Author: hamishmacdonald

Wahey, I just finished the cover image for my tenth book with Strategic Coach!!

When Dan told me he wanted us to do 100 books over the next 25 years, it was easy to say yes, because a) it was a great prospect, getting to just do this for the rest of my career, and b) it seemed like a crazy moonshot of an idea. Sure, why not?

But here we are, 1/10 of the way already — in less than two years. Now that’s crazy. I imagine most conventional publishers would aim to produce an illustrated book in a year, not 90 days.

The one thing I miss from theatre is the camaraderie and celebration over doing a big thing together. I do feel like I want to celebrate this.

This time of year, I still get that old “back-to-school” feeling and want to refresh my stuff. The prospect of new starts, making progress, and learning new things still motivates me.

My project folder was starting to come apart, so I started with that.

In other news, Mister Chicken has perished.

I can’t express how much I love going to Comics Club every Thursday night. I love the crazy banter, the generous sharing of resources and help, and the really diverse talent among the group.

Lately we’ve been starting off with an exercise in which we pick a random phrase on a slip of paper, then draw a four-panel comic based on it in just half an hour.

I love my work-work, but I find this exercise such a good challenge — and really liberating, too, because the result doesn’t matter. There’s room to be goofy, weird, or rude.

(After the exercise, we get on with whatever personal projects we’re working on, chatting all the while — which you can do while drawing. I couldn’t do that when I was writing copy!)

Here are my random comix from the last two weeks:

And this was just me purging something that had been in my head:

And today, this — following my gut instinct that I need to start writing more about stuff that happens instead of constantly barfing out my feelings in comic form.

Upshot: Maybe it’s living in a world where there’s a constant tsunami of opinion, and I don’t want to contribute any more to that, because I believe it’s pointless, though it often comes in a gift basket of self-importance.

Talking is talking, and doing is doing.

Plus, aside from all this “Me, me, me, what about my freedom?” blather, what about Doug? We’re his fourth home, and, despite his shenanigans, he’s clearly happy in his life with us. Sending him away again would be unthinkable. We don’t know the details, but I suspect this has been a long year for him.

It brings me back, as all things ultimately do, to Anne of Green Gables:

MARILLA: She’s no good for us. She has to go straight back where she came from.

MATTHEW: Well, we might be of some good to her.

Doug’s first stuffed toy, Mister Chicken, is on his last leg (the other leg was torn off a while ago) and is about to burst his stuffing.

This evening, I finally got around to making his replacement, using some old beeswaxed canvas a friend gave me and the stuffing and squeaker from a supposedly indestructible toy made of ballistic nylon that Doug destroyed within five minutes.

I also put the excess bit of the pheromone-releasing “calming collar” inside the duck — not that the collar had any effect while it was around his neck.

The first salvage toy I made him, a black rectangle, was fashioned from black canvas, and it’s survived a lot of play. So it seems actual fabric made of fibres, not plastic, is the way to go.

Enter… Mister Duck!!

We’ll see how long he survives, but for now, he seems to be making Doug very happy.

PS: Well, that was short-lived.

Now Mister Duck is Mister Whatever-the-F#@*-This-Looks-Like.

PPS: Mister Duck has successfully undergone a full head transplant.

Canada’s 150th came and went, and — considering what a fan of Expo 67 I am — it was kind of a non-event. I didn’t even have anything commemorative to wear, so I hastily made a T-shirt with Sharpie markers — which then bled horribly when I spilled maple syrup all over myself and tried to wash the shirt. But hey, that’s thematically appropriate, too, eh?

What did make the day special was having all my family there, which my nephew caught on film.

We also did some sightseeing with the family — trying to pack in summer PEI stuff, since this is such a special place and it feels like we paid for it in wintertime.

Sorry you’re having to see Doug’s butt there, but he moves so fast that it’s difficult to capture him on film at all.

And, yes, Craig, Doug, and I completed our dog training class together. Now Doug can sit on command. Sometimes. Which is pretty much what he could do before, but it really feels like we’re finding our way together. He’s sweet company, often funny, and now a permanent member of our family.

Ahhh.

There are so many people I love on Facebook, but the thing really is a drug: You don’t mean to use it, or to use it to excess, but it’s right there to binge on, and everyone thinks it’s no big deal. Plus willpower is, I believe, largely an illusion and mostly the result of ingrained habit.

So I’ve removed the possibility of habituated, mindless social media use by leaving Facebook and Twitter.

My reasoning was that I want more time for making things, but it’s tough to muster the energy, overcome the fear, and find the time to do creative work after attending to everything else.

That said, life is pretty sweet these days. On my visits to Charlottetown last summer I kept thinking, “I wish I could just stay here.” And now here I am.

Every time I walk down a tree-lined street, spend time with my family, walk by a location from my past, or venture into nature… it’s nice.

“Nice” gets a bad rap, like life is supposed to be — I dunno, gritty, dangerous, on-the-edge, but I really like nice.