Crawling my way back to the light.

Let's start off with some good news.  I received more pages from Kelsea! And of course they look amazing because Kelsea is very good at what she does.  I have already lettered these pages and there awaiting one last round of editorial inspection to make sure I didn’t slip any typos.  Our Day Jobs and other obligation have been acting as an anchor, slowing up down on this project, but head way is being made and like Sophie here, we’re running towards that goal.

I have taken the first five pages and put together a little preview of the comic for our newsletter subscribers.  I plan on sending out the newsletter tomorrow.  If you want to check out the preview, head over to www.Tal-nor.com and sign up before it’s too late or you will just have to wait like everyone else to see Kelsea’s amazing art.

While things have been going great on this project, emotionally things have been less than stellar.  I’ve been feeling over whelming self-doubt and the double whamming of Depression and Anxiety lately.  I’ve been really questioning if I have what it take in both temperament, work ethic and talent to make it as a writer.  Am I just fooling myself? Has anything good that I have done been just blind luck? Am I actually good at anything?  These are the questions that have been running thought my head.  I can hear the depression and the anxiety shouting NO and every negative thing I can come up with.

I’m trying my best to fight through these feelings.  Luckily I’m not fighting alone.  In fact I’m currently typing this draft in the waiting room for my therapist.  I don’t even want to imagine how dark things could get if I didn’t have this as an outlet.  If the thoughts and feeling I have described above sound familiar to you, please look into finding someone to talk to.  It's not a cure all, but it helps.  It will take the edge off these feeling and help you move forward.  The movement might feel like it’s a snail pace, but forward is better than backwards.

May has been whirl wind of shity luck and shity decisions.  I have mismanaged my time so much.  I can’t help but use myself as punching bag over it.  I should have so much more done.  I also have had to deal with the stress of not one but two car misshapes.  The first was a pot hole deciding to rip up my tire at 1:30 in the morning while I was driving home.  The second was someone deciding to open there car door just as I was pulling into a parking spot.  As we all know breaks are not magic and even a car moving slow can produce a bit of force.  Luckily everyone was fine with the exception of my nerves and bumper.  The damage to one of those things was just cosmetic.  Now I get to field near daily calls for insurance agents asking me to recount what happened.  I think I have told my tale to three people at the other guys insurance company and at least five people at my own insurance company.

I also have my yearly review at the old Day Job.  I have been there going on 12 years now and before every review I’m sure I’m the worst employee ever.  I feel like now that they are taking the time to sit down a look at my performance, they will realize that an untrained bonobo could do a better job than I do and for a lot less money.  These feeling inevitable doom have as of yet been unfounded.  But I feel them every year none the less.

Now it's time to go into the office and work on these feeling.

I feel a little better.  I still have a lot of work to do on me and my anxiety and my depression.  Every day I put in the work, and I hope it gets better.  Sometimes I make progress and sometimes I back slide a little, but I guess the point is to keep trying and keep working at it.

Just like making a comic.  Speaking of comics, my editor posted a little update to the comic book website.  Please give it a read at www.Tal-nor.com

Be well and keep making things

T.

Flash Fiction Friday, The Confession

After a couple weeks off, I’m back with another installment of Flash Fiction Friday.  I’m doing my level best to get a new story out each Friday, but the last couple of weeks, I’ve been running around like a mad person working on the comic and other projects.  Also I’ve had a couple ideas for stories fight me and not want to come to fruition.  Luckily along came writers group and the prompt “Your spouse or significant other has been leading a double life.”

Before we get to the story I want to share with you a bit of awesome news.  I was interviewed over at http://comicbookreviewer.com/   This is the first email interview I have ever done and I think it came out really well.  One thing I found that I like about doing an email interview is that I can send it over to my editor first before submitting it.  Knowing that there won't be any stupid typos because of my Learning disabilities make me feel much more comfortable about sharing the interview.  Let me know what you think.

Now without farther ado, today Flash Fiction Friday,  

The Confession

“Shelia, Shelia, come in here!”

“Coming.”  Shelia jogged in from the garden, slipping off her dirt caked shoes and weathered gardening gloves.

“Yes dear?” She said as she strode into the living room.

