Category: Blog

What I’m Working On

Blog

First a bit of backstory.

When I re-started this blog, my plan was simply to post whatever I would post if I were the type of person who hadn’t abandoned just about every other form of social media.

So it won’t be a writing blog, a photography blog, a business blog, or an attempt to be an influencer (I have an immediate mistrust of any business plan based on me being popular). So it’ll be a bit of everything, I suppose.

I’m also not promising any kind of schedule. Feel free to use the “Entries feed” (RSS) to get notified when I post something.

And also also, this blog is separate from my newsletter. The newsletter will be new ebook releases and other real news, not just me being chatty, nerdy, or grumpy. You can sign up for that here.

Backstory done, I’ll continue with what was promised in the title.

What I’m working on right now:

  • I’ve started writing Heidi Sees #4. I spent a week or so building the story outline and now I’m writing the actual words. I’m about 1200 words into the first chapter.
  • I’m closing out my garden. Mostly. I’ll let the tomatoes and peppers get in some late season fruit, but everything else must go!
  • I’m drawing a new sequence of Bauxy panels. I have the sequence planned, and I’ve inked the first panel, but I still have a number of panels to sketch out.
  • I’m looking for a job. I had been working at the Veterans Administration as a sub-contractor for 8 years before certain [redacted/censored/withheld for sensitive readers] Who Shall Remain Nameless took office. So I’ve been looking for a new job since May. Hopefully this will be resolved soon.
  • Edited to add: Nothing. I also find myself doing nothing for stretches of time. Which the recent stretch of unseasonably cool weather has made possible on my back porch.

More news and/or whatever as it happens and/or occurs to me. =)

-David

I Miss My Friend

Blog

It’s been 9 days since I learned she died.

Just over a week ago, I thought of her and looked her up and discovered she had died 4 years ago.

I found her memorial page. At first I thought it had to be someone else (it had to be someone else, just a coincidence of names), but there was the unusual spelling of her first name, her middle name (a family name, usually only an initial in her signature), her birthday (one week before mine), and there was her photo. Her smile.

We met the first week of college, two freshmen stuck in a mandatory class. I remember commenting on her handwriting (it really did remind me of my father’s, the extended scrawl of ink across the page). I think she came in late that first day of class and sat next to me because I was near the back and near the aisle. I could have that backward.

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Knocking Off the Rust

Bauxy, Blog, Webcomic

Yesterday’s Bauxy sequence was the last one I did back in 2024. I posted it to Instagram back then, because I still had my Instagram account. That has since changed.

I never liked posting to Instagram. I only created my account there so I could click “Like” on my wife’s posts. But it was easy to post there, and I was trying out the daily comic thing, so there it went.

I don’t mind posting free stuff (that will likely never be seen/read) on the Web at large (e.g., this blog), but I loathe doing so for the benefit of some billionaire who thinks I should accept exposure and thumbs as payment. I’m not grist for their fucking algorithmic mill.

But I wanted to draw and post more Bauxys. I’ve had a sequence I’ve been sketching for over a year, but hadn’t really tried to finish for a couple of reasons–including not being sure where I would post them. Now that I’ve restarted my Guns & Magic blog, tho, I have a place where I can post at my leisure without an algorithm breathing down my neck.

BUT…I had been using ClipStudio before, and that’s not currently available. For some of the same reasons I didn’t elucidate before. So I’m learning how to use Procreate, and get it set up in a way I can work with it. On top of being damn rusty with my Apple Pencil and line work.

My process, such as it is, begins in GoodNotes, where I sketch the panel.

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Old Man Sits on Porch, Watches Rain

Blog, Garden

My garden is in that state that has become popular to call “liminal.” Entire beds are now “closed,” except for the flowers I planted to (a) attract pollinators and (b) make my wife happy. The cucumbers, the cabbage cultivars (broccoli, cauliflower, Brussel sprouts), radishes, and beets have been either been chopped off at the roots or pulled up and tossed into the compost bin. The okra and peppers are still doing well. The eggplants too. I’ve left the tomato vines in place (most of them) because the cooler temps and increased rainfall at the end of the season should generate some nice fruit.

This year didn’t set a record for produce harvested, but it did beat the previous 2 years combined. So there’s that. The cucumbers were still producing when I ended them. I had already turned 11 lbs into bread & butter pickles. If I was going to do more, I would have to can them. And this year I just don’t have the mental/emotional bandwidth to mess with canning. Hell, if the garden hadn’t already been underway by the end of April, it might not have happened this year.

I’m already planning for next year. How I’ll rearrange plantings in the bed (like swapping okra and peppers to get better mid-summer shading for the peppers) and how I’ll change the automated watering. And deciding which plants I won’t try again (e.g., eggplants; we don’t like them enough; which is too bad since they are steady producers) and which ones I’ll do more of or try to apply what I learned this year.

I wasn’t intending to give a full garden report, so I’ll stop. But, yes, I can and will go on and on about the garden. =)

-David