I'm not dead ...

Well, this has been a lively little blog of late, hasn’t it?

I’m very sorry, everyone. It’s been a thoroughly craptastic couple of weeks—I’ve had my entire work schedule turned upside down, and I’ve had to reset my circadian rhythm as a result, and it’s not exactly cooperating. I’m very much a night owl by nature, and half the time I’m getting up so early I might as well not go to bed at all.

So to make it up to you, I thought I’d share this preliminary shot of some T-shirt art I’m doing for Comic-Con this year. That’s right, I’m doing a sequel to last year’s Rae shirt, this time with Trevor. I tried to give the figure a little sense of motion this time, an impression that he was plunging out of the darkness while Rae seemed to sidle back into it. I even managed to include the sling he used both in his sidekick days and against Cobalt in Volume 1. And yes, his right eye is blank by design—I’m trying to do something where the lens is at the wrong angle to show the eye behind it, so that only his left eye is visible. I thought it would mirror Rae’s single visible eye better, and also hint at Trevor’s rather shadowy nature. You never can see everything he’s up to, or everything he’s thinking, can you?

I haven’t decided yet what quote to slap on the design—although at least one person has suggested “Always run toward the screaming”—but I think it’s a good counterpart to the Rae image. What do you all say to his-and-hers bookmarks?

Colors soon … and feel free to suggest quotes in the comments!

Mulligan schmulligan

It's like this, guys.

I had to stay up until the crack of why-am-I-awake to finish something for work, and I know I have to get up bright and early this morning to do something else for work. Don't get me wrong, I like being employed--but you're not going to get a lot of literary brilliance out of me today beyond "fire bad, tree pretty," to steal a phrase.

So here's a picture instead. It's an illustration from "The Missing," the short story (and postscript) that you can read if you buy Volume 1 of Masks in paperback (and ebook, when it's out--soon!) And you even get to see Rae's snazzy new haircut, which you will find out all about when you read Chapter 32.

More goodies soon, I promise!

Time is stolen

One of my favorite authors, Michael A. Stackpole, has said he has a Post-It note stuck to his bathroom mirror, where he must look at it every morning. It says, “Time is stolen.”

It’s true.

You want to write? Steal time for it. The time you spend writing is time you should spend doing the laundry, going to work, or socializing. Or sleeping. I find I need stretches of at least an hour without interruptions, so I do a lot of my writing in coffee shops with my phone turned off, or late at night when the rest of the house is sleeping. That’s time I could spend working, or looking for more work, or talking on the phone, or (maybe) sleeping more than five hours a night. It helps that I hate talking on the phone, but the rest of it I do miss.

Nevertheless, I steal the time. And I’m not especially sorry about it, no matter what I tell my friends when I make sad faces and explain that I just can’t make it to the party.

So this week I’m stealing time from this blog to work on The Novel. You’ll all thank me later.

Really.

Okay, fine, here’s a picture of two Pocket Coyotes to tide you over until I surface again:

Bye now!

Mulligan!

I am completely dead exhausted from Free Comic Book Day and all the rannygazoo that went with it, not to mention falling behind on my writing deadlines. So I'm posting a silly picture of the Pocket Coyote trying to help me write faster, and calling a mulligan this Monday.

But don't feel too badly. You can still read all about what I'm doing with The Serial and check out the free short story I posted for Free Comic Book Day. 

I will return soon with more silliness, never fear.