Thank you, Nabeel

 

After all this expended energy on The Midnight Hare, I find my name has been entered inaccurately on Nielsen, and this has expanded out to all possible suppliers – I am not and never have been Cara Lockihart Smith, not has anyone else been Cara Lockihart Smith since the Stone Age, I suspect. I had enormous trouble trying to change this on Nielsen’s website, then luckily got hold of, by telephone, a great guy called Nabeel Sadiq at Nielsen, who had already received an email from me with a tad more anguish than is my usual mode in professional exchanges. I gave him my details and he has changed my name back to my name, so hopefully this will also come up in the different outlets, although it may take a day or so.  The book isn’t published until June 21st. I have a page already on Amazon, because of other published work, and in the long run I hope to get the new book up with the others. Then, more hassle, trying to set up details for selling over Amazon, I find I am not legit until further exploration because I have neither passport nor driving license. I DO HAVE A SCOTTISH BORDERS ID CARD. Oh well. Worse things happen. It is lovely to get back to walking, to looking at things down a camera lens, to catching up with friends and with comments on WordPress, and to thinking, only thinking mind, of doing the last bit of washing of garments that came out of store last September, after seven long years, and have been sitting under the stairs since then; with my husband Tony just occasionally mentioning them. Among the objects in the big bag, two beautiful knitted waistcoats made by my mother, which it will be good to wear again. I have moved the bag upstairs. The next step, we shall see…. This entry isn’t going up on my Moonwuzo Books website, as it is a moan; but I am glad to get it off my chest by sharing.

PS:

I realise I have two differently coloured logos on file. This one was used for The Midnight Hare, as it fitted in better with the cover, but I still prefer the blue, as that kind of lavender is my favourite colour. Probably this brown orange will be the definitive one, though the lettering jiggles a little against the background, I think this may be because it comes from a tiny image, and is a jpeg, which the original is not.

 

 

 

The Midnight Hare, almost flying

 

Page One, this is. Quite sparse, unlike the rest of illustrations to the story. The Midnight Hare is now entered on Nielsen, and an A6 greetings card has been ordered, an image of the front and back cover, which I am going to use as part of the publicity material, because that is the stage the book is at, after all this time. I should have put the book on Nielsen months ago, apparently, not just a few weeks before publication day, which I have fairly randomly chosen as June 21st. I didn’t really want to do anything until I had actual copies of the book, which should arrive within the next fortnight or so. However, each day now I set myself some task to carry out. I tried to look at the possibility of WooCommerce, for selling on-line, I was just trawling the Internet, and woosh, it was a bit like being attacked by an enormous cat, I was captured before I was in any way prepared: I shall have to tread a tad more carefully before committing myself. It would take me much less time to fill in forms if I read the instructions more carefully.  I would organise my other site, Moonwuzo Books, much better if I had read my WordPress manual right through. Indeedy. However, this has all been a very interesting learning experience, even if it is a process of realising how much more I have still  to learn. Now I am trawling through the differences between distributors and wholesellers, and when to approach the one and then the other. However, firstly I am going to concentrate on local outlets, as I have sold work there before, and this is after all a book set in the landscape of the Borders.

 

Hare, Moth, Candle

The scans for The Midnight Hare have been sent over the Internet to the printer, I shall now have to wait until they have a space to do the proofs. I have over-run considerably the time I originally projected having the scans ready, so now need to fit in with the schedule of the printers. When I have the proofs I shall decide on an official publication day. I have now set myself to tidy my workroom, and my studio, which are in chaos, and look forward to the next batch of work. The small town of Coldstream has been deprived of bread, milk, paper, post and buses, let alone fresh fruit and vegetables, for nearly a week, but nothing like as bad as Alston, where I was once going to live, which has been cut off for five days and has had supplies dropped from a Chinook. I have a fibreglass hare outside my studio, and for days all I could see were the tips of his ears. Gradually he appeared, and the iris that was coming up so early is still flowering, despite being buried under snow for days.

The Midnight Hare

The book will be ready to go to the printers this week.  Now what?

Cover for The Midnight Hare

The Midnight Hare, putting the pages together

Milo and the Brown Hare

Interim image: production problems all the time now, still not sure about the margins, but of course with a bigger image, the margins will be wider, which can quite easily be sorted out with a bit more work. The base colour seems to vary, in spite of being taken from the same scan (I think). Meanwhile hard sweat and Photoshop are gradually getting rid of the stripy effects of from using pastel paper – paper which also has its advantages.  This is probably the most difficult project I have done, but also the most involving; I think because the responsibility for all decisions are mine and only mine. I have done a pictorial map of Berwick upon Tweed (which is still being used  nearly 20 years later) and this was horrendously difficult, but it was a question of application and decision making, it was not emotionally involving, and was a commission. Unlike this book.

Next week, or the week after, all the scans will be done, and then it is a question of putting on the text, in Acrobat, and then going down to the printers for a pre-print meeting.

What I am pleased with is that the illustrations and the words now feel that they go together, the atmosphere of the book is what it is, the faults are just faults, I don’t feel that I should have made the book in another way.

My next entry will probably be on my site Moonwuzo Books, where I am making entries that are very specifically to do with the process of self-publishing. Less of a meander, maybe.

Be happy, my hare. Be free.”

Milo Searching Through the Garden

The delights of gouache (and the dangers of not doing opposite illustrations on the same sheet of paper) – when I put these two paintings together for the picture book “The Midnight Hare” I found that in both of them Milo was clutching his chest in a heartfelt manner, so I changed this on the left-hand page, in the process of which I found all sorts of details that I hadn’t finished properly.  I must have scanned it too early. The richness of the colouring on the left-hand page rather bleaches out the other painting, so I may have to add to that too.

Little Angel

“The Midnight Hare” paintings are more or less finished, and over the next two weeks I will be setting up the scans for Martins the Printers, who are over in Spittal, a place which looks out over the faintly coal-tinted North Sea; then as far as this book is concerned it is the business side of things that will be uppermost. I have spent so long on the Hare book that I am timorous of bring the process of creating it to an end.  However, now that it is moving into a new phase, in the background I think perhaps maybe possibly a new book is waiting in the wings. A winter book.  Since the story is not written yet, I shall say nothing about it. But already I am thinking of what form the illustrations will take. The drawing above, an old Christmas card, is in pencil on white paper. I like the grubbiness of the pencil when it is reproduced. But I have been looking at that beautiful painting “Hunters in the Snow”, apparently the first painting of deep winter in western art. I shall start on a text, and say no more, and the text will suggest the technique.