Change is Turmoil: This is my emo moment.

An empty bookshelf is like a skull. Everything that gave it life has been stripped away. The shelves gape like empty eye sockets. It is the saddest thing in the world.


On the writing front:

As soon as I said I'd hold auctions for the MCs for my JulNo, I suddenly realized I knew already. Go figure! The winners: Jason and Destiny! As for the others, no one loses. Mary Sue and Barin will have secondary roles, Gavrel (now Gareth) and Slythin have moved to another idea, and everyone else will be...recycled. Not as scary as it sounds.

I had meant to put up sketches of my MCs with this post, but this is proving to be a very complicated matter, largely based on the fact that I'm not a very good artist. I have no sense of proportion, I can't shade, FORGET coloring, I suck at arms and hands, I'm terrible with faces, and I just can't draw men period. (Sorry Jason. I will give you a nice face as soon as I can, I promise.) Usually I just avoid these problems by sticking to women, drawing them with their hands behind their back, and going for a more cartoony approach.

So given all this, why do I even bother? I don't know...I guess I just live for that one accidental moment when I get it right.

I had a small triumph of sorts today when I tried drawing Destiny's face and halfway through I realized it was a completely different character (call her R). I went ahead and finished drawing R's head, and the resemblance is close enough for me to be happy about it. :-D

A dilemma denied:

Any of the following three things will make me write.

1. General Feedback 
2. Someone anticipating reading more 
3. Competition. 

The NaNo rush provides fuel aplenty, but devoid of these three things the rest of the year, it is all too easy for me to slack. But I now have the solution! During the course of NaNo I made a couple of awesome NaNo friends with whom I correspond via email/chat. I was talking to T the other day about our mutual lack of any completed works whatsoever, and it evolved from there. We decided to bludgeon each other into productivity! We've kept it pretty simple. The goal is to write 5000 words per week, with points for each word written/edited so we can compare stats. The idea is that we will continue this indefinitely, until we start churning out completed short stories/novels/whatever. The writing gears must keep turning!

On a last note:

I've been going through my old files, and finding a lot of stuff I drew a long time ago. To atone for my lack of illustrations, I will now leave you with this comic I found! Considering what time it is and what's been going on lately, it sums up my mental state very well.