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Encouraging Reminder

Don't fall down and fall apart when things implode. It'll take time to sort things out again, and I understand it's hard work, but sometimes it'll take a couple tries to get things right. You're doing ok, with the exception of a couple slips. You can't control everything, but you can control how you react. Take a breath, relax and move forward again. You'll get there.

posted by September @ 8:47 AM 0 Comments

Dirty Brilliance

Have I already talked about my catch 22? I used to love writing, because I used to have an audience. I think the thing I used to enjoy most about writing was discussing the work with peers, and having the stimulation to improve. I don’t have that so much anymore. I understand that a lot of it is the way I present my stuff. A lot of the time I write for the sake of writing, and still other times it’s nonsensical and coded, not meant to be understood. My thing lately is I feel desperately like writing. I have a thousand ideas in my head right now. Anytime I have a spare moment, a calm in the waters of my mind, a new idea starts, and it’s awesome. I think about everything these days. I have the seeds, but here’s the crux; if I plant the seeds in this wild, crazy forest that is my brain, I may never find them again. On the otherhand, if I try to stay and tend each one, I starve. I could eat the seeds, but then I’m left with nothing. You follow? Let me give you a more concrete example.

In the comics I’ve been reading, Captain America has been killed by the Red Skull and his usual crowd of cronies. The big mystery is, what happens to the legacy of Cap and who will be the next Captain America. It occurred to me this morning that Steve Rogers’ body may be dead, but let’s take a minute here and think about the situation. He was killed by Skull, who was working with Dr. Faustus. Nothing new there, they’ve worked together a lot over the years. Set up by Crossbones and Sin, also tag-alongs. Where is this mess is Arnim Zola, I got to thinking. Actually, I’d read Captain America #350 last night, which featured “the return of the Red Skull”, who’d been dead for 50 issues (more or less; he was there, but featured as the shadowy background villain). In the back-up story at the end, they show how the Skull was brought back “to life” in the clone body of Steve Rogers by Zola, who possesses the ability to transfer consciousness after death. I’ll let that sink in for a minute.

So, in that same issue, Skull tells Steve that he loves to torture him, and will continue to do so until he gets bored and finally kills Steve. What if, let’s say, Skull isn’t quite done with Cap, and instead transfers his consciousness into the body of a vagrant, or something. Some loony running around trying to convince everyone that he is Captain America!!

Anyway, that’s an idea that I wonder, do I let it perculate, or should I write the arc? If I throw at it half assed, I know I’ll be disappointed with it, but if I take my time with it, I run the risk of losing this original drive and never finishing it, like so many other projects I have. I guess what I need is the stimulation of a sounding board, someone to discuss my ideas with, who will respond and offer feedback.

I’m afraid too, I think. I’d had the idea last night that maybe my skills are in “thinking like other people”. I came up with this idea by combining the ideas of Steve Englehart and Ed Brubaker. It’s kind of depressing to think that my great skill is only to mimic the skills of other people; that I have no brilliance of my own, that nothing I do is original or note worthy.

So here I am again, writing about writing, but never actually getting around to writing anything. I’ve eaten the seeds of the Captain America Returns story I have, and am now sitting sullenly under the tree picking the kernels out of my teeth.
Maybe there’s still time for me. I’m still young and starting to realize that maybe I’m coming into things yet, that I’m finding my voice, and it’s going to be a longer journey than I realized at the outset. There is no shortage of ideas, and there is still lots of time.

posted by September @ 8:07 AM 0 Comments

Retrospect

Winter's coming. I usually love this time of year, the autumn, when the mornings are unpredictable, the nights are starting to get longer and colder. I'm not feeling it this year. Not yet, anyway. The whole last year and a bit I've been sorta dettached from my body, from myself. I haven't had a deep thought, I haven't been inspired and I haven't tried to stand on my head. I should probably chalk it up to growing and changing again. I've become more no-nonsense, simplified my processes in a lot of ways. Am I happier? I don't know. Sometimes. I'll just keep trusting my instincts for the time being. See where things end up.

posted by September @ 7:37 AM 0 Comments

Mike Wieringo

I was laying in bed last night, reading from my new stack of comics that I picked up on the weekend, and saw a page dedicated to Mike Wieringo, comic book artist and writer. I won't pretend to know alot about the man, beyond what I learned this morning from looking him. I didn't know any personal details about him at all, actually. But I did love his work. When I started collecting comics again, he was working with Mark Waid on Fantastic Four. It was the strangely "cartoonish" style of the book that drew me in at first. When I was picking my titles at the outset, I wanted to have FF as one of those titles because I thought the work was imaginative and warm, something I thought tyhe book should be. The team wasn't really a team of "super heroes", so much a family of highly curious and imaginative people, and Wieringo's style, in my opinion at least, captured that. Anyway, I thought I'd come and raise a glass to a man I never knew, but who somehow worked his way into my imagination. Thanks Mike.

posted by September @ 8:26 AM 0 Comments

R E S P E C T

Ok, so I'm thinking that what I need to start finishing stories is to work out plotlines on paper, something visual to help me keep track of what it is that I can't seem to follow when I get into it. And time, I need time to write. Oh, and I need the opportunity to write. To be able to just let things flow when they're ready. Wouldn't that be perfect?

I snapped at Linda today. She came into my office and, "Terry says...." I get that about 5-6 times a day, and this was the final one, I guess. To me it a total disrespect. I hate authority, that's no surprise to most of us, and when someone comes in and starts a sentence with "Terry says", my mind automatically goes red. I wouldn't be upset if someone ASKED me to do something. I mean, I usually willing to help, especially since it's kind of my job to find the shit that people need to do their jobs. I don't know. As usual I feel like I'm over reacting, but I don't know why people can't simply be polite to each other. We are profeesionals, but everyone acts like it's fucking kindergarden around here. I may, however, have gone a little fair when I said I'd kick the next person in the crotch who comes in here and speaks those words.

posted by September @ 8:10 AM 0 Comments