TWO FISTED HOMEOPAPE Mar/15 - I’m tired, but I’m also doing the best work of my life.
And I also napped after dinner :D
♫ I applied for a rescue dog,
But if I get you dog,
You're rescuing me ♫
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2021 -- beyond.
Writing Goals for March/April.
I’m writing SHE Vol. 2 - it’s going to be another graphic novel, longer than the first volume.
I started writing it this week, and it’s coming along nicely. I mean, I wrote the opening scene and hours after completing it realised I needed to completely overhaul it to make it better, but that’s par for the course round here, honestly.
It’s scores of pages, so I need to set myself incremental realistic goals, that just helps my brain. So I’ve said 2 pages a night, on the nights I write it, and so I’m gonna be happy with 10 pages a week around some other stuff that needs to be done. I think that’s realistic and manageable, and I’m happy with the timeline outcome.
I mentioned this on twitter and someone mentioned I should set myself the goal to write a whole scene each time. That way I’d get a little more done, and I’d also get that satisfying click when you close a scene.
I considered this advice, though I have to admit in the end I’m just happy to have anything written at all, and I’ll damn well take what I can get, but I wanted to ponder it a little further just to see through it all.
I’d be happy to write a whole scene, but some of my scenes are 5 pages, and I just don’t see me writing that in one night. Not if the pages are gonna be any good. But some scenes are shorter, 2-3 pages, so I could manage that, and I’m sure closing a scene would give me solid closure for the night’s work.
But.
I remember hearing once that you should end a writing session in the middle of a scene, so that way you know exactly where you’ll start off the next day when you get back into it. In fact, end your session knowing the next moment/beat, and it’ll help you get started the next night.
Sometimes half the battle of writing is getting the fingers moving. It’s why I don’t mind writing this newsletter, or why some of the old masters would slip some parchment into the Underwood and start writing directly from a novel from a master of the field, and once they felt loose they’d just slip in some fresh paper and keep writing their own stuff.
Writing is a form of exercise, mostly mental, a lot of focus, and getting the brain to wash out the rest of the day and then sink into the scene of the script can be difficult. Having to sit and find that scene fresh off the bat can be hard, so coming in with something in motion can be very helpful.
In the end, I don’t feel like I have much control of it anyway, I write what I can, with the junkie attention span I’ve been left with after 2020, and I am happy with whatever comes out, and then I go to bed wherever the hell I am in the damn page.
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A Hydra Week.
A week with many heads to slay.
I’ve been scripting. I’ve also been prepping a few things for the Patreon. I had some teaching work to do. And I’m starting to build a mass of work behind the scenes for when my next comic is announced.
EVERFROST is coming [the announcement will come within the week], and I plan to swarm the battlefield of launch with as much firepower as I can muster.
Be ready to hear a whole mess about this comic - but don’t share the cover just yet. I’ll even walk you through the work behind the scenes I’ve done to prep for launch. For now, know that this sci fi miniseries from me and Sami Kivela is something incredibly important and personal to me, and I plan to hustle all month long to get it in front of eyeballs and get our preorder numbers strong.
As such, I’ve felt busy this week, but I’ve also found time to get back to some reading, and I’ve gotten some sleep, and I’ve still exercised, and I’ve recovered from a con.
Around all of this, I also took a few hours out across multiple days to record short feedback videos for each of my students in class where I filmed my screen with Screencastify and showed their latest written story while giving praise/improvement feedback. I made the videos available to students and families, and I’m really hoping they help both understand how their writing is forming and what’s expected in the next round of story writing.
Beyond this, I took on the Saturday writing teaching gig for this whole semester, so it’s every fortnight and I prepped my lesson this week and got it all sorted. It was another fun session and I’m glad to be doing it.
I’m tired, but I’m also doing the best work of my life. I don’t think I can really ask for anything better than that, can I?
Note: I did not ask for it, but my wife and daughter decided to put a blanket on me and let me nap after dinner and maybe that’s the best thing of all.
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STAIN THE SEAS SCARLET.
A while back, I wrote a one-shot and Alex Cormack illustrated it. It’s a planet defining intergalactic fist fight; as if Leone ever made a sci fi flick. I love this comic, and Alex illustrated the hell out of it. Some of these pages are up there with my favourite things I’ve ever created.
