Show&Tell Workshop Starts Friday

I've been having lots of fun doing workshops for Savvy Authors. Friday, I'm starting my next one, on Showing and Telling. As always, I try to make it both lecture-full and hands-on, so that every attendant can get something out of it.

And yes, when I say hands-on, I do mean I respond to all posts, and I do go over the assignments, and if you join in and wish to challenge me, I'm always game. I don't grade, I don't judge, and I don't assess. I do, however, suggest what I think could help you given my experience as writer, teacher, and literary scholar.

But mostly, I have FUN. I love workshops. I started them because I missed the in-class time I had with my college students. But at the same time, online and out of the formal university structure, I have the freedom to teach and share whatever I want -- you're the judges of whether it's good or not.

So if you're like me, and you've been puzzled by the advice to "show, don't tell," check out my workshop.

Because why do you think it started out to begin with?

I needed to put the information into order, and what better way than to attempt to explain it to someone else. If you can make sense of it (whatever it is) so that a third person can grasp the essence of the problem, then you know you understand it yourself.

Teaching is the best of learning. And I've taught this workshop more than once. But you know what? Teaching it is like taking a refresher. Knowing and understanding the ins and outs of Showing, Not Telling is not enough. You have to practice it constantly and consistently to truly master it.

... Now I have to remember ALL the OTHER details of writing a story. Like sentence structure. And avoiding pot... I mean, plot holes...

A New Design Collection

I discovered the Power of Cute....

Well, actually, I discovered the right cuties. I already knew that Cute had The Power.

So now I can't stop trying to create more and more images of cute Folktale illustrations in Cute Style.

What is it? Something like this:

This is just a fragment of the whole image. It is from "Teremok: The Animals' Palace", a design that's coming soon to my store at Zazzle. A few others are already up, cards and a mug, and accessories.

With Zazzle, you can use most of my designs on products I don't showcase. There's a lot of leeway in how you can personalize a product to your needs and taste -- and I don't get slighted in the process!

If you want something you don't see, please ask! I'm always looking for ideas.

Picture the Season

I don't know about the Christmas spirit, but I definitely get into the Christmas colors. So I decided to add to it.

The thing is, unless it's seriously traditional (and you should ask a folklorist raised on old tales, legends, and centuries-old recipes what traditional means), a lot about modern Christmas is just silly. And when Santa's Elves get into mischief... well...

Check out this card. It's available at Zazzle (link below), singly or in packs. I have more gifts available at Zazzle and at CafePress. Heh. Just have a look. I'll never know whether you do or not. Anonymous shopping is the word!

Christmas Mischief by surochek
Make note cards on Zazzle

Site Troubles

NOTE: Graphic Novel pages added! Check out the sidebar!

You may have noticed that my sites are down. I'm working on it.

In the meantime, I'm still here and there, like Facebook and this blog, and I'm still at the computer behind the scenes.

Since I have no idea when the Graphic Novel section of my site will be running again, I'll start posting episodes here as soon as I produce them. Of course, that too was slightly delayed by the website hiccup.

New Site Designs

I've been working on several new web site designs for Otter Creations. Those won't be for sale, since they're custom designs, but they were fun to create.

All the more so as they're all in WordPress 3.1.

A bit of a headache to bend it to my will (people who write tutorials assume a lot of knowledge from their readers, and of course their minds never work like mine), but as usual, the reward when it all comes together is worth a little chair dance.

The first one is a future blog on the late Hunter S. Thompson -- as writer, not the notorious Hunter S., it's being done enough. I'll let the blog speak for itself when it goes live, I'm only doing the layout and maintenance.

Right -- because the minimalist design for this one was done by Royal Jelly, who also does other graphic arts like T-Shirts and totes and cards.


Then I had some fun with my graphic tablet, which I don't use nearly enough. Well, that's going to change.

And that has to do with the big computer crash and the new computer acquisition and other geekery. Windows 7 is much more tablet-friendly than XP. I'm still learning the tricks, but it definitely lets me do more and better with the tablet. See me rubbing my hands in glee.

So I did some tracing and some font-searching and some layering and some other fun stuff. And there was the dialogue with the "client" (this was another in-house job so to speak, but Otter Creations takes every one of its sites seriously).


And finally the update to MashaHoll.com is in the works. Just because I wanted to play. Well, and because updating the site had become a big pain in the... sit-upon.