Oh great. This thing again.

Alright. First things first, full disclosure - I absolutely got rid of all the side bar tracker business because the only thing I am reliable with on this blog is forgetting to update it. I have been working on stuff, though probably not as much as I should be. However, given that instead I've been simply enjoying my summer and no longer feel the rage or impetus to murder everyone and everything (like I did in, say, May), I'm not gonna beat myself up over it too badly. But since I have been doing stuff, I could actually update this blog with some interesting facts or with some indication of things I should probably begin working on for a later progress check, but I don't really feel like it.

Instead, I'm going to talk about whether or not I want to try and play The Last of Us.

No, really.

The urge to play this primarily hit me today. I played the demo way back when, and while I was moderately interested in it (probably because it was set in a house, which to me is a very important aspect of gameplay: just how invasive can I be?), I promptly forgot about the game soon after. When it finally did come out - and Brian of course got it, because he owns everything - I think I was in the middle of my Skyrim frenzy and paid absolutely zero attention to anything about the game except the fact that they clearly ripped off Ellen Page's face for the main character. I'd heard it was good, and that the story was pretty interesting, but... eh. I don't really enjoy playing as male characters, and while I'm pretty sure you have an option to switch between PCs in Last of Us (don't quote me on that, though), I just wasn't particularly interested.

It wasn't until this past week at Comic Con when I started realizing just how into this game people are. Or, rather, how much the game is into itself. Apparently, not only has it produced an official art book, it also was the subject of a live performance of the cut scenes by the voice actors (including the actress who looks like Amy D), and also is currently in discussion for movie rights. What the heck. It all sounds like more of an old fashioned sellout than any kind of legitimate franchise move (I can understand it with something that's been around since the dawn of Playstation like Tomb Raider has, but really? All this for a one shot game?), but maybe that's what kind of interests me. I want to see if this dumb thing is actually worth the hype so that, if it's not, I can complain about it with accurate references.

No, really. I am that much of a pain in the neck.

It just seems like this could go one of two ways. Either I play it and I fall desperately, madly in love with it and want to bear its virtual children, or I go "wtf, no" and then I get to crush people's hopes and dreams. I suppose I should really continue trying to play Dragon Age, except this one part keeps pissing me off and I stopped playing it about four weeks ago because I was just that mad over five minutes of gameplay. I hold onto these things, okay?

So basically what I'm saying is that I'm a terrible person who likes to complain about things and holds an unreasonable grudge about inanimate objects. So I'm probably going to play Last of Us.

Though really, I also said that about Watchdogs. Look how that ended up  - 3 hours of gameplay and a bored!quit. Oh yeah.

Roundup for 2013; Advanced goals for 2014

So. This has been 2013 for me in a lot of respects:

Well, not really. I have done a lot, and have had a lot happen, most of which I really don't feel like getting into on this blog that nobody reads but me, so why do I have to elaborate? Duh. But between switching jobs and new jobs and moving and re-moving and traveling and selling swimsuits all summer and making things and writing things and stopping making things or writing things because I was too busy and unhappy to do much, though finally coming out ahead with a completed Nanowrimo, I finally feel like I'm back in a place to make stuff happen. So, while I did do a lot in 2013, let's just skip ahead to what I want to have happen in 2014.

Creatively, that is. Personally is a whole other basket of live, writhing vipers.

First, I need to remember how to go in and change that stupid sidebar, which is still stuck on stats from last December. Basically, I want to make it so that I at least create one piece of art per month, write at least 20,000 words on various works, read books, and effectively manage the outside work required for my job. Also, it would be good to re-open the store this summer, though I'm not sure how interested I am anymore in making swimsuits. We'll see.

In any case, that's what I'm looking at. 20,000 words of material per month (at least), some kind of art production, continued sewing efforts (which will be easiest, since other people are actually riding on that and I have very specific deadlines), and reading in both an enjoyment and professional capacity. Aw yeaaah. I should probably do actual professional writing too. Ugh. Boring. Blah. WHO WANTS TO BE AN EFFECTIVE ADULT ANYWAY? GOD DAMN IT.

That seems to be my primary sign off for most of these entries. I'll just go with it.

Of Grocery Stores and Bloodied Hands

Today, I have to do a variety of things. Naturally, I proceeded to put them off. It is now 3:00 pm.

Oh well. Better late than never.

