Archive for writing

The highs and lows of writing

May 1, 2013 writing One comment

This should not be a shock, but I am not the best writer I know. The truth is I am often not the best writer I know who sits at my desk. And I’m the only person who uses my desk. That’s just the way of it.

Most times I can feel every word, every phrase and idea that didn’t translate right from my brain to the page – and it’s almost all of them. I will sit and struggle and fuss and worry about how bad a writer I am.

Until I’m actually writing. See when I am in the process of laying down words I am the best writer who ever lived. In my head at least. For exactly as long as I’m working. Then it’s back to doubtsville.

And that’s right. That’s the correct way of things, really. When we’re not actively doing the work we can see the seams and we always see them distorted because we’re too close. So we glimpse our flaws in a funhouse mirror that makes it look like macrocephaly run rampant.

Oh, but when we work we must be Gods among people. Otherwise the spice won’t flow correctly and we’ll be left in an adaptation with Patrick Stewart holding a pug.
patrick-stewart-pug
This, by the way, is why writers tend to drink. Wait no, I mean this is why writers tend to chat to each other endlessly. We know we can say to each other “Oh my god I suck” and it won’t be taken too deeply, any more than the overflow moments when we declare ourselves rulers of the Little People and High Lord of the Wheat. We’ve each been there, and worse, it is our job to be both places back and forth, in an endless cycle.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go tend to the Wheat and Little People a while…

Digital isn’t the only answer.

March 22, 2013 NY Life, writing 2 comments

When you have a ton of deadlines that cross each other you learn to adapt. That adaptation can take funny forms.

I use Google Calendar for all my schedules. I have Google calendars I make to schedule every project that I share with any collaborators. I keep my personal schedule updated with everything I do that can at all be scheduled. It’s glorious. It’s very busy, lots of colors, and it keeps me n track. I have a widget to show me my upcoming events on my phone, every time I look at it, and I keep it open in windows at my desk. My calendar is my life, these days.

Except it isn’t enough. You see, outside of just events I also have deadlines that can’t be put into a calendar the same. I can’t put a deadline into a calendar for three months from now and feel the weight of it every day. I can make a To-do but Google’s sucks mostly and, frankly, pretty much all of them suck. They don’t tell me enough, in the way I need.

I need to know what I need to work on every day, when stuff has been half done and needs to be pulled forward or put on the back burner or will intersect with something else. I needed… something. A pad of paper!

Except then everything gets lost. I jot down stuff for Weds, and then Thurs and then Weds again and where’d it go? No. So I thought about a paper planner. And I looked and there were a host. All of them these nice 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 jobs.

Eh, felt too small. I like to write notes to myself too about whatever I’m working on. So I found a nice one that took 8 1/2 x 11 pages and ordered some Two-Page-Per-Day calendar sheets and there we go.

And now I have a big brown leather briefcase looking thing. And it tells me what I’ll be working on tonight when I get home, and what I need to work on after dinner and notes for each. And if I don’t finish one of them, I will write it down for the next day. I will also, tonight, write down what I need to work on tomorrow.

See it isn’t a book that needs to come with me to the day job, or needs to move around much at all. I might take it to some meetings but most of those are on the phone these days anyway. So I just need a big book that becomes a temp, ever-shifting, out-board brain for me.

All of this is a long way of saying:

“Sometimes the best solution is not to throw technology at a problem but to throw it away from a problem.”

Like all the best technology the trick is knowing when to use it and when not to. For my use, in this case, the best solution happens to be paper and a pen and a binder for some types of events and Google Calendar for other types.

‘Twas the Night Before A Freelancer’s Christmas

December 24, 2012 humor, writing No comments

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house,
Almost no creatures stirred, but the freelancers light didn’t go out.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
The Freelancer wanted to go to bed, but didn’t dare.

The children were nestled all snug in their bed,
But the Freelancer still has deadlines, instead.
Words, art, music and more spilled from his mind,
And the night stretched out long, the day far behind.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
The Freelancer didn’t stir, distractions couldn’t matter.
Into the house a man did manage to creep,
And the Freelancer only yelled, “Shhh, they’re trying to sleep!”

