Art

Wattpad Summer Blockparty III

/ jesseannt / 4 Comments

As I approach another promotional event with the other wonderful writers on Wattpad, I realize I never shared on my blog that I was part of the Winter Block Party…let alone that I was intending to revisit the experience in summer.

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This is a lovely event where a ton of authors band together and support each other. This time around there are just under 100 authors contributing (many of whom offer giveaways).  Mainly though, it seems to be a great way to build up the community and build bridges between authors.

In winter, I wrote a short based in the world of my Watty Award winning book Spider’s Game. I’ll come back to that, in fact, I may even post the story for you lovelies at a later date!

For the summer Block Party, I’m writing an article on writing dialogue. It will be called “Dialogue, Tightropes and Tentacles.” And yes, I discuss all of those things at variable lengths. Tentacle high five!

tentacle.gif

This lovely even will take place in August and I hope to update with the date of my feature (each author is given one day to post their work and interact with those who respond.) Tentatively my date is set to be Friday August 4th.

As much fun as I had writing the short last time, I wanted to do something more constructive this time. The short was fun…but if you hadn’t read any of Spider’s Game not super inspiring. Thus, this time around, I’ll drop a little know-how ;p

Oh and my hair is now blue. Its fun, and also discussed at length in my article!

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Covers, Covers, Covers (and a dose of Nano)

/ jesseannt / 1 Comment

I despise making covers. Hate it. Seriously. Anyhow… for my nano novel this year I’m planning to do the second book in a series. The first book being Spider’s Game.

Spider's Game3

The upcoming book is Spider’s Gambit. Its all outlined (as much as I ever outline). Now I’m starting the part I like least. Making myself a cover. So far I have three options. And I’d love opinions on what works best.

Spider's Gambit 2 Jesse Sprague Spider's Gambit 3 Spider's Gambit

I also have been experimenting with new covers for my fantasy novel Kingdom South. Two options there…

Kingdom South option 2 Kingdom South option 4

Now that I’ve spent all day playing with pretty pictures… Perhaps I should get back to the real work.

The Beauty of Gas Masks

/ jesseannt / 2 Comments

Upon approaching my house, after you passed the salmonberry, blackberry, and huckleberry bushes, you’d see a sign mounted on the corner of the house, next to the fenced yard. You might mistake it for a beware of dog sign, especially if my dog was outside barking. But, no, my sign says: Beware of Werewolves.

Beware

Beware

If you were to enter my home, more artwork in the same vein would follow.

I have on occasion pondered what this obsession with monsters, disease, and death says about me. Recently it was brought to my attention while at Folklife Festival. This is a fair filled with local folk artists (both visual and oral), stalls filled with this-and-that’s and fair foods. I have attended since I was a little girl and my favorite activity was dancing to steel drum music.
Nowadays, I pick up a household decoration.
Last years selection

Dining room art

Dining room art

This years selection

Horns and a gas mask...why not

Horns and a gas mask…why not

Pretty...

Pretty…

As I paid for this years delightful piece, with my mother looking at me like ‘how did I raise this child?’ My husband smiling indulgently and the vendor looking at me with surprise. A picture of me standing there formed in my head- young(ish) white woman in a lace skirt, accompanied by my mother, my husband and with a three year old child on my hip and here I had decided to decorate my home with a gas-masked monster.
Now, at home I have those things one would expect a frilly girly girl to buy, lace curtains, a hutch filled with china but as beautiful as I find those things… I see equal appeal in pickled monster heads and robot bears. Even the occasional Sweeney Todd/Jack the Ripper reference (have one framed in my dining room.)
This fascination with the macabre, the awful, the dark underside drives my own art as well as my purchases which I’ve given up questioning. Still, it must all come from the same root. That part deep down that makes the serial killer’s habits more fascinating than the biology of bunnies (or some such whatever.) For me there is a beauty in the dark unknown, an ecstasy in the shiver down your spine. Something infinitely lovely about death and fear because they are a warped mirror allowing me to look past my own faults, to find an cling to that basic kindness and morality that shimmers at the heart of most of us.
Plus gas masks are cool.