Purpose

This is kind of a weird entry.

A couple of things have happened, or I guess more I've been thinking about a few things, which have lined up with a few other things I've read lately, and I thought I might lay some of it out here.

A couple days ago, internet friend/comic writer who's stuff I rather dig on Eric M. Esquivel posted this article on Bleeding Cool. It's a really good article, as are his others for the website, and I imagine the future ones will be too, and if you're not reading it, you should be. This particular article, I don't entirely agree with everything Eric says, mostly because I think memoir is really important to literature [I studied memoir in college, after all], and I don't think any writer ever really gets away from their own hobby-horses in their work. But he brings up a lot of great, interesting points, and I've been rolling them over in my head since it was posted on Tuesday.

Today, real world friend [not any more important than an internet friend, just making the distinction so people don't think EME and I are out in Tucson, destroying mailboxes together in an El Camino with a baseball bat on weekends -- AKA, totally not dick-riding here] Glen "Mario's Closet" Brogan posted this on his blog, showing off his invitation to Gallery 1988, a real accomplishment for him, and as he points out in his post THE destination for artists who do work in the 8-bit, throwback, cartoony, pulp culture-type genre of artwork. It's a big success, sort of the proof that what he's doing is lucrative, and worthwhile, a real "your dreams can come true" moment for him. And I can't congratulate him enough for it, really. It's huge.

But again, it's made me think.

As a writer, or as someone who wants to be a writer, or as someone who writes too much about wanting to be a writer and not actually writing [I'm sure you have your own opinion on which of these I am], I think a lot about purpose, and about success. Purpose, in my mind, is why you work, why you create, why it is you do whatever it is you feel you have a calling to do. Success is doing something that cements that purpose as worthwhile to you. Purpose is why you work, success is what comes when that work has achieved something.

I mean, roughly. Keeping it strictly to the "sky is blue, grass is green" sort of stuff. And remember, I'm just talking about myself here. I don't know the blue you see is the same blue I see. You may not think it's as simple as purpose and success.

I think the definition of success is probably what people struggle with most often. What's an achievement? Being able to make money at what you do? Being able to do what you love for a living? Having your work reach the most people? Getting noticed by one particular critic? Reaching a benchmark that others in your field have reached? Working with a particular person in your field? Maybe just finishing a project.

Maybe just getting a chance to work on a project.

It's hazy. It's pretty different for just about everyone, and that's not even factoring in what other people see as your achievements, what society and your peers see as an achievement. And then there are numerous things you just can't see -- maybe you'll set a goal that's unreachable. Maybe you'll be very pragmatic with your goal, and you will reach it, but you won't really feel like you've succeeded. Then there's that fear. That you'll get to the top of your Everest, look around and say "this is it?" I would imagine there are more than a few people who have that happen who stick the gun their mouth at that point, but there are likely far more who turn around, head right back down that mountain, and find another one to climb.

I think about all this sometimes, but only in a theoretical sense. Because honestly, I'm farther away from success than I've ever been in my life. The comic I'm working on with Justin, though I'm psyched for it, is more of a practice exercise for him [re: Calamity Cash and the Town with No Name]. I don't have a regular artist to work with on hand. I've not been able to get a single film project off the ground [nor can I seemingly keep anyone interested in said projects for more than about... six months at a time]. I blog, but there are a lot more talented bloggers out there, with a lot more readers, and I know this because I link them daily [Hannah Miet, John Wiswell, Hipstercrite], and even have connections to them through social network sites like Facebook, and Twitter. The biggest creative thing I have going right now is a screenwriting contest that I won't even hear about until the end of the year.

And don't get wrong. None of this is a pity party. Some days it is, but right now, I'm just looking at the facts realistically. For a creative person, I have very little going on creatively. For a writer, I'm not writing a lot of stuff that will actively go anywhere -- I'm trying to get these freelance jobs going, and I'm working on getting back to blogging regularly. These are important, of course, but different kinds of important.

I think -- I say "I think" because I'm really not sure yet -- but I think this is in part do to a lack of purpose I've felt lately. I've wanted to write for a long time, but there was definitely a time, before high school I'd say, that I didn't really think I could do it. And I didn't really know what I wanted to write. And then, things happened, and I was exposed to a lot of new, and interesting stuff, stuff like the movie "Clerks" and the movie "Slacker" which, no offense meant to either, but made me feel like these things were things I could do. That I was capable of. And I was drawn to comics, because there's this part of me that's just been reading them so long, enjoying them for so long, that I sort of think like that -- and even when I'm writing prose, even when I'm writing a movie, I see things in my head, sort of lined up as panels. It's a part of me, it's how I think.

It sounds insane, but it just is. Even my favorite novel, the Great Gatsby, when I think of scenes from that book, I think of them as though they were illustrated by John Romita Jr.

So that's what got me going. But I feel like I lost the purpose along the way. I remember, from the moment I sat down, and said "writing is what I wanted to do" I started crafting all these characters in my head. This non-mythic mythology, with all these people based off of people I knew, or people I'd like to know, or myself, and all of them interacting with each other. In some ways, they were just vessels, to get my weird stories and my fucked-up opinions out, and in mouths other than my own. It shaped into a world that went by a lot of names, Sulk, Ever Higher, the Living Dead, White Trash Nation, Sweet Home, etc, etc, etc. And in my head, it was all very realized, and there was this strong compulsion to tell this story, and I knew the characters not just by name, but by age, and if you asked me about one of them and what they'd do on a particular holiday, I could tell you like they were someone who I went to school with, and saw every day.

