"We are unfashioned creatures..."

Spent today trying to catch this one particular moment in time. Nailing down a single memory is... difficult, actually, I'd call it much harder than putting together a whole series of things that happen to you, because that's more straightforward narrative, and it's easier to fill in the gaps when you're not getting something quite right. Creative license is the embalming fluid of memoir and history.

God, if I was fifteen, that would sound so deep.

Funny thing is, this little bit of prose I keep toying with was just an exercise, something I just wanted to see if I could put together. I call it "writing as portrait" when you try to capture a single moment, or an aspect of someone. Usually it only takes a sentence or two - I have a couple of pages of "self-portraits" here and there, tucked away in moleskins, on the backs of restaurant place mats. Of course, looking at yourself is a lot easier, and I try to push, do the same with friends, enemies, my heroes. It... varies in success. Occasionally you might end up with something that would really flatter someone, or really offend them. I don't trot them out much.

Trying to do one of these for a particular moment in time felt a little more ambitious, but I got stuck on it. Not that I couldn't do it, just that I couldn't let it go, and just when I get satisfied, I bounce back to it. I've hit three or four people today with the "Hold on...one second..." and then manic typing or scribbling. It's obnoxious, and I may wake up tomorrow and not care at all. Today, though...

I might post it here. It depends on whether or not I think the person who its about would see it. That can end badly. But I can't imagine what else I'd be able to do with it.

Other stuff. Did some work on "Cherry Stone." I was looking at someone else's project recently, a comic they were working on and asked me to give some impressions, crit on, and they lamented how poorly most monologue and narration was in comics these days. They were absolutely right, of course, and in most cases heavy narration in comics is clunky, exposition-centered garbage, to be avoided at all costs if possible. So, naturally, when I started toying with my own scripts again, I wound up adding to the narration. It's just my way.

I partly blame Kieron Gillen's and Jamie McKelvie's Phonogram - I've been reading both "Rue Britannia" and "The Singles Club" lately, more poring over them actually, and they really are some of the best comics I've ever read. Gillen's narration in them is incredibly infectious, and both books, though "The Singles Club" especially, are exactly the kind of comics that got me excited about writing for comics in first place, and sort of represent the... timbre of what I've always wanted to do, add to, in the medium. They're great. Consider buying them, if you haven't read them. Cannot recommend both works enough. They're my new favorites, for sure.

Anyway. This is all stuff that if I decide I hate, or is unnecessary, I can easily cut [some would argue that's enough reason to do away with it]. Characters talking to themselves in their own heads is dangerous territory, that can quickly become tedious or masturbatory if not careful. But right now I'm just trying things out.

Wrote several of the flashback scenes for "Nerd Love" too. Threw them all out. I kept slipping, and indulging sensationalism. It's not that kind of script, and I really want to keep everything that has happened very much rooted in the real world. In "I don't miss the green" that was easy - I could fall back n pop culture, and brands, and other things to anchor me to the real world. But I never really had to show the real world in that, just suggest it. Things during the flashbacks in "Nerd Love" have to be a bit more mundane, so the stuff balancing it will really drive home what has and hasn't changed.

I think this is the first time since my self-imposed hiatus that I've tossed a significant chunk of work out. Writing everyday and then chucking the bulk of it was a pretty standard habit for me once upon a time, and I have mixed feelings about getting back into that. The practice was great, the repetition and structure were helpful, but it's hard to start deleting stuff again with my last creative dry spell still so fresh in my mind.

Let's start at the end, and work our way back.

Sunday and Monday I got a bit sidetracked with things. No big.

Yesterday I spent a little more than three hours working on "Nerd Love." I'm having trouble feeling accomplished about that, for a bunch of reasons. The first, most obvious is that working on "Nerd Love" in any real way, and it being a project with so little done on it, feels cheap to me, when I have things almost finished, and possibly could have gotten done in three hours. I can never tell, in those instances, if I'm being cowardly, or just following my muse. I'll also add that I'm still a little shaken by the "Dia de la Vida" incident - I'm used to writing things, and thinking they suck, and then them turning out to actually suck all the time - I'm not used to writing something, thinking it's good, enjoying working on it, and then coming back to it and finding it a fumbling mess. It's just not happened to me very often. Very disconcerting, so I'll probably take a look at what I did on "Nerd Love" today or tomorrow, and hope that its as good as I remember it being.

There are other reasons, but those seem like the two big ones right now. If something more pressing comes up, I'll probably come back and write about it later.

