Site?

Hey everyone! Just an update! I've had cranberryblossom.net now for 8 years or so and i've found over the years with moving my artwork to deviantart.com that I don't really use my own domain space as much as I used to (if ever) so as of the 7th of next month (although i'll be keeping ownership of the domain name) cranberryblossom.net will go down and you'll have to see my art etc on my deviantart pages jamiedavenport.deviantart.com and halleaon.deviantart.com so update your bookmarks! It just doesn't make sense these days for me to be paying 80 dollars or so a year for a website I don't ever update or use.

Site Changes

Alright, to make my site even easier to navigate I've gone ahead and converted cranberryblossom.net into a blog-only site, old links to previous pages still work if you had them bookmarked (i didn't take any down) but it is best to navigate around from now on using the links/navigation menu to the left of this blog. You will find links to where you can purchase my book, look at my regular artwork as well as my pixel dolls and bases and any other projects i'm currently working on. Enjoy!

In other news~

So nanowrimo is finally over and now the long journey of editing my book begins, but first! there are a few things I need to do. First, I need to start working on World of Ai related stuff again, which is mostly dependant on our image issues being resolved which is being handled by our programming team. I do have a trick or two up my sleeve having to do with 16 or so new items (absence cats and Kitty Boos) but i'll not reveal that quite yet.

In other news I'm looking into buying a laptop for my book writing escapades so i'm saving up for that. Really i just need something sturdy enough to live for a few years and process word documents (which isn't really all that high of expectations). That's pretty much it for now.

The Beast Undone

Well this morning I finished my second novel The Beast Undone. It still needs edited but for the most part it's finished. There's something terribly sad about finishing a novel, even though I plan more future novels in the series, I feel like I'm leaving my freinds behind. I've gotten so used to peeking at my character's lives.

This novel is much longer than the first, which I intend to go back and edit/add to until it is a decent length. The first one ended up peaking at 153 pages while the second ended up reaching 317 pages. At least until I edit it. One never knows what may happen during editing. I'm going to try for four books next year and the years after. I can generally write a novel in about a month and a half if I don't procrastinate so I figure if I set myself a goal of 3 months per novel I'll be fine. Next year I'm aiming for the following novels:

Children of Beasts (3rd book in series)
The Beast Queen (4th book in series)
Umber (new series starter)
Soot (new series starter)

We'll see how it goes, best laid plans and all that!

Nano Day 8

I am so bad about updating my blog during nanowrimo, it's all that extra writing! I am soooo jealous of ussvoyager from our nanogroup, she's already over 40k~ Way to go! We have this great group of people that show up every weekend at the local tea house and sit in for a write in and we're always getting new people who just pop by, it's great fun. Everyone should do nanowrimo, every year (because you can't just do it one year) So far it's day 8 as of this morning, (of 30) and I have over 20k in words, only 30k more to go! I've been finding the writing really easy because I'm at a really interesting part of my book, but alas, there aren't always enough hours in the day to write! Anyway, I figured i'd post my word count widget here in my blog so everyone can keep track of how i'm doing, it takes it a while to update the wordcount once it's been changed, but it's usually fairly accurate to within 24 hours.


I like this particular graph because it allows me to see not only that i've met my goal, but how far beyond it i've managed for a day (dark grey turns light grey when the goal is met, the green is how far beyond the goal I go) of course if we wanted to make it simpler...



this one will do. cheer me on everyone!

Books and Nanowrimo

Alright, so I slacked off and missed a few weeks of blogging. I've been busy. So let me update you a bit on what's going on. I recently developed a heart arrythmia so i've been going through all sorts of fun tests, ekg's, echochardiograms, blood tests, the works. I even have a heart monitor on for the next 30 days. No word yet on any test results and I'm hoping it's just high blood pressure.

In other news, Nanowrimo or National Novel Writing month (http://wwww.nanowrimo.org) is about to start and I am psyched! I've been participating for 3 years now and it's always a blast. I plan on using this year's Nanowrimo to finish the sequal to Beauteous Beast. Which I've decided to name 'The Beast Undone' I'm still contemplating on writing a third book or if this will be the end of the short series. I'm also thinking of changing the format of this book from 6x9 to A5 trade paperback format, but i'm leary about publishing books in the same series in different formats. My twin sister insists A5 is the better choice because she won't have to fight her bookshelves to allow for the oddly sized 6x9. I'm leaning towards obliging her.

Anyway, if you've any interest in writing at all, you should totally join nanowrimo this year. you have 30 days (nov 1-30th) to write a 50,000 word novel. It's insane, and it's a blast, and even if you don't finish, you'll still enjoy it.

