9-AM, and if I lie down I won't wake up for twelve more hours because I haven't slept since the day before last and this insomnia is starting to get to me. The last burst of adrenaline is the only thing keeping me awake, that and the thought that if I stop moving, I won't be able to pick up where I left off.

We have mice again. Cute, fuzzy little creatures, skittering balls of fur that cross the kitchen floor when they think no-one's looking, unafraid as they leave little dots of refuse on the counter by our kitchen sink, prowling the floor for crumbs and anything edible that isn't encased in plastic. Not that plastic is a big issue, they can chew through that too if they work at it long enough.

I'm beginning to hate mice.

I sit here drawing birds and teaching myself how to paint with pixels, colors flashing on the screen degenerating to nothing but ones and zeros. My work looks like I drew it left-handed until I pick up a pencil and I'm free again, sketching sparrows and crows with the ease of comfort to steady my hand. I think of home, and the leaves turning, much like the leaves of the maple tree outside our apartment, but not like this one because our tree drops dead, blackened leaves that crinkle beneath my feet while those that cling to its branches still shine a pale green glow down upon the concrete like stained glass in the sunlight. There is no red or orange, no vibrant fire. Only coolness, leading to winter.

This image is of the full front-and-back cover of my latest completed coptic-bound book. It will be for sale on my etsy within the week.

I apologize for the poor quality of this camera, but as demonstrated in the photo above, this is how the book turned out. It is coptic-bound, and when folded fully flat, as you can see, it forms a complete painting.

Lately my artwork has taken a very illustrative turn, and I decided to combine my love of books with my love of art. Recently, I began to bind books and hand-paint their covers. Typically I make coptic-bound, so that when you fold the cover flat the front and back match up in the manner illustrated in the unfinished above, to create a full work of art that, even when cut in half, is still interesting to look at.

These books will be for sale on my etsy account upon completion.

I have also taken up bird-painting, something I didn't realize I was good at until I gave it a shot, and I have painted a few separate covers in this manner.

How to reinvent yourself in a year.

No sleep last night.

The sun is mocking me through the curtains in the bedroom. I feel like I haven't walked in days as my knees wobble and sway under my weight, as I stumble to the kitchen and put the coffee on.

I hold a quiet balance of animosity and appreciation for mornings. There's always a lack of balance, though, in how I sleep; always too much or too little, never just enough. Never that perfect amount of wakefulness that has you raring to start a new day. I drag my feet from one hour to the next, assigning little tasks. 

Get up, and go make coffee: success.

Now go water your plants so they don't die. You know you have a tendency to kill with neglect. 

Now pick up the scattered papers from last night's craft binge and check that the glue has dried overnight. 

Now add that lone book back to the stack that leans precariously from your overcrowded shelves. 

Now check the fridge, and see if anything's past its expiration date. 

Now dishes. 

Now food. 

Now sit and mull over your life while you poke at a blueberry muffin, and wonder when it became acceptable to have something that's so much like cake for breakfast. 

I hate monotony, even more so as it seems to rule my life of late. Everything is done by rote, each little task falls into a dull gray pallor that settles over every action, makes it less real and makes time pass far quicker than it should. 

Yesterday it was April. I'd only just moved to the big city, equally ecstatic and apprehensive. I'd always been told that nobody 'makes it' as an artist. I'd also been told that nobody 'makes it' as a writer, either. You'd think me either stupid or determined, or maybe a decent mixture of both, to get a dual degree in creative writing and studio art. I knew the odds. I knew that if I wanted to make something of myself I'd have to start from the ground up and work from there, but somewhere along the line my motivation fell off a cliff and I was left hanging from an outstretched root, a few feet below the edge. Still, I made it to the city, and my portfolio grows with each passing day. That's something, at least.

There have been far worse points in my life, but right now I feel more stressed out than during finals week in college. I'm living in a decent apartment with the love of my life, working on art projects and writing the novel I've been writing since I was in elementary school doodling sloppy characters next to hastily-scribbled words in a notebook I'd torn the cover off of to show the 'art' underneath. 

Today, however, I am sitting at an old table, staring out the kitchen window rather than looking at the blank, bright new page, untouched, that beams back at me from my computer screen. It's a hallmark, the fiftieth page, draft two, and I've been working to get to this point for a long time. Far longer than it took for me to reach 50,000 words for draft 1. Yes, it took forever and a day because my idea shifted completely, but I've reached this point once more, and now I'm faced with the insurmountable obstacle that all writers come to heads with at some point in their work. 

I have no idea how to start the next sentence. No idea what to write next. 

Oh yes, of course I know what's coming further down the line, but I've found a lull in the story, one of those moments where it simply isn't interesting, and it leaves me feeling like I want to tear my hair out but too resigned to it to bother, because I feel like there should never be a dull moment in writing. If it's dull, no-one will want to read it, and that frustrates me even more than the fact that I can't form words to this story. I've known it was coming, after so many months of continuously writing each time I sat myself before the computer and said "okay, it's time to put this down on paper". The words that were once gushing from beneath my fingertips have run dry, and I find myself at a complete loss. 

A clean slate lies before me, waiting to be filled, and I find that I just don't want to write right now. There are so many other things to worry about, when you're unsure if you can make rent four months from now. There are more pressing things to concern yourself over, when suddenly more people are asking for commissions, people you've never met before who have just seen your work and say 'hey I like that, could you make something for me', because that's never happened, that never happens to you, getting that validation from people outside of your social circle, your family, your friends, and you just aren't sure where to begin. 

