Catching Up
It's been a long break
It isn’t that I wasn’t busy, because I was. I had FenCon last weekend, then company for the week, got the novel through revisions, last editorial passes, layout, and finally publication. Whee! I’m also in the throes of spring. This was the warmest February on record in my area, and I’m racing against time and the burgeoning leaves to get much-needed garden maintenance done. I’m behind on that, and I feel it sorely, but it’s necessary. I’ll get done what I can, and won’t worry about what I can’t.
March? Well, I’ve got the very first baby steps on a new Groundskeeper novel, I need to make a mad dive into the rabbit hole of research before the plot gels and I can start making real progress into it. Feels a little weird to make myself sit down with books and notebooks, and call it work. Like… pinch me, am I dreaming?
I also have, as I do every year, spring fever. It has been up in the eighties here in North Texas, with warm nights so all the things are blooming and leafing out. This could end badly, our average last frost isn’t until March 20. I am hoping we don’t get anything too low, or I’ll lose a lot of potential fruit for the year. If it does, well, that’s another year of growth to strengthen young trees, as most of mine are just at three years old now. The Nanking cherry, which was a tiny twig last year, is even blooming! Silly baby.
The chicks are fully integrated into the coop, with the two adult hens still surviving. Chickens, man. Eggs are nice, but dang they are hard to keep alive. I’ve lost one to who-knows-what, and one to a predator1 who got their snout into the pen but couldn’t get further, or likely I’d have lost all three at that point. The pen has been tightened further, not just for predator-proofing, but to keep the chicks in there!
One thing about the chicks, the Ideal 236 (I still think this sounds like they are robots or something) whites are spooky babies, but I can catch them when necessary. The Rhode Island Reds are friendly ladies and like a cuddle so I pet them almost every day. This is far better than the two grown hens who panic!!!11!! every time I step into the pen.
I also took the week almost off of art. I’ve been doing some exercises working on drawing heads, but that was all digital and I’m trying something that was recommended to me by a friend, then a professional artist I was talking to at the convention. He told me to trace heads and figures. I asked if that might not become a crutch, and he laughed. He said ‘I know you, and you’ll get frustrated and want to do it your way and then you’ll stop tracing.’ He isn’t wrong, and it is a good way to train your hand and brain into the correct shapes. I need to do this a lot but sharing it is pointless. On the other hand, I collected more watercolors (I may have a problem) and was playing with them last night. Toast approved. She likes to lick the paint (I do my best to prevent this!) and she likes being part of what I’m doing at the art desk. She will just appear as soon as I sit there. Sighs in making my work harder.
My discord art peeps are working on the March art challenge, and I may play along, but mostly using AI work, since I want to continue the physical training to draw humans better than I have. I don’t have time to do the art challenge in painting and the drawing exercises both. March 1 was red mountain landscape, hence the flaming blueberry leaf reds in a tundra landscape I painted.
If you’d like to play along, you are more than welcome to join in the Discord fun, there’s nothing like honing skills to get your work better. If you’d prefer, here’s the prompt list, with the idea that you can do the colors, or the landscapes, or both.
Oh, and for those of you who read Tanager’s Fleet, if you look at the back of the book, there’s a place to sign up for a newsletter. This will also get you the download link for a special freebie! But most important, if the near-daily blog from me is more than a reader wants, that newsletter will only occur once a month, when I have a book release and other news to announce. So! keep that in mind.
Most likely a stray dog. I have a trail camera I’m going to put up so I can keep an eye back there. We’ve seen a dog in the back yard, and I’m trying to keep the gate closed to prevent this. We’re in town, so I can’t dispose of the nuisance, but stock trumps a stray everytime. Keep your dogs in your yard, where they can’t be attacking everything that moves! And yes, living on a farm in the past this is something I feel very strongly about. I’ve seen what domestic dogs will do. I’ve cleaned up the mess, and given grace to the critically injured. It’s painful.
"The faster I go, the behinder I get". Heard that somewhere. It feels kind of true.
I was recently interrogated by an acquaintance about where I get my hair cut. Didn't have the heart to tell him that I do it myself. I have sculpted before, but the electric trimmer works for me quite well thank you, and MUCH easier to use than scissors. :^)