Hitting 50 (percent funded!)

Hello Beautiful People!

First things first: thank you so much for supporting my book project! I was happy to surpass the 50% mark yesterday after a week in the Kickstarter trenches....three weeks to go to meet my goal! If you have a minute, please help me spread the word by clicking the Facebook "like" button found under my video on the Kickstarter page for this project, or if you prefer human to human contact, send me your snail mail address and I can give you a little stack of my cute promotional postcards that you to give to all your dog-loving friends!

I've at least started on the forms for the dogs for letters A-P and then I realized the other day that I really should be working on the text first, making sure the dogs are doing different things that dogs do besides stand around looking adorable and hoping you'll notice so you'll feed them.

So I have been stationed at my dining room table, with all sorts of reference books, with several dog breed books including Desmond Morris' amazing compendium of information and beautiful illustrations on every breed and mix known to human and dogkind, the Oxford English Dictionary, one of my all-time favorite reference books The Food Lovers Companion, and a rhyming dictionary with an inscription from my best friend Shannon when she gave it to me in 1989. (I found a really interesting book at the library the other day that might come in handy, though maybe in the kitchen rather than the writing desk: The Flavor Thesaurus.)

I also made a list of things dogs do, in case it might provide some inspiration. And then I searched the web for lists of words that mean "to eat." I'm finding that sometimes the information about the breed is what leads me to the rhyme--for example, S will be for Scottish Terrier or Scottie, who are known for their hirsuteness. I worked that into the story this way:

S is for Suki
whose great facial hair
obscured the sashimi
on her derriére. 

So I will spend the day working on this, hopefully ready to roll in the studio again tomorrow. If you come up with any of your favorite words for eating, or things that dogs do, comment here and I'll check in during the day--it just might work its way in before it's too late!

Here are a few more studio shots of works in progress--awaiting their protective coats of paint! Thanks again for your part in making Arfabet come to life!

Daisy the Dachshund who became a Dagwood

Jack Russell (ears not attached yet!) with a Jackfruit

The Chihuahua Cheese Courier

Husky, Black Lab, Komondor, Greyhound, and part of a Mastiff

Irish Setter doing the downward dog with soft-serve ice cream!