You are currently browsing the monthly archive for March, 2008.
There’s a great article over on the vulture blog about the amazing writer Jhumpa Lahiri. If you’re a fan, or interested in becoming one, check it out.
Ah, rejection. There’s nothing like the smell of rejection first thing in the morning on your way to your writing group. Sunday I got a little form rejection card on the query for my novel to a huge agency. Since it was for a HUGE and seriously major house, and my work is not necessarily mainstream, I’m not really surprised, but it’s still a bummer.
Here’s the latest summary:
#1: Partial Requested and Rejected. Door left nicely open to submit my graphic novel when further along (it is sadly not further along).
#2: Never heard from them, which is frustrating as they show a 3 -4 week turnaround and I think I got lost in the shuffle (or am up on previously mentioned “laughing board”). I have also submitted this “no reponse to a query, though they say they will get back to the sender regardless” question to an “advice” blog, called The Rejecter…one week out.
#3: Dead. No response to email query. I’m considering it a rejection.
#4. Requested Partial. Sent Partial (first five chapters) via mail about ten weeks ago - no word yet.
#5. Full Requested. Sent Full via mail about seven weeks ago – no word yet.
#6. No response to email query as yet, about ten weeks out.
#7. Rejection to regular mail query from HUGE agency, about a ten week turnaround.
#8. Rejected Query.
So, 3 Rejected Queries; 1 Rejected Partial; 1 Requested Partial; 1 Requested full; 2 Queries still living in limbo…not so bad, although worse than the last time I posted an update. Please continue crossing your fingers and holding your breath for a couple more months okay? Thanks.
I’ve been trying to slowly edge towards more healthy lifestyle choices (VERY slowly) and thought I’d see if V8 was an option for getting extra vegetable servings into my diet. NOT going to happen. This stuff tasted terrible. And I don’t really know why…I mean I like vegetables…and I definitely like tomato juice which seems like the base of the drink…but it is NOT like tomato juice…and there is a truly horrible aftertaste. I am liking the new V8 fusion though, which is fruit and vegetables and tastes much more like fruit…so far I’ve only had the Tropical Orange as Pomegranete Blueberry always seems to be sold out near me and Strawberry Banana and Peach Mango are obvious no go flavors for me (see: here). There is also an Acai Mixed Berry flavor, which has potential, but I also haven’t seen that one in the store and will need to check the ingredients when I do.
I know this is riveting Monday morning conversation…what can I say…I’m a riveting person.
Sadly, if I do in fact have a sensitive or refined palette, it is totally wasted. I despise and will not tolerate onions, thus a HUGE selection of foods are off limits to me, even whole types of cuisine sometimes. I can almost never order a soup in a restaurant (definitely gonna have onions) and while I’ve found things I really like at Thai and Indian restaurants, navigating the menu is always a bit of a challenge. So this palette of mine, refined or no, is wasted on me. I’ve branched out much more in my adulthood, often with thanks to Adam (I now like roasted brussel sprouts and about a thousand other vegetables I never would have tried without his guidance) but onions remain a hated enemy, I doubt I’ll ever get over it.
Randomly I also hate and will not tolerate: bananas, mushrooms (although I’ve made an exception here a few times in the last year for portabellos with not disastrous results), peaches, apricots, and plums (long story), as well as red grapes, pumpkin, coconut, and cooked carrots.
Any kind of food that you guys despise? Does it limit you?
It seemed high time to correct some of my rabid readership’s thinking…we are in fact NOT curing cancer with this comic strip. I hope some of you will stick around anyway…
I’ve already written a massive review about this book, so I’ll spare you. Suffice to say the book pretty well rocked, and the movie was one of the most horrible pieces of crap I’ve ever seen in my life. The comic is a pretty accurate detail of what it was like to read the book, I really did hate Anne Boleyn with such venom for about 450 pages that I could barely sit still, but Gregory does a pretty good job of turning her around towards the end so that you can feel for her as she gets trapped in her own web.
On the same topic, I recently finished Divorced, Beheaded, Survived: A Feminisit Reinterpretation of the Wives of Henry VIII. It was interesting, but I didn’t feel it was a very in depth (or feminist) account of these women, I also didn’t love the author’s writing style and often found it a bit confusing, so I’ve moved on to The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir, which is a giant in-depth biography. I’m about 100 pages in and so far find it incredibly informative and well-written.
