This happens to me all too often. I look forward to Mondays because Monday is my first opportunity to work without interruption after a weekend of screaming kids and Hubster (Hubster does not scream, but he does keep me busy on the weekends). I enjoy my time with my family, but I do need time to work, so by the time Monday comes around, I’m usually chomping at the bit to get started. Then wouldn’t you know it? One of the kids is sick, there’s a doctor’s appointment to go to, Hubster decides to work at home which always completely disrupts my routine…

The last couple of weeks’ worth have been totally eaten by sick kids, sick me, and doctor appointments. And yesterday, when I thought I’d finally have the house to myself to work, Pixie came down with a fever. It’s been frustrating, I tell ya. I do most of my writing in the evenings after the kids are asleep and while Hubster is busy up in the office, but I still need a couple hours during the day to handle email, finances, story critiques, website updates, blogging, etc. If I don’t get that time, those tasks start to build up fast, and pretty soon I find myself staying up all hours of the night just to keep up. I hate it!

I recently read an article on author Jodi Picoult, a woman who’s written 17 novels in 18 years (and no, I haven’t read a single one of her books). She gets up at the crack of dawn, goes for a three mile walk, and then works until 3PM when her kids get home. I started to think, “Man! Wouldn’t that be great, to just write for six or seven hours straight? Think how much writing I’d get done! I wish I had her schedule.” Then I read that she gets 200 fan emails a day and she personally responds to all of them, and suddenly I realized I pretty much do have her work schedule. Not with the 200 fan emails a day of course (though I wouldn’t complain about that). But Jodi Picoult is also handling those same minor tasks that eat up so much of a writer’s time, and if she has kids, I’m betting she also has days where she’s got to take care of a sick child or spend all day in the doctor’s office instead of at her desk writing. And yet she still gets stuff done.

And I get stuff done too. A short story a week, two web comics, commissions for my computer graphics business, etc. In spite of all the juggling, it does all somehow get done.

Huzzah, it’s Tuesday. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get back to work!

For some reason, these sorts of conversations happen to me all the time. I’m sitting in the dojo or at the park or in the play area of Chic-Fil-A, working on my latest evil project, and a mom I don’t know will ask, “So, what are you working on?” Fortunately, these conversations never last long…

I have not made a voodoo doll exactly. I did crochet a zombie and then a ninja, both of which I believe I’ve shown off here in the blog. Right now, I’m sewing a felt pillow/creature for Princess – a one-eyed, winged heart doll. It’s based on a little doodle I often like to draw. Princess is also sewing these days, making a heart dolly of her own for Pixie. Nobody is quite sure what Pixie is doing, but here is her latest artistic effort.

Apparently one of these figures is me with blood on my teeth, one of these figures is the Hubster with blood on his teeth, one of these is Pixie with blood on her teeth, and the shortest character is a baby with blood on its teeth. We’ve been talking about adopting a third child, and Pixie very much wants a baby sister. Princess was very upset not to be in this family portrait.

BTW, today’s cartoon also features my best friend Mary. I’ve known Mary since I was 11, which means I’ve now known her 30 years. Kind of scary. Mary knows pretty much everything about me, and yes, she would enjoy watching me give someone a heart attack and as a nurse, she’s more than qualified to perform CPR on my victims. Love ya, Mary!

Yep, this is exactly what I want and pretty much how I expect the day to go. And don’t forget, I have a dental appointment today! Yee-HAW!

In all seriousness, I got some very nice presents from the Hubster and my sister, and have already been informed by my in-laws and parents that there’s a little something from both of them on the way. I’ll be spending this weekend with family as we celebrate my mother-in-law’s birthday (she was born on Leap Day; how cool is that?!). And then I’m thinking that the next Friday, I’m blowing everything off and going to hide in the bookstore for the afternoon until I absolutely have to leave to get the kids. Or maybe I’ll just sit at my computer and play around with my graphics programs? Who knows! The thing is, I’ve been trying to take a day off for the last two months and something’s always come up. Not this time. Not if I can help it.

So here’s hoping everyone with a birthday today has a great day, and the rest of you too! See ya!

