Well crap, I really am terrible at this whole "keeping updated" thing, aren't I? Ah well, life soldiers on without being watched - as does progress on Land & Sea!
As predicted way back in the last post, the second publisher also declined our little story, and we are thus moving forward with our original vision of doing everything ourselves to make Land & Sea available to the public. To bring you up to speed:
Andrew is in grad school at the University of Iowa. He is trying very hard to be a good, productive student, so doing anything extracurricular - like resizing files, finding old artwork or emails, or even just getting together to watch zombie movies - takes much longer than it normally would. On the plus side, he's making amazing art and learning tons, and has just booked a trip to Europe in the summer. Let's see if those two years of High School Spanish finally come in handy!
Drew spent November taking part in National Novel Writing Month, where he put together 50,000 words in 30 days. Immediately after that, he applied to a fellowship program in Provincetown, MA, managed to survive the holidays, and then took his wife to Ireland for their 3-year anniversary. (Irish Thai food is delicious! Or maybe that's just all Thai food . . .) The next month or so was taken up with another fellowship application, this one for a First Book manuscript - which was successfully submitted on March 1st. Since then, Drew has been getting back into gear to make the Big Push toward publishing Land & Sea.
Here's what's happening there -
If this project were a fortune cookie, the inedible part would read, "The way is fraught with difficulty." Fortunately, life is not made of indecipherable desserts, so I'll just say, "We're working on it." We've decided to release Land & Sea primarily in an electronic format, through Amazon.com - but we both really want a physical book to keep on our shelves as proof that our art degrees were worth something. To that end, we're planning a limited release of Land & Sea - a small print run that we'll fund through pre-orders on Kickstarter (providing Kickstarter, Amazon's Payment Plans and the local Credit Union can all get their rears in gear sometime this year - seriously, they're as unresponsive as we are!). We'll be offering a small selection of reward tiers for your perusing pleasure, including the actual, real, physical, actual book! In my head, this should take no more than one week from now to put all the various pieces together - but my head is often a silly, silly place, and therefore that projection may have absolutely nothing to do with reality.
So, maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow (although if it was, that'd be awesome). But sometime soon, we will take our next major step in bridging the gap between the story that I have in my head (and on my hard drive) and the curious minds of severals of people throughout the entire people-I-know-isphere.
Stay tuned. It's only going to get better.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Monday, October 17, 2011
Minutely Manic Monday
Hello, Dear Reader! Oh, how I've missed you. Have you grown? Did you get a haircut? Well, whatever it is, you look especially nice today.
Well, "Land and Sea" has officially been rejected by its first publisher. What a growing experience for a new and naive manuscript! Sometime in the next month, we should get the official rejection from the second (and final) publisher, and then the real fun begins!
Just think of it: fundraising, incentives, pictures of Andrew and I burning a snowman in effigy so that the almighty snowdemons might favor us with a productive winter - and eventually, the actually really real release of "Land and Sea," a book that you can hold in your meaty fists until you decided it's time to put it down!
Yeah, that's right. This is a thing that is happening. You're welcome, Earth.
Well, "Land and Sea" has officially been rejected by its first publisher. What a growing experience for a new and naive manuscript! Sometime in the next month, we should get the official rejection from the second (and final) publisher, and then the real fun begins!
Just think of it: fundraising, incentives, pictures of Andrew and I burning a snowman in effigy so that the almighty snowdemons might favor us with a productive winter - and eventually, the actually really real release of "Land and Sea," a book that you can hold in your meaty fists until you decided it's time to put it down!
Yeah, that's right. This is a thing that is happening. You're welcome, Earth.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Change of Tides
The artwork is indeed finished, and let me tell you - it's pretty dang cool. Andrew has done an amazing job of bringing Land and Sea to life, and I have done an amazing job of . . . well, staying out of his way, I guess. :-)
So, remember how in the first post I said that we were not going to "to a large faceless publishing company and wait an unspecified amount of time for any response," and instead go straight into self-publishing? Well, it turns out that's no longer the case. Yesterday, after several days worth of research, self-doubt and eventual epiphany, I sent out submission packets to two major publishing companies. Since Andrew and I are both working on projects other than Land & Sea, we thought it would be prudent to see if we could pawn off the heavy lifting of the publishing game to someone else (like, people whose job it is to do the heavy lifting of publishing - madness, I know!). Both publishers have a three-month turn-around, and so if at the end of that period of otherwise productive writing and arting, it turns out that neither publisher is interested, Andrew and I will revisit Land & Sea with an eye to getting it off of our hard drives and into your hands, Dear Readers.
But fear not! In either case, our journey is far from ended. I will continue to update as new information and happenings . . . happen. Thank you again for your continued support - our victories will be your victories as well.
