Ursula Some More! (part 3 of an exclusive interview with Ursula Vernon)


Sir Bunny vs the Wockwurm
Do you have a day job or are you able to just create whatever you feel like? What does your typical day look like?

I no longer have a day job! Woo! For many years, like a lot of artists, I did work a Real Job, but these days, art's where it's at.

A typical day for me would be to get up, bleary-eyed, at around 8:30, when my husband has made breakfast and coffee. Then I sort of sprawl at the computer, randomly hitting keys, for about an hour until the coffee does its work. Then I check my e-mail and reply to it all, and set up the art for the day. Around noon, I kick off for lunch, then I work a bit more--I may go out for coffee with a friend, or I may take a nap. (Working at home is so decadent!) Then I get back up and get back to work until mid-evening. If I'm really cooking on a painting, I've been known to work until 1 AM, but usually I kick off around six-thirty or seven, play some computer games, have dinner, etc.

As a newlywed, I'm personally interested in knowing how you balance that creative side with your spouse (Here I went into some personal detail to explain what I meant, but it is a little awkward for this blog . . . )

*laugh!* My spouse is really quite wonderful about this sort of thing. His mother was an artist, so possibly he was just raised to understand this sort of thing, but he never complains about having me call in the middle of the day and say "Come home for lunch! I need the car! I'm having an art supply CRISIS!" I suspect I'm lucky in that regard, in that he takes my art very seriously (even when it's small animals with party hats!) and treats my occasionally erratic art-related behavior as just kinda the way it goes. So to that extent I can't really offer any advice--I was lucky!--except that if your spouse has some overriding hobby or interest that they really love, to be equally supportive, and perhaps you can trade off that sort of thing and come to a kind of mutual understanding.

Be sure to check out her brand new illustrated short story, Little Creature (or Dream Deer)