Monday, August 11, 2008
Got skills, I'm a champion at D & D...
Okay, I'm not really a champion at D & D - although Weird Al is.
But I AM a gamer. And proud of it.
Not a gamer in the video-game sense - though I'm that too. I mean a gamer as in a player of pen & paper RPGs.
The reason I'm not a champion at D & D is that I haven't played actual D & D in about 25 years. But I play a lot of other role-playing games. Or more accurately, I run RPGs while Christina and our friends Gregory and Jennifer (and others, varying from game to game) play.
I've run (in the last five years) a superhero RPG, a Star Wars RPG, a Stargate RPG, and these days I play a swashbuckling RPG.
So what's an RPG? It's simple. You know how kids (and most likely, you, at some point) would play cops and robbers or cowboys and indians or Star Wars or whatnot? You'd be a character, chase after the other kid, say you shot him and he'd say "did not"?
That's the earliest form of gaming. You take on a character (or character type) and play out their adventures. The rules are there to define that character, to help avoid the whole "did not" "did too" element. Though in gaming, you rarely fight each other. More often, each person creates a character who is part of a team.
But that's the basics of gaming. It doesn't define what it is for me (or Christina, or anyone we play with). We're not just telling adventure stories (though there are adventures). We're creating characters, and telling the stories of their lives.
For us, as we've gotten older, gaming is a way to invent new, fully developed and well rounded characters and build an entire series of stories around them.
In other words, it's great practice for writers - which we all are.
The players create characters that ultimately wind up in our writings.
"Once In A Blue Moon" came from an idea we had for a fantasy RPG.
"The Tomb" is based on Christina's character from our Stargate RPG as well as a key character she teamed up with in that game.
Powers for many of the kids in our "New X-Men" run came from characters we created in our superhero game.
We're at work on a novel based on one of Christina's favorite gaming characters.
When we commit to playing a game, we invest all the same energy we invest in writing. But because it is for us and our friends, there's none of the hangups and frustrations inherent in writing for a living. There's no editor who might change the character concept. There's no pitch process before we even get to write.
A lot of writers write for themselves. They write stories and then if those stories find a market, great. If not, they've gotten better at writing. They've enjoyed writing.
We work so many jobs, most of which pay so little. We have to juggle so much paid work, that we don't get a chance to do spec work. And using our free time to write something with no way of translating it into paying the bills can be daunting.
So, instead, we use gaming as a way to stay creative, even in our free time.
So, for those of you who write and are frustrated by writing yet another piece 'on spec'... I recommend it. You'll be creating in a different way, generating ideas. And you'll be having fun.
For those of you who enjoy writing 'on spec,' for the sheer love of writing... I'd still recommend it. Because gaming forces you to view all stories as being inherently about a character. As a player, you focus on one character, usually in a big, vast world with large genre elements and huge casts. But you get tunnel vision when you play a character. You view the whole story through that character.
It's a great exercise for a writer who may get caught up in world building or complex plotting.
Now, I think well thought out worlds and intricate plots are good things. But viewing it all from a character's perspective helps you use those things to further a character arc. Because without a character arc, you rarely have a good story, no matter how compelling the world or well crafted the plot.
Anyway... my free advice for the day. Check out an RPG. Create a character. It'll help you as a writer, and help you think like a writer if you're not one.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Over And Done With...
The title of this post can refer to a handful of things, actually.
The first is the San Diego Comic Con. We left mid-day today and despite mild traffic, the trip back was a breeze compared to the trip down.
The second is my desire to spend any more time convincing Marvel and DC to give us more work. I'd rather focus on publishers that want to work with us.
The third is my desire to go to another Comic-Con. We see friends and colleagues there who we wouldn't see otherwise, so I can't say that we won't ever go again. But I can say that at the moment, I really hate going to the con.
The Comic-Con was a disaster, and one of the most dispiriting experiences I've had in a long while.
I've been teaching a few classes, and have collected a bunch of devoted and talented students, and I try to push them to follow their passion for writing comics or manga. But sometimes I worry that I'm not doing right by them.
