The Hovel--July Newsletter!

(photo credit: Binky.and.crumb on Instagram)

Hello Babes,

It’s July now, and Summer has successfully settled over Colorado. These are the dry months here, where the lack of humidity acts as the only consolation for how hot it gets. These are times to play in the river (it’s a creek, but let me have it), where the water is still ice-cold despite the summer heat, or to hike mountain trails, hoping that the higher altitude will bring a little bit of relief. It’s time to be outside. Admittedly, I don't take as much advantage of this as I should, but you'll find me outside a handful of times in the summer, stealing small moments away from the work.

In June, it rained several days, and for days at a time. I grew up in a drought, where I saw the waterlines of lakes and reservoirs diminish year after year—places I have early memories of, where they were overflowing with water. I've never seen these bodies of water truly full as an adult. When it rains now, I feel it as a deep relief. Rain, to me, is hope—hope that wildfires won't consume the mountains, hope that our small reserves of nature will survive another year.

It rained yesterday, and I’m keeping that mote of hope close to me as we continue to see this country descend into a new brand of 21st century, post-capitalist fascism. Things are bad. I’m scared, and I don’t know what the future is going to look like. I feel helpless and very small. But it’s been raining in Colorado. The trees are all full of leaves, and the grass is a shade of green that invites you to lay in it—to just breathe. I want to hold onto that feeling for as long as possible.

PROGRESS BAR

I took a break from Patreon in June, but I didn’t take a break from anything else. Actually, I picked up work I didn’t have before. So, while you haven’t heard from me in this space, I have been very busy behind the scenes. I’m very proud of what I accomplished in June. In a lot of ways, I’m doing everything I ever dreamed of, and I feel very lucky in that.

Purgatory:

I passed 100k words on my Novel this month. I’m somewhere between very-proud and very-tired about that—proud, because it’s something I wasn’t sure if I was capable of, and now I've done it! Tired, because I know I’m going to have to re-write it. Re-writing is a common practice in the world of novels, and it is definitely not as daunting as the first draft has been, but it is still a stressful endeavor. The first draft is where I threw all of my ideas at the wall, and the second will be where I will try to make it beautiful. I don’t know how to do that, but I’m reading books about novel-writing, and listening to podcasts, and doing my best. Hopefully, the story I want to tell will come out in the second draft.

Something I keep running into while I’m writing this is that it feels more ambitious than my skill level will allow. I know, vaguely, the kind of book I want to make, but I don’t have any clue how to do that. I'm trying to think about in the same way I think about a drawing (a very long, very tedious drawing). The first draft is just loose lines scribbled across a sheet of white paper, and in the second I’ll find the shapes—from there, I can refine it, find the focal point, add color. I’m looking forward to the part of the process where I get to add the highlights, bring in that little dot of light to the iris of the eyes—the part where it begins to feel alive.

As I’m closing in on the ending of the first draft, I can’t help but see all of the ways I’ve failed to make the book I wanted to make—but that’s the thing. It isn’t a book yet. I’m not done making it—so I haven’t failed yet. I’ll only fail if I stop, and I know myself well enough to know that isn’t going to happen.

HEARTACHE

I am starting to work on what I hope are final pages of my graphic novel, HEARTACHE. While I wait for feedback from my editors, I’ve been adding final line-work to pages that are unlikely to change in the next round of edits. Inking pages feels like coming home. This is the part of the process where I turn on an audiobook and disappear into the work. It’s deeply satisfying to lose myself and then resurface with completed pages and stories in my head.
(Line work! It's starting to look like a book!!)

This is my favorite stage of making a graphic novel. It’s also a very stressful part of the process, because it’s where the dial turns from the side of concept to the side of completion. At this stage, I can feel the edges of my ability falter. Some pages go more smoothly than others. Some days, drawing is easier, but drawing has to happen every day, and I can’t spend inordinate hours re-doing all of pages I’m unhappy with. It means I see the beginnings of that imperfect end-product peeking through. It’s both maddening and exhilarating—all of the reasons I choose to create.

