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I guess I'm on hiatus while I try and finish up the final round of editing on the novel before publication. Maybe you've figured that out already. Even though I'm not drawing, I've been telling stories and postulating all kinds of crap here while I try and get my official writing site, These Are Rough Drafts (alternate title: These, Our Rough Drafts), built. Shirts are still selling as long as I have them, and even though there have been some extensive shipping difficulties things are indeed going out.
This hiatus, I should mention it's probably permanent. What happened? Well, I lost the impetus to draw, mostly, and I felt like maybe I'd outgrown this. I've got writing in my guts and I won't ever get rid of it, but this was just a pleasant diversion that seemed to catch people's interest. After awhile, it started to feel like it was hurting my goals. I was and am terrible about the business side of it (not to mention conflicted), the odd dualism of internet notoriety and real obscurity made me feel constantly like a phony, and everything I did started to feel like corny non-art.
I still have a great deal of respect for the medium. I still have a great deal of respect for my fans, wherever you are. I appreciate your emails even though I'm rarely able to get up the courage to answer them. Again, feeling phony. It's just I've got to do something new and honest. Hopefully some of you will want to come along when Apathy and Paying Rent comes out, which I am trying my damnedest to make into just the best novel. I am up, right now, at three in the morning, because I've been sweating one word in one sentence: Dry grass rustling, a rabbit padding along like a heartbeat, Molly’s far away thrashing, a whole mess of insect sounds--all silences are man made. It's not like I have an editor's note about that word; it's a fine motion verb as far as I can tell. I still can't sleep over it. I talk to my friends about sentences, the way their rhythym changes the meaning, the way I've got to find the truth at the end of each one. My wife is frankly sick of me saying "Hey, listen to this and tell me if it's any good." I used to think the words I wrote were just a representation of the whole of me, and that's why I feel phony on the internet. Now I know that the words are probably as whole as anybody gets.
Anyway, this is probably the last drawing, and I'd give it a C-. Thanks for never telling me to my face that I was lousy. Thanks for indulging my whim. I'll be over here with my words for now, and you can probably goad me into telling you a story in the comments section. |
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