on

I’m not dead yet!

I’ve started watching The Mandalorean on Disney+, which my wife somehow managed to get for free through her Verizon account. Very inspiring stuff. The show features a protagonist with a mask on, which I didn’t think would be engaging but it works so well. It’s recharged my writing batteries! I know I can crank out stories again.

My friend, Tom, has also inspired me. He’s working on a webcomic featuring his original characters, Belle and B.B. We’d talked about it over the second half of 2019, but it’s good to see he’s taking the idea further. I’ll let you guys know when the ball gets rolling there.

80739186_3085217518173799_8552867225777510760_n

Lastly, I finally read the second book in Scalzi’s Interdependency series, The Consuming Fire. He seems such a loose, carefree writer, as if effort is a foreign concept. He’s prolific, so I assume years of practice are the cause of his success. Such a cool guy.

I’m not one for New Years resolutions. That said, I want to write, and I want to enjoy it. I think I’ve settled on a story that I can follow through for a bit (no, it’s not Felonious). Wealth, although a nice idea, is secondary to the foundational work I’ll be laying down with any sustained writing effort. Wish me luck.

on

As I’ve done for the past two years, I’m participating in Inktober. My friend Tom and I split the days by evens and odds, since neither of us has the time to do a drawing every day. This year, as the title states, I’m doing evens.

As far as theme, I’m doing Fate again. Artoria Pendragon, and the Camelot arc of Fate: Grand Order, have inspired a ‘King Artober’ theme this year. I’m sticking to digital ballpoint in Sketchbook Pro. Below are the first six sketches.

Mindless1
Mindless
freeze fix
Freeze
frail3
Frail
pattern1
Pattern
dragon2
Dragon
husky1
Husky

 

on
Follow me on Twitter @oldmannelson

Last weekend I moved to another apartment. While my old neighborhood wasn’t terrible, there were things about my former apartment my wife and I had grown tired of over the past two years. We were on the third floor with no elevator, and the rooms were ungodly hot during the summer months. The laundry machine downstairs never seemed to work. Snow plows would trap our car in during winter, and the groundskeepers rarely shoveled. The garbage truck would wake me up at 6AM. We had a package stolen. These are all “first-world problems,” of course, but now that I’m in much better financial straits, we decided to move.

IMG_7686-min

Our new community is more beautiful than any place I’ve ever lived. We’re just outside the city of Albany, but it may as well be in another country. The buildings have red brick facades and a weathered European flair. Behind the apartments is a massive courtyard, surrounded by trees and dotted with street lamps that follow a path around the complex. Wooden benches and a swing set can be found in the grass. If one stands at the hill where the complex starts, they can look across the lawn and down into verdant hills.

IMG_7676-min

IMG_8053-minIMG_8051-minIMG_8047-minIMG_8040-minIMG_7688-minIMG_7687-minIMG_7684-minIMG_7680-min

This all still feels like a dream. I’ve never lived anywhere so nice–my college campuses came close. I’m hoping to take a long, slow walk around the grounds soon, maybe sit on a bench and do some drawing or watercolors. Do I still remember how to do art?

on

Although the Myers-Briggs assessment has fallen out of favor for the Big 5, I’ve derived a lot of personal insight from knowing I’m an INTJ. In recent days I’ve found myself revisiting the nuances of my type in order to understand how I cope with stress. Continue reading “Energy”

on

My wife and I went down to NY this weekend to celebrate my 28th birthday with friends. I wanted to eat ramen as that’s become a favorite of mine, but soon after we were seated at Yama Ramen, the power went out. We waited for Tom, who accidentally went to another eatery, to meet us there. When we learned that much of midtown Manhattan had also blacked out, we went for the restaurant Tom had just left in the hopes of dining on ramen there. We arrived at Ippudo and made a reservation–and then the power went out! Upon realizing this blackout would only get bigger we chose to head for the subway tunnels, until Tom realized that we may get stuck underground if the railcars stopped running. My wife ordered a cab at this point, and the five of us chipped in for a ride back to Queens. We arrived at a restaurant my friend Noelle recommended. This place did not have ramen, so I ordered katsu instead. One pork dish later, we headed for my friend Leslie’s house and proceeded to drink until yelling and playing video games and swearing ourselves to sleep.

Happy birthday to me 🙂

on

I went out to Long Island last weekend with my friend, Tom. We spent a couple nights in a tick-riddled home in the middle of Southold, where a bulldog next door kept rushing at us with friendly intent. The weather was sunny during the day, and mostly clear at night. We traveled to the local observatory, and I got to see Jupiter through a telescope for the first time. The purpose of our trip was a creative retreat, a respite from the business of lives that otherwise do not pause without intervention. Continue reading “Mid Year Jolt”