Calamity Cash Fan Appreciation Week 3: Cara Chiaramonte

The only thing more flattering than seeing the comic with pictures of Marvel's "Runaways" [arguably the most original idea Marvel's had since the original Thunderbolts] in the background? Seeing it in the hands of Cara.

Cara's an impeccable costume and clothing designer with an ever-growing presence in the Boston theatre scene [and beyond], taking an approach to her work that I'm particularly fond of - an eye towards the past, towards the history of her craft. I've always said to write, your best teachers are people who have already written stories. I think Cara might agree the same is true for design, drawing, and sewing.

Along with all that, Cara's a fellow Bennington alum, and an unfortunate witness to many of my lunch and dinner time rants - all of which she seemed to quite take in stride. Always willing to talk coats [stop judging me, guys] or how ungodly Summertime is, and with some pretty impeccable taste in comics [Brian K Vaughn, anyone?], I got back in touch with her while working on Nova, and have had the great pleasure of keeping her company since.

On a purely personal level, it's my hope I'll get to work with her someday.

You can check out her ever-growing body of work [both costumes and sketches], and get in touch with via her online portfolio at http://carachiaramonte.com.

Order your copy of "Calamity Cash & the Town with No Name" via the button on the sidebar, or here:

 

"Calamity Cash & The Town with No Name" (25 pages, $3.50, plus shipping): The mother/daughter vigilante team of Tana and Cal Cash are on the run from an Afro-rocking, Kung-Fu assassin, and have been forced to make their last stand in a nameless desert town hiding an unbelievable secret - every last citizen is in the Witness Protection program! Out of gas, low on ammo, and with their backs against the wall, Calamity and Mama Cash become the town's unlikely protectors, but with friends so quickly becoming enemies, and old enemies becoming friends, is the whole place doomed to burn? And will our heroines be the ones to light the first match? A modern-day action/adventure western with words by Randall Nichols, and art by Justin Cornell.

The Doldrums

Just polished off a book review. I have taken way too long to do this one, considering the book was finished ages ago, and getting out ahead of these things tends to be how I like to operate. Also, I get paid more. Which is plus.

Let's talk about accomplishments. Back in January, I had kind of a moment. I was watching an episode of "Always Sunny..." where The Gang wanted to buy some cocaine... actually, I think they wanted to by some pills, to sell, so they could afford some cocaine... which they actually sold to the guy they were trying to buy it from in the first place. Anyway, there was this moment where they needed to come up with the money, and Mac, Charlie, and Dennis didn't have any to chip in, prompting Sweet Dee to chime in with "How do three men in their thirties not have eight hundred dollars between them?"

I don't know why that bugged me, because I am neither three men [despite the rumors] nor am in my thirties yet. But at the time, my bank account was not what you'd call... ah, flush, and a couple of other things came up that made me realize building up a little money to have in the bank was not the worst idea for a New Year's resolution. So, the boy who never made New Year's resolutions made a couple, and that was one of them. I didn't announce any of them, not "officially" and if I have mentioned them, I'm sure I haven't mentioned them in this context and I won't.

Anyway, my point. And about a month and a half ago, thanks to a little luck, I achieved that resolution and then some, which is really no small feat if you're like me and you lack full time employment or the hustle which allows good freelancers to make full time employment money. I set a goal, and I accomplished it, and I feel better for it. A little padding. A little protection. Not a lot. But definitely enough.

And I feel okay.

Now, why am I mentioning this now? Hell, why am I mentioning finishing a book review, when that too usually does not make the blog in any significant way.

Honest fact, I kind of need to look on the bright side a little, as far as achieving goes. Which is weird for me. I generally find "achievers" kind of sickening. Oh, look, Facebook status message about what I got done today. Oh, hey, Twitter post of my word count. Oh, here, blog post on how you can be as successful as me. Gag. Fist pumping for accomplishment I get, encourage, and do not begrudge [and trust me, if you are suddenly worried I'm calling you out, I am not, and you are in this camp that I get, encourage, and do not begrudge], but celebrating achieving instead of the achievement, just for the sake of showing how well you achieve is what keeps talented folk up at night worrying that because they don't work like you, they are not really talented folk. But today, exception. I've done a few things. Need to focus on that.

Why? Good question. I'm suffering here, and I've been avoiding using the term "writer's block" so much that I think it's safe to say that is what has afflicted me. I don't feel particular well, talented, or creative. I spend hours staring at the blinking cursor, getting to a paragraph and a half and deleting... well, utter, unsalvageable garbage. I can't get traction, and I haven't really even had much luck when it comes to transcribing notes, or even doing edits on old work. The people I tend to have creative conversations with are not around, and I have not been seeing much movement on the projects I do have going. There are good reasons for all of this.

But I am... discouraged.

My plan to "fix" this is pretty simple. Rachael has sent me a script of hers to check out, which I'm sure will be excellent, and I have a stack of unread books, and a lot of comics to get through. It has always been my philosophy that the work of others is the best inspiration. I've also got a stack of notebooks and moleskins full, or at least half full, that I'm going to pick through, while hoping something can get me excited and working again. I wouldn't mind getting "The Tagalong" into a few more hands, either.

Because let's face it, I have not accomplished much - this blog has a lot of dead or unfinished projects cataloged in it, but that fact is so much easier for me to stomach if I'm producing. And right now, I'm not. I want to write. I'm trying. It's not coming. That's right, the kid who could barely function when his dad died, but could still start penning "Nova" can't write when he wants to. No. I don't care for that.

I've looked back at the last couple blog entries, and seen myself falling into that cliche habit of apologizing for not posting more. It occurs to me now when I do that, I am forgetting what this space is for - as it was not just meant to be a chronicle for my process, but it was meant to stand as a public forum where I could hold myself accountable to the projects I decided to undertake. Blogging less has nothing to do with blogging - it means I'm working less, and therefore I have less to blog about. As defeatist as the whole end of this post may sound, I am kicking myself the most for not remembering that. I blog when I'm writing. Blogging keeps me writing. This is not a chicken or the egg kind of thing that I'm talking about.

If it were possible to just flick myself in the brain for that one, I would.

Updates. Also, who wants to talk about Roller Derby?

First up, and IMPORTANT. I'm tooling on a big project [re: Mary Hobb] which I want to feature Roller Derby in pretty prominently. I know some about the sport, but not a lot, and have been looking not only for a crash course [no pun intended], but also some people who are involved in it to talk to, to get some basic ideas of what the culture is like, specifically, the mindset of those who play, their camaraderie with their teammates and other teams, all of that. Inner workings, small things most people wouldn't think about, or realize. Pathos and atmosphere, too.