Because there's something I have failed to tell them, something they need to hear.
This is hard stuff.
You put yourself out there, every day. And every time people reject you, it sucks. But that's not the worst part.
The worst part is the antipathy. There are so many people in a position to hire you, refer you, help you - and in so doing, if you're good at writing, help themselves - who just don't. Or can't. Or won't.
When people hate your stuff, you've made an impression. When you just don't seem to register, it eats away at you. It doesn't instantly (and thus, in some ways mercifully) crush you like rejection. It just saps your energy. It makes you doubt your ability to pursue your dream while never quite crashing down hard enough to actually kill that dream.
It takes mountains of stamina to push past all of that, and now I worry that I haven't prepared my students for that grim reality.
So, how do you cope with such soul suckage?
You focus on the positive.
In our case, we focus on the two absolutely charming and wonderful teenaged fans of Amazing Agent Luna who came to the con, dressed as Luna and Oliver. Twin sisters whose Mom made their costumes for them, they absolutely made the convention for us. If not for them, it would have been a total loss.
So, to Ashley and Michelle... thank you. You two have no idea how important it is for people in our position to know that people like what you do. You saved the weekend for us, and it'll be on the strength of that moment that I'll be able to look at the rest of the weekend and try to salvage any other good moments from it.
So, without going through the reasons why it sucked (because dwelling is a sucker's game, and one I am sucker enough to play way too often), here are the positives from the con...
1) Ashley and Michelle.
2) We got to announce BAD MEDICINE, and everyone at Oni seems as excited for it as we are.
3) I got to see a half-dozen of my students, who took time out of their busy con schedules to say hi, or stop in at the Oni panel.
4) We were able to help two friends get into the con for free and both seemed to enjoy the experience.
5) Our best friends in the world were there, and we spent a decent amount of time with them.
6) We got a chance to see friends who we only see at the con, and friends who left Los Angeles and who we miss hanging out with.
7) We met with one editor at one of the big companies who does seem to genuinely want to help.
There. Listing only the good stuff makes the weekend seem like less of a nightmare.
But I'm still done with Comic-Con.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
- Nunzio (accidentally posting from Christina's blogger account)
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Comic-Crap
So, our first day at Comic-Con is winding to a close.
It sucked.
We had a meeting scheduled with a couple of editors at DC. Nothing earth-shaking, but we have an idea we think they'll like and we were also going to talk about where we can focus our pitching and our efforts to best be able to get more work and do more for DC. It was a noon meeting.
So to make sure that we were able to have breakfast, then do the (usually) 2 hour drive to San Diego and get here with plenty of time, we woke up this morning at 6, were out the door at 7, and had filled the gas tank, gotten breakfast and made it onto the freeway ten minutes before 8.
We cruised along for an hour, having about 50 miles to go at 10 minutes to 9. Absolutely perfect, so perfect we hoped we'd get there early enough to pick up our badges before the meeting and still have some time to spare.
Yeah, right.
Because that was when all traffic came to a halt. We'd seen a couple of warnings earlier - traffic accident at Los Pulgas. That was all it said. So we figured it might delay us for a 1/2 hour and we'd still have plenty of time to spare. But when we finally got to the traffic we realized just how massive an understatement the warning was.
Calling it a "traffic accident" was a bit like calling the Civil War a "domestic dispute."
It took us 4 1/2 hours to cover the next 10 miles. No joke.
There were no exits between when the slowdown started and the site of the accident. So we couldn't even exit, get on the freeway going back North, and find an alternate route.
We just had to sit and wait.
And not be able to use the bathroom. Or get a drink of water.
Our new (well, new for us, we bought it used) car has an external temperature sensor that displays on the dashboard. When moving along briskly, the temp was always between 70 and 78 degrees. When crawling along at 1-3 miles per hour, it was between 105-115. I'm sure a lot of that was heat being absorbed by and given off by the freeway. But it was also about that time that the sun (previously hidden behind some clouds) started to blaze. I now have one arm (my window arm) that is red like the St. Louis baseball uniform caps.
