Marikris: Words of a Neurotic.

Playing with my Copic "comic" markers

Marikris — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 22:42:36 GMT

So I had won an auction from Ebay for 72 pcs of Copic "Comic" Markers. While I'd never heard of comic markers, I was definitely interested since it looked like sketch. The oval shape and the super fine brush - it was definitely a steal! Apparently, nobody had ever heard of them either, so I won it for pretty cheap *cheer*

The following pictures illustrate just how similar these markers are to sketch. The only real difference is the medium broad square nib on sketch - comic markers have a medium round nib (which I thought was pretty cool!) The other difference, however, is in the color tags: these comic markers start with CM** (where the asterisk go from 1 to 72), regardless of the color family. The other copics and their refills use different color tags: blues start with B, violets with V, etc.

According to Marianne, the Copic representative from the official website of the US copic distributor, these colors use the same Various Ink refills, though they have to be converted to the appropriate color the other copics use. She was nice enough to let me know that when it is time for me to refill, she will find a conversion chart for the comic markers.

Yeay!!

So there is it, guys: that's comic markers. Before I finish, I should also note that Marianne said these markers are not sold in the US. The ones I bought from Ebay were probably from Japan. Except it shipped from San Francisco - lol! The seller had probably made a trip to Japan and came back with dozens of copic sets to sell on Ebay. Last time I was browsing, he had Sketch sets A to D in 72 pcs and some in 36.

<3

The angel and the mermaid. Oh, and horror movies, oh my!

Marikris — Mon, 12 May 2008 22:50:18 GMT

Well, I can't figure out how to override Adobe Contribute's preset image settings (It keeps converting all my images to this standard 200ish x 300ish size. I even tried to tinker with the .csi file but to no avail.)

(Psssst. Click the images for a bigger size, kthnx.)

So this is what I had started to work on yesterday. It's kind of different from my usual drawing. It's a smaller figure, for sure, and I've added some swirly line thingies that I hope will turn out well. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the time to actually ink and color it because summer classes just started. Today.

*sad face*

I even brought it to class, hoping that I can catch a break in our 4 hour long Horror Film Studies period, but our professor gave us 6 packets of supplemental reading to do (aside from the 600ish page text for the class) and each packet was about 20+ pages long, so I found myself, instead, reading about the horror film genre and it's evolution since the 20's. Did I mention the class only runs for a MERE 3 weeks???? Talk about a crash course on horror films -_-

Anyway, I did finish highlighting my mermaid from Mermaids are Forever and this is what I ended up with:

MEH. But on a good note: I just got some more copic colors in today and hopefully I'll get more practice with the skin tone (and ugh! those fins! and what ARE those fish???).

Till next time!

TagsWings,Angels,manga,copics,illustration,drawing,mermaid,fish,sea,fins,woman

Mermaids are forever

Marikris — Sun, 11 May 2008 04:11:46 GMT

May 11th:

Can't sleep so I started working on this. Insomnia gets so bad sometimes. I did the sketch for this on my sketch pad, then I scanned it and printed it on marker paper. Came out alright so I copic-ed away.

Anyway, this was fun to work on, since I didn't care if I stayed within the lines (remember kindergarten and your teacher telling you, "Color within the line, children!" Well, I chucked that) and I kind if just experimented.

Half an hour of continuously blending circles with the colorless blender and I started feeling claustrophobic -_- I'm sure the dancing gnomes would have come a little while later had I not taken a break and gulped some alcohol-free air. Here I am 2 hours later and I'm still feeling the after-effects of too much marker smell.

I do love mermaids. In fact, I've loved mermaids even before I saw the Filipino movie "Dyesebel" with Alice Dixon. I don't recall exactly how I knew about the mer-people; I'm sure someone must have told a story. I had a little imaginary mermaid friend, even, who lived inside the faucet in the bath tub. She came out to play when we turned the tap on to fill it up. I remember she was tiny and fit in my palm. Hmm, wonder what happened to her...