I've gotten in touch with one person so far, and am pretty optimistic about talking to them, but that's one person, and I know the wider my sampling, the better handle I'll have on all things derby. So, if you are on a roller derby team, and would be willing to talk to me, just let me know in the comments section of this post, friend me on Facebook, or e-mail me at mojo.wire.productions@gmail.com. Same goes for anyone who thinks they might know someone who'd be up for talking about it, naturally, along with any recommendations of books, websites, movies and anything else I won't necessarily get through Google searches on the subject. For the things I'm dealing with in this script, I really feel like derby is the best fit for the story, and because of that I want to be fair and respectful to the sport, and I know actually talking to some players is a way better way of representing it than just presenting it as the romanticized amalgam of punk rock, wrestling, and hockey that I've always pictured it as.

And don't worry, I've no plans to hit you with a boring questionnaire or anything like that. I just really want to talk, and take some impressions, maybe get a little insider info, and most importantly, do justice to this very interesting subculture.

Thanks to everyone in advance. I really appreciate it, and am looking forward to digging in.

---

Kind of a crazy Monday, only now really winding down. Which is probably good, because it's Tuesday.

Received some feedback recently on the peep show script. Sent it to a lot of people, but adequate time has passed now that I think I've gotten all the notes I'm going to get. Know what I need to do to finish it, just not entirely sure how yet. I need one of those Mr. Fantastic/Wrinkle in Time miracles that's going to allow me to get more in about one character, while also eliminating about half a page [roughly 30 seconds to a minute] from the script. Screenplay tesseracting. Why not? If you haven't seen it, and would like to, or if you're just interested in what I've been working on, let me know in the comments, and I'll send you a copy. Be glad for the extra eyes, or just the chance to share the story with you.

The peep show script is incredibly filmable, I feel. Could probably be done on a pretty modest budget [if not downright guerrilla-style], with just a little bit of construction and a good makeup artist. Honestly, the only problematic thing about it is the issue of extras... maybe finding a good actress willing to take her clothes off in an indie film. Depending on who you talk to, that can either be very hard, or very easy. Still, seems like a doable project, assuming all the talent/interest is there. Maybe something to poke around about.

A friend hooked me up with a pretty good resource for festivals. Much better than the outdated internet phonebook I'd stumbled upon. Now, it's just a matter of making good use of it. I have one finished feature [re: "Unfilmable"], which I think if I submit anywhere I'll probably be renaming "First Cut," and soon, two shorts that I feel pretty strongly about [re: "Nova" and the peep show script], so that's a good place to start from. Some of these places even take comic book scripts, which strikes me as backwards, but is encouraging. And I have more than a few other shorts that would just need some polish [re: "Christmas on the Titanic," "Walks with Angels," etc], and then I feel those could be responsibly tossed off as well. Need to start looking into registering these. For what I do right now, I'm pretty much covered legally, but if I'm serious about having folks look at these, I need something a little more solid to protect my work with.

I have a couple new comic ideas, not weird because I usually get a lot of ideas, but notable because they're mostly finished with how they came out in my notes. Outline, dialogue... rough layouts would be good, but since one is mostly talking heads, an artist might be hard to come up with. Neither have names yet.

One's a new Calamity Cash comic, though. Shorter than the other, simpler. It's not a new idea, but it's more a rough finished version of an older comic I had in mind. I've been way too on edge to sit down a do a lot of typing lately, but once this month is over, I'll have a better idea if I'm on solid ground for the foreseeable future. I'm not saying this stuff won't get worked on if I'm not, I just want a better idea of my schedule before I try to work out what's what.

Bugs me that I have to do that. I'd prefer to just be the kind of person to just sit down and motor through. I know a lot of writers who would, and do. I guess the short answer is that they're just better at this than me... I wish I wasn't at the mercy of other people's schedules, and my moods, but I am. Working on it.

A few quickie links before I head to bed. CheriAnn's deadline came up, and she finally shaved her head for St. Baldricks. You can read about the whole experience on her blog, and really get a look at the good she, and the other participants in the program, have done. The whole thing just makes me very proud to have gotten to know CheriAnn in the short time that I have.

A couple of Kickstarter things as well. With the tragedy in Japan, I know a lot of people have probably locked up any donations they might have made already, but if you can spare some small amount of money to support the arts, I'd like to draw your attention to these two projects.

The first is "Gigantic Sequins," a literary arts journal that was brought to my attention by poet Sophie Klahr. I don't know Sophie personally, but her blog is a favorite of mine, and anything she and her work is involved in is a worthwhile endeavor, and I'm certain those also featured in the "Sequins" are just as quality. The money goes to Issue 2.2, and they have a $500 goal they need to reach in less than a month.

The other is "Forever Young Fashion" by Rachel DeCavage, a fashion show being produced under Evergreen Design Co.'s banner. Rachel and I both went to Bennington College around the same time, but I will admit to not knowing her very well, if at all, honestly. However, I was turned on to Evergreen Design via Dee Goldsmith, and bought an organic or eco-friendly or some such t-shirt from them that I have kind of fallen in love with [if you know me, you know about me and t-shirts], made all the cooler knowing I was supporting [meager though said support was] a fellow alum's artistic pursuits. What can I say, I don't know a lot about sustainable design or fashion, but I can be won over with an awesome t-shirt, and I'm sure the more ambitious designs are going to be even more impressive than that. The project's looking to get donations in the area of $1,950 in little over a month, so spread the word if you can't at least spare some cash.

In both cases, don't just take my word for it, go check out the pages and the proposals.

I'll should be back with updates sooner rather than later. If I do fall behind, the blame can lay squarely on the shoulders of the Agatha Christie novel I stumbled upon in one of my grandmother's many boxes of used paperbacks the other day.

For, and inspired by, Amy Klein.

It's no secret I'm a big fan of Amy Klein. Especially if you follow me on Twitter, I link her there almost anytime she writes something, and the various music projects she's involved in -- Titus Andronicus, Solanin, hilly eye -- have pretty much taken up permanent residence on my iPod. On her blog, she recently did a longer-ish post about staring down 26, turning that age when there's officially more of your twenties behind you than in front of you. To get anything at all out of my post, you should go read hers first:

"A Woman of A Certain Age."

I'm turning 26 in June myself, and a lot of what she wrote about has been on my mind, even, in some ways, the things she accredits to be more of a worry for women than men. I don't exactly feel like I'm getting more handsome or distinguished as I age, and I feel like a lot of men in their 30s aren't looked to for what's cool, or smart, or cutting edge. Like somehow not be prodigal will keep me from ever being significant. Ever doing... whatever the hell it is I want to do.

