The first reason is comic books. Right before NaNo started I
picked up a comic book lettering gig.
Most of the creative time and energy I would have spent on writing I
spent lettering. This was the first time
I very lettered a comic book that I didn't write myself. It was a challenging job because I didn't
write I didn't automatically know how it should be paced. The author of the comic I did the work for
just posted a low-res preview of the comic here: http://www.frolicandfester.blogspot.com/2013/11/knock-three-times-art-by-damon-threet.html
Before I got that job I was already working on an 8 page
mini-comic as I mentioned in an earlier post. I'm
happy to announce that all of the heavy lifting on that project is done and I
should be sending it to the printer by Friday.
This means that it is a very real possibility that I will have printed
copies in my hand before the end of the year.
Also I'm shooting to have it available for the kindle. My PC died last week, which delayed everything
and I will need to re-download the Kindle comic crafting software. But with the pages all done it shouldn't take
too long and I it as well should be done by Friday.
The second thing that will cause me to lose NaNo is that
simple fact that Comic book scripts just don't have that many words (unless
you're Alan Moore) In a comic book the dialog is kept short to lessen the impact of it obscuring the art. Also when describing the panels to the artist
it takes a lot of visualization, which in turn, for me, really slows down the
writing process.
All that being said, I have gotten half an issue of a script
written and I also cranked out a super short story. Not bad considering I also lettered 14 pages
of comics, several times after getting edits and new versions of the art. I would actually consider this a productive
month so far.
My goal going forward is to still write every day, which is
the point of NaNoWriMo in the first place.
The word count will just be a little less important than during NaNo
proper. Instead of trying to spit out
1600+ words every day, I'm shooting for a more manageable word count goal of
250 to 500 words. That's not to say I
can't have more productive days and write more than that. I'm just not going beat myself up or push
myself if I got my 250-500 words in for the day.
I also want to make it a goal to try to do some sort of
lettering each and every day as well. The
goal there is to get at least one page under my belt a day. More pages if I have a job an deadline. Speaking of which If anyone knows of any project
that is looking for a letter please let me know. I will do the work for the low, low price of
FREE. Right now it's more important to
me that I get paid in experience and resume building. Once I have a couple hundred more hours and
several more projects under my belt I'll start using pay rate as a factor in
the jobs I take. I however never want to
lose the desire to take a job just because it is a cool project. I know I will never be rich doing
comics. I know that the likely hood of
me being able to make a living by crating comics alone is slim. But I love comics, I love helping to bring a
work to life and being able to hold something I helped create in my hand.
OK that's all for now; go cook something up.
T.
