Spring time

This post is not even remotely related to writing or comics or TV shows or Neil Gaiman. I hope that's OK. I'm OK with it. You should be too. Anyway. This is a post about spring time.

Spring is my favorite time of year, for a variety of reasons. I live in Nebraska, which has fairly distinct seasons, especially compared to the good ol' Pacific Northwest where I grew up. The biggest, and quickest, changes always seems to be from winter to spring. There's a tree in our neighbor's yard that blooms earlier than most other trees, and it flowered over the weekend. We spent most of the weekend at home and it seemed like every time we looked out the window there were more and more blooms. And now it's pretty much in full bloom.

And when spring comes along, that means that there's yard work to be done. The mower started up on the second try after sleeping through the winter, so that was a more than pleasant surprise. Evened out the grass and all the usual stuff. I also began my annual battle with creeping Charlie. That stuff is all up in my yard, but I won't stand for it.

It's just a really nice time of year, and I always enjoy getting outside, going for walks and that sort of thing. Our house has a nice little porch so we're able to get out and enjoy the weather fairly easily. Much nicer than the third floor balcony of our last place.

Anyway. Not much else to say about it right now, just wanted to say a little something about how nice the weather is and how much I'm enjoying it.

Thoughts on the The Road and writing

I'm reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy right now. I've seen the movie, so I know the basic gist of the plot. I've also read one other McCarthy book (Blood Meridian...holy shit you guys...have you read that? Because...wow...anyway, that's a whole other post). As of now, I'm about halfway through The Road, and if you are familiar at all with it, you know that it is unrelentingly grim. The writing is, of course, excellent. And I've been trying to think of why it's excellent.

I've seen a lot of writing where flaws are somewhat disguised by flowery language, excess words, and the like. I am absolutely guilty of this, but it's something I try to avoid. I think that rule “Show, don't tell” applies very strongly here when thinking about McCarthy's writing. Take this passage:

They made a dry camp in a woodlot not far from the road. They could find no sheltered place to make a fire that would not be seen so they made none. They at each of them two of the cornmeal cakes and they slept together huddle don the group in the coats and blankets. He held the child and after a while the child stopped shiver and after a while he slept.

It's simple, to the point, descriptive. But I think that (especially in the context of the book itself), it paints an evocative picture and also allows the reader to draw his or her own conclusions about the story and what it means.

I also think that this descriptive, spare style can be applied to comics where the “Show, don't tell” rule is especially important. When I'm writing a script, I try to constantly challenge myself about dialogue, plot elements, or even characters by asking the “Is this necessary?” question again and again. If it's not necessary to the story, in my mind it should go. There may be stuff not necessarily related to the main plot, but it is still relevant the story, even if just for setting the tone/mood/whatever.

I tried to keep this approach with The Anywhere Man...I probably succeeded in some areas and failed in others, but that's ok. I can see the problems with the first issue. And I hope to have some of those issues corrected/addressed in the second or third issue so that the story Tim and I are creating is as strong as possible.

So. Moral of the story. At the end of the day, simple, descriptive writing shows a writer's confidence in the quality of the story. And that's what it's all about.  

So, as I mentioned in my previous post, Tim Mayer and I attended Planet Comicon in Kansas City to promote the first issue of The Anywhere Man. It was a really great time, and I think that people seemed to respond to the first issue. We were at a table in artist alley, which basically means that we were in one of many rows filled with tables of creators of various stripes; there were people with comic books (like us), webcomic folks, fan art, illustration, novelists, crafts of all different varieties, and a number of other types of people that I can't recall at the moment. All in all, it was a great variety, and I had the chance to talk with some very nice folks.

Here's a picture of our table with half our nice neighbor Jeff Porter. Check his stuff out. It's very cool:

And of course, the costumes. There were the usual suspects (super heroes, movies, etc.). While this costume was obviously not the most complex, it was certainly my favorite from all three days:

A fun thing about that weekend: the Big 12 basketball tournament was being held in downtown Kansas City at the same time as the con. This made for a really interesting mix of people. Not bad, just interesting. There was a lot of mingling with sports fans and comic nerds. Good stuff, I think.

Another fun thing: both Wil Wheaton and Scott Snyder walked by our booth. That was neat. I geeked out a little both times, but I suppose that was the right venue for that sort of behavior.

Last fun thing: I took an alternate route to my accommodations. Lodging in downtown KC is somewhat expensive, so I opted to use AirBNB. I've done that once before with my wife in Minneapolis. In that case, we had a whole apartment to ourselves. When I went to KC, I stayed at a boarding house of sorts. So the homeowner was their as were a few other short time tenants such as myself. It was a great old house in a neighborhood about three miles south of the convention center, so I just took the bus rather than deal with parking. All in all, a good experience and I highly recommend AirBNB as an alternative to hotels. My wife and I will probably use it again when we go to Denver next month.

So that's my Planet Comicon report. It was a great time. Hope to be back next year!

Update

  

So I haven't posted in a long time. Things have been a little crazy.

Exciting announcement: I've self published a comic called The Anywhere Man with artist Tim Mayer. That's the cover up there! Check out our facebook page. You can buy it at Legend Comics and Coffee in Omaha, Nebraska, and it's also available to order from Tim's BigCartel website.  The facebook page also has a preview of the first four pages.

Matt and Joe over at The Two Headed Nerd Comicast were kind enough to review the first issue on there show a few weeks back. Check it out here. It's a great a podcast; I listen every week.

That's the main thing that's been going on writing wise. Also busy with school and work, yadayada, the usual. I will be better about posting here in the future. Thanks for reading!