It’s been crazy around here lately but the kids are back at school today and I got ahead on some work over the weekend so what better time than now to do my first newsletter of 2022!
In true holiday form Christmas was both relaxing and panic inducing. We got to catch up with family we hadn’t seen in a while, which was wonderful. Less wonderful was my wife breaking her arm on Christmas day when we went sledding an hour before company showed up for dinner.
I don’t remember much after that. I handed out last minute cooking instructions to whoever would listen, drove her to the hospital, and then suddenly we were all sitting at the table eating Christmas dinner and my wife was wearing a cast.
My son, who’s nine now, broke his arm in kindergarten and was kind enough to offer his mother some much needed advice on the do’s and don’t of broken arms, while casually passing someone else the cranberry sauce.
We laughed. It was mostly wonderful.
All The Work Things.
Some of the hard work I’d been putting in behind the scenes in 2020/21 really started to pay off near the end of 2021. I signed a contract on a new creator owned mini-series that I’m really damn excited about. Something for all my fellow noir fans. We’ll call it #ProjectYellowWarbler.
And I’m about to sign another contract for my OGN with Erin Connally, The Cutting Garden - which we’ll be announcing later this year. I love this book, and I can’t wait for you all to see it. Here’s a little taste…
Precious Metal continues to plug along and we’re really having a great time with it. It’s always the quiet moments for me with this story. I love to think about them. I love to write them. I love to destroy them.
I know a lot of people are curious when PM is going to launch. Not a week goes by where I don’t get a message about it from a Little Bird fan, fellow comic creator, or foreign publisher wondering when they can list it. I really wish I could give an exact date for that but I can’t. We’re making progress on what is easily the most ambitious work of our lives, and that’s about all I can say for now.
Critical Role’s The Tales of Exandria: The Bright Queen was listed by Multiversity as one of the best licensed comics of 2021 a few weeks ago which was a nice way to wrap the year, and #3 is out on Wednesday, Jan 12th if you’re wondering what the fuss is about. That’s in two days people!
Things continue to twist and turn in the lives of Quana and Leylas Kryn toward a dark and uncertain future. Go get it!
Writing Journal - Entry #2
In my last journal entry I wrote a bit about the inception of ideas and what that process looks like for me. What I’ve been thinking about lately is what happens after that. This has been top of mind for me because “outlining” has become a big part of my life lately. I’ve been pitching more recently and the process of outlining is a big part of any pitch.
For those that don’t know, outlining is the process of breaking down your entire story from beginning to end in brief descriptions, essentially creating a plot driven road map for your story. Generally speaking, I really enjoy this process but it’s no substitute for actual writing. The kind where your characters take charge and begin to tell you how this story is going to work. That’s when all the clever little plots plans begin to feel stale, inadequate, and lifeless.
I tend to stick to the rhythm of my outlines more than anything else, something I really value, but the events themselves can change quite dramatically while scripting. I’m really living in the moment with my characters and to deny them their own instinct feels like creative death to me. I rewrote the entire outline for the penultimate issue of Precious Metal in a short time because of one event change in the previous chapter. And I did so with no hesitation, no regrets.
That doesn’t mean I had to throw everything out the window but the ripple effect was large enough that it called for a total rewrite. That’s why I always refer to outlines as “living documents”, something I’ll continually update throughout the process so that I maintain that roadmap of where I’m going while also giving my characters something that resembles free will.
Best laid plans, am I right?
Until Next Time
That’s it for now I’ll try and do this more regularly in 2022 than I did last year.
Oh - and I haven’t forgotten about getting a comic in this newsletter either - it’s just something I want to do right if I’m going to do it at all, so I’m still figuring out how to make all work.
- DVP