A science fiction kind of flavor...

Hello my faithful readers!

I must thank you, once again, for taking time out of your day to read my inconsistent bloggings. I have no excuse for my absence since the 26th of November...other than the fact that last weekend was my birthday and I was away from all technology for a full 36 hours, which I guess in a way IS an excuse, but a damn good one, don't you think?

However, now for something completely different. So with my script for the aforementioned (Not to be named yet publication) complete I am now at a crossroads of which project to re-pick up. And at the moment it's going to be the star wars novel I've been compiling for...well, let's just say, since the days I used to do SWRPG. Yes, I was a huge dork. You may say, well why are you doing this project? Why not focus on a new comic script, or pick up one of the ones you've been working on before. To be honest I'm kinda in the mood for something epic. I've been working pretty regularly on my one current co-author project (an alliteration book) and that's always a constant in my mind, so I wanted to go a completely different direction at the moment.

At this point if you're still even reading this you're probably wondering what Star Wars story could possibly be left to tell? What with there being well over 50 novels, hundreds of comics, six movies, a cartoon series and a myriad of other outlets that the SW Universe has poured itself into. And the simple truth is that the only way to come up with something new/original when it comes to Star Wars at this point is to draw about the RPG.

I wouldn't say I have always been a man of vision, clearly I have disposed of many trinkets along the way that probably had some kind of value (or at least would have 30 years from now) but I am sentimental. It is definitely because of my sentimental nature that I held on to a 7th-grade English class assignment (my first attempt at Star Wars story telling) which amounted to 15 pages (front and back, hand written) of an original story involving characters never previously used in the SW Universe. That story got packed away with all the later documents compiled from two-plus years of RPG sessions. I have a wealth of story ideas, settings, characters to add to my own overall story. I intend to do whatever I can to make this dream a reality, regardless of how long it takes, since clearly Star Wars (despite the failings of Episodes 1-3) has lost none of it's luster or popularity in the world of entertainment.

I thought about slipping into a few minutes of nostalgia but I'm just not really feeling it right now. I know it's brewing though. So, until next time: keep your unit on ya.

Tb

Thanksgiving, a time to remember...

the conquering of a native culture! Right? Oh...wait, that's right...people try and forget that part as they stuff themselves full of turkey and cranberry sauce. Don't worry, I'm not going to preach at you today about my misgivings about the history of certain holidays in this country. I'll save that speech for Columbus day. Instead I'll jump right into talking about something more important.

Black Friday.

When I woke up this morning at the sunlit-hour of 7am I thought two things; holy crap I have to pee AND man it's nice to be inside and warm on this first bitterly cold day of the year in Chicago. Don't get my wrong, in some cases I certainly see the value of the Black Friday experience. It promotes 4th quarter growth for the retail industry and helps people (who are willing to freeze their ass off) save some money on presents they're probably spending too much money on anyway. As I told Matt this morning when I arrived at his place to do some work this morning, this was the first year I ever put any thought to potentially going out to a Black Friday sale. I was looking to make a rather large gift purchase of a television. I was saved from the freezing cold and annoying crowds though. I did some research and found that the current special price for the same Tv is $50 cheaper on Amazon than the Black Friday specialty price at Best Buy. Suck on that electronics monopoly!

So, you ask, how did I celebrate this victory against climate and society? By laying comfortably in bed, watching Battlestar Galactica and eating a piece of pumpkin pie topped in whipped cream. It was a symbol of my victory; a tasty tasty victory.

But, now that Thanksgiving is over, Christmas is looming and that's troubling. Not specifically because of the requirement (however small at this aged point in my life) of gifts but because in exactly 7 days I will be turning 30. Granted I still feel young; listening to my punk rock music and getting all excited about Duck Tales coming on my netflix, but it's still a pretty big age. I can still remember being 18 and knowing people who were in their late 20's and thinking...man, that's such a long way off. And here it is, on the near horizon and I'm really not trying to get nostalgic (not today...though surely it'll come up sometime this week) but I wonder where a lot of the time went. My late teen years are a blur of hanging out with all the best friends of that time in an unfinished basement, listening to loud music, playing pool, watching terrible horror movies, going to run-down bowling alleys to watch unheard of bands and feeling like my life was all ahead of me.