"The Little Mermaid" was my very first Disney movie, and I didn't see that till I was about eight or nine. That first sequence after they show Prince Eric and it cuts to the fish who escaped the boat, I was so filled with wonder at my first sight of the mer folks. I remember it had given me goose bumps. What ever happened to cartoons like that? Oh the joy that had once been Disney O_o

Before I go to bed, here's a close-up of my mermaid:
Even though this was just practice, I really do see that I have a lot to work on still. I'm not comfortable yet with my light source: I find myself forgetting sometimes to establish shadows in the right areas and that's bad bad bad. Also, I must really like pointilism since I find myself poking dots 80% of the time without realizing exactly why I chose dotting. I haven't added high lights yet, by the way. I'll do it tomorrow and post an update, but for now my head aches so darned badly from the blender marker. Let this be a lesson unto ye: use it only in a ventilated area.

G'Night!

Revisiting Manga

Marikris — Sat, 10 May 2008 13:19:01 GMT

After the failed attempt at inking last time, I decided to stick with some color. I call this "The Gatekeeper." I started at about noon today, thinking hard about a subject matter and then sketching it with a pencil (finished about 7pm, after copious breaks, procrastinating, and erasing). I'm surprised the parchment paper held up so well since I was erasing like crazy (one would think I would have been smart enough to use a different paper to transfer my original sketch for the final illustration, but in this case, laziness > intelligence = more work = defeated the purpose of having been lazy in the first place).

I used a lot of grays since I have all the neutrals, toners, cools and warms anyway. May as well let them earn their board. Then I decided I wanted some other colors so in went the blues, greens, yellows etc. My tree is "meh". So is my key. But good thing I'm just practicing still!!! I can only get better, right??? RIGHT?!

*nervous laugh*

Epic Sandals, at least in my opinion! The Two Lip Zig Zag Wedge.

Marikris — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 21:07:28 GMT

I LOVE these shoes. I can't stress that enough. LOVE LOVE LOVE EM! I just ordered a pair from Victoria's Secret but they are backordered till mid June. Since I have some time to kill, I think I'll make a list of what I love about these shoes:

Their unique wedge ziggy zagginess
Gold (I mean, seriously, need I say more about gold)
Rhinestone-y thingies that make it spahhhhkle
It's skanky and flashy, and will definitely cause a stir. Yet QUITE tasteful ^_^ Oh the dichotomy!
4 inch heels that make your calves and your butt pop (lol!)

So I think they're a good investment. The sad thing, however, is that I've been wearing flipflops for two years and I can't imagine wearing such fancy shoes in my Abercrombie/Hollister-wearing college.

Inking gone wrong

Marikris — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:45:16 GMT

Today I decided to try just inking. Well, that didn't go too well. I used Copic multi-liners on marker paper and I'm not done yet, but I figured I'll post it here to show how it may change in the future. Suffice to say that I am not very fond of it at the moment. I also used sharpie to fill in the big blacks and I wasn't fond of that either. I call this Womb:

Coloring Eve

Marikris — Wed, 07 May 2008 12:57:27 GMT

After realizing that I really, really am not too great with coloring, I decided to FINALLY give it a go. Face my own fear. So this morning, this is what I came up with after coloring Late Night Eve from last night.

from this:

to this:

and then to this:

I darkened her skin considerably and really layered the colors in. The colors are super saturated because it's marker paper, Bienfang Graphics 360, so the ink stayed right on the surface. If you don't wait for it to dry before applying another layer of color on top, the colors gets pushed around as if you're using a blender. I didn't realize this in the beginning but it gave pretty cool effects and textures. The hair, for example, looks 3D from all the different colors thickly layered on top. Since the ink didn't really get absorbed into the paper, they dried thickly. (It's probably impossible to tell from this terribad scan.) And with the final image, I just used the airbrush system to put a little bit of yellow around her, then the colorless blender to make the whorls of lines.

(Why won't that pink line go away????)

So this is it for now, but I'll probably keep revamping this piece till I'm super satisfied. Maybe I'll chuck it. I don't know *mumble*. Comments are, as always, very much appreciated <3<3

Late Night Eve

Marikris — Wed, 07 May 2008 10:50:44 GMT

And when I say "eve" I mean the woman with a capital E.

I can't sleep and it's almost 4am. I'd written 2 essays today and one cover page talking about why I deserve an A-. Not an A, mind you, an A-. So I figured I'd give myself a break and try to do something fun.

I just got my 72 pc 144B copics originals today, but for this drawing, I stuck with my copic sketch. This is the initial stage of something, but I'm not sure what yet. But we'll call her Eve. Don't mind my evil scanner's pink vertical line. It's evil and I don't know how to fix it -_-

Random drawings: Earlier years

Marikris — Fri, 02 May 2008 12:57:27 GMT

Inspired by Utenya and Nakatsu, I went back to my trusty old portfolio in search of drawings I had made "back in the day." So here's the tattered remains of my earlier works and I wish I knew how to make them bigger instead of this quasi-thumbnail size.

