Re-engaging, Believe it or Not

My new filing system; two top boxes are EU rough drafts

Since my last post three and half months ago I married off a son, practiced being a new grand father, spent five weeks in a motel with Zelda the cat while repair persons replaced all the floors in our house due to water damage, reignited a speaking career (one gig included creating a 50+ slide Power Point presentation), made daily visits to my beleaguered wife whose health continues to deteriorate, began a massive de-cluttering project in prep for selling our house, transferred all my digital copy (projects, tasks, grist for new books) to Evernote, sent a bulk mailing to 400 former clients giving them a free updated version of a 55 page book, Managing Marital Irritations (get your free copy here), launched a silly website about volvelles (click here if you dare), and discovered Netflix after giving away our TV. (New guilty pleasure: 30 Rock). All this on top of running a one man therapy shop, writing a new book about grief and doubt, frying my synapses reading Kierkegaard, and launching a weekly conflict mediation blog. Click here to take a gander.

Even though I read another book about finishing creative tasks during this hiatus from drawing Ecclesiastes University,  I've been badgered by guilt. I entered my third third (age 60-90) determined to illustrate Ecclesiastes in graphic novel form and have been waylaid by these and a dozen other delicious diversions.

I'm back, planning now to begin drawing this weekend. What has spurred me on (beyond a sense of calling) is the wacky idea of turning Ecclesiastes University into a series of books featuring a host of guest lecturers. I'd love to do to Pascal, Chesterton, Lewis, Kierkegaard, and Camus what I've done to Qoheleth (which would really gum up the works since Ecclesiastes University would include classes NOT based on Ecclesiastes. Sigh....what a mess). But I dare not start anything new until we get Dr. Q finished. I'm looking at 450+ pages of 6 panel drawings each...gulp. Here goes.

First Half Page "Flat" Color

First attempt at full color (half) page. (I plan on combining half pages so the book is taller than it is wide).  The number of decisions required to produce this page was enormous. Trial and error, scouring manuals and chat rooms, watching Youtube videos, and more trial and error and here's what we get.

I've abandoned shading for the time being. Adjusting pixels, brush width, scanning resolutions, gradient fills, remembering colors so skin and clothes don't waver, and a zillion other tasks were technical  challenge enough. Once I'm relatively facile with drawing with a stylus, managing files, and so forth, and then I might return to Art School 101 and study shading, light, highlights, reflected shadows, again. However, I'm not going to live forever and this project already is ten months in the making. Even doing flat colors is arduous and time consuming. I estimate about 450 half pages are to be drawn, scanned, colored, and posted. It just doesn't seem right to me that, should this take ten years, a seventy year old man is still drawing comic books.

Second First Color Job

Every journey begins with a first step. Here are my first steps applying color. I begin with faces traced (from a model book) with black fine tip pen, scanned at 600 dpi, and uploaded to COREL Essentials. 

 I use the paint bucket to apply solid colors on the guy's face and shirt. So far, so good.

Then I leap into the unknown and fling paint everywhere applying shadows. You should see my living room; there are spattered pixels all over my rug, walls, and shirt. (My first digital joke). These shadows are haphazard, helter-skelter, and savage. But I gotta start somewhere.

My quandary: do I postpone drawing pen/ink finished pages until I gain competence as a colorist? This means coloring all 22 characters before drawing any pages. That will require weeks of coloring before drawing any pages.

Or do I start drawing finished pages (I've got 50 pages scripted, blocked, and ready for images) and  learn to color as I go? The problem with that plan is that as my technique improves the finished book will be of uneven quality. The earlier pages will be amateurish while later pages become less amateurish.

I think I'll keep improving my coloring technique. Certainly I can exceed the level of skill on display above. This'll put my schedule off once again...but since I'm really under no deadline I can putter at a leisurely pace.

I do have this fear somebody, somewhere on the planet is working on a comic book based on Ecclesiastes and every day I delay publishing they get closer to beating me to the punch. This was Art Speigelman's challenge when Steven Spielberg was coming out with An American Tale. Art was halfway through MAUS when he got wind of Spielberg's plan to use immigrant mice with nasty cats in 1890's NY city. So he published half of his work (Jewish mice; Nazi cats) before completion. Hey Spielberg, you got any plans to do a film about Ecclesiastes? Please don't. 

Characters: First Glimpse

When musing on Ecclesiastes I think, "These reflections are weak; exquisite dialog will beef up the plot."

When editing dialog I think, "These word balloons are weak; exquisite characters will beef up the story."

When creating characters I think, "These talking heads are boring; an exquisite narrative arc will beef up the plot."

When shaping the plot I think, "This plot is weak; exquisite model sheets will beef up the message."

When drawing model sheets I think, "These black and white drawings are weak; exquisite penciling, inking, and coloring will beef up the drawings."