It’s funny, I probably would have read and enjoyed a book like this in school had it been assigned to me, but I certainly never would have read it in my free time of my own volition, and here I am not only reading it, but actively hunting down other good biographies I’ve heard of. Strange how people grow up and change.
Sorry for the late posting…I’ve been ill, probably due to overwork and have taken a much needed day off/sick day and I was sleeping in. I’ve been working my regular work schedule plus going home early on Thursdays and working late from home and then working all day at home on Fridays trying to meet Monday draft deadlines for a web design thing for my office. There is ALWAYS way more work than I think there will be however, and so for the last three or four weekends that has meant working Saturday and Sunday as well…usually a minimum of eight hours each day. It it is totally killing me. And Adam is none to happy either. The side effects, in order of importance are:
1. I am an incredible exhausted grouchy-pants most (all) of the time.
2. I spend almost no pure/good/fun downtime with Adam unless it is scheduled (The Bad Plus show for example).
3. My body is so sick of sitting at my desk and staring at a computer screen that I wouldn’t sit at my desk/computer to do my own writing and comics if you threatened me with my greatest fears. Thus, no writing and the bare minimum of comics have been done over the last month.
The good news is, the project is looking good, and thankfully drawing to a close. I optimistically predict there will be less than eight hours of work this coming weekend and I hope to maybe take next Monday off as well, to offset the horror.
This must be the tiniest taste of what tax accountants experience every winter/spring. Suffice to say I will not be switching over to that field…
As childless atheists (that sounds really bad somehow) these kind of holidays just slip on by. This year I actually did manage to remember and gave Adam some brightly colored chocolate treats (that is what Easter is about right – “Brightly Colored Chocolate Treats…often shaped like cute animals”)? But otherwise it passed without a mention.
We did see The Bad Plus at the Bluenote on Saturday night with some friends and it was, as usual, fantastic. Standouts were their songs Dirty Blonde and 1980 World Champion (sound familiar?) as well as their brilliant cover of Tears For Fears Everybody Wants to Rule The World. Great stuff and a really good time with friends I haven’t seen in far too long.
A special shout out to Steve who didn’t want to go to the show and came along anyway. It wasn’t really his thing, but he gets major points for being a team player and hanging out.
Yup. Memory loss. Good times. To be fair, my co-worker is actually YOUNGER than I am, but still, the inability to come up with the word “revolving” is just too sad. On the plus side, once I got over the fact that I am old and feeble minded, I find it quite fun to call revolving doors, “go round doors” it’s got a nice ring to it I think…
Matthew Reidsma, an incredibly talented comic strip artist, whose strip High Maintenance Machine is so superior to mine I can’t even explain it, in fact once you visit High Maintenance Machine you’ll probably never come back (sniff sniff), just celebrated his 600th strip last month and is having a little contest for other artists to try a hand at drawing his strip. The deadline was yesterday, and here is my entry. You can also see Paul’s (My Life Comics) entry here.
Please do check out High Maintenance Machine, it is a truly excellent strip.
Yeah, Bed Bath & Beyond and I continue to have a very different sense of humor. It has made our relationship challenging…
I’ve gotten a tiny little taste of semi-fame and I’ll tell you what, I’d pretty much like some more.
Adam and I went to dinner and a movie last night downtown after my salon visit (it’s always a shame to waste super awesome hair by just going straight home – though I’m not sure a dark movie theater is really the place to be showing off awesome locks). Anyway, we went to my new favorite place, which I’ve talked about before, Urban Lobster. As we’re walking inside, Adam grabs me and says, “Oh my god – Kelly look.” And sure enough, taped up in the window with some of their recent reviews, is Rabid Lamb Comic #70 in which I proclaimed my love for Urban Lobster. Hilarious and awesome.
We had our, as usual, delicious meal, and upon leaving we saw the strip and blurb I wrote about Urban posted up on an exterior wall as well. It was pretty much awesome. I took a picture of the ad in the window with my phone, it’s pretty tiny and crappy since it was taken on a phone, but check it out below.
