Ha.

I’m one goal-oriented sucka*, so my brain kind of stalled for a second when I realized I hadn’t set one yet (What? Preposterous! Unconceivable! I’ve been done for almost two months!). While my mind was sputtering (what is it now…? June. Or July? And then, what’s next: August? I mean, there’s like 200 pages, so that’s how many pages per day? Yikes!) my mouth responded with a cool “Uh, September 1st.”

Ha.

One way I make sure I meet my deadlines is to tell people, so I have to burden some self-imposed shame if I don’t make it… so I guess Sept 1st is now official. If I’d thought about it for longer, it might have been October 1st, or maybe even November 1st; but now it’s September 1st, which is sooner. Like, 30 or so days sooner. And I wrote SIX WHOLE LINES this week. Yeeg.

Which brings me to consider the illustration work that is eating all my Writing Time. So, in light of that: I’m taking a month off. Dammit. I will not be taking any new projects in the month of August, so if you want to commission me for something pretty before then, please let me know soon. I’ll be a wild, drawing, burn-me-out-to-blindness machine until July 30th. At that time, I will trade my Wacom for some good ol’ fashioned keys. Illustrator will be turned in for basic Word. And exhaustion will once again be based on the brain and not my eyes because of my ITTY-BITTY-MICROSCOPIC-SPECIMEN OF A COMPUTER SCREEN.

* See also: crazed, obsessed

Babushka League is my favorite design I’ve done so far. The concept of putting a kerchief on a bowling ball is funny enough; add that to the musings early in its development on “how do we make it more Polish?” and the resulting sausage and pierogies in among the pins… and this was the most fun. I think the final design had to lose the flowers because of printing restrictions, but I’m posting the original here.

…aaand now I’m hungry.

I got to relive a little of the excitement of Harry Potter. A friend of mine found himself (happily) unemployed and used his new free time to begin reading again. He went from reading “nothing, ever” to “the whole HP series, over a couple weeks.” It’s so nice to geek out over a fantasy series I absolutely adore. Especially when it’s done over pie. As far as I’m concerned, Heaven is spelled P-I-E.

I finally read Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass, and was totally underwhelmed. Pullman did a nice job constructing the world, and I enjoyed the bit with the armored bears… but I didn’t find the story all that engaging. When it ended, I didn’t feel at all interested in what Lyra was doing next — rather, I was just glad she was going away. I’m not an expert, but that can’t be an effective way to start a trilogy. Also: where was all the controversy? I realize I’m on the wrong side of the fence to be offended, but I didn’t get much of anything in the way of “killing God”… Pullman portrayed the church as one would relate the far-reaching power and somewhat questionable practices from a couple hundred years ago. Calm down, people.

A girlfriend lent me Anne Bishop’s The Black Jewels Trilogy. I will admit Daughter of the Blood was pretty slow going at first; as in, I didn’t get into until page 277 slow, but I did eventually buy into it and the characters and the world. I’ve only read the first book, but unlike Pullman’s His Dark Materials, I’ll be continuing with this series. A warning, however: the whole society is based on sex and the dark, magical, power-hungry society revolving around it — and it’s not always pretty. Sometimes it’s unapologetically graphic. So if you’re faint of heart, maybe try something lighter.

Currently, I’m reading Terry Pratchett’s Wintersmith. Pratchett’s one of my favorite authors EVER. I was fishing through my bookshelf for one of his to lend out (he has his own shelf in my house), and got wrapped up in wanting to read them all over again. Wintersmith is in his Tiffany Aching series, which is decidedly more YA than the other Discworld stuff I’ve read. His imagination is just kickin’. It gets my brain fired up.

Okay. Enough monkeying around. Back to work.

I feel recovered, and my mind’s inner storyteller is ready to rock again. I’m getting random little jolts of inspiration throughout the day — when I sleep, on the bus, during work, when I’m reading. My brain is sucking up every day observations like a sponge takes water, playing out little daydreams on how I could use them on my characters and then tucking the scenarios away. That means it’s time.

I went to the coffee shop last night feeling nervous. I’ve been excited about getting back down to business since last week, but there are times when you just can’t get it right, despite the best intentions. I was afraid I’d sit down and dig my heels in only to find myself feeling lost and overwhelmed. Fortunately, after the caffeine was flowing and the music got loud, things happened.

There’s certainly no dressing it up, though. This one’s going to be tough. There’s so many little parts and pieces that have to fit together by the end. The first draft was hard, but I’ve got several parts that are missing that need to be filled in, and revelations I made a week ago that have to be put into place. This is by far the most complicated story I’ve tried to wrangle so far.

It also has the potential to be the best piece of fiction I’ve ever created.

I think I’ve got it in me. Time will only tell.

Madness!

Anyway. I’ve been struggling for a couple months now with my various activities — Design, Illustration, and Writing — and how they affect my life and balance with one another. And there’s a battle going on.

