I knew the pathway like the back of my hand (Sketchpost)

23 Monday Jan 2012

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Hello, everyone! I think it’s about time for some art. Again!

I am settling into the semester, hammering out a few pages of thesis here and there. Also I’ve started my piano lessons and TURNS OUT playing the piano requires lower-back strength in order to support sitting with decent posture during practices. So I’ve also started exercising, which I undoubtedly should have been doing anyway. “I want to feel good” was always such a vague reason that it couldn’t motivate me, whereas “I want to play the piano without pain” is sufficiently precise to, hopefully, keep me on track.

Other than that, you know, the usual semester stuff. I’ve been brooding on a few blog-related things in my spare time, which may or may not result in posts at some point. We’ll see?

For now–Linus, clothing design, and crazy Coptic monks lie below the cut!

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Worries about Wikis (are actually different worries in cunning disguises)

17 Tuesday Jan 2012

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MCA Hogarth’s post about her new wiki got me thinking again about the story-related info I have scattered all over the place. I’ve attempted to collect some of it in my private wiki, but that’s not exactly been a great success because, well, college. And I’m not very good at wiki design, especially not when it’s just for myself and I can obsess over organizational hierarchies to the exclusion of adding new info. I’ve thought about getting back to the wiki when I graduate (you know, along with the five million other things I’m going to somehow find time for when I graduate).

But wiki thoughts raise for me the question of publicity, which ties to larger questions. Most of my info is for stories that are either unwritten, partially-written, or written but unreleased into the wild (and mostly no longer in fit shape for release, ahem). That, to me, is a major complicating factor. Would putting so much story info together in a public wiki diminish reader interest in the stories themselves? I have this same concern about my blog archives, actually, which is what makes it an urgent question at all. Periodically I feel the urge to purge, because the weight of all that info I blithely revealed in image descriptions troubles me. Partly because maybe I’ve given too much away, maybe no one is interested in the stories now (although then again, my experience has been that people are not very careful readers of my posts and tend not to remember all the plot stuff I blathered two years ago). Partly also I feel trapped by a lot of stuff I’ve committed to “in public” that has turned out not to work.

Or is this another iteration of my continual desire to wipe out my Internet traces in the unrealistic hope of somehow “starting fresh” and THIS time I’ll know what I’m doing and do it right? This is all too likely. I’ve left a trail of deleted blogs and emptied archives in my wake over the years, and I am an ace at editing my past without any clear sense of what good the exercise actually does.

I don’t know.

Maybe I need to get some (non-Marigold Woman*) stories into shape and get them out into the wild (a whole ‘nother can of worms) before I’m ready to answer this question.

I’d appreciate your thoughts, readers and fellow writers and general peoples. In fact, that’s precisely why I’m sharing these worries, because I don’t know which end is up and I’d appreciate other perspectives.

* Meaning that the Marigold Woman is less of an issue because I feel no need to give any information about that, even though maybe I should. But it started as a prose experiment to which plot was secondary, and I like keeping it on that footing even if it has grown a plot by accident.

There are seven levels (Marigold Woman)

15 Sunday Jan 2012

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Sweet Airedale fumbled gamely and mumbled mainly touching his toes diligently. Diligentibus, leaving open the question of heorshe, toforofby I am interested it concerns me specially.

O pulchrae! O pulchri!

O honey-Latin dulcet ones, Vergil tilts his head to one side, marveling at the Greek. In the wings his Italian acolyte waits impatient, to tour the dead the dead the dead.

No need, Alighieri, the dead the dead the dead whisper hiss susurrate their peculiar preoccupation with my failures continually. Take a tour of my skull, sir. I think there are popes here.

Mother Mary cradles her son, and what good is a thing done decently and in good order? Yet the bread is the same, the wine is the same, the air and fire reach down on lightning fingers though no one knows for sure what path they take. That flash frightens the dead the dead the dead for five seconds of perfect sky. Their bones rattle and fade.

Who can discern this?

The footfalls of the elephants, that sound, disrupts the silence. Their hides are painted with bees. They fill the lawn with the smell of their dusty backs, they knock over the gnome and dance solemnly amongst the tall grass. Everyone watches from the safety of the long portico. Where are the prophet and the Marigold Woman? Does anyone know? I’m sorry, sir, they’re still out. Would you care to leave a message? Yes, I would. Withoureyesturnedinward howcanweseeGod? At the tone, sir.

