Yesterday was my first day “back” after the summer conference up in LA. I have to say, I am totally amazed with how much priceless information I took in over four days. I have 21 pages filled with notes, because I know I will forget so much, and have to go back and remind myself. But it was completely worth the money to go.
I think this conference was perfect for me. I have done a lot of research and reading about the process and business of publishing children’s books, but there are somethings that you may not learn about until you are actually doing it. I loved Adam Rex’s session on picture book layout “32 Pages of Awesome.” He passed out a sheet with a bunch of terms defined, half of which I knew already, and half I had never heard before. What the heck was a colophon? (Its the publishers logo on the spine of a book.)
My portfolio review was wonderful. I had the honor of sitting down with Laurent Linn who is the an art direct with Simon and Schuster. He gave me great encouragement and pointed out the areas I can improve on. He liked my latest painting of Snow White the best, which I had finished Thursday night before the convention. I also got very good responses during the portfolio show. I ran out of postcards very quick, and had to break out my backup stash.
Here are some of the nuggets of truth I gleaned over the weekend:
- Just do it. Give yourself to write/draw crap, at least you are doing it.
- Everyone starts as a beginner
- Everyone has self-doubt
- The time to write your first book might be NOW
- Don’t wait to be discovered, take an active role in your own career
- If you CAN write as well as illustrate, do both. Its easier to find you on the bookself
And my favorite piece of wisdom from Adam Rex: ” You don’t always have to shoot for the stars. They wouldn’t call it bottom feeding if there wasn’t food down there.” Well, technically my favorite quote of the whole weekend was from Cecilla Young, imparted late one evening during the illustrators’ social …but she said she would kill anyone who blogged about it. 
And I believe it would be wise to take her at her word.
And here is my poor attempt to capture some of the speakers in my sketchbook:
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