Shelia, what is this?” Trevor held up a black garment bag.

“A garment bag?” Shelia shrugged.

“Cute,” Trevor pulled a thin chain mail tunic out of the bag. “You know what I’m talking about.  I found this, while I was cleaning and there was some sort of bow and arrows behind it, only they looked weird, like the tips were all wrong.  What are you into Shelia? How long has this been going on?”

“OK let me explain, Remember when you went on that business trip to the Czech Republic.”

“Shelia that was three years ago!”

“Don’t yell at me, you wanted to know, so let me talk.” she should back at him.

“Fine, I’m sorry go on.’ Trevor crossed his arms, letting the chain mail fall to the floor with a gentle crunch of aluminum on aluminum.  Shelia stared at it, examining how the light reflected off each tarnished link.

She continued “Well, I was bored one weekend and Sally came by.”

“Ugh.”

“Hey, I know you never liked her, but she my sister wife, so be nice.”

“Anyway, Sally came by and said she saw on Facebook how I said weekends were so boring with you out of town.  She told me she knew of a fun event out at the park.  Oh Trevor you should have seen it, all that armor, the swords, and everyone in costumes and robes.  It was amazing.  They let me join in right away.  I started going just on the weekends but soon I was going every night.  I tried to stop once you got back, I really did.” 

“So this is what you been doing on all those business trips of your, Shelia.”

“Yes,” Sheila dropped her head and let out a deep sigh “I’ve been Larping.”

The Soul Copy 5000

Today's Flash Fiction Friday story comes from the following prompt that I gave to my writing group this week.

A new app lets you download your soul into something different

Everyone had a great time with this prompt and came up with some really great works.  This is what spring to mind for me. Read in your best Dan Aykroyd voice.

The Soul Copy 5000

Do your actions ever feel like a mystery?  Do you wish you could ask yourself, "Just what was I thinking?"  Well now you can, with the Soul Copy 5000.  This little app will copy your soul into any house hold item.  Available for IOS and Android, simple hook the Soul Copy 5000 Lead Cables to you temples and plug into your smart phone.  With one simple press of the big red copy button, 1.5 minutes later your soul is copied and ready for upload.  Once copied into the Soul Copy 5000, simply attach the alligator clips to either side of your favorite house hold item and press the big blue send button.  You'll be talking to a copy of yourself in the toaster or the stereo in no time.  Learn your deepest darkest secrets today for just $9.95.

Warning: The Soul Copy 5000 may cause, bloating, dizziness, dry mouth, vampirism or a craving for the flesh of the living.  Not available in California or South Dakoda.  Order yours today!

Flash Fiction Friday

Hey Gang, It’s Flash Fiction Friday.  This is a new feature to the blog where every Friday I’m going to post a little piece of flash fiction.  Flash Fiction (my definition, as there is no accepted length) is a story that is under 1000 words.  This particular story is based off a prompt I gave to the writing group I moderate twice a month at my local book store, The Towne Book Center & Café 

Enjoy!

Cyber Monday

"I have no idea how I got there.  I mean you know how it is on the internet.  You click on one link, then another, then another and next thing you know, you've been online for three hours watching Hungarian Bootleg Spider-man episodes."

"That's not much of an explanation of how… all this… happened." Susan said

"I'm getting there, I'm getting there.  So, I'm clicking around and I see an ad for Baba Yaga's House of Discount Magic."

"You do love Magic."

"Exactly, I had to click on the site.  It turned out they were having a huge Cyber Monday Blowout.  I browsed around a bit and discovered that they have a digital Jinn service."

"Jinn?"

"Oh yeah, you would call it a Genie.  They're really called Jinn, but the English anglicized it." John explained. "Anyway, it was only $7.95 for a rub of the bottle.  You slide your mouse pointer back and forth over the bottle on the screen.  A little animated gif pops up with a textbox." 

John stopped and shrugged a little, giving Susan a half smile.

"You made a wish."

"Yeah."  John dropped his head a little.

"hmmm…" Susan paced around the room tapping her chin. "What exactly did you wish for?"

"Umm… Well, you know how I've always wanted to be stronger." John scratched at one of his long, hairy arms.

