Next Sketch Fest(s)!

October is galloping down on us!

Now, looking ahead, the following month is November, when a lot of us (self included) will be working on NaNoWriMo manuscripts. Last year, we skipped November, and December being too busy for two, did two Sketch Fests in January. This year, since we're thinking ahead (crazy, I KNOW), we could put two in October instead!

I am not yet positive all of these weekends are free for ME, but I want to poll the participants early and see what the trends are for the month, and find out your opinion on trying a weekday Sketch Fest if we go with a second on this month.

Feel free to elaborate on your choices in the comments!


[Poll #1780319]

Wednesdaily!

I've gotten a little art, a little writing, a little programming, a little exercising, a little shopping, and a little cleaning finished so far today. I've also got a little story up at Torn World - this one is just 100 words, so giving an excerpt of it seems silly when you can go read it in about 3 seconds. It also has a photograph by Elizabeth Barrette illustrating it.

I continue to be pleased by my writing progress. It's not NaNo-speed writing, but I've been putting in 500-1500 words nearly every day, and that adds up. Better yet, I'm closing in on storyline stuff - you know, with actual PLOT. Some of them even have ACTION. It's thrilling. Bai and Ressa's storyline is swimming along steadily, the northerners are poised to meet the explorers (with a great deal of material already written that is downstream of that), the City of Lights stuff is starting to shape together. The next anthology is even starting to draw together, and the cover artwork - while ridiculously ambitious for me (full color! Multiple figures! Action! Big landscapes with dramatic lighting! Architectural PERSPECTIVE! OH GOD!) - is a lot of fun so far and may even succeed. I'm hoping I'm leaving myself enough time to try something else if I fall on my face with this one. If you want to watch my progress, I am posting shots every day in the Torn World forum: http://www.tornworld.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=895 (You have to be a registered contributor to access that forum... which I'm trying to get you guys to be anyway... marvel at my subtlety.)

In factory news, the bubbles have evolved, and feel more like little pops and taps and once even a sort of a *flop*. Not very steady yet, and this following a day I didn't feel anything. I gotta say, this is an exciting experience, and very surreal. There's something wiggling around inside me!

(It humors me that this particular bit of the process is called quickening, which makes me want to raise a sword and shout that there can be only one... but what about women with twins and more?)

Off to make some dinner now!

Link to an article on crowdfunding...

Some interesting thoughts on crowdfunding. http://www.alanbaxteronline.com/2011/09/17/crowdfunding-panhandling-arts-funding.html/

This particularly stuck with me:

So I guess my opinion really is this – I see the whole new trend in crowdfunding to be an extremely exciting thing. Let the voice of the people be heard. It’s a great way to finance things which might otherwise slip under the radar and never happen. But I don’t think it’s a way for unknown names – in any field of endeavour – to suddenly circumvent that harsh crucible of slaving away at their art... (Alan Baxter)