I put those away at some point. I don't know if it was because so much of the early work with them was done with Sam as the illustrator, and when her and I stopped working together, it felt wrong to pursue them further, or if it was because I picked up new stories like Un-filmable, and Trendsetter, and all the little shorts I wrote. Maybe it was because so much of that early stuff I ended up refining and recycling into other ideas, which also haven't seen the light of day, really. Maybe just so much has happened in my life in the past few years that made up stories just don't have the room in my head that they once did.

I'm not sure. What I do know is, whenever I had one of those stories to tell, I felt the pull of purpose. Like "this is what I'm supposed to be doing, this is what I want to be doing." And then everything that happened, happened, and you know, suddenly I didn't have the house anymore, and my family was a mess, and I wasn't going to be the producer on any movie, and this other thing was delayed, and my dad was dead, and everything was just -- over. Fuck purpose, just not shutting down was the order of the day. Success... success was something that happened other people, people who knew, at least partly, what success meant, who had a reason to work towards those achievements. It was all very far away, if possible at all.

And yet.

I kept writing. I don't know why. It was like writing was autopilot for me. Oh, your life's shit? You've got time, write about these Mercedes Marxists in New York City. What, it'll never get made? Who cares, you're not sleeping anyway, here's a thing about Angels falling from the sky. You don't feel remotely interested in submitting anything to be published? Fuck you, write about fictional communal tent towns anyway.

Maybe it wasn't that hostile. But you get the general idea.

But I think that's sort of where I am, that's how I feel. There's nothing I have this overwhelming urge to get done. No one story I feel I absolutely have to tell. Maybe for a while, while trying to get "Nova" to 25 pages, I got that back for a bit, for just a little while I felt like "You have to do this, because you've worked hard on this story, and you know it's worth your time, and it deserves to be made." And I took the steps I could do that, but regrettably, that put it out of my hands for the time being. So I'm back without any strong story to tell. No purpose.

It really hit me a few weekends back, when I learned a much more successful writer than I was about a year younger than me, and I finally said to myself, "You know, Randall, if you're going to talk about writing comic books, you should really suck it up, find a way to find yourself an artist, and get to it." So I dug up a lot of resources with a lot of helpful hints on how to use the internet to do that, and I will admit some of them were really not appealing [Millarworld, anyone?], but I was going to do it. I was going to make some inroads, and find someone not just to work with me, but someone who I worked well with. And as I was trying to get some stuff together, some pitches and scripts, and the like, I realized, I really didn't know what I'd want to work on if I did have an artist. Could I go back to the old stuff, was that stuff I still wanted to work on, was it even something I still considered good [not taking into account that a lot of that is not as clear in my mind as it once was, most of my notes are in numerous places thanks to my forcible move]? Could I come up with new stuff I had strong feelings on, stories I could really get behind? Because the last thing I wanted to do was start some new working relationship with an artist and only have a lukewarm project to pursue.

The honest answer was no. Even "Real Quality Comics" which was supposed to be a setup for a new story, I never cranked out a script to an issue 2. I think I could. I have outlines for four different issue #2s. But I don't have any one story I really want to tell.

I'm not sure how one goes about finding that. I think, like I said, I got close to it with "Nova," and if I just keep working, keep writing, I could find something that I got really passionate about making again. For right now, I'm settling for a different kind of purpose -- I think just trying to improve my writing, trying to improve the uses of it as a skill, that's something. Getting better, by doing more stuff, blogging more, working with editors who are going to be harder on me, even doing the copy work, which isn't creative, but helps with technical proficiency.

And that's good. It's not a driving force. It's not a purpose. I don't see it leading to a satisfying sort of success, except maybe in small, more practical ways. But I don't know that anyone says "I want to be a writer. I want to write" and looks to find success in that in a merely practical manner. Maybe I'm being short-sighted. It's possible. But not knowing what you want, or why you want it, can really set you behind.


* It's really important I stress that none of these musings come from any sort of spite, or professional jealousy, nor am I so narcissistic as to only be able to view the success that my friends find through some twisted lens that reminds me of what I haven't done. I'm proud of my friends and their art, and I'm really happy that this blog and Twitter have let me get to know some of these cool people whose work I've come to admire. Management encourages everyone to go see what they're doing instead of spending so much time listening to this author try and figure out what it is he wants to do.

Calamity Cash Update: Rumble.

I won't say you've seen the last of the "Top Ten Horror Films of the Decade" lists here, but we're definitely close enough to handle some other business.

Justin has posted some new comic sketches [re: Calamity Cash and the Town with No Name] over on his blog, including this one that I've snagged just because of how cool it looks, and the fact that it features what I consider one of the most badass words in this glorious English language.

Justin's post is also pretty informative, and gives you at least a partial look at what my comic book scripts used to look like, as opposed to the script to "Real Quality Comics" I posted which used the strict template included with my screenwriting program. I still, honestly, haven't decided which I liked best, and am hoping to figure out how to set up my own custom template with the software somewhere down the line, as both formats have things I do and don't like.