I did this panel over the weekend, while manning my author’s table at Farpoint. I bought one of the Canson comic strip drawing pads and used it for this week’s episode. The Canson pads are expensive – at least twice what I pay for the Strathmore pads I’ve been using – and they only have 14 sheets, not 100+. However, the advantage of using the Canson comic strip pad is that each page comes pre-lined and measured, so I don’t have to draft out my panels, I can just start drawing. Also, the paper is Bristol board, not cheap sketch book paper. I love cartooning on Bristol board. It’s smooth and very sturdy. But most important, the Canson pad is small enough to be portable, yet large enough to make drawing easy. And since this week’s and last week’s panels turned out so well using this paper, I think I’ll be willing to suck up the expense and buy more Canson pads.

Now onto today’s topic of discussion. I’ve been wanting to draw this particular strip for a long time. I had the idea back in April of last year, and held onto it until now, just a few days before Princess’ birthday. Turns out this week’s strip is very appropriate for two reasons.

First, I suck at children’s parties. Really. I hate the bloody things. Not because I don’t want my kids to have fun; I do want them to have fun. But I recall the days when a children’s party was simply a matter of inviting a few kids over, serving cake and ice cream, opening a few presents, letting the little monsters run amok for a bit, and then sending everyone home after an hour or so. That’s what it was like when I was a kid. Now that I have kids of my own, the rules have changed.

These days, no children’s party is considered a success unless it’s a ginormous affair with a giant inflatable moon bounce in the backyard, catering by Chic-Fil-A, and a visit from Spiderman. I’ve been to children’s parties where there were approximately 30 kids there, ranging from 6 months to 12 years of age. There are usually a lot of adults there, nearly two for every child, invited to attend along with the kids. There’s cake, soda, and lots of chicken nuggets for the kids, with beer and barbeque and fancy appetizers for the adults. And then there’s the mountain of presents coming out the wazoo, with lots of screaming and fighting occurring as the birthday child opens them. It’s madness, I tell ya, and not the kind I can get into. And every year the parties get worse as each set of parents tries to outdo the last. I don’t like paying an arm and a leg for a kid’s party. I don’t like forking over mega-bucks to feed a pack of adults I don’t really know. And I don’t like having to clean my house just to watch it get trashed again by screaming hordes of kids (and the alternative of renting a venue for the party leaves me cold too; those places are damned expensive and usually not worth the money). Thus I suck at hosting kids’ of parties because honestly, I hate them.

For the last few years I’ve allowed myself to be suckered into the whole big bash trend, but not this year, which leads us to the second reason why the above cartoon is apropos. I killed Princess’ birthday party this year. Killed it flat out dead. You see, Princess got grounded at the beginning of the month for not doing her schoolwork, and I told her that if she didn’t get the problem straightened out by the time I needed to start planning her party, there would be no party. You can guess what happened. It takes time, more than I have to spare these days, to reserve a venue, write up the guest list, send out the invites, arrange for food (do we make everything or waste a bundle on kids’ catering?), hire a clown or magician or other character, etc. I told Princess that if she wasn’t going to take the time to do her school work when she’s supposed to, then I didn’t have time to prepare for a party. And that’s true because I’m spending more time that I can count supervising her completing the unfinished school work at home.

So no party. Instead, I somehow managed to schedule eye appointments for Princess and I on her birthday, AND I managed to schedule the entire family for dental appointments on my birthday a few days later.

Do I know how to party, or what?

Happy birthday Princess! Even though you didn’t get that big party you wanted, you know I love you.

By now everybody knows the eastern side of the US is buried in snow. It hit here very late Friday night and kept coming down until Saturday evening. We got 8 inches in all. 8 inches! We never get snow around here. Certainly not that much snow.

But we got it, and of course the kids wanted to go out to play the moment they woke up… at 5:45AM when it was still dark out. We had to send them back to bed repeatedly before Hubster and I finally gave up and crawled downstairs to fix breakfast and continue to ignore pleas to go play outside until we’d had our morning cup of whatever.

