7/29/12

It's a drumming day.

I realized that I never really get around to talking much about the music aspect of my artist-ness. I'll go on rants about painting and writing, but when you really look at it, the majority of my time is really spent practicing the drums. And I spent thousands of dollars a year for three years to learn how to play drums at one of the top music schools in the country. So maybe I should talk about it more.

Starting now. 

As soon as I got home today, my brain started beating me over the head with "go drum go drum go drum" and I had to tell it, "NO, brain! We have to shower first because we smell like three days' worth of camping! STOP." And by the time I got out it hadn't stopped.

So I gave in (like it was much to resist in the first place...) and had a glance down the touring band's next set list and didn't much feel like any of the tunes, so went and looked down local band's tunes and same deal. Looked at the Latin band's tunes, figured my brain was way too shot for jazz.

But I'd just drank a huge thing of coffee and my brain wasn't letting me go and so I was just sitting there, on the drum throne, buzzing and trembling from an overdose of caffeine and wondering what to do with my life. It got pretty deep. The decision was metal.

Before I joined this touring band, I had resolved to expand my metal horizons this summer and get my double kick chops more up to par. Also transcribing and learning the killer tom drum grooves that make my life so happy. For example, before the country band took over my life, I was learning this piece of "holy crap calm the heck down Danny Carey."




Has this KILLER groove that he turns into "you know what, this isn't good enough, we're going to add double kick rhythms. No. Still not hardcore enough. Super double kick." And then after the vocs kick in he's got a pretty Danny Carey-esque 16th rock thing going on that always blows my mind. Learning stuff from this guy, even though it takes months, has just revolutionized my drumming... even in the country bands.

And that wasn't quite enough for me, so I also have this wonderful mind-blowing track on the go, transcribing/learning-wise. Honestly, Danny Carey is freakishly amazing and all, but if I had to pick an all-time favorite metal drummer it would be Jordan Mancino (the guy in the next tune). This guy has got chops that blow my mind and on top of it brutally great technique. You can be good and successful at drums and all, but if you have bad technique you're only going to be so good for so long before your tendons give you a grand old bird and crap right out on you. So this guy is really one of my drumming idols. Actually, he is my drumming idol. I've met a few bands before, and even a couple of famous people, and I'm pretty okay on the whole hiding-my-excitement front, but I met Jordan Mancino briefly at an AILD signing once and he was all smiley and "hey, how's it going?" and I just kinda squeaked and hoped the English language was coming out of my mouth for the ten seconds we conversed. They say one of the best ways to get better is to transcribe your favorite players. So there's definitely a piled of half-filled manuscript with transcribed AILD drum lines sitting beside my kit alongside the jazz tunes haha. Now if only I had the time to learn them all... Anyways, this is the tune I'm learning right now.




So that's been my afternoon/evening, revisiting those two songs and then just working on some technique and drumming exercises. Enjoying a break from all the country music. I love country and all, it's just not powerful enough to keep me happy 100% of the time.

I also felt guilty after a while and worked on some funk solos out of a book... can't let my sheet music reading skills die, otherwise those three years of music school might as well have not happened. Sort of.

That's my drumming addiction in a nutshell. I go for too long without it I get shaky and over-excited and sit there like an overly happy dog, twitching and having the wheels in my head turning so fast that I don't really know how to handle it.

Also, SEVERELY rocking the flip-flop tan line today. Ready for a real picture of my real foot on my real drums?




I hope you were because I didn't give you much of a choice there...

That's just an obnoxious tan line. Like absurdly so. That'll show me for wandering around with the same sandals all weekend.

Also, decided to upload a real picture of me really playing drums in a real live show. But I made it small and fuzzy so you guys STILL CAN'T SEE ME. HAH. Joke's on those who got excited that I was revealing myself...

But really it was just so my Twitter pic wasn't the Sharpie unicorn anymore... while it was great, I think it gave the wrong idea haha.




So there you go. You can see me. Kinda. And I play drums. HURRAY.

CAMPING.

I hear a lot of people rant about camping. The general consensus seems to be that everyone gets super stoked for camping, but hates it when it actually happens because you're sleeping on a hard ground, it sucks when it rains, you get heat stroke, everything is dirty, etc.

I'm the kind of person who doesn't mind sleeping on the ground or getting dirt under their fingernails, so camping for me just rocks in every way. I hate the city and run as far away as I can every chance I get.

So this weekend, I took a bunch of my musician friends camping, and am completely satisfied with this accomplishment. We jammed, went swimming in a lake, rowed a boat around, slept in tents, ate fire-cooked steak (my best friend is the best cook ever and he made manly manly fire-roasted steaks), I learned how to throw a football, we all got wicked tans (and sunburns...) and had some good times.

I just got back so I'm a bit pooped but I'm happy and content and realized it's the end of the month and I have enough money to pay my bills comfortably AND go buy groceries... it's a good day.

I will post about why I find women terrifying later.

7/26/12

Another art day brings speed painting in real life

Every once in a while, in my oil painting adventures, I come across some odd piece of motivation that keeps me fixated on the piece that I'm doing, and so concentrated that I can finish one painting in a day, no matter how large it may be. For example, I am 1/4 done a painting I started OUTLINING this morning, and it's only 3:00pm.

These days scare the crap out of my customers because they get about 5 e-mails and text messages through the day with drastic photo updates. I usually leave out parts that I'm worried they may have an issue with, until they message back to give me the go-ahead, and I finish in a day. Makes them happy because then it's like "oh, I've got my painting a week earlier than I expected. Yay!" but at first they're like "holy crap what's happening?!"

So that's today.

But somewhere in here I have to fit in planning for camping that we're doing... tomorrow...

YEAH.

So there's this artist's day. Real-life speed painting and super planning. I own today.

update!

From my last, super crazy depressing post.

I have the best roommates ever and here's why. When Ian found me sitting alone in the pitch dark kitchen he told Laura what he had seen. By the time they came to find me I had migrated to my room where I was hiding under the blankets. They infiltrated my bedroom and my (small) bed and talked about stupid stuff.

At one point, Ian and I got into an argument on whether or not fingers contain muscles. Which of course I won by grabbing my artist's anatomy book and proving that there are, in fact, muscles in our fingers. They go up the sides, if you're curious.

Well, anatomy reference books is full of naked people and Laura's a bit innocent so she freaked out the second she saw a penis and it sparked a huge conversation about penile anatomy and function and size, etc. Wikipedia followed, and with it we learned about castration anxiety and penis envy. All without Laura having to look at a single penis.

We sparked a conversation about what a sexy butt was.

And then found out that Canada, Australia, Brazil, and Britain have the same average boob size.

What I'm saying is we had some very serious philosophical conversation usually well beyond the reaches of people our age.

Then Laura and I made fun of Ian for being British, poked fun as his questionable car (which is actually an Audi, though it's like 15 years old and has a good handful of odd problems), and then finished up with creepy hair-stroking, which came back to poking fun at Ian for looking like a Brit because of his swept-back hair.

So I'm going to bed happy.

Yay! EDIT: I deleted the last post, it was stupidly depressing. I might rehash it sometime.

7/24/12

Recording day AND a positive e-mail.

Spent a good part of today recording some vocals and mixing the demo! Also customer sent me the go-ahead for her portrait, FINALLY! It's been a good but busy day.

That's all for now, I really have nothing else to say and I have to get to some writing.

7/23/12

How to make non-asinine things look asinine AKA 10 types of people that tick me right the hell off.

Okay so I said I would post this... and here I am... posting it... days after I said I would... sorry.

Also I might have led on that I was going to post this sooner, but as soon as I sat down to write it my band showed up and then afterwards I had to do another round of quick-fire sketching and sending off to a customer who can't seem to find the right character pose in what I'm sketching.

"Okay but now make her a little more solid on the ground."

Wtf is that supposed to mean?! It's a sketch!

Anyways.

So I have a bit of a mental guide to being an ass through doing nice things. That sounds contradictory, but I promise you it's not. Bono is one of those people. I really dislike Bono. He is such a d-bag. And everyone's like "noooo, he donates so much money to starving children he cares so much about people!" Well he's still an ass!

If you're every wondering if you are an ass, read this and maybe it will clear things up. These are my top ten reasons to dislike people who sometimes do good things.

10. Church people who are church people for the sake of saying they are church people and can hold their holier-than-thou-ness over the heads of all of the "heathens." While awful, they're usually the ones that donate the most money to the churches because "look what good Christians we are!" and that gets help to people, sure, but seriously. These are the people who will sneak their faith into every conversation, and before company comes over they break out the Jesus decorations, place Bibles on every surface, and turn on the Christian radio station. They are the people who make SURE you see them praising the Lord and basically follow all the good stuff, but only when they're sure other people can see it. They are so annoying. They're all like "whoooo look at me and how Christian I am, aren't I just amazing and spiritual and perfect?" No. You're a jerk. If you have to glance around to make sure someone's looking before you help someone pick something up, you aren't nice, you're an egotistical dinkwad.

9. Med students/EMTs/Doctors/etc who throw their lifesaving in everyone's face. You know these people. They are the ones who criticize the bad health of others, looking down on them because "I'm going to be the one saving you later!" Every argument about their personality is "yeah well I save lives!" Yeah well, you're also an asshole and apparently you HATE saving people, judging the disdain in your voice when you talk about some of your patients. They usually say casual things in passing too, to make themselves seem more impressive. Every chance they get they sneak little bits into your conversation talking about how awesome they are. "Oh, yeah, I pulled this one guy out of a burning fire..." "People don't realize how much work some people [subtext: them] put in to make their lives better! Like I stayed up all night curing cancer once." It's like, yeah, you do good things and save people and stuff, but you also mention it every 30 seconds and you act like it's the biggest piss-off ever. So... make up your mind.

8. Healthy people who are healthy for the sake of showing people how much better they are than everyone else. Health is all good, but some people (and I know of a few) will actually lose weight or eat nothing but complete organic stuff just to show people how much better they are than them. If someone feels the need to continually remind you that they eat ONLY organic or that they lost 5 lbs in 2 weeks, AGAIN, they are just lording over how much better they are than you. I guarantee it. It is why I don't talk to other runners, because I can't stand the conversations over how crazy of an incline the last 5 mile run was at, or how, and I quote an actual runner, "every run you take is a victory lap around the people at home, sitting on the couch." Okay, so what that tells me is that you are way better than millions of people you don't even know because you decided to go outside and do a thing that millions of other people do? Maybe they don't want to run. Don't judge them!

7. People who pretend to care about people's problems so they can be up-to-date on the latest gossip. You can spot these from the truly sympathetic ones because any attempt at not telling them your thing is challenged with a slightly-more-casual question in their attempt to get something, anything out of you. It's like they feed off of your emotions. It's disturbing, and smothering, and terrifying, and infuriating... all at once.

6. Wealthy people who donate to charity and advertize it to the world. Simple enough. You realize that you are allowed to donate money to charity and not sneak the fact into every conversation/Facebook update/phone call/letter/public discussion you take part in, right?

5. Horse rescues that are actually fake rescues. This usually goes high up on my list because they infuriate me so much but in the big scheme of things the others make a biggest impact. They call themselves rescues and everyone is all "ohhhh look how awesome you are to these innocent animals!" when really all they did was write "rescue" next to their farm name, and go and buy/pick up a bunch of malnourished horses that they can't actually afford to feed or treat, so they all continue to be malnourished. And you KNOW they can't afford a vet or farrier either so the horses go untreated and their feet untrimmed. Plus they NEVER have the time or experience to actually train the horses, so the animals slowly get more and more wild. And if someone points out "hey, your horse is too skinny and not taken care of," they're just like "oh no, he's just a rescue horse so he's on the road to recovery." No he's not, he went from one sh*thole to another with a prettier fence. And the SPCA is like "oh they're rescues? Alright then, makes sense that they're thin." NO IT DOESN'T. You need to actually RESCUE THE HORSES in order to BE A REAL RESCUE.

4. People who do little things for humanity and act like they are the biggest things in the world. This one is pretty simple. It's the people who go on for ages about all the things they've done to help people but in the big scheme of things they didn't really help anyone. Example: donating a can of corn to the food bank. Good for you for giving food away but really it's not that big of a deal. It cost you two dollars, if that. One can of food donated does NOT give you the right to brag about your generosity. If you "once donated a sweater to a homeless guy," you have not done your part for humanity. You have done one nice thing. You should do more, and not tell me about every single one, because your nice deeds are not something you need to throw at people like "love me" weapons.

3. Fake sympathy guy (actually usually a girl but this one had a better ring to it). The ones that pretend they care but turn around and talk about what a wreck someone's life is. Kind of an extended version of #7. Usually fake sympathy to your plight and then turn around and talk about it in a low, tragic voice acting like they are the only thing you have in the world and how it's "really just too bad," just so everyone they talk to can be like "oh look at what a great friend they are to that person! They're so lucky to have a friend like this..."

2. Slacktivists."Click like to find a cure for breast cancer!" "okay! YAY I HELPED THE CURE FOR CANCER. Oh, I should share this on Facebook to be sure everyone knows that I hate cancer..." I want to punch these people in the face and tell them their post was worthless. And I'm pretty non-violent. "yay I shared a status with a poem about child abuse! I helped fix the problem!" NO YOU DIDN'T.

1. Famous people who do good things so they can be more famous and act like the king of everything and do/say whatever the hell they want because, hey, they're famous and they've done some good stuff. This is why I hate Bono. He's done a LOT of good things, well good for him. He acts like a pretentious ass about it and throws it in everyone's face. That makes him an egotistical douche.

There you are.


Also, never been a HUGE fan of DEADMAU5 but this just gained him like 5 million respect points from me.



Also, WTF IS WITH THIS NEW NERD TREND? Now girls are realizing guys think nerdy girls are attractive and they're trying so hard to jump on the nerd bandwagon, but CRAP LIKE THIS KEEPS POPPING UP. I have eye-witnessed WAY too many things like this, and it's like insta-rage pills for me.



 IT'S F*CKING DOCTOR WHO YOU STUPID WOMAN.


I should probably get off of Failbook now and get back to writing...


EDIT: ALSO, the other reason why I haven't posted yet is because I was panicking and running around prepping to be blown away because THIS popped up on the weather network, and is probably the most terrifying piece of text I have ever read online.

"Tornado watch for City of [CITY] - [ANOTHER CITY] - [ONE MORE CITY] continued

Conditions are favourable for the development of severe thunderstorms with the potential to produce tornadoes.

These severe thunderstorms will also have the potential to produce very large hail..Flooding rain..Deadly lightning and powerful winds. Use this time to secure outdoor property and to ensure family members and co-workers are prepared to take action should the severe weather approach.

Environment Canada continues to monitor the situation closely for severe thunderstorm development and possible tornado warnings. Please continue to monitor your local media or weatheradio for further updates.

Should severe weather approach or if you feel threatened do not wait for warnings to take action..Take shelter immediately."


HOLY CRAP YOU GUYS.

I'm so sorry I lied to you!!

I promised posts of epic proportion but did not deliver... which tends to be the case... and I feel awful for you regular eight people who, by now, have probably given up due to "where the heck did the spastic posting go?"

A quick update.

Friday I posted about having splitting migraine headache and my body was slowly being destroyed by something. I hinted at being a bit better by the end of the day, and I was, but things were back in full force in the morning. Unfortunately for me, one sick day is all I get, so I dragged myself to touring band's rehearsal which took up about seven hours of my day. An hour to get there and set up, then FOUR HOURS to run down the whole set list of the band to make sure we'd learned them all/could workshop them all. An hour of take down and then afterwards they were like STAY AND EAT OUR FOOD which, for an artist who can't afford food, I was like EFF YES.

But I was still achey and sick and exhausted from the ridiculously long rehearsal and so I kinda nibbled at the food and then went home, where I dumped my drums in the basement and slept forever afterwards.

Yesterday was a frustrating day. Of course I was playing in the church band so I was up stupid early and still all blech, and that took me to the afternoon and I spent the rest of the day half-conscious, coding my art website and sending concept sketches back and forth to a customer.

And NOW I'm waiting for my cover band to get here so I can start rehearsing. But I promise, I WILL post afterwards. All I have to do today is send a final concept to the customer and then work on the novel for the rest of the day. I'm CERTAIN I will get bored/burn out at some point, so I will blog in that time.

Until then!

7/20/12

My computer AND my body hate me.

Okay, maybe my computer doesn't hate me, but sometimes it does things that kinda make me look at it sideways. It is not a machine to be trusted.

That's probably because Apple made it...

This is a quick blurb on my stupid computer before I get to the REAL rant which is on my stupid body. 

Anyways. Computer does weird things with the keyboard, some programs don't run properly, and it continually thinks I have an external mouse plugged in, which I don't. Don't tell me to go to Applecare you dinks, I've already tried and they're all like "gimme $550 to fix it." And I'm like "lolno."

It does odd things in the webbernet browser too. For example, I went to go type in this blog and it usually autocompletes to it at "an" but this time it thought it would be funny and autocompleted animalsbeingdicks.com. And I've never been there before. So I went out of curiosity...

it's pretty funny, you should check it out!

Anyways. WTF Macbook? Also WTF Firefox? I feel like the both of you were accomplices in this.

Also don't get snarky about Firefox. Chrome is a piece of garbage.

Anyways!

I've started three lines in this blog with "anyways." For an author my casual vocab is pretty sub-par, it would seem.

Getting to the next point. My body hates me.

Like seriously.

There are a WHOLE LOT OF LAYERS to why my body handed my butt to me on a silver platter today, but the first one was waking up to the thing that every guy fears even hearing a mention of: Mother nature's regular f*ck-you to women. I woke up feeling like the Jerkface Gods had started their day early simply for the sake of grabbing a certain organ of mine, taking hold of either side of it and pulling as hard as they could. After I staggered around for half an hour taking horse-pill painkillers and drinking a whole ocean of water to make the ouch go away, it quickly became apparent that that was not the only thing to be worried about.

First off, I'd been up for half an hour and was still walking like a drunk person/staggering/leaning on walls. Then, every muscle in my body, not just the dickwad one, was in excruciating pain, which sometimes takes me a while to notice because there are 10 000 things physically wrong with me so pain takes a bit to register as "bad" with my brain. The third thing was a sound-and-light-sensitive headache that, over the last twenty minutes, had been amplifying to such a degree that my vision had gone askew. And again, I didn't notice until I was thinking "my vision sucks. I need my glasses. I'm wearing glasses. What the hell..." Other oddities stacked up such as chills+sweating at the same time, fever, and exhaustion but nothing usual popped up like nausea or coughing so I have no idea wtf happened.

So I ended up going downstairs where it's dark and putting the TV on and playing a really quiet episode of Being Human (UK version. Gotta keep my in-head voice British...) while wearing sunglasses to work past the light of the moving-pictures-box.

Also, side note, I'm still in writing mode so I'm doing things like avoiding certain repetitive patterns, which is why TV turned into moving-pictures-box... which I didn't understand why I needed to find an (albeit humorous) alternative to "TV" that wasn't "television." Also explains why I felt an extreme distaste for typing 10 000 instead of "ten thousand" even though the rule of thumb is to write out numbers under 100 and number anything over...

And back to your regular programming.

Ian, who is also a drummer, came down as I was lying draped pathetically (and a bit suspiciously like a dead person) over our couch. I KNEW for a fact he had overheard me groaning to Laura about having the headache and achy sickly body so I was more than ticked when the first thing he did was turn EVERY SINGLE (not even kidding) LIGHT ON in the basement. We have four light switches: One at the top of the stairs that turns on the back half of the basement lights, one at the bottom for the front half, one in the storage/laundry room and one in our rehearsal/music room. He dragged his laundry down while turning both the main room lights on, causing me to squeak pathetically and dive under the blanket I was using. It was late morning, so the window would have been sufficient light.

He then proceeded to turn both rooms' lights on while leaving the doors open, and THEY have huge bright fluorescent white lighting in them, so it was an extra kick, even through the blanket.

After he started the laundry machine (okay, it hurt my head but I wasn't mad at him for it because that's something he needs to do...) he came out and was like "HI [NAME]!"

And I responded with "F*CK YOU THESE LIGHTS DON'T NEED TO BE ON."

And he's all British and really nice and just a bit naive sometimes so I felt bad immediately but I get REALLY pissy when I'm sick. Like really really grumpy. Same when I'm injured. The first problem-of-the-day actually had NOTHING to do with it. So I didn't feel as bad as I would have have I been healthy.

He kinda jumped and a light seemed to go on, this time in his head, and he said "oh yeah, you're sick! Haha oops." and turned the laundry room light off and shut the door. And I peeked out from under the blanket, still wearing super dark sunglasses, and told him in a psychopathic voice to turn the other lights off too.

When those were turned off, he announced he was going to practice and commenced playing the drums.

It was a very rage-filled moment for me, but the pain kinda blocked out the anger and won in the end so I dragged myself back upstairs with a bucket of cold water and a facecloth, threw a blanket over my window to block out any hint of sun and spent the rest of the day in my room with a wet cloth on my face watching an entire season of Being Human punctuated with the Colbert Report.

After a while I felt a bit better and sat up in bed, and wrote a whole freaking chapter in my novel.

A WHOLE CHAPTER YOU GUYS. I felt like a champion.

That is until I tried to stand up to go get food and my tendinitis-infected knees were like LOL WE HATE YOU and gave me a crippling dose of pain that sent me tumbling.

So now I have a slight headache, slightly achy all over, tendons hate me, and I have a bruise on my forehead (no joke...) from falling face-first into my desk.

Body won this round.

In other news, teaching the art class yesterday was SO MUCH FUN, I'm dealing with more grownup mommy issues, AND MY BIRTHDAY'S ON MONDAY! =D 

Also follow me on Twitter. @ArtInEverySense because I did a horrible thing and my 8 followers unfollowed me and now I feel dumb tweeting to 2 people that I don't think are actually following me for anything other than spreading their name around...

The horrible thing I did was use the word "church" in a post. Sorry, tweet... anyways (frick) now everyone thinks I'm a crazy preachy Christian even though I'm not preachy even in the least bit and I'm not even close to the old-fashioned crazy ones and my church even supports gay people! GAY PEOPLE YOU GUYS.

Annnnnnd, what you have to look forward to this weekend:
How to make non-asinine things look asinine
Why women terrify me
And on a slightly more serious note, a follow up to my depression post.

7/17/12

More grownup stuff.

I hate being a grownup sometimes. I have THE MOST childish jobs I can think of (uh... playing the drums, painting/drawing, and making up stories? Come on.) and I STILL get smacked with the grownup stick every once in a while.

Like this morning. I woke up and life was standing over my bed with the grownup stick, grinning like he was going to screw up my day and love it. After the obligatory "good morning" I got whacked hard.

Today was a big mess of scheduling rehearsals and shows, coding websites, photography for the websites, putting layers of protective spray on an oil painting (which is tedious and annoying), fixing the railing going down to the basement, CLEANING the basement and scolding a roommate that left a big jar of pasta sauce on the counter for three days (until it molded) and causing me to lose my lunch on the floor due to, in case you missed the ever-popular puking on my roommate story, extreme allergies.

Now I'm waiting for a customer to come and pick up her painting and pay me for it and pay the next one's deposit. As soon as THAT happens, I will be off to my supplier to pick up her two huge canvases so I can start on her stuff ASAP and get paid again ASAP.

Tonight I need to try to finish with the basement, clean the snake tank, FEED the snake (fun fact: they only eat once a week!), clean cat litter, brush the cat because he's getting matted, trim his nails, and then go online and find a "exotics" vet near this house because I'm too far away from the snake's old vet to go there again (snake does not enjoy biking THAT much) and he's due for a checkup in a month.

Also have to finish budgeting for next month which is really hard when I don't have all of my gigs confirmed yet.

I just want to sit around without pants and get covered in paint and make loud noises with sticks. Is that too much to ask?!

Customers that try way, way, way too hard.

I do a LOT of character design, because most artists don't think to offer it and every amateur/starting author ever wants their characters drawn. Some pro authors do it too if they're really stuck on a character and need outside insight.

But the thing is, 90% of the authors that want their characters designed are the ones who believe they are the most pro, the most badass author ever because they got their amazingly, untouchably cool character commissioned by a professional artist and paid hundreds of dollars to get it done.

Because their book is worth it.

And I'm usually not one to judge, but these would-be authors bring it out in me because they tend to be the WORST.

I invite my customers to coffee to talk about their work and with them, I NEVER GET TO LEAVE. And I spend the entire time with glazed-over eyes which they only don't notice, I'm sure, because everyone they talk to gets the same speech and so they think that's just how humanity looks. And I have to pay attention/take notes/do quick sketches to remember ideas and the things they for sure want.

It's not like I hate talking to people about their story ideas and such. I usually love it, being an author myself. But like I said, these people are just CONVINCED they are the best. And there's nothing worse than being stuck with someone who's over the top full of themselves that you have to, not only pay attention to, but cater to because they're going to give you money.

The difference between the amateur and pro authors that come to me is the description they give me.

Pros will give me a general attitude, a list of things that affect the appearance such as injuries, defects, scars, athletic background, career, and usually why they are where they are in the picture they want me to make. Their description consists of pretty general stuff with a few specifics such as eye color. Even clothing is like "well... just give him something modern for a middle-class young adult that makes retail wage." All in all, the description takes less than 10 minutes. Then we spend another 10 minutes doing a very quick concept sketch with notes and the odd correction, and then they pay their deposit and sometimes leave me to do the real concept sketch which I will e-mail to them LATER. Other times they sit and we have a talk about writing and have intelligent discussion about the art form, and can even help each other out with suggestions on overcoming some troubles or working with publishers.

Amateurs are nowhere near as fun or interesting.

First, they ALWAYS need to start off by telling me they are very serious about and involved in their novel. That's how I know the meeting is going to suck. I just nod seriously and say "oh yeah, naturally!" They then tend to go on about how new and fresh and never-before done and (usually) ARTFULLY complicated this novel is. And then to prove it to me, they tell me just how complicated it is.

I actually had one man tell me each of his chapters could be its own novel and they're all happening parallel to one another but sometimes they cross and you don't know until the end when they're in an epic battle that's REALLY been happening for the whole story only you don't know it because they're all insane and have been imagining the parallel worlds this whole time.

You can't make this shit up.

Then it's 50/50 about what's going to happen next. Either they're going to hand me a stack of papers with an extremely detailed history of the character they want done, usually accompanied with manuscript with all the badass scenes their characters are in, OR they're going give the details to me verbally, usually reading me passages from their work of art.

I'm talking, birth to every detail of the kid years to the tortured teenage years where they usually have their parents die in front of them and are overcome with intense rage and become this amazing warrior of untold awesomeness, and are instantly better and more badass than everyone ever and pretty much go on to screw everything up and bring everything to justice.

They actually believe all of this information, usually no less than an HOUR of it, is going to help me make a better character design.

It's one freaking picture, you dorks.

And then EVERY DETAIL is set. They want x kind of clothing and x kind of hairstyle and they want it PERFECT and the weapons are all either stupidly complicated or stupidly over-done (like 400lb broadswords that glow and shoot flames and win against even modern military...) and basically it ends up being like a very bad rehash of a Final Fantasy character.

Every time I hope that they will then leave and I can do concepts like a normal person, but no. We sit there for another hour while I make a very detailed sketch that has to be perfect because they don't understand the concept of CONCEPT SKETCH.

And then after they're satisfied I get to hear about their angst-ridden lives and what drove them to being an author and why they're so much smarter than anyone else out there and sure they've gotten rejected by 6 publishers but hey, publishers just don't understand them and publishing deals are impossible to get unless you [expletive] their [expletive].

I usually have to forcefully remove myself from their presence by making up something like "I have to go brush my hair."

And then I just make them as badass and stereotypical as humanely possible and the "author" is always over-the-top psyched about how badass the character is and how no one can be as cool as their character.

And I just hope they never call me back to do another one because I'm not sure I can do another meeting with them and not shoot myself.



This rant is inspired by someone who e-mailed to me asking for me to do a controversial picture of Jesus holding a half-naked woman in close to him for a Dan Brown (but not Dan Brown, way more cool and complicated and controversial than Dan Brown) style novel.

Yeah. I have a whole page on my website dedicated to Christian art. Are you TRYING to piss me off?

Probably.


This is as bad as the time when a guitarist at the university asked me to drum for his Satanic death metal band the day after he publicly ridiculed me for being a Christian. Because he'd seen me play metal before (I love it) and thought, and I quote, "you can play the drums like you need anger management!"

The hell is wrong with you people?!

7/16/12

Sharing.

Okay, so we're obligated to share because since we've been children we've been taught the notion that sharing is caring and if we don't share when someone looks like they genuinely want something we have a deep sense of guilt that begins clawing its way up from our gut.

It's why we're terrified to take gum out of our pockets in public.

And you can't exactly just be like "bitch it's MINE!" because apparently it's socially unacceptable...

I'm poor. I hate sharing any bit of my food or non-water drink because I can't afford more, but I can't say no, because that's mean. I also hate sharing my computer. It's not like I have anything to hide, I just don't like people using it. I hate people playing my drum kit, even though half the people who want to jam with it have been playing drums just as long/longer than me and went through the same music program. 

So I've developed a few techniques to side-stepping the obligatory granting of some piece of your amazing whatever-it-is to someone who CLEARLY does not deserve it.

1. Make it sound completely unappealing. Example. My friend just looked at my iced tea with longing and asked what I was drinking. Because I'm poor, I water down my iced tea a bit. It doesn't taste awful, it's just not super sweet. So I said "it's super watered-down iced tea." His interest died.

2. Exaggerate any problem it has. My computer's keyboard screws up sometimes. So when people ask to use my computer, I say "the keyboard doesn't work, it's really annoying to deal with. You might want to find one that's not broken."

3. Say you've got some sort of germs that will somehow infect the other person: "I have a cold." "I have herpes." Something casual but gross. Bet you never thought you'd see herpes on my blog, eh?

4. Sneeze on it. The more spray the better. Enough said. Wait for them to say "nevermind."

5. Lick it. It's more humorous than saying no, though still as rude, but the person will be so amused that they will overlook your rude denial of their entitlement and laugh it off.

The last two are a bit gross. I haven't put the sneezing one into action yet because I'm too scared of the germs that would result, but I am determined to one day try it. The licking one is the best reaction-wise, the other three just end with the other's quiet disappointment.

EDIT: Made coffee. Friend wants coffee. Can't do any of the above because "I suck at brewing coffee" doesn't work when the person knows you drink coffee every day and everything else is irrelevant.  I can't make it sound unappealing either because I'm drinking it and I'm picky about coffee.

Dammit.

Today's a grown up day/A look into a full working day in the art business.

Last night I got a full night's sleep, which is pretty rare, so I woke up super excited and full of energy (for once!) but the excitement was short-lived when grownup work overtook my day.

I spent a little time writing, which since I've gotten past that one brutal chapter that was owning my life for a bit, was fine. I'm actually meeting deadlines! But eventually I had to interrupt that fun to go and practice for the rehearsal one of my bands was having today. Learned a bunch of tunes, worked on some chops, then did the rehearsal which was followed by the ever-pleasant band meeting which was a whole load of "we need gigs!!" because we're in a lull. We're not a bar band, so we don't get the every-week every-person-gets-a-free-beer-and-$10-for-playing shows. We do weddings and parties and BBQs and city events and stuff like that, so apparently no one is getting married who likes country music in Alberta right now. It's a bit annoying. Also we're in conflict with a couple of people who assume musicians SHOULD only be paid $10 each for a gig. "Hey I know your website says $500 for a 1-hour gig, but we'll pay you $50 and give your band free publicity!"

Seriously? SERIOUSLY? Your tiny little hole-in-the-wall club is going to give us $450 worth of publicity? Sounds legit.

So at the moment I'm stuck doing all the promotional things about the band because I'm the only one who knows how to mix audio tracks, so I'm mixing our demos, I'm the only one who knows HTML, and I'm the business-savy one so I'm just doing all the behind-the-scenes stuff while I make them go out and search for shows.

I still have to do another art arrangement with my unruly customer and book rehearsal and show times with my touring band, rebook my drum students and make charts for my fill-in-drummer for the first-mentioned band.

Okay, quick interruption for confusion-killing. So bands. Country cover band (for weddings/parties/corporate) = "cover band," country original band for singer/songwriter = "touring band," jazz band = "Latin band."

Anyways. Cover band needs a fill-in drummer just in case they book a show on the same night as another gig of mine with the touring band, or if I'm out of town for rehearsals, so I have to make sheet music for him and send him audio files, set lists, and all that stuff so he can function.

I still need to learn a full 10 songs and make cheat-charts for others for the touring band and the rehearsal might be as early as tomorrow. If it is, I am so screwed because no way I can learn them that fast. Then again, it might not be for another 3 or 4 days, which is what I'm crossing my fingers for.

Tomorrow I have to wrap up a HUGE painting and transport it across the city to its owner, not looking forward to that.

And I'm doing a bunch of finance planning so I don't die this month, which once again I am very close to doing. Though, as I mentioned before, this is the very last month where this will be happening because of the touring band and publishing deal. Thank goodness.

I've only had $20 to spend on food this month and I am just dying. I can't wait to afford real food. When I'm really down on my luck, I buy rice, dry beans, flour, and margarine. With these things, I can make a bean paste to mix with the rice, which is actually full of nutrition (enough to keep me alive) but tastes a bit bland. Then the flour and margarine make flat bread (seriously, that's all you need + water) to eat with the beans and rice. Boom, nearly a month's worth of food for $20.

Every meal. Blech.

I have a few cans of vegetables that I go through very slowly "just in case." But that's about it.

Anyways, there's my day. I have to do another art promo in the next day or two too and I'm crossing my fingers than cover band gets the gigs I e-mailed for this month and if we do, I will be over-the-top happy.

Anyways, going to go make a whole pot of coffee now so I have the energy to do everything this evening.

7/15/12

Shoes. All the shoes.

I don't have much time, I'm just killing a bit (of time!!) before my friend comes to pick me up for early morning Sunday shenanigans. Thought I'd throw a post up here because I FORGOT yesterday. Frick.

So I mentioned before I have a very small circle of friends due to the mental incapacity to deal with more than a few people at once without freaking out. It's not for lack of people trying to be my friend... I'm not THAT HARD of a person to get along with, but I'm just scared of everyone so I keep very few close. But what they lack in numbers they make up for in quirky and awesome.

So why not share some random and potentially embarrassing stuff about these awesome guys?

Starting with the youngest. A 19 year old young man.

This guy is awesome. Currently, he's sleeping in my basement because he was over super late and another violent thunderstorm was happening so he opted out of driving home. Which is fine by me!

He's also good friends with Laura, so they hung out to the small hours of the morning while I slept due to having to be up this early. How do I know he's here? I had to do some police work. The answer was shoes.

I live in a house with another girl, a guy who buys shoes and shower products like a girl (though I promise you he's not gay because it's Ian and he's in love with Laura... he's just British) and another guy who's all about the class and the fancy.

We have a lot of freaking shoes.

And *I* can't keep track of them. I can barely remember which ones are mine.

But my friend here, I can always tell if he's staying over by his shoes. This guy freaking loves shoes. He's a normal guy in EVERY OTHER WAY except he's WAY TOO EXCITED ABOUT SHOES. Going on vacation? Gotta get shoes.

And as a girl who really isn't THAT into shoes (okay I DO have like 6 pairs... or 7... maybe. I don't know) I don't get it.

But man. This guy can pick them out. They're usually really unique and very cool and very stylin'. The rest of him, well... he's a guy, so it's usually whatever t-shirt with whatever pair of jeans and a sweater if it's cold.

So basically I was walking downstairs and saw amidst our disorderly maze of shoes haphazardly strewn about the entrance hallway, a pair of graffiti'd converse. And that alone isn't really enough to clue me in because Ian wears converse all the freaking time, but this guy does LACE ART with his shoes.

I mean like, all 8 billiion pairs of his shoes are laced in a different way with different colors and different styles of laces.

So this particular pair had a sweet crisscross lacing pattern that half resembled the Spiderman logo or something, and I was all like "sweet, friend is here." Which is a good thing to realize right before you book it loudly into the basement (where he's sleeping) to obnoxiously pack up your drum stuff so you can play in church.

I was warned to go into ninja-stealth-drummer mode and packed up cymbals, sticks, a tambourine, and a snare drum without making a single noise.

Thank you, friend's shoes!

7/13/12

Comment question time.

So I got my first ever comment on this blog asking if I compete on horseback and I realized that my last story really didn't expand past training.

Yeah, I compete, or at least used to before I moved to the city. I owned a couple of horses that ran the rodeo circuit when I was younger and were pretty successful, but mid-teens I made the (BIG) switch from rodeo to showjumping, because I was working on a farm that randomly bought a "Canadian Warmblood" (read: leggy draft-thoroughbred cross) showjumper and was like "hey, let's fix him up because he's broken and see if we can get some shows under him." And so I... learned. Quickly. Because they were paying me.

The thing about showjumping is that you don't have to jump well in order to compete. In the hunter circuit, form is super important, but in comparison even a lot of pro SJers just kinda hold on and go for it. So I got away with my sketchy jumping background (... uh... bareback jumping horses over stacked tree branches on a rodeo farm) for a bit before I switched jobs to a show horse farm (the place I met Mark!) where I got some proper coaching and got a little deeper into the SJ world.

I showed a bunch of SJ events, especially when Mark became a thing. I spent a lot of time with HIS showjumpers, and we did a bunch of traveling and showing with a couple of other riders. I never got very deep into showjumping. I competed a fair amount but got tired of the drama and judgement from the other competitors (I actually got called out by a girl once because the little buckle at the wrist of one of my gloves had snapped, and the strap was hanging. I was sitting on a $10k horse and she called me "practically poverty." And she was like, 19-20 years old. WTF lady!) so I haven't been doing as much lately. I still do the odd show when Mark comes around the province with some young horses who need some little shows.

Mark has since gone on to compete in the big names, though. He's competing in a lot of Grand Prix shows and has ridden alongside some pretty big name people. I just never followed. Didn't have the passion I guess.

Like I said though, still enjoy the odd show and I LOVE jumping... just not competitively.



EDIT:

I'm not lying about the pros and bad jumping.

You Google "showjumping" and you get stuff like this, which is just bad jumping form:





Whereas you also get people like this, which is good jumping form:




But you have to search specific people... that happens to be one of my favorite competitors ever, Eric Lamaze. Gorgeous form and great communication with his animals. 

Someone's gotta have Twitter... right?

I don't have a Twitter in real life. But now this blog has one. Because posting 3 times a day is not healthy and I have crap to get done. One of you five readers have to have one, right? Uh. Be my first follower? I've only JUST made it, so I don't know how it works but if you want to know some stuff about how day-to-day stuff in the art, writing, or music industry works, have a gander:

CLICK HERE!


EDIT: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH TWITTER?!

Guess who beat you to being my first follower, 5 readers? A porn website. What the frick. What did I do to deserve this?!

Romance in the horse competitor's world.

Apparently puking is the internet's most popular thing because my pageviews went up 8x last night and 6x this morning, so I really don't know how I'm going to follow up the puking story and not disappoint people. I should have never aimed that high.

It's not like I don't have my share of gross stories. I just don't want you guys to expect that amount of epic every post. Also it's not really my style.

But I will give you ONE MORE, just one more for this week. But I can't just hand my blog over to this ridiculousness you hooligans!

Alright. Story time!

So, fun fact, I've trained horses since I was 11 and professionally since I was 15. Circumstances have changed a bit as I live in the city now, but it's still a thing every once in a while.

Given that, it kind of makes sense that at some point I ended up in a relationship with another horse-person. I was 17 about to turn 18, he was 20 and already had his own farm. I had just graduated high school when him and I started dating, and he had inherited a farm from a family member of his. Ever since he'd graduated high school he'd been buying auction horses, training them, showing them in show jumping, and reselling them once they were trained up and proven. Had a solid living right out of high school. Him and I worked on the same showhorse farm, and one day the stallion he was working with escaped him and took off across the ring, tearing around like no one's business before jumping the fence and charging me down because he decided he was part bull. This particular horse was a severe abuse case and the farm was rehabbing him, and he'd taken a liking to Mark.

I narrowly missed being trampled by diving over a trough and faceplanting in the mud. As I clawed my way out of it, sputtering, dripping wet, and covered in mud that was half horse poop, I found myself being pulled to my feet by a grinning cowboy with a quiet-as-you-please stallion in tow.

And he asked me on a date.

How romantic. But not nearly as romantic as our first kiss. (you're wondering where the puke story went, aren't you?)

Him and I were both a bit conservative in our dating views, and we were both painfully shy. We did little more than spend a lot of time together and hold hands/sit close. Surprisingly sometimes "slept together" (and by that I mean in the 100% innocent way). It wasn't until around three weeks after we started dating that we moved on from the stage that 12-year-olds hang around.

 We had gone on a showjumping tour with a few of his horses up for sale and a couple of other workers from the showhorse farm. In one of the competitions that we were entered in, a gelding of his planted his feet, came to an immediate stop before a fence, and sent him flying head-first into it.

Which looks like this:




He came out of it with a concussion and I was put on Mark-isn't-allowed-to-sleep watch that night because our friends kinda sucked.

He had the usual symptoms from the concussion; a little fuzzy-headed, some speech and balance issues resembling drunkenness, and was absolutely giddy on top of it from the pain meds they gave him. We were sitting in his bed in the hotel room watching TV. He just kept staring at it and giggling quietly every once in a while. We were watching hockey. He kept turning to me (I was drawing to pass the time doing nothing) and saying "you're so talented. I love you and your talent." which after the 5th time just made me roll my eyes and tell him to sit up straighter so I knew he wasn't sleeping.

After a while I resigned myself to just skipping between watching the game and watching him. At one point, he rolled over and suddenly had a serious face on, which made me panic because my brain instantly jumped to "he is about to die."

Instead, he just mumbled in a slur "you are SO... beautiful."

I was about to sarcastically tell him that he was adorable when he was concussed, but he did the movie-thing (which he told me later was on purpose which, in hindsight... how corny) and interrupted me by kissing. He retreated from my face with the world's most stupid, goofy grin on his mouth like a 5-year-old who had just done something devious and found it hugely amusing. I was a little thrilled, not going to lie.

The moment quickly ended when his grinning face turned around and violently puked all over the tasteful green carpet. He did this multiple times, and spent the rest of the night hovering over the toilet with my sitting on the bathtub's edge. Between gasping and vomiting and coughing and a good show of manly, many crying, he tried to apologize for "making it the worst possible moment ever" and really the image was so heartbreakingly pathetic that it made the moment that much more awesome.

And hilarious. I spent a good majority of the time trying really hard not to laugh at him because the image was just so comical and the series of events couldn't have been more perfect. My desire to laugh was outweighed by the fact that I did, in fact, feel sorry for him because the concussion seemed to have gone from giddy delirium to ultimate shame, sadness, and pain. But still. I was reeling over the conquered territory of mouth-touching and seemed to have caught all of his giddyness.

We dated for a while after that until he had an impressive business opportunity halfway across the country, and I couldn't move because of university-things. Then that ended.

Still. I have discovered that cowboys make the best boyfriends, and vomit is fully capable of enhancing your first kiss experience. 

Friendship is puking on someone's feet...?

EDIT: You guys are really weird. The second I post about puking my page views went up by literally 8x overnight. That being said... read on...




ORIGINAL POST:

Today's events have turned out to be highly unfortunate. 

I've mentioned before that John sometimes scares me because he's quiet and I'm not quite sure what he's thinking, and therefore I assume he's judging me even though he's not. Well, in the past week him and I have gotten to be better friends and are slowly starting to be not-as-awkward around one another which is pretty awesome if you ask me.

 But today might have ended with a setback to this.

This day kind of ended up being a mix of paint fumes, high heat, pain, severe allergies, poor house cleaning, lack of sleep, and poor nutrition choices... which, let me tell you, is NOT a recipe for delicious OR happy.

Of course there was super-early-morning panic this morning over tornado watches and crazy hail which destroyed stuff (poor Ian's garden is obliterated) which kept me up until 5am, and after only sleeping 3 hours the previous night I found myself doing another 3 hour night before pulling myself groggily out of bed to finish work, which is when I posted about hating the painting. So many people were coming and going from my house today, and I was grumpy and some were my friends so I did the normal thing and closed my bedroom door/pretended to be not present or not conscious so I could bypass interruptions and finish the painting I was so mad at.

Conclusion: I am the world's best friend ever. 

This action boxed in fumes from the oil paint, which aren't nearly as bad as, say, latex paint, but it still causes a few tingles in the brain. I felt a little nauseous but not too bad, so I therefore felt when I was done that I could spend some energy on a quick run. Energy from... something. Probably all that sleep I've gotten recently.

So I went for a run in stupid heat.

Explanation: I am a genius.

About halfway into my run, I noticed the sun and nausea was getting to me, but the problems didn't end there. As I turned around and began my premature journey home, I felt a bit of a grinding sensation in my hip and it was suddenly very painful. If you've been here for a bit, you would have read that a year ago I was brutally blindsided by a car while riding my bike to work. This knocked my hip out of place and I've had some problems with it since its realignment, which I assume is today's problem. But the sudden pain caused me to stumble, and my tendinitis-infected knees decided they were NOT happy with the disruption, and so I found myself staggering home, dizzy and in pain in more than one spot.

Everyone probably thought I was drunk.

When I got home I ended up half-conscious lying curled up in my bathtub under the relief of a cold shower for the next half hour, wondering what I was even doing with my life and thinking I'm probably not going to walk again which is obviously not true because I got up 5 minutes later and could walk just fine.

A few other things followed the shower that aren't that interesting. I learned some more songs for my touring band, worked a bit on some research for my novel, sent a couple of grown-up e-mails to clients, did some promotion stuff, and found myself in the evening. And exhausted. And determined to continue to write because hell, day's still young and I'm on a roll.

53rd mistake of the day:

I brewed some coffee, which is the best thing to drink when you're feeling sick. Also it's hot out, so I poured all the coffee in a big mixing bowl with a lot of milk and stuck it in my fridge to make iced coffee. Which I fail to remember, every time, I find super delicious and don't notice how much I'm drinking.

So I drank a whole pot of iced coffee. I usually have... one or two cups of coffee a day. Like mugs. This was a full pot, probably the equivalent of 6 or 7 mugs of coffee.

I went from feeling "eh" to feeling like my stomach had started a new hobby that involves some obscure form of martial arts. And you bet I was shaking with fake caffeinated energy.

But despite that, I still had work to do so I kept going. Eventually, as one does, I got thirsty and wandered from my room for water where I was greeted by John who had just discovered the few fruit flies wandering our kitchen and had made to get down to the bottom of it. Turns out the pad we had under the dish drying rack had molded. Badly.

GUESS WHO'S DEATHLY ALLERGIC TO MOLD!

=D

He told me he had a funny story to tell me, and then forgetting my deathly allergy chucked the cloth at me. I caught it (read: it hit me in the face and I flailed/managed to somehow transfer it from face to hand without dropping it), saw the mold, screamed and threw it away and right away almost went into anaphylactic shock (by that I mean labored breathing/sweating/eyes tearing up/racing heart/increased nausea) and while John was laughing at me for "being a girl about the mold" (he actually completely forgot about my allergy and thought I was hyperventilating because it was gross, he wasn't ACTUALLY being mean) I had a slight panic attack because I have been hospitalized from the allergy before (only once though) and John suddenly realized maybe I wasn't okay. (I just used parenthesis four times in one sentence. Structure genius.) <-- grammatically awful. I'm sorry, Parenthesis Gods...

Anyways.

He came over to talk to me and ask if I was alright and I promptly puked on the floor. Around his feet.

...

Suddenly I felt a lot better and it wasn't too violent of a reaction. I left the house after shakily cleaning up my shameful mess and the fresh air cleared my other symptoms. John seemed pretty good-natured about it all which I guess is logical because he did throw something equivalent to a murder weapon at me (albeit by accident) but I still feel awful and hope I never revisit it again. That being said, everyone now knows I'm not f*cking around about that allergy. Here they thought it was just my excuse to not clean toilets/make sure everyone else keeps the toilets super clean.

So yeah. There's my day. It was pretty cool.

Also, I promised you a sharpie unicorn picture days ago and drew one but never uploaded. Here it is! Sorry I never scanned it. It's a picture of the picture =(



I'm a professional! =D

Also, when I went to upload this picture the Recaptcha asshole program made me type this:



Evil little dink.

On a completely unrelated note, I realized today that I obsessively keep an eye on the "stats" of this blog and haven't kept an eye on the ones of my for-real, not-anonymous blogs. So I decided to look today. I have two, one for horse training help (oh yeah. Probably haven't mentioned that I've trained horses professionally. SURPRISE. You might think I'm being loose with the term "professional" [artist/musician/horse trainer] I'm not. I've just spent lots of time getting proficient at lots of things) and one for my artwork. Apparently I'm way more popular than I thought because I have 90 000 views on the training blog and 35 000 on the art blog, and they're both only a couple years old. I feel like a champion.

7/12/12

I don't want to paint anymore.

I've been working on this huge oil painting, a 36"x36" monster, and it's really hard and detailed and I just want to be done. I only have a couple hours' worth of work left on it but I'm pretty through. I just want to be done with it so I can give it to the lady and stop hating my abilities because even though my customer loves it, I freaking hate it and I am so disappointed in myself.

Hello, self-hating artist.

I swear, I'm not usually like this towards my work.

Then I have to actually go and learn a bunch of tunes off of my band's demo album so we can go on tour in a week or so, and I also have to write more. THOUGH I GOT PAST THE PROBLEM CHAPTER! Now I'm able to write freely... ish.

I'm sorry nature! So sorry! VERY VERY VERY SORRY!

So I'm sitting in my living room. I WOULD be in my basement if Ian's brother wasn't sleeping down there. I am ready to run down screaming at any moment because guess what.

There's a freaking tornado watch.

Yeah.

I convinced myself that I was safe because the weather network was like "just regular thunderstorms, severe thunderstorms all the way across the country but not HERE yay!" and my safety left me feeling cocky and I went on the internet and bitched mother nature out which was A MISTAKE.

Because they've now issued a severe thunderstorm warning and a tornado watch and currently quarter-sized hail is falling and f*cking everything up around us and it's raining so hard you can't see across the street and good lord I feel like I'm going to die.

If this is the last you hear from me, I love you, 5 readers.

EDIT: Dude. John just came downstairs and was all like "hey, you can't sleep either?"
Me: No. You know what there is right now? A freaking tornado watch.
John: Oh. Wow. Hey when there's a tornado you want to go... into the basement... right? Or is that bad?
Me: ... yeah... basement.

John is not so smart at 4am.

EDIT: John made a smoothie and went back to bed. I hate boys. They can sleep through effing anything.

EDIT: Okay. I think it's done now. It's just after 5am. I'm going to go to bed now. I'm so freaking tired. On the plus side, I get to see the sunrise. It's pretty boring today.

Yay I survived!

At 3am, a lot more things seem like complete and total dickwads than usual...

This is another 3am post. I didn't proof-read the other one and I won't this one because both times I've been so tired I have to prop myself up with walls and pillows to type and keep my laptop on my lap. Hah. So these might not be coherent.

So guess what happened again! If you guessed another freaking storm, congrats. This time I've managed to convince myself that I'm not going to die, but as soon as I did mother nature was like "well f*ck you then!!" and decided to make sure if I'm not fearing her, I'm at the very least cursing her.

This has been done in the form of strobe light lightning (there's SO MUCH OF IT YOU GUYS! Like every second there's a flash, if not more) resulting in a constant rumble of thunder punctuated only by the loud-ass, house-shaking explosions that happen every couple of minutes. Just long enough between each of them for me to slip into half-sleep before being brutally yanked back.

Dear mother nature. I just want to sleep. That is ALL I WANT TO DO. Can you do this truly impressive light show at like, 10 this morning so I can watch the lightning and not want to shoot myself in the face?

Anyways. I've compiled a short mental list of some of the inanimate things I find to be "dickwads" because, hell, what more can I do when I'm angry at nature and extremely sleep deprived?


In no particular order:

1. Nature. Just as long as it's making my life miserable. I love nature beyond all belief when it's not being an asshole.
2. My laptop. Living to torture me.
3. Air pressure. You don't need to open and shut my door a few times a night. I need the window open so I don't cook. Leave my door alone.
4. Milk. Screw milk.
5. The direction in which the crank on my window needs to turn to open it. It doesn't make any sense. None.
6. Fold-down chairs. They are all terrifying sons of cows.
7. Castles. "OH LOOK AT ME I'M A SUPER COOL CASTLE," Yeah, F**K YOU CASTLE!
8. Spellcheck. You're a smug sonofa- but you can't recognize your own name. You're an idiot.
9.  Physics. Keeps trying to convince us it's real but random occurrences suggest otherwise.

I'm sorry. That was all way too profane for anything, but it's okay because later today, I'm going to wake up and realize what I've done and maybe try to fix the anger.


EDIT: OMG. NATURE IS SUCH A JERK. As soon as I finish writing this, the wind decides to blow RIGHT IN MY WINDOW which NEVER happens and has to be at a VERY SPECIFIC ANGLE to do anything. It sent this huge spray of rainwater into my room and now I need to keep my window closed and die of overheating because of how hot it is in this stupid house just to prevent getting soaked.

Worst night. I'm so tired.

7/11/12

3am and a thunderstorm. And the things I would take with me in an emergency/the apocalypse.

It's 3:20 in the morning. Technically, I "went to bed" two hours ago. I had a hard enough time forcing myself to fall asleep in the stupid heat that is my bedroom (which I'm thoroughly not-even-kidding certain is hotter than it is outside despite a fan going full-force and my window being wide open...) coupled with sporadic insomnia. I had just finally managed to fall asleep when thunder happened out of freaking NOWHERE. Well, not nowhere, it was the sky, but still. It was loud, obnoxious, and sudden. No ominous in-the-distance rumbling first. I know this because I am an insomniac and as such any little out-of-place sound, especially the ones that make me nervous, wakes me up.

And I have to be up in like 4 and a half hours so I can go meet my father for an early lunch, which I'm looking forward to seeing as he's out of province half the time for work and I hardly get to see him.

But here's the thing. Besides ALL OF THIS stupidity, I am tornado-paranoid. And as our day was fairly humid and STUPID hot, and it's STILL stupid hot and humid outside, I am NOT happy with this out-of-nowhere thunderstorm. Especially seeing as it's dark and I can't see it, and the weather network is telling me there IS NO THUNDERSTORM.

Yes there is, weather network. I am looking at it right now. I can't trust them to give me acurate info, apparently, and so I'm nervously staying up and keeping watch and listening to the radio which keeps cutting in and out every time there's thunder, convincing my anxious mind that I am probably going to die.

But I can't camp out in the basement like I normally would because Ian's brother is staying over for a few days and that's where he's parked.

So I'm doing the best I can in my bedroom on the top floor.I'm half considering at least moving down to the ground floor to compromise, and maybe I can crash on the couch in our living room a bit better than I can here.

But despite being a wuss and more anxious than I maybe have a right to be, I am a SURVIVOR.

I am the person with the perfect zombie plan that everyone is jealous of, the person who knows how to live in the wilderness with nothing other than a knife and a string, and the person who has a specific course of action for every natural disaster possible even though I'm inland and most definitely do NOT need a hurricane plan. I have one.

Because I lived in Florida for a summer and know that shit is necessary.

So I've put tornado survival plan into play. That includes packing the bag I should have had packed a month ago AKA the things I can't lose. I pack it every year. It's a backpack with everything I need to not die should my home be destroyed.

This bag constantly keeps all of my super important stuff in it and hangs on the back of my door. If I need something, I take it out. It's no more inconvenient than a shelf. There are three parts to it: sentimental, genuinely important to my survival, and basic care.

The sentimental stuff is pretty much my photo album, a couple of letters from my childhood, and the necklace my friend gave me before he died. The important stuff is a lot more extensive: all of my ID, my med insurance, renter's insurance, art portfolios with original art in them, Oleo's vet records, customer contracts, etc. Basically adult stuff. Then some basic care stuff so I can deal like a travel kit type thing. Deodorant, a brush, toothpaste, etc. My purse goes the bag as well so it can come with me and bring things like my iPod, camera, wallet, etc.

Basically, the plan is: in case of tornado, toss my laptop in the bag, grab the bag and my animals, hide under stairs. If the house is destroyed, I have everything important to me with me and I survive like a rock star.

It's pretty similar for zombies except that includes grabbing the bag, the animals, a few swords (have 'em hanging on my wall... thank you martial arts!) and hijacking an SUV to get to Costco to wait the suckers out.

The only thing I haven't QUITE figured out about all of these survival things is how to transport the animals without them killing each other. Theoretically the cat would hang miserably from his stomach in my arms and the snake would go around my neck, but I think situational panic would decide that for me.

I don't know where I was really going with this other than to kill time while I sit up in my bed, super exhausted and in the grips of panic. Welcome to 3am me, blog.

7/10/12

"Living like a child."

In my last post I realized I said I get to live like a child every day and then did NOT expand on it at all. Instead of editing, I thought I would make it its own post.

I'm just going to straight up give an example as to why I figure I don't have to grow up.

Yesterday, I got out of bed, ate peanut butter toast, then came upstairs and started my "work day."

I spent the next 8 hours sitting on the floor watching Harry Potter while getting covered to the elbows in paint, just painted all day. I didn't wear pants, either. Then, late late late in the evening, my friend burst into my room yelling "PUT YOUR PANTS ON WE'RE GOING TO SEE SPIDERMAN." and I was like "OKAY" and we went and watched a superhero movie.

How awesome was YOUR day?!

Today will be a repeat, without the Spiderman. I really really need to finish this painting. AND I need to write another chapter which is starting to make my life a little less childlike. Writing actually requires some degree of sophistication. Painting doesn't.

The "look"

There's a look from people that I get when I tell them I'm a professional artist. It's along the lines of "I don't believe you" and "that's not a thing." As a socially quiet person, I tend to watch faces for emotional cues so I know when it's time to run for the hills and this is what I see in 90% of people.

Their eyebrows shoot up, their mouth closes, their eyes dart to the side quickly, and they usually do a teeny little head-bob. The response I get, regardless of their opinion is always "Really!" The ones who dislike the idea draw it out and their eyes go a little too wide for genuine interest.

The same reaction happens when I say that I'm a professional musician.

So I'm going to point something out, quickly. 90% of people think being an artist is SUPER COOL. Even when I meet other professionals I'm just in awe of their awesome skill and ability to use it for their career. Especially if they're more established than me. It's like a rock musician meets the boys of Zep every time I meet a well-known/famous artist (which happens because I freak out every time they come to the art gallery and go). People, especially those who can't draw, are genuinely impressed that I can draw. They love to LOOK at the paintings and the drawings and they think they're the most awesome things, and some even want some of their own.

However, what they don't like is that it's my job. They figure people should do it, but it shouldn't be a career. All the same goes for music.

I get the inevitable question "so what else do you do for work?"

And USUALLY, because more than half the time I lead with being a fine artist (despite the speech I typed out last week for you guys haha) I answer "oh, I gig. With a band."

And it disqualifies me from any real-life-grown-up opinions for the rest of the conversation.

And part of me gets really frustrated but the other just laughs, because recently I realized that I am literally living like a child, AND I'm making money off of it. Enough to pay my bills, anyways.

I don't ever have to grow up, SUCKERS. Until both the art and the music industry tank. Then I'll be in for it...

7/9/12

Painting in the heat.

Okay. So I'm from Alberta, Canada, and something very awesome is happening right now. It's going to be above 30C (right now it's 35C which is around 95F) for OVER A WEEK and as someone who despises the ridiculously long winters we get (like, October - April...) I'm ecstatic. I am a woman, therefore I am just unstoppably cold all the time. Why do you think I have guy friends? I might PRETEND it's because I'm terrified of women, but REALLY it's because they are natural heaters and if you have good guy friends they let you hug them randomly.

Besides not being cold and not having to rely on being in a friend's personal space bubble to avoid hypothermia, it also means I don't have to wear pants as much. By that, I mean I can spend time sitting around in my underwear and a teeny shirt painting and no one can judge me because they're all like "OMFG IT'S HOT OUT" and I'm all like "SCORE NO PANTS DAY!" and they see my lack of pants and they're either super jealous or they join me.

And by they I mean my roommates because I can't leave my house in my underpants, that would be ridiculous.

So right now I am basking in this gloriously hot day, watching Harry Potter (more British people...) and painting all day in my sunny sunny bedroom, camped out on the floor because that's where I paint.

Fun fact of the day, spell check will recognize the word "whoopee!" That's outstanding.

I now leave you with a YouTube video that makes me cry laughing every time.


7/8/12

More on today plus what's going to happen tomorrow.

So Saturday nights are always a gamble for me, because I'm all like, super cool and religious and stuff. And half the time I'm playing in the church band so I've got to get my sorry act together super early to go and practice for the set with the band.

Tonight is one of those nights.

My awesome day has gotten so much more awesome because one of my best friends randomly showed up and we did more marshmallows and then went and played Super Mario Smash Brothers for a bit, but now it's 1:30 and I need to be up at 6, so naturally I'm going to skip desperate sleep and blog instead.

Tomorrow morning is NOT going to be as awesome. When I know that my mornings are going to be shit, I also know that I cannot function in those mornings without a specific list of things to do. If I don't give myself directions, I will walk out of the house without pants or something.

You laugh, but I accidentally ended up outside in my boxer-PJs yesterday because I thought they were shorts.

So here's what it looks like. I realized the lists always end up as my conscience narrates stuff to me, so I thought I'd share here.



You've just woken up and you're dead tired and bitchy at the world.

GOOD MORNING. PSYCHED FOR CHURCH?! I bet you are! Here are some things to get you through the morning.

1. Go get coffee on the go. Now. RIGHT NOW.
2. Shower like the champ you are.
3. Get dressed, in your dress, to save time later for naps and shit.
4. Blow dry your hair because you're gonna put it up because guess what? It's freaking hot out.
5. No, seriously. Put your hair up. No, it won't look better down because you'll be slicked in sweat.
6. Go make breakfast. You just bought food so it will be epic breakfast. Are you psyched?
7. E-mail your customer with her update picture because you procrastinated yesterday and she wants it. Try to be coherent. PLEASE.
8. It's probably almost time for church now. Go rush your makeup like you always do and stagger out the door before John leaves you behind and you're stuck at home having got up and ready for absolutely no reason.

Today turned out alright after all!

So turns out that despite starting my day off curled up in the fetal position and terrified of the world and hiding under my covers as if it would solve all of my problems due to a pretty substantial panic attack last night, I had a pretty freakin' good day today.

First was the e-mail from my last post. For once, my inbox was not plagued with e-mails saying "GIVE ME MORE WRITING" or "WHERE IS MY FINISHED ARTWORK YOU STARTED TWO DAYS AGO?!" or "GIVE US MONEY YOU OWE US MONEY IN 10 DAYS!!" but rather a very cheery letter telling me that my web hosting site missed me.

That in itself was good enough for a smile, but not nearly enough to fix my day. I crept cautiously into the kitchen to make breakfast and found the counters still buried under a mountain of dishes that happened last weekend when John and I were out of town (not together, just simultaneously). John was already there, which never happens because he's usually at work at that point, and was just losing his head over the mess but still not wanting to yell at the roommates. The situation has been the cause of stress all week and I think I temporarily broke there for a second. I got very grumpy and yelled at all the roommates for being such babies about messes, and they were all so shocked that I possessed such a thing as spaz-level anger that they all apologized, helped us to clean the kitchen, and pledged to be more grown-up about life.

Because everyone was all problem-solvey and team-worky, everyone suddenly got into a better mood. I spent a good chunk of the day with Laura in the basement of our house, hiding from the sweltering heat of the day. While she watched a TV show for a few hours and worked on some freelance stuff, I sat on the floor and worked on an oil painting propped up on the floor-level easel I built.

After all that was done, we sought out Ian and went group grocery shopping. I bought BREAD, you guys! I haven't bought bread in like, a month, because I'm all poor and stuff. I ran out of my last loaf of bread a week or so ago and I missed it.

So we went shopping and I got more food which is always happy times, because I always wait until I run out of food to go buy more and it's like "LOOK I'M NOT GOING TO DIE!" and excitement ensues.

We got back to the house and actually had a barbecue in our backyard with steak and chicken for me because I'm a wuss and don't eat red meat and grilled pineapple and real iced tea and a fresh salad with organic mushrooms and cheese and tomatoes and balsamic vinegar... it was SO FREAKING TASTY.

And nothing makes a mood happy like good food.

Then more teamwork happened to clean up that mess, and Ian, Laura, and I went for a walk.

We ended up going to a park and playing on a playground/swinging on the swings for a while before meeting some super enthusiastic and hilarious children. Ian and I had a jump-off-the-swing contest that I won only because Ian fell off the swing at the very top of his arc and ended up flailing like a mortally wounded chicken as he plowed into the sand a couple of feet in front of the swing set and I hopped off like a freaking champ and stayed on my feet even if I got less air, I still went further and didn't look like I was about to die. We ended up digging a hole in the sand before exploring further to a spot that has a steep hill followed by very sudden flat ground. Laura and I had a log-roll race down the hill and got super dizzy and ended up at the flat stretch clinging to the grass and laughing so hard that we couldn't move anyways, despite the lurching earth.

And then Laura got the great idea to have a race down the hill across the flat stretch. She doesn't run, so I knew I could beat her, but Ian I know from experience is one of the fastest little buggers I know. So Ian, at our complaining, gave us a head start. I biffed it coming down the hill, good ole faceplant because I wasn't expecting it to level out so soon, and had to scramble up and chase Laura down. I eventually caught her and impressed myself. Ian won, but literally only by about a foot.

So after all that chaos, we headed back to our house where I took a shower because I'm allergic to grass pollen and was probably about to die because I was so itchy, but after that quick setback I joined all three roommates and John's girlfriend in our backyard for a fire and some roasted marshmallows.

A stupidly solid day. Usually major panic attacks cause me to have a day or two of hiding in solitude in my room to recuperate from the shock and be able to talk to people without wanting to burst into tears because if how scary humans are.

But not this time. This time events were perfect and I am SUPER happy and just couldn't be more content right now with great thoughts, fun memories, and a full belly of great food.

7/7/12

I love my new website hoster!

So I might have mentioned that my hard-worked website for my fine art has been trashed due to the hosting site booting the non-pro members (AKA people who don't spend $20 a month for sub-par website hosting...) so I've had to start work on a new one on a new hosting site. I'd gone to make the switch before because the one I had was getting more and more infuriating with their ridiculousness, but all of the other hosting sites were just as, if not more, ridiculous, so I just stayed. However, now I've had no choice because my business's only form of showcasing is about to be destroyed, so I found one that didn't look too bad and hopped on board.

So I did a home page for the work, almost identical to my old one, and left because that's a lot of coding in a day, and I've just been coding the other pages in a text document. I'll go back in a week or so and paste them into the website, once they're all cleaned up, but today I got this letter from my hosting company and it totally made my morning.

We haven't seen you for a while, [name]!
It's been 6 days, 22 hours, 45 minutes and 42 seconds since you last logged in, and we're starting to get really worried.

We were just getting to know each other. You created 1 site, 1 page, dragged on 1 element, and then... nothing.

We were really excited for your new website, it had so much potential!

If you ran into any trouble along the way, we're here for you. Making your own website is fun, fast and easy with [company]. Best of all, you will have a website of your own to show to customers, clients, family or friends.

So we'll make it really, really easy to start working on your [company] website again: just [click here]!

If you have any questions, we'd love to help. Feel free to visit our Support Center or email us at [e-mail].


So it's a little creepy at the start, but I was easily able to overlook that because it's a machine and it's actually just incredibly amusing. I started the day off a little shaky due to an extreme anxiety attack last night, pretty much escalating to a full-blown panic attack so I woke up feeling emotionally gross and really, REALLY incapable of human interaction today. Then I got that e-mail and it was so amusing and great to see a company I am using so lighthearted that I actually feel a little bit better. 

I might talk about the panic attack later, but it was really nothing out of the ordinary. If you read my post on artist's depression, it will seem a lot less alarming and make a lot more sense. It might be depressing, though, so maybe don't. 

In closing, I leave you with a cute picture of a fennec fox.

7/6/12

I should post something art-related while we're here. AKA 8 ways to beat writer's block.

I promise, after my usual life story there will be a blurb about dealing with writer's block.

I am procrastinating the ever-living HELL out of writing today. I would rather update my blog 536 times today than start writing. And I've got my publisher on my ass being all "hey, when are you going to send in the chapter's manuscript to the consultant?" and yadda yadda "the sooner you get it to us the sooner we can start editing!" and it's like "holy crap, guys, I've got TWO novels to finish here, give me a freaking week!"

So instead of writing like mad, like I should be doing, I'm going to skip my writer's block struggle and talk a bit about being a writer on an internet blog with 5 readers. 

Boring? I don't think so.

I try to divide my arts up pretty evenly. I'll spend equal amounts of time working on art commissions, practicing music, and writing. Lately, writing has been taking over my life a bit and it's starting to get a bit irritating. I feel like I can't walk away from a blank chapter, even if I have the WORST writer's block I have to write something, only to come back to it the next day and trash the whole thing.

The first novel is already completed. However, it was completed three years ago, and I want to make it better/move the storyline in a different direction. I need to update the vocab and write an entire parallel storyline in between what happened, because I left way too much out the first time. I end up sitting staring at the screen for hours before I give up and feel awful about myself, so I guess what I'm really going to touch on here is how to deal with writer's block.

The first thing I want to mention is something I actually learned in music school. While I was at the University, I took a songwriting class and they had a lot to say about writer's block. One of the things the teacher FORCED on us was the concept of bringing a notebook everywhere. And everyone always rolls their eyes at that and is all "stop telling me that," and I agree, I do the same. I carry my ideas notebook with me and rarely write something down, and it gets a little ridiculous.

What I DO do is carry my cell phone with me. That way when I get a random idea (especially in public) I don't have to drop all things and root for this notebook and pen and write it down and then forget what the point-form explanation means. I pull out my cell phone, call myself, and leave a message explaining the idea in full detail. That way it also just looks like I'm talking on the phone and no one judges me!

That wasn't really the point I wanted to address though. That's just a way of keeping all of your ideas.

THE REAL WRITER'S BLOCK ADVICE.


1. Go for a walk.

What I learned in songwriting is that there are two instances where you are at your most creative during a normal day: when your body is in motion, and when you're entering your sleep cycle. So, keep your cell phone by you when you're going to sleep, to record your sleepy ideas, whatever, but if you've got writer's block, get away from your computer and take a walk.

You don't need to go outside; you can just wander your house aimlessly. You can go to a mall and wander around and window shop or just people watch. Clean your room even. Hell, turn some music up in your room and dance around like an idiot. I like to take a quick jog around the block. It gets the endorphins going in your body, no matter how little exercise you're doing, and helps the creative wheels turn. Don't force it either. Stop wracking your brain and just go for it. Enjoy the outdoors/freedom of motion. After a while, you can start reflecting on it again, but until then just keep up some motion.

2. Consider regular exercise. 

I know it's not for everyone. Some people just like to sit around and do nothing, but I can tell you that getting regular exercise helps with creativity. You sleep better, stuff in your body works better, and your mood improves, even if you suffer from chronic depression. And I'm not saying you should start training for a marathon or something. Just take a walk sometimes. Dance around your house. Get moving, get a bit more active. I like to go to the gym because once I'm there, what am I going to do except exercise? I have insomnia and depression AND obsessive tendencies, and I notice a huge improvement in all of these things when I keep up regular activities.

So what's the point? The point is tied into the last one a bit. First, body in motion = elevated creativity. Then consider: better sleep = clearer mind, better mood = better creativity, health = energy = ability to write more for longer, feeling better health wise = self-confidence.

Just some stuff to consider.

3. Write absolute crap.

Everything you type is crappy? Do it anyways. Write about all the cliches. Overload on dialogue. Make your characters say stupid stuff. Write something you think is awful, but just WRITE and KEEP GOING. It might be crappy, but laying it out there gives opportunity to keep the ideas in the back of your head, and who knows? Maybe even ONE sentence in that monstrosity will inspire genius. It also helps for filler scenes. Maybe you can take pieces of it, improve it, and stick it in somewhere. The fact that you are writing alone gets that part of your mind more active and will help the wheels in your brain get unstuck.

4. Write about something completely unrelated.

Method 1: 5 minute writing

Pick an object. Any object. Write about it for 5 minutes straight with no breaks. Don't stop to think about it. Just write crap. If you can't think of anything keep writing "can't think can't think why can't I think of anything this is so stupid!" then go off on a tangent about WHY it's stupid and how much you hate this idea and it wasn't a good idea anyways.

Method 2: short story

Just make stuff up. Write a short narrative or description, song, poem, anything but what you're currently having a block on. It doesn't have to be good, no one's going to read it, but you NEED to kick-start that area of your brain, so make up a story. Write about what you had for breakfast or an ordinary conversation you had with a friend. Write about your crush. Doesn't matter. If you hate it so much, at the end, just delete it. But the important thing is getting stuff out of your head and into text.

Method 3: blog

I'm not going to lie. That's partly why I started this blog in the first place. I needed to write stuff down but couldn't do it in my story, so I made a blog and MAN has it helped.   

5. *controversial* You're more honest when you've had something to drink.

If you don't drink, no worries, keep going.

I'm going to start this off by saying I do NOT drink very much at all. In one YEAR, I spent $25 on alcohol. I am not saying to go get shitfaced and try to write, because that's a horrible idea. I'm saying, alcohol brings you a lot closer to honesty. That's why you act like an idiot and say stuff  you shouldn't when you get drunk, because that filter's gone. The stuff you WANT to write will come a bit easier and even if it's not the greatest it will still be something down, and something is better than nothing. You can always go back and edit.

When I say "something to drink," I mean like... a single beer. Or one mixed drink with ONE shot in it. No. Not a "Newfie" shot. Not a bottle of vodka shot.

 6. Read someone else's work.

I do this in a couple of different ways.

First is the obvious one: I read a book. Reading a successful writer's work gives you both ideas AND knowledge on how to write. It shows you how an editor would make you transition between scenes and how to effectively use dialogue and descriptors. Maybe it will invoke the right mood in your brain or push the right button.

The second one is to find amateur writing online, and read the works of other people who are looking for critiques. You can copy/paste their story into a word document and critique it in a different text color, helping you see what others are doing well and badly, and how to avoid some mistakes and expand on good qualities. Some of them might even welcome critique.

When I was young, around 13 or so, I used to go onto this website called Gaia Online. It was this anime-based forum site that my friend signed me up for, and I was all bitchy about it until I discovered their writer's forum. Suddenly, I spent all of my time in that forum, reading and critiquing other people's work. I still go back from time to time to read the prose that comes out of the teenagers there and even gain some inspiration from it.

7. Write a character background

Start a story about one of your character's lives. It gives them depth and lets you get to know them better, no matter how minor they are. If you know their back story, you know how to make them a lot more real and a lot less two dimensional. Their dialogue and actions will have more purpose and be a lot more relate-able. You don't want to be putting the back stories into your novel, but have them there in case you want to disclose some details or some background. Heck, if the need comes further down the line for some background, it's all a matter of copy and paste if you already have something written. The story doesn't need to be good or super in-depth or read like its own novel, but it should go into some detail and at least list the major events in that person's life. Talk about their friends, their family, their education. Their favorite color, food, whether they're bilingual, where they've taken vacations. Hell, even their favorite childhood activity.

It'll give you a break from the main story and perhaps even inspire some ideas.

8. Start an autobiography.

And go into as much detail as you like. Again, it's all about writing SOMETHING, even if it's not what you WANT to be writing. As soon as those wheels get turning, your writer's block is going to have a helluva time keeping up its fight.







And that's my advice. I'm no professional, but these are the things that have worked for me. Now I actually DO have to go and finish the first draft of this chapter, so I probably won't post again today until I can post that unicorn picture.

WHICH I DID DRAW!

I just haven't scanned it yet...