I look at the life I'm living now and I feel pretty damn good. I'm a published writer with more on the horizon. I'm in love with a great girl who supports my ridiculous aspirations and was as excited to see me published as I was. I have some really great friends. My future is once again bright. Ok, end of nostalgia for today.

Updates, updates...let's see. The green lantern trailer looks AMAZING. Ryan Reynolds was, from what I can see, the perfect choice to play Hal Jordan. I still haven't seen Deathly Hallows...was supposed to go Wednesday but that fell through. Hopefully this weekend or next week. I'm OK with not fighting a huge crowd to see it...another sign of my old age. Tron Legacy comes out pretty soon, and every time I see another trailer or clip on it I get more and more excited; it looks soooo awesome.

Scripting is coming along. My new project needs an overhaul which I am continuing to work on...right now actually.

Peace

Friday's are for music and dancing!

Good Morning my faithful readers! Also a happy morning to you whom are new to the game. I hope you enjoy your first experience. I had intended to start off with a bang today but…it was more like a whimper. I had to go into work, on my day off, for two hours and deal with some stuff. Now I know what you’re thinking…boohoo two hours, shuddup! But it takes me away from the precious time I try and spend dedicated to my writing every week. Fridays are like…mecca. Yes, I realize how blasphemous that is and no I don’t really care.

But I feel like I can make a strong comeback and it all starts here. So since no one commented on my previous blog about Baseball I feel confident that all of you are in 100% agreement and that baseball should have a shorter schedule and thus should implement my scheme in order to do so. But also to that end, I will probably not post anything specific about sports again for a little while, instead I feel compelled to talk about music and writing again…much more in line with the interests of my readership I believe.

So on the music front I have to tell you that a) the new Jimmy Eat World is pretty damn fabtastic, seriously. If you have EVER liked ANY Jimmy Eat World songs/albums there’s something for you here. They have really grown up and gotten to a point where they can utilize all of their talents and make a complete album. That’s not at all to imply that their earlier works weren’t really good, but this one brings everything together. I highly recommend checking it out. On another note b) Bad Religion put out a new album which was…a typical BR album. So if you enjoy their work and just want more of it, take a listen, but if you were hoping for something new and exciting to get jazzed about, I’d say stay away and instead dive back into their classics or just pull up All Ages and enjoy all their best early works. I’ve been getting back into some music I haven’t spent much time listening to in the last year as of late, specifically Face to Face and The Format…truly diverse musical styles to be sure but both equally awesome. Combined they manage to bookend my current obsession of The Lillingtons and Stephen Egerton quite well. If you don’t know any of these bands, feel free to comment and I’d be happy to make album/song recommendations for you.

Now, on to writing. I finished the first draft of the new script I’m working on by the deadline I had set for myself. I had and my lady friend review it to make notes and see if there were any weaknesses or gaping holes in the plot. Luckily for me there were neither. They both had several good notes about pacing and some of the plot points I touched on. But overall for a first draft it was a pretty solid script. I mostly attribute that to knowing the characters involved pretty well and the fact that I seem to have hit my stride as a writer and I can pull together a story from idea inception to written outline and script with a strength and conviction I hadn’t had previously. This could have come from the confidence of having my first published work come out or it could come from the fact that I have been honing my craft for the better part of two years (the time I have been really seriously trying to write comics) and all my innate skills are coming together…yes I realize how that sounds, no I don’t care. Hah.

On a more personal note my birthday is coming up…gifts are unnecessary, your readership is present enough…and the plan is to spend my birthday Friday December 3^rd the following day in downtown Chicago with my girl. She’s booked a suite at some schmancy hotel and we’re going to be hitting up museums and having a wonderful dinner together. I’m super excited and honestly can’t wait. There is another trip we are planning but until that’s finalized I’ll just leave it at…it’ll be a long plane ride.

Band of Horses – No One’s Gonna Love You just came on my iTunes…man I love this song. His voice is amazing. Often times it is the singer’s voice more than the music or the lyrics that can turn me on to a band and with Band of Horses it’s a really great combination of all three, much like At the Drive In/Mars Volta (basically the same band).

Well, that’ll about do it for me. I hope you all have a great day!

I have cool shirts. Do you?