It was jolly old Saint Nick who stood in the room,
He set down his bag and came into the room.
“It’s Christmas Eve, don’t you know?” he asked the hard worker,
“That doesn’t matter,” the Freelancer said, “‘sides, there’s a ham in the slow cooker.”

“You can’t work tonight,” Santa insisted, “somehow it’s just wrong.”
“But they need,” the Freelancer insisted, “their websites, books, comics and song.”
“There’s no rest for the weary, no reason to stop,”
“You can come and leave presents and then out you pop.”

“I work only one day a year,” said Saint Nick with a hop,
“You work all the rest, surely tonight of all nights you can just stop.”
“There are updates to do,” the Freelancer insisted,
“Crafts to make, things that should be knitted.”

“Well then more gifts for you,” Said the jolly old man,
“To reassure you that your work won’t go unnoticed from here to Japan.”
“That’s sweet of you to offer,” the hard worker replied,
“But so long as my payments are timely, my brain can be fried.”

“This is my life, and this is who I am,”
“Now off with you, deliver presents and leave me my ham.”
With that The Freelancer stood and stretched producing many creaks,
Then sat back down and planned out the next bunch of weeks.

Santa left the gifts under the tree each wrapped with a bow,
Before he let himself back out into the snow.
“Now Donner! Now Dancer! Now Prancer and Vixen!”
“Quiet,” yelled The Freelancer, “if I lose my place again, I’ll steal Blitzen!”

So Santa left, quiet as a mouse,
And no other sounds were heard in the house.
Until at least The Freelancer headed to bed,
Already thinking of tomorrow’s deadlines instead.

–from ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore, modified by Adam P. Knave

TURN TO PAIGE NEVER (post 2)

November 15, 2012 brainmeats, fiction snippet, writing No comments

Not sure if I’ll keep posting bits of this as I go but … hey enjoy it while you can. Here’s the first part, if you haven’t read it: Turn to Paige Never (post 1) – and now to pick up where that left off:

Michael blinked a few times, trying to wrap his head around any of the things he was seeing or hearing. His brain ticked over and sputtered, failing miserably. Paige Never, for her part, headed across the room at a meaningful stride. She hung the hangers of clothes on the inside door of the bathroom and started to run the shower.

“Wait, what are—” Michael started to ask.

“Hey, I have dibs. This is my place, and really you’ve just got some demon insides on you. I have a few decades of dust and historical debris up my nose. That crap is in my ears. So don’t bitch to me about needing a shower and shave first, mister. You just wait your turn.” With that she closed the door, leaving it only a crack open to allow some steam to escape.

Michael stood, trying to let information settle into his brain and be processed. This kept turning out to be rather far away from his finest moment. Still, as his mother told him once, put your shoulders back and lift your chin and the world will see you as a winner. The rest is asking questions.

Shoulders back, chin up and then Michael realized that he stood alone in the room. Slumping, he asked Paige Never a question. As a response he got a loudly shouted “What?!” He raised his voice and tried again.

“Why do you keep insisting you’ve been sitting here for forty years?” Michael yelled.

“Because I have,” came the reply. Steam hissed and water droned against porcelain. It sounded, Michael thought, rather like the special effect in old Bond movies when a watch laser would cut into a prison. The mental image cut through the fog in his brain and he smiled to himself.

He’d come on a quest he couldn’t explain, not even to himself, and seemingly found what he searched for. Far too easy, Ken would have said. Then again, apparently Ken wasn’t human so what did he know? Michael scratched his side and realized he’d blanked out what Paige shouted.

“Come again?” He yelled.
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TURN TO PAIGE NEVER

November 12, 2012 brainmeats, fiction snippet, writing No comments

(Not sure if this is the start of something new or just a bit of fippery or what, but here it is.)

A gust of wind blew, creeping down the back of Michael’s shirt. He shivered, before glancing at Ken. “I’m just saying we should find her.”

“We should find her,” Ken repeated.

