10th January, 2010 - Posted by Chris
One of the things that habitually destroys my writing flow is the the urge to change the formatting of my script, of having to devise a clever system if I want to write scenes out of order.
There’s nothing worse then going back to write in a scene and realising it needs more pages than you’ve allowed for it, being faced with having to go through the hold script renaming page page numbers can really halt any progress you are making.
I have in the past dabbled with a program called Celtx for writing screenplays and recently it has been updated to support comic scripts. I’m loving it it so far and will I think be using it for all my comic writing in future.
It does mean I need to work on getting my partially written projects into it but I think using Celtx will force me to write my scripts in a more simple straight style, to get the story and dialogue down and then I can worry about adding the extra useful details as a secondary pass as it should be.
In other news I am currently working on a few projects actively :
- SHIVER – I’m trying to force myself to make a big push to get a lot of this written, hopefully regardless of what happens with my artist woes when they are sorted I hope to have everything done and ready.
- Hometown Heroes – Assuming I can crank out some pages of this soon there may be a chance it gets printed this year. More about this when I know something.
- MURKY DEPTHS – I am working on a Prose competition entry for the Mike Carey competition in Murky Depths, it’s difficult so wish me luck. I am also knocking up a few short scripts which I have approached an artist to draw one, when her schedule clears up in the next few months hopefully I’ll have another submission to make to Terry. *fingers crossed*
There are always others knocking about my head but for now those are my active projects, speaking of which, I should really get back to it.
Cheers,
Chris
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28th November, 2009 - Posted by Chris
So, ThoughtBubble has come and gone and once again stated it’s case for being the best UK Comic Convention/Festival there is.
Whereas last year I was caught up in trying to get ‘Shiver’ officially accepted, wandering the aisles looking for anthologies to submit something to and didn’t actually get much time to taste the convention proper. This year I decided to go prepared with books to get signed by some of the confirmed guests and made three of the panels and having a thoroughly great time in the process.
I managed to meet some folks I’ve been speaking to online, but unfortunately missed some of the people I had wanted to catch up with due to having to head for the train home at 5pm.
Firstly the Insomnia stand was there in full force and frequently was a source of bodies jamming together as people stopped and gawped at the wares on show.
During a period of being stranded down one of the narrow aisles I got talking to Matthew Craig and impressed by how easy he was to talk to I bought a few of his Hondle mini-comics. If you see Matthew at any future cons please stop by and give his stuff a look, he’s a super nice guy.
I stopped by and spoke to Terry Martin from Murky Depths, excited to find out when Mike Carey would be along to sign on their table. On my way up to Leeds to the train I had chance to read the latest Murky Depths (#10) which contains a writing competition where the challenge is to finish a story that Mike Carey started. It’s a difficult one but I think I’m going to give it a go. 
I got comics signed by Andi Watson, Mike Carey and Sean Phillips but avoided the other larger lines that clogged up the end of the hall.
Panel wise I hit the following :
‘FROM PAPER TO DIGITAL’, ‘DO ZOMBIES READ COMIC BOOKS’ and ‘MARVEL COMICS, HOW TO WORK FOR US MASTECLASS’. I won’t review these panels there are plenty of blogs already posted about most of them, I will say that I really enjoyed the ‘How to break into marvel’ style panel that was hosted by Stephen Wacker (Spiderman Editor). I wasn’t expecting any secret backdoor or such and rather than being a master class it was just and opportunity for aspiring creators to ask him questions about working for Marvel. The takeaway for it from the writing side is that they only look at published worked, if they like what you’ve done then they may approach you to pitch them. Till then it’s just about busting your ass and getting your work seen.
Good panel none-the-less though.
I can’t end this bit on ThoughtBubble without mentioning Sam Johnson (Geek Girl Creator and former SPI competitor) who I spent a lot of time chatting too at the convention. He has a desire and eagerness that I need to try and get myself. A discipline to sitting down and making the story happen.
This regular, longer, more precise blog posting is a first step to that.
*FINGERS CROSSED*
Cheers,
Chris
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9th August, 2009 - Posted by Chris
I wanted to let people know that Page 5 of ‘Inner Turmoil’ has been posted over at Markosia. ‘Inner Turmoil’ and ‘The Dark Tyke’ are both chapters of the comic which I coloured… seemingly a long time ago, I’m still fond of them though.
Also Murky Depths #9 was just released, although I don’t have a story in this mine and my artists (Marc Jameson) bio for my story in #8 is in there along with my ugly mug.
Murky Depths just keeps getting better and better, if you haven’t already read it but are a fan of Dark Speculative fiction in prose OR Comic form then you should try it.
Cheers,
Chris
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7th August, 2008 - Posted by Chris
Sorry. I’ve been watching the first season of ‘The Mighty Boosh’ and the theme tune is pretty addictive.
Things are going pretty well well at the moment. At scribes the other night I got a great response when I read out a piece of Prose I’ve been working on and heard something very encouraging about my Murky Depths submissions from Rich.
Plus there’s some movement at work, I have applied for a job which if I get it will mean more money… *fingers crossed*
Cheers,
Chris
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