CATCHING ME

For all those of you who have been emailing me, I am doing a blog post to answer you, since I can’t answer individual queries at the present time.

My newest book, A Deadly Provenance, has been doing well, and the new book Stone of Her Destiny has been taking several very exciting twists in its revisit before release. Some of those have to do with the gothic spookiness of the setting, a very famous Scottish setting, by the way, I won’t say more than that, and another twist came with research that turned up new stories in my own ancestry line which figures into the plot. I’m so excited about all that, and I can’t wait to get back in the kitchen (code for unhindered writing time).

I’ve been under a lot of stress lately, honing my painting entries to submit to big shows, like the 2015 International Portrait Competition. Since no one quite understands the world of show entries, let me go through this. First of all, you work like a crazy person to produce the most fantastic portrait or figure painting in the world, because entering this show puts you in competition with thousands–something like 12,000 entrants from all over the world, artists who are training in the best art schools in the universe. Trust me, this is not based on “talent” alone, but taught, disciplined, and acquired skill sets.

You have three chances to impress the judges–internationally known professional artists. You must have finished those three paintings in the last three years, not under supervision, guidance, or in a class, and of course, using only your own original source material. Once you have selected your paintings to submit, then you must hire a professional photographer or work years at that skill, as well, to make a photograph you can submit. This photograph, then, must be sent on floppy disk by mail or online through a professional jurying service. This service names length and file size constraints, restrictions that are a must. You must title your entry, make your credit card payment online by a specific deadline, and presto, your entry or entries (up to 3), are in the painting bank of 5 to 10,000 fellows.

Well, I’ve done this–and actually had one of my students and a professional in her own right, Allison Coleman–submit with me, this year. We are both attending the annual conference held this year in Atlanta the end of April. We won’t know who is in the 1% winning or placing categories until the end of March or better.

But I’ve entered several shows like this one already this year.

I’ve also finished a poetry book to enter a poetry book contest and three other poetry contests which have similar jurying procedures.

AARGH! As some famous cartoon character said in the comics…and that doesn’t touch tax of four varieties.

Which brings me to a thought–if you haven’t signed up yet, please do so, because those of you who sign up will hear about everything first and be eligible for gifts and special considerations only given to my email clients!

Thanks again for the emails, keep them coming, and I will answer them frequently–even if in bunches on the blog–like I’m doing now.