This is the last dance, but the dead the dead the dead are intent on spoiling it. Their hissing disturbs the elephants. If someone–someone who is now sitting in the window-seat wrapped in a blanket–could walk onto the lawn and call halt, perhaps the elephants would discharge their duties and return to Carthage for the last time. But the window-seat and Carthage are both a million miles away, out with the stars but unable to sing with them, wheeling interminable cycles in the cold and the silence. Earth looks very small from here.

The elephants try to keep dancing, the bees on their sides wrinkle and ripple, the dead keep hissing, no one quite knows what to do.

Soon, someone must arrive. Perhaps it will be Mother Mary with a crowd of saints and abbas, and we will dance with them instead of the elephants. Until then, is there nothing to be done?

God only knows, sir.

Eight Cats (Art)

15 Sunday Jan 2012

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Hey, everyone! I’ve had one class and a meeting with my advisor, and I’m getting the sense that this semester will be fairly doable as long as I keep my head and keep plugging away. It’s only about eighteen weeks. That alternates between being reassuring and terrifying. Only eighteen weeks to get three thesis chapters, intro and conclusion done (plus revision)! Only eighteen weeks to get in my remaining two classes, write that extra essay, and learn to play the piano! Only eighteen weeks between me and all those post-graduation to-dos! Only eighteen weeks until this extended pursuit of a degree is complete!

So. Yes. That is the state of me, largely. Don’t expect much brilliance or discussion-provoking posts for… another eighteen weeks.

I do, however, have art queued up for the next eighteen weeks! Including some silly cat drawings I did as a reward for finishing the request event.

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Request Drawings Compiled (Art)

10 Tuesday Jan 2012

Posted by in art, dear reader

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Got the requests finished earlier and posted as replies. Thanks to all the folks who’ve responded–I’m so glad you like your drawings! I always feel a little nervous because I want to explain my artistic decisions but that’s sort of overkill. So I’m happy that people are happy!

I’ve decided to compile all the request drawings in one big fat post, in case you don’t want to go through expanding the comments on the initial entry.

In a couple of days I may post the silly cat drawings I did for myself as a reward for finishing.

(WARNING: 33 images below the cut)

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You know you make me want to (Sketchpost)

06 Friday Jan 2012

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Well, this is probably the last sketchpost before school starts back up! Don’t worry, though, I have material compiled from the last two sketchbooks that should enable me to keep putting posts up periodically–plus, my schedule this semester is a lot more open than it’s been in years, meaning I’ll have time to write those sketchposts! I’m also sort of hoping to finish a short-short storylet about the McCandless family that I may post here in the next few weeks. It’s not a very plotty thing, but I think it’s an interesting bit of interactions.

I’m easing my way back into thesis work, now–this chapter has a more general focus, on the overall concern with well-adjusted children: how do we get them? Since it’s not as clear-cut an ISSUE I’m not sure how it’s going to go, but we’ll see! They tell me that in the next eighteen weeks or so I am going to produce three more chapters as well as an intro and conclusion; this is startling and astonishing to me, but! Supposedly it will happen. Wish me luck, my elegant friends.

As far as requests go, I am plugging along steadily–I decided to pace myself this time, instead of my usual MUST FINISH ALL REQUESTS NOW frenzy. My goal is to have them all finished and uploaded a week from this Saturday. I’m really having fun with your requests! Especially all the kitties.

Here, have a somewhat small sketchpost!

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Can St. Anthony of Padua find the Word? (Marigold Woman)

03 Tuesday Jan 2012

Posted by in Marigold Woman, writing

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There used to be a word here; we lost it in the swipe of careless fingers. What was the word? The gap in history cries out.

The angel beamed blessings on us from his dark kindly face. Over our dashes we watched him wheel our lady across the street. God’s kindness runs in crosswalks and gutters and strip malls cleverly concealed strip joints.

The prophet Elijah we invited for New Years’ Eve, but he didn’t come, not even John the Baptist. The abbas sat round the empty seat and murmured uneasily.

A dead black dragon, a rattling, an aching of the bones, the small bones in my hand try to push through my palms, the knuckles ache, there has been no emptiness for weeks. How long can the singing nerves withstand? Elijah has abandoned us. The abbas are at a loss. The nerves chatter drunkenly and the bones grind for want of a stilling.

The gap in history cries out.

The gap troubles me.