Overall, this month was extremely productive. I worked very hard; I accomplished a lot, and I’m still only seeing the messy returns of a product not-quite-finished. But magic is never made all in one breath of air. Magic (the kind that exists in the real world) is patience and practice. These things I’m working on will see the light, but for now, they’re being sewn one stitch at a time.

JAR OF BUTTONS

READING:

-Babel by RF Kuang— I started this month by finishing a book I started over a year ago. This book is incredible. It’s ambitious, but approachable, unique and well-grounded. This is a book that knew exactly what it was trying to say, and wound that word into every single sentence.

-Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by VE Schwab—this is a book I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life for. I went to the midnight release party (my first!) It was so much fun to see VE Schwab talk about her writing in person. She's been one of my favorite authors for a long time--someone who's voice has always had an innately queer quality even when her pairings were mostly M/F. This book is the first of hers that is explicitly sapphic. It's a vampire lesbian book, a book about HUNGER and anger and taking up space in a world that doesn’t want you to. It didn’t disappoint. If I have any complaints, it’s that I wanted it to be longer, though it’s already over 500 pages.

-When Among Crows by Veronica Roth—a masterclass of efficiency in prose. This book is so small, and yet it doesn’t feel like anything was left behind. The characters and world are both rich and well founded. I’m excited to read the second in the series when it releases this fall.

-Your Blood, My Bones by Kelly Andrew—This was a book that had such rich prose that I can almost forgive its story failings—almost. I wanted to love this book, but while it captured me with its beautiful descriptions, it lost me in the plot.

-The Bell Jar—Another classic under my belt! In the first few chapters of this book, I wanted to hate it. Esther irritated the hell out of me, and I felt like a lot of her mental illness was being pinned on other characters. But by the end of this book, I was in love with it. It’s so gorgeously written I can’t stay angry.

I will fault this book for romanticizing suicidal ideation—but it is one of the few books that exist from the sixties that approaches the topic of women's mental health at all. I also found several uses of racist language that I did not like.

Overall, this book is flawed but gorgeous. I enjoyed it.

WATCHING:

-Life of Chuck—I watched this because Mike Flannigan’s Netflx horror series’ have had a choke hold on my creative brain for several years. It was a lovely movie, even as someone who rarely enjoys Stephen King. Life of Chuck was full of heart, and I was glad to see a movie not built on the back of an already popular IP. (I'm sick of sequals and cynical about live action.)

-Walking with Dinosaurs—Dinosaurs have never been a hyper-fixation of mine, but they are so beautifully otherworldly. Dinosaurs invoke fantasy, despite being very real. It’s an almost romantic notion that we have a footprint left by these creatures that once inhabited the same space as us.

LISTENING:

I don’t have anything specific I’m focusing on this month, but here are a few podcasts keeping me sane.

-Trillbilly Worker’s Party—just a couple of lads from the south that discuss current events from a left/communist POV.

-Citations Needed—a discussion of media, and propaganda, and bullshit.

OUTRO

(my tomato plants are starting to grow teeny tiny tomatoes. They're SO cute.)

As the summer begins, the world feels filled with a bone-deep fatigue. I want to be excited for the future, because all of the things I’m working on right now will be finished in the future.

I love what I’m doing and have truly never felt this fulfilled in my life. It’s all co-opted by this anxiety, though—that the world the far right is working towards, is a world where my art can’t exist. It’s a world where my stories can’t be told.

I hate them for this. It’s a theft of part of the joy that comes from making things—the part where you can envision it finished—a piece of you made separate, and in the hands of its audience. I’m holding tight to the fact that there will always be an audience for what I make, even if I have to build it from the underground. They can take joy, but fascism has never been capable of taking creativity.

I hope you’re all holding tight to your pieces of hope, your joys and your creativity.

All my love,

Kelsi Jo