As part of my preparation to launch my boy's first book, Misadventures of the Just Us Chickens, I've decided to redo the line art. When I first started digital art about a year or two ago, I didn't know how to do line art, so I simply scanned in my sketches and used the scanned ink. Now that I re-examine that art with a year or two of experience, I can see the line art needs help. Also, as I've been revising and rewriting later books, I've realized some of the art no longer fits. I'll need to revise and update the illustrations for at least book four but probably later ones as well.
Also, my boy has been working on a swashbucking, world-traveling superhero snake named Key Lime Python. Originally, he was a jaded, frustrated, and incredibly experienced. He even wrote a novel based on this character, and I had him introduced in book four of my stories. He's since decided to turn this series into a bildungsroman, a coming of age of a kid snake who accidentally ends up with the most powerful sword in the universe and has to figure out how to use it without destroying the universe in the process.
In the meantime, I watched a video about paring down references to the main characters, focusing on their senses and their experience to more fully immerse the reader into the story. Instead of writing "I looked around and saw a mountain coming up from the ground," one would write, "A mountain arose from the ice, jutting up to the sky." Instead of focusing on my character's experience, the text will take the reader there. I thought I was all but ready, just doing a final polish, when I realized this one little tweak will take a while but improve the reading experience. So there is a delay, but I fully plan to get the first book out for you by early summer.
