Click the image to see the full work.

in the Illustration section. Commissioned for Eric Johnson's erotic BDSM story. You can read the work over at Smashwords. 

Also there's the Blood Bonds Cover for Levi Montgomery, one writer I truly love reading because the stories are just so perfectly good. 

You know the drill,

The moments of lucidity, the mental sharpness and keen awareness are getting shorter and fewer in frequency, which is taking a significant toll on my ability to get necessary tasks done. The result is that when such moments occur there is a frantic rush to try to get the most pressing tasks done. 

What happens outside the clear moments, is lost to a singular hazy blur of dream-distant memories that make no sense. Not sure when this really started, but a good parallel image is that I am sleeping for weeks at a time, and waking up for a few desperate hours.

A hard year for many of us, for various reasons, including the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of the Tohoku region, and the resulting nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi plant. 

Personally I’m still struggling with a hard year of illness after illness (seriously, I was sick for some 34 weeks this year) financial woes (thanks to all of you who helped me stave off eviction again and again this year, domo arigatou!) and family troubles including baby illnesses and spousal worries. Times ahead are guaranteed to be tough, but I know that with the help of friends and family, we can pull through. Thanks again, to all the well wishers and the donors/patrons of my art. You folks made a tangible difference in my life, and I can’t properly express the gratitude I feel.

Progress reports:

Baby is still sick with viral thing, but can eat now, and as cheerful as ever.

Spouse and I are struggling in our relationship with each other, which is not helped by my constant illness. But we’re talking, which is a good start.

I apparently, still have pneumonia. It lurks behind the scenes, just waiting for me to push myself (by taking out the trash, or doing the dishes, for example) to pounce on me and start a huge day stopping coughing fit. New meds keep it at bay, but I’d rather it just go away. On a related note, I’m sick of hospitals.

Finances wise, I have some work trickling in, and a piece of mine was recently displayed in The Atlantic Wire for the lovely Jake Adelstein. so that’s a plus. As always, I’m open to illustration commissions, whether they be portraits, editorial, or commercial works. 

The novel proceeds a pace, bouts of pneumonia notwithstanding.

I wanted to close by again expressing my thanks to everyone whose read, sent well wishes, donated, or purchased art. It’s really helpful, and I hope the New Year finds you happy, HEALTHY and prosperous in your own way. 

See you next year!

Despite this point of I'll health I managed to finish what I might call my most ambitious editorial illustration to date during the illness, all the while listening to the audiobook version of 1q84 (which I have yet to finish.)  Just yesterday I wrote roughly 3 thousand words in the novel, and surmounted a huge plot point. The novel is picking up steam, though I don't know if it will be ready for publication by the original deadline I'd set. 

Finances wise; donations and illustrations assignments left over should pay January rental least, February is still up in the air. I'm pondering things, but at the moment am pretty sick as is.  I did leave the donation button up in the leftmost column of the blog, and donations do get a free thank you gift illustration ( will have to change it for repeat donations.) so if you donate to the rent and diaper fund, thank you, I appreciate it regardless of the amount, whether that's $1 or $600. 

I had more to say a minute at but one of the symptoms of pneumonia is a lack of clear thinking, so I guess I'll just have to let it go for now.

Tanks for reading, donating, and sending well-wishes and prayers, I appreciate it.

She equipped herself with the same armor and weapons, and when everything was ready Rei stood up, selected the multiple target weapon system. She felt the rifle in her hands melt into liquid chrome, before reforming itself fluidly to become a multibarreled launcher. She smiled, looked at the looping scene around her and opened fire on the street full of cars and people. 

Streaks of missile vapor exploded from her hands as dozens of fist sized sunlight bright stars blossomed forth and spun crazily before impacting the buildings cars and street. Missiles streaked and curled away, sailing up into the sky, down the street and into the cars and pavement below. 

Fireballs and chunks of white hot steel enveloped the street. Cars began popping as they exploded with loud ground shaking thumps, the charred wrecks flipped into the air like cards before a hurricane wind. Slagged pieces of vehicles and chunks of buildings rained down into the street crushing other cars and bodies of the pedestrians with sickening realism. Within minutes the missile salvo she had loosed had decimated two city blocks, and further down the avenue buildings toppled over into the street and each other, hurling bricks, glass, steel and burning bodies on the street.

Rent for the month of December is paid, as are a few very critical bills. For that, I’m immensely grateful, humbled, and not in the least, I’m also ashamed that it’s a damning condemnation of my lack of business prowess as an illustrator. Please don’t mistake this as a sign of ungratefulness, it’s not, but begging for help in the literal sense is a very clear road sign that the business side of things is not working. This is not a functional business model. Still, we have a house to live in through December.

 Baby’s healthy, which is good. He’s teething. (like 4 molars coming in at once—ouch!) He tries to be stoic about it, but the pain can get to him, and you can tell when he’s crying its because "it hurts really badly, Mommy, make it stop." Not because I won’t let him watch Elmo. 

His grandmother (my mom) is not healthy, however. Just a primer to our life if you’re unaware; my mother lives with my wife, baby and I because she lost her job about two years ago, and really has nowhere else to stay on a permanent basis. You’d think great, free childcare, but sometimes as much as I love my mom, it’s like having two toddlers instead of one running around. And because she pushes herself so hard, she gets sick easily. Like now. 

I can’t get into the details of her current illness, but it’s more painful and annoying than life threatening, at  least it seems that way. She can’t go see a doctor for it, because she is mired in Social Security bureaucracy which here seems to be a prerequisite to getting Medicare at her age. So she bears with it, and I try not to say anything as I watch my mother’s strength slipping away right in front of me. It’s getting to the point where she can’t easily life the baby anymore. That’s heartbreaking to me.

My own health is not much better than hers. I’m functional, but the water in the lungs syndrome gets worse when I wake up, or lay down for too long. Inevitably, I’ll wake myself up after three hours sleep to have a coughing fit. So that leads to some serious insomnia. In other words, I’m ok as long as I’m sitting, awake. Still bed ridden too much, and with a 14 month old baby that can get hard. 

Still working on the novel and whatever illustration projects come my way, but things are rather ragged right now. I’m still thankful that things are rough rather than hopeless. There are lucid moments along the way, too... points in time I think of as hyper-liminal, where I feel better and more productive than I have in a looong time. It’s a bit like the film Limitless. Except that no pill creates that space for me in my head, and it happens way too rarely.

Still, it’s a spark, and that’s a start. 

Thanks for reading, donating, and caring. It all helps. 

*sigh*