Fourth Quarter 2022 Update
AKA Everything I’m Actively Up To or Preparing For List from now until the end of the year!
I’m glad I took a sabbatical for the summer. It was much needed time to give myself space to focus on actually creating things instead of keeping up with my blogging schedule. I’ve also been able to reassess what my blog space can be and how I can get creative with my posts so it’s about more than just blog-style stuff—but I’ll get to that with this post!
1. Tentatively going for an Editing Certification
After someone from my writing group (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND WHY THIS IS IN ALL CAPS) started an Editing Certification course, I did some research and quickly found one that looked like a good fit for me. At the time I decided I would commit to it 100%, as soon as I felt settled in our new home.
Now that the reality of the situation is upon me, I’ve committed to taking one class at a time1 instead of going all in and signing up to everything at once. It starts mid-September and we shall see where it takes me! I trust it will help me as a writer, especially because it’s a Canadian course and will hopefully account for the pesky problem of Canadian English being a blend of UK and US standards with some uniquely North of the 49th quirks thrown in.2
2. NEW art project!
Ya’ll are officially the first to learn about my latest art project, which I’m calling Sacred Love/Sacred Lives.
These are a series of mixed media art pieces celebrating disabled, trans and queer love and lives. The idea started percolating shortly after listening to a podcast with journalist Eric Garcia as the guest, where he talked about what it would be live to live in a world where disabled love and relationships were celebrated and supported, instead of feared and actively undermined.
There will be a paid only post coming along shortly where I go into more depth about this project and share some progress images of the pieces I’ve started as a special exclusive to my patron community.
Which brings me to…
3. Works In Progress
When I set up this current version of my blog, I created the Works in Progress section as a way to share my unfinished fiction, and yet, a year since launching this new blog, I’ve never posted in it. Over the summer I thought about how I might put this section to use. I also started in on my new art project, spent more time on my Thangka pieces, and worked on Gendervexed almost daily.
It occurred to me that all these things are works in progress.
When I first started blogging it was to share my art, rather than to share my writing. I forgot how much fun that was and how much I enjoyed it, unlike posting anywhere on any social media. Again, since taking this sabbatical that included significantly reducing my time on Insta, I’ve realised that Works in Progress can be a space where I can share the breadth of projects I’m working on comfortably and safely.
4. Learning to Silkscreen
1. While making punk rakusu vests, I found a dearth of patches promoting Disability Justice and Disabled Liberation.
2. I have a bunch of scrap denim from the sleeves of the jean jackets I cut off for making aforementioned punk rakusu vests and from a curtain project.
3. My mum has many silkscreening supplies and I am an artist who has a particular fondness for fonts and incorporating text into my work.
I’m currently in conversation with a local silkscreen artist to learn the basics and get started on this so I can make a bunch of patches with Disability Justice themed slogans. I’m pretty stoked about it and will probably document the day to share in a post with ya’ll when it finally happens…which will hopefully be soonish.
5. Gendervexed!
I’ve decided I’m going to share some of the more polished chapters with patrons/paid subscribers! It’s still an early draft, so things will change, but it will be fun to give ya’ll a little taste of the manuscript I’ve been working on for anywhere from five to twelve hours a week since the beginning of 2021. :P
6. Colourful Thangkas!
I set myself the goal of finishing these by the end of August. It is now the end of August and you guessed it, they aren’t done. Which works out well because now I can share updates on them in the Works in Progress section of this blog. WIN/WIN!
So that’s it! My quarterly update and a look at the various projects I’m in the midst of or about to start. I will be back to regular weekly posts, either new content or something from the archive, from here on until the next time I need a break—probably around the end of the year.
Thank you again for all your support! I really appreciate that ya’ll are curious and interested in my work in the world, and that some of ya’ll are able to support it financially.
May you be happy, may you be safe, may you have ease of mind,
Kait
The course makes this really easy, in fact. And I am learning to use anything offered to make life easier whenever possible because HECK is life hard a lot of the time these days!
If you call pencil crayons pencil crayons anywhere outside of Canada people will look at you curiously and ask what those are. When you explain they will say: “Oh! You mean coloured pencils!”, or, if you are speaking to someone in the US, “Oh, you mean colored pencils.” To be clear, I mean pencil crayons. Also, it’s a toque, not a beanie and it’s pronounced Deck-Al, not Dee-Cal. *Gets down off of Canadian English Soapbox*