A lot of monthly Writing and Art Prompts have helped push my storytelling and illustrating skills. Glad to participate again this Pride Month, which forces me to actually sketch out OCs that would otherwise remain in my head.
For example, I came up with high school English teacher, Mr. Bakker. Wrote about him in early scripts, and finally fleshed him out in December 2021. In October 2022, I drafted an episode about his work-relationship and friendship with my male love interest, Peter, but before that, struggled to find a first name for him.
Sometimes, a character's first name comes to me. Sometimes, their last name. Rarely do I get a full name.
Now, for this Pride Month, I finally get to draw Bakker and his husband, Gonzalo. And then struggled to research a last name and possible cultural background for Gonzalo... *sigh*
The creating doesn't end, but hopefully, you'll like the characters I introduced last year and the newer ones this year!
Somebody asked the Twitter #WritingCommunity what is one's ideal place to write.
Someone responded they would like to write in a café but instead, prefer dead silence, writing on a couch when everybody else is asleep, and that's practically me!
I need (total I've belatedly learned doesn't work for me since I'm neurodivergent and I get what are now called 'intrusive thoughts') some silence, white noise, or my countless playlist titles on loop.
I'm also introverted and could never write in a cafe. Too many folks milling around.
I also draw and can't tell you how many times folks will interrupt while you're working.
I can people-watch and eavesdrop and later distill into things once I'm home.
Why I can't, as a creative, do my work out in public is because much of mainstream society doesn’t think creative working is 'work' at all.
That's why in my webcomic, my artist/writer MC prefers the library (like I used to), or she works in the rear of her local bar. Lights low and enough folks talking to create white noise for her.
Before, she had to field off advances, flirtatious, and pick-up lines, but now she uses them in her own work... And holy cr@p, I think I just came up with another scene I should draft soon! Hahaha
A fellow writer and friend mentioned how, at 16, she had simple story ideas, but as an adult, those ideas have grown and multiplied into more complexities.
My own stories began so simply(alien & human in love, dog gangsters, merman falls in love with tree woman researching him) and now those same tales have grown into journeys of self identity, dived into gender politics, injustice, advocacy, sex and body positivity, with cast of characters from diverse cultural ethnic groups, mythological beings, and various alien species.
I will continue to tell the stories that speak to me and that I wish I had read when I was younger.
I feel like this blog is getting academic but I'm a different person than I was several years ago when I finally hammered down this blog.
In the yesteryears, I kept trying my hand at different blogging platforms and kept losing each one. I also didn't have a clear message for why I would maintain a blog.
Now I'm posting old notes and other information I've gleaned from journals over time but I feel it's important. As I grow as a creative, so much that creativity be expressed and when I change and evolve, that will reflect in my creations.
So again, my dear readers, thank you for staying with me all this time and I hope you will continue to do so. Also, to take something from the Hunger Games films but with a little twist and in the spirit of this blog: May the opportunities be ever in your favor.😃🙋🏿♀️
The more I explain about the work-in-progress comic I'm currently drafting, the more I have to keep explaining to justify a premise that, in this case, needs no justifying.
In a nutshell, SUMMER TO WINTER is about a high schooler who falls in love with her teacher. Eight years later, the two reunite and begin a relationship. Sounds simple? Pure and wholesome? Well, not to some who I told the synopsis to. Without even waiting for an explanation, folks assumed the worst. They assumed a toxic relationship. Something wholly inappropriate had the high schooler and her teacher started that kind of relationship. But they didn't and I wouldn't write that.
I'm not judging other writers for writing about that. Writers we can write whatever (as long as it doesn't hurt or harm innocent people). There's all sorts of ethical and moral issues with writing certain topics. That's not what I'm getting into with this post. What I AM SAYING is most of my story ideas stem from conversations I've had or eavesdropped on, rumors I've overheard, folklore, family history, and the tales read and/or spoken to me or that I've read over time.
When I was in high school, I heard a rumor about a student and a teacher(rumors are great fodder for storytelling. I'd rather turn a rumor into a story idea rather than repeat it) and it went something like this:
A teen girl likes her teacher and goes after him. He rejects her, citing that it's inappropriate. Student tells him she's set to graduate and that she'll come back for him.
The 'story' is when she DID graduate, she went back to see him and they ended up together. In another version, they got married.
Now, did this really happen? A lot of folks have asked me. I don't know. I don't know if this was a true story or made up. So is the nature of rumors.
