As mentioned in Going Cold Turkey, once again, I have returned to working on my previous book: Hypersensitivosaurus and Cold Turkey, a book that I finished a first version/ draft of, a year ago. I sent that first version to my mom, by email, and she replied to it with some feedback.
One way or another, I later lost interest in that project, or the timing felt off, and I started on another book of which I finished and printed a first draft ( on 22-2-22 ), before losing interest in the process of the 2nd draft ( no worries if you're waiting for it, I won't give up on it ).
Now I'm back to that previous book, that I abandoned a year ago. In other words,
I am going Cold Turkey, once again.
Yesterday morning, I brought a box of soft pastels ( a gift of my brother and his girlfriend ) along to the local cafe, where I had a coffee and some sparkling water. An illustration came to mind and found its way on my paper, depicting a scene from my book where Hypersensitivosaurus and Cold Turkey are chilling together, underneath a tree, after having enjoyed a good meal. It is one of the scenes that I hadn't managed to illustrate up till now but that I felt deserved to be shown in the book.
And here's a close up:
I made it slightly darker, digitally and might darken it even more, on paper, later, as it takes place at night.
Just after finishing this illustration, one of my neighbors joined me for a drink and a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich. Perfect timing, good company and a ride back home.
My plan, for now ( my plans usually change ), is to read through the story of Hypersensitivosaurus and Cold Turkey a couple more times and to probably remove a lot of words, aiming to make it into more of a children's book.
I will likely also add a couple more illustrations or, possibly even re-do my prior illustrations into a similar soft pastel style ( as I've done today ). There is this strong voice though that keeps telling me to fill my book(s) with random illustrations, in different styles, as I did, previously, for the first ( and so far only ) print of The Life of Hypersensitivosaurus: 22 Stories of Dinos and other animals - as randomness and imperfection are very much my style.
Let's see about that.
I also consider to have both a kids version ( little text ) and the 'adult' version - way more words as I am a man of many words and cutting down my stories to a measly amount of words feels off.
Now let me wrap things up, for today, by showing the backside of the folded piece of paper that I drew this illustration on:
In case you can't decipher my handwriting or you listen to posts, this is what it says:
"A depressed witer, inspired by a talking T-Rex skeleton on a Jurassic Park poster in his attic, creates an ALTER EGO "Hypersensitivosaurus" that slowly takes over his life."
For your information, the above was my attempt to summarize the story of my November 2019 50k words NaNoWriMo result that eventually led to the books that I am now working on.
Now that's what I call recycling! ;<)
TO BE CONVINUED...