I ran a successful Kickstarter, and that fuelled a decent print run. But now that print run is down to its final copy. I don’t think I’ll reprint it any time soon, or maybe at all, because my con table rotates as things are made, and there’s already She and Eternal and Skyscraper, plus the stuff coming out this year, so I’m thinking StSS might disappear like Fatherhood and Harold Holt and Headspace and Negative Space before it.
But I did say there was one copy left.
If someone wants to buy the final copy I’ll ever be selling, you are welcome to it. I’ll even throw in a little space suit sketch at A6 size, and I’ll send you the Study Guide PDF I created for it.
I doubt it’ll last long, so click here to get the very last copy of STAIN THE SEAS SCARLET!
I mean, look at that cover, who could resist…?
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ASD&D.
Played again last Tuesday night with my mates. Always a good reminder how much fun it is and what a mental exhale it is for a night.
This afternoon, I ran the school club again. I’ll talk about the 5 kids I DM’ed for in a moment, but first I want to shout out the 18 kids who didn’t have a DM and so I set them other tasks to do quietly in the library, ranging from playing the ADVENTURE BEGINS D&D board game, to researching spells and making cards for them to reading Fighting Fantasy books [they absolutely loved those], and those dozen and a half kids did such a brilliant job of being respectful and dedicated and awesome. What a rad bunch of nerds!
And the 5 kids I DM’ed for, well, they had a blast, too. Navigating spear pit traps and helping each other out and having a good laugh when they rolled a Natural 1 [of which there were three]. I had such a fun time, and I’ll say it again - it’s one of the best things I ever did in education.
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PERHAPS YOU'D CARE TO SAMPLE
What would a William S. Burroughs LORD OF THE RINGS be like? - watch/listen to this YouTube episode to see 4 creative people slowly build this concept, world, rules, characters, and then events in a collaborative online world builder. A great show for some brain fuel.
HOUSE OF FEAR returns to Kickstarter - this comic truly is Tales from the Crypt meets Goosebumps and you should scope it out.
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GRIST FOR THE MILL
THE HOUSE OF EL - this DC YA graphic novel was good stuff, dealing with star cross’d lovers on Krypton, and what it means to be defined by your genetics, and the balance between truth and safety. It’s also illustrated by Eric Zawadzki, with Dee Cunniffe colours, and as such it’s beautiful to look at.
SERVED COLD - I finished this short story collection from local author Alan Baxter and really enjoyed a few of these pieces. Old fella definitely has his tone set to creepy every single time, and he weaves between specific genres of creepy well. My favourite story was ‘Ways To Live and Die’, which was a great ghost story/haunted house tale with a twist. Give his newsletter a sub, if’n you like.
Be one of the good guys, because there's way too many of the bad.
POST CREDITS SEQUENCE
Okay, here me out:
There’s this app called CAPPUCCINO
It’s kind of like a podcast app, but it’s not really. Here’s how it works…
I’ve set up a Two Fisted Homeopape group. In it I’ll record little thoughts in audio about writing and story and such. If you join the group, at 8am every day, it’ll stitch those audio clips into one string [like a podcast, of sorts - there’s some weird off-brand elevator muzak bridging it all, you’ll love it].
From what I can tell, if you join the group, you can also record your own audio pieces [max of 3 minutes, I’ll constantly aim for 1], and people can listen to it all stitched together, from 8am, each day. You don’t have to record anything, you can just lurk, but if you wanna lay down a thought about something to do with writing or story or what you are reading, a snippet, a suggestion, whatever, go for it.
I figure, why not share some good stuff? We can record pieces about what we’ve been reading/watching/etc and what we dig about it. We can share little writing tips. It could be a cool place to just get the good word on this kind of stuff, if you’re keen. You don’t even need to act the showman, or make it about yourself, just talk about something for 20 seconds. I dunno, but I’m keen to see how it goes.
Go to cappuccino.fm and get the app, then use the Invite Code: 853083 and you should get into the group. I think that invite will expire...quickly, so if you want in, just reply to this email and I’ll set you up with a new code.
If no one joins, no harm, no foul - I’m currently using the app with another group with my two brothers to just share dumb thoughts each day. If it goes pear-shaped [anyone acts the raw prawn], I’ll delete the group, but if a few of us have fun, giddy up.