Depending on circumstances or situation, you may not get the real life drama behind the story, but the 'What If?' is compelling enough to want to write about it!
So this is what I did. I didn't want an imbalance. I didn't want an illegal relationship. I knew about peers who were minors and abused by adults. I didn't want to normalize such in any story I write.
I am a romantic. I love romance. I love romantic movies and shows, comics and graphic novels, I love romance novels. I'm a sentimental person, probably to the point of being schmaltzy. I don't deny it. I like when couples wear the same clothes. I like when a couple cosplays together. I even think it was cute reading about such a couple that the guy crossplays his characters so he can wear the same clothing as his girlfriend. Don't judge me. Don't judge him.
I've even been reading more representative romances, the kind I've always gravitated towards when younger: interracial, intercultural, interfaith, and inter-ethnic.
I also have been reading a lot of webcomics and e-manga that shows LGBTQIA+ romances. The more representative of real life, the better!
So, getting back to my story, SUMMER TO WINTER, I wanted to expand on that rumor I heard from my high school days. I wanted to see behind the scenes. And I wanted it to be a sweet love story with a lot of steam to get the pulse racing. And I love comedies, and life can be hilarious, so that's in there too.
The draft pages I've been posting to my writing group and to my Instagram - I also post the SFW (Safe For Work) pages on Facebook - Hey, my bosses, coworkers, family and family friends are still on there! I don't feel comfortable posting there! - but the rest is received by my Twitter chat group and my Insta followers, and the feedback is intense and mostly positive.
Pretty much in a nutshell, I continue to write the stories I wanted to see on TV, in the theatre, and in books. And I've been getting those stories, but now I'm getting even more that I didn't know I wanted, and that's perfect for me as a storyteller...
Stay inside as much as possible, be safe and take care, Dear Readers!
I've been writing my own stories since Pre-K, and get frustrated because I didn't know enough words. With parents showing me how to use a dictionary and encyclopedias, I wrote for fun. Then by 4th Grade all the way to high school, I wrote and drew stories to escape bullying and harassment.
Now I use my stories to do what bards, griots, and other cultural storytellers do, tell the stories that will help others to not feel alone. To let them know that problems aren't unique but are familiar and shared. And therefore, there is comfort in the idea one isn't in a box and cloistered.
I have been inclusive with my characters from the get-go. Especially now in hindsight of being this age. In this age. When I remember showing my character sheets, the comments were cruel enough, uncalled for, that for a long while, I doubted my abilities and capabilities.
"Why is his skin so dark?" (We forget there are darker-toned people in this world?)
"Why does she look gay?" (Don't know how someone can 'look their sexual orientation' but the characters that were pointed out as 'gay' ended up being future LGBTQA+ in their stories)
"This girl has thunder thighs." (Aren't there many body types?)
"Why does this character have a foreign name?" (We all have names from countless cultures/ethnicities/and belief systems)
"Why do you make your characters SO OLD?" (They were in their mid-20s to early-30s. People also spoke out with my actual elderly characters. Why do characters have to be super-young? Won't there be other kinds of adults in one's world?)
I continue along this trajectory in my writing. I don't understand the limitations people impose on characters. It's an imaginary world. This reality has limits. Shouldn't the skies and imagination of the creator be the story's limit? Diversity and inclusivity are simply the tools to stretch the already imposing limits placed on a work of art. On a creative project. Not only must art reflect one's world, it must push further the boundaries of one's world.
Why can't there be various ethnic groups in space or meeting aliens? Why can't a fat woman be the next wife to an emperor after the last wife passed away in childbirth? Why can't elderly people be leads in a scifi epic? Why does the lead have to be a certain shade? And why can't there be multiple characters who are LGBT+? Who is to tell me that the Patwah I grew up with can't be in the same scifi with aliens living among us? And why should I erase the reality that give my imaginary worlds' gravitas? Heft and weight?
The disheartening comments reveal more about the persons than about my talents and ability to tell a story.
The other day, I wondered how I factored in among funding entities - Aspiring, Emerging, or Established Writer?
I asked myself this since I began to apply for fellowships the year before I started graduate school.
After some hopefuls, and even a *maybe* that dragged on six days after deadline, I decided in 2018 to make it my last time hunting down fellowships. I also spoke with two professor friends at work about my decision.
