Origins 3: "The Long Haul"

Rosy Window Productions came into being with the support of family and friends, yes some of them smiled and nodded, some listened intently and some were genuinely excited about what we were doing.  Some of our biggest fans and supporters watched from the beginning…patiently….and….patiently... and ….so, how’s it going? Meanwhile, back at the ranch, (no ranch, just always wanted to say that) Megan was training to use the software we needed to upload books and get them to a printer, researching printers (Canadian Only), we had timelines, daily plans, monthly plans and quarterly plans, we had a launch plan that included six books and a plan to have a new one out monthly.   – wait a minute – where do we find  some talented illustrators, as we work through this on a shoe string budget.  And how do you find an illustrator, how do you pay them and holy cow, more research, a contract, what kind of an ad do we run?  “If you build it, they will come” (Field of Dreams – thank you Mr. Costner) A Friend, a friend of a friend and a former student.  A freshly printed contract in hand and “the pitch”.   Now I don’t know if you believe in divine intervention or that the universe is looking after you, but in our case, I think which ever you choose is just fine with me. It is one of the most difficult thing to do, to lay it out for someone else, to leave that bubble of positive reinforcement that you have with your business partner, and to have someone else scrutinize your vision, so with the best business faces we could muster we met with three potential artists.  Blown away, would be a decent way to describe coming out of the meetings, each of these women were so excited and supportive, it was incredible. We shared our vision, gave them some notes on what we were looking for and a copy of the stories.  They read, interpreted, they sketched and re-sketched, painted, drew, coloured and above all else, they put their hearts and souls into bringing life to the characters. I must admit when those first illustrations were presented to us, there weren’t any dry eyes in the room, a sigh of relief from everyone.  Someday, we will get the illustrators to write their story, or perhaps they can comment on the blog. The general consensus was that it was a bit different (understatement) than producing one or two pieces of art,  character hair has to be the same colour, the furniture in the room on this page needs to look the same on that page and the colour palette needs to be the same throughout the whole book!  Not to mention following the story!  Yes challenging, especially if the book has 60 pictures! We were humbled and appreciative, and..you know..blown away!  So we were closing in on two and a half years of the behind the scene slogging, with nothing in our hands to show the smiling nodders, some days bogged us down, some days we celebrated small victories.  What would we say to someone who has a dream?  We would say: “You go girl!  (or boy!!)”,  “woot-woot” and a “whooo-raaaw” a dream - business, personal, family or otherwise.  There are no failures in this life, there are learning opportunities.  You don’t need to surround yourself with “yes” men, but you can celebrate with the genuine people who are rooting for you, plan and re-plan, and if you are willing to roll up your sleeves and find your stick-to-itness, it will happen! The long haul is worth it, the best is yet to come!