Glendale Writers Illustrators Schmoozin

Our Topic was "Crafting Your Characters"
Have you ever taken your main characters to therapy?
Have you tried figuring out what's playing on their iPods?

We shared insights and wisdom collected from various sources.. discussed tips, strategies, and techniques on how to make our characters multi-dimensional and get readers to care about them.

We discussed the importance of different phases of Character Conceptualization and the Realization Phase... understanding your character and then bringing it to life. Jen found a great article about that here.. http://www.amateurillustrator.com/articles/?p=144

We shared and discussed some popular characters and what we believed made them so successful and lovable.

Also had this site shared for all.. Just one more book- A website about travel and visiting children's book authors and illustrators…
http://www.justonemorebook.com/ -Thanks to Frank Hansen for this info.

We reviewed our assignments for our show... they are turning out so wonderful!
We also Shared our Goals from last month and made more for next months meeting. We found that a lot of us strived for goals a little beyond our reach... which is awesome... go go go... but we talked about setting one or two and keeping it simple for new goals that we can accomplish. Don't forget to keep them OUT where you can see them ALL the TIME! This way you can try to avoid them but they will just yell out at you.. "Hay, REMEMEBER ME... I am still here.. you could do it tomorrow but... hey JUST DO IT. (not endorsed by Nike)"

We have picked up a few writers... Yay :) It was a writers and illustrators evening.
We had a great meeting with new faces.

For our goals we used this guideline:

GOALS – GUIDING – OUR – ASTONISHING – LIFE - SKILLS
If you don't know where you're going, you may not like where you end up.
Determine your illustration goals so you can get where you want to be…

• Where am I now? • What is my ultimate goal?
• How do a gain the necessary knowledge, skills and abilities to get there?
• Assume personal responsibility for your own development
• Identify and prioritize goals and objectives
• Provide focus to observations, critique feedback and learning objectives
• Provide a framework for your destination

• Goal / Objective
• Steps and/or strategies
• Time frame for each step
• Evaluation of each step/strategy
• Success measures of step/strategy / Outcomes – what was actually achieved
• Goal completion date
• Comments (These are detailed remarks about what was learned, difficulties encountered
obstacles that were overcome, the relevance of the goal, etc.)

1 month goals - 6 month goals – 1 yr goals – 5 year goals – 10 year goals
(this is where we drew a box and divided it into 4 sections for what ever month/yr plan you want to start)
"What's Your Motivation?"…make things go from a ‘should or could do’ to an ‘I must do’?
Don’t know where to start… Start by listing one TO DO… and make that ‘one thing’ happen.

Next Month Schmooze
June 18: “Straying from our Comfort Zone…”
Exploring the Ideas of Experimentation and Adventure. We really want to experiment, explore and expand our horizons! This means spontaneous creativity, undying creative energy, dealing with deadlines and taking criticism. What if we try something new… and FAIL? What if we actually SUCCEED? How do we even know where to START? Let’s discuss these topics, share our trials and tribulations, success’ and weak points and moving on to the next level.