Tuesday, December 20, 2005

It's that time of year..... Christmas.

Christmas is almost here and I can’t believe how quickly it’s come round and how unfestive it all feels. Wish that wasn’t the case but I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to get into the Christmas spirit. Also knowing that I get to spend a couple of hours on Christmas Eve and only the morning and a bit of Christmas day afternoon with Rebecca sort of takes the shine off things.
We’ve done half of our family visiting now by spending a couple of days in the North East, visiting the place of my birth and seeing how much of it has been bulldozed to make way for new houses that the people from the area can’t afford. Actually some of the regeneration is nice and long over due, but it’s still feels strange seeing it all looking so different and knowing that the people who live there are not necessarily the ones who’ll benefit.
In a weeks time we’ll be doing the over half of the visiting and then maybe we can spend some time together.
I’ve emailed my comic script to the editor of the Manga-ish project, so I’ll find out how that goes down soon. Kind words from Danny have made me feel a bit more confident about it and I’m looking forward to drawing it knowing how much it’ll change when it’s drawn - at the moment I don’t think it shows the manic edge I hope my artwork’ll bring. Anyway, it’s a quirky throwaway little story that features a preocupation I finally get to exorcise as my other attempts to do so didn’t seem to go anywhere.
As well as my comic strip I also plan to finish all my writing projects throughout the coming year. They all seem to have all stalled for one reason or another and I’d really like to get some, gulp, *closure* on them as I think they could be good and I want to move on. So with a bit of work and luck you might all get to read samples of, ‘Indian Ink’ (or ‘Ink on Paper’ - an ‘no-prize’ for anyone who get’s the reference, and another one if you know what a ‘no-prize’ is), ‘Green and Pleasant Land’ (or ‘A Green World’), ‘Runt’s Tale’ and an untitled kid’s book about punk and zombies. I wouldn’t mind writing another Simian Smith story either, but it’s early days and I’ve only got a vague idea that involves a big family of high class pampered rich scum - hopefully Chandler would approve!

5 comments:

Nimiwey said...

I find buying Martin something extra special (this year it was a bottle of Balvedine's 15 year old scotch) makes me really excited about Christmas.

You've sucuumbed to thwarting spammers! NOOOO!!

Danny said...

YEs!!! Death to the evil SpamBot BAstards!!!!

Sorry you chaps only get a short while together on the big day...

Gopher said...

You can't defeat spammers, you can just waste a lot of time trying!

paulhd said...

Yeah, I try not to get worked up about spam now, just delete and ignore. But for some reason even though there's been very little spam on my new posts a few of my old ones have been gentting constantly spammed and it was getting stupid. So now it's the word verification thingy, which I do think is a little user unfriendly, but I hope you all understand.
I've bought Rebecca the recent DVD of her (well, ours really) favourite TV show which should put a big Chrismassy smile on her face and therefore mine. It's not the same as that buzz of excitement in the air, the one usually accompanying crisp clear nights with the stars bright in the sky and the odd snowfake tumbling down, but a smile from a loved one is pretty damn special.

Gopher said...

Having to compete with spammers for a word is unfriendly too Paul. Design considerations included, word verification is the most user-friendly way to go here.

I have no Christmas spirit yet so I'm ignoring that part of the conversation.