My Writing Journey

First let me start by apologizing for my lack of posts. For some odd reason I am unable to access my server, which is where I host this blog. For some reason it never occurred to me that I could still post to it since I don't use my server to do that. At any rate, I have no idea why I can access every website on the web except for my own while everyone else can, but there you have it. Moving right along...I said I was going to share my writing experiences with you all over a week ago. Actually I had typed out a very long piece detailing my writing starting at 4th grade. I won't bore you with that entire diatribe except for to hit the highlights. If you do want to know more about me you'll just have to wait for my website to be up and running. :) Ok, that's enough of a preface to get us into the meat of things today. But just to hit some highlights of my passion early on, here is a combination of an excerpt from a post I made elsewhere added with new content for the purposes of this post:
When I was around 6 I started drawing. I come from a family of very creative people, so it was in my blood. I started off tracing Smurf folders, then progressed to drawing G.I. Joe and Transformers during school. I also wrote a lot even as a child. I used to write my own little paper on school events in fourth grade and drew the pictures because I didn't have a camera. I tried to sell these one-pagers for $.50, which when considering you could get a regular daily newspaper, a pop and a buttload of candy for that price at that time, they didn't sell real well. But suffice it to say I had a hunger for writing and for getting people to read what I wrote early on. Though it would be years before I would realize how passionate I was about it. I continued to draw for years, and once I was introduced to comics I drew nothing but comics day and night, hours on end for 4 years in every sketch pad I could find. I knew nothing of art boards at the time. But I also wrote the stories, creating my own characters (which I usually would draw rather than existing characters in comics) and making elaborate stories complete with crossovers and all kinds of neat stuff. Well, okay most of it was cheesy looking back on it, but it had its moments. At age 19 I gave up comics and drawing for various reasons that will remain private because it's a long story and one I don't care to remember. At any rate, two years later after failing to complete a mail order art course I finally got my butt to college and eventually received two associates degrees (Comp. Science and Bus. Mgmt) and a bachelor's degree (Bus. Admin.), which are helpful in any profession, but not where my passion lies. An interesting thing happened when I gave up drawing though. I started writing. Between 19 and 21 I had written a couple of books (non-fiction) I never bothered getting published, and looking back they weren't great to begin with. I even kept a journal and wrote a list of books I wanted to have written and published by a certain time. Most were non-fiction and related to self-help, religion and some other topics. But there were some fiction goals in there also.

About a year into college my English teacher, Stephanie Baker took notice of my writing and instantly became my inspiration. She had high hopes for me and really mentored me. She had success in various forms of writing from teaching to ghostwriting novels, to screenplays, etc., so she knew what she was talking about. She guided me to a revitalized passion I never knew I really had - Writing. I ended up taking several classes with her and continued to grow as a writer. She will forever be mentioned in any novels or projects I write that I am able to add a mention to. I began writing poetry, which garnered me awards and a few even got published. These will be available on my website once it's up and running (and if anyone would like to see them here then by all means let me know). Then I started writing my biography, but decided I needed to live more before I could complete it. So I turned to fiction because I had all these ideas and loved fantasy and other forms of fiction. In 2001 at the age of 24 I discovered Crossgen Comics via an ad in an issue of Wizard magazine I had picked up just to see what was going on in my five year absence. I was immediately drawn in and thus got back into comics almost exclusively buying Crossgen books. I had developed a love for the fantasy genre in my time away from comics and had finally read the Lord of the Rings trilogy. So to see comics display a similar kind of fantasy (specifically Sojourn) was right up my alley and something I had never seen before because I had been one of those diehard 90's Darkhawk, New Warriors, Scarlet Spider and X-Force lovers and never ventured far from those kinds of books at the time. After Crossgen died out I got back into superheroes, but also discovered indy comics and have found some great books as anyone who reads my column knows. About the time I really got into Crossgen books though I also wrote my first comic scripts, which I submitted to Crossgen only to get a rejection letter a year and three months later! But in the meantime I had found an ad on Digital Webbing for writers who would be willing to start as editors for a small comic company. "Well this was right up my alley with my excellent scores in English", I thought. After all I had been an editor in college and I had seriously considered switching to an English major. So I applied and got the Associates Editor job thinking I would get to write and get published. LOL. First lesson learned. Over the course of the three years I edited there I had climbed the ladder in this small company from Associate Editor to EIC and partner, and had started writing four shorts that would appear in anthologies. Once I was in the EIC chair I had a great team under me and we were actually finally making it happen after many failed attempts and a lot of unnecessary drama. But ultimately it went out of business without ever publishing a title due to reasons I have touched on in another post, so I won't take this time to do it again.. Very sad times though. But I had been offered the EIC position in another company, who ultimately let me go a couple of months ago before publishing anything for reasons I also touched on in that same earlier post. When I left there I took the one title I had through them with me. But let's backtrack a little bit. Though I was editing for those companies that was not all I was doing. After I realized at the first company that the priority there had nothing to do with getting my own stuff published regardless of my station I set out trying to get collaborations together to pitch to various companies. Now let me preface this by saying I'm a poor man. I can't afford the rates most of these artists want to charge. And let's face it, most of them aren't worth half of what they're asking. Not all of them, but some are just delusional. Some, on the other hand, should be pro and still put their necks out there for good stories. God bless you.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I tried to get my ideas out there and published for four years. I have worked with various artists. Most didn't work out. I would find them on various sites or I would post an ad on DW. I got some really great artists, but some would disappear never to be heard from again after completing beautiful pages and never sending them to me. Some just didn't mesh well with the material. Others needed to be paid, some flaked, others are waiting until they have free time. All in all without a lot of cash up front it is very hard to find an artist to work with you. And that's a necessity for a lot of publishers these days, to have finished pages. Makes it easier for them to review and it shows how hungry a creator you are.

