Jigsaw puzzles (online) and coloring books (in house) are relaxing pastimes for me.
Lisa got me a Secret Garden coloring book several years ago for Christmas. I’m approaching the end of the ones I want to color in it, so I’ve ordered another one. It will arrive this afternoon. It has lots of cute critters in it.
Here are the ones I’ve done in The Secret Garden (so far). I don’t color very often. Most of these were done last year and the year before, but I did two more of them recently. I’ll point out which ones they are below:
This “owly” one is the most recent. Finished yesterday afternoon.
The “fishy” one is the next most recent, finished two days ago
Update: The new one arrived and I’m having fun with it!
May 18, 2024
May 19, 2024
Weird! Same page taken from a different angle.
And neither of these images look the way I saw/see it when I’m looking at/coloring it.
The glitter pens have a way of altering the look, depending on the angle!
As you can see, some of the above ones aren’t completely finished yet. I only do them about an hour at a time when I do them, and some take several sittings. I got new pens recently so there are more colors to choose from now.
They really do relax me to do them. Some of them are pretty enough to frame, but I have no space on my walls for them, so they’ll just have to stay in the book — and in this blog!!
I oil-painted another scene years ago (paint-by-numbers!) which I did frame and put on my bedroom wall because I LOVE it so!
Here it is…
Other than writing, this is total extent of my creative abilities (on paper). Stay inside the lines (99.99% of the time) and paint-by-numbers. Both help me develop patience, which is a good thing. So does writing — and especially (GRRR!!!!) publishing. The technical aspects try my patience keenly. Most electrical and mechanical things do; when they don’t work, I can find myself swearing light years beyond the ordinary. An engineer or software expert, I am NOT!
I love working creatively and peacefully. As soon as things gets stressful, I get less happy. It doesn’t happy often, but when it does I just want to throw in the towel and say, “OK, you win. I’ll think of another way to get this done.”
Which is what I am cogitating on right now re the expanded edition of LET NO DAY DAWN THAT THE ANIMALS CANNOT SHARE. The KDP upload of the PDF of the manuscript keeps distorting what’s inside, so I am thinking of just offering it as a full-color PDF and eliminating the middleman. If I do that, I will actually make 100% of the income off it instead of having to share 85% with Jeff Bezos and his chosen printing company. I’m very inclined to do that since I can’t (presently) get the manuscript to do its thing at KDP. It shouldn’t be this freaking hard. I’ve published eighteen books there and have never encountered this issue before, and there is no one in customer service there anymore to explain what I need to do to make it right, so… I’m at the point of doing it unilaterally and offering it for $4.95 and keeping 100% of that income instead of having to list it at $14.99 just to get $3 for each copy sold after Bezos and company get their percentage of each sale. Why they should make more than the originator is lightyears beyond my understanding, especially when they can’t be bothered to tell me how to fix whatever is wrong so they ca get their percentage somewhat sorta fair and square (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha)…
The rich get richer off other people’s intellectual property and we get crumbs. That’s American capitalism for you.
Thankfully, there’s more than one way to get stuff published these days for free (except for the time and skill set I invest into each book). I am not out of options.
Update on DAWN manuscript.
Lisa says she’ll cut and paste it into her InDesign program and get it finalized that way, then I can upload it to KDP without further ago, but it won’t be this week, probably. She has another crucial iron in the fire before she can tackle my masterpiece. She’s about to launch a book cover websiteso more people know about her cover making expertise. I can’t wait to point all my writer friends to it when it’s ready to debut — hopefully sometime this week!
