What have I been up to?

Mostly nothing... Hooray!

What have I been up to?..... Mostly nothing!  Hooray!

I suppose this is what one does eventually. I remember the very first month I spent as a freelancer, I felt like I was retired. So it's odd.

I only like comic & friendly Halloween things… all the scary Halloween stuff has me hiding with the door locked. So here’s a scene from a book I made once. I was told that publishers don’t like Halloween books - but I persisted.

I finally got accepted for submitting my invoice to a publisher for doing a sample sketch, which was rejected (thank heavens!)  This is one of the big 5 publishers... Who seems to have adopted the 25% fee reduction as part of their business basics.

They had lost all my records from 15 years of working for them, so even to send in the invoice I had to fill out about 5 complicated forms, and resend them 3 times. Online payrolls & the internet are not a good mix... Imho.  

Here’s my books on the shelf…

I've been loving the political intrigue of the last 3 months. And WOW! Have the public ever responded to the first woman as President!  I have never, ever seen lines as long to cast ballots. I mean like 2 miles long... Amazing.  Here on the west coast, we do mail in ballots... and we’re basically taken for granted as the ‘Blue Wall’. Voting by mail is so simple, it’s only republican voter supression that forces states to wait in line for hours.

And oddly, I have been free from thinking, sketching or even wanting to sketch. Somehow, I'm quite happy to just ride my ebike to a cafeteria and have a 16 oz drip with cream.  And then glide back UPHILL with the ebike magic. I used to hate going back uphill... But now it's effortless.

And then I've been fixing things... Fixed the kitchen faucet drain, fixed my bike brakes, etc.  

I sent in some of my dummy PDFs to agents and publishers... with no response. That's the new method they seem to use... Totally vanish.

I find that publishing seems to be at a really low ebb for anything. I have at least 7 PDF dummies all set to send, but just lack the will or hope.  I need a bookmaker therapy group. I see so many people online running into dead ends with AI and trying to cope. This AI thing and photoshop are not a good mix.

I saw one artist online hoping they could just go back to Creative Suite 6.  Smart... that's what I did.

Volunteer Park Asian Art Museum - sculpture

I'm lucky I started my career when things were going good ... And it's come all the way down to what seems like the end... a world of AI.  But I think bookmakers have an advantage, since AI can't make up storybook or tell sequential stories. But we can.

So that's my little life... Watching the seasons go past. Maybe I'll be inspired to paint... Though I see it's interesting how even fine art painting artists often seem to get forced into deadlines and having to jump through dozens of hoops. 

It’s probably not good enough for my readers… my stats are plummeting… lol!
Alas, it’s only me. That’s all.