Checking in from the Warren

Greetings, Wingfeather friends!I've been on the road quite a bit lately, and with spring in full swing at the Warren there's been no shortage of things to do. One of the residual benefits of my newly built Chapter House is that my computer stays out there in the evenings, mainly because I'm too lazy to put my flip-flops on and go get it after dinner. That means I'm not as distracted by the siren call of the laptop in the evenings when I ought to be hanging with the family--but it also means that posts on all forms of social media are a bit more sporadic.The good news is, we've made about ten jars of strawberry jam, and the bees are going bonkers in their four hives. The kale and romaine lettuce are healthy, the pumpkins and watermelon I started from seeds are growing, I spread the composted chicken poop on the garden yesterday and planted my tomato seedlings, and we have lots of grapes, blueberries, peaches, and two nectarines growing steadily.The bad news is the thwaps. In our world we call them "squirrels." They eat Moondog's food. The eat his plastic food bin. They eat my strawberries. They eat my apples and peaches. They are evil and they must be stopped. I'll spare you the gory details, but this morning I stopped one cold. If you're a thwap-squirrel and you're reading this blog, spread the word that the Warren is no place for you.As for the Wingfeather Saga, I'm happy to report that there are things happening. Today I'm sending emails to all the authors and artists involved in the Wingfeather Tales book in order to begin the process of nailing down their ideas for stories. Chris Wall has been working hard in the background making contact with visual artists and animators. We're finalizing the budget so we can know exactly how much we have to spend on the actual film vs. the many awesome Kickstarter rewards we aim to create. I'm also beginning the process of creating a "Wingfeather Manifesto," for lack of a better name, which basically means creating a document that articulates the main story beats for each of the four books--the parts that absolutely must not change when we adapt the books to a visual medium. As you know, telling a story visually is very different from a book, and there are lots of fun opportunities to go deeper into the Wingfeather world with this film series. However, with a team of people there are way more opportunities for the story to go off the rails. Hopefully this document will be something we can point to that will keep everybody on the same page. Whew! As you can see, we have our work cut out for us, so I'd better get back to it.Big thanks to Librarian Sidler for her great work keeping things going here! She is mysterious, but ever so helpful.AP