Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

Daily Chatter

living a life

by 2 Comments

As you probably can see from my sidebar, I read Neil Gaiman’s blog regularly, and as I was reading last night (about his mutual fanboy encounter with John Simm), it gave me such a smile. I think what I find so charming about his blog, is that he’s just a guy out there, living a life, and it really made me think about what I’m doing with my time. I spend all this time in my own head, brooding about life and life choices, blah blah blah, when it seems like I could just be out there living instead.

Granted, it’s a lot easier to be out living a life when you have the momentum that comes from really loving what you do. But could I find that if I tried? I lived like that once, I think. Back when I was acting and still loving it, and maybe even after when I was at least still loving the travel, every day was about living. Now this is not to say that I’m unsatisfied with my life, because there is so much of it that I love. But what is all this blogging and introspection really doing for me?

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, but as I sit at my desk, forcing myself into taking a break from this long, headachy, meeting-saturated day, I wonder.

incoherant rambling

by 5 Comments

Yes, this is what I do when I’m at lunch.

I’ve been having a lot of thoughts lately, trying to define myself, which is not something I generally place a lot of importance on, but has suddenly been in the forefront of my mind. Something I’ve been struggling with a lot is the feeling that the things I am doing lack meaning. I originally chalked this up to Too Much Anime, but the truth is, it is something I’ve been feeling for some time, and Too Much Anime simply provided a catalyst for discussion.

I currently have a number of half-baked projects in the works, and my official “job” is a bit half-baked right now too, which doesn’t help. Obviously I can’t finish baking everything at once (that metaphor is getting old fast, isn’t it?), which brings me again to the question of defining myself. I defined myself in my introductory post here as “singer, songwriter, theater manager, former actor, stumbling writer, dog-lover, fiction addict, mac geek, wife,” and in truth, that’s still probably only about half of the things I’d have to list if I was being really honest. One person can’t possibly be all that, so what am I?

Lately, I’ve been working on something that very desperately wants to be a graphic novel, despite the fact that I can’t draw to save my life. For the time being, I’ve been sketching out frames with stick figures and other indeterminate shapes with the hope that someone, somewhere might be able to see what I’m trying to express with them and help me bring that vision to reality. This seems unlikely, as I have no idea whatsoever how to go about finding such a person. And yet I persevere. I even spent a couple of hours attempting to draw my main characters in some way that would give the stick figures a bit more meaning, but considering how long it takes me to draw the stick figures, that may have been a bit premature. Paul found me a class to take at UMASS entitled something like “Writing the Graphic Novel,” but when I looked it up online, it had been canceled. Is this a sign?