Still, she's right. It's all disheartening, and when you see something happen to someone whose work you value, who does something that makes it so you don't ever want to see them discouraged, there's that impulse to reach out. In a short discourse on Twitter, I tried... but the medium failed, and me trying to express myself in haste [that need to stay relevant] jammed me up too. 140 quickly typed-up characters just doesn't do the job. I don't know if Amy reads this, but if she does, this is just my quick do-over, something I was trying to say, something that I discovered recently that after reading your thing, I wanted to share.


Norris and I are standing around the Panhandle and Norris is telling be how it is all set up for a friend to take me to Big Sur. I say what I really want to do is spend a few days with Norris and his wide and the rest of the people in their house. Norris says it would be a lot easier if I'd take some acid. I say I'm unstable. Norris says all right, anyway, grass, and he squeezes my hand.

One day Norris asks how old I am. I tell him I thirty-two. It takes a few minutes, but Norris rises to it. "Don't worry," he says at last. "There's old hippies too."

--Joan Didion, "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" (1968)

I don't know if that will do the same for her as it does for me. Explaining it to others isn't something I've been particularly adept at, either so... here's hoping.

More importantly than all that, and still concerning Amy, is the release of her solo album "I Know What You Want." I've only had the album for a day, but I'm really taken with the sound, and like how it feels as much about storytelling as it is about the stories she's telling with the songs themselves. There's so much going on in each song, but it never sounds over-produced either... it's just all quality, with the opening track, "Fireflies" currently my favorite. Speaking in pure economics, the albums just six tracks, but as each of the songs come in at least four minutes [some of them more], five dollars is more than worth the download, and I wholeheartedly recommend you check it out. It's well worth it.

---

As to where I've been [going more than a week without blogging is a little strange for me], I really don't have much in the way of excuses. Seth sent me a nice note on Facebook about my previous entry, and it meant a lot to me that it meant so much to him. It was a little exhausting to get out, and I felt kind of... sideways about doing it here, but I just knew I could write what I was feeling more comfortably here than I could any other way. It reminds me a lot of the lyrics from "Wingo Lamo," Zapata's claim that she "can't make any sense/Unless it's in a song." Sometimes I feel like this blog is the closest I get to my song.

Then again, there are probably a lot of people who would debate that I make any sense here, either.

I guess I've been a little down lately. Half-way through last week, I kind of got sick of everything, of "social media," because as great as it is when it brings me things like Amy's stuff, the writing and music I talked about in the beginning of this post, it never really stops. For every awesome thing by Eric, or Lauren, or John, or Hannah, or Dave, or Kimberly Kaye [or so many others], there's also a never ending stream of bad news, stupid news, or just banal intolerance. And what's hilarious is, it's not like there isn't an off switch -- there is, it's right there on my keyboard. But walking away isn't the problem, it's just the weight of it, and the possibilities inherent in the medium. I constantly look at this blog, Twitter, even Facebook, and think I must be doing something wrong, I am somehow failing to take advantage of this in the proper way. It's like the first time I saw Youtube -- the potential was apparent immediately, and the fact that I didn't immediately order a video camera haunts me to this day. And even if I had, I'm not entirely sure what it is that I'd do with it.

Ultimately that... impotence just got to me. I had to get away from it from a little while. Had to get away from all the amazing things people were doing. I'm not... proud of that. I just haven't figured out how to cut a place for myself yet, and eats at you when you realize so many others have. Especially if you're worried there won't be any places once you figure it out.

Oh, yeah. And there's this. Which I'm just... god. If it were anything else, if it were something smarter, or more significant. I mean, I know there's nothing in the way of original ideas left out there. But it just seems almost too close, and too stupid for what it is because of that. Discouraging. Like every time I show "Nova" now, it's going to have the taint of that... abomination all over it.

So there's that. The Oscars also happened. I sort of came back online to a lot of people really excited/dreading that, and then the waves of disappointment crested pretty high after the night was over. I can't really complain -- "The Kings Speech" is everything that an Oscar winner should be, and that's sort of the point. People bemoaning that the Academy is out of touch aren't wrong, but we shouldn't be expecting a group of industry people to somehow represent our generation. That's... wildly unrealistic. So those upset by "The Social Network" not taking home the big prize, it's important to remember that if it truly is the film that captures some aspect of us, the twenty-somethings, then nothing better encapsulates that fact than the Academy not getting it, not giving it that recognition. It's not why they're there. The same is true for the other films, like "The Kids Are All Right" and "Toy Story 3." Both are fine films, but in the former's case, I think we all have to admit it's more about the boundaries it broke as opposed to quality of the movie itself, and in the latter's case as moving as it was, it really didn't do or say much more or different from the previous two movies in the series -- that is, they're all about faith.

If you wanted "Inception" to win... I don't know. Here's a consolation prize people seem to enjoy.

I personally think the best film of last year was "Winter's Bone." That it only got a nomination because of the ten nominee field tells me we have a much bigger problem than the Academy just being out of touch with the Facebook generation -- I feel Hollywood may have forgotten everything a good movie's supposed to be. As for the rest... well, I could talk all day about each one. I had the rare pleasure of being able to see everything pertinent before the big night. But I don't feel up to it, and that's one of those things that could just go on and on if I got started.

So, all that happened, and there was a dentist appointment in there too. All and all, it's just a lot of hemming and hawing that I haven't really been writing lately.

I've talked about this recently, but I haven't felt overly inspired these days, nor have I had that one big project to put the bulk of my efforts towards. I've been toying with some older stuff and not getting anywhere, but when I got up this morning, I just felt like I had this germ of an idea starting to form. I am not sure... I guess you could say I'm being cautiously optimistic here, but the three or four hours I spent after that, scribbling into the moleskin notebook my friend Beck gave me, led me to believe things might be looking up. I'll write more more comes, I'm sure. Look out for that new label at the end of posts, as always.

Related to that, if you're reading this and you know anybody who is big into roller derby - whose actually played, or been involved in some way, I'd be interested in talking to them, if you think they'd be willing. I sort of need a crash course in it [no pun intended], and as sure as I am that I could pick up the basics and such from Wikipedia, or even some book snagged off Amazon, I'd prefer to get a first hand account of things like the atmosphere, the psychology, the camaraderie or derby life, not to mention a quick and dirty way to pick up the rules. But mostly, the pathos.

Probably be an entry later in the week just about that, to try and use the title to grab some helpful people through Google. I've also got some postcards scanned in, that I'd like to get posted. I'm a little behind on them.

With Great Reverence and Love to the Martin Family

It says a little too much about me that I'm more comfortable doing this here, but... ah, well.

