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I dislike busy weeks, I really do, and the last couple have been among the busiest in quite some time. The good news is that I have dedicated myself to finishing a first draft of my novel before the year ends.

Can I do it? Yes.

Will I do it? That remains to be seen.

I've reached the climax of the story and I can see the end in sight, the problem is simply finding time to write these days. Overall I think it's a pretty solid first draft thus far. It's basically a fantasy story about some kids who end up in another world (which has been done a billion times) but I think how they get there, and what happens when they do are both different and interesting. While it's fantasy, at the same time it's a story about terrible father figures, family, fate, and faith (which is a bit strange seeing as I am by no means whatsoever a religious man) so it works on a few different levels.

Or maybe it doesn't, I don't know. Maybe it's total crap.

Anyway, crap or no crap I'm going to finish the thing before January 1st rolls around.

The sketch above is a very rough sort of outline of a possible book cover. (Really just an excuse to draw some of the characters.)

I put the kibosh on this piece at around 1AM while sitting in my darkened home office watching MST3K on DVD, and listening to my wife snore loudly in the next room.

Life is a wondrous and splendid thing, is it not?

Some good news is that after a bit of a hiatus from my novel, I dove back into it yesterday. I think the time away from it did me good. Recharged the batteries. I'm on the homestretch now, and hopefully I'll be finished with my first draft of this thing in a month or so!

Steve!

I was finally able to finish this one up last week. Overall, I don't hate it. Is it the best in the series? Naw. Is it the worst, Naw. It's decent, and decent is good enough for me at the moment.

It was sort of an uneventful weekend for me. The wife and I didn't really do much. I've had to take a bit of a break from writing the book in order to get some other stuff done, but hopefully I'll be able to get back to it sometime this week. I'm at a point (somewhere in the middle of the story) that has me a bit stumped. I know how the story is going to end, but I've written myself into a bit of a corner and I'm having trouble getting over a hump. I had hoped that taking some time away from it would help me sort things out in my head, but it really hasn't worked.

Not exactly the most well thought out plan, I know.

I saw a really good movie called "Son of Rambow" over the weekend. A really sweet little story, well directed, funny, had everything really. It didn't change my life or anything, but without a doubt it was a good flick.

Steve~

Last night, after becoming bored with paying work (which is something my wife says REALLY needs to stop happening) I took a little break and sketched some of the characters from the children's novel I'm currently writing.

I would say that I'm about halfway though the story, which I think I may have to extend out to a second book in order to tell properly. Thus far, I like what I've written - which is weird because I'm usually my toughest critic.

This is either a good thing, or a very, very bad thing. Only time will tell I suppose.

Steve

It's been a while since I put together a new zombie shirt (because I've been so busy) so I started on another design last night. I haven't even finished drawing it yet, but if you can guess what it is, I'll give you a gold star. (Which will actually just be me typing the words "GOLD STAR" in the comments...I know that's a bit of a let down).

Here's a hint: B.A.

Oh, and I've also (very slowly) been moving some of my designs over to zazzle as well, but that's taking a long time (you know, because of the whole "busy" thing again) I've included a link to the zazzle stuff in the sidebar.


make custom gifts at Zazzle

Steve!

I was able to put the ol' kibosh on this piece in just a couple of days. It's strange how one piece can take me hour upon hour to finish off, while another (with pretty much the same amount of work) can get finished in two days.

Usually getting paid makes me speed things up a bit, but I didn't earn a single dollar for this one, so who knows?

Steve~

I wasn't able to get a whole heck of a lot done on this illustration over the past week. Too much other stuff to do. I did manage to find some time to throw down a couple really basic colors though. I'm thinking it's going to look decent when finished. I'm going with some nice cool grays for the train which should look good.

That's about it.

As the kids would say, I'm outy.

Steve~

FINISHED ANOTHER ONE!

Once again I defied the laws of time and space and managed to find an opportunity to complete the second piece in my monsters chasing a kid series. I think the next one I do is going to feature the gang on top of a train, though I haven't started work on it yet. As far as this snow one goes, I kinda like it. I think the kids outfit is good, and I like the composition for the most part.

Hope everyone enjoyed the Easter holiday. I spent it with my wife and her family, which always provides for more than one awkward moment, but then I guess that's what families are for, right? Awkward moments I mean.

The four year old daughter of my wife's cousin was asked to give me a hug by her mother but instead she took one look at me, put her hands over her eyes, then proceeded to yell at the top of her lungs "NO! SCARED! SCARED! SCARED!"

Everyone laughed.

You know...because apparently I'm scary.

Steve~

Peter Hirtle has a great post over at the LibraryLaw blog about the Smithsonian’s attempt to control reproduction and subsequent use of the materials they have made available digitally and online, many of which are in the public domain. A group called Public Resource decided to push the envelope on the Smithsonian’s terms of service, specifically their copyright notice, and downloaded all 6000+ images and made them available on Flickr where they still are. Hirtle questions the legality of what Public Resource has done, but also questions the copyright that the Smithsonian asserts.

Again, I wish the Smithsonian didn’t try to assert control over its images. And while I think that Public.Resource.Org crossed the line, it is ridiculous that anyone else can now take any of public domain images Public.Resource.Org has distributed and do whatever they want with them. (Any contract limiting use of the images can only be between the Smithsonian and Public.Resource.Org.) That is just one more reason why repositories should focus on providing good services to users, rather than attempting to establish monopoly control over images from their holdings.

Update: I made this for you.