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Monday, June 18, 2012

Joining the Club

How do I talk about my new favorite toy?

Do I talk about the financial and familial circumstances that led to my inevitable purchase of a new phone?


Do I tell you of my zombified camera or the promises to go without personal spending for a while, leading to getting the latest model? 

Do I gush about the apps or the user interface, or how I danced around the kitchen with NPR in my back pocket today?

Do I tell how Siri keeps my work schedule, reminded me to get Lily signed up for preschool, texts Jason, and calls me Catwoman?

I know what to say...
...I totally get it now.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Caring is Hot

More working on the comic whilst camera plans are pushed back till Friday. While searching, I tumbled onto this. Language warning. If you can get past that, the message is one of importance. It's not put so eloquently nearly as often as it should be.

Monday, June 11, 2012

Comics are for Everyone!

   My camera is broken, and I think that is what has been holding up my posts, for the most part. But this will be the last post without good photos. The game's afoot. For, you see, I received my first paycheck today, and I know exactly where it is going, after I set aside for fall tuition. 
   In the mean time, I've been eyeballs deep in this new writing project. I completely underestimated how fun it would be! I'm learning so much. I think the first thing I'm learning is to not be afraid. Instead of worrying about writing a stunning conglomerate of words- just telling the story exactly how I want the story to be told and letting the rest follow. Instead of stopping from inexperience of the style, just making it legible and fixing the format as I learn. Instead of molding a mediocre story around what I know, molding an awesome story around things that I'm researching the heck out of. 
   I have to say that something else that excites me, is that I'm excited about it. I haven't been this excited about a project in a long time, and it feels better than ever. 
   So then, here are a few of my favorite web comic, to give you a little taste of the kind of fun that is out there to be had. Web comics for people who don't really troll for web comics: 

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Tuesdays With Jason is Back!

Good evening, Friends! Though it's been an interesting, busy couple of weeks, but we've come to a settling. It's time to resume the weekly spot light on our favorite lovable character. This week with Jason:

  • "Calvin, don't wrap your head in duct tape!"
  • Me: I don't feel well, but I feel like I have to make a good dinner.
    Jason: Don't worry about it- I brought cereal"
  • "K time to force myself to draw."
  • "I heard Russel Brand talking and thought he was just obnoxious, but then he kept talking and I though-'this guy is brilliant!'"
And for your viewing pleasure, a little treat that Jason and I agree just might be the coolest thing ever

Monday, June 4, 2012

Being the Boss

I decided that I never want to be a business owner. Maybe cool enough to have a personal assistant some day, but there's no way I want to interview and hire an entire staff. And all I've had to experience so far is the vetting of babysitters.
   We've gone through every avenue from spreading the word at church to posting job adds on the Harvard website, to looking up postings on Craigslist. What we've come up with seem to be of two camps.

On the One Hand: 

  • Has experience babysitting or working as a nanny for a friend. 
  • Uses an excess of typos and grammatical errors, including the non-word "alot"
  • Moved hear for "personal reasons" 
  • Expects to be paid anywhere from $5-10 more than I make. 
On the Other Hand: 
  • Has a BA in one of the following: Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience, Global Health and Population with a minor in Arabic Studies; Performing Arts and Theater
  • Speaks French, Spanish, Arabic, and/or Chinese
  • Volunteered with Special Olympics in Africa, Habitat for Humanity in Venezuela, or worked as an Au Pair in France. 
  •  How can I possibly ask you to take minimum wage? But please babysit my kids! 

I'm just trying to figure out how other people do it. 

Friday, June 1, 2012

It's Better as a Comic

   Do you ever start with an idea for a project, then half way through the project realized that it would work so much better in a different format? A sewing project that just needs a different fabric, or a sketch drawing that would translate so well as a watercolor? I have a tendency to think of writing topics and, much more frequently than my actions justify, I realize "That would be so much better as a comic."  Take for example, a little conversation Jason and I had yesterday about recent developments in The Windowsill Experiment, Pt. 2:
It's no big deal, but it would've been untranslatable as prose. Blah. 
    A while back Jason planted the seed of a wonderful plot line in my head. It stewed and grew till this last weekend I decided to turn my time alone into a handmade writing retreat. I packed my laptop to The Trident Cafe, a tiny part of me hoping that Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman would stop by, and got my butt to work. Three hours later, what I had sucked. Everything sucks in the beginning, but this was really making me unhappy. And I knew exactly why. It just needed to be a comic. 
   Lucky for me, I'm married to a graphic designer who's constantly pursuing the art of the web comic. We've been talking about doing a collaboration for some time, and even made a couple attempts, but they hadn't gotten very far. Yet something about this idea gripped me and I was determined to see it through. 
   My biggest problem was that I had no idea how to write a comic. Que game-show-loser-music. Try to Google "How to write a web comic." The results are a lot of bad writing about nothing. I have to thank Jason again for being such a comic buff; he directed me to a guide by the writer for The Zombie Hunters, which, though still sparse on the topic of writing itself, was the most comprehensive guide I was able to find.
   So armed with a nickle's worth of knowledge on a writing format, I decided to go for it. I swallowed a big gulp and just started writing. And this time it work! It shocked me how much easier everything fit on the page. I got the whole first scene written. I started a collaborative storyboard with Jason on Pintrest.com and he began the first sketches of characters. So hopefully soon, we'll be seeing the first panels of a web comic by Heather Louise and Jason.
   I'm kind of excited.