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!