Happy New-ish Year!

So, what’s up?

Not much here. Or at least, not much that I really want to talk about. It’s 2024, and here in the United States, another national (and state level) election is on the horizon. I am super stressed about what the outcome will be, because it will affect me and my family in a multitude of ways (along with the rest of the country, of course).

I took a long break from writing at the end of 2023 and decided to turn to visual art as a way of coping and healing from a disappointing year of virtually no sales and burnout. (I actually did sell a story–to a professional market, no less–but I have no idea when it will be published. So, yeah. Disappointing.) I loved to draw when I was a kid, and I took art lessons as a tween/early teenager, so I could enter pieces in my county 4H fairs. I did fairly well competing, but I never really thought I could be an artist in the professional sense.

2023 hit, and I really needed to do something with my time other than prodding words from my mushy brain. I bought a watercolor set that came with a sketch pencil, took some simple online painting and drawing courses on SkillShare, and then went to town. I have painted several pieces as gifts that have not gone to their respective homes yet (thus, they’re not being shared here), but I also decided to break in a sketchbook I bought ages ago and never used. Instead of NaNoWriMo in November, I sketched practically everyday and found I have an affinity for faces. This was helped by the sheer quantity of fanart I was consuming on Tumblr, which gave me the itch to try my hand at it, too.

Here are several of my favorite pieces sketched over the past few months. Enjoy!

These are in no particular order, but you can see the dates in the corners of most of them, so there’s a sense of my progress. (You can also tell which faces I tend to gravitate to the most. I maaaaaybe got into a couple of fandoms last year a bit more than is healthy for me.) I’m really proud of what I’ve accomplished so far, and I’ll continue to use drawing (and painting) as a way to heal my mind when it’s too overwhelmed by the world.

In the meantime, I am writing again thanks to a weekly “flash fiction competition” in one of my online writing communities. It’s been fun and engaging, and I’ve needed the opportunity to just write stuff off the top of my head to a deadline. I’m planning on submitting a few of my stories after they’ve been revised, but I’m keeping my expectations low this year. The publishing industry as a whole is completely bonkers right now. So much so, I may actually self-publish again. We’ll see.

That’s all I have for now. I hope you’re having a better start to 2024 than I have, and if not, I hope you get as many chances to rest and heal as possible this year.

And, as always, thanks for reading.

A. Cook