Wayne Anderson

Well, maybe falling in love is pushing it. But I adore the thrill of finding someone’s visual voice that truly resonates with me. My new crush is British illustrator Wayne Anderson. First of all, he often works in colored pencil, which is not an easy illustration media in many respects, but it gives lovely textures. Anderson has deft compositions and a real command of tone: he won’t hesitate to put his darkest element next to the lightest elements, and let the medium tones support both. It’s as if all the colors get the best speaking parts, but none upstage the other.

Secondly, he has this fascinating balance beWayne Andersontween softness and precision. I see a lot of details, but I don’t find them superfluous or overwhelming. The characters, and sometimes the backgrounds, are expressive, moody, or just plain fun to look at.

Lastly, many of his illustrations show a great deal of thought and sly wit. The details of a room, or a character’s costume, make the picture feel like a window into a secret world.

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When the Back Story is the Story

April 20, 2009

I’ve spent the last few weeks reorganizing my novel. My first chapter is now in the middle, and yet I just realized this morning that I need a new beginning chapter (my book seems to be “growing” at the beginning, not the end). I’ve decided that a paragraph–a big one–of back story is a big [...]

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Dear God, She’s Going to Make a Map

March 23, 2009

I admit it. Outlines make me sad. When I think of outlining my novel, something in me shrivels. So, I’m going to make a map. Doesn’t that sound like more fun? I’ve written “organically” enough to know that I can only get so far with that approach, and then I get stuck. The plot is [...]

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Pet Peeve: A Post

February 9, 2009

What’s the deal with book jackets showing the title followed by “A Novel”? It’s likely that I’m standing in near the fiction shelves of either the library or a book store, which would give a clue to the book’s identity. I am, one hopes, clever enough to look at the book and discern from the [...]

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The Artifice in Art

January 24, 2009

There’s a silly swirl of arguments floating in the Internet ethers right now. For a few links and summary, see this Publishers Weekly blog. As best I can determine, the crux of the discussion is that writers should not tackle subjects outside their personal culture, race, or gender because they are not qualified to do [...]

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Writing Tip of the Week: take a walk, take a nap, or daydream…and make lots of backups

January 23, 2009

I like to write in the morning, and just before bed, in order to stir up the voices of various characters. Characters often “speak” to me during the day or in dreams (which I like the most), but a good walk around the block can do wonders.
Try writing for about an hour, then take a [...]

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Creating Well-Rounded Characters

January 22, 2009

Full disclosure: I was given this tip at a conference and can’t recall who gave it to me (I think it may have been cadged from someone else’s notes. It’s not my idea, but it’s become super-handy).
I keep running notes on my characters as I write my novel, and the structure of the notes is [...]

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Late Bloomers

January 14, 2009

I’ve seen some theories floating around about what it takes to master a skill (the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell) and also why some talented people are prodigies, and others are late bloomers.
A few years ago, an economist at the University of Chicago named David Galenson decided to find out whether this assumption about creativity was [...]

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Kate DiCamillo: Inspiring Advice for Any Artist

January 11, 2009

I attended Kate DiCamillo’s presentation at the Kansas City Public Library this past Friday. She’s petite, has a wry sense of humor, and knocked my writerly socks off.
1. Her first book was rejected over 470 times and took six years to reach a willing publisher.
2. She writes two pages a day, a habit that she [...]

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