Category Archives: Stories

Designing the cover for my new children’s book – Generation Moon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-smrjSMruzc

It’s time to think about the cover design for my new middle-grade space adventure trilogy – Generation Moon.

This is a first go at it to see what happens. Often, a first attempt looks terrible, so you try everything else. But, eventually, you tend to come back to the first idea.

In this video I show you how I adapt sketches to fit the idea and then begin to manipulate them in photoshop.

Of course, I completely changed my mind and started all over again, but you’ll have to see the next video for that!

My New Book Project – Generation Moon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsIzB_CZQFc

Artemis 1 was due to launch as I am writing this, having been delayed many times. It is now due to go in two days time – Wednesday, Nov. 16.

Returning to the moon has brought back memories of the excitement I felt as a kid, as The Apollo missions headed out towards the Moon. Apollo 8 was my most favourite mission – It was so bold, so new, so intrepid and all wrapped up with the magic of Christmas.

My generation of Moonies were really let down with the ending of Apollo. But soon, it seems, there really will be humans established on the moon – the future we imagined was ours when we were kids.

So I am now writing a middle-grade, adventure trilogy called GENERATION MOON to inspire the new generation of kids who, one day – quite soon, will populate the Moon and will maybe go even further, to Mars and beyond.

I feel there is a need to get on with this project – time is of the essence and regular publishing schedules are too slow. So, I will be-self publishing over the next year to 18 months, launching the project as limited signed editions on Kickstarter soon.

Sign up to my YouTube Channel when I will be regularly posting news, hints and tips about the whole self-publishing process, writing – editing – illustrating – launching – publishing and, most importantly – marketing.

As well as inspiring a new generation of moonies and astronauts, I hope to help other along with their self-publishing projects.

Stay tuned!

A new way to make selfies?

During the recent heat wave our cat hardly spoke to us. He moped around the garden, hiding in the flowerbeds. In the evenings, he didn’t come in for his daily five minutes sitting on my lap. The day the weather broke he ran away from me, tearing over the garden fence, as if I was an ogre.

The next day it was cooler, and he nagged me all day, climbing onto my lap and sleeping on the floor by the studio door.

What was that all about?

I tried to take a selfie with him, to put on instagram, because that’s what you do, right? But the way I held him to face the camera looked like I was strangling him and I looked like a total muppet! Then I thought, “why not draw it instead, and use my alter ego, Benni, to play myself?”

I can never get a selfie to look the way I want it to, so maybe I have stumbled across the answer. Turn the moment into a story!