… you can now place regular orders here. We’ve ironed most of the kinks out of this mailing thing, so the (few, but still annoying) cases of bent books should be a thing of the past.

Don’t keep Sandra TOO busy with mailings, or she’ll neglect to nag me to get to work on Book II.

–Howard

I don’t say enough about how wonderful Sandra is. It’s not just that she’s smart, funny, beautiful, and the mother of my children… she’s also the best mother I have ever met — better than her own, and way better than mine.

Recently she’s been posting about kid-management stuff (sandratayler), and I have been brought again to realize that she is brilliantly adept when it comes to discerning what our children need, what they mean when they talk/sulk/scream/mumble, and how to balance their needs against her own.

I love you, Sandra. And hey, look! It’s not even our anniversary, or your birthday, or Mothers’ day, or anything like that. It’s just today, one more day in a happy chain of thousands. Thank you for all of them.

–Howard

I just took three naps. I announced my intention to lie down at around 9:55 this morning. At about 11:15 I was awake again, but still exhausted and feeling sick. So I took a quick shower (I shouldn’t have put that off this morning) and then took a second nap. At 12:25 I got up, wandered around in circles for a bit, took some vitamin C, and went back to bed. I woke up again at around 2:00pm, and decided to make lunch.

I’m feeling a lot better now, except for the part where most of the day is already gone and all I got done was some coloring between 8:25am and 8:45am. Sandra says I should put “convention recuperation” on my list of things to do. I may list each nap individually, just so I can check them off.

–Howard

I cranked out about 800 signatures in around three hours today, walked to 7-11 for a Slurpee, and then sat down and cranked out 100 sketch-edition pictures between the hours of 3:00pm and 11:00pm. I took a couple of good-sized breaks in there. Lorna, who joins us for GURPS on Fridays, is a licensed Massage Therapist. She rescued my hand after #80, and kneaded my shoulder and arm back into decent shape after #100.

In one hour I whipped out 20 sketch editions. That’s one every three minutes, INCLUDING the time it takes to switch books, number the sketch (e.g. “65/300”), and sign the front. Interestingly, some of my very favorites were the ones that only took 90 seconds to draw.

Maybe next time I’ll get ambitious and let you pick which character you want in your book. This time around it’s my choice. There’s been a lot of Schlock, Tagon, and Ennesby, several Legs, several Nick (including one for a Schlocker named Nick — I swear, that was an accident), a couple of Elf, two Xinchubs and exactly one Jevee Ceeta. There were a few “special” ones in there as well, where I recognized the name on the envelope, and drew something appropriate. I had to be careful, though, because as the night wore on (and on, and on, and on) my definition of “appropriate” slid a bit. I knew I’d crossed a line somewhere when the book for Paul Southworth almost ended up with a Schlock Mercenary/Ugly Hill crossover tentacle… um… scene. I kept giggling to myself and not touching the pen to the paper.

I’ll save Paul’s for tomorrow, when I’m awake, alert, and fresh. Or not-so-fresh. Whatever.

I wish I knew all of you better. I wish I could be sketching your books in person, with you standing there in front of me saying stuff to set me off. Cartooning is the best job in the world, and it’s even more fun with a live audience.

Anyway, 1/3 of the sketch editions are done, and we only have about 165 mailers left to go out (a bunch of the sketch editions are for pre-orders taken at the Keep). We have exactly 1600 packages to put in the mail, and over 1300 of them have been taken to the post office and shipped. Another 150 or so got filled up after the last postal pickup, and will go out first thing in the morning.

Considering that I’ve only had the books in my possession for 30 hours, I’m pretty pleased. My hand hurts and I’m exhausted, but I’m happy.

–Howard