So Where The Hell Have I Been?

It was the summer of sulking...

 

So the plan for the summer was a splendid one. Since I can't take summer classes (the amount of time you need to spend in the classroom pretty much destroys my back) I'd planned on trying to live my life exactly the way I would if I was a successful writer/artist. I'd spend my mornings working on the novel, the afternoons working my way through some drawing exercises. I'd start doing paleo art again, start learning cartooning. I'd post something every day, rain or shine.

Haw! Haw! Haw!

I started the summer working on the third issue of Swill. I'd taken a class in Photoshop so the illustrations would be better this time around, and I'd taken a class in desktop publishing so the design and typesetting would be of decent quality. So for the first few weeks I was fucking around with details, details, details. At the end of the day it paid off -- not only did the current issue look good but it wound up leading to some very intriguing developments... Let's just say Swill is starting to get noticed and my work is a big part of that.

So as for working on the novel... I was in-between drafts at the beginning of the summer, working on outlines and trying to figure out the world, the characters, how they interacted... I know it sounds crazy -- I've been working on the damned thing for four years now so I ought to have all that down, right? Wrong. I'd generated a lot of information but it wasn't adding up. But I'd finally figured out where the story had to end, had all the big beats in place. I wound up writing somewhere around two hundred and fifty manuscript pages worth of notes, notions, and inquiries.

So I was making progress without getting any work done if you know what I mean.

Then two things happened around the same time that put me right on my ass. I got a recliner and my wife went out of town. Let me explain.

The recliner is part of my new work station. And my wife keeps me sane. So when the recliner came in, it filled up all the floor space in my studio -- and I couldn't use the damned thing. My monitor stand was too short, the guy who built the keyboard tables installed them part-way, in short? My work space was unworkable.

And with Karen out of town I fell into a black pit of despair. If I get five hours of sleep a night I'm fine, if grumpy. Four hours? I can see trails if I squint. Three hours? Distinctly subhuman. I don't sleep when Karen's gone. I don't eat without a chemically induced appetite. I have no fucking motivation.

I felt both overwhelmed and isolated. I'd go for days without talking to another person. Amazingly, I only drank every few days. Not so amazingly, that was because I'd get miserably shitfaced and would consequently abhor the use of Liquid Companion until the memory of the hangover would fade.

And there was some other horseshit I'd just as soon not complain about in public because there are other people involved. The kind of shit that drags off a lot of emotional topsoil.

But as they say of cancer, at least I lost weight...

Now Karen's home, I've started the novel and am about halfway through the fourth draft of the first volume and the word is that it's finally working properly, I've had some startling good fortune with my writing and art -- I don't want to jinx it. Let's just say that when Harlan Ellison tells Ellen Datlow to check out your magazine it's a goooood feeling. The studio is coming together and looking better than it has in years, I'm signed up for some exciting classes this fall -- digital photography, drawing and printmaking. Things are rolling, things are moving.

Next time I'll tell you a little bit about the novel.