Lit Bit

     It has been a busy week, which means I haven’t had much opportunity to continue working with some of my digital art projects. Tonight though, I made a little time to sit down and work on some stuff I’ve been wanting to get back to. I don’t see any reason to drag this out, so the first picture is a digi-painting in the early stages. As in, this is where I left off last time I got to use my tablet:

     This next one is how far I’ve gotten this evening. A lot of the changes are either subtle or blatantly obvious. Anyway, here goes:

     Welp, I hope my progress meets expectations. Haha. I do really enjoy using my Bamboo tablet though. I find it very fluid and natural to use. Which is very nice.

     Okay folks, it is official. For the month of October we will be reading Out of Poverty: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail by Paul Polak. I wavered a lot in my decision of what book to choose for our first month. There was a lot of criteria I was trying to balance in my decision. First off, I wanted a book that would cover the global concern of poverty, since that is the theme of Blog Action Day this year. That being said, I felt that choosing a book that was current was very important. But with current also came cost. And I wanted to try and find something reasonable. I also wavered between genres. Do I go with a fiction novel that may not be exactly present times, but is relatively close, and is cheaper, plus may have potential re-read value? Or do I go full on, recent publication, but extremely relevant to the topic and costs a little bit more?

     I ultimately sided on the more recent publication and relevant, because I do think it is important that we take these issues head-on. I’ll be the first to admit that I am fairly globally ignorant. So when it came down to it, I thought it best to spend a little money now and learn about the issues at hand (and what can be done to improve or prevent them) rather than sugar-coating it under the guise of fiction. Not to say that fiction can’t be current or relevant or even blatant, but sometimes it is easier to shrug off what you read in a book when it is labelled “fiction.” Anyway, I really hope you’ll be able to join us in reading this book. I’ve read through the excerpt available on Amazon and it was a very informative and fluid read, so I know we’ll enjoy reading this book, and hopefully, learn a lot.

P.S.- I forgot to mention that for the month of November we will be reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig. I wanted to let you all know that in advance, in case you needed to order that as well. I figured you’d rather get it all at once than to be constantly ordering stuff.

     So I have been flopping around, trying desperately to decide on a book for the month of October for our Twitter Book Club. There are plenty of choices out there, but I wanted to be conscious of current relativity, cost, availability, all those practical sorts of things. Anyway, I am going to narrow down the options this weekend to three or four books, post them with links, and then give you guys a few days to provide your input on which one you would like to read. I will (hopefully) have the slimmed down list available sometime this evening or early tomorrow. I already have the books in mind, but I want to make a trip to the book store to really get a good look at these texts and then make my decision.

     After a bit of thinking, I figured I might as well put up my top three choices for October right now, and if I need to change them later I will. So here goes:

     Out of Poverty: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail by Paul Polak
     Ways of Dying: A Novel by Zakes Mda
     Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System by Raj Patel

     So there are the top three contenders. As soon as I make a trip to the book store (once I’m done at work), I will make any adjustments that I find necessary for the shortened list. Meantime, feel free to leave comments on which book you would like to read.

     Last week I ordered a Wacom Bamboo Tablet (a relatively impulse buy after a frustrating week) and it finally came today via UPS. Once I got home and got settled, relaxed for a few minutes, goofed around with my pup Princess, I was ready to rip open that box (which was way too big for this tablet) and unearth my new toy. It is certainly thinner and smaller than I imagined….not in a bad way though. I don’t really have a whole lot of desk room, what with my messy habits and all, so small and lightweight works for me. Anyway, I began fiddling with the tablet (after going through their tutorial) and opened up a painting program in order to start “painting”. This is why I got the tablet after all. I love traditional art and if I was intensely serious about my art, I would bust those paints out everyday or leave my art area set up constantly, but, sadly, I’m not. So, in general, pulling out my paints or pastels or anything can be a real hassel in the midst of day to day bustle. I generally also only have one day a week off, and I usually end up fairly lethargic and lazy on that day off. So, at this time in my life, it just isn’t practical for me to be all dedicated artsy…

