Am Writing Comics
About a decade ago, when I moved to Columbus, I found out about different writing forums, groups, and online communities. I didn't join any of them, I just learned the hashtags used on Twitter and got really invested in my own writing. None of it was great, but it was doing something for me. The last time I sat down to write anything seriously in my life before then was a fantasy story on a website back when I was in high school and early Art Major years that kind of kicked off the world that Nightingales is set in.
I've been trying to revisit that mode and that energy many times over the years since, but you've seen the results of what work and school at full-time hours do to my brain. I had nothing to give myself creatively because all that brain power was occupied just getting me through my workday and my studies. I learned the hard way that stressing myself out was not healthy or helpful for me, even if I got random spurts of ideas I wanted to bring to life.
Now that I'm not burning out at both ends, I'm regaining my energy and putting it to use for specifically artistic endeavors, almost exclusively. So I take a lot of ideas as they come and write them down for later development while pushing other ideas, the stuff that excites me, forward. Going back to my earlier post about making outlines, this is where I get to drop in all the cool moments happening in my head. At least just getting them down means I can come back to them later and put them into context.
But what am I even writing these days?
Nightingales
Warsaints
Hedge Kingdom (yep, I’ve decided on its name!)
Black Crown
Night’s Name (my follow-up to The Night Is Our Victory)
One Act (dipping my toes into horror)
And those are just the projects for which I have started planning documents! Most of everything else I have in my head will live there until I can give it context. I want to start pouring them out into a notebook (of which I have plenty; they just have to get used) and building on them as I think more about them later. Maybe when I start naming characters or the idea feels the most real, whichever point that is, that’s when I should put together a planning document and try to figure out a development plan for making it real.
The problem, as mentioned, is time! Where will I get all this time from? The first part, and I’ve mentioned this before, is giving myself space to just exist as an artist with ideas that may not even make it. Letting the ideas flow and being at peace with them (even if I’m writing them down for later). Next is me reviewing those ideas in other spare moments. Not everything needs to be full-speed on production; some things aren’t ready for that. And then, when it is ready, let it exist on its own without planning a whole big thing. Also, me trimming some current activities out until I actually can invest more time and energy into them! At the top of all that, I’m looking at my current projects and saying, “What needs to be a priority right now and what’s not?”
Nightingales. Everything comes back to Nightingales. That’s my priority. That’s where the energy is. That’s what everything I’ve created in the last 30 years of being an art kid, comics lover, and fantasy literature enthusiast has led me to. It wasn’t even called Nightingales at first, but the title makes sense given the story, and the story has yet to be told to anyone but my dreams. So we’ll start there. Also, Night’s Name needs as much attention because I’ve been putting that off since the first appearance of The Night Is Our Victory, which feeds directly into Nightingales.
The others aren’t going anywhere. I just want to spend more time with Nightingales and get that first thing out there. It’s the story in my heart and on my mind to tell, and I want to give it all the energy it deserves. So that’s where I’ll be living. I’ll still jump into the other stuff as I go, but they’re absolutely going to be in the passenger seats while Nightingales does the driving. I feel good about that plan, that it’ll give me more time to be the full creative force I’ve always wanted to be.
Thanks for letting me talk.