Communication is Key

If you’ve known me for any reasonable amount of time, you know that I’ve blogged quite a bit. Most of that stuff is long gone wherever the graveyard of the internet lies. And I’m fine with that, because most of it was just the sad, whiny ramblings of a broken individual. No more! And I’m happy to report that I have something to report! But before I get there, I have some problems pertaining to the action of blogging. Mainly, what do I put in it?

Before, it was as simple as picking a title and rambling on about it for however long felt right. Now though, things are different, and I’m not quite sure I’m aiming for an audience that wants to read 2,000 words about how my sock drawer made me think of that one time Fred Kelm put me in a headlock on the drama stage in high school. Not only am I aiming for a different audience, I’m aiming for a different type of writing. But just like I want my audience and writing to grow, that means my communication must grow as well. Which seems to have been the theme of the week, from arguments with my mother, to reorganizing the structure of a separate project, to identifying exactly what I want to say in this comic, communication is key in every aspect of creativity just like it is in life. And when I look back at my adult life, I can see how it’s taken me time to properly express myself, communicate my thoughts with others, and generally not put my foot in my mouth every three sentences.

Learning to communicate, much like writing, is a marathon. You don’t automatically become this amazing flow of information overnight. All those things you have to deal with; company meetings, public speaking classes, essay structure, they all boil down to the same thing: how you communicate. How you communicate is one of the most important things you can learn, because then you can adjust your communication skills to reach a broader audience and hey look at that, growth. But it’s not just limited to that. Knowing how you communicate helps you become more self-aware of the person you are, and in turn can help you hey look at that, grow as a person.

What I’m trying to communicate here is how important communication is. (Insert Xzibit meme.)

So back to my original question, what do I put into this blog? What is it exactly that I want so badly to communicate? I suppose when I think about it hard enough, it’s only fair and worthwhile for both you the audience and me the writer to get something out of it. Last week, I talked at length about what I was going to get out of it. Self-accountability. Also, there’s a strong drive within me to prove I can finish a task, but we’ll talk about that another time. Today, I’d like to turn my focus on you, the audience, and answer a different question. Why should you bother reading this? Why spend your time going through someone else’s journey? What am I trying to communicate to you?

The process of writing is an individual’s prerogative. I can tell you about technique, show you structure, breakdown the hero’s journey or three act plotting until I’m red in the face. And I will. I promise, you’re gonna suffer through that just like me. But at the end of the day, how you write is your business, and no one can tell you how to get from point A to point B, they can only tell you what worked or didn’t work for them. While I will go in depth about some of those topics, that’s not the point of this blog.

When it comes to actually publishing something, I haven’t the foggiest idea how it works. I’ve never had anything published. I can say that from some of the panels during Wizard World Sacramento 2017, the process seems to be partially universal. Most of the writers there have seemed to have had the same pitfalls, struggles, self-made opportunities, and breakthroughs in the process of publishing. I imagine when I step up to bat, I’ll be swinging at the same pitches. Whether I’m successful or not, I plan to regularly check back in here so you, the audience, might have a better understanding of what you might expect when you get to the same place. But just like the process of writing, this blog isn’t about the process of publishing either.

When I was a teen, I bounced back and forth between my parents’ quite a bit. One lived in California, the other in Colorado. Sometimes, because of extenuating circumstances, I’d have to make that switch in the middle of the school year. One of those times, I had a Spanish class with a professor named Mr. Williams. It was this weird immersion class where he spoke full Spanish to us from day one and had us act out things he said in front of the class daily. I remember actually doing fairly well because the class was so much fun. Mr. Williams was an amazing teacher. Even more so than I had initially thought. The day came where, right in the middle of the semester, I had to return my books and sign out of his class. I was making that switch from one parent to another. He took one look at my face and his eyes got glassy. He took my books, signed me out, and then gave me this huge bear hug, and whispered “Sometimes we have to grow up before we should. You’re going to be okay.”

He didn’t know me. Not really. I had only spent a few weeks in his class. We hadn’t ever talked besides in lecture, and even then, he did most of the talking. Yet he took one look at me and he knew. He knew things were tough and he knew there wasn’t anything he could do to help. He knew that in different circumstances, I might have been one of his top students. He knew that there was some sort of worth within me, and I think maybe he was a little disappointed that he wasn’t going to get to see it.

But I also think he knew he didn’t need to. He knew it was going to be okay. And eventually, it was. That’s something that’s always stuck with me. That once when I was a kid, there was this really smart teacher that looked at me and thought, “he’s gonna do fine.” And I wouldn’t ever want to let Mr. Williams down. I want to prove him right. With two little sentences, Mr. Williams inspired me to succeed. That inspiration may have laid dormant for quite some time. But it never went away.

I think that’s what this blog is about. Scratching around, stirring up those dormant inspirations within you, the audience. Planting little seeds that will one day crack the surface. Maybe you’re thinking about it now, or maybe much like me it will take a number of years. But they’re there. We all have them. And we need to nurture them once in a while. Because inspiration fuels motivation, and motivation fuels creativity. And that’s what I want to do for my audience. I want to fuel your creativity. I hope, through solid communication, I’m capable of doing that for you.

Before I forget, my update on the graphic novel. So just to make it a little less impersonal, the working title of the story is “Dream Story.” Between Monday and Thursday, I wrote ~2,000 words a day (8,000 total). ~4,000 of that was directly related to Dream Story, and ~3,500 was specifically the outline I’m working on. I have successfully made it past the turn into the middle of the story, which is one of the more difficult points in the process. Everything after that is still kind of up in the air. I know where I want to end it, but the middle section is always the hardest.

Word counts are nice and all, but they don’t make a story. It’s important to remember direction at this stage, so that things don’t become a jumbled mess by the climax. But in order to get to that point, things are going to have to get messier first. Namely, I’m going to be doing a lot of free writing throughout next week to see if I can come up with the plot points for the middle bit. I’m afraid at how long the introduction is, and I’m scared it won’t translate well to a comic, and that large aspects will have to be chopped. But the concern has to sit on the back burner for the sake of getting to the next step.

Next will be letting it stew for a few weeks and working on something else, for the soul reason of looking at it with fresh eyes. During that time, I’ll be sharing details about that other project before turning back to Dream Story. Then my self-edit. One of the biggest struggles I have as a writer is not editing while I write. For some projects I feel like this is totally fine. But for this one, the best course of action is just plowing through and looking at it as a whole. I did share it with my writer’s group on Wednesday, which is something I’ll be talking about in the next few weeks.

At times, I’ve been more excited to write this blog than I was to write the story, but only because I had positive news about the story to share. The story itself has already had some major changes in the plot points, only because at a second glance it’s obvious that things needed to change a little before I could press forward. Now that I’m basically back at the point I left off, I don’t need to change anything. I just need to get it out on paper. The character development has exploded a bit, which is good. I’m learning who these characters are, and what they’re trying to convey in the story. They’re telling me how they fit together, and I’m listening.

Overall, I think it’s a good start. Keeping it up is the challenge now. After all, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.