GOOD NEWS. Holly's project is DONE. So I am now free to focus 100% on my novel... and since the CreateSpace offer expires on June 30th, I technically have another month in which to get the first draft done, a cover sorted out, and possibly even a few illustrations! Huzzah!

Camp NaNoWriMo the first is in April this year, so I've set up my profile good and ready to kick-start my book. I'll try and get a wee bit done beforehand as well; the more work I can do the better, and easing back into NaNo mode might not be quite as difficult with a bit of pre-emptive work to get me going. I'm excited!

Regarding the project I've just finished, I said it was over in my last entry - but was then commandeered to do another episode. They wanted me to do caricatures and small art requests at a live event simultaneously raising money for Comic Relief and launching the University of Bolton's Student TV station, and we had actors walking around in-character all day - the whole project has been such a strange blend of fact and fiction; like, I can't post the artwork I did for episode 3 online because technically it was meant to have been done by one of the main characters. It's a pretty cool concept!

It wouldn't have been nearly as busy as it was had I not decided to do a whole load of artwork in advance. I kinda thought about how much time I would have at the event (four hours) and about how fast I work and chose to do some beforehand to sell - because I've learned that I'm not a particularly quick artist!

The awkward thing is that nobody actually came to the live event. Well, one person did that I'm aware of; a tutor from the university whose caricature I did... but overall I think people saw that we were filming and didn't want to get in the way. I know that whenever I see cameras, especially the big professional jobbies like we were using, out on the street, I tend to give them a wide berth because I'm worried I'll mess up someone's shot and get shouted at.

Still, we raised a little bit and Holly got all of the footage she needed. I was relieved to have the whole thing out of the way but also glad, despite all the stress, to have been involved in such a cool project. It's given me a bit of a boost to think that Holly thought I was a good enough artist to be featured in her work because I know that when she films she wants absolutely everything to be perfect, and I got a good body of artwork out of it, all of which is now stuck up on my wall.

Between this entry and the last I sent Holly a message to explain everything that I was going through - all the stress and how my depression wasn't helping and how I didn't really like being given so much work without much advance warning and she couldn't apologise enough. Thankfully she wasn't upset at me, but she was annoyed at herself and I felt bad because she hasn't been a bad friend at all, she's just been a dedicated Media student who's been working several jobs at once - director, scriptwriter/editor and event manager... and then she did a vast portion of the art direction, which was somebody else's job, herself as well.

So yeah, I basically told her everything, just to let her know how I was being affected, really. I was terrified that she'd be angry at me but she wasn't, which was such a relief. I read her reply, cried a bit and tried to explain that she hadn't been a bad friend, that I didn't blame her at all and that it was just bad timing, such a big project when I'm trying to recover from a pretty debilitating illness.

In hindsight, I should have been a lot more flexible anyway. That's how Media works, after all, you need to stay on your toes because you never know when someone will be ill or they'll not pull their weight or they'll just drop out entirely - when that happens someone has to do the job or risk compromising the quality of the production, and that someone might be you. So with Holly being inundated with so much work, it was only to be expected that a few of the more arty jobs would fall on me.

But anyway, the project is done and dusted. I've already seen two rough cuts of episode 3 and they're looking awesome! I can't wait for the episodes to be finished and posted up. And I can't wait to throw myself back into my novel; it's been such a long time.

Currently, my novel is 603 pages long, which is approximately 180,900 words. I'm hoping to have it first drafted by the end of May, which is excitingly close! If I can do this project for Holly (it was unbelievably tough going in places), I can bloody well do anything!