Web Comics

There seem to be two commonalities with webcomics:

1) The particularly GOOD ones (i.e. excellent artwork, compelling storylines) very often incur delays in new pages due to some outlandish drama in the artist’s life. As though the quality of the artwork and story is directly proportional to how much that artist’s life gets in the way of them creating said art.

2) The art in ad banners is often FAR better than the art in the comic itself. Which leads me to call “false advertising” really. Clearly the artist CAN draw worth a damn, but then they choose NOT to for the comic that’s meant to keep me returning to the story.  These are the comics I, not surprisingly, tend not to return to.

This is of course just an observation about a great number of comics I stumble upon. Of course there are exceptions. So far, Sarah Ellerton is one of those amazing exceptions.

Pardon me for writing

Several chapters in to the re-read and it is hard not to bring out the red pen. There’s some glaring mistakes, typos, etc, that I’m thinking, “oh, I can just fix that right now.” But I can’t because then I’ll start line editing, and it’s not ready for that yet.

One of the main things I’m noticing is the tone of the writing is extremely cautious. The language of the narration is so passive, it’s almost sorry for being there. Very like, “um, excuse me, sorry to bother you, but if you wouldn’t mind, I’ve got a few things to tell you, should you have the time.” I don’t know whether that had anything to do with my general mental state at the time of the writing, or simply that my fear of setting anything down on the page manifested as being so apologetic. I’m not sure how far I got in the chapters before I was laid off from my job in San Francisco and took a month to pack up everything and move to Austin. I know now, though, that the word count will shrink considerably once I clear out all those weasel words.

On “new age hogwash”

I’ve often quipped that one day, I’m going to write my own religion. I might still. And for someone whose religious views came from some old text (or a purportedly old text), it’ll probably come off as 1) derivative and/or 2) new age hogwash. Here’s the thing: I don’t care what they think.

When it comes to your spirituality, do what makes you happy. If you are happy to call yourself an Indigo Child and believe you’re from an alien planet, and your goddess is Buffy the Vampire Slayer and you dance naked in your backyard around a circle of fire built from wooden blocks and old clothes… feel free. It’s YOUR soul/spirit/aura/whatever. Only YOU can know what speaks to you. And everyone else? Don’t tell other people how to worship, or mock them for what they believe. Just don’t. ‘Cause whatever you believe? You could be accused of believing in New Age Hogwash just as much as the next person. I’ve grown sick and tired of people looking for evidence that one religious belief is more valid than another. For Christ’s sake (pardon the pun), there’s no evidence that God/gods exist. One man’s evidence is another man’s psychosis.

If you have faith, great. If someone else’s faith is in something else, let them be.

A non-Elewirian post

There’s always some other piece of writing on the back burner while working on ALUTK. This one doesn’t have a proper name, but I refer to it (in my own head) as “The Ghost Story” even though the “ghost” in it isn’t actually dead. He likes to remind me of that occasionally, lest I forget.

“I’m not dead,” says he. “Just presently incorporeal.” He says it with a very English *sniff*. I believe he may be from Oxford. He was also born around 1905 and “went missing” in 1940.

At any rate, this morning, since I am momentarily caught up at work (relatively speaking; there is always *something* I could be doing) I spent some time with the non-dead ghost and got almost 900 words. They’re not all good words, but this scene has been plaguing me every night as I lay down to sleep and every morning when I wake up my alarm clock and my cat simultaneously try to get me out of bed. I wasn’t sure how it was meant to go, but it’s become a lot clearer now.

The crazy thing is, I see this story as having a multitude of climactic moments, which makes me wonder if it wants to be a book, a series of short stories, or an episodic TV show. I’m thinking book, but my stories almost always have that “this could have visuals and a soundtrack” feel to them, even if I have no idea how to write screenplays.

At any rate, he has gone from being a blonde with blue eyes and a broad frame, standing at 6′2″, to being thin as a rail, under 6 feet tall, with stick-straight chestnut brown hair and brown eyes. I think it fits the profile of a paranormal scientist far better, in the end. And the heroine of the story fancies him better than way.

Location, location, location

Is there anything inherantly wrong with setting the book in Massachusetts?  Apart from the idea that Salem seems rather a cliche in terms of tolerance of witchcraft.  Did I set it there *because* I don’t have such ingrained memories of it as I would say, Pennsylvania, where I grew up?  PA isn’t part of New England, but when I was growing up there had many similar cultural attributes, especially in small town terms.  And the oldness of Old City Philadelphia is such a shame to waste when I know it so well…

Another nit to pick…

Have I Read This Before?

So, I was without my laptop for nearly a week, and then after I got it back, it was terribly slow due to the fact that the repairs didn’t cover my 3rd party RAM card which had gone zzzt at the same time the logic board went zzzt. Ah, technology. But, it’s back up now, and with better faster RAM than before.

Last night was a “working while reading” night. Mr. Luna spent the evening reading Miles Davis’s autobiography, and I spent it going back to the very beginning of A Light Upon the Key and reading it from page one. It’s been ages since I’ve read the whole thing. I sat down with a somewhat poor attitude, I must admit, and telling myself that I’m just reading some piece of junk from a supermarket shelf. However, despite some glaring problems, it’s not completely broken, I think. In fact, I believe once I get through this initial read-through, I will be able to chart out what each chapter is trying to do, and start the edits from there.

I’m also finding that I get through the “chapters” rather quickly, which makes me think they’re not standard chapter length. But, again, I’m not getting out my red pen until I’ve read through it once as a whole piece of work to see how it actually hangs together. It’s tough when you’ve completed Draft Zero and then you put it in a drawer and ignore it for 4 years. At the same time, it’s exciting to think “I wrote that? Those words came out of my head?” It’s got seriously bad bits, but it’s got a good lot of good bits too. I have hope.