Snowed in

Snowflakes are pouring down outside and icicles are hanging everywhere. I haven’t worked since Monday. I’m enjoying my vacation so far. Last night, I spent three hours cleaning out my living room closet, a task I’ve avoided for years. Now it’s immaculate. Right now, it’s a little after three o’clock in the morning and I’ve been drawing most of the night. I’m eating leftover candy canes, drinking hot cocoa, and listening to Overnight America on KMOX via the internet. (I used to listen to KMOX on a little AM radio back in 2000 when I was staying in a cabin in the woods with no electricity. I have happy memories of those times.)

This is a drawing of my friend Brittany Rosser, a girl I used to work with at the mill. I told her I would draw her a long, long time ago. I just now got around to it.

Hope you all have a nice Valentine’s Day.

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You can click here to order my new book, Citizens of Purgatory.  

Snowbound

It snowed heavily today. Well, some people might not use the word “heavily,” but we rarely get snow in Georgia, so any amount of snow is a major event. Because the roads were icy and people had a hard time driving, there were traffic jams galore. A lot of people were stranded in their vehicles for hours. And many other people abandoned their vehicles and started walking.

I’m thankful I didn’t have to work today. I didn’t have to get out in it. I mostly stayed home and drew. At one point, I did walk over to the gas station on the corner to buy a phone card. On my way back, I saw people in trucks struggling to drive up the gentle slope in the road nearby. They weren’t able to make it. They kept sliding backwards. I was terrified for them. I helped one lady push her SUV into a ditch — since her tires kept spinning on the ice … and the ditch seemed to be the safest place.

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The other day, my friend Dan (who was my history teacher in high school) came over and brought me a kerosene heater. For some reason, this image (above) popped into my head after he left. This evening, while I was hanging around in my apartment with nothing to do, I sat down and put it on paper. (While watching the Andy Williams Christmas Special from 1967 on YouTube.)

It’s a dog … with Dan’s head … warming himself in front of a heater. I’m hoping to do a better version later, maybe tomorrow if I’m still snowed in.

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NOTE: My novel, Citizens of Purgatory, will be available in paperback soon. In the meantime, you can click here to download the electronic version to your Kindle. Citizens of Purgatory is a novel about the misadventures of Nick, a young sportswriter who doesn’t know anything about sports. Nick’s life turns into a nightmare when an ex-convict crashes into his car one morning.