2000

Fashion Institute of Technology

This was an assignment where we were supposed to look at magazines to draw a 3/4 face. I just made it up since I couldn't afford a magazine -_-

2000

Fashion Institute of Technology

This and the one to the right were for a "fashion line" we students were developing for drawing class. My theme was Buttercup Babies.

2000

Fashion Institute of Technology

Drawn on marker paper and then cut out and pasted to a black mat board. I never did my homework on time, so I was always cutting off the fingers and toes by accident in the train to school.

2002

My nephew-in-law.

2006

I drew this in the car so it's really rough. This is my NE Druid with her Cenarion Herb bag and walking stick, haha!

2007

St. Mary's College

This was for one assignment where we were supposed to explore different styles.

You can definitely see, I think, that I have a mish-mash of influences, from western comic books to manga and to fashion design. I actually had been told by my professors while I was in FIT to make my figures less curvy, less Beyonce-like and more Twiggy-ish and that's when I started reading manga to absorb some of the style. I don't really know how to categorize my style these days, since I haven't really drawn anything for fear that I have lost whatever it was that I had... =*(

Online shopping list: copic liners, opaque white etc

Marikris — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:36:41 GMT

Copics are super expensive!

So with that out of the way *breathe* I surfed online for about 2 days figuring out which online stores stock them t he cheapest. Imagine my surprise when I came across Carpediem and realized they have a year-long sale going on. According to their site and the subsequent email they sent me after I inquired about their discount, they are hosting a super low price for Copic markers for the year, and returning Copic customers can enjoy another 10% discount on top of their order.

A Copic sketch marker is $3.95 - and if you come back, you get 10% off!

Way cheaper than the $5 a pop in other stores. So OF COURSE I don't buy mine there, even though I made put all the markers I drooled over in the cart and created an account. One reason was when I logged back in to that account, my shopping cart was E-M-P-T-Y! I was horrified since I had 40+ markers and some liners already set for me to just hit the SUBMIT ORDER button.

So watch out for that. Make sure you're ready to pay when you shop at Carpediem -_-

Second, I found a 72 pc. Copic Original 144b set on Ebay for $189, which puts the individual markers to roughly $2.70/each. Even though my gut was telling me not to purchase a set since it's always better to customize your colors to your wants and needs, I did anyway because Ebay is evil like that - it sucks you in GRRR.

I haven't received it yet, but the picture from the seller seems to differ from the color block image from copicmarkers.com See here:

I don't know, am I tripping or does it look different to you too?

Anyway, I contacted the seller 30 minutes ago and I'm just waiting to hear from him. Talk about buyer's remorse...huh?

So back to CarpeDiem: in anticipation for my Copics coming, I did place an order for some colored multiliners: sepia, cobalt, gray and wine. Among other things too, like the Copic opaque white. So for a $47.82 total, shipping was UPS Ground $13.06 from California to Maryland. Then I realized, oh wait, they also had a pack of 2mm 2b leads for about $7-ish and I would like to purchase that too!

In goes the new order to the shopping cart. I hit ESTIMATE SHIPPING and guess what - it's also UPS Ground $13.06. askdjadf!wieuqowy (<--that's me ramming my head on the keyboard). No way, nah-uh, not gonna happen. So I emailed then really quickly and asked if I could include that in my previous order so I didn't have to pay extra shipping. For good measure, I contacted their customer service number and received...AN ANSWERING MACHINE. And it kept cutting me off on my second sentence (double GRRRR). I couldn't even leave a message!

So now I'm waiting to hear from two sellers via email and it's driving me nuts. I will update about CarpeDiem's customer service as soon as I get a response, however, since I feel that it's as important as having low prices in your store.

On a side note: relating to my previous entry (here), I didn't win the $500, but I did get a nifty Award certificate for excellence with 7 others, and ate some awesome marble cake and punch (not spiked, unfortunately). Congratulations to Theresa Tenaglia and her photo collage (too bad I don't have an image of her work) that won the Gough Art Award (yeay!).

