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Hashtag Introduction

“Everything changes. Nothing changes at all.” Anthony Bourdain, Parts Unknown (Scotland episode)

Welcome back! What has it been, two months? Three? It’s been a busy summer, and not entirely in good ways, but it was what it was. I won’t get into a lot of personal stuff here, because my vision for this is to keep you up to date on my creative work. Of course, the personal stuff can also impact creative work, both in negative and positive ways, and that is part of the reason why it has been a while since the last newsletter. I feel like things are settled down enough now that you can expect more regular updates, so.. here we go.

Secret Things and Offerings

Hashtag Introduction

It’s been a bit of a whirlwind, May. It usually is, because my son and my wife’s birthdays are two days apart, but this month also mixed in two convention appearances and a minor release of the IT project I work on in my day job. Busy month, is what I’m telling you. And the minor release of the IT project is followed (unusually) by a major release a month from now, so it will be busy times ahead for that.

But, I am feeling pretty good. Stressed sometimes, but managing. Running over 20k a week. Enjoying the creative stuff I’m working on. Wishing I was spending more time reading and gaming and relaxing. I guess I should make that a goal for the summer.

Secret Things and Offerings

Hashtag Introduction

F me, here we are in April already. Spring. I have been busier than a shithouse rat, as the saying goes, or it would if that were ever a saying. That’s how busy it is.

On the bright side it is generally a good kind of busy. For me, anyway. My wife is finishing up her first year of her third graduate degree and working three jobs and generally pulling her hair out. I’m keeping my head down, working my day job and drawing a lot of weird but sometimes funny nonsense.

This is the first winter I can remember in a long time where I’m coming out of it in a much better mood than when I went in. Apart from the lift of looking forward to spring, I think generally we feel beaten down by the end of winter, especially a Canadian winter. But I feel strangely energized. That’s probably a strong word for it, but that’s OK.

Hashtag Introduction

Hello. How are you? This issue’s title is stolen from a song by Talking Heads, from the film True Stories. It’s not a secret message or anything, I just like it.

February was quick. January was a blur thanks to a bunch of overtime at my day job, which bled over into February a little. Then my wife got sick, and I got sick, and I started to become much more interested in making some new stuff. More importantly, my overall mood improved after a slight post-holiday dip. I did some regular meditating (which, if nothing else, reminded me why I don’t regularly meditate much) and decided to just start doing stuff. I’m trying to keep the to-do list to a minimum, or at least to near-term things.

I took advantage of some post-holiday sales to stock up on some supplies and creative doodads, most notably a small MIDI keyboard to use with GarageBand. I’m looking forward to inflicting some music on you later this year.

Hashtag Introduction

Hello. Welcome to the first proper issue of my newsletter. I have been tinkering with the format and screwing around with Markdown and just generally enjoying the experience of both knowing and not knowing what I’m doing, if that makes sense. I’m sure the Japanese have a word for that.

As I go over this now for a quick editing pass, I am surprised at how much I have enjoyed this last two weeks of just throwing thoughts into a bunch of sections. It weirdly feels the way that making paper zines used to feel for me in the 80s and 90s, writing effusively about whatever books and movies I was into at the moment, pasting in drawings and photos and collages. So it’s been a good feeling in that sense, but it also makes me optimistic that I’ll keep doing it, because I like to follow things that surprise me creatively and see where they lead.

It’s been, and I say this very tentatively, a good couple of months. I had been feeling badly in several ways for much of 2018, but I slowly managed to make some changes that have improved most of the things I was feeling depressed about, and now I find myself feeling better overall, mentally and physically. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt that way in the middle of February. So that’s good.

Hi! My name is Scott Marshall, I am a writer and artist based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and you’re reading this because you requested to join my new newsletter, which is called Inconsequential Art. The name is a kind of new catch-all brand that I am using for my various creative projects, which I track at my Behance site (inconsequentialart.work). If you want to follow the projects you can monitor the progress on that site, or you can kick back and wait for updates in this newsletter.

This newsletter is also going to be what I do instead of a Patreon, or a blog, or even most social media. I think I’ll do this weekly, but instead of giving myself a deadline which I regularly blow past (ie., every blog I’ve ever kept), I will just keep this tab open and add to it as each week progresses. So if it ever feels scattered beyond what you would expect from something written by me, perhaps that is why.

The point is, I want to stay in touch with those who genuinely want to be updated on the various things that I do, but I don’t want them to have to do it in the shitty cesspools of the internet that Facebook and Twitter have become. I would also like to keep it centralized, and free if at all possible. In fact I would like it to be actually worth your time, maybe even something you consider a profitable use of your time, and I am not above bribing you with exclusive access to some things that I make, or discount codes or what have you.