More important than my shit, however, is that Justin gives you a good look at how he goes from script to layouts, which for me is one my favorite parts of the process to look at, because it's truly the half-way point between what I wrote, and what he's about to draw. There will always be changes, of course -- I'm not Alan Moore, and even when my panels and dialogue get really out of hand and specific, it's my philosophy to default to the artist's judgment 99% of the time when it comes to things like page layout and paneling. A good example is that excerpt posted above, which was not scripted as a separate panel but works far better in the overall flow of the action/dialogue than what I'd written for it to be.

I've been writing a little bit this past week/week and a half/two weeks, but admittedly the bulk of my free time has went to preparing everyone's lists for Horror Week, which was actually a much bigger job than I expected at times. A lot of this blame lays squarely on the shoulders of blogger.com, if I dare bite the hand that feeds me, as layouts filled with images and links do not look the same in preview mode as they do when actually posted. Admittedly, this is probably partially my fault for using a custom template, but a better preview option would likely solve a few of my minor headaches. Then again, the fact that I only get minor headaches from a free service is kind of amazing of Google, so I'm hesitant to bitch much more.

And... honestly I think the whole "Best Horror Films of the Decade" lists turned out incredibly well and I'm really thankful for everyone who stepped up and got involved, and it was never bothersome digging up links or images to go along with all these fun commentaries because it really felt like thought and care were put into these lists. Thank you all for that. The Mojo Wire also saw record traffic, and there were more comments on entries than there ever were when it was just yours truly writing them, and I hope at least a few of the visitors will choose to stick around, and see what I'm up to, and what's on my mind. Furthermore, if anyone has any ideas for guest blogs, or just would like to do one, absolutely feel free to suggest it to me. This turned out really well, and I don't mind sharing at all.

Anyway. Back to what I was saying about the little bit of writing I've been doing -- I've had a couple of small breakthroughs on old projects, specifically "Assisted Living" and "Trendsetter." The latter was particularly interesting, and came to me while listening to the Mountain Goats's song "No Children." As far as either project goes, I haven't really made a plan to move forward on any actual scripting yet -- I've been really busy in my day-to-day lately, and also, frankly, I've just been reevaluating what's a good use of my time, or more specifically, what kind of realistic goal I can really have working on screenplays knowing I don't have the funding or connections to proceed beyond the writing part.

Then again, there's also something to be said just for writing for writing's sake.

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, I've also been doing some prose, which if I can get myself focused I may post some of here. Though I'm pretty sure my next project will involve going back to, of all things, Nova. For a particular reason I find myself in a place where I need to sweat about seven pages out of it, and if anyone is up for helping me with this, I'd be much obliged. I'm actually kicking myself pretty hard because I did do a much shorter version of Nova which I called the "Severe Cut," but that particular copy has mysterious disappeared from my hard drive -- and anyway, it was closer to ten or twelve pages shorter, and took out too many things that right now I'm pretty keen on keeping.

More soon. And thanks again, to everyone, who made these past two weeks work so well.

Good Riddance 2009

Well, thank god that's over.

I don't have a list of resolutions for 2010. It's not really my style, I'm not really a "resolution guy," and more importantly, any sort of list I'd put together here would probably be more a list of things I want, rather than things I feel like I'd actively pursue. And honestly, I have no desire with the kind of year that's behind me to suddenly start making a lot of goals and objectives that I will be able to use next year to evaluate whether or not I succeeded or failed in 2010.

I like to think this space holds me accountable, and this is just one of those cases where I want to let myself slide.

To a better year.

I had an interesting conversation with my cousin Travis, who some may remember I've mentioned before. Travis has a plush job, a lucrative and creative hobby that might well become his new plush job, and the kind of pragmatism behind it all that I'm sure a lot of people in the family wish I had too. He's also incredibly talented as a producer [re: music], which I encourage everyone to go check out at his website, TCustomz.com.

Anyway, we were talking, as creative people tend to do, about being creative, and more specifically producing new work, and he asked me innocently but pointedly if I felt my work was still improving. I haven't been doing much work lately, but upon thinking about his question [and not even for very long], I felt pretty confidant in saying that yes, I had improved, and that I felt like when I was producing work, it was getting better.

Which is sort of odd for me, to pat myself on the back like that. All told, I think I've always had a relatively low opinion of my strengths -- not that I was necessarily bad at what I did, but that what I did well wasn't something to be particularly proud of. I've always thought of the strongest aspects of my writing as something of a parlor trick, especially since throughout college I had a great number of people say things like "the marvelous thing about Randall's writing is that he seems to do everything wrong -- but it works!" I'm glad for it, but it's also hard to not have statements like that hang a little like an albatross.

And even though lately I've been fond [well, not fond] of saying it feels like I'm just out of college again, I look back at that person I was on graduation day and feel like I've progressed from that, and that extends from my written work. How's a little more complicated.

I think I've learned that I can't force it, and expect my writing to still come out naturally. I'm not saying I've come to accept this as an absolute fact, but I do realize that it's a mountain I have to climb when starting things I'm not feeling my most passionate about, and that's been helpful to me. I will still torture myself over it, for not being able to just turn the imagination on like faucet like a lot of other writers and even some of my peers do. I'll work on it. But it wasn't a limitation I knew I had, and knowing it feels like an asset, and an improvement.

