G’morning, everyone. …

G'morning, everyone. I'm feeling a bit groggy today, for no good reason. Decided to take a little time to relax this morning before I start work; I'm reading Barbara Hambly's Dragonsbane, which is very good -- more for the characterization of Jenny Waynest, her protagonist, than for anything else. She's a wonderful character, and reminds me of me more than I'm quite comfortable with. It's odd, watching her struggle with some of the same things I struggle with; I wonder what she'll end up choosing, and whether her choice will give me any insight into my own decisions. I'd like to meet Barbara Hambly at some point...

After that, a whole passel of stuff to do. It tires me just thinking about it, so I'm not going to yet. :-) Will probably check in later...was just saying hi, really.

4:20. Well, I did eventually get moving on the day. I spent a while revising my intro to Wet and sent it off -- I'm still not entirely happy with it, but hopefully it's better, and the Melcher editors may be able to help me make it spiffy. Part of the problem is that I just don't have as much to say as I did last time; the last intro, I really had a point I wanted to convey. This time, not so much.

I also spent a while writing up a fund-raising letter for SH. We're going to have a little fund drive in December and try to raise $1000. So far, the primary burden for the magazine's funding has been on a few people. Not only would we like to spread that out more, but when we apply for arts grants, it'll look a lot better if we have donations from lots of different people, no matter how small they are -- it shows a broad base of public support for the magazine, which is one of the main things arts organizations are looking for. I've never really done fund-raising, but I've received enough of these letters (especially from my high school), that I have at least a rudimentary sense of what to say. The trick is going to be writing them periodically and keeping them fresh and hopefully at least a little interesting, so people don't just delete them out of hand. E-mail is even easier to throw away than print solicitations -- although I suppose eventually, it'll be easier to donate too, since you'll just have to click on a link or some such to signal your agreement.

After that, I decided I'd done enough real work for the day. :-) (Yesterday and Monday were pretty intense.) So I picked up a book I put down a while ago, Geoff Dyer's Out of Sheer Rage, and read some more. Honestly, I find it a little dull. But I'm more than halfway through, and it'll bug me if I don't finish the thing. When I couldn't stand that anymore, I decided to work on Xmas presents. There's one I'm working on that involves lots of messing with graphics and printing them out and cutting them up and glueing (sp?) them into the little red book I made last week. So I spent a couple of hours on that; oddly satisfying. I'm working with very small images (for complicated reasons), which I'm blowing up to double size (still pretty small), which gives a fairly grainy look. I wasn't sure it was going to work, but even though a lot of resolution and detail is lost, I actually like the way it's coming out. It feels somehow appropriate to the subject matter, which involves some stuff from long ago. Anyway -- so far, so good. I glued in a few pieces and am now pressing the book and waiting 24 hrs for it to dry, so I can make sure it's working okay before I put in the rest. Then I'm going to add a few poems, and possibly a few hand-written things (though I'm a bit dubious about that, as my handwriting is not so lovely). Fun.

I also started work on another book -- this one will probably be for sale at WisCon. It's a larger one, about 6 x 4.5 in. It'll be a different verson of the children's story I wrote, The Poet's Journey. (I can't remember if I mentioned this idea to you already...bear with me, if so.) I'm going to make it using some of the same techniques I used for the glass collages, using dried flowers and leaves as I go. I don't think they'll necessarily be particularly appropriate to the story, but that's okay; it'll be an attractive little book, which is really all I'm aiming for with this one. A nice one-of-a-kind piece that I won't mind selling. :-) I'm not at all sure what's a reasonable price for something like that -- when I finish it, I'll put up pictures, and y'all can help me decide.

I had an idea for another version of it -- rather than a bound book, this would be a series of large, loose-leaf pages, each one with a page of the story and with collage elements that actually suit what's going on on that page. So for example, the first page takes place on the beach, at the girl's house. So I would incorporate sand and feathers into that page. Another page might have dried flowers -- another might have bits of ribbon, or broken mirrors, or simply layers of words... I'd create a portfolio case for the entire thing, to protect it; I don't want it to be too fragile, but I think it'll need to be handled with some care. Each page would really be a separate piece of art. It's so cool in my imagining, but I'm not at all sure I have the skill to implement what I'm thinking of doing. I'm going to try...but I'm going to practice with some other pieces first. :-) It would be lovely to have this done in time for WisCon, though...

Zak said that I might actually be able to sell little erotic books, with my poems and stories. To be honest, that hadn't occurred to me at all. :-) What do you think? Would people buy them? I'm not sure what people would want to see in such items...and I'm not sure what adds value to such collectibles. For example -- it'll be a lot neater if I print out the text and glue it down. But I wonder if people would prefer if I hand-wrote it all; would that make it of more value? Suggestions/input welcome -- I'm a bit lost on the subject.

Paul and Marcia are coming for dinner, so I should go start cooking. I have salmon marinating in teriyaki sauce; I'll be grilling that and serving it with a sweet rolled omelette and sesame seed rice timbales. A nice gewurtztraminer to accompany the meal; I'm feeling elegant today. :-) Although it's difficult to be elegant while watching Star Trek...

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