"Nerd Love" is a weird project for me - one of those stories that the ending came first. I'm always worried that anytime I have an ending in mind right off the bat, one that seems so important to the entire story, that the story itself is in real danger of becoming a one-note joke - which I should preface, I don't mean in a funny way. And I think that's a realistic worry, because the good writer who starts at the end and works back is always going to be wondering if his ending has been earned. This isn't a bad thing to worry about, it's an important thing to worry about, because even if you're not starting with an ending and working towards it [though I guess we all, more or less, work towards the endings], making sure you earn everything you get by the last scene, chapter, panel, or whatever you prefer to call it is so damn important.

I also think - and I want to stress this is just me - that the ending of story is not as important as it's sometimes made out to be. Don't get me wrong, if you have the ability, the chance, to write an impressive ending to a story, then you should, and you should make sure it satisfies in every way humanly possible. But the old saying about the journey being the most important part isn't total bullshit, and often times a non-ending ending can say as much as an ending wrapped up in a nice, neat looking package. The Cohen Brothers, for instance, have a real knack for this - so much so that I'm starting to believe non-endings really are, themselves, proper endings when done well.

And I suffer from what I call a... moralistic leaning. I'm a big fan of cautionary tales, morality tales [you know, things where you find out the morals of the story], tales that sometimes impart a slightly heavy-handed message to make a point. I've been working on that, because I'm not sure it's a very worthwhile endeavor [I go back and forth on this - I don't think it's particularly artful or elegant, but I'm not sure if that invalidates what I have to say - I'd be interested in hearing what others think] but there is something about coming from a place where that is the major school of thought in your head that sort of predisposes you to actually having endings for things. I think anyway.

So, I'm outlining a lot, playing with dialogue, and digging up a lot of old memories which are a little raw, and makes me wish I had money for a good bottle of scotch to have sip from at the end of it all. Christmas is coming, folks. Though really, I need a new gray hoodie, and maybe a scarf, more.

"Nerd Love" is one of those projects I've had on my mind a long time. I think there's something from my high school, college years I really want to address, even though it's not entirely about me, it is tide to a world I was very entrenched in, and in many ways still am. My friend Savannah, she really deserves thanks for this project, because it was actually talks with her, talks she probably just thought were idle conversation, and I did too, which gave me my "in" into this story, and a way to look at some of these more complicated issues. A special thanks will be in order there.

My only reassurances that I'm not using this project to run from things I could actually get done is by how on my mind it has been lately. "I don't miss the green." was sort of a piece of this story, just bursting to get out, even though what I ended up with in that short won't likely resemble much of what "Nerd Love" will hopefully be in the end. There will be one or two important, and striking similarities, but still. I was exploring something - and I'm going to keep exploring.

I'm worried a bit about subconscious plagiarism on this one, if only because there are side aspects to the story which resemble other works I've read/seen, two of which I really love, one I will admit to enjoying, but not being crazy about. My sole reassurance there is that neither of those stories gave me what I wanted, not entirely, and I'm not even approaching the subject matter in the same way. I do worry about the shallow reader/viewer/etc. looking at this and seeing something derivative, but again, as I feel like with "Nerd Love" I'm trying to address something I haven't seen or read before, and in a way that I would like to see, that I kind of want to show to people. It's easy to let this kind of doubt creep in, though. I think I'll leave it for now.

Besides, if you end up with things inspired by enough things, an original idea is probably going to grow in such fertile soil. I hope.

It's a weird project, though. The kind that, at the end of the three hours working yesterday, it was hard not to call folks I hadn't heard from in forever. It makes me wonder how long I've been wanting to just sit down, and work out what's been in this.

Anyway, lots of thoughts. There are other things to look at while I give myself a day or so's distance.

I haven't been feeling well lately. It's nothing I've been advertising, but my sleep schedule is sort of righting itself, which my mind and body are both for in principle, but against in the transition. I've also had some sinus problems that I thought I could shrug off - bad call. I've also been having some soreness, sometimes straight-up pain - in my neck, then my back, and now my leg on the right side. I'm hoping it'll wear off quickly, because otherwise, something like that could seem serious. I've also had a mad upset stomach, and some acid-related problems which have left my mouth raw. I've been drinking a lot of tea. Hoping that will help.

Few things for some friends - this is older, but I just never got a proper chance to link it - lots of good, Ander Sarabia goodness on his blog, where he shows off the CD/album artwork he did for the rock band COBRA - it's amazing art, and definitely tune-age you should consider checking out. Ander hooked me up, and I enjoyed it mightily. The art for the inserts is exactly what you'd expect from Ander, too - top-notch stuff, with lots of great details and a little bit of a throwback to a style not seen as often anymore. Absolutely spectacular.