So I woke up this morning and I had two thoughts. First, holy crap I'm still really tired. Second, today is going to be productive, by hook or by crook! Now, being one of my two days off you may be wondering why I would get up if I was still very tired; which is a perfectly fair question. The fact is that though Fridays are "technically" my day off, that's only from my office job. Fridays are my day to get a lot done in whatever writing project is on my plate right now. And since I actually have Four, Active, Incomplete projects it often comes down to whichever one I'm most interested in working on. Today it's my most recent project...fancy that.

I had intended on doing MORE blogs over the last couple weeks, but it has turned out to be even less than the usual one per week because I didn't get to it last week. Partially because I was working on a script and partially because last Friday wasn't nearly as productive as I wanted it to be.

Today, may perhaps be less productive unfortunately because we have wee little Ethan under our feet. If he settles in and plays we're good...if he's clingy and unable to let Matt get away, we probably won't be. So I will hope for the best and try and be productive regardless.

I'm on page 6 of my script (which will end up at or around 24 pages). The outline is done and has been guiding me really well so I am confident that I'll keep on the right track.

So I'm going to go off on a little tangent now about Baseball. Yeup, that's right, I said Baseball. For those of you that know me you already know what a huge sports fan I am and something that's been bugging me lately is the length of the baseball season. If the World Series goes more than 4 games this year they will be playing in November. NOVEMBER! It's a Summer Sport...seriously, November? What The Hell? The baseball season is stupidly long and I will outline how, if I was commissioner, I would change it, the owners and revenue be damned.

First, the plan is to shorten the season on both ends. To do so I would reduce the number of games from 162 to 120. This would allow games to start later (to avoid the situation where like in Cleveland a couple years back where they had SNOW on the field in Cleveland and had to play their first series or two in Milwaukee, which was just stupid.) and it would allow the playoffs to begin earlier and thus end in a reasonable amount of time. To accomplish this shortening of the season I propose this: Eliminate Inter-League Play. That's 15 games. That brings us down to 147. Then, Eliminate the unbalanced schedule model that divisions currently play under. Right now the CUBS play 78 intra-division games. THAT'S INSANE! That's nearly half their schedule all within their division. If you eliminate one 3-game series from each team that's another 15 games bringing us down to 132. And if you make one of the remaining 3-game series into a 4-game series and eliminate the remaining other two games from another series that's another 10 games bringing us down to 122. Now, with those simple eliminations I think we'd be better off and the season would be reasonable.

Ok, rant done. I am going to go be productive now. See you all later!

Thanks for stopping by,

Tim

Catching up...

Hey everyone...sorry it's been like a week since my last post. It's part settling into the new job, part trying to be really productive and part trying to be restful in my downtime since it's such a different environment than I've been in for a long while. However, I will hopefully be more in-tune with my blogging in the near future, so for you faithful readers (of my spurtiness) I thank you, and for those of you who long for more of a constant stream of my blatherings, I am working to achieve that for you.

So for now here's what I can tell you...there's four pages of my script up on the Ape Entertainment web publishing page. If you click HERE it'll link you to the first page and you can click Next at the bottom of the page you can continue on through what's posted thus far. Rate it below the "About the Creators" portion of the page if you like it! I really appreciate feedback too, so any comments you have lay'em on me.

Ok, on to new business. I wrote my first pitch for an established comic this past week. I really like the concept I came up with and I think it could be really good for the property. Now, of course you're curious what property it is and all that jazz, but I'm not really able to share that here just yet. We'll see how it goes and then of course if it gets approved I'll have more to share! But I'd like to explore the concept. A lot of independent comic creators strive to reach the pinnacle of working for DC or Marvel. (note that DC gets a hyperlink where Marvel does not...don't really like Marvel these days, so they can suck it) I think indie people aspire to have works published with Image or Dark Horse or Oni Press because of the Independent Comics companies out there, those are three of the biggest. But they're different in the sense that they're more attainable. Each of them will, from time to time if not on a regular basis, accept submissions from outside creative teams to publish creator owned projects. Now, of course, they're only going to take the best of the best and those who fall short will feel slighted (since most creative people feel that their work is superior to all others and the opinions of those that disagree with them are flawed in some way) and that's entirely the wrong way to go about things.

