Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Celebrate The Small Things - May 27, 20116

 

I just noticed that this did not post on May 27 for some reason. This was supposed to be my post for Friday:

This week I'm celebrating my discovery of Tony Sandoval. I bought one of his graphic novels several years ago, but never read it. I only bought it because I liked the drawings. It's in French called Le Cadavre et Le Sofa, but the author is Mexican. I took it off my shelf to look at the illustrations but started reading it. It was so compelling that I just kept reading it until it was done. Then I couldn't stop thinking about it. I checked my local libraries for other books he has written. The only one they had was a digital version in Spanish called Epidemia de Melancolía. I'm not fluent in Spanish like I am in French, but I checked the book out anyway. I thought I would get about 70% of it, but to my surprise I could read about 90% of it. With the help of the e-dictionary, I was able to understand all of it. His writing and art are poetic and surreal, so even though I understood the words and their meaning, the underlying meaning was a little over my head in some parts. I would LOVE to write like that, but with that style comes a lot of ambiguity, vagueness, and uses metaphors which is hard for me to come up with. It does something to the brain, I think. It takes you to another place like where nostalgia resides. You're halfway in this world and halfway in another as you walk around doing your daily chores. Contemplative.


An acquaintance told me about Webtoons. It's an app and a web site where you can read free comics uploaded by regular people. This girl said that I could upload my comics onto the site and possibly make money from merchandising or ads. When I went to the site, I was surprised at how professional the art looks. I read some of the stories, too and they were good! I got really excited about this site, but at the same time worried that no one will like my comics. All of a sudden, I felt like I had no good stories to tell in comic book form. Plus, after reading Tony Sandoval's stuff, I felt like I couldn't compare. However, I see this as a positive thing because it lights a fire under me and forces me to step it up. It's funny how I went from being happy that I had great ideas last week to being insecure about having NO good ideas this week. Too bad I couldn't have the spirit of Kate Chopin or someone like that hovering over my shoulder telling me what to write. Haha! "Okay, what next, Kate?"

This week was the last week of school for my kids until August. I'm not sure if that's cause for celebration... I'm happy that I won't have to get up early to make their lunches, take them to school, deal with mean teachers, misbehaving parents, and bratty students doing bonehead things. On the other hand, they will be bugging me all day and I will have to come up with homework for them to keep their minds sharp all summer. "Mom, you HAVE to see this YouTube video! Mom, look at my upgrade on my video game! Mom, I'm hungry! Mom, can we NOT go to the gym? Mom, can we not go to the dojo? My foot hurts! My side hurts! He hit me! He won't let me have the iPad! Waaaah! Mom, Mom, Mom..." *sigh*

What are you celebrating?
Check out the blogs below for your reading pleasure and please visit our hosts' blogs:
Lexa Cain: http://lexacain.blogspot.com/
L.G. Keltner http://lgkeltner.blogspot.co.uk/
Tonja Drecker http://tonjadrecker.blogspot.com/
If you would like to join our blog hop, visit Lexa Cain's blog for info.

1.Lexa Cain2.Fiction and Film
3.Writing Off the Edge4.Kidbits
5.TheCyborgMom6.Thoughts and Ideas from Deanie Humphrys-Dunne
7.My Inner Geek8.Eclectic Alli
9.Intentional Insights with S. Kelley Harrell10.Constantine
11.My Miracle Life12.Writing, Reading, and the Pursuit of Dreams
13.My Creatively Random Life14.Shells Tales and Sails
15.Lara Lacombe16.TF Walsh
17.Caring for my Veteran18.Life, Yoga and Other Adventures
19.About myself, by myself20.Suzanne Furness
21.Elizabeth Seckman22.Avalon
23.Cherdo on the Flipside24.My Baffling Brain
25.Planet Kimberly26.Shah Wharton
27.Mere Joyce28.Victorian Scribbles
29.Tanya Miranda30.God, Entertainment, & Annoying Things
31.Ann - A Friend of Jesus 201332.Special Teaching At Pempi's Palace
33.Square Pegs34.Patricia's Place
35.Yvonne Van Dalen36.Anne Higa
37.My Antimatter Life38.Bouquet of Books
39.Lightravellerkate40.Curious As A Cathy
41.Julie Flanders42.As the Fates Would Have It
43.Project Why44.Crazy Old Lady
45.In My Own Words46.Allison Bruning

Friday, May 20, 2016

Celebrate The Small Things - May 20, 2016

 

This week I'm celebrating the extension of Free Comic Book Day at my local comic shop. Every Saturday this month they are giving away free comics plus having huge sales. We walked in last Sat. and got 6 free comics each. Wow! I was not expecting that since we got a bunch of free comics on the actual Free Comic Book Day the weekend prior. I also got 2 comics for 50% off. 
 
I read Hilda which was pretty cute. It's about a little girl who can see elves or gnomes. She rescues them from pieces of earth that their houses are resting on. The piece of earth just starts running away with them as if the clump of earth is a dog. Interesting idea. She and the people of the town have to beware of giants.

I also read Sabrina, as in Sabrina The Teenage Witch from the Archie Comics, but it's redone to be a dark, horror comic. I didn't like it very much. It was too dark for me even though I like stories with scary stuff in it. Her dad and his sisters are Satanists. Her mom tries to save her from them when Sabrina is a baby. Her father ends up taking the baby and putting the mother in an insane asylum. It's a little too real for me so I think I'll pass on reading the rest of those comics. I just heard an interview with Douglas Hagmann, author of Stained By Blood and he talked about his uncle being murdered which was related to a group of Satanists. I'm interested in reading that book, but that's a true story, so there's shock value there. I think if I read more of Sabrina, it will just be sick and twisted. It makes my stomach queasy.

My son played the violin for the first time with his class in the school concert. It was chaos and the parents were jerks as usual, but the kids sounded good! Much better than I was expecting! lol The kids behaved better than the parents did. It was like Black Friday in the auditorium. Ugh!

I also got to go to the life drawing class today. Here is one of my drawings:
 
 
 
What are you celebrating?
Check out the blogs below for your reading pleasure and please visit our hosts' blogs:
Lexa Cain: http://lexacain.blogspot.com/
L.G. Keltner http://lgkeltner.blogspot.co.uk/
Tonja Drecker http://tonjadrecker.blogspot.com/
If you would like to join our blog hop, visit Lexa Cain's blog for info.

1.Lexa Cain2.Fiction and Film
3.Writing Off the Edge4.Kidbits
5.TheCyborgMom6.Thoughts and Ideas from Deanie Humphrys-Dunne
7.My Inner Geek8.Eclectic Alli
9.Intentional Insights with S. Kelley Harrell10.Constantine
11.My Miracle Life12.Writing, Reading, and the Pursuit of Dreams
13.My Creatively Random Life14.Shells Tales and Sails
15.Lara Lacombe16.TF Walsh
17.Caring for my Veteran18.Life, Yoga and Other Adventures
19.About myself, by myself20.Suzanne Furness
21.Elizabeth Seckman22.Avalon
23.Cherdo on the Flipside24.My Baffling Brain
25.Planet Kimberly26.Shah Wharton
27.Mere Joyce28.Victorian Scribbles
29.Tanya Miranda30.God, Entertainment, & Annoying Things
31.Ann - A Friend of Jesus 201332.Special Teaching At Pempi's Palace
33.Square Pegs34.Patricia's Place
35.Yvonne Van Dalen36.Anne Higa
37.My Antimatter Life38.Bouquet of Books
39.Lightravellerkate40.Curious As A Cathy
41.Julie Flanders42.As the Fates Would Have It
43.Project Why44.Crazy Old Lady
45.In My Own Words