I’ve been reading through Scott McCleod’s Understanding Comics, a kind-of non-fiction graphic-novel-esque work that deconstructs the art of comics in the form of a comic. It is an aging work, originally published in 1993, and thus has little to say about the advent of web comics and such (topics I assume are covered in his newer books written in a similar style.) But this is largely inconsequential because the perspective McCleod takes is easily translatable to newer and (likely) future mediums. What struck me however — at least enough to slog out a blog-entry opinion on the subject — was the chapter I read most recently wherein McCleod explains his thoughts on the progression of the artists themselves. He covers this topic as The Six [...]

While I haven’t been writing a novel this month for the infamous NaNoWrimo, I have been working on a different and still very interesting (at least, to me) creative project. Astute readers may recall that I dabbled in the creating of a web comic about a year and a half ago. It was an exercise in many ideas, not the least of which was — simply — my interest in creating a web comic. But the effort itself was also very useful in allowing me the chance to burn some serious practice hours on a real project inside of a great little piece of vector graphic software, Inkscape. For those less techie folks who read this blog, I should explain: there are pretty much two [...]

I was not impressed by an article I read in Salon yesterday (“Better yet, DON’T write that novel” by Laura Miller) encouraging writers to ignore the allure of events like NaNoWriMo and keep their novels in their heads. Nothing stinks so much of true elitism — not the we-disagree-thus-you’re-being-elitist kind of faux-political elitism — than someone who has struggled through, had a few lucky breaks, had an interesting idea, and made some progress on their career by publishing a couple mediocre-selling books then going off on a blog and telling others who are just starting out or don’t yet have the same time and resources to devote to a full-time effort to stuff it and shut up. To give up. Nothing stinks so much as [...]

A Random Find? I was poking through some old (Google Docs) documents and found this essay on running I’d written back in 2009 for a project I’d started and never completed. It’s not polished, but it’s complete, and I thought rather than hide it away in some dusty digital archive, I may as well hang it out for folks to read. It might be interesting for someone. Interface: a point at which independent systems or diverse groups interact. Let’s begin. The ambient air temperature is a frigid minus twenty degrees Celsius and the mismatched collection of runners gathered at the storefront are exhaling in deep bursts of frosty breaths that must first pass through the knit face-masks now caked with white ice crystals. A few [...]

The September Saturdays Stockpile of Silly Schemes seeks to detail the spark, struggle, and stress of those projects. In each Saturday post I hope to reveal a bit of the speculation, study, and strategy behind one particular project, summarized in a week of thought but a single post. And in concluding each post, I hope to give you, my readers, a sense of the shape, status, and steering that I strive to send myself to some sense of success for those efforts. 1. How would you summarize the project as if it were a simple, strategic sales-pitch? The Mezzaverse, in all it’s forms, is a fictional universe created by yours truly, and has so far been the setting for: (1) a lightly fleshed-out interactive RPG [...]

I’m always working on some kind of little side project. It’s my compulsion. My writing and photography. Random coding projects. This blog. And the “silly schemes” project too is a kind of meta-project, itself. Many of my little projects are creative endeavors ranging from those that are vague, floating ideas existing solely in my brain to those with more structure, for which a bunch of work has been done — but forever in-progress, forever ongoing. The September Saturdays Stockpile of Silly Schemes seeks to detail the spark, struggle, and stress of those projects. In each Saturday post I hope to reveal a bit of the speculation, study, and strategy behind one particular project, summarized in a week of thought but a single post. And in [...]