Author: Meg

Easily amused, never bored and constantly distracted. My creative pursuits include writing, drawing, painting and photography.

I Need a Purple Crayon

~ Meg ~ 31 Comments

I still like buying actual, physical books. Last year, I went searching for an unusual book and stumbled upon a great online used book store: ABE Books. They sell unique, rare and collectible books as well as popular titles, too. And I’m not sure why I’m telling you that… Ah, yes, now I remember. Since I’ve been a customer, they send emails with suggestions for books I might enjoy. In one of their recent advertisements, they featured a children’s book author/illustrator and it had me reminiscing about books I loved as a child.

Do you remember Harold and the Purple Crayon? I’m not sure if its still popular. Not having kids prevents you from being up on these kind of things. “Harold” might be the first book I was obsessed with. And of course it’s about escaping into another world – one Harold creates himself. It seems like that recurring dream had an early start in my life! Here is the story of Harold and the Purple Crayon:

Header image via TV Tropes.

Painting (17) Wild Garden

~ Meg ~ 25 Comments

This started out as another abstract forest. I was trying to duplicate the one I’d done before and ended up ruining it. But not one to waste a canvas, I painted over the mess and tried something different. I began with an underpainting, then added layers to create a wild flower garden. Sigh… I actually think the under painting is better. Might have to do that over again.

And here’s the under painting.

Beautiful People

~ Meg ~ 31 Comments

She was beautiful, but not like those girls in the magazines. She was beautiful for the way she thought. She was beautiful for the sparkle in her eyes when she talked about something she loved. She was beautiful for her ability to make other people smile, even if she was sad. No, she wasn’t beautiful for something as temporary as her looks. She was beautiful deep down to her soul. ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

I’ve been doing a lot of reading and television watching lately. I think my brain needs a rest from all the chaos that my life has been for the last couple of months. It has not been a good summer. Anyway, even when I’m not writing, I’m thinking about writing. So my entertainment choices made me ponder the way I write my characters.

Sometimes, I can read about a character and fall in love with them without even having a detailed description of their appearance. I find them attractive through their actions and dialogue. Or, after a description in the beginning which may not portray them as particularly handsome or beautiful, I will forget as I am drawn in by their personality. Intelligence, kindness, sense of humor, and a well-rounded education (not necessarily formal) are also very appealing. Most recently, I realized this in watching Endeavor on Masterpiece. Shaun Evans, who plays Inspector Morse as a young man, is not a classically handsome man, but I as I grew to love the character, I began to find him very attractive as well.

Shaun Evans via IMDb

Over the course of five novels and numerous short stories, I have fallen into the habit of writing all my main characters as physically beautiful. While I have also tried to imbue them with those other fine qualities I mentioned, I haven’t let them stand on their own. To grow and mature as a writer, I need to create characters who are beautiful deep down to their souls.

Header image via Google images.