Recommended reading

Now, pulled from the pile of recently devoured fiction, comes my first recommended reading list of the year!
I read a lot, probably far too much (if my gradeschool English teachers are to be believed). Since I've been working at a bookstore, in particular, the temptation to read is pretty constant-- and the little intermediary cracks of time during work do present themselves so seductively.
Here are just a few titles that I consider the best of what I've read in the past couple of months, accompanied by a very brief synopsis that will hopefully prove both sufficient and intriguing. Enjoy, good reader, enjoy.



Illustration: 'DolPhinnaeus'. Ink on Bristol. 

A solid wall

Sometimes, it's just so much easier to write to an audience. Even if it's just a theoretical audience, as on a blog like this.
I've been working on trying to knock out a decent word count every day. This is hard. Very hard. I second guess myself constantly. I have little training as a writer, and I fear I'm doing everything incorrectly, missing some mystical rule of grammar or pacing that I need classes, workshops, or other writers in order to learn.
I know that in order to succeed as a writer, I need to write a great deal. Finish many, many stories and send them away to many, many places to even have a slim hope for acceptance.
Often, it's easier to just ignore this need to work on writing, and just draw. Obviously, this is important too. I'm far from perfect as an illustrator, and I need to work hard and build up my portfolio. But I know when I'm using it to hide from my writing as well.
I have quite a few finished illustrations, but almost no finished, polished, ready to send stories. I know that I need to take the advice of Cory Doctorow (et al.) and just set aside a concrete period of time each day during which to do it. Every day. Without fail. Or, if failing, at least set a word count to achieve before allowing myself sleep.
So.
Why am I having so much difficulty doing either?


I keep telling myself that a different setting will help. And maybe it will.  I think wistfully if the days when I was fully unemployed (and still got nothing done during the day). I don't think anything will help more than just sitting down and forcing myself to get to it, but I balk. I know fewer of the rules of writing. I fear rejection in writing more, because I've yet to find any sort of acceptance in it. Will it be easier once I do? Or will I worry about having produced a fluke, something I'll never live up to again?
I think of joining a writer's group, but then balk. I'm never the most social of people anyway, and the thought of reading my work for the sake of critique in a group is intimidating. Also, I've been unsuccessful in finding local writer's groups that cater to my perticular interests and are also still accepting members.
I think about sharing my work online, but then I worry too much about the possibility of theft and plagiarism.
And thus I've written yet another blog entry about having difficulty making work, and without actually posting anything of artist substance or interest.

Roadtrip

  We spent Monday driving to Pittsburgh and back. To pick up a letterpress.
Evan had been searching all over the internet for one, his interest mostly academic. He bemoaned their sudden steep rise in popularity, which had more than tripled their standard asking price over the past few years. He browsed and inquired and researched. And then, last Saturday, he accidentally purchased one.

  He confronted me with the news when he picked me up from work on Saturday night. He'd made a low bid on a 5 x 8" press of decent quality on eBay, and had been shocked to receive the email notifying him that he had won. It needed some cleaning, some new springs, and the rollers needed to be recoated, but otherwise is was in good condition. We just had to drive to Pittsburgh to pick it up (that, or pay to ship a 126-pound press. Driving was much cheaper).

  This thing is amazing. We drove nearly ten hours straight (roundtrip) to pick it up. Everything West of the Appalachians was encompassed in a blizzard both ways, so that when we returned home our car was caked and streaked in salt. But we made it, picking up the press from a quiet Pennsylvanian man in his Ford pickup, who waited patiently for us in the snow.
Now it sits behind me. We haven't gotten down to cleaning it yet, we have a lot of lemon juice and vinegar to acquire for that. But it will come. And we have our own press.

  Books, bookplates, business cards... One of the first projects I plan to tackle is to finally design and print my own deck of cards, something I've been meaning to do for years now. Expect updates on press process, as well as art updates of my progress. I've been lax in uploading art here lately, I know. I do most of my internet-ing on my Eee PC now, and most of my art-ing on my Mac--meaning that I need to get considerably less lazy to get things up here.
My DeviantArt account has been getting rather more love.

Minutia

With the overwhelming retail workload of late, I've had little time for anything else. I arrive home from work exhausted, drained, often demoralized, and want little else but to divert myself via the contents of a novel or a video game. Art and writing have been creaking along at sub-glacial speeds. Email and twitter are ignored. Blogs go unread.
So I have little of real interest to share here, except a journaling of some of the more diverting occurrences of the past week.

