Enthusiastic Failure

Right, i’m being very lazy about scanning.

And i only just finished carving my squirrel print this weekend and haven’t even had a chance to print it yet.

But look, still carving.

I think i’ve got a differently carved background for every print i’ve done so far. meh.

Anyway the squirrel is the last carved-out print for a while. and certainly the last one in anything even remotely resembling wood, as Michael’s was completely out of proper linoleum blocks so all i have now is Speedy-Carve. They did have plenty of balsa wood blanks, though, so now i’ve got stuff to try relief carving on. Yay.

Another carved print.
Nice long story behind this but the short version is that it’s very hard to hide a major part of identity – you can’t just ‘nest’ parts of identity inside each other, some things are just too big for that and cannot be just crammed beneath the surface.

First attempt at a wood/linoleum/whatever block print (well, first attempt since printmaking class six-or-so years ago) Not bad, i think. Managed to do the whole thing without stabbing myself once, which i think is a record for me. And it’s more or less clear what it’s supposed to be. I even got the ‘exist’ lettering (mostly) legible. Lessons learned: details are way harder than i remember (carving them wasn’t so difficult, but getting them inked just right was damn near impossible). And in large ‘blank’ areas the background-carving is going to show up at least a bit, so ‘carve it all out the fastest way possible’ won’t necessarily look good.

Oh, and because i just need to promote it damn near everywhere: prints available. But big fancy mass-produced prints, not the original. Well, i guess i could sell originals, but they’d end up being more expensive than the IK ones. Maybe i’ll toss some up on Etsy or something. Whatever, y’all know how to bug me if you just must have a crappy-but-one-of-a-kind print.

So, story behind the illo: the Illustration Friday theme for this week is ‘resolutions’. I could go on a big long-winded wordvomit on how i don’t do regular resolutions but i do want to learn woodcarving this winter, hence the block print, and i’m trying to be more… open, i guess?… of my neutrois existence. This is hardly a New Year’s resolution so much as a resolution i made some time ago… and have been constantly reminded of since. Because every damn day i hear some variant of ‘genderqueers don’t exist’. Trans* people are all mentally ill, androgynes are just trans* folk in denial, genderqueers are all attention-begging emo kids trying to look special.

And it’s like, whoa, people, why do you need to do this to me? Or anyone else, for that matter? We’re not hurting you, we just want to exist. Right, you think we don’t exist. And you need to tell the whole world your opinion on our lack-of-existence. Hey, do you think maybe we’ve all got the message nobody believes in our existence? Do you think the binary-gender bathrooms and the ‘male’ and ‘female’ check boxes on every form and the ‘can i help you sir, um, ma’am?’s seriously haven’t clued us in? Maybe if we’re still stubbornly insisting we exist it’s because we actually really do exist, and would appreciate it if you could just get out of our way so we can go on being Real People. GAH.

Also: Binary genders aren’t even fully supported by biology; there’s various surprisingly common intersex conditions, including ones in which a person has neither XX or XY chromosomes. Also-also, for the religious (or at least Christian-religious) naysayers: Galatians 3:28 = God doesn’t care.

Yeah, i’ve gotten a bit sick of having to fully justify a major component of my identity. Which apparently i should never bother doing because it’s totally irrelevant and i’m just one of those attention-begging emo kids for even acknowledging it, amirite?

I don’t think cis people realise just how gendered the world is. It’s not something they need to think about much so most of them don’t. And by extension they don’t realise how much of life is centred around whether you’re a ‘girl’ or ‘boy’ or ‘man’ or ‘woman’ and whether you’re a masculine/feminine/flamboyant/natural/etc version thereof. And then people like me get to hear shit like ‘I don’t see why this is so important to you.’ Um, because of all the years i spent going through ultra-feminine phases and still not being ‘ladylike’ enough. Because of all the people who asked me if i was a lesbian in a tone which implied their view of my worth depended on my answer. Because of the ex-co-worker who would come up with any reason to stand by me as i worked so he could stand there whispering ‘dyke. dyke. dyke. dyke.’

Because i’m a Real Person. And i’m never going back.

I’m starting this up with re-learning how to carve woodblock prints, which i did a bit in high school but haven’t done since. Once i’ve got the hang of basically carving out flat pictures again i’ll get some bigger blocks of wood and better knives and try to figure out real woodcarving.