"And that's why the Jinn turned you into a gorilla?"

John shook his large gorilla head. "I tried to change back, but couldn't type with my new hands.  All I could do was mash the keys."

Everyday Getting a Little Closer to Real

Things are really picking up steam with the first issue of The Chronicles of the Tal Nor.  Kelsea, my amazing artist has been cracking out the line work like crazy and it's amazing. I'm really excited to see what it looks like after she colors the pages.  She is an amazing watercolorist and if you don't believe me check out our first book I Hate When They Run HERE.

I also have been moving things forward with some of the other item's that I'm making to go along with the IndieGoGo funding campaign we will run to fund the printing of the first issue (and hopefully more issue beyond that).  Some of these things that my friends are making are truly breath taking.  It's nice to see all this amazing work.

It's also scary as hell.  With every step we get closer to making this a real thing the stronger my anxiety about it seems to get.  I have so much fear that I will not pull this off.  The fear voices in my head are telling me enough stories of why I'll fail to put Scheherazade to shame.  It's hard not to believe lies that my depression and anxiety are telling, but I'm trying my best to fight them back.  I'm sure this is something everyone who makes things, who puts themselves out there, goes through. 

And I have contingency.  If the IndieGoGo fails, there is the bonus from my day job coming up.  I don't even want to think how anxious I'll be the week of my review if I need to rely on that to fund this thing.  You see at my day job bonus are all based on our yearly reviews.  The better the review, the more of our bonus we get.  If we hit all our goals we get the full thing, if we fall sure we only get a percentage.

But that months away, I have things much close to be excited and stressed about.  Like the Spring City Local Author Fest at the Spring City Library on Saturday April 18^th 11am to 4pm.  It should be a lot of fun.  I'll be selling copies of my comics as well as giving a talk on how comics are made.  Kind of scared of giving the talk for all of the reasons.  Please come out and make sure the No One Shows Up reason doesn't come true.  If you come by I'll show you some of the works in progress for the first issue of The Chronicles of the Tal Nor. Click HERE for more details.

While we're still in the prep phase of the IndieGoGo campaign I have a question for you dear reader; what donation rewards would you like to see?  Also how much would you be willing to give in return? 

For those not familiar with IndieGoGo, it's online crowd funding platform.  The best way to describe it is it like an online PBS pledge drive for one specific project.  Much like PBS, rewards or incentives are given for donating at certain levels.  Like if you donate $3 you'll get a digital copy of the comic, $5,000 and you'll get a dream date with Ed Cunningham (That's a WHYY joke for people not from Philly).  I have come up with a nice list of rewards for when we go live but since we have some time I'd love your input dear reader.

OK, I've put off "real" writing for long enough.

Keep making things!

T.

Keeping Those Plates Spinning

Keeping Those Plates Spinning

I have been stretching myself a bit thin lately and have been neglecting this blog for a while I kept other plates in my life spinning.  Here is a brief run down of the thing I have been working on:

• Lettering a project for a friend
• Lettering a cover for my sister
• Working on The Chronicles of the Tal Nor (which takes up 85% of my free time)
• Updating Tal-Nor.com
• Freelance Writing
• Getting in Club 27 (Click Here for more details)
• Getting a writers ‘Zine update writing for this fall (more details to come)
• Fighting all my feeling of Depression, Anxiety and general insecurity
• Writing a one pager for The Prompt (more on that later in this)
• Planning the IndieGoGo campaign for The Chronicles of the Tal Nor (more on that later this spring)
• Going to the Smudge Comic Art Expo (click HERE for more on that)
• Getting ready for the Spring City Author Fest (on 4/18/2015 1-4pm More details to come soon)
• Knitting a hat for my Dad for this winter…er next winter?

• Plus of course the 40+ hours a week at the Day Job.

• And spending time with my Girl

I just get tiered thinking about let alone working on all of those things. And while working on those things some times things get neglected a little like this blog.  Or posting about the Prompt.

