The Shelf is Up

Phew! Just finished all of the inking of Mirabilis. 187 pages! I thought I'd better make an effort with the blog though actually I'm avoiding the giant list of DIY my wife has drawn up for me over the past 2 years.

Dave knows I'm a time optimist. Yesterday I tried fitting an awkward shelf that I thought would take and hour, but took the best part of a day and a lot of blue language. To cap it all my wife returned from work to tell me I'd got it wrong. She was right, so I had to take it all apart and make adjustments. Eventually I stood back with satisfaction. The shelf was up now housing a neat row of baking trays, and I'd gained a few brownie points! Still, I hate DIY.

When I started Mirabilis I thought it would be a simple matter of sitting down and completing a page a day, it turned out to be impossible to fit into so neat a schedule. Sometimes I'd find myself struggling with a particular character pose or procrastinating about the best angle to view a scene. Simple things that even I would have thought would take minutes can sometimes balloon into hours. Other factors intrude such as interuptions from my family, or occasionally, and the worst, an "off day", where the brain won't spark and the waste of time breeds a toxic guilt.

That makes it sound as though it was awful, it wasn't. I did get through the frames, then the pages, episodes and chapters, and finally the book. I loved Dave's unfolding story, got to know Jack, Estelle, Dougie and rest, and thrilled at travelling across Europe through Transylvania (a place I once back packed through as a student in the 80's before the revolution) to the mystical Istanbul (a place I'd love to visit!) Now I stand back with satisfaction (not total, I always think my drawing could be a deal better), and a little sadness in that I'll miss my new friends, the travel and adventure... until book 2!

Now, what's next on that DIY list? "Tidy the garage". Have you seen my garage? Ugg!