I couldn't catch a break in some... crazy, nigh-omnipresent catching implement... thing.

Strange day.

Got my comics today. Merry Christmas. Read Runaways, The Boys, Ex Machina, Green Lantern Corps while waiting on my dad to have an MRI done. He's fine, fine being relative, and allowing for the fact that his rotary cuff is torn all to hell. I feel bad for him, but I'm also glad he's taking steps to get better. Pain is sometimes easier to live with than we let on.

Having trouble with the script [Re: The Trendsetter] the past couple of days, in a way I've been trying to cover up with nonchalance here. Nothing's really changed -- I have the notes, and I've been staring at Word for hours, trying to feed one thing through the other, and just be done. It reminds me a little of when I took C++ coding in high school, as no matter what I do, something in the programming is just off, and makes absolutely nothing come out right.

I should have worked on it more tonight. My heart just wasn't in it. For a couple of different reasons, some of them so lame I can't even call them "excuses."

A lot of it's to do with not having a laptop. What sort of prick am I? But still, this desktop, I can't take it anywhere, I can't change scenery at all with it [though I swear to god, if it belonged to me, I'd have back mounted the hard drive and carried the damn monitor and keyboard into another room by now, Hunter-style]. I feel so tied down to the same spot, and with almost zero privacy. And this desk isn't a writer's desk -- there are no working pens, no place to sit a legal pad. And it's not my desk, so I can't even change shit around. It's stupid that it bothers me this much.

But I just can't seem to sleep enough, can't get de-stressed, can't point my wandering mind in the right direction, can't get enough of a break, can't get in front of a TV playing "Law and Order" or "NCIS" or "Viva La Bam" [the old mediation stations], can't focus, can't shape the scenes and the conversations into their funny, quick-witted, charming, you're-gonna-love-these-characters-even-if-you-hate-them selves.

And yeah, I know it's arrogant as hell to sound so sure that I do that, but I do, I have before. Those are not my deficiencies as a writer. They're my strengths. Where are my strengths?

I know I can do this. I want to. I know part of my hangup is that I put this damn December deadline on myself. This should just come. I can be a goddamn working-schlub of a writer. I can't just be a flash of inspiration and momentum art house writer, who'll do five things in his whole life which will just be labelled "potential."

Or maybe I am. But dammit. This needs to step up and be one of the five.

Still just so damn upset that Christmas has went all tits up. And that I'm still working on this, when so much of the work has already been done. And Dad being hurt, and Mom being... well, Mom.

Taking steps to try and kick myself in gear. Can dig up "Juno," "Clerks," I downloaded "Haggard," and my external still has the "Breaking Bad" Justin gave me. It's a strange collection, but if it could get that rhythm going in my head again... And if any one's out there, I could really use someone to chat me up, not about this, but just something to make me feel better, get me talking, remembering what conversation's like again.

I hate that I can't run on cruise control. Hate.

Be back tomorrow. Hopefully, things change. Or not.

Christ.


P.S.

Justin has put up a whole layout for a page [Re: Calamity Cash and the Town with No Name]. His post on it's here. It's probably my favorite he's done yet, just really great stuff on a page I thought would be too crowded. He really pulled it off, though.

On a personal note, stuff like this is great for me, because it really gives me a better idea what can and can't fit on a page in a comic, which makes layouts while writing it a lot easier, and cuts down my nervousness when I'm trying to fit everything in.