On and on the chase goes. I aspire to exquisite-ness (new word) yet exquisite-ness eludes me at every turn. It's like jacking up a car four corners at a time; I'm running around shoring up sagging aspects of this work in progress in a semi-hallucinatory frenzy. It's not one big project, it's ten million little projects. The exquisite product "in my head" is light years beyond what is actually being produced which is decidedly un-exquisite (another new word). And yet I keep hoping all the pieces will coalesce, fall together, merge seemlessly into one glorious finale (when mixed metaphors flow like Niagara I'm in a creative rant mode).

Here's the first un-exquisite glimpse of who we're dealing with in Ecclesiastes University in order of appearance. I apologize for the poor scanning job; eagerness to post before leaving for work necessitated haste/waste. CS Lewis said, "Half a loaf is better than no bread." I say, "A hasty scan is better than no scan."

One further observation: the alien son looks nothing like his alien father. How do I explain this?  Choose one:

A. The son is adopted.

B.  In their alien universe achieving enlightenment (as the alien dad has done) results in an evolutionary casting off of vestigial mechanical accouterments: hoses, wheels, goggles, etc.

C. There's a dad lookalike inside all those mechanical accouterments. The son is just decked out in the youthful fashions of on his planet.

D. I am lazy and don't want to draw two Steam Punk aliens inside the space ship. 

E. The world views of both aliens is so different I didn't want to confuse readers by drawing them similarly. Their disparate appearances is symbolic of their disparate means to galactic unity: technology vs. metaphysics. 

And a final question: what's up with Karenoia's lack of chin? She's an adaptation of this old caricature:

New Stage = New Location

I'm in the character design stage. No more tweaking dialog, no more stage setting, no more shaping plot. This is the "what do these talking heads look like?" stage. The challenge is to make them visually appealing so readers identify with, like, and closely track with their philosophical musings for 200+ pages.

Consequently, I'm no longer spending hours in our living room couch with lap top computer and lap top drawing board. I'm now hunkered down here, a place as close to heaven on earth as I can imagine.

Milestone Reached

Just completed the new Draft Five. What previously had been 35 pages has grown to 53 pages (106 half pages in Publisher). I've added two narrators (space aliens) who eavesdrop on the class and comment not unlike these quipping pop culture icons:

Mystery Science Theater 3000

Muppets Two Old Men

Furthermore, I've isolated 22 main characters and have given them names, ages, majors, motivations, and philosophical orientations. It's like I'm playing chess while simultaneously inventing the pieces and the moves they make. I've created these 22 characters and turned them loose to listen to Dr. Q jabber on and on about life's futility.

So now, at long last, I begin the delicious task of making model sheets. I'm fighting the temptation to buy my Bamboo Tablet yet. I'll tackle this next stage of the journey with old fashioned paper and pencil. 

Status Update

Thirty-five pages of rough draft number five have been posted on the other site for first readers to scan and comment upon. The feedback has been so helpful I've hit the pause button to rethink the whole premise of this graphic novel. 2000+ talking heads are just too boring. So what are my options?

Make the claim that the boredom is an intentional literary device to further illustrate the message of vanity, absurdity, and pointlessness. This is a bit disingenuous, like the guy who shoots his bow wildly and then draws targets around randomly shot arrows.

Scrap the whole thing and write a stage play or screen play. No more graphic novel? Ouch.

Scrap Ecclesiastes and go mow my lawn. And give up philosophical ruminations? Double ouch.

Reformat the whole thing:

• give students only 2 panels (delete the second row of 1-3 boxes) to riff on Dr. Q. This would essentially cut the book--and boredom--in half. Less is more, but that much less?
• enlarge the size of my printed hard copy thus giving me a larger drawing space in which to draw settings, props, action, etc. This would essentially render my existing 428 pages null and void...after all that work!
• put new words into Dr. Q's mouth; fictionalize him. This would make the finished product "based upon the book of Ecclesiastes" rather than "taking every word of the ancient text as is and seeing it crash against modern thinking."
• keep the format but reduce the number of characters. Theoretically I could cut the number of students in half, combining various traits into one. This would cut down the confusion of who's who but increase confusion about student motives. Currently each student represents one philosophical/emotional point of view. Blending them would make each character complex and self contradictory. Plus, I might get bored with the few students that remain. I like the variety of a huge cast of characters.
• press on hoping readers will eventually identify with the individual characters. This is risky because there is no glue currently keeping readers engaged. Even with spiffed up drawings I suspect the insipid dialog will be lethal. Death by word balloon.
• increase the wit and wisdom of student comments. When I read a really good book I hang on every word, dreading the end. I want it to keep on going. Here's where fantasy crashes against reality. I just don't have the synaptic chops to charm audiences like Steve Martin, Woody Allen, David Sedaris, Dave Barry, Mark Twain, Tina Fey, Robert Benchley, S J Pereleman, Bill Bryson, Daniel Gilbert, Soren Kierkegaard (he knocked 'em dead in Denmark), or (insert name here). 
• press on and hope to find readers with low expectations. Surely in a planet of 7 billion somebody, somewhere likes bad puns, angst overkill, and talking heads.
• abandon audience approval entirely and write the book I wish I had in college. In a later post I'll reproduce some cartoons I drew while at UW '79-'81.
• gamble my reputation on good drawings justifying boring text. This is a huge gamble and I'm notorious for losing gambles. Want proof? My closets are full of manuscripts, wheels, drawings and self published books that failed to garner audience interest. I killed a small forest trying to get traction as a purveyor of peace making comics, sapiential psychology, and mixed metaphors. 
• change my audience. Instead of modern college students perhaps I should aim to connect with fundamentalists. Ecclesiastes is in their book and my graphic novel would call attention to and validate its message. This, however, may prove the hardest sell of all because fundamentalists are disinclined to grapple with randomness, failed theodicies, and the puncturing of tidy systematic theology. Nobody likes to be told the king has no clothes or that Pollyanna providence is a myth. 

