Much Love - Ander Sarabia relaunches his portfolio, Justin Cornell's sketchbooks are up for sale and more!

On this rather auspicious day, I thought I'd focus on spreading the love, and show off some of the amazing things my friends have been working on.

Ander Sarabia, the amazingly talented artist from across the ocean, the Bilbao-based illustrator of any writer's dreams who I collaborated with on "A Change is Gonna Come," and am currently logging time with for our next short subject comic, "VHS Generation," recently did a soft relaunch/makeover of his blog/art website/portfolio over at andersarabia.blogspot.com. Along with giving the site a completely new look, he's also added loads of content that wasn't up before, making it impossible to not be impressed by his sheer talent and versatility once you've seen how many different kinds of things he's actually done.

Plus, Ander's uncovered a neat trick, what I assume is one of the many new and as of yet not much heralded features of blogspot's new additions to the service. So if you hit this link you can see his whole body of work in Google's flipcard layout, a design feature that effectively turns his blog into an actual online art portfolio, in a style that, at least to me, seems to make way more sense and have way less clutter than the various DeviantArt-style sites I've come to know. If you're an artist, and don't know about it, check it out, and hell, if you just want to see all of Ander's stuff laid right out there at your beck and call, definitely give it a click.

Now, Ander and I haven't known each other for crazy-long yet, and when we've talked, it's mostly been shop-talk, or pleasant and hilarious reminiscing about the 80s and 90s, so even I was surprised at some of the work he's done before. Some select panels from "Change" are also featured over there, along with a shout-out to yours truly and some gracious linkage, which I am greatly flattered by. I know from working with a lot of artists that the portfolio is an artist's best foot forward kind of thing, and consider part of the work we did together getting included a great honor.

Ander has been crazy-busy lately with various projects [including working with the oft-linked mad scientist Eric Esquivel], but like the good friend he is, he's always made time for a little email chat with me, despite the time difference and his hectic schedule. I've been so happy with the work we've done together so far, and I'm really looking forward to doing more in the future, and I wanted everyone to see his new internet digs as it were. I think it's turned out great, and really reflects him, and his work, well.

---

Now, I linked this once before about a month back, but Justin Cornell, my good friend and partner-in-crime on "Calamity Cash and the Town with No Name," is selling his first sketchbook, and the first copies have just come hot off the press. Mine arrived the other day, and it really looks great, the printing is tip-top, and I've never seen a sketchbook with such a wide and varied amount of subject matter within from all over the annals of pop culture. Ever wanted to witness Buffy staking Edward Cullen? Ever think you'd turn a page and see portraits of Charles Bronson and Nikola Tesla next to each other? Well, in Justin's "Sketchbook Ho!" you can see all that, a whole lot more.

You can order the book here from Justin's website, and it's a hefty 40+ page monster of an art book for only $12.00, American [though no worries, his shop is through Paypal, so if you're not currently using American currency you can still get one]. For another ten smackers you can get Justin to do a custom sketch in yours, literally anything you want [after all, when it comes to pop culture, Justin is the king of the obscure], and even if you don't order the sketch, all books are signed and numbered by the artist himself.

And don't forget, this is the same model Justin and I will probably be released "Calamity Cash," so all orders made won't just get you a great sketchbook, but will also help with our next project too, along with future Mojo Wire and Vanderhuge Studios productions. But, and I'm not playing pitch man at all here [okay, a little, but these are awesome], supply is limited, and I'm fairly certain when Justin runs out, there's no plan for a second print run. So cliche though it may sound, if you want one, your safest bet is to order now.

---

There are a few other things of note, including Zoe Chevat's recent post to her own blog - a color and movement test entitled "Mr. Pidge" for her thesis project "Beastly Things." Zoe's an amazingly talented animator currently studying at the super-prestigious CalArts, and as she's always working, it's rare we get the pleasure of seeing some of her moving picture antics, and this 20 second clip is just amazing. I know just for me personally, it's hard not to get that same tingle I felt as a child, having Tex Avery explain the animation process to me on television, only to see today that my friend, someone I used to discuss short fiction with, doing exactly the same thing herself [well, okay, not exactly the same thing. I imagine there's probably a bit nuance to different animation styles, and some considerable technological changes since the Avery days, but... Moving! Pictures! Cartoons! Is there anything better?]

It's absolutely lovely and worth a look, and I only wish I could call CalArts and yell at her instructors to stop working her so damn hard, so she could post more wonderful things like this for the rest of us to see.

Of course, there's always after graduation...

Zoe's also been doing some writing for The Mary Sue, a Geek Girl Culture-specific blog, which I can't recommend enough.

Finally, last but not least, as they say, a little something from my buddy John Wiswell dropped over the weekend, which I feel like I'd be remiss if I didn't link. Now, usually, John's daily awesomeness over on his Bathroom Monologues site gets coverage from me on Twitter, but to give myself a bit of break, and also because I don't always get to my RSS reader then, I haven't been doing links over the weekends. But recently, he posted a short piece called "The Wrestler in Black," which not only did I find to be exceptional, but that I was just really glad he got to do as, it seems sometimes, as writers, so rarely do we get to feature what some might consider our "fringe interests." I found this to be highly entertaining, and one of my favorite stories of his in a long time, which, with the sheer amount of quality material John puts out, is really saying something.

I hope everyone enjoys. I realize my postings have been kind of sporadic lately, and as much as I'd like to say otherwise, I don't know if that's going to change. I've been really swamped with work lately, and sort of just cramming creative stuff into whatever free moments I've had. Not all of that cramming has been exactly productive, but just getting it in is an accomplishment, and I haven't really had time to come back and touch base here as it concerns some of my current or new ideas. It's a problem because, as ridiculous as it may sound, having the time to take a minute, collect my thoughts, and put down what I've been up to here helps my process and my output greatly, but there just hasn't been time. Nevertheless look for an update later in the week, specifically about a couple of things I've been working on lately, along with a little news about a really cool freelance gig I've taken on for a friend and family member.

More soon.

They're all doomed.

Haven't slept. I'd be less bothered by it, but I felt like crap the majority of the day, and just when I thought I might catch some zzz's I started feeling a touch better and got momentarily productive.

Speaking of productivity, Justin finished another comic page recently [re: Calamity Cash and the Town with No Name], and you can see the rest of the sketch I've posted part of here over on his blog. He's really in the thick of the book's action now, and has been making my sub-par action writing look really dynamic on the page. I haven't gotten to see the whole page yet - Justin's been swamped, as usual, and I haven't exactly been lucid during regular business hours as of late. I'm sure we'll fix that soon.