The Prompt is an amazing project started by an incredibly talented letterer name Nic J Shaw.  Every month he gives everyone a prompt for a one-page comic and a deadline of when it is due.  Then he collects all of the work and post it to this Tumbler here http://comicprompt.tumblr.com/

I was able to participate in first prompt, which was “Welcome Home.”  That’s it; make a comic using the prompt “Welcome Home.”  I thought about it a bit and then banged out a script.  After a little searching I found Raphael Andrade to illustrate that comics.  I have post the comic below.  If you like it please let me know and If you want a print of the comic we can work that out too.

T.

Something or nothing may be happening.

Here is a blog post that I wrote when I found out I am going to be in the Club 27 Anthology from Red Stylo.  It was a blast working with them and the first time I worked on something like this where I couldn't talk about it. I had worked as letterer on some things that I wasn't meant to talk about, but nothing this big or to be honest, this likely to actually be produced.  Below are my thoughts at the time.  I ultimately decided not to post this as I had said publicly that I was going out for Club 27 and I was worried that it would be too easy to put it together.

There is an odd thing that happens when you make things with other people, there will be times you either are asked or ask someone to be part of a project and the say yes.  The say yes, while it might be a rare thing, is not the odd thing I'm speaking of.  The odd thing is that when they say yes, because there are a million and one things that can go wrong that need to go right before a project moves from an idea to a real thing, you can't talk about the yes.  Heck sometimes you can't even talk about talking to the person.  You have all this excitement and fear and nervous energy that can't be let out in to the world at large. And there is also fear.  Oh there is so much fear.  Fear that one of those million things will go wrong and the yes will become a no.  There fear that, it's not going to be as good or cool as you hope.  And of course there is the ever present fear that you will mess it all up and let everyone down.

Those fears became my roommates on a couple of fronts today.  Well the fear of failure and letting everyone down moved in a long time ago.  For me it’s kind of the love child of Mystique and Multiple Man for the X-men comic books.  With every project it stomps it foot, creates a duplicate of itself that then morphs into shape of the new project.  No matter what shape it take, it always and incessantly whispers "You're going to wreck this.  This is your only shot.  They're all going to figure out you're a fraud."

Most of the time, I can tune the fear down to a dull roar.  If I'm with someone I love and trust, I can turn it down a little more.  If I can get started on the work and find that groove, where I'm locked into the writing or the lettering or cooking or whatever new way of making I've picked up; well that's like putting on some noise canceling headphones and cranking up my writing mix.

As an aside, I actually do wear noise canceling head phones at the day job.  And sometimes I'll stay extra late and write.  In fact that's how I'm writing this now.  When I do that or even when I write at home. I have a mix of Classical and Cool Jazz that I play while I write.  I'm trying my best to be both Paval and his dog.  To train myself that when I hear this music, I start writing.  The funny thing it's kind of working.  It doesn't always get me to that groove, but it points me into the right direction. 

Oh and note I said Cool Jazz and not smooth jazz.  This is not the stuff you'd hear at a doctor's office or on most radio stations.  This is the music that came after Hard Bop and Be-Bop.  It's a lot of miles Davis including all of one of the greatest albums ever made, Kind of Blue.  Seriously the level of talent on this album is ridiculous.  Davis plays with John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley.  Do yourself a favor and give this album a listen.

But I degrees, the point is that I have a ton of things that might happen in the future that I may be able to tell you about later.  Or not, it might all fall apart.  But there is a part of me deep down that fight Multiple Mystique.  That knows it's just chemicals in my brain, lying to me. A part of me that know, hey I'm going to mess some of this up, but who case, just keep making.  It a part of me that knows there are always opportunity to make more things. It's the part of me that screams in a tiny little voice, enjoy the experience.  Enjoy the process! And that the next one will be better.  I think this voice comes from playing baseball as a kid.  In little league, there was always another at bat, it didn't matter if you hit a double or struck out, because in a couple of inning or less you'd have to do it again, no matter what.  Somehow that sunk in a little.

Now if you excuse me.  I need to go home.  Freak out for about half hour about all the wonderful/terrible opportunity that may or may not be just around the corner.  Then it's time to bear down and start working, because somewhere in the work, the fun is hidden and I'm going to find it.  I just have to decide which of the things that may happen to start working on first.

Till next time

Keep making things.

T.