Logistics

Ah! At long last, fortune smiles upon me! Not only have two of the drawings I put up for auction sold already, for fifty American dollars each, but I've scored another three hundred via the sale of my sketchbook. Or rather, what passes for my sketchbook. It's not a book, per se. It's more of a...a three-pound mass of wild, rampant papers, loosely held together by a folded piece of cardboard tied with string. Sad-looking thing, really, full of inky dead rats and scribbled foliage. I won't miss it terribly. (I snuck out a couple of favourites before forking it over.)

Oh, dear God--I just sold art by the pound. Sketches, sketches, a hundred dollars a pound! One of these years, long after my death, that thing's going to turn up on eBay and embarrass my ghost. Ah, well. That's more than four hundred Canadian dollars I've made today. In a matter of days, it'll be in my bank account, and then Stella and I shall eat and eat and eat and eat! Oh, joy! Oh, relief! Oh, ravioli and samosas and baked potatoes covered with cheese! Oh, grape juice and milk and hot cocoa! Oh, nights without heartburn! Thank you, thank you, thank you, fortune! Shine bright for me forever!

Of course, I haven't got many drawings left now. I've been paying my bills largely through the sale of prints and original art lately, with so many commission payments wandering cold and forlorn in the land of lost wages. I've got to find the time to do some more originals. Next month, I think--next month, towards the end of the month, there'll be time. I'll have finished up with Fleshrot by then, and all those stray commissions, and there'll be time to draw and paint. I'd like to do a great big fat ink drawing, something fifteen or twenty inches on each side, dense, intricate, full of hidden creatures. I'm envisioning a twisted root gnarling its way across the page, hung with thick festoons of moss which shelter toadstools and Indian pipes and primroses and forest creatures. (Rats, that is. Forest rats.) Wonder how much I could get for something like that, something poster-sized? If a tiny drawing's worth between fifty and two hundred dollars, a big one could maybe fetch three hundred, four...five? Hm. Maybe not five. That'd have to be a mighty big drawing.

Still, say I could get five hundred American dollars, by some miracle. If I could sell two per month, that'd be my rent. One more, and my bills would be paid.

(Fairies instead of rats. Mushrooms instead of toadstools. Twenty little drawings instead of two big ones. It could work.)

Speaking of work, everything's coming together at last, I think. I got plenty of work done on the Fleshrot Halloween Special last night, and a chapter of Codename Hoser, to boot. It's not so hard, really, writing a book. If I pretend it's just another chase scene or journal entry, there's nothing to it. As long as I don't remind myself that there could be a few extra people reading, I'm not bothered. It's pretty small-press, anyhow. It's not as if I've got to worry about the New York Times. The worst that'll happen is I'll get a couple of lousy Web reviews. Been there, done that. No problem.

Oh! Speaking of small miracles, Stella took it upon herself to be nice to me this afternoon. I heard her sneaking up behind me, and lifted my feet off the floor to evade a bite. But instead of snapping for them as she usually does, she got up on her hind legs, stretched out her hands, and pulled them back down by the toes. I figured she'd bite me then, but she sat on me instead. At first, I thought it was cute. Then, she sneezed several times and wiped her nose on my ankle. That was just...well, you know. Slimy.

I haven't quite got my sleeping schedule the way I want it yet. I went to bed at seven-thirty this morning and woke up again at noon. In order to avoid the glaring sun, I need to be sleeping between eleven and six-thirty. Tonight, I'll get some more work in on the first page of the Halloween Special, maybe even finish it if I'm lucky, then do the necessary revisions on last night's Codename Hoser chapter. At the moment, I'm not entirely certain of the press deadline, which depends on a number of factors. Therefore, it behooves me to write as much as possible as quickly as possible, thus (hopefully) avoiding a last-minute crunch.

By the time I've done all that, it ought to be going on daybreak--time to wind things down, so I won't be too wired to fall asleep at the appropriate hour.

Sounds perfect. Now, to work.