Pastel Defender Heliotrope

PASTEL NEWS ARCHIVE
For June 2007

June 11th, 2007

The New Unicorn Jelly Book

Stephen has been working on the new edition of the Unicorn Jelly book. I've been helping. We've been doing art corrections, adding additional materials and generally getting it into shape. Tonight he uploaded a new version to Lulu.com, who is our new publisher. We'll soon have another 'test' book to check to see if everything is perfect.

The new edition will come in two flavors, softcover and a new, library-quality collector's hardback version. The entire saga will be in one single book, finally. And it already is really making me excited. Lulu does quality work.

The first publisher of Unicorn Jelly made the books in his apartment, using an old printing machine. The story had to be divided into two volumes because, as I understood things, he just couldn't collate a larger book. The binding was tape, and we hand-packaged and mailed every single copy. Of course we lost money, but money was not the point... getting the book out was the point. I am forever grateful and proud of that first printing.

But, I must admit, that mass-produced, commercial grade, library quality printing is just plain sexy as farg all. Holding a copy of the complete Unicorn Jelly in one slick book is just wondrous. We still won't make any money to speak of, a couple of bucks per book at best, but... Unicorn Jelly will be able to be purchased not only online, but also ordered right out of chain stores like Barnes and Noble. Wowsers!

This is also a way for us to get used to the mechanism at Lulu, in expectation of releasing a Pastel Defender Heliotrope book oneday, and a To Save Her book as well. And, whatever comes after that. In short, I want to be in print. I like being in print. It matters, somehow. It matters a lot.

I am really looking foreward to holding a hardback Unicorn Jelly in my hands. That... will be a unique thing to experience.

I think it matters so much to me because I grew up not in the real world, but within the world of books. My life was in the nearest library, and the treasures of my childhood were not collections of toys, but rows and rows and rows of collected paperback books. I hated the real world, and my real body, so very much that I found solace in the realm of the imagination. Books were mother and father and home to me. They were my only friends, most of my life, constantly moving with my map-maker father, every three to six months. I was very lonely, except for the universes within books.

I am the result of isolating a person utterly from society, making of them always a stranger, and leaving them only the library for any consistency in their life. There are good and bad things from this. I do not curse it, entirely, but neither do I consider it entirely a blessing. I both gained, and lost, from such a situation.

In any case, books are a sacred thing to me, and it is ever surprising to me that I have written one. It is even more surprising that others, the ever holy Mundis Society Of Letters, fans around the world, actually put Unicorn Jelly into book form. This boon is never lost on me, and I have endeavored to keep what they started going. That is why there will be a new edition of Unicorn Jelly, and why there will be books of Pastel, To Save Her, and other stories as I finish them. The fans of Unicorn Jelly changed my life, and for the better. They taught me that even I might be worthy of sacred print.

And that is one farging incredible thing to imagine. I can envision alien universes and the fourth dimension, but to imagine myself an author in print was beyond me. It was not beyond them. I am eternally grateful.

Anyway, there will be a new edition of Unicorn Jelly. Soon.

The Mundis Society Of Letters:

The Reverend Cardboard Box

Dedos

Drooling Fan Girl

Etherwings

Nemo

Mad

Assistants To The Society:

Alfador

Amber

BastDawn

Beowulf VII

Kimberly 'SvZurich' Burgess

Carthage and Ducky

Chaos Maker

Ellie 'Crowfrog'

"Ossper" Erkins

Erin

Filipe

Dr. Anthony G. Francis Jr.

Humberto

Julian 'Drake' Hyde'

Karla-Chan Vampyre

Kennish B. Hoyt, Jr.

Katie "Angelkitty21" Jones

"Kitterograph" Kendall

Stephen P. "Twirliquin" Lepisto

Lithius

Loden

Nipper

NPB- BlueFunTak

Jenny Maddux

Nikolai Mirovich

Waen Pahworzu

Pink

Pokota

Michael "NeoWolf" Pruitt Jr.

Rainwood Hannah-Bellew

Rob Hamilton

Patricia A. Smith

Snaguaro

Eldenath S. DeVilya

Dr. Sandra L. Woodruff

Zander

June 15th, 2007

Migranes and Tendons and Knees and Brains

I wasn't able to do art this week because of a terrible migrane attack. I get the kind with aura (swirlying lights in the corner of vision) and temporary loss of vision on my right side (like having half of your visual field be one big 'blind spot' that the brain tries to fill in, but can't). And pain. There's the matter of pain.

I also seem to have somehow injured the tendon in my left forearm, making using it painful, it just aches. So I am kind of buggered up this week. It may be stress.

Eldenath's knees, injured in a recent car accident that totalled her car, (she smashed at full speed into an entire string of cars that had stopped on the fast lane of the highway because of a cab that had itself stopped - to change a tire! - causing quite a lot of violent physical mayhem to a lot of innocent people. She either was not paying attention, or her incipient mental illness aggravated by her father's death subconsciously tried to commit suicide, again) are not healing. Hopefully, we can get her examined before her medical insurance runs out - she also has recently lost her job because, being injured, she can no longer perform anything they want her to do (such as drive for hours to do clinic in far away towns) - and so we are on the clock to get her treatment, if indeed, we even can.

I hate the American medical system. I hate it. Utterly.

So I am playing councellor, mommy, field medic, and psychiatrist to Eldenath as best I can, because, currently, I am the only person who can, and also who will bother. That's my job. Housemother to my polyamory. When I am not doing my hobby of drawing cartoons for y'all.

We're going to try to get her to a proper P-Psychiatrist instead of her usual councellor (besides me) so that we can try the old Pill Roulette again, to see if there is anything new that will work better. Her old medication for her mental illness, Zoloft, just isn't cutting the mustard currently, not with all the crap she's having to deal with inside her head, so we both are hoping that there might be something better by now. She has struggled with severe mental illness for her entire life, Zoloft was the first thing that ever worked. It was like night and day... she describes it as waking from a nightmare that never ended... well, until the Zoloft.

The way she describes her illness, it reminds me of a perpetual, mild, and bad, acid trip; confused order of thought, self-destructive impulses, arbitrary distortions of memory and sense of reality, and needing to work very hard to remain in the present, to remain aware and rational in thought and deed. She fights constantly, just to function in the world.

Some days are better for her, some are almost like her not having a problem at all. But others, especially when stresses from outside get to her, really make her difficult to deal with, both to herself, and to those who love her. She does stupid or dangerous things. She yammers about nothing. She gets crazy notions. It can be tough.

And it's sad, because basically, she is just an incredibly loving, gentle, giving person. Total sweetheart of the first order. Generous and compassionate to a fault. It is cruel that nature has inflicted on her some kind of problem with her neurotransmitters.

And it is a matter of neurotransmitters with her... if she eats anything that helps the body produce serotonin, such as nuts, or chocolate... she just goes off the deep end. So we keep those things away from her. She craves them. Just craves them. Most of all when things are bad, and her mental storms rage.

All I can do is try to be there for her, help her, and make sure she gets what treatment can be obtained. And help her keep her feet on the ground when things get bad.

So, basically, tough week.

I don't know exactly when I might have new comics. Hopefully next week. Hopefully.

Right now, I'm resting my arm, as best I can. Healing up.

PASTEL DEFENDER HELIOTROPE
By Jennifer Diane Reitz

A Part Of Jenniverse.com

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