The Year of Finishing Projects

I’ve been doing So. Much. Stuff. Since I last blogged!

Writing

Most of my time has been spent on writing. I finished writing up two instructional articles to submit to an art magazine. That took considerable time and effort for various reasons – I wrote them, spent a lot of time editing and tweaking, then submitted them – and have had them both accepted! I will tell you when they get published, which will be some time next year. I’m really pleased with that, huge effort of which a lot of it was self doubt and fear of stepping up.  I’ve got three more articles that I am writing, too.

In other writing news, it’s a biggie –  I published on smashwords my second novel under my pen name. Read about the background to writing and publishing it here, including why i self published, if you want to read a book about a geeky, sex obsessed, manipulate prat who someone tries to murder, you can buy it here! 

Crash Space, by Moylen Green

I actually enjoy rereading this story. Especially the magic mushroom scene, that was so much fun to write. But I’m ready to move on from it.

Getting it ready and formatted for publication and doing that final draft of the millions, took some time. I was ready to move on and now I’m working on my next novel, that I had started a few years ago, it’s finally starting to take shape. It’s a far more adult story. But having done the Stanleigh Rose (which is a bit ‘eh’), and Crash Space (which is, if I say so myself, not at all ‘eh’), I know how I write and how I construct manuscripts.

I’ve also been writing poetry, and I’m reading a lot. Still slogging through the biography of Alexander Hamilton. OMG so much tediousness, I’m glad the musical cut out the boring bits.

Painting

I’ve not painted a lot, but I did do these two paintings that will be going to my friend’s children. They got to pick what they wanted, or what colour, and I will help do their rooms in the colours they want. He’s been through a shitty time and his kids are great, and so Robot and Rainbow Unicorn it is. I was really pleased that the unicorn was selected by a boy, too, with all the gendered nonsense around these days. Unicorns are cool! Pictures are not great, just taken in the ark on my phone, but you get the idea.

Robot

Rainbow Unicorn

Other crafts – dolls, jewellery

I had 5 unfinished dolls that I stopped doing when I got the contract, I have decided to finish them off. I’m not really feeling the love for starting any more – just yet. But the unfinished ones were annoying me, so here they are, I will do a better post about them later.

Kali

I had a purple doll and wanted a purple character. How many purple aliens etc are there? None. But there are Hindu Gods and so I chose Kali, who I really like. She should have her tongue out and four arms, but artistic license, right?

Ambassador Delenn.

Delenn took a lot of effort. A total head sculpt and paint, and her outfit took more sewing than I would normally do too, but she looks great.

Three more to go! Aryn Sun (it’s a commission), Zoe Alleyne Washburne, and a double headed mermaid that I will be modifying into something else other than a mermaid.  After that, I still have a bunch of dolls and ideas but I’m not really into it that much at the moment. I should also work on the My Little Pony; but I’m not inspired on that either. I have a bunch of sculpted monsters I stared ages ago, I might put them together and finish them off. Hrm.

Doll construction – Aryn Sun’s leather jacket

I also did this little nickel octopus pendent for a friend. I’m still novice enough to muck up jewellery when I’m making it, this one I drilled the top hole wonky so I drilled another one and made a bigger loop. Sigh. It comes down to practice, I know, working in metals. I WILL practice more, I promise – I managed to cut it out without snapping a blade, never done that before.

Go Away, pendant

And other life stuff

Very mild prank: I sent someone I used to work with these anonymously. She should be getting them today.  She always loved the Easter chickens. I hope she likes them and I’m sure she’ll know it was me.

chicken prank!

One of my friends bought me this. I am not sure if it comes across on how big a Twin Peaks return fan I am, so this is just perfect for my keys!

Room 315 key

Trying to reduce my waste impact, I bought a box of Who Gives A Crap 100% recycled toilet paper. Oh so many rolls, all wrapped so prettily, too.

Lots of toilet paper!

We got the heater and evaporative cooler serviced. The heater turned out to be producing carbon monoxide: that is NOT good, and it was disconnected by the tradies. In the coldest weekend ever, and on a day I had a bunch of people over and needed to heat the house with the two small plug in heaters…it wasn’t ideal. However we had it replaced a few (chilly) days later with a five star rated one – so much faster, more efficient and hey, we are not breathing in poison! So. Much Money.

I also took my 10 year old car in for a service and it ended up having $2000 major repairs done to it – new clutch and suspension being the biggies. My car now drives well for the first time in a long time. I was pretty sure the clutch was dying, based on my prior experience in 2004 –  the “my Suzuki broke down at Archie’s Creek” incident – this felt exactly the same – and turned out I was right. Well, the car works now.

Here is a major time sink: the amount of attention this wonderful and yet irritating 17 year old cat insists on. She’s sitting on my arms even as I type. It’s been a hard winter for her; I got her an electric blanket recently, as she’s old and cold. She’s fond of that but not as fond as she is of a nice warm human to sit on.

Pumpkin likes the sunbeam

Job stuff

I applied for a bunch of jobs and ended up having three interviews in one week, that was tiring! Have heard nothing back yet, which is normal. I am sort of ambivalent about working at the moment, I suspect it came across in the interviews! I don’t have the financial stress to need to do paid work – the payout I got in Feb was good, I had savings anyway, and I replenished all I’d spent (and more) when I did that 2 month contract. So I am in the same position financially as I was in Feb, so I am not at all in a hurry to be doing paid work: I am starting to seriously get back into the writing I’m doing and losing that would kind of hurt at this point.  I have also been chasing up some health issues/tests and so that has been on my mind too rather than job hunting.