A photograph of a mug, taken in Hessler St., Cleveland, with my phone. Several years old. I was trying to pick up the delicate traceries of the spider-webs, though the lighting on the mug itself ended up being the more fascinating aspect.
Posting it because I feel it's appropriate.

A troublesome customer (how it should have gone).

    I glanced up at the clock on the monitor. It was fifteen minutes into my break, and I still had filing to do behind the register before I could take off. My replacement had arrived on time, but the constant stream of customers had kept me pinned behind the desk. Now the line had dwindled to three people, two of them apparently a couple. I finished helping the customer in front of me, then turned to the other cashier.
    "My break started 15 minutes ago, so I'm going to take off now. Do you think you can handle this on your own?" She smiled and nodded at me. "Awesome. Where was that binder? I have a donation sticker."
    "Wait a minute," Interjected the next customer in line, an elderly woman standing with her husband, two slim volumes balanced upon her palms. "I have to wait now because she wants to take a break?" She turned to her husband, the look on her face self-righteous affront.
    "I'm sorry, but I've been here a long time..." I began.
    "She's been here a long time! As if I haven't!"  The customer in front of her seemed to be nearly finished with her business, but I called for backup anyway.
    "Look, I've called backup. Someone else should be here shortly. But I really can't help you, I need to go. And I think you need to calm down and be a little more considerate of others." I took down the donation binder that my coworker had indicated, and began recording the sale.
    "I'm the customer!" She was close to yelling now, and I was having difficulty maintaining a smile-- I'm sure it looked strained.
    "Yes? And?"
    "Your customer service is awful! I can't believe you treat people this way!" She turned back to her husband, who had taken to throwing sarcastic jibes at me between her outbursts. "Can you believe this? She must really not like this job!"
    The implied threat is what did it for me. I returned the binder to the shelf, and approached the register. My coworker was trying to mollify the irrate woman, telling her that I had called for backup.
    "Well, she didn't tell me that!" Was the customer's huffed response.
    "I see that I've been wrong," I said calmly. "I didn't realize how much more important your schedule was than mine. It's true that I'm rather behind on taking my medication, but since your time is so valuable I can put that off a little longer. Surely nothing bad will happen."
    "Well, finally!" The customer trounced over to the counter, angrily dumping her books in front of the scanner. I keyed my employee code into the register, then leaned across the counter to for her purchase. As soon as she was in range, I twitched the specialized muscle in the corner of my eye, causing the vessel there to burst.
    Jets of blood shot from my eyes, hitting the customer squarely in the face. She began screaming and stumbling backwards, flailing into other customers, who were backing away themselves. With a quick thumb's-up to my grinning coworker, I clutched my hands to my still-bleeding eyes and staggered out from behind the register. Headed up the escalator and towards the breakroom, I made sure to mutter "Oh gods, oh gods..." whenever a customer approached, for effect.
    Only three people stopped me to request directions, making it the most effective aversionary tactic I have yet devised.

Employment

So I have a job again. A seasonal position as a bookseller for Borders, which is obviously not ideal, but certainly better than nothing. After Office Depot, I had forsworn ever working retail again... though tough times obviously call for doing things you'd rather not. 
But at least it's a book store, and so far everyone I've met there has been really nice (and in some cases, quite pleasingly zany :) ). Being out of Reston and dealing in products rather than services, I think this is going to end up being 50x less stressful than OD was, as well. Despite this being the holiday season. Let's hope time proves me right.
The other advantage of this job is that it dovetails really nicely with my biannual graphic design contract, which happens every early spring and late summer. If they like me well enough at Borders, perhaps I can keep swinging back and forth between the two jobs (working summer and holiday seasonal) until something more permanent comes along. Sure, Borders only pays about 1/3 of what ASET does... but it's more than 0, and admittedly the majority of my entertainment spending goes towards books anyhow. Getting a consistent 33% off of those purchases will be amazing.

In the meantime, I keep drawing and writing. Submitting to magazines and contests. Further successes will, of course, be reported here. :)

Happy Hallowe'en, GUD-monster style!

"Be careful your clockwork doesn't run down." monster:  You're the robot from Darby Larson's Electroencephalography in Issue 1. You were built by Dean's family to help around the house, but it seems you don't take orders too well. You do take other things, though. Like hearts. What GUD Monster are you?  Find out at GUD Magazine!