     My way of compromising between traditional art (which is a lot of work and I admire those who make the time for it no matter what is going on in life) and no art whatsoever, was this tablet. While the extravagant side of me would love a huge, kick ass Intuos series tablet, it’s way too expensive and way too pro for me. I just wanted something that would be decent. So, back to the Bamboo… Why I am really posting was just to share a couple of initial drawings that I did for practice and getting the feel for the tablet and pen. One drawing is the initial sketch and the other is a partially colored in variant of the sketch. Obviously, I am not completely familiar with all the functions and tools of the painting program, but I think for 40 minutes of drawing, I got along nicely. Anyway, here are my “paintings” (don’t laugh, these were both done in a span of 40 minutes and are extremely rough):

     I’ve always wanted to share more of my dabblings in artwork here on Lit Bit, but my workings are so far and few between, that there is rarely an occasion of creation for me to share with you all. I’m hoping with this new lil’ tablet I’ll get around to doing more artwork, even if it is just casual.

     I’m sure you’re thinking “About time!” from the title, right? I mean, it seems like such a logical progression to go from reviews to an online book club… Sadly though, my sad little brain never made such a leap. Instead, my good friend Skunkie suggested that I start a book club and utilize Twitter for keeping up on it. I do believe that we must also thank our friend MegaNice9 for the initial suggestion to Skunkie about the book club. I must admit that I was squirming in my seat with excitement for the potential of this book club. Immediately my brain started formulating plans and making lists of books. I also right away made a Twitter account for @Lit_Bit

     Now for some of the logistics:

     I’m thinking we’ll read a book a month, possibly set weekly chapter goals, and then meet online at the “end” of the week (I get that some of this might be relative). Obviously this is all open to change and adjusting as we get things going and see what runs the most efficiently and smoothly. I suppose how often we meet will ultimately depend on schedules and how intensely we want to discuss the text. As I think about it more, once a week might be asking a lot of commitment, so we might have to knock it down to bi-monthly or just once a month. Obviously this is all a work in progress and the very beginning of hashing out the details. I am completely open to suggestions and would love to hear some recommendations from anyone that would care to offer them.

     Another goal I want to set for this new book club venture is an open-minded, safe environment to discuss texts of all varieties. Which means it is highly likely we will read texts that some might see as controversial. So, please realize that if you are going to join up, we may be discussing topics that you find abhorrent. Which I’m okay with! I don’t mean to imply that you have to like what we read, just that everyone respects everyone else’s personal stance. Debate away my friends, but keep it civil! Am I asking a lot? Are my expectations high in that area? I don’t think so. I certainly hope not. And, naturally, people are welcome to participate or not, off and on, I’m cool with that.

     Okay, so those are some of the details of the book club logistics. Now for a bit more. If you haven’t noticed, I’ve set up an RSS feed widget on Lit Bit (bottom of the left hand column) to reflect the book club Twitter account updates. I’ve had some trouble getting this to work properly, so hang in there if it doesn’t update…and let me know, of course. Right now I’m not sure if it is doing much updating, I will have to fiddle with it some more. I am hoping to use Twitter as a means of getting information out to the book clubbers, so if you want to join in and don’t have a Twitter account, follow the link above to sign on up. And then remember to follow @Lit_Bit so you can get the updates! As for when we are actually going to start up, that won’t happen until October. I figured we could use the rest of the month of September to get the word out, organize, hear suggestions (for books and organization), and not feel rushed to throw something together. Sound good? I thought so.

     For October Skunkie suggested we read something for Blog Action Day, for which the topic is poverty this year. And I whole-heartedly agree with that idea. I’ve already began looking up potential books, though I am having a bit of trouble finding something that is current as well as easily accessible. I definitely don’t want this club to turn into a money sucker. As much as I love buying books, even I have a practical limit that realizes they are not always the most affordable. Plus I want to try and read books that are available in multiple formats like audio or digital. So suggestions for this first book would be greatly appreciated. And no, it doesn’t have to be fiction. I by no means want to constrain this venture to strictly fiction. In fact I have already been brewing up a list of a variety of different genres of books we can potentially read. Okay, well, I think that is an ample amount of information in one go, so I will shove off now and be back later with more to say, I’m sure. I really hope everyone gets as excited about this as I am.