TricksterGear, the place for T-Shirts, Books, Music, Art and Everything Good, is now open for business. We will be offering a wide selection of incredibly awesome products, such as our initial specials:

Available for pre-order are Ouroborus t-shirts and hoodies. Go take a look at them; they are really spectacular. High-quality screen printing done on 100% cotton shirts. Any orders placed before 06.29.07 will receive a free 4x6 print from The Book of One.

I'm even more excited to announce that we will be offering signed copies of The Book of One for pre-order, as well.





You will receive a copy of The Book of One signed by the author, `frail. Jesse will also include a one-of-a-kind sketch in the book.

This item is available for pre-order until 06.29.07. Any books ordered before 06.29.07 will also receive a free 4x6 print from the The Book of One.

***

In other news, I have two poems published in the current issue of Astropoetica. Check out the rest of the issue, as well, there's some excellent work there (mine are the ones published by Carri Campanile, if you weren't aware ).
I'm also currently between jobs and looking, so if you know of any good opportunities in the Tampa Bay area, let me know.

Almost finished with the big web redesign that has been
consuming my life for the past few months.
Finally sleeping, on occasion.

I've got some exciting things in the works,
more of which I will be posting about here soon.
Not much to say,
except for that it feels good to be immersed.



ETA: I am playing around with some css -
this is just the beginning and I'll likely be tweaking
to add some more advanced features later,
when I have the energy. Input appreciated.

Gah, just realized this layout gets cut off at anything
below 1280x1024 - will fix tonight. :\

The Guild is something that I have spent the last year developing and working to prepare for launch. It is primarily a group devoted to promoting and encouraging the art of world building. Speculative artists and their output are our focus. Speculative includes fantasy and science fiction genres mainly, though magic realism and alternate history (amongst others) can fall here.

We will be supporting our members in various ways, both practical and inspirational. This includes providing forums for promotion and publication, as well as providing members with avenues in which to get feedback thorough critique, work on collaboration and group projects if desired.

We will have a common focus (world building) and provide a supportive atmosphere. Writers, visual artists, musicians and more technical contributors are welcome. We will ask that all members have some interest in creative and speculative undertaking (worldbuilding). Requirements will be more thoroughly outlined in our covenant. One of them main things we are promoting is respect. It is meant to be a supportive environment. We want the members to feel that the guild is helping them grow.

...

There are only truly a few "active" Guild members as of right now:

Myself, "Guild Mistress" and co-founder - I'm the ceo (that can mean cheif executive officer or chief execution officer depending upon how nice you are ) and the technical contact

`frail, "Guild Master" and co-founder - Most of you know Jess better than you know me, he's the cwa (chief world architect)

*passenger, has been serving a diplomat function to begin with, and will serve other functions as we ramp up

*VioletStranger, another diplomat and an awe-inspiring inferno of energy

There are several others that are pre-covenant member of the guild (hi, *runnerup, *BrokenSpaceAngel, *hsupertiger and the rest!), but that I'm not harrasing with tedious administration tasks (yet, hehe). There are several others that have expressed interest or contacted me for more information, and I apologize for not responding personally sooner. Mostly since I have not completed the final, formal structure yet. Not because I intend for anyone to be left out. I've been unfortunately busy with a lot of unexpected tedious things recently.


I also want to clarify the relation of m/x to the Guild, and the keys you have seen. The Guild is there to promote all worlds. m/x is one of the most inspirational, and the most integral and sacred to me, but it is not one and the same as the Guild. It is `frail's universe, one that he lets us visit. The keys are not the signal of Guild membership per se, but symbols of a different sort of association with the worlds of m/x. If you would like to signal association with the Guild, please, please feel free to use the worldgear or full Guild of World Architects seals.


I will be posting more information in this journal over the coming weeks. Please feel free to contact myself or any of the other active members above, and I will be sure your questions are answered. I am not yet taking "formal" applications, but will let you know when memebership is ready to be opened.

Thank you all so much for your time.

Guild of World Architects

Guild Mistress and Co-Founder

No big storm, but lesser storms.


Feel like I am waiting. But what for, I don't know.


...


I have a hosting company now. I'll post a link once the site is finished, but if anyone is looking for reasonable hosting, let me know, and I will certainly hook you up.

Still trying to get a handle on health things. Damned instant gratification expectations.


you all.

.......


Guild of World Architects

Guild Mistress and Co-Founder

I'll have some new prints over the next few days. Mostly the colloborations between `frail and I. Ask if there's anything you might be interested in seeing as a print.

...


Fairly miserable lately, but I'll get over it.
11111 gifts are being worked on, I promise. It's slow going, but I hope it'll be worth it.
I have things to catch up with many people on.

...


I managed to show up early to an important dr's appointment today... two days early. *shakes head* I keep doing stuff like this all the time lately. I used to have a phenomenal memory.
I think my brain is desintegrating.
I won't miss it much.

...


Miss you all, though.

.......


Guild Mistress and Co-Founder

Since no one claimed the 11,111 view (*sniffle*) I am working on surprises for the first five to comment on that journal (good thing five people actually did, eh?). I'll submit those when they are done. I think it will be an enjoyable surprise.

Dr's offices and medical tests are not my idea of a good way to spend time, but hey, one must do what one must do. I just want to have some free time soon, what with freelance work and all that on top of it. /end whine

I see that there has been more interest in the Guild. Now that I can finally get my own server, I will be able to get things I promised months ago moving forward. I just did not want to host permanent Guild space on the work server.

