The Finish is in Sight!

I haven’t posted much recently about my work-in-progress, Cheeper. But, that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been on my mind, or that I haven’t been working on it. Granted, while I’m in school, working on my personal writing projects usually gets left for the weekends. Then, I’m only able to work on a little at a time. But, little by little, I’ve been chipping away at editing and illustrating.

So, here’s the big news: Last week I started the final edits on the LAST chapter of the manuscript, and also began sketching the first draft of the LAST illustration!

The finish is in sight!!!

In the meantime, I thought you might enjoy reading some of my favorite quotes from the story! This is actually quite difficult to do, because so many of my favorite lines I can’t share for fear of giving the plot away. So, I tried to pick a few of my favorite lines that weren’t spoilers. First:

[Cheeper] would never forget his initial surprise when he found out that the parents of [the Brown] family, instead of poking food down their children’s throats, let them fend for themselves at the meal table.

How human table manners might look through the eyes of a bird. And another one:

Suddenly he cocked his head and listened. His ears picked up a faint sound. Yes, there it was again! It sounded like… well, it sounded like a worm!

What else would a worm sound like? And lastly:

A few young children played gleefully on a contraption that swung them back and forth much like he had often done on a wind-tossed tree branch, and a group of young boys were digging in a large box of sand—probably looking for worms.

That line never fails to make me chuckle!

Now, for my favorite illustration from Cheeper! Currently, it has to be this one, depicting Mom holding blind, baby Cheeper just after he had been rescued:

I say this is my current favorite, because I have a suspicion that the illustration I began last Friday might turn out to be my favorite…. Stay tuned for more updates! The end is in sight!