another minor announcement + pirate comic

Start with the minor announcement: this blog is now going my the title "snobby writing blog" because that is what I usually call it in polite conversation. (i.e. that's what I call it when my siblings ask what I'm doing on the computer)

sooo... stats

Sooo... technically I didn't win Camp NaNoWriMo. But I think that considering the fact that I'm currently in the middle of finals (as in, everything is due Saturday) and throughout April I moved, made it through the last stretch of two intensive language classes, and switched projects right in the middle of the month... I did fairly decently. I wrote 5,870 words that last day! And we're talking words in comic script form. Like, dialogue and scene descriptions only. so I'm pretty happy!

So, what did I do? I wrote and illustrated none other than my totally un-fleshed out story inkling, which is currently titled "Rocking Boats and Making Waves" because why on earth not?

Now let me tell you a few things about this comic. (What time is it? That's right! Bullet list time!)

• I drew the first pages of this comic with exactly zero idea of what any of the characters were named, what their personalities were like, and anything at all about their background.
• Admittedly, the pirates did have sort of sketchy physical designs I'd already drawn, because my siblings and I had a pirate-crew-creating-contest a few months ago. 
• I wrote the script in classic NaNoWriMo style-- which is to say that there is absolutely no quality and I don't care.
• Plot? What's that?
• Also I used supercheap ballpoint pens to color and supercheap printer paper to draw everything because I hate spending money on things that don't matter.

 Without further ado... the first twelve pages.

What do you mean, I used the wrong kind of 'pilot'? (This, my friends, is a classic case of "why you should not watch television and ink lettering at the same time.) Now I guess we'll just have to pretend I meant to name this chapter after the Roman Governor of Jerusalem at the time of Jesus' crucifixion... ick.

You can't really tell now, but I totally botched that top panel and now I'm beating myself up over it.

The guy with the binoculars is named Captain Marcus Lupus-slash-Yacht Man. My siblings named him. They didn't name the other guy for some reason.

You'd think that using photographic references on top of actually living at the beach I'd be able to draw water, but no.

how use words?

how use speech bubbles?

Why do we care about engineers all of a sudden? Answer: Because this is NaNoWriMo.

If that was plan A I really don't have high hopes for plan B... or the intelligence of this character. Also, I might make that cricket a recurring character.

panel two: the chipmunk face to end all chipmunk faces

My 12-year-old sister repeatedly yells "your cousin is a goldmine" now. Not sure why that line resonated so much with her.

how do use panels?

this is Stanley Yorick. you will find that a piece of my soul lives within him, much like he is my horcrux. except I'm not evil. I hope. Also, my six-year-old sister now yells "Matt! My favorite cousin!" on a regular basis.

I'm now up to page 25, but they aren't scanned yet and I'm not going to post them until I get to another decent breaking point. And yes, it is all as random and pointless and wimpy as these pages.

I love comics sooo much, okay?

Now, enough procrastination on my part: time to get my finals homework together! (help)

camp nanowrimo

These are my Camp Stats as of right this second.

I'm going to win. I really am.

I changed my project two days ago, though-- I'm now working on writing/drawing a totally random comic about people who work on a boat in post-apocalyptic Florida. For lack of a better word, I call them the Pirates, but honestly they're more like smugglers or... basically they're a boat crew for hire who can do whatever jobs one might need a boat for.

I'm going to post it here at the end of the month as a good example of how not to write/draw a graphic novel comic thing.

It's fun.

Camp Preparation

I am currently preparing for the wonderful world of Camp NaNoWriMo.

What the heck is Camp NaNoWriMo? Everybody in the universe asks me.  Me: it's just like regular NaNoWriMo... you write a novel in a month. The difference is that normal NaNoWriMo is in November, and Camp is in April and July.

(There's also the minor difference that you can't add buddies, and you can choose your own word-count.)

You can see the Camp website here.

I loooooovve NaNoWriMo, so I do it for all three months. It's sort of dumb, probably, but I get a lot of writing done.

I'll probably write a big long list about the pros and cons of NaNoWriMo sometime around November, when I'm procrastinating on it, but for now, here's a little bit of me geeking out about it. 

I have so many issues with commitment. I have a super short attention span and writing the same thing day after day seems impossible to me. What if I get bored? I'll be stuck writing it for days, or even worse, I'll fail.

Thank goodness, my desire to not fail usually wins out. And thus I end up writing tons and tons of words, finish projects, and am filled with a glowing pride at the end of the month.

I look forward to November all year.

April and July are also good, although I've only won one round of Camp. This is probably because I don't know enough people doing it, so if you know anybody who does, introduce me so I can get really competitive with them. That would be great. Thanks.

What will I be doing this April? Well, gonna be straight with you-- I'm a rebel this year (As I was last November, actually). I have a lot of stuff to get done, and I intend to structure that stuff so that I can get it done and still use the handy word-count tools their website offers.

"Stuff" is codename for my graphic novel comic thing, of course.

This is the way I counted words last November, which was a pretty effective way of doing things:

finish lineart on page= 1,900 words
finish coloring on page= 1,600 words
finish sketching one page= 1,200 words
finish paneling layout on one page= 1,000 words
one thumbnail completed= 280 words
sketch background for one panel= 350 words
script written= amount of words written

I'm a really slow artist so this is kind of a terrifying chart, but I am going to win this April!

This is my word count for last November. Sigh.

(I will be working with a slightly less daunting word count this April, though. I'm thinking 40,000 words. I really need to get stuff done.)