First, I have to be a functioning adult and go to the store. We're out of necessary things like toilet paper, q-tips, and orange juice. I'll probably have to use an actual cart. Wtf.

I want to know who looks this attractive and put together at a grocery store. Normally I glare at the produce until it wilts in defeat. Also, why is she holding her basket like that?

Then, when I get home from skulking around the grocery store, I should probably get started on the slightly less orthodox side of things, such as looking into my fabric stash for the new Harley Quinn Skirted Swimsuit I've been commissioned to make. I'm actually pretty excited about it - it's a new idea and a new concept, thanks to the order-er. So there's that.

Then I have to go and paint a bloody hand.

Since Brian's being kind enough to be Jaimie Lannister at SDCC, I suppose that I should make the costume look awesomely awesome. I have to fix up Cersei too, so maybe I'll start that tonight too. So, grocery store, examination of fabric stock, Jaimie's hand, and some of Cersei's seams. Oh, and a Sherlock meeting. I can work on Jaimie's hand during that, really. It'll be fine. 

My life is strange. 

The Blog That Time (Well, Okay, That I) Forgot

Oops.

Well, it seems as if I sort of forgot about the fact that I possess a blog, again. In my defense, I've actually been quite busy in the meantime, though that doesn't help so much since if I'd been blogging about it, I wouldn't have to justify myself now. But honestly, out of the nine goals to finish by the end of the year, I accomplished about 5 out of the nine by year's end. As of now, I've done about 7.

Dominion Jar has been finished and test printed, and is about to be officially finished very soon.

Strange Children was my NaNoWriMo project as a re-write, and that's completed.

Woolf and I (I forgot about these stupid nicknames. Oh boy) did extensive discussion on our graphic novel project, and wrote some test plots and stuff, and have momentarily decided to shelve it (though I anticipate that after SDCC I'll be back in the game for that again).

I admittedly gave up on the t-shirts, though I've been thinking about that again and may make some new attempts. Maybe.

I've successfully done more artwork, both for myself and also as favors for others.

I have OPENED MY OWN ONLINE SWIMSUIT STORE, which WTF self, can't believe you actually did that.

I purchased a new camera to take more and better photos with, and my own Shoot the Birdie photos are the ones featured with my swimwear.

I did manage to fit up, though I need to get back on that train soon.

And... well, poetry and short stories also jumped ship and drowned awhile back, but maybe their corpses will get reanimated someday. Who knows.


But in addition to that, I've begun work on my second book for the Dominion series (or whatever I wind up calling it), and I've been doing some reading, though that's more fits and starts than anything. I've sold some swimsuits, and have several costumes to complete and all that good stuff. I want to put new stuff in the store, and want to keep working on random writing projects along with finish more art projects for friends and family and my own apartment. I'm off for the summer, for better or for worse, so I'm going to be getting things done. It'll be exciting! Especially since fall will probably be very, very painful.

And heck - as the great prophet Tina texted me (I'm going to give up the random Biblical references) when I told her I was going to start blogging again, "Hobby number ten thousand and twelve?", I think that sounds like a good number of hobbies to have!

And then maybe I'll update that sidebar. God damn it.

An Open Letter to Jack Kerouac

Actually, I lied. This isn't really a letter to Kerouac. It's more just another endless post wherein I complain. I'm not feeling creative enough (and I find myself not caring enough, either) to talk straight to Kerouac about how weird I found his book to be, and to be honest, while I think it would legitimately be interesting to talk to Fitzgerald or Conan Doyle or Poe or whoever, I do not think I'd have enjoyed speaking with Kerouac very much. Why do I think that, you ask? Well, for starters, I just finished On the Road.

Yes. This one. I kept starting and stopping, starting and stopping, not for the same reason I do it for, say, House of Leaves, which AJKENAIULZBHALQWJ*(^TYAGXHZ, but because I found myself just... not really caring. 

I know, Jack. Mind blowing. 

Here's the thing - I know quite a lot of people. I've met quite a lot of people who I do not know anymore. And with all of these people, very few of them have acted as such great idiots as do the people in this book. In general, I find people interesting. The things that they do, the reasons they do them, all are particularly fascinating in that most people tend to contradict themselves and negate themselves and undermine themselves and all those ridiculous things that make us all entertaining and enlightening and weird. But the characters in Kerouac's book - who, of course, aren't characters at all but are actual people Kerouac knew - just seem stupid. They're the kind of deep thinkers who don't actually think deeply about anything, but because they can make connections between a banana and  selling real estate, all while barreling down the highway in borrowed cars and on borrowed money, they think that this is some form of genius. 

