Yes, Virginia, there is a Pitched! 3

In my head, at least.

After two comic anthologies, both of which I’m very proud — thanks to my collaborators, Pitched! and Pitched! 2 were quite awesome — it would be natural to assume a third is on its way. And in fact, as I’ve posted, Pitched! 3 was at one time in progress.

Key words being “at one time.” Life happens. A host of factors (none of which are necessary to go into here) ground it to a halt this spring. Though there were brief moments throughout the late spring and summer when I thought maybe I could light a fire under it and get things cooking again, that never materialized. Not the time. Not the energy. Not the people.

And most importantly, I came to the realization that for now I was okay with that.

Portions of Pitched! 3 do exist. There is some unfinished material kicking around. Some scripts and plots and sketches and ideas. Quite a bit, actually. A whole mess of stuff that could turn into two new anthologies. A fully storyboarded and scripted science fiction story, a fully thumbnailed and scripted crime story, some concept sketches and plot for a mythology-meets-noir tale, and more.

But the fact is, projects like this take time, energy, and a whole lot of management. For me the tough part wasn’t the writing. To be honest, that came pretty easily. The tough part was juggling the work of upwards of a dozen people from across the country, keeping them energized and eager to work despite it taking a whole lot of their precious time (without pay, no less), making sure everyone stayed on task and stayed on schedule, and seeing the whole damn through to the end … not to mention getting word out about it, formatting for the printer, and all that other crap that isn’t writing.

It’s a lot of work, and life — both mine and my collaborators’ — didn’t want it to happen right now.

Maybe some day. But not right now. So Pitched! 3 will just have to wait.