I haven't been getting out much, and I think it's starting to worry me a little. There hasn't been much in the way of "fun" on my calendar in a while, something that's easier to forget when the work's there. And the work has been there, between finally working out my book review scheduling, and spending a couple hours each night on the current short [re: The Tagalong]. I've gotten some really encouraging feedback already, and have been tweaking this and that, occasionally dropping back to 19 pages, and then finding myself back at 20. It's the usual song and dance for me, delete, undo, then rewrite, copy, undo, paste. I don't know if I could have ever been a typewriter guy.

Sorry, Hunter.

Still, making headway, and might be finished with this one way ahead of schedule. Probably going to make "Walks with Angels" my next project, in hopes to get one more short script in the bag as quickly as possible. "Angels" is a weird script, my take on adaptation and biopic, without actually making either one, and if I wanted finishing it could be a really easy job as - full disclosure - it's already technically written. Right now, I have five pages, a sort of shortest-of-the-shorts, something that I think could be really useful to have in my portfolio. But...

In a weird sort of way, I'm not sure anymore if "Walks with Angels" should be a movie script, especially since, reading it recently, I noticed the tone was a bit more in line with the two comics I did with Ander [re: "A Change is Gonna Come" and the current project "VHS Generation"]. It has a lot of the same feel, a real 90s touch to it, and plus I've always seen it in my head as more of long comic than a short movie. Still, I've already written it as one, and would like to have it polished, and would like to have it to send places as a five-minute-movie, so...

Maybe I'll do it as both. It's against my principles, all told, as I've always thought comics are already treated too derivatively when their ideas are used interchangeable with movies. It misses the point, I think, and neglects the fact that with every story, there's a perfect medium to tell it in. Plus, I find people who talk about comics in movie terms to be pretty self-hating, and I can't stand that.

I tend to stress pretty hard over whether or not I'm telling a story in the wrong way, in the wrong medium, so I guess at worst I could just call this experimentation. If the subject matter of "Walks with Angels" wasn't so short and well-known, I might even be able to figure out a way to make the two different versions unique to one another, but... not sure if that's possible, not sure if, story-wise, there'd be much chance to focus on one thing more than another in the different versions. I'll have to think about that. And remember what Moore said - that comics, essentially, are about the reader taking his or her own time with things.

We'll have to wait and see on that. If I do both, it'll be interesting to see how they differ. Not sure how I'll make the judgment which is better. One of those times when I'll just have to trust myself... assume that, if I'm really good at what I do, I'll make the right decision. And if I'm not good, well, it won't much matter what medium a crappy story works better in.

Unrelated to any of this, I went on a little rant the other day on Twitter, thought I'd put it here too. Felt like something I wanted to say to everyone at the time, now it just feels like something I don't want to lose forever in the impermanence of micro-blogging. So here it is. "Enjoy."

I have always been a big proponent of bitching about burdens. People who silently shoulder shit just because they think its noble bug me. This is, ultimately, immaturity on my part. Because when I would preach that, I had never realized there are burdens that if people know you have, it can hurt them. Worry them unnecessarily. Think about that person you know who cares so much that if, say, you mention sideways your stomach's upset, dinner plans change. The whole day changes. Suddenly, you've slyly been tricked into taking it easy. And taking it easy is rad. But sometimes you need to get things done. Even if you have a headache, or a stomach ache. You just deal with it, because it's not as major as you made it sound. And I always saw bitching as a nice way to taper that. Oy, I don't want to do this in this condition but I will. It made me feel better. It, apparently, scares the shit out of people. Hang-ups take precedent over the tasks at hand. Why? Because people are generally pretty kind. To the folks that folks give a shit about. Everyone gets solution oriented. Forget some things just need to be weathered. But you don't explain to someone their kindness is wrong. Eventually, you shut your damn trap about the complicated things. It is actually kind of ridiculous, if you think about it. Like in space movies, when one person knows something is broken, but to not worry the other person about it, they keep their mouth shut, try to fix it. In those instances, things go horribly wrong, guy who was doing the nice thing gets sucked out into space through a crack in the hull. Real life's not so different. More cracks maybe. Takes a little longer to wind up in the abyss. I guess my point is, sometimes you can't bitch about your burdens. But if you can, I encourage it. Wholeheartedly.

---

Finally, I wanted to share something I should have put up a link up here to right away - it was one of those things where what it's saying is really important and worthwhile, and how it's saying it is really skillful and lovely, and because of that it has to be looked at. But on a more personal level, it's just one of those articles that said some things I really needed to hear when I read it, perhaps more than I even realized. So without further ado, here's Kimberly Kaye over on her blog "The Trouble with Poet" with "On Creative Vampires (A Letter About The People Who'll Suck You Dry Through Two Holes if You Let Them)."

Can't recommend that enough to all my fellow writers, and any other creative-types who may be reading this. And thank you, Miss Kaye.

Esquivel/Sarabia [Black] Terror Campaign, Postcards from Afar [Key West & Vienna]

First up, a bit of a favor.


This will actually seem kind of silly on my part, since Eric already has far more online/comic book community exposure than I do, but I wanted to take a minute and encourage everyone reading to chip in. I mentioned earlier that Eric M. Esquivel [of Modern Mythology fame] was working with Ander Sarabia [my Bilbao-based collaborator on the short comics "A Change is Gonna Come" and the currently in-production "VHS Generation"] on a comic themselves, a sort of Earth-2 take on the public domain super hero property "The Black Terror." The Terror's been around since the early 1940s, and has numerous fans all over the globe, one of whom turns out to be the Image Comics guru and creator of the Savage Dragon, Erik Larsen.

Larsen came across Eric's post about working on a Black Terror book [actually, a couple of them, which you can read about here] and was naturally interested in the idea, so much so that Eric was able to send him a copy. Now let's face it, Eric and Ander are both so wildly talented there's no doubt Larsen's going to love the book, so all they really need from us is a little grassroots movement for the project. Go and check out the Facebook page/event here, along with with Eric's Larsen-tagged plea for all our support, and most importantly don't forget to let Erik Larsen himself know that you'd be willing to plunk down a mere 3 dollars if Image was willing to publish their Black Terror one-shot -- which in the age of the internet is easy to do, as Mr. Larsen has a Facebook account and, perhaps more enticing, is on Twitter. Which means all you need to do is compose a little 140 character message to @erikjlarsen, and let him know that the Esquivel/Sarabia Black Terror comic is something you'd want to have on your pull list.

