2015: By the Numbers

Welcome back to THC's occasional update of what's going on around the studios. It's December, and we're fast coming up on another click of Earth's odometer, so I thought I'd take a moment for retrospection before we slide into 2016.

2015 was a hell of a year. Let's do this by the numbers:

17: Number of conventions THC attended this year as artists/vendors. That's pretty far down from 2014's 38 - we'll be finding a happy medium between those two numbers for next year, I'm sure!

321: Number of posts on our Patreon page. MOST of those posts are patron-only exclusives, like works-in-progress pictures, full .psd files, high-res, watermark-free files, sneak-peeks, and Patron-exclusive stock art. We launched the Patreon officially on 1/15 of this year, and it's been a wild ride already!

63: Number of watercolors completed this year (that I have scans of - there were probably at least that amount that got discarded). Here's a collage of some of my favorites:

426: Number of pages in the final release of Into Dreams: A Gina Harwood novel, which was released on June 11, 2015. 

74: Number of commissioned paintings or drawings completed this year (not counting a few at conventions). Again with the collage, though this will probably be the last one, as they're surprisingly time-consuming. 

8: Stock Art pieces released to the Patrons after introducing the concept late 3rd Quarter. 

7: New Fan Art prints in the entirety of 2015 - Crowley, Charlie Bradbury, Arya Stark, Xena, Tyrion Lannister, Seven and Four. I've got one underway and I'm looking to expand this number a bit in 2016 - I wanted to cut back, not cut out fan art altogether! 

3: Other Milestones I couldn't figure out a way to fit into the "Numbers" theme. In addition to all of this, we also created and released Shroud of the Avatar: New Beginnings - our first (but not last) foray into officially licensed comics. We also created and released the Geocaching Pinup set and the MD Expansion of GoCache to commemorate GeoWoodstock XIII, held ten miles from where we live. :) 

2015 was the 4th year since Tortoise & Hare Creations took its first shaky breath, but it's been - by far - the busiest. THANK YOU for being here with us, and I hope you're just as excited as we are to see what Year 5 brings to THC!

Into Dreams - It's Here! It's Finally Here!

It's here. It's finally here.

This was the largest literary undertaking I've ever attempted, and I cannot be prouder of the outcome. I've been on pins and needles since I sent in the final for today, and I'm so excited for people to discover the story. Link is below in the press release! - Indi

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: INTO DREAMS, third novel in the Gina Harwood Series, to be released TODAY, JUNE 11, 2015!


Tying up the first arc, this final book in the trilogy has answers that you have been waiting for. Available on Kindle or in paperback: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1511472952


Synopsis: Picking up directly after Descending, the third novel in the series sees the Unit fragmented and fighting against an incomprehensible foe. Gina Harwood discovers that there are worlds beyond their own, and struggles to survive in the Dreamlands while tracking her fallen partner, Morgan. Charlie Parker leads the remaining agents on a chase to find a killer, only to find that perhaps something larger - and much, much darker - is pulling his strings. Into Dreams is the final novel in the first trilogy of the Gina Harwood Series, following Behind the Veil and Descending.

Red Ink - The Pros and Cons of "Flow Writing"

Red Ink is Indi's author blog that she maintains at goodreads.com. 

I've mentioned in the past that my favorite days are the days I sit down to the dreaded blank white screen, and open my head, and stories seem to write themselves on the screen before me. Sometimes it feels like I'm reading them instead of writing them, following the words as they appear on the screen, somehow unconnected from my fingers sliding across the keys.

Those are great days.

I call it "flow writing." I don't know if that's a widely-used or acceptable term or not, it's just what I call it. It feels like the words rush out of me in bursts. Then, it stops. I read a bit of what I wrote and have to engage my mind to at least start the next sentence - and then more often than not, I'm off again for the next page, or chapter, or at least a few paragraphs before the cycle starts anew. It's a weird process, writing. 

Some days aren't so great. They consist of me being unable to visualize the next steps, the next action, the next chapters. Sometimes I'll get around that by skipping ahead, but rarely - that seems to always cause problems for me in integration with the larger story down the line. Regardless, this post isn't about the bad days, the blocked days. It's about the pros and cons of being in the flow.

The pros are pretty simple. I get a lot of writing done and the quality is higher than when I'm forcing the words to comply.

"How could there be drawbacks to the beautiful feeling that comes with flow writing?" you may be asking yourself, and it's a valid question. None of these cons are enough to tip the scales, certainly. I'll take a lifetime of flow writing days, even with the oddities that I'll be sharing, over the days where the blank screen taunts and laughs. No question.

The first day back into flow writing is lovely. I may notice that several albums have gone by on my playlist without me having heard them, but otherwise, nothing too extreme. I still act like a capable human being, for the most part, though my non-writing actions are in auto mode. My walk to the kitchen or the bathroom are robotic, my mind not registering my surroundings but still intent on whatever sentence or stub I'm on. I bump into things. My path is erratic. But I'm still mostly human.

Fast forward a day or two and the side effects start to really show. I have trouble following conversations if I've just finished writing for the day - I need at least an hour to do nothing and wind down. Anyone trying to talk to me is going to have a bad time, not an angry time, just a frustrating one where they probably have to repeat themselves a few times. I am trying to keep up at this point, but my focus is soft.

I may realize that I have forgotten to eat or drink or go to the bathroom for extended periods of time. This is ridiculously common, and I have to concentrate to prevent from becoming very dehydrated during extended writing sessions. If I remember to eat, I've learned that I need to make a sandwich, or something that requires little preparation. If I set something in the oven to cook - well, that's just a bad idea. I can't honestly tell you the amount of times I've glanced up at the clock after a good chapter and felt that electric current of terror - oh shit! There's a pot pie upstairs in the oven! How long has it been? HOW LONG?

I thought I had trained myself to automatically set timers, but the other day proved that even if I leave the kitchen repeating "SET A TIMER!" in my mind, the walk from the oven to my computer is apparently enough to erase that. The characters and storylines filter back in and take over the parts of my brain that regular people use to do basic things.

My memory also gets bad - and for me, that's saying something, since I don't have the greatest memory for events or conversations to begin with. But the further I get, the less real life seems to stick. It takes a great deal of patience for people to be around me at this point, because I'm really only half here, and half may be a bit optimistic. After a week or two of being immersed in the novel, I have a hard time being social without feeling like an alien. Real people feel a little less real than my characters. That feeling persists until I've finished.

I'm trying to offset the most controllable of these drawbacks by taking a short break at the end of every chapter to down a bottle of water (I have to finish it, because if it sits there and I start typing again, it's forgotten for a few more hours) and move. I'll do some crunches or some yoga or just dance about randomly for a while - anything to get me out of the chair and off my rump for a little while. But if you happen to see me socially for the next few months, please try to be kind if it takes me longer than normal to answer or I look like a foreign anthropologist studying the way people interact at a party. It's a side effect. 

But it's worth it.

- Indi