Category Archives: Journal

This is me rambling about me, mostly. Current stuff: home, family, my head’s on fire… that kind of thing. This also includes everything imported from LiveJournal.

Essays, Journal

Write It, or Live It?

Aside

I found the following gem while searching through my old Live Journal posts. Excerpted, it’s almost profound:

My life would seem more interesting to everyone else if I could strike some sort of balance between writing about it and living it, but more and more I’m finding that, when time permits, I prefer to allow my life to seem completely uninteresting to the rest of the world, and absolutely, fascinatingly packed with all the big and little things that make it wonderful for me and a few first-hand observers.

–Howard Tayler

Journal

Gonna be a busy week…

Sandra and I had our usual planning meeting, and she went all “art director” on me and outlined this week’s tasks:

  • Design new banners for the GenCon booth
  • Write & illustrate two weeks of Schlock Mercenary
  • Finish my two pages of the Massively Parallel bonus story

Here are the things she left off the list:

  • See Guardians of the Galaxy
  • Review it
  • See it again, because I hope it’s that good
  • Dress in steamy sorts of clothes and hit Salt City Steamfest for an afternoon and evening
  • Eat sushi with our editor friend who is coming to town
  • Sleep
  • Chase distracting things into the weeds. Catch them. Toy with them. Eat them. Repeat.

Wish me luck. I can already see rustling in the weeds.

Journal

I love a good discussion…

I’ve been waffling on this for some time now, and I think I’ve finally reached a decision. This site (howardtayler.com) will not have discussions enabled when it goes live.

Why not?

I love a good discussion. I like social networks, and I love being part of a community. But being part of a community where I’m the moderator, and the central focus is a lot of work. Aaaand maybe not all that healthy.

I’ve also found that it slurps up a lot of my time. Perhaps this is my ego speaking, but I think people would probably rather I spent time writing words and drawing pictures than reading comments and flushing spam-traps.

It’s a tough decision, though. I’ve been making art online for almost fifteen years now, and for that whole time I’ve been fostering communities and discussions. It’s going to be hard to let that go.

Journal

A Trip Through The Minefield

6 Comments

 I lost my parents over twenty years ago. I’ve been alive longer without them than with them, and I’m not an old guy. So yes, from time to time my thoughts wander across the minefield as I wonder things like "how would Mom feel about this?" or "I bet Dad would have figured this out by now."

Unlike a real minefield this is one you can build up a resistance to. What used to blow off a leg now just means I need to brush my pants clean. The metaphor fails in extended application.

Today I’m positively giddy with excitement. A new (but very good) friend and consummate professional is joining me and some of my other consummately professional friends (also very good) for two days of recording sessions. I sprang awake at 5:15am with the sort of enthusiasm I usually reserve for Christmas.

And I wondered, casting my mind back to my early years "when Dad was 43, was he ever giddy with Christmas-morning-esque enthusiasm?" 

 
[CHING-KLICK] goes the pressure plate to the mine I’ve just stepped on.
 
"No," I say to myself in irritation. "This isn’t ‘I miss Dad,’ this is a serious question. Do you ever remember him being giddy?"
 
I ponder the matter, poring through the jumbled mess of poorly indexed memories from twenty-five, thirty, and thirty-five years ago.
"No," I reply. "I don’t."
 
[BOOOM]
 
Did it explode because I can’t remember something I should, or because I wish my Dad had been a happier person? Regardless, I’m going to need to change these pants.