Ellen Million Graphics
Closure continues. I've been doing inventory and boggling at how much **stuff** I've managed to accumulate over the last 16 years. I've just discounted all stationery - large packages are down to $5 from $7 and small are down to $3.50 from $5.00. I have also marked down the 4X shirts, because I have entirely too many. $5 off on the black, $4 off on the white! I am out of X, XL and 2XL navy shirts - they will be removed from the site shortly.
The Torn World post for the day is on the topic of 'time crystals.' I fixed a bug at the site that was putting the non-canon work on the timeline. Woops! A new non-canon piece has been posted to the fiction site. (Non-canon work is available only to registered readers.) I do need to add a disclaimer to the non-canon fiction and poetry like the art already has!
Also, some of you have registered but not applied as contributors. This is fine - you still get lots of extras at the site, but if you were intending to join as a contributor, you must read and agree to all the fiddly little legal details and click the button at the bottom of this page.
Art and Authoring
I scribbled down some ideas for a science fiction story that has nothing to do with anything else. Possibly caused by reading early Isaac Asimov stories before bed.
No other art or writing to report, because...
House and Health
I bought a car!!!
I have to find the software to sync my phone, because I took some old/new pictures of the car I traded in.
It is so gorgeous and shiny. I went with a dark silver Outback. I would say brand new, but it had nearly 1000 miles on it - it had been used by Ice Alaska to ferry disabled people around the park, which meant it was an incredible deal. I LOVE the clearance, and the amazingly comfortable seat (heated!) and the incredible leg room and the shiny new look of it, and the deal that we got was great, and I feel SO decadent. It plays CDs! MP3 CDs, even!
I go outside and hug it every so often.
This summer is behaving like the ones I remember as a child - 80 degrees and irrepressibly sunny, with afternoon thundershowers so isolated it might pour in the front yard and be sunny in the back. We went for a walk with the dog in our woods, but were driven back by mosquitoes through the marshy bits.
Plans
I have the anthology to work on, and calendars, and orders. I have what's left of today to do that, and Sunday. Saturday, Jake and I are taking a Day Off and doing whatever. Oh, and artistpay. O.o
I do not think there will be weekend Torn World posts - I think that will be a weekday-daily thing.
Cranking up the tunes and jamming cheerfully!
The problem with making an announcement about shutting down my business is that.... people order. So I've got a ton of orders to do this weekend. That's not all bad, I suppose.
The Torn World post for today will cover a basic, macroscopic introduction to the system and planet. But it will wait until this afternoon, because there is potential for car buying this morning. Ee!
Art and Authoring
I did some art!
House and Health
Car goes here. Because car is exciting enough to mention in every category it fits in. My only reluctance at this point (after doing a few more days of research) is that it would be nice if 'picking a color' included actual colors. You know, CHROMATIC colors? The blue on the webpage looks okay, if a little wussy, but the green is more gray than green, and every other choice is bereft of actual pigment. (Oh, there's a brown, but I am so not buying a brown car. Especially not a turd-shaped car. While I'm working as a septic engineer.)
Still coughing, but it's a much, much dryer cough, and the sneezes are little and cute now instead of being like a scene out of Ghostbusters.
Plans
Did I mention the car?
I have to work this afternoon, and I get tomorrow off!
http://emg-zine.com/guidelines.php
Our next theme is (eastern) Indian mythology.
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmith, minor_architect, padparadscha, and marina_bonomi, who have been invaluable in extensively beta-testing the site and providing feedback and worldbuilding assistance! Thanks also to ronswartz for all the coding tutelage and for the basecode for the site. I have warped and mutated it horribly, but the base genius is his. Thanks additionally to beta-testers and artists Alexandra K., Christopher Paul, Erika Harm, Heather Halliday, Jen B., Jenny Heidewald, Kir Talmage, Laura Melis, Lorna Cowie, Maggie Hogarth, Misti Turner, Ren Bail, Ruth Steinback, Sibylle Machat, Tiffany Toland, Wesley Sterner, and Tiziano Baracchi. My gratitude!
What the heck is Torn World?
This question comes in two parts: in our world, and in their world. Part two, I will address in very gory detail starting tomorrow, but the 'in game' or 'in character' answer is that it's a vast, complicated fantasy/science fiction world with fanciful creatures and slight steampunk overtones.
At the real world end, it is a creative collaborative site for artists, writers and creative types of any sort to work on a shared continuity. We have a common shared world with extensive writer resources, a common timeline, and a database of characters and features to draw from for our own independent material.
Membership comes in many different sizes.
You don't have to register at all, and you can still enjoy the site - there will be some public stories, a limited supply of recent artwork, and you can browse through some of the character information.
Free registered readers get access to the archives of artwork, any stories filtered for adult content, and can read the non-canon material published on the site. (This material may counter our continuity, or simply not be of sufficient quality to be voted into canon.)
