I spent the last few days teaching my website to play a new card game. Now I need to put in some links to it so that visitors to my site (I keep hoping I’ll get some someday) can find it.
Confessions of a Creataholic
Journey into the Wild
I spent most of yesterday, the fourth of July, feeling absolutely rotten with a bad headache and an upset stomach. I did it to myself, almost mostly sorta on purpose. I knew it was hot, I knew that my physical condition was such that I couldn’t do much in the way of exertion without paying the price, but there was somewhere I wanted to go, and something I wanted to see. And I went.
And what did I want to see? A tree. Seriously. I thought going and seeing a tree was worth having a killer headache for the rest of the day and throwing up and everything. (Okay, actually the throwing up surprised me, I don’t usually get that queasy.)
Last winter while crossing the bridge over a creek that I use as my turn around point for my daily walks, I noticed a sycamore tree. It had a thick brown trunk that went up a ways and then divided into several white trunks, so the shape was unusual and distinctive, and it looked to be a pretty big tree too. I started calling it Old Man Sycamore. But I had only ever seen it from the bridge, never close up.
This is what I could see of Old Man Sycamore in winter.
Even in winter the view wasn’t that great. Too many other trees and shrubs in the way.
Yesterday I went out walking with the kids, first thing in the morning, and I wanted to point Old Man Sycamore out to the kids, but you couldn’t hardly even see him through the leaves. (Which explains why it had taken me ten years to notice him in the first place, I guess. That, and the fact that I usually take my daily walks after the sun goes down.)
So I said… “I’ve always wanted to visit him in person anyway…” And after wibbling a bit about how you’re not supposed to leave the path and all that, and whether or not this was a good idea at all considering my current state of wimplessness, I said. “That’s it. We are going to go see this tree.”
So the kids and I tramped off the bridge and around the guard rails (which extend quite a distance on either side of the bridge), and down the bush covered slope, and through the woods, and across the creek, and finally arrived at this tree that I had wanted to visit.
And my son said, “Heeellooo, Grandpa!”
Let’s just say it is by far the largest tree I’ve seen around here. 🙂
I’ll post pictures as soon as I have acquired a way to get them out of my camera. Its USB connector isn’t working.
Latest Wesnoth Art
A few representative sprites from the set I just finished…
Scent of Spring Pencils
Scent of Spring Pencils now open to betareader comments.
Flag in Flames Feedback
This thread is for feedback on the graphic novel Flag in Flames, first book in the Black Flag series. It is currently being serialized at Air Castle Media. If you want your comments to be private, use the Contact Page instead.
Musical Addition
I added an area for my songs to my main website, instead of having them on some other website altogether.
It’s mostly old material, although I think this particular recording of me singing “They Say” (the Black Flag closing credits song) a capella, has never been posted to the web before.
New to the Neighborhood
A hummingbird kept hovering about the tree outside my window today. At first I had the hardest time figuring out what it was. When it was flying, it looked like an impossibly big bug, and when it landed on a branch it looked like an impossibly small bird. I finally realized that such small bird really was a possibility. And sure enough, when it flitted over to an even closer branch, I could see it clearly enough to no longer be in doubt.
Birthday Present from the Canadian Government
I got a present from the Canadian government today. It only arrived one day late. My PASSPORT!!! Now I can go home to visit, without getting stuck there. Yay!
One of my Clever Ideas actually Works!
One of the things that slowed my progress on Scent of Spring was that I’d moved on to editing, and suddenly needed to do a lot of tracing. I have mostly been working on this project while chauffeuring my kids about, and I needed a tracing technique that was simple, inexpensive and highly portable.
So, I have created for myself a portable light table.
I have a clear plastic clipboard, which fits into the large clipboard/carry-case that holds the pages I am working on and my pencils, pens, etc. And I also have a clip-on reading light, which can be coiled up and tucked away in one of the carry-case compartments when I’m not using it. When I want to do some tracing, I clip the light on upside-down, and adjust it so that it shines up from underneath the clipboard, through whatever part of the drawing I’m trying to trace. Tah-dah!
Black Flag Revisions
I’ve been storyboarding the changes I want to make in Black Flag, and am enjoying the task.
I have heard a number of writers complain about revisions, but for me, as long as I understand what it is that needs changing and why, it’s always been one of the fun parts of the job. I like figuring out how to fix things, and the actual work of making it better is just as fun as creating it in the first place. Best of all, when I look back at what I’ve got and can see the improvement, it’s a real thrill.
I’m sure finding a lot of stuff that needs to be redone, though. I’ve got 40 pages of new storyboards from just the first 6 Chapters. Some of those are for brand new scenes, some are insertions into old scenes (added clarifications, usually), and some are pages in need of rearranging so that the new material will fit more smoothly into the old.
In theory, I’ll need to make fewer and few fixes as I get further along in the story, though. ::crosses fingers::