Roll your own cigarette.
I’m sitting around here this evening thinking about things I want to do. Creative things. I don’t know if I’ll ever actually do them because who does everything they think of but you got to think of things anyway and then pick and choose. Of course the first thing I thought of was writing this blog. I’m going to get that done for sure because here I am writing it. There is a no-brainer.
They next thing I have to get done is a no-brainer too. I have to correct a typo on my web comic that posted today. I hate typos and always try to correct them. I make my “Four Talking Boxes” comic in an odd way. For the last year I’ve been writing them in the morning as I get ready for the day. That means I write after my shower as I get dressed. It takes about twenty minutes to half an hour. Yeah, I get dressed slowly these days. I run spell check to try and get all the typos out but don’t really proofread. Then on Thursdays I put the art together five strips at a time. I read the strip again at that time to make sure things are okay. Then the comic posts the following week and I read it online each morning to make sure it posted correctly. Like I said I don’t really proofread but I read it enough times that errors don’t get through too often. Today an error got through. I didn’t even read the strip this morning so it’s been there all day. I used your instead of you’re. It happens. After I finished writing this I’ll go fix it.
The other things I’ve been thinking about doing are more creative in nature. For instance another comic strip thing I’ve been thinking about doing is voiceover reading for the strips. Since “Four Talking Boxes” is all conversation it might be fun to read some of them and make a video of it. Nothing fancy. Just read the first character’s part and then the second. Switching back and forth through the four panels of the strip and the camera pans across the strip. I’d probably have to do it with other people since I have six characters in the strip and three of them are women. I don’t think I have a very convincing female voice. I don’t know how interesting it will end up being but it’s something to think about.
I did finally finish one thing this week. Also “Four Talking Boxes” related as I turned the first five hundred strips into a digital book. I had to design and make a cover for it as well as a back cover and some inside chapter break pages. I even wrote some little stories for the chapter breaks. I’m not even sure why I thought the chapter break stories were necessary but I wanted them there. As an artist things are often about getting things just how I want them to be. Now I have to figure out what to do with the digital book. How to get it out there.
I had been working on the “Four Talking Boxes” digital book for a while an finishing it got me started thinking about more digital books to get done. I’ve had my “Little Red Sketchbook” digital book sitting around for two years now and I haven’t finished it. I don’t know why. It just never came together. I also have another digital book called “Moments Float Back To Me” that I was working on a few weeks ago that features my art and photography along with a story. Once again I’m finished with the art and design part and am working on the story. I often have find the writing hardest to get done. I keep thinking I’m a planner when it comes to writing, as I often am in other things, but it turns out I’m more of a spontaneous writer. I have to sit down and get going with it. I think that’s why I’m good at short pieces of writing. That’s also how I got the “Four Talking Boxes” chapter pieces written. I just did them. I’d get up, bang something out for fifteen minutes, and then back off it again for twenty minutes. Repeat for a day and a half.
Now I’ve got it in my head to make yet another digital book. I think I’ve got a one track mind today. I’ve been making these little ink drawings lately. They’re on my 2.5.3.5 inch art card paper and are drawn with brush and ink. All sorts of little rough looking men, women, and strange creatures. None of them are great on there own but put them together and they add up to something. There is something about little ink drawings that when you blow them up to a larger size that look cool. I don’t know what that is but I have an idea to construct a story around them, blow them up, and make another digital book out of it all. I think I’m going to call that one “Large From Small” or some such.
And one more digital book idea. My monster a day drawings and a story of the woman who spends her time keeping the monsters of our collective unconscious at bay.”Fifty Four Monster” could be it’s name.
I also want to make some videos for my YouTube channel of me using my fortune card telling deck of cards that I made last decade. That is going to be tricky only in that I’ll have to learn what the cards mean. Sure I made up the meanings but that was a long time ago and I don’t have them memorized at all. I’m actually going to have to practice with them and that doesn’t fill me with joy. Maybe one of these days.
One final thing thing I’ve been pondering. Finishing up the “Organics” comic story I’ve been working on for ages. I’ve got 30 or so pages out of 42 pencilled, inked, and lettered. I’m not sure if I want to color it because that is a lot of work. Still have to finish those last pages too.
Oh, and I’m always thinking about new paintings and drawings. But that’s another story.
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