Ch-ch-ch-changes

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New blog title, new stuff happening!

Okay, first of all: I’m a published author! Yay! It is honestly one of the most bizarre feelings I’ve ever experienced. I’ll post more up tomorrow or Friday when my print copy arrives, but seeing my pages on Amazon’s website is really strange. I don’t know that everything has sunk in yet. I will say that my friends have shown incredible support, and I am truly grateful for all their efforts, from buying my book to plugging it to others to leaving awesome reviews. Thank you, everyone.

Just over three weeks of school left. Ever. I don’t think that has sunk in, either. My plans and ambitions have been all over the place the last few months, but I finally feel like I have some sort of direction. My apartment is officially subleased for the summer and I (hopefully) have a place to move to at the end of May. My biggest concern is that it has been a real struggle to keep myself involved in my classes. At this point I feel like I’ve gotten started on what I hope will one day be my career, and honestly school has just been getting in the way lately. I’ve promised myself that the last three weeks won’t be that way, that I’ll participate in class and do all my homework and all that jazz, but we’ll see. I think it was like this during my last month of high school, but I don’t really remember.

What else… I’ve been keeping up  with my artwork lately, which I love. I feel like I improve a little every time. I’ve rediscovered charcoal as a medium and I’m starting to like it a lot more. I was first formally introduced to using charcoal in a drawing class I took here – incidentally the class that led to choosing Art as a minor. I didn’t think I was very good at it and stored all my pencils and such away. For whatever reason I dug them out a couple weeks ago, and now I’m not sure why I hated using it. Most of what I’ve been drawing is character sketches and concept art for my writing, and I hope the folks who liked my Facebook page don’t mind the spamming.

So that’s all for today, but I will try to be better about posting updates again – especially once I reach graduation. Counting down the days!

Back in the swing of things

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Busy busy these past few weeks. You’d think taking a nine hour semester would be easy and leave you  with lots of free time, but you’d be wrong. Last semester was dedicated to the long stream of homework; this semester is dedicated to many meetings and errands.

Granted, I do have my weekends back, which has been great. I’ve been painting on a regular basis again, and writing about what I want to when I feel like it. The book is still under revision – I had to make myself step away from it for a while so I could look at it more objectively. Still hoping to release it by Spring Break at the latest. I am trying to figure out CreateSpace so I can have printed copies as well as e-books.

I’ve been pretty involved with the public library this past year, which I love. I’m part of a class that teaches a creative writing club to elementary-middle school aged kids every week. I’m the student assistant this semester, which accounts for a lot of my meetings and errands. It’s a lot of fun and I love my kid partner. I’ve also been asked to run an activity for the older kids’ writing group this Friday. Still trying to figure out what I want to do, but it will most likely end up being some sort of awesome writing game.

Senoiritis has hit me hard. There’s one class in particular where I’m completely unmotivated because I’m taking it in hopes of gaining some extra skills rather than to satisfy my degree requirements. The class itself is very tedious right now and all I can do is sit there thinking “I don’t need this to graduate. I could just leave.” All I think about lately is finding a job and a new place and getting out of here. I spend at least an hour every day going through job ads. I just signed my graduation application form today. I’m incredibly paranoid – my mind keeps telling me that they’ll reject it and tell me I need more classes or something, and that I have to stay longer. I don’t want that. I’ve already agreed to sublease my apartment, so as of June I am gone. Boone and Appstate have been great overall and I’ve met a lot of amazing friends, but they won’t stay and neither will I. I’ve reached that point where I’m ready to move on and start something new. And get a puppy.

So that’s been the jist of my past few weeks. I hope everyone is enjoying 2012 so far. I’ll try to get a more interesting post up later 🙂

New Painting

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I haven’t painted ALL YEAR so I decided to remedy that.

I don’t usually work with fairies but this was made specially for a friend.

One day I’ll have my own place with an art studio and I’ll be able to paint more. This magical studio will have far better lighting than my apartment and I’ll be able to take decent photos of my work.

Acrylic and ink on wood, painted 12/17/2011