Tags:

copics,markers,CarpeDiem,multiliners,144b,Ebay,leonardtown,gough,award

Gough Art Exhibition and Award Today at Leonardtown!

Marikris — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:49:29 GMT

As luck would have it, two of the works I submitted to St. Mary's Juried All Student Art Show '08 was also picked for the Gough Art Exhibition at the PNC Bank in Leonardtown. The Exhibition will run during the summer and will showcase selected works from St. Mary's Art Show - selected, that is, by Jan Lomax, Vice President and Public Relations Marketing Manager of PNC, when she went to visit St. Mary's show. This is one of my works they will be showing.

Untitled, Photography using Nikon FM10. It also won Outstanding Art Work by a Junior Student in the St. Mary's Juried Art Show (yeay!)

What I really like about the PNC show is there's a more commercial venue and exposure in that location (versus the school). If you want to sell your work, you can provide your contact information to the bank and they could then relay that to the interested party/parties. The same thing could be done at the school, but the demographics of the viewers would be vastly different.

And did I mention $500 to the Gough Art Exhibition Award winner???

Um..yea...So wish me luck!!

AND since I promised myself, I will practice very hard on my Copic marker skillzors, here's what I did this morning. Actually, I drew and inked it at 3am last night and then colored it about two hours ago.

It's supposed to be me...but I thnk I need more skin colors because I'm definitely more olive toned than fair - I'm Filipino -_-

Anyway, I was going for a less manga-like approach and more realism, but hrmm well...oh, and please ignore the red diagonal line under her left bang from my crazy scanner.

Now I think it's time for me to explore the rest of the body and not just heads, don't you? ^_^

Tags:

copic,ink blot,art,photograph,Nikon,FM10,St. Mary,Leonardtown,PNC

Starting out with Copics Part Deux

Marikris — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:18:27 GMT

This is a continuation of my previous post from Starting out with Copics.

Coloring the hair was a LOT harder than I anticipated. In fact, I plumb near jacked it all up and given up. These are the colors I used:

Base color: W1
Shadow: C5
Dark color: 110

When I first laid out the colors, I actually wasn't planning on using black. I had wanted Lucifer to have white hair with gray shadows and blue lights, but the only blue color I have is BV04 Blue Berry which is way too dark and hard to blend in. So after laying down the base color, making sure to leave white spaces for lighting, I proceeded with C5 in quick narrow strokes. I tested out BV04, decided it was way too grayish purple and dark, then added the black as a last resort. I think I did alright, again using quick short strokes and keeping the lighting in mind, but I think I have to work a lot harder to make my strokes less erratic and more controlled.

I then used .03 Copic Multiliner to re-outline and clean up marker bleeding. You can definitely tell where I added more lines and re-fluffed his hair. So that's it for now, let me know what you guys think and if you have any suggestions, etc, I'd really appreciate it. I've been voraciously going through Deviant Art tutorials but I definitely need the experience.

Starting out with Copics

Marikris — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:09:26 GMT

It is a sad, sad thing that I won't be participating next year as a senior in my college's Exhibition. Every senior gets to choose whether he or she want to participate, and for art majors it means showcasing their works at the end of every semester in our art gallery and giving a "talk" on what went on in their crazy little heads that produced such fine works.

That won't be me *sigh*. It doesn't fit my work load, so instead I'm taking as many Independent Studies as I can. This summer - yup, no break for me - one of the courses I am taking is Advanced Illustration. So I figured I should probably dust off my long-forgotten drawing ability and really try to give as much as I got.

Enter Copic markers. I haven't used markers in SEVEN years (omg *sob*) since my one-semester stint at FIT, and I'm a bit apprehensive. I'm thinking of basing my illustrations on Lucille Clifton's "Tree of Life" poetic series where she imagines herself as Adam, Eve and Lucifer. Here's one poem:

eve's version

smooth talker

slides into my dreams

and fills them with apple

apple snug as my breast

in the palm of my hand

apple sleek apple sweet

and bright in my mouth

it is your own lush self

you hunger for

he whispers lucifer

honey-tongue.

(From Blessing the Boats, 2000)

So far, though, all I have is a character sketch of Eve and Lucifer - and both are still in progress. This image of Lucifer will be completed tomorrow and I'll upload that then. Coloring the skin has always been my favorite part, and I did the best I could with the few Copics I have:

base color: E00
shadow: YR00
dark shadow: V01
highlight: Y15

I think I may have messed up on the shadowing (sometimes I forget my light source) but hopefully it's not too noticeable. Anyway, I'll end here and hope to post again tomorrow ^_^

HDR craziness!

