What, Where, When & How

I know it’s been a few weeks since my last blog, but writing my graphic novel has become a consuming process for me. And as I’ve written before, I’ve collected all the scraps I’ve written over time, and I realized something… I’m not a very good writer. But that’s not going to stop me, or discourage me, I’ll get better, and after all, if I can just get my ideas down I can work out the details later… right? I’m sure I can fix whatever grammatical mistakes, and there’ll be plenty, any story inconsistencies, or parts that just don’t make sense. I’ve already corrected a lot of the mistakes I’ve made along the way. As long as the story is a good one, and makes sense, I’ll be happy.

I’m so consumed by this project that I’ve actually missed three movies that I really wanted to see; Hancock, Hellboy and The Dark Knight. Yeah, I love the sci-fi fantasy shit, I’ve been watching it all my life and don’t see any end to it no matter what my age. At the last movie I went to, The Incredible Hulk, I saw an elderly couple, they must’ve been in their 80’s, and I couldn’t help think how that was going to be me one day. Only I hope to be watching my own creation up there on the big screen. But I think that seeing them, and talking with them, has made me even more determined to finish my life long dream. I don’t want to be 80 and still watching someone else’s dream on the screen.

So I’ve sunk all my movie money, drink money (well; only some of the drink money), and gas money, into buying materials I need to create my masterpiece. I bought books from Amazon on how to write and publish comics, how to write short stories, how to draw comics, how to draw period, how to write period. I also bought a lot of paper, all kinds of paper, thick paper thin paper, and notebooks filled with paper. And I didn’t forget the pencils. I got drafting pencils, writing pencils, drawing pencils, even special pencils with names I can’t pronounce. I have enough materials to open my school store.

Now that I’ve gotten everything together I’ve put all the little pieces I’ve been writing, which coincidently I find I started ten years ago today, the year I got my first computer, together into one Word document. A whopping total of 65 pages, a far cry from the Tolstoy-ish novel I’d envisioned, and a long, long way to get there, but I will. I figure if I make it between 600 and 1,000 pages there’s bound to be enough material to make several books or more. However, if I can just write about 300 pages I’m publishing! By that time I’ll probably already be too old to enjoy my new celebrity. At least I won’t die never having finished. Then I’d become a ghost that sits in my office in front of my ghostly computer for eternity trying to finish my the damned thing.

Now I’m broke though, work is virtually non-existent for me, especially since I can no longer work in the only profession I really know, construction. For the last eight years, since then I’ve tried a few times to sell t-shirts with one of the characters I’d drawn and copyrighted over the years. I’d been doing that since 2002 as more of a hobby than anything else; mainly because I couldn’t see anything I did as something that could become important. People liked shirt, they just wouldn’t buy it, or anything else. I couldn’t sell fire to a caveman for two stones and a shell, even if I told them how it would change their lives. I’m a lousy sales man, but that was then. This time I’m going to use different artwork as well as the original.
What I’m going to do is change the way I advertise and merchandise. Of course I could be just wasting my time, my art shit could really suck. As bad as that sounds, thinking about it makes me laugh, I guess because I see it as more of a mistake, a blunder, or a screw up, more so than a failure. If that’s the case I’ll just have to come up with better artwork. Come and see what I’m doing, I’ll be putting information about the shirts, artwork and other things on my website: http://voidentertainment.com. Until next time, live long and drink well.

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