Points of Entry – Points of Departure

So it’s been about a week since my last post and some interesting things seem to be brewing in the world of Sam Branch. First and foremost, my first novel, Falls, and my own very enthusiastic self were featured over at SpecFicPick. There is a short interview and I got to explore my thoughts on the role of speculative fiction in society for a couple paragraphs, which was a lot of fun. You can read that interview here.

Prolific reviewer Larry B. Gray recently finished Turns and gave it a 5 star review, which is was both awesome and gratifying. You can read his review here.

Nothing is set in stone yet, but I may also be appearing on an online radio show to get interviewed and to do some promotional work for the Sam Branch universe. Once the details are hashed out and confirmed, I’ll be sure to let you all know the when and where of it all. I’m pretty excited by the idea of being a guest on a radio show. It’ll be a first for me and therefore is a touch intimidating, but extremely exhilarating at the same time. It also helps me to feel that, slow but sure, I’m making progress toward my goals as a novelist.

In other news, I’m also back at it in the world of painting. I’ve been trying out some new techniques that I might use for the cover of the next branch book…that is assuming I can work the kinks out of the process. At the moment, I’m playing with acrylic washes. My intention was to do a two-layer wash. The first layer was done with basic Mars Black, which gives you a nice, mottled gray in a wash. This layer turned out pretty much exactly the way I intended it to, with a cloud-like visual texture. The second layer was done with crimson red. Much to my chagrin, instead of winding up with spooky red cloud effect, I wound up with a pink, stone-washed denim effect. Who knew?  I’ll probably post a pic to Twitter so everyone can share in the hilarity of my artistic misstep.

At first, I wanted to be really annoyed that the wash experiment didn’t turn out the way I expected it to. I realized, though, that the experiment wasn’t the failure I thought it was. Yes, the results were odd, silly even, but I didn’t fail to craft spooky red clouds. I learned how to create a pink, stone washed denim effect on canvas. Sure, the chance that I’ll ever need such knowledge is slim, but should that day arrive, I will know how to do it! More importantly, I’m sure the process will work more or less the same way with blue. That could turn out to be something useful.

I’ve come to think that failure, or the perception of failure, is a basic point of departure. After failure, the typical result is to quit. You depart from the context and leave everything there behind, except, perhaps, a bitter taste in your mouth. Learning, on the other hand, is a point of entry. Every time you learn something, it opens up a door or widens the horizon just a little. Today, I found a point of entry and my horizons widened just a little. For that, I’m grateful.