The Autumnside Blog

Hey folks! I’m working on the script for New Year now. New Year? you may wonder. How does that fit into our seasonal theme here at Saijiki Stories?

Well, a saijiki is an almanac or dictionary of season words, or kigo, used in haiku. To be a haiku, the poem must include a seasonal reference as well as the 5-7-5 syllabic structure we’re all familiar with. In haiku tradition, the New Year is its own special season.

So for Saijiki Stories, there will also be a New Year story along with the other four seasons. It’ll be a bit shorter, since the New Year is a shorter season. It’s turning out well, if a bit difficult to write. I think you’ll enjoy it!

Heya peoples,

Just wanted to let you know that since my number of spam comments has exceeded 700, and my number of actual real comments is a whopping 3 or so, I am closing down the ability to post comments on our news feed.

Want to talk with me? I’d love to hear from you. New friends are great! Friend me on Facebook or Twitter. Leave me a comment so I know who you are and how you found me, ‘k?

And I hope you’re having wonderful holidays so far, whatever you celebrate. (:

Well, this morning I took a look at what I’ve got left to draw of Winterside, and it looks like I’m close to done — within about five to ten strips. My estimation is that Winterside will be about 148 strips (twenty longer than Autumnside, and six longer than originally projected).

What does this mean for you, my esteemed readers? Winterside should tidy up in a few months, and New Years/Springside should arrive around mid-March. (: (Details are still being worked out on that — that’s why I have several months set aside to get it written and running … )

I just wanted to say … I am so grateful to all our military — serving, retired, and passed. Thank you; your efforts are selfless, tireless, and a great blessing on our community and country.

Sun is one of my absolute favorite characters to draw. (: I drew this a while ago, but just seeing him makes me smile.

Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab just launched a series of perfumes based on the story of Vasilissa the Beautiful. You’ll find several perfumes inspired by some very-familiar fairy tale characters there. Click here to go to the right section of their site; Vasilissa is down at the bottom of the page. Neat!

Obligatory note: I’m not affiliated with BPAL in any way. I like their perfumes, and I’m delighted they’re doing a series on a story and characters I’m also working with! I totally need to save my pennies to get the three Riders for myself.

BPAL’s site is probably rated overall about PG-13, just as a note for any smalls in the audience accompanied by their respective adults. It’s got a horror/goth edge to it. Occasionally it’s a bit more mature; it depends what series you’re looking at and what they’ve got available. Use your discretion, OK?

I’ve been watching some of the odd traffic during this ad campaign, and it looks like some of y’all might be trying to get back here using our old “autumnside.com” address, which takes you to the current Saijiki Story, which is Winterside.

It might not be obvious how to get back to Autumnside from here. Clicking on the Autumnside button in the right-hand controls will take you back to the front of Autumnside, while hovering over the Archive button will get you a second Autumnside button that will take you to the archive table page. If you’re using an older browser that doesn’t support the pop-up, you might have to click on that first Autumnside button, and then the Archive button on the Autumnside page.

… to my readers in Russia. (: I’m getting a lot of messages from Russian-language-and-email-address spammers. If you post something in a language I can’t read (like Russian) or that doesn’t make sense in context (might be applicable to something I wrote, but is posted in response to the wrong post), it’s going to be marked as spam. Sorry, that’s just the way it is.

Hope you all are enjoying the story so far. (:

Robert Howard, over at Tangents Reviews, posted a very nice review of Saijiki Stories.

Overall, it’s very complimentary, and I feel really happy! Yay! I’m glad that there are folks out there who like the stories I’m telling, and enjoying the re-imagined mythologies and folklore. I have a lot of fun playing with that.

I totally agree with him on the criticisms. My pacing is slow in spots, and I’m aware of that. It’s something I’ve been trying to fix, and I think it will get better as I go along and learn how to deal with dialogue and travelling sequences better. The tempo will also change somewhat when Springside arrives, as its focus is a bit different. (I blame Hayao Miyazaki’s influence on my work. Let’s stop and look at the pretty countryside! Yeah. Um. Yeah. Ehehe.)

Thanks much, Robert!