Up And Running

I am currently in the middle of publishing my first novel, "Christmas Angels", on wattpad.com.  I am expecting to post two chapters at a time, three days each week until complete.  If all goes as planned, this will occur on every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  Right now, I am on chapter 26 and 27, a little over half of the way through the story.  I seem to be slowly attracting readers to the book, and this is encouraging.

This is a new endeavour for me, and a very big step.  It is not easy, putting your own thoughts on paper and then publishing them for all to see.  I think of this as a necessary step to get my work noticed by readers and possibly potential book publishers.  Please go to my page on facebook or directly to www.wattpad.com and read the full story in either place.  Please let me know if you like what you read, and feel free to leave constructive critiques, especially on Wattpad.

I get a lot of help and support from my Grandson, Joshua.  He often asks me for crackers to make his job a little easier and worth pursuing!  Write on!

Grampa and assistant

The Beat Goes On

I am continuing to post my novel, "Christmas Angels" on wattpad.com.  I hope that you are visiting me there and reading it as I put it on the web site.  I plan to post one chapter at a time as the days go by.  This should happen three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and again on Friday.  I hope, but I can't promise.  Life has a way of interfering with the best laid plans, at times.  That shall be my goal, and I hope you will read it there, vote for it, and feel free to make comments, in structure, spelling and any critiques that you may have.

In just a few more days we will start driving to Florida to escape the long, cold days of winter.  We will make a stop for about one week on the way, to visit our daughter and her family.  After that, it is over the border and always south. I will miss my extended family while we are away, but just until mid-April when we shall return.  Hopefully, the weather will be much warmer here by then.

I shall write another entry on Wednesday, when I publish chapter Five of "Christmas Angels" on wattpad.com.  I hope that you like it!

Into The Great Unknown

Well, its up now.  Chapter 3 of "Christmas Angels".  It is on wattpad.com, under my name, Richard De Wolfe.  Give it a read and tell me what you think.  This is a new venture for me and I am hopeful.

It is very scary to put words on paper, but that pales compared to actually putting something out there for all the world to see.  Fear of failure keeps us from doing so much in life.  From an early age, we are often told by others that we are not good enough, bound to fail, foolish to try, and so many other negative things about ourselves.  It is not necessarily the case that others around us actually  want us to desist in what we are trying to do, but they are only reflecting their own self doubts when they inadvertently do this sort of thing.

Be brave, take your best shot, it is the only way to discover who you really are.  Sure, you will fall short at times, but the road to success is paved with failure.  If you never try something new, you are never likely to accomplish much.  If you fall, get back up, brush yourself off and try again.  Maybe in a new way, but try.  Life is not a dress rehearsal and you will never know what you might accomplish unless you try.

Onward And Upward (I Hope)

Today I will be posting chapter two of "Christmas Angels", my first novel.  It is the story of a woman who was born with a very bad heart.  In adulthood, she has an unexpected child of her own.  But can she survive to raise the child?  Chapter one seems to have had a good reception, thus far, and I am very pleased by this.  I want to thank all of you who have taken the time to read it and also to express your own opinion and to suggest improvements where needed.  I will be relying on you to help me out like this, all along the way.

If you haven't yet seen it, you can access chapter one, and now chapter two, by visiting me at www.wattpad.com.  You will find them both there for you to read.  In the days ahead, I will add one chapter at a time until the entire book is there.  It is free, so check it out.  I hope you will join me and enjoy "Christmas Angels".  If you like it, please vote for it and ask your friends to take a look and to vote for it, too.  Cheers and happy reading!

Best Foot Forward

Ok.  This is it.  My first novel is done and I want to publish it.  I have decided to put it on Wattpad.com to start with.  If people read it and like it, I will go further with this one.  Don't be shy, I'm hoping to get comments on this, both good and bad.  Just keep them constructive, so that I can learn from them.  If you find errors or omissions of any kind, please let me know.  I will use these comments to make corrections as necessary.  Please don't hesitate to correct my grammar or spelling, too. 

What do you think of my cover?  This is a cement figurine that I photographed just for this purpose.  I thought that it was quite appropriate, since the story is about several women, who love Christmas, and their angelic characteristics.  If you like this first attempt, I have another book in the offing.  This one may be the beginning of a series of novels.  More about that one, later.  For now, check out "Christmas Angels" by Richard De Wolfe, at www.wattpad.com.  I'll be glad that you did.   ;)

Life Happens

Well, much time has passed, years in fact, and I have suffered a debilitating medical condition.  This event has been so severe, that the possibility of continuing as an artist and painter have become very remote.  Well, life goes on, and I shall begin devoting much more time to my writing, at this point.  Of course, I really don't know where this might lead, nor do I really know what it is that I am trying to accomplish, but I will press on, never the less.
 