Contributor members have access to all of this material, our extensive Torn World wiki and extra areas of the forums where they can help with world-building brainstorming and they have forms to submit their own artwork and stories. Contributors retain all creative rights to their material! They can reprint them for free, or for profit, anywhere that they like. Torn World gets archive rights only - these stories may become part of our continuity, and we ask that we be able to share them with members of our site. Contributors may choose to have their work printed for supporters only, however!
Supporters are members of the site who are contributing financially. They pay to get access to extra work available only to them. But the money they put into the site doesn't stay in the site managment - they get most of their subscription funds back in 'credits,' which they can pledge to any contributor. Credits are actual, factual cash, which the contributor can withdraw at any time their balance is over $10.
In addition to the real-money credits, there is a second site currency called karma. All contributors to the site receive karma for their submissions, for promoting the project, for creating characters, for commenting on work and for being part of the site managment. Karma can be redeemed for character privileges, supporter access, discounts on merchandise, and you can give your karma away to someone else to show your appreciation. It’s an awesome way to give kudos when you don’t have any cash to spare.
(There is a lot more detail about membership, credit, karma, canon and lots of other things on the webpage: http://tornworld.net )
Now recruiting contributors!
After 12-odd years of development, 9 months of beta-testing and a lot of nail-gnawing work, the site is going into phase one of its public launch: recruiting contributors.
If Torn World were just me, it would probably get really boring. While I do have fifty-odd stories in various stages of finished, they are just a tiny, tiny part of the interweaving story that begs to be told.
Your obligations as a contributor are minor: you are expected to log into the site once a year. (Though, you will not be listed publicly on the site as a contributor until you have actually submitted something accepted for publication on the site.)
Your potential is limitless. If you want to join as a contributor and just lurk, that’s fine, but you may also find yourself inspired by the setting - as a whole, or by one tiny aspect of our very detailed background material - the world has been deliberately set up to support a number of isolated ecosystems and a vast array of backculture. If you’ve wanted to get involved in a world-building exercise, but didn’t have the staying power for an entire world of your own, you’ll find plenty of opportunity to get involved with the building blocks of Torn World. Unlike most work created in someone else’s sandbox, this isn’t ‘fanfiction.’ It has all the ease and inspiration of fanfiction, but you keep your rights.
You will also have the opportunity at this time to get involved as part of the management: our continuity board will be selected from active members during phase 1 of this launch. The countinuity board will be in charge of choosing which work is canon and which is not, and will keep order in the community.
In January of 2010, the site will start posting new work publicly.
You are invited to join us!
Tomorrow I will start posting details about the world itself... these posts will be public for 1 day, then put behind a contributor’s-only filter. They will be cross-posted to the Torn World forums for posterity.
ETA: We also have a twitter: http://twitter.com/Torn_World
Ellen Million Graphics Update
There is a new issue of EMG-Zine up! In it, you will find lots of Alice in Wonderland themed goodness, and the following news:
The Fantasy Art Shop is closing! Every item is currently as supplies last only, and some items are already marked down - stickers are $1 off! Mousepads and magnets are in very, very short supply. Black-handled totes will go fast. T-shirt sizes will run out! It's a big move for me, but it's the right move.
I'm caught up to Saturday on current orders (everything ordered prior to Saturday is out).
Torn World is alive!!! It will get its own post in a few moments. It deserves it.
Art and Authoring
Basically, this will be what I'm writing on, what I'm drawing. I'll post some WIP here, or an excerpt from something I'm writing on, or just blather about my own creative projects.
Currently, Torn World worldbuilding stuff is my primary focus, but I did just sub a story to River Twine for the unwrapping story of Honey. She's such a fun, self-centered character. I started the story some 6 months ago, but haven't had a lot of time to work on it.
Haven't had art time in ages. Does it show?
House and Health
(I'm mostly grouping these together because they start with the same letter.)
We weren't able to get the last window in last weekend because it was pouring down rain (which is a bad time to open up a giant hole in the house!), and also that was the day my car broke down, so no siding yet.
My cold lingers, but the phlegm count is down. I get coughing jags, and tire easily, but am generally feeling better than I was.
Plans
I have convinced Jake that we should stay home over the long weekend instead of haring off to go camping, because I have a LOT of business to get done and I'd like to get that window installed.
I have calendars to do for EMG, the anthology, and orders to fill. I want to have pre-orders for calendars by Monday. The first box for Dragon*Con is ready to go out! If I send things now, I can use media mail, see.
And tomorrow, we're going to go look at buying me a new car... Eeeeee!
I'm having a very bad 'blech!' moment. I am feeling like my writing is Crap, my ideas are Stupid and I was epic crazy to even attempt Torn World. It is cold feet, I can accept that. Tomorrow, the site goes public (though the story doesn't start in earnest until January), and it's a little like getting ready to parade around stark naked.
Add to that the fact that tomorrow the big giftshop news goes live and I have to write up that still (this isn't an easy thing to write!!), and headcold from hell is still making me sound frog-like and phlegmy and OMGBUYINGACAR and a very strange night sleep-wise. (I took cold medicine, and then it was morning, except that I was still way drowsy and my dreams were very vivid and weird and clung to me longer than usual.)
