Grave Sight

I’m reading "Grave Sight" by Charlaine Harris. It's about a woman who can find dead bodies and tell what happened in the last minutes of life.

Good reading.

There's tension on every page. And from the get-go the tension is set up. Will the town pay her for her services or not? And more tensions and complications are added and built up.

I should be reading that instead of writing this!

...

Abstract Painting

I love creating abstracts in Corel's Paint Shop Pro X.

It's fun and energizing.

Now what do I do with them?

How do I use them in illustration work? Are they backgrounds? Are they textures for objects or clothing?

How do I add narrative elements to them and still keep the spontaneity?

...

Ghostland Observatory

We caught the last half hour of Austin City Limits the other night on PBS. "Ghostland Observatory" was on.

Wow.

So now I'm listening to a sample of their music on Rhapsody.

Wow.

Here's their web page on my space:
http://www.myspace.com/ghostlandobservatory

....

New Story Idea 1

It's funny how an idea can burn

through itself in a matter of hours

or even minutes.

.

Like a delicate wildflower

that blooms and withers

in a short period of time.

.

I fashioned a new story

one day

this week

and by day's end

I had talked myself out of it.

.

Not so much killed it

as realized that the logistics

were too complex for me.

.

At this time.

.

I want my stories to see the light of day.

I want to entertain others.

I want to collaborate.

To see my stories told with other voices.

.

Are the other voices better than mine?

Do I feel that my writing is inferior?

.

Yes and no.

.

No, because others

do like my writing style.

And I like my writing style.

.

Yes, because I am not

as prolific a writer as I want to be.

That is where I feel inferior.

.

Isn't that the rub in all art?

There is not enough time or energy

to adequately connect

the inner self with the outer world.

....

Steven Moffat - Writer

We just watched two Season Four episodes of Doctor Who that just blew me away.


Steven Moffat wrote the two-part episodes. They were awesome.


"Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead".


There were incredible moments such as the personality imprints on the voice recorders. People's thoughts were still being spoken after they were dead. And the Doctor meets a woman who knows him well and he hasn't met her.

Yet.

We also like the other episodes Steven Moffat has written:
"Blink"
"The Girl in the Fireplace"
"Time Crash"
"The Empty Child"
"The Doctor Dances"

Steven Moffat also did "Coupling" and "Jekyll" for British television.

His stories are so complex and fascinating. We usually watch them at least twice.

...

Sketchbook

I like looking at sketchbooks.

I like collecting published sketchbooks of artists. To see their thoughts on paper.

Raw. Fresh. Inspired.

I'd like to write a book called "Gesture Drawing Saved My Life."

(I like the title anyway. Gesture drawing hasn't really saved my life. Yet. There is still time.)

I like looking at sketches that artists "dump" on their blogs. I'm following some French animators. The sketches are great. And the animation is great.

To see someone's passion on paper is exciting.

Will I "dump" my artwork here in the future?

Maybe.

What is the reason to share art? What drives us to share with strangers or friends?

Scanning in my doodles is a lot of work. I'll have to plan ahead for this. (It tires me to think about it.)

But for the rest of you, keep it up. I like what I'm seeing.

...

Doctor Who

We're watching Season Four of Doctor Who.

He says a phrase I don't know.

I think it's French.

"Allon ese" or something that sounds like that.

In "Voyage of the Damned" he was happy to say "Allon ese, Alphonse" to the guy left on the control room.

I think it means, "Follow me" or "Here we go".

I'll have to listen for it again.

....

Translating Web Pages

I have found some French blogs by French artists and animators. The drawings are incredible and the sketches dynamic.

But I couldn't read them. I did find out I can translate whole pages with BabelFish on Yahoo. Some of the translations are off but it gives the general idea of the blog. And when I click on a link from the translated page, the next web page gets translated too. (As long as it's the same language.)

So that helps.

Can I reverse the process and translate my webpage to French and post it?

That would be cool.

...

Random Searches

Years ago when surfing the Web was new, I used to waste hours just randomly following links from one webpage to another. Like an explorer without a destination. Just to see what I could see.

Just to see another world outside of my town and my experience.