Everyone's pretty well aware how fond I am of Ander, both knowing and working with him, and if you check this place regularly you've even gotten to see some of the work he's done with yours truly on the non-super-hero end of things. And while I've never had the pleasure of working or collaborating with Eric [something I hope we can fix some day], I can attest that he is a talented, passionate dude, and even though I've never met him face to face, I am honored to consider him a friend, and when I'm feeling full of myself, a peer. So the work is good. Trust me. Now help generate some buzz so the whole direct market can find that out.

Remember - that's @erikjlarsen on Twitter.

---

Other things. I've actually been sitting on this postcard from my friend Ally a little too long. Back in the post-Christmas season, she went on a long, coastal getaway, and no doubt because she saw my promise to put any postcard I received up on my blog [or maybe just because she's kind of fond of me], she dropped me this postcard of Hemingway House in Key West.


I found this note on the back particularly stirring, as I imagine any writer worth their salt probably would:


"Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to be hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt, use it-don't cheat with it."

--Ernest Hemingway

Words to live by. And eventually, in old Hemingway's case, die by too. But let's stay upbeat. Thank you, Ally. I really appreciate being thought of. Especially in the context of Ernest Hemingway [I'm just not cool enough yet to not be flattered by the association].

Ally, along with going to grad school, attending nearly every con on the East Coast, also runs an excellent news site which covers all things geek -- from comics, to movies, to horror -- appropriately titled "Geeking Ally." Go check that out too.


This one I'm more on the ball with -- it just came in the mail a couple of days ago from my friend Jesselyn. She's been teaching Paris, but in her spare time has been making good use of the amazing travel opportunities over in Europe. This amazing piece of architecture [which is so detailed my bargain scanner needed almost 3x the usual among of time to scan] is St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, which, well... I don't think a lot of people know this, I don't think Jesselyn did, but for an atheist, I'm a really sucker for a beautiful church. I've always loved the colors on this one, and remember, in my short stint as a calendar shill, looking at this picture in lieu of working... well, most days.

Jesselyn managed to get more on the back of postcard than anyone has... well, ever, and her passion for the place, and the history of it, just everything, absolutely shines through in her letter. That she was willing to share that with me was very touching, so much so that I'm keeping the message to myself [I swear it's not just because I don't want to transcribe it], but I will say nothing makes a person more fabulous than note starting with "I am sitting in a café in Vienna..."

Also, it was addressed to "Herr Randall Nichols." So cool.

Thank you, Jesselyn. It's means a great deal.

Been doing a lot of notes for the roller derby script [re: "Mary Hobb"], and may have gotten a bead on at least one person involved in derby to talk to about it. If you know any one else who'd be up for talking [or if you've found this site, and are involved in derby and would be willing to talk to me], make sure to let me know.

Right now, I've actually got a pretty solid beginning and ending for the script, and an outline which covers all the high points. I think the hard part, the thing that's kept me from getting started right out of the gate is how many characters I'm going to have to juggle for this. As is, only two characters have names, and only one of them is actually on the derby team... really, I'm looking at something in the way of 10-13 different girls. Now obviously only a handful of those will be what you'd consider "main characters," but I'd like them all to unique, and not just set pieces. Lot of that will end up getting done when I'm finished, of course, but I'd like everyone to have names.

Probably worried for nothing. Having that outline makes this all feel pretty solid, and real.

On Writing: The Space Between

Bit of a repose for me.

Part of it was wanting to give "New Hooverville" some time at the top of the page [if you haven't read it yet, I'd really appreciate it if you'd go check it out]. It took roughly a year to get to this point, and the urge was pretty strong to let it ride as the first thing people see when they come to the blog, and I even contemplated just leaving it up all week, uninterrupted from any off-topic dithering from yours truly. But I've been getting a surge in visitors as of late, mostly thanks to Kimberly Kaye being kind enough to link me in the sidebar of her blog [for the rest of you who do this, know I appreciate it from you too -- Kaye's link, though, for some reason, has been keeping me in steady referrals for the past two weeks, many of them looking like return visits -- which is rare for me], and when being looked at there is naturally a pretty strong urge to perform and produce. Which is actually what I wanted to talk a bit about.

I'm in a strange place with my writing now. "New Hooverville" is resting as 25,000 word monster which I currently have no place for, and nothing to do with. I think, ideally, I'd just like it to get out there, into the world, and have as many people see it as possible, with or without my name attached to it. As much as I don't want to get into a topic of "what the artist really meant" since, whatever you do or don't take from the piece is perfectly valid, no matter what I wanted, "Hooverville" speaks to this phenomenon I see every day with my peers, a frustration between what they want to do artistically, and the pressure they feel to join up, and act as regular person - to be a part of the "real world." And to be a bit snotty about it, I just don't think regular people necessarily feel that pressure, or at least, not in the same way -- I think so many of them look at that real world, at the nine-to-five, the long-term drudgery of things like managing taxes and health insurance, like working out weddings and starting families, and see anything other than big, welcoming arms of responsibility and adulthood.

I think the rest of us see it, more likely, as a gaping maw. Even those who have learned to work it to their favor. And "New Hooverville" is just me wondering, I guess, why there isn't a louder objection to that. Why those who look at that system, look at that one definition of what responsibility and being an adult is, and say "bullshit!" -- but even more, why in the hell, when I know so many of us feel this way, we don't band together, we don't turn that "bullshit!" into a chorus, we don't just... check out. Try it another way. Do it together. There'd be strength in that.

I don't know the answer to any of that. "New Hooverville" was me trying to get at it, and I think I did, a little bit, I think after all that time I got closer to getting a handle on those feelings -- maybe just "that" feeling -- and I think, maybe, the next thing I work on will have that in it too. "A Change is Gonna Come" certainly did. Without stretching, I think maybe even "Nova," I think even the peep show script is all approaching that same topic, that same feeling, from various angles. So yes, the next thing will almost definitely be about that, but...

I just don't know what that next thing is.

The space between projects is one of the most annoying I've ever encountered. I know writers and creative-types, artists, dancers, actors, etc. who never experience that, who never slow down, who never have less than four things going at once, who think stopping is a privilege, and privilege is bad, so they just never stop. Inspiration flows from them like a fountain, and they are the luckiest of us. They're the reason most of us feel like we aren't writers, aren't artists, aren't creatives, because certainly, if we were, we'd never stop either. No, they must be the real deal, and we must just be playing at it. Because they never come to a full stop. And we do.

