Good things on the horizon...

I've got opportunities this week for awesomeness... Here's hoping they go well.

Also, I've been at the hotel for 2 years and 2 weeks now.  And grave shifts are kicking my butt.  I like my job there, don't get me wrong.  I'd rather do that than any of the other jobs at the hotel and I genuinely enjoy it... But lately my body has been telling me it wants to be awake during the day and asleep at night.  Apparently artists aren't nocturnal. :)  

I only get about five hours of sleep at the most and usually three or four.  Somehow I'm still functioning but I'm tired all the time, and regardless of that I still can't make myself sleep more.  Eh well.  Hopefully the good things on the horizon will resolve this before I have to think of something else.

Fluuuuu.

So I managed to get the flu. I thought it might be food poisoning at first, but alas. Everyone else who ate the same food is fine. I don't recommend it as a weight loss plan, but I expect I'll be happy to see the scale when this is all over. I haven't been that sick in a long time. The really horrid part was I was supposed to have an interview for one of my dream jobs yesterday. Luckily through no effort of my own it was moved to Monday. Phew.

Today will be a day of napping and movies. I really needed that too. I've been pretty busy lately. Hopefully I'll get paid soon so I can do my Christmas shopping.

More dreaming...

I decided to do NaNoWriMo this year. The first time I did it was in 2007. I had just gotten divorced and I needed to do something to prove to myself and the world (and my ex) that I could create anything I set my mind to. To write a novel length story in a month means you have to write 1,667 words or more a day to hit at least 50,000 words - anything shorter is a novella or something.
The first day went really well, as did the rest of the first week. The second week however was crazy hard and I had days where it felt like a chore to pop out 500 words. I hated my characters and my plot and everything about my story that week but I kept plugging away. A couple of 5,000 word days at the end of the month meant I won that year, on the very last day barely a hundred words over the 50,000 word goal.
It was a creative kick. I did more art after that and while I've shelved the story to finish at a later date, I still haven't killed it.
The following year I'd just started art school and had five classes. I tried nano anyway, and hit 13,000 words before I quit somewhere in week two.
The year after was the same story. Art school was taking all of my creativity and drive, but I made the honors society so it wasn't all bad.
Somewhere in there though the writing bug bit me and I had a feeling I wasn't done telling stories.
Since I finished art school last December and had only one job at the start of November I though I'd try it again this year. I was already used to carving lots of time out while working one full time job, so I was sure I could do it again... Only there was one problem. I had no plot whatsoever.
Most of my stories have had their roots in dreams. Every now and again I'll get some cool character or setting thrown at me, and it'll take root and I'll just have to write. Somewhat rarely I'll have an entire plot thrown my way by my subconscious, which is really cool.
So when I started to write this year I had nothing but an old woman walking up a hill. A few days into the month I had a seven thousand word outline. Seven. Thousand. And let me tell you it's a good thing I didn't go more in depth with it. As I've gone along my characters have taken on a life of their own and are telling their own stories more often than I'm making them up, which is incredibly snazzy.
In short I've written at least 2,000 words a day and won as of yesterday. I have a bunch of momentum going though and now I plan to finish the story.
It seems weird having graduated art school and all, but I think I could be a writer. I'm sure some of my writing is terrible. I know that there are whole hordes of commas that were rounded up and abused throughout this draft, but at the end of the day... I will have written the first draft of a novel, and that's more than most people can say.
I'm also inspired enough to want to edit and finish the first one, which has waited a long time now.
On the days I'm afraid I can't create my way out of a paper bag, I'll have this living thing that I've made, that perhaps I can hammer into the shape of a novel other people will want to read. That's one of the best feelings in the world. Take that, artistic self-loathing!

Random writing...

So I'm writing a novel... because I wasn't busy enough.  It's going really well... and it makes me feel like I'm wasting my time to be typing here instead of on that... but hey.

Too many elipses.

Only have one job at the moment, so I have tons of free time for noveling and gaming, which makes me happy.  Im working my way through Dragon Quest VI at the moment and holding off on finishing Mass Effect 2 'till the novel's done.  Finished a bunch of games lately... including Dragon Age 2, Gears of War, Skylanders giants, and probably some other things I'm forgetting.

The special for the Hallmark channel I got to animate on (squee!) will air the day after thanksgiving this year, and probably a zillion times this holiday season.  I also got to work on a spot for another tv show, as well as a bunch of commercials.  Yay for stop motion!

And tonight I have to go back and work at the hotel, so perhaps I should get my butt in gear.  Hope everyone is well.

Tired.

So now my hotel job is five nights a week and the studio job is four days a week. I'll let you do the math.

Beds, beds everywhere and not a spot to sleep.

I've taken to napping in my jeep between jobs. It really says something about how tired you are when the back seat of a jeep seems like the most comfortable spot ever. I think I'll get a pillow and blanket out there this week. I've also been napping in the park at lunchtime. The vitamin d is doing wonders for my attitude. Hopefully my boss will get the memo and drop my schedule down some. On the upside, my student loans are getting paid.

For stress relief I'm currently playing mass effect 2. Bioware makes me happy.

Feast!

I got hired this week at two studios! One has a day's worth of animation work for me and the other has a week's worth of puppet fabrication.

This animation/artist business is so often feast or famine, but every now and again things go just right. At the moment this means I technically have four jobs this week, three of which I'm having fun doing, and one of which I'm doing because it pays the bills. Oddly though it isn't particularly stressful other than getting to the right place at the right time. To be honest I got an email about one of the jobs and due to the fact there are people with the same names involved at both places I nearly goofed up which studio at which to be.

Nearly.

With all the furring of puppets I've been doing this year, you'd think Laika would be more interested in calling me back though.

...because I need MORE jobs. :)

Technolust

I want an iPhone 5. It's near the end of my contract and I could technically upgrade right this second if it weren't for the fact that the preorders sold out in an hour or so... But even so I want to jump ship and ditch my crappy carrier too. Which means I have to wait till January. Meh.

So in the mean time I wait and download the new iOS. So far it's neat. Some of the features I was most interested in are only available for the 4s and 5, so I still have to wait... But alas.

In other news I'm still animating. And they asked me to come back next week and work on another project, so things are going well. I still have no social life but I'm taking steps to make that happen too.

Lastly, blogger apparently has an app, new from the last time I went looking. No landscape keyboard or anything, but perhaps this means my blog will update more. :)