I also entered every writing contest I came across and submitted to various companies only to get the ominous rejection letters. I almost got in with Epic with a story I am releasing as a web comic, but has also caught some minimal attention with Platinum (and I'll be submitting it to Image next week), but while I was working on the revisions they requested they closed the doors and thus my dreams were shattered. I was torn up at that point because I had spent hours on message boards talking with the editors of Epic and reading their posts to make sure I didn't miss a beat.

I did get quite a few compliments on some of my stories on the Top Cow and (then) Roaring Studios boards (now Dabel Brothers Productions) from pros and fans alike. Troy Hickman of Common Grounds fame had some very nice things to say as did the Dabel Brothers whom I greatly respect and admire.

So after many failed attempts at getting teams together and several rejections later I finally found some artists who would work with me. It's been a very slow and painful process on some of my stories to see them go through several artists. But I have yet to complete a package of complete art to send off anywhere. I have several projects being worked on as I type this, and next week marks the first complete package I'll be able to send out. I printed out the pages the other day and nearly cried at seeing my words on the art in print. It was beautiful and a dream come true.

As for Platinum Studios, I heard of them first on the Scryptic Studios forums where Lee Nordling frequented for a while, but hadn't really given them much thought. Then Dan Head, the owner of Proletariat Comics where my web comic will be debuting had told me he had been submitting there and that Lee and company were very open and willing to work with you. So I tried my hand with four submissions. Roughly about 8 weeks later they turned those down but requested to see some scripting samples from me. I sent in the web comic scripts in their original form and that landed me an assignment, which turned into my first paid writing gig!

Who's to say what will be my first published work? But the important thing is my writing is finally taking me where I want to go and my perserverance and dedication is finally starting to pay off.

Any advice I would give would be to stick with it. Keep writing and keep creating. Go back and read your stuff and revise it. Keep pitching it anywhere and everywhere. Don't get discouraged or lose hope. If this is truly your dream then allow it to drive you and don't allow naysayers or other obstacles to prevent you in any way, shape of form. The day you do you've lost. This happened to me with art and I have struggled for 5 years to recapture my original passion for it and I have yet to find it. But luckily I didn't let that happen with writing, regardless of the people who thought and still think my dreams are just that. Dreams.

Don't get me wrong, I have a few core supporters who truly believe I could be a great singer, writer, artist and actor, all the things I love to do and have been blessed with a talent for. But the majority think I should be satisfied with a nice 9-5 job somewhere and never reach beyond what they've limited themselves to.

Now I'm not saying there's anything wrong with people who work 9-5 jobs. Heck, until I got laid off I did it. I'm saying IF they had a dream and had the talent to make it happen, but they settled for a mundane life out of fear of failure or whatever then I have a problem with that. I have seen far too many people with potential to be GREAT in a lot of areas settle and have been unhappy and unfulfilled their entire lives. I intend not to be one of those people. I have to succeed lest I die. And that's my advice. Keep the dream alive and ignore EVERY negative and degrading comment that EVER comes your way. If you have real talent and real heart you can make it, and you will if you push it and keep it alive.

Okay, coming off the soapbox now. :) That is my journey in a nutshell thus far. I have VERY big goals set for myself, and I'm taking you all along for the ride. Buckle Up!

B-Out