TWO FISTED HOMEOPAPE August/23 - Three Jobs in Lockdown
Because I’m an idiot. Also, BUY TWO OF MY COMICS THIS WEEK!
♫ I applied for a rescue dog,
But if I get you dog,
You're rescuing me ♫
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2021 -- beyond.
Three jobs, one guy.
Alright, lockdown life is all systems go, doing my best not to turn into a husk chained to my desk.
There are many other overworking gifs where the person is absolutely dying, but this is only into week two, and I don’t want to give the wrong impression. So far, I’m doing alright. But I’m also aware I’m thrust into insane times.
My main job is to teach my class. Alongside my teaching team, who are awesome, I’m creating online learning resources that can be used completely independently by the students. I’ve been left in charge of English, natch, so I’m creating reading, writing, spelling, and speaking tasks. These are usually Google Slides, all mapped out, with typed instructions, an easy design flow, some external links for more info, and a video recording of me explaining it all out.
It’s a fun chance to innovate and make it fun - I mean, it’s kinda *gotta* be fun otherwise 23 kids sitting with all their toys, with Uncle Netflix in the other room, are never gonna even start. So I’m doing my best to see what cool stuff we can do.
Alongside that, I head up the ICT coordination at school . The first major job was getting over 300 Chromebooks to go home, and we would know where every single one went. Mission Accomplished, so then we move onto making sure all staff feel comfortable and competent with turning their job upside-down and cramming it into a screen. So far, mostly good. I’ve been attending 1-2 workshops a day, sharing the links with staff, synthesising the information, strategising what the school/staff needs from me, and creating training videos to hopefully help everyone through it all.
It’s a big task, but it also came with a temporary promotion to the school’s Digital Strategies Executive, which is a nice slice of recognition for the hard work I was just gonna do anyway. It does also add the mental wrinkle, for me at least, that I’m now going to hustle my ass off to prove [to whom, I have no idea] that I deserved the promotion, and that it’ll benefit everyone. Which means I’m going to work my fingers and neck to dust, but also never think it’ll be enough, so that’s fun. Am 100% doing my best to try and be realistic and look after myself, too.
Because having two pretty full jobs now would never seem like enough, I have also decided it’s time to start scripting the first issue of [THE SHARP INK PROJECT]. It doesn’t yet have a home, but it’s ready, and I want to explore the world, and two amazing lead characters, so here I am, a glutton for punishment, still waking at 4am and cracking open my notebook to write this script longhand. It’s going well so far. I’m planning it as a 22 page opening chapter [because it’s expensive to go longer] and I’m pulling myself back from revealing too much all in one sitting. I’m building tone, and info, and action and ending on a good hook. I’ve got 11 pages handwritten so far, and it’s going really well for something I’m just adding a little drop into each day.
So here I sit, not leaving the house, still got another 2 weeks minimum ahead of me, and I’m hustling on 3 gigs. Thankfully I love all of them. No one’s forcing me to make dance videos or clean out engines or something, so I’ll take it all as a win.
To look after myself, I’m trying a few things:
I’m trying to stay healthy. Still exercising 4 days a week. Am taking breaks to get into the yard with the kids to do ninja warrior hangouts on the monkeybars - so glad we just got 2 trucks tyres before lockdown, and a gym trampoline - and trying to challenge myself to improve my pull up form through lockdown [started the other day with a baseline effort of 7 full pull ups, last lockdown got up to 11, I think, pretty sure I didn’t hit twelve, and the other day clocked out 11, so we’ll see how I go] - gonna start with the amount and then maybe transition to the actual form of it because at present I look like a cat hanging off a wire and scrambling to get back up.
I’m also shooting a basketball or netball with the kids in the driveway, and going for short walks around the block with the wife. Am also maintaining healthy food intake so I don’t get Covid symptoms and need to infect myself by going out to a testing facility or need some other drugs, so it’s still a daily smoothie packed with fruit, it’s 1.5 litres of water a day, and it’s not too much junk food - as soon as a pack of salty chips is opened I can feel my pulse quicken, and it’s hard to stop.
I’m trying to cap my hours on the job, but it’s hard. It’s so easy to just bring the school laptop out and do “one more job” while the kids watch an episode of something, but I don’t want to live in that habit. I was chatting with my counsellor the other day and she reminded me that you only get 100% to give, and right now I’m split between class teacher, ICT guy, writer, father, and husband. This doesn’t even take into account brother, son, and mate. And I cannot give 100% of myself to anything, so what do I dole out to what in each day? So I’m trying to make sure I give the right numbers to each job. And be thankful I have 100% to give, and be happy with whatever outcomes it all yields.
I feel pretty good, overall, so far. It’s a sprint of a marathon at times, but I’m taking moments to read, or laugh with the kids, or get some sunshine. Hoping I can keep all things in motion just enough to do an approximation of my best, and be alive on the other side of this lockdown.
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EVERFROST #3 and BLACK BEACON #2 out this Wednesday!
Okay, at this stage it still looks good these two comics are hitting shelves this Wednesday, snap ‘em up straight away to serve your brain and help your LCS!
I’ve said it a bunch, but this issue has us in one of my favourite locations I’ve ever created. Van is with the Bloom, and they share a common enemy with the Ward Regime, but that doesn’t mean things will go smoothly.
Sami Kivela and Lauren Affe have done some special things with these pages; it’s been such a joy to be on this ride with them.