I was enthralled when I found a webcam of a bridge in Stockholm. I could check the weather there, day or night.

Then, I got tired of random searches. The newness was gone.

I'd reached the end of the universe. I found the last Web page beyond which there was nothing. (Not really, it just felt that way.)

Now I've begun to do random searches for blogs. I just click "Nex Blog" and see what is out there. Most of the sites are in languages I can't read. But there are some fine photogaraphers out there that bring their world close to me.

People have uploaded photos of snow already. I forget there are places that get snow this early in the season.

I found a blog from a Manga artist living in Sweden. Some of it is English, some is not.

I found a photographer in the UK who only publishes her photos and not her words.

What am I looking for? Anything. Everything.

There is a lot of energy out there. Just one idea can keep my mind going all day.

In wonder. In awe.

The world is at once bigger and smaller than I imagine.

....

Zazzle

Have you tried Zazzle.com?

It's a site like Cafe Press where you can upload your artwork and they will make products from the art.

You can make T-shirts on demand. Or buttons. Or stickers.

And if someone else likes your design, they can purchase items online.

Recently someone bought 3 buttons I created with a Dr. Who-inspired idea.

3 buttons doesn't seem like much, but the satisfaction of having someone buy your idea is priceless.

There is a link below if you care to look.

...

Blogging

I'm getting into the blogging bit. I've signed up for a few interesting blogs. Just to see how this works.

I've changed my photo. It's now a photo of one of our cats when she was a kitten.

And I can now Google and my blog shows up.

So I'm up and running.

I might even add some more photos.

...

xplay3

Had a problem and this program from MediaFour did the trick.

With the recent passing of my brother, we had his iPod with all his playlists. Since he set this up on his Mac, my PC wouldn't read it. (It was a first generation iPod with the click wheel.)

Anyway, I found XPlay3 on the Internet to try out. (Part of its technology includes MacDrive.) And it worked just like it was supposed to. I could make a back-up copy of his songs since we didn't have access to his computer.

The 20-day free trial is very generous.

...

Web surfing

Did some surfing yesterday to see what was out there about me.

Found an animated Music Video I did for a band called Kinky Slinky back in 2004. The version of the animation on their site was a little skippy. I need to see if I can give them a better version to upload.

It will make us both look better.

I did take the video on the road in 2004 to the Route 66 Film Festival in Springfield, IL. Also it screened at the deadCenter Film Festival in Oklahoma City.

...

Day Off

Day off today and I'm sort of filled up with errands to do.

I need to be writing on my screenplay.

It's raining and storming so I don't feel like being plugged in at home. I can hang out at Old Chicago and write and surf.

...

Wrinkles

Can a person die of wrinkles? I'm a little worried.

Does this worry anyone else?

...

Welcome

November 9, 2008—Electivism, my personal philosophy of integrating the disparate and desperate ideas in my life.

Finding Patterns and Making Sense of It All. (Or at least Part of It All until the Universe shifts again. Hang on, it’s going to be a teeth-grinding-bone-crunching ride.)

Duct taping the Universe. Duct-taping Reality. Tire won’t inflate. Key-in-ignition alarm won’t go off.

Transcendental Dreams and other niceties.

Adele singing on a CD player behind me. Like she’s in the room with me. Like I can’t turn around or I will know that she is not there.

So this doesn’t feel quite like a Sunday. We’re not doing the usual Sunday things.

Some video, some art, some doodles, some thoughts.

"Looking for the creative accelerant to spark a career."

Obscurism: happy to enjoy stuff others may not be familiar with.

Creative Accelerants to Spark Your Career. Maybe you can find it here. Maybe I can point you in a direction you’ve never thought of. Maybe I can point you in a direction that you’ve wanted to go but didn’t know you could. (No, not felonious or treasonous behavior.) We’re staying on the right side of good.

I told you this would be jumpy. Like a UFO making those impossible 90-degree turns. Stay with me if you want as long as you want.

Too much coffee this morning or lack of writing time this week. My brain is spilling over.

She was chronically manic. That’s close to an idea I had this morning.

My time’s about up on this battery. Nap time.

How to set up the break-out blog? The same ingredients as the break-out novel?