Broken Frontier

As I write this I am on day three of a nine day vacation from the office; it was either take a break now or have a breakdown. Recently I have become the boss of a junior staff member, as well as having to manage all of my other work; so each day in the office has been taking its toll.

Also on the horizon is the birth of our first child, due in early October and a number of comic book projects. I’ll save you the gruesome details of impending fatherhood and let you know what has been spouting forth from my keyboard.

Heavy Metal

I am working with a friend of mine, William Ward – the guy who helped to get my fantasy story Tiki’s Phayrie published. William has written a short story that he intends to pitch to Heavy Metal magazine. What I really like about this story is that the genre is way out of my comfort zone – this is classic Sci Fi.

I actually love watching Sci Fi, some of my favourite TV shows and movies fit right into this genre including Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Starship Troopers and Farscape, although I haven’t really written very much Sci Fi at all. From this point of view, William’s story is a challenge. Also, this tale is not in the style of ‘shoot ‘em up’ Sci Fi that I usually enjoy – I call it Cerebral Sci Fi!

William has asked me to co-write and edit his script, but after reading it for the first time I noticed that there were some other things that are very different about this story. William is writing the pitch for Heavy Metal; this is a large format book, so William’s tale has the potential for more panels on each page than would appear in a traditional USA-style comic book.

This story is also totally devoid of fight scenes! Now you can make all the jokes you like about writing scripts for early – mid 90s comics, but more than a decade later, most Sci Fi, fantasy and superhero genre comics feature one fight scene in every issue. Most of my creator-owned ideas (and even some of the work for hire stuff) follows the same formula. Let me state once again; there are no traditional fight scenes in this script. For ol’ times sake I may just try to work one into the script (but don’t tell William).

I sent some edits to William a few weeks ago. William got back to me with his thoughts, so now I have to get off my butt and finish this sucker – but something is holding me back.

KRAKK!

On day four of my vacation (which is now three weeks ago) I had a fall onto a concrete sidewalk. I was walking my parents in law’s dog when she decided to trip me over! I fractured my left wrist, so I am typing this column one handed!

Not only has this severely impacted on my writing; but on nearly all parts of my life. For instance shortly after my arm was put into a splint, I learned that it is almost impossible to do up my pants with one hand (too much information!). I also have difficulty tying my shoes! All of this would be fine if I could ask my wife to help out a bit, but she is nearly exhausted; she is just recovering from a 10 day long cold and she is 35 weeks pregnant!

So, much of my writing is now on hold. I can still type, but mostly with one hand – so things are taking me much longer than they normally should… Three weeks out I am still in a lot of pain. Our first baby is due in four or five weeks; I will still be in plaster when s/he arrives. If I am out of plaster, I will be undergoing rehabilitation. I am not happy!

Where to next, cap’n?

Wouldn’t you love to know? Next time I will be talking about dreams as I race towards a special announcement in column 50.

Next: Sweet dreams.