I'd like to start by sending my best wishes to my friend Seth, and his wife, Nichole, who just yesterday welcomed into the world a beautiful baby daughter, Chloe Martin. I hardly even know where to begin, and my only message to Seth, up until now, has been a "Congratulations" on his Facebook page at the posting of the picture of their wonderful new addition. It's... just how these things are done nowadays, especially with Seth several hours from here, and me with next to no idea how I'd word that phone conversation.

I have had the privilege of knowing Seth for several years now. Not what I think most people would consider well, certainly not as well as I'd like, a fact that remains true for... a lot of people I have the pleasure of knowing, actually. I'd honestly like to fix that, and heaven knows I've tried, but let's face it, anyone reading here is well aware that I'm that rare-mix of socially-retarded and self-obsessed, which generally leaves my friends getting this reserved admiration from me, that I'm sure reads less like admiration, and far too often as self-satisfied interest. It isn't, but genetics are against me - my nose just naturally turns up. Add to that the distance, and my not driving, and it's a wonder that I have gotten to know Seth at all, but I have, a little, and as strange as this is to say, every single time has been nothing short of an 'event,' at least in my mind.

Some of them are fairly obvious. You don't often get to see a man spin-kick a guy while starring in his own motion picture, or perform a shooting star press on one of the fatter wrestlers on the indie circuit, and unless you travel in far different circles than I do, you very rarely get to see the same guy dolled up for a friend's wedding, or in the sweltering back seat of a station wagon on its way home from Chicago. Probably don't get the opportunity to say your first prolonged exposure to such an interesting dude involved way too many gay jokes, and a softcore porn version of Spider-Man chased with a Melvin Van Peebles biopic. So I guess you can see why so many of my run-ins with Seth have seemed like such big deals, so epic, if you will, though none of those mentioned are necessarily my favorites. My favorite, really, is much more selfish than all that.

Seth has the unique distinction of being one of only two people I know to really connect themselves to something I've written. The first person, she... overtook me, somehow, and I wrote for her as much as what I wrote became, at least in my mind, very much a part of her. But Seth worked his way into my head in an entirely different matter, digging out a place for himself in "Nova" [now the project which may never happen] during an early table read that forever connected him to a character I had actually written with no true, discernible person in mind. He found the rhythm of the dialogue, the one thing I always work so hard on, and nailed it so completely I remain amazed when recalling it even to this day [and I probably shouldn't be - as in all things, Seth never fails to excel]. I am not a man used to being understood, I suppose, and this went a step farther, for the first time in my life, Seth, being an genuinely talented, exceptional fucking guy, just "got it," and this, this tied him to a part of me in way [in a totally hetero, non-bondage way] that I'll never forget. Always be grateful for it, always felt... less lonely for it, I guess.

I don't have a lot of friends who have kids. Seth's not the first, of course [unless I'm forgetting somebody], I think the first is probably my friend Lisa, who I know reads this space occasionally, and who I have also done a real shit job of keeping up with, and who has started a wonderful family in her own right [I doubt there's a more sly and loving mother out there]. But again, with the company I keep, it's not something you ever expect, even at this age, and while I have been aware that Nichole was pregnant since Christmas, it hadn't yet crossed my mind that the baby would soon be with us, late to the party though I was already. And it's truly a special occasion, a real achievement in a world where achievement isn't so easy to gage.

There's no doubt in my mind that Seth and Nichole will be amazing parents. I hope I'm not insulting anyone by saying this, but I can't imagine a better father than Seth, and though I do not know Nichole well, every time I have met her she has seemed warm, and kind, and affable, a true beauty both inside and out. If she is like Seth [and I imagine she would have to be to keep up with him] she too must excel in so many of her pursuits. I'm sure this will be no different. I think, all of us, looking back, even if you loved your parents and thought they were the greatest in the world, might give pause if offered the possibility of being raised by Seth and Nichole Martin. And their daughter Chloe is truly blessed with just such an opportunity.

They are, of course, blessed to have Chloe too - which, I think, now, has to go down in history as the most obvious and unnecessary sentiment I've ever felt need to voice. But it's my way. It is also my way to wish them well, to send them good feelings and all the love that can be spared. I am just so truly happy for them both... I can only imagine how their own hearts must be bursting, I can only imagine what they must feel.

Welcome to the world, Chloe Martin. We're glad to have you, and the place is a damn sight better now that you're here.

---

Not much has been done on my side of things. I have been feeling very much under the weather the past few days, a weird combination of not quite sick and not quite depressed [all right, quite a bit of both, but I'm not fishing for pity here] that has left me ill-equipped to much in the way of usefulness. I am still without one, over-arching project, and so I've spent what little coherency I've had looking at some old things, and will probably continue to do just that until something new crops up, or a breakthrough is made. The passion still isn't there, and it may just be the coming of spring, or it may just be the accumulation of winter goings-on, but for the most part I feel largely unmotivated, and until that changes, I'm not entirely sure what to do next.

Even the exercises I try to get in, the little bit of writing each day, have been clumsy and weird, and I abandoned one yesterday in disgust when I could no longer look at the jagged red lines each time I misspelled "delivery." It's very odd for me to walk away from the page angry - sure, unproductive spells might make me anxious, or depressed, but to be actually annoyed was odd and not something I want to make a regular habit of. I've never minded when it wasn't easy; I can even handle it not being fun sometimes. But I'm not sure what to do with that.

I've filled most of my non-productive hours with television, specifically "Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood," which I got sick of waiting on and crammed all 64 episodes into a week-long marathon. I'm always interested in seeing different interpretations and adaptations, and this filled that need pretty spectacularly, and I found myself especially charmed by how even with the sleeker animation - the more cartoon-y visuals, if you will - this story was quite a bit darker than the previous series, with a great deal more emotional weight. I've always liked that [it's why Todd Nauck always wowed me], and it was nice to see here. The empathy, the willingness to sympathize with almost every character, even if they were "bad guys" was also sort of... stirring, with one scene with an enemy soldier pinned down on a stairwell doing more than some of the best war movies every have, as far as it concerned "the other side." I think if there is a lesson, something in FMA: Brotherhood to be looked at and emulated, it's probably that, and I might try and explore it further, down the line, though it is admittedly a little outside my usual subject matter.

I wound up a little uncomfortable with the ending, as everything tied up a bit too neat for my tastes, but considering this one had to live up to the experience of watching the original series with friends at Bennington, it more than held its own. Regrettable that it too can't be shared in a similar fashion, but...

Well, anyway.

