Alright, my dear Fan-"ficionados" (see what I did there :D), I have done the unthinkable. I have posted the second installment of Sirius' diary. It can be viewed both on my wattpad profile, or you can just click the image to the left and be transported. 

I had some very lovely fans request an update and I thought it wouldn't hurt to take a few hours and pump out a little Marauders era fiction for my readers. Fan-Fiction has really taken a back seat for me in the last few years, but every once and I while I go back to it, remember my roots. 

In this new fiction Sirius is starting his 7th year, his life is in a surreal state of limbo, and the wizarding world is altering by the day. I've decided to make the chapters shorter, the tone a little darkier, and Sirius snarkier. I hope you like and I hope I can manage to update more regularly. Siriusly, I love you all <3

-Ama

The latest preview art is compliments of Jeremy Grayson, a multi-talented artist and collaborator. This character profile was done in the early stages of character creation and while things have changed since the original sketch, I think the artist did a very good job with the overall expression. This is a screen shot of the profiles I have compiled for each of the characters. This character is one of my favorite to write, he's incredibly snarky and laissez faire brilliant. It's amusing because we had my boyfriend stand as the model for this piece, and bless his heart, he stuck it out even though he was kind of annoyed by it--the expression to the right is pretty much on par with how he seemed to be feeling the whole time.

As the story went through the ringer, it became gruffer, more real, and in turn more beautifully imperfect. The original text had been written as though a water color or an impressionist blur, but has morphed into something coarser... something that makes sense to me. I had characters that were truly imperfect and needed a more imperfect world. It's always so interesting the progression and evolution of worlds and stories. The picture below is still in part from the days of a less developed world, but the character still feels right, and so I thought it an appropriate piece to share. Lane is one of the few characters that has never changed too drastically from original renditions.  

More previews to come as time allows... :)       

So I'm catching up on my updates and flooding you all at once. So there's a certain convention that comes to San Diego every summer and I'm on the short list to showcase my latest project there. Fingers crossed big time for the opportunity, but if it happens, I already have my whole outfit planned out... 

Yes, I know I'm getting a little ahead of myself, but when I inherited the most beautiful and amazing pair vintage Ferragamo's yesterday evening, I saw a vision of a seriously rockin' ensemble for said convention. It's a little Laura Croft meets Evy from the Mummy, and even if convention dreams don't come to fruition, I'll find an excuse to sport the very steam-punk/suckerpunch-esque ensemble. 


As a side note, it made me think of this song--again by Parov Stelar--because I'm fairly certain they keep repeating "new pair of boots":

Because I recently received a message about this, I thought I'd explain what it is I do as a digital marketer... A digital marketing specialist kind of does everything and degrees of specialty vary. My work spreads across all phases of the marketing process, from website creation (digital design, coding, site setup) and social media marketing promotion, to all content created to support and promote the website/business (not to mention SEO/analytics). I specialize in small/personal businesses or e-businesses within the service sector. I blog and write for a lot of different companies, but my true passion in digital marketing is a grass roots approach: creating and controlling the website (usually via Wordpress), and teaching businesses to market themselves from within.

While I don't get to create websites as much as I would like, I thought I'd show you a few scribbles of my latest blog commissioned project. The client makes various types of gourmet ice cream and wants a "retro fabulous" looking layout to help showcase their weekly creations: 

Above are some sketches I created during my meeting with the client this week. He finally decided on the bottom image which I will be creating in Adobe Creative Suite (Dreamweaver + PSD6) for his Wordpress site. Other aspects of design will probably include creating a logo, favicons, social media images, etc.

It's been a great run because I've been able to blend my creative flair with my business background, and turn out websites that make clients jazzed to see their concepts come to life. If you are interested in these services for yourself or someone you know, please message me directly so that I may link you to my professional profile. My last big project was for a fellow digital marketing consultant. The site will be running live by the end of the month complete with Twitter and Facebook promotion:   

I usually don't like to plug my services here because it is my personal creative haven, but I love plugging my clients because they are all such unique, creative, ambitious people with talent up the ying-yang. Well, I'm off to a suit fitting. Wishing you all a swanky sorta week. 