Now, don't get me wrong, applying for a fellowship is an adventure! Some organizations require you to be in mid-project. Others want recommendation letters from professors, to professionals in other fields, etc. And some want you to send in a CV (curriculum vitae) rather than a *simple* resume.
These fellowship applications were hard to track down. Some were worded as "grants" or moreso "scholarships", yet when reading the requirements, and in the case of needing to take a month, more than a month, even a year from one's life, there were also stipulations to consider.
If awarded, would the stipend(s) be enough to cover one's living expenses for the duration of the period?
When reading other fellows' experiences, peace of mind and well-being also needed consideration. There was also the question about one's "eligibility" to apply for WHICH fellowships and WHEN. One of those constant questions was if I was 'Aspiring/Early'? Was I 'Emerging', 'Midcareer', or 'Established'?
Though I started to take freelance writing seriously in 1996, I credit 1999-2000 as not only the year I published my first story in a fanzine, but with the beginning of a writing 'career'.
And therein lies the rub: the question about where one was in the spectrum of things. Shortly after my podcast interview with an overseas station, the questions I was asked and I later asked myself were a bit troubling.
Was what I've been doing since I was in my late teens to early 20s considered a 'Writing Career'?
Out of frustration, I vented in a tweet with gif attached about WHAT and WHO I was as an author. Other writing colleagues and fellow authors came to my rescue, believing I was in an existential crisis, but that wasn't the case. I KNEW I was a Writer, both lowercase and in CAPS. I knew I was an Author, both lowercase, CAPS, and what the writing community at large agreed on.
My issue was IF I had a career, if I was considered established in certain genres while still being at the emerging stage in other genres?
I needed answers, so, like everybody else, turned to researching online.
Mind you, I had already done so to some degree in order to understand the fellowship applications better, to parse their industry jargon, and for the most part, I did get some nibbles: an encouraging letter from a grant genre-fiction director about one of the panel judges looking forward to more stories from me, to a nail-biting six-day-past-the-deadline wait when it later seemed I lost out to a professional translator, an international gallery artist, and a PhD candidate.
Not bad, my mother and big sister told me and so did work colleagues.
Still, though I'm done with fellowships for the time being, I still wanted to consider my status. So here are some links for consideration:
November 29, 2015 - By: Sarah Vincent[This link seemed one of the better and more comforting explanations, hence, it is at the top]
[I use Hope Clark's Funds for Writers often which is also a free e-newsletter. Lots and lots of good info! I counted about 149 grants, residencies, fellowships, and other funding opportunities on this page alone!]
[The Authors Guild is one of the oldest and most influential writing guilds I know about. Here, this is more an explanation for who is emerging so that the writer can still be provided membership with access to resources as an established member]
May 21, 2019 [I happily blame ProFellow for getting me more into the fellowship rabbit hole! They are like Submittable, but listing regional, national, and international fellowship opportunities. With just a simple click to a free account, the world of multiple disciplines and their fellowships are open to you. If you ever need to take applying for fellowship opportunities seriously, sign up with them!]
And there you have it, folks. Sorry I was a bit long-winded but I needed to get this off my chest. In the meantime, summer is coming up. Stay hydrated, try using the shade and skin protections more often, and thanks for stopping by, dear readers, to Pretty in Print!
Camp NaNoWriMo started but this week took a bit much out of me, plus, I plunked down some hefty funds to get my eyes tested for new prescription frames! I was given a 40% discount but I'm poor until my next paycheck.
More news! Tabber the Red site will have a new look this July! In time for its birthday! So, working on some new Tabber stories set in world while also giving the official website a new face! Ay...
More random notes from the journals - this time, I need to do things on smaller paper or I feel I can't finish it! (Psychologically the same as getting the same amount of food put in a smaller bowl or on a smaller plate)
11x14 paper will be used as drafting/composition ideas!
9x12 will be for larger pieces such as character sheets, profiles, and storyboards.
Finally, 7x10 will be my magic number when it comes to final comic/graphic novel/manga artwork, which can be better scanned and formatted for digital submission.
May God help me with the next coming months. It's gonna be a doozy!
It has been three years since I participated in any NaNoWriMo activities.
As I've said in past posts, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. At the end of this post, I will provide official links. The reason I decided to do so this year is I have a series that helped me find my voice as a writer as well as a community of acceptance. It has also helped me have a "writing career" of sorts. I've been interviewed for podcasts, invited to participate in writing workshops, a few events, and led me to graduate school, something I thought I wouldn't do.
