slr2moons

Hi, everyone!

Sorry I dropped off the map again. I had to scramble to finish Behind the Scenes vol 7. I was behind. WAY behind. The most I've ever BEEN behind. It was a powerful reminder of why I create a daily page quota, and why I need to stick to it. *face palm*

I go through stages of work hell. First, when I have the most energy reserves, I stop streaming movies and tv shows, and instead I listen to audiobooks and podcasts. This round of work hell, I listened to three audiobooks and IDK how many hours of podcasts. When my attention starts to wander from pure audio, I switch to watching/listening to documentaries. Docus are good because they usually have narration. I don't have to keep my eye on the screen to catch important details, I can just listen and work. I watched 11 documentaries, mostly on Amazon. Third, I switch to standup. Standup is good because it makes me laugh, which increases my energy level and keeps me working. And finally, the last stage is comfort shows. Namely, MASH and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. These are shows that I have watched so many times I have them memorized, and that make me feel happy and safe and reduce stress. Thus, I can work.

This bought of work hell, I skipped the standup stage and went straight to MLP. I watched four episodes as I struggled to finish the book. Which I did. Thankfully.

I spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday asleep, and a bit of Thursday, too. I appear to be recovered. ^^ Now I need to start my next two books, which are Skip 43 and a new title's volume 1.

I hope all of you are doing well, and are able to avoid your own bouts of work hell! *hugs*

The bank appraisal on my potential future condo happens tomorrow, Wednesday. *gulp* This will be the deciding moment, guys! If the bank says the place is worth less than my offer, and the seller won't take the reduced amount, then my search resumes. Ohhh boy.

In work news, I was able to scramble enough to finish Seraph with the extended deadline Seraph Editor 2 gave me. Yay! Mab came over and did some work of her own, and having her here in person helped keep my energy up! Especially when she read aloud two of her racier fics! *laughs* Oh my!! Corrections were sent to me the next day, and I completed them this past weekend.

I'm a few pages into Bloody v3. Thankfully no horrid omake spreads to deal with this time! (Check out v2 when it's out and you'll understand immediately. GAH.) I'm finally getting the hang of the interspatial pages for this series, too! ^^V Unfortunately, this volume will be rushed. But I've already done the two worst pages! Most of Bloody's pages have only one or two minor FX, which means it usually goes quickly.

Have script for Behind v1 and Skip v37. Have yet to start either, though I've made my key sheet for Behind. This one is a little easier than v1, as is usual for manga. Gotta put a lot of effort into vol 1s, to catch those readers and earn those votes!

As usual, I'm in the middle of several different audiobook series. I very rarely read (meaning listen to) more than one book in the same series in a row, to avoid burnout. Well, unless one volume ends on a terrible cliffhanger and I MUST KNOW WHAT HAPPENS. *laughs*

But I think I'll save my current reading ramblings for my next post. ^^ I am trying to post more often, and gotta pace myself!! Also if I delay posting this right now, I might not post at all. I know myself well. ^^;;;;

Onward!

I stopped posting here and on FB both, when Spicer-kitty was gone. IDK. I just didn't feel like talking much. Life has been okay since then. This summer has yet to be a disaster like the previous three, though the ending is going to be a bit dicey thanks to work.

( Temporary kitty, flying back to TX for a wedding this weekend, work update for all my titles, and a developed tweak to my manga method. )

One page at a time. *deep breath in and out* And on that note, back to work for me.

Almost two months since my last update. So much for being the change and posting more, huh? Ugh.

Okay, so...

tl:dr: I have been very busy lately. Lots of stress. Staying in my current apartment for almost another year. Spicer is not doing well. Work is crazy-busy. Haven't been able to do anything creative since Yuletide.

( The whole nine yards, for those not yet given in to the influence of the brief-content platforms of FB, twitter, and tumblr. )

I'm lettering Skip vol 34, and it has several flashback pages. And I mean really flashBACK, with with one panel from vol 1 being used.

I've been archiving my manga Photoshop files for years, first to CD, then DVD, and then blu-ray. Skip vol 1 is on actual CD, and the disc loaded and the page I needed unzipped and copied to Shetan's hard drive just fine. Skip volumes didn't end up on DVD, but blu-ray instead. Given the subject line, you can guess where this is going.

My blu-ray for Skip vols 16-25 now refuses to load. It loaded slowly but okay two days ago, when I needed some flashback pages, but last night when I needed some more--nothing. I thought it was my disc drive, but the blu-ray that has Skip vols 7-16 loaded as fine as you please. The disc that isn't working has no scratches, it's been in its jewel case all this time. It just refuses to load. Good disc 7-16 contains pages 5-170 of vol 16. Bad disc 16-25 contains the end of vol 16: 171-188.

