#JustCheckingIn, August 2025

Okay, oaky, it’s technically September 1st, but I have been busy :).

So… Where Are Things in August 2025?

August has been a month of stubborn manuscripts and looming deadlines. 

Writing

The manuscript for The House is being its usual stubborn self—still sitting at 140,000 words. Everything that goes into the waste paper basket seems to be replaced with even more words. But I’m grinding through copyedits and proofreading, somehow made it to chapter 36, which is progress and feels like moving through molasses.

I had to put the audiobook production of The Fragments on hold. Not what I wanted, but the Queenstown Art Show deadline is looming and something had to give. I still hope to get the bulk of the audiobook done this year. We’ll see if that’s optimism or delusion.

Art

Speaking of the Art Show—I’m in full panic mode getting new work ready. Right on schedule with the existential crisis and despair that always accompanies these deadlines. The larger paintings are almost there, thank God, but next week I move to printmaking, and I haven’t touched my press in over three years. Three years! What if I’ve forgotten everything? Or worse, what if I remember why I stopped?

And … I published a new tutorial—Making a Positive Paper Mache Mould Using Plasticine.

Renovations

Meanwhile, in the middle of all this creative chaos, I managed to paint the bedroom. Small victories. Next up: bathroom repairs, but first I have to prune the trees in the back because apparently that’s urgent too. Everything is urgent. Nothing can wait.

This is what creative life looks like in August: manuscripts that won’t shrink, art show deadlines, a printing press gathering dust, and tree pruning somehow making it onto the priority list.

Nothing to it but to continue one stubborn word and brushstroke at a time.

#studiovisit #artistlife #artistinthestudio #artstudio #lifeupdate