Want to thank everyone who took the time to read "Conversation Between Future Lovers in the Psych Ward." I will admit to being a little disappointed... I quite liked this one, I mean I didn't at first, but once I did the edits and really got everything hitting just so, I thought there might be something to it, but I didn't get quite the response I was hoping for. I'm starting to think there's really no point to writing up these dialogue pieces anyway. If I can't fit them in scripts, there may just be no future for them. I poked around a little, too, just to see what some places take in the way of submissions, and didn't feel much like they'd be welcome, either, so... At least they're nice to play with. Again, really appreciate all those who said supportive things, "liked" it on Facebook. I may just have to think about their applications a little more.

Comic stuff is still going strong. Justin set up a private website for me to keep up with Calamity Cash work, particularly the thumbnails he's been doing in his spare time, and I expect to have more updates about that project in the near future. I'm actually really into what he did with the website, as now we can both make comments on things, but we don't have to be free at the same time. It's a lot like me and Ander's e-mails, now, which is a nice, and yeah, I expect to have some more news about our project together [re: VHS Generation] soon.

But I'm not really rushing anyone. Again, I've hardly felt like I've had it together, lately, and I've still got some little things to do. Still have to file my taxes, still have books coming in to review.

Feel so exhausted lately. More soon.

Quick note on Vegas Cine Fest

Didn't win. Not even one of the six honorable honorable mentions [though I guess it's possible I made the top ten - hah]. There is a strong thought towards that bottle of Chardonnay in the fridge, and getting knackered for the night, but...

There's no reason. Entered one contest, got one rejection. Wasn't even one of the touchier-feelier contests that takes the time to send updates, encourage its entrants, win or lose. Almost no reason to feel anymore discouraged than I feel about things in my day-to-day when it comes to writings, so I have no intention to. Yes, I spent two straight months trying to jam an already finished screenplay into a slimming 25 pages when it was [at the time], a slightly less svelte 32 pages, but I think it's probably better for it, and easier to make, assuming I find a way to do that. Less likely, as comics are cheaper, I enjoy those more, and... oi, I've never had much luck putting money together for those, either.

The point is, "Nova" is better for the preparation. Haven't even scratched the surface of pursuing this sort of thing, and as a test run goes, this went smoothly, if not slowly, and I now know that entering these things early will save me some cash and open my schedule up for other things. It's not a win, but it's not... well, it is a loss, by every definition, but there's some cliché about the real measure of a man, how he bounces back after defeat, not victory, etc, etc.

Have a nearly finished short in the way of the peep show script, and Nova which is now in the proper shape to pass around to other contests too. Plus a sack full of unfinished or barely fleshed out short ideas, two unfinished features, and an idea for a horror film. And there are a lot of these competitions out there, plus grants -- which I know about already, because I found a whole list of them after I lost the contact information for this previous one. And there are probably a lot of other ways to get noticed I haven't thought of or explored yet.

I want to thank everyone who wished me well or good luck for this one, gave me feedback on "Nova," or took the time to listen to me bitch about my nerves over it. I appreciate that support more than I could ever articulate here. And Savannah, who turned me onto this competition in the first place... I tended to think outside of grants, these were all scams.

Going forward, movies and screenplays aren't the principle thing on my mind anyway. The short for Normal [re: A Change is Gonna Come] really set me back to my original passion, and all this reading about zines, and everyone's bullheaded insistence that paper is dead as a medium... I have at least one comic idea, if not more. So that's next.

Again, those of you with kind words, sympathetic ears, thank you for the support. I appreciate it.

Our Lady of the Pagan Symbol of the Season

Five days without a post is a long time for me, and even though I don't have much to report, I thought I might check in and show off the tree as promised [I think I promised that]. Of course, the pictures are from my phone, which means the quality is pretty much crap, and you don't get to see a lot of the little touches. The tree isn't real, and is fairly old [it belonged to my Mom's mother before my Dad's mom got it], so it can't hold a lot of weight without limbs slipping out of their well-worn holders in the middle support, and the decorations I used are probably more often employed on a smaller sized tree, like one of those desk, or store window models.

The heaviest things are homemade icicles, made over the years by my grandmother, and various other members of the family using pipe cleaners and clear beads. The details I'm particularly fond of are the little wooden apples [I have no idea why, but having apples hanging from the branches of a pine tree make me smile -- I've said it before, but it's just so odd and absurd], and the big snow-flake looking things are actually little picture frames made of plastic and yarn, each one holding a picture of either the children of the family, most of us at some earlier time in our lives, or those who've died, and left us behind.

Unlit.

I grew up in a craft-oriented family, which is probably why places like etsy.com and the like have always interested me. I wasn't blessed with any of that kind of skill, however, and still struggle to cut a straight line with a sharp pair of scissors, a fact that all the gift-wrapping around this season tends to remind me of. But the items the generation before mine [and the generation before that] put such care and nimble-fingered work into have held up remarkably well, so my case of stupid fingers isn't quite so heartbreaking.

Lit.

Second Christmas without Dad... I went ahead and mentioned casually he should probably get a space on the tree now too. Last year seemed too soon, this year seems too soon, honestly, but it has to be done eventually, and among all the stars I'd found someone who had two, so we didn't even need to put a new one together [not even sure if that would be an option at this point].

Anyway. On to other business. Ander and I got an e-mail from Eric, saying very complimentary things about our comic [re: A Change is Gonna Come] and confirming our spot in "Normal." It was very vindicating hearing from someone else that the spark we were feeling while working on the project really was there like we thought. Haven't got much chance to work on the other script Ander gave me the idea for [re: VHS Generation], but that's because the Christmas season has been keeping me far busier than even I expected. And the only writing-related thing I've gotten to work on is this huge crit project for a friend.

Speaking of friends, there's a new "Seth Martin & Friends" short up on YouTube, where the Brain Wrap guys debut the new superhero character SuperUltraMan, which I think you comic-readers will appreciate. So definitely check that out, and support Seth, and Kyle, and the rest of the crew.

I'm trying to get ahead of stuff for this coming week, but I'm not entirely sure how free my schedule will be. And then there's Monday looming where... hopefully... the contest I entered "Nova" in will announce its winners. I picked up a four year old bottle of Australian Chardonnay at the local grocery store [we're talking far from glamorous here, though I've never found anything older than a year or two of any kind of wine on that shelf before], which I will either bust out to celebrate, or barring that, save and have on New Years.

Because it's not jinxing yourself if you're buying it for more than one occasion. Right?

Grumble...grumble...

Well, today has been a bit of a wash.

The screenwriting competition I entered "Nova" in has pushed back it's announcement of the winners for another week because of "overwhelming participation." Considering I wrote down the date wrong the first time, and now they've changed it this second time, I may well just collapse from the anticipation long before I ever find out how I did. So, for the time being, the 13th is the big day for my little script about the newly arrived.

