YES!!!! -- California Supreme Court overturns gay marriage ban.

I know there's a lot of asshattery that could still throw a wrench in the gears, but maybe, just maybe, progress is being made.

I really meant to post this at the start of the month, but have been bouncing around from one thing to another and keep forgetting to do it. There's been a lot of free-floating anxiety and paranoia around graphic design blogs and message boards relating to the so-called Orphan Works bills pending in Congress. ellenmillion has a well-researched and refreshingly non-alarmist article on the subject at emg_zine this month. (Links to the full text of the bills throughout their various incarnations is available in the article.)

This is particularly noteworthy:

The bill does not say anyone can just use your work for free by saying 'orphan work!' and then not pay you. In fact, it says they have to pay you, it only limits how much you could sue them for.

The bill does not require all artwork to be registered, by the government or otherwise, to be afforded protection by the law.

What is most worth reiterating: in no way does this bill strip an artist of their copyright, and in fact, it spells out that orphan works are explicitly protected and that using a piece as an orphan work does not mean the loss of copyright in the future. What it primarily does is protect a well-meaning user (one who thoroughly documents their attempt to find a copyright owner first and pays them fairly when they show up, as well as respects their wishes for further use), from punitive law suits that could be so devastating that the mere possibility keeps them from sharing, preserving or enjoying creative work.

The footbridge across our creek melted out of the ice today. Naturally I had to grab my camera and document this momentous occasion.

Ever since the creek started melting, a few weeks ago, it's been impossible to cross. (Well, not really impossible, but with rapidly moving water over ice of indeterminate depth, probably unwise.) I was delighted to get a chance to get reacquainted with the temporarily-inaccessible part of our property.

( Pictures and commentary )

Found on Lukadia's blog - Dave Sim fans and correspondents must now sign a form stating that he is not a misogynist in order to receive a reply to fan mail (or anything else). Notice that he intends (or at least reserves the right) to publish these names on the Internet as a list of people who agree with him.

XD

I think he's long since reached the point where he's basically preaching to a very tiny and crazy choir, and otherwise making himself look like a total loon.

Dawwwwwww ... I have completely forgotten where I ran across this link, but it made my heart go all melty -- two retired ladies, age 83 and 79, tie the knot at last in a nursing home in B.C.

(*Should* it be news? Not really, no, but it's awfully sweet anyway. Behold the scourge that our bold U.S. politicians have decided to protect us from ... old people in love! And while you're at it, just look at the way civilization has completely crumbled in Massachusetts -- oh wait, NO IT HASN'T.)

Scientists discover the world's oldest tree in Sweden. I had to giggle at that because it looks so much like the poor scrawny little trees that we have around here. I mean that with all possible affection, but, well ...

( Exhibit A )

Plus another picture, since I haven't really been posting pictures lately. Is editing the rough draft of a story any less painful with colorful markers?

( Uh, not really, but it's more fun )

On Friday I dropped by old college buddy Jamie Smith's signing for his latest books at Gulliver's (local indie book store). It was nice to see Jamie again -- I've been so out of touch with, well, everybody, and I've been feeling it lately for some reason.

I just can't thank Jane enough for pointing me to this recipe for No-Knead Bread. Now, I'm thoroughly cooking-impaired, and I generally make bread that'll break your toes if you are unlucky enough to drop a loaf on your foot. But this came out perfect -- light, crispy, tasty, and incredibly easy. You need to start the night before in order to have bread the next day, but as long as you're not in a "must have bread NOW!" situation, it's fantastic.

It's been snowing intermittently since Thursday, so I'll console myself with bread. Sigh.

Can it be ... spring? The snow is vanishing fast (although it's supposed to snow again this weekend. NOOOOOOOOOO). There's still up to 1-2 feet of snow in sheltered places, but the driveway is mostly bare, and the creek is flowing on top of the ice. I keep taking pictures and then forgetting to post them, but I'm sure you all know what melting snow looks like.

Today's project ... DONE! I finished filling in the missing scenes in my novella. I have a habit of skipping forward when I write -- if I get stuck on a scene, I'll jump over to the next scene and leave the notation tba (to be added) plus a few words about what's supposed to go there. So, the rough draft on the novella is finished; now for a heavy editing sweep. It's currently clocking in at about 27,000 words, and I'd like to *try* to get down to something near my original target of 20,000 words for better saleability, though I'm not sure if that's possible even if I streamline and combine some of the wordier scenes. Still ... after a pass or three of the magic editing wand, it'll be ready to find a beta reader. I am pleased!

And I had a major breakthrough on the next Kismet book, Sun-Cutter; I was massively stuck on one particular character, but I think I've finally got them nailed down. I've also capitulated to the fact that I'm just *not* an outline writer, and in graphic novels, writing the script before I start drawing the art is something I just can't seem to do. I've been beating my head against the script for months, but working on character concept sketches lately has reminded me that I'm happiest when I just jump right in and draw without a safety net. The trouble is, as I learned on Hunter's Moon, drawing without a script makes editing a nightmare and major revisions are nearly impossible, since the art's already *done*. I know that HM would be a better, stronger novel if I'd been able to revise the way you can a print novel, but short of redrawing a bunch of pages, the most I could do was minor art and text revisions.