The gap

the gap

mind the gap

***

Scene: It is morning. Have we been here all night? I think we have, my loves my lo-ammis. The sun obtrudes himself like an evangelist who has forgotten his text, who cares, he winks positive thoughts off the bottles especially the broken ones. The prophet and the Marigold Woman stretch and grope for wakefulness. The sky is empty of cherubim, it always is but some days you notice the lack more.

Prophet: Whoof. I think I had a dream?

Marigold Woman: not very interested What kind? Tell you anything?

Prophet: No, not one of those. I don’t think. Who knows? Who knows anything?

Marigold Woman: Doesn’t matter, anyhow.

Prophet: rubs the eyes under the goggles, examines the Marigold Woman closely. You’ve been sitting too long, you’ve been compressing virtue too much. Let’s go before we dry out.

Marigold Woman: What’s the hurry?

Prophet: Let’s go, let’s go.

Marigold Woman: No.

The prophet, now standing, glares at her. She blinks at him and spiders her hands aimlessly. The prophet kicks at her foot.

Marigold Woman: No.

Nothing is done and nobody mends the gap.

REQUEST EVENT OVER!

02 Monday Jan 2012

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It’s official! REQUESTS ARE CLOSED! The End-of-Year Request Event is over, and wow, that was great! I got about 33 requests, all told, which is a nice manageable number for me to work on before school starts back up. Tips reached $100 (well, a little over), which means that everyone is guaranteed a drawing, and all the drawings will be in color! Exciting! I think I’m especially thrilled that people kept tipping after the $60 marker, because technically (as I realized belatedly) the $100 doesn’t actually offer any extra benefit to tippers.

I am going to mull over how this went and maybe do a post later about some pros and cons, but for now I’ll just say that this was a much bigger success, both in terms of requests and tips, than I really expected it to be. I’m very thankful. I’m also really looking forward to drawings all these cool requests.

Thanks everyone! I hope your new year is great!

Request Event Update

01 Sunday Jan 2012

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Hey, everyone! Happy New Year! Requests over one the livejournal post are currently up to 27 and tips not too far from the next incentive point, which means that there’s a possibility that tippers will get colored drawings and non-tipper grayscale! I started sketching some of the requests last night, though I can’t complete any of them until I know the final tip count and therefore what kind of requests I’m doing.

Also, HUGE thanks to all the people who have spread the word about this! There have been a bunch of folks posting and tweeting links, and I really appreciate it!

I’m going to leave requests open for most of today; I’m currently planning on closing them this evening, but if things go super-slow (I suspect that people are busy doing holiday things) I might let them run into tomorrow.

(I hope it’s not too spammy to be giving regular updates on this, but otherwise people would have to babysit the entry to find out what’s going on)

No lies, you and me are one (Sketchpost)

29 Thursday Dec 2011

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It’s about time, I believe, for a sketchpost! This is an extra-large one. It’s got some of the usual stuff from the last sketchbook, but also some digital things I just did to test out my new tablet.

Last sketchpost included some good news for people who like the Robo-Beatles; this time around it’s good news for people who like the Beat boys. After something like four years of watching these characters kick ideas around my brain, building an enormous setting around them, and writing a succession of less-than-successful stories about them, I have finally figured out what I am trying to do with their project. I wrote a purpose statement the other evening to keep me on track, and this makes me hopeful that come graduation I can actually start DOING SOMETHING with this thing. And maybe not self-indulgent unpublishable somethings, either.

In a few days I’ll probably start poking at thesis, as well as some real-world art obligations and general back-to-school prep, because school fires back up in a couple of weeks! Exciting and a little bit scary. If I can make it through the next twenty weeks or so there is every chance that I will have a real honest-to-goodness degree. I’ve got a long list of post-graduation to-dos as far as art, writing, and blogging are concerned.

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Sneak, sneak, sneak!

27 Tuesday Dec 2011

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Greetings, my charming pumpkins! I hope all is well. I am taking a break from thinking about thesis and academics. So far I’ve cleaned my bedroom, watched hockey, celebrated Christmas, drawn character portraits, and even poked a tiny bit at a story idea.

But on to the real reason for this post! There is a distinct possibility that I am Up To Something. All will become clear soon, but for now, would you be so good as to swing by this poll (if you haven’t already) and cast your vote?

Christmas Morning!

25 Sunday Dec 2011

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HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (Isa 7:14)

Is there much to add? Immanuel, God with us, and God is with all that trust in His Son through the righteous life, death, and resurrection whose commencement we celebrate today. I hope you and yours have a blessed, beautiful day!

