If the colours look way nicer than usual, that’s because I referenced them from a Leyendecker painting. I did it in the hopes of learning something – and boy, did I learn something – but I’m still a cheating cheater who cheats.

Even worse than Canton, there was no legitimate reason for Deacon to show up in my 2005 NaNo novel, except for the fact that I was bored out of my skull at that point in the month and had no idea where to go with it next. Dee’s an old character of mine from back in high school, and was really never meant to be written into anything. So, uh, that was fun.

(And to anybody reading this who was in the summer D&D campaign – yes, this was that Deacon’s namesake, and probably more of an influence than I ever intended when I swiped his name on a whim. Certainly they have similar, er, attitudes…)

When it REALLY started to take a sharp turn for the “Huh?” NaNo 2005 started attracting characters from other stories altogether. Canton here made very little sense in the novel, but was not the dumbest thing I did that year in my push to 50k.

A traumatized 9-year-old. I don’t think I got her looking her age. I need to practice drawing kids at various ages…

On to 2005, a.k.a. The Year That Everything Went Off The Rails. (The first of two…) I planned a story for all of October, wrote it for the first three days of November, then scrapped it entirely and came out with this rambling, senseless thing. 2008 was worse, but that’s a story for later…

So here’s David, formerly a magician/children’s entertainer, now a ghost. He’s not too happy about it.