Marikris — Thu, 01 May 2008 16:29:39 GMT

I guess I should start using this blog for something other than twice a year ramblings.

I've been very busy with college projects (more on that in later blogging) but I had managed to sneak away to test out my new Tamron 17-50 with my almost-as-new Canon XTi.

From my gallery at Smugmug.

This is an HDR from 3 pictures, auto-bracketed at f4. It was really hard to accomplish because I had to stand on top of the tables to set my tripod in a good spot. Add the dog running around and the two ladies and I had a lot of ghosting going on. Also, I was trying REALLY really hard not to be very conspicuous - but on top of the table with a tripod and a sweater over my head and the camera (because it started to rain) and I looked QUITE conspicuous indeed! -_-

Anyway, as luck would have it, while I was pretending to shoot the sky, the three live members in my view finder paused long enough for me to fire 3 quick shots. The dog had a very happy tail, resulting in a slight ghosting effect, which Photoshop easily fixed. The three images were processed through Photomatix and tonemapped. The resulting image was then tweaked through Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Lightroom. It took a few hours for me to be satisfied. In fact, in my gallery, I have another version of this picture with a border and differing color effects. Between the two, though, I like this one better.

More pictures + ramblings next time ^_^

Tags:

picture,HDR,landscape,Spyglass,Canon,XTi,Tamron 17-50

Speeding Cars Make Me Angry. ..GRR.

Marikris — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:37:49 GMT

Nothing makes me more nervous than seeing a car gaining speed behind me as I glance at my rear view mirror. The 50 speed limit sign flashes past me and I check my gauge: I'm doing 55 mph. It's a two lane traffic and the car behind me is riding my butt. Yes, I consider my car's butt MY butt.

Any minute now, I think to myself, the car will pass me. There are plenty of opportunities when the other direction of traffic is empty - and the car stays tenaciously riding ...my...butt. I don't understand!! I can almost hear my friend, Cindy, telling me, "You know what I do, Kris? This always work. I tap my breaks. Just gently, ok? Just let that person know they're too close."

But I can't do it. It makes me nervous playing with my breaks. I'm a sad excuse for a driver as it is. Instead I hear her voice again. "Ok, ok," she says. "You know what else works? I put on my windshield wipers and make sure I make a lot of splash. It gets on their windshield. They hate that."

Brilliant. I pop my windshield wipers and let water get all over my windshield. Watch the wipers do their job and fling it backwards. The wind helps too.

I flick my glance back to my rear view mirror and sure enough, the other car is farther back. The only unfortunate part is my windows were open when I turned the wipers on, letting in small gobs of dirty windshield water. But oh well, I'm happy.

I really do hate speeding drivers. (What's wrong with doing a respectable 5 mph more than the speed limit, anyway??)

Testing Contribute CS3

Marikris — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:38:27 GMT

I wonder if this will work. I don't even know if Godaddy lets me use Contribute to publish from a remote third party application. But I'm going to try!

The High King's Tomb by Kristen Britain

Marikris — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 11:52:15 GMT

Two hours ago, I had a headache blooming. I had started the book early today and, though I hadn't reread the earlier novels, I was caught up in the blossoming story, waiting for more of the Karigan love story subplot.

**May be some spoilers after this point**

Then around page 200, the narrative started to crawl. The view points were too spread out between the main characters and, instead of fleshing them out, just simply detracted from the story. I didn't feel that Estora was any more realized at the end of the book than at the beginning. I didn't think Amberhill, since he was given some writing time to begin with, was given enough time to shine. Fergal, Dale - just some more examples of yet more characters popping up with their own side-stories. And though Karigan is the protagonist, there was not enough writing dedicated to her. It was kind of frustrating.

There were also parts that *really* should have been chucked or glossed over. Karigan's whole conversations with Estral and her friends at the school accomplished nothing but to ask Karigan what had been happening in her life since previous novels. I even dreaded every time the perspective went back to Alton at the wall which, when he still accomplished nothing, only served to dwell on his lack of progress.