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?” Michael said. He glanced down at Ken as they walked. Ken’s five foot four frame allowed Michaels comparatively towering six foot one to feel simply gigantic. There were times, when they squabbled, that Michael felt as if he could simply lean over and smush Ken into nothing. If only he knew. But he didn’t. not then at least.

“You want us to go and find some woman that probably doesn’t even exist,” Ken said, his hands clenching and unclenching as he talked. “And your great plan to achieve this is?”

Michael smiled. He turned his head skyward and let the brief stabbing rays of sunlight find his face. “Trust.”

“Trust in what?” Ken asked. The toe of his sneaker caught a small rock which skittered down the pavement and collided with a tiny lizard. The lizard tumbled and fell down a sewer grate. Splashing into the water the tiny green lizard floundered before finding concrete shores to haul its tiny body onto.

“You’ve seen the cards?” Michael asked. He fished a small stack of cards out of his coat pocket. Each one had the same back: matte black with CHOOSE in bold white letters.

“Yeah,” Ken said, “I’ve seen the cards. The cards are what got us here, asshole. Have I seen the cards… what are you, stupid? Or maybe you think I’m stupid? Is that it? You think I’m stupid?” Ken let his anger froth. Just below the surface he wasn’t angry at all. Growing up, however, Ken had decided that showing anger and bluster would make up for his lack of stature. he was wrong, but no one and nothing could convince him of it.

The lizard, now blocks behind Michael and Ken, crawled along a concrete sewer ledge. It dodged a hissing rat, wet with anger, and climbed the wall slowly. Halfway up the lizard hit a spot of mold and slipped. It fell down, back into the water, and was swept away once more.

“I don’t think you’re stupid, but look at this,” Michael said, holding out one of the CHOOSE cards. The back, white with small black lettering read:

Find out which type of artificial sweetener goes with black holes.
turn to Paige Never

“I’ve seen them,” Ken said, dismissing the card. He pushed Michael’s hand away, not wanting to look, yet again, at the back of the cards. They made, though he couldn’t vocalize the issue, the back of his brain itch. “They don’t make any sense.”
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Script process changes.

October 9, 2012 comics, writing No comments

This last week I was writing in three different comic series at once. Which… well it can hurt the brain. The interesting part is that they also were being written with three totally different techniques.

Then I thought: I should write about them! So I am.

Script One was done in a Marvel Style. I’ve never worked that way before, so that was a trip. The artist and I talked over the plot and got it to a place we both liked the story a bunch. Then he went off to draw everything. When he was done with the pages he sent them to me and I scripted over them.

It was a bit strange to just script over art. I knew the story beats but had very little input into how they were broken down and paced out. Once the art was in, I had to adapt my preconceived notions of how the entire story would unfold and adjust to tell the best version of the story with what was in front of me.

Certainly not a weak way to make comics, just very different from what my head is used to.

Script Two I did by going through and laying out the action and scenes first, then doubling back to adjust them and then going in and working out the dialogue. Also not my normal way of working. But this one is in the early project stages as far as my writing on it is concerned and so I had a much clearer picture of the scenes than of how characters spoke.

Doing it this way let me focus on the stuff I could work out first and then use that to inform the characters speech more. It’s a fine way to write script just takes a bit longer, at first.

Script Three was done the way I normally do these things. Layouts and dialogue and all in one pass. It’s a juggle, mind, but one I am used to. The whole scene, every inch of pacing from chars to setting sits as one and allows for a smooth, for me, build.

Mind you the thing I love about this, as brain breaking as it can be to switch back and forth in both stories and actual physical ways to write, is how many different ways there are to make this stuff work. Just endless, and every time I get to try a new way it makes me happy, not only because it can make me a better writer but because I get to explore and find ways that may be better than ones I use now.

I dunno. Just nattering about boring process stuff.

RADIOACTIVE

August 28, 2012 free fiction, writing No comments

A bit of fiction for you, with an explanation at the end:

“I don’t want you to go,” Brett said. He leaned back on his hands, the grass tickling his wrists.

