29th year

So I’m 29 years old today. I don’t plan on doing anything special, but you never know what family or friends might have in store for you. Family and friends if you read this, please send money.

The birthday makes me realize even more that I need to really focus on making my comics dream into reality. I think I’m trying to do what I can as best I can, but I feel almost certain there’s always something more I could be doing. I write for at least an hour every day. If I’m not actively writing a script , I’m revising one, or I’m hashing out details on a new idea, or I’m emailing artists, editors or fellow writers to get work done, advice, opinions and anything else I can think of. I do have some friends in the industry. Most of them started in the same sort of place that I did. They decided that this is what they wanted to do and they strode purposefully towards that goal with as little deviation as they could manage.

At least, that’s what I envision they did in my head. To be truthfully honest, I’m not sure how one person makes it when another doesn’t. I know part of it is talent, and part of it is luck, but sometimes I wonder if there’s more to it than that. I’m not talking about anything as overbearing as destiny–but maybe karma? Sure. Do onto others as you’d like them to do to you and perhaps you will see a little bit of positive change in your life. There’s also the fact that real life has a way of interfering with what you want. I have an eleven month-old son. I love him more than I love pretty much anything in this world. But writing can be a bit difficult at times when you have a responsibility to something far more important in your life.

Okay, enough ruminating (big word of the day) out of me. I saw Iron Man this weekend, so I can’t be that swamped with work and family, right? The movie made it necessary to set aside the laptop for a second or two though. It was fantastic. Tons of action and the actors seemed to really enjoy and embrace the characters they were playing. It’s nice to get away for a while and lose yourself in a good film, and when the actors give themselves to the roles they’re playing and really let their personalities shine through it just makes it that much easier to escape. There was a very welcome highlight at the end of the credits, so I highly recommend that anyone who goes to see the movie stick around for that. I’m going to seriously consider going to see it again, and I haven’t done that since the second Spider-Man movie came out. Iron Man was that good.

Shadowline

I’ve been talking to Shadowline for a while now. Shadowline is a branch of Image Comics run by Jim Valentino (creator of ShadowHawk) that publishes a number of comic books and graphic novels. The Shadowline imprint focuses primarily on a 4-issue mini-series format, so if you’re thinking of submitting to them you should keep that in mind. They’ll look at ideas that don’t strictly adhere to that format, but they do prefer the 4-issue mini.

I’ve sent two completed pitches to them. One was a western (kind of), and one was a superhero team book. Both of those pitches were rejected for various reasons. The superhero team book got a little closer than the (sort of) western. The benefit of pitching the ideas to Shadowline was that I got the opportunity to speak with Kris Simon and Jim Valentino.

Kris Simon is the editor at Shadowline. She oversees all of the books published by the Shadowline imprint of Image Comics. Kris was the person I brought my two ideas to, and she saw enough potential in both of them to show to Jim Valentino. Jim made the final decision not to accept them, but I received valuable advice from him concerning the way I approach my writing.

After both of my pitches were rejected, Kris gave me the opportunity to pitch new ideas to Shadowline without the hassle of putting together a finished 5 to 10-page proposal. A few months ago I sent five ideas to Kris Simon that she showed to Jim Valentino. About a month ago Jim sent me a message saying that he saw some merit in two of them. He gave me a number of helpful comments and asked me to revise the ideas based on what he had to say.

Now one of the biggest problems I have as a writer is trying to rush things. I tend to value quantity over quality sometimes, and I cycle through ideas so quickly that I don’t dedicate the proper amount of time to any particular concept I have. It was one of the biggest criticisms I received from Jim Valentino, and I’m trying my best to correct the problem. I’ve been tweaking and revising the two concepts Jim showed interest in for the better part of a month now. I’m dedicating time to them each and every day in an effort to make them the best they can possibly be.

Writing in any medium is a learning process. Talking with established professionals like Kris Simon and Jim Valentino has allowed me to take another step towards my goal, but listening and applying their advice has been even more beneficial.

I’m not planning on screwing this up.

Writing comics…

Yeah, I’m one of those aspiring comic book writers you hear so much about on the news.

This little slice of the internet will be dedicated to my (hopefully successful) progress towards that goal.

I’ll also be posting about pretty much anything else I want.

So there.