My experience is limited to no success and a very short time on this earth. Thanks to the internet, a thousand and one writing tutorials are a click away, ranging from people who've accomplished even less than I have [which would mean, I guess... they're not putting on pants anymore] to those we'd consider the most accomplished, and in some cases, our heroes. The Fitzgeralds, the Didions, the Roths, the Austins, the Johnsons, the Moores. All of them have some tip, some "absolute" - about how the writing on the hardest days is usually as good as those on the easiest days, or about how nothing you produce everyday to could possibly, consistently, be good so therefore expect to write everyday and delete most of it, or about... oy vey. The list is literally endless, and I for one a becoming less and less enthralled by these hard and fast rules about why what I'm not producing is my fault, or why what I am producing isn't any good. I'm not sure [and I'm saying this in a space meant to look at and catalog the process of producing work] that how you get there really matters any longer, and that even the suggestion that there is some way to become the best, to churn out good writing, or whatever you do, is at best merely subjective.

Finishing things, too, also bothers me. There's a great discomfort once you've achieved your goal, only to realize now you're in the margin, between the panels of whatever your next move is.

All of this, ultimately, contributes to my anxiety of not working, of not having a project. And right now, I feel very much like I do not have a project, like I am between work, and that because of that, I am less of [or not] a writer, and that because I am not forcing work out of myself like juice squeezed from an orange, that I'm just playing at being a writer. That I've no business being on the field. And none of this even works the other doubts -- about writers I admire who had already found so much more success long before they reached my age, about peers who have been working just as hard, and have already seen it pay dividends.

But this is not a race. And that stuff is no kind of game to play with yourself.

This kind of talk has been going on in my head for a week or two. I can't put an exact finger on it, but I became most aware of it around six days ago, when I stopped sleeping and letting the other anxieties of life really begin to work on me. I consider myself the king of no-structure, but without the structure of one, over-arching piece to work on, I apparently go to pieces with worry that not only am I failing at this... passion, profession, compulsion I've chosen, but that because of it I don't deserve to be on the field with my peers.

And "over-arching" is the important part to that. Because honestly, I have things I'm working on, things I'm doing. There's a bit of dialogue I scribbled down last week that I have plans to polish, and post here on Friday, time and motivation willing. There are also several unfinished things, some as old as this blog [re:Trendsetter], some older [re: The Familiar], and some almost complete [re: untitled peep show script] that I have re-read recently, think I could probably still do something with.

Nothing that feels like "the project" though. Not yet.

But there are other things. Though I'm not as involved at this stage, Ander and I am working on a new comic, "VHS Generation," and just because the artist is at it with pencil doesn't mean I can necessarily put mine down on the desk [the same is true for "Calamity Cash," which Justin tells me that, even with his intense work schedule, is still coming along]. Even if I could, talking with Ander over e-mail has left me with a great deal of other possible things to work with and look through [the dude sends me illustrated updates of how the work is going -- it's heavenly], including little prompts that have unintentionally but welcomely reminded me of old characters and old ideas, along with smaller projects that were almost forgotten about have begun working their way into a mini-mythology that I'd almost forgotten about [re: "White Trash Nation"]. It's all very exciting, and it, with the day-to-day upkeep around here and the fairly steady stream of books to review, well...

I'm not at a loss for things to do. And even if I were, I tend to like my free time. Luxury though that is.

Preview for NORMAL: "A Change is Gonna Come."

Without further ado, I'd like to introduce everyone to Ben and Mia.

These previews are panels from "A Change is Gonna Come" my first collaboration with the incredibly talented European illustrator [I just love saying that] Ander Sarabia, for the upcoming Eric M. Esquivel produced zine, Normal. Normal is a zine by creative people, for creative people [and everyone else, of course], looking at alternative lifestyles, the creative process, and other interests of people likely suffering from vitamin D deficiency. Actually, I can't back that last part up -- it might just be me who lives in nigh-constant fear of the sun.

For those of you who don't frequent places like CBR, I've clipped some panels from the comic, and stripped out the dialogue, so without giving too much away you can have a taste of what Ander and I have in store for Normal. Of course, there's only so much I can show you, as our freshman outing together [boy, that sounds like we went on a date] is only five pages long.

Ander's work is really beyond exceptional, and though I'd love to, I can't take credit for the level of detail he brought to these pages. It's amazing how much of the finished product ended up looking like the story I saw in my head, especially since we were under a mad time-crunch to get finished, which meant a far-less detailed script, and no time for the usual tweaks or coaching I'm used to during the process.

Still, the final pages turned out spot-on, and I can't wait for everyone to see them. Have to blame timing for it taking me this long to even get previews up -- first there were the holidays, then my computer trouble, not to mention I wanted to check with Ander and make sure showing off his work was okay [and big thanks to him for his input on what panels would be best to use, and for sending me such high quality images to work with for this]... I was even a little up in the air about doing this at all, because a little mystique goes a long way.

But a few people have been asking. And it's not exactly like I need my arm twisted to show off the cool things I'm involved in.

Taking the weekend to try and catch up on some things. Shot off a final draft of "VHS Generation" to Ander [not a lot of changes from the previous one], and he's already hit me with a few character sketches that just look great. Really excited about the look of protagonist for this one, and our e-mails have me branching out into the old mythology a little bit, digging up some concepts, ideas I haven't thought about in ages.

Have some things from other people to read too, which I always look forward to. Particularly in this case... I enjoy this person's work a lot, have for awhile, and I feel terrible I've had to put off looking at it for this long.

Final bit of trivia before I go: I named this comic for The Gits cover of the Sam Cooke classic. I guess you could just say I named it after the original song, but it's not really what I had in mind. Cooke's is a civil rights anthem which I think would be in bad taste for me to try and co-opt, whereas there's something about Zapata's that's still very personal, but in a more singular sort of sense.

And besides, the character's name is Mia. Not Sam.

My St. Baldricks/CheriAnn picture

Here's my sketch from CheriAnn for donating to her St.Baldricks pledge drive. I didn't really have the money, to be honest, but it didn't feel like quite enough to just link CheriAnn's philanthropy from here, and anyway, I can sacrifice the cost of a couple of woot! shirts to help out a good cause. I actually feel kind of embarrassed speaking about it here, because I prefer to donate to charities anonymously when I can, and this takes the piss out of doing that, but... I wanted to show off my cool CheriAnn Borgstrom original.

