Guest Blog Post: Pencil Sharpening

[Ignatower of Power!]

Today I drank four pots of tea, and while I wasn't officially counting, I think I went to the bathroom elventy times. When I wasn't drinking tea, or going to the bathroom, or making more tea, or climbing down to the first floor to make more tea or up to the third floor with a fresh pot, I was sharpening pencils.

I work with a lot of pencils. Because my books are supposed to be written and illustrated by my 11 year-old protagonists, I try to only use materials that they would have in their desks. As an adult person with a studio full of watercolors and little tubes of gouache paint and (my favorite) sophisticated computer programs that magically color things in with a click of the mouse, it's been a bit of an adjustment to be limited to ball-point pens, rubber cement, Crayola markers, and colored pencils.

Uhmahgawd, the colored pencils are the WORST. You find the one you need. It's looking kind of nubby, so you sharpen it. You sharpen it and sharpen it and then, when it's reached a beautiful point, the sort of sharpness that you can only find in a well-sucked candy-cane, it breaks. "Grrrrr," you say, or, if you're me, you release a torrent of magnificent potty-mouthedness because you're alone in the house and cursing a lot is kind of fun. So you start to sharpen the pencil again, only this time, you're careful. You're paying attention. Then again it reaches that glorious point, and you start to draw, and again it breaks. And again, the filth comes pouring forth from your mouth.

This happens about ten thousand times a day. I'm not complaining--I'm living the dream. I'm an author. I get to write and draw my own books, and so far kids seem to like what I write and draw. I work from home and wear plush slippers I bought this summer when I was on my book tour (they're shaped to look like wooden shoes). I'm actually using the skills I learned in college. It's amazing. BUT DANG, people, no one ever told me how much pencil sharpening I would be doing. Art takes time.