What my daily four to five hours of writing is like:

Write on subway for hour while traveling to work. Write for hour during lunch break. Write for hour on subway ride back home … if I can find a spot to sit. Evening trains are considerably more full than my morning train. Get home. Fuel up. And erase the entire last three hours of writing. Rewrite what was a couple hundred to a few thousand words to a third of its previous existence.

I think I spend more time writing things I eventually erase than I do writing what I end up keeping. It’s a lot like drawing a comic page, though: even an initial rough penciled page usually involves pages worth of drawings and sketches and thumbnails just laying it out. My writing process seems to work the same way: scribble furiously in the margins for hours in order to get that half to full hour’s worth of credible content.

My temp position at HC is up at the end of the month, so I’m taking a week and a half off to work on “Jane’s S.O.S” and “Jeannie Carnini”. As much as I enjoy this job, I’m happy to be getting the break to work more solidly on my personal projects again. It’s only been a month, and I’m experiencing the pangs of loss from not being able to work on my comics full-time. Snatches here and there aren’t enough. I think temp work agrees with me!

Last week, I was terribly sick, and I’m only just now starting to recover. Congestion, throat, and lung issues, and feeling like a leech was stuck to the back of my spinal cord, draining every ounce of mental energy from my brain. Spent my few semi-lucid hours watching Harry Potter and Indiana Jones. The latest Harry Potter, “The Half Blood Prince”, was so beautifully directed and composed I ended up watching it twice. Without a question, the best Harry Potter movie so far. It even beat out “Prisoner of Azkaban” which was my previous favorite, and that, honestly, was the only movie I liked better than the book. Though I can’t say that movie six was better than book six. The book “The Half Blood Prince” was so exponentially better than any other that it couldn’t even compare.

The music in “The Half Blood Prince”, however, was what made it truly stand out for me. The composer, Nicholas Hooper, moved away from some of the tired tropes of the earlier movies, and composed scores that managed to capture the essence of the previous Harry Potter music themes, yet played with an originality, diversity, and finesse that every musical scene sparkled with emotion and depth. I ended up downloading the soundtrack, and the entire movie unfolds through the score alone. I’m reminded of “Peter & the Wolf” in that every character has a unique sound or instrument perfectly suited to their temperament and theme. And while the score is generally very simple, it’s rarely repetitive and musically directed with the kind of emotional skill you find in modern music, not classical. It’s been a long time since I’ve enjoyed a classical soundtrack, and having once wanted to be a composer myself (Didn’t realize I was an avid music student all through middle and high school, did you? Why do you think I got such a late start with my art?) it’s refreshing to hear emotive, compelling music that isn’t over-composed or cliche.

Anybody who’s a fan of a broad range of music that explores the depth of human emotion and thematic mood really should check this composer out. Very few are so skilled in their craft.

On that note, back to work for me. It’s only ten, so I still got a few hours of writing time left. Less deleting, more saving. :)

I’m happy I feel a little more adjusted to my HC job today. I don’t feel as exhausted as I did every evening last week. I even managed to work on some writing during lunch and on the subway today. We’ll see how I manage tonight.

But at least the immediate desire to curl up and go to bed as soon as I got home wasn’t there today, and I feel neither exhausted nor hyper alert like I normally do as the evening wears.

This is so f’ing FRUSTRATING. Every time I start to get into a project–REALLY get into it–money problems rear their ugly head and I have to, AGAIN, put a halt on my work to raise enough for rent.

I really like my new job, and it pays really well, but …

Three years of this. When am I finally going to be able to get back to and finish my comics? So many projects flooding my drawers but put to the side for love of having a roof over my head and food on the table.

But I’ll keep going. Through the cloudy water. Down that muddy lane. One slow molasses step at a time.

*sigh*

I get home every night now and fall straight asleep. I’m so exhausted I can do nothing more than read. But looking on the bright side of things, at least I’m making money now, especially in a business I love, and that means I can take the letterpress class I want and save up to print my books the way I want instead of caving and selling to a publisher because desperately need the money. I’m not taking the same route anymore that I took with Tokyopop. I don’t want to publish my illustrated work through publishers anymore if I can help. I enjoy being my own publisher, and I’m going to take what I learned and put it to use. Finally.

