I spent my evening at the monthly meeting of my local science fiction (and fantasy) fan/reading group tonight. We’re about to wrap up our 26th? year. We’ve been at it a long time. One of the things we’ve been doing during that time is creating a monthly fanzine.

There was a time when I was very bitter that we were clearly eligible for winning a Hugo award in the fanzine category and could never gain any traction, even with our own members. That eventually slid into disappointment more than bitterness, and then into happiness that we weren’t tied to scandals and terrible nonsense.

These days, we keep creating the fanzine because it’s a small thing that brings us joy. A few dozen ‘subscribers’ and a way to get some relatable content out to our friends. Yes, we’re still eligible to win a Hugo but I’m no longer certain it’s a thing we would want.

Jeff dug up some physical copies of old covers. For many years we had an actual, printed paper copy to hand out live and in person to anyone showing up for the meeting. These old pages showed me a variety of the kind of artwork I’ve done over the years. A lot of what I saw here was cringeworthy. Some of them I like to this day.

I don’t post as much about my art here these days in part because there’s less of it than there used to be. I just don’t have the same amount of time I did before. There are so many things to do in this world that sometimes I lose track and don’t create as much art as I’d like. Even the cringey stuff. Gotta break some eggs and all that.

I suggest doing art. Create something. Save it if you like OR give it to somebody. Someday it might come back to you so you can see how far you have come.