Finished Journal + Life Update + Sketches

Just finished my latest journal! I'm so excited! I love starting new notebooks but I wasn't really in love with this one, it's by Markings from Staples but it only cost $5 but I still made every dollar count! This one took me almost 4 years to complete, since March of 2014. I used to have time to journal near daily but that slid off about when I got my previous job. I had been journaling off and on last year but I'm determined to journal at least weekly when I can. It's been fun to see my progress and journey in those 4 years. 

If you haven't considered writing in a journal, I wholeheartedly recommend that you do. You don't have to write personal stuff in there if you don't want to but I find that when I write uncensored I feel tons better. It's therapeutic and helps me sleep better at night without those constant thoughts running through my head. I'm the type of person who roles around in bed for an hour before falling asleep so it helps me unwind.

Here you can see the filled pages. Since I had gone on a few trips, I gathered some paraphernalia from the trips and decided to put it in the pages. Probably not the best idea because they weren't really put in order in the pages that I journaled about the trips. Also because the pages are so full the magnetic enclosure no longer closes the book which kind of bothers me but I don't want to cut the enclosure off but for the future I may keep separate journals for trips. The random papers and receipts were sitting on my desk and I finally decided I needed to put them somewhere. haha

Upcoming Quarterly Newsletter + Beta Reader Poll + Sketches

Hello friends! Hope all is well on your end of things. Life is going well, no major complaints here. Glad the weather is lightening up. It's the coldest February we've had here for decades. 0.0;; Hope it doesn't happen again soon but I'm glad it's March now. Now, you didn't come here to hear about that! Onwards!

Writing related, I've been able to get myself to revise more of my WIP but I'm not going to lie. I've been struggling. I had a tough time writing this project and it's even harder to revise and edit it. My perfectionist self wants to make sure that it's perfect before I send it out even though I understand that it won't be so I've given myself a few days of a break but now I think I'm able to start back up again. I've managed to force myself to keep at it but I'm at a point where I'm questioning all that I have so far but I will persevere and knock this draft into submission.

My goal is to get it done next week and then do another read through to make sure it's all good before I send it to my betas. I will send a separate newsletter for Betas. 

*stares at calendar* Oh snaps, my first quarterly newsletter will be going out March 15! It's not too late if you want to join! *points right to the side bar* You'll get exclusive tidbits from me and you'll be the first to know anything important coming up. 

If you've signed up to be one of my beta readers there will be a poll in it! Tis important for betas! It may or may not have to do with you choosing what swag you'll get for being a beta reader. ^_~ It also has a few questions I have for you to help me out with related to my book and you guys as a beta reading group.

As always, follow my twitter (@aisazia or @he_anev) for my latest information or if you want to chat. :D

My goal is to have the draft completed by March 14 then do another read through to fix things which I'm sure to have missed. I want to send it to my betas at the end of the month and have it as flawless as possible but it still might have issues! You can apply here if you're interested! There are incentives to be had!

Also, there seems to be some confusion about applying. I need people to apply both on Google Forms and for my newsletter. Some people have applied on Google but not for my mailing list. I may add you to the list if you signed up through Google Forms but if you're no longer interested, no worries, just unsubscribe. No hard feelings. :)

Till next time!

Blindfolded Love and Life Update + Sketches

Hello friends! I know I haven't been posting regularly but I haven't had too much to update you guy with concerning my projects. If you follow my twitter (@aisazia or @he_anev) then you pretty much have seen what I've been up to lately.

I've been in the slews of editing and I'm about half way done with my 2nd draft. So I'll be trying to finish that and maybe a 3rd draft before I send it out to beta readers which you can apply here! Since it's my first time editing a project of such lengths I fear it's taking longer than I expected. I apologize for that, I have severely underestimated how long it takes one to edit.

Still I am persevering and the cold doesn't really help. It's been below zero where I'm at and it makes me want to be even more of a recluse than I already am. haha 

Oh! I have a new instagram account if you want to follow me there! Not much on there yet but I'm mostly on twitter. lol

Anyways, I took work off yesterday because I didn't want to deal with the cold so I cleaned and refilled my fountain pens. I hope it encourages me to do more sketching and writing. Went to work today but my car wouldn't start so fortunately my mom had work off so I could borrow her car. lol I contemplated not going to but I was already ready to go and I need the money. XD I hope my car is more cooperating in the future, I just replaced the battery... :/ It would be a terrible time for it to go out on me.

Until I finish, I'll just keep trying to post as new things arise. I've been reading and posting reviews on my other blog more regularly, mostly because I need to have it done. I suppose I should set more deadlines on myself because then I'm able to get more done. But then I always feel terrible if I miss a deadline. lol

That's about it for now! Hope you all stay warm during this winter freeze!

Alive + Job Search + Revising

Hey lovelies, sorry I've missed the past few weeks, just been busy with life. Looking for a new job and living life. Not that it's really new, just now making a bigger push for a full time job. Been trying to be more serious about it because apparently I feel like a change in my life. I know this will take time away from my sketching and writing, but to be fair, I've been slacking on those too. lol

While I love where I am now, I realize I need to put myself out there and try to make the most out of my life. I'll still write and sketch but those will stay hobbies for now unless I hit it big. Then by all means, I'll take it. ^_~ For now I'm content with working and doing the things I love to do.

I've also officially ran out of scanned sketches now. lol Going to have to step up my sketching game and just take photos instead of scanning it. It's much faster for me that way. Also, I think I've nearly caught up on my more recent sketches. I know the past sketch dumps have been a combination of 2011-2013 sketches but I hope now it will be more recent for those of you who are following my progress.

