Today is a big day, the launch of my first Kickstarter campaign!
The project is a collaboration with artist Noah Latz. It's a children's picture book called D Is For Dragon and with your help we can make it a reality. You can watch our launch video at the link above. The art for D Is For Dragon is more than a third done, but publishing is an expensive business, if enough people kick in we can afford to print the books in bulk and make what would be a vanity project into something professional and high quality.
But I'm not asking for donations, join our Kickstarter and you can get a copy of the book, a T-shirt, or even be part of the art! If the Campaign goes well enough I may even be able to produce additional titles and make this into a whole fantasy series! Check out my Kickstarter page for more at the link:
D is for Dragon Kickstarter
Children's literature is something I have always loved, especially the aspect of rhyme. A good rhyme to me has such power to make me love a piece while a false one, or just a simple choice, can likewise make me hate it. I am not, by choice, a poet but I feel I do stumble into poetry accidentally. (Yes, I know that I have been writing and sharing a novel about a poet including large segments of a fictionalized poetry meter, along with historic sources, but bear with me here.)
Poetry is something special that I have never quite felt accustomed to. One often hears that there are no rules to it but, to quote Niel Gaimen "there are thousands, and they are changing all the time." The fields of meter and flow are something I can never seem to suss.
Why poets often break,
one sentence in to two or more is,
beyond my understanding; especially if it has semicolons.
But rhyme and syllable I can hack well enough. Being a father I have come to realize just how big an effect a book can have on a small child and how big an effect they had on my own writing style. Re-reading all the classics from my childhood and seeing them enchant my daughter has been a true gift and one I hope to continue to savor for years to come. To it, D is for Dragon is my own attempt to make something like them while staying true to both my nerd heritage and the beauty of Noah's art. You should check it out, I think it is something truly special.