Puppies.
They are now two weeks older than in the image here. More pics when I get a minute and I do mean a minute of spare time. They now have needley, quick teeth, insane energy and breath that smells like a summer day in deep, soft grass. They have velvet bellies and a great sense of humor and I love them....
...and they are much like 2 year old children. Outside, they run three different directions, seem not to know I am calling them, no, it's worse than that, they refuse to acknowledge that we have ever met. They just keep galloping, like miniature polar bears, until a fence, a thicket of lavender, a palm trunk, until my outstretched hands bring them, one at a time, to an unwilling, fish-wriggle halt. Carrying all three is nearly impossible now--but I can't leave any of them alone for more than a few seconds.

The next title in A Resurrection of Magic is going well, thanks for asking. An unexpected character walked onstage this afternoon, a man who has lived too long and too long alone.

Back to the stone passageways.
kathleen

the dream experiment

art copyright David Ho 2006
Dream experiment update

My dreams are now often set in the world where A Resurrection of Magic takes place. I wake up tired, sometimes, then remember why.

In the dreams...

...inside the cliffs, the place looks like David Ho's cover art, like I always saw it, dark, cold, stone-grit underfoot. The city of Limori, I realize now, is much like Fez, Morocco, mixed with the old, white washed adobes of New Mexico, the people dressed like Dickensian characters who have been transported to a bright, coastal town.

The countryside is pure Colorado. I noticed cottonwood trees last night, then, when the dream swooped me back to Sadima's village up in the hills, there were aspens. Not possible at that altitude, but I apparently don't care.

.....Just back from SCBWI's annual summer conference in LA.

It is, every year, a reunion of like minds and linked hearts. The writer tribe. And the illustrator tribe, too. I laughed so much, had so much fun. I always learn a great deal, listening to other writers talk about their method of dragging stories into the world.
This sketch was done by Joanne Renaud--last year. Seeing her again this year reminded me to put it up. She is doing covers and illustrations now... http://www.joannerenaud.com