<3 Ama

Life is encountering many little changes, the first of which is actually quite a big change. I'd been partially self-employed for quite some time as a freelance digital marketing consultant, which was richly enjoyable and I was able to help many people. While I'll be accepting generally content related projects from clients, I have reached a point where I am devoting my time to travel and full-time writing. Maybe I'll even squeeze a little LSAT prep in there, but for now I am a slave to my publisher. 

[For my clients that find this page, please refer to my professional profile for services I still provide. I will be strictly telecommuting as I will be traveling extensively, however Skype meetings are an alternative if you feel a face-to-face discussion is necessary.]

My life is going to be a little bit of Mark Twain's "Roughin' It" and Coppola's "Lost In Translation," which is extremely exciting and refreshingly frightening... but frankly, if your dreams don't scare you, they're just not damn big enough!  

Life needs side projects to keep us sane. Pool-side yesterday afternoon with a little rum and orange juice a new idea walloped me in the head. New ideas can be dangerous--and distracting, but I've been fairly diligent in my greater projects as of late, so I felt I had earned a detour. I love writing in the heads of teenage boys, they're always richly amusing to me, and my current detour is no exception. So, without further ado, I give you my pool-side scribblings, a politically incorrect, and painfully honest first person account of God, or we can just call him John:

**This is a first draft, un-edited, you will see errors that are to be fixed when I feel so inclined**

On Earth a Star-burst is a chewy, plastic covered sweet injected with artificial tropical flavor... where I'm from it's something entirely different, it's birth. I was born in a star, you see, or I was the star or the star was me—or, I could go on forever trying to explain it to you, but it's not like you're going to understand anyway. The best way to explain it is to say that I was born from a bursting brightness hovering in the sky that extinguished the moment my eyes opened to the blackness of space. They say I'd been developing for eons, turning and churning, a meager spec that grew at a pace so slow even other stars went black before I was done doing my thing. They say I'm a miracle, the savior of the galaxy, the star born to act as god for a millennium and then some, but I'm not so sure about that. They say I'm god, but all I want to be is... me. I know what you're thinking, "Great, another pea-brain with an identity crisis," but where I'm from you're not allowed that luxury. Funny to think of it as a luxury, I bet, but choice is. I want the choice to be young and human—as I would look if the worlds didn't already know that I am the Star Born.

Maybe that's why I'm here, the pressure was just too much to handle, the people that know me making a big damn deal about this god-ship savior crap. Earth is detached, a mess of religion and people who'd rather see themselves as god than kowtow to some meandering Star Born... so, it's perfect. They think like do, doubt like I do, see nothing in the stars like I do, and most of them, the ones that look my age, with crooked smiles and raging hormones, they want to pave their own way, write their own lives. And that's why I'm here—for now—to live like I want, to forget that I'm god.

I chose the name John because apparently its common (my real name is something complicated and uncharacteristically pretentious). It's so common approximately thirty-five percent of male Caucasians in the western hemisphere are named John—see that's a bullshit stat, but I bet for a second you believed it. Point is, for the last five hundred years I've been anything but common, and you wouldn't believe the effort to took being holy, omnipotent, and prayer-answering. It's all biological, I don't have super powers, I'm not super-human, I'm just a different kind, the kind that rages about developing in a ball of fire and gas for millions of years until I'm baked just right... that's how I've reasoned it, anyway. I could read your mind, or change your fate, or make it rain thongs, but it takes a hella strain on my faculties. Like I said, being god takes effort and then the expectation, don't even get me started. More people bitch about you than love you... and people swear in your name—though that, I don't mind. Earth isn't too different, but like I said, it offers me anonymity and I figure I'm young and impetuous and deserve a rebellious stage. See, I knew this would happen, I'm trying to validate my escape. I guess I don't need to, I guess I should just tell you that I live in Bakersfield, California, and it's a shit place and it's great.

I chose it because it's as bland and nowheresy as you can get without being surrounded by extreme poverty, and there's nothing to do but drink and bang and tow trucks. It's perfect. I look nineteen, I think. I've passed for twenty-one, and I rarely pay for drinks. I'm uncommon striking, apparently. I like it better than home (Star-burst central) and the banality of the whole thing is down right refreshing. I did have a loft in Paris where I masqueraded as publishing heir, but it felt too god-like. So, I sought out simplicity, and Bakersfield cried out to me like a cheap sleaze. Like I said, it's perfect.

