Looking Ahead

Haven't caught a cold in three years and BOOM! Friday night hit me with one that ate up the next three days. No writing, no drawing, and some pretty weird ideas of how sickness worked.

Like I told my friend, Joe, I actually mentally put my cold symptoms on Photoshop layers and felt frustration when I couldn't delete them. Before you think I'm dangerously close to thinking myself weird or quirky, this isn't the first time cold + obsession = impossible invention. I used to play this game called Puzzle Quest until my dreams became disturbingly occupied with rows of colorful gems and skulls. Colds tend to form these pockets of yearning for all of the things I physically can't do.

In any case, pre cold, I started running a blog draft of my illustration process. It's basically just a run through of what each layer entails rather than what tools I used. I plan to publish that sometime in the next couple weeks. It uses the design of my upcoming cover so I'm trying to get it close to that book's release.

I wrote down a rough idea of when I want to release the books and the last of them is scheduled to be released on July 11 (my 37th birthday). So yeah, they're coming quick, but with things piling up the way they are, I don't want to neglect my first series when I get caught up in newer ideas. The UnQuadrilogy continues and there's also the DreamPunk Chronicles and Piscine that are queued up. I've played with the idea of doing some prequels of my first series, visiting an event in the distant past and one that occurs in one of the time periods between trilogies.

When I could keep my eyes open long enough over the weekend, I did read some writing articles and I'm getting the impression that none of them are actually offering any new insight. It's just the same top posters trying to make more bank on redundant platitudes. From the more passive but motivational 'your time will come' to the aggressive guarantees that ' I can make you a top poster.'

Only pinching a small fortune writing redundant articles isn't where I want to place my focus. I wouldn't say that my path is better, but it's certainly better for me. If you read between the lines on these articles, you start to gather that these people went into bankruptcy, lived with family with no job, spending every waking moment building an audience. Yeah, I'm actually in a position where this is possible, but playing the self-help guru has always been a quick side venture, not my entire focus. Also, it's not feasible advice for most people and it's incredibly niche-y, the exception not the rule. In my eyes, advice aimed at a general audience should be something they can tailor to their needs, not be a treasure map that might've been looted dry before they get there.

I love writing fantasy. I love building characters, letting them grow organically, exploring the world around and inside of them. It's a process that's calming like sitting in a bay window on a rainy spring day, opened just a crack to let in the smells of cut grass, new flowers, and thirsty soil. If I'm going to hunker down in front of a computer to escape into creation, it should be a place that I want to share beyond a mundane weather report. I labor to tell a story that can activate your senses and emotions and curiosity.

No matter what genre you write, it's something you feel passionate about. I tinker with non-fiction even, the idea of writing a book that can teach you why you 'can't' draw and how to change that. I have been through a great deal of drawing books in my life but all of them assume you are unwavering in motivation and laser-focused. If you know me, I'm about as focused as a laser in a room full of mirrors. There are approaches to drawing that I believe have become lost on a lot of people as they grow older and I feel like I am uniquely attuned to that, that I can teach the unteachable.

That would be another thing. Although it does take research to make a cohesive article, most of my ideas benefit from at least an entire novel. There are so many layers to be carefully considered. I have enjoyed writing short stories here and there, but I feel as if they are clipped in comparison. 

Still a little sick so the effort of typing has worn me out. A sick nap is in order before I attempt to do some long missed cover work. Also, my fish seem displeased with my decorating skills and are currently spraying mouthfuls of gravel at the glass in protest. They've toppled a couple of their rocks that I need to set right...

Keep writing though... Unless you catch sick, then take a break!