Writing on the bus

I took the bus to Ottawa to see an art show at Carlton university.
On the bus I started writing something based around the idea of trying to not have someone sit next to you. The characters were four friends taking a bus ride. I loved it. I loved writing about these kids. I loved the kids. I tried to add a bit of magic to the text. I need to revisit it, of course, and edit it, clean it up, add it to something larger, forget about it completely.

What got me was how the actual writing diffused any stress I had. It was as if the solution was right there in front of me, that I loved getting things down on paper, long hand.

In September my dad died suddenly. I never thought this would happen how it did. But it did. And the whole thing left me hanging. It left my cute little affirmations hanging. It left my grander visions and future art projects hanging. I'm slowly trying to get back to a place where it's normal life again but of course it's hard. My grieving mom with all the shock she's going through.

Writing on that bus took me away from my life and situated me in the life of my characters and their ideas. The two and a half hour bus ride slipped by like nothing. I arrived ready for a walk in this other town, full of peace and ready to absorb the novelty of my Sunday away from home.

I wrote a bit on the way back but it was dark and I was tired so I tidied up the story as best I could and now my clipboard sits next to my bed. My kids been sick since then and now It's my turn too.
I'm writing here for the first time since when I said I'd write weekly.  It's tough to do something so simple, maybe it's not so simple. 

World Building Begins

So, I am actually on track.

I was reading a short story in an anthology of gothic fantasy, a Gray Mouser story I believe, when a click happened in me.

The author mentioned in passing the places Our Hero had been, you know, the Lake of Whatever, the Mountains of Overthere, like that, destinations that had little or no bearing to what was happening or what was about to happen. I stopped short, muttered World Building to myself, closed the book, grabbed my notes and started listing off the things in my world, the world I have been cobbling together since forever.

I have often thought that I lacked an array of characters and plotlines, which I mostly do tbh. The click was that I should be concerned with where (what world) I want my stories to take place in. This world-building strategy has helped me because as I was listing off elements of the world I wanted to see realized I started listing settings, events and characters that belonged in that world. One followed easily from the other.

For example, of course, there is a band in that world of mine, a touring band. So there are members of that band as well as fans, venues, all the stuff that comes with bands. The stuff of my social life since adolescence. I started remembering jokes I have told myself about all that.

So I'm on track. I haven't written a stitch of a story except for some notes and a tiny piece of dialogue but at least now I have somewhere to be, somewhere to start from.

Fantasy Writing

I have always wanted to write fantasy.  I was big into LOTR and regularly read SF&F short stories.

I've filled a few pages of the stuff but not much at all. When I have sat down to do so I have zero plan so it goes nowhere. Also, I haven't tried for years. My last real efforts yielded a couple weird short stories that were more atmospheric than anything, all about slugs floating through walls and such. No characterization, no real plot.

I studied lit in school some decades ago so one would think that I could figure out the basic building blocks of story writing. Thing is I simply don't put in the effort. I don't give myself the proper allotment of time at the desk to finger peck my way towards a complete short story.

My efforts in comics have seen some fantasy but not the elf/wizard variety. More the dimensional portal/trickster bunny type.

Also, as you can tell, my prose style is choppy.

And next I'll show you an example of how I was going to start this small text piece :

Oblique pathways towards fantasy literature, an early and as yet undying love, take the shape of psychedelic posters, stoner comics, asemic jottings, sigil crafting, magical street art, 

From choppy to snotty.

The stuff I most enjoy reading is sword and sorcery. When I discovered C.A. Smith I was floored. I've loved the old R.E. Howard stuff too. I don't draw this stuff. I don't sketch it, I don't design it on paper. nothing. But I enjoy reading it. I'm not up on the contemporary voices and don't care to be. Still chipping away at the classics.

I've read lots of fairy tales and children's classics. I'd love to write a kids book but here I am stuck with stilted confessionals.

The task is to inch towards a practice that leads to writing fantasy. It can be hybrid, urban, anything as long as it's coherent and complete.

Towards a Writing Practice

The impulse to write is camouflaged as a choking sensation that I recognize much too late for what it is. So I turn in circles. I go for walks and I chant. I scribble. I practise asemic writing, convinced that I am making headway into new lands. I collect series upon series of art projects, potential books languishing in my drawers, projects neatly organized waiting for an editor to knock on my door wearing nothing but devotion, patience and a huge cash advance.

