Monday, December 31, 2012

2012 - Thoughts On A Year

(Before I type anything New Year's related, I want to say that posting Rema online has been so therapeutic for me. I'm so grateful to all of you who have visited the site, even if you're just looking at the drawings. I'm probably driving my friends a little crazy spamming them with so many links to the Rema blog, but I can't emphasize enough how helpful it's been in sorting out my life. Thank you all so much, especially to those who have actually taken the time to read it. My heart is yours!)


2012 proved to be a big year for me, both good and bad. In some ways, I feel as if the last few years were all together one really... long... year packed with crazy event after crazy event. One too many days were spent in the hospital for people I loved. One too many funerals were held. Too much illness and too many doctor visits. For a while there, it really DID feel like the apocalypse! The birth of my son and daughter were, of course, the bright spots within the chaos (both unintended natural births!). I never imagined myself to be a mother, just as I never imagined myself to be married, yet here I am, stay-at-home mom dabbling in storytelling.

Being so wrapped in Life, Death, and the spectrum in between has made me sort my priorities, and has made me a better person. Whereas before stories and ambition were the center of my life, my family is now the center. The stories have become a world I go to when Time permits, a fantastic place that keeps me sane. For a while that world was for my eyes only, but it kept my spirit strong through difficulty. It kept me alive. I want to share these stories with as many people as possible in the hopes that they might be a raft to float others across choppy waters, too.

There's a lot to look forward to in the years ahead -- the growth of my children, the love of my husband and best friend, and many, many stories to finish. The key word is finish. I'm sitting on two novels, several short stories, and a few comics that need completion. Some of them are 90% done, some are only 1%, but all them make me so excited to draw and write. For a writer, inspiration is the side effect of so many life-altering events. However, if these stories are to be shared, they have to be finished. And so, it's my goal -- Time permitting -- to complete as many of these projects as possible and share them with as many people as I can, starting in 2013.

I hope 2013 will prove to be positive, fruitful, and forward-moving as possible for you too. Happy New Year, and thank goodness we all survived the apocalypse!

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Reman Mythology -- The Novel


After so many years of trying to figure out where Rema the novel fits and resisting doing what it takes to make it fit somewhere, I realize that I'll never be happy forcing this story into any mold other than what it wants to be. Whether that makes the story better or worse (probably worse!), that's just my relationship with it. It began as my playground, a sanctuary I could escape to where I could just be myself without restraint, and that's all it is. I need that sanctuary, that arena where I could grow without pressure, and sharing it online was such a big part of that.

And so, I'm posting Rema the novel on its own blogspot while I continue to revise and illustrate it. It will no longer be a webcomic, it will be a webnovel. The story is flawed, the plotting is messy, the prose is rough... but it is what it is, and I'm happy to share my sanctuary with anyone who wants to read it.

Go here to read chapter one.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Pile O' Drawings

Hel-looo~! 

I realized I hadn't updated my blog with all the drawings I've been posting on my twitter. I know this is redundant, but here they are all in one fabulous place!

Not much to report otherwise. I love my life and my head is teaming with fun ideas. I just wish I had more time to draw/write!

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Catching Up

It's been over a month since my last update! I have a legitimate reason though -- my second child was born, a beautiful baby girl who has been such an angel (so far!). She's been so sweet but I AM still quite sleep-deprived, so forgive me if I act weird to any friends out there!

Despite all the madness in our lives, I've been steadily filling up the book with as many illustrations as possible. I'm a little behind on my updates, but here's all the drawings I've posted on my twitter since the last blog post. It's been so fun making this book. I always wanted to write and draw a magical adventure story for girls, and it feels so great to finally be doing it... :)
 



Monday, July 23, 2012

Another Set


It's been an eventful month in my neck of the woods, but things are finally settling down. Three weeks ago, my husband was knocked down a peg by pneumococcal meningitis, a potentially fatal bacterial infection of the fluid surrounding the brain and spinal cord. Five days in ICU and 9 days in recovery, and he is nearly back to normal, give or take a few memory gaps. He is expected to make a full recovery given time, and is nearly there already just 1.5 weeks out of the hospital. He is amazing. I am just relieved that he survived, his personality and health is otherwise in tact, and he is the same man I fell in love with.

We had tons of help from family and friends through this ordeal. We are incredibly grateful to everyone for their support, babysitting, and food runs while in the hospital and afterwards. Together, they saved my husband's life. We have the best friends and family! We are very lucky and totally dodged a bullet! 

I learned so much in the past few weeks, it's difficult to write it all down in a blog post. Reliving the details of what we went through seems trite as well, so I guess I'll end it here.

Above and below you'll find the latest set of drawings from the book I'm working on. The flying dolphin one I drew while keeping Kazu company in the hospital. As corny as it is, it is special to me for that reason alone. Anyway, enjoy the drawings! More to come in the weeks ahead. :)





Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Drawing Time!

For the last few years, I've been working back and forth on two projects that I'm really excited about. One is my passion project called Rema, obviously. The other is a totally fun and awesome kid's chapter book that I've been sitting on for too long now. The writing is finished, the designs are all there, it's only a matter of illuminating the manuscript with a load of illustrations. I have a bit of a gap while waiting for Rema line edits, and I hate sitting on my hands, SO! It's time to close this thing out!

Follow me on my journey to a finished set of illustrations at my twitter (updated almost daily, including process material), or wait for the weekly updates here on my blog. I intend to post every illustration, spoilers be damned! Below is the first set from this week:



Sunday, April 15, 2012

Reman Mythology Archives


"I don't want to spoil people from the upcoming (indefinitely in-progress and never published) novel."
"I don't want to disappoint new readers with a story that doesn't end."
"The drawings are so outdated."
"I don't really draw comics anymore."
"I just want to start from scratch."

I had a million reasons to take Reman Mythology down from the web. Scratch that: I had a million excuses. The biggest one that I never stated: "I want to pretend it never existed."

It seems a strange thing to say, but after finishing Sorcerers & Secretaries, I was ashamed of pretty much everything I did in comics. I told people I hated Sorcerers & Secretaries, that I thought both that and Reman were silly and stupid. I had so much guilt for leaving the "comics church," as I called it, and pursue my dream of being a writer. Comics was my friends, my family, my hobby, my career. It was my life. I felt like I was abandoning so much work and faith by switching gears that I wanted to pretend I never did any comics for a while, and my shame in my comics was a way to divert the guilt I felt for leaving.

Five years later and I'm still trying to figure out novel writing. I'm on the search for new representation with an agent, and still perfecting the novelization of Rema to the best of my abilities. Having to search for an agent means having to write uncomfortable things like query letters and plot summaries. It means I have to talk proudly of my work as a comic artist, guilty for leaving comics or not, and it made me realize how silly I've been in not taking more pride in the work of my past. I may not draw comics anymore, but it doesn't mean I never drew them and I never learned anything from them. Regardless of how many years it will take me to find a new agent or get published again, the process of putting my manuscript out there has been invaluable.

When I look at my comics it feels like they were drawn by a different person, but they weren't. It was still me. Younger, more ambitious, and less patient, maybe, but still me. I should stop pretending it wasn't.

Long story short, you can re-read Reman Mythology again if the fancy strikes you. The archives are back up on their old url, http://www.felaxx.com/RM.