Child of God and a follower of Christ.
Depression fighter.
Spec Fic writer and artist.
STEAMM lover and a 2A supporter.

These are my stories.

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ABOUT ME

About Me Text

DeWayne's Art Dreams - YouTube Drawing Videos I have collected and curated
My Drawings

Study. Practice. Learn. Draw. Write. Breathe. Live.

Gathering and uniting the Forces of the Warriors of Spe C'f Iic.
Bringing understanding. Lighting the darkness. Defending mankind from ancient evil.

Too often, I fail God, but He picks me up, cleans me off, and helps me to continue on the journey of living life, writing, and drawing for Him.
My childhood home was Alaska, where I had a fair share of adventures and misadventures, including surviving the largest recorded earthquake to hit the North American continent.
Record-breaking earthquakes hit Klamath Falls, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington while I lived in those areas as well. Much of my writing takes place in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.
In 2nd grade I became an avid reader, and in 7th grade I began the struggle with myself, and God, of whether or not I wanted to accept the title "Writer."
I use this blog as a way for me to get myself to work on self-assigned writing projects, a way to encourage myself to get on with the adventure of being a Spec Fic writer and artist.


For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me, And what I dreaded has happened to me.
I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest, for trouble comes.”

My heart is sore pained within me: and the terrors of death are fallen upon me.
Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me,
and horror hath overwhelmed me.

I will call upon God;
and the Lord shall save me.
Evening, and morning, and at noon,
will I pray, and cry aloud:
and he shall hear my voice.

My heart is stirred by a noble theme as I recite my verses for the King; my tongue is the pen of a skillful writer. - Psalm 45:1 King James Version

And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us,
And establish the work of our hands for us;
Yes, establish the work of our hands. -Psalm 90:17

And I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship,
To devise cunning works, … to work in all manner of workmanship.
… and in the hearts of all that are wise hearted I have put wisdom,
that they may make all that I have commanded ... - Ex 31:3-6 King James Version

He has filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom and understanding, in knowledge and all manner of workmanship, to design artistic works, to work in gold and silver and bronze, in cutting jewels for setting, in carving wood, and to work in all manner of artistic workmanship. Ex35:31-32 NKJV

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. - Psalm 19:1 King James Version

By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. - Psalm 33:6 King James Version

Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
Or ever You had formed the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God. - Psalm 90:1-2

Thou, even thou, art Lord alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee. - Nehemiah 9:6 King James Version

For, lo, he that formeth the mountains, and createth the wind, and declareth unto man what is his thought, that maketh the morning darkness, and treadeth upon the high places of the earth, The LORD, The God of hosts, is his name. - Amos 4:13 King James Version



06 November 2016

BALANCE and CHANGE! Hanging On, Opening Up, Letting Go, Letting God, and Receiving His Blessings.

NOV 06, 2016
This post was scheduled for NOV 1, 2016.  My brother came by one week ago today, and in the spirit of the topic of this article, I needed to balance spending time with him, and trying to do "family stuff," verses sticking to my schedule to meet my self-imposed deadline.

With that said …
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My September post went up as scheduled on September 01, and the next day I finished the post for October.  But I mangled the process to set up the publishing schedule and didn't get it published until October 02.

Since I finished the October post well ahead of time and had a large lead time for November's post, I wanted to get back to work on some Speculative Fiction, my werewolf and I were needing to get in some hunting, and I was hoping to start working on reviewing math at Khan Academy again. 

The Prozac and Thyroid Meds I've been on since January to treat my depression have suppressed my appetite and increased my metabolism, resulting in a loss of about 30 pounds at this point.  Now it's time to lose some more weight.  The weight of the anchors from the past that have been holding me down.


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Balance. 

I guess I've been doing pretty well at blogging on a regular schedule.  To this point the schedule's been only once a month, sure, but at least I've kept at it since I posted Depression, Writers' Group Conferences and Board Positions, and Blogging Again June 15th. 

This marks 6 posts,  which is the most I've ever done in a single year so far, and is the longest time I've continued regularly scheduled postings.   However, I did get 9 posts up across DEC 2009 - FEB 2010 before failing to continue posting at least semi-regularly.

My next goal is to hit 10 regularly scheduled posts.  I also have the goal of perhaps posting twice a month, one post as I have been doing, and one post as a report on the monthly Northwest Christian Writers' Association meetings, although that may not happen until next September.  Before that though I want to build up a buffer again for getting out  posts.

