Only updating every six months seems to be like a decent idea. Actually, it's really due to the fact that I've been busy as all hell lately, and now that I'm de-stressed, I can start art-ing again.

What happened? Two crazy landlords, five crazy roommates, getting more and more sick of living in Vancouver (its heart is in the right place. The people living there tend to be sort of dicks, though), finishing my degree, and having to move back in with my parents and start the job hunt in the second-worst place to get a job in the country after Detroit happened. But it isn't all complaints; I had a pretty good semester, got to spend a month with ~mandalou, the best girl in the world, and I finished my degree. To an English Lit student (the type who actually cares about literature, because really, there are plenty who could care less), this means finally being able to read what you want to read and write what you want to write.

The result of this freedom? In the past six months (since the beginning of my last term), my library has almost doubled in size, bringing it now to a modest 130 books. There were about 15 that I had planned to read through by the end of summer, and in the past month, I've read 8. And I'm not talking about just any old books, I'm talking about Faulkner and Bulgakov and Baldwin.

I've also seriously begun working on a novel; the innards of which have been plastered to an entire wall of my room: timelines, poetry references, photographs, chapter breakdowns, character sketches, and a five-foot wide map of the United States, covered in stickies. I'm averaging about a chapter or more per week if I'm working at it, which means that, if I keep working at it, I might have a completed first draft by the end of the year.

And, hey, while I was out today, I happened to pick up some new sketch paper and a new conté crayon in a color that I adore. So now I'm sketching, and that will probably lead to art-ing on other things (for example, I have a plan to make friends bookplate stamps for Festivus), so I don't see why those can't end up in this neck of the woods!

Anyway, if you are really interested in what I'm up to, then head over to my blog:

[link]

If you check it out, you'll see that it's mostly about reading books and other things. I'm reviewing all the books that I'm doing for my summer list, and there's the Arts Deux Reading Challenge ( [link] ), which isn't so much a challenge as it is a set of suggestions for people who want what they read to be enjoyable AND make them smarter, more clever, and probably a pretty badass person.

And, finally, since I mentioned it, here's a link to the first chapter of the novel (which right now is called Clockwork Mouse). Download it! Read it! Beg for more!

[link]

The cat is purring like a maniac. I should be ramblin' along.