Thursday, November 13, 2008

What we do when revising gets too hard

What do we do? Why take a break, of course.
And this kind of faffing is among my favorite kind and incidentally the sort that can suck HOURS out of your day.

Backstory: I bought my much anticipated and shiny new laptop last week. There it is to the left.

Pretty in all the right computer spec ways, but Oh My God, could it BE any more boring?

So off I went, in my best faffing fashion and found http://www.schtickers.com where they have lots of ways to pretty up your otherwise generic/boring/coma-inducing black laptop.

Of course it took me *some time* to chose a design. And then *some more time* to discover that I wanted to design my own. Then *even more time* (and to be fair I've been sick and couldn't do much else) doing some truly awful ink drawings of flowers and leaves before FINALLY throwing my hands up in the air and tonking on over to istock to savage some photos.

This laptop is all about the writing. There will be no internet, there will be no email. So I figured the skin had to be all about writing too. My brain (not functioning on all cylinders, but still hanging in there), took me back to a particularly special time in my history when I first realised I wanted to become a published writer. I was about seventeen. Picture it. I was sitting on the floor in front of the fire at home, curled up against my mother's chair, a spot that had seen countless conversations on everything under the sun.
Mum: So, if you could do anything in the world, whatever you wanted, what would it be?
Me: I'd be a novel writer.
Mum: (rolls eyes). Not pie-in-the-sky stuff. Something real. What would it be?

Of course then I had nothing to say because I'd really given the question some thought. It set bells off in my head and made me want to cry whenever I thought about it. It still does.

It took me some years to get back to my pie in the sky, but it's always been what I wanted more than any thing else.
So I made this laptop skin and hope that the good people at whatever Cafe don't laugh too hard at me. I reassure myself that they'll have no clue what it really means.


I also find it funny which is a bonus.

I figure when I get my first publishing contract I'll have it redone to say "eating pie in the sky since xxxx"

Or maybe I should've gone with those ink drawings after all....

In any case, I think I'll be doing these on a regular basis. It feels good for the soul for some reason.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Man, that is gorgeous! It all feels so whimsical and solid at the same time. Love the font, love the colors, love the sentiment.

Matilda said...

I am craving your pie in the sky!!! Can't wait 'til you are eating your pie!!!!

Robyn Enlund said...

That's one solid looking pie, i think. If it fell out of the sky it could do some serious damage. I think it may be pumpkin.