Adam asked me if I had any regrets about the comic now that it was posted up on a public wall, and I said yes, for sure, I wished I’d drawn it better as I particularly hate panel one (panel two I actually love and three and four are passable, though the text is a bit wonky) but this is actually a bit of a conundrum. I know I can draw better than what I crank out for Rabid Lamb, but I’m just too busy and posting daily is just too fast and intense for me to put in the necessary time to get everything drawn at a level I’d be more happy with. I don’t know, I’m going to have to think about it. Anyone have any thoughts?
Sidenote: I’ve decided that should I ever be on Death Row, my last meal request will be “Lobster Bisque, Lobster Roll and Mashed Potatoes from Urban Lobster”…It’s definitely carb heavy, but it’s my last meal…might as well live it up right?
Talking heads again, but with an exciting 4th panel, sort of.
To my credit, I had been up late for just days and days and days with very little sleep, and I happen to live on a very frat-y wanna be irish street that has no less than three irish bars within shouting distance of my window. Did you do anything great for St. Patrick’s Day? Clearly I did not…sleep is good.
Best. Comic. Ever. Yeah, aren’t you glad you came all the way back here for a talking head comic? Sorry. I’ll try harder for tomorrow…technical difficulties be damned.
1979 Semi-Finalist is experiencing them…or rather Rabid Lamb Comics is. There’s a comic. It’s going to go up, but it’s going to be a bit later this afternoon. Please check back. Thanks for your patience.
It’s funny because it’s true. Well okay, maybe not funny, but it is true.
Please forgive me if the comics are on the suck-y side this week, I worked long hours last week, including all day that Sunday and then pretty much all weekend this past weekend…I am totally spent, and have not only no energy or inspiration for comics this week, but literally no time for them either. That said, I’ll do my best, and maybe we’ll get lucky, sometimes when you’re in that borderline hallucinogenic state some crazy hilarious stuff comes out…let’s all hope for that.
The Bad Plus will be on Late Night With Conan O’Brien TONIGHT, Friday March 14th. If you want to know what I’ve been raving about over here on 1979 Semi-Finalist make sure to tune in.
I’m so excited to see them on television, and what’s better than Conan? Nothing I say. I’m also seeing them next Saturday at The Blue Note, so I’m feeling especially Bad Plus-y these days, which is a happy feeling to be having.
AND, in yet more Bad Plus news, I wrote to The Bad Plus a few months ago, asking if they minded that I’ve co-opted their song title (The 1979 Semi-Finalist, obviously) for my blog, and I got a nice note yesterday from Ethan letting me know that he had dropped by the blog, liked the comics, and was happy to let me use their song title. Whether they have some kind of actual complicated legal rights to the title I don’t even know, but I’m superfan #1 over here, so I mostly just wanted their stamp of approval.
Now that I’ve got that stamp of approval, you’ll be seeing a new blog header developing sometime soon. It won’t be anywhere near as good as the one I’ve got now, but the one I’ve got now is mostly stolen from genius James Jean and I’ve been feeling guilty about it for ages, so it’s time to move on.
Try not to be TOO disappointed when the new header premieres, okay?
The last of the “search term” comics…so sad for me, these have been some good fun. I think I’ll make them a recurring feature of Rabid Lamb…but maybe one at a time and not two weeks worth…
Seriously people? Seriously.
Although, given the sexbot queries I’ve had, perhaps Kim Kardashian’s EXACT body dimensions are a good thing to have on hand. Y’know, just at the ready, in case one should decide one weekend to build a sexbot after one finishes rebuilding the deck, or the kids swingsets, you never know…
Strip #100! Whooo! Time does fly.
As a sidenote, I cannot find a book called “How To Sleep Peacefully Without Love”, so that theory is shot.
I also didn’t get directed to my own site when I googled it so that’s good. However, when I googled it I did get a series of somewhat disturbing sites about some of the following: The Chillow Pillow; Willpower Plus +; Even Without Love, A Marriage Is Still A Marriage; and my personal favorite – “Is It Immoral To Have Sex With Your Partner While They Sleep?”…
I’m going to go out on a limb here for that last one and say, “Probably Yes.”
