Gee's Storees - January Edition 🫖✨

2024 Newsletter

Welcome to the first of Gee’s Storees 2024 Newsletter here on Substack! Thankyou for sticking around here. I hope 2024 has been good to you so far ✨

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Hiya! If you're new to my Substack, I'm Fran, an illustrator and picture book maker living in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Gee's Storees originally started as a quarterly newsletter and has slowly evolved into this Substack publication. Here, I share news and updates on my work, behind-the-scenes content as well as insight into my journey in the magical world of children’s publishing and illustration ✨ Hope you'll join our lovely community, I am looking forward to getting to know you!

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January 2024

The year always starts with such promise - resolutions to be met, clarity and a suspiciously positive and energetic outlook for the next 12 months. This year, however, I’m embracing the hibernating bear inside of me, and allowing my January to just flow as it would like to (and believe me it has).

Goal-Setting

✨ As far as goals go, this year I’ve decided to take on the ‘100 Rejections Challenge’, which is essentially a challenge in search of rejections. I’ve realised that most times, I take a step back from applying to things simply because, “I won’t get it anyway, why waste time”, “There must be so many others applying for this, I stand no chance”. So really, it is fueled by the fear of me being rejected anyway, so why not make a nice list of it? This way if I don’t get it, I get to make my list bigger - win-win. Have you ever tried this challenge yourself, I’d love to hear how you’ve found it! I’m currently waiting to hear back from some applications to start adding to the list.

✨ Another goal I’ve set for myself, which is probably my main goal this year, is focusing on my publishing portfolio. I’ve recently enrolled in the Good Ship Illustration Picture Book Course, and will be utilising my time there to build up work for my portfolio to start sending out to Publishers (and maybe add to my Rejections list, you never know) BUT I’m staying positive, focusing on the process for the time being and just enjoying it. Yes, I am determined to enjoy myself this year, and not take every piece I work on so seriously. In fact here’s a widdle mouse, that was actually a result of a sketch gone wrong - but look! I made this little guy! (I was sketching polar bears, this bear however just looked a lot like my sneaky home-guest).

What to Watch out for

One of my biggest moves last year, was the shift to Substack. I’ve been trying to focus my time and energy on growing my community away from social media, and this platform just seemed to offer options and capabilities that would allow us all to interact on a more personal level. There’s the option of sharing and commenting which would make this newsletter less like a little Ted talk and more interactive. So yes, feel free to comment anything below - even just to say HI! And feel free to share this with anyone you think would be interested!

So you can expect more updates, stories and ramblings on here this year. And feel free to subscribe if you haven’t, to receive these posts directly into your inbox.

✨ Next month, I’ll be taking part in the Artists’ Bookmarket at the Fruitmarket Gallery again - and I’m so so excited to see all the lovely work from artists, and to meet all the lovely people there! This market was my first market experience last year, and I was honestly mindblown. The conversations, the feedback, the laughs made all the nerves and exhaustion so worth it! Here are some photos from last year’s event - eek can’t wait!

I’ll have a few returning products, along with a couple of new ones! That I am so excited to share!

That’s all from me for this update. I’ll be posting news as I go along, so see you soon! Oh and don’t forget to say hi! 🌻