Tag Archive: Writing

Thank god for editors

Stuff Every Husband Should Know

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…
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Screw you, time. SCREW YOU

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 —…
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PITCHED 2: Some Time with the Family

We’re getting close to the finish line on the second volume of Pitched, my series of comic anthologies, so I thought I’d throw some more preview art out there. These are the first two pages of a story called “Some Time with the Family,” a horror story (obviously) penciled by Logan Reilly, inked by James Pipik (who did the art on “The End of All Summers” for the first volume of Pitched), and written by yours truly. Despite the art being unfinished, I think it looks quite nice, and so will you: Click image for full-sized Click image for full-sized

Stuff Every Husband Should Know manuscript = complete

Stuff Every Husband Should Know

Headline says it all. The manuscript for my next book, a pocket book called Stuff Every Husband Should Know and scheduled for publication next spring by Quirk Books, has been finished and turned in to my awesome editor, Stephen Segal. This doesn’t mean my work is finished, of course. There will be more to do on the project. But the tough stuff is done. And that’s good. Now I set my sights on scripting my next comic anthology, which I have mentioned a few times before. Some great stuff is coming in from the artists involved, really exciting images that are bringing these stories to life in ways I hadn’t imagined. Can’t wait for people to see more. Further preview pages will be coming soon….
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On Writing: Good Days, Bad Days

Sometimes writing sucks. On some days every stroke of your pen or clack of your keyboard results in what can only charitably be described as crap. Crap. It happens. And on other days magic spills out of your keyboard, and even the roughest of rough drafts are close to final. Again, it happens. After a week or more of the former, today I am enjoying the latter. That’s not to say that every word I’m spinning is gold — it’s up to my editor on my current project to make that call — it’s to say that decent words are coming easily and without struggle. The process has been painless. The last week, though? Horrid. I had to drag every last phrase out of me,…
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