I can't even tell you how many times I've sat in a room with Matt or Eric or any number of other creative people and discussed ideas for stories where we didn't all see it from the same perspective and we would sometimes even get to the point of arguing over how our take on it was better. Having an open discourse is key, that's number one. Number two is just as important and that's this: learn from those who have achieved more than you. Their advice may not be perfect and in the end it may not even help you, but if you refuse to even allow for the possibility that someone that's attained something you hope to could give you help by offering their perspective then you've already failed. Ask Questions. If someone doesn't like your idea, find out what they don't like and ask for their thoughts on how it could be better. Their specific suggestion may not work for you, but it's likely that having someone else provide input will get your creative juices flowing and you can build off it.

Man...I tend to get on a soapbox kinda often in these blogs don't I? Not really sorry about that, since blogs are supposed to be about expression of personal thoughts and ideas and this is the one I am having right now. But back to where I got kinda sidetracked: taking an established property and trying to make it your own, for at least an issue. It's important to have a good grasp on the characters, it helps if you're not trying to write Batman or Superman who have about a BAJILLION issues to their name with almost as many takes on their personality traits and skills and etc and etc. But when it's characters that are less defined it allows you to pick up on one or two key character traits and either work with them or work against them. In my concept I take the fact that the three friends are incredibly close and I explore what could drive them apart, if even slightly, and how that could happen and what the one that was on his own would do. The concept itself has a lot of potential and after bringing it to the creator of the property he and I had a great conversation about it. He had some ideas for tweaks to the story but overall he really liked it! So now...I move on to first draft scripting. Woohoo!

Hmmm...what else...uhmm...well, I got some new characters sketches for the project I'm working on with Shawn Atkins and the direction is good. We've got some work to do but overall I'm loving his stuff. More to come on that.

For now...hope you enjoyed today's post; hope you read my UFO story and hope you continue to be one of my readers. Share the love if you like it!!! I'm proud to say I've had readers from Russia now, I'm officially Global! Scary thought.

Peace,

Tim

Sharing some old-school stuff

I know you've all been enjoying the first couple pages of Journeys on the Ape Entertainment site and I thought I'd share a short comic I did with one of my friends, Kristen Cella. She's an incredibly talented artist who has her own web comic called Antagonist which I highly recommend you all check out. I'm hoping to continue a project with her, which sadly ended up getting shelved, some time in the future. I look forward to it!

For now, enjoy what we have been able to create thus far! "The Party"

Finishing Drafts...and the importance therein

Hey everybody...so I know you're probably reading the subject heading and giving a giant collective, "duh" but I wanna share a few thoughts on the subject which may make you retract your "duh" and go "huh?"...exactly, you read me.

So in the past week and a half I have: formulated an idea, worked out the general overall plot, built specific plot points I wanted to achieve, set up scenes I am hopeful will work and written the first draft of a pitch for the story. Now, for those of you whom are writers will probably (hopefully) give me at least a smattering of respect (since I do have a job and I was doing this on lunch breaks and in the hours after work/weekend when I didn't want to curl up and sleep from mental tiredness). For those of you who aren't writers and have no understanding or ability to appreciate how tremendous this is, I'll lay it out for you like this; I have a one comic I developed for two years that has 6 pages of completed art (phenomenally done by the artist) and 22 pages of script that hasn't moved in a year.

Sometimes thought processes get lost, sometimes you lose interest in a project. These are somewhat natural things, but often times they are things that can be avoided or negated with better forethought and planning. Now, I'm not here to preach and I swear I'm not trying to, so if you feel that's coming across here please comment and let me know. Because I'm really just trying to share my experiences.

The project I mentioned before, yeah...that really has no outline. I just started writing it. That project was in my early days of comic writing and I thought I could approach it like I used to approach prose which was just to start writing out everything I had in my head to start and I would either fill in the blanks later or add things as needed along the way. Sometimes I'd end up making an outline, sometimes I'd just continue to write. Now I truly see and appreciate the value of outlines. Writing scripts are SO much easier when you've got an outline that you can just look at, see the bullet of where you're supposed to go next and the idea is right there for you. Now, outlines shouldn't be the script in bullet form. They shouldn't be overbearing with information. If you have some specific dialogue or a specific sequence of scenes that you know ahead of time then you should definitely put that in so you don't forget it. But you want to let the script flow and the outline should be short and direct. Plot keys, points you know you want to/need to hit on.