It's not. It's mind numbingly stupid.

Back in college, I wrote something called Kerouac Kids. It's a short story, kind of, wherein I basically bitch about people I considered to be trying too hard to be part of a Beat movement I'd never actually learned about before, had never read anything or seen anything or listened to anything from. But what strikes me is that, despite my complete and utter ignorance, I was right. I looked back at that story when I finished On the Road, and I was a little startled at how accurate - though technically and stylistically crappy - I was in my assessment. It's all emptiness. People think they're enlightened by feigning all sorts of things, when really the greatest achievement is to own your reality, to understand that sometimes things aren't good, and then take steps to make it better. To embrace it. To look at the people you know and value them. 

I admit to not being perfect. That would be ridiculous, and anyone who actually knows me would literally die laughing, and I really don't want that blood on my hands. I am brooding, petulant, and stubborn. I have a vision, and though I am willing to compromise, I'm not going to let it go. But that doesn't mean that I won't be the first to send a message, or a letter, or to make the phone call or visit. I won't do it all the time - there's a point of no return where if I do not see any particular gains in committing myself, I can drop everything and never look back - but if I look at someone and see something I like, see potential for friendship, see that maybe I need to make the first step because they just don't really know how, I'll do it. These people in these books and the people obsessed with these books and the ideas that we need to know everyone and need to know the world, don't really understand. 

You can't be completely self centered, but you can't be reliant on everyone else to tell you what to do, either. Get over yourself, get over your "genius", because you don't have it. I don't have it either, don't worry. There's just something to knowing that I have a friend or two who I can talk to, and who will talk to me, rather than telling the whole world everything all the time, making it into nothing at all.

......says the blog post writer. See what I mean? This shit is bananas. Want to buy some real estate? Just get in the car, but let me borrow five bucks first. I have a magic trick to show you.

A Poetry Entry

Because why not. I've started keeping a notebook of poems, all of which so far are dreadful both in subject and ability.

Photo by Jo Metson Scott and Nicola Yeoman

1.
In the deep of the dark, every sound is a footstep
the tappings and trappings of those come before.
But don't tell the children who play in the yard
for they might not come back anymore.

Projecting my Projects

So since I'm demanding that a certain St. Luke (or is it St. Matthew?) goes and starts updating her blog again, I figured it was only fair if I actually did something with mine so that I could use it to guilt her into doing the same. Not exactly certain if she'll fall for it, because really I'm kind of terrible at convincing her to do things, but there you have it. I think I'll also go demand that Faulkner starts posting as well, but she never listens to me either. My life is incredibly hard.

Actually, it's mainly incredibly busy. I'm moving, starting at a new workplace on Thursday, and it's all just really, really hectic because then we'll be moving AGAIN in a month, and then I think we'll settle. Kind of. Regardless of all this, though, I am determined to really keep up with my projects, especially because I'm actually branching out and moving into collaboration territory. This is all a bit nuts, mainly because we all know that, creatively, I function like a college student, which means that I tend to have to somehow get into a particular mood before I get things done.

Exactly.

However, because Hemingway and I will be living together, and he is actually and legitimately interested in what I spend my days doing creatively and always wants to know, I am kind of anticipating that being a bit of added incentive to actually be productive that I do not possess now. So, I thought that for my own elucidation (and because things look more immediate when they're actually written out and presented visually), I figured I'd set up a list of projects I want to work on and need to, you know, REMEMBER.

1. Dominion Jar

    Dominion Jar is the one absolute project that I am going to make myself complete by the end of the year. I've been working on this project for a really, really long time, both just generally in my head and finally out on paper. There have been about 700 versions of it, and this is the first time that I really do feel like I've... well, not got it right, per se, but that it's the most complete it will be. I did indeed finish those paper revisions, the one I was posting pictures of earlier in the year. I've gotten up through chapter four of the rewrites on my computer file based on the revisions, and so this is what I need to really focus on. I keep getting kind of frustrated with it, probably just because it's taking so damn long and I've been working on this one story for SO LONG, BUT I NEED TO DO THIS. IF IT IS NOT DONE BY THE END OF THE YEAR I WILL SET MYSELF ON FIRE AND DIE. Basically.

