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I just got an open-ended request on Postcrossing for a homemade card. I have blank cards (very heavy stock) that I helped [livejournal.com profile] arjache make, and I have a fountain pen loaded with Kung Te Cheng (Imperial purple bullet-proof ink).

Freehand, single draft, no penciling, me and my loves:



It's a lousy picture of the cat, but she's looking longingly at the allergic person's lap, which is the important point.And J's favorite spot is actually on the other end of the couch, so the humans' positions should be reversed. I've otherwise perfectly captured a typical Sunday afternoon at my house.
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If you gave me your address and have not received a postcard yet, please drop me a comment. Two of my immediate family didn't get theirs, so I'm paranoid about delivery rates. If you didn't give me your address but want to now, that post is open for business indefinitely.

Prompt: Trapped in a company meeting for an hour. This is cheating. I always draw this stuff. But I tried three forms of inspiration today and didn't feel like drawing anything representational, and people keep pointing out that this Counts.


PostCrossing has been incredibly useful for me. The original hope was that I'd open my life-administrative mail more often, which has happened to a small extent. The larger change is that I have been picking up a pen to just contact someone, usually a stranger, a couple times a week. This is shifting my attitude toward
  • phone calls to my bank
  • sending mail to old friends and grandparents
  • talking to my boss when I'm stuck
  • doing one piece of work when I'm stuck
  • posting on LJ
  • inviting people over and making dates
  • pick up my pen to draw
  • use my newfound comfort with the scanner to scan drawings


So hooray. Well worth the fairly sizeable amount of cash I've been dropping on an increasingly alarming number of postcards. I own something like 800 postcards now, postage for years, four varietals of classy stationery. Reaching out to people is worth it, even if my brain feels the need to absurdly overstock to feel secure.
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Thanks to [livejournal.com profile] memegarden's kind gift, I went to 826 Seattle's Write Like I Do last night, this month being a two hour workshop on historical writing. (The series is aimed at adults, with proceeds used as a fundraiser for the youth programs.)

The guest author was Elizabeth Kostova, described in the ad as the author of the new book, The Swan Thieves. Whatever. I hadn't heard of either. When I arrived for the workshop, there were two heaps of books. The larger was for The Swan Thieves. The smaller was for...

The Historian, a book that's been OMGOMGOMG at the top of my unread reading list for two years. The exhaustively researched doorstop that's a vampire mystery ranging across three historical eras and heavy into Romania. Oh, that Elizabeth Kostova. Oh my.

So I blew my play money for the month getting signed copies of her work, and had an awesome workshop, in which I got to stand up and say, "I'm M_____ and I write 18th century vampire stuff, so I really need to be here." When she singled me out later as the only person who confessed to already writing historicals and asked me what drew me to the setting, I said, "Bluntly? The clothes." Which gave more people permission to talk about liking the glamor of an era instead of all serious social issues.

She was a great workshop leader. Everything was well timed, she kept us on-schedule and made sure people got fair chances to talk, and was unilaterally supportive of whatever we said we were interested in writing. She stayed a half hour after the official closing time answering questions about the writing and publishing process, as did her agent. I had a spectacular night.

I also made a buddy, the other person there half an hour early who also prefers LJ as a primary form of social communication! Yay! Hi, [livejournal.com profile] mimerki! (Edit: Oh, you call me lovely in your journal! Yes, you're lovely too.)


New prompt generator: "Crushed aardvark falls regarding a biscuit."

Using less than standard U.S. definitions of "biscuit", "regarding", and "fall". And wishing I'd thought longer about how to draw a chocolate chip cookie with the same perspective as the rest of the picture. For the record, anvils are surprisingly hard to draw. But I'm proud of the contract, and of the aardvark paws.

The new generator isn't filtered for drawable concepts, so I have to refresh more often, but it includes phrase, sentence, and paragraph options for more randomtastic flexibility.
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Instead of trying to decide, I decided on Both.

The main Mathom party will be on Saturday, February 6, from 3pm until whenever (at least 9pm). For those who can't make it on Saturday, I'll also be open for ransacking on Friday evening, 6pm to probably 10pm.
  • Yes, you can drop stuff off on Friday to let it be admired and looted on Saturday, as long as you make arrangements to retrieve things in the near future.
  • Please let me know if you intend to bring snackies so I can make sure there are enough snackies for everyone's satisfaction. While this isn't formally a potluck, I certainly won't complain if it turns into one.
  • There is a cat in residence. I'll have vacuumed, but you know your own allergy tolerances.

Sketch-a-whenever #2. Prompt: "Giant goat ambles between two houses."

Oh, I keep meaning to mention. Helpful tip: If you have a fountain pen, and you've filled it with the super-indelible ink with a pH of 8.5, the electric blue color that stains your skin to look exactly like an old sailor tattoo for 24 hours?

Don't suck-start your pen nib.

This advice brought to you by doing exactly that with Noodler's Bay State Blue, just before I picked up my groomsmaid tux at Men's Wearhouse. I discovered when I smiled into the hall of mirrors to see how it fit. GAH.

Helpful tip #2: If you must ignore helpful tip #1, forget to brush your teeth the morning before doing this. It all stuck to the layer that I brushed off that night. *phew*
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I said I was going to start sketching and it has now been a couple weeks that I have consistently forgotten to grab one of my many blank sketchbooks from my bookshelf.

[livejournal.com profile] beaq nudged me today, so screw the sketchbook. I did this on a piece of 8.5x11 scrap paper with a world map printed on the back. Prompt: "Wrathful doctor floating around a zoo."



There we go. I'll just keep drawing on scrap until I remember a book. Oh, media: fountain pen loaded with Noodler's Heart of Darkness, blue highlighter.

In other news, I got to see Firesign Theater last night. So awesome. They are clearly having so much fun. The audience was packed with, as they said, ancient hippies. I could tell the new material from the old by the low mutter of people quoting along with every line. They started playing with it, pausing to let people do the singalong thing. It was hysterical.

Work is good, postcards are good, the mathom party will probably be Saturday the 6th, with a pre-party Friday night for people who can't make Saturday but want to participate. Official announcement coming soon.

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