More recent, John Wiswell did this great 9/11 post called "Do Not Post Until 9/12." I did my best to stay away from 9/11 baiting, because it's always been my contention that grief is something no one handles in quite the same way, but societally, we've sort of only made a handful of reactions "okay." That John felt the need to wait a day, in hopes of not offending others who was mourning was incredibly thoughtful, but I also feel bad that John's method of coping is somehow one that he would have to put off talking about. You don't hear about these reactions enough - and you should, because they are perfectly valid, important, and normal.

Yet more recently [re: yesterday], is Eric Esquivel and crew [that'd be Godlewski, Cody, and Barajas] all popped up on Warren Ellis's website yesterday, with their entry into Ellis' "Three Panel Open" event. Go check out their excellent entry, along with all the other comics that have went up. It's absolutely worth your time, and their entry "Magic Words" is, well... more tip-top work from Eric.

Don't forget to keep checking what both Eric and Dave are up to these days on the ModMyth blog too, and some other websites you should definitely check out are Peter Wonsowski's blog, who has always been a supporter here, and does amazing work as well, but if you want to talk exciting every new entry from PW is more exciting than the last.

Finally, one of my favorite web comics from back in the day, Mitch Clem's punk rock three panel called "Nothing Nice to Say" has returned. If it's not your speed, it's not your speed, but it was one of those comics that hit me in just the right way, at just the right time, and seeing it back means the world to me. Been excited every since he announced he was back in the saddle.

More soon.

Bedtime stories for the Tolkien children.

On one hand, nothing new has gotten *done* done, nothing old's really been "finished." In fact, I haven't really done much work on old projects.

Still. Broken ground on a lot of new stuff though, which other than showing my inability to stay on task or make goals and complete them, is also writing, and just writing again at regular intervals - well, it feels good. If I had to estimate, I'd guess I've probably done about 30 pages in the past five days, all on different things, but... oh well. Baby steps. This has been sandwiched in with a lot of other work too... I keep telling myself output, focus will improve.

Worked out several pages on a new comic, came up with the ending which was until now ambiguous. I think the outlines done, all that really needs done is it need typed up in script form. It's a Calamity Cash story [re: Calamity Cash and the Nitro Kid]. I've been sitting on it for a while because I don't want Justin to feel pressured, but he knows about it, and we're still working on the first [re: Town with No Name], so this is just me scribbling on the page. I've had this idea for about a year, and have just been letting it work out at its own pace. I guess ultimately, the idea was to write a more manageable Calamity Cash comic, since my first was so complicated, and a lot of what I was trying to do was a bit outside of my skill level. Thankfully, Justin's been talented enough with the pencils to cover that fact, but still. Gotta up my game.

Going back and forth on whether or not to put my Goemon-inspired character in. Whole idea with Calamity Cash was to slowly build up a supporting cast of weirdos and throwbacks to other cultures, genres, generally I think it's better to make a big deal out of introducing characters. But just having them pop up where they weren't before makes and different kind of intrigue. Then again, the character wouldn't add a lot to the story - how important are people as window dressing? X-Men comics spoiled me - there was always at least one blue person in the background, not doing anything, just looking cool. My want to do that with someone in Chuck Taylors and a hakama.

Saw Justin last night. We've been trying to get together once a week - doing a solid hand of it, though some weeks we struggle with what to do. West Virginia is not a post-midnight kind of town. Still, hanging out regularly again, it's cool, much needed, I think. Also really calls back to the earlier days of all this, and the familiarity is good for reminding me I have this space, and I should use it. Plus, getting out, good company... it's all great. I forget the importance of it, sometimes.

Did fifteen pages on a story called "Alone in the Universe." It will not be getting a tag here, because it turned out awful, and I don't plan on pursuing it, at least not in its present form. But I indulged a little, brushed off some old bad habits and a guy in a baseball cap and sunglasses and just enjoyed myself a bit, and think maybe I at least got [emotionally] to a place where picking up "The Tagalong" will be a bit easier.

Few pages [no exact count - someone should find a way to auto-number moleskin and legal pad] done an old project I've only told a few people about - I call it "Nerd Love." Working on it was part of the reason I wrote "I Don't Miss the Green." Anyway, I finally wrote a beginning for it. A neat little screenplay idea that will never, ever, ever get made. But might be sort of high concept enough that if I enter it somewhere, it'll get noticed. It's neat having a beginning for it too. I just don't have my first line - the big entrance. The first thing said. Barring some swear words that I don't think count.

Also playing with something that doesn't have a name or a story yet. Just something I tend to entertain myself with on downtime, little bit of fantasy to lull myself to sleep. No, it's not porn. It's just this world, maybe an idea of a world, which I use kind of like meditation, something to keep the unsettled bits of my mind busy before I fall asleep - bedtime stories for the Tolkien children, I guess. I'm starting to think there might be something to them. For now, just a hunch.

Anyway, creatively, I feel pretty good about things. Practically, less so.