My feline fantasy series has also helped me to create an online presence as well as navigate social media and I know there are still stories for me to tell. I don't want to give it up. Also, the life of a writer has sidelines and detours. Writers, we get distracted or obsessed with other projects, new ideas, and have asides. Also, life gets in the way as it does with everything. Sometimes, I struggle to juggle all these stories, new shiny ideas, and the determination to finish other projects.
Once I sat back and took a good look at myself from 2017 and 2018, I realized I would need to take a step back from the goals I had set for myself, especially when certain goals have been met as well as seeing that some have become stumbling blocks and may no longer serve their purpose. It's okay to walk away from certain goals one sets for oneself! I had to learn that hard lesson. I understood that the continuing of my fantasy short story series cannot be sacrificed in the interest of goals that have expired or outlived their purpose.
Sorry, I went into a diatribe, but I'm officially returning to the Tabber the Red world and will use 2019 as the Year of the Cat for my tales. My website named after my warrior tabby is turning 13 and I want to give it a fresh new look for its birthday this year. The blogs keep getting updated, but ever since I upgraded my desktop, I now lack the software I've used to update the website. And just recently, had to lease a new laptop since the new Dell netbook to replace my Chromebook died, and then the Chromebook has been shutting off, so...
Also, my mom needed a new computer, so I helped put her Lenovo 3-in-1 desktop together and have been navigating my way around it as well as my own Alienware to keep their antiviruses, software patches, and notifications up-to-speed. It hasn't been easy. I'm a lab tutor and one of my coworkers and good friends is our department's tech person, I'm the unofficial one for when he isn't around. So, not only do I have to do topical fixes and changes to our technical equipment at my job, but I come home to maintain my and mom's computers and printer. That's another thing, my own 3-in-1 printer stopped talking to my Chromebook, so that's been fun!
But the good news is my desktop is an Alienware and my brand-new laptop is a Razer, so by the grace of God, I can go back to worrying about updating site, blogs, writing, and hopefully returning to relearning digital artwork on these new platforms. And there I went off on talking about technology when I should have been talking about my plans for April Camp NaNoWriMo!
I first read "Tribes of Kai" while it serialized in the short-lived Frazetta Fantasy Illustrated Magazine back in the 1990s. The same periodical that showed a new ElfQuest story from Wendy Pini!
Tribes of Kai takes place on a prehistoric world. The technology is Stone Age. Belief system is in its nascent stages. Knowledge is passed down orally and language are cave dweller drawings. Anthropomorphic wildcats that have 'centaur' like bodies are the dominant species and the main characters. One such individual thinks differently from the tribe and is exiled. Through lush painted comic panels and a hypnotic narration, the reader wonders: is the protagonist a harbinger of doom? Or a savior?
Tribes of Kai is written by the mesmerizing storyteller Lance Haunrogue (Writer) and each-panel-a-gallery-masterwork Daren Bader (Artist).
Please look for Tribes of Kai where ever books are sold, on eBay, or through Flesk Publications website and you can check out the publisher on Facebook!
There's so many reference books I'm enjoying reading now while I'm also writing and scripting. I also have some miniature sketchbooks I've been keeping in my purse so ideas don't escape me while I'm at work or out and about.
Will post some of those books because you all may want to read one or two titles!
Anyhoo, I'm still working on the science fiction short story and have a new feline fantasy short story that's been years in the making. If I can finish that as well as two others, I can feel I'm back in the furry game. I actually feel bad that I have not gotten a new Tabber the Red story published in a minute. I'm actually sad.
The artwork for it is also slow in coming and I don't want to make the excuse it's because I worked on other things but it's the excuse and reason I have to make. Because, while I'm working on one thing, something else gets put aside.
It's the reality of being a creative type and it gets me angry when other people don't understand this. Or even think that I and other types are *gasp* wasting our time/fooling around!
Have two micro-reviews on some fabulous graphic novels coming up!
In the meantime, have been busy trying to set up a new desktop computer. It's been slow-going despite having all the tools (external drive and cables) that I need but this Florida summer humidity isn't helping things.
Plus, I've had to do some deep soul-searching to decide to make up more hours at my job while still maintaining my freelancing career. I've given up on the fellowship-hunting for now. Can't be putting out all that energy and not really getting any returns now, can I?