My comics have improved. I haven't done as many, of course, but looking at "Calamity Cash" and then looking at "Real Quality Comics," I think I've learned how to rope myself in a little bit, and understand that the artist is not just a tool to get what I want on the page. Justin has done great things with "Town with No Name," but it is a ridiculous and unwieldy beast of a script which I would have shortened and simplified greatly if I had a second chance. I wouldn't know how, of course, had I not undertaken it, and I think despite what I consider pretty messy scripting on my part, Justin is going to turn the final work into something amazing. So my scripting improves, but more importantly, I've realized that a project where I am a part of step 1 does not live and die with me. Despite the misfortunes of the past year, comics are something I want to keep doing, and I want to find another artist to do them with [not surprising that "Calamity Cash and the Town with No Name" has made Justin want to move on to other projects], and just looking between the Cash script and the RQC script, I feel I've progressed. I'm hoping that I can improve my output, of course, as I was never able crank out regular scripts of issues like I'd proposed I'd do, despite my copious notes.

I think if anything has helped me improve it's this blog. The most telling signs are the little things -- typos and brainos have gotten far less, and I've noticed when I sit down to do small projects, I'm finding less and less common mistakes. I feel more aware of the words I use, their meanings, and I've eased up on using antiquated terms as much, and when I do I try my best to make sure using them is a purposeful action, either reviving the word because of its actual usefulness, or because I really want to commit to "bringing it back," ridiculous though that may sound.

I've gotten better at self-policing, I guess is what I'm trying to say. I have habits, like non sequiturs and sentimentality, real Sterne-esque problems [I'm complimenting myself too much in this post], and I think I've gotten better about seeing these things. Sometimes they're okay, and sometimes they're things that I will use, but I fear too often I lean on them, or in the sake of digressions trust my judgment a bit too much, while getting lost on some side quest that I find more interesting than what I'm actually writing about. I also look at other kinds of repetition, my use of parentheticals, or my fondness for pregnant pauses, ellipses, and my ever-present "--," things I love using, and that just naturally happen while writing, that now I feel better about going back, taking out, or saying "I'm using this when I should be using this." And it's nice, to know I have these toys, or trademarks, but I don't have to use them.

I also feel really confidant about my dialogue. Dialogue fascinates me, and conversations will always be my favorite part of writing, but thanks to some kind words and some really talented people asking me for help this year, I feel good about where this skill is, and in a way feeling better about the skill is almost the same to me as feeling it has improved. And I also think, to some degree, it has improved, as in different mediums -- comics, prose, screenplays -- I've been treating it differently, using the medium to get the better result out of the conversation. This is an idea I was playing with before my dry spell, and I'm looking forward to exploring it further.

And I feel better about my prose. It hasn't progressed in any great strides, but the fact that I've felt like I can come back to it, that it feels like a medium I might be able to work in a again is a good thing, and I don't think I could have become comfortable in it if not for all the time spent writing here. I'm still tentative if I'll keep at it, but I think getting to a place where I'm thinking about it is an improvement. Always nice to open up new possibilities.

Lot of things I still suck at though, that aren't any different from that kid out of college. My endings are still awful -- as bad as my beginnings are good, I'll say, and I haven't the foggiest idea how to improve them. The closest I think I've gotten was with "Nova," which had a proper denouement, and it's ending actually came across like an ending. But I still loathe the falling action parts of movies and comics and novels, and had "Nova's" not come so naturally, I doubt it would have had any either. And that's a problem.

I remain pretty terrible at controlling the lengths of things. "Trendsetter" was supposed to be a short. "Meet Cute" was a short idea that I think can only work as a feature, which is probably why I haven't done anything with it yet. "The Familiar" remains a ten or twenty minutes short from a proper feature, and rewrite of it threatens to push it into epic, three hour territory. I've already talked about how "Town with No Name" got out of hand, and my inability to cut it short. And as much as I'll hold up things like "Real Quality Comics" as what I can do when I'm at my best, and most focused, I haven't duplicated that yet, so I may have just gotten very lucky. Oh? And "Trendsetter?" As a feature, it still remains stalled out just shy of a proper length. Following through [Re: Bourgeois Punks]. That's something too.

And I really need to get back to reading and watching more things, and different things. I've always believed you learn the best from other works, their mistakes and successes, and I've been slacking off brilliantly this past year. A lot of that has to do with mood, but on some level I feel like there's no excuse.

Lot to think about. Trying to get back to that place where all of this talk makes a difference, too.

Huh. Suddenly my arm hurts, my neck is sore, and my lips are chapped. Can't imagine why.

Hope everyone had a nice holiday.

Points... Of... Interest!

Justin has a panel for the new page over on his blog [Re: Calamity Cash and the Town with No Name]. I've seen the whole thing, and it looks amazing. I know I say it every time, but each page Justin does impresses me more than the last, and that's really saying something if you were to see just how crowded the pages he's been working on have been. I mentioned it here once before, but there was a pretty heavy rewrite done on my part after Justin had already started, which meant only the last half of the book was changed, and even then I couldn't really add new pages -- so any new content had to work in the number we already had set aside for the book, which means things got kind of... cramped.

It's the reason when I wrote "Real Quality Comics" I stuck much closer to my 4 panels per page rule.