It just takes time. And patience. So much agonizing patience.

And a whole heck lotta love.

—-

I think half the exhaustion is that commute. With walking plus train, it’s three hours of traveling each day. Ouch!

Oh Lordy, I’m tired. My new job at Harper Collins is going splendidly (how about reading children’s and YA books and playing in Powerpoint and Photoshop all day? And making spreadsheets of sales figures for HC and the companies it distributes. Ehem.), but I do tend to forget how much energy it takes maintaining a 9-5 job. Plus, It’s an hour commute there and a little over an hour back.

However, I am managing to juggle it, at least. I may be tired now, but I actually left at 5 am and 6 am my first two days so I could work on “Jeannie Carmini” before work and worked on it again during my hour lunch. I find it impossible to do creative work afterwards because I go home and crash, but I’m tossing around the idea of taking up an offer to work in the same building as the Deep 6 studios. It’s on my way home from work, it should be only $150 a month, and I find it a heck of a lot easier to work when I’m tired when I’m out, than to get home tired and hear my comfy bed and laptop calling me.

So “Jeannie Carnini” is going slowly now, but at least it’s still going, and steadily. I think because I enjoy my job, I’m not watching the clock and therefore have the joy still left in my heart throughout the day.

And seriously? I LOVE MY JOB. This is just a three-week temp job, but if they don’t ask me back right away or hire me full time, I plan on going to Human Resources and asking if they have any positions available. I get to look at book sales figures all day (I know. Only *I* would find that amazing), the pay is AMAZING (considering the most I’ve ever been paid for a 9-5 job was $10/hr because Austinites are CHEAP), and IT’S IN PUBLISHING. If I were offered any other 9-5 type job in New York … this would be the place I’d first pick.

And of course, once I get my second paycheck, I’m immediately singing up for a letterpress class at The Center For Book Arts.

It’s almost $600 for the class, but … letterpress is a beautiful art form. I don’t know why more printers don’t switch to gravure plates (printing plates that have raised text/illustrations so they leave an impression on the paper), considering they’re so much cheaper to make now, and WAY easier. A little UV light and BOOM! Photopolymer plate! Which taken care of properly will last indefinitely.

Offset printing, however, uses lithographic plates, which uses a thin layer of oil to create the image, so that’s why they don’t leave indents in the paper, and I hate it. I also want to mix my own inks instead of being limited to stupid CMYK halftones for color reproductions. Mixing a color directly makes it vibrant and ALIVE. And “Jeannie Carmini” is going to be either two or three color anyway (I’m thinking brown, yellow, red/pink), so it’s not like there will be any screening involved.

I also want a foot-operated platen press. ;_; OMG. IT’S LOVE. I’ve been drawing designs throughout the day of how to make my own from more readily accessible materials.

But I digress. I like my job. And I’m actually feeling good about the book I’m working on. Life is good.

On another note, I was looking at my click-throughs, and found the response at bottom of this post entertaining to read: http://comicsworthreading.com/2010/01/12/lea-franco-makes-comic-about-slur/

I’m not a particularly PC person. I use words like “retarded” and “gay” and “queer”, but I’ve always used them in more of a … playful way? They’re words that have come to have colorful meanings with subtle differences dependent  upon inflection and situation. I mean, I’m queer. But I also use “queer” to mean “odd in a fun, quizzical” way. I say “retarded” to mean someone who is ignorant. And I use “gay” to mean “retardedly stupid”. Dan Savage of Savage Love (it’s a cynical, brilliantly funny sex advice column for the uninitiated, btw) had a whole rant about this word, and it’s a common thread throughout his podcasts of people who call him up offended that he’d “dare” use them and that somehow he’s single-handedly bringing down the whole of American Society by using them.

I’ve never used any of these words as a slur because well … I don’t use slurs because they’re disrespectful and ignorant. But I still use them with their alternate meanings. I’m not trying to insult anybody or show my superiority. Like I’d never call someone a “nigger” (I refuse to use an asterick for that word, btw, because it has too much power as it is, and being afraid to say something in demonstration is the same as showing highschoolers how to put on condoms by having a banana but no condom), and there’s no other double, subtle meaning to it, so there’s no reason for me to ever use it (except in rhetorical demonstration, of course).