I feel like I've kind of got a Keanu Reeves thing going on here, with a tiny plush super-ego rocking out on my shoulder. And it's nice to see Kyle's good work [and Glen's design] working their way into the Randall Nichols mythology. And hilariously, this is a fairly apt take on my creative process.

I want to thank CheriAnn for the wonderful likeness, and just for undertaking the cause. I also want to apologize, because I'm probably going to make a huge fuss when she shaves her head come March 20th. Because that is how I roll.

Again, I encourage everyone to donate if they can, it's a wonderful cause and CheriAnn's a saint for undertaking it. And keep checking CheriAnn's tumblr for the pieces she does for other donors.

In other news, I'm going to put up some previews here for "A Change is Gonna Come," probably in the next couple of days. I know a lot of people have been asking me about the work Ander and I did together, and I'm anxious to show it off, and get excitement going for "Normal" too. I've also seen some of the first character sketches for "VHS Generation," and am trying to polish off a final draft of the script in the next couple of days. Ander's doing amazing work, as usual, and I'm just trying my best to hold up my end of things, make sure the writings at least half as good as the illustrations.

Finally, I have a friend in a rough, but familiar, spot right now, who I don't believe is reading, but... if you are, just know you're in my thoughts, and I'll do anything I can. All my best.

Quick note on Vegas Cine Fest

Didn't win. Not even one of the six honorable honorable mentions [though I guess it's possible I made the top ten - hah]. There is a strong thought towards that bottle of Chardonnay in the fridge, and getting knackered for the night, but...

There's no reason. Entered one contest, got one rejection. Wasn't even one of the touchier-feelier contests that takes the time to send updates, encourage its entrants, win or lose. Almost no reason to feel anymore discouraged than I feel about things in my day-to-day when it comes to writings, so I have no intention to. Yes, I spent two straight months trying to jam an already finished screenplay into a slimming 25 pages when it was [at the time], a slightly less svelte 32 pages, but I think it's probably better for it, and easier to make, assuming I find a way to do that. Less likely, as comics are cheaper, I enjoy those more, and... oi, I've never had much luck putting money together for those, either.

The point is, "Nova" is better for the preparation. Haven't even scratched the surface of pursuing this sort of thing, and as a test run goes, this went smoothly, if not slowly, and I now know that entering these things early will save me some cash and open my schedule up for other things. It's not a win, but it's not... well, it is a loss, by every definition, but there's some cliché about the real measure of a man, how he bounces back after defeat, not victory, etc, etc.

Have a nearly finished short in the way of the peep show script, and Nova which is now in the proper shape to pass around to other contests too. Plus a sack full of unfinished or barely fleshed out short ideas, two unfinished features, and an idea for a horror film. And there are a lot of these competitions out there, plus grants -- which I know about already, because I found a whole list of them after I lost the contact information for this previous one. And there are probably a lot of other ways to get noticed I haven't thought of or explored yet.

I want to thank everyone who wished me well or good luck for this one, gave me feedback on "Nova," or took the time to listen to me bitch about my nerves over it. I appreciate that support more than I could ever articulate here. And Savannah, who turned me onto this competition in the first place... I tended to think outside of grants, these were all scams.

Going forward, movies and screenplays aren't the principle thing on my mind anyway. The short for Normal [re: A Change is Gonna Come] really set me back to my original passion, and all this reading about zines, and everyone's bullheaded insistence that paper is dead as a medium... I have at least one comic idea, if not more. So that's next.

Again, those of you with kind words, sympathetic ears, thank you for the support. I appreciate it.

Our Lady of the Pagan Symbol of the Season

Five days without a post is a long time for me, and even though I don't have much to report, I thought I might check in and show off the tree as promised [I think I promised that]. Of course, the pictures are from my phone, which means the quality is pretty much crap, and you don't get to see a lot of the little touches. The tree isn't real, and is fairly old [it belonged to my Mom's mother before my Dad's mom got it], so it can't hold a lot of weight without limbs slipping out of their well-worn holders in the middle support, and the decorations I used are probably more often employed on a smaller sized tree, like one of those desk, or store window models.

The heaviest things are homemade icicles, made over the years by my grandmother, and various other members of the family using pipe cleaners and clear beads. The details I'm particularly fond of are the little wooden apples [I have no idea why, but having apples hanging from the branches of a pine tree make me smile -- I've said it before, but it's just so odd and absurd], and the big snow-flake looking things are actually little picture frames made of plastic and yarn, each one holding a picture of either the children of the family, most of us at some earlier time in our lives, or those who've died, and left us behind.

Unlit.

I grew up in a craft-oriented family, which is probably why places like etsy.com and the like have always interested me. I wasn't blessed with any of that kind of skill, however, and still struggle to cut a straight line with a sharp pair of scissors, a fact that all the gift-wrapping around this season tends to remind me of. But the items the generation before mine [and the generation before that] put such care and nimble-fingered work into have held up remarkably well, so my case of stupid fingers isn't quite so heartbreaking.

Lit.

Second Christmas without Dad... I went ahead and mentioned casually he should probably get a space on the tree now too. Last year seemed too soon, this year seems too soon, honestly, but it has to be done eventually, and among all the stars I'd found someone who had two, so we didn't even need to put a new one together [not even sure if that would be an option at this point].

Anyway. On to other business. Ander and I got an e-mail from Eric, saying very complimentary things about our comic [re: A Change is Gonna Come] and confirming our spot in "Normal." It was very vindicating hearing from someone else that the spark we were feeling while working on the project really was there like we thought. Haven't got much chance to work on the other script Ander gave me the idea for [re: VHS Generation], but that's because the Christmas season has been keeping me far busier than even I expected. And the only writing-related thing I've gotten to work on is this huge crit project for a friend.

Speaking of friends, there's a new "Seth Martin & Friends" short up on YouTube, where the Brain Wrap guys debut the new superhero character SuperUltraMan, which I think you comic-readers will appreciate. So definitely check that out, and support Seth, and Kyle, and the rest of the crew.

I'm trying to get ahead of stuff for this coming week, but I'm not entirely sure how free my schedule will be. And then there's Monday looming where... hopefully... the contest I entered "Nova" in will announce its winners. I picked up a four year old bottle of Australian Chardonnay at the local grocery store [we're talking far from glamorous here, though I've never found anything older than a year or two of any kind of wine on that shelf before], which I will either bust out to celebrate, or barring that, save and have on New Years.