A year ago, this disc was working perfectly. No problems whatsover. Now? I've lost 1,750 pages of lettered Skip. How I wish I could send my past self a message to copy the entire disc to hard drive. T.T Or even two days ago, when the disc would partially load! *cries*

This isn't a horrible disaster, as Viz has the final tiffs of the pages saved, and Shoujo Editor 2 has already sent me the two pages from vol 17 that I need. But it still hurts. All those hours and love I poured into lettering Skip are now only visible as flattened tiffs. That really hurts.

I'm currently trying to copy everything I can from the bad disc to my new external hard drive. The end of vol 16 was a bust, but I might be able to save all or most of 17. *knocks on wood* Better than nothing, right? *sigh*

T.T Technology, how can you fail me like this? *cries*

Went to my third Yuletide/Nano/scribing-for-any-reason write-in on Friday evening, where I saw the wonderful snottygirl, saladbats, and mab. There were only four of us, but it was still fun! We even ran into a past NaNo-er, and a small group of others who WERE NaNo-ing. ^^ As for me, I made some serious inroads on my own Yuletide fic, of which I am very proud. I wrote about 350 words, which is a lot for me in the space of 45 minutes of actual writing time. (The rest of the evening being spent chatting or researching stuff for my fic.)

Speaking of, I finally figured out how to work writing on my phone. I can't write to google docs since my phone isn't an iphone or an Android, I don't trust emails to not lose text half-way through me typing (it's happened), and Livejournal's posting page is ridiculously code-heavy nowadays...but Dreamwidth works great. :D I have my Yuletide WIP in a private post on my DW account, which I keep open in a tab on my phone's browser. I can be in the middle of writing something, pause long enough for my phone to go into power-saving mode, wake it up...and my words are all still there. Dreamwidth doesn't time out! OMGYAY! \O/ As long as I have a net connection, I can write on the go! And carry pen and paper with me, JIC I don't have the connection. Score!

The deadline is less than a month away. Today I worked on it during breakfast and dinner. I'm pleased with what I have so far, including catching two plotholes pertaining to aspects of canon I'd forgotten, annnnnd a really big realization that I needed to lighten the mood of the MC. Thankfully I caught all three problems before I was more than 500 words into the fic. :D

Speaking of wordcount, the Yuletide minimum is 1,000. This fic is going to end up much more than that. I'm about half-way through the first scene, and the fic's already 650 words long. It isn't just my inability to write shortfic, though. My recipient loves a particular trope, and for me to do it justice, first I have to establish certain facts before I go ripping them apart. (No, there's no non-con in this one, I swear! X|) My recipient did say in their letter that they loooove the sexy tiems, but with the plot I've chosen, that won't really work. Not without the trope of Healing Cock, which I refuse to write. I hope they'll be satisfied with manly snugglings. ^^

I had kind of intimidated myself about this year's fic. I mean, last year's Yuletide fic by me turned out GOOD. It's the most popular fic I have at AO3, and I genuinely like it. I even read it for fun every couple of months! I worry that this fic can't live up to the success of last year's. But my fanfic sempai Star-chan calmed me down. She told me to just do the best I can. I am a decent writer, after all, *I* wrote last year's fic! And all the other fics on my account, all of which are perfectly readable. I certainly have the potential to write another well-received fic! And besides, what's truly important is that my recipient likes it, and I'm doing my damnedest to do just that! (Even though there won't be any sexy tiems. Hopefully someone will give my recipient a sexy fic treat. Though maybe if I finish ahead of time (HAHAHAHAH!) I could write a 2nd fic for them and load it with the smut. I'd say there's a 5% chance...)

I've enjoyed typing on the fic today. Not only having a full-sized keyboard, but being in my home, where I can relax and not need to tune out the coffeeshop music and conversation all around me. I do love write-ins, but it's more for the creative companionship and ready opinions/help to be had, rather than actual words produced. Though writing sprints work well for me. Let's do more! C:

I keep forgetting that someone is writing a Yuletide fic for me, too. I suspect I know which one, based on a comment in the yuletide-coal community that fit one of my requests. It will be interesting to see if I'm right. ^^ Whether I am or not, best of luck and good wishes to my author, if they happen to see this post! I'm looking forward to reading your words on the 25th! :DDD

In work news, Clay 23 is in the can. Voice 4 awaiting corrections, Voice 5 lettering begun. Seraph chapter 6 in the can, GN 1 being FXed right now. Natsume 16 and Skip 33 are waiting for me to start. Wheeeee!!