Some words are purely racist/sexist/etc slurs. But some words have subtle double meanings, and I don’t see why I shouldn’t be allowed to use that alternate meaning. It doesn’t make me ignorant. If anything, it makes me MORE literate because I understand the humor of the double meaning and know how to use it in ways that fit the context. It’s like dancing on a pile of knives: it can be safe and fun and exhilarating as long as you step the right way.

I also know people who use FAR worse words in funny, humorous ways that make even me cringe. But I let them have their way because oh my gosh, I’m smart enough to realize their intent is not of malice or ignorance, but of making a new word out of something old. It’s the intent and not the words themselves that hold power. Just watch one of Sarah Palin’s many speeches someday if you don’t believe me. They have some of the most foul-intent hate-speech of any politician I’ve ever heard. But she never says it directly. She never uses the WORDS. But her intent behind simple language that typically relay more gentle meanings, make her one of the most horrific people I know. Of course, that’s why she scares me. Because some people hear only the words, see them as sunshine and roses, and then don’t wonder later why they’re up on The Daily Show as Hatechild of the Week.

But that’s just my two-cents.

(edit) I should probably also mention that my mother’s step-sister has Down’s Syndrome and my mom makes “retarded” jokes ALL. THE. TIME.  Matt thinks people who have mentally handicapped kids or relatives get a pass for getting offended about the use of this particular word, but then why does my mom do it? She loves her sister. I’ve never heard her say anything with insulting or cruel intent about her. Perhaps, then, she just has a sense of humor? Because my mom is one of the nicest, most considerate people I know.

MK Reed just recommended that I look into The Center for Book Arts if I want to take bookmaking classes. They have a letterpress course I want to take, and of course, all those binding classes!

I know all the academic functions of printing and binding, but being able to put it into actual practice and gain hands-on experience … fantastic!

Just puttin’ the word out there, but one of my roommates is moving out end of February. If anybody’s looking for a room, email me at thegirl /at/ rivkah /dotdittydot/ com.  It’s a mid-sized room, 10′x10′ going for $550 a month, utilities/bills paid (which is sweet if you’re living in New York, because holy cow are utilities expensive here). We have wi-fi, there’s a fan in the room, and while there aren’t any windows in that room, it has french double doors looking into the living room. Just put some gauzy curtains of them, and you’ll still get lots of light.

This area is also SUPER safe with a local 24-hour grocery store only a few blocks away and a great local butcher (Halal, btw). And it’s on the F and G subway lines that are about a thirty minute ride to Manhattan, depending what time of day it is. They both run over the Deep 6 studios, which is a nice, little scenic bit of the trip. *^-^* We’re a walk or bike away from Prospect Park.

We’re also all cartoonists here. There me. Robin Enrico. And MK Reed. We’ve been lovingly called the cartoonist’s halfway house. And they’re not far off the mark! Plus, for a New York apartment, this place is pretty new and pretty big.

What a splendid time to be in comics! I’ve been waiting for the Apple Tablet for YEARS. Ever since I played with a Toshiba tablet PC and realized it could be better, and then when the iphone came out. It seemed the perfect prepping ground for a truly functional full-sized tablet. It’s the one product that would make me Go Apple.

Apple makes expensive products far outside of my budget,  and my mind clicks better with the Windows OS (can it be helped having grown up using it since it’s birth, and a father who betatested and used its predecessor, (and the guys Microsoft ripped their visual style from), OS/2?), but Apple makes solid products (let’s not talk about the Macbook Air, please.), and a tablet? Well, it just seems like something they’d do right.

And for comics? Well, the iphone isn’t enough. It’s too small. I like to see my pages at 5.5×7 and larger. The business-card size screen of any oversized phone isn’t enough.

I’m looking forward to this. You can bet I’ll be releasing versions of my future comics in digital format now. I’m working in color now, and it makes it that much less expensive. And some day I’d like to buy one, but like with all Apple products, wait a few years and the price will go down and the functionality up.