I have to leave for work soon so must end this problem solving musing. My inner optimist believes that there is an answer to this somewhere, I just haven't found it yet. I'll mull over these options and see which sticks. 

Random Observations about Cartooning

With as much effort as I'm putting into this graphic novel the thought has occurred to me more than once, "Buy a computer soft ware art program for the finished product." It's not the $600 price tag that deters me, it's the learning curve. Drawing on a tablet just doesn't seem right to this old time ink-slinger. Yet, the colored pencils and colored markers I've been using look terrible. Granted, I'm knocking out talking heads at this point rather hastily simply to give the dialog a mouth from which to emanate. But the Platonic graphic novel in my head looks much better than the way Draft 5 looks on the screen or on hard copy.

I just finished page 33 (66 half pages). The changing background color is working for me....but I've yet to crack the following problems:

1. How do I help readers keep the many characters clear? At least I haven't given them Russian names. I actually haven't given them any names in the text yet. Do I add a "Cast of Characters" page? If so, up front or in an appendix? Or sprinkled throughout the text when they each make their first appearance?
2. Do I need a background? All those photos of the university class room may be pointless since the talking heads take up almost the whole panel. 
3. What will sustain readers' interest? It seems at this point only a very dedicated student of Ecclesiastes would stay focused. Everyone else's eyes will glaze over given the monotonous repetition of panels, layout, and talking heads.
4. Do I cite references, days, name of lecture? I do on the blog where I'm posting the rough draft (click HERE). But readers of the final product will not have access to additional factoids.
5. Is there a way I can leverage 2000 talking heads to my advantage? Rather than trying to break up the monotony with a sly inclusion of field trips, long shots, Power Point and lap top screen images (pretending that 2000 talking heads in a comic book is normal), maybe I can claim the talking heads as my raison d'etre. I'm not interested in changing the name Ecclesiastes University, but maybe I can add a tag line letting readers know I'm including 2000 talking heads on purpose, with artfulness, and with existential intention. Now to come up with such a tag line: 49 University Students Recoil from a Socratic Cattle Prod, Ancient Existentialism Unleashed on One Hundred Fertile Cerebrums, or, Be Glad I Didn't Draw Each Synapse. I'll keep working on it.

The pace of production is slow, slow, slow. But it's a zen-like, pleasant slow. I doodle alone in this big house sans five kids and loving wife. I'm somewhat astonished that I can sit in silence (apart from the melodic noise of our neighbors chickens and horses) for five hours scribbling, inking, scanning, and uploading. If I were under an editor's deadline I'd be in big trouble. But as it is I'm progressing at a pace that fits my work load, energy load, and interest load.

Which raises this important question: is there rhyme or reason to the ebb and flow of one's focus? For the first time since last December, earlier this week I spent two days not working on Ecclesiastes University. I wasn't depressed (I don't think), bored, or passionless about this project. I watched TV, Netflix, read good books, cleaned the house, washed clothes, went to work. But I couldn't muster the oomph to put lines on paper. If I knew what factors deterred me from productive labor I'd know what to avoid. 

That facial expression book I bought a while back is helpful. As are the reference photos I've been taking of hands, body language, etc. I don't draw from nothing; I use reference materials. 

I perused a collection of a reprinted newspaper comic strip called Foxtrot. It's consistently funny in 4 black and white panels. It's hard for me to be objective about my humor since my humor-o-meter is distracted with the other meters against which I am constantly measuring myself: philosophy, character development, drawing facial expressions, and many more. My First Readers are giving consistent feedback that my book is not funny and I believe them. It's in my mind to rework the dialog once I complete Draft Five: inserting jokes into a narrative flow will be easier than adjusting the narrative flow around the jokes. Or so I tell myself.

Detail, page 29

I cut and pasted friend Mark's old caricature here which is illustrative of the style of drawing I anticipate using in the final draft. It also demonstrates why I'm so unhappy with the rough cartoons I'm using in Draft Five. I'm working with drawings that are only weak approximations of what I envision the finished product to look like. But even with shaded caricatures like this I'm not sure good drawings are enough to sustain readers' attention. I'm zealous to write dialog that is sterling in its own right, the addition of well crafted drawings only adding value. 

