With a little help from my friends

Hi all!

Hope this email finds you well and fresh! Here, I’m working from a room with all the windows covered with survival blankets, so I’m doing the best I can.

I’m slowly editing the 2nd draft of my next book. The story is set in nature, and while I’m not naming a specific place, I want it to be somewhat believable and to mention plant and animal species that would be found in the same habitat. Luckily, I have a biologist in the family. I am allowed to send her random audio messages in the middle of the day, asking what about beetles, and she is (surprisingly) happy to answer.

Anyway, the other day I was writing a scene where two characters walk in the forest, and one is afraid a wolf will attack them. My cousin said:

To an animal with extremely keen senses, our footsteps and our breathing are like a minor earthquake. They can hear us from kilometres away and won’t stick around to find out what it is.

It never occurred to me that we sound that loud! This sentence was so perfect, I transcribed it directly into my dialogue.

On other work news, I’m making lyric videos! Nicolau will be releasing the songs from our theatre play Dois Ratos, and I decided it would be cool to make videos too, with very simple animations:

Except I don’t know much about animation. I had to learn Adobe After Effects from scratch, on YouTube. My flatmate, who is an accomplished animator, tried to teach me how to animate a mouse’s tail and my brain almost broke. I unlocked a new respect for the art (I’m sorry animators, I didn’t have it before). I can’t say I fully succeeded, but it’s better than in my first tries:

So happy to have people around me willing to give me a little help. I’m ending this email with that Beatles song in my head.

See you soon,
Joana