I THOUGHT it was 7 AM when I woke up today. According to my alarm clock, it was. I was tired when I woke, but when am I not? I thought to myself “Quit being such a baby. Considering the time change, it’s actually past the time you would normally wake up…in fact, you’d have already worked half an hour by now!” Determined to start my new (later start) work schedule off right by taking a morning walk, I got out of bed, sleepily donned my walking clothes, and greeted the dark dawn. Then I looked at my phone clock. The one that automatically sets itself for DST. 6 AM. hahaha. Well, ok, then.
I’m kind of excited to see how this new schedule treats me. There’s something about a schedule change that is invigorating. For the next three months, I’ll have Saturdays off (where I used to have Sunday off) and my start time is two hours later. Of course, my end time is also two hours later, and with 10 hour days, that pretty much eats my entire day…but if I’m disciplined, and continue to get up just a little later than I used to wake up, I can pack some really good exercise, reading, and a nice meal into that extra two hours in the morning so it doesn’t feel like all I ever do is work. And having three days off in a week is really helpful. As is starting this new schedule immediately after DST, when I’m still used to time being an hour later than it actually is.
A lot of my friends are doing NANOWRIMO. I’m not. However, I’m hoping to have the content for the first issue of my zine done by the end of the month, so I can do the layout the first week of next month and get it printed by the solstice. If I can get the first issue out by January, I’ll be happy. I’m probably going to do a WePay campaign…or maybe even a kickstarter campaign…to raise money for it in advance, because I am broke. BROKE. BROKE. And both of the kids still need ALL OF THE THINGS.
Anyway, I’m pretty sure the name of the zine is going to be “Oyster Lexicon.” It will be an alphabet of the things I love, and the first issue will include letters A-F:
A-Artichoke
B-Birds
C-Chicago
D-Dancing
E-Eyeglasses
F-Feminism
It will be a full-color zine with drawings and hand-written text. And I’ll probably do postcards to go along with it, and sell them for a bit extra. Maybe if I do a kickstarter, I’ll throw the original art in as a perk. My hope is that I will at least break even, and maybe even make some extra for the next issue or just to have for various art projects I’d like to do, and the zine library.
The zine library, which I’m planning to open up at least 1-2 times a month with a reading room and discussion topics. I’m super excited to finally know people I can actually talk to for advice and planning for this, and hopefully we can bring the various zine libraries around Austin (two others that I know of – maybe more that I don’t) together to create some sort of database. What I’d REALLY like to do is have an IZDB – like the IMDB – a database that includes zines, zine producers, zine contributors, and zine topics, with everything cross-referenced and maybe even sample scans.
These are my big plans. So, it’s sort of like NANOWRIMO, only more like LOZILIMO (local zine library month) for me. ❤