Because it's not jinxing yourself if you're buying it for more than one occasion. Right?

Shameless Santa

The previous two years on this blog, I did posts about what I wanted for Christmas, worded somewhat cleverly [okay, "cleverly" is being kind to myself there] as letters to Santa. I honestly never expected to get anything I mentioned either time, and for at least the first entry, I think I was kind of play acting "ah, if this were only the Christmas I wanted it to be, then I'd get this, this, and this." It made me feel a little more in the spirit to do it, stirred some Christmas cheer in me, if you will, but this year, with one or two more people reading who don't know me, and who might think it less capricious and more annoying, I thought I'd forgo that.

I couldn't rightfully tell you any specific thing that I want this year anyway, and honestly I've always preferred giving gifts as opposed to receiving them. I do have a load of books, and a couple of odds and ends in the way of office supplies, on my Amazon Wish List, though I'll admit I keep that more for myself, to unclutter my bookmarks menu, than I do for any other reason. Still, if you did come looking for a hint of something to get me this year, I'll link it here. I'm also a sucker for scarves, and moleskin notebooks. As far as music and movies go, I've gone about as digital as you can get [unless it's something indie, or rare], so I guess you could call me a man of simple tastes now: Books, stationary, and neck wear.

Truman Capote would be proud.

Which is not to say I'm abandoning the spirit of the season. Almost all the decorations are up here [though I'm contemplating tinsel... oh God, how I'm contemplating it], hoping next week to go out and get some candles as well. If the rot-smelling-hell of whatever it was that died under the house left any sort of impression, it was that I actually took some kind of strange pleasure in the ritual of lighting candles, and often while doing so my thoughts turned to Christmas in a Pavlovian sort of way that I didn't expect. Admittedly, I felt entirely less punk rock sorting through the abysmal selection at Kmart the other day, but the hell with it. If I have to look less cool to make this Christmas awesome, I'll take the hit.

Isolated as I am, I'm not entirely sure why I worry about that sort of thing anyway. I mean, really, who am I trying to impress?

I got an e-mail from Ander the other day, just a nice, "getting to know the person I was working with" sort of letter, which considering how all-business both of us have been to get "A Change is Gonna Come" done, was a nice change of pace. Instant chemistry like this always needs explored, and I'll probably talk a little more about the workhorse of an illustrator who wrangled me for a comic in the future [odd, because usually I'm the wrangler]. And Ander if you're reading this, I'm going to send you a proper reply soon, but... your comment on my previous post gave me an idea for something new, and I'm putting a lot of my free time towards trying to work that out into a story. Apologies. Nothing will kill correspondence faster than a new idea.

Blogging too. I'm really only posting this because I realized it's Thursday, and my last post on anything was Monday... probably more like Sunday night. And since then, December's come.

Ah. And not just December. Today [yesterday now], was the first snow of the season. Walked out in it in my coat and pajamas to get the mail, felt it fall on my shoulders and in my hair, watched it melt not too quickly, as the wind did it's best to cut right through me. Brilliant feeling. Not enough snow for coverage, but it's in the air now. Everything is dull, and gray, and dead, just waiting for that one morning when it'll hit again, hit hard, and leave everything all bright and exhilarating -- and clean.

I've missed that.

"The Comic's Finished." "Surely you can't be serious." "I am serious. And don't call me Shirley."

Yesterday I received an e-mail from Ander with final pages for our short comic, "A Change is Gonna Come." They look absolutely amazing, Ander has really went above and beyond the call of duty, and not patting myself too hard on the back either, but we got a five page comic done in just a little over a week. That's... unbelievable turnover, and really had a lot to do with everything hitting just right, and me having an idea that was just waiting for something like this to come along, and Ander being so unbelievably talented and professional and, without speaking for my partner in this, getting what I was going for so quickly that everything could just be finished with ease, and really look just outstanding.

No clips, thumbnails, or pages yet, though. Going to keep this on the down-low for a bit. It's such a small story that even letting a little out would feel a little spoiler-y -- even though there's not much to spoil, story-wise.

Just want to take a moment, and do a big public "thank you" to Ander. For e-mailing me, for being so receptive to my script, to my changes, to improving upon the layouts and making the changes you did, for not having a problem with the script going from a requested three pages, to a delivered four pages, to an actual five. I'm really happy with what we did together, and I hope there's more work in our future.

And another thank you for Eric. His decision to put "Normal" together was the impetus to this collaboration. Wouldn't have happened without you, and I really appreciate that.

Another thing that's kind of crazy to think about when it comes to this comic? It was basically a collaboration with a perfect stranger, someone across an ocean from me. Without this blog, without Twitter, etc, this kind of project wouldn't have happened. Nice reminder that the world is a lot smaller, and what that can open up.

Now, on a more somber note, as I'm sure probably everyone's heard by now, Leslie Nielsen passed away yesterday. My first memory of any exposure to Nielsen was going to the video store with my Dad, and seeing the comedy section on the far wall, where it seemed like every other tape case had his face on it. I'd eventually watch all those movies, and even run into Nielsen, probably my only casual celebrity run-in [you know, in a setting where I didn't except to see one -- as opposed to them being someone I know's dad, or at a convention]. But when I think back to those VHS tapes on the wall, it really becomes clear why this feels so surprising, because Nielsen was really kind of a comedic institution, and he'd changed so little over the years, and never appeared off his game, even in some of the lesser roles he'd taken recently... it's really sad. And the man was just so talented, and he was in so much, even thinking about him not being here seems weird to me -- like when Jerry Orbach died, there's just so much of their work out there, so easily accessible, it's hard to believe either are gone.


Oh, and if you've only ever seen Nielsen do comedy? Go rent Romero's original Creepshow. He made a pretty good heavy, too.

Anyway, I won't go on and on about it. A lot of other people will, and then a lot of people will probably bitch about little one-off tweets and Facebook notes about his passing. I hope not, really, and hey, if you don't care, if you do find those things annoying... just realize, some of us very much grew up as part of the TV generation, and I know, especially for me, these celebrity deaths do sometimes strike a chord, because these people were like institutions in our homes, feel good movies, or things you could always count on being on cable each Sunday, or on HBO after midnight.