I tripped again on that same stretch of road two days ago. Not the exact same place, but close. I'm going to take lyschan's advice and change my route. I've already plotted one the same length that avoids that particular stretch of road. Bah! And for the record, that second time, I was not half-asleep nor jogging with my eyes closed. I just didn't pick up my feet enough, and down I went. At least I didn't fall as hard or do as much damage to my hands.

Speaking of which, last night my scrapes were itching so much, it woke me up. :B I'm glad I still have a tube of anti-itch cream laying around. Geez.

I won the lottery again at Publisher's Clearing House. Another Amazon gift card, for $5 this time. Wheeee! I can buy 3 or 4 mp3s! Or half a hard-copy book! Or a whole digital book! Or a sixth of a blu-ray movie! My oh my, so many options...

A couple weeks ago, I visited my friend A-chan in Salem, and she took me to an amazing used book store there called Escape Books. It's in a converted house, much like Powell's, only the books are cheaper and that's all they sell. ^^ I definitely want to go back! I picked up a couple manga vols I needed, and two fantasy books because they sounded interesting. That store is amazing and very cute. :3

I was feeling rather down this morning, until I told myself to knock it off and changed my mind from obsessing over things I can't change to what I planned to do today. To my delight, it worked! I felt much better, and spent half an hour on a promised gift pic for my fanfic sempai stariceling. Something in that pic has been bothering me for weeks, and is why I have yet to finish it. I wasn't good enough, damn it! >< I did some moving things around, shifted a character's position, and now it is indeed much better. Of course, now I have to redraw 3/4ths of one character, but it'll be worth it. Yay!

On a work-related note, script for Clay 23 should be arriving any day now. Skip 31 is 100% finished. Natsume 14 will be done in a week, and the BL in two. Things are chugging along nicely!

This holiday season has turned me into a social butterfly, I must say! I've seen just about all of my IRL friends at least once, much to my delight. :3

In addition to the usual book club, I arranged the four Holiday Fic Exchange write-ins, which were a resounding success--as you already know. :D

A-chan from Salem invited knastymike and I to a home-cooked meal, which we both jumped at. She made this delicious chicken roast that, IIR, she just made up on the spot. Also this dish we dubbed the "corn thing" because it was, and delicious sweet pota'to wedges, and a mint lima bean dish I had to pass on because allergies, but I did try a small bite and it was great. :9

Also at A-chan's, I saw my first blu-ray movie on an HD tv, and I was blown away. WOW. The movie in question was The Avengers, and the picture was so sharp and clear, it was like I could reach out and touch RDJ's stubble. O.o More often that not, the image distracted me from the actual movie. I was so busy marveling (badum-chinnnng) how it looked like I was right there, in the action.

On Thursday was another anime night, and traffic wasn't that bad, for once! Great amusement and much oogling of animated men happened with the usual suspects: winnett and saladbats. I convinced them to try the first ep of the original Macross. Winnett was caught up in Robotech nostalgia, and saladbats had much fun mocking everything. XD I joined in the latter, just a bit. I mean, we meet the four main ladies of the ship, and what are they talking about? Not the weather, not their favorite book, not who they voted for in the last election, nope. Can you guess the subject??? That's right! MEN!! Wheee! (Bechdel test results: FAIL.) I still like the series, even if it is rather dated. *laughs*

Then on Friday night, I went to my first ever solstice celebration. Burned a yule log and watched my worries go up in sweet-smelling smoke, and everything! It was terribly fun! It was a "Souper Solstice" party, as five huge pots of soup were the main course. I tried them all. The buffalo chili and tomato bisque were my faves. :9 I knew lots of people who were there, all from book club, including A-chan and knastymike again. Had a bit of an adventure finding the host's house, because they live in a hilly part of SW Portland between I-5 and the river, and I have discovered that Portland does not believe in frequent street signs. And the ones they DO believe in, you can't read. Particularly at night, and in the rain. :P But I found the place eventually, and even made it back home after only two turn-arounds. Heh!

All this socializing has me further behind on work than I'd like, but I have only two pink pages in Skip 31 left, at least! Things are about to rev up for my third BL oneshot with CE3, too. Busy busy busy!

Oh yes, and I am delighted to say that my own Yuletide gift fic was posted about an hour before the deadline on Thursday. YAY! :D OMG, I can't wait to read it!! There's a coding loophole that lets you "shake" your presents by investigating the tags for a story, but I'm not doing it. I want to be completely 100% surprised!!