So we had to reschedule that meeting. Luckily, we'll still get to meet the editors, but they're only available at a time we were going to sign at Seven Seas on Sunday morning. Then, we were stuck in traffic so long after that, we had to cancel our 1:30 signing at Oni.
So our busy day, the day that was going to kick off a nice and busy con, started with a 6 hour drive, and two canceled appointments.
Then, when we finally get to the accident that basically shut down the Interstate - an accident we'd been cursing about, because it apparently happened at 5am and hadn't been cleared at 2pm - we see just how horrific it must have been. A truck jack-knifed and absolutely crushed a minivan. Both had clearly burst into flames, and the truck looked to have exploded. The foliage on the side of the 5 had been scorched away. There was no way anyone in the accident could have survived, at least not from what we saw (we haven't had the courage to look it up and see if anyone did). We felt so petty that we'd been so cranky.
But guilt doesn't make the bad mood from crankiness go away. It just makes it a different kind of bad mood.
Then we get to the hotel, and due to a screwup of my own making, wind up paying $25 more per night than we'd originally planned. Not a big deal, but just a nice little screw-you from the vacation gods.
We went to the Seven Seas booth to give a very cool gift to Jason DeAngelis. It was a gift we put together last night while packing, and we were pretty psyched to get it to him. When first we stopped by he was in a meeting. The next two times we stopped by, he wasn't there. And the fourth time... another meeting.
Now, just like the $25 a day, us not getting him his gift is hardly a major crisis, but it was just another disappointment in a day full of them.
The other thing about today is that it was CROWDED. The con usually is. But Thursday tends to be the light day. Today it felt like a Saturday in there. Neither Christie nor I are particularly good with large crowds. When we're enjoying the con, the large groups of people getting in our way, shoving us, and living in their own little bubbles vaguely annoy us and the annoyance builds until the end of the day when we are mercifully able to go back to the hotel. But when we've had a bad day already, it's like we need to leave the minute we set foot in there. "Oh, nice costume. Now die, please."
And then, we finally do our only signing of the day - what would have been our second Oni signing. A couple of friends stopped by, which was cool, but until 3 minutes before we left, no one came to get anything signed. When you spend an hour and a half at a signing and get one person who wants you to sign, it's depressing. When she doesn't even buy your book but just has you sign her autograph book (and I'm still not sure she knew who we were), it's all the moreso.
Sigh.
To top it all off, something I ate did not sit right, so we missed out on a big Oni dinner tonight. Lots of writers and artists who we're friends with, who we only get to see once a year, all treated to dinner by Oni and Oni's film producer partner. I'm not great with 25 people dinners, but it was something I would have wanted to do nonetheless, because if you get in the right seat, you can focus on a couple of people, have a good time, and get a little time in with everyone else. But when your stomach hurts, that's a sure ticket to sitting in the corner, talking to no one and ruining the night for your wife. So we (wisely, I think, but still unfortunately) opted out.
So now we're in our hotel room, hiding from the world.
I want a do-over.
I hope to get one tomorrow.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Tomatoes... we're back and we're pissed off!
So tomorrow (Thursday that is, as I haven't gone to bed yet so it may be construed as the day after tomorrow by some perspectives), we head down to the con. Christina's already posted our schedule - see a couple of posts below. We look forward to seeing any of you who can make it.
But before we head down there and do the flurry of signings, handful of meetings and one panel, we have one more milestone ahead.
Today (Wednesday, that is) is the official launch of our new weekly manga series, The Ninja Diaries.
It will run weekly in Metromix, and then be collected online. The first 4 pages will debut in today's issue, and all pages will be collected online at
Metromix.com... they're
up now.
We're very proud of this... for many reasons.
As an opportunity, it is amazing. Metromix prints 100,000 issues weekly, and there's a really good chance that collected pages from this may find their way into the Los Angeles Times(!). In fact, if you go to the times
website today, you'll see that we made the front page of their site - 2/3 of the way down, right in the center. That kicks all kinds of ass.