Nope, no proper classes (unless printmaking six years ago counts as a proper class). As near as i can tell the nearest woodcarving classes are in cities several hours away from me. YAY RIDICULOUSLY DULL SUBURBS. Sigh.

Mum = done.
Sister #1 = done.
Sister #2 = done.
Both grandparents = done.

did this all on Saturday and only took me five days to realise I DID IT. I GOT ALL MY CHRISTMAS SHOPPING DONE BEFORE CHRISTMAS EVE. XD

Of course none of it is wrapped yet but that wasn’t part of my goal so i don’t care.

I’m starting to go by ‘Shashi’ more regularly.

which means i kind of want all my accounts to say ‘Shashi’ instead of ‘Sharon’.

which means i’m seriously considering restarting all my accounts which still say ‘Sharon’. Including my 43T account, because, well, the URL still says Sharon…
even though i only started said account about a year ago.

blah.

this is why i started using my real name to create accounts to begin with. ‘I am sick of having a pile of different usernames depending on what i thought was cool at the time i created an account. i’ll just start using my real name, haha, when will that ever change.’

I mean, i’ve only wanted a more gender-neutral name for the last three years. Clearly i will never actually get around to changing it.
I’m still kind of nervous i’ll get new everything set up as Shashi and then change my mind again. So i’m being extra annoying slow about this. But it’s reaching the point where it’s kind of weird to see or hear myself referenced as ‘Sharon’.
‘Change my name’ is definitely going on my next 101 list. Inclusive of both legal change and change on all accounts everywhere.

I (finally) finished my NaNoWriMo – i hit 50K before November was over, but i still had a few scenes to wrap up. IT’S ALL DONE NOW, THOUGH. W00T.

Now i just need to figure out what to do next. :P

I’ve figured out i’m no good at sticking with a huge year-long goal. I’ve tried making Big Huge Year-Long Goals every year for the past five years and i’ve never been able to stick with any for more than a few months. So i’m only going to work on this novel for the rest of December (in the form of re-writing the outline so it actually matches what i wrote), and then take a break from all novelling for a few months. Maybe i’ll actually get through it if i only work a few months at a time.

I kind of hate my current WiP. But that may be because i’ve worked on it to the point where i just can’t stand it and need a break.

Said break apparently taking the form of mashing out a whole new novel :P

(remainder cross-posted from my gendertumblr)

…i’m gonna ramble about my NaNoWriMo main character, because NNWM is my current obsession and it starts in just a few days and i am totally unprepared and AAAAHHH.

Soooo, my MC: this is the first time i’m intentionally writing a neutrois main character. It’s pretty easy to write binary characters because, well, everyone’s done it so that’s what i read. I’ve never read anything with a neutrois main character. Or even a neutrois human minor character. So i’m making one my damn self, as opposed to my normal butch-girl or femme-boy main characters.

And i’m having a hell of a time figuring out how i’m going to do this. I haven’t even decided if i want to write in third-person or first-person yet. I’m leaning towards first-person, just because the storyline seems it’ll work better that way, but then i have to find a way to make it clear MC is neutrois without being blatantly obvious about it or going into ‘as you already know, Fellow Character’ exposition.

Ah well. This is what editing is for.

In the meantime…

Main Character Info:

Name: Alex. Maybe. Alex is the best name i’ve come up for so far, but it was a name i was seriously considering taking for myself once, and i’m trying to make as few commonalities between the MC and myself so i don’t end up with a Mary Sue character. I like Phoenix, too, but it doesn’t seem a name the MC would willingly use. Maybe Jackie or Erin.

Occupation: Undecided. Zir twin’s a professor but Alex zirself has… um… issues with authority. Enough so i doubt zie would even manage to get a college degree, much less become a teacher. I’m leaning towards taxi driver.

Age: Two hundred twenty-one. Did i not yet mention this is a vampire story? (No. No sparklevamps. NO. Think less Stephanie Meyer, more Sergei Lukyanenko.)

Personality: The sort of person to try to overthrow the government with nothing but a ragtag team of werewolves and technomages.

So, it’s actually been about three weeks, but i made borsch! Twice now, because i wanted more when it was done. The recipe i used makes a huge batch but it keeps well and my whole family likes it (my mum ate four bowls the day i made it), so it’s not a problem.

Now i just need to figure out what to do with all the leftover cabbage when i’m done…