Of course, I will still always prefer paper. Paper takes reading books beyond the mental experience and into the tactile. I’ve thought a lot about how I plan on printing “Jeannie Carnini” because the touch and feel and smell and look and opening and closing of the book are as important to me as the pictures. Now that I have a job lined up (YEAY!), I’m going to save so I can take a few classes at SVA (School of Visual Arts here in NYC, btw), mainly: lithography and bookmaking.

Since moving here, I feel like I’ve been bursting with energy and ideas and motivation. It’s amazing how much of a change something as little as moving into the right city for me has made. I click with the people here. The way everything functions makes sense. And I don’t roll my eyes at all the idiots I perceive on the streets anymore. Austin’s a fun city. A great city really. There are so many things that I miss (other than my family, of course). Central Market is first. Good coffee and cafe’s that stay open 24 hrs is another (oh my gosh, NYC has such cr*p coffee!!!!! Which is why my mother has mailed me my favorite blend of Lola Savannah coffee from Austin). I also miss the green. Austin is a lush city, especially for being in Texas. And people put a LOT of pride into their gardens.

But those are all small trades to be made to feel like I’m back on track again. I’ve felt so lost the last three years. Pursuing thread after thread after thread that leads nowhere but back to where I started. I really, truly, love New York. I love the people here. And I love the kind of person I’ve become here.

I’m looking forward to the next few years! Because who knows what will happen or I’ll become? I expect to change, to grow, and hopefully become a better person in the process.

Holy cow! What odd, weird twist of amazing karma is THIS for you?

So yesterday, I had an interview with a temp agency (btw, if anyone’s looking for temp work in NYC, send me an email. My agent is amazing.), and today I get a call: “How’d you like to work in the children’s division at Harper Collins?”

Say WHAT?! I think I nearly fell over.

There’s only a few things that could be said in response to this: Fate. Karma. I really was supposed to move to New York, wasn’t I?

Thanks G-man. :)

I have a few more samples from what I’ve been working on lately. Oh! And my children’s comic has a name now, too! “Jeannie Carnini! Clean Your Room!” Hee. I already know what I’m going to do with the cover, too, but that’ll have to wait until the interior is actually done as well. I’d say I’m about 3/5th’s there. Optimistically, I finish by the end of February. Realistically, by the end of March.

The character for the girl in this book, Jeannie Carnini, was a particularly tricky one. As you can see, these are some of my (many!) initial, horribly failed attempts (which actually starts on the right and works left):

You’d think I’d have learned by now that if I don’t like a face, I shouldn’t try to just erase and rework it. I really should just throw away the entire pose.

Usually, the problem isn’t where I initially think it is. I would erase and redraw the face, thinking, “WTF is UP? Nothing looks right!” I must have erased that stupid face about fourty times when I finally went to bed, woke up the next morning, looked at it once and realized in a flash of dumb inspiration that I needed to redraw the entire pose, and really the whole character. That wasn’t Jeannie Carnini on my page. That was some other girl dressed in her clothes.

So I drew another character, but I still wasn’t satisfied. Something just wasn’t sitting right, but I couldn’t pinpoint it.

Later that night,  I went over to my boyfriend’s because sometimes I need to work away from home, and we sat and discussed (he IS an artist), and I doodled, and thought about how Jeannie Carnini would REALLY stand, and finally I hit upon it:

First of all, the pose is better. She’s more awkward, less sure of herself, which is more her personality. I’m a pretty confident person about most things in life, and I tend to project that on to my main characters. But … kids are awkward creatures. Smart little snaps, but unsure in the way they walk and stand. I don’t know any kid that holds themselves with surety except for the bullies. And the brownnosers (which ah … I was one of those).  Or kids pretending to be mutant turtles on the playground. >_>; (I dug Raphael because he could swear and get away with it).

The other problem I kept running into with this character was that I kept whispering to myself, “simplify! simplify!” because it’s the style I’m running for, but it kept being either too much or too little (should have scanned in the overly simple ones. oops. too late now.) I would catch an expression on the first sketch, a few simple lines, and then I’d run in with a pointed lead and ruin it with detail. I needed to find that happy balance, and at last, by trying and trying and throwing away an awful lot of sketches but never giving up, and thinking about it and thinking about it some more, I finally got it. And slowly, as I get into the character, the easier she becomes to draw.  Not just in the face either, but in her body language as well.

