Howdy! I’m Jessica Lynn Nacovsky. That middle name gets looped in there for branding because JessNacovskyStudio hasn’t quite the same ring as JessLynnStudio. Anywho, welcome to my (soon to be, as of July 12, 2021) many rambles about art, writing, travel, and what have you. Who am I to inform(or just as likely—vent) on these topics? Fair question. Well, like every other painter-writer-wanderer in the history of creating, I’ve always drawn, always told stories, and grew up nomadic.
Let's start with art. I have a folder of artistic merit awards left over from grade school, the acquisition of which led to my being voted the most artistic (or most creative? My year book was lost in a flood.) girl in my senior year. Then I enrolled at The College of Saint Rose in Albany NY, where I majored in Graphic Design, while Minoring in Art History. After graduating, I jumped headfirst into a tattoo apprenticeship, and ended up tattooing professionally for three years before deciding that was the wrong field for me. For a while after, I delved into watercoloring, and now I’ve spent the last few years covered in oil paint. My clothes and patio floor aren’t thrilled with my life choices but at a glance, I’d guess the walls enjoy being decked out in an ever revolving selection of new and flashy paintings. Lately I show and sell most of my art through Art for the People Gallery in Austin TX, though I’ve also got a solo show up at Work Well Massage & Acupuncture, which happens to be in the same neighborhood.
As for writing, it’s harder to quantify my experience and skills. In the words of Ernest Hemingway, “You must be prepared to work always without applause.” That’s certainly true for me, being as-yet unagented and unpublished. Regardless, I’ve written a great deal, and continue to regularly write so while I wouldn’t call me an author, “writer” fits. I recall sticking my head through the cut away central-hole of the foam mattress of my upper bunk in rural Maine, to tell my lower bunked cousin scary stories long after our bedtimes. My poetry made it into the middle and high school literary magazines. Do I have copies of those magazines? Nope. What I do have is a binder containing my first attempt at writing a novelette, and like Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man(in terms of the genre of content, and in no way like the merit thereof), it’s really a book of short stories, tied together by a simple overarching plot. In college, I maintained a friendship with a wonderful writer. When we weren’t working on our art projects, she was writing a contemporary fantasy series, and I think also began a science fiction novel. Among the perks of our friendship was reading and editing her stories, activities I very much enjoyed. Then, while employed by a resort the summer between my junior and senior year of college, I knocked out the incredibly rough draft of my first novel manuscript, a contemporary tale of lackluster superheroes. It’s bad, but I haven't lost hope that one day I can whip it into something I’m not ashamed of. After college, while tattooing and working security, I wrote Soul Walker, a Paranormal Women's Fiction novel that’s perhaps too dear to my heart. I also did the research and my outline for my MG Fantasy, Stem & Stone not long after, though I waited until NaNoWriMo of 2018 to knock out that first draft. After many rounds of editing, including one by a hired professional, I began querying Stem & Stone in December of 2020. When I wasn’t editing Stem & Stone, I was working on Light Step(then called Dream Girl, and later, Plum Lit Path), my Fabulism-Literary Fiction novel, the majority of which was written during NaNoWriMo of 2020, and edited on and off since. I began querying Light Step(then Plum Lit Path) in March of 2021. After every 15 or so rejections, I overhaul the manuscript, so both Stem & Stone and Light Step have been through serious revisions since my querying journey began. Poor Soul Walker had the ludicrous word count of 134,797(no shock to you, given the size of this paragraph!) but I did finally condense it to 84,493 words this past week. One more draft and I’ll send it of. Still floating around unedited is my Camp NaNoWriMo project from April of this year. It’s a Domestic Fabulism story about a grieving mother in an ultra-religious U.S. American community. So yeah. I write. I’ve written. By now, I’ve sent out over 100 queries. That’s the writing experience I’m blogging from.
Okay, I did not forget about traveling. In my wee formative years, my mom & stepdad had us kids racing up and down the East Coast from Maine to Florida and back, often with pit stops in New Jersey to see relatives. Most years, I went to at least two school districts, though sometimes as many as four. Then, at about 12 years old, I settled on Long Island NY, until college, when I moved to Albany NY. I stayed there, with the exception of several vacations, until 2018, when I bailed for Philadelphia PA, where I lasted barely three months, before moving to Austin TX, where I live for now. Those vacations, of which I generally take one or two a year, have been in Paris France, Rome Italy, the Vatican(as part of the Rome trip), San Juan Puerto Rico, New Orleans Louisiana(Mardi Gras week), Emerald Lake Vermont(camping), Virginia Beach Virginia, Salem Massachusetts(day trip), Vienna Austria, Andorra la Vella Andorra(day trip), Berlin Germany, Barcelona Spain(for a month), Budapest Hungary(for a month), etc. You get the gist. I’ve had wonderful experiences all over, and also had some pretty laughable mishaps which I’ll post about separately at some point.
As for the “what have you” miscellaneity(I’m saying that’s a word.), I imagine that’ll consist of stories about caring for my pets, my wacky childhood, shittyfoodporn(if you aren’t familiar with the term, I suggest taking a look at the subreddit by that same name), social anxiety, general anxiety, and my self diagnosis of dyscalculia.
Thanks for swinging by. I’d promise to condense my thoughts better in the future but that’d be a lie. Expect a new blog post every Monday. Toodles!