As you can see from this image, I’ve given my Demons an upgrade. Yes, they now have bodies and they’re no longer all the same height. Each now has sort of his or her own way of moving and appears in side and rear view–rather than always facing forward. Demons 2.0. This is what I…

I mention this “performance” in the story I’m working on. Yes, I actually stood up in front of 100 people and sang. Wearing a bald cap. Here are the words (with apologies to the BeeGees and love to Barbie M.). I still remember all of the words, so I’m sharing. Bald Headed Woman Sung to…

This is a single-panel comic.

Who didn’t want to have soft feathered hair like Valerie Bertinell? (This is a single-panel comic.)

Every one of my Demons has a very important purpose. They are what makes me successful and they are also at the root of most of my angst. The trick is to learn not to react to what they tell me until I’ve thought through whether they are giving me good advice or getting me…

Creating something new is often a process of connecting the dots. You start with something you see or hear, which reminds you of something else, which makes you remember a third thing you stored in your brain ages ago and—voila—an idea is born. The inspiration for my demons was a passage in Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert.…

The first story I’m writing is about the time when I hid under a teacher’s bookcase one morning before high school. Yes. It was an incredibly stupid and embarrassing thing to do. So stupid and embarrassing that I still think about it now. In a sense, I carried the bookcase with me for the next…

I’m very excited–I’m writing stories via a combo of cartoons and prose. And I’ve decided to be brave and “Create out loud,” as Sara Bray would say, by posting my stories directly to the web. Graphic memoir is the best descriptor for what I’m doing. The stars of my stories are my survival instincts–or Internal Demons,…

These are the stars of my new stories. Can’t wait to introduce you to them!

I’m learning to use Sketchbook Pro. Making progress every day.

I’m not ready to share the details yet, but this project has required that I re-learn to draw a bit. I can’t tell you how excited I am about it. More next week…    

This essay was originally published in the Island Times in 2011. I live on a small Maine island, so earwig bugs aren’t the only things that crawl out of the woodwork in summer. Everyone I’ve ever known comes to visit—from Great Aunt Edna’s cousin Alan, to the guy who called me “Lisa Pizza” in kindergarten.…