 I suppose I'm doing what I always do when I reach a dead end; channeling my words into another outlet, a different one that's been untouched for a time as my focus was caught by another sparkling little idea just waiting to be expanded, and I am faced with a simple question. 

What do I want? Where do I want to go next?

It's something I'd normally answer with a very simple, direct response, but now I want so many things; I want to be a writer, I want to be an illustrator, I want that vibrancy that I used to possess back in my life. I want to make rent a few months from now, without having to worry about how I'm going to afford to do laundry because it's six dollars to do laundry in the city and that's ridiculous compared to where I grew up, but things are different here and it's only really hitting me now, when I realize that I need to change to keep up with the change in location. 

So that's what it boils down to. I want a change. I want to shed my old skin and find a comfortable niche in this city that I can burrow into and be content with, because I don't think I've ever really been content at any point in my life. It's all I've ever really striven for; love, home, happiness. They come with other little tag-lines, like 'that love has to be unconditional', or 'that home has to be of your own making and has to fit you like you belong there', and 'that happiness has to be something that doesn't disappear at the drop of a pin', but these are things I have to work for, things that will take time and effort and great motivation, which is something that I need to muster up because sometimes I feel like nothing motivates me anymore, and that needs to change immediately. 

Today is as good as any day to start, because I'm waking up to a new morning and there is a whole day stretched out before me that I could do anything with. I could go outside, walk around and apply for jobs with more vigor and a cheery smile (and in person rather than online), talk to people I come across who look like they've got stories to tell as long as one provides an open ear, and find that inspiration to become what I wish to craft myself into, because it's only going to happen if I actively pursue this route. All I can say, as I raise my coffee cup to toast the sunrise glaring at me through the kitchen window, is 'here's to a new year, and new life', and stick with it. 

Draft 2

It's funny, how a single new idea can upset months of work. Despite my earlier trepidation, I find that I am eager to begin with the prospect of this story blossoming beneath my hands in an entirely new direction, one that could take it far further and with greater depth than Draft 1.

I was once told that the best way to begin a story is by stating a concise, well-compacted fact that will, with its presentation, snag the reader and encourage them to read onward. I have, in the past, not stayed true to this, but the concept behind a single fact being stated that requires further explanation, can shock the reader with a jarring phrase, or flow delicately into the next paragraph. I have always had a taste for flowery description and prose, but there's something enticing about disrupting a pleasant scene and throwing the reader into complete chaos as the characters within one's stories are presented with the problem at hand.

For the past four days I have been debating upon how to begin Draft 2. Again, the old lesson returned and I decided that it should begin simply, with something easy for the reader to infuse, process, and continue to explore as it grows. In this case I decided to begin with a cheerful memory of the main character's childhood, a lighthearted foray into better times, before throwing them into the chaos of the current situation with which the book begins. I am not entirely sure as to how it will pan out, but I have a feeling that whatever the result, it will not be what I expected.

I always end up running hundreds of scenarios through my head before I sit down to the actual writing; I decide how to begin, and then immediately the story takes a turn in a direction I didn't even remotely consider. I suppose that's one of the most fascinating things about writing; sometimes it seems as if a story develops and grows of its own volition as much as the writer's, living, exhaling words and scenes and plot twists. There is nothing more satisfying than watching your story unfold before your very eyes; each new page is like a new breath of air, like you didn't realize you'd never breathed before, never opened yourself to the world around you.

Draft 2 has begun, and I'm positively ecstatic because it looks to be twice as good as the last, and twice as complex. I think I need challenges in my life; they provide compulsion, drive, dedication; all things that I would be floundering without. This story is indeed one of my greatest challenges, and my fingers shudder with anticipation above the keyboard even now, ready to begin the challenge anew.

So I went back on my original declaration that I wasn't going to start editing until I had finished the first draft. As I was driving down the highway for many long hours, as is often the case, I found myself imagining two children running through a field, spurred on by the sounds of war, and disappearing into the trees, taking flight as far as their feet could carry, and it occurred to me that my dissatisfaction with the beginning of my novel was easily remedied by this situation, but not easily integrated. As such, I am in the process of reorganizing the sequence of events and altering it to accept this beginning.

Funny, that such a restart coincides with the new year.

At this point, the story has a long way to go. I’ve barely even scraped the surface of this world and its people even sixty-four pages in. I’ll admit, such an amount of writing in such a short time as one month is an accomplishment, but there’s no point to patting myself on the back until it’s complete. 

As a result I need to set goals as to how I’m to go about this story; earmark different points at which I can step back and take a look at what I’ve written so far, to ensure continuity within my work even with little editing.

On the subject of editing, I don’t intend to edit my work until I’ve completed the first draft, at the very least. Not until I am able to hold a bundle of pages within two hands and call it a story will I be done with the draft, and it will go through at least five revisions before I think about sending it to a publisher.

In the meantime, I have gathered a couple of links to useful sites regarding the publishing of work, either by self-publishing or how to go about sending work to a publishing company, and have listed them below for the usage of anyone who bothers to stumble across this bit of writing. I will continue to add to this post as I find links, and at some point go back in and evaluate their usefulness for anyone interested in writing/publishing.

http://www.blurb.com/?SSAID=314743

http://cbiclubhouse.com/

http://www.agentquery.com/

http://www.smashwords.com/