dee Juusan's Blog

I’ve been thinking about writing. For a long time, prior to 2008, I thought there is only one way to write and make a living off of writing. And that is to write within the rules of what makes a story sell.

That was until I met Makoto Shinkai and watched his work that I found out, hey! You can actually write what you enjoy writing and succeed.

It was until recently that I realized; to write, means you’re entertaining, expressing or both.

You either create a world for the reader to enjoy being...

In November, I unconsciously passed by a tree burning like a yellow jasper stone. It told me stories and the secrets of the road she has been observing for years.
In March, I consciously took that route again. She greeted me with shades of pink tourmaline.

“You missed me in my winter dress”

“I missed a lot of things”

“And I’ll stay here”

“Then we’ll meet again”

“When it’s time for green emerald”

Sigur Rós – Hoppípolla from sigur rós on Vimeo.

I sure got a different message from what the video wanted to deliver. Maybe I didn’t. And that’s the beauty of sharing stories publicly. You’ll never know who, when or what the state the viewer is in while watching. You share what could be a lifetime of experience or a milli-second of inspiration with a world full of all kinds of people.

This video made me cry. For the beauty in it, yes. For the happiness in it, yes. for the inspiration it shin...

On a break for some quality time with my rabbit Oreki while browsing one of the IKEA catalogues I have stacked for ideas, I noticed the tiny wounds I have on my knuckles here and there, in both hands.

That sure took me back to my childhood tomboy careless years.

I don’t remember a time when I didn’t have skinned knees, skinned knuckles or skinned elbows. Even my chin was skinned for a good time during the days I was learning to ride a bicycle. Spending all winter at home, because of parental...

Some people have issues with recycled goodies. Some don’t like hand me downs, buying used books, or anything that once was with another person.

I bought a notebook last week that has “why refuse to reuse?”. Flipping the notebook on its back, it was marked “Made in Indonesia” and “100% recycles paper”.

Among all the help I can do by recycling or the money saving I’ll get by buying used goods, I’m in it for other reasons too.

See, when I held that notebook in hand, back cover facing me, I had a...

Two friends mentioned new year resolutions while we were talking. In a pause, they waited for me to share mine.

“I never do yearly resolutions anymore.”

I was never interested in new years or dates in general, but it’s hard, even after finishing school, to not feel some kind of importance to the first day of January and the +1 we add to the year. I still try to finish writing a book every year and in bed, at new year’s eve, I pray to god for a blessed good safe year.

But resolutions?

I like y...

There is an expression in Arabic that is a bit like “bursting someone’s bubble”, and it goes something like “To smash one’s paddles”.

Both are what I know I need.

It’s easy to get the satisfaction a creator needs, in this age when a person can turn famous fast (intentionally or unintentionally) over the internet. True, it’s usually a 15 minutes fame, but still a taste of fame.

Sometimes, even getting one’s self and actually finishing a creation can give one their needed doze of accomplishment...

Today, I had an hour to kill before a meeting, and I needed a mindless activity during my wait, so I decided to organize my colored pencils, which I haven’t touched since 2007.

It was a journey down a few memory lanes. I found pencils that I asked my dad to get me from France. I found ones that I got as an award for some competition at school. I found brands that I only have one color of. That one color; the color of skin which I always needed. These reminded me how my friends used to give me...

The first post about the tools I used while creating Grey is… Vol5 which is the first book I worked on traditionally, and I had a whole year of experimenting by trial and error.

Size: A4 I had 2 stacks of B4 paper, the size which most comic/manga artists work with, but I like A4 better. So when I ran out of paper and had to wait for my online order to arrive, I cut the B4 to A4

Weight: 135gm

Brands:

An article about “Grey is…” will be published in one of the local Jordanian magazines next month. I’ve been talking to the writer of the article and I must say I am enjoying our talks very much, as questions lead us to different topics of life.

On to the point;

The writer of the article asked me to give him a list of names/things that inspires/inspired me and made me the person I am today. So here is what I sent him which I thought would be good to have in my blog coz it’s something that peop...