My husband and I saw Emma yesterday, which was hilarious, and now I’m in Portland with my boyfriend. It’s shaping up to be an excellent birthday week. I didn’t come up with anything particularly clever to share here, so here’s a picture of me with a goofy bunny sitting on my shoulder.
Here’s an important creative lesson that I learned a long time ago but still often forget: Drop your pen the second that applying the finishing touches turns into fussing.
Contrary to what this portrait of him implies, my bun buddy Frodo is a fairly light sandy brown. This must be his goth persona. I got mad about the proportions of his head and couldn’t let it go, and the more I worked to try and fix it, the more definition got lost in all the shading. I don’t hate it, but I do think it was better before I tried to fix it.
This probably applies to just about every creative endeavor, although not all art forms are so mercilessly devoid of delete keys. Part of what I love about pen and ink drawing is that, no matter what happens, there’s no going back. You can only move forward or stop. It’s the knowing when to stop part that can sometimes be a challenge. Or, actually stopping when you know you should, which is more often the case for me. I can usually feel the moment when I start fussing, but sometimes I lie to myself about how if I just darken a few shadows and add a few extra details it’ll be even more finished than it is now.
I am almost always wrong. Once a thing is finished, fussing usually doesn’t make it better. It’s as good as it will be. Maybe it’s as good as it should be.
I don’t know how to define the line between editing and fussing, but I’m certain that a lot more cool art and stories would reach the outside world if there was some sort of magic invisible hand that slapped the pens out of our hands whenever we crossed it.
Some things that happened over the last couple of months:
We had an unexpected houseguest who stayed with us for a month and some change.
My dogs consequently developed the delightful habit of baying almost constantly at any hint of someone walking by the house, instead of just barking their heads off at the odd squirrel or package delivery. It was not great for my nerves.
I adopted a little rabbit in need. His name is Frodo. He has some special needs that he’ll hopefully grow out of, so I occasionally get to stay up until 4am nursing him. It’s okay, though. He gives me cute bunny kisses to make up for it.
Some of the African violets my friend gave me finally bloomed for the first time, and they were lovely. For a couple of days.
Frodo ate all the flowers off of the African violets, dug up a fern, and then decimated my windowbox basil, making himself temporarily ill and living up to his hobbit name.
The beautiful fish pond that came with our house quit working for real and several solid weekends of work haven’t managed to get it up and running yet. Our fish are not happy about this, but the mosquitos are.
An unexplained fly invasion of almost biblical proportions. The lizard and our small, bouncy dog enjoyed this more than I did.
Several meltdowns on my part, or possibly one slow and prolonged meltdown that lasted for about a month and some change.
I eventually stopped banging my head against a brick wall in my Somnolence manuscript and decided to work on something lighter for a while, so I’m currently writing the second draft of a young adult book that’s been waiting in my project list for years. It is cute and it has dragons. Jumping between projects usually isn’t recommended, but if it’s between less than ideal practice and another month of being too stressed and up in my own head to actually get words on the page, I’ll take it. Some words written, even on what’s technically the wrong project, are infinitely better than no words written at all.
I learned how to make pizza without garlic or dairy, so my husband and I can both eat it, and it is really awesome.
I completely reworked my scheduling practices and managed to wrench my sleeping patterns back to mostly normal and almost enough rest each night.
I got a couple of very cute pink plants today, partially as a reward to myself for pulling my shit back together after letting myself get pretty thoroughly derailed, and partially as a bribe to myself to get back into writing blog posts even though it’s embarrassing to have just vanished for two months. So, I’m back now.
I’m in San Diego at the moment for my sister in law’s wedding. I’ve only been down here a couple of times before, for the big reptile show they have. Now I get to see some other parts of the area, which is cool. We’re staying at a pretty hotel full of ponds, waterfalls, koi, and cute mandarin ducks. I’m hoping to experience a little more of the beach, but I can see it from the hotel grounds.
I got a mini tour of the UCSD campus from my little sister on Thursday. We saw a cute baby bunny, and then we collected a bunch of snacks, made tea, and binge-watched Miss Congeniality, a spectacularly awful mutant shark movie, and Practical Magic. All in all, a very well spent evening.
I had some interesting conversations in Lyfts getting to and from her school. One driver was an older gentleman who explained the publishing industry, the world in general, and my own book to me. He had no writing or publishing experience, but they’re always so helpful, these guys. The other was quite nice and he told me that Istanbul is on a major fault line and has tons of earthquakes, which I didn’t know before. From a fellow passenger, I got an extensive update about the damage the fires in the north have been doing to his friends’ pot farms, and specifically the massive amounts of money hidden in the walls of one of their homes, which has now burned down.
Flying makes me super sick, and Dramamine makes me sleepy, so I didn’t get any work done on the way here. I’m gonna have to play catch up after I finish this post.
Jasmine Collins 