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May 2016 Fly-By Status Report – I GOT A REAL JOB!
Yes, you read that right: I GOT A REAL JOB! The ultimate happy dance! | via GIPHY It’s a part-time administrative and communication assistant job, which is only a few hours a week, and a few minutes away from my house (YAAAAAY), so hopefully that means I can structure my life around that to get some stability for my creative work! I start today, and I’m really excited to see how it goes! Also, hi, I haven’t seen you since Easter! I’ve been super busy working, arting, volunteering, story researching…in fact, that’s why I decided to do tri-yearly status reports. I figure, if I haven’t blogged or vlogged in a while, I want to make…
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Halloween Approacheth! And HIATUS!
“And a ship, a black freighter with the skull on its masthead…” Hallo, all! It’s already the second week of October, and already the air is filled with ghost stories and candy bowls are filled with candy! And my life is full of events and busy things which are really dragging on my ability to write good posts, so I’m definitely thinking a hiatus is in order. I’m planning at least one vlog, so I won’t be totally silent, but no blog entries until closer to Halloween. Thanks for understanding, guys. I love autumn, and I’ve been collecting–at my own mental peril–crazy murder & mayhem stories and ghost stories about…
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The Secret of Kells
“I have seen the book. The book that turned darkness into light.” When I was in Dublin a few years ago, I had a chance to visit Trinity College and tour its library and museums. It’s famous for being the home of the Book of Kells, which was illuminated by Irish monks and survived the Viking attacks in the late 700s and early 800s A.D. Considering the content of my novel having a lot to do with illuminated manuscripts and monks, it’s always been an area of interest for me. When the 2010 Oscars aired, I first heard of a movie listed in the Best Animated Film category called “The Secret…
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The Origins of Automata and the Uncanny in “Edison’s Eve”
All moveables of wonder, from all parts,/Are here–Albinos, painted Indians, Dwarfs,/The Horse of Knowledge, and the learned Pig,/The Stone-eater, the man that swallows fire,/Giants, Ventriloquists, the Invisible Girl,/The Bust that speaks and moves it goggling eyes,/The Wax-work, Clock-work, and all the marvelous craft/Of modern Merlins, Wild Beasts, Puppet-shows,/All out-o’-the-way, far-fetched, perverted things,/All freaks of nature, all Promethean thoughts/Of man, his dullness, madness, and their feats/All jumbled up together, to compose/A Parliament of Monsters. – William Wordsworth, The Prelude While doing some research for my webcomic a few months ago, I read a remarkable book called “Edison’s Eve” by Gaby Wood. It discusses the historical significance of automata from their initial…
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A Little Bit of Everything
Oh man, I’ve been meaning to post this entry last month! I’ve been thinking about/doing a lot of things lately, so I hope you’ll forgive the discombobulatedness of this entry! Blogging really is my favorite way to keep the writing alive when I’m not actually “writing,” but doing more “editing.” It makes me feel more productive when I have something published on my blog, or when I’m making plans for it ^_^ My story has been keeping me busy, but lately I’ve been doing much more job hunting, so I’ve made less time for it than I’d like. Speaking of blogging, one of my writer friends, Morgan Riley, mentioned to…
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Flying (DON’T write what you know)
Darn Tweets have been monopolizing my blog space. Sorry I haven’t been making any actual posts in a while. Editing is going well. I’m up to Ch. 10 right now. Man, it feels weird going over stuff that I’ve gone over so many times, except that I am finally connecting everything coherently, so that is huge. I have also been gathering more writing ideas for future books in this series. I love life: it provides such rich opportunities for self expression and research. I wrote a blog last month entitled Life Experience, which talks more in depth about my love for research and experiences. Someone posed a point to me…
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Life Experience (Write what you know)
The old adage goes; “write what you know.” As an author, I’m what I like to call a “method writer.” Like a method actor, I want to have some experience in areas I’ll be writing about so I can portray them with realism. I’m a rather curious, adventurous person, so I’ve racked up a number of experiences. I’ve been horseback riding, gone to a firing range, been spelunking, rock climbed on a bare rock face, traveled, and a host of incidental things that I can draw reference from; anything from standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon to driving a car. Not to mention going through college and moving…
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Traveling is an education
I get ideas from all sorts of unexpected places, especially since I work with people from so many different backgrounds with varied histories and experiences, including many who were born in other parts of the world. I found myself in the middle of a wonderful conversation yesterday, listening to two foreign-born coworkers talking about the fun, creative things they would think up to entertain themselves as kids, all involving some sort of mischief and lots of wonderful local color. My inner anthropologist was absolutely delighted, and my inner author was equally pleased with the influx of new mind-expanding ideas. And this was not the first conversation I’ve had/heard like this.…
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When Characters Have a Mind of Their Own
I was talking with another writer friend last night, and he was telling me how frustrating it is when characters develop and change as you write them, and they mess up all your nice plans for the story’s direction. There can be nothing more frustrating, trust me :-), yet I like to look at it as a challenge. You really WANT to listen to your characters, or if you’d rather, your intuition about your characters. It’s so important if you want your story to be genuine, original and true. That doesn’t mean it’s easy, especially to creative types who like to plan ahead! Some of my characters start off one…
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I’m a shockwave ready to kill
Draft two is coming along nicely: I keep coming up with better ways to do scenes, except for the fact that it totally disrupts the order I had before, and I need to figure out how to make it work all over again *facepalm* Am I just making it harder for myself, just because I want something special? Figured out some religious and mythological history about the area one of my characters was born in. It explains a lot about why things are the way they are, and why he turned out the way he did. I saw a music vid today that totally captured a slice of this same…
Artist, Author, Geek
