Author. Writer. Editor. Fool.
I have the house to myself for a few days, which means my usual schedule has been replaced with slothful behavior. I’m okay with that, I think I’ve earned some down time, but I think it reached a breaking point yesterday when … How do I say this? When I realized I was sprawled out on the couch, in my boxers, watching South Park and eating an obscenely huge bowl of pudding. Instant shame. Not shame enough to put down the pudding, mind you, because pudding is delicious.
Editors are the best. I don’t say that because I am one (though I am), I say that because editors exist to make your work better — and if you write, don’t you want your work to be better? Too many aspiring writers resist the idea of letting someone else touch their words. It’s tampering; it’s an insult; the words are pure and perfect and blah blah farking blah. No. If you write, nine times out of ten a good editor will make your work better. You don’t need a pat on the back from friends and family. You don’t need blind praise. You don’t need relentless criticism. You need someone to massage your work; to bring out the good; suppress the bad; and just…
Read more
And cheating at it along the way. I drew all throughout my childhood, a sheet of not-to-be-blank-for-long paper perpetually in front of me and a pencil feverishly scritching away drawing maps, wars, and terrible comics. It probably wasn’t until the eighth grade and Jason Dixon, talented sonofabitch that he was, that I realized I couldn’t actually draw. Didn’t stop me from doing loads of really awful comics in high school, though. A few friends would make up our own goofy superhero comics and pass them out to one another. Mine tended to be tongue-in-cheek “homages” to popular characters, such as Clawman, who broke the fourth wall and acknowledged he was a Wolverine ripoff, or Buttman and Rectum, who … well, the less said about them,…
Read more
This summer I’ve returned to something I discovered last summer. Something that had me relaxed in a way few things get me relaxed. Painting. Some brushes, a bit o’ canvas, a cold drink, and music while sitting outdoors in the sun, looking over the water and getting lost whipping that brush back and forth. It’s very, very easy to wind away an entire afternoon like that. The problem is that I’m awful. Just downright awful. Like, reallyreallyreally awful. And you know? I’m okay with that. I’m okay with that because I’m not doing it for any reason other than to relax. And there sure are far worse ways to relax. So painting is what I’ll do.
Time can go to hell. Or more specifically, the lack of time that seems to exist around me can go to hell. Right to HELL. I don’t ask much of this world. As little misery at work as possible, some time with friends and family, some relaxation, and the opportunity to pursue the projects I want to pursue, whether professional endeavors (“Stuff Every Husband Should Know“) or hobbies (recording music or doing comic anthologies). But there isn’t time to squeeze it all in. This stacks up with that is piled onto that other thing, and pretty soon you’re tearing your hair out, picking priorities, dropping things that aren’t all that important to you, and just hoping to escape with a few shreds of sanity —…
Read more