(p.s. drew the above this morning with my brand-new Bamboo, included it because I figured Theo comes with his own Christmas coloring)

The weather’s fine (sketchpost)

19 Monday Dec 2011

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First and foremost, oh my goodness squishy robot! You can’t tell me that’s not great. I was so excited about this that I drew a picture of one making friends with Paul-Robot. I was pleasantly surprised to realize that having shifted the robots towards silly and stylized, and having let go of some baggage, I am now a LOT better at drawing them than I used to be, plus I actually ENJOY drawing them! Certain of my readers may find this news exciting.

In other news, the semester is formally over and that means I’m working on my second thesis chapter! About children and television. And let me tell you, experts in the 1950s certainly had ideas about children and television. I’m also noticing some themes that may answer a whole lot of my questions and help me understand better where I’m going with this crazy thesis. Not going into detail yet, but it’s exciting to say the least. I’m doing a lot more speculating in this chapter, which will probably make Magical Thesis Advisor happy.

(this also means it’s long past time for me to reply to those nice comments people left during crunch time. Ahem.)

Oh, hey, Christmas is coming! Christmas is easily foremost in my Top Three for holidays, for religious and personal reasons. There’s powerful magic at the end of the year. I don’t have any interesting Internet Christmas plans, to my chagrin, except for the usual post-Christmas-morning holiday wishes post. I’ve been listening to carols on and off, more because I get so absorbed in thesis-ing that I forget I could have music playing. We decorated the house and the tree Saturday. I was the one to unearth from the boxes the Most Important Decoration–the venerable Christmas Elephant. It’s a wooden jumping-jack painted white, green, and red, with a loop at the top for hanging on a doorknob. Some of the twine that makes it jump has broken, but most of it still works–which is surprising because it’s been in the family for generations and is probably eyeballing its first century. While it’s amazingly sturdy for a cheap wooden jumping-jack (can you imagine a modern equivalent lasting that long? I know it’s a cliche but things really were made much sturdier in the past), it’s still around a hundred years old and requires care. So my mother and I spent several minutes hunting all over the house for a relatively unused doorknob, from which it would be safe to hang the Christmas Elephant. We roamed from room to room, calling back and forth, myself clutching the Elephant. You don’t realize how many knobs and handles there are, and how frequently you use them, until you’re looking for the one that nobody uses much. We did finally find a place for it on one of the glass bookcase-doors in the library, on a relatively infrequently used collection of books.

ANYWAY, how about some drawings?

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I told you to move out, you don’t match my bones (Marigold Woman)

16 Friday Dec 2011

Posted by in fiction, Marigold Woman, writing

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History is inexorable; all my loving cannot stop Cincinnatus from becoming Caligula.

Paint spots on your eyelids, perhaps God will touch them.

The woman with smudgy eyes and hollow cheeks, that woman, she thinks long in the night and she bites hard at her knuckles. In some other world where logic works differently there would be words to hurt them the way they hurt her, but there is no justice among the people whose eyes turn inwards. In this world, they wrap their hearts up carefully in layer upon layer of turquoise cellophane, and in twelve years’ time if you unwrapped it, very carefully, you would find a little puff of air, smelling faintly of overripe fruit and sour milk. Pfft! It’s already gone.

They got up a revival once, those people. It imparted to them a nice cozy glow, and they said that it was good.

Scene: The moon peeks occasionally between the clouds. The little prophet and the Marigold Woman have not stirred from their bench halfway through the field. How long has it been? God knows, sir. The prophet has lit a cigarette at last; it sweetens the air and wrinkles the nose, makes a little red light and reflects just faintly off the green goggles. There is an untraceable fishy smell in the air.

Marigold Woman: I’m tired.

Prophet: So’m I.

Marigold Woman: What, no smart remark? No weird stuff?

Prophet: No. It’s been a long walk. Let’s sit and admire the stars a little longer.

Marigold Woman: You can’t see any stars.

Prophet: Let’s admire ‘em anyway.

They both sit, staring up into the clouds. The prophet nods a few times. The cigarette is almost down to the filter now.

Prophet: I don’t have anything to say. Can you forgive me?

Marigold Woman: puzzled. Of course. Nobody said you had to say anything.

Prophet: I guess not, but I feel slightly obligated to hold forth, for the sake of those insubstantial boys you’re so fond of abusing.

Marigold Woman: blank stare for a moment, then with a click of the tongue. Oh, them. I’d forgot about them.

Prophet: I can’t decide whether that’s the best thing I’ve ever heard, or the worst.

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