My Daughter Has Been Doing Portraits of All My Writer Friends

Hey Everyone!I’ve been hitting you all with a lot of hard topics lately, so I thought I’d just have a moment of joy. As you all know, my daughter has been doing portraits of my writer friends. The above picture features Dana DuBois, Lawrence Winnerman, Arturo Dominguez, Shane Yirak, and Ellie Leonard.I’ve been using that cartoon version of me for quite some time. I think it’s funny because you can see how much my daughter has surpassed me in talent. Honestly, that brings me a tremendous sense of relief. The world has problems and we need people who are a whole lot more capable than I am! I’m so proud that I’ve helped to create two powerful and intelligent daughters!It’s so much fun to feature this kind of art in my work. For one thing, people are fed up with AI renderings. Those are everywhere and the lack of humanity takes the energy right out of me. I’d like to do what I can to transform all our feeds into displays of the kind of artwork you used to see in cubicles. Let’s interrupt our doom-scrolling by gazing upon the creations of children!I’m happy to report that since I started sharing these pictures, I’ve become inundated with requests. I’m trying not to overwhelm my daughter. She’s currently working on me, Nick Paro, Eric Lullove, and a few more. She loves doing this, but she also has to finish her homework!A couple of people have asked about sending tips and my response is to simply hold that thought. I talked it over with my wife, and we would prefer that she not use her name until at least after high school. When she turns 18, it’s up to her. But honestly, I think for the time being she’s best off being known as “Walter’s daughter.” We’ll start up a Substack for her at some point and people can request artwork. It’ll be a tip jar kind of scenario. In the meantime, if you want to see more of both of my daughters’ work, you can subscribe to their YouTube channel.Also, I keep talking about the two of them doing illustrations for our series of fairy novels. I have a couple of objectives with those books:* Publish them here on Substack* Do a print run that’s paid for by a Go Fund Me or somethingI don’t intend to use print-on-demand since the unit price means you can’t make anything on the books and they don’t sell anyway. The real objective is to get as many copies out in the wild as possible. Preselling is the only way to go. Great artwork helps.Here’s one of my daughter’s fairy drawings from about 5 years ago:I’m honestly having a lot of fun doing teasers for these fairy books. Some of you have already expressed interest in wanting to buy and read them and that makes me so happy! When I was growing up, we spent years waiting for every Star Wars episode, and part of the fun was the anticipation.I might try to get my kids to do the illustrations and then release them as a calendar or something. That way you can all look at the scenes and wonder what’s going to happen and that will be the best advertising campaign that I can imagine.Essentially at this point, I’ve completely given up on the traditional publishing industry. I’d much prefer to use my creativity to come up with ways to generate interest rather than send it off to some platform that’s owned by oligarchs and only interested in making money. The more I can involve my kids in this process, the happier it makes me!If you want to get on the list for a drawing from my daughter, fill in this form.If you want to send her a tip, the best way is to use my Ko-Fi and then just leave a note saying “This is for your daughter” and I’ll get it to her.The name of my newsletter is “I’d rather be writing” because I created it to have fun, creative discussions to help empower other writers. Unfortunately, we have been stuck fighting white supremacy for the last… well, 400 years. But I keep hoping that good times will come and we can dedicate all our energy to creative pursuits.I’ll keep fighting white supremacy, but we can’t wait for the world to be perfect before we allow ourselves to be happy and do the things that we love. The more I learn and the more people I reach, the more empowered I become to help others. Maybe 10 years from now my daughters and I will be running a publishing house of our own creation. That’s a nice dream!I honestly feel that if a few more disinterested dads could be persuaded to spend a few minutes a day reading my fairy novels to their kids, we’d be well on our way to a much happier world!Thanks for being a part of this grand adventure!Upgrade at 30% off / Upgrade at 40% off / Upgrade at 50% off / Upgrade at 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe