8/31/12

An actually useful character outline.

Two helpful posts in one day? You know what that means; I have writer's block. And I'm too pantsless to go for a walk right now.

Here's an outline that I use for my characters that I actually find useful. I find a lot of "character profile forms" out there on the webbernets give you the MOST useless facts about your character. You spend three hours filling out fields that don't even apply to your story such as "favorite color." It's very rare that that's useful to the story. Also, why do you need to enter the sex of the character? If you don't know that offhand, you probably aren't writing very well. So here's what I think are the most important things to know about your own character.


Appearance

Hair:
Eyes:
Height: short/average/tall
Visible marks/scars:
Tattoos/piercings:
Brief clothing description:

Personal

Full name:
Family (seen on a regular basis):
Significant other:
Job:
Favorite hobby:

Story

Goal:
Why (one sentence): 
Goal accomplished?:
Lessons learned:
Marital status change:
Job change:
Location change:



What else do you need to know? You can add it in yourself. Here's an example of mine (with important info redacted):

Appearance

Hair: Black
Eyes: Grey
Height: short/average/(tall)
Visible marks/scars: N/A
Tattoos/piercings: Ribcage tattoo, black-colored hawk
Brief clothing description: Standard issue military uniform.

Personal

Full name: Charles [middle name] [last name]
Family (seen on a regular basis): Sister ([name])
Significant other: Anita [last name]
Job: Soldier
Favorite hobby:  Carving

Story

Goal: You don't get to know my story. But it would be like "to win against _______."
Why (one sentence): "Because they're trying to kill him." (example)
Goal accomplished?: Yes
Lessons learned: "meaningful lesson taught to my MC. Example. Learning to work with others. Yes. It can be that simple."
Marital status change: Yes. (relationship - married)
Job change: No
Location change: Yes ([city name redacted] - [city #2 name redacted])


Boom. Nice solid structure to follow.

Why I think character designs are important to your writing.

If I showed you these two pictures, what do you think you could a write better creative prose on?








Okay. Let's be honest here.You can make up some BS abstract minimalism higher-than-thou crap about how the one of NOTHING expresses more about your soul or something, but you would REALLY just be doing it to try really hard to prove me wrong. It's not what you actually think.

Of course you can write more on the first one. Even if you were just doing the most simple thing prose does - describing it.

Picture #1 you can talk about setting, subject, action... textures, you can guess sounds and imagine others in the picture. In fact, it's hard not to. You can talk about time of day, time in history, location, etc, and it's pretty easy to come up with a hundred different scenarios that lead to this image. Okay. Maybe not a hundred. But you get the point.

Picture #2 you can talk about... how maybe there was a ghost and... stuff. You have to stare it for a while to try and figure out and come up with images in your head without anything visual to go on. There's nothing more than your memory to refer back to for consistent details and such.

So basically the point I'm trying to make is that character designs are stupid amounts of helpful to creating believable, CONSISTENT characters. They give you a face to write for, and they actually help you sympathize with your characters better which makes your writing more emotionally appealing. The same effect is explained here by our friend Jeff from Community:




Gives you some emotional attachment so that when something good or bad happens to them, it flows through you and you can write more realistically.

Of course you can always use yourself as your MC but that doesn't usually end well. Like whatsherface who wrote Twilight. The MC looks exactly like the author and it turned into her wild crazy fantasy land where everything was empty and childish and waaaay too over-excited over-fantasized and started a freaking CULT.



 So personally I think it helps you keep better track of what's going on in your character and gives them some solidity and consistency. Of course not everyone needs this, but I think it can make a world of difference.

Details-wise, it's easier to look back on this:



Instead of this: 




Which is supposed to be a comparison to characters in a drawing or design vs in your head. By the way. 

8/30/12

I've done some mental acrobats to the point where this is okay.

I'm lying in bed right now. It's a little awkward to type with your laptop on your belly, but whatever.

It's currently 9:30am, which is a little later than I usually sleep in, I'm struggling to get up, and it is FREAKING COLD IN THIS ROOM. I went to bed and it was super hot and then as the night wore on I slowly layered another three blankets on top of myself, and I'm still wrapped up in them and I don't want to move, but I have to get some stuff done today. So I've justified updating my blog so I can wake myself up and simultaneously get the courage to battle the cold.

Here's why I think blogging instead of getting up right now is okay.

Blogging is supposed to help me, not only get my thoughts out of my head and make way for important things, but also get the creative wheels turning. Every writer should blog because the more you blog, the more you write. And the more you write, the better you write.

And the more the tendons in your wrists hate you.

So I've convinced myself it's going to give me a mental jump start to the day. really I'm just taking the time to enjoy the warm. I do have to send out a few business e-mails this morning too... hmmmmm...

But I also need breakfast. Grrr. Okay. I'm getting up now.

EDIT: NOPE. SENDING E-MAILS. 

8/29/12

First-hand experience for the sake of a novel.

A lot of serious authors do it. A lot of other serious authors watch us do it and view us in league with idiots. But some people truly believe (and I, among them) that experiencing what your characters are experiencing firsthand helps you be more convincing and thorough in your writing.

Some authors go to some scary extremes. I would never go down the line of self-harm like some more hardcore writers do, but I've gone through some great lengths to recreate some scenarios to help me think better and put myself in my MC's position.

Example. Once I asked my swordfighting class (oh yeah, I took sword fighting lessons for six years...) to help me recreate some fight scenarios so I could record them and write from the results. Once I had a friend a dozen times quicker than me to chase me down in a field and tackle me to the ground so I could feel the impact and how it happened. I've gone running through thunder storms, sliding down wet hills barefoot, swimming across lakes, and once laid in a bed all day without moving with my limbs "bandaged up" to figure out what being horridly injured would feel like for a day. I've put weights on belts and strapped on a heavy backpack and gone hiking through a city's river valley for a few hours, and gone for midnight walks in the country by my family's lakeside cabin all in the name of proper feeling.

So I tried to do some tonight and I regret it. Thoroughly. Sometimes you have to be smart, and tonight I was very not smart.

I've gone running this time of night all summer, in the same general area that I was in tonight, completely without incident. So I figured, what's a walk in the park in the middle of the night? I get nervous in the city in the dark, as any woman should, but for whatever reason it doesn't bother me when I'm running because I'm always near busy roads and I'm going faster than other people. Tonight I armed myself with a pocket knife strapped to my arm (seriously), dressed in the same clothing my MC might (or very near to it), and headed out for a night in the park. A little armed with overconfidence, extensive combat and martial arts training, and the ability to practically sprint the distance from the park to my house, I was pretty okay until I got into the middle of the park and noticed a man.

I'd seen him upon entering the park, and he'd been going in the other direction. Now he was walking in my direction. So I turned course and headed for the middle of a field, on a small hill where a group of three trees were. When I got there, I stood behind the trees so he couldn't see me in the dark (I was dressed in all black and they were evergreens, so their branches touched the ground) and watched him through the branches. He stopped and was staring in the direction I'd gone in. After a few moments, he walked straight for me.

I was swearing at myself and kicking myself for being an idiot. One man isn't a huge threat to me, but who knows if he had friends or weapons or what.

So I looped around behind the hill and cut across the field again, keeping an ear out for him as I went back to the main path and headed for the road. He went to where I'd been waiting, stayed there for a moment, then followed me out. Still angry at myself, I headed in the opposite direction of my house to gain enough ground to lose him so he didn't know where I freaking lived. He followed me at a distance for almost 5 blocks around two turns before I randomly turned a corner and, once out of sight, began running down the road and cut down a side path (another not-so-safe route but at least this one was lit by street lights), through a network of condos, and back onto a road a few blocks from my house. I jogged to my house, cut into the back yard, and got inside, locked all of my doors, and slapped myself (not really) for being so dumb.

Uh, of course a freaking dark park in the middle of a city isn't safe, idiot.

That being said, one man is hardly a threat to me, regardless of whatever weapon he might have had (even learned how to beat a gun in a fist fight...) but first rule of all martial arts is run. Run, and if they catch you, break them enough so that they can't follow you.

So yeah, a bit heart-pounding. Gave me some GREAT stuff to write on, though!

Also, my getup was pretty badass. What you can't see in this picture is that I'm wearing black knee-height boots and black tights in addition to this. And a black hood. But you can kinda see that. I felt like the badass female action character that you see in movies and shit.

Today's episode of WHAT THE HELL AM I LOOKING AT?!

Right. So, girls sit weird. Like... a guy sits around, he's either knees apart or ankle on thigh leg cross or "girly" leg cross if he's a skinny/classy guy. Girls are like LET'S SEE HOW MANY WAYS OUR KNEES CAN ROTATE. And I TRIED explaining this to my friend once and he just gave me a very unconvincing "... uhuh..." and went back to his ignorant life of not knowing what normal sitting is. So I was just working on my novel and I came up on a blank spot and so I curled up into my "I'm thinking" pose which I will get to in a moment, and happened to glance at myself in the mirror across from me, which I usually NEVER do because I never look like someone I'd like to see at the moment because I've never done anything more than throw my hair into a messy ponytail and shove glasses onto my face.

Holy run-on sentence.

So my version of a thinking pose is pulling my feet onto the thing I'm sitting on (in this case, my bed), crossing my ankles, and shoving my knees into the insides of my elbows, then locking my wrists together. It's crazy amounts of comfortable.

What I saw in the mirror made me think about my conversation about girls sitting stupidly.

It's true. Look at what I look like when I'm thinking:



Sorry for the bad makeup job. 

Anyways, I made this post to prove a point to a friend who will never read it. Yeah. I'm in a writer's block.

8/28/12

Mental backflips of an active brain.

I'm going to warn you all right now that this post is going to LOOK like it's going to be depressing, but it's really not, I PROMISE.

Okay, onto the post.


I'm half convinced my color-matching, story-making, sound-differing brain is what's gotten me into this mental mess. Artists of all walks are weird. I went to music school in a purely arts building. Everyone was weird. The musicians were all crazy/screwed up, the theatre students obnoxious and overly dramatic, the writers were secluded and a bit creepy at times, the fine artists were purposeful and colorful and had their eyes half-glazed over all the time because they were trying to picture everything under their pencil. It all fits. None of it is unexpected, and somehow they shoved thousands of weirdos and oddballs into one big building and nothing burned to the ground.

Except the one time that the cafeteria's deep frier exploded one morning. No worries, everyone was fine but the entire building reeked of smoke and oil for days after.

I guess I just have to reiterate my point here. Artists are screwed up people.

So it's okay that I'm no exception. I've come to terms with it a long time ago, but there's a roller coaster involved. Also, just learned roller coaster is not one word; if you type it, spell check thinks you're trying to say "cholesterol." Anyways.

I break super easy. In every way except for physical. Okay. physical too, I'm pathetically uncoordinated which, surprisingly enough, is pretty common for drummers. Except mentally is a bit harder to explain. I break every which way incredibly easily, and it takes some getting used to.

There's extremes of being "broken" and not-so-extremes. The first one that happens is kinda like what you might witness from Abed on the show Community:


You mess too much with my brain and I just kinda have a system failure and curl up in a ball and stare back at you awkwardly and wait for the thing that scared me to go away. I have no coping mechanism for life-changing things that might happen, or things that I might find life-changing and everyone else is just okay with.

I call it terrifying, others call it funny. I don't see what's so funny about having your life flipped over unexpectedly, at the time, but I can usually come to terms with it.

The other side is the humor break. My funny breaks sometimes, if people have been too much funny. The funny breaks both ways; one way I'm in a constant state of eye-watering, unsettling silent giggles, usually once again seen from behind my knees as I'm curled up in a ball. Usually in an upright position, this time. The other side of humor break is the elimination of exterior response. I will genuinely find something hilarious, and laugh on the inside, but on the outside I'm stone-faced and usually only say, "that's funny." It doesn't clue in to me as an inappropriate reaction because inside I'm reacting accordingly. It's not until a friend gives me a sideways glance that I realize that I've done something not normal.

The other break is what I've started to call the British break. I watch too much British television and I become obsessed with filtering my speech because I'm terrified of British inflections making their way into my dialogue. It gives me a look of irregular frustration and my active listening dies. Which is bad, because active listening is the way I follow conversations and social cues, and if that's gone then I become terrified that I've missed something important and my conversational abilities break.

Which leads us to the speech breaks. One is like the above where I forget to actively listen, and the lines of speech that draw themselves out for me disappear and I have nothing, which destroys my ability to contribute. The other is deep active listening. While I'm picking apart the conversation and guessing where it's going, they've stopped talking for a couple of minutes and have to say my name a few times before I realize it.

These go in so many ways. There's every corner of human action and emotion, and at every corner there's an edge that I somehow find very hard to not slip off of.

The final big one is the accidental moral break. Something happens that scares my moral subconscious and I do another "Abed break". Sometimes it's something in a movie; my friends made me watch Zach and Miry Make a Porno and there's one scene near the end with excrement involved that had me, once again, curled in a ball and whining and temporarily unable to function. Sometimes it's in conversation. Someone who's rather crude and doesn't know me well, usually from my University, will say something shocking that shuts down my coping mechanisms. Sometimes it's situational; I see someone making out in public. I break.

My brain does all of these high-speed back flips to try and sort out my life for me, and it works so hard overtime that sometimes it does one too many flips and has to take a few to untangle itself, so I patiently wait for it to get back to normal.

Today I British-broke AND scared-broke, AND moral-broke, all at once, so I ended up walling myself into my bedroom and living here all day trying to be productive and failing.

8/26/12

Procrastination and the lazy artist.

I DON'T WANT TO DO ANYTHING TODAY. Nothing. Not. A. Damn. Thing.

You know what I've done today?

I walked 10 minutes to the pet store to buy a mouse for my snake because he's hungry.

It's 4:30pm.

You know what I NEED to do today? I need to fix a painting that a customer hated, I need to get to work on a commission someone is picking up tomorrow (so I have tonight and tomorrow morning to do it), and I need to put some ink on a character sketch I did for an author.

And speaking of authors!

I WANT TO WRITE SO DAMN BAD. I've been grudgingly sitting around doing nothing because I don't want to paint and I do want to write, but I have to paint and I'm not letting myself write until my damn deadlines for fine arts are met so I'm in a bit of a conflict with myself which I'm sure would send a therapist, should I have one, over the edge. It's sad. I should really just fix this painting... it's only going to take a couple of hours. But I really dislike painting.

Yeah. I dislike it. I became a professional artist because I thought everyone would love my drawings and I could bask in the loving glow of my beloved graphite forever.

But everyone's all OUUU I LOVE YOUR OIL PAINTINGS MAKE ME ONE SO I CAN BE A PICKY PICKY CUSTOMER ABOUT IT BECAUSE I'M RICH AND I PAY YOU STUPID AMOUNTS OF MONEY FOR IT.

Okay, so I do make about $30 an hour for my oil paintings, so they are good money...

But I charge that much because I hate doing them and I hold the hopes up that if they're that expensive less people will want them. But I just think it sends the message that they're super high class instead, and rich people want them.

Really I'm just blogging right now to complain about nothing to avoid doing work. I'm feeling so unmotivated again.

Okay. I'm going to get to work, now.

8/24/12

This house is so empty!

Ian and I are going to be holding down the fort together for the next few days as John is gallivanting off to the USA somewhere and Laura is gone with her band on tour. So Ian and I are the only ones in this house and it's turning out strangely awesome. I really have nothing else to post about. So I'm watching Community and drinking craptonnes of water and keeping calm.

I tried to be productive today because I have such a soon deadline but my motivation tanked halfway through the day so tomorrow will be busier than I had planned. But I was so tired. And just not motivated. Or interested. It happens sometimes.

Anyways! Yeah!

Sleepy day means sleepy artist.

It's cloudy and slightly damp outside, and cold in this house. And I forced myself to get up a bit earlier than usual because I have a lot of work to get done this weekend and wanted to put a fully day in today. So I dragged myself out of bed after half an hour of hitting the snooze button on my cell phone and wrapped myself in layers of clothing (it's getting cold) and dragged myself downstairs where Ian and Laura and a friend of everyone's were all hanging out. The friend happens to be the guitarist in Laura's band and they were waiting to go on tour.

They all kinda looked at me and were suppressing laughter as I flopped down on the floor and curled up pathetically, wishing everyone a good morning. The rest of Laura's band showed up shortly thereafter and left to go pre-tour shopping. They showed up 5 minutes ago with a HUGE Tim Horton's coffee and a muffin for me. Guess who my favorite people in the world are right now.

I have to put a layout on a canvas, photograph it, send it to my picky picky customer, then paint at least half of it. I have a character design to ink up today and a graphite outline to do. Tomorrow I have to finish the painting or get very very very close, draw up another character outline, and start shading the graphite piece. I'm not getting much sleep this weekend. Sunday I have to finish three character sketches plus the new one, finish the shading on the graphite, and then write a good chunk of novel for my Monday deadline for EVERYTHING.

I have a deadline for writing, a deadline for three character sketches/two ink designs, and a graphite portrait. My deadline for the painting is Friday and it needs at least 5 days to dry, so it has to be done tomorrow or in the very latest, Sunday morning.

Then next week will be one of frantic writing and gallery growing.

I am going to need a lot more coffee...

8/23/12

Tips for becoming a successful fine artist.

I like to think of myself as a pretty successful visual artist. I have pretty steady work in the area and am well-known around the area I live... actually, right across Canada and the USA for the stuff I do for certain organizations, so theoretically I would have some useful information to help young artists starting out. Here's 10 things that I would strongly suggest artists looking to start commissions should do.

10. Studies.

I know they can be boring. I know they aren't going to make you ANY money.  But you need to do them... and a LOT of them. You need to do studies of everything you work on, from animals to people to vehicles to buildings to plant. And you need to do one as often as you have time for. The more studies you do, the faster you work, the better your works start to look, the more inclined people will be to trust you to make awesome pieces.

9. Website.

Every business nowadays needs a website. Your website needs to look good (so if you can't code, find a hosting site with templates you can use or ask for help... OR learn how to code via Google) and showcase your art well. Art looks good on red, grey, deep browns, and black. Graphite looks very sharp on white. It should be easy to navigate and include a short bio on a separate page to showcase you as a person as well. Do not have music autoplay in the background.

8. Social media.

It's taking over our lives, but it will also give your business a very strong push into the public eye. Word of mouth travels fast, and when a friend or family member hears someone is looking for an artist, they will give your name and the easiest thing to do is tell them your Facebook page name, or to hop on Facebook and show them your photos. Keeping a blog that shows some of your progess pictures and updates helps as well, and it's also a great thing to give to the customers you do get to show them regular updates as you work on their stuff.

7. Show the customers EVERYTHING.

I mean everything. It fills up your gallery! Put your sketches up in your gallery under a category. Let them know what's up! I have all the studies I do up online under a category called "sketches and studies," just to fill up space and show people some casual work. It actually makes them feel less picky about the concept sketches I show them, because they see that all of my sketches look similar. Showing that you do lots of studies gives an air of practice and professionalism that will give you a more serious feel. The more pictures you have up, the better... just don't mash everything together. Put your serious works up at the top of the page, and then the sketches further down. If there's a couple of serious pieces you aren't too happy about, put them in the middle of your serious works section so that the beginning and end of the customer's browsing is strong and positive and impressive, but the other pieces are still giving a huge number to your gallery. If something looks awful, don't put it up. Seriously. If it's really bad, keep it to yourself. But everything else is game.

6. Expand your areas of expertise/never say no.

Got some spare time? Start researching a new medium and try it out. Learn how to draw new things, explore the outer corners of art! The more you can do, the more opportunities you have. If a customer asks you to do something that you aren't quite comfortable with, say yes and then spend a while freaking out and practicing and learning how to do it. Most customers are cool with waiting a couple of weeks for their piece (actually most artists will take a month or more to get a piece done because it's their second job/they don't work at it full time/they work in little pieces) so you have lots of leeway to secretly learn how to do what they asked. Take those risks! If you never say no, you never let an opportunity go!

SIDE NOTE!!!

You have to say no in certain situations. This is extremely important. Do not work for less because a potential customer gets snarky about your price. Do not cave in because some other artist is doing it for half your price. They pay for what they get! Keep your prices professional. If you work for less, you will never get off your feet. You will always work for scraps because they will hear from others that you did it for less, and want that price too.

5. Compete with your pricing.

There's a fine line to walk when pricing your art. You want to sneak in JUST under what similar artists in your area/country are doing, but you still need to keep professional and be sure you aren't working for nothing. A good system I've come up with is to do some research into material costs and figure out an approximate cost for each type of work you do. That includes figuring out how much each sheet of paper costs! Then you should multiply your average work time by an hourly wage (be reasonable... you aren't going to make $30 an hour until you're famous...). The amount you get is your original number to work with. Then go online and Google artists in your country/region/area and pick a competitive price with them in the same area, but just sneak right under them. You're just starting out so you don't have a lot to work off of reputation-wise so what you need is the lowest-price advantage. Do not set it too low, however. Compare this competitive price to the price you've calculated: if it's less, maybe you had too high of an hourly wage, if it's more maybe you didn't set enough. With this system, you can explain to your customers where your pricing comes from when they ask. And they will ask. It also helps when someone tries to argue the price or compromise with you to explain why you set a certain price. You SHOULD be willing to be flexible with prices, and the knowledge of how flexible to be will help your price discussions.

4. When you don't have a commission, make your own pieces.

This goes along with doing studies. It grows your gallery to make your website more impressive/helps show customers more examples of what you can do which will make them more confident in your abilities. It also makes you get better. Every original you do can be priced and posted for sale, so it's not a waste of time to do them along with commissions. Be sure to do a huge variety and show customers what you are capable of with your works.

3. Affiliate.

 Talk to your customers, your artist friends, your family members, anyone with a website or business and get a link up on their website. You can offer to put their links up on your website to kinda balance it out. It's not much but it's just another way to get your name out there.

2. Get as public as possible.

Strive for works that will be seen by a tonne of people. Some examples: works that will be in stores, logos, signs, window showcases, book covers, CD covers, business representation, website pictures, etc. Do pieces for someone who will brag about their artwork and throw it up on their blog. I started off doing works for farms that were published in magazines. My logos and drawings showed up to spruce up their ads and showcases in magazines, and I worked for a store doing promotional poster logos and calligraphy in my first couple years as a professional. It helps catch eyes and get your name in people's head.

1.  Art shows instead of gallery showcases.

Gallery showcases are hard to get and expensive. Art shows will let you put your stuff up so long as you pay for the booth. Trade shows are also good to go to, or any other craft show or just public sale. Anything that gets you a booth among other people selling their products. I got a three-year deal in one of these. I set up in the middle of a trade show with my logo and a bunch of originals and pamphlets on a big table. Because of the horses I did, a custom horse equipment company that toured the USA and Canada took notice and signed me on for three years. They put my art in their shop as they toured to professional rodeos and put up prints in their stores all over the USA. It got my name out across North America and swamped me with commissions in an area that I love.


Hopefully these tips are helpful! Best of luck to all of you!


8/22/12

I actually art for real!!

So I don't post very many pictures because, you know, this is all anonymous and stuff and I actually DO have a big customer base, so I just kinda want to hover under the radar here. However, I do want to share a bit of my art and this piece is pretty safe/incomplete, so I'm going to share some of my REAL work with you loyal 5 readers!

It's a couple of horses, mama snuggling her baby. And it's incomplete. It's done IRL but this is the grainy picture I took earlier today to give the customer an update.


So there you are. I actually draw. It is actually a thing!

10 perks of being a full-time artist.

Okay, so being an artist doesn't pay well. Everyone knows that. It's even a stereotype. So what's the upside of being a full-time artist?  I pulled together a list of 10 things that are awesome about working as an artist that pretty much make up for being poor.

1. Set your own hours.
What better work schedule could you ask for other than the one you build for yourself? Your shifts are all the most convenient hours, your days off line up where you need them to. If you want to work at 3am, you can.

2. Don't have to worry about appearance.
It cuts a huge chunk out of your morning routine when it doesn't matter if you've got bedhead or not, and you don't need to look presentable half the time. Now, I'm NOT saying it's okay to be a slob, because that's not what I mean. What I mean is that you can fly off of a bare minimum. I climb out of the shower, throw my dripping hair in a haphazard ponytail, roll on some deodorant and get to work.

3. Pants.
I can't say this enough. Being allowed to wander around in boxer shorts all day is epic. That's like, the definition of freedom.

4. Watching TV while you work.
I watch shows, movies, everything when I work. Because I can... with the exception of when I'm drumming of course. Even when I was in drum school, I would watch episodes of shows online while I practiced certain exercises, so I guess that counts. But yeah! I get to watch all sorts of videos and learn new things and stay entertained during my work day. Jealous?

5. Don't have to pay attention to other people.
If I want to put headphones in and rock out to loud music all day, I can. Hell, if I want to put the music on speakers I can because my roommates usually aren't home, unless it's Laura and she doesn't care because she'll just put her own music on.

6. Get all the breaks you want, when you want.
Enough said? I want a three hour break, I'll take one. If I want six breaks throughout my "shift," I'll take them. I am the man!! Or... yeah... something...

7. You're continually surrounded by your own work and it's all awesome.
I love reading my stories, I love looking at the drawings I do, I love listening to my music. I know some artists don't like looking at their work, it stresses them out, but most don't. You make stuff because you love it, right? I sure hope so. It's mentally healthy to surround yourself with stuff you love, and with a career like this you can.

8. Sick days are never challenged.
If you're sick, you're sick. You can lie on the couch all day and take care of yourself, and there's no boss to make angry voices at you or doubt the legitimacy of your needs OR make you work anyways because no one will cover for you or they can't afford to have you in.

9. You're surrounded by inspiration and motivation everywhere you go.
Whether you're a visual, literary, or musical artist, your stuff is EVERYWHERE. Pictures, passages, and music are HUGE in our society. You never go anywhere without music, there are logos and advertisements plastered all over everything, and our culture is driven by books, magazines, news articles, and other dialogues that SOMEONE had to write. People like us drive society, and despite the general outlook towards us, we own the world! I also like that anything can inspire writing, drawing, or music.

10. Working from home.
Get up... you're ready to work. No commute. No grubby office. No general public. Your home is where you can actually LIVE (what a concept!)

8/21/12

Top 10 reasons why I KNOW I picked the right career.

I complain about my work sometimes. A lot. The customers are frustrating, the pay is irregular, sometimes it's unpredictable. So why stick with it? I came up with the top 10 reasons why I love my work and would like to continue with it for the rest of my life.

Here goes!

10. I can dress however I want.

I dress like a child half time time. My in-public wardrobe consists of the random things I pull out of the closet and random accessories I grab out of a box.  If my clothes are ratty, it doesn't matter because I'm an artist and that's acceptable. People actually EXPECT me to dress weird/funky/originally because that's the stereotype surrounding artists. Because of my job, I can pull off the scruffy look and no one cares.

Like today, I am wearing a black shirt and cardigan and SUPER ripped up/destroyed jeans with a tattered belt, and two belts around my shirt because, hey, I like belts. Followed up by flip-flops, leather bracelet, random feathers hanging from a chain in my hair and sunglasses. HUGE metal flower on my necklace. Hair is up in a haphazard ponytail. And I'm meeting with three customers today... and they're all expecting me to look like this because crazy comes with the job.


 This is how I look today. Would YOU be greeting customers like this and feel confident that they will like you BECAUSE of it?

9. I get to set my own schedule.

I decide what I want to do and when, within my deadlines, and how long I'm going to do it for. If I want to get up at 3am and work, I will. If I want to take a two hour break, randomly, I will. This allows me to schedule around things like hanging out with friends, housework, going to the gym, or family events. Because of that, I get a lifestyle that people always say they "don't have time for," because they work during the most opportune hours of the day. If I want to go to the gym in the afternoon so I still have time to do stuff in the evening, I will. I will work late at night or early in the morning when nothing is going on anyways. It really helps me keep up with life when I'm healthy and able to be around friends when I want to be. 

8. I'm good at it.

I figure that's as good a reason to do something than anything else. I never struggle with what I do, I'm never nervous about something unknown or worried about being ignorant in some area of my jobs. I picked things that I'm well-rounded at and familiar with, and have always excelled at. I took the strengths in my abilities and turned them into a career. I can work with confidence every day and that reduces the stress that comes with any career or life.

7. I've been doing this since I was a child.

 I've been drawing and writing stories since I could hold a pencil. I learned my alphabet and learned how to write long before kindergarten, and by the time I was in grade one I was writing at a grade five level, both in calligraphy and grammatical abilities. There was even talk of me skipping the second grade altogether because of it (though it never happened). I won art award after art award through school and was that kid who was asked to do anything drawing-related. I started music a bit later, when I was 10 as a piano player and then 13 as a guitarist and 14 as a drummer, so that's all been in my life for over 10 years. It's all familiar and fun territory that I grew up with. It's like the farm kids who grow up to take over their parents' farm. It's just natural.

6. I have a perfectly legitimate reason to avoid people all day.

Okay, so maybe it's not the MOST mentally healthy thing to do, but due to social anxiety there ARE days when I just don't want to talk to anyone or even see people. Luckily, I can just lock myself in my bedroom with music on and no one wants to interrupt me/thinks twice about the fact they haven't seen me all day because it's just common for me to work all day nonstop on a piece or on my novels. I can stay in a room for hours on end and play the drums because that's just normal. I have no obligation to go to an office or workplace... unless, of course, I'm meeting with a customer. But even non-anxious people are jealous of the ability to hide!

5. Writing = big vocabulary = impressed customers.

So customers expect me to look a little odd and ratty, but they also DON'T expect me to be well-spoken and highly educated. When they see that I am, they're impressed and business tends to go a lot better. People almost never assume, after their first meeting with me, that they can take advantage of me or pull the wool over my eyes because I come across as intelligent and knowledgeable. They know they can't cut corners or somehow scam me out of my fair share. Some people propose an awful "deal" over e-mail to start out with (do 5 pieces for the price of one and I will advertise you for free!) but it stops and reverses in a hurry when I talk business with them in my response.

4. Drinking excessive amounts of coffee is considered normal.

Simple enough. I LOVE coffee. I would drink it all day if it wouldn't kill me. But no one scolds me for drinking too much because, again, it's expected of me. It's fun to take advantage of stereotypes!

3. Part of my job consists of surfing the internet for fun facts.

Seriously, I get to waste hours on the internet just looking at articles that relate to my life and interest me, because I write about stuff that interests me and more often than not take an interest in my art subjects. I love music and have to continually look up exercises and information and artists. I spend hours researching and learning and I get paid to do it.

2. NO PANTS.

Uh... yeah, you guys already have multiple run-downs on this.

1. It makes me happy!

When I'm drumming I'm happy and motivated to push harder, and the music makes my soul so relaxed, no mater the genre I'm playing. When I'm drawing, I feel very quiet and focused and relaxed, which helps my anxiety. Writing helps me to explore myself and be peaceful. It's all very zen and awesome. It helps me psychologically and I enjoy everything I do. Even when I dislike some commissions, I still fall in love with the process. What other reason do I need to focus my life in that direction?

8/20/12

Why I never talk about my book to anyone.

There are five huge reasons why half the people in my life don't even know I'm a writer, because I don't talk about my novel. When it was just a baby concept, YEARS ago, I told my best friend about it and showed her my first draft. Well, my first draft was only about 5000 words long and written by, and like, a 13yo girl. That's right, this novel has been an idea for over 10 years. She loved it and became obsessed with my characters, drawing them in her spare time, asking questions about them, fantasizing about one of my male characters... it freaked me right the hell out. Especially seeing as I've always disliked anime, generally, and all of her renditions of my characters were anime-style. Really really bad anime-style.

So I kinda played around with those characters and ideas for a few years. The storyline developed into something massive, but before it could properly expand it got shelved for a few years. I only came back to it the summer before University, and by then my writing level had matured x1 000 000, so I had to rip it apart and put the pieces back together, better. It developed into two separate concepts and thus two separate novels.

So if it's been that big of a thing for that long, why not talk about it? I mean obviously there's a LOT to talk about, two large novels' worth. Like I said, there are five huge reasons why I never talk to anyone about the novel, unless they're critiquing it or editing it, or have already gotten the rundown on the novel by continual pestering about what I write about (ahem... Laura...). And here they are!

1. It's dark.

The whole concept of the novel is dark and disturbing. It's a psychological thriller, and deals with pretty heavy human emotions that I sometimes feel exhausted writing about. If I really go into detail about anything in the novels, especially the first (the second is a lot easier to warp into a not-so-dark-sounding storyline), people will look at me weird and judge me and I would just rather they read it and get lost in the storyline and forget that I wrote it until the end when everything comes to its conclusion... it will save a lot of awkward questions/looks. 

2. I'm afraid they'll actually take an interest in it.

Like I mentioned before, I had a friend who took a huge interest in the first draft of the story and it freaked me right out. She always wanted to know more about the characters and fell in love with them. Well, cool, but... it freaked me out! I would much rather people love the published version... from a distance. On a less intense scale, I don't want people casually asking about what I've written and taking an interest in the developing storyline before the novel is complete, because I might change my mind about it. I don't want it to take over conversations with people. People find literature, especially that which was created by their peers, fascinating. Again, I would just rather people read the finished product.

3. I hate when authors obsess about their books.

I'm in a phase of doing a bunch of character sketches for authors, and I can't stand listening to them all go on about their novels. That being said, 90% of them are first-time novelists and thus have a new outlook on writing and haven't done proper research. My point is, their storylines are like what my storylines were like when I was 13 and a new writer, and the immaturity hurts a bit. And that might sound pretentious, but it happens every day and I have to listen to "how their book is going to change the world." They all act like they are far superior to even the most famous published writers (one of them was writing fantasy and called Tolkein crap. WHAT. Another said Dan Brown "got nothing on" him). It's disturbing and annoying and makes me want to cry about the downfall of proper literature. I really really hope these pretentious writers are not a new thing...  anyways. Point is, I hate when people go on for a length about their books about 90% of the time (the other 10% the authors are actually published and actually know what they're doing, and I LOVE sitting down to talk about writing with them and to hear their ideas... but they're like me. They don't want to disclose their storylines). I hate when it becomes their obsession and they throw it in my face, and I will do ANYTHING, including restraining my artistic tendencies, to not be like that.

4. I'm afraid my ideas will be judged.

Simple enough. I'm afraid someone will not like the ideas in my book and mock them. I hate having to justify my thoughts and ideas, and the thought of someone hating something so personal as these novels, which have been with me for years, hurts me on the inside. If it was actually mocked, I would probably cry. For days. I love my books, and I love their characters dearly and if even one person bashes them when they're published I will probably die. Which is bad, because I have to be ready for the critics. I will find a way to man up before then...

5. The genre I write is too hard to explain in an appropriate time frame.

I'm a fantasy author. I write fantasy. There are weird unearthly creatures, they are not in the same world as us, they have very different politics, different religions, different ways of doing things. Their world situation is completely different than ours and, of course, you can't have fantasy without some form of magic. This means, that to explain ANY part of the book, I have to explain the ENTIRE BASIS of my novels' world. I have to explain where the forces are coming from and why, I have to explain the reason for conflict, and if I explain that I have to explain WHY humans are kicking up a strangely racist fit about someone living in someone else's country, which is a whole other backstory on its own... which you get in good, proper, spaced-out pieces in the novel like a sane story. In real life, it's a head-spinning infodump that people will become confused about. I don't want to do that. See reason #3. Also, it would take HOURS. I only told Laura about it because she pestered me long enough, and I was visiting her at her very boring job that she had three hours left to kill at, and she promised to not judge me.


