The first thing I need to say is how much fun I had going on vacation to the Lake of the Ozarks. I’m so thankful to the Marshalls for taking us! I was there for a whole week and didn’t even get sniffed by a piranha (that I know of), so my incredibly shaky faith in swimming in murky water is restored. Also, since Josh was around all the time and there were plenty of opportunities for me to work while on vacation, I finished SINES, my graphic novel script, based on the original non-graphic novel Snappy, Intriguing, and Not Entirely Stolen. This SINES–like most second drafts–is a great improvement on the first one, not to mention the first non-short-story manuscript I’ve finished in my life (not counting that book I handwrote on notebook paper in junior high). So, you know, good for me.

But we’re home again and recovered from vacation, so it’s back to the old grindstone. If you follow along with my blog (which seems unlikely), you’ll note that I’m a very goal-oriented person. My life revolves around making goals. In fact, in any given day, I come up with 8-10 new ones based on whatever I’m interested in at the moment. (I don’t worry too much about accomplishing the goals. I’ve never been motivated by achievement and it seems silly to dwell on what might have been.) Lately, my goal has been to learn to draw.

I started out thinking I would draw a weekly web-comic to post on ElfshanxComix so I could measure my improvement, but that doesn’t seem like something that will materialize in the near future if it hasn’t already. I was pretty well ready to give up on drawing things when I got the idea for a creepy card for Josh. I sat down today and made this:

That was fun. And I really liked the reaction I got. (Where achievement doesn’t motivate me, attention and adoration does.) All of which leads me to believe I’m more likely to learn how to draw if I do things like draw a series of creepy cards for Josh. My title ideas include “Morbid Love Publishers,” “Bleeding Heart, Inc.,” and “Only Hurt the Ones You Love Productions.” That reminds me of that series of greeting cards/signs I made when I was a kid published by “Running with Scissors, Inc.”