No wonder my lawn gets mowed so infrequently...I'm obsessed with this project.

Ten Observations about Creativity and Distraction

Before launching a new blog where I'm posting the first rough draft to go public I wondered how that new endeavor might affect my creativity. Here's what I've learned.

1.  A significant portion of my brain is now hooked on feedback. Rather than blissfully creating with nary a care, I spend a considerable amount of time hoping for, anticipating, and wishing for feedback.

2.  Once I get that welcome feedback I then spend considerable time answering. Both wishing for and responding to feedback takes away from drawing.

3.  I also spend time integrating that feedback into the pages I've completed. That is, I'm now editing those first pages incorporating the great suggestions First Readers have offered. This too takes away time from penciling, inking, and posting that public rough draft.

4.  While I miss time away from drawing I must admit my ADD prone brain doesn't mind juggling all these disparate tasks. Part of the message of Ecclesiastes is that variety is the spice of life and engaging with the public over these doodles certainly adds variety.

5.  Knowing that I've now got followers on that other blog (I think about 10 of the 30 I invited) I feel additional motivation to keep on top of my self imposed posting schedule. I'm aiming for two posts per week. I'd like to do more but turning my latest rough draft into a printable rough draft is still agonizingly slow. I'm just trying to cram too much data (pencil layouts, character development, more tweaking of the dialog, inking, coloring) through too small a pipe (my brain).

6.  Posting this very rough draft feeds my sub personalities which are already prone to shame, embarrassment, and discouragement. The work in progress is a fool's errand. Each of the ingredients (humor, layout, facial expressions, section divisions, dialog, etc) are sub par and painful to read. Thus, a considerable amount of psychic time is spent fighting those self critical parts and pushing through the wall of resistance to accomplish the task at hand--illustrate the whole book of Ecclesiastes.

7.  I'm "forced" to continually dangle in front of my imagination the Platonic arch-type of a polished, finished, and honed final product. In my mind it "works." It's witty. It's unique. It's helpful. It's drawn to perfection. Readers get it. Theologians, philosophers, and depressed existentialists welcome it. This fantasy is shamed by reality--what I've posted so far falls way short of this ideal. It looks to me garish, confusing, halting, insipid, and the work of a deranged mind. Oh well. There is a perfect graphic novel based on Ecclesiastes in essence somewhere in the universe and my efforts will bring it into existence.

8.  I frame this psychic battle in positive terms. Moderating the internal debate builds character, strengthens synapses, and to be frank, is fun. Like the gambler whose dopamine neurotransmitters flow like Niagara when tossing dice, anticipating the finished product keeps my brain chemicals in a nearly constant state of mental bliss.

9.  Posting the rough draft reveals many new problems to be solved. How do I conquer the tedium of boring talking heads? How do I help readers distinguish one character from another? How do I color the thing so it looks pleasing and not so childish? How do I elevate the humor? Will the overall effect of student reactions bring clarity to readers' minds about matters of faith, existentialism, and suffering? When do I invite more First Readers? Should I invite more First Readers? These challenges distract me from the drawing task at hand but they are a pleasant distraction.

10.  Inviting a tiny slice of the public to evaluate these pages forces me to define success. If writing like Tina Fey is my goal, I've failed. If drawing like Herge is my goal, I've failed. If musing like Kierkegaard, Pascal, Dostoevsky is my goal, I've failed. If creating a work that goes viral is my goal, I've failed. If creating scenes, settings, and camera angles like Steven Spielberg is my goal, I've failed. If winning a Pulitzer like Art Spiegelman is my goal, I've failed. But if marshaling and merging dozens of tasks from my fevered brain to create a hefty existential comic book and having fun while doing so is my goal, I'm king of the hill, a gold medal winner, I get the yellow jersey, Heisman trophy, and lifetime membership in the hall of fame.

Talking Heads....blah, blah, blah

Take a gander at the book so far (in miniature). I am unhappy with what I see. Too many talking heads. All I see are talking heads! Either I'm going to invent a cutting edge, new type of graphic novel--talking heads as metaphor for the meaninglessness of life--or I've got to liven up the set.

I prefer option two, liven up the set. How? Today Bill, a university professor friend of mine, generously gave me a tour of his campus (WWU) and I took photos of the classroom in which the characters above will act out their drama.

Imagine 100 students all looking bored.

The artist contemplating the tedium of talking heads.

I can't wait to fill these chairs with my cast of characters....but for 200 pages? Yikes, I'm toast.

My first thought is, "This is impossible! How will adding inert desks improve the action?!"

Brains are wired to solve problems and I've got a big problem....how do I increase the importance of the graphics in this graphic novel? My, my, my. This is a difficultly of Biblical proportions.

Completed Draft Four!

Don't ask me how I did it; I'm as astonished as anyone. But after six months I'm done writing, and after what seems like 200 years I'm done arranging dialog boxes. Art Spiegelman did 'em by hand; I used technology. I hope that by doing so I haven't given the book a mechanical look. Anyway, I've been tweaking words for half a year forcing myself not to start drawing this thing. But the waiting is over and I'm giddy as a school girl.

