in

Started in earnest on the second Fiction release and, as a way to open things up, riffled through my ideas folder and found precisely fuckall that felt right: amazing how everything I jotted down back in the days of yore has no bearing whatsoever on where I am now, mentally and/or creatively – if it doesn't get used in the moment, it seems, it won't be used at all. Probably a wise decision, then, to focus solely on writing short monthly releases instead of big, long-term projects, especially given (what passes for) my process.

in

So much of my working times these days are spent figuring out where the voice went: where it's hiding, if it'll ever come back, if it ever existed. Right now, a spirit of experimentation: do I need to balance the timed (TSBMR, newsletter, Attendance Cards, intended Project500) with something of a more open-ended duration? Only if I can accept that "open-ended" doesn't mean "never-ending.”

something new

in

Been a long time coming, but today feels as good a day as any to commit it here (so I can possibly undo it by Sunday's newsletter, but I doubt I will, not this time): I'm stopping work on MainFictionThing and moving on to something new.

I love the characters and the story, but I can't crack it, and, more importantly, I feel no connection to it, no spark, none of the important, unwritten things to make it at least semi-compelling to a reader. It feels like a relic of a former me, a time – among other things – when the most important person in my life for the entirety of it was still alive.

As I'm moving on with other aspects of my life, it's time to move on with this one too, into something new. The something new is percolating, and I need more time to process it, but I think it'll work; all I know is that I've little interest at present in long-term, long-form projects, fiction or non–: the weekly SHORTBOX MEMORY REVUE pod is part of it, but not the whole of it.

Aiming to have a better picture of it by Sunday's MacroParentheticals. In the meantime, the only way to get that clearer picture is to play with sketches and fingerpaints and see what comes.

in

Spent part of yesterday drawing a four-panel comic strip and having the time of my life, side of left palmmeats smeared in graphite, eight-year old inside thrilled to no end with his aging, decrepit 42-year old vessel. About fucking time, he said, more than once, About fucking time. Trying to get into the practice of drawing from a basic notion/idea, sans script: the thing took on a new (and far more interesting) life from what I had intended in writing; might as well roll with it. If nothing else, I finally found a use for all those old backer boards. Next up: figure out a workflow for inking, shrinking, and pubbing; eventually: a regular schedule.

beyond attendance cards

in

First day working with the third new thing I'm teaching myself (along with learning to speak semi-competent Japanese, the and an intelligent, long-term approach to investing (read: not crypto or speculation), as per Benjamin Graham's book – though now I’ve probably opened the comment-field floodgates to sp@m; great) is how to draw or, rather, how to (re)learn how to draw, or rather, how to at least somewhat improve what I'm doing with my will-forever-remain rudimentary Attendance Cards and translate it over to drawing well-enough to convey some of my word-ideas in comics form – first Informality notwithstanding – in interesting ways that feel as one with the words I concoct; the work of Tadao Tsuge, especially, is a major inspiration (as is Jonathan Hickman's debut, THE NIGHTLY NEWS, and Bendis's early Jinxworld comics – TORSO, in particular).

General plan is to do at least a little bit every day. Current texts: Lynda Barry's MAKING COMICS (a return to regular practice, and where I'll start, doing an exercise each day, usually at the start of my second workblock); Ivan Brunetti's CARTOONING: PHILOSOPHY AND PRACTICE; Scott McCloud's MAKING COMICS – though as more of a general reference than anything; and I'm even pulling out my old, battered copy of HOW TO DRAW COMICS THE MARVEL WAY that saw heavy use in my early double digits – though I've little interest in drawing comics the Marvel Way, no matter how much I adore 60-70s Marvel comics.

Suggestions for further horizons broadening welcome.

I've long considered drawing to be the missing piece in my storytelling practice: an increased recognition that the only way some of my work will come to fruition is through drawing, through comics or, rather, comics and text in my own weird hybrids. Maybe I'm finally returning full-circle to the eight-year old who wanted to draw comics with 34 years of mileage behind me?

in

Eyelash-freezer of a run this morning (morning run for the weekends: makes things a little easier married-schedule-wise (and gives my upper half a couple of days off; might do the same mid-week, will see) but makes things a little harder "oh shit it's cold"-wise) in untrammeled cemetery snow powder: pleasant to look at and conceptually pleasant, but reality is, as ever, possessed of other ideas. Four miles.

Similarly struggling with even the newsletter this morning: words aren't coming and I'm beginning to think that my attempts at a third workblock have, no matter how much I've enjoyed adding it in the afternoon – and being able to add it in the afternoon – left me with only fumes to work with the next day. Won't deny that the breakthrough the other afternoon was nice – haven't felt it, the creative equivalent of an orgasm, in longer than I care to admit – but it's useless unless I'm able to think clearly enough to expand and build on it the next day. Better, I think, to find something else to fill those postprandial/post-run hours and let the pieces and fragments stew in the afternoon miasma of IDK.

Also struggling with newsletter formatting and rendering: seriously, WTF Buttondown? Something's amiss…

in

Spikemobile a hit – and will be especially once Spike's feet reach the pedals – with nary a tetanus incident (that I'm aware of). Victory. But that's about it in the victory department these last few days. Feeling The Void and its attendant horsemen – Ennui, FuckItAll, and GoToHell – rather intensely today (though it's been a slow burn over the last several).

Big Nowhere continues in The Main Thing, Ennui prancing about as I say FuckItAll and GoToHell to the blinking cursor of empty. Such is the somewhere and the nowhere.

Convinced I need an outbuilding with a loft office above it and room for all sorts of things. Spiral staircase a must: a house we looked at before building the cabin in the woods all those years ago had one and I've been obsessed with them ever since. Emergency Bat-pole too. Maybe a slide instead, IDK.

in

First snow day of the school year (I think / maybe there was – no, that was a two-hour delay, those accursed half-measures that fuck everyones' schedule into oblivion). Wind chill advisory, supposedly going to lift around noon, but with wind coming in, right around afternoon run time (switching to afternoon for something different – I like it: sun is beneficial in winter... summer'll be another story but I'll burn that bridge when I get to it). New heater fan in The Paintshop doing the job well enough – better than the previous thing that warmed my ankles and even then.

Today's (and, I suppose, every day's) operative creative / The Work phrase: surprise myself. A challenge – given that I know the outcome of this particular segment – but such is the way I've set myself up for this particular brainjam. Not what but how, not what but how... FWIW: didn't surprise myself – yet, but hey, If nothing else, writing these daily things again gives me the illusion of getting something written, even if it's not the thing I'd hoped for.

Ahead: fixing and cleaning up my old fire engine pedal car (1983 repro of a 1950s car) for Baby Spike's (friends’ little human, not mine) early driver's ed / GTA training. Hopefully won't need too much TLC, but up-to-date tetanus vax probably requ'd. Waivers and disclaimers.