Sunday, July 19, 2015

A Week in Writing #47

Well the glow of Comic-Con didn't last long. Got my first rejection late on Monday night from an artist we'd met at the Comic Creator Connection. While they weren't our first choice, I thought we had developed some rapport with them, since Paul and I were seated in front of them prior to the start of the event and spent much longer than the allotted five minutes getting to know them. Apparently, they got a job offer from someone else, so it's not so much that they rejected us or our project, but it still felt a little personal. Never did speed dating, but it's sort of like waiting until you get home to call someone you met only to find they've gotten married in the meantime.

But the rejection made us more determined not to let too much grass grow beneath us. We reached out to our first choice again, as a follow up to Thursday's event and I'm happy to say we're working with them on character studies and a what we're calling a "proof of concept" comic book. Not sure where this will end, but it feels good to be moving forward.

Our artist, and I won't name names at this point, read our script and offered some very constructive ideas on how we could make it better. As a writer, I'm all about trying to make things better so spent most of the week rewriting the first script, tightening things up. The suggestions started Paul and I thinking more about an over-arching story, a backstory that we can reveal bits and pieces of over time. I felt really invigorated by our artist's suggestions and by Paul and me brainstorming about how to improve the story. I think the rewrite is much better than the original and I'm anxious to get our artist's comments about the new version.

Still waiting to hear from my editor on Public and Private. Three more weeks have passed without any edits or comments. We've been working on this since last September and despite appearances to the contrary, I'm not really a patient person. I hate waiting, whether it's a couple of hours in line at Comic-Con (these references will subside I promise), or a couple of weeks to hear back from an agent or in this case my editor. Time's a-wasting and I want to get on with things. Tried messaging, but got no response. I'll email him next week, but not sure what the hold up is and not happy about it either.

Published a review on Trophy Unlocked: Hollow Triumph (1948). Last week's review of The Threat got tweeted about by the Warner Archive, so pageviews nearly doubled as a result. Wrote one for next week, The Hitch-Hiker, and one for Ant-Man.

I'm anxious to get to what I hope is the next stage in my life. I want to write, but I'd like to break my amateur status at the craft. I want to try to do something everyday to make that happen. I think this week will be full of using writing time for mostly business-side things, like follow ups. It may seem simple, but a well-thought out email can take longer than you'd think to write and rewrite before you send it. This isn't a "meet you for lunch" type of email, but one in which you're putting yourself out there and hoping the receiver isn't going to reject or, even worse, ignore you.

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