Greeting from Wizard World 2017

Such a weird concept. A world full of wizards? Where's the magic in that? I mean, basically everyone does magic, so I guess technically it's everywhere all the time. But a planet of magic users seems mundane because the concept assumes everyone is a magic user. You know who the exciting character is on a planet like that? The dude that doesn't know magic. Ya know, cause he has to figure it out, or figure out how to work without it, or leave, and try not to die on the way...

In the context of the actual Wizard World Convention, I think many of them might actually be wizards. Just solely based on the fact that the people that work there are so inspiring. Could you imagine, a giant organization of magic users that tours the country and spreads positivity and hope for fandom? That's a crazy concept.

This blog isn't actually about any of that.

I mean, let's not bury the lead, it's about making a comic book. Which in and of itself is an insane prospect that is going to take dedication and passion. I've really gotta stick to my guns on this one. Once I hit publish, there's no turning back. I'm going to have to make a comic book. To add to that the concept of tracking the process from conception to publication in a blog isn't just ridiculously ambitious, it might very well be insane. Which is something I've been accused of being.

But self-accountability is such a hard thing to deal with. That drive to finish a project, it has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is different for everybody. For me, I've yet to find it. So more than anything else, this might be nothing other than an attempt at that. Trying to find some tool, some thing that helps me finish this story. Forgive my naiveté and ambition, but I must try.

Going to Wizard World and meeting so many self-driven publishers, so many independent individuals. It was inspiring. But converting that inspiration into actual work, and then keeping that inspiration at a level that will help me succeed. It's quite a task. The question, "am I up for it," looms heavily on my shoulders. I want to be. I want to emulate the success of those self-publishers so badly. I want to be independent in my creativity and use that independence to support myself. I know it's possible, because I see it in these other individuals. And Wizard World is a great place to learn how they did it. Because through a series of panels geared toward successful independent writers, they share their experiences of how they got to where they are. And this time, I took notes. Rich, comprehensive notes, not just on form and structure, but also the abstract idea of drive. Ways to motivate yourself, look past self-doubt, be accountable for completing your work, staying on task, and most importantly, not giving up.

It's far from my first completed piece of work. I wrote a movie script when I was 18. A novel online around 22. My second movie at 23, which I always forget I did. I collected a series of my best poetry into a book around the same time. At 30, I finished a punk album, which although isn't in written word, still had it's own challenges within writing. Most recently, about two weeks ago, a group of friends and I finished a six episode audio comedy-drama meant for podcasting. So I've done some stuff. Nothing I've ever done anything with. But still, projects I've completed. And yet I still forget that I know how to do this. I forgot that I always wanted to be a writer. What a dope.

And specifically, I'm not really starting from scratch. This idea started around a year ago, and I built on it through a series of scene samples I shared with my local writing group. But just like most stories, I fell off it. I've had a habit of letting the world discourage me from doing what I love. I'm trying to break that habit. I find it unbecoming. But reverting back to the point, some of the groundwork has already been laid. There's a basic structure, although partially in my head. Some of the characters have been fleshed out. Obviously, in the "most important has the most info" way that I'm a little ashamed of still practicing. There's a meaning behind the plot, which says a lot (mostly it screams "there's an actual plot!") And the first draft got somewhere near a third of the way through before I tossed the whole thing aside and decided to galavant along with my Engineering education. I mean, at least I've been doing something meaningful.

Here's the thing though. The one thing that I've taken away from Wizard World and was completely boggled by when I first heard it. It took a while to resonate with me, and it makes so much sense. Creators. Real writers, like storytellers. They don't share ideas with each other. They don't like it when others share ideas with them. They don't want to hear your concepts. They don't pay attention to the genre they're working on while they're working on it. Because they don't want the influence in their own story. They don't want to feel like the story they've told has been told a billion times, even when they know it has. Because the passion in writing comes from being able to tell it in your own style. And most of all, they don't want to be accused of stealing someone else's idea.

So here's what I'm going to try. Once a week, every Friday morning, I'm going to give an update of where I'm at with this story. I'm not sure how long they'll be. I know I will explain the stage I'm at, how it's relative to the stages before and after it, what kind of issues I'm having, how I'm planning on solving them, why I'm doing it this way, etc. What won't be in the updates are story elements. I won't share the plot, or the characters, or anything that I feel will give away what I'm actually working on. Because, and I used to believe this so I'm not sure why I forgot or why it took so long to remember, by telling you what I have planned fulfills the storytelling need and makes the actual writing part obsolete. That's really how I think it goes. So, maybe I might say I'm having trouble with the main protagonist and his direction, I'm thinking of doing this to fix it. But I'm not going to say, I haven't figured out why Rick is beating this dead horse with a stick, but I'm going to research why people do that and see if anything fits. I mean, that's a pretty horrible example, but I think you get my point.

So first thing first, I have all of the material from when I put this story aside and I'm reading through it to see what I like and what I don't. This story is begging to be written in ink first, so everything I typed up is either being re-written by hand or just plain out thrown away. I'm not going to write in novel form like I had been before. This story doesn't want to be a novel, it wants to be a comic book. But before I can start plotting out pages, I have to have an outline. A decent beginning-middle-end plot explaining what happens to each character as the story progresses. And that outline needs to be finished before I move on to the next step. Which is formatting the story for comics. So I have to go through and break down every scene into it's core elements, make sure there's an understanding about who the characters are and why they do what they do, and make sure the whole thing is going to be enjoyable to read. I have no guess as to how long that's going to be, but I've already decided I'm not going to write any dialog in this part. Just the raw explanation, like an extensive book report or Cliff Notes. I need to understand what I'm writing so I can sit down and write it.

This is, by far, one of the most difficult parts of the process especially when you're new or you haven't written in a while. It's also very frustrating by nature. Some people go through a myriad of techniques to accomplish this. Brute force, word association, free writing, lists and brainstorms, flowcharts, etc. I'm lucky to have already built a lot of that structure, so I'm hoping (god willing) that this will be more maintenance than construction. We will see. When I figure out what I have to do to make it work, I will share which techniques I use to get to the next step. And I'm also going to give myself my first deadline.

August 11th: A complete outline of the story ready to be reviewed by a peer, then edited and formatted into a comic book script.

And that's it. I suppose we'll see where we're at in a week.