Maybe that does seem sad to some of you, that our third, or fourth parent was the idiot box, but I'm beyond lamenting it, even sort of glad for it, at times [I can hear heads shaking in disgust]. And since we now live in a time where we can live-tweet a bowel movement or dissect a Saturday morning cartoon rerun we downloaded, there are worse ways to use the platform the internet affords each of us than to remember a funny, great man.

Plus Sam, Hannah, and Julia... you girls really made me appreciate Airplane! all over again.

Oh, and one last thing before I go -- Justin has a new post up over on his blog, of another actor I'm a big fan of, in my favorite role they played. Presenting Justin's "Charles Bronson with a Sock Full of Quarters."

Comics in my Inbox

Big movement on the comic with Ander. Had a bunch of sketches and layouts in my inbox this morning, and just couldn't stop smiling for the rest of the day.

First of all, cannot begin to express how impressed I am with the artist. Ander is incredibly talented, really professional, and savvy enough to point out some of the problems with the proposed layouts in my script. Which, though it may sound surprising, I'm really glad he felt comfortable doing. It's actually why I script the way I do -- the whole simple 4-5 panels per page thing was a trick I picked up reading about how Dan Jolley and James Robinson liked to script for Tony Harris [no idea if Vaughn also employed this with Ex Machina... but damn, that would be cool]. It's fairly useful, as I'm sure Justin can probably attest, as it gives the artist as much leeway as they need to layout the page -- if it can get done in four panels, wonderful, if you need as many as the Gibbons Nine, go nuts.

Number of pages have swelled a bit too, which I also think is a good sign. Ander asked for three, I did up four, and in the end my four page script looked a whole lot better as five. And the only reason I shoved as much as I did into only four pages was because of the time crunch, which from the level of completion Ander's layouts have, I don't think will be a problem at all.

Without gushing too much, this has been great. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to have gotten back to doing more prose, I love blogging, and screenwriting might well be my go-to medium. But I love comics. I grew up with comics, and no matter what I'm writing, while I may not be picturing a page, I am most definitely picturing that moment frozen in a panel. It is as much a part of me, as much a part of my passion as that weird, rhythmic dialogue I'm always chasing. And just like when Justin sends me pages from Calamity Cash, it was so good to have this e-mail, with these .jpgs with my words in comic form, and these characters, Mia and Ben, that I saw in my head just on the page [and I didn't even give much description for the characters to Ander, and still, it was like "Yes! Yes, that is exactly what they should look like!"].

It don't get to do comics as often as I'd like, because it is really hard pinning down an artist to that sort of commitment. But every time I do, there is just this freshman rush of excitement. I don't know if that will ever go away. Twain tells me it will. Don't see a lot of blog posts from Grant Morrison or interviews with Alan Moore where they rave like this.

I've gained a lot of ground when it comes to being jaded. But I'm young yet, nothing wrong with enjoying this feeling while I still can.

And big thanks to the Modern Mythology guys. If not for Eric's zine, I doubt Ander would have even contacted me in the first place.

It's been Thanksgiving for about 30 minutes now, though if you were on the internet at all today, you might think everyone is having it Wednesday instead. At least if felt that way to me. Very disturbing for someone who felt like it came on too fast... and I don't even really have plans.

Probably be another entry tomorrow. Thanksgiving day posts have happened before, after all, and it seems a shame to break with tradition.

For the love of the first draft.

Work marches steadily along. Finished up "New Hooverville," at least for now.

Mixed feelings from that. There's a spontaneity, a magic to any first draft. I don't mean to imply there's some great quality to them -- there usually isn't, and they tend to be messy, clumsy, and riddled with typos. But nevertheless, when I hit that stride, when I get into that "zone" I've mentioned before, and actually get everything in my head that wants out and on the page out and on the page, there's a satisfaction in it that goes far beyond just the feeling of being finished, or the feeling like you got something temporary into a steadier, more permanent place.

Hard to pin down, and I imagine most writers would probably chock it up to laziness. Not wanting to proofread, not wanting to acknowledge mistakes that have been made. Maybe. I always thought of it more like a live concert -- seeing that band you love play, on that one night where they play the new song that they just wrote, that will be on the next album, and the lead was sick, and the drum set was borrowed, and everything sounded a little more raw, a little more real than it does six months later when that CD drops, and you play the pre-recorded version in the comfort of your own home. It's sloppy, not what the artist would probably want to be remembered for, and far from that artistic perfection that the bulk of us chase. But it's special.

First drafts feel like that to me sometimes, and some of them, especially the ones that I really liked writing the first time around, when it felt like everything was firing right, even though it wasn't....those are hard to get back into. Tear stuff out of, delete stuff, rephrase stuff, rearrange, and make... well, sensible. Good. Or, if you're really lucky, just better. And I've spent entirely too much time on this blog, with my exercises, etc, trying to chase down that perfect first draft, where in one setting I can just go "and... done!" and then present the world with this thing that has been pulled out of my ear like Athena, perfect and beautiful and fully formed. It's a dream, but still I sleep.

Metaphorically speaking, of course.

"New Hooverville" held the distinction of being something I was very proud of right away, because it said something, and it was in a voice that made what I was saying palatable. A couple of people, whose opinions I value very highly, spoke well of it early on after my posting it here, and did so often. And that also meant a lot. Getting back into these past few weeks has been unpleasant... every "improvement" felt like the opposite of improvement, like I was losing the voice, the style, the message. And to some degree I probably did. To get back to the music reference, I've never heard a Peel Session that was better than the artist's first album [actually, most Peel Sessions are live-to-tape, which would contradict my earlier statement, but let's stick to the "first time's magic" train of thought for the sake of argument and to keep me from looking like a total jackass]. That first time, you just have "it," and then later, you sacrifice that "it" feeling for technical proficiency, with time, experience, and better polish.

And for writing, there's no underselling the importance of that. Also, making sure you use the right who's or whose. But, since most writers are already drilled with "revision, revision, revision," allow me to be the dissenting voice for just a minute, and say revising to the point that whatever you're working on doesn't have the magic of that first draft, well that's insane, and is going to show just as bad as any typo.

Okay, not just as bad. Idiocy will always be attacked more readily when there's a resource to back it up, and Strunk and White never did a book on keeping the magic in a piece, and there's not an AP resource for maintaining the spirit of your first draft. And there's a good likelihood that what you start with is not going to be what you end up with, so you never want to be so beholden to your first words on the page that you can't get your piece to that better place. But still.