This change was announced with less than 12 hours to go, and though I certainly had other things to do today, yeah, I will admit I set aside this entire day to see how this would go. Which is kind of ridiculous, if you think about it, think about how other writers do this kind of thing, constantly shooting off work and waiting to hear back about it being accepted or not, while... carrying on with their life. That is the responsible, adult way to do it. I, meanwhile, was considering running out to buy a cheap bottle of wine, and just getting quietly wasted and watching Degrassi in celebration. Or, just getting quietly wasted and watching Degrassi in defeat.

It's a process.

After I found out I had another week to wait, I'll admit... I crashed as the sun was coming up and slept most of the day. We'll call it a "mental health day," and be done with it. Thankfully, it was freezing outside, so that meant I wasn't delinquent in any of my usual duties. I'm considering working out a different plan for next Monday.

And the superstitious side of myself... ah, it's bristling with me even talking about this whole thing so much. Best to be done with it.

My new comic script [re: VHS Generation] is coming along more slowly than I'd like, mostly because I'm having trouble starting the thing. One of the drawbacks of having a full outline is that the actual movement of the characters become problematic. I might make it another late night and take another run at it this evening.

Few other things -- I mentioned Justin and the prints he was selling at Buswater in my previous post, and in a new blog post he's taken some time to talk about the project those spilled over from, and show off his Snake Plissken[get your mind out of the gutter!]. It's a really interesting thing he's become involved in, and he writes about it at length.

Also, friend of the Mojo Wire and oft-linked Zoe Chevat is showing off some of her life-drawing work on her blog today. She's working with some limited tools for these, and just as a warning, they are slightly NSFW.

And while I'm linking artwork, if you haven't yet, go check out Ander's site. With the comic pages currently under wraps, you can go and peep his excellent work, and just imagine what the two of us must have done together.

More soon.

New Cash page, Buswater, couple of blogs of note...

Justin sent me a new page yesterday. Heavy action on this one, and you can get another look at it over on his blog, as well as some short thoughts on where we are, what's next, how it's coming along.

Actually got to see him yesterday too, as there as the semi-annual Buswater art show in Charleston, and I wanted to show my support for him and his fiancée, Staci, who always has work in the show, and Carrie, who was showing work in her first Buswater. Plus, it's kind of interesting to see Charleston's skeletal artist community out in their pea coats, along with all the punk/new wave-looking girls who seem to be MIA for the rest of the year. I don't know, maybe the Joan Jett hair is a special occasion kind of thing.

Before going we hit IHOP, I did the whole grain pancake thing, and chased it at the show with a lot of cheap wine. Sort of ruined the evening for me, left me wandering off every now and then to try and decide if vomming like a freshman with 200+ people in the house was something I wanted to do. I wasn't even drunk, so pity only knows what happened there. Wound up waiting until I got home to be sick -- maybe not my best choice, but hey, I made it. Still, put a crimp on mingling with my friends, said Runaways [though there was someone who wasn't there without a faux hawk I would have rather seen], or the dude who bought up Justin's work [pieces not unlike the Charles Bronson picture I linked the other day], and was having a fairly interesting conversation with my Calamity Cash collaborator that I wish I would have been more up to being involved in.

Free time's been going to writing. Couple of ideas have sprung up. Just outlines, right now. Having trouble setting up the first scene to the closest thing that's ready to go.

The screenwriting contest I entered Nova in announces its winners on Monday. There's this part of me that imagines they probably tell the winners in advance, but... maybe not. Guess we'll see.

I don't usually link things on Twitter over the weekends. Just a way to keep myself sane, make sure I don't get overwhelmed. Still, sometimes things drop over the weekend, which I tend to hold over until the next week, but sometimes, things just can't wait.

Go watch "Waiting" over at "My Soul is a Butterfly." It's an audio slideshow by Hannah Miet, about her friend Emily the day before her biopsy to see if she has Hodgkin's lymphoma. It's moving, touching, horrifying... it's raw. That word, that last one, gets thrown around too much. But here, it's fitting. Go, watch.

Not as pressing but just as cool, [and something I've already linked quite a bit], is Amy Klein's blog. If you don't know the name, shame on you, but she's a member of one of my favorite bands, Titus Andronicus, and has a couple of awesome non-Titus-related projects on deck as well [hilly eye and Solanin]. But she's also a freelance writer - a real one, not like what I do - and though I've only scratched the surface, the current entry "A New Feminist Movement for the New Millenium" caught my eye, and felt especially topical now that I'm settling into this post-reading Girls to the Front mindset. If you're in NYC, definitely read this, and if you're not... read it anyway.

I got my snow today. Not quite enough. Stuck to the trees, metal fences, telephone poles. Covered the grass, but not the dead leaves, not the roads. Still, looking at it in the evening, under the single street lamp... can almost make you feel like, if you could just have that moment, that minute, to replay at your leisure forever... wouldn't matter if you never fell in love again.

More soon. Cheers.

Trust.

This has been a day.

Few quick things.

Last night, around the middle of the evening, I got an e-mail from an Illustrator in Spain, interested in doing a short comic for Eric's zine, and worried his English wouldn't be quite strong enough for an American audience. Deadline for Eric's zine is only a few weeks away, but the illustrator [named Ander Sarabia -- website here], said they could work fast if I could get together a two-to-three page script quickly enough. I didn't have anything nearly that short, but have had a few ideas kicking around in the margins of my moleskin [boy, that sounds dirty], and I figured I'd take today, take some of my notes and make something coherent out of them, and if Ander was still interested, give it a go. I couldn't see any reason not to take a leap of faith on it, and since I always have a lot of raw stuff to work from, I figured I could come up with a three page comic script pretty easy.

Of course, my grandmother's nuts also arrived today.

Quick background, because I've only explained this a few hundred times. My grandmother sells bulk nuts, candies, and various trail mixes through a program not unlike some fund-raiser you probably participated in during high school. It takes very little overhead, and enough people around here need the nuts for ingredients, or the candies and mixes for Christmas gifts, so it's a pretty profitable gig, even when you figure that my grandmother sells her for not much more than cost. Nevertheless, it is a very big job on the day they arrive, with lots of stockroom-like duties, from stacking boxes and opening boxes, to organizing orders, and though not always on the same day [today on the same day], to delivering said orders to local patrons.

Allow me to take a moment and be the first person on the internet ever to pat himself on the back; nuts and script delivered, all in the same day. I am officially the strangest specialized business on earth. Randall's Peanuts and Comics -- franchising soon.

