Drifting...

At the beginning of Akira Kurasawa's classic Yojimbo, Toshiro Mifune is a ronin, a wandering masterless samurai cast adrift by the abolition of fuedalism. With no purpose in life, no real goal to work towards, he comes upon an unmarked crossroad.

He stands and regards this for a few moments, then picks up a stick and tosses it in the air. The stick falls, pointing off in a new direction, and off he goes.

That's sorta how I feel today. Like the samurai who's hard-earned kenjutsu skills and bushido code were invalidated by the abolition of feudalism, all the emotional investment and training I put into my graphics career have been thrown aside by the dot-com crash, leaving me to grope around until I find a new occupation that captures my interest.

The cartooning isn't going to do it; and until something more solid materializes from my writing, that's not going to do it either. I need some kind of "day job" to subsidize both of these, because I can't stand being supported by someone else. Right now I'm living off of Laurie's salary, and it makes me sick to my stomach. I hate being dependent on anyone.

So I am throwing sticks in the air frantically, looking to see which road they land on. So far, they are just going up and failing to come back down again. :P

-The Gneech

More Fantasy Brainstorming (Starring Mrs. Gneech!)

From a 'net chat...

TheGneech: Been doing some writing brainstorming; contemplating the various fantasy worlds I've built over time, what I liked about them, and what I disliked, to see what I should keep and what I should toss.

MrsGneech: Cool.

TheGneech: I periodically get an urge to just draw a big ol' map, put a few proto-cultures on it, and play out history like a giant game of "Risk," with each "turn" being a century or something. ( Read the whole conversation... )

European, Isn't It?

This is the major map I made of my fantasy world, as of its last revision. Looking back on it now, I rather like the geography of it ... the lay of the land _looks like_ a real continent, at least IMO. ( Large graphic! Click to see... )