See?? I'm doing it!

Draft pages. They're coming up all right!

We're going dark, gritty and storyboard-style up in here.

I have finally finished the opening sequence - it took a while but I quite like the result. If you're curious as to what happens next and you are even slightly inclined to leave a comment, keep in mind that I'll love you forever if you do!

Sovereigns

Exciting news!

I'm going to go ahead and announce that I'm officially taking a (short) break from bashing my head against the wall with agents and publishers and moving on to something completely different.

I'm a frustrated artist at heart, and so I've decided to channel that with writing to come up with a happy medium. Ladies and gentlement, announcing:

Sovereigns is a webcomic, arranged in the format of half-hour TV episodes, and it's 24 episodes long. It's set in the far future. Humans have colonised the galaxy and a war over drug control tore civilisation to shreds. Set in the aftermath of the war, we follow the crew of the Dimity Rane as they fight to survive in a solar system that seems to want them all dead at any cost.

Left to right in the picture:

Prince Alak Hsing na Sao Lak - His title translates to 'Prince Alak Hsing of the Sovereign Ship Sao Lak', but when we meet him he has become famously known as 'The Runaway Prince'. In his desperation, he joined the crew of the Dimity - a move that he almost instantly regretted.


Captain Benedict Rane - Standing cross-armed behind his son, Benedict Rane is an ex-soldier whose life revolves around one thing: the illegal drug, Gratin. He doesn't use it. He doesn't sell it. But he needs it, more than anything in the universe.

Jackson Rane - A 23 year old man that has known little else but crime for his entire life. Suffering from an extremely rare form of terminal illness that he inherited from his long-dead mother, there is nothing his father wouldn't do to keep his last remaining family alive.

Ellie Stillaway - One of the most powerful women in the galaxy and a politician to be reckoned with - or at least, she was until a few years ago. One power play too many saw her ousted and exiled from the Coalition, and more than one or two hitmen set on her trail. In exchange for safe harbour with the Dimity, she is an excellent information broker and intelligence gatherer.


I'm working on episode one and I'm not entirely sure where or when to start posting it, but I will do so as soon as I feel it's ready. The concept painting here isn't really representative of the finished art style and I'm still pretty green and sloppy with the tablet. It'll be a learning experience, but one that I think will be fun.

I'll post updates on my progress and link to any finished material.

If you want to know more/have questions/advice, my e-door is always open. Twitter is probably the best way to get hold of me, though.

See you soon, adventurers.

Vague Outline Syndrome

I've been struck trying to write the same chapter for about a week now. Maybe even longer.

The reason? I am suffering from a peculiar affliction known as Vague Outline Syndrome. It happens when you're writing and the entire chapter summary is as follows:

Tilly is enraged that he would show her such things – didn’t he listen to her at all about her family being cited? She can’t risk it. She storms away.

Tania is sympathetic, but concedes that this is over their heads. He should probably try to forget about this before it gets him in to a lot of trouble.

I could barely manage to wring 1000 words out of it.

I strongly suspect that I've glossed over the entire passage so as to get to the action in Chapter 11. But at least I've moved on. Take that, vague outline! I did what you said.

Now, onward. Someone yell at me until this chapter is done.

Week 2 - Learning to Draw

I decided to teach myself how to draw. It's been a challenge, but I'm hopeful to be able to draw illustrations for a little webcomic style idea I've had.

This was my first attempt at a head:

And this is one I did tonight.

Bring on week 3! More about the comic strip as it happens.

Exciting News...

Time Consuming Novels...

Man, it takes ages to write a novel.

I mean, it might not seem like much while you're doing it, or while you're waiting for new installments in your favourite trilogy, but holy balls it takes a long time.

Just to pick one example out of the blue: God created the world in seven days, and then rested on the eigth. Well, it's been 4.5 billion years since then, and he only managed to put the finishing touches on the bible about 2000 years ago.

And that was with the help of 27 co-authors.

"What the hell was I thinking when I created writer's block??"

Writing. It takes way longer than creating a whole planet from nothing.

[Short] Piecing Together A Story, Step By Step.

WARNING: Post may be considered self-indulgent and boring. Skip if you are supremely uninterested in hearing how some amateur writer tries to write short stories.

'Breathing In Gerry Neimeyer' is well under way, but I thought I would put together a post that details how I go about piecing together a story from the original idea to the written word. Questions about where writers find their ideas tend to be the first ones asked by those who are not writers. The reason you'd never hear a writer ask such a thing is because they know how complex and improvised the process is. About as close as you can get to providing a satisfactory answer is to write a blog post like this one and try to include as much detail as possible.

More after the jump.