The story

Quite a few people have been asking me about the story. Which means I've had to repeat and develop it several times in day. Which means I've become increasingly aware of all of its 'faults'. Which means I've tried to think around all of the 'faults'. Which means I've had to come up with some 'solutions'.

These solutions have so far taken the form of coming up with new and increasingly complex plot and narrative points. Like the introduction of different dimensions to cope with all of the applied mathematics involved. Which actually doesn't solve anything to do with the holes in the story.

I've also yet to figure out any meaningful motivation for the protagonist, or indeed any meaningful characteristics and that  an audience could empathise with.

So far I've just thought that 'his' voice would mirror my own. But considering that he's a bit of an adventurer and lives in a mixed up world being played with by two different sets of aliens, this seems naive and lazy.

I need to tackle these problems and make Ulam a real person  and not just a convenient hook to hang my ideas and obsessions on.

That said Alex said something earlier today 'the story is actually about how much Chris loves numbers.'

A visitor also clarified the form which the story is taking by using the example of love stories that happen to the background of war. This was helpful as it stopped me worrying about the way the two main plot lines don't really relate