This major shift in project management (moving from writer to artist) will be interesting to observe.

• Will my blog posts improve? My subject/predicate synapses will now be bored! 
• Will my whining about tedium decrease? Let's hope so! 
• Will my dopamine transmitters unleash euphoric brain chemicals? I can't wait!
• How long will drawing Draft Four (thumbnail sketches) take? 
• How will my initial readers respond? I've got 30 names I'm going to invite to "proof read" this thing with me. I'm going to ask them to invite their friends in secular university (age 18-22) to join us.
• Will I migrate to the drawing table I set up?
• Or will I be able to do these prelim drawings on the couch where I've planted myself?
• Will my decision to start drawing thumbnails rather than making full character design pages help or hurt? I plan on making up each character on each page and collect these into individual folders for each individual character. 

It's too dark to make a video so here are some photos of my labor since last Dec. 

You've seen this before (64 pages)

228 pages with scotch tapes faces inside

The world's most boring photo! (228 pages of scribbled character seating arrangements)

My pride and joy, Draft Four (229 pages waiting for thumbnail sketches)

The whole she-bang (with chapter division chart)

NOTE: As I add thumbnail sketches to Draft Four I'll be calling it Draft Five.

Status Report

Just finished page 289 (Eccl. 8:9) in Draft Four.

Each successive draft takes longer than the one previous. I would not have predicted this. I thought things would go faster as time passes. Alas, I am very wrong. The reasons for the slow down? In earlier drafts one could slop any old idea together. As one nears completion one becomes more careful knowing the days of editing are nearing an end.

Draft Four is 428 pages of hard copy with completed text, word balloons, and panel arrangements just waiting for pencil roughs. When I do the pencil sketches on Draft Four do I still call it Draft Four? Draft Five doesn't seem right. How about Draft Four, Part Two?

The stage (as I now imagine it) will be an angular, straight lines, interior class room. The characters will be lumpy and round and flexible. Lumpy characters on their angular stage will be "carried" in panels which themselves are angular, square, rectangle, and uniform. The six panel "grid" for each page gives me leeway to combine panels in about 6-8 configurations. But they're all very orderly and not cartoony at all. This raises an interesting question about graphic novels. When does the art serve itself rather than the text? I don't want to get so fancy with drawing that story flow is sabotaged.

Creating is evolution; evolution is creation. As I tweak dialog and word balloons I'm tantalized by the visual jokes I anticipate making (pictures on student tee shirts, caricatures, Power Point slide shows, lap top screens). The odd thing is....I don't know what those jokes will be but I'm confident they'll show up when I need them.

I purchased METAMAUS by Art Spiegelman. He won a Pulitzer for his graphic novel, MAUS. As I read METAMAUS I'm hoping to find tips on how I too can win a Pulitzer. There are so many differences between our creations that I'm not holding my breath. At the same time, I am highly inspired by his process.  It took him eleven years! I'm giving myself one to two, max. He started when he was 24. I'm almost 60. Were I young I'd perhaps be more careful and thorough. Sadly, I gotta get this book done soon as there are other tasks I need to accomplish in my third third (age 60-90).

Tweaking Word Balloons

CREATING SPACES IN WORD BALLOONS

This action makes space for the word balloon “tail” that I’m going to draw by hand in Draft Four (printed hard copy), pointing the “tail” toward the mouth of the character who is speaking.

1. Click on next page number on bottom of the page (pulling up a new page in Draft Three).
2. Place curser in first word balloon.
3. Click on drop down arrow next to page enlargement tool.
4. Click on 400% (which makes the word balloon as large as it can be).
5. Click on Line Tool.
6. Place curser somewhere on the bottom of the text box.
7. Drag it approximately ¼” creating a black line upon line.
8. Click on Line/Border Style Tool.
9. Click on 4 ½ pt. line width.
10. Click on Line Color (white).
11. With that new white line still “selected,” click the copy tool.
12. Slide page movement thingy bob on the bottom of the page to the right which moves the next word balloon into view (still at the 400% size).
13. Click paste. A new little white line (invisible on the white background) magically appears. Click and drag it to the bottom of the text box in the second word balloon.
14. Slide that page movement thingy bob to the right again which puts the word balloon in the third panel in view. Click paste, click and drag the invisible white line to the bottom of the text box and voila! The third word balloon is now ready for my hand drawn “tail.”
15. Slide the page movement thingy bob on the bottom of the page to the left. The page on the screen moves to the left so its left edge appears on the screen. Drag the page movement thingy bob on the right edge of the screen down thereby bringing into view the second row of three panels on the bottom half of the page.
16. Click paste again and position that white line on the bottom of the fourth text box.

Repeat 2568 times.

Someday remind me to describe these chores: re-positioning text boxes (repeat 200 times), connecting text boxes (200 times) and connecting panels (400 times). As tedious as all this is, in the long run it'll prevent reader eye fatigue by allowing me to put different characters in each panel rather than repeating the same character over and over. 