I'm not going to go on right now about dA5, since I don't have a lot of time. Let's just say I am underwhelmed. Where's the increased usability? I'd say that usability is actually worse than before. Design-wise, the look is ok, better than before, but why does everything have to be so damned Web 2.0 these days? Isn't that design fad done with yet? And bring back the damned lit previews. The new ones look like crap, and don't even make sense... does a book quote half of the first lines on the cover and nothing else? If you don't want to use lit previews because you have some silly notion that visual cues are anti-literate, then don't use them. Some of us, however, like them. I don't see how it's a threat to the quality of anyone else's writing.
...And I wasn't going to go on. I'll stop there, then.

.......


Guild Mistress and Co-Founder

I have much catching up to do; I'm just sliding back into a normal rhythm of any sort at all. Soon, though. I'm not ignoring anyone, I just have not had a lot of time these past few weeks. So this is a fairly contentless post for the moment, I fear.

I have much to be thankful for, though. In that, I am content.

More soon.

It's storming. Storms make me happy.






I never do these usually. But, hey, why not.
From *VioletStranger and *BrokenSpaceAngel...


1. name:
2. birthday:
3. place of residence:
4. what makes you happy:
5. what are you listening to now/have listened to last:
6. do you read my journal thingy:
7. if you do, what is particularly good/bad about it:
8. an interesting fact about you:
9. are you in love/have a crush at the moment:
10. favourite place to be:
11. favourite lyric:
12. best time of the year:
13. what do you think of my work?
14. have I been a good friend to you?
15. tell me something you've never told me before.
16. would you be interested in me if we met?
17. whats the perfect person for you?

PLUS

1. one thing you like about me:
2. two things you like about yourself:
3. put this in your journal so i can tell you what i think of you.
4. post or link a pic of you (if possible)


--

The two places I spend most of my time are poisoned. Nosebleeds, asthma attacks, aching muscles, headaches, lethargy, nausea... blah blah blah. I'm in the process of moving from the one, the place I call home, and that is eating up much of my time I'd prefer to spend elsewhere. That will be done in three weeks, though. Hopefully make a difference in many ways.

**Update(v2)** Spoke too soon. Work's still fucked.**end update**

Anyhow, I apologize for all the things I haven't had time for. I hate making excuses, but it's really all I have right now. Thank you all for your patience.

There has been a bit of work on my part in fevered moments, dreaming and waking, digging deep into the Guild Covenent. I'm finding some things that may be surprising, though, again, maybe they will not.... You know there are very practical aspects to the Guild, but there is more...
The Guild has existed for aeons... perhaps even in many worlds; the histories suggest. It seems, when the times are right, and the right amount of the people suited to the art and passion of worldbuilding and gatecalling come together, old lays and powers align that bring the Guild back into existence.
The Guild is a necessary body, without which the bonds between the worlds would weaken and the imaginations of men would be dealt a deathly blow. Wonderment, which is an essential food of the soul, would dry up in the flood of certain knowledge and straight lines.
So, these individuals are brought together, and the covenant is ressurected, and updated to modern times.
There are some things associated with the guild, that not all incarnations have had access to... but the apocrypha leaves a strong impression that they do exist. One of them is the idea of the world gates- structures that allow for actual transportation between realms. There are descriptions of them, but they are incomplete, and the gate themselves are hidden, on this world and on others... I have uncovered what I believe may be a representation of one, and am working on the restoration now.

More soon....

Still sick(er). Thinking is a chore right now.
Bouts today of pas là, which is not a 'real' thing, but the phrase that I use for the dissociative analog of déjà vu. That feeling where, suddenly, everything becomes utterly alien and unknown, even your self, and anything you do just reinforces and loops you back into it. You know?

...Maybe you don't.




Anyhow, I finally went ahead and ordered The 2006 Writer's Market. I do a lot of research on the internet, but there are a lot of resources and information that are either very difficult to find or not on the net at all. And what is there is scattered and diffuse and can be innacurate. Basically, if you want to get serious about writing, I think this could be argued to be a necessity. Which is why I could kick myself for putting off buying this years edition so long. Amazon has an excellent price (this is 50$ at the store); 30$ is not that big of an investment.
Not only does this book give you an exhaustive list of markets to submit to, it also covers many practical issues such as queries, fees, agents, etc.
It's worth every penny, even if you pay full price.

Everyone has a blind spot.
A place where there is no vision.

Where your optic nerve intersects with your retina, there are no cones or rods, none of those miraculous little light-receptor cells. In one place in each eye, a bit off center of the spot opposite the black hole of the pupil, you can see nothing at all.

A small object in that line of vision might get lost entirely.

Why, then, is there not a ghostly absence in our visions, a hole were nothing lives, a void that follows us everywhere? Well, the human mind is a tricky construct when it comes to dealing with our surroundings. It would be highly uncomfortable to walk around with a fuzzy grey spot in our worlds, a place where we've forgotten or just don't know what is really there, where there's something secret that we just don't see.

So, the mind edits this hole, fills it in with what it expects to be there.

What you think you see ahead of you, then, is not real. It's what you imagine, it's what you create to replace something that's there, but that you are blind to.

The solution, one would think, would be easy enough.
Just shift your perspective.

Easy enough, if one really wants to see what's ahead of them, or what they've forgotten.

<sub>I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head

and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear

I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center. I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and you enter
it as easily as breathing in

I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.</sub>