Design will always be Priority #1. It’s not only my bread and butter, but I lurve it. I love creating visual solutions, and drooling over other people’s work. Package design, a good logo, a beautifully integrated illustration or an amazing commercial… it all makes me warm and fuzzy inside. There are so many wonderful ways to conquer the same problem — that is, communicate a message in a unique and memorable way — and I haven’t found them all yet. There’s nothing else I’d rather spend 40 - 60 hours a week doing. Illustration is that back-burner love that has fallen back into my lap, which is lovely. And writing is something I’ve been doing for years, and I’m only recently feeling ready to explore the professional end of it.

This is where my conflict lies. I have three things that I love to do, and so I divide my time amongst those three occupations. I understand the idea of wearing many different hats, and I’ve been juggling all three competently enough. But does splitting my time between those three somehow rob one of them of the potential to be the best it can be?

For example: if I’m never published, will it be because I didn’t give writing the due concentration it needed?

I never want to stop pushing myself, and I love them all. But I have to wonder if I’m sacrificing the quality of one to pursue the others. So what matters most here? Quality? Or quantity? I would usually say quality… but when the quantity is improving the quality of life as a whole… where does that leave things?

This is heavy thought for a beautiful Friday. Let’s have a donut.

He grew up in a small town, joined the Coast Guard for a while, went to art school and then (successfully!) made The Move to New York city where he spends his days making a living doing illustrations. He’s relatively young — as in, freshly into his thirties — and he has done so much in his years since leaving the Art Institute. His clients have included The New Yorker, Bath and Body Works, AIG, Forbes Magazine, Esquire, The Art Institute of Pittsburgh, Wall Street Journal, Vibe Magazine, ESPN Magazine… and more. His work has been recognized by NY Society of Illustrators, CA Illustration Annual #46 Cover, CA Fresh Section, American Illustration, HOW International Design Annual, Print’s Regional Design Annual, and Semi-Permanent.

So yeah, he’s got it — how do the kids say it? — going on.

It’s one thing to read about people that succeed in their fields; it’s another thing entirely to hear them speak about it in person… with a slideshow, no less. Thomas was casual, funny and came across as very approachable. His style is fun and fresh, with strong inking and vivid colors that smack you in the face (in a good way). There’s also a surprising amount of motion to each piece, which I find fascinating, and a yummy gritty quality that makes them more real.

As robust as his career has been so far, he was clear at the end of the presentation that his journey has taken a lot of hard work. He showed an abbreviated version of his process, a painstaking combination of hand drawn artwork and computer work. Plus, in the wake of many rejections over the years, he’s just kept trying which should be a lesson to everybody. I certainly saved it somewhere in my brain, and plan to pull it out when I get my next 20 rejection letters. In fact, I wrote “TENACITY” on a piece of 17×11 paper and hung it in my studio when I got home.

And, seriously: I thought I was goal-oriented, but this guy puts me to shame. He is a To-Do-List Master. Coast Guard in Hawaii? Check. Art school? Check. Professional New York Illustrator? Chickity-Check.

I originally moved to Pittsburgh to attend the Art Institute in the hopes of becoming an illustrator. Between you and me, I only took Graphic Design because it had two Illustration electives. Not one of the smartest decisions to base my education on, but thank goodness it all worked out. I found my illustration class to be lacking, although not because of the teacher: my brain just wasn’t ready for it yet. Around the same time, I broke out of my blood-feud with computers and fell in love with design. Six years later, I find myself full circle, designing for a living and doing illustrations on the side.

Sooo… semi-professional Pittsburgh illustrator? Check-ish. I’ll take it.

This was a great event. PSI plans to do three more of these, and I hope I’ll be able to make them all. It was insightful, interesting and the inspirational jolt I’ve been looking for since finishing my novel. It got me excited to create again. And I’ll definitely be on the lookout for more of Thomas’s work.

*All of the images in this post are Thomas’s. I don’t know the legality of posting them here, but I’m happy to remove if I’m contacted to do so.

I wrapped up the last part of David’s sequel at around 3 am this morning. It’s been a tough few weeks, but I’m feeling good about the finished product. I’m also exhausted, since I’ve been putting in 8 - 10 hours of my day job and then heading straight to the coffee shop to write for another 5 - 6 hours. But I hit the May 1st mark, so yay me. I’m excited, but also POOPED.

At one point I typed “understanded” and was filled with a millisecond of rage when Word’s spellchecker put a little red squiggly line under it. I thought, “What the hell? What’s wrong now? That’s how you spell it!”*

Here’s some yummy facts to chew on while I recover.**

The current manuscript is 150 pages long.

That’s approximately 72,000 words, nearly 40,000 of which were written in the last four weeks. It will undoubtedly expand and contract when I begin editing.

In my brain it is simply “David’s sequel”. In my laptop, it is called “SoD BK2 v01″. I’ll come up with a better title eventually. Hopefully.

It’s my fifth novel and the second of a planned trilogy.

The above illustration is a rendition of me late last night/early this morning. I was feeling loopy and absolutely inundated with LETTERS. So that’s me… feeling loopy… made out of letters. Merry Christmas. Zzzz…

*That is so not how you spell it. Or conjugate it. Or whatever.

**This recovery will absolutely involve alcohol. And probably a nap.

Until I return to regularly scheduled programming, watch this and giggle.

“I can’t go back. It’s so cold!”