And now, work calls. Be well, everyone!

I decided if I felt so guilty about not making a post to LJ and upset that my flist traffic has died down so much, then I should make a post to LJ. :P~~~

I finished the rush lettering job for the new (to me) publisher, and celebrated by going to see Wreck-It Ralph on Thursday night. I had to wind my way around the campers waiting for the final Twilight film's midnight opening--and there were a lot of them. O.o Anyway, I really enjoyed the movie and am completely stuck on one of the game's theme songs, Sugar Rush. The chorus is so catchy! ye olde youtube link. No, Youtube, I do NOT want my real name on my channel, "slr2moons" is NOT hard to read thank you very much, and why do I need a stupid channel anyway? I just want to watch random videos a couple times a month! Lose the FB layout, too. Ugh!

I decided to start lettering the logo portion of Skip Beat title pages in vol 31. I can't finish the pages without the script's translation of each chapter title, but I can definitely do the logo part. ^^ Nothing like getting a head start! Especially since the first two chapter title pages in this vol are complicated pink ones. Wheee!

( Yuletide, visiting parents, and writing )

Star-chan, my BFF, has suggested I start drawing mini-comics--or as she called them, "drabble comics" (I like that a lot more than "mini-comics")--to build up my confidence with sequential art storytelling. I do have this incredibly foolish complex about making comics, and the only way to get over it is to prove to myself that I can do it.

Time to get started on that Skip Beat title page. Act 183, here I come! And I have more cleaning to do, to. Ugh.

(I need to set up the mirror posting thing to Dreamwidth. Something else on my to-do list. But for now, copypasta!)

ETA: Actually, I CAN completely letter this page of Skip, because it has the same title as the previous few chapters from vol 30. Nice. :D

Let me start this post by saying: I hate masonry. As in the stonework, not the sekrit society. You'll see why next week, when I will have finished my pic for this year's Het Big Bang. Working on it half an hour a day for the previous weeks wasn't enough. I need to put in a minimum of 2 hours a day in this final stretch to finish in time. Pic is due Sunday.

Thankfully, work is under control! Skip 30 is almost done, with only one medium and a handful of easy pages left. This is good because I now have script for Clay 22. Remember how I said that earlier volume last year was so full of fighting it was pretty much one big fight scene? Welp, 22 really IS one big fight scene! The same bad guy, the same scene, with a bunch of different women waving swords at it. FUN TIMES. *wonders if that counts as a spoiler*

I've had an eventful week. On Wednesday I was the chauffeur for a friend's day surgery. I'm still not comfortable driving downtown, and that make it extra-fun. Then on Saturday, I helped Chiz and Neeka move to their gorgeous new place. I'm still sore! Only a little bit in my forearms, though. Apparently I really did manage to lift with my legs. ^^

Wow, when I was thinking about making a post, I kept thinking of all these fun and chatty things to say. And now, when I'm here typing, I can't come up with anything. :P

I recently caught up reading the wonderful shoujo manga "We Were There" by Obata Yuki. I had to stop at 13, because I have yet to buy 14 (no one carries it in physical store, and I keep forgetting to order it online), and 15 isn't out yet. Unfortunately, this is another series that only gets one volume released here a year. *hugs WWT and Kaze Hikaru close* I still love you!! Anyway, I'm quite irritated with the female lead of that series. Ugh. I just want to smack her. And while I do like the male lead, at this point I've lost patience with him to the extreme and am rooting for the other guy.

But of course, given the Law of First Love Interest Introduced (namely that they always win) and that ALL the book covers feature female lead with male lead, the other guy doesn't stand a chance. *kicks the stupid leads*

This is proof it's a good series, though. If I didn't care about the characters, then it would be forgettable and a waste of time. Nrgh.

In fannish news, the first chapter of my next fanfic is with my beloved beta-reader and BFF, Star-chan. I've been typing this on and off since January, when I started plotting it as a direct opposite to the extremely dark fic I wrote for Yuletide. *wince* When Chapter One is ready to go up, I'll be posting it to my Dreamwidth account, FF.net, AO3, and Luna. Skyehawke too, though I think I'll wait a bit on that one. I'll be linking them all here. ^^ Oh, and this is the Summer Wars/Skip Beat! romantic comedy crossover fic I've mentioned earlier. :D

My first hour of Big Bang piccing is done, so it's time to get to paid work. Yes, Kyoko-chan, it's your turn!