Kind of an Update

I usually do waitressing on Thursdays every week, but lately (like today), I've been taking Mondays for my cousin instead. Which I am all too happy to do, actually, because the difference has been about $15-25 higher in tips. So once again, in an effort to avoid a bedtime-ruining nap, I'm back to blogging.

So what's new? I'm feeling up to some amigurumi this summer, so I went yarn shopping for some colors I don't have. For those who don't know, amigurumi is the term for dolls/plushies/etc. knitted or crocheted. They often resemble popular characters. I won't be using patterns. I'm pretty versed in fiber sculpting. I'll be doing an older Ezio from Assassin's Creed for my nephew Dameon (we both agree his aging goateed blue outfitted form is the coolest) and a Gloomper from Don't Starve (another video game) for Marcus. I ordered it cheap from AliExpress so it might not even come for another month, but I'm making a list of other possibilities. I've had a lot of request for dragons, mermaids and other fantasy themed ones, so those are possible. I'm trying to keep most of them in the 6-12" range so they'll be fairly quick projects to squeeze in between drawing and writing.

A recent dragon neckwarmer I did; not amigurumi

Which is the next decision. I started doing a design that might be on my business card. I've designed business cards in the past but they've always felt conformist and sterile to what I'm actually about. So this time around, I'm drawing one of my bad ass, scantily clad ladies that will be emerging from the pages of a book. What prompted me to do this now is that I met a man where I work, Joe Styer, who saw my books and was interested in me doing some fantasy art for a friend of his. In exchange, he's using his professional expertise to help me build a professional website. So I decided that my business card should follow the colors of the site and wanted to get that going to match those up.

Just a peek at the draft...

Again, this is why I say it is so important not to sit on your work for too long. Absolutely edit it thoroughly and get it in the right place, but keep in mind that it becomes a portfolio. You probably think people are going to look at it as the best you're capable of, but the people you actually want to work with will more often recognize it as a part of your potential. Get something out there and prepare to talk about it honestly.

As for writing, I poked at what I'm currently thinking of as literary fiction. Not any impressive word count but I can tell you that, so far, it's about a young girl whose mother seems like a caring extrovert, but is actually a mentally ill woman who mostly takes it out on her. She has a younger brother who is still too young to notice anything and her mom suddenly springs a rather huge bomb on her daughter: she married her boyfriend and the man has a teenage son and fraternal twins, a boy and girl, she hasn't even met and they're moving into his house. She is forced to move into their home and a stuffy new prep school, all under the thumb of her unstable mother. Not really sure the aim of this one. Short story? Novel? Romance? Thriller? I'm not yet sure, but drafts don't necessarily contain those elements in stone so I'm going to let it grow organically.

I'll either work on that one, my UnNamed spin-off, or poke at Piscine, my sci-fi mystery. UnHeard isn't quite ready for progression yet and I'm okay with that. If don't pick it up before NaNo this year, it will once again be my NaNo project. Since I've been releasing the books in that series for my mom's birthday each year, that's always a good place to crunch the drafts and crack down on editing after anyway.

As for its partially finished cover, that's on the drawing list and is done as quick or sluggish as I care to make it. Likely followed by going ahead and designing the fourth while the momentum is up. I've had Eredin's face in my mind for quite a while, so it'll be exciting to get that done regardless.

And now I'm out. Bedtime is here. Thanks for killing time with me!