set backs galore! (or how i became a jerry springer show special)

okay–so i’m of irish descent….

(excuses! just the facts,ma’am!)

and though i am aware of most of the rules & laws & such of our society…i don’t understand them. like, if a person comes across the love her life making out with a brain-damaged pothead in broad daylight just a block from her house…shouldn’t one kick to the knee be allowed? granted, as the man cop alluded to, i should have kicked dusty as well…. but i kicked a girl. i lost my heart. and i broke my elbow all in the span of a few blurry rage-filled moments.

and now my pages aren’t done yet.

maybe i can work more tonight. or maybe i will take one or two of the tylenols with codeine that the kind & handsome dr. joe gave me for my elbow.

one thing is for damn sure. i need to stop finding new material to work with. enough already. keep the drama to the pages, mama.

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ready…set…draw!

my desk is set up!!!!! i could not be more excited. which goes to prove i am a total comic booking geek. i love working on comics! i get so excited just thinking about them! but not just any comics. i cannot do the hero comics–as eddie campbell calls them. i love the alternatives. like most of life, i love the alternatives. i love being a woman graphic novelist.

i went through a lot of my stuff as i unpacked & organized. i did not (as i was tempted to do due to minimalism or fear of criticism) recycle all of the stories from my last writer’s workshop. i kept them. i want to be serious. i want to do re-writes & edit & fine tune. i want to do it all. and i want to draw pictures to go with my words.

i want to draw pictures.

i am 45 years old & i know this about me: i want to draw pictures.

i’m headed back to school after a semester off. maybe i will get my degree. maybe i will get my mother-fucking MFA. who knows? poppy will be weaned in the foreseeable future. misha is already crazy independent. i am only going to have more & more time to work on my comics. and i am going to work on my comics. this is who i am. this is what i do.

so, come hell or high water, there will be new pages of moses jones next week! and, you know what, just for shits & giggles, i might work on another comic as well.

here i am. here i stay.

artist, mama, student, baker, writer?

or candlestick maker?

i doodled this as my daughter, misha, did a study for language and development. she is delayed in her speech. the speech pathologist made a point of telling me how important it was that we get her ways to communicate all the amazing things that must be going on in her head. or else she will become frustrated with not being able to show people how amazing she is. “it’s especially important with children as bright as she is to learn to communicate.” dumb kids need not apply, i guess. ha! i felt sad thinking of her frustration–perhaps because i know that frustration. being misunderstood. not being able to put into words–or the right words–all the amazing things in your head. my own delayed speech, i think, must have contributed to my wanting to be a writer and an artist–to my wanting to find a better way to communicate where spoken language had left me wanting.

as i watched misha play with the speech pathologist, i was reading hip mama’s latest issue and trying to read the short story that won first prize in a contest i did not place in. the story was…lackluster? it did nothing for me. this won? i thought, and tried not to take it personally. i need to try harder. i can do better than this. were the next thoughts to run through my mind. doing better. i can do better than the entry i sent to the contest, and i can do better than the story that won first prize. i am actually a very good writer. it’s true. i need more focus maybe. more practice. but i do have something. i need to start writing again! i determined. i quit writing fiction (other than graphic novels) because i was tired of being rejected and tired of competing with the never-ending parade of writers there are these days. but i have a renewed desire to write and to compete. some of it is a need for money–should i start winning contests and getting published–but a lot of it is just my need to communicate. graphic novels are my first love, but–fuck me–the story unfolds slowly. i think i need to be spewing other thoughts of mine in a quicker fiction.

speaking of money. i have not “worked” since shortly after fidgit was born. almost 10 years ago. i have worked–hard for no money–as a mom. i have done some freelance writing for demand studios (google “em connell mccarty” for your ehow articles on how to give a dog a birthday party…ha!) and i have gone to school for writing and art. however, as unconventional and low-impact as our family is–we need a bit more of the green stuff. and not the green stuff we can forage for. today i am trying to write up my resume for a baking job. i love baking–but i’m not sure about the hours. so far i have my name & phone number written down. no address because i’m not sure where i will be living at the end of the month. though! good news there. the woman we met with about renting part of her home seemed to like us, and having had two sons of her own (now grown) she was not terrified by the antics of figdit & iggy. so we might might might have a place to live other than my mazda5…. and maybe more income if i can remember my work history from my previous lives and use it to find work. or! maybe i will win a fiction writing contest…hmmm.

torn between two lovers…

being a mom & being an artist. is there a compromise?

last night, preparing for a birthday party for iggy who is turning seven, i became very bitter towards dusty who pulled his usual disappearing act. i told him i was stressed out (as a rabid introvert, i hate hate hate throwing parties–but iggy loves people & parties & invited all of the neighbors over for cake today) and that i needed help. he became angry. he wanted to hang out with his brother. he complained about me under his breath all the way out the out the door and then took an hour and a half to tell his brother that he could not hang out with him after all. by that time, i had cleaned the apartment, wrapped presents, done the dishes, and blown up balloons. meanwhile, these half finished pages stared at me, silently, waiting. i feel like dusty gets to do whatever he wants, while i keep house & think about being an artist. dream about it. writing pages in my head as i nurse the baby….

ppbbbtt!

i have page 30 & 31 rough drafted. i found it seems more time efficient to do more than one page at a time. i have page 32 thumbnail sketched. i am exploring the darker side of roommates & cooperative living. or, rather, the petty side. we get to see the ugly side of jake, and more of lucy defending moses jones. meanwhile, i have realized i really do not like susan (maybe that’s why i struggle with drawing her??) and that she might be modeled after a couple of spineless women i used to cooperatively live with–who would talk the big talk, but then stab you in the back. yay, cooperative living.

so i’m preparing for random people, most of whom i don’t even like, to invade my home & eat the homemade pizza, homemade ice cream cake, and homemade cherry lemonade i have slaved over in my neurotic urge to please people i don’t even care for–to be a good hostess even though i hate throwing parties….

ppbbtt!

tomorrow? maybe?

ps. check out this sweet dragon tattoo iggy got for his birthday.

cute kids….

another one from the moses jones work in progress. i really don’t know where i’m going with this comic. i expect it will come to me in a dream…or i will just keep drawing installments until by some freak accident a storyline emerges (all too often this is how i write.) i really like this page & for a long time i could not read it without laughing outloud. sometimes i worry that i am the only person who finds me funny….
zombies! cannibals! motherhood!