DON'T TELL ME HOW TO DO MY JOB!!!

So school has began and I have to temporarily hide away from writing the stuff I love the most to suffer through class (I actually kind of like my classes this semester but that's not the point) but I figure I'd take this time to address someone that's freaked me out since I started writing. Those writer's tips lists, the ones every good writer and their mom have written, Vonnegut, Palahniuk, and dozens of others have these lists, more industrious authors have BOOKS about them and they all freak me the fuck out and the more I read the less I know.

So, I'm lucky, as far as writing goes because I literally don't have to think about it, not much anyways. Almost everything I write seems to just WILL itself into my mind almost fully formed. I just gotta nip off an extra toe here, a second head there, sew up the holes and BAM I'm done. Of course reading different authors and analyzing their styles has helped a lot too but it's more patchwork additions to my style than reprogramming my creative nerve center in accordance with the rules. But not thinking about what I'm writing is a double edged sword, when everything works it's all great, and I can normally feel it when it doesn't work, but it's sort of hard for me to explain to anyone else WHY it all works. I figure out the plot, figure out who the characters are, have the plot modify the characters, describe stuff, throw in some talky words and I'm done...but there's so much more beneath the surface that I just KNOW to do and here's where the effing instruction manuals fit in...they make me doubt myself.

I think I actually found Vonnegut's rules to writing first, then via Stumble: Writing I found a BUNCH of different guides to writing, what to do, what not to do and instinctively, wanting to do the right stuff, I read them all. This quickly turned into a creative mindfuck with me re-reading things and just musing over where I did that and made sure NOT to do that and generally overreacting to everything. According to everything I've seen and noticed about my fellow Columbia students and a lot of writers in general I'm not normal, not even close. Everything I do is a response to a simple question 'what would be cool'.

I've learned that with the way I work, I shouldn't worry about it, not that I think I know everything about writing, but I learn best by example and instead of reading someone's rules to writing I should READ their writing. That's what I've been doing, Reading Cormack McCarthy and Richard Price has really made me start looking at atmospheric pressure and pacing as well as McCarthy's beautiful use of negative space and what I would say is some of the best word choice I've ever. Price had a way of describing characters that I've been trying to mimic ever since. I find it a little weird that when someone tells me their rules I freak, but when I simply figure them out for myself...I'm fine.

Marathon Man

So, I've been done novel writing for a couple of weeks now...but it feels like forever. Everyone has always told me that you should let the smoke clear between bursts of work, while I've never heeded ANYTHING anyone has ever told me ever, cept maybe Tina Jens...school makes for good breaks, I get all of my horridness out then and then as soon as that bell rings and the last day of school comes around, I'm back on the horse and I'm riding it until it's legs break. Anyways I haven't even started to make a point yet, other than I'm going to miss the freedom to work of summer and the confining coffin of school, but only two more semesters to freedom.

ANYWAY.

I started on Chapter 2 of Black Dogs on August 30th and I finished the 27 page chapter off last night with an 11 page sprint, and a part of me doesn't want to stop. It was sticky at first, switching from noveling to comicing is a bit clunky, especially when you're shifting drastically in subject matter and tone...and I was doing both. After a couple days in however I hit my stride and took off like a coked out rabbit. I think a part of the reason I exploded so rapidly is because I'm more excited to work on the webcomic than I was to work on the novel, not because of the subject matter or anything like that because I love both of my incomplete children equally...kind of. But I like the comic more because as anyone who know me knows, I'm an impatient spaz; I want to be started yesterday and I personally think life has been taking to long for quite some time now. To make that a bit more coherent, I know the webcomic is going to take a lot less time and effort to get to the masses than my novel will.

The webcomic, Black Dogs, is a steampunk fantasy written by me with art, colors, and bloodysweatytears by Sarah Smith, a former Columbia Fiction Major. It follows the crew of The Black Dog (go figure) as they go on adventures and have problems. Sounds a bit like firefly if you replace space with steampunk. What I'm hoping really sets us apart from those inevitable accusations is the story or should I say stories, like your typical guys on a ship adventure series (Andromeda, FireFly, Babylon 5 ect) are going to be the fact that most of the stories I'm writing or dreaming up for the series are going to be big overarching plots that almost always develop characters and change the social dynamics of the crew, basically I'm not here to fuck around. As a writer I'm a plot whore, I like seeing people forced to do things they hate, I like palpable atmosphere and I like for people to feel connected to my characters and my stories, and I'm going to do everything in my power to evoke that from every orifice of Black Dogs, even the not so pretty ones.

Looking back on the chapter I really like what I did, I have plenty of ideas that could easily run the series for a decade or more and since I've plotted that far ahead I have hints that need to be dropped early, like first, second chapter early, and I'm doing my best to do that. As I've stated before I'm a huge anime and managa fan but I can only stand manga's that know where their going to end from the beginning, and that's how I write, the end isn't crystal clear yet, but I'm pretty positive of where I want to leave it off, but it's going to be a long and crazy ride along the way and I'm going to relish every moment of it.

The main characters in Black Dogs (for now DUNDUNDUN) are

Asher-the man whore of the crew, the son and great grandson of two legendary inventors who's more of an engineer than an inventor but is just as talented as those family members. He's also in love with Alex, or so he thinks, and he and Lucien have been kids since childhood. Like his father Asher is an inventor and creates all kinds of things on board; after a couple of unfortunate technological mishaps Cap and Alex stitched to the back of his coat "if you see me running, try to catch up".

Anastasia the female Captain of the crew known better as Cap, she's a feisty gun and sword wielding lady with a shadowed past (lulz cliche) and a bit of a drinking problem. Her crew is her family and like a good matriarch she does what she needs to do to protect them, even if she has to skirt the borders of morality.

Alex-the female first mate of the crew, she's more composed and quite than Asher or Cap and tends to be the voice of reason in the face of her emotional and compulsive crew-mates. No one but Cap knows where she's from but it is known she spent extensive time in the east in the circus, preforming as a trapeze artist and an animal tamer, she's deadly with her hands, and a whip.

Lucien-Lucien is the suave handsome man of the crew, he's the type that doesn't open his mouth unless something needs to be said. Lucien is the bastard son of a nobleman who was raised by his peasant mother to retain his status in spite of the fact that his father refuses to claim him. Lucien as a result does have a sense of regal poise about him that's more intriguing than arrogant, he's also an amazing swordsman and the ships main gunner.

Sir Roderick R. Clemens II-The son of the famous General Roderick aka General Rock a battle hardened soldier and renowned strategist his 19 year old son isn't exactly a spitting image of his father. Roderick II surpasses his father as a strategist but fails miserably as a fighter, he's also a surprisingly adept airship pilot with his mandatory year of military training.


Those are just some brief character biows of the crew...and now, A PICTURE!!!! YAYYYYY




These are the first two panels of the FIRST Chapter..the one I wrote last summer...but that's another less fun story.