Other Ideas?

So I've been pretty annoyed at my excitement in publishing being ruined, and now I'm in a weird stage where I think that any other option is possible... I was chatting to one of my good friends recently, and in an offhand manner we agreed that it could be a possibility that we could write short stories together, and bind them outselves! we have done such things in the past, but we were now considering making websites for them, and selling them and stuff!

so, anything's possible right now i guess... we're still not sure how serious we could get about this idea of selling our own hand-made books (complete with pictures!!) and we are both a little nervous of how it might turn out if we really do it... well, we may as well try!!

~Muse~

My friend from my old school, Erin, has had a very large impact on my artwork. She's absolultly amazing at drawing, especially dragons and manga. Here's just a few random pieces by her:

Success and Failure

Well, the bad news first I guess.
I have given up on my dream of publishing while I'm still at school.
That has always been something I've wanted to achieve, but I see now for the first time that it is next to impossible.

I have looked up over ten different Australian publishers, and all either say that they are not publishing unpublished authors, or that they refuse to publish anyone under 18. I soon realised that they'd all say things like that, and I have decided to lay aside my writing dreams for now.

However, I have had great success with my drawing.
I drew a picture recently I entitled Flute Girl although she's playing a tin whistle, not a flute, but Tin Whistle Girl doesn't sound as good.

So here was the sketch I did last week:I was watching how other people computer draw on youtube, and I picked up a few techniques, including using basic layers (I didn't realise my program was sophisticated enough to use them). Anyway, I was fiddling with colours and backgrounds. Not exactly what I had wanted, but this is what I got:



Although I was still not quite happy with it, so I tried again:


I still am not quite happy with the bodice's colour schemes next to the skin and hair, and I would've prefered the glow in the background to be bigger, but it's good enough for me :D

~ Miss Cooper

Having Problems...

I have been having issues with publishers. There seems to be very few Australian publishers, and all have some reason to stop me from sending my work there.

Also, could anyone explain the difference between a normal publisher and a self-publishing company? Is a self-publishing one where you have to pay for it yourself? And do you really not have to pay at all for publishing normally??

I'm so confused!!

Glows and Publishers

I have spent a long time today drawing a picture of a girl, and then editing it on the computer using a handy program called GIMP. It depicts a girl holding some sort of glowing thing, and this is the picture before I added any confusing glows or shadows or anything:I saved it like this because I knew that I may mess it up when adding more things. I have never made a picture with so many new lighting techniques like this!

I know very well that there is something very odd about the shape of her head and features, but I shall worry about that some other time.

So after I had played around with the lighting effects on GIMP, this is what I got:



It's totally not what I want it to look like - for one thing, I want the background to be a lot darker, and the girl to be a bit lighter. I also want the glow to be coloured either green or red. But for today, this was enough work on that picture.

I am hoping to send a short novel - or a novella, whatever - soon to a publisher, and am looking up Australian publishers. Does anyone know any good ones besides scholastic - which quite personally I would rather not publish on? I have considered Pan McMillan too, but they seem to publish mainly for an older audience than I am looking for, and are filtering through their stuff more than others.

Anyone know any other Australian publishers??
Yours faithfully,
Miss Cooper

First Entry

My first entry on my new blog!

Well - I have set up this blog particularly for my writing and drawing. I have appalling spelling, and may turn this into a boring blog - but hey! At least I have somewhere to write frequently now.

I write novels in my spare time, and draw whenever I have free time from that. I have hardly written at all this year as I need to get some editing done first which I am trying to put off! Also school is getting busier and I find I have little time to do anything I want to any more, except go on Facebook which I do way too much!

It is my goal to have sent one of my books into a publisher by the end of this year, hopefully quite soon in fact, once I edit it again. I do not take my drawing as seriously as my writing however, although perhaps some day I shall consider teaching art, but right now it is for pure enjoyment :D

So have fun and please check out my blog from time to time!

Your humble blogger -
Miss Cooper