ZineWriMo Day 4 – WIP Wednesday

Hello, zine friends! Happy Wednesday. I hope the day is treating you well. It’s actually been pretty good here in the zine cave. So what do we have on the agenda today? Well that depends on you…

Work in Progress Wednesdays

The WIP I decided to work on today is actually the zine cave itself. It still has a long way to go, but I’m pretty happy I was able to clean and organise as much as I did. It doesn’t make for an exciting day or exciting post, but it does make for a lot of peace of mind to get some things off the floor and sorted into their correct draws, and more.

What did you work on today?

***

Other Participants:

*https://hadass420.wordpress.com/
*@spaghettinightinc
*@juelule_
*Echo Publishing

***

Get the full list of prompts and find out what this whole ZineWriMo thing is all about here.

ZineWriMo Day 3 – Mini-Zine Prep

It’s the third of the month, and we’re already cruising along with ZineWriMo! What’s on for today…

Make Mini-Zine Blanks

So today is a fairly easy day, but I always like to include it because it reminds me of how a little prep time now can save me more time (and stress, etc) later.

I tried something a little different by combining the task for the day with one of the goals I had for the month – trying out the one-page folded A7 size zine. I’ve been intrigued by the idea since Andrew first sent me the zines they create in that format. I’m not sure why it’s so curious to me, but when the creative call comes, follow it.

How’d you go with today’s prompt? Are you going with a traditional mini? Something bigger or smaller? Something new to you?

***

Other Participants:

*https://hadass420.wordpress.com/
*@spaghettinightinc
*@juelule_
*Echo Publishing

***

Get the full list of prompts and find out what this whole ZineWriMo thing is all about here.

ZineWriMo Day 2 – Plan It Out

Happy Monday! Or, just Monday. We’re here. Hahaha. It’s definitely been a stereotypical Monday here in the zine cave, but I’m pushing forward (with a brief timeout to cry in frustration). Now it’s time for the ZineWriMo portion of the day.

Plan It Out – Decide on what you’d like to do for ZineWriMo and plan out your steps to get there.

I was actually very nervous about today’s prompt. With the way this year has gone, I’ve been hesitant to make any sort of commitments even to myself, let alone out on the internet. But then I remembered my own thoughts and intentions behind the creation of the prompts list:

Deep breaths – this isn’t meant to be stressful.

So why not shoot for the moon and see what happens, right?

I decided to make further use of my brainstorms and thought gardens page from yesterday. While there isn’t a lot of change, I did colour code all of the ideas I came up with. Green is for definitely do, blue-ish is for I’d really like to but I’m not sure I’ll be able to, and purple is for incredibly unlikely to happen this month.

I then took my green ideas and wrote them down on my notepad. I didn’t get into the steps too much with most of them because I know me, I know my schedule, and I know what I need reminding of. Even so, this step of planning like this (something that I usually don’t do in this way) made me feel good. Sure, I might not get everything on the list done, but it felt good to lay out a path.

How did you go with today’s prompt? Do you like planning? Or did you see yesterday as more of a planning stage as well?

***

Other Participants:

*https://hadass420.wordpress.com/
*@spaghettinightinc

***

Get the full list of prompts and find out what this whole ZineWriMo thing is all about here.

Happy Mail Monday – Shaky Edition

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C7UEYcVXhM&w=560&h=315]

Hello, hello, hello! Techmageddon rages on in the zine cave, and we, unfortunately, have a very shaky version of Happy Mail Monday today. The camera was very unsteady for some reason, and I didn’t notice. I’m so very sorry I couldn’t do better justice to the lovely mail that arrived. But I didn’t want the video to go completely to waste, so thank you to those who are able to bear with the shaky camerawork.

Thank you so much for watching.

***
Awesome People/Places/Spaces Mentioned:

*The Chicken Collective – ?

*Billy – https://www.patreon.com/iknowbilly

*Ricky Vigil – https://www.instagram.com/supercoolnstuff/

*ZineWriMo – http://seagreenzines.com/whats-zinewrimo/

*The Zine Game – https://portlandbuttonworks.com/zine-card-game

***

My PO Box:

Nyx
PO Box 378
Murray Bridge, SA 5253
Australia

***

You Can Find Me At:

seagreenzines@gmail.com

Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/seagreenzines

ZineWriMo Day 1 – Brainstorming Day

Hello, zine friends! Welcome to the fresh as a rose start to a new month. Here’s hoping that November brings calmer, safer, and better times for everyone. Goodness knows we could all use it!