So that's why it's a secret. I'm terrified of when this thing actually gets published and I actually have to show my family/let them read it. I have to warn them ahead of time of the psychological aspects of it and promise them that I am not, in fact, a disturbed sociopath that enjoys making others suffer. I have to come up with a good excuse for the darkness in the book... probably just that I really like thrillers, both books and movies. I have no idea. Suggestions are welcome... even though you jerks never leave comments =P

Except for one Anonymous person who keeps randomly popping up in weird posts...

8/18/12

Race day!!

So it's RACE DAY here! I am going for my first ever running race this evening; the Canadian Derby Marathon 10k in Edmonton. I'm pretty stoked. Had a great start to my day, and I'm just about to do some light yoga and then pack my bags so I can go and watch the kid's race before I head to mine. The kids were at the kit pickup yesterday and they were all so cute. They all got the number one and they were running around the hall getting excited about it.

Also, I just learned that the race allows 12yos in it. If I get beaten by a bunch of preteens I'm going to cry.

Probably not. But still.

My specialist called me this morning to tell me that if I die, it's not his fault. And to wish me good luck.

Anyways, going to get on that yoga. Will report after the race! Maybe. If I'm not dead.

8/17/12

Coffeeshop round 2: not nearly as productive as round 1...

I ended up in downtown Edmonton this afternoon to meet with an Edmontonian customer, and then I have to go to pick up my race package in a couple of hours for my 10k tomorrow, so I thought since I have a couple of hours to kill I'd set up camp again in a coffeeshop because it was so productive the last time for writing. So I went in search of a Starbucks because they have the best kind of shops for writing (very easy to be anti-social in them...) but I couldn't find one close enough to the LRT (Edmonton's version of a subway) station that I have to use in a bit so I settled for a Tim Horton's (which is cheaper/has way better coffee than Starbucks), but the atmosphere here is so frantic that I'm feeling distracted and anxious and there's nowhere to hide my computer so I feel like people are constantly reading over my shoulder, so I can't write.

And there's a group of old people across from me that won't stop shooting glances in my direction... because literally no one else is sitting around with a laptop out in this busy restaurant.


So I might peace out here soon and just kinda aimlessly wander the streets of downtown Edmonton until I have to catch the train to the horse track here (which is where the marathon is being held... it's sponsored by the Northlands racehorse company thing) so I can pick up my racing gear and go home and panic about the race for the rest of the day/do a bunch of drawing/writing from my happy happy home and not this scary scary place. Plus I dressed for the 30C weather that we have and it's like -100C in here because for whatever reason they assume that air conditioning is to remind Edmontonians why Canadian winters suck so bad.

And, stupidly, I bought iced coffee because hey, it's freaking 30C outside.

Dangit. This was just awful planning.

My life, guys! The worst.


EDIT:  Okay, as happens I had to pee, and when I went into the washroom here there was a lady coaching herself through a supposedly difficult poop in a very loud whisper. I don't know that I'm okay with downtown Edmonton anymore. At all.


EDIT #2: I was reading through my race's FAQ to pass time (I'm certainly not getting any work done here...) and apparently race refunds are a very touchy issue for the webbuilder:

I wanted to curl up in a ball and shout "STOP YELLING AT ME!" upon reading that haha.


EDIT #3: LOL HOLY CRAP. I don't know why I'm finding these so funny:

  • Can I bring my dog?
    No
  • Is there same day registration?
    NO RACE DAY REGISTRATIONS

Seriously. I'm going crazy.


EDIT #4: I'm a huge sucker. A huge one. I felt awful because there was a guy my age who was homeless and looked little more than a skeleton so I got him a sandwich earlier and then now a guy was asking for coffee money and we're in a COFFEEshop so I'm watching him go buy coffee right now with my money thinking "... I don't have extra money. Why do I do these things? I'm going to go broke... er..."

Sometimes listening to old sayings can save you some terror.

Ever hear the saying "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned"? Now, I'm not a violent person, nor do I really believe in revenge, because seriously, "hurting someone back" is not going to solve my crisis. But what I do believe in is honesty. And when you're dishonest to/about me, shit's going to fly.

So there's that bass player "friend" that I joined the touring band with. We've been friends since high school, and have been in multiple bands together. THEN he turned around and trashed talked me to the band/downplayed my playing abilities/suggested the band would be better off without me, and got me fired.

Okay, so that hurt, yes, but really if that was all he did I would have just let him go about his smug dishonest life and just steer clear of him until I feel better. And then theoretically eventually the band will realize that he doesn't practice his instrument and can him too. But that would just be icing on my floaty cake of "I'm a Christian and therefore not emotionally capable of holding a grudge against you for fear of feeling guilty." Haha... ugh, man, Christian humor is bad. Okay no, actually, I just don't care what he does with his life.

However, I may have mentioned... b*tch owes me money.

A lot of it.

$150 of it because I sold him a bass guitar and agreed to let him pay it in two payments.

Only his first payment was two months ago, and we'd agreed on two payments two weeks apart. I WAS just letting it go because he was a friend and also a musician and thus pretty hard done by money-wise, but now he's been ignoring me because he knows he f*cked up, and it's been a bit since I got fired, and I want my money. Especially seeing how the band's gigs were how I was paying for my bills.

But, like I said, he's ignoring my phone calls and messages and e-mails about the money and refusing to pay it.

So I did what any other sane farm-kid would do and called up a couple of my farming buddies that also went to high school with us that I knew he would be in contact with. And I explained what happened, thinking it would be easier to get him through a third party. 

The boys were "not surprised" that he had done what he had done (goes to show they're a lot smarter than me) and promised to get me my money. It helps that one of them has been calling himself my "big brother" for almost 10 years now and the other had a huge crush on me in HS and has since joined the military (and now I might have a crush on him!! Haha... juuuust kidding... sort of...). So basically, I don't want to know what they said to him, but they showed up this morning with my money and said "he said he's sorry for taking so long."

I kiiiinda felt like a mafia member or something.

They didn't hurt him, but I know that he's intimidated by them. And who wouldn't be? Two 6'5" farm boys, one of which is a soldier? Hah.

So, don't lie about me and then cut connections when you owe me money. You very well might end up soiling your pants.


In other news, my cat will NOT stop eating plastic bags...

8/16/12

Quiet morning, working day.

It's fast approaching afternoon, and I've taken my time getting going today. I got up slowly, for once (yesterday didn't count, I was awake but battling the demon of a cold room!) and actually took the time to look like a normal human today. Though my "normal human" is brushed hair, wearing pants, and some semblance of makeup.

After a good breakfast I made some phone calls and got some financial stuff sorted out, so I may actually have comfortable finances after all in spite of everything! Yay! I might not have to get a real person job after all. Though I'm still very seriously considering the show jumping job because I love horses and training them, and I haven't done it in so long.

But today will not be about that. Unfortunately. Today will be about drawing! And lots of it... I need to put some character design rep out on my website because authors are getting tired of looking at real-life people that I've drawn and want something more... uh... conceptual? And I can't put up old examples of others' designs because authors are rabid and if their characters pop up online I won't live long enough to fix my mistake.

So I'll just make some up of my own characters and toss them up there. Who knows, maybe you lucky readers will get a sketch or two!

On a side note, my editor is destroying my vocab. I don't know what the point of having an impressive vocabulary is if you aren't even allowed to use it in your own damn literature? Hey editor! If you don't use it, you lose it! And like HELL if I'm going to let my precious word stores deplete. "Oh, but common people can't understand that level of writing to its fullest extent!" Yeah well then maybe my book can go to some intellectuals. Urgh. No, I suppose I will just have to write commonly. Might as well keep it open to a full audience.

Hey! Like my angsty artist rant? It's like, my first ever! Did I do well? Hey?

Alright, now I'm just procrastinating getting to my drawings. I still have to run down to the coffee shop and buy a big cup of coffee to get me through the day; I am 100% out of coffee on this end. It's depressing. And then I do have to get to work. I have to have a concept sketch for annoying-corporate-lady by this evening that I really do not want to do. And then the character sketches and an outline for my first graphite commission in MONTHS. Which I'm stoked for, because graphite is my baby and I've been getting less and less of those commissions...

Okay. What else can I kill time with?

Oh, I got my first ever Twitter post today from some drumming page that thinks I need their tips real bad. They're called "drumming basics," so I'm thinking after 3 years of University I should be a bit past the basics, but alright, I bit.

" Did you know that you can improve your drumming speed joining a dance or kickboxing class?"