So we had snow Saturday, and it was still here Sunday, and still here yesterday, and today we’re supposed to get snow and freezing rain. I’ve been stuck in the house with both kids and the Hubster and I’m about to go out of my cotton-pickin’ mind! I love my family, but we’re rarely in such close quarters for so long, and trying to keep the kids occupied while they’re home from school is exhausting.

But so far, we’ve managed. In fact, in addition to playing out in the freezing cold, we’ve baked a pie, worked on our sewing projects, played lots of games and begun work on a mummy. Princess got a “Make Your Own Mummy!” kit for Christmas and this seemed like the ideal time to start it. It’s all pouring of plaster into casts and then painting the finished product to look like the picture on the box, etc., etc., etc. This is going to take a few weeks to finish.

Anyway, I will be heading out today. I have a mammogram scheduled for this morning, and neither rain nor sleet nor snow will keep my from my appointed appointment to have my boobs squashed.

Yes, I am that desperate to get out of the house. Have fun ya’ll!

Just one more example of how exciting the life of an erotica writer really is

I thought I might show you all how I put together the Adventures of Cynical Woman web comics. I’m sure you’re all just fascina– Hey! Get back here! I’m not done talking to you yet!

Where was I? Oh yes, how I put the comic strips together. First, I need an idea. This week’s idea was inspired by an e-mail interview I did with a journalist who wanted to know how I write erotica. I mentioned that some nights I curl up in bed with my laptop to write my stories, but that wasn’t nearly as sexy as it sounded because I always wear flannel PJs and tuck a heating pad under my feet. This particular erotica author does NOT like to be cold.

So I had my idea. Next, I needed to script it out and draw a quick thumbnail sketch of what the panels would look like. I do this step in a notebook I keep just for the cartoons. Here’s what the idea sketch and script look like.

Very fascinating, right? Right! Anyway, once I know what I’m writing and drawing, I set up a sheet of paper on my handy dandy drawing board.

The drawing board is actually a piece of foam core with some white poster-board taped over it for a smooth drawing surface. I use a low tack tape to attach the paper, and then use a mechanical pencil and T-square to draft out the panels. I always draw in red pencil. You’ll see why in a bit.

Next, I roughly sketch in where each of the characters and props are going to go in each panel. This is nothing fancy, just stick figures and basic shapes to help me determine how much room each character will need in the panel and still leave room for the word balloons and text.

Then I start to draw a detailed sketch for each panel, again using the same mechanical pencil with red lead.

I like to do a fairly detailed drawing so I know exactly what I have to ink. Once the final sketching is done, I pull out a brush pen (I use Faber Castell brush markers; they’re the best!) and I ink the cartoon. For the borders and fine line work and cross hatching, I use a Faber Castell technical pen or a Micron Pigma pen.

Once I’ve got the inking done, I scan the cartoon into the computer via Photoshop. I have to do it in two pieces, since I use a very big piece of paper for the cartoon. I don’t bother erasing the red pencil marks because I don’t have to. I simply delete the red color channels from my image once it’s been scanned in and then convert the whole thing to grey scale. Voila! No more red pencil, just black ink.

Once everything is scanned in, I use Photoshop to pull it all together. I have a blank comic template set up with all the credits and titles already in it, as well as guidelines set up to help me line up the artwork. I use the text tool and the pen/shape tools to add the text and word balloons. For the final touch, I add two extra layers to the image, one for black areas and one for white high lights. I’ve found it’s easier and cleaner for me to add black areas to the cartoon in Photoshop than to do it by hand, so certain things like the laptop in this cartoon or the Hubster’s hair will be blacked in then, with another layer set up for white highlights on top of that.

Once it’s all done, I flatten all the layers in Photoshop, scale the image down, and then put it in a blog post for the website. The whole process takes anywhere from 2-4 hours, depending on how detailed the cartoon is, or how tired I am that day. Today I was beat, so between that and putting together this little behind-the-scenes look, I probably spent about 4 1/2 hours on this total.

Anyway, that’s how it’s done. Now aren’t you glad you hung around to read all that? Wasn’t that just fascinating? Hello? Hellooooooo…

I can hear you breathing, you know.

Don’t forget, episode 03 of Rats! runs this Thursday on www.cynicalwoman.com!