I felt a lot like I was gutting myself trying to revise "New Hooverville." It's not a new feeling, but it is a slightly less common one for me these days. During the process, I felt a little sick, like I was ruining it. Now, with some distance, I think it's in a good place -- it's better than the original, and a little more approachable, a lot cleaner, but I don't believe it's lost anything that made me get so attached in the first place. I mean, I hope.

Anyway, apologies for the rambling sentimentality. Just how I cope with finishing something, no matter how small. I've also made a few fixes to some problem spots in the peep show script -- few post-modern influenced lines of dialogue really needed to go. Still, I'd like to get it down to ten pages or under [it's at ten and a half now], and there's a bit at the end I haven't found the best way to make work. But a few copies are in people's hands already [Adria, Laurenne], so we'll call that a work in progress.

And I should have a little more news about the collaboration with Ander in the next couple of days.

More soon.

Trust.

This has been a day.

Few quick things.

Last night, around the middle of the evening, I got an e-mail from an Illustrator in Spain, interested in doing a short comic for Eric's zine, and worried his English wouldn't be quite strong enough for an American audience. Deadline for Eric's zine is only a few weeks away, but the illustrator [named Ander Sarabia -- website here], said they could work fast if I could get together a two-to-three page script quickly enough. I didn't have anything nearly that short, but have had a few ideas kicking around in the margins of my moleskin [boy, that sounds dirty], and I figured I'd take today, take some of my notes and make something coherent out of them, and if Ander was still interested, give it a go. I couldn't see any reason not to take a leap of faith on it, and since I always have a lot of raw stuff to work from, I figured I could come up with a three page comic script pretty easy.

Of course, my grandmother's nuts also arrived today.

Quick background, because I've only explained this a few hundred times. My grandmother sells bulk nuts, candies, and various trail mixes through a program not unlike some fund-raiser you probably participated in during high school. It takes very little overhead, and enough people around here need the nuts for ingredients, or the candies and mixes for Christmas gifts, so it's a pretty profitable gig, even when you figure that my grandmother sells her for not much more than cost. Nevertheless, it is a very big job on the day they arrive, with lots of stockroom-like duties, from stacking boxes and opening boxes, to organizing orders, and though not always on the same day [today on the same day], to delivering said orders to local patrons.

Allow me to take a moment and be the first person on the internet ever to pat himself on the back; nuts and script delivered, all in the same day. I am officially the strangest specialized business on earth. Randall's Peanuts and Comics -- franchising soon.

Put some work into the peep show script. Somewhere, there is a very good re-write to a least a couple of places of problem dialogue. I really need to get a better filing system than "paper I have on my person at any given time." Until I find my rewrites, there is a moratorium on washing any clothing with pockets.

I consider this incentive.

Ian also sent me some feedback, for which I am very grateful. At this point, I'm just keenly interested in seeing what people get out of reading the script, what they expect, what they don't, what they feel, and just how and who they relate to in it. Of the three people I've talked to, I've gotten some good insight, but no one has been so forthright as to tell me they liked it or they didn't. I might yet need to show it to more people, but honestly, there's still time, and I'm so close to getting a draft of this thing that I'm pleased with, I may just wait. Still, if you're interested, let me know. I'm not going to turn you down.

"New Hooverville" is almost finished. My friend Ally took a look at it, mostly taking care of the grammatical errors which I find I overlook too easily because of the manic, Thompson-esque voice I used to write it. One of my professors at Bennington, who edited for Thompson, said a lot of his work was sort of reassembled by editors after the fact, so I have no qualms about someone with a better handle on the style guide taking a run at it. It was a lot of help, and now "Hooverville" is pretty much done, save for one paragraph that I just can't seem to get right. I'm going to take another run at it tomorrow, but I want it done and sent off by Saturday. Because self-imposed deadlines are always healthy, and in no way, shape, or form early warning signs of OCD.

To the few of my readers who are likely more qualified for this than me. Savannah [of "Huge" fame] posted this link on her Facebook page, to the blog Style Rookie. I was aware of the blog, but not a regular reader, but this call for submissions for a new-age version of Sassy intrigued me. Why? I can't give a solid reason, other than the fact that despite being a female-driven publication, Sassy has come up a lot in things I've been reading lately, and the superstitious side of me decided to take this a sign. They're taking submissions until tomorrow [oops], and perhaps because it feels like a publication I wouldn't quite fit in with, I decided to send them some writing samples. I'm really not expecting anything from it, but I do want to keep an eye on the project.

I'd be lying if I said some of it didn't have to do with my currently reading Girls to the Front by Sara Marcus. I'm going to admit, I'm really using the book, and the Riot Grrrl movement in general to try and give myself a fighting chance of finally, really getting into a good place with feminism. The past few years I've been calling myself a feminist, I've been doing the reading about feminism, but the honest fact is I'm self-teaching, and not really "getting it." The recent reissue of "The Second Sex" thoroughly kicked my ass before I had a chance to even get an inkling of what was going on in it. But I want to be better. I want to learn. More importantly, I have the time to learn, and I think with good note-taking and close reading, I might be able to turn a few hours in my day into a chance to be more than an arm-chair enthusiast as it concerns certain topics, not just limited to feminism. Gender, as a topic, interests me. But so does music. And I've forgotten way too many things from my film history class.

If I can't be a student right now, I'm going to try to be one hell of a non-student.

Speaking of Sara Marcus, I recently started following her on Twitter, something that just didn't occur to me to do despite the giant lower-case "t" on the Girls to the Front website page. I was pleasantly surprised when Marcus opted to follow me back. I realize, of course, it's just Twitter, and "it doesn't really matter," but that book is a big part of my life these past several weeks, and the music it's about has been one of the things that's kept me going in... I'm hesitant to give a proper name to this shit-storm of a period in my life until it's over, but the point stands when I got that e-mail about being followed by her on Twitter I geeked out pretty hard.

You should do her a solid for giving yours truly a chance, and go buy her book. It's pretty awesome, and I'm going through it with a fine tooth comb, so I'd know.

On the subject of books, after one of the longer hiatuses I've had, I've finally gotten a new book in the mail to review. Kind of worked out perfectly, just as I'm getting so close to polishing off all this writing, I get a little paying work again. Small favors.

End of November is shaping up to be interesting. Final deadline for Eric's zine is then, plus I'll hear back about that contest I entered "Nova" in. And who knows what else? I guess Thanksgiving's in there somewhere.

I haven't even had time to shower. I feel gross.