What Goes Around Comes Around?

how to feel some happy. a true story.

My son recently told me this story…

he really said that to me. and the mom was happy.

Happy December. May it be filled with stressful-that-brings-joyful-experiences…

Amy <3

Tell me something good…or stressful :)

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Let’s break this little story down:

I had a super fun time drawing the story for you. I also have some observations:

• drawing is hard

• telling a story with pictures is hard

• my process: write the story first in notebook, then lightly sketch in pencil on watercolor paper, read and read, go over the pencil in black non-smudge ink like Sharpie or LePen, apply some light watercolor.

• So I did all of that. It also took me a couple of hours - which I had bc I was on “dorm duty” all weekend in a girl’s dormitory (my life is cool, man!)

• But after I proudly showed my creation to two readers, they couldn’t quite follow the story b/c my pictures were too close together. The order was obvious to me, but not the reader. ergh.

• (Ohhhh…so this is why graphic artists use the little boxes? So the reader can follow along and not get lost.)

• So I cut them all out and glued them onto white cardstock, took photos with my iphone, sent to my gmail, transferred to Substack.

• Should I be scanning?

• Do I need a scanner? what kind?

• Maybe the story isn’t complete. For instance, I don’t say what Nelson spent the rest of his $320 on…I don’t actually know. I just loved the story he told me over the phone!

• It felt very Charles Dickens-esque.

• This kind of storytelling is fun and very new to me.

• I keep thinking about the “Visual Narration” master’s program at Boston University. People/artists get advanced degrees to tell stories like this (but at a much more advanced level!)

• Maybe I take a few classes or do my own “artist-in-residence” a-la Amy Stewaret, writer of

  It's Good to Be Here
  (very inspiring!!!)

• I had to fight some inner resistance doing all of this. Was it worth my time? Drawing these little stories?

• I don’t love my handwriting. I want it to look like

  Samantha Dion Baker
  . sigh.

• But remember when Truman Capote pffed at Harper Lee for writing her “little bird book”?

• So we beat on…”boats against the current".

• Comic strips are no joke. Graphic books and visual narration stories rock - they use all sorts of different skills and different parts of the brain.

• onward

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would you like a signed book for Christmas?

Order from Gibson’s Bookstore and I will sign your book! (leave a note when you order online) - and I can always send a free bookplate.

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the last part:

Giving: The great three-book Giveaway is ending soon!

Drinking: Steamed oat milk with a dash of cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg, honey

Smelling: The Christmas tree we cut down together…this is happiness

Reading: The Last Love Note by Emma Grey and a new-to-me Substack A Writer’s Diary by

Toby Litt

that’s chock-full of writerly wisdom …!

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read with me:

The Unforgettable Guinevere St. Clair is part-mystery, part understanding of the human heart 💖

Ten Thousand Tries is Golden’s quest to save his dad and the soccer team ⚽

The McNifficents is one summer with six rambunctious kids and their miniature-schnauzer nanny 🐕 New Hampshire’s 2024 Great Reads for Kids selection!