The outline for the project I'm working on with Matt Anderson long, because it outlines the entire story so far; four issues, but it's got: Main Plot Keys, Scenes, Specifics for those scenes (including bits of dialogue, scene cue's, etc.) because that's all you should need in order to build the dialogue of the scene. I also find it really helpful that after I work out the entire outline I put a tentative page-count next to each Main Plot Keys bullet, so know how long I expect that scene to be. If you go over your page count for that issue, don't worry because you can nip and tuck from other areas to make it all fit or you may end up cutting/replacing entire Plot Keys as you develop the story. That definitely happens in a lot of my projects.

I've even gotten to the point now where I do outlines for my prose projects. The story I'm writing for Asimov's Sci-Fi magazine has a full four page outline. It hits all the Main Plot Keys and helps me guide the story through to completion. I don't always need it, because I know a lot of where I want to take the story, but definitely when I get even the least bit stuck of where my transition is supposed to come in or where exactly I'm supposed to go next I reference it and get back on track.

So, my point here was really to say that...I'm always learning and improving my writing skills and styles. I wrote a little 5-page story that actually made it through the art and lettering stages, and when I look back at the script itself I literally cringe. It just looks so...ugly isn't the right word, but...yeah, ugly. I use a much more stream-lined and easy to read (i.e. artist friendly) model now. An important thing that can't really be understood until you work with a few artists is that how they interpret your script will improve greatly when it's easy to decipher and work through.

Ok, I think I've rambled on that long enough...on to rambling about other things. I watched Land of the Lost and first of all, it's freaking hilarious. I honestly didn't think I'd laugh as much as I did or enjoy it nearly as much as I did. Not only is Anna Friel gorgeous and a valid reason to watch the movie all on her own, but the story itself is really interesting and fun. I also watch Batman: Under the Red Hood and it was PHENOMENAL. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoyed Batman: The Animated Series, and though (sadly) Mark Hamil doesn't play the joker, you will be pleasantly surprised with the darker side of Futurama's John DiMaggio playing him. It's pretty awesome. What I'm really excited about is that I got "9" and "Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths" in the mail today. I'll have reports on them next time! Man I love Netflix.

Alright, I think that's about all I've got for now. I hope you all checked out the first page of my first published comic at Ape Entertainment's Online Publishing Division it's called Journeys and page two will be up tomorrow. But don't worry, I'll be posting stuff about that too!

Peace,

Tim

I'm a published writer...? Hell Yeah!

So I know I haven't posted in like...a week. And I do apologize for that, truly I do. The fact is this past week has been somewhat new and crazy with things that require my attention. This upcoming week will be the same, but I should hopefully have slightly more time and as such I may actually be able to post one or two times before next weekend when I will surely have the time to devote to my readership which I truly feel bad for neglecting.

I sit here today a proud, smiling man. Why, you ask, is that? Lots of reasons to be sure. But we'll just go with the easiest and most obvious to explain, which would be that the first page of my first published work was posted today on http://apecmx.com/ufo/. The 13-page short story comic is called Journeys and follows two main characters, Frank and Greta. I don't want to give away anything, because it'll be more fun to read it as it comes out, but sufficed to say as the link may imply to you, there's some UFO's involved along the way. I hope that you like the start and I hope even more that you continue to read it. A new page will be posted every Sunday. I believe they may add pages on Thursday as well, I'll keep you all updated.

Now that I'm a published professional writer what's really changed? Aside from everything you mean? I get to go to conventions now wearing a creators badge. That's something I've wanted to do since I was about 15 and went to my first convention. And if I could actually draw a lick of art I probably woulda been to this point a long time ago, but I spent a lot of my formative years writing Star Wars novels and dark poetry (don't ask) so my comics writing skills didn't come until recently...and by recently I mean the last 5 years or so.

I'm excited to see the fruits of my labor come to fruition with this first publication but it gives me even greater anticipation and excitement for my current project with Matt and Shawn to continue to move forward. I've been really inspired by Matt the last few years. Not only by his success but with his support and willingness to always turn to me for my opinion but also always being willing to read what I've written and provide me with honest feedback that is actually useful, not something that's always true with people.

For now, I shall take my leave and say that I thank you all for your readership and support! I love my readers, I really do. I write not only for myself but for my audience, any good writer will tell you that. The story and it's heart and soul come from me and are written for me, but my audience is something that always maintains a piece of my mind whenever I'm putting effort into anything I do.

