Alex Claw

I’ll tell you what, this whole new year thing has rocketed forward with some shakiness.

It’s the overall picture that kills you, that distant thought of ‘oh, shit. I’ve gotta do all this.’ that sort of grows and grows and grows, until your brainpan in filled with nothing but the noise of ‘oh, shit.’

Good times.

There’s this thing I keep telling a friend of mine who tries to do too much.

“One thing at a time.”

I’ve been trying to do it all once. That’s not working I’m feeling overwhelmed and lazy. I need to compartmentalize and attack. Divide and conqueror. Separate and pounce. I need to follow my own dang advice.

I’m going to follow my own advice.

This is me following my own advice.

I’m gonna draw an update. I’m gonna finish a short story. Then I’m gonna read me a book.

One thing at a time.

I’ve been thinking a lot on what to do next year and I’m all about selecting various dates on the calendar and declaring that it’s a day where everything is going to change. A day where I’ll begin writing more, drawing more, and doing all the things I love to do. It’s the new year and what better place to start than on the first day of 2012?

This New Year, I shall be trying to do the following…

Resurrecting Websites
Desolation Station, the forum that shriveled up due to not having enough time.
Alternate History the series, the site that hasn’t updated due to the usual not having enough time. The plan now is to finish the titlecards for all the episodes written.
Bitterwater Tales, I got caught up in drawing and did far less writing than I should have. The site will be resurrected and hopefully updated daily with daily drabbles, weekly flash fics and short stories.
My Tumblr account – There was the October Zombie Month that sort of fizzled out, but I plan to restart it with general daily sketches and see how my drawing and skill have changed over the course of this new year.

Books I Plan to Write – hopefully all this year
Zombie Novel – working title – Two years of planning (or thinking about it) and only ten thousand words written.
The End is Nigh – The obligatory apocalypse novel. Full of destiny, good and evil beings, a world suffering from all kinds of apocalypses, and two people trying to survive it all.
The Black and Sway – A noir-ish story involving blood magic, gangsters, and a retired hit-man, in a world that’s a mishmash of Rome and Aztec cultures in modern times.
Depression Era – working title – The United States is gripped in a crippling depression, violently polarized politics, and social unrest, in this a rift opens up leading to new worlds that bring hope and terrible threats.

Other Writing Plans
Get a short story published in a professional market.
WRITE EVERY DAMN DAY

Drawing
Finish and compile All Manner of Bad into a book (book 1)
Finish and compile Zombie Roosevelt into a book (book 1)
Lay a better foundation for Project Whiskey (it’s a comic)
Daily-ish sketch.

Other drawing stuff
Guest comics, there are some sites I’ve been meaning to ask to do some guest comics as a way to network, expand my readership, and give back to some folks who’ve been inspiring and fonts of information.
Fan art, the same reason as above.

Educational stuff
Learn more about Character Design and Visual storytelling
Learn to write better stories
Begin my education on the business side of writing and drawing (hey, its what I wanna do for a living)

And finally…

READ MORE BOOKS!

That’s about everything I plan to do this year. It seems like a lot and it is a lot, but I feel right here and now that I can do it. Ask me again in a week if I still feel that way.

Now, off to do stuff.

You’ve watched Aliens, of course you’ve watched Aliens. No one here has not watched Aliens, hell, most of us can recite the entire movie, scene by scene. Anyways, you remember when Bishop was half a man, his milky innards flopping about, and Ripley goes and opens the hatch to suck the Queen Mother out into the vacuum of space?

Well, I’m feeling like Bishop right now. I don’t know what the fuck just happened, suddenly my torso’s gone, my innards are gushing out, and someone’s gone and opened the hatch thereby sucking me and Newt toward this gapping maw of deep interstellar space (I think they were still in orbit, but I forget the minor details). But I’m hanging on.

The Christmas suck occurred, a giant black hole that consumed all my time and emotional energy (thanks, mom). But in a good way. Christmas, stressful and family filled as it may be, is still one of the holidays I look forward to. So, although work was not had and no thoughts of work was even attempted, I feel oddly rested and ready to hit the bricks again.

I’m hanging on, I’ve got Newt by the hands, and ole Ripley’s punching in the codes to close the hatch once again. The Queen is blown out into space and it’s free sailing from here on out. (of course there was Alien 3…)

Let’s get back on track and renew the whole business of staring wistfully into the future where we’re all making money doing what we love.

Back to writing it is.

I’ve realized I’ve been balancing a lot of balls (snicker) lately.

There’s the webomic, All Manner of Bad.
Then there’s the second webcomic, Zombie Roosevelt
Then there are the short stories I’ve been trying to write (currently), Haven and Vampires
Then there’s the novel (working title: Zombie Novel) I’ve been writing
And not to mention the third webcomic I’ve been slowly building.

Add on top of that, my renewed interest in learning more about character design, visual storytelling, and writing. Which means reading more books and looking at more information, LEARNING!

Also, the fact that I’ve been trying hard to begin reading books again (currently, Alice in Deadland) and finally:

Doing research on self publishing and marketing, and all the things I want/need to do in the next year.

Woof, that’s a lot on my plate.

Plus, I guess there’s also family.

And I think the last two days of just thinking on all these things that have to be done, wiped me out mentally.