So, remember how in the first post I said that we were not going to "to a large faceless publishing company and wait an unspecified amount of time for any response," and instead go straight into self-publishing? Well, it turns out that's no longer the case. Yesterday, after several days worth of research, self-doubt and eventual epiphany, I sent out submission packets to two major publishing companies. Since Andrew and I are both working on projects other than Land & Sea, we thought it would be prudent to see if we could pawn off the heavy lifting of the publishing game to someone else (like, people whose job it is to do the heavy lifting of publishing - madness, I know!). Both publishers have a three-month turn-around, and so if at the end of that period of otherwise productive writing and arting, it turns out that neither publisher is interested, Andrew and I will revisit Land & Sea with an eye to getting it off of our hard drives and into your hands, Dear Readers.
But fear not! In either case, our journey is far from ended. I will continue to update as new information and happenings . . . happen. Thank you again for your continued support - our victories will be your victories as well.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Good News, Everyone!
I just received word that Andrew has finished the art for the book! Here's an exclusive sneak peek:
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Meet The Artists - Drew
What a big week we've had here! Along with celebrating America's continued Independence, my brother-in-law got married and Andrew returned from his trip to the East Coast - and thus begins the next leg of our journey. We're still hashing out the numerous details of how to begin such an enterprise as creating a physical chunk of mythology, so before we get too far, I thought it would be nice to introduce ourselves. And of course, since I actually have the login information to this blog, I'm going first.
My name is Drew Dillon, and I am supplying the words to this endeavor. Being a native Nebraskan, I had no concept of infinity until the first time I saw the ocean. My training comes from southern California, but my stories come from some place I haven't found a name for. I sometimes like to pretend I'm mysterious.
The inspiration for Land & Sea comes from a fight I had with the girl I was dating at the time (and later married). We weren't fighting about our relationship, but instead about the difficulties and challenges of being in any relationship, or trying to seamlessly fit two lives together. Such discussions are ridiculous and unavoidable, and as I sat fuming about it in my bunk that night, I felt like my anger was powerful and ultimately useless as waves crashing on a beach. And, since I prefer to practice a healthy distance between myself and my problems, I began imagining a boy in the ocean, trying to drown an island with his waves. Seven years that image has stuck in my mind, like a bullet overgrown with scar tissue so it can't be removed. It's great to think that little Sea will finally see the end of his tantrum in my mind.
My name is Drew Dillon, and I am supplying the words to this endeavor. Being a native Nebraskan, I had no concept of infinity until the first time I saw the ocean. My training comes from southern California, but my stories come from some place I haven't found a name for. I sometimes like to pretend I'm mysterious.
The inspiration for Land & Sea comes from a fight I had with the girl I was dating at the time (and later married). We weren't fighting about our relationship, but instead about the difficulties and challenges of being in any relationship, or trying to seamlessly fit two lives together. Such discussions are ridiculous and unavoidable, and as I sat fuming about it in my bunk that night, I felt like my anger was powerful and ultimately useless as waves crashing on a beach. And, since I prefer to practice a healthy distance between myself and my problems, I began imagining a boy in the ocean, trying to drown an island with his waves. Seven years that image has stuck in my mind, like a bullet overgrown with scar tissue so it can't be removed. It's great to think that little Sea will finally see the end of his tantrum in my mind.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Dedication
Hello, citizens of the interweb!
My name is Drew, and I am one half of the creative team striving to make a children's book called "Land and Sea." I've written the story, and my good friend Andrew will be providing the pictures - I've decided that collectively, we should be called "Andrew and Drew," because it makes me giggle to myself a little, and anything that can make a grown man giggle can only be a good thing.
Andrew and I have decided not to go the "proper" route of publishing for our story - which is, to submit to a large faceless publishing company and wait an unspecified amount of time for any response - so we've decided to slap the whole thing together ourselves. Considering that neither of us has any experience in creating, publishing or marketing a children's book, I feel like this is going to be an adventure - and, in this day and age of handheld computers and bionic turtles, what better way to document our adventure than by posting a blog about it?
So, check back regularly for news, updates, history of the project and its creators, a sneak peek of Andrew's artwork, and what's sure to be a few surprises. You might not know what's happening, but neither do we, so that means we're all in this together!
Stay tuned as we get our feet wet!
My name is Drew, and I am one half of the creative team striving to make a children's book called "Land and Sea." I've written the story, and my good friend Andrew will be providing the pictures - I've decided that collectively, we should be called "Andrew and Drew," because it makes me giggle to myself a little, and anything that can make a grown man giggle can only be a good thing.
Andrew and I have decided not to go the "proper" route of publishing for our story - which is, to submit to a large faceless publishing company and wait an unspecified amount of time for any response - so we've decided to slap the whole thing together ourselves. Considering that neither of us has any experience in creating, publishing or marketing a children's book, I feel like this is going to be an adventure - and, in this day and age of handheld computers and bionic turtles, what better way to document our adventure than by posting a blog about it?
So, check back regularly for news, updates, history of the project and its creators, a sneak peek of Andrew's artwork, and what's sure to be a few surprises. You might not know what's happening, but neither do we, so that means we're all in this together!
Stay tuned as we get our feet wet!
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