I think that here I will discuss my writing, my process, and maybe even some excerpts from my written work, from time to time.  I hope that you, my readers, will give me your feedback to help me grow as time goes by.  If you have a direction that you would like me to take, please let me know by making comments here.

I have always wished to do some writing, but my artistic endeavors have always taken most of my time.  So much for that excuse, it doesn't really fly anymore, so now I smust take the next step, so here goes!  Sink or swim.

Beginnings

.....So somehow I came up with this brainwave to try my hand at writing fiction.  Pretty funny, huh?  My English Literature teacher in high school thought so, too.  Don’t get me wrong, I always did well in Creative Writing.  Straight “A”s in fact.  I also showed some promise in visual art and had already built a reputation for my drawing and painting skills, ever since Grade One.  (I never went to kindergarten; it wasn’t available to me in those days.)  Maybe I’ll go back and make it up after I retire.  Anyway, I regress.

In my final year of the Business and Commerce program at Gananoque Secondary School, I was a little confused about the direction my life should take.  Painting?  Commercial Art?  Writing?  Filled with typical teenage angst, I put the question to my venerable and somewhat frazzled English teacher, Mrs. Spennato.

I think it went something like this:

“Mrs. Spennato, I need some advice.  I’m trying to decide what I should do after high school.  I like to draw and paint but I also love to write.  Do you think I could ever become a writer?”

She looked up at me, her eyes appearing unnaturally large behind over-sized, rectangular glasses.  The good old owlish look, as they say.  She blinked several times (maybe it was the glare from the fluorescent lights overhead) as she gathered her thoughts.  “You are a really good artist, Richard,” she said most helpfully.  It’s funny, though.  She never really mentioned my writing.

Well, I guess I took her advice and went on to pursue the business of commercial art.  That was an exciting time in my life.  Getting into that business was a whole different story, but I can tell you right now, the old saying “Ignorance is bliss” was surely true in my case.  I loved the business and I completely immersed myself in it for many years.  Some people refer to those years as “the Golden Years of Illustration”, but I know better.  The really golden years were in the 40’s and 50’s, before advances in technology made photography a viable alternative for use in print advertising.  The business had already been in a slow but steady decline, ever since the days of such illustrators as Howard Pyle, N.C. Wyeth and Norman Rockwell.  There were (and still are) plenty of talented and accomplished illustrators who followed in their footsteps, but the era of fine art illustration was essentially over.  I’m really glad I got in on the tail end of it, anyway.

The real kiss of death (coup de grace for those of you who are bi-lingual) came with the advent of the computer and graphic art software.  Now anyone could become a “Professional”.  Did I say ‘anyone?  I meant EVERYONE.  In fact, almost overnight, a lot of agencies, production houses and marketing firms bought software and stopped using freelancers altogether.  I found myself quoting on jobs that these companies could present to their clients as comparisons to producing the art ‘in house’, which was always going to be cheaper. The writing was on the wall for me, and I moved further away from illustration and closer to painting once more.  Not so lucrative, but much more satisfying.

These days, I produce fine art paintings in acrylic and oil, and illustration for licensing through www.porterfieldsfineartlicensing.com.   Sometimes I also do a weird type of ‘mash-up’, that I create through a blend of art, photography and graphic art software.  (If you can’t beat ‘em; join ‘em.) 

If you are curious, you can find my art at www.richarddewolfe.com or www.torontoillustrators.com and my art blog www.theartofricharddewolfe.blogspot.com.  

Things do come full circle, and now as I approach my dotage, I find myself taking up pen and paper (computer and word processing software, actually) and trying to write.  Where this will go, I cannot say.  It brings to mind an old ‘road’ movie that starred Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.  Dean Martin is driving fast on a road across the dessert, in an open convertible, while Jerry Lewis sits beside him, trying to read a map that is wrapped around his face.   Dean Martin begins singing “Who knows where the road will lead us, only a fool would say”.  Jerry Lewis suddenly cuts in, pointing at the map, “I know, I know!”

And so it goes.  I have no idea where this will take me, but like Don Quixote, I shall strike out blindly, tilting at windmills.