I live in my own apartment for the sake of my “super-human” quirks, and have taken a liking to thing called Hot Pockets. You can make any kind of argument you want about nature of the stuff, but I've eaten at Michelin star get-ups and there's really no damn difference at the end of the day. The ten years I spent in Paris eating gluttonous portions of haute cuisine and rich crème fresh should have made anyone else egregiously obese, but contrary to numerous experiments I have done on myself, I am immune.

Today I toss a pizza flavored Hot Pocket in the microwave and bask in the echoing loneliness of the studio apartment, the walls cracking with avocado green paint from the seventies, the shag carpet golden orange and stained beyond repair—it's better than home, all of it. No one's pleading in my ear, no appearances, no “miracles” or painstaking efforts against the galactic elements, just me, Friday's paycheck, and a Hot Pocket rotating around in thrift store microwave. Even the ominous whine the machine makes is a welcome sound, the flawed nature of the thing beautiful.

The mail is still in a pile by the front door, the college acceptance letters are there. I figured I'd try that out too, who knows how long I'll be here. Unlike God—the real god, whoever the hell he is, I can't change myself, I can't age, I can't alter my form or face. I'm me, probably with the same face forever, at least that's what I'd guess. It's not like there's anyone to tell me. Daddy issues aside, I'm chancing college. In ten years I've only made love, not friends, and I figure, I can risk it for four years, study philosophy or something just as beautifully banal and boring as Bakersfield.* 


It has the same tone as The Ever Secret Diary of Sirius Black and the same sort of laissez faire verbal diarrhea that's easy to write and humorous to run through... eh, it's a welcome break to a world of seriousness. I've written more, maybe if time permits I will share it.


Happy Friday All!

-Ama

I get commissioned to do graphic art occasionally and I've posted some new pieces to my Behance account. Feel free to check them out before they go live on my client's blog. Observe my new pieces and leave your feedback, many of them are created by request but they each possess a bit of me.  The image to the left, for instance, was done for a friend for her new blog (click the pic to see all things new in my art sphere). It seems I can't escape all things funky and retro and a little old while being a little new.

Today is the kind of Saturday that needs to be productive, but tempts me away because the sun shineth and all that. Stay swanky.

-Ama 

Compliments of one of my favorite young adult authors, Maggie Stiefvater, a little musical inspiration for a Tuesday.

A sore throat and general family mish-mosh have taken me away from my 9-5. I sit in a coffee shop waiting for news with an overactive imagination and worry. The car ride here was cramped and the weather is gloomy for Santa Barbara. As vague as that may be that's the best I can give you in regards to my personal life. As far as my writing life is concerned, however, the best use of my time right now is making this a "re-write day." I've been so scattered brained and off-kilter that my socks don't even match and frankly, its an accident I rather like. 

I wanted to take some time to discuss the "Writing Process," capitalized because its kind of a big deal. For me, the best place to start is with a pen with smooth black gel ink and a fresh page in one of my may writing notebooks. Today's victim is a yellow floral number given to me by my overtly doting better half. For holidays and birthdays he knows just to get me another notebook because it will be filled up (on average) in two weeks time. I struggle with beginnings. I can write the middle, even the end, with ease, but my mind goes blank... never ask me to "start at the beginning," I won't have a clue what to tell you. So basically, I've been bashing my head against a wall struggling with certain beginnings. They've been written and re-written ten times over and no matter what I still hate it--and it's not a perfectionist thing--it's a "this needs to be amazing or I think I might implode from self-imposed shame." Maybe that's something like perfectionism but its not for anyone's benefit but my own. If I don't like it first no one else is sure as hell ever going to read it. That's where I've felt like I've cheated myself a little. With a publisher and pressure you're forced to share your work before its ready... and I'm still uncomfortable with that. On a lighter note, here are some of today's re-writes and scribbles...

I scratch and scribble and destroy the page with changes and this is a prime example... Hopefully it will be ready to share soon. I trust you all enjoy your week and get your creative groove going. I recommend checking out the inspiring beats of Parov Stelar with this racy little ditty called "Rude Boys" a perfect theme for more my utmost project, The Company. I hope you enjoy! <3

-Ama