Last week I finished up the Creating Great Characters class from Comics Experience taught by Paul Allor. This was a class I was very much looking forward to as I often struggle with the character aspect of storytelling. I have a list of premises for stories 5 pages long, but I don’t have characters to inhabit those worlds yet. The course helped me look at the needs and wants of the characters including the Vampire Janitor project I’ve been working on for a bit.
It also reaffirms the idea that there are no short cuts in writing. Often times I found myself justifying a character’s actions because that was what needed to happen or they just wanted to do that. That’s not good enough. That’s putting the plot over the character’s emotional journey. I’m going to ride this wave of inspiration to hopefully get out of the creative rut I’ve been stuck in for a little while.
I’m working on a rewrite of the Vampire Janitor project with these thoughts in mind. Before that, I’m doing an updated character sheet that goes into the desires of each person so it’s clear as to what everyone wants. That will be handy to reference when working on the rewrite.
In other news, Amongst the Stars is returning to Kickstarter soon. I have a story in this sci-fi romance anthology called “More Time” illustrated by Jenny Odio and lettered by Matt Krotzer. It’s a time travel tale about a man yearning for more time with his wife as she’s on her death bed. I like this story a lot and it definitely stretched some different muscles for me as it was a genre I was not used to working in.
Dan Buksa is finishing up the artwork for the interstitial story, “Delivery” for Slice(s) of Life, the anthology where pizza is prohibited. Once that’s set, Scott Ewen will letter the pages and that story will be complete. After that, Dan will jump into A Real Slobberknocker #2. That script is done and I can’t wait to see Dan’s designs for the characters as they take their next steps in their journey.
Since I have to fight my children to use the PS5, I’ve been finding solace in old PS3 games I never finished. I just beat Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time and really enjoyed it. Games like this are some of my favorites. I searched through Mercari and picked up some others I never finished, but had gotten rid of like Bioshock, Heavy Rain, and Borderlands. Those will be on the docket along with the dozens of PS4/PS5 games waiting for me if I ever get to touch that console again. Fortnite has a strangle hold on this house.
I’m up to the 9th book in the Wheel of Time series, Winter’s Heart. I think the last one I read was the 10th book, but this was over 20 years ago, so I can’t remember. I was surprised in revisiting this series how little I actually remembered from my first read through. I never actually finished the series and I’ve heard the last few books are great so I’m looking forward to digging into those. I’m also almost done reading Lazarus, a great comic from a few years ago that passed me by on its initial release. It’s a great thriller that reminds me of Succession, but in a futuristic government setting.