I'm a fantasy and young adult fiction writer. Here, you'll find book reviews, writing tips, personal opinions, and updates on my work. New posts every Friday.
I had a mystery bird at my feeder, and it turned out to be a song sparrow. Identifying it online was a bit of a challenge, because the population of song sparrows up here tend to much darker than usual. They’re really striking little things.
I’m already waiting for spring, so my little sparrow got a pomegranate branch to sit on. We’ve had our snow now, and I’m ready for all the plants to wake up again.
A song sparrow sitting on a blooming pomegranate branch drawn in colored pencil
My office window looks right out on the tree that holds our bird feeder, so when I’m working I also get to watch the little house finches and juncos squabble and flit around. They’re all really cute, but these jays are probably my favorite birds that visit the yard. They’re all attitude and their little crests are just excellent. Plus, they sound like angry robots when they yell, which is very endearing.
A pen and ink drawing of a steller’s jay sitting on a thin pine branch
These dark-eyed junco birds spend a lot of time draining the bird feeder outside my office. They’re pretty cute little things about the size of a sparrow, and I decided to draw one recently.
A pen and ink drawing of a dark-eyed junco bird perching on a branch
Gobiraptor minutus is a cute little dinosaur species that was discovered in the Gobi desert earlier this year, and I love it. I drew it as an awkward chick just starting to get its big dino feathers in, since the specimen they found was a juvenile.
A drawing of a juvenile Gobiraptor minutus in pen and colored pencil, with colors and markings loosely based on Pallas’s sandgrouse.
Drawing this reminded me of how weird they are, and how much they really don’t seem like they belong in the real world. If I had never heard of them and someone described a chameleon to me, I’d probably call bullshit.
Their fingers are fused to form perfect little tree-grabbing pinchers. They change color according to their mood. (Not to blend in to their environment, as is commonly believed. This one was almost perfectly millennial pink when I met him, and that’s not exactly a common shade in their natural habitat.) Their eyes bug out from their heads and swivel around independently from each other. Their tails function like a fifth limb. Some of them have straight-up Triceratops horns. They can shoot their tongues out to grab food as it goes about its business a foot or more away from what would have been the danger zone for a normal lizard. They’re basically just cute, grumpy little aliens.
A sketch of a juvenile panther chameleon in pen and ink
Because I’ve worked in reptile stores, I also need to add that they’re high maintenance creatures and you should not go out and buy your own grumpy little alien unless you’re very prepared to spend a decent chunk of money on proper lighting and a large, well-ventilated enclosure. They don’t even like to be held, generally, and picking them up without a great deal of care can break their ribs. They’re strictly display aliens, not cuddly pets.
I tried to do a few too many things this week and started to spiral out of control on Thursday, but I think I rallied pretty well today and I even took some time to relax and do some art. I need to remember to do that a little more often.
A pen and ink sketch of my baby bun, Frodo. This is his tiny mountain goat pose. He likes to sit on top of his comfy sleep tent and look down on the world.
Of course, there’s always a critic.
Apparently, I should spend less time doodling and more time petting.
It’s easy to get distracted by various projects, so I’ve been trying to focus on writing-related stuff, but this past week I really needed to draw. I spent a couple of days in my pajamas making a mess with colored pencils and eventually produced a cool picture of some carnivorous plants. This was my first serious attempt at drawing any that I can remember, so it was very fun.
I like the size of this paper. Gonna do more projects on it in the future for sure. Image: a desk covered in colored pencils, with a laptop and a drawing of some brightly colored pitcher plants.
Image: Two different red Nepenthes pitcher plants above two Sarracenia pitcher plants, one red and one green with red streaks. A regular sundew plant on the left bottom corner, and several dwarf sundews in the right corner.
Unpacking is going well, for the most part. It feels a little frustrating to have to take apart all our work from just a few days ago. We spent all that time and energy packing, but now it must be undone. Still, it’s moving along.
I started sanding down my old desk, because it’s been a mess for years and I’d actually like to be able to work at it instead of on the edge of the couch. Couches are not considered particularly well suited for extended typing sessions. That’s how you mess up your wrists. It’s gonna be an ongoing project, most likely, but it’s satisfying to work on.
I managed to keep track of all my writing stuff during the move, and even organized it more when I packed it up, so that’s kind of a relief. My sketchbook was also tucked in with all my notes and stuff, so here’s another dinosaur.
I drew him right before the move. He’s just a little bitty dinosaur, singing his little bitty dinosaur song. I was inspired by that cool amber-encased dinosaur tail that was found a while ago. They said it was about the size of a sparrow, but it kind of reminded me of a little wren for some reason.
I found a ton of strawberry plants on clearance at my local home depot, so now I have all the berry plants for my new yard.
The pups are settling into the new house really nicely, but they still don’t like being left alone here, so I’ve been dragging them along on a lot of errands. Toci gets bored and tries to clamber onto my lap all the time, even when I’m just kneeling down for a second and she has to settle for perching on one of my knees. She is my super weird little unicorn beast.
This week has been good, but really busy. I did manage to get some drawing in, though, which was a nice change of pace. I drew dinosaurs, because dinosaurs are cool.
Very old drawing of mine: Velociraptor chicks in their nest
Jasmine Collins 