My headache started to wear off by page 400 when action started to pick up again. I was happy to find some resolution at the end (there were some things that were also introduced at the end for the next novel to deal with), though unsatisfied with some of the major issues I really cared about (namely the love story aspect that really did not *at all* move along). Hopefully the following books will be more cohesive and less cluttered with side-stories that in no way help the book move forward or develop the characters.

Outsmarting the DELETE button.

Marikris — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 02:27:45 GMT

Why is it that for someone fluent in two languages and semi-conversant in another, I have the hardest time writing? Lists, notes, blogs - let alone the epic novels for which I (one day) will be famous. It's as if by setting thoughts and ideas to paper or typing in my keyboard, I was disturbing the purity of blankness. Most often, staring up at my computer screen, I watch helplessly as the cursor blinks, helplessly hypnotized by it's infinite rhythm.

Blink...Blink...Blink...

Always my breathing would slow down...slower...slower...and then faster and faster when I realize that there is STILL nothing on the screen. So I experiment. I type a single letter, quickly.

M

And faster than the next cursor blink, it gets deleted.

The DELETE key strikes again.

A professor in one of the colleges I had attended two years ago had once told the class that the DELETE key is one of the worst inventions in history. It makes it so easy to not commit. That an idea gets so obstructed by deleted words that it could not be properly birthed into being should be a crime.

I tend to agree. This is a very short post and yet, after looking at the time, it has taken me almost an hour and a half to complete. The DELETE key has taught me to become a pre-proofreader, so that before I could even complete a few words, I had already proofread the whole sentence in the paper of my mind and deemed it imperfect. DELETE DELETE DELETE.

I bet the DELETE button will be quite surprised when I hit the PUBLISH tab.

Toys and Grown-Ups

Marikris — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 01:08:59 GMT

I was listening to the radio two days ago when they started talking about the new PlayStation 3. I remember my husband talking about it, how one of his co-workers got the day off just to stand in line at some god-awful hour of the morning at the local Walmart. Supposedly, Walmart was getting 50 in stock, but one of the employees came out to tell the people in line that they were only really getting 16. My husband's co-worker was 17th in line.

Without losing a beat, he turned around and stood in front of Kmart. When Kmart's doors opened, however, the employees told the people outside that they only had 2. Our poor friend, of course, was 3rd in line.

It seemed like such a trivial reason to miss work, but I laughed because I did sympathize. I'm also a gamer, though I would not go to such extremes to get my consoles or games on the day it comes out. On Ebay, PlayStation 3 was being auctioned off for thousands of dollars - the highest listing auctioned for $44,000. I figured I should stand in line for the next Xbox or PlayStation 4, since reselling was apparently good business.

Then I heard the news.

There were riots in certain cities - even shootings in Connecticut. People had died that day for the sake of a brand new PlayStation. It reminds of the time the talking Elmo doll came out, and people were trampled to death when Kmart opened for the day. What does this say about our society? I, for one, am pretty disgusted.

Writing Against the Writer's Block

Marikris — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 13:47:38 GMT

A prolific writer I am not. When I was younger, I used to write all the time: in my diary, letters to my friends, poetry, short stories. Then in High School, it stopped. It all...just...stopped. The words quit coming and my frustrations began.

I've tried a few things to alleviate the situation. I've doodled on the paper, I've drawn little comic strips to help the words along. Unfortunately, the wall of the "writer's block" would not lift, and I've learned to hate the blinking cursor of my computer screen, mocking me as it blinked infinitely without pause. Even my innocent journal has become my enemy. Everyday I would open it up, a pen poised in my hand, and I would simply get lost in it. At it's blankness.

My creative writing college professor said I should try writing on newspapers. That way I wouldn't write on a blank sheet and be discouraged. Other writers said they write on a strict schedule, the words flowing through routine. I haven't yet breeched word-nirvana, but I am trying through writing my blog. I drink tea as soon as I wake up and I sit in front of my computer, crack a knuckle or two, and prepare to fight for a few sentences. Each is hard won, and the DELETE button is my friend.

Funny how that is: I'd read something a while back preaching against the DELETE button, that it's the worst invention ever. That it aided writer's block. One push at the key and a letter disappears. Or a word. A sentence. Or a book. It makes people prone to erase ideas and hinder progress.

I am hindering my progress. I need to write to be a writer. It's because I'm so afraid that I can't write that I don't. I don't so I can't.

So this morning I drank my tea, I sat in front of the computer and started writing this post. Now it's 1:45 pm, but it's finished. I did it.