I've also been parodied over at Ian's blog. Ian's doing a series of creative homages to various kinds of blogs and online journals, and the Mojo Wire got to be lampooned this week. I particularly appreciate the Gin Blossoms reference in the title, and feel like with this out there, I can take a break and not write so much today.

Still re-orienting a bit here. Hopefully get back into the swing of things soon.

Disconnected.

I know there weren't any posts for the last week, but I had plans to take a trip and that kept me from doing much writing, especially here. Barring drastic changes [again], it doesn't look like I'll be going anywhere for the time being, so I'm going to try and get back into the routine.

It was weird to miss a week, especially with how I've been feeling lately. Everything has seemed very present, like something is right on my heels, and I'm trying to out run whatever it is. It's hard to explain, but it feels like a deadline, or maybe more like a drum beat from an oncoming army. There's no way to guess what's coming, when it will arrive, or if it's even really on its way at all, and I will freely admit it could all be in my head, but I've felt this real urge to just sit and write -- get things out of my head and onto to paper, even if they're just truncated notes scribbled here and there.

What I feel like I need to do is actually finish some things. If it were any other year, it would be ridiculous to me that things like "Trendsetter" and "Familiar" are sitting unfinished; it isn't any other year, of course, but the point stands. Following up a little better would be nice too -- I finished the script for the RCQ script [Re: Real Quality Comics #1] ahead of schedule, and even found a few places where I might find interested artists, but I didn't keep with it, even though I have three or four outlines for new issues. It's all there, the oft-repeated mantra of this blog might as well be "I just need to do it" and these things are no different. Of course, that's also simplifying it a lot. There's something intangible between "this is what I need to write for this scene" or "this is what needs to happen on this page" to what actually goes on the page, and making that leap, at least for me, takes a lot of time.

I don't want this to seem like a "Randall gets his shit together" entry because that would involve me actually getting my shit together, and we're all better off if I don't have to do a "Randall's sorry he didn't fulfill his promise and get his shit together" post later. But the past couple of days have been prime ones for rethinking things, including some of the stuff I was working on before Dad died that I haven't really picked up since. I think there were ideas, even projects that were really present and important to me, that I sort of "gave up" when that happened, not unlike how I gave up video games for that period of time there.

I spent a lot of today reading over "Trendsetter" again, and thinking of some alternatives to putting so much of it in a Walmart. Having the character of Eddie be a flea market pitchman isn't the best idea I've ever had [and Jesus, I'd have to re-write more than half of TS to accommodate that], but it was fun to play with his dialogue, and get the character back in my head.

And it also reminded me how much I've wanted to write something about Evangelical youth ministers...

I'll see tomorrow if it goes anywhere. Cheers.

Found wanting.

Last night I did the first twenty pages of "Bourgeois Punks," before stumbling about where to take the story after I'd already had a coke party and a funeral [the first I put in with great trepidation, especially having read John's recollection of workshop writing at Bennington]. I don't really know if I'm going to follow up with it, as while I already have a strong Act 3 in mind, I really have no clue what the end of Act 1 and the beginning of Act 2 is supposed to look like. I only mention it at all because it's rare that my throw-away writing takes shape like this did -- usually what I end up with is a scene, a conversation, or an outline, but here, there's a beginning, and several scenes, and all the characters slowly hit their mark of who they're supposed to be.

Besides, at 20 pages of a screenplay, it's hard to not start thinking about the math. If it only tops out at 90, then it's entirely plausible that a first draft could be done in around five days. Of course, in this case, that would rely on some flashes of brilliance and inspiration to get me through the next thirty or so until the things start happening that I know I want to have happen, but still. People have been telling me more and more lately not to toss so much out, and though I've always felt my process has worked very well with me, it's hard not to argue with folks who've managed to put together a slightly more robust body of work than I have.

The story for BP is nothing special. Pretty much a straight romance with hipsters, something I keep toying with but putting away as soon as it starts to resemble anything. Ending takes a different turn than what I think most people would expect with the genre, so there's that as a saving grace, along with a denouement I think I could actually sit through if I were watching it. There are a lot of characters [in this first twenty I just barely squeeze in nine], and the pacing is sort of wonky, and would probably have to be reworked heavily if I ever wanted to do anything with this. Not strange for me is knowing where I want to go, but not being very sure as to how to get there, and I think I might have just kept writing tonight if not for the fact that I had no idea what the next scene should be.

This morning, I've been thinking about "Un-filmable" -- specifically, if I'm any closer to getting it made than I was when I finished it over a year ago. The funny thing is, it doesn't seem like such an impossibility now, as it has in the past. Pragmatically speaking, and working from the numbers Kyle and I were using on "Nova," I think it could probably be finished in two-and-a-half weeks for somewhere in the area of 25,000-35,000 dollars. Not that I'm anywhere near being able to get that kind of money, but still, with the few connections I have, if funds were to materialize, I think I could do it easily.

So much is about money, of course. And I'd probably have to take the rain scene out. At least the exterior one.

It's good to get writing done, as I actually hadn't done much of anything since making my Halloween post. Three days isn't really a dry spell, especially for me, but for some reason it felt like one. Not getting any feedback on it was kind of a bummer, but let's face it -- not that many people read this blog, and sometimes replying to comments slips my mind, which I doubt encourages people to do make any.

