Children’s Book Progress

I’m very pleased on how the draft of my children’s book is moving along. As with Dancing Fish, I enjoy seeing the layout come together, in arranging text and illustrations on the pages.

These two projects have been much closer to my day job of graphic design than my previous books, in that the projects I work on for clients typically include text, photos, and graphs. These elements are arranged on the pages with the purpose of clear communication.

Same goal with the children’s book. I don’t want to crowd the pages to make reading difficult. I want the pages to have variety, in the hope of keeping readers interested.

Certainly it’s a different kind of reader. A typical project for my day job is a research report or cover for a civil engineering book. And the new book for my personal project is intended to be read with kids. I love the idea of parents reading this book to their kids. I really hope that idea comes true. I’ll keep you posted when the book is published.

For now, here’s a sample of some of the artwork in the book:

Writing Update: Children’s Book

Today, I’m taking a break from posting poems and the weekly book reviews. I’d like to include more updates of what I’m doing for my larger projects (larger than poems for this blog). This will be helpful to me in getting my thoughts down, and some of you good folks might be interested.

I’m working on a children’s book, and I’m really pleased how its coming along. It feels to be a fitting project after I finished The Dancing Fish (poems and illustrations). I’m also drawing for the children’s book, but the drawings are not as prominent in a typical picture book. A bit of something different. It’s been fun, and feels meaningful to me.

I’d rather not share loads of details about the book right now, since it’s still being developed. But when I get closer to publishing, I’ll share the cover with you. And after it’s published, I’ll share images of some of the pages, to give you a sample. So stay tuned!

Welcome, 2021

Happy New Year! Here’s hoping this year will be brighter than the ugliness of 2020.

Unfortunately, the news is still bad for Covid-19, and experts say we’re in for a dark winter. Yet vaccines are being distributed, so hope is here for some people, and in the distance for the rest of us.

My family and I have hunkered down for months and worn masks when we venture out. And we’re ready to continue doing that. Certainly, I miss getting together with family outside of the house, and seeing them without masks. And hugging them. And hugging friends. But we understand the safety of holding off on those activities. Which will feel sweeter when we can do them with less risk.

I wish you good health and happiness in this new year.