I have a lot of oars in the water lately. I am writing a couple of short stories. I want to submit one to a local alt weekly's fiction contest and the deadline is late December. I am creating a map of a fictional city to set my stories in. I am developing a soundtrack for a couple of characters.

A new challenge presented itself today. A new weekly paper in my town is seeking a comic strip or panel. Cartooning is my first love, a marriage of my writing and limited drawing skills. So I picked up some Vellum paper, a new metal ruler with cork backing, an Ames lettering guide, and some new pens to play with. The drawing is actually the easy part, coming up with a funny strip idea is torture. I don't really care for the weekly paper either. It's fluff filled with ads for bars and shit. A demographic darling. I'd still love to have an ongoing comic strip in it though.

In the vein of the High Fidelity movie, my top five dream jobs are: a syndicated comic strip artist with an edgy and semi-lucrative comic, a mysterious successful genre-bending author, a comic book writer and/or artist for a violent but poignant comic, the richest Powerball lottery winner ever!, and Tina Fey's personal boy toy. But not necessarily in that order, Ms. Fey. wink wink

Lit: "The Catch" by Kim Wozencraft, "Bittersweet Creek" by Christopher Rowe, "Say...Aren't You Dead Yet" zine edited by Gwenda Bond, Christopher Rowe, and Alan DeNiro(finally got here, thanks for the nibble of chocolate Gavin & Kelly)

Musiq: Blur "Park Life"