Put some work into the peep show script. Somewhere, there is a very good re-write to a least a couple of places of problem dialogue. I really need to get a better filing system than "paper I have on my person at any given time." Until I find my rewrites, there is a moratorium on washing any clothing with pockets.

I consider this incentive.

Ian also sent me some feedback, for which I am very grateful. At this point, I'm just keenly interested in seeing what people get out of reading the script, what they expect, what they don't, what they feel, and just how and who they relate to in it. Of the three people I've talked to, I've gotten some good insight, but no one has been so forthright as to tell me they liked it or they didn't. I might yet need to show it to more people, but honestly, there's still time, and I'm so close to getting a draft of this thing that I'm pleased with, I may just wait. Still, if you're interested, let me know. I'm not going to turn you down.

"New Hooverville" is almost finished. My friend Ally took a look at it, mostly taking care of the grammatical errors which I find I overlook too easily because of the manic, Thompson-esque voice I used to write it. One of my professors at Bennington, who edited for Thompson, said a lot of his work was sort of reassembled by editors after the fact, so I have no qualms about someone with a better handle on the style guide taking a run at it. It was a lot of help, and now "Hooverville" is pretty much done, save for one paragraph that I just can't seem to get right. I'm going to take another run at it tomorrow, but I want it done and sent off by Saturday. Because self-imposed deadlines are always healthy, and in no way, shape, or form early warning signs of OCD.

To the few of my readers who are likely more qualified for this than me. Savannah [of "Huge" fame] posted this link on her Facebook page, to the blog Style Rookie. I was aware of the blog, but not a regular reader, but this call for submissions for a new-age version of Sassy intrigued me. Why? I can't give a solid reason, other than the fact that despite being a female-driven publication, Sassy has come up a lot in things I've been reading lately, and the superstitious side of me decided to take this a sign. They're taking submissions until tomorrow [oops], and perhaps because it feels like a publication I wouldn't quite fit in with, I decided to send them some writing samples. I'm really not expecting anything from it, but I do want to keep an eye on the project.

I'd be lying if I said some of it didn't have to do with my currently reading Girls to the Front by Sara Marcus. I'm going to admit, I'm really using the book, and the Riot Grrrl movement in general to try and give myself a fighting chance of finally, really getting into a good place with feminism. The past few years I've been calling myself a feminist, I've been doing the reading about feminism, but the honest fact is I'm self-teaching, and not really "getting it." The recent reissue of "The Second Sex" thoroughly kicked my ass before I had a chance to even get an inkling of what was going on in it. But I want to be better. I want to learn. More importantly, I have the time to learn, and I think with good note-taking and close reading, I might be able to turn a few hours in my day into a chance to be more than an arm-chair enthusiast as it concerns certain topics, not just limited to feminism. Gender, as a topic, interests me. But so does music. And I've forgotten way too many things from my film history class.

If I can't be a student right now, I'm going to try to be one hell of a non-student.

Speaking of Sara Marcus, I recently started following her on Twitter, something that just didn't occur to me to do despite the giant lower-case "t" on the Girls to the Front website page. I was pleasantly surprised when Marcus opted to follow me back. I realize, of course, it's just Twitter, and "it doesn't really matter," but that book is a big part of my life these past several weeks, and the music it's about has been one of the things that's kept me going in... I'm hesitant to give a proper name to this shit-storm of a period in my life until it's over, but the point stands when I got that e-mail about being followed by her on Twitter I geeked out pretty hard.

You should do her a solid for giving yours truly a chance, and go buy her book. It's pretty awesome, and I'm going through it with a fine tooth comb, so I'd know.

On the subject of books, after one of the longer hiatuses I've had, I've finally gotten a new book in the mail to review. Kind of worked out perfectly, just as I'm getting so close to polishing off all this writing, I get a little paying work again. Small favors.

End of November is shaping up to be interesting. Final deadline for Eric's zine is then, plus I'll hear back about that contest I entered "Nova" in. And who knows what else? I guess Thanksgiving's in there somewhere.

I haven't even had time to shower. I feel gross.

Six hours.

So here's a fun sentence: There's a downside to being a depressive.

Dare I say, there might even be more than one.

I'm struggling a lot with the peep show script. My big problem, the one I talked about before, was that I'd ended up with two drafts of the script -- fixing this is universally easy in most cases, and Hollywood does it all the time. You pass the damn thing out to a willing few and find out what they liked better, what they thought worked, and then you decide if what they're saying is what you've known all along and just needed to hear from someone else, you move forward. If you patently disagree, and it strengthens your resolve to the other draft, well -- the process still served it's purpose. And without that test audience?

You guess.

I didn't really want to guess. Even though I haven't been working on this piece very long, I've hit that "zone" on a couple of occasions, that place where you shut out the real world, where what goes on in the real world just doesn't matter, because dammit, you're not living there right now. And while that is zero indication of any sort of quality, it's always a fair nod to me that I actually care about what I'm working on. So it's officially become more important than my best judgment.

Still, I've been really reticent to pass this around, as it's pretty dark, heavy-shit and since I'm already considered something of a downbeat, it would be easy for people to dismiss it out of hand. There's not a lot of my usual padding that lets me get away with the dark, heavy-shit in the script -- the gallows humor, the sarcasm, the deadpanning, very little of any of that. It's left me self-conscious, a kind of self-conscious I've touched on before, has a lot to do with my peers. I'm not the light-hearted writer, I can't get away with breaking from my routine to do a relatively humorless piece about torture, and I'm not the ingenious sexpot who shifts her allure into darker territory. And that's not a knock to anyone, and I'm sure they have their own stumbling blocks.

But me, I'm the downbeat depressive [as much as I can bear to categorize myself], and getting dark, heavy-shit from me could easily wander into "dude in guyliner and a black trench coat reading poetry about death" territory. Or at least I worry it could. Call it blow back from years of getting shit for my sunnier disposition.

Anyway, I sucked it up and showed it to John, hard to do because if there was anyone less tolerant of dark, heavy-shit, it's probably him, but I wasn't ready to spread it around to a bunch of folks yet. And if you have to get just one opinion, John's is, in my experience, usually one of the best ways to go. So with a little feedback I have my one draft now, which is helpful because it means polishing isn't done on two separate scripts, avoiding a minor headache and a huge chance for stupid mistakes to be made, and cool things to be lost.

In contrast, "New Hooverville" has been more like working on Nova, as there's no self-consciousness, maybe because it's already out there, but more likely because I've put so much time into it already. The prospect, even the possibility of getting it a wider audience, getting the piece in more people's hands, is really appealing to me, and a good incentive to look at it. Though making cuts has been harder than I expected. I may be getting too hung up on the rhythm of the piece... one of those cases where you have to decide if what's important to you is really all that important to the story.