And they say creating a graphic novel is all thrills and chills and tense excitement.

Let the Layouts Begin

Since Dec. 15 last year I've been stringing together nouns and verbs and adjectives to tell a story. The dialog that I've created these five months has now been divided into over 2000 word balloons, the space of each being smaller than a 140 character tweet.

During the writing process I've tried my hardest not to think visually. I've forced my word making lobes to have precedence over my picture making lobes. I've not been entirely successful; visual images have sneaked into the making of this book.

But now, at long last, the words are as done as they're going to be. I suspect future proof readers will catch glaring gaffs and omissions and make editorial suggestions which I will welcome. But as of this evening I'm officially finished creating words, writing text, and telling stories. The novel part of this graphic novel is done. It's time for graphics!

This means I'm now going to look at 428 pages of Draft Three using my picture making lobes. I'm going to size up each page and arrange in my mind's eye panel adjustments, combinations, divisions, and settings. Character development isn't in the works yet. I'm merely plotting the stage, the rows of seats, the blocking, and whose face appears in which panels. As mentioned earlier, this is the delicious task I've been drooling over. I want to write a novel because I like to write, and I want to create a graphic novel because I like to draw.

Some things to ponder as I make this major shift.

1.  I've given myself time estimates for the creation of a pencil ready rough draft. Let's see how long blocking takes.

2.  Will using my graphic lobes (visual cortex?) create as much dopamine as writing did? We'll see.

3.  How will the addition of space and air and bodies and faces affect the text I've created? I'm not merely illustrating raw words. I'm illustrating words which have been crafted in anticipation of getting the graphic treatment. Writer's old saw, "Show, don't tell," is certainly apropos for graphic novels.

4.  The template I've created for each page consists of six equal sized panels. Now that the writing is done I have the brain power to focus on changing, adapting, and morphing those six panels. Pages could become one large panel, two rows of one rectangle panel each, two rows each comprised of one panel plus two combined panels, and etc. etc. etc. As I sketch these out I'll post 'em here so you can see what I'm talking about.

5. Just as pictures were not entirely expunged from my brain while writing words, I suspect the characters yet to be created will not be entirely expunged from creating this stage. To use an exaggerated example, if I knew I had a ten foot tall character I'd be forced to create a stage that could accommodate a giant. Lacking such a character I'll be creating a normal sized class room. But that in turn requires that I not create any ten foot tall characters. In other words, I'm able to play with several variables as I create the stage for the characters.

6.  Odds and ends: I'll be trying to incorporate skulls and hourglasses into the class room in homage to "vanitas" paintings of yore. I'm going to sneak in some M. C. Escher like images in homage to my hero. I'm going to put a window in the class room so the A.D.D. characters can stare out it. I'm going to link word balloons so one speaker need not be redrawn over and over. I'm going to do a lot of guessing letting my visual sense of what looks good be my guide. This is highly risky because I thought Comic Sans looked good and that just about killed me.

Doing It Wrong

Since a new threshold has been crossed (finished Draft Two) work on Draft Three reminds me how many mistakes I've made already. Let me count the ways....

1.  I should have written the whole script in WORD (as a stage or screen play) and once finished dumped it into Publisher. Instead, plot development has been encumbered since day one by images, page layout, fonts, balloons, characters, etc. I wonder how the creative writing process would have been smoother had I not been juggling so many tangential details. On the bright side, keeping all these details in mind has left little room for grieving.

2.  I should have gotten a better handle on the perplexities of Ecclesiastes before launching this project. Instead, I've been plodding through verse by verse supplementing my musings with commentaries galore. I'm not sure why I think creativity should be linear. In my case it's anything but.

3. I shouldn't have used that bad font. It took ten unpleasant days to replace it.

4. I should have bought stock in Dunder Mifflin Paper Co. As you can see in the previous post's video, I'm going through a lot of paper. Draft Three initially was to be the hard copy on which I drew pencil sketches. As it turns out, I'm honing Draft Three by combining all the ideas I've collected in Drafts One and Two as well as inserting random words, phrases, ideas which I've collected in a separate file. It's now becoming a mass of corrections and therefore unsuited for drawing. This means Draft Four will be the one on which I start pencil drawings. Good night, another 428 pages to be printed. Trees shudder at the sound of my name.

5.  I should have been more thorough in project management. My task list is helter-skelter. Once Draft Four has been roughly drawn I will then scan it and combine pages creating 214 digital pages. That doc will then be offered to several persons for proof reading. The subject of proof readers requires a blog post of its own so I'll come back to this. Once proof readers have made suggestions I'll incorporate them into Draft Five which will be printed on card stock, penciled, inked, colored, and once again scanned for final unveiling to the public. I have no road map on how to create a graphic novel so I'm sure I'm wasting lots of time.

6.

Word Balloonology

Ten days ago I finished Draft Two and began work on Draft Three with high ambition--designing characters, drawing profile sheets, editing dialog, checking the development of the characters, etc.