I suppose the phrase of one day at a time is what times like these were made for.

This concludes the first week of trying to actually write and draw as much as I can in a seven-day span. Did it work? Was I happy with the results?

Well, let’s look at the numbers. First of all, I wrote a very solid 9400 words for the Novel and a pair of short stories. Seeing as the week before the total number of words written was about zero, this is a major success.

I suppose I could look at the productivity of this week as a baseline for what to expect in the up coming weeks. I personally tend to plan for way too much things to do in a given day or a given week. My initial goal for Week 1 was about 14000 words, 2000 a day, and about six pages drawn. I came up with two thirds of the words and about half of the pages.

I suppose aiming high and coming in short isn’t a very bad thing if there is words and pages being produced. Productivity is the keyword for this month and the upcoming year. Do as much as I can as fast as I can and keep the momentum and cycle going.

So, I suppose this means I have to get back to writing and drawing.

Momentary Breaks

Writing or drawing is work and like all forms of work, it can get so god damn boring at times. One idea, one story, one bit of art that drags on forever. It is at those times when your mind begins to wander and procrastination sets in.

When I hit a snag or when sometime takes far longer than I thought it would, then that’s when a combination of frustration and boredom sets in. That leads to constant wandering around the house or playing games online.

To counter that, I’ve been trying to juggle a few different projects I want to do, which are different from the main project I’m focusing a lot of my energy onto. I can focus intently on a project for a few days, but after that, all my will power is used up and I’ve gotten sick of looking at this story. Therefore I’ve been trying to distract myself from the main story with writing a few short stories, in a different tone, in a different format, but it’s a productive distraction.

Currently the Novel is surging forward, but it falters and staggers at times. Which isn’t a bad thing, as long as it eventually gets done. Finishing the project is the goal and sometimes finishing something requires skipping off the main path and taking a scenic route for a spell.

While working on the side projects, my brain is still digesting a lot of information I’ve shoved at it. It’s making the connections of thought and hopefully by the next day I’ll have a clearer image of what I want the next chapter in the Novel to be.

Alright, back to writing.

ZOMBIE NOVEL

Short Story: HAVEN

Short Story: VAMPIRE

ALL MANNER OF BAD

ZOMBIE ROOSEVELT

Writing music. Put on the headphones, blast the music, and get rid of all the doubt creeping in.

I’ve been trying very hard to write lately. Writing is something that I’ve always wanted to do and I’ve craved to do, but it’s one of those things that for some magical reason I’ve decided that I can only do if I ‘feel’ good about it.

I’m not sure when that thought process creeped into my head, but over the last eyar or so, there have been attempts at novels, short stories, and all kinds fo writing things, but they all fell through because I wasn’t ‘feeling’ them. Which I think is kinda bullshit.

Sure, inspiration is a good thing, but like all good things it’s something that doesn’t come around all that often. Most of the time I’m slugging away at it alone and not feeling it at all. My head’s never in the right frame of mind, there’s no all consuming urge to put words down, a lot of the time, I’m just tired from work and when I plop myself down in front of the computer, I find every reason not to write.

Writing is what I want to do. Writing has to be what I’m doing.

So, this week is being dedicated to writing.

It doesn’t matter what it is, it doesn’t matter if its utter crap, and it doesn’t matter if I’m not in the mood to write. As long as the words get down, the gist is in the pile of verbage, then it’s all golden.

So, writing I’m done and I’m plagued with the thought that a trip to the kitchen to see what’s in the fridge is a good idea…

Let’s shamble forward shall we?

Y’know there’s this thing in weight loss that’s suppose help in… well losing weight and that thing is not exercising. It’s record keeping. Yes, recording keeping has been proven to help us hefty folk lose weight. “Why?” you might ask and the answer is a simple one.

Those sick and terrifying numbers are staring us right in the face. They’re there, mocking at how they’re not changing, no wait, they’re there mocking us as they slowly increase. When we look back over the course of weeks, we see those numbers inching up and that’s where we draw the line.

No more.

No, siree.

The same thing applies to writing.

We gotta keep records on what the hell we’re doing or else we’ll fall prey to that sneaky weight gain. If we see what’s before us on a daily basis, if we know what we did yesterday, then we feel that little bit of shame and disgust at not achieving some of the goals we had set. That, in a normal human being, should motivate.

Alrighty, this leads me to stating that I’ve decided to start keeping track of things again. I did it once and it was okay. Then I stopped and things took a turn for the wonky. This boy needs structure in his life and the only way he’s going to get it, is by doing it himself.

So, boys and girls, sit back and get ready to be pummeled with numbers, stats, word count bars, and some bastardization of other things. I’ve got a lot of things I’ve been holding off on because I’ve been lazy and as the year plummets to a close, I got to scratch some things off my list.

I’m breaking this down into to sections. Writing and Drawing.  I do both, therefore I need to treat them as if they’re the same thing, therefore record keeping is needed on both.

It all begins today, so let’s rock and roll.

Writing

NOVEL

Short Story: HAVEN

Short Story: VAMPIRE

Drawing – I couldn’t find a toolbar thingie that would show ‘pages’ instead of ‘words’ but you get the gist.

ALL MANNER OF BAD

ZOMBIE ROOSEVELT