Off to Freiburg

I'm off to Freiburg for a short academic conference on book history and print culture. Yesterday was one of those typical (typical for me, that is) pre-conference days:

• Checked weather report for Freiburg
• Said "Waaaaargh! What do you mean, rain on Thursday?!?!?!?"
• Panicked.
• Made sure my shoes (for walking around) are waterproof
• Worried  about my conference shoes (What if I get wet feet?)
• Loaded the mini-Kindle.
• Wondered whether four full-length mysteries plus all Mapp & Lucia novels will suffice. (I will come back home on Saturday.)
• Just to be on the safe side, I also copied Howard's The Complete Mackenzie Collection and a few Suzanne Brockmann books onto the Mini-Kindle. (Just in case I'm in the mood for a nice romance novel.) (Or in case all the books I just bought turn out to be horrid.) 
• Packed conference notebook and writing notebook.
• Packed sketchbook and watercolors.
• Agonized over which suitcase / bag to take.
• Panicked.
• Packed suitcase
• Panicked some more.
• Finished paper
• More panic (Waaaargh! It's already 11:30 p.m.!!!!)
• Put together some kind of PowerPoint presentation.
• Went to bed.
• Couldn't sleep.

:-)

The Pig-Dog in my Cupboard

Yesterday a pig-dog* moved into the cupboard where I keep the sweets (among other things). The common German pig-dog (Schweinehund) is something that keeps you from starting a difficult project or task - either because you succumb to laziness or because you're riddled with self-doubts or fear of the unknown. In other words, pig-dogs are our weaker selves.

The pig-dog which moved into my cubboard, however, is a new variety of pig-dog and is supposed to help you with a difficult task. In my case, the pig-dog sits on my gummibears and chocolate and reminds me to eat something healthy instead of sweets. Like, you know, fruit.

So far he has been moderately successful.

Well ....

 At least he's been successfuly in so far that I now feel the need to justify myself whenever I grab a piece of chocolate. As in, I'm talking to a stuffed animal that's sitting in my cupboard.  O_o

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* The pig-dogs name is Puntito and has been designed by my Weight Watchers coach. Just so you know whom to blame when I go completely ga-ga.and start writing odes to the pig-dog in my cupboard. ;-)

LLC Sketchbook

With little more than three weeks to go until the LoveLetter Convention in Berlin Spandau, I thought it was high time to upload the mini-film of last year's sketchbook. I'm going to take another leporello sketchbook to this year's LLC - leporello books are a pain to work with, but I always LOVE the finished result. :-)

Betrayal

After yesterday's sad news, I bring you something more cheerful: namely, the Prologue and Chapter 1 of the free audiobook of BETRAYAL. Enjoy!

Goodbye, Kitteh

This morning, we finally had to say goodbye to my sweet cat. After a lovely day yesterday that included watching birdies and fishies from a window in my parents' flat, snuggling up in my parents' bed and later snuggling up in my bed, she got extreme anxiety attacks in the evening. She had also lost additional weight over the past few days and could no longer jump on a chair, let alone climb on any of my window sills (hence the birdie-watching in my parents' flat: they have a small conservatory with floor-to-ceiling windows).

I'm so glad that the weather was nice and sunny this week so she was able to sunbathe (something that cats LOVE to do!) one last time. And I hope that somebody in kitty-heaven keeps lots of ribbons and balls at hand so she can now finally enjoy playing again.

Designing Bookmarks

In all the first-weeks-of-term flurry (not to speak of the adding-the-finishing-touches-to-dratted-diss misery), lining up my promo material for the LoveLetter Convention was of somewhat minor priority. But with only one month to go till the big event, I decided it was high time to do something about bookmarks and pretty things I would be able to sign. So I sat down last night and started to design.

The last batch of bookmarks for Castle of the Wolf didn't turn out all that nice (granted, this was partly my fault because I forgot to convert my file into a CYMK image, but there were also issues with the overall quality), so I looked around for some other options. Let's hope I'll get better results with the new printer of my choice.

Designing bookmarks for Springtime Pleasures turned out to be surprisingly difficult - I wanted a nice, dark green for the background, but my first attempts all looked rather lame. Luckily, I remembered my trusty swirls, fiddled around with transparency, fonts, and what not, and ended up with this:

I like my bookmarks rather clean and uncluttered, and I think this will do the trick nicely. What do you think?

Now I only have to decide on the punctuation of the tagline:

Caught between duty & desire ... Which one will he choose?

Caught between duty & desire - which one will he choose?

Caught between duty & desire, which one will he choose?

Hmm ....

The Bestial Boar

The new term started on Monday, so the past few days whirled by in a flurry of preparations. I didn't get much of anything done beyond stuff for uni. So I don't really have any news for you except for ...

... the Bestial Boar.

Specifically, an image of the Bestial Boar.

Yes, indeed, not sparing any effort, not caring about the great danger, I ventured forth to sketch a likeness of this mythical beast. And would you believe it? I was successful (well, more or less).

 The text is a snippet from Chapter 4 of Springtime Pleasures:

Charlie became aware that Lady Isabella was staring at her in a most peculiar fashion, which made her wonder whether she had committed another faux pas and whether wild boars were deemed an unsuitable topic in London society. She hadn't seen any wild boars since her arrival, so perhaps they were considered unworthy of being talked about. Which was entirely unfair when they presented such a problem in other parts of the country.*

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* This bit was partly inspired by a TV documentary about (urban) wild boars in Berlin, where apparently groups of wild boars roam through the suburbs and destroy gardens. :-)