And in other news, can you believe it? Inktober is just around the corner and I'm already planning on what series I'll be illustrating... May do some comic or graphic novel pages just to see if I can do it within such a lean time and space? May just stick to ink and markers for now.
August just started and there was a blood moon in July I didn't get to see but you know what... "I see a bad moon a-risin'" (folks of a certain age will get the reference).
Until next time, Dear Readers. I haven't abandoned you or this blog. Still too many adventures in this writing and art-working life.
I have a library of journals. No. I'm not kidding. And I don't mean figuratively. I mean I LITERALLY have enough journals to line at least two shelves! Or maybe more!
This is due to my obsession with seeing cute diaries, artistic journals, and provocative covered notebooks. These are inevitably hardcover. I prefer the hardback kinds. They survive.
For many years, I purchased those with spines, the more they resembled an actually hardcover book, the better. If I found the kinds that had false leather look, gold trim pages, and a satin bookmark, AWESOME.
I guessed that the more a writing journal looked attractive and prestigious, I figured it would compel me to write. But I learned that was quite the opposite.
Those reference-looking diaries went on my shelf, to keep track of dreams that were repetitive or especially troubling. So when I returned to just simple hardcover journals, the writing flowed. Screwy, huh?
I changed my tastes yet again. No more journals with spines. Now I went to spiral notebooks. But they're still artsy, heavily decorated, and provocative diaries.
Am a member of a color pencil and pastel art group & the other members' pieces are DRIVING me INSANE! But my writing is taking off so...
This is what happens when you're an artist & a writer! When you're in the middle of one, the other is always calling. How do others who are both keep it together?
In order to satiate my art hunger (Lord, I sound like a vampire), I may need to do some more pieces of my fantasy series' cat characters & continue a few more pages from my school-related comic! That'll feed the beast!
For anyone who knows me, I am a total tech geek - especially for what it says on my Twitter profile - and revel in using technology to its fullest. But I am in no way a trailblazer or pioneer, trying to bring new concepts into existence.
Rather, I am that technical person who will learn about a software/hardware inside out, understand how it must be upgraded somewhat, and then use the HECK outta it! I will become fiercely loyal to that particular update, version, and refuse to change it in any way because I become so comfortable with the way the tech is.
My mother laughed when my last cellphone died on me because, unlike other people, friends, a certain sibling, I don't lose my phones, I don't shatter their screens, drop accidentally in toilets, etc. As a matter of fact, when I bring in previous phones to get the upgrades, sales clerks often express awe that my phones are in pristine shape, almost as the day I purchased/contracted it!
Why I was laughed at is because I do EVERYTHING on my cellphones. From the moment I changed my Nokia to a Sony Ericsson, and discovered WAP (the earliest internet connection for phones), I have used my next Sony Ericssons, Samsungs, LGs, and even this HTC to type stories, blog, film short videos at cultural events, network, participate in forums, surveys, done market research, update blogs, synch with desktops and netbooks so I could continue my web designing projects, etc.
And did I mention NOTES!? Ever since students at the college where I work introduced me to a certain note app, I've been a beast! I can actually say that the Samsung that died and this HTC literally helped me through graduate school! When I'm at work, and my mom, who's retired, negotiates phone deals for me, she has to go down the list of all the things I do with my phone to the customer representatives.
Right now, I'm in a bit of a dilemma: this phone needs an upgrade but my provider no longer gives upgrades, rather, one must purchase a phone all together. Yet, the problem does not really remain on price, but, more so on what type of phone a crazed tweeter, blogger, writer, and author can use?
I'm still doing research on this, but please, if any of you dear readers have any suggestions, please, please, as many of my favorite YouTube celebrities would say: leave your comments in the box below, and happy reading, writing, and drawing!
I will continue to explain about the novel-in-progress (still whittling away) and discuss my various inspirations.
When my classmate and fellow alum published my short story, "Diner Chat", I did not understand the impact of how deep others would scrutinize its implications. Renamed "Night Sounds", I was told by my classmate/editor that she felt it reminded her of Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks", and that struck me as extraordinary in that his iconic paintings were one of countless artistic inspirations for me over the years.
Hopper often conveyed soft and hard lines within his paintings, and he portrayed many scenes from a New York of the 30s-40s. Whether he used actual locales or his scenes were figments of imaginary whimsy, Hopper's techniques of structure, color, and dimension made the painting FEEL real to the viewer. We may never know if much of the painter's locations and scenes were ONCE real, but, that isn't the point is it? Just like writers, artists want to pull the viewer, temporarily into their world. And if it feels real long after one has left it, than the impact has been successful.
