Greg Van Eekhout's Blog: Writing and Snacks - Greg van Eekhout's blog, page 31

Bingo!

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Thanks

Generally, I post a sappy, love-shlopped LJ entry sometime between Thanksgiving and New Year's.

This would be this year's annual shlop:

I've been extraordinarily lucky in so many ways. This year, more than ever, I'm thankful for the opportunity to do work that challenges and satisfies me. I actually manged to earn a living (albeit a modest one) from writing this year, for the first time ever. Even if it never happens again, I'll always be grateful for this year.

I've had pretty good health, bo...

Updatery

This past weekend brought the privilege of a visit by the estimable Tim Pratt, aka tim_pratt , who came to march down beaches and eat pizza and burgers and large breakfasts and drink barley-hops and watch superhero cartoons and Spencer Tracy movies, among other things. By happenstance, my lovely friend Bobzilla had brought his brood to San Diego for a weekend visit, and he managed to get away for a Saturday night sit-down at an Irish bar overrun with karaokers, which was a great opportunity to...

Kid vs. Squid listing at Amazon

I don't know why I think I have the right to grump about what other people post on their LJ's, especially when all I post any more is writing stuff.

I wiped down all the kitchen counters yesterday, including beneath and behind the microwave. There was a lot of red onionskin down there. That wasn't writing-related.

Last night at the coffee joint there were some super-duper old farts planning some kind of musical event, and they were going on and on about these dusty old songs from their youth, ...

Nice kitty

So much of writing is waiting. Waiting for checks, waiting for responses to submissions, waiting for paperwork, waiting for answers to questions. The part that's not waiting is working. Neither the waiting nor the working is easy, but the working, at least, feels like moving forward, rather than mucking about in the tar until the saber-toothed cat comes along, licking its chops.

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Two books one cup

I wrote. I read proofs. Ayup.

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From Kid vs. Squid proofs

Hard work + talent = awesome

Asked on his blog when he started drawing, author/illustrator Adam Rex borrows and expands on Shaun Tan's answer to the same question:

Nearly all kids draw for fun, and their drawings tell stories. We all start out as illustrators, and we all start at about the same age–as soon as we can work a crayon. Most people quit at about the same time too, in their tween years somewhere. I don't know why people stop–are they distracted by organized sports or hobbies or the opposite sex? Do they stop...

gregvaneekhout @ 2009-11-08T09:09:00

Thanks for all the weight-training tips over at my last entry, you guys! The message that's resonating most with me is I should get at least a few sessions with an expert so I don't explode my own spine and rupture my spleen. That makes sense. My local YMCA has reasonably-priced sessions for beginners, so I'll probably go that route.

What I'm looking for is something to do while I'm trying to find a new martial arts school, and I've been looking since May, when I decided my perfectly good kung...

Carry that weight

Anybody have any tips/sites for someone (someone very much like myself, in fact) getting started with weight training? My goals are increasing my overall fitness and beauty. Mostly interested in stuff I can do on machines rather than free weights, since my apartment's gym has the former.

KvS proofs

Came home from evening excursions last night to find Kid vs. Squid page proofs waiting at my door. Of the many things that occur in the journey from manuscript to book, getting page proofs is turning out to be one of my favorites. It's the first time that a book starts to look like a book and it fills me with squee.

From Kid vs. Squid proofs

From Kid vs. Squid proofs

And then there's the somewhat more laborious part of publishing, which is writing the durn book.

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