I'm going to try and do a "PsyOps" outline in the next couple of days. I was looking at how many notes I put together in that one period of time when things were just really flying onto the page, and realized if I ordered these things a bit, I might actually have the story I've been looking for. Not sure yet, though.

In an interesting aside, Julia and Zoe both have blogs up about some of their influences. Both good, interesting reads, especially for my interests. Speaking of my interests, the Lucid Despair blog also has an entry up on "Heart Throb Comics," that though tongue-in-cheek was just fascinating to me, especially considering the "Real Quality Comics" script I did recently.

All for now. It's been nice to write a little, but the past 12 hours or so have been rough.

Real Quality Comic's #1 -- Illustrator Wanted.

Real Quality Comics #1 -- The script's finished, download it here.

This has been done for about a week, give or take, but I wanted to wait and post it on a Monday or Tuesday for better visibility [I get zero traffic on weekends]. I don't really expect the flashy title to get me much Google attention, but certain search terms have drawn visitors here in the past, so I figure it's worth a try. And if you are an illustrator, looking to be a comic book artist, feel free to download the above script, and if you're interested get in contact with me either in the comments section of this post, on Facebook, or at mojo.wire.productions@gmail.com for more information.

And if you're not an artist, but you're reading this and know someone who might interested in working on a comic, feel free to pass them this script, or send them my contact info. I'd really appreciate it.

Otherwise, I'm still not sure how I'm going to go about finding a new illustrator to work with. A few methods spring to mind -- Deviant Art was recently suggested to me, though I know going there can tend to get a little... ah, hairy [re: furry], and there are so many portfolios over there that working through the bulk of them might take more free time than even I have. Blogspot also seems promising, and if I make any headway I'll be sure to write about my results here. Still, I'm up for suggestions if anyone has any, as this is a "problem" I've been trying to work out for awhile now, and really haven't come up with much on my own.

A few other notes about the above-mentioned script -- if you're one of the three people who read the first draft, don't worry about bothering with this one. The changes are marginal, mostly just fixing typos and making things clearer for the reader and the artist. Since the whole idea was to try and work on an industry timeline, it didn't seem fair to obsess over this and make too many sweeping changes, and besides, I'm actually pretty pleased with what this does.

But if you are interested in seeing what I've been working on, or want to help me come up with a title for the story, then feel free to download this and tell me what you think. Yes, I am pretty much finished with this story, and probably won't be making changes on the draft based on any comments, but I will be beginning work on the script for Issue #2 soon, so knowing what I need to do better, or what people would be interested in seeing more of would be a big help. Again, Facebook, e-mail, or my comments section are fine for anything you have for me.

As for Real Quality Comics #2, I have a pretty good outline, and will probably be getting started soon. But I have a few other things I need to work on too [re: The Familiar], and maybe a couple of healthy distractions coming up, so I might wait and see if there's some interest in the first script before I rush to do others. Of course, the first one didn't take me too long to crank out [which has sort of the idea], so who knows? Could be a script for a second issue as early as next week, though I think another month would be a smarter estimate.

Cheers.

Rough day, few updates, and 1 Year of Mojo...

Today hasn't been one of my better ones. I haven't been sleeping much since last week [shocker, there], and this morning was used mostly to repay a little of my ever-expanding sleep debt. Rolled out of bed about two, far later than I intended, feeling not altogether anxious to get up, but not really knowing why. I felt a little irritable -- every off-the-cuff Facebook status message or response felt like a slight, and I found myself running past conversations over again in my head, and feeling upset, as though someone had been slyly badmouthing me, and I'd only just noticed. They hadn't, and of course I recognized this, but it made me feel surly. I opted to stay in bed a bit longer, and took some time to catch up on some e-mails and reading,

When I finally ventured out, dinner conversation didn't improve things much; my grandmother's cousin is in town, which is actually really wonderful, and gives grandma something to do and a chance to take her mind off things. However, a sad but unfix-able aspect to any visiting relative now is a lot of talk about Dad, talk that I don't have as much control over. Which is not to paint myself as a control freak, per se, but it's still a delicate enough subject at times that I like to be able to say "I'm done with this," at least momentarily. Instead, there was another walk through of events on the day he died, which didn't help the anxiety attack that had apparently disguised itself as morning [early afternoon] crabbiness.

About an hour ago the feeling abated, but I still did my best to avoid people and not take any drastic action. I've been trying to work out the second issue of "Real Quality Comics," which I had an idea for about a day after finishing the previous one, but have as yet been unable to come up with an outline for. I was no more successful today, but considering my mood, I wasn't surprised, nor did I blame myself all that much for it. A little later, an episode of "Gangland" came on, a show I've been a little taken with since I watched "Bastards of the Party" on HBO a year or so back. Feeling inspired, and a little distracted, I worked out a rough treatment for an idea I've been kicking around awhile, called "Bad Guys."

"Bad Guys" is a movie idea I had while working at the book store last winter. At the time it wasn't much, sort of just an independent movie-type love story about a guy who runs guns from Nashville to New York, working with a real detestable piece of shit while in Nashville, while dating a woman who worked in legal aid and public defense. Working on it, I found my Tarantino sensibilities made the bits with the scumbags and their customers far more interesting to write than the love story, and when I realized that the whole of the script was going to just be long conversations between felons, and short bursts of self-loathing. Plus, it was looking like it was going to clock in at just under forty pages, which meant some actual plot might be necessary, which I didn't have at the time.

