ask for a bowling ball to represent your main plot line, ten more for sub plot lines, scenes, pivotal points, any kind of action.  

On this writing ground that goes on forever, directions correspond to plot lines, and the kinds of bowling balls--color, patterns, materials correspond to individual plot elements, individual characters, actions, scenes, even lines of tension.

In the course of writing your novel, you're going to be grabbing a bowling ball and rolling it in a specific direction.  In the beginning of your novel that's all you'll be doing, grabbing the next ball that comes up, pick a direction, get your stance, take your steps and release.  The ball is away.  Go back for another.

Now, let's look at what your novel looks like halfway through.

Here's the way it works.  You can send fifty bowling balls off in almost the same direction--close enough that when the time comes to start wrapping up plotlines, you don't need to travel too far.  You're a mile out and you have plenty of room and time and stop one from rolling forever. 

You can send fifty off in roughly the same direction, and then turn and send another ten in the opposite direction.  You still won't have trouble wrapping up your story, because you'll have time to cover both directions.

Now, if you're planning something grand, a series with plots that extend well beyond the current book, there's no problem sending bowling balls of many colors off in twenty different directions.  You'd have to be a genius--and very quick--to close all those down with probability and reader satisfaction in one book.  But in all likelihood, you want them to just keep rolling.  You'll pick them up in the next book, maybe even give them a kick to change direction, or a shove to increase speed.

Make sense to anyone?  No, I didn't think so.  Me neither.

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Anticipation, Worldcon 67 in Montréal

I just completed the registration for Worldcon, and signed up to participate a bit in the lit, art and tech tracks--and also a reading.   See you in Montréal in August!

 

Info: http://www.anticipationsf.ca

Anticipation will be held in Montréal, Quebec, at the Palais des congrès de Montréal from August 6^th - 10^th, 2009.

Neil Gaiman	-	Guest of Honour
Élisabeth Vonarburg	-	Invitée d’honneur
Taral Wayne	-	Fan Guest of Honour
Tom Doherty	-	Publisher Guest of Honour
David Hartwell	-	Editor Guest of Honour
Julie Czerneda	-	Master of Ceremonies

 

Another novel done...with a whole new beginning

Really sorry to have missed WisCon this weekend, but I completed my fifth novel instead.

I'm still doing some cleanup, working through an edit pass, but, five months of hard work, a 110k words, and this one's done.  I started thinking about this story about three years ago, started taking notes, creating characters, building worlds in 2006.  There's actually one scene which started out in my journal about a year before that.

I painted this first character sketch of my protag late 2006, early 2007, along with a character interview, the end of which goes like this:

Interviewer:  Thank you.  This has been very helpful.  How about we go for a cup of coffee when we're through here?
Character:  [Smiling cheerfully] How about I kill you, consume all your bones, flesh and organs, and then go get a cup of coffee for myself with the cash in your wallet?
Interviewer:  [Uncomfortable]  Oh...uh...I guess I'll take that as a 'no'.
Character:  [Surprised]  Oh no. We can have coffee.  I just thought we were throwing out some options.
Interviewer:  [Wishing he hadn't brought up coffee.]

Heart of the Worldforest

Painted this yesterday, probably the last scene painting for the first book in this new series.  Full title is "She Owns the Heart of the Worldforest".  I'm still working on this one--I'll post the completed one when I can.  Really trying for grand scene with this one, a forest panorama and the tiny figure of my main character with her vine-like hair playing into the air in a heart shape.