It takes time to get to know your characters! I actually sit down and talk with them in my head. When I find myself struggling with their body language and expressions, I tell them, “Okay. What would YOU do in this situation? What kind of person are you? SHOW me.” And eventually they do.

Sometimes, it’s silly to admit, I play the actor, stand in front of a mirror and pretend to be my characters. And really, it’s the more subtle characters that are the most difficult. I struggle a lot with main characters because they need to be generic enough to appeal to anybody but also have a strong personality that is charming and engaging. Kind of a paradox, isn’t it? In this story, the easy character is the Frog Prince. He’s one aspect of a personality he doesn’t veer outside of. But Jeannie Carnini? Well. She’s an emotional, inquisitive, odd little girl, and sometimes she overreacts like the Frog Prince while other times she’s still and contemplative.

It takes knowing your characters to draw the expressions beneath the cartoon mask out, and truly reveal who they are.

And it’s made yet more difficult when you’re drawing in a new style! But hey, I think it’s worth it. It makes them real and breathes them to life.

The above are some of the pencils from the beginning of the book. I take an 8.5×11 sheet of 65 lb cardstock (I prefer a heavier paper because it doesn’t tear from all my erasing), fold it in half, and then I work on the right while I use the left space for reference drawings, thumbnails, and practice sketches. I’m having to think in a two-color space for this book, so there’s a LOT more planning that goes into it!  I’m particularly fond of some of my light studies in moodily lit woods. :)

Off to bed now! Tomorrow I have an interview with a temp agency. I plan on self-publishing this book, but that means I’ll be needing capital, and I don’t have good enough credit unfortunately to get a loan. Or heck, I get declined for high-interest credit cards. And I’ve never even owned one before! No credit is worse than bad credit, I guess? Anyway, ideally, I would like more web site and illustration work, but this agency is mostly office jobs. I do what I have to so I can continue pursuing my dream. :)

Matt and I have been having an argument about whether or not Rosemary & Co. makes good brushes. I had previously taken a recommendation of his and bought a set of five brushes, and subsequently fell in love with brush again. Unfortunately, he has recently redacted his endorsement, and the knife and flaming baton throwing has ensued:

Here is my response to a commentor on the fence about whether to buy these brushes or not:

I have to say Matt and I have been having disagreements about the Rosemary brushes. I was in your same position about six months ago: didn’t have a lot of money to spend but wanted to try a LOT of different kinds of brushes to figure out exactly what sizes and shapes I might like in a brush. For twenty-five bucks, I got five different sized kolinsky series 33 brushes and a watercolor brush. The watercolor brush was decent, but the kolinsky brushes changed what had previously been a firm hatred of brush into a lusty love affair. I f*cking LOVE brush now.

Unlike Matt, I haven’t used a lot of brushes, so I don’t personally know how W&N and Raphael brushes compare, but the complaints I’ve read about Rosemary brushes seem pretty minor things when you’re just starting out and trying to figure out how a brush actually works. If it doesn’t hold as much ink, you’ll just have to dip more. And I’ve never had a problem getting a point or a thick line, or of them splitting except under the greatest pressure. Usually I just get sort of a drybrush look when I apply a lot of pressure.

I still think that Rosemary brushes are an excellent brush for their price, and as I was just saying to Matt: they’re the sort of brush you want to get a lot of just to see how a brush feels. They may not make artists cream their pants like apparently a good W&N does, but they seem like a good start to me.

Plus, once you figure out what size you like best (like how I figured how drastically different a 5 is from a 2, and that I really prefer a 5, which I though I’d prefer the thinner brush!), you can always go out and buy a nicer one in another brand.

As for me? I don’t want to spend $10-$20 on a single brush just to test it out and possibly never use it again! Some of the rosemary’s I bought sit unused (like the 0), but I spent less than $5 on it, so I really don’t mind.

Seriously, for twenty or thirty bucks, you should try a selection and see what you think. I love mine, and I love the faith they’ve given me in brush again that had been destroyed by a BAD WINDSOR AND NEWTON.

So there. (sticks tongue out at Matt)

——

I use a Rosemary Pure Sable Kolinsky Series 33 #5 and #2, btw.