Then there’s the insane intergalactic second issue of BLACK BEACON #2
Niko now lives on this Dyson sphere, but that’s not going to make things easier for her, or more clear. She’s a writer, so she’s full of questions, and there are probably more answers than she knows what to do with. This one steps past the set up and starts to look at what Niko can do now she’s stranded across the universe away from everything she knows.
And I also have to shout out: ACTION TANK #1 is coming out from Scout Comics and you absolutely need to buy it. This truly all ages slice of genius and wonder is about a kid trying to get home from elsewhere in the galaxy, and creator and loveable gent Mike Barry infuses the comic with as much heart as he does nuanced understanding for how comics work on the page!
When you see this cover, pick it up for $1.99 - you will not be disappointed. In fact, you can get my two comics, and Mike’s, for under $10 collectively - what an Aussie bargain!
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50 x 300.
The other day, I wrote my 50th flash fiction piece - something I write for my Patreon twice a month. I have to admit, writing these dorky little story/vignettes has been really creatively invigorating, and so to get to 50 of them felt like an awesome milestone.
I counted it up and it’s over 30,000 words, and I’m wondering if I should stitch them together into an easy to read little ebook or something. I won’t lie, some of these are my very best writing [some are not, but hopefully none are complete horse piss].
I’m gonna think on it, because I’m not certain I have the time to attack it right now, but it’s been so nice to be given the brain space I buy myself with the Patreon money that rolls in, to just write short pieces for fun.
What should I call the collection? And I wonder what I’d want on the cover…?
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ASD&D.
I was reminded of the Star Wars RPG stuff I’d looked at, and the free stuff I’d downloaded, and wondered if I’d have it in me to launch into that with my kid yet. Probably don’t yet have the bandwidth for it mentally, but the other day I was playing basketball on the driveway with him [we were playing DONKEY, because playing HORSE just means at some stage you are calls HORS and that’s just not working for me anymore like it did when I was 10 and on the schoolyard] and he asked me if I could create any Star Wars story, with any character, in any time, what would I create, and I quickly thought one up:
THE TUSKEN PALACE
It’s takes place after the fall of Jabba and his palace is no doubt very empty, because everyone was out on the Sail Barge, so it’d be a skeleton crew, and so with the crimelord gone the local sandpeople, the Tuskens, decide to seize the opportunity to take such a fortified location.
From there we talked about what type of people the Tuskens are - we went with the initial view that we are given, through the movie and the characters, that they are violent people, but I said no group of anything is just “violent,” so it stands to reason there could be peaceful Tuskens, and smart, creative, conniving, lazy Tuskens, too. It was a great chance to discuss bias and racism in media presentation.
We then thought about the fact Jabba had a rancor, and the Sarlacc, so what else would he have? So we thought about the Tuskens having to somehow stay safe from, and overcome, whatever safety device/creature would have been left behind, and that at the same time no doubt others would be coming for this prime location, too, so we thought maybe some criminal Rodians [because Greedo is the best design] might be coming at the behest of some other Hutt that my kid knew about, but I had no idea.
In thinking about it, this could be the Star Wars campaign I’d run. Hrmm. I just need some of those Star Wars RPG dice...OR, I just run it with the D&D 5E rules and dice…?
If this lockdown continues past these initial 3 weeks, I’ll strongly consider this. I’ll also need to work out what to do with my school D&D club.
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PERHAPS YOU'D CARE TO SAMPLE
ADVENTURING WITHOUT A PERMIT on Kickstarter - this D&D-themed comic looks amazing, and has a superb creative team.
THE ETERNAL DIEBACK on Kickstarter - well this fantasy comic looks pretty baller.
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GRIST FOR THE MILL
WHAT IF…? - I watched the first episode with my kids, the one where Agent Carter gets the Super Soldier Serum, and hot damn it was good, good fun. The kids getting to see this strong woman absolutely kick ass, and fight against the inherent sexism of the 40s, was just absolutely stunning. Some really great action beats, and visual moments, I am now all in for this series.
THE GUNSLINGER - have continued reading this one, and still greatly enjoy it. I definitely did not remember Roland killing the lady’s in utero baby with his gun, so that was a bit wild, but now I’m up to ‘The Way Station,’ which is the chapter where Roland meets Jake, and this is one of the most formative pieces of writing of my life. I can’t even put my finger on it, but Roland being so focused on his goal that he’s willing to sacrifice anything is a big core of the character, but it’s the character’s response to being sacrificed that always stuck with me. I’ve used Jake’s final line a dozen times in my writing in some variation, and I’m looking forward to reading it again. Hopefully this week if I can find/make the time to keep chipping away at it.
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Be one of the good guys, because there's way too many of the bad.
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POST CREDITS SEQUENCE
The other morning it was 10 degrees upon the sun rising. I cannot stress how nice it felt to have warmth in the air in the morning, and what that did for my day ahead. Felt like I was living in some kind of Summer Musical.
I need to figure out how to do that in times of cold, too, because this town is in Winter about 9 months of the year.
I know being productive gives me a boost, but that’s also draining if it’s inside doing jobs. Going to stew on this, but I just need to remember how nice it was to be in the sun goofing about with my family.
Excellent update! So weird to hear someone talk about how cold it is (or wanting warmth for that matter) at a time like this. Here in Texas we are in the hottest days of the summer and there is nothing nice about it. Excited for all your success and I can't wait for EVERFROST 3! Keep on being awesome dude! 🙌🍻🔥