I deleted what I had done [which wasn't very good], but kept my written notes. I've been thinking about them and looking them over a lot lately, and with the help of "Gangland," I think I might have a nice ensemble cast crime screenplay on my hands. The ending I have in mind isn't bad either, though I'm going to have to watch "No Country For Old Men" again, and make sure I'm not stealing it.

Anyway, I finished the treatment just over an hour ago. Nowhere near ready to get started yet, but a nice thing to put back, in case my interest is sparked again. I don't know if having the task helped calm me down [most of my friends would say it did, I feel somehow doubtful of that, though], or if I was just finally all panicked out for the day, but I started feeling better about 3:30. Physically, I'm exhausted, but my mind is buzzing now. So much for tonight.

Saw Justin this Sunday [re: Calamity Cash and the Town with No Name]. He and his girlfriend have just moved into a nice apartment in town. Been about a month or so since we've hung out, and he showed me the new pages [excerpts here], which really look amazing. Work is going a bit slower, because he's doing some temping, and might be starting another new job soon, and with the move and everything else, he needs time to get settled. At this point, there's really no rush on the project, and it turned out so huge and so much has gone on this year since we undertook the project that I'm just so happy it's survived, and it's turning out so well.

Another newsworthy thing [as if anything on this blog ever qualifies as news] is that on the 28th, the Mojo Wire will have officially been around for a full year. I've had a lot of thoughts on how to commemorate this, I've even considered that it might be more my style to blow past the anniversary completely, but I haven't decided anything yet. Looking through old entries, it crossed my mind to finally do that mission statement, but I think Ian might have made it so anything I came up with would look like self-parody. So we'll see. There is a part of me that feels I'd be doing a disservice to this space if I didn't do something, especially after the year this has been.

There's also hope that some writing will get done.

Shalom.

Real Quality Comics #1, first draft.

Just finished the first draft of "Real Quality Comics #1" which you can download from that link there [Link removed -- new draft available in this entry].

There's a lot in this that needs some work, and some tweaking, and if anyone wants to download the script and give it a read, I'll be more than happy to hear whatever you have to say about it. I will be doing at least one more draft on this, so you have plenty of time to get back to me, if you're so inclined. I appreciate and hope for feedback, either in the comment of this post, Facebook, or my e-mail at mojo.wire.productions@gmail.com.

That said, I also consider this very much a warts and all sort of project. Speed was really important here -- I was curious what I could produce in a relatively short amount of time, about what I'd have if I was writing a monthly comic book [I'd actually have at least another week, but since I finished early, I figure I can move on, and touch up as I feel the need]. There were also a lot of things I was doing that I would normally go back and change -- the internal narrative and the "telling over showing" would normally be something I'd try to work out in the next couple of drafts. I'm pretty sure that's not going to change this time, for the sake of both tone, and me just trying to see if something less rigid and more casual can work in this medium. However, if you read it and hate it, tell me. Just because I'm not changing it doesn't mean I don't want to know if it works or not.

Also want to stress that this is a starting point. An introduction to this town, these characters, and you're not supposed to have all the information yet. If there's something you want to assume, I say go crazy, assume what you want from what you have. I liked picking up in the middle of all this, and will probably be trying to implement some of things I'm doing here in some other comics I'm planning on writing later on.

I'm also curious how all the references and such came off. I have tried to take pretty active steps to remove the Clerk-esque "Which did you like better, Return of the Jedi or the Empire Strike Back?" type conversations, not because I don't love them [I do - "Familiar" actually has a conversation about Sam Waterston that's not going anywhere], just because I always worry about relying too heavily on them. Here? I threw that right out the window, which means a lot of pop culture stuff in this [a lot that I just really like], that right now I just sort of want to sit on and see how I like it after I have some distance. Blame "Spaced."

Finally, yes, this is my first step towards those romance comics I was talking about earlier. I hope that doesn't seem depressing after reading the script. Work in progress, remember.

I also don't want to make it sound like I expect people to download this and read it. I realize it's in sort of a strange format that most people aren't comfortable with, and I'm used to working on comics mostly on my own. But it's here [as always], if anyone is curious or interested, or, if a illustrator comes along, and wants to give it a read, and maybe collaborate on a comic in the future.

I'll probably do another post later in the week, either with the updated copy, or perhaps more of me rambling about why I made some of the decisions I did. I just finished, so I've got some mixed feelings on project, and I'm not even sure what #2 is going to be yet. It might involve these characters, or I might just write something entirely different that just makes use of some of the things I do here. I guess the rad thing is that the generic "Real Quality" title will let me do whatever I want, all under the same banner.

I guess it looks like I'm looking at this as a sort of an experiment. Which wouldn't entirely be wrong. But I would also actually like to get started working on another book, if only because I enjoy it so much.

This particular story also doesn't have a title. Which... well, I'm up for suggestions. I'll be thinking about it. For now I'm just kind of pleased I made my self-imposed deadline, and am open-minded to how I'm going to proceed.

More later.

Doing it wrong.

