Under the Apple Tree
The Invisibility Button!
Not a cloak and way more pesky!
You may know that Roj and I do all our own cover designs and illustrations. We mostly use a brilliant art programme called Procreate. Roj can do fantastic things with it. Me? I’m a bit more basic... I can do line drawings, some colour and I get results I’m pleased with.
So there I am, busily doing an illustration for Alphabetti (soon to be out on Amazon.) This book is in the form of a teenage diary and there are illustrations all the way through as the first person girl ‘author’ doodles and draws. That’s a lot of drawing! Perhaps 150 images. So I’m on the sofa, using my lovely Procreate, trying to get the angle right on Maggie’s killer heels... and then disaster hits!!
My sweet Apple Pencil is being PECULIAR! All of a sudden, it’s decided to be awkward. Have I been using it too much? Is it tired? Fed up? What’s its problem? I can pick up the erasertool, no problem, but when I try to pick up the drawing tool, (which I have been using all afternoon) there’s nothing!
We look it up online and do everything they suggest... you know, switch off... sing it a lullaby... and still it’s not working! A tsunami of emotion is rising like lava inside me, and I know I sound like a toddler in tantrum mode as I wail in dismay, ‘It just won’t work! This is a disaster! I’m sunk! Done for!’
My husband says, ‘Let me have a look.’
I hand him the iPad in a huff. ( I mean, if I can’t do it...)
‘What’s this button at the side?’ he asks.
I should explain at this point, that the Procreate programme has two slider controls on the left of the screen. One for the size of the pen, and one for... drum roll please, OPACITY!
You’ve guessed it. At the lowest setting, the opacity tool makes the drawing tool INVISIBLE!!
There was nothing wrong with the programme, or the iPad... only my left thumb, gripping the tablet and setting the opacity to zero... That’s invisible to you and me.
So now I’m happy, and me and my teenage protagonist can start drawing again.
PS only 89 more illustrations to go.
PPS I need to be less scared of techie stuff.
PPPS I now have even more sympathy for toddlers and teenagers who are dealing with their own tsunamis of emotion. Let’s all cut them some slack.
PPPPS Thanks to my husband for saving my sanity.
The Work-Shy Layabout is one of the authors at Thumbnail Books (see if you can guess which one?) who has a great deal of useless advice to impart on the subject of getting away with doing as little as possible while enjoying the life of an independent writer. His views are not to be considered reliable financial, medical or spiritual advice.
How Original!
A work-shy layabout’s musings
Spring is in the air! (For as much as 48 hours so far)
It can be a challenging business being a Work-shy Layabout. Decades of Victorian work ethic are challenging to overcome, but it’s always worth the effort (or I should say, lack of effort). Remind me to tell you about Rubbish Time some day. But nothing dispels periods of self-doubt quite as well as the reappearance of actual sunshine after a grumpy winter.
So, what literary insight can I smuggle into this amble (you’ve already had the preamble)? Pathetic fallacy feels like low hanging fruit, as do fruit based cliches, so maybe I should avoid that banana skin. So instead, out of left field (which I assume is a sports cliche?) I’m going to tackle one of my own writing preoccupations: having to be original.
It’s not possible to write anything truly original. It’s one of those writing truths which is, surprisingly, actually true. Even the most avant garde of novels has its roots elsewhere . Even the weird, slightly incomprehensible but brilliant House Of Leaves is really Doctor Who’s TARDIS turned to evil. The secret is to not concern yourself with observations by know-it-all commentators: “Oh, well, that’s just like…” - yes, it may be, but it’ll always be that thing, with your particular take. There’s nothing wrong with borrowing ideas. The trick is to have something original to say about those ideas. That’s where a writer can delve into interesting territory: this concept may have been explored before, but not the way you’ve done it.
Of course, any resemblance of my Emma Houdini novels to Sapphire & Steel meets Steed and Mrs Peel in The Avengers is entirely coincidental.