Stuff what needs doing…

I like blogging, but usually when I find myself in the mood to write I have to exercise some discipline and write strips rather than blog-posts.

This has led me to realize that there are jillions of things that need (or want, anyway) doing, and I don’t run out of time to do them — I run out of brain.

Let’s start:
1) The buffer. Script, pencil, ink, color, repeat. Right now this needs to be done faster than usual so that I can a) take a family vacation at the end of the month, and b) come back from said vacation and work on the book.
2) The Next Book: I don’t even want to think about this right now. It is an enumerated list of its own with things like “assemble all 507 days of comics one one DVD and ship them to Steve Troop,” and “write the bonus story.”
3) Blog stuff. I need to remember to remind people to buy books before it becomes everlastingly too late to ship them in time for Christmas. I should probably also remind fans to shop at Amazon via this link so that I get a cut of Amazon’s profits. But mostly I need to blog INTERESTING stuff, like mini-painting, fan art, cartooning in a building with no heat (I fixed that today) and so on. I can’t always be shilling.
4) New URL cards. Convention season begins mid-February, and I’d rather not put this off until it becomes a rush-job.
5) Convention ribbons. Again, the season begins in two months. This needs to be done soon.
6) Have some family time. Hey, this evening I cooked dinner. That counts, even though I then retreated into my office and hid, right?
7) Exercise. I’d like to lose about 10 pounds before fans start taking pictures of me again. The calisthenics work, but they only work if you actually DO them.
8) Clean my office. The acquisition of a messy, clutterriffic hobby is definitely part of the problem as opposed to part of the solution, but it’s only PART. I need to start in the corners of the room and work my way to the middle, chucking stuff in boxes and bags as I go. If there’s no place for it, then it must not be Something I Need To Have In My Office.
9) New T-shirt designs.
10) New website design (now that 80% of my income comes from book collections the current layout is suboptimal).
11) Hobby Time. I wanna paint stuff. Can I take a break now and paint stuff?

I’ll go ahead and stop at 11.

#1 ate the last two days. I colored, scripted, pencilled, and inked a week’s worth of strips in two days. Nice. But no blogging got done, because if it HAD gotten done I wouldn’t have had the scripts to pencil and ink, nor would I have gotten the coloring done.
#5 is pretty easy. I just need to look up the right printer and order the ribbons. But I’m blogging now, and by the time I finish this I probably will have forgotten about that. When I remember it again it will be when I’m checking my task list, but the odds are pretty good I’ll be back at #1 by then.
#4 and #9 require serious creative energy. #1 hoovers that right up.
#7 actually got done this morning. Yay.
#8… I get physically sleepy just contemplating this one.
#10 is tricky. I think I’ve caught myself waiting until I get rich so I can pay someone else to do it right. Ah, the productivity-sapping power of “hope.” Or was that “wishful thinking?” I’m pretty sure I’m not going to get rich until it GETS done right. Catch THIS 22, Mister Heller!
#2 is going to have to wait. There’s just no brain space right now.
#3 is what I’m currently doing. And I just got an email notification from Sandra saying “Last day to ship priority mail is the 16th, you’d better remind people.” *sigh* Time to shill (but I just posted Fan Art… I can’t shill and push that below the fold yet. It’s too cool!)
#11 is what I stopped doing in order to do this. That stupid Troll Impaler doesn’t look perfect yet. Why oh why do good people do bad things to nice minis using too much perfectly good paint?

I should add “stream of consciousness rambling” to the list. The only reason any of this makes sense is because I forced myself to <OL> the whole thing. And since I’m out of numbered items, I think I need to stop typing.

12 thoughts on “Stuff what needs doing…”

  1. #10

    When it comes to #10, people like me would help you with that for things like a sketch drawing. Or even a “thank you” mention.

    Personally, I would help for free, especially if it is mainly the HTML/CSS type stuff you are having problems with, and not the creating graphics type stuff. Because I suck at making graphics from scratch.

    Mentioning that, if you would like my help then reply to this and I will pop you an e-mail. Or e-mail me at the e-mail address associated with my Blógünder Schlock account(also cmptrwz). Or any other way you can think to contact me.

    Now I am rambling, and shall go off to find something to take my mind off of the possibility of helping you. Perhaps I should go back to looking for a job that will give me more then five guaranteed hours of work each week.

    1. Mmm.

      It’s sci-fi. I bet that a fair whack of the fans “know” HTML, and even then that a moderate proportion of those actually have clue, beyond just copying-and-pasting JavaScript examples into a mess of PHP snippets.

      Don’t necessarily expect any of them to be graphic designers, though. 😉

  2. What’s a convention ribbon? I missed this day of ConNotes…

    And why not find a Schlock-Fan who’s into be design and send a free sketch edition of the next book to them as payment?

    or maybe even a soon-to-graduate college student with the appropriate major, and tell them “You get to put ‘redisigned website for a company with international sales’ on your resume”?

    🙂

    As for #8, be carefull, or your wife/kids might come enforce a 5 minute cleaning…

  3. *smiles* think you might have time to squeeze something in for Renard’s Menagerie in the next few months. I would still like to work with you on some thing or another involving it.

  4. Very impressed with the two books. Will be ordering more copies soon, just don’t know when yet. More ram for laptop is tempting.. 🙁 I hate windows.. 🙁 Love the new book. Love the site. Would love to find out how I’d go about getting your book in some comic stores up here. 🙂

    Canadian Gordon, who lives near TORONTO…

  5. Hi Howard,

    Here’s a T-Shirt wish: Big letters on the back, “Sometimes you have fun, sometimes the fun has you.” and a Schlock Logo, maybe lower right under that. On the front, A small Schlock with his blaster over the left breast?

    Second question, is it better for you to by the books from Amazon or to buy them directly from you?

    1. Buying direct is better. We still don’t have an agreement in place with Amazon, so I don’t think you CAN order from them yet. Maybe in Februrary we’ll finally have that squared away.

      –Howard

  6. re: #7

    At one time there was a ‘promise’ of a report on the usefulness and/or effectiveness of the ‘bodyweight’ exercises.

    Has such report been published already, and I’ve missed it?

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