Instead, I spent the last ten days transforming 12 point Comic Sans into 14 point DIGITALSTRIP 2.0 in 2600 word balloons. This also meant adjusting the little line that goes around each balloon. I'm glad that's over!

Now I'm ready to return to the tasks of turning Draft Three into Draft Four which, if all goes according to plan, will be the card stock draft on which I'll draw the pictures. My check list of tasks now includes:

1. Eliminate hyphenated words in each word balloon. 
2. Read this "easy to read" draft in one sitting to see how the thing flows. I suspect I repeat myself at times.
3. Ferret out the non funny pages, of which there are many. To move the plot along some pages are sheer narrative with theological and philosophical import. But my inclination is to pay more attention to humor than content (given the somber nature of the text). Tina Fey is my inspiration this week.
4. Trace each character to see how they change over time: do they stay "in character?", is their development contrived or organic? 
5. Pay attention to the scientific materialist (atheist) guy. I think he gets more lines than any other character. This might be a problem. I just watched The Gray with Liam Neissen (an atheist). The plot was, "Where's God?" It was a very Ecclesiastes-type movie although unlike Ecclesiastes, the film's ending was hopeless.
6. Pay attention to timing. A typical college class is 12-15 weeks. How will I mark the passage of time?
7. Pay attention to thought units. Now that I've got 428 loose pages (no more stapled sections) I'll be unshackled from traditional chapter and verse and I can let the text fall naturally into discreet units or paragraphs (identified by forthcoming background colors).
8. Play around with page design. I can combine 2 and/or 3 panels for variety's sake. That's a drawing task and I'm not quite there yet. Still gotta get those words nailed down. 

The Tasks of Creation (theology of creativity)

In my men’s group this morning one of the participants gave a summary of Jamie Buckingham’s books, Strength Finder and Stepping Out. I self scored low on eight strengths but relatively high on creativity. Here’s why: I have a theology of creativity based in Genesis 1. I describe it here, applying the tasks of creation to Ecclesiastes U.

The Universe	Ecclesiastes University
In the beginning God created heaven and earth with a big bang	On December 15, 2011 I began creating this graphic novel with a big burst of enthusiasm
The earth was without form …	I’ve completed two drafts of this book so far and they are without (much) form. My ambition with Draft Three is to impose form on this mass of paper, words, and faces
And void…	As I peruse the 428 pages of Draft Two I see plot holes, glaring inconsistencies, and a Milky-Way-sized humor void
And darkness…	The subject matter in Ecclesiastes is dark, gray, and ambiguous
Was on the face…	Into these 428 pages I’ve scotch taped approximately 2568 faces frozen in time
Of the deep…	Qoholeth is so deep I’m afraid I’m in over my head. I want to shine a light on the profundity of skepticism
And God separated…	My big task with Draft Three is to separate (see below)
And God put them in the garden…	Once I tease out all the tangled threads of Draft Two I hope to reweave them into the tapestry of Draft Three
Humans were created in the image of God	I believe humanity has been endowed with the God-like ability to separate and then reconnect

This will be difficult but in combing though (separating) the tangle of Draft Two I hope to end up with the following discrete and tidy threads.

Separate certainty from faith from doubt

Separate individual characters from each other

Separate characters’ earlier selves from their later selves

Separate students' responses to what Dr. Q is saying from their misunderstanding of what he's saying

Separate boomerisms (there are many) with Gen-Y-isms (there are too few)

Separate panels into one, two, three, or more per row

Separate the texts into smaller sections distinguished by different background colors

Once all separated into tidy piles I hope to then reconstruct them so they look like jazz: improvised and complex yet organized.

Bringing Draft Number Two in for a Landing

Today is May 13 (2012). My deadline for finishing draft two is May 15. I think I'll make it! Already I'm drooling over the next tasks. Once all 420 pages are completed I'm going to:

• read the whole thing cover to cover in hard copy. I'm still old fashioned enough that I don't trust editing on screens. I'll be looking for major plot gaffs, repetitions, and other errors.
• read the whole thing through the eyes of each character. One of the reasons I've attached pictures to the word balloons is so I can scan the document with my eyes tracing the dialog of each character. Are they consistent? Do any of them make out of character comments? Is there growth (toward or away from Dr. Q)? 
• read the whole thing again visualizing sections. I've broken the twelve chapters into 25 working files (EU1 to EU25). But each of those files contains thought units which will be identified by unique background colors. Within each thought unit I'll be checking to see how many characters are present, how many I can expunge, replace, or combine with others?

Once those corrections are made I then begin the delicious work of printing finished pages on which to draw pencil roughs. This will help with blocking (where characters stand), setting (what's on the class room walls?), clothing, passage of time, etc.

Final draft four will be lightly penciled, then inked, then colored with color pencils.

I hope to scan those pages for public consumption either here on Blogger (if the quality coheres) or on a new website dedicated to this project. The anticipation is releasing dopamine into my system even as I type. Creativity is so much fun. 