It took me about 3½ months to build up a 2 month buffer for getting out posts, and I lost that lead when I got into a cleaning spree in the middle of September, a cleaning spree to declutter my room, my life, and my mind. 

As I start work on this blog article for November I have only 3 weeks to finish and stay on schedule and I must balance this decluttering I've started with writing my next post.

And drawing. 

I've been working on finding balance.  Balance between blogging and Spec Fic writing, balance between writing and drawing, balance between these right-brained, creative activities,

















and left-brained, logical, analytical activities like math, computer programming, and science,
















and getting ready to get back to work tutoring.

But also I had to balance other activities.

The cleaning spree started partly when I wanted more, and better balanced, light for my drawing.  This required being able to open the blinds on my window, blinds I'd not bothered to open in the last 4 years I've been here because I had collected too much junk which prevented the light from getting through to me.  But it was time to shine a little light on things, and I started throwing out the junk between me and the light I needed.

As changes happen they cause more changes to occur and I am trying to adapt to those changes, more specifically trying to instigate those changes and to use them as opportunities.  My moving the small pebbles  in front of the blinds started a landslide of cleaning and I continued throwing away more of the old junk I've accumulated, junk  that has become dusty anchors, anchors I've lugged around for far too long simply out of habit.

I have to balance out how much time I spend on decluttering with how much time I spend using the newly salvaged space.  I can't afford to get so focused on cleaning that I forget my goal is to eliminate distractions so I can stabilize my environment and concentrate on writing and drawing.  I certainly don't need eliminating distractions to become a distraction.

Balancing my writing and drawing time also includes being observant and intentional of how much time I spend  listening to Writing Excuses  podcasts, reading Writer's Digest blog articles and books, and watching  my YouTube playlist drawing  videos.  Gathering information from podcasts , blog articles and books, and videos is great, but I need to spend more time practicing what I am studying. 

Collecting information and taking notes only goes so far, and I won't get better until I apply the information. 

Getting better and finding balance includes not only making changes to my physical environment, but also making changes in my habits as well.

As I get rid of temporal possessions which I've mistakenly held close, it brings to mind needing to get rid of old habits I've held on to so dearly, old ways of doing things, and even eliminating entire activities that were distracting me from the things I needed to do to improve my mood.  The things which I held  that distracted me from writing, and now drawing.

As with throwing away the junk in my room I've been holding on to, some of the junk in my life has been easier to let go off than other stuff.  In order to make room in my life to receive God's blessings, in order to move forward, I am trying to open my hands and let go of the things that I've held so tight, so God can give me what He wants me to have, and so I can cling more tightly to Him.

How much of the junk in our lives do we accept because those we call (or called) "friend" expect it of us?  Because our family expect it of us, because that's the way they did things? Because that's the way it's always been done?

How much junk in our lives we hold on to was passed down from earlier generations?  How much junk do we hand down to the next generation, and how much junk do they pass down to the generation that follows them?  How many generations must inherit the previous generations' junk?  How much is it costing us to hold onto this stuff?  How much has it cost me?

Selling some of the stuff, as friends and family have told me I should have done, even if it may have had some small monetary value, would have cost me more than what few dollars I may have gotten out of it.  Continuing to hang on to anchors, hoping to still get some good use out of them, other than to be pulled down, is more a waste of energy and a repetition of the old habits I'm trying to break out of.  I simply need to get rid of this stuff so that it doesn't continue pulling me back down into the crab pot.

If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got.

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.

In the spirit of not always doing what I've always done, there is much I was going to try to include in this article that I had to leave out, now with my being delayed, there is even more.  The closer I got to finishing this post, the more difficult I found it to balance between "getting it perfect," vs getting it  finished.

I was attempting to balance getting this post finished on time, and saying what I felt I needed to say  with going too long, saying too much, and being late.

All I can do is all I can do, with this article, with my cleaning and decluttering my room, with letting go, and with Letting God.  And with doing what I can and leaving the results in God's hands.

Don't worry, I still have plenty of fodder for future posts.
1,000,000 words, 10,000 hours, 46 years, 7 months and counting worth.

Man going to writing conferences  can really be a pain.
And so can being a brother. But it was worth my being late on this post.

Until next time.

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One of the problems with studying art and learning to draw is there are no internally consistent rules and terms that all artists have agree...