I just noticed that this did not post on May 27 for some reason. This was supposed to be my post for Friday:
This week I'm celebrating my discovery of Tony Sandoval. I bought one of his graphic novels several years ago, but never read it. I only bought it because I liked the drawings. It's in French called Le Cadavre et Le Sofa, but the author is Mexican. I took it off my shelf to look at the illustrations but started reading it. It was so compelling that I just kept reading it until it was done. Then I couldn't stop thinking about it. I checked my local libraries for other books he has written. The only one they had was a digital version in Spanish called Epidemia de Melancolía. I'm not fluent in Spanish like I am in French, but I checked the book out anyway. I thought I would get about 70% of it, but to my surprise I could read about 90% of it. With the help of the e-dictionary, I was able to understand all of it. His writing and art are poetic and surreal, so even though I understood the words and their meaning, the underlying meaning was a little over my head in some parts. I would LOVE to write like that, but with that style comes a lot of ambiguity, vagueness, and uses metaphors which is hard for me to come up with. It does something to the brain, I think. It takes you to another place like where nostalgia resides. You're halfway in this world and halfway in another as you walk around doing your daily chores. Contemplative.
This week I'm celebrating my discovery of Tony Sandoval. I bought one of his graphic novels several years ago, but never read it. I only bought it because I liked the drawings. It's in French called Le Cadavre et Le Sofa, but the author is Mexican. I took it off my shelf to look at the illustrations but started reading it. It was so compelling that I just kept reading it until it was done. Then I couldn't stop thinking about it. I checked my local libraries for other books he has written. The only one they had was a digital version in Spanish called Epidemia de Melancolía. I'm not fluent in Spanish like I am in French, but I checked the book out anyway. I thought I would get about 70% of it, but to my surprise I could read about 90% of it. With the help of the e-dictionary, I was able to understand all of it. His writing and art are poetic and surreal, so even though I understood the words and their meaning, the underlying meaning was a little over my head in some parts. I would LOVE to write like that, but with that style comes a lot of ambiguity, vagueness, and uses metaphors which is hard for me to come up with. It does something to the brain, I think. It takes you to another place like where nostalgia resides. You're halfway in this world and halfway in another as you walk around doing your daily chores. Contemplative.
An acquaintance told me about Webtoons. It's an app and a web site where you can read free comics uploaded by regular people. This girl said that I could upload my comics onto the site and possibly make money from merchandising or ads. When I went to the site, I was surprised at how professional the art looks. I read some of the stories, too and they were good! I got really excited about this site, but at the same time worried that no one will like my comics. All of a sudden, I felt like I had no good stories to tell in comic book form. Plus, after reading Tony Sandoval's stuff, I felt like I couldn't compare. However, I see this as a positive thing because it lights a fire under me and forces me to step it up. It's funny how I went from being happy that I had great ideas last week to being insecure about having NO good ideas this week. Too bad I couldn't have the spirit of Kate Chopin or someone like that hovering over my shoulder telling me what to write. Haha! "Okay, what next, Kate?"
This week was the last week of school for my kids until August. I'm not sure if that's cause for celebration... I'm happy that I won't have to get up early to make their lunches, take them to school, deal with mean teachers, misbehaving parents, and bratty students doing bonehead things. On the other hand, they will be bugging me all day and I will have to come up with homework for them to keep their minds sharp all summer. "Mom, you HAVE to see this YouTube video! Mom, look at my upgrade on my video game! Mom, I'm hungry! Mom, can we NOT go to the gym? Mom, can we not go to the dojo? My foot hurts! My side hurts! He hit me! He won't let me have the iPad! Waaaah! Mom, Mom, Mom..." *sigh*
What are you celebrating?
Check out the blogs below for your reading pleasure and please visit our hosts' blogs:
Lexa Cain: http://lexacain.blogspot.com/
L.G. Keltner http://lgkeltner.blogspot.co.uk/
Tonja Drecker http://tonjadrecker.blogspot.com/