Still, it's funny. Only being comfortable when I'm outside my comfort zone.

Something else, tangentially related. Justin has a new blog post up, with an older sketch and some talk about the time he takes with a page, while looking at what one of the bigger names in the industry proper thinks is good time to make. It's a good entry on the creative process, and well worth the look. Plus, it looks like Justin will be relaunching his website soon.

This week has the prospect of being a little odd, busy. Spent yesterday cleaning out the storage room for my grandmother. Not sure if I've mentioned this before, but she sells those bulk nuts and candies that schools sometimes do for fund-raisers -- last year she sort of swore she was done, but I think having me to help get them organized and delivered before made doing it again feel doable to her. It's actually pretty rewarding, but also a fairly big job, so I hope I don't end up in time crunch as the end of the month gets closer. But I'm glad to help... I think most people would be okay working in a stock room from the comfort of their own home.

Seth Martin and Friends - "Gone Campin'"

So this is a pretty big deal.

A few of you may remember me talking at length about my collaborations and friendship with Kyle Christian Quinn, who had a big hand in work done on "Trendsetter" and "Nova." And while both of those projects are currently on hold, Kyle's been hard at work in the interim with "Seth Martin and Friends" for Brainwrap Productions.

Brainwrap has produced several quality pictures, including the oft-screened "Johnny Boy" [also starring Seth Martin] and along with Kyle is staffed by various friends of mine like insanely talented and regularly-linked Glen "Mario's Closet" Brogan, as well Michael Valentine, Ian Nolte, Seth Martin, and severally others I've shared at least one game of mini-golf with.

"Seth Martin and Friends Presents: Gone Campin'" is the first in their new web series/public access show/who knows where else they'll pop up, starring the eponymous Seth Martin along his puppet friends Norman, Chappy the Chapstick, Trace the country singer, and the ghost of Soviet Spaceman Yuri Gagarin. In this 13-minute short piece, the gang takes a much needed vacation into the great outdoors for a relaxing night of s'mores, ghost stories, and campfire songs. But with such an eclectic cast of characters, you can guarantee their night out will not go exactly to plan.

"Gone Campin'" stars Seth Martin, with Michael Valentine as Editor, Puppeteer, Impresario, and Voice Actor, Kyle as Producer, Puppet-Maker, and Puppeteer, Josh Edwards as the Director of Photography, Max Nolte as Sound Editor and Boom Operator, Nicole Lawrence as Guest Puppeteer, Dave Humphreys and Glen Brogan as Production Assistants, and Ian Nolte on Writing, Editing, as well as making a Special Guest Appearance. Glen's also provided the old school, Saturday Morning Cartoon-style opening graphics. Together, they've put together a charming, funny video, and if you like it, I hope you'll tell all your friends, and help spread the word about the great work they're doing.

You can find out more about Brainwrap Productions at their official website, and "Seth Martin and Friends" at the SMAF Facebook Fan page.

On a personal note, I've been invited to a do some scripts for the show, but have just been waiting for them to put a couple together to better get to know the characters and format they're shooting for. I really hope it works out and I get to be involved, if for no other reason than I enjoy working with Kyle so much, and when we were talking about making "Nova" last summer, Seth was actually my pick for the role of Nick. Would love the opportunity to work with the rest.

Enjoy!

"The tenderness and the azure..."

Just some quick updates, and some links.

First off, thanks to anyone who checked out Ian's story, or who have checking out Ian's story penciled in as one of their activities in the near future. Though a little sporadic at posting, "A Wave of the Hand" is an excellent blog by a top-notch writer, and should be a staple in everyone's RSS feeds.

Other things. I was hoping for a couple of free days to work on some fiction or prose, but my next book came in the mail for the j-o-b, and that's now my major point of focus. Coupled with how full this past weekend was [Saw Scott Pilgrim - it was, naturally, awesome and I have a sort of hope to write a little something about it once my week frees up], I just haven't really had time to sit down and do any real writing, even with the insomnia, baring a few hours last night where I had a new idea I might follow up on [re: Found Out About You - inspired by a particular rat-bastard of an ex-friend who has popped up in the peripheral of my life, annoyed me by screwing with friends of mine, but also made me think there might be a story there, or at least a chance at some catharsis], or discard. There's a reason for my hesitancy to move forward, non-personal issues related, which I might discuss here, or in a rare move for me I might actively just write the damn thing and then lock it in a drawer if I think it's too offensive or whatever. It's pretty loose right now, of course -- just some ideas, there's no outline yet, and I don't tend to go forward on full scripts without one.

Not that it hasn't happened before -- just that it is rarely a good idea.

Also been kicking around in my head to pick up something old, and work on it, actually finish it. I have a couple of things like that, honestly. Just a matter of getting excited about them again, or figuring out the solutions to the problems that made me put them down in the first place [re: Trendsetter, The Familiar].

Also putting something together I'd like to keep hush-hush for the time being. Watch this space.

And, for those wondering, I finally dug through my e-mail and found the website for that contest I entered "Nova" in a few months back. The day of reckoning is November 15th. We'll see how it goes. Fingers crossed, I might get my little story about angels made yet.

To keep this from being an entirely useless post, there's some really great writing up at "The Bathroom Monologues" and "Hipstercrite" today, by John and Lauren respectively. John's piece [re: "Killing to Kill a Mockingbird"] is just so incredibly interesting, while Lauren's "The Difference Between You and I" is one of those things that makes me feel incredibly... [fine, I'll say it] blessed by blog culture. Just a really great, moving work, that I can't recommend enough.

Also, Eric M. Esquivel is back blowing our minds over at Modern Mythology Press, with his new western work called "The Lone Survivor" with Ian Synder on art duties. Check out the cover preview, and tell me you're not interested in what comes next.

Finally, I'm not sure if anyone happened to read the "What is it about 20-Somethings" piece By Robin Marantz Henig in the Times, but it's stirred up a bit of interest amongst me and my liked-minded and like-aged peers, particularly over at the 20-Nothings Blog. It's actually made the writer there, Jessie Rosen, put out a call to arms to all of us, which I think if anyone is reading this here, they might want to go, check it out, and participate in it. It is an exceptional idea - though make sure you catch the other few posts on the subject, too.

I gave it a shot, but realized, when asked directly, I have surprisingly little to say. Especially since I feel like I spoke best about the subject with "New Hooverville" a few months back, and I doubt seriously that what Rosen wants from her participants is fiction. Still, there are a few people who read this that might want to throw their hats in the ring before the Friday deadline.

Probably hear more from me soon. My week opens up big time after tomorrow.

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.