" yes. Although I think 2 hours of pad practice a day is a lot more beneficial =P"

See in my mind, I work out enough as it is without that, and I do hours upon hours of technical exercises every week on a drum pad to better my technique and speed. Which, in my mind, is going to help a lot more than going dancing. Because really it's all about building muscle, and the RIGHT muscle. And even horse riding is a better option because it works on MANY of the same muscle groups as drumming.

Unfortunately I don't want to be too bitchy so I just responded with my technical habits, did a little self-satisfied strut in my house, and left it at that.

8/15/12

Interesting day. Very interesting.

I started today off fully intending for it to be an art day. It turned into anything but, I never touched pencil to paper.

First of all, our house was FREEZING this morning. Which is a change from I'm-lying-in-my-underwear-with-window-wide-open-and-fan-full-blast-and-still-dripping-sweat. Last night was very cold, so I wasn't too surprised and had prepared for it with the ultimate fuzzy blanket. I mean ULTIMATE. So I woke up and I was warm and cozy but my nose was cold and my room was cold so I had to do serious battle with myself to even suggest getting out of bed. I compromised with myself by wrapping the blankets around me and half-walking half-dragging myself over to my dresser (which is only like, 2 feet from my bed) out of which I pulled a super cozy bath robe and slippers. I wrapped myself in those amidst much cursing and whining to myself, and then gathered up warm clothing and ran to the shower.

After single-handedly causing  a water shortage in Canada (and also digging into my roommate's wallets for the next utility bill) with a 25-30 minute long, piping hot shower, I snuggled up in my warm clothes, forgot what I actually had to do today, and went downstairs with sketch book in hand, ready to draw. I ended up huddled under a blanket, too cold to do anything, watching a movie on my laptop and trying to budget for the end of this month.

At which point in time I got a phone call from my mother.

Alright. So this is a very important side story that you may have known had you caught my overly-depressing post that I ended up deleting 2 hours after I posted it. If not, this is important. A couple (?) of weeks ago, I attempted to notify my mother of my depression problem and anxiety disorder. It did not go well. She screamed and cried about how I shouldn't say stuff like that and how it panicked her and how I didn't know how serious what I was saying was. What could I possibly be depressed about? So I went through a small breakdown/setback over that and moved on with my life without her help, as is normal.

So today as I was going over my budget, huddled under this huge blanket wearing warm clothes and fuzzy slippers, I get a phone call. And while my first instinct was to ignore it because authors have been calling me nonstop for two days for character sketches, I decided to glance and see who it was. It was my mother.

Not really wanting to deal with her, but not wanting to have to call her back later, I reluctantly answered. I was greeted with an apology and explanation as to why she'd been so defensive over my mental health. She asked to hear more about it, and wanted to hear what was going on in my life. I was surprised at the sudden support, but sometimes it does happen from her end and it doesn't last very long. So I talked a bit with her, though as is bound to happen when I talk about it I got a little emotional and we ended our conversation right around when that happened because I hate talking on the phone when I'm bring a girl all over it.

After I hung up, I got some huge surge of inspiration and typed out thousands of words worth of novel before I suddenly just really wanted to play the drums. So I played the drums. And I played them LOUD. And it felt great. And then I wrote some more. It was crazy productive.

So then I realized that, in short time, I was due to meet a friend from high school that I hadn't seen in MONTHS (probably over a year) for his birthday, along with his family and some old high school friends/acquaintances I hadn't seen/even spoken to in years. I don't know how I forgot about it, but I panicked and put some presentable clothes on and booked it out the door in time to catch the bus.

Once there, I realized that half the people were squinting at me. They knew they knew who I was, but they didn't really know exactly who I was. I have changed a LOT since graduating high school, which was about 5 years ago or so. I've lost about 100lbs (serious), I cut off 3/4 of my hair (it used to be past my waist, is now just to my shoulder blades), my hair is natural colored (used to be bright pink and orange, is now red-blond), my lipring has been reduced to a teeny stud, my hair which was ALWAYS straightened before I let curl, I wasn't dressed in a ratty t-shirt and huge jeans, and I actually learned how to put on makeup. So I had to do the awkward "Hi, it's me!" thing about 6 times, and everyone was like WOAH WTF HAPPENED?! and it was cool.

But then my former best friend showed up! Her and I used to be attached at the hip for the first two years of high school. It ended a little roughly and not on good terms, and she is very good friends with one of my first roommates which also ended very roughly and messily. So I was very shocked to see her.

Turns out, she's an artist too, now! She took a fine arts degree in university and works as an artist in a nearby city. So we found some common ground, naturally, and had an excellent talk.

And then she mentioned my old roommates. Well, actually, I asked how her friend was. Him and I
used to be super close, but the roommate breakup kinda ruined that. And then she said he was doing very well, and that he had actually recently (within the past 2 weeks) mentioned that he actually harbored no ill feelings towards me, which surprised me very very very pleasantly. I was so relieved to hear it.

I was also relieved to hear that the other roommate that I was never friends with flopped and learned a hard life lesson. Not that I wanted him to suffer, I just wanted him to get a serious reality check that would set him on a straight path to being a real adult. He was very awful when he moved out of his parents' house, didn't shower, never worked, was broke, let the carpets in his room mold from leaking juice containers and scraps of food lying around, didn't know how to work a laundry machine, ate nothing but microwave dinners and Coca Cola, and played video games/watched porn 24/7. I ended up abandoning him alone to himself after he failed to come up with rent and he almost ended up homeless because of it.

He still hates me, but he's had a few other smacks upside the head courtesy of life and reality, and I think he's going to be okay. In a few years.

So dinner went well, and turns out guy-whose-birthday-it-was wasn't as awkward as the last time I saw him! Because the last time I saw him he was in love with me and cleverly conned me into going on a date-that-I-didn't-realize-was-a-date-until-halfway-through-the-movie not a month after I had broken up with my fiance (who I had been with for six years). It was awkward because the feelings weren't reciprocated, as bad as I felt. But today he was totally chill!

So that went well.

And then I came home to an e-mail from my mother that was an attempted apology for some parts of my childhood. Which, though she has done small steps like this, was very very welcome and made me cry. Again.

An excerpt of what she wrote:

"I may not have always done a great job when you were young, and I'm so sorry for that. I think sometimes the way I responded to you was hurtful and I wasn't there for you suppporting you like you needed me to. At times, I more compared my life and childhood to yours and thought you had it pretty good. But with age, comes some wisdom. I realize how wrong I was to be that way. You and your world and problems matter. I have no right to compare anything ever. You feel what you feel and I respect you for that. I hope over time you will feel like you can open up to me and I won't diminish your pain or heartache you feel. I WILL listen without judgement or minimizning. I know I did that when you were growing up. Goes to show just how much growing up I needed to do to realize what it took to be a good mom. I don't always make the right or best decisions but I NEED you to know how much you mean to me. Listening to you today, all I could think of was "how can I fix this for my baby", she's hurting so bad." 

Which shows why I cried. Yeesh. I was just not expecting this to happen at this point in time. My soul is a little bit happier. Though, like I said, she has sent things like this before and does not always follow through, sometimes she does really try to fix what she did. Sometimes she sidesteps the issues, like when she said "sometimes the way I responded to you was hurtful." She has yet to recognize the PHYSICAL hurt she caused. Though sometimes I seriously question whether or not she's actually mentally wiped the physical abuse from her memory...

Anyway.

Now I'm here! Exhausted after an emotionally heavy day and wanting to go to bed but brain is still full of writing stuff and I WANT to get it all down but am too exhausted to do so.

8/14/12

Why I hate prompt lists.

My critics and even editor all send me these fricking lists. They say "take these lists, scan them, and write about a new thing every day to help your writing brain turn. Except, I can't. Why? Because the prompts are all STUPID. They hold no intellectual value whatsoever, so how am I supposed to write a full writing journal entry or exercise on them? I answer them in my head as I go along, and this is what happens (examples taken from the latest list I was sent):

  1. Name one thing that has always fascinated you.
    English language.
  2. What is the most valuable item or largest sum of money you have ever found?
    $30/Silver watch
  3. Name one thing in your life you hope you never have to see or encounter.
    TORNADO.
  4. Growing up, what career goals or dreams of accomplishments did you have?  Did any of them come to be, how many did you abandon or revise along the way?
         - Famous musician/horse trainer
         - Sort of
         - All of them, sort of.
  5. Write about a time in your life when things weren’t the way you or others thought they should be.
    Uhm. All the time. That would take too long. What a HEADACHE.
  6. Describe an odd or unusual writing habit or ritual you or someone you know has.
    My author friend writes lying half on, half off of a couch. She's got back problems now, I guarantee.
  7. Can a book really be judged by its cover?  Explain in as much detail as possible why or why not.
    Depends on the book. I don't know what other details you want.
  8. Describe a moment in your life you laughed so hard you cried, had a drink come out your nose, or peed in your pants.
    This one time Laura and I stayed up all night watching the Olympics and the next day we were so tired everything was hysterical and I put everything she said on my blog.
  9. Detail the greatest prank you have ever pulled off successfully.
    I unscrewed the cap of a pepper shaker, placed it back without tightening, and gave it to Roy who dumped it all over his pudding.
  10. What musical medium did you grow up with; vinyl records, CD’s, or MP3′s?
    Cassettes and CDs.
  11. How long was your longest inter-personal relationship?  Was it friendship, family, romantic, or something else?
    My father, family.
  12. What is your biggest ambition in life?
    To not die, yet.
  13. What is your lucky number, and why is it so lucky?
    Numbers aren't lucky, that's weird.
  14. How long have you been able to live off the grid?  No e-mail, Internet, electricity, running water, etc.
    Once for two straight weeks, could have gone longer.
  15. What is your favorite chess piece?
    The knight because it's a horse and does screwed up shapes.
  16. Do you have a daily or weekly routine that you follow?
    Yes. 


