I Am Not a Lungfish
Thursday, August 15, 2013
I am not a lungfish
So, for the last year I've been doing a comic in my university's newspaper. I wanted to show some of those online, but it turns out that the newspaper's website is unimaginably slow and terrible. Therefore, I shall be posting those comic here.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
I said goodbye to Kitten just before 5:00 this morning. We said a
tearless goodbye, knowing not only that we will meet again one day,
but that the other is never more than an IM away.
A
strange emotion welling in my breast, I took my place in the long
line for the security checkpoint – just in time for at least a
hundred harried passengers to turn around and stampede out like
spooked cattle.
Due
to a security equipment to malfunction, the flow of the security
checkpoint for terminals D and F was diverted into the checkpoint for
B and C. This caused something of a jam as twice the normal amount of
people were forced through the same security bottleneck. Every man,
woman, and child in line was sweaty, tired, and understandably
irritable.
All
except myself, actually. I was feeling rather cheerful about the
whole thing, grinning like a fool and feeling no pain, due in part to
the extra-special dose of anti-anxiety medication coursing through my
veins. I'm more than aware of how I usually react to being forced
into tight enclosed spaces with several angry, sweaty individuals,
and I was more than happy to spend my time smiling gormlessly at the
people on either side of me, no matter how situationally
inappropriate. I spent my time getting to know the ladies in front,
who mostly ignored me outside of the suggestion that one of them
should pretend to be twelve so they could get in the priority line,
and the fellow behind, a young man bound for California who had been
near the front of the other line when the malfunction occurred and
might be accurately described as “righteously cheesed” in
relation to that fact.
It
took over an hour to get through security, but at least I had a smile on my face.
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Booker Award
Lyzzy Redd: The Booker Award now goes to... Lyzzy Redd!: A certain Skye Fairwin nominated me for this blogging award. Once again, thank you! :) You have to have your blog at least half writing...
If you followed the link up there, you need no introduction into our topic; if you did not, however, then here's a bit of an explanation.
The lovely Lyzzy Redd has nominated me for the Booker Award, which goes to book blogs. Sadly, though, I do not believe I qualify to receive the awards, as while I am highly interested in books, writing and reading, my blog does not at this time qualify, having less than 50% of it's content on the topic.
I am nevertheless highly flattered that she thought of me and very glad that she herself was given consideration.
Part of the award requires one to list one's top 5 favourite reads, and while I shall not be receiving the awards, I thought I might just do that anyway to be a good sport.
1. The works of Sir A. C. Doyle on the Adventures of Mr. Holmes and his faithful companion Dr. Watson
2. "The Importance of Being Earnest" by O. Wilde
3. Mansfield Park by J. Austen
4. Animorphs by K. A. Applegate
5. The Stranger by A. Camus
The Kitten and the Conference
It was early June when I travelled to New Jersey to visit my boon
companion, a young lady whom I call Kitten. The eponymous reason for
going was the Philadelphia Writer's Conference, but, fascinating
experience though that was, a conference alone is not reason enough
to fly the rough distance of 1000 kilometres that separates northern
Alberta, Canada from the American east coast.
Meeting
Kitten face to face was a deciding factor, the conference was an
added treat.
The
writing conference itself made up the bulk of my first three days in
the United States. This was the first conference I had ever attended,
and I found the event highly interesting and invigorating. I
particularly enjoyed the class on writing for New Media.
The
high emphasis on the business, marketing end of writing was
occasionally overwhelming and discouraging, if only because it
seemed, at times, to be at the loss of the artistic side of things,
that speakers and participants only gave the art brief lip-service
before turning back to business. This was not the case in all
classes, of course, and looking objectively, the speakers most
certainly talked about the art of writing. It is simply that the
emphasis was placed more towards marketing than would be to my
liking and the advice on the art of things was somewhat
underdeveloped and aimed at a more novice level. It is highly likely
that, this being my first convention, my initial expectations were
flawed.
Undoubtedly
one of the best aspects of the convention was being surrounded on all
sides by like-minded individuals and talking with people who might
actually be genuinely interested in that steam-punk epic I'm writing
that stars a bird-obsessed autistic and a double amputee. Just being
around people who have similar interests and ideas and who have even
a glimmer of insight into my life as it is. It's almost like being
part of a community. Warm fuzzies for everyone.
All
in all, I would call the conference an enriching experience, one that
was all the better for having dear Kitty Bergeron at my side and for
meeting personalities like Lucas Mangum, horror writer
extraordinaire, Patti O'Brien, who I regret not being able to talk to
more, and Marie Gilbert, who is everybody's best friend and grandma,
no exceptions, and an unbelievably cool lady.
I
also ended up attending a session led by Jonathan Maberry, who writes
zombie thrillers. Notable because at one point he described a scene
from one of his novels which I had already heard near word-for-word
only a few weeks earlier during a chat with my sister (read: during
an hour while my sister talked and I nodded and made appropriate
noises) about a book she was reading about the aftermath of a zombie
apocalypse. I rather wanted to discuss a few of the plot points with
him, particularly the idea of bounty hunters who are paid to put zombified people to rest by the families of the deceased, but I wasn't sure whether to approach him or not. I erred on the
side of caution, if only because I wasn't sure how to explain that I
knew the plots of his novels, not because I read them, but because my
little sister likes to tell me the best bits and some things need a
lot of context in order to be funny.
I
also met Merry Jones, who is very sweet, and a few other people
whose books I put away for a living.
All
in all, a good way to spend a weekend.
Labels:
Jon Maberry,
Kitten,
Merry Jones,
Philadelphia,
PWC,
Writer's convention
Sunday, June 10, 2012
D is for Dead
Labels:
abc,
death,
dying,
Iamnotalungfish,
Jessica Pigeau,
Morbid,
murder,
poem,
suicide,
trigger
Thursday, March 29, 2012
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