A couple of years ago I participated in fun-a-day, a community action inviting peeps to choose a project and work on it, for fun, a bit every day for a month. I chose writing text. No concrete, no alien tongues, just word after word in English. I posted each offering online elsewhere. I went for 2 months plus. it was much needed. I got a lot off my chest. I felt a release. Some days were a tough slog other days a whiz of excitement, thinking faster than my two chicken pecking fingers could deal with.

Today the writing I do is on this blog and is centred around the creative process. I upload an image of some visual art of mine and start riffing. The image below is of some hand lettering on found blue canvas. I like the idea of such simple poem signs, an I very much enjoy making text-based visual art. It's simply that I think I wasn't to write write. And do it much more consistently and much more often. 

I want to write and let myself be taken by it. What a romance! I want the practice to steer me and not the other way around and I'll tell you why. I make excuses for not just starting something. I collect fragments that are never revisited. I have no aim, no plan, no plot, no characters, no setting. I have a choking sensation telling me that I'm not expressing myself. Chanting helps, it's immediate and lovely and I'm improving my singing voice. Asemic is radiant in that it stretches my imagination in unforeseen ways but I still fear writing straight and long form.

Here are some excuses....do I use the computer or longhand? Should I get a dedicated notebook? Should I force myself to create a list of characters and a setting and start plotting? Should I trash all fragments to clean house and just choose one project and go with it? When should I write? Family life is demanding. Should I wake up earlier than everyone else and sit at a desk for 20 minutes? Should I remind myself that in other aspects of my life I've near successfully jettisoned the word should?

To date, I've told myself to at least hit this blog more often, maybe once a week, on Thursdays. Maybe the regularity will breed discipline.

I've been told that discipline is the name of the game. Showing up at the office, every day, for a 500-word jaunt or something.

Wr/Dr

Twice a week, very Tuesday and Thursday, I drop the tyke off at daycare and head for the third floor corner seat of the McGill library to pore over the Blue Book, which is my business strategy and enhanced lifestyle notebook, and to pound out an average of ten pages of minimalist comics, today I did twelve.

The Blue Book is where I've been detailing plans and thoughts for my business, Monastiraki, and my art and career in general. In blue ballpoint pen, I write down schedules, attainable goals, ambitions. All in a fairly clear and organized way, cross referencing entries and everything. I do this to warm up. I get into it. Sometimes I find some book on branding and read a page or two to bring the experience up a notch. This is new for me. My notebooks of yore have been havens for scribbles, stoner notes and doodles, all words hardly revisited let alone legible.

When that's done, I crack out a couple of mechanical pencils and my clipboard full of fresh 8.5 x 11 white sheets and start drawing minimal little heads, six per page, each with a few words, telling a simple story. I started this comic project last year and mostly spun my wheels, creating a frustrating stream of consciousness comic about the false starts of the creative process, all in real time.

Since the new year, since I've turned the corner, as they say, the comics are considerably less about humming and hawing and more about the thoughts and experiences I've been having rediscovering my path as a magician who is intent on authoring his life proactively. It's been liberating to say the least. I draw simple lines and write simple words in a way that feels like journaling and comic making. I thought today that if I were to make a zine of this stuff, which I will (for TCAF 2016), I may write as part of my bio on the back cover that the author has shown he can draw elsewhere, this is about something else.

I've often derided what I call 'Head-Coffee-Head' comics, comics that simply show the characters head in some panels, and a coffee cup or other mundane feature in other panels. Well folks, I've come a long way and I'm done for the time being busting my back on ornate guitar solos. I've searched for a way to write and draw quick stream of consciousness work and I've found it. It's one floating head and a few words in an open panel six times per page. I've got a nice stack of the stuff now and I like where it's going. Some of the pages, even when they are part of a sequence, seem to stand up on their own, like a serial, so I'm thinking hard of uploading them as a webcomic. I'll also make a series of 12 or so page zines, each with a simple cover design that repeats, kinda like King Cat.

I'm truly excited about all this stuff, Wr for writing and Dr for drawing, whether it's journal and notebook focus or simple comics. Stay tuned. I'm going to share this stuff.

Asemic Scrawl

A close up of a pencil poem

Hold your pencil higher up so it feels like you have less control over where it would go if you pushed down and away while letting go. Add branches to the lines you've made. Twist the pencil with each slight release. See how and where it goes. Repeat.