Fridays are fun because...

for most people they spell the end of the work week. As someone who spends less than the normal amount of time doing actual work and more time doing the thing I love Fridays are a day for recovery (from sport, not booze) and for reflection on my accomplishments of the week with a look-ahead to this weekend and what I hope to accomplish this upcoming week.

This week feels good, like I did a lot. Moved forward on two projects, wrote another large chunk of my story for Asimov's and should *crosses fingers and jumps around twice* hopefully get some sketches from the artist on another project. (the crossing of fingers and jumping is to denote excitement, not a lack of faith that the event will occur) All of which culminated with my weekly basketball game last night during which I played fairly well. My outside shot was off, just couldn't knock it down (though I didn't really take that many, maybe three or four in Seven games) but I did make some nifty lay-ups, one that was just ridiculous and another that was what a SportsCenter anchor would call "Taken it to the hole!". Really pretty tired today from playing in every game last night, though. No rest for the almost-dynasty. Very proud of my team, they played strong.

So, look ahead. Well, tonight there's a going away party for an old friend who's moving to Colorado with her boyfriend and I'm so excited for her. I'm not a huge fan of going to parties by myself, but no one seems to be around to join me so I shall make the trek alone. Tomorrow, barring a ridiculous storm or the continuous onslaught of excessive wind that's plagued the Chicago area lately, I have a tennis match scheduled with my buddy Joe. We tend to play excellent matches filled with moral-crushing passing shots and ankle-breaking drop shots. I'll post the results...even if I lose, promise!

I'm hoping that over the next few days (meaning by Sunday) I'll have worked up the pitch for a new idea I'm working on to pitch to a company called Campfire. They do stand-alone graphic novel stories along with transcribing classic books (e.g. moby dick) into graphic novels. The nice part about this company is that they have a host of artists of staff, so I don't have to bring a complete project to them, just an great idea that they'd want to work on.

Ok, so as promised I'm including one sketch page from my upcoming ApeCmx UFO Anthology story. Without further adieu, here it is!


I can't say enough about Mike's style. I really love how he captures the scene I was setting up which, as you can see in the last two panels at the bottom, is the destruction of London (that's Big Ben toppling to the ground!) and for my British friend out there...nothing personal, I actually wrote that part before I even knew you! haha

Alright, my faithful readers, I shall bid you a fond farewell. I may update again over the weekend, but if not I hope it's a great weekend for everyone!

Carrots are Comfort Food?

So today has been abundantly productive...which is good because yesterday, despite actually being 'pretty productive' didn't feel like that at all. I shall explain...

I decided I wanted to focus today on the story I'm writing for Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. It's something I'm doing to kind of 'hone my sci-fi prose skills' as I also work, much more slowly, on my Star Wars novel. Getting published in a sci-fi mag would give me credence for pursuing more in this field. Just as it was with comics. I had been on the threshold of getting published a few times but it just never came to be, until now. So that's why I've been working in earnest to get other projects not only moving forward but actually off the ground and running.

I got an e-mail from Shawn Atkins, the creator and artist of Explorers of the Unknown who is a tremendous book that immediately drew my attention and desire to work with him, today letting me know that I'd have character drawings by the end of the week. Which, I'm sure to some people this doesn't sound like much, but considering I had spent the better part of six months looking for an artist; trying to find the style that would lend itself best to the story Matt and I are trying to tell (and this is all after working up the full outline for all 96 pages of the first four issues, writing the first script and creating a backstory for the 'universe' that goes back to the beginning of time...) this is huge. It's a massive step forward and I can't even tell you how excited I am!

The other good news from today is that a story Matt and I worked on a couple years ago for a Tranzfusion Anthology that never came to be has resurfaced and is now part of our active roster of stories. Details without details...as usual...it's a 8-page story that introduces the reader to a very interesting character who has a very interesting job, which involves Aliens. We're basically going to approach this already-completed story as the model for a pitch to sell potential companies on the validity of taking on a larger story (probably in the form of a stand-alone graphic novel). As Matt said, "Think of it as the preamble part of a James Bond movie, all that stuff that happens before the credits and sets up the rest of the story" that's what this will be. The larger story will take place some time after this initial story and give the reader a much broader view of the universe we've created.

Well my friends...I believe that's all I've got for today!

Dorkiness is the new Pink!