It also occurred to me today that tomorrow being July 1 also means I have to do artistpay. *dies a little*
Blech, I say.
I got it into the shop in miracle-speed time, and went to the dealer with Jake to look at a promising used vehicle and ended up test-driving a new Subaru.
Wants. Wants lots.
Got the prognosis on my car and... it's not so good. I mean, it's not terrible, but the car does have 134 thousand miles on it, and it's leaking from the engine like woah, bad brakes, and really awful spark plugs (which isn't dastardly, but could kill the catalytic converter, which is way, way bad). $3300 to fix. PLUS some rear differential leakage, wiring and struts that will need attention soon-but-not-now.
Or, I could go buy a new car.
The new one is so niiiiice, and pretty and doesn't have punctures in the door where lumber was pushed into it during our housebuilding, or scrapes on the roof where we tied plywood to it. It doesn't squeak, and it goes up hill with energy. The seat is more comfortable than mine, and it has a CD player. It's an ugly color - my choices are white, silver or black. What happened to cars with color? I want a bright yellow car that everyone can see. /digress
They have zero percent financing. And incentives. And it's SHINY.
I wasn't ready to make this choice yet. *gnaws fingers* As timing goes - well, it's better timing than it coulda been.
- 19:37 *twirls around in happy little circles!* #
It's going to be a nuthouse, here. I have no doubts of that. I have a mountain of business things to do in anticipation of major changes, and the fair and D*C are just around the corner, there are major, huge work crunches that will pretty much require me to be here fulltime the rest of the summer and well into the fall, and there's Torn World, and I've got family visits to arrange, and the house is still going to get sided (the last window goes in this weekend, I think) and it seriously makes my head spin thinking about it, but... I'm excited. There's more thrill than dread, and I feel really good about everything I've decided.
Thank you, everyone, for all of your support through everything - if this is what the end of an era feels like, bring it on.
- 19:37 Pretending I'm not sick isn't working as well as I'd like. Came home from work and face-planted in bed. Trying to muster energy for orders. #
I hope to have calendars to the printer by the end of the week and up for pre-order by early next week.
Still under the weather and absolutely scrambling at work.
Which is why this entry is this short.
- 21:45 Dredging through my email backlog... and testing out twitterfox! #
Am SO not ready for it to be only a week to July.
EMG artists - submissions will be closing indefinitely on July 15! I've got major, major stuff coming up and deadlines breathing down my neck, and I will simply not be able to keep submissions open past mid-month. If you've been dawdling or hemming and hawing, get your stuff in asap!
I'm expecting to pick up batches of Biting Pear and Elder Clean soap at the PO tonight - these sell out quickly, so this is a little forewarning for you that they will be available in the next day or two.
We're looking for fiction and artwork in the theme of 'Wizards' for EMG-Zine August - the deadline is July 1. I bet you've got some wizards somewhere on your harddrives! http://emg-zine.com/submitart.php
It's taken me way too long to blog just this small amount. I'm going to go rest my brain with some drafting.
Still sick. It rains. My brain isn't quite back on track yet.
Probably be going back to work tomorrow, but may only work a half-day and will probably not be answering phones.
- 17:57 Yaknow... If I'm going to be doing something for the fun of it... shouldn't it be fun? #
You are starting to feel sick and the back of your throat is scratchy.
You should:
a) Stay in bed on Saturday and watch hotel TV.
b) Go for a judicious walk on Saturday, interspersed by napping and hot showers, maybe a bath, and some take-out.
c) Go fishing for 9 hours on a little boat, partly in rain, with freezing cold hands and meals spaced entirely too far apart, with no hot drinks.
Guess which one I did?
I had a most wonderful trip, though the fishing itself was awful and I'm paying dreadfully for it now. I can't decide whether my general achey-ness is from the muscle work of fishing (deep-sea fishing is rather strenuous) or if it's part and parcel of the flu-thing that is coursing through my veins.
I'm going to go roll up some kleenex to stuff in my nostrils and go back to bed again now...
- 08:25 I HATE domain-squatters. $2088 for commissioncontrol.com? Keep it. I've snagged commission-control.com and they can go to hell. #
- 18:02 The welcoming committee for Cordova is an otter frolicking outside my hotel window! #
- 13:13 Mm! Veggie/hummus sandwich on a sesame seed bagel for lunch! #
- 17:57 Just finished paying artists for Portrait Adoption, invoicing now and getting ready to fill orders! #
- 18:00 (I think that my biggest problem with Twitter is that I'm convinced that what I'm doing is Very Boring...) #
- 19:35 I got February and March of Ursula's calendar finished, invoicing done, and... my brain has checked out. Time for dinner. #
- 21:59 *whew!* All orders filled (that I have supplies in stock for), and 6 calendar months laid out. I'm taking what's left of the night off. #
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- Ellen Million Graphics, Fantasy Art Emporium
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