Perhaps I'll draw the first few pages and see how it goes. I'm currently projecting Jan. 2009 as a launch date for the Sun-Cutter webcomic, and my target length is about 150-200 pages. (Considering the way both HM and RC ballooned on me, I should probably prepare myself for something longer, though. But I think I have the plot more tightly in control this time!)

We had quite a little blizzard on Sunday. I hiked down the driveway with the dogs to get the mail, taking pictures along the way.

( 7 pictures under the cut )

A nifty article I came across today on Caring For Your Introvert neatly expresses a concept that I've always had trouble getting across to people -- that social interaction drains me. I sometimes have a hard time figuring out how to explain, without sounding like a total weenie, that it's not that I don't enjoy spending time with my friends; it's just that I need a lot of charging/recharging in order to prepare for or recover from an evening of social interaction, or even a phone conversation. It's fun, but it's also a bit like running a marathon uphill, especially in a social setting with a lot of people. I've learned by experience that about 2-3 hours of personal interaction (give or take a bit) or somewhere between a half-hour to an hour on the phone is about as long as I can happily enjoy before I reach the point where weariness starts to overwhelm the fun I'm having. So ... if I leave a party early, or if I politely start trying to end a conversation on the phone after an hour or so, it's not because I don't like you, it's just because I'm getting very tired and I need to stop for a rest.

vogelein, a.k.a. Jane Irwin, has a new comic, and it's lovely to behold! I've been fortunate enough to be privy to the early stages of the project, and now it's live: Clockwork Game: The Illustrious Career of a Chess-Playing Automaton. It's based on the true story of a clockwork chess-playing machine that was built in the late 18th century. 17th/18th century Europe really isn't very interesting to me, let alone a story about chess -- so take my recommendation with that in mind: I loved the script when I first read it, could not put it down, and couldn't wait to see it in graphic form. Now Jane's brought it to life with luscious, detailed black-and-white art in a bold style that's slightly reminiscent of woodcuts. It's a very different look from Vogelein, and the story itself is meticulously researched (holy moley, when Jane does research, she doesn't mess around; she puts my paltry efforts to shame) and gorgeously rendered. Go check it out!

I am awash in LJ's and I don't know what to do with them all.

The following is basically self-indulgent ramblings because I'm trying to figure out how to break up my creative stuff between my different journals, and I'm writing out the whole situation to help me figure out what to do. Hence, you're warned that the organization and lucidity of this post is not all it might be, since it's only meant to make sense to me. On the other hand, if you want to weigh in on my dilemma, you're more than welcome! Actually, if you're a creative person, I'd love to hear about your own personal strategy for posting content -- do you have only one blog where you do all your personal journaling as well as posting pieces of art and writing? Do you have a community? A message board?

( LJs and comms and updates, oh my )

Fairbanks from the air in 1967. All those houses surrounded by water ...! The actual river channel can be seen vaguely in the background, behind the tall buildings downtown. (Another website tells me that the flooded area was about five miles wide, and encompassed very nearly the whole town.)

Grocery shopping in canoes. At least they're taking it fairly well.

Article on the Chena Flood Project that (hopefully) prevents it from happening again.

There's also a somewhat goofily touristy slideshow on the Army Corps of Engineers website explaining the flood project and the resulting lake and park. "Genuine imported sand" on the beach at the lake ... hee!

This picture totally cracks me up. It's basically the entire population of Fairbanks, circa 1907, standing on the banks of the river watching the ice go out. Yes: in 1907, ice floes were a popular spectator sport! XD

... I guess the paint drying championships must have been next week.

(Possibly-interesting note for non-Fairbanksans: The building at top left, on the far bank of the river, that says "Machinery" and "Samson" is Samson's Hardware, which is still there and still in business. About a block behind it, in the away-from-river direction, is where the present-day News-Miner building is located, where I work.)

Comic artist crowhen, aka Rachel Nabors, needs expensive dental surgery (to the tune of $15-20,000). A self-employed artist, she doesn't have insurance. If you can, please consider dropping her a few bucks -- donation button and description of her problem is at the link above.

The livejournal formerly known as "glacierdust" is now laylalawlor. The old name will still redirect to the new one; the "friends" and "friend of" lists will transfer automatically, so no one has to do anything.

The reason for the name change is that, as I juggle my different LJs, I don't want to feel as if I'm being deceptive about who I am. When I first got online back in '95, I used my real name everywhere. I now have several online pseudonyms, and juggling them in online discussions (woops, commented on that as icefallstudio when I thought I was logged in as glacierdust!) feels like a little bit of a sham to me. Having *one* online identity and using it everywhere, even if it's not my real name, isn't a lie -- most of the people I know who have a consistent online identity treat it as one does their real identity, even if they're interacting online under the name Fanboy999. But I feel weird if people who know me by one name then encounter me by another and might not realize it's me.

