A few impending things...

These next few months are going to be pretty exciting for me. The next issue of Steampunk Magazine is coming out soon (with two of my illustrations in it)!
And I've managed to nab the job of illustrating the cover of Crossed Genres' July edition, themed 'Lies'. I am so excited about this. Cover art is something I've been wanting to do, and Crossed Genres happens to be a truly excellent publication that I really respect, both for its past art and literary content, and also for its imaginative method of running.

My biannual graphic design contract is edging closer, which will mean a lot less dealing with grump customers and a lot more feeling like I'm actually in my depth.

Illustration:
'Basking in Lamplight'
3" x 5" Watercolour and graphite, sketch
February 2010

A catalogue of recent personal events.

     This has been a pretty crazy month for those of us living on the mid East coast. The Maryland/DC/Northern Virginia area is used to experiencing, at most, perhaps a handful of days each year in which snow of in any volume touches the ground. Much more common, particularly in VA, are ice-overs-- ice up to an inch thick covering everything in a glittering shell, making even walking treacherous and causing tree limbs to crack with a sound like gunshots. Even this never lasts long, and rarely bought us more than a 2-hour delay from school.
     This year has been record-breaking, dumping impassible amounts of snow in December, and then twice in the same week in February. Following two years in a row of unusually wet summers and an early fall, it's getting pretty obvious that global climate change is really moving in on us. The accompanying photo is of the Annapolis harbor, filled with ice floes. Ice floes in the Chesapeake bay, folks.
   
     There was a week and a half where I didn't go to work at all, each time I was scheduled being either in the middle of a Blizzard or directly after. I did get rather a bit accomplished, however. I completed two illustrations for the next issue of Steampunk Magazine, one for an interview with the marvelous band Sunday Driver, and another for an article on Steampunk belly dancing.
    I also joined the artistic team for the delightfully progressive cyperpunk litzine The Future Fire, which I cannot wait to make work for. Good stuff, all.

    And then! I finally bought up my domain name again, having broken off with godaddy over its abyssmal regard for privacy (handing out my info to shady web design firms and hosts) and terrible ads (sexist hogwash, of course). So I have it again, and my professional portfolio is sitting upon it! Thank to deviantArt, and their webtools for lazy artists.
     And more than that, I have designed and ordered myself some business cards! Adorable, mini business cards from zazzle. They will be awesome, and I will finally be able to hand out my info with as much ease as Evan does. Excitement.

And so I have been up to things, oh yes. Art and writing, too.
Posting of some of these things in the near future.
    

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.

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. :)