And that is why I hate writing prompts. They never inspire me to write more than one sarcastic, ill-tempered sentence. 

8/13/12

Some quick revisions, a frustrating day, and a potential opportunity arises.

Something you don't see is that I ALWAYS start typing my posts with "Okay, so." It's because that's what I start every story with. But I always give it a funny look and delete it. Anyways. Onto your scheduled programming.

Did a quick revision to the blog, made it a photo of a stage I played once in a percussion band. You'll get over the stress of change soon enough, I promise you.

Second, had a frustrating day. E-mailed another band with an audition video, hoping to redeem my self-esteem from the recent fiasco that was my termination. Then got a bitchy e-mail from an art customer telling me she's decided she hates the new painting I've given her and didn't feel the need to tell me until she'd had it for two weeks and the paint had set, so now I have to go over it with oils and let it set again with more headaches. AND she's bent the frame on the canvas, SOMEHOW, so I have to fix that too.

Wrapped up with a text message from a friend saying he had to cancel the one and only hiking trip I'd had planned for this summer (I used to backpack in the mountains... love hiking...) on the one and only day that worked for both of us because his other friend was suddenly more important than plans we'd had for a month. They want to go out drinking. So I was like "what the heck, bro!" and he just shrugged and said "sorry, ________ is taking off for a month and I want to go for drinks before they do." What a dink.

And then, not a big deal or anything, but still on the list of things-less-fun-than-sticking-your-hand-in-a-blender, I was unfortunately witness to a very tense silent argument between a mutual-friend-of-Laura-and-I and Laura. This friend is not in my close friends group, but I have known him since high school and then last year him and Laura dated for 4 months or something insignificant like that. Since then (it ended in February...) he's refused to get over her (no like, literally has said he will not try to get over her and will just wait for the feelings to be reciprocated again or for them to go away) but they were such good friends before that they want to still try to be friends. This has spawned, in the past two months, countless yelling matches and bitchy comments between the two of them, making everyone else in the room, including Oleo (my cat), feel stupid amounts of awkward. I'm serious. A comment flies and Oleo is like "f*ck this, I'm out of here." and books it out of the room.

ANYWAYS.

They were trying to figure out a music program on a computer and friend (Roy) flipped absolute shit (though impressively silently) over Laura not being able to find middle C on the program's onscreen keyboard. I was sitting in the room, trying to write, and watched this all go down. It ended with Laura and Roy staring at each other so intensely that you could feel heat coming off of their eye contact. Talk about knife-worthy tension. So I, in a high-pitched voice that would have made British Ian proud, I said "Well! I'm... going to go to bed." and scooped up my laptop and notebook. As I did so I noticed it was 8pm and definitely not bed time, so I stuttered an awkward "or... something... similar... in my room..."

It was all very smooth.


GOOD NEWS!!!

When I got to my room, I was greeted with an e-mail from the woman I stayed with this weekend. Over the weekend, we lined up three other weekends for me to head'er out to the farm and train up a couple of youngins/put some miles on them to beef them up for competition. She e-mailed her show jumper friend about my art because her friend was interested in a portrait of her stallion. Score number one, I get some portrait work. In conversation it was mentioned that I used to compete in showjumping, and the friend got overly excited and wants me to come out and prep about seven of her youngsters (4 and 5yo horses)/get some conditioning on them in the next month so she can bring them to a major Warmblood show next month/put them up for sale.

If that's not exciting enough, she wants me to show a few older ones throughout this season until it winds down late November-ish, and potentially take two of the 12yos into the states for a couple of shows in December.

So, I guess my plan to fall back into horses worked out for the better after all!


Will update when I know more.

8/12/12

Race week means gross food.

Okay, in my last maniacal post I mentioned this week is race week. That is because in 6 days, I will be running a 10k race for no other reason than to wave my results in my Tendinitis specialist's face and go HAHA I TOLD YOU SO. Also, I like running.  It's fun, and fast, and turns your brain off.

However, because it's race week I have to be super careful with my body's balance and health and keep super close track of the stuff that goes into my body. So I've made a meal that has everything I need that I will be eating for the rest of the week.

I can do stupid stuff like this because I am the farthest thing from a picky eater and don't give a crap if I eat the same meal twice.

Or 10x + (which will be what happens)

So basically it's this paste I made with fresh beans and vegetables that I softened up and blended together with a vitamin powder and fat-free milk, giving me protein, fiber, calcium, and proper vitamin intake. Then I made craptonnes of rice because I want to eat this "meh"-flavored paste with something good and rice is good, but I'm usually too lazy to make rice every meal so I just made a lot of it this meal. Then I made some ground beef and voila, noms.

So basically you take the rice, top it with the paste, add a small scoop of meat, and then I like to put a sliced mushroom on top because mushrooms are delicious (... not the illegal mushrooms, for clarification...) and then some light salt-free spices. Ta-da, you have health. Also, it actually tastes pretty good all mixed together, and it's super filling. Plus energizing! Which is the point.

So yeah. Just to pity-pull and show you exactly what I'm putting in my body for every meal for the next six days (except breakfast which is veggies + toast + peanut butter), I have a picture of the aftermath of my blender. Warning: it's gross.

OM NOM NOM NOM NOM... also guess what! I figured out how to do this. How? Not so sure, but I am typing beside my picture.













Okay. Also I can't figure out how NOT to type beside that picture now, so I hit a lot of line breaks which is why this is awkward. Anyways. WHAT A DELICIOUS LOOKING BLENDER.





















Once more, lots of line breaks. WTF is up, blogger? Do pictures like a normal person.

Anyways, that's what the food looks like. I mixed some salt-free chili powder into the spoonfull of beef and the rest looks delicious!

And so now you are up to date on my food. Aren't you happy you took the time to read this? I sure am.

This week is weird, odd, stressful, and potentially progressive?

So the farm was fun. She might hire me for some training on three of her horses, so that's cool... uh. Yeah. I'm not feeling much better, though. Actually I feel like the kinda I-don't-give-a-flucking-fly (yes) about what I need to flucking fly about because if I tried to right now I might panic.

Don't worry, this isn't about to be a depressing post, I just wanted to give a head's up as to why I'm not all back like OMG YAAAAY THE PONIES WERE SO MUCH FUN. They were, but... yeah!

Anyways.

I guess I could have also just left and not said anything on this weekend. Instead of "I AM LEAVING FOR THREE DAYS" I could have casually mentioned "no post on Saturday." I am brilliant. BRILLIANT I TELL YOU.

Okay!

So this week is race week. I am heading to Edmonton, Alberta, for the Canadian Derby Marathon's 10k race on Saturday. My first ever 10k. Hooray!

This week is also try-not-to-die week as I will have to make up for the fact that being fired from the band has screwed me out of a $700 income that was scheduled to happen due to shows. So I've gone from "YES I CAN PAY MY BILLS" to "I wasted so much time learning stuff for this band that I didn't do enough to pay my bills outside of shows." So that will be interesting.

This week is also a job hunting (ffs...) and make myself better week. And potentially painting week. And selling stuff week. And training week. And try to calm down week. Yep. WEEK.

You know when someone says "you know when you say a word over and over and it loses its meaning?" Yeah. I find that annoying too.

But how do you feel about the word week now? SCREWED UP YOUR VOCABULARICAL (**not a word) PERCEPTION BITCHES!!! HAHA.



EDIT: I'm really sorry, I really did not mean to call you all bitches. I'm not me right now. Oh, the humanity...

EDIT #2: I swear I'm not on any illegal substances right now. I'm just on a mind-flunk.

8/10/12

Gone for the weekend.

Okay so I won't be updating this weekend because I'm removing myself from my life and planting myself on a farm far far away from the internet or people I'm around every day. Just a head's up. I WILL continue with the writing tips when I get home and will probably have a good story to tell from what this weekend becomes soul-wise.

Sorry for the interruption in your daily art blogging.

8/9/12

I am going to a horse farm this weekend.

