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