For some fun at the official online site for the "Mental Floss" magazine, here is a link about Hopper's "Nighthawks". I hope you will enjoy and happy reading!
My next post in honor of Andre Norton being taught within an undergraduate course at my college campus.
According to the Andre Norton Official Website, the artist for this book cover is by Laslo Gal, another favorite Ms. Norton book illustrator.
front cover
Here is another book cover and story that has heavily influenced me. As a reader. As a writer. As an artist. Breed to Come was the second story I read after 'Warlock of the Witch World' (more on that title later:)). This story was a milestone in that it not only featured what I would later learn to be anthropomorphic characters, but the level of world-building was astounding. In a nutshell, this is what would be considered a Dystopian sf tale. This is millions of years after earth was ruined and abandoned by the human race, who took to the stars, leaving a wrecked planet, the animals, especially the cats, dogs and rats, have evolved into separate civilizations. The story starts with a feline character and Norton explains his biology as if his remains were examined by scientific forensics. It's an incredible spare kind of writing that just took my breath away with its precision details! As Furtig (cat protagonist) explains, he is about to partake in some sort of ceremony to determine if he will be chosen as a mate. Norton has a knack for dissecting complex cultural and social mores into an interesting journey for the reader.
back cover
Furtig goes on a quest to figure out what his purpose is. But, this protagonist has another motive and so he decides to follow in the footsteps of a clan ancestor who pursued his quest for knowledge and was never heard from again. The story ebbs and flows. It picks up and slows down, especially by Ms. Norton's expositions on the landscape and what earth now looks like after millions of years of missing us. Of course, there is conflict and invaders touch down on earth to check it out as well. Furtig has to find his place in this new world and we the readers must figure out our place in this magnificent novel as well.
Another Andre Norton book cover! According to the Andre Norton Official Website, the artist for this cover is Davis Meltzer.
As an artist, there are many things that inspire me, especially when it comes to book covers. Nowadays, some of these front covers are being digitally done and I find the artwork often uninspiring, which is sad to say the least. However, with some of my favorite stories, I have been fortunate to have favorite covers too. Here is another from Norton's Web of the Witch World, which I think is the second book in her long-running 'Witch World' (c) series.
For some reason, it reminds me of a 1970s comic book cover, and the tale within is filled with powerful women, magic with science, inter-dimensional villains, and a protagonist from our planet who is still adjusting to the culture of this new world. It is a refreshing, exciting, sense of wonder tale. To read it multiple times is to find something new. Pure delight.
Now, on to the Book Covers!!!
*Kermit the frog cheer*
As I said in an earlier posting, since finding out from some college students that my favorite, favorite author Andre Norton is being taught in an English course on-campus, I have decided to revisit my love and 'fangirling' of this amazing woman.
In previous posts, I gave URLs on her newest official site and older homepage as hyperlinks in the post, re-posted a classic post on her, and just about ranted on the unfairness that while an undergrad, many folks didn't seem to know about her and now, as an employee on same campus, she is part of a college literature curriculum!
But, I am an artist first, and I judge books by their covers, and, for some reason, perhaps because Ms. Norton was prolific and was still writing and publishing almost to her death, her bibliography is varied, long, and epic in scope as her stories. Yet, it was the various artists that tried to capture her ideas that mesmerized, baffled, or even bewildered me.
Without further ado, on to the book covers!
The first is Norton's The Zero Stone. The book is from my family's personal library. These are the Viking editions that my father acquired during the 1970s. According to the Andre Norton Official Website, the cover artist is Robin Jacques.
What struck me was the highly-detailed almost digital preciseness of the piece. Also, the illustrator captured a pivotal scene. Do you see the detailing? I used my Chromebook's webcam to take this picture so I apologize if it's not clear enough.
Not only is this one of Norton's more zippier-reads (the action is not breakneck but it does breeze by during the action scenes), but my biggest regret is that I removed the dust jacket! It annoyed me and so I took it off the book! What can I say? I was 11-12 at the time. I regret it now. I still regret it. I know better.
Still, what was on the dust jacket is what's on the actual binding as well as the front and backcover. I've seen other editions where this gorgeous illustration was on dust jacket only, so, I lucked out.
