MAKE COMICS: The Plan, HURT COMICS: How to Survive Awards Season

MAKE:
I'm embarking, right here, right now, on a Plan for Building my Charming Empire.

Part ONE: I'm only checking and answering emails once a day, in the evenings. If your need is urgent, call me anytime. If I'm available, I'll answer.

Part TWO: One LJ post a day. Now that we're home in a built house and not straddling that and a rental, my hobby of blogging to relieve stress, unwholesome tendencies, and boredom doesn't require so much care and feeding.
These posts might be whoppers. I'll learn that damn LJ-cut tag. And if anyone can demonstrate for me how to plop LJ down into a webpage front page, write me. I have the divalea.net domain, and I'd like to consolidate my news, writing and pix there.

Parts ONE and TWO, since I don't get paid to email or blog, will hand me back an embarassing amount of time a day, which I plan to craft into COMICS and TOYS moo hoo haha!

Part THREE: Please, no one be hurt if I don't read (or comment on) your blog for long periods. I want to write and draw books and make toys, you want to read and buy and cuddle these things. Oh, to be able to comment on LJs and sew at the same time. (Well, actually, that doesn't sound that nice.)
I bet you understand. I'm counting on it.

HURT: How to Survive Awards Season.

Awards suck, unless you're a judge or nominated, and then they suck unless you win.
Then, after that, they suck because you want another one.

Here's how you survive awards season: unless you're a nominee, an administrator, a sponsor, or a presenter, IGNORE THEM. BECAUSE YOU CAN.
Learn from my mistakes in this regard, which are legion. Being mad about not being nominated, being depressed because the homecoming queen used your drink for a fingerbowl and your hem as a napkin, all while she talked to the prom queen, is time you can spend making comics. Sure, the homecoming queen's a bitch. Stop standing so close to her while you draw.

Making comics makes you happy forever.
Awards are just a stomachache that lasts from April until August.
Awards are something someone gives you.
Comics are something you give yourself.

I was nominated for an Eisner in 1999, was in at least two Eisner-nominated anthologies, was the rewriter for What's Michael? the year it was nominated for an Eisner, and won the Lulu of the Year in 2004.
None of those nominations made me any better. I didn't do more work. When I won the Lulu, I was about as sick as I was going to get until last year when I was so sick I was going to kill myself. In fact, four months after I won the Lulu, I was replaced on Hardy Boys.

See?

Make comics.

We are going to the zoo tomorrow! Girl and I are joinging Boy's spec ed class for the day.
There will be pictures, monkeys, and shimmering heat. With any luck, we'll get to go into the lory encounter again.
I will probably need a nap after. With that saved email time, I should be able to get one in.

To bed with me!

The Days are Just Packed!

Lion Diva, originally uploaded by DivaLea. Click for Koi, Birds, and not much more!

ZOO DAY was today.
Girl and I tagged along with Boy's Spec Ed class. It was hot, but not impossibly, Boy was well-behaved, Girl was awesome and helpful, and everyone else was good company. The SA Zoo is a gorgeous zoo, the best I've ever been to.
I gave a ride to one of the other parents, Marie, who was living in New Orleans when Katrina blew it off the map. She had sobering stories to share; she was one of the evacuees who was on a bridge for five days (in line of sight of the Pooperdome) while Nagin sat on his ass in the Hyatt. She called Nagin and Blanco "bitches."
Naturally, she's My Kinda People.

PIXEL-STAINED TECHNOPEASANTS UNITE!
Jo Walton has declared Monday, April 23 as Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day!.
I have to say "pixel-stained technopeasant" is absolutely the best made-to-be-appropriated-for-good (and mockery) since "you're hurting comics."
There's also a IPSTP Day LJ Community. Planning to strike a blow against the paychecks of people whose income is...not affected in the least by you sharing your works online? Post about it there!

MANGA MELEE LAST CALL!
I will be at Austin Books for Manga Melee tomorrow! Starting at 2:30, there's an all-creator Q&A (me, Paul Benjamin, Tony Salvaggio, Rivkah). From 3:00 to 5:30, Paul and I will be signing. I will be doing adorable wee sketches for $5.00.
I do not view, review, or critique portfolios at appearances--I feel like I can't give whatever's in front of me the attention it deserves. I will look at art online if I'm given a URL. I can't read proposals or scripts.
I'll have four copies of Manga Secrets with me to sell, some intriguingly smoke-damaged Cathedral Child and Clockwork Angels (smelly and smoky on the edges, but readable, and only five bucks a piece and STILL signed--own a little piece of my house fahr), and one copy of Manga Secrets in Chinese. (You can't read it unless you can read Chinese, but it is a novelty.)
...And paper and SHARPIES FOR DRAWERIN'!

See you there!