“And I wish Cherenkov radiation wasn’t so pretty,” Fiona replied. “We don’t always get what we want, Brett.” She stood, dusting her hands off on the legs of her jeans. A lone ant, busy climbing her bracelet, flew off into the breeze to settle back amongst the grass.

Brett sat, staying behind, to watch the sunset. The sky turned wild neon blues and dark purples and pinks, something that had some of the town worried. The atmospherics should be holding steady. The filtration proved different. And if the filtration didn’t work right, then they were all cooking in their skins, right then, just being outside.

Except it never happened that way. They grew up, the kids of the town, like any other kids. They knew the secret rocks and broken logs to hide in and behind. They were familiar with the houses hat held unlocked garages and the ones with the best pools to sneak into at night. The area was fine. No mater how often they got warnings of danger from the reactor or the processing factory, nothing happened. The Russians were coming – eventually – but not today, and not tomorrow and everyone knew that didn’t show up yesterday, either.

The danger of their town became its own sort of background radiation, after a childhood spent around it. It hardened the skin and made mutants of them all. Instead of fearing radioactivity they simply understood it and dealt with it the way a fire-eater handles open flame – with respect and an element of boredom that always teeters on the edge of dangerous.
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WIAN BHITE – THE WORST DETECTIVE IN THE WORLD in SHAFTED

August 15, 2012 wian bhite, writing 5 comments

My name is Wian Bhite. I solve mysteries. This story is about a mystery. One that I solved. Because my name is Wian Bhite, and I solve mysteries. What sorts of mysteries, you may wonder. I’ll tell you.

All sorts.

So there I was, trapped, alone in an elevator. no one else in the car with me when it lurched to a halt between floors. The lights went out and blackness swam in. A click, a pop and a small hiss later the emergency lighting came on, casting the metal coffin in a drab sickly blood red. I didn’t panic. I reached for the emergency phone.

“Hello?” I asked, the phone against my ear. “Hello? can anyone hear me? I’m trapped. Trapped in this elevator.”

“Excuse me sir,” a voice replied, “we don’t show a problem with any of the elevators.”

A mystery. If I was trapped, and I was, but no one saw a problem – then someone must be sabotaging the system. The question became who. Also why. Those were the questions. If I could work out who then it would tell me why. But also, I knew, if I only knew why I could probably work out who. That’s how mysteries work. You solve them. Then they’re solved.

I asked myself, pacing in the elevator, who would want me trapped in an elevator. And why? Laughingly I reversed the questions. Neither order gave me an answer. I tried the phone again.

“Hello?” I said into the mouth piece.

“Yes, we see now there is a problem, sir. Very sorry. We’ll have you moving again soon.”

Yes! That was it! The who was the computer that didn’t notice the problem. The why was simple entropy, my old enemy. I had solved it. Smiling, I leaned against the wall of the elevator and waited for the system to restart and for my imprisonment to end.

I was Wian Bhite. I solved mysteries.

Creating PLUS.

July 31, 2012 brainmeats, stuff and things, writing No comments

Being a creative used to be, for a time, about creating. These days, and I say this as a warning to you all, it is about 60% about being creative and doing the work.

The other 40% is… well let me break is down for you:

I spend about 3 to 5 hours a day “writing.” Used to be that was 3 to 5 hours a day actually writing. Now it’s more 3 hours writing and 2 hours working out PR ideas, answering emails, making phone calls, being my own business manager and PR person and ad agency and research dept. and…

No one will ever do this stuff for you without charging you far more than you can afford, and even then they will lack the personal touch that connects with people – so you do it yourself anyway. And you make it fun, as fun as possible. But seriously. You will be doing one hell of a lot that you might not expect to be doing at first.

Let that sink in. Seriously, start living with the idea that you will be doing your own PR, your own tracking, and so on. Realize what that means:

You want an ad campaign? Great! Who is going to design it? Maybe you have the skills, maybe not. If not – hire someone. Better to pay and do it right than do it so badly it looks like crap.

Do you want to send out review copies, or get interviews and be on podcasts? Of course you do. So start looking at places that might be a good fit for your work and searching them and researching them for names and email addresses. Remember it is better to target than to shotgun and pray. Oh, it’s tempting to shotgun but you get better results with one well placed article than five smaller ones at places whose audience isn’t yours.

