Home Articles posted by Kit Campbell (Page 10)

Life!

Oh, friends, I had such plans for yesterday. I was going to go to the gym and do some cycling, because I’d like to do a triathlon this year (though I haven’t found one to do, because so far I have conflicts for all of them). And then I was going to spend a ton of time working on a chapter to send to Siri. Instead I snapped something in my hand and spent four hours at the hospital. And then I came home and mopped the floor, like you do. (I have done triathlons before, the last one in June 2016. I came in 4th and was hoping to try again this year and possibly make the podium, but alas, timing.) (Also I felt like I had to do something productive after not doing anything for four hours, and mopping seemed the least likely thing on my list to hurt my hand.) Doesn’t this always seem to happen? You make plans and life comes along just to laugh at you. I mean, normally the big plans are okay. Maybe because you spend so much more time preparing them. But the daily plans, yikes. It’s an argument against procrastination, if nothing else. And the good news is that my hand is not broken and will probably be fine in a week or so. And the splint I have to wear until then isn’t too itchy. How are you? Things breaking your plans too?

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We Must Escape!

In honor of V-Day, friends, I’m going to tell you about what we did for V-Day. I surprised my husband with a trip to a local escape room. Do you guys have these where you live? In case you don’t, these are places that offer a number of rooms (and they are literal rooms) filled with clues and puzzles. You have one hour to solve all the puzzles and escape! (A lot of them are literally that–figure out how to get out of the room–but some have a goal you have to achieve before escaping, such as solving a mystery.) We quite a few around here, and they’ve been on my radar for a while, but we haven’t managed to get to one before. But Friday we had a free night, so I booked us a room at a new one close by because they wouldn’t smoosh us in with random people (some places will stick small groups with other small groups, and that did not sound like a good date). The end goal for our room was to steal the diamond before the detectives arrived. Our gamemaster was very sweet, giving us a rundown on how the whole process worked since we’d never done one before. She warned us that it might be a little hard for just two people, especially first-timers, and let us know how to ask for a clue if we needed one. And then she locked our phones away and let us into the room. It was…

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Don’t Rely on the New Year

Happy January, friends! I have yet to buy a 2018 calendar, so I feel awash in time, like I’m unmoored just past the last buoy. In early January, it always seems like everything is new, untouched, wide open with possibility. New Year’s resolutions have yet to be broken, the whole year looms ahead, and you can do anything you put your mind to! Or can you? The radio said something like 95% of New Year resolutions are broken before the end of January. I forget the exact psychology, but I read something once that said you should never try a new habit at an expected time, i.e., you shouldn’t say “I’ll start this in the new year” or even on a Monday. Something about giving yourself too much time to talk yourself out of it (or talk yourself into how you’ll fail again). Something about how it becomes too easy to give up the first time you fail. I dunno. Not my area of expertise. I’m not one for resolutions, which in some ways is a good thing. Because it seems like every few years, something comes along right at the new year that makes it hard to turn over new leaves. This year I’m sick. And I’ve been sick for about three weeks now. Not dangerously sick, but lingering sick. I lost my voice for a week, which was not awesome, and rehearsal for a musical I’m supposed to be doing started this past Saturday, but I cannot currently…

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The Princess, the Pie, and the Sorceress

The Princess, the Pie, and the Sorceress by Kit Campbell   “Uh, my dark queen? There’s a princess at the door.” Morgwyn, sorceress, looked up from where she was spreading models of her minions across a map of the countryside to find one of her dwarves standing in the entrance of the hall, hat clutched in his hands. “What?” The dwarf swallowed. “There’s a princess at the door.” There was, indeed, a princess at the door. She was beautiful, of course, dark hair curled and twisted into an elegant updo, and she wore a thick cloak of the finest wool over what was, no doubt, a ridiculous gown. Behind her was a large traveling trunk that she could have in no way carried herself. Morgwyn could just make out the backs of a couple of attendants as they fled down the mountain pass. Morgwyn almost asked if she could help her, but caught herself in time. “Yes?” The princess sighed and rubbed one temple. “I’m dreadfully sorry about all this.” ‘All this’ seemed to be the princess and the trunk, though that didn’t clear anything up. “And?” “None of this was my idea. You may rightly tell me to go away, and I shall do so.” With what non-existent attendants, Morgwyn wanted to ask. “I’m afraid I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.” Should she have cursed her by now? Probably, but it had been a long day of plotting, and she could use a distraction. The princess…

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Adventures in Pencil

Hello! So, last month I talked about the drawing class I was taking. It’s over now, and I enjoyed it, though it wasn’t quite what I wanted, if such a thing even exists. But I thought I’d share the end results with you. Here’s our main project, the Escher hand: You can see the remains of the grid. And my “interesting” shading. I was much faster than everyone else (probably because I couldn’t be bothered to be accurate with my shading) so I finished this after three classes. The last class, one of the other people had also finished his drawing (he was working on it at home! lucky bastard has grown children who do not live at home) so he brought along a picture of some aspens he’d taken. We used the grid method on it again. This took me about 3/4 of the class. Notice, again, my lack of patience with a gazillion little details and the switch to being more stylistic than realistic. (Though I do like the end product.) And then, because I figured I should probably draw in drawing class, I found a photo of a grumpy owl on the Internet and started drawing that. (Without a grid, though.) Didn’t get terribly far, obviously, and haven’t worked on it since. I ran into another woman from the drawing class the day after the last class and she asked if I’d finished it yet. >_> My mother was thrilled that I was taking a drawing class…

