Head, meet tablet

I can't believe it's been a month since I last posted. I started to post a couple times after Christmas, and then thought... too soon. Just posted.

Since then, I've been busy getting ready for the SCBWI winter conference in New York. I'm trying to get my portfolio in shape and up to date, and of course, despite having the Christmas break to work on it, I end up using the weekend before. And it shows. :/ Thank god for snow days.

To give myself a little break this evening, I did some doodles on my tablet. Finally got around to seeing Inglourious Basterds right before the Golden Globes, and this is the result...



If I fail at everything else, I can always move to New York or LA and be one of those people who does sketches of celebrities. (I've always wondered who actually buys those pictures, but I digress.)



Re: Hans Landa/Christoph Waltz - I want to know what cosmic weirdness makes this equation possible. His Golden Globe speech *was* cute as kittens, and I can't wait to hear him do an 'Academy'-themed one for the Oscars.

The American (Girl) Experience

Day two of being snowed in (21" as of this morning), and I'm trying to convince myself I do not need an expensive doll. Not now, when I'm supposed to be paying for Christmas presents and conferences and car repairs. But the American Girl 2009 'Girl of the Year' dolls will be retired soon, and I'm still clicking over to Sonali, and thinking DO WANT.

I got my first AG doll at the age of six. Back then, there were only three dolls, with three books each. I saved up the money my parents gave me for putting away dishes and other chores. Looking back, I'm sure they either paid me far too much, or majorly helped with the final cost. But in any case, Samantha Parkington was mine. Over the next few years, birthdays and Christmases, I collected all her outfits. We stuck to the easily stored items - I had a friend who had the bed and the trunk and the nightstand, and while it was all pretty to look at, I preferred lusting over the shiny images in the pages of the catalogs. Sometimes I'd make up my own dolls - each collection had a set canon of items, and it was easy to dream up my own school, Christmas, birthday, and adventure stories for a girl from the '20s, the '70s, or the '90s.

Later, my mother bought Felicity as a classroom aid (she teaches Virginia history in 4th grade). Though I loved her almost as much as Sam - and in some ways more - I was older, and we never completed her collection. Mattel bought out the Pleasant Company, and everything started to take on a slightly pink and purple plastic sheen, as if business woman Barbie had puked on the sanctity of my childhood. Even while shaking my fist at Mattel's decisions to pare down Felicity's collection and "archive" Samantha, I couldn't help but return to my ten year-old daydreams and think about creating my own doll. And it just so happens that I think Sonali, with a bit of work, could be a great Creole girl, circa 1804.

Tomorrow I hope to start finishing a book dummy I began ages ago. I'm also hoping this will quell my urge to get online and spend money I really should keep. But wouldn't Meet Mariotte be a fun project?

Do I Dazzle You?

It's been a long and rather crazy week. New Moon with friends on Friday (hilarious), Star Trek DVD party with fellow geeks on Saturday (still wonderful), church covered-dish dinner on Sunday (seriously, Baptists make crazy food). And then an amazingly long three-day school week, which included a field trip and a Thanksgiving feast. And in the middle of all that, I remembered I'd started a new blog. Oops.

These sketches are several weeks old (Halloween-ish), but I thought them appropriate given the box office record last weekend.



From everything I've read, adults seem to think vampire fiction is played out. But let me tell you - second graders still love it. And I love their concept of vampires, because there's no romance involved at all. Sparkles, maybe, but no gothic romance. Second grade vampires will either eat you, or be your super cool best friend.



Also, a new sketch, straight from a dream I had Monday morning.



Yes, Jimmy Stewart is proposing to me while we ride an elephant and I hold a kitten. No, I was not thrilled to wake up.

First post?

One more online diversion to keep track of, yay! Let's see... there's my website, Facebook, Myspace (which never, ever gets checked), a fannish Livejournal and one for geneaology, two personal e-mail addys, one work address, two Twitter accounts, a Polyvore account, one Deviantart gallery, an Etsy page, and a partridge in a pear tree. Seriously, I'm sure I could come with others.

I'm hoping to update this blog regularly, that it can be a place I post anything I've been working on, be it fan-girly, silly, unfinished, geeky, emo, or something that I think actually has a shot at getting me hired somewhere.

I'm sure I'll regret this later, but since Halloween's not that far past, for my first post I give you -



Hipster Zombie. (Zombster? Hipsbe?)