But you have to make these lists and update them and grow relationships with reviewers and sites. Of course, no matter how good you are in with a site or a reviewer you should never, not once never, expect a review. You are never owed anything just for showing up to the dance. And when the people you started to think of as friends give you a bad review, or just don’t bother to review you that one time – you’re still friends. They’re doing their job, just like you’re doing yours.

You are the first and last stop to get word out about your book. That isn’t an invitation to be a jerk about it, just know that you have to be a professional and learn a ton of new skills. It takes a while. That’s all right. Everyone understands.

Your best bet is to stop and consider what you want to do and them lay out the skills you’ll need to learn and triage them – which will you learn and which will you pay for? For years, to give you an example, I have been doing my own text logos for my site. I design the site and change it all the time so why not that as well. Recently I decided to pay for a professional logo, and worked with a designer to find a logo that will be able to withstand my normal changes and give me a better, more seamless, look for a bunch of things.

It cost a bit of money but it will save me time, enhance what I do and look far better. I should have done it years ago. But I was afraid that spending the money was a waste. It often isn’t, though it can be scary. Spending money, when you’re new to the game and don’t have much, is always scary. There are times it is 100% worth it, however.

So you try and you learn and you keep learning. As you go you’ll find you do less and less creative stuff because you have to get this other crap done, too. Then you’ll react to that and do less of the PR/Marketing and more creative stuff and the balance will swing.

Eventually, if you keep working at it, you’ll find a sweet spot where you have time for both, farm some out and learn to enjoy all of it.

So take stock of what you need to do, what you are doing, and what you want to and can learn. Then take a deep breath and start taking care of business. No one is going to leap in and do it for you.

Why co-write?

July 10, 2012 brainmeats, writing No comments

A few people have asked recently, even though I made a joke that no one asks, this started before that, why I co-write just about everything I do in comics. It’s true. In all of my comics work out so far and upcoming there is one solo-written eight page story out there.

Past that all my comic work is co-written.

Here’s why: I write a lot of prose. When I’m working on prose I have to do it myself. I can’t co-write a novel. It doesn’t work for me. So all of my time in prose is spent working alone, in a room, with music on and not talking to anyone. Not collaborating at all. Just me and a screen and a story to get 80,000 words into.

But when I work in comics…

Oh wow, comics.

Comics are, for me, a source of collaboration. That’s what they’re there for! That’s the biggest joy of doing comics for me – collaborating with other people to tell a story. And yeah, obviously, the artist is a collaborator. Of course! But my first stop is a co-writer because when I switch headspace from prose (incredibly selfish about every story detail because it is Mine!Mine!Mine!) to comics (overwhelmingly open and free and happy with all collaboration) I need to have a spot where I can collaborate with someone in my own language first.

Writers and artists are different and I adore both of them, but in order to rewarm my brain up to collaborating on comics I find it best, for me personally, to have a writer to go “Let’s make pretty ideas bounce around” before I sink back into full collaboration with artists.

It eases me back in, every single time. And since there are days I have to go from prose to comics within a few minutes, it’s nice to know I have these touchstones, these friends I can trust, to remind me “Oh, right, you love doing this, you just forget how if you stare at prose for too long.”

Could I write comics solo? Of course I can! Will I? I’d say it was a safe bet! Will it ever be as much fun? No way. I love collaborating on comics. I want artists to have story say and change layouts and get mad and involved and own things and fucking play like it’s Xmas morning on every page! And inkers and colorists and letters… when you get a team that has fun, and all feel like they contribute – you get magic. And that’s, for me, what comics is.

That’s the magic. That’s my love.

And when you add getting to collaborate with another writer, too? Holy shit that’s just bonus points all the way.

So yeah. I collaborate because when I write novels I will never be able to, and writing is lonely. Comics is never lonely so I wanna throw a huge party. That’s all.

Also – I work with writers who are better and smarter than me and make me work even harder to keep up. Makes me better at my job, it does.

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