I have spent the past week working on the illustrations for this quiz.  I ended up pouring in more time than I had intended, but the cause (promoting GUD Magazine) is good, and I really enjoyed doing it!  Sometimes, it's incredibly nice having inspiration placed in front of you. :)
I encourage you to take the quiz. It's quick, amusing, and links you to both my art, and some excellent writing.  The monsters are also quite strange and creepy (not your usual Hallowe'en fare, these!)

There are also ten different possible outcomes, so you might want to take it more than once. ;)

Where the writing goes.

For anyone who has been following my blog for a long, long time, there might be some recollection of my having once posted snippets of short fiction on here as well.  I stopped doing that a while ago, frightened by the prospect of having my work stolen (something that is easier to do, and more difficult to prove with words than it is with imargery).  But I have no ceased writing!  Since finishing my six thesis books, I have continued to write short ficiton for myself.
Emboldened by my recent visibility on GUD Magazine's blog, I am beginning to submit some of them to contests and literary magazines. 

First up is Nanoism's December five-part twitter serial contest.  I'm posting about it here for three reasons!
a.) So that you know about this magazine, because it's awesome and because there is a chance I might be in it! 
b.) Because, as an incentive, they allow you to submit two different stories if you mention the contest! 
And
c.) This is a nifty contest, and a really cool little magazine, and you should submit!  Yes you!  Whoever you are, send them something and make it good!  They make it very simple to do so.
The deadline is October 31st, and winners will be published in December.

Second, I am also submitting to Fantasy Magazine's Halloween flash fiction contest.  Flash fiction is good for me.  It forces me to be succint, to have an entire story arc in mind when I begin, and to actually finish the thing.  1,000 words is also a pretty good goal for a single day of writing. 
This contest is particularly good because the premise requires that a graphic be paired with the story, as the inspiration, and I can make my own.  Thus, it gives me a possible venue for showing my art as well: two-for-one!
The deadline is October 16th, so get to work!

Blogging!

So I just wrote a guest post for GUD Magazine's blog!  It's on the topic of banned books, and is a belated post in recognition of the ALA's 'Banned books week' several weeks ago.  Check it out!
And while you're there, be sure to take a look around the site.  GUD's an excellent literary magazine, and the freebies there alone are enough to be worth your while.  Plus, they've recently gotten a whole slew of honorable mentions from 'The Year's best horror'.  I have three of their issues, and I've been enormously impressed by everything I've seen an read of them.  They have some great editors, and a lot of diversity in what they publish.  Definitely worth keeping an eye on. 

My brain is getting in the way of thinking.

I have difficulty working with music or sound around me.  Or rather, I have difficulty conceptualizing... once a sketch is down and I'm onto the grunt work of rendering, I can listen to anything.  This is something I am just realizing.

Despite five years of art college, it took until now for me to recognize this pattern in myself.  I honestly thought that the reason I tended to do most of my work in silence was because I was too lazy to turn on music, or an audio book until I was several hours deep into a project.  I also though that the reason that I didn't like spending time in the noisy Print studio at school was because I am antisocial. 

It took until I was living with Evan full-time, working in the same studio space as him for the problem to truly surface.  He loves music, and works best with his MP3 collection, a podcast, or an internet radio station playing in the background.  He does a lot of insanely tedious work for a graphic design firm, so he seriously needs it.

I know why this is, too.  I have Asperger's Syndrome (as I've probably mentioned before) and tend to automatically visualize everything.  If there is a music track playing, my mind is working to visually map that song, with colour, imagery, and geometric shapes.  If someone's speaking, my mind is creating a tableau based on whatever they're talking about, overlaid with a running transcript written in a pleasing serif font.  This ties in with the synesthesia so common in us Aspies, apparrently.  Also, sometimes I just hallucinate stuff, for no other good reason!  My brain does not like to think that I am lonely.

The net effect of this sort of all of this?  I become almost blind when there's too much sound going on around me.  I'm seeing what I'm hearing, and I'm finding it almost impossible to focus on whatever is in front of me.  So even if I'm doing fine, inking and listening to music, someone talking to me over that can make my entire workspace go invisible. 
I love working in coffee shops, because they remove me from the constant temptation of internet time-wastage, while also getting me out of the house.  This is where I write best.  Unless it is too loud there. This is highly frustrating.

The best solution I can think of is to find myself a quiet, private place to get started on my work in.  Where that is, I have no clue, as I live in a townhouse with no backyard to speak of.  Anyone else out there with similar issues, and perhaps suggestions?