IWSG - May Edition... Part 4

The great Alex J Cavanaugh once had a dream. To give all the writers of the world who suffered from one neurosis or another an opportunity to vent to the world all their frustrations or fears into the world without the worry of judgement.

And the Insecure Writers Support Group was born.

My big take for this month: I’m not so bad.

I’m turning 40 this month. The big Four-Oh. And as such, I think it’s given me an excuse to examine my life. Not just writing, but everything. My wife, trying to be supportive, had a conversation with me the other day on the topic. It went something like this:

Her: “I think you should be a scientist.”

Me: “Me too, but I’m not qualified.”

Her: “You’re as smart as any of them, you should be one anyway.”

Me: “You think I’m smart?”

Her: “Well, don’t get carried away. They don’t know what they’re doing anyway. Did you know they say the Brontosaurus isn’t real anymore? And don’t get me started about dark matter?”

Me: “This part sounds familiar. Where have I heard this before?”

Her: Shrugs. “I’m just saying. You can make up crazy stuff just as easily as they can.”

Me: “Are you encouraging me, or not?

Her: “Look, there are all sorts of labs around here. Go… be a scientist.”

And with that, she was done. That may not have been a true transcription, as it took place last weekend and I’m retelling it now - the details may have gotten fuzzy. I thought we should’ve spent more time talking about the qualifications necessary before applying for a position. As I’m pretty sure people showing up off the street and demanding to be named ‘scientist’ and given a job don’t have a high success rate. But then again, maybe that’ll work.

But her larger point, which I’ll summarize instead of giving it away through dialogue, is that I may have missed my calling in life. And she’s telling me I can still pursue my dreams.

I told her I like to write, but she meant dreams that make me money. Not dreams that eat up my nights and weekends and don’t bring in any income.

Sigh. Did I have a point? This had something to do with the IWSG for August. I meant to be encouraging. Especially after last month when I said I was going to stop complaining all the time.

Regardless, thanks Alex. It't been a good year.

W is for Wish

It's Day W in the A-Z Blogging Challenge. Visit others here.

My brilliant plans went off the rails when I decided I was just too tired to do a sketch today. So I asked my wife to sketch something for me. My darling dear drew me what she referred to as a wish.

So, W is for Wish. Compliments of my wife.

I don't get it. But I love it.

Is It All Just Wasted Time?

I've written before about how much of a procrastinator I can be. Today - thanks to the need for someone to be at the house when a contractor came by the house to give an estimate - I took off work. Oh the stuff I was going to get done today.

I also complained about how slow my wife has been about reading my would-be novel and how I've written a pretty long short story while I've been waiting... over 6k words long. Well, as I do everything I write, I loved it. What will happen soon though, I'll tweak it a bit before sending it off to try to get it published, then notice something I didn't like, change it, realized I screwed up the continuity, rewrite other portions, get bored with it, decide it needs more action, then realize its too dark, add a comedic sidekick. Eventually I'll have a mess.

But I'm not there yet. Right now I still love my story. So while I had the time and inclination I decided to do a sketch or two early on this morning to really give the story some oomph. I've been doing a lot of sketches and the like the past month or two because I am toying with the idea of releasing something - for free, or as cheap as the rules will allow - in various e-formats. I think I'm going to try to submit my novel for general traditional publication. But a short story isn't so much an investment in time that I couldn't try experiment by putting it out there.

So, with that in mind I was thinking of adding a picture or two with anything I release. I'm still toying with the idea and don't know if I'll do it... but that does serve as the inspiration for recent flurry of doodles I've been putting out.

Now, the short story I've written is set in the southern U.S. in the mid 1890's. In the story a Clint Eastwood type mysterious stranger shows up when things are just turning violent. I had in mind the fantastic movie The Unforgiven when Clint walks into the saloon with vengeance on his mind.

The difference I suppose is that my character is a black man. For 10 - 20 years right after the civil war black men in the south enjoyed more freedoms and luxuries than they would for the next century. The 1890's was when Jim Crow laws were really starting to be put into the books across the south, taking away many of those freedoms.

Also, I don't draw guns well.

This character is heavily scarred and none too pretty to look at. I thought it would  be great to capture something of him in one of the story's more dramatic moments. So I started with this rough draft:

I wanted to show several characters in the foreground and that classic Mexican standoff that the great Spaghetti Western's are known for. But I realized that I couldn't do that for a couple of reasons. 1) I suck at blocking things out. I would be positioning folks in stupid places and would end up ruining my picture, I just don't have the skill level to pull that sort of thing off well. 2) It would take forever to actually move that beyond a mere sketch. I would spend as much time trying to finish a scene as I did writing the story in the first place. I'm not prepared to dedicate that kind of time to it.

So, after deciding that was the wrong track I wanted to focus on the same part of the story, but to sketch the character a bit more dynamically  to see if that looks any better. I got this:

Wait. Wasn't he supposed to be black?

I like it a bit better, but it looks too comic booky to me. I wanted the end picture to look more like an oil painting, not a rogue from the Batman comics. I needed to up the ante and add some realism to the scene. Of course I can't really do that without some sort of reference photo or something. So I picked a photo of the internet and sketched this:

That cowboy hat got awfully wimpy looking.

Well, I did okay with the realism, but my issue is that I really need a live model to sketch something that looks real and like it has impending action... in other words. I wasted my day. Still, I do enjoy the creative process. I just wish I had more time and could work faster.

In the meantime, my wife has read the first five chapters of my novel. Only about 20 more to go and I can get it back and start making revisions.

It Wasn't Me. I Swear!

I received word about a lawyer who decided to give back to his community of Valentine's day this year. To do something special for the townspeople that he lived and worked among during his professional career. Like all of us, he donated what he could. In this case, his expertise. So he gave away one free divorce.

Yep, the man stood up, announced to the world that he was going to give away a divorce for Valentines Day. It may be one of the more tasteless things I've ever heard of someone doing. The worst part?

Apparently... that man is me!

Yes, a lawyer with my name has decided to do something that should make other lawyers put their heads down in shame. I apologize to the world as well. I feel like he has sullied my good name.

Regardless, as anyone who follows me on twitter may know. I've been taking a break from my crappy novel to let my wife read it for me. She's a pretty good beta reader and has already pointed out several problem points that I missed. My issue is that she is so slow. I'm not sure I can have this thing ready by March now or not. I think I've bugged her so much that she's ready to shoot me for not leaving her alone about it.

The part that worries me most though, isn't what flaws she finds, it's that she doesn't seem to have a great interest in reading it in the first place. Is she bored already? I could be in real trouble here.

Well, the short story I've been working on in the interim is pretty cool, although I'm getting dangerously close to Novelette territory now. I should get it wrapped up in another day or so. Then hopefully cleaned up and ready to submit somewhere by the end of the weekend. So, I do have that.

Oh well, still keeping the dream alive.