Polished Scrawl Productions: The Blog

Oh, money. You are a wicked, and vile mistress. And yet, what would I ever do without you? Oh, wait… that’s right. I am already all too familiar with the answer to that question. The reason I bring this up is that my rent is due tomorrow… or “tomorrow” if you like (they have a bit of a grace period). But, “Hark! Hark!” harkened I… tomorrow is also when I am supposedly going to get my first big fat deposit for my work for the French. So, assuming everything goes the way it’s supposed to tomorrow, I’ll be dandy. Bob will be my uncle and whatnot. Even though my uncles are named Fred and Larry… Bob will somehow sneak in there for the time being.

In other news, it’s Fat Tuesday! So… “Heureux Mardi Gras, mes amis!” To celebrate, I am currently on my… 5th Newcastle… so I do apologize for any typos or incoherence you may happen upon during the reading of this post. One of these days, I figure me and whoever wants to go with me, will have to make our way to N’aw’l'ans for the festivities. Kinda’ one fo those things it seems like a person should do at least once… like going to Vegas. Speaking of which, we should all go to Vegas sometime…

Good gravy… how long have I been typing this? Mostly, I’ve been trying to find Zydeco music clips to link to… but they all want me to pay money in order to access them. Aaaand… we come back around to where we started.

I hate nights like this. One of those nights when my mind won’t shut up and let me sleep. Thinking about everything and nothing at the same time… rapid-fire thoughts, one leading into another, without so much as a pause or a chance to bring any one of them to a conclusion. Snippets of songs, random thoughts, images, nonsense… all on a loop in my mind. As if my subconcious is deliberately trying to keep me awake. As if it knows that if I sleep, I’ll miss something important. As if I should be doing something constructive, or at least something that will help ensure… something… everything… Hell if I know.

I guess I worry that I don’t do enough. That there’s always something more I could do or say… that I could make everything fine if I’d just do this or that, and that the one little thing I’ve overlooked is ultimately going to prove to be what brings it all crashing down…

I hate the fact that it’s dark. Everything feels too small when it’s dark… too enclosed and limited. Things are so much more active during the day. Things are possible when it’s light out. Things can be taken care of or fixed. At night, the world stops, and all you can do is wait for morning… and think. And when the thinking finally stops, sleep…

Which, now that I’ve been typing and re-typing for an hour or so… sleep sounds like a better, and more attainable, idea. Morning will get here soon enough, I suppose.

Tomorrow begins my first full week of self-employment. I am currently sitting at my trusty drafting table, typing on my “new” (as of August of last year) Tablet PC… old meets new, and all that jazz. I’ve cleared a good majority of the debris off the desk and moved the internet connection over, in an attempt to create some sort of “office” for myself.

What you are looking at, by the way, is a good full 1/3 of my entire living room. I live in a space classified in some circles as a “cubicle.”

At any rate, it’s cool to have my office in my home. Now I just need to get my home moved, which I hope to be doing in the very near future. Things still look good for me getting some kind of a retainer from Ever Elusive. But I can’t help but have that lingering doubt in the back of my mind that says “What if you don’t?” I guess I’m just being a little paranoid because things seem to be going a little too well lately, and I am reminded all too well of past experience, when things that seemed to good to be true… actually were. I’m hoping and praying that this whole endeavour isn’t one of those.

Don’t get me wrong though… by far, this is the best I’ve felt in a long time. And that little voice of doubt isn’t really all that loud… but he does have a tendency for biting every once in a while. I’m just excited about the idea of moving back home. I want it all to happen now, dangit! Now that I’ve actually made the leap, I guess I’m expecting immediate results. Honestly, though, I really only see it being another couple months, if things go according to plan.

Oh, in case anyone’s wondering, here’s the link to The Ever Elusive Productions web site, which I just got done with the other day: http://www.everelusive.biz. This company is a big part of the “plan” that things are hopefully going to go according to.

GAH… ants in my pants dance!

Okay, so I don’t actually feel like recounting the entire story of how I quit my job. Suffice it to say, it was not the greatest experience ever, and I’m pretty sure they think I was lying when I told them I didn’t have a choice but to quit without giving a two week notice. Truth is, when all is said and done, I did have a choice, and I chose to quit. I chose to jump on an opportunity that presented itself without warning. I chose to finally move on with my life.

And, yeah, I am sorry that I had to leave them in a lurch… but when you really think about it, two weeks wouldn’t have made one bit of difference. There’s no earthly way they would have been able to find another designer who would be willing to work in the same environment, for the same salary that I had been for a year and a half… be it right now, or two weeks from now.

They are in a pickle, to be sure, but it’s a pickle of their own design. For my part, I’m sorry I wasn’t able to give them two week’s notice, but I am not sorry for leaving. And I think that’s the real reason they’re upset with me: because I left. Because I didn’t choose to stay and be part of the team and continue to be miserable. One question that I knew would be asked, but that I was hoping wouldn’t be was: “Wouldn’t you rather bring your freelance projects into the company?” It was asked. And I knew what my answer would be, and that it wouldn’t be looked upon kindly. But that didn’t change my response.

And so, that chapter ends somewhat unfortunately. I feel sad that it seems that they are unable to separate business from friendship, that they continue to view anyone who doesn’t conform exactly to their plans as an outsider. I have been weighing the options of whether I should try and salvage some kind of friendship with them out of this. Right now, I’m still not sure. I’m not sure if there is even a real friendship to maintain. If there was, I don’t think this would have gone as poorly.

