A few months ago, I had mentioned that my cousin's wife had written a children's book and had asked me to do the illustrations for her. I ended up doing twenty-seven drawings in all, and when I e-mailed them to her, she absolutely loved them.
The author called me a week later and informed me that the publisher wanted the original drawings. Since I live two hours away, and I work during the week, it was difficult setting up a day for us to meet. In the meantime, I did research on the internet to come up with a price.
After about a month or so, my cousin himself calls me, sounding very upset, and tells me to get in touch with his wife. I thought that it was odd for him to call me, since it's not his project, but I called his wife and was unable to reach her. For the following two months, I tried to both call her and send her e-mails, but it was nearly impossible to reach her. She finally wrote back about two weeks ago asking me to come up with a price so that she could have a check ready for when we met.
I finally came up with a price of $900, which came out to about $33 per drawing. I didn't want to charge too much, but I also didn't want to short-change myself. Of course, if the author had decided that the price was too expensive, I would have been more than willing to reach a compromise with her.
Earlier today, I got yet another phone call from her husband. He told me that they've decided to not use my drawings and to go with another illustrator. It took too long for me to get the drawings to them, and the publishing company was getting impatient. The book was supposed to be published a year ago, he said, and I was holding them back. I quickly pointed out that I had only known about the book for the last five months and that I had been unable to get in touch with the author to set up meeting. I'm now thinking that she didn't return my phone calls because another artist was already working for her and she didn't have the guts to let me know. Furthermore, she once again had her husband call me instead of calling me herself. The whole situation is very strange indeed.
It makes me sick to think that I did all that work for nothing. When the book comes out, someone else's drawing with be in there and their name will be on the front cover with the author's. This was supposed to be my big break, but now it's gone.
All of this news comes just a few days after my boyfriend has proven himself to be a hopeless @$$hole. He and his family are from Honduras, and they were all going dancing to celebrate Honduran independence day. I danced with his cousins and with other men at the club, but my own boyfriend never once asked me to dance. What's worse is that he was mad that I was dancing with the others. I told him that I didn't go out to sit and watch him play pool; I was going to dance and have a good time, and if he wasn't going to ask me, then I was going to dance with someone who would.
He was also upset because I told him that my family wanted me to be home by a certain time, claiming that I was acting like a child instead of the woman that he expects me to be. He complained about it the whole night, and eventually asked his mother to take me home. Keep in mind that this was at 4:00am, which is late enough for me. We went outside and I tried to talk to him, telling him that I loved him but that I also didn't want to disrespect my family, but he refused to listen and literally pushed me away from him before storming back into the club.
What's odd is that his family is really nice and seemed to approve of me. I was surpised when his mother took my side in our arguement and said that he has no right to criticize me for living with my parents because he still lives with her. His cousin even called me to make sure I got home okay. He showed more concern than my boyfriend himself. Needless to say, I haven't heard from him since, and I doubt that I will. To think that earlier that night he was talking of marriage really blows my mind.
Basically, my mood right now can be summed up like this:
~*~*~*~*~
I'd like to indroduce y'all to my friends:
These are the clubs that I'm in:
Grrrr....
Rant
Alarmed
Instead of being worried about the quantity of stuff that I've done, I should be more concerned with the quality of my work. I've looked at some other galleries on here, and I've noticed that there are a lot of people who have been on DA for years, yet they don't have as many deviations. I've also noticed that these same people have done some amazing work that makes me feel inadequate. 
Like I said, it's all about the quality and not the quantity. So, therefore, I'm thinking about "cleaning up the house" a little bit. I may delete some of my pics, or a least move them to scraps. There's a lot of work in there that I'm not so proud of anymore, which hopefully is a sign that I'm getting better. I still like the ideas, but I think some of these drawings could be better, so I may go back and do new versions. For now, it's a matter of deciding which pics I want to get rid of. 
I decided to test him, so I dealt out the "hard to get" card. He started to come around eventually, discovering that an amazing device known as a telephone can be used to get in touch with people. 
Not only was he calling me more often, but he was also started talking to me through my instant messenger. Finally, he started asking me out, and not just once in a blue moon, but on a regular basis. I'm not the type to jump to conclusions, but I think that I may be able to refer to this guy as my boyfriend. 
A week later, I encountered him again at the bar, but this time I knew he was going to be there. He called me before I went and I told him to meet me there. Basically, it was a repeat of the week before. So, things are okay for now, but I'm still cautious.
