My first day in my new office was spent tidying it up. It’s a good little space in what used to be referred to as “the sewing room” or “the guest room.” I’ve got a north-east window level with the lawn (I’m half-way underground), and lots of space compared to my office at Novell.

And there’s a drawing board in it.

I went out to lunch with Richard Bliss, and we talked about all kinds of stuff. There was some Novell gossip (we’re both former Novell employees, and Richard is the VP of marketing for one of Novell’s most successful partners, GWAVA), some discussion of cartooning, but mostly just a good time between a couple of old friends.

Richard brought me a video montage of photos he has of me at various Novell events, and at Comic-Con 2003. It was really, REALLY neat, and it nicely illustrated my transition from a product manager to a cartoonist.

I did some scripting first thing in the morning. Schlocktoberfest is going to be dark, like I’ve said before. I just hope nobody thinks it’s dark because I left my day-job. I’ve been planning this story for YEARS now, and it’s just COINCIDENCE that it airs the month after I leave my 11-year career in I.T.

And now, my son wants me to play a game with him.

–Howard

Open Letter, September 20th, 2004

As promised in my last Open Letter, there’s been news in the queue that is “slightly related,” while still being of sufficient import to merit the application of some suspense.

That news has now broken. September 20th was my last day as a Novell employee. I resigned voluntarily, and am now officially “unemployed” for the first time in 11 years.

Most folks, upon reading this, will immediately let slip the hamsters of speculation, spinning those wheels with rattling incessancy. Rest assured, for every thought you readers may have on this matter, I’ve got at least half a dozen things I want to say, and ALL of them would segue appropriately from the statement in the above paragraph. The hardest part about all of this is choosing which thought to follow up first. What to say, what to say?

Let me start this way: there are numerous reasons why one MIGHT choose to leave a lucrative position as a visionary with a leading technology company, and most of them have little or nothing to do with what really happened in my case. What it really boiled down to was the simple fact that God told me it was time to quit.

God did not say why. He also did not offer me any specific bits of encouragement, like saying “Schlock Mercenary will be netting you a high five-figure income by the end of 2005″ (which revelation I would have greeted with all kinds of jubilant praise, yessirree, halle-LOO-ya.) No, for all I know the spiritual experience I’ve had in conjunction with this decision is leading me on a path that involves poverty, desperation, abject humility, and then a return to Novell as someone hungry enough to really get down to business.

The truly spiritual person doesn’t care about the destination in cases like this. For saints, it’s enough to know that the decision is the right one, and that God’s ways are not necessarily understandable to mortals.

I’m no saint. I’m scared spitless. But I’ve had this kind of spiritual prompting in my life on three other occasions, and I know that for all my fears, things will work out okay. I just don’t have a specific value for “okay” yet.

Now, before you start throwing money at me with the Paypal button, I need to say a couple of things.

1. My family and I can get by through Christmas with no income other than what we know will be in my final check. We’ve always lived well within our means.
2. If I get hungry enough in the bleak midwinter, I know I can find Novell-related work with my former customers, GroupWise partners, or even with Novell.

These two points are amazingly liberating. In the face of this new-found freedom, I’m going to spend the next 90 days pretending to be a full-time cartoonist. It may be little more than a sabbatical, or perhaps a pilgrimage-at-the-drawing-table. Then again, it may be a pretense that dictates the shape of reality. I’m not unemployed. I’m SELF-employed. Pretend that with me, please.

For those of you uncomfortable with the thought that God might be talking to me, feel free to pretend that He is just another one of the Voices In My Head. I mean, as long as we’re pretending stuff I might as well enable you in some comfortable fictions, right?

Watch this space. The game-of-pretend has just begun, and I think you’ll like the way it plays out.

I’m searching through my old text-file backstory notes to make sure I get them imported into the Ovalkwiki (a WIKI I’m using for my backstory and plotting work now), and I find THIS gem in a file for “Ideas for Open Letters”:

And now, the top ten words you can try to say with your butt.

1. Pffft
2. Rapt
3. P’shaw
4. Force
5. Sisyphus
6. Perhaps
7. Thrombosis
8. FireWire
9. Pebble
10. Fart

I’m pretty sure that grew out of an IRC chat a couple of years ago. Man, I kill me.