Stalled on Eccl. 8:10-17

Chapter 7 and the first half of chapter 8 finished with a flourish. But these final 8 verses (EU19) are a killer.

¹⁰ Then too, I saw the wicked buried —those who used to come and go from the holy place and receive praise^[a] in the city where they did this. This too is meaningless. ¹¹ When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the hearts of the people are filled with schemes to do wrong. ¹² Although a wicked man commits a hundred crimes and still lives a long time, I know that it will go better with God-fearing men,who are reverent before God. ¹³ Yet because the wicked do not fear God, it will not go well with them, and their days will not lengthen like a shadow. ¹⁴ There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: righteous men who get what the wicked deserve, and wicked men who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless. ¹⁵ So I commend the enjoyment of life , because nothing is better for a man under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany him in his work all the days of the life God has given him under the sun. ¹⁶ When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe man’s labor on earth —his eyes not seeing sleep day or night— ¹⁷ then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all his efforts to search it out, man cannot discover its meaning. Even if a wise man claims he knows, he cannot really comprehend it.

My mission is to illustrate this passage in a way that helps readers "get" what Dr. Q is saying. The challenge is to fit it into the narrative arc of the novel AND make it funny. I also feel my self imposed deadline approaching so I'm working under pressure. That's just what I don't need. Creative writing is hamstrung when rushed. The beauty of this project has been the luxuriant ease with which I sit silently and, in a semi contemplative state, let ideas emerge. 

This isn't to say the work is easy. I'm juggling 101 things in my head at once and keeping all the loose ends straight is hard work...as is avoiding mixed metaphors. 

My resolve weakens in moments like this. I feel discouraged and dried up. The ideas aren't emerging. The complexity of stringing these random verses together into a plot is maddening. I've got some good ideas but there are gaps. Who is speaking? How many different ways can I have the students riff on "meaningless?" And I'm haunted by the existential angst of, "Does the world need more verbiage about existential angst?" 

On the bright side: I do entertain the fantasy that once this script is finished and have drawn model sheets for the 20 main characters, I'll draw pages with superlative artiness and verve. The odds of this happening are actually quite slim since I'm not that great an artist. But in my imagination I create real arty art. It's funny how I can be enthused, discouraged, grandiose, delusional, and plum out of ideas all at once.

It's 10:25 PM, it's been a long day visiting Vicki, moving furniture for my mother, cleaning the house, and spinning my wheels with this text. Let's hope for a creative breakthrough tomorrow.

Revised Time Line

In a previous post I mentioned I'd like to be done with Draft Two by May 15. That's only two weeks away. My self imposed deadline was overly ambitious!

Today I'm finishing EU17 (Ecclesiastes 7), page 272. I've still got 144 pages to go. Editing Draft One has been a fun but massive project since it was atrocious. Here are the challenges of creating Draft Two:

1. Characters: I wrote the words first and am now figuring out who said them. This task is sheer bliss but it's time consuming. God invented people in seven days. It takes me a little longer.
2. Character depth and consistency: My hope is to create characters readers care about. I gotta keep them "in character" and hopefully multidimensional (as if comic book characters can have depth).
3. Staging: who is on stage (in the panel), what's the fewest number of characters necessary to complete a thought unit, how often do I reveal a new character, and have characters storm out of classroom?
4. Text: the rough dialog in Draft One had potential. In Draft Two I'm sharpening the philosophy, theology, psychology, and humor sometimes eliminating the dialog entirely and rewriting from scratch.
5. Word balloons. I'm putting Publisher's Basic Shapes boxes around each text box. Six boxes per page times 272 pages (so far) is 1632 boxes too many! Again, highly time consuming. But this will save me having to hand draw them. Uniform and crisp text boxes will add a touch of gravitas and hopefully will subtlety accentuate the words; hand drawn boxes will be distracting.
6. Cutting and pasting. Rifling though my file of 20 characters, cutting out each face, scotch taping them to Draft Two is all very time consuming. 
7. Emailing. I do all this work on my lap top which is not hooked up to a printer. I therefore email finished files to my desk top (in the next room) and print hard copies there. 
8. Mulling. These first seven challenges are peppered with my ongoing inner dialog, "What's the time line of this thing? Do the characters change clothes? How do I get drop outs back into the classroom? How will Mr. Q respond when challenged by students? How will I divide the printed book? 416 Publisher pages will become 208 Paint pages. But there's no 208 page graphic novel. Do I print this as a four part trilogy? A ten part mini comic? Do I print hard copies at all or is it pure digital? Who will I get to proof read this? Do line editing? Evaluate the plot, humor, coherence, etc?"

Despite all these challenges...I'm still shooting for the May 15 deadline to complete Draft Two. 

I suspect I'm going to print a hard copy Draft Three on which I'll draw penciled layouts. (I'm anticipating the joy of designing pages, getting creative with panel shapes, and drawing detailed spreads of the whole class room). I dare not ink/color Draft Three however. That will be Draft Four. I'll give Draft Three to some folks for their feedback. Sigh....that puts me months behind schedule. Oh well.