Recently gotten sidetracked with something, when I should probably be working on the new draft of "The Familiar."

Not long ago when I... uh, mysteriously found a copy of a certain screenplay program on my new computer's hard drive, I noticed it had a few default formats for comic book scripts. "Format" has always been kind of a crazy thing when it comes to comics -- there's really no golden rule, and I've seen comic book writers do everything from long, prose-y pieces that resemble film treatments, to screenplay-like breakdowns with panels and pages delineated in the margins. When I decided I wanted to write a comic book in high school, I had even less than that to work with, and ended up using the "Dark Horse Submission Guidelines" script in tandem with a few sample pages included in the back of one of Brian Michael Bendis's collections [it's hard realizing that Bendis was just coming to prominence when I was in high school - it seems somehow too current, for how much time has passed]. It wasn't much, but it led me to the CAPS Lock heavy scripts that most of my early work's in.

In the interest of full disclosure, none of this early work/scripting was ever actually used by an artist. The closest any of it came, actually, was when a few pages were pulled for Sam in some of the early conceptual sketches on the SULK characters, most of whom were never really used in a finished book.

A lot happened in college that made me refine my format. Actually working with an artist was probably the biggest thing, as scripts suddenly became something that others had to work from as well, not just me, and making them as legible and understandable as possible became something I actively thought about while writing. I remember reading an interview with James Robinson and Tony Harris ["Starman," folks], where Robinson also talked about not being so... anal about scripting, and attempting to stick to a four-to-five panel a page scripting template, so that Harris himself had the freedom to either open things up or merge them, as he saw fit. It makes sense -- aesthetically, the writer's the #2 guy, and unless you just have an artist who needs a lot of direction, or a very specific idea for a layout idea, leaving panels and layouts to the artist isn't such a terrible thing.

I also got lucky enough to present some of my scripts in class -- and remember spending a lot of time trying to turn my first two scripts for "White Trash Nation" into something that even someone who didn't know the format, or who wasn't adept at visualization while reading, could still follow the story I was trying to tell. After, it just made sense to me that if this version was easier to read for the average person, then I should probably just write them like that all the time.

I got my hands on a lot of better examples too. Brian Wood often posts scripts of his comics online after they've been out for a bit [I still go back to his "DMZ" #1 script], and as the past few years seems to be the "Auteur" period of comics, there were a lot more collections like those Bendis books with scripts in the back. Even single issues started providing excerpts, which actually gave me examples to pick and choose from "no, not this, oh, that's brilliant, and this -- this saves me so much work now." There are certainly a lot of arguments against this "name"-driven period comics are currently in, but I have to be at least a little thankful for it, for all the resources it provided me.

Even found a lot more comics like the ones I wanted to write, too -- which was nice, to look and see what a non-action based comics look like, and be able to make comparisons to other more dialogue-driven narratives worked on a page. A lot of time was spent pouring over Jim Mahfood's second "Grrl Scouts" collection, as well as Terry Moore's "Strangers in Paradise," and it all shaped what I felt like I could and couldn't do in the medium.

And now, I toss all that out the door, because I've found a computer program that does most of the legwork for me. Well, actually I've not thrown anything out the door - but I will say that the screenwriting software made putting a script together so much easier, I'm willing to give it a test drive as far as comics are concerned.

Besides, I've had an idea.

Past couple of days I've been working on the generically named "Real Quality Comics" #1, a short, mostly introductory issue to a small Bennington/Burlington-type Vermont town, and the art school graduates/washouts who have all come to live there post-graduation. When I got started, I was just hoping for something simple, which I could plug into the program and try and get feel for whether or not it would become my preferred way of scripting from here on out.

I haven't decided that yet, but I will say -- having a computer program force me into such a rigid template has made me disregard a lot of other rules I tend to put on my writing. In a lot of ways what I'm ending up with right now is a very back-to-basics style, with me falling back more on the conversational style, and the telling-over-showing gimmick I used in some of those first comics I wrote. And not just in a mild way, I mean really taking that to the extreme, and trying to see if I can make having the least amount of action still seem interesting, by benefit of the reader just caring about the characters, and their interactions.

In some ways, I am worried it's a step back, even if, for right now, it is just one project -- and not even a project really, more back in the vein of "practice." But even as a step back, it's fun to drag some of the old toys out -- the foreboding, not entirely-explained faux pas, the awkward half-conversations, the long, rambling explanations of otherwise unfavorable or uninteresting opinions.

Sounds thrilling, doesn't it?

Anyway, that's what I've been doing the past two or three nights. I'm about half way done [I woke up this morning a little closer than that, but ditched six pages that just weren't clicking like I want them to]. My goal is to finish and post the script here by this weekend, or at least this time next week, and if I can, try and do a couple of 24 page comic scripts every few months. I'm very curious about what kind of quality I can churn out when working on an industry schedule [even if the stuff I'd like to write is not what you'd usually see produced at that rate], and if not having to self-format makes it easier, and allows me to work faster in the medium.

Plus, I figure if I write a little more about working on comics, an interested artist might pop by the blog via Google search, and maybe be interested in a collaboration. That of course is a long shot of long shots, but I figure until I come up with a better way to meet people interested in illustrating comics, this is a good first step.

We'll see.

So, just a brief intermission. I expect to get back to work on "Familiar" in about a week.