At any rate, I’m done dwelling on it. Officially. As of right now. I’m finally doing what I’ve wanted to do for years, and there’s no room for petty drama here.

So, here’s something: I quit my job today. And it went rather poorly, I thought!… so… yay for me! I wasn’t necessarily expecting great joy from the whole thing, but I wasn’t really expecting the reaction I got, either… not nearly as “civil” or “understanding” as I might have hoped. The up-side is that I am now officially a freelance designer. I’m too wiped out and zoned and numbed-up right now to go into details… ask me on another day. Or, I’ll most likely write about it tomorrow.

Guh… I sleep now.

The latest from the freelance department:

1. The Couch Potato will now be made into a limited-edition of 200 ceramic collectables, individually hand-painted and numbered… not by me, thank God… but possibly signed by the artist, a.k.a. one Yours Francis Truly.

2. In about three weeks from now, Stan (from K.C.) will be meeting with Jean Marc (from France… whom I cannot help but want to call Jean-Luc… because, yes, I am a dork. tee-hee…ENGAGE!). Stan has made it known that at this meeting, one of the expected topics will be the potential offering of a monthly retainer for my services, and the bandying about of various monetary numbers to that end. In short, there’s a good chance the French movie studio will be paying me on a monthly basis, in order to have me at their disposal for all their design neeeds. Stan asked me yesterday how much I would need in order to quit my job and do my freelance work full time… and I almost choked on my own tongue at the very idea. Today I told him a number, and he said that we’d let them give us a number first, just in case the number they’re thinking is higher than the number I’m thinking. And if it’s not, then we can maybe negotiate up to the number I’m thinking. The number I’m thinking would be enough to allow me to live comfortably, pay off debts at a reasonable rate, and maintain the neccessities of eating and whatnot. Numbers higher than that begin to toy with my sense of reality…

There’s a distinct possibility that the excited vibrating that now officially possesses my body may cause a noticable geological event sometime in the next 72 hours. I suggest you stock up on water and flashlight batteries just in case.

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Got these pics from Stan in Kansas City today (a.k.a. Guy Who Hires Me To Do Work For French People). The Couch Potato is being embroidered onto 5000 hats and shirts to be sent to our benevolent French masters. These are the test versions. I’m told the final versions will look a bit better, but… damn… I mean, it just kicks ass to see something I designed actually being put to good use!

The Hat (sans Couch Potato… he doesn’t fit on the hat… yet. There will probably be a second version of this at some point that will include his starchy visage):

The Shirt (or, what will ultimately be going on the shirt. There are a few mistakes on this one, but they’re being fixed):

And, yes, I will be getting the hookup for a supply of both these lovely items. Not sure exactly how many I’ll be able to get, but I’ll try and snag a beefy supply… should anybody want one. :)

Things continue to just get more and more awesomer on the freelance frontier.

The same French folks who hired me to do the potato logo are also owners of a “very well known” French movie studio. This studio has been given funding by Paramount Pictures to begin operations here in the U.S., under the name “The Ever Elusive Productions.” One of the companies they will be working with is The Weinstein Company, formerly the head honchos at Miramax. And it’s looking like I’m going to design their (Ever Elusive’s) web site. Not only that, but the intro I am designing for the site might end up being used as the intro shown before their movies…

Now, let me just say this: That. Would. Freaking. Blow. My. Mind. To. Pieces.

So, this has the potential to become something pretty big. We’ll wait and see, and in the meantime… time to make an intro.

P.S. Here’s the final potato, what started this madness… excuse the glaring Polished Scrawl logos. Them’s to ward away pirates. Also, don’t attempt to decipher the meaning behind “The French Potato Coach Management Company”… such endeavour is folly.

So, I’ve got some time to kill while I wait for people in France to get back to a guy in Kansas City so he can get back to me and let me know whether or not my potatoes pass muster or not…

No, yeah, I know… It sounds less crazy in my head than when I say it out loud.

It’s all part of my continuing freelance experiment, which continues to go well. I would like to get another project from Elance sometime soon, but until then, I do have the potatoes, as well as a Flash intro for a non-potato-related web site. In order for this whole deal to work to my specifications, though, I need to be getting in a steady stream of new clients, and the gooey project innards they contain… you know, inside… It has only been three days, though, so… too early to get discouraged just yet.

In other news, today is Valentine’s Day… and, for the first time in… um… well, ever, as a matter of fact… I find myself not looking upon it with as much complete disdain as usual. Even with the other person being numerous miles away, and engaged in a far more important endeavour than humoring my wistful goof-ass… well… I still found myself drawing a cupid-themed potato night-before-last, and then Express-mailing it northward yesterday…

Yeah… no… again, it sounds less crazy in my head than when I say it out loud…

I need to get off this potato thing.

Yeah, I’m thinkin’ this freelance thing will work out juuuust fine. To quote a brilliant film about yard gnomes I saw once: “Yes… this will do nicely.”

This weekend, I will wind up making more than I make in an entire week at my job. Let’s all just be quiet for a moment and let that sink in, shall we?

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… … … … … wait for it…

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… ahhhhhh… there we go…

Make ye ready, Iowa… I’m comin’ back, and this time we’re gonna’ do things my way. I’m so freakin’ jazzed right now, I think I need to have one of Stewie’s Sexy Parties.

Join me, won’t you?