About The Site

I have holidays coming up and I’m kind of stockpiling jobs that I want to do during them. I have two weeks and I’ll be spending the first week in one town and the second week in another, so planning is essential. I will not be at home with my usual array of toys. I need to pack the good acorns for this long winter hibernation on the road, mooching meals from family and friends alike.

I am a man who writes from notes. Whatever story I’m working on I get all the notes out and they sit on the desk next to the laptop. I constantly go over them as I write, making sure I am hitting the right beats as I go. I am allowed to deviate from the plan, but only if it will not interfere with future awesome plans, or if it will only make them more awesome. If I don’t work with notes I’m liable to overlook, or completely forget something important and then what I write, or plan, will have to be scratched because of a fatal flaw. So, I have to make sure I have all I need for my trips away and abroad – hey, interstate is abroad, right?

1. Laptop

I’d be lost without this little baby. We’ve been together a year and it’s clearly one of the most fruitful relationships I’ve ever endured for this period of time. Paying more for the better battery was a great idea, I can watch a movie on full brightness and sound and not even worry about draining out. Not to mention it has all of my files on it, kind of necessary, and all my music, so it gets packed.

2. The Choice That Had To Be Made

This was a short story I wrote possibly two years ago. It’s about 15 grand worth of words, give or take a few hundred. I was going to self-publish it, much like I did another short story, The Friendly Skies, but have constantly sat on it and questioned its validity of addition to the Paper Street Publishing House’s stable of fine literature. There is a sex scene in it, it has to be there, it’s important to the story, but I just don’t know if I can put it out there. But, this year, I think I might…

3. Fate

I’ve got the four issue scripts for Fate printed off and ready to read. I just haven’t gotten around to reading them yet. Now, as it has been nearly two months since I finished, I think I am ready to read them all and work out what’s cool, what’s not, and what might need tweaking. I’m actually keen, now that I have some distance, and my mind has faded a little on the subject, as it is want to do, to read it and see how it all came out. Could be fun…

4. Seven Spanish Angels

I’ve stolen the title from the Willie Nelson song (at least, he sings it in my computer) but the story doesn’t really have anything to do with Spain, or angels, but I do want seven main characters. I just always think of this song when I think of the story…it’s how my mind works. It’s a zombie tale, we’ve all got one in us, and I need to really crunch down and make some characters up so that the story can flow through them. I have a few scenes already in mind, so just need to nut it all out. I understand there is apparently a glut of zombie stuff on the market, but I don’t see a glut of good zombie stuff on the market. Just because Dawn of the Dead and Shaun of the Dead came out around the same time doesn’t mean we are still getting all the good stuff…Day of the Dead remake sucked major balls.

5. Lest We Forget

I want to write an original graphic novel about my grandfather’s Second World War experience. I heard so many stories from him, and some of them are just pure gold, so I would love to put them into a format that will live on. Notes need to be taken.

6. I Will Love You Forever

This is a love story I’ve been mulling over for years and years. It’s full of death, ghosts and cruelty, all the things that remind me of love really. I have the skeleton idea, but want to sit down and work out exactly what I want to do with it. I don’t have the format clear in my head, some days I think novel, some days I think a story told in vignettes (which I am leaning towards now) and some days I just don’t know…maybe two weeks will give me time to work some out?

7. Books

I’m nearly finished Clive Barker’s Mister B. Gone, and it is pretty cool. So I need some other things to keep me busy. I want to read Dashiel Hammett’s Red Harvest, Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, some Joe R. Lansdale and J.G. Ballard’s Crash. But, I also know I’ll be lucky to get through one of those in just two weeks. I sometimes find it hard to read when I feel like I should be writing. But if I get a good morning’s workload done then I know I can spend some time in the sun reading it up. I also have a Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. trade that covers his exploits in Strange Tales from 150-168, I’m hanging to read it. Might also re-read some Walking Dead or Y: The Last Man just to remind myself how fucking good comics can get.

This is what goes through my head when I get two weeks off work. Most people just relax, stock up on red wine and watch some movies. Me? Apparently I’m going to die young from stress and a huge stack of note paper crushing me. Pray for me in your dreams, constant reader.

Posted on June 17th, 2008 by ryan
Filed under: Writing, books, comics, life, music