So I just found an amazing band. They're called The Lillingtons. And if you like The Ramones and/or The Misfits then you will LOVE LOVE LOVE this band. They're punk rock. They're dorks. They sing about aliens and reading superman comics and zombies and all kinds of nerdy awesome things. I'm sitting at the writers-roundtable and we have all their songs on repeat. It's like a joygasm for my ears continuously.

Ok...that was kinda creepy, but still...let that not dissuade you from checking them out at http://www.myspace.com/thelillingtonsrealdeal, trust me when I say you won't be disappointed.

Moving on. Today I'm trying to be productive and sorta failing, for the reasons listed above but also because I'm developing an idea from something into something completely different. Now, this is a pretty normal thing, when it comes to writing. Ideas are fluid and are constantly changing, but not normally in a complete overhaul kind of way, which is what this is about to be. To give you specifics without giving any specifics...the story went from being about a remorse-filled teenager who tries to "fix his past" and it's now transformed into like a super-soldier story...with much of the overall plot still remaining the same. Yeah...now you see my problem.

So what do I do? I come here and ramble about it! Why? Cuz it keeps my mind active without keeping it stuck. This is giving me time to think about other things while still working the story out in my mind...plus I'm giving myself an extra break soon when the tater-tots come out of the oven. Yes, this is my life. Science fiction stories and tater-tots. It's ok to be jealous...since it won't last forever.

Alright...I'm gonna try and get back to the beast now.

Tim

Concerning Hobbits...

I recently re-watched the special editions of all three Lord of the Rings movies and my love of those movies has not waned in the slightest. Sure, I get a healthy chortle at some of the Hobbit-love scenes; my mind thinking back to Clerks II and the infamous "Frodo bricking in Sam's mouth" scene. But fabulous films nonetheless. For anyone whose never experienced the special extended editions or haven't watched them in awhile, I recommend doing so. You won't regret it.

I've been working on a lot of ideas lately. My book, which has four chapters done and about three/four more to go plus the conclusion is coming along nicely. The overall theme of the book is "moving forward with your life"; something I think a lot of people struggle with. It's basically about a guy whom has a tragedy of social proportions happen to him and how he spirals (in other people's eyes) into a life less-than impressive and how he manages to come back from it. It's a tale filled with humor, pain, loathing, house parties, local bar familiarities and female entanglements. I set it in Chicago for myriad reasons, the most important of which being that I've grown up in the area and know it well and the fact that it is, in fact, the greatest North American city, by far.

As for comics, I have two active projects with artists attached now and four projects in various stages of development. I know this probably sounds like a lot but for the most part it's strategy; keep the mind active, keep projects in the picture. I've found that it's good, for me, to keep several projects in the outline/pitch form so I can always turn to it when I need to turn away from the current project and let my mind stretch out into something different for awhile. The worst thing for me as a writer is becoming stagnant and when I stare at the computer screen and just can't think of where I want to take the story next it's nice to be able to open a different document with a completely different story idea to get my mind back on track.

In the next couple weeks I will be posting a few sketch pages from my upcoming Apecmx.com story, so be on the look out for those!

For now, I bid you a fond farewell!

So it begins...

God I love comics, don't you? I was fourteen or fifteen when I bought my first comic at a 7-11, back in the days when such places still carried even a modicum amount of comic books on their magazine racks. It was a Marvel comic set in the Age of Apocalypse; Gambit & the Externals. I had been watching the X-Men cartoon on fox since it's inception and definitely had an affinity for the Gambit character, with his brash coolness and do-whatever-I-want attitude certainly playing a role in me picking up the book in the first place.

Since that time in the mid-nineties my collection of comics has grown to several thousand and my appreciation of characters has expanded greatly. There are of course the staples: Batman, Superman and Iron Man but I have delved into not necessarily lesser-known but certainly lesser-appreciated characters like the Silver Surfer.

I now stand on the precipice of joining the world I have admired and appreciated for more than a decade and a half. My first published work will begin to appear on the Ape Entertainment digital publishing platform Apecmx on October 3rd. I teamed up with Mike D. Kim, a fantastic artist whose work can be viewed at Mike's Blogspot to create a comic I am really proud of. More information on this, including links and possibly some sketch/inked pages to come in the near future! So be on the lookout for that.

Well, that's a good start, I think I'll sign off for now.

Tim