As a collaboration, it's been fun. Jason DeAngelis at Seven Seas has been more involved in developing this than he was in Amazing Agent Luna and Destiny's Hand. But we're doing the writing, and it's felt very much like ours... just with a nice touch of Jason, too. The collaborative nature of it has been outstanding.
And as a story, we're very excited by it. We look forward to writing each page, and when you can do that, you're at the great part of writing for a living.
We've got meetings at the con, which hopefully may lead to work down the line. We'll be promoting 2 new books at Oni, and hyping the final volumes of Luna and Destiny's Hand.
But for us, the story of the con will be Ninja Diaries.
Check it out. We hope you enjoy it. Free copies of this week's Metromix will be available at the Seven Seas booth. Come by and we'll talk ad nauseum about this one, and sign your copy too.
We hope you enjoy it... because ninja don't do disappointment.
(Long story... stick with us, you'll get the joke)
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Too Cool For Words...
So I was perusing the internet (as that's what one does on the internet) and I found this:
the most amazing thing everBut in all fairness to my husband, I shall post this on his behalf.
almost as cool
Friday, July 18, 2008
Preparing For The Madness
It's that time of year again. Once a year (whether we need it or not), we make the trek to San Diego for Comic Con.
And even though attendance promises to be over 100,000, we should be (relatively) easy to find at either the Oni Press Booth (#1834-1837) or the Seven Seas booth (#2649). So, to that end, I give you our 2008 Comic Con schedule.
THURSDAY
1:30 p.m.-2:50 p.m. Oni Press
4:30 p.m.-5:50 p.m. Oni Press
FRIDAY
12:00 p.m.-1:20 p.m. Oni Press
2:15 p.m.-3:15 p.m. Seven Seas
4:30 p.m.-5:50 p.m. Oni Press
SATURDAY
10:30 a.m.-11:50 a.m. Oni Press
12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m. Seven Seas
1:30 p.m.-2:50 p.m. Oni Press
5:00 p.m.-6:00 p.m. the Oni Press panel (room TBA)
SUNDAY
11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. Seven Seas
12:00 p.m.-1:20 p.m. Oni Press
We will be eagerly promoting our new Metromix Ninja saga "The Ninja Diaries" which will have just debuted on July 23rd! We urge everyone to check it out (it's free!)
We'll also be happily talking up the final volume of Amazing Agent Luna due out the end of this year, the final volume of Destiny's Hand due out early 2009 and two new exciting projects from Oni Press (All Saints Day and Bad Medicine) also due 2009.
We may even talk up a project due out in the fall of this year, but we have to check with the publisher first to see if it's okay. (How's that for mystery?)
So come find us, say hi, and make the madness all worth while.
EDIT: Our schedule has now been updated to include our Seven Seas signings!
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Ninja Warriors!
Hey all,
Remember the manga we said we were gonna write for
Metromix?
Well, it's called Ninja Diaries. It's part romantic comedy, part ninja adventure. We won't spoil too much, but it's about a kunoichi (female ninja) sent to Los Angeles to find a lost legendary ninja in the most unlikely place.
We have fun both showing our love for Los Angeles, and skewering it a tiny bit. Plus, as chronicled in an earlier post, we both love ninja (especially Christina).
It's a weekly manga (one page a week, except for the first week) that debuts in the July 23rd issue of Metromix (in which we'll be the cover story and will get 3, maybe 4, pages to get the story rolling).
And to celebrate, Metromix is having a launch party at Secret Headquarters, a comic shop people have been hyping to us for years. We've been told this place is awesome, so we're pretty excited to check it out.
The launch party is on Thursday, July 17th at 8pm. You have to rsvp to rsvpla@metromix.com.
But if you're interested in Ninja Diaries, or in a fun weekly manga by us, or in ninja in general (especially those who are sent to Los Angeles on fun fish-out-of-water missions!) then check out Ninja Diaries in Metromix (the back 'issues' will be posted on metromix.com starting in a few weeks and also occasionally collected - ulp - in the Los Angeles Times). And check out the launch party at Secret Headquarters.
Hope to see you there!
Or not see you, if you happen to be a ninja.