I realized through this week's sleepless panic and obsession over Olympic equestrian events that I need to get the hell out of this city and go love on some horses. And I know I said I was going to stop with the horse spam here but I just realized it's still such a huge part of my life that I seriously just FORGOT about/pushed to the back of my mind because I'm so obsessed with establishing myself as an artist and musician. I seriously STOPPED thinking about how my actual real-life eventual place to end up is on a horse farm running my own training facility. Seriously. Drawing professionally is just a thing I do because I'm good at it, and music because it was the only thing I could bear going to school for. And through music school I fell deep in love with music but recent events show that I am most certainly not in love with the industry.

So I'm packing my bags tomorrow morning and heading out to spend some time on my friend's ranch (And by friend I mean more like much-older-closest-thing-I've-had-to-a-good-mother-figure friend) to hang with some ponies, get some rides in, and be far, far, FAR away from the city and far, far, far, faaaaar away from the people who just recently tipped my life on its back.

And when I get back, I am going to start job searching. That's right. I'm going to get a real job doing real things, but I am going to get the job in the horse or art industry, either selling and promoting equipment or teaching lessons or working in administration so I won't hate my life as much. And through that work, I'm going to start saving for the future, I'm going to buy an OTTB, and I'm going to start riding again.

That's the plan right now, anyways.

I have the most screwed up dreams.

So my obsession over showjumping is taking over my brain. Also, I'm terrified of planes and thus have a million plane crash dreams because my brain likes to remind me exactly why I should be hopelessly panicked every time I step into one of these machines.

Both of these points are important.

So I had a dream that I had to fly on a plane, except it looked really ratty and torn apart, so my friend and I snuck out and bolted pieces of metal to the rough parts of the plane so it wouldn't fall apart. Except it was kinda rough so we were worried it wouldn't work properly.

So we boarded the plane after bolting the metal to it and the captain comes on except the captain is Eric Lamaze and I just flip right out. So we get into the air and the plane sideswipes and is clearly going down and as we're falling through the air I'm panicking because it's all my fault for putting the metal on the plane. But Eric is apparently amazing at flying planes, apparently, and he manages to land it safely, except he comes storming out afterwards all pissed off and demanding to know who the idiot is and I just broke down crying.

And theeeeeen I woke up.

I have no clue. No clue whatsoever.


On a completely different note, Lamaze is considering not competing for Equine Canada any more, and I am real-life freaking the hell out. Like seriously. I will probably actually real-life cry if he stops.

8/7/12

and a less heavy post.


Fight or flight.

I once had a panic attack because my little brother face planted on some ice when he was little and put a tooth through his lower lip. It wasn't because I was scared for him or because his lower face was covered in blood, it was because I was afraid I was about to have the crap kicked out of me.

Irrational? Crazy? Makes no sense?

Supposedly random subject change.

My novels are psychologically heavy. My editor is warning me that they might be a bit too heavy for younger readers (target is young adults, so I'm not worried) It addresses the worse aspects of human nature. This has been a pretty successful path for me, and some people have said it worries them/they're worried about my psychological well-being. Which I guess makes sense; the author's work reflects on the author. Ever seen an interview with Stephen King? He's a weirdo.

Authors write about stuff that's pretty close to home. And with me flailing around in Depression Lake, it makes sense that the novels have turned out dark and critical. I'm a little merciless with my MC. It's like an outlet for my confusion towards people and frustration with the apparent idiocy of the general North American public. Not that that's what my novel's about, because it's very, very, very not.

Okay. So the big thing I've learned about people is that their reactions to certain things (mostly arguments and unexpected situations or confrontations) come down to fight or flight. Which is usual for animals, but finally understanding it helped my characters suddenly snap into a good 3-dimensional reality. And as soon as that happened, I got partial funding from a company.

I figured out that most people default to fight. It makes sense; we've always been predators. We have to fight for everything we have, even if the fight is grudging your way to a minimum wage job. If we're confronted or insulted, our first instinct is to lash out to defend ourselves. If someone hits us, we want to hit them back. If we're hurt, we want the offending party brought to justice. We don't book it with what we've got.

Warning: It gets depressing really fast here, so if you hate that stop reading.

Which was a good realization for my writing development, but it caused a whole day of me lying on my back, staring at a ceiling, kinda brought out of sorts because I don't seem to have a proper fight instinct. I used to! It used to be overly active, but I just don't seem to have it anymore. People can insult me, and I would much rather go crawl in a hole and hope they never find me than get angry and stick up for myself. When I was in my early early teens (12 and 13) I would have laid the offender out. Come 14, that was becoming something that only happened when I was cornered.

Have you ever seen a dog that's come from an abusive home? A lot of them cower every time you move and then are prone to biting if you get too close. If you pick up a broom, most of them quake uncontrollably.

I had to figure out that that's what had happened to me. I was stuck in this big expectational cycle of waiting to be obliterated. I was convinced everything was my fault, because with my mom it was. She burned dinner? My fault. She forgot her keys? My fault. My sister tripped down the stairs? My fault. My brother got made fun of at school? You get the idea.

Once, she even made me sit outside all day watching my two siblings on her side (I have two on hers, one on my father's) because there was a kid on our block making fun of them. I wasn't allowed any distractions while they rode their bikes and played around on the driveway. I was told that if the bully came up, I was supposed to threaten him and if he got too close to chase him away. I sat outside, terrified of him coming by because I didn't want to, as a 13yo, bully an 8yo. But I was MORE scared of not doing what she said and having to face her wrath.

It got to the point that when I saw her walk into the room, I would already be fighting back tears before she said anything, because the only reason she ever forced herself to be in the same room as me was to scream at me and use me as a punching bag. If I cried before she said anything, she said it was because I knew I had done something wrong.

My younger siblings were spoiled so she could show me just how much I was being punished, so I would reflect on what I'd done wrong. My brother picked up that he could make my abuse work in his favor (to be fair, he was 4 when I was 13 and has since grown up into a good guy) and would jump at the advantage he had. He would throw himself loudly into a wall and start wailing that I had pushed him, and despite my tearful denials my mother would come to give me a clout and ground me. She eventually said she'd run out of ways to punish me, so other things happened. She would forbid me from eating dinner with the family, and she didn't let me leave the house. Once for two weeks, she drove me to school so she could walk me, hand on my arm, into the school and then at the end of school would wait in the lobby to walk be back to the vehicle.

I was too scared to tell anyone what was going on, because the one time I tried to tell my dad things were not going okay over the phone, she had been listening in and magically materialized in my bedroom's doorway (she'd removed the door because of a punishment so I couldn't lock her out) and motioned that I was dead when I was done on the phone.

So by the time I was finally able to tell my dad what happened and get rescued from that life, I was more or less damaged.

Cut to a year after I was rescued, when I was 15. The one sibling on his side was 5 at the time. One day I was helping my dad and my uncle build a garage after his had been burnt down and my dad told me to take a break and keep an eye on my little brother. It was winter time, and the driveway was icy. He'd been digging in the snow bank on the side of the driveway, trying to make a fort, and decided it was time to go ask our father for a shovel to help him. As we made our way up the driveway, he slipped on ice and hit his face despite my efforts to grab him. He didn't cry, but stood up looking upset. A tooth had driven itself straight through his lip and the lip was pouring blood. I panicked and took him to my dad. By the time we entered the garage, I was shaking uncontrollably, and wasn't quite sure why. When my father asked me what happened, I broke down crying and managed to tell the story between desperate apologies. In the back of my mind, I remember briefly wondering why I was so upset, but figured it out when my dad walked up to me and I accidentally yelped in fear. All he wanted to do was tell me it was okay. I nodded when he said that, but my subconscious mind knew that my mother had told me it was okay sometimes and changed her mind later the same day.

So I dissolved into an irrational panic attack. My brother needed stitches, I needed an oxygen mask. The doctors couldn't figure out what my panic attack was about and were seconds from calling social services before I calmed down enough to explain the reason I had rationalized for the meltdown.

Stuff like that kept happening for a couple years after I'd left my mother's house, but slowly petered out as I became a functional member of society. However, there are certain triggers that I haven't worked past yet. It's difficult because I'm not sure what all of them are.

Today, I found another one, which is why I'm writing this... because this is my personal blog... and I write what I want in it! Ahem. The trigger was that friend that f*cked me over yelling "Jesus Christ! This is ridiculous! I'm not going to deal with this Bullshit!" Which is, word for word, a line my mother used multiple times, almost daily. As soon as it was out of his mouth I started crying and hyperventilating uncontrollably and he hung up on me. Which is when I posted my last blog entry talking about what he'd done.

So long story short, crap like this is why I can write psychological thrillers so well, and it's not a huge thing I'm proud of. When people say they're concerned because of my "talent" in that area, I kinda just shrug it off and half-jokingly say "tortured childhood." Inside I'm serious, outwardly people laugh and accept it as a casual truth. It's not hurtful that they don't take it seriously, because I purposefully downplay it so I won't have to make them uncomfortable. I don't want people I have to see every day knowing about this shit, and I realized that a couple of years ago. But recently I've learned that I want SOMEONE to know, so I guess my blog works. So there. Now you know.

Tada!