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.

BITTERWATER TALES

So a two years ago I began Bitterwater Tales in hopes of updating it regularly, but then I got too bogged down in drawing and spacing out. Well, after a year and a half of it wallowing in not-being-used-ness, I’ve decided to resurrect the site and begin anew.

The goal is for a five day a week update of drabbles, 100 word mini stories.

One update per week of a short story I’ve written.

and one Friday Flash Fic, which will be posted on… Fridays.

So, lets gather around, folks and give a hearty smile for Bitterwater Tales’ restart. Huzzah!

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.

After ready tons and tons of scriptwriting and story structuring formulas and instructions, I finally staggered to the realization (which many of you might have already known) that short stories (3000 or so) aren’t full blown stories. They are in fact similar to one act plays.

In this case, the short stories I’ve been trying to hammer out should have been one act, one scene stories. Instead I’ve been trying to focus on telling a story from beginning to end, the whole three acts that should be in a story versus the singular act that should be focused on when creating a short story. .

There’s a finite amount of words that have to be written and the more emotion, the more conflict, the more everything you can shove into those word limits, the better a story can become. In my case, my verboseness and trying to structure a short story like a novella or a novel was my undoing. Not only did it bloat my word count, but it also meandered on for a while before the final showdown in the end could commence.

It’s an odd revelation to come to this late in the game, but it’s one that I think will change a lot of things for me.

For instance, the All Manner of Bad scripts I’ve been hammering out lately should be a single act thing. Be it an intro, the conflict, or the final act aka the final battle, it shouldn’t try to focus on all those things. I do belive it was said that only a hundred words or less should be put on any one comic page and after all these years I’ve finally staggered onto the method in which to do that.

Sheesh, late comers, no?

So back to rehashing my stories and rewriting huge chunks of things. Man, this is going to take some work.

Mostly focusing on the short stories, but after today’s revelation, I may have to completely rewrite those to make them better.

ZOMBIE NOVEL

Short Story: HAVEN

Short Story: VAMPIRE

ALL MANNER OF BAD

ZOMBIE ROOSEVELT

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.

ZOMBIE NOVEL

Short Story: HAVEN

Short Story: VAMPIRE

ALL MANNER OF BAD

ZOMBIE ROOSEVELT

ZOMBIE NOVEL

Short Story: HAVEN

Short Story: VAMPIRE

ALL MANNER OF BAD

ZOMBIE ROOSEVELT

ZOMBIE NOVEL

Short Story: HAVEN

Short Story: VAMPIRE

ALL MANNER OF BAD

ZOMBIE ROOSEVELT

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.