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T minus 10 hours and counting

T minus 10 hours and counting published on No Comments on T minus 10 hours and counting

http://files.content.lettersandlight.org/nano-2012-beta/files/2012/09/Generic-180x180.jpgI love National Novel Writing Month, so much so that I have signed up for the challenge when I knew there would be no time, like that one year when we moved apartments in November.  I wrote 23 thousand words that year before the file got corrupted.

I hate to say it, but I won’t be signing up this year.  I will be devoting November to writing, mostly finishing in progress stories and editing first drafts, but I will not be crafting a new novel from scratch starting tomorrow.  I already miss the instant camaraderie of disembodied writers in motion.  So, I’m going to have to live through you this year.  Sign up to write a novel, send me the link to your NaNoWriMo profile and give me weekly updates.  I need this from you.  I need you.

If you are thinking about it, everyone else is too

If you are thinking about it, everyone else is too published on No Comments on If you are thinking about it, everyone else is too

Have you ever noticed the hive-mind?  You know, when you were just talking about some celebrity who’d been out of the news or some fictional character and suddenly the same name is mentioned on a talk show.  When five different movies are released based on the same premise of a long dead volcano bringing catastrophe to the country as we know it.  When your friends have just been saying that you should consider having a book made of your comics and then you read a news article about Print On Demand: Major Announcement Could Change How You Buy Books.

So instead of hiring a printing service where you are restricted to a batch no smaller than 50 at the cost of $200, there will be machines that you can take your print ready PDF to, or select a book from a list of available titles, and the machine will make a book for you.  This is some cool news.  I imagine it will be much easier than trying to exacto and glue bind your pages!

Ocean End

Ocean End published on No Comments on Ocean End

I was flipping through an art book and was inspired to place my little island of Ocean End (from my Penelope Sea story) on turtle’s back.  I’m trying to get myself jazzed about editing it.  And, illustrating it, since I always wanted it to be heavy with pictures.

New graphics tablet

New graphics tablet published on No Comments on New graphics tablet

Actually, my first graphics tablet.  I’m really not used to digital painting or anything like that.  I like pencils and pens.  But I’m trying out new things.  So here’s me playing around with a sketched out idea I had while writing Tattoo.

Penelope Sea

Penelope Sea published on No Comments on Penelope Sea

The first book I ever took a whack at, Penelope Sea and Ocean End, needs some massive editing.  I think I am just getting into the mood for that too. This is Penelope.

 

Planning out the challenges

Planning out the challenges published on 1 Comment on Planning out the challenges

Dunno if you’ve noticed, but I like to commit to crazy creative challenges.  I keep finding out about ones that have just passed without my knowlege (like hourly comics day).  So in an attempt to miss as few as possible, I’m planning.

Inktober – an ink drawing a day throughout October:  no pencils, no erasers.

24 hour comics day – registration open in June.  This was a crazy day to get through the first time I did it, but I ended up drawing a story I probably would never have come up with otherwise.

NaNoWriMo – November writing challenge.  I’ve signed up every year since I first heard about it in 2008.  I have only won twice.  There is something magical about having a quest, a goal, a crusade to throw yourself into the moment you get home from work.

Jason Turner Project or Page 100 – where you make a comic of the 100th page of a favorite book.  I was so excited about this I rushed to my book room to grab one of my childhood favorites and realized that I’ll probably have to re-read the thing in order to get it right.

Allison Lehman’s 30 Day drawing challenge – I was looking around for more challenges and I found this.  I like the list and the idea of compiling a challenge of one’s own.  So the months outside of October and November are prime for this.

Compulsion

Compulsion published on No Comments on Compulsion

At some point in time I read/heard this story.  I’m not sure where and I’ve been looking for it since, but it goes like this:

“a great and dedicated scholar dies and finds himself in a large and beautiful library.  He nearly faints in happiness as his eyes grope over the shelves before him, but when he reaches for a book he finds that he cannot dislodge it from the shelf.  Every book he reaches for is the same and eventually he is an exhausted mass of disappointment and frustration.  It is at this point that God appears to him and asks him how he is getting along.

He says, ‘This is more like a hell than heaven.  These are all the books I ever hoped to find but I cannot look at them.’

God nods knowingly and says, ‘that is because these are all the books you were supposed to write in your life.'”

Or something like that.  I’m not sure if you know, but I’m not really a very schmaltzy character and yet I have never been able to get this little story out of my mind.  Once I finished and bound a book of my own and mixed it into the other books on my shelves, the deal was sealed.  I suppose it may have been sealed long ago when stories constantly ran through my child mind and I first put some of them to paper.  Sigh–don’t have any of those anymore.  I was a paranoid little brat; destroyed them all.  Now, I must get the stories out, whether writing or drawing, but for everyone that is finished two more spring up in its place.

Finally Famous

Finally Famous published on No Comments on Finally Famous

I have a confession to make:  I went to college, I wrote poetry, I smoked clove cigarettes, worked in a music store, fancied myself a photographer, and took intro to psychology. All of the cliched college girl watchamacallit, I did it all, Losers!  I mean, sorry, I don’t think you’re losers…I just got carried away.  What was I saying?  Oh, yeah…and I found proof, so in the spirit of digital preservation, I scanned Finally Famous, in a way not befitting any real archive, so I could share it with you.

Toby Atticus Fraley, Public Art Installation

Toby Atticus Fraley, Public Art Installation published on No Comments on Toby Atticus Fraley, Public Art Installation

Toby Atticus Fraley, Public Art InstallationThere’s something that tickles me about bringing some fiction into reality, I want more of it.  I want to live in the town where Fraley’s Robot Repair shop warms the window of a vacant store shop:  Toby Atticus Fraley, Public Art Installation.  And, of course, when I saw this I immediately thought of the  Echo Park Time Travel Mart by 826LA — an equally fascinating idea by a non-profit writing and tutoring center.

National Novel Writing Month Done!

National Novel Writing Month Done! published on 1 Comment on National Novel Writing Month Done!

I did it, after two years of enough obstacles and sabotage to ruin my chances of winning–I have triumphed ONCE AGAIN!  That is, finally again after the first time in 2008.  I have completed a brand new novel of over 50,000 words in the month of November.  And what’s better–it’s not even another un-finished project.  It’s over, it’s done!  So, it’s really like a novella, but that’s ok because those cheesy 80s teen romances didn’t pack in a lot of verbiage anyway, and that’s what I was writing for.

It needs editing, granted, but man, I am so relieved that I could actually get to the end of something I put my nose to just for me.  I will rest well.  I will feel better and I will go on a date tomorrow.  And it’s good that this here particular challenge is done because I’m running out of the pages I drew up in my comics to stock this month.  Time to get back to the old stories.

From before:  Nanowrimo update

TomGauld.com « Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog

TomGauld.com « Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog published on No Comments on TomGauld.com « Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog

 

Very apropos comic for this month.  I have a poltergeist–what’s keeping you from writing?  Drawn!, by the by, is a fantastic blog.  And Tom Gauld is awesome.  I have to talk about the blogs I like on my blog now that Google reader doesn’t offer a shared posts thingy anymore.  Oh, Google plus will replace it or something but I’m not ready to go that social yet.

TomGauld.com « Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog.

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