The Comic Lives

Connor and I have been reading "The Road Back To You" together. It is a book about the Enneagram. What's the Enneagram you ask? It is a system of 9 personalities. The theory is that in childhood you develop one particular type to help you cope with life's difficulties. Here is a list if you want to have a look.

It's been clear that Connor is a solid 9. He is easy-going, peaceful, but also can get lost going to a place he has been to a hundred times. We've had a harder time pegging me. First I thought I was a 3 (The Achiever). Then Mum read the book and thought I was a 4 (The Individualist)... then Connor got ahead of me and thought I was a 1 (The Reformer, but also The Perfectionist). I think Connor might be right. I read the chapter on the 1 hesitantly. (I didn't want to be a 1.) Guys, I think I'm a 1. I have trouble putting work out into the world unless it is perfect. In some areas that is great, like with writing knitting patterns. In other arenas this is terrible, like with the daily comic.

I don't want to reveal something that is less than perfect and this comic is just that. The lines aren't perfectly formed, the lettering is not all even, and I am not perfectly confident that it will be well received. I do think the stories are good, though... so there is that. So, even though I have not got all the comics up, I think it is time share that the daily comic site is up.  I'm not quite brave enough to post the announcement up on any of my other social media locations this time. This will just be between us, here on the blog. The site is called Audry Without An E and can be found at http://audrywithoutane.com/.

The site is still being tweaked, but thanks to Connor, it is largely where I hoped to have it. In the long term I hope to have a comic strip post once a day, although the strip will be from exactly a year ago. As of this writing, we have posted July, August, September, and a wee bit of October of 2015.

It's no small job. I've had to scan 160+ pages, clean up the lettering in areas where it was illegible (which takes a silly amount of time to do), then cut up and format each strip. In the original form, there are 4 strips per page, but for the online version, I have to break them down to one strip per page. After all that, I hand the strips over to Connor and he uploads them, titles them, adds tags, and makes sure they post to the correct date. Last night we sat together for three hours just to get 34 strips up.

Currently, I have processed strips through mid-February 2016, but there are still so many more to do. I'm not quite half way done even after spending every spare moment I've had in the last month. I guess what I'm saying is that it is a really big job and I really could use some positive feedback.

No Moss On This Rolling Stone

It's been another busy week at the Bear Ears household. Connor and I have been working hard to get the daily comic site up and running. It's been quite a job, but we have split up responsibilities and are making lots of progress. One of the things we successfully managed to do was get the banner to line up correctly on the site. (It was a feat, I assure you.) I'm not sure when we will be ready to show everything off, but I think that this year will be the year I finally have a daily comic website.

I've only been talking about having a daily comic website since 2010...

Of course that is not all that has been going on. This past weekend we celebrated a friend's birthday. We hiked, picnicked, and painted. I hadn't touched my gouache paints since last July. It's silly really, but I had painted a hideous painting, lost my confidence, then switched to watercolor because I couldn't bare to try with gouache again. Well, this time around I decided that I wasn't going to tape the edges to make it nice, I was just going to paint and if it was ugly, it was ugly. It ended up turning out quite nice, so I'm a bit sad that I didn't make the edges nice and straight.

I decided to paint a smaller composition rather than a whole landscape. I think that helped me from being too overwhelmed to try again.

I've also managed to finish my Haleakala Socks that have been on the needles since January. It's funny, when I cast them on I immediately didn't feel like knitting them because I just wanted to knit good old vanilla socks. What finally got them knit was the fact that I wanted to wear them. Of course it is too hot to wear them now, but they are ready for when the weather cools again.

I have also woven another scarf. I think woven scarves are going to be a constant theme in the blog for a while: I'm clearly obsessed. When I took the class in February with Deborah Jarchow, she talked about how she could do a scarf in an evening. I thought that was crazy talk, but on my third scarf, I was able to do it in an evening. I was sore afterwards, so I might not try to do that again...

So, what projects could I possibly be working on now? Well, my The Big O socks are moving along quite well. The first sock practically knit itself and now I'm on to the second. I did have to get creative with the heel. I didn't want to lose the lovely color progression that was going down the leg, so I took some yarn from the other end of the sock blank to knit in a heel flap.

I've also cast on another sock. This pattern is called Peeta Socks and I'm using Abstract Fiber O'Keefe in the Alfalfa color way. The pattern is heavily charted, so I haven't gotten too far since all my brain cells are being used on the comic website. It's still nice to have a slightly more complicated pattern on the needles.

I've already mentioned scarf weaving, but I couldn't end a post without showing off what I've got on the loom now. I'm using the yarn I bought at The Black Squirrel: Spun Right Round's Merino Worsted in Holy Crow. I'd seen 783Nora's Cosmic Wonder Dust Scarf on ravelry and knew I wanted to weave a scarf with speckled yarn. Mine is a bit different because I'm using worsted weight and she used fingering, but it is still looking pretty neat.

Whew! I can't believe all that got worked on in the last week. I've been highly productive and I hope I can keep it up. Despite the great momentum, that little voice in the back of your head that tells you that you aren't good enough has moved from being an occasional thought to a constant, loud shout. I've been drowning it out by listening to the Your Creative Push podcast. I highly recommend it. If you don't know where to start, I quite liked episode 203 and 220.

Does anyone else have any strategies to keep that "your not good enough" voice at bay?