You know, kid!me would be so freaking stoked if she could see me now:

- Eating a midnight snack
- Because I'm staying up as late as I want
- Writing a high fantasy story
- With lots of gay in it
- While my dorky cat cavorts nearby.

Yeah. At least I got all that stuff right!

I know, I know; first I'm talking about pro writing, now I'm talking about branching off in ANOTHER direction. But I have been thinking about this for a while, so.

I want to get into drawing. I have had training in fine art, which I always forget to remind myself of, a freaking creative arts degree with a massive component of visual art practice which included about a semester of life drawing, amongst other things. I really just need to knuckle down and get more practice in. So, a couple of questions:

I am thinking of buying a new graphics tablet, because I think ultimately I want to be able to pen digital art right into my computer instead of on paper and then scanned to work on. And I know from playing around with a tablet a couple of years ago that I already feel quite comfortable using one; I like the results on a tablet more than I do on paper.

I used to have a wacom graphire tablet, but they're not making them any more; their amateur range now seems to be the "Bamboo", with the Bamboo Fun being their creative/art one.

Does anyone have any opinions on it? Is it worth forking out way more to get a Wacom brand tablet? Is the Bamboo range any good?


Right, now stepping away from tablets, another art question: I have been pondering doing a portraiture or life drawing class, but then remind myself - I've DONE that. And also, I'm not interested in doing photorealism, I want to do more illustrative stuff. So what I'm after is a book or website that is a good reference for the 'basics' of that kind of drawing. Something I can go through to cement the principles of drawing back in my mind, and refer back too if need's be. Any recommendations?


In slightly tangential news, I can't wait until I'm settled down somewhere again and I can try to discipline myself a bit more - schedule my non-working weekdays to do things like freelance work and more deliberate creative development.

Today was the Manchester queer pride parade, which was jolly good fun. I saw a boy dressed as Jack Harkness SWAGGERING down the street (not in the actual parade, just cosplaying), which made me glee a bit. Also this:



was somewhat ♥_♥ making.

Tomorrow I will locate wifi and hopefully upload some of the hundreds of photos I've taken over the past several days.

But right now: tea.

I just finished Bill Bryson's "Notes From a Small Island" and I am left feeling jaded. Not just because of that air of entitlement in his belabored nostalgia. But because dammit, I totally want to do that! just go where the mood takes me, explore places on a whim. Britain is the perfect place to do that because it's actually really hard to get stranded with no hope of food or accommodation in sight, honestly.

1. I have the time.

2. I have the money to do this for a short amount of time, anyway, though probably not if I wanted to do proper train travel in there, on account of fares being ridiculous unless purchased far in advance.

But. But.

3. I don't feel safe. And I fucking hate that. But it's an irrevocable fact - when I travel on my own, I don't feel entirely safe. It takes me a while to settle into a place enough to lower my stress levels when I'm just, you know, out of the house. But it still absolutely sucks that I just constantly feel this (only sometimes background) anxiety for my personal safety, pretty much at all times.

And the thing is that there's not much I can do to change that. It's *not* necessarily merely an attitude change, upon weighing it up, I'm not willing to risk my personal safety on the possibility that I might just be neurotic. And this isn't a story or a tv show where you ought to step out and do something different to make a positive change. This is my freaking body and my life! I'm not willing to risk myself in order to make a point about how I think I shouldn't be frightened.

Sorry, I am sort of incoherent about it. That's how it feels, though. The threat of it isn't something that I can overtly point out, but regardless the anxiety of it is utterly pervasive. And I don't think it's just me - it's societally pervasive too. Everyone talks ominously about women travelling on their own. Shit like Wolf Creek is made as exemplary of that anxiety. Even every time my safe communities wind up talking about misogyny and personal safety and danger again it just lathers on how fragile any sense of a woman's personal safety really is, and ultimately how vulnerable we are in the face of the attitudes about the sanctity (or lack thereof) of our selves and bodies that are out there.

But it's not just about danger and violence, eh, I think in a more diffuse sense travelling is different for women and men. A man is allowed to be a flaneur, is revered for going on a quest. Television is full of men being global flaneurs, travelling the world and giving us their personal take on it (touching on the edge of the massive, problematic paternalism of the continuous background hum of colonialism, heh). Where are the women travellers, explorers, flaneuses (sp?) on TV?

Even in my personal experience of interacting with strangers while travelling I've noticed the difference. Travelling with a bloke, I've witnessed people (shop clerks, bar staff, random strangers) respond to and engage with him with more warmth and friendliness than I generally experience (even before opening my mouth and revealing with my accent that I'm from a different part of the world). Getting easy affability from a stranger in my travels is rare and cherished, I expect indifference and, on occasion, hostility. A bloke, however, gets a sense of indulgent praise. (Though, maybe this is a response to a man and a woman travelling together, rather than a single one of either?)

Anyway. It's just been stewing in my head for a while.


ETA: As I've just said to nixwilliams in an off-LJ conversation, I don't feel like I've made this post coherent enough. Though I intended this to be about what believe is a wider issue (thus posting this public rather than flocked with the inference that it's solely my neuroses), it's impossible for me to talk about this overall cultural/societal issue 'objectively', because it's not objective. The reason it's so important to me is because the affect of the issue is so personal.

On reflection, this post was mainly trying to get my thoughts in order on how the bigger picture is connecting to/influencing what I am personally experiencing. So, after doing that, here's what I'm trying to say:

There are pervasive societal attitudes when it comes to gender and travel - women are not supposed to travel alone. Being constantly told this through horror stories, real and fictional, both influences how *I* feel when I travel, but also how others behave towards me when I travel.

How much I let those responses affect me is also tied into a wider misogynistic attitude - where I'm constantly being reminded that violence etc towards women is pervasive (with victim blame etc), I'm not so willing to just "not let the travel anxiety affect me".

( life )

( work )

/end braindump


I hope my housemates don't think I'm being a terrible slob by hanging out with the cats under a doona all day. I have been terribly productive, though. I've chatted, emailed, processed photos, written LJ posts, finished proofing my fic and made progress on my ongoing WP migration issues. These are good things!

Though I just remembered that I wanted to buy drawing pins and blutack, only now it's after 5pm. Ah well, maybe tomorrow.

Time for another cup of tea.

Oooer. I just got an Amazon voucher from 'The names on the card'!

THANK YOU, The names on the card! Yay! DVDs-and-books ahoy!!

eta: ( oh, the names on the CARD! )


Also, PSA: today I'll be posting a number of fics over at hopeful_fiction. If you're eager to gobble things up as soon as they appear, you'll need to head over there. If you can wait, I'll be posting links to all of them later today from angstslashhope.