2. Strange Children

    So this one is not as formed as Dominion Jar, not by far. This is something that was a complete random shot in the dark. I started writing it for no particular reason, kind of just because I wanted to write something very different from what I had been working on (I've been stopping myself from turning the story's apartment building into the doorway to hell, or making the boiler room in the school into...uh...the doorway to hell, or any other lower levels into doorways to hell). Right now it is a hideous rambling mess, and I sort of keep writing myself into pointless corners and writing myself back out of them, but I'm getting an idea of what I think I'd like to do with this story. It would require a complete rewrite, but I think for now I'd like to just keep going and see where it all ends up, even if it spans into additional notebooks. But I think that could reasonably conclude itself by the end of the year, wherein I could see if there's anything to shape out of it.

3. Pre-existing Conditions

    Not an official title, but it's what I'm going to call this for now. This is the graphic novel that myself, Virginia Woolf, and Leviticus (or is it St. Paul?) are all kind of working on. We're slowly getting through the concept stage, and trying to formulate how we'd like to put it all together. We have the basis for our story, and we have our main characters. I think that, for this particular endeavor, I'd like to see a vague story outline, and maybe some test panels for the intro, which we do have an idea for. But that could be a good place to start drawing practice and all of those good things.

4. T-Shirt Land
    Well, one of the issues coming up this semester is that I'll only be teaching at one school. I have yet to find another area school, which is problematic not only because the job I have now is a temporary one, but also because of money issues. I have enough saved up that I could actually live off of it for over a year, but that's not the point. So, I'm going to look into creative endeavors, and one of the things I want to attempt is making t-shirt designs and submitting them to various websites for possible selection. Some sites pay you good money, others pretty standard, but at least it would be something and it would require me to actually produce something.

5. Artwork Portfolio
    Speaking of producing something, I would also like to get back into the habit of creating different kinds of art. I used to actually *have* a portfolio, believe it or not, but lately I haven't been producing much of anything unless if I saw a specific reason for it. However, that doesn't really allow for much practice. So, I would like to force myself to output a certain amount of artwork per month. I don't particularly want to set a specific number, since there is a lot of difference between big pieces and little, digital and traditional, and all that good stuff. However, I've already completed one painting today, a painting of a dinosaur head (I don't know, don't look at me), so that's more than I had before. I just want some kind of output. Let's leave it there.

6. Stitching it Up
    This one is a bit more immediate, but I'd also like to see about making sewing products that I could actually sell. One idea that I had is making superhero swimsuits, and preferably ones that aren't super slutty or for people who are a size zero. I've already put together a Spiderman one, and have the pieces for an Iron Man suit, but I need to put the pieces together. I also think I could do some interesting things with fall dresses and maybe some pajama pants and things, so we'll see how that all goes. But I'd like to put together a portfolio there, too. See what happens.

7. Shoot the Birdie
    All this talk about portfolios also includes the fact that I've been working on amateur (very amateur) photography projects for some time now. I think that by the end of the year, I would like to have put up a selection of photographs onto my facebook, and maybe - once I look into paintings and sewing and all that other stuff - create a page just for stuff that I've created. I know that tends to be a trend, but I want to actually be goaded into a degree of output, as mentioned before, and I feel like if I keep pushing myself to do that, I'll be more productive in my free time. Also, the photography thing is good because I like making people feel good about themselves, and also if I can get people to wear some of my stuff, that looks pretty damn good too.

8. Shape Up
    I also would like to work on making little figurines out of sculpy clay. Largely just for fun, and also... well, heck. Yet again, something to use as a creative output, to potentially put in a portfolio, and maybe to use as another form of... well. You get the picture here with all of the additional add-ons. Haha! Get it? Hurm.

9. Poetry and Short Stories
    I want to still try and find inspiration in new ways, and lately I've been very randomly having the urge to put together little pieces of poetry. None of them are particularly good (or necessarily coherent), but it's still something I'm going to try doing again. I may try posting some of those here, just for me or for any other poor unfortunates who accidentally stumble across this stupid blog. Same with the short stories, though that's really just to get myself out of the horror genre that I mainly like to hole myself up in and hiss at people from.



I was aiming for ten, but I don't have a tenth option right now. THIS IS AMAZING. AW YEAH. Because, obviously, less than ten is totally more manageable than ten, right? Right? Oh, good grief. I'm going now, because it's taken me far too long to type all of this up. Sheesh!!