Today we start with a prompt that is as creative as you’d like it to be, so lets dive in…

Brainstorming Day – Brainstorm ideas for this month.

I couldn’t decide whether I liked “Brainstorms” or “Thought Gardens” more, so I decided to have both.

I had some fun with the list itself by breaking out my highlighters. I think my art therapy class might be affecting me a bit. Haha. Either way, it was fun, colourful, and felt a lot more creative (for me) than my scribbled handwriting on an otherwise blank page.

I can already tell you there’s no way I’m doing everything I’ve written down here, but I enjoyed the process. It was fun to just let the ideas flow without instantly compartmentalising into whether I can do it, the exact logistics, so on and so forth. Like most zinemakers, I have so very many zine ideas. Today proved a relaxing way to get ideas down on paper. Not to mention other possible goals for the month like finally getting the zine cave into a level of organised that I would like!

Brainstorms? Thought Gardens? Mind meditations? How did your first activity go?

***

Other Participants:

*https://hadass420.wordpress.com/

***

Get the full list of prompts and find out what this whole ZineWriMo thing is all about here.

What’s ZineWriMo?

Hello, zine friends, and welcome back to this year’s ZineWriMo 2020!

So… what is it? Hahaha.

If you’re not familiar, ZineWriMo is the zine alternative to NaNoWriMo created by Jasper (https://www.instagram.com/sunsetjasperilla/) a few years ago. I am another happy participant who decided to dive right in and create a prompts list for the occasion. I try to focus on a list that gives a bit of challenge but isn’t too stressful.

In Kat’s own words:

ZineWriMo is a new idea that came to me in wanting to combine the original NaNoWriMo and zines!

ZineWriMo is November! We focus on making one, or many, zines in November! Our only goal is to create zines, no word count requirement!

Dive in, join up, and let’s get ready to zine!

Here’s the list once more if you’d like it. Feel free to email me at seagreenzines@gmail.com if you’d like me to send you it in PDF form.

ZineWriMo 2020 is Coming!

It’s not only here; it’s early!

Well, the prompts list, anyway. Haha.

There’s no Happy Mail Monday today, dear friends, but I used the time to crack on with putting a fresh-as-a-daisy list together for you for 2020’s ZineWriMo.

As always, I want more fun and less stress, so I try to focus on more ‘chill’ things to do while still going for a little firewood for those glorious zine projects. I hope you like the list and consider joining in!

Zine Review: The Seas

The Seas
Iestyn et al
https://zinelove.wordpress.com/
https://www.instagram.com/_zinelove/

Full disclosure: I provided the cover art for this zine and have a piece included inside.

The Seas is an A5 landscape layout, full-colour zine featuring art, comics, and words all around the theme of the seas.

“Sit, listen and watch. Turn inwards and hear the voice inside. Let your spirit float and your eyes will open. There are many Seas on Earth – not all are watery, many are found in the 7 ½ billion people we share this planet with.” – Back cover

Perhaps is the class on mindfulness that I’m taking or perhaps it’s the amazing expanse of feelings bodies of water can bring, but this zine has me in such a contemplative state.

After the title page, The Seas opens with an introduction from Iestyn who, in words, contemplates literal and metaphorical meanings of seas. (But don’t worry – not too clinically nor in a confusing fashion.) From there we move immediately onto the opening, wordless comic by Miranda Smart that takes us easily flowing into the art and words contained in the rest of this zine.

There are comics, photos, words, art, and combinations of these all around the theme of seas. I would have thought the variety of things found in this zine might take away from or make the theme a little difficult to stick to, but I quiet enjoyed all the different interpretations. I’m especially impressed with the comic artists who convey so very much with no words at all. There’s some excellent visual storytelling in here.

I think Iestyn has a real artist’s eye for design, and that really shows in this zine. From the landscape layout that put me in the ‘view as a vista’ mindset as a reader to echoing the cover art within the middle spread to give it a very balanced aesthetic overall, The Seas is a lovely zine to take in on multiple levels. I love that Iestyn took the care to get this printed on nice and smooth matte paper but also with borderless printing as well.

Everything feels like a lovely touch with this zine.

I do think a little niggle for me would be having the artists’ names right there along with their pieces. That said, I did quite like how Iestyn handled the ‘artist blurbs’ at the end with page numbers so it also serves as an end-of-zine table of contents as well.

I love an anthology/collaborative zine that brings many people together, and The Seas fits well and truly into that love. There’s so much in here that got me pondering, and I mindfully journeyed through the whole thing.

The Seas is a beautiful and thoughtful zine through and through. I highly recommend getting a copy.