Ink practice

Figure Drawing class!

The Dairy Gang

Second City folk inspire me so much.

Neil and Korra

So... I've been in a huge literary kick this year.  

I've not only run into Brian Selznik at my bakery job, or got to see Audrey Niffenegger at a reading at the Museum of Contemporary Art, but yesterday... I got to meet NEIL GAIMAN!

The man who wrote Coraline, Neverwhere, and the award-winning The Graveyard Book.  He's also written for television (Doctor Who) and for films (Hayao Miyazaki's English adaptation of Princess Mononoke!) and I just can't believe how humble of a guy he is in real life.

He talked about how his ideas for children's books aren't systematic, how they're basically taken from his own childhood experiences and "what if" situations.  Coraline, for example, came from a question he asked himself when he was 12: "what if I came home one day and realized my parents had moved away without telling me?  And what if they replaced themselves with two people who looked exactly like them?"  He talked about the goal of wanting to frighten children with story ideas, but not overwhelm them in the scary plots that they wouldn't want to read more.  He wrote Coraline while using his literary agent's daughter as a guinea pig to see if it was too scary for children, and it was because of her intrigue that the book got published... except that the girl admitted years later that she was terrified the whole time she'd read the book, but still wanted to know how it ended!

Neil also mentioned how it took him 10 years from conception to publishing Coraline!

It's one of the things I admire about writing: you never know how long it'll take for an idea to be fulfilled on paper... or how long it will take others to realize its potential... and yet you strive to get your voice heard.

I've been in a creative-limbo lately, in terms of writing my childrens' novel and getting my stuff out there, but I'm really glad that these ongoing moments of inspiration keep coming my way.  I'm off to a great start, though, with my main characters all fleshed out (except the ages) and putting them in a Chicago 1930s setting.  Yay!

In other news... THIS PREMIERED!

It's been a surprising good few episodes thus far, and it's killing me how Mike & Bryan make all these references to the old Gaang.  Katara's the elderly and wise figure now!  This new series has taken a much more mature and darker direction than the original, with the characters being teenagers and having a little romantic tension behind all the political oppression that's going on in Republic City.  The style of the setting is very much the 1920s with steampunk, and I love the art backgrounds and the outfits and awww, everything.

Korra is the polar opposite of what Aang used to be.  To me, she's a combination of what Katara and Toph would've been as a 16 year old, not to mention a bigger prodigy than Aang since she can bend three elements naturally at the age of 4!  She acts violently and passionately through her emotions, and she needs to learn to be calm and reflective (which is why she needs Airbending so badly!)  It's... different.... overall.

Romance-wise, I'm rooting for Korra and Mako - partly because they remind so much of what Katara and Zuko could've been - but what's bugging me is that Bolin is clearly the one who makes Korra laugh and encourage fun out of her.  Bolin's the kid at heart, and Mako's the sullen teenager taking responsibilities.  Ugh... I have a feeling Mike & Bryan will be prolonging this love triangle throughout the series, and it'll be awkward since Mako and Bolin are orphaned brothers!  Oy.

In other news...  I'm officially a half-marathon runner!  2 hours, 11minutes, running nonstop.  It's a part of who I am now.  ^^