Anyway, most people who read my "glacierdust" journal know the real name and identity of the person behind it anyway, so I haven't got a problem with being a little more up-front with who I am. At least this way, if you stumble across me under another name and then come over here, you'll know who I am. (Also, it's honestly easier for ME to remember all my logins if there are only a handful of them.)

This journal will probably continue to be fairly laid-back and sparsely updated for the foreseeable future (though I have no plans to abandon it anytime soon). You can certainly unfriend me if a couple posts a month on Alaska, writing and dogs are not your cup of tea -- I don't mind at all!

And I *am* working on a new Kismet script -- nI think I've got the final plotline for the book hammered out (it's changed A LOT from the original -- in fact, people who know something about the original Dusty and Elaine storyline probably won't even recognize them anymore) and I plan to start posting sketches at icefallpress once I get my butt in gear on character design.

EDIT: Oh, how interesting -- if I format "glacierdust" using the "lj user" tag, it automatically displays as "laylalawlor" whether I want it to or not.

Comics' most famous mysogynist, Dave Sim, is alive and well on the Sequential Tart message boards.

I've generally been staying out of it, watching with a sort of train-wreck fascination just in case I need to step in as moderator (so far, senior mod sharkipede has been doing just fine), but I had to pull out my pokey-stick a little bit today. I can't help it! *Pokes some more.*

In all honesty, it's been really *nice* to see an active discussion on the boards again. I was looking up some old threads the other day for a particular discussion, and I miss the days back in 02/03, when we could spawn 2 and 3 pages of comments in just a day or two. I made a lot of friends through the Tart boards, and I miss those good old days.

In a way it's kind of cool to know that we can still get an active discussion going, as opposed to a few old faithfuls popping in to chat every now and then. I wonder what it would take to really get the boards cranking along again. Probably more effort than I'm willing to put in, really.

In 2008, I hereby pledge to do the following:

- Publish the damn Hunter's Moon book already
- 12in2008 has a pretty cool idea going -- while it's primarily fandom-based, it doesn't have to be, and the idea is that you sign up to finish 12 stories of a certain length in 2000. I'm going for 5,000+ words, because that's enough to tell a decent story, and I have enough stories just sitting around partly-done on my hard drive that I could do it several times over just from things I've already started writing. So: In 2008, I will finish 12 stories (at least) of 5,000 words (at least). And one of these will be a novel.
- Post regular updates at my kinda-new fiction blog, icefallstudio.
- Post semi-regular updates at my artblog, icefallpress.
- I will submit something to a magazine market by year end. Hopefully more than one somethings, but I gotta start getting work out there.
- I will finish the script for the new Kismet GN (Sun-Cutter) and start working on the pages (OR) I will resume work on Midnight Sun (OR) I will finish a couple of the short Kismet comics. In any case, I will have a webcomic updating by year end.

And finally and most importantly ...

- Each day, I will write at least 1000 words of fiction, or do an equivalent amount of art. Oh, I can take the occasional day off, but basically, this is my job now, and I want to make sure that I view it as such.

Looking forward to '08 ...

Last year I wrote:

- Go part time at work

Done! (Although it's kind of sad that the only thing on my list I actually managed to accomplish is the one that results in me making significantly less money.)

- **Finish writing a novel** [starred because this is my Big Thing for '07]*
*I'll settle for just making significant progress on the novel, if it comes to that

Well, if I take the second part of that as my goal, I actually did accomplish it. I just didn't make the first part -- the whole finishing part. I did write a hella lotta words in 2007 -- they're just on a lot of different projects.

- Publish a Freebird book and a Hunter's Moon book

Nope. (Although I'm a lot farther along on the Hunter's Moon book than I was -- basically, EVERYTHING is done except for the actual publishing part.) Since I discontinued the Freebird webcomic, I'm actually making reverse progress on that one.

- Start working on Midnight Sun again

Nada! Haven't even really looked at it. But it's still on the plate.

- Start working on a new Kismet graphic novel

El zippo! (I did get it partly scripted and do a bunch of sketches, however.)

- Start filling in Kismet backstory in the form of short comics

Again -- scripting and sketches, but nothing finished.

- Put a little something in my art/writing workblog every week of the year

Nope. In fact, the original artblog icefallpress has been tragically all but abandoned as I've been doing more writing than drawing.

In fact, it's depressingly difficult to figure out what I did accomplish in '07, creatively. I made an OK amount of money at freelancing, at least by my standards, although thank heaven I don't have to support myself at it, because I'd be living in a cardboard box. But as far as just making spending money and paying for art supplies, I did OK. And I wrote an awful lot, but it's so incredibly scattered -- I have several different novels and several graphic novel scripts in various stages of completion, but I just can't seem to sit down and finish something.

That's my big goal for 2008. Back shortly with a list of 2008 objectives.