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It Gets Everywhere

The stars have aligned, friends, and I am finally taking a beginning drawing class at my local rec center. (I’ve tried to take this class a few times before, and it either gets cancelled, or it’s at an impossible time, or…) It’s two hours every Monday for the duration of October, and apparently each month the teacher picks a technique for everyone to practice. This month we’re doing straight pencil drawings (which is good, because that’s what I wanted, and if it were charcoals or pastels or something I would be disappointed) and working on reproduction using a grid. Basically, you draw a grid on whatever you want to copy, and a grid on your paper, and then you painstakingly copy everything, square by square, to help you get everything in the right place. We’re doing M. C. Escher’s Drawing Hands (just one hand, so as to not go insane). I mean, we are anyway, but it’s the thought that counts. On one hand, I’m not wild about copying another picture, even one by Escher. It’s a good technique to know, I suppose, but I’d really like to learn more about how to draw in general. On the other hand, I get two hours to myself to do nothing else but draw, which is relaxing and wonderful, and it really helps clear everything out of my brain. So, you know, it evens out. Though I do really just want to learn how to draw, and shade. Specifically shade. I am…

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I Would Like to Be Neil Gaiman

My significant other recently brought me home a copy of Neil Gaiman’s The View from the Cheap Seats from the library, which is a collection of speeches he’s given or essays he’s written on various topics, because he was listening to the audiobook version and thought I would like it. This book is massive. I am not getting through it terribly fast. But what’s currently hitting me is that not only is Neil Gaiman asked to talk to people on a fairly regular basis, he can seemingly do so while being profound and not suffering from a nervous breakdown or imposter syndrome or crippling self doubt. That sounds very lovely. Of course, maybe once one has several decades of successful career behind them, it gets easier. Who knows? Not me. I’m participating in my library’s local author showcase on Sunday (for City of Hope and Ruin) and 5 minutes in which to present myself and the book, and I’m a nervous wreck. 5 minutes! In front of probably not that many people, because I did one for Shards and, like, 10 people came. It’s not the end of the world if it goes badly. But still… It doesn’t help that my notes from Shards (which I was going to copy the formatting on) have disappeared into the nether.  Oh well. But a little confidence boost would be a huge help. Done talks? Have suggestions?  

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Unwritten

Unwritten By Kit Campbell   When his break started, Coren tucked his hard hat under his arm and left the site. Sure, they were encouraged to eat there, but it wasn’t required, and Coren hadn’t been here long enough to deny himself the right to explore, when he could. This site was downtown, the skyscrapers towering overhead, blocking sun and sky from view. He could head in any direction, and there would be new people, new things, new experiences. Yet he was not surprised when he found himself in front of the bookstore again, its exterior painted a deep green, its interior dark and coated with books in varying states of disuse. Of all the places he’d found in this strange city, it felt the most like home. Despite that, he never set foot inside.   #   His own book he kept at home. It was large, leather-bound, with gold filigree along the edges. There was no title on the cover, and if there had been one inside, it had disappeared. Coren had come to understand that books were supposed to have text on each page, from start to finish, but this one was missing large swaths where the words seemed to have faded away into nothingness. At first he had assumed it was his parts that had vanished, but it was seemingly random, as occasionally his own name stared back at him from the page, along with those compatriots with whom he had shared his days. He had…

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Sometimes Life Does Eat Everything

I’ve always been one of those people who has believed that there’s always time for creativity, that no matter how much life throws at you you can always eke a little bit in, here or there, that as long as you schedule and try, you can reach your goals. And now I know better. I’m not really ready–nor am I sure I ever shall be–to talk about my current stressors, but let me say that now I understand what people mean when there’s just no more spoons left, when you physically, emotionally, mentally just have nothing left to give. And on one hand, it’s agonizing, to have creative goals and not be able to make any headway on them, especially when I have managed to do so many times before. But on the other, I know that this happens sometimes, that it’s temporary, that life is everchanging and even if I’m only getting to write twice a week it’s still something. And it’s okay. It’s okay. I’m okay. Sometimes this happens, and you just have to roll with it. I am not a failure just because other things in my life have taken precedence. And even the smallest burst of creativity feels so good now. Last week I patched some holes on the smaller, mobile one’s sock monkey (he now has matching bracelets) and it felt amazing even though it took me 15 minutes and is not the cleanest sewing job I’ve ever done. (In related news, I cannot find…

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I Really Just Want to Talk about Dinosaurs

I could write you an introspective post on creativity, friends, but that sounds boring, so I’m going to talk about dinosaurs instead. For a reason that will go unmentioned, I’m spending all week at either the zoo or the museum. In a few weeks, the zoo is going to be opening an exhibit of animatronic dinosaurs throughout. They’ve had a Carnotaurus for a few months advertising this fact. He’s pretty scary, as far as robot dinosaurs go. Sure, he mostly just moves his head and growls, but I’ve spent a fair amount of time watching children come to a dead stop and stare at him with utter terror. I get it. You’re not expecting a 9-foot tall carnivore to suddenly rear up out of nowhere. (He’s kind of hidden around a corner, and now they’ve planted palm trees to screen him.) Especially not one that moves and growls. And even after they’ve realized it’s not real (or their parents have explained that dinosaurs are extinct and that this is a robot), the kids still are skeptical. They keep their distance. If they do get up close, it’s to giggle and run away a moment later, as if they’ve done something very brave. (My question is: who decided to design its arms so that they tuck up backwards against its body? That’s super unnatural looking, made more jarring by the fact that the rest of the dinosaur looks so real.) I’m super excited for the exhibit. It actually opens on one…

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