Movies

Alright, i'll be the first to admit that i have a serious problem in reguards to movies/dvd's. I have a rediculous amount of dvd's. Despite my movie-buying obsession (which i do not duplicate with any other store-bought product) It is some matter of pride to me that each and every movie i own was purchased by myself and not a single one was copied, or otherwise bootlegged. I'm almost positive my local blockbuster and best buy stores have flagged me as an important shopper. When i walk in, staff-heads turn, people shake my hand and introduce themselves and remember my name the next time i pop-in. Heck, most of them even remember what i last bought. I don't even want to guess what my movie collection is worth but it is well over an impressive 1000 disks (probably closer to 1200-i need to recount them). i have everything from comedy to foreign horror films and my collection spans most genre's. and i'ave watched every disk, at least once (most 3-9 times)

Why do i have such a collection? I've narrowed it down to a number of reasons. 1. I get bored at an alarming speed and need to constantly stay busy. watching a movie, cooking dinner, chatting online and perusing the news at the same time is not an unusual feat for me. I like to joke that if i'm not multitasking i'm not happy. 2. I have no cable and haven't had in about 7 years, movies are my tv (which makes it a little better considering how much time everyone else seems to spend watching tv every day)3. nostalgia. probably a third of the movies i own i bought because i saw them as a kid at my grandma's house and loved them (she too had a sizeable collection-though on vhs since the dvd didn't yet exist). 4. I am the local video rental place. Coworkers, family members, freinds, anyone wants to see a movie-borrow it from Jamie. Looking for a specific genre? no problem! i'll go write down all the titles in that genre I have and you can check them out library-style!

Admittedly my movie buying has been curbed (through my own efforts) i am down from purchasing 6-7 movies a week to 2 or 3 a month, I'm not sure i'll ever fall down to being a movie-renter vs a movie buyer, simply because i hate not being able to watch a movie when i think of it (not to mention the effort of returning it) I can honestly say that based on the prices of renting movies or going to the theatre to see them that my movie collection has paid for itself. I have honestly watched all the movies in my collection enough that in the long run i've probably saved money buying them rather than renting.

Ai

Well and update from yesterday's blog entry: I got rid of my two mabinogi characters Okkai and Kokkuri and replaced them with a single character 'Kounna' on the Mari server so if anyone plays Mabinogi, look me up!

I think the rest of this entry should talk a little about Ai. I currently am co-admin & owner of a site called The World of Ai (http://theworldofai.net) which is an online pet simulator/breedables site. The Ai are humanoid satyr-like creatures which you can dress up and 'wish' together to have new Ai born. We have our own holidays, events and quests and we're in beta-testing right now. Our coder and co-admin Kumori (my real life twin sister) says we'll be out of beta-testing and in public-mode as of august 25th at the latest (probably sooner!) so it's all very exciting. I'm head of the art department myself so most of the artwork for the site including the ai themselves are my doing (with a few exceptions from our fellow core-team member Kaisan who does pets and some outfits for the ai stores to help us out. Anyone interested in online pet sites should go take a look!

Which reminds me! I need to get some more item artwork done for the site! (but it probably won't happen this week-i'm going camping this weekend)

Mabinogi

Ok, so, i've been sucked in. I have a terrible habit of changing my interests/addictions frequently, one week i'll be all about Ragnarok Online, another week I i'll find some brand new online game to play and obsess over, 2 weeks later, it'll be a new one. This week my obsession is Mabinogi. It's a free online game at http://mabinogi.nexon.net/Intro/

Like many other online games you divide your time into hunting monsters/animals in the fields and dungeons and crafting items using skills like wood chopping, harvest gathering, thread spinning etc. Your character is a rather adorable 3-d anime-like representation which you can pick the hair eye and skin color/shape of, you get a default outfit and sword of some random color and you go out and perform quests and hack monsters for experience points. Let's not forget you can have pets. There's nothing exceptionally new and brilliant about it but it's a fun way to kill time.

I play on the Mari server as Okkai and Kokkuri. My pets respectively are a border collie and mini-pincher and I'm still below level 20 since I just started playing this weekend.

The Site Changes

It seems forever ago now, but I've had my cranberryblossom.net domain name now since back in 2001ish? It might have been as far back as 1999, my memory isn't the best, in any case, 7-9 years is a long time to have the same domain name and I don't see myself getting rid of it anytime soon, as with anything you keep for a long time, it becomes a part of your identity, of who you are. Over the years the site has changed from an art gallery, to a pixel-art site, at one point it was a fiction writing site, and a webcomic, I've hosted my family member's sites a few times and now, in full circle, I'm changing it back to an art site.

One thing I've learned over the years is that the easier the site is to update the longer I'll maintain it faithfully. So, accordingly this is probably one of the most simple layouts i've put up yet. I'm still accustoming myself to the grey-green layout but I wanted the site and my blog to have some sort of matching theme and this was the best of the blog layouts I had to choose from and I don't want to mess with it. Besides it looks clean, and that's what really matters. Right?

My other defense against not maintaining my site is to have this blog, you see, I'm actually really good about keeping my blog up to date by updating it at least once a week, if I can update my blog, there's no reason why i can't pop on and update the rest of my site right? We'll see. My once consolation is that alot of other artists I've noticed are about as good at keeping thier sites up to date as I am. Procrastination or perhaps over-working oneself must be part of the basic fabric of an artist.

As for the content of this blog, it will not only be a place for me to ramble on about the quaint little moments of my day to day life but also a place for me to place excerpts from my novels (whichever one i'm working on at the time) as well as sketches for upcoming artwork etc. Also, it allows for anyone wandering by the site reading this to make comments which is always great. I love feedback!

Hopefully over the next few days I'll get the new layout and content all up. I'm leaving most of my pixel doll pages up where they were in case anyone still has links to them. So if any of my fellow pixel-dollers happen to see this entry, my bases can still be found at http://cranberryblossom.net/bases.html and my dolls at http://cranberryblossom.net/pixeldolls.html