Tick, Tock

I've been doing some more plotting this week, getting more of my ideas out of my head and into some format. It's helpful to me, but doesn't provide a whole lot to talk about, sadly.

I would like to express my frustration at being so easily distracted though. I'm at a place in life where I have to schedule time to write, usually a couple of hours at the end of the night, when I would normally be sleeping. I relish the time I spend putting things in order because it gives me such a sense of accomplishment. However, I find that I'm often pulled away from the task at hand. The cat makes an SRD (sudden, random dash), or Facebook quietly calls to me, or an otherwise uninteresting infomercial is suddenly captivating. And just like that, time is gone.

I have a workspace that is quiet where I could tune out most of the world's white noise, but it's a total disaster at the moment, and it's going to be a big job to get it back to fully functional. Anyone have any tricks they use to maximize their writing time, or at least stay focused?

Post-Its & Excel Are my Friends

Last night, I started a little bit of plotting. I've had one idea in particular on the brain since Christmastime, nagging me to do something with the concept.

When I get ideas, I don't generally have the opportunity to indulge them very far. I usually get them at work, so I just jot down some key words or a phrase on a post-it note. I'll stick that post-it to my CPU at work where I can let the words sink in a bit, getting into my subconscious while I mindlessly collect my paycheck. From there, I'll add any further blips on my radar to a small notepad and bundle them all together for the ride home. I've probably got 5 little stacks of these sitting around my office at home.

After being a little frustrated by a less-than-stellar episode of Lost, I decided to shake off the news of a recap episode next week. I told my wife I was staying up late to do some writing, then stole her laptop and snuggled into the couch with my post-its.

Despite being initially overwhelmed, I lurched forward by trying to make sense of my various notes. Deciding that the post-it system had served its purpose and was now only a hindrance, I transcribed the data they contained into an excel spreadsheet. This way I could organize characters relationships to one another, give them each an age and a column for a brief description of their personality and powers.

Once I got all of this information and a few plot points from the first nugget of the story into the spreadsheet, I started trying to connect the dots between the events I wanted to happen. I've always been the kind of writer who saw the big picture very clearly, but had trouble moving fluidly from beat to beat. By laying out my events in this way, where I could easily cut and paste them above or below other plot points, I really got something going that worked well for me.

In the end, I didn't write a single paragraph of story, but I feel like I'm building an outline that I can follow later. I never used outlines much in school, but I can definitely see the draw for this purpose. This will help me stay focused, and draw on what I have planned for the future to build up my earlier stories. Transitions are a big hole in my writing that I think this brainstorming technique will work toward filling. And I feel very good about that.

That's all I got for today, but stay tuned for more updates and I try to stay up late some more this week to get some work done.

Away we go...

Starting these kinds of things is always a little awkward, but if the title of the blog didn't give away my intentions then I guess I'll just go into some detail.

I'm an aspiring writer who has about zero experience to date. I'm like many people out there, who read comics all the time and dreamed of breaking in since I was in high school. Well, now I'm 25, haven't done anything to work toward that goal, and have decided to give it a go. If you never try, you never succeed, right?

This blog was created to chronicle my experience trying to develop stories, submit ideas, and (someday) publish my first work. I want to be able to look back and see how it happened for me, assuming it's successful. Then again, I refer you to the title of this blog: keeping a positive attitude on this journey should keep me both focused and pleasant enough to live my day-to-day life. So, I WILL write comic books.

I'm not just creating this blog as a future biography, or some kind of virtual scrapbook though. I would like to make this a kind of resource center for others like me, giving it an honest go, to find websites where they can meet artists, or get submission guidelines, or offer helpful hints about working through some writers' block. I would like to see this place become much more interactive than just me telling a bunch of people what's going on with me. If something I say interests you, post away. Or if I ask some question, please assume it isn't rhetorical, and give me any answers you find. Share your progress too. We'll work together, then, and hopefully WE will write comic books.

Also, I'd be ignoring the elephant in the room if I didn't say that I'm doing this to get a little exposure. I know it's not really in my intended industry, but just getting my name out there with some words I wrote for people to read is going a mile farther than I ever have before. I want people to know who I am, what I'm trying to do, and, hopefully, be able to help me out in any way possible.

One foot before the next, the journey is starting today, and there's no turning back once this thing is posted. So try along with me, and enjoy the trail we blaze together. Who knows? Maybe this will become a successful platform to launch many careers, and many proclamations that "I write comic books."

Looking forward to checking in again soon...