In terms of updates, I have been revising Blindfolded Love! Finally! There still needs to be some smoothing out at the end but I think the story is near complete! It feels good to be this close to being done but also scary because it's the closest I've got to being done on a project I've been working on for awhile. o.0;; I'll finish up the end then go through the story and clean up any inconsistencies then go ahead and send it out to my betas or my Book Bouncers! 

If anyone is interested in being a beta for me, please contact me! Would love the feedback because I'm still new at this and could use unbiased but fair comments about my work.

Hope you all have been good! :D

Book Bouncers + Revising + Sketches

Hey everyone! Hope you all have been well! So, I have been able to talk to a friend about my stories, aka from now on are coined Book Bouncers. Yeah I think it's funny. lol We talked out some of the plot issues I have with my stories and I got feedback about it. That has been so helpful!

My book bouncer seems to be pretty excited over the stories which is great! They read stories that I like so it's good to have someone who reads similar stories. They have the knowledge to help me avoid common cliches and stereotypes and solve some story issues with some original ideas. That definitely helps motivate me to finish it. I know it's mostly done but I just need to fill in the empty spaces and help make the transitions better. Still needs revised and completed but it's on its way to being done. 

Going to try to set some hard deadlines for myself now that I'm more available. I hope to finish these stories one day even if they aren't as good as I had hoped. I really need to get them out because I've had them for years and it's getting horrible how unfinished I am with everything. The same with my comic projects.

I decided to try assigning myself tasks for the week for my project so that I  hope to get a little done each week. I was doing it daily but for some reason fell off that wagon. I was so productive during that time. I forget what distracted me but now I need to start doing that again. *pulls out calendar*

Current task of the week: Revise Blindfolded Love's story structure and add new pieces to the story.

Life Update + Glass City Con + Otakon + Sketch Dump

Hey everyone! I have sketches for you today! Did you miss them? lol I think I'm finally near the end of my 2012 and 2013 sketches. haha I need to start getting new images for 2014. I'm definitely going to change it up soon. I'm not going to scan them as often anymore (takes too long and it's not connected to my computer because it's too big and takes up too much space) and instead take photos which I feel is more appealing showing my tools of the trade and atmosphere.

As you all have known, I've been busy with cons the last few weeks and I had a great time! It was awesome to meet and talk to new people! I still need to go through all the business cards and info I got from artists. lol I'm so slow at doing that. I think I still have some from Otakon last year that I need to go through. I'm terrible. XD I'm going to try to knock those out in the next week.

MoH Duties + Sketch Dump

Hello darlings! I won't have much time to write this week so here's an actual pre-planned post! I haven't exactly been working on my projects as I would like since I've been busy planning and doing things for the upcoming wedding.

My sister is getting married as some of you may know and it was quickly approaching! Before I knew it the day's finally here! She's getting married on Saturday so I'm not exactly sure what other things I'll need to prepare for but I think most of my duties are complete. I just need to prepare a Maid of Honor speech which makes me a little nervous. I'm not a public speaker and I haven't done it in awhile so I'll need practice. I hope that it'll turn out well. Hoping it'll be fun. Just need to learn to relax and have a good time. :) So glad I'll probably only have to do it once. XD

Meanwhile, I made a decision to try to finish a long time WIP. I really want to finish "Blindfolded Love". For those of you following my sketches they are pretty much the same two characters I've been sketching all the time. XD Originally it was just going to be a comic but I felt like it wasn't good enough so I started to write it in a novel form for the Campnanowrimo July 2013.

I wrote about half of it before stopping and working on another project. Then I decided to pick this one back up and had an urge to fix it. Now I really want to finish it and move on. It's really tough because now I want to work on a different project but my goal for this month is to at least finish this story by the end of June. There are a bunch of random scenes that I need to transition into the story since they were written randomly. lol That'll be fun to fix. /sarcasm

I also have the urge to read but haven't been able to do that either. *whimpers* I plan to go on a weekend binge once the wedding is done and things have settled. I have been able to play with some watercolors which has been fun. The paper really does matter. (is a noob) So don't be like me. Make sure you get quality supplies! I'll have to post some progress shots that I actually remembered to take while doing it. lol I did kind of mess up at the end though. I'm not too fond of it now but I sort of fixed it but I don't think it'll ever be the same. lol There is a thing as overdoing a painting. Especially on a watercolor painting. XD

Oh, I've got some cons I need to prepare for that's coming up in July (Glass City Con) and August (Otakon). Oh boy, I'm going to be super busy these next couple of months. o.0;;

One last thing, I have an interview next week for a FT job. It's a courteousy interview but I'm going to do the best I can anyways. So wish me luck! :D

Just wanted to give you guys a little bit of what's been going on with me. I haven't forgotten or abandoned this blog or OriginiquEquanimity. I've just been crazy busy. >_<;; Hope you all are doing well! :D

Nanowrimo 2013 Lessons Learned and Future Plans

Whoo hoo!!! Nanowrimo is over! I didn't really get to expand too much in the previous post but I'm sure you all already knew that. Those who were following that at least. XD I won at 50,044 words! The story I was working is (tentatively named) Decryption and the genre is Cyberpunk. I'm not listing a synopsis until I have the first draft completely written. ^_^;;

Anyways, I just wanted to list a few things that I learned while participating in my 2nd Nanowrimo and the first time that I won it! I'm very pleased with myself for getting that far but was disappointed at slacking the last two weeks only to make up the rest the last two days. lol But I did it and that's what's important.

What I learned about myself during Nanowrimo 2013:

• I can write 6k in a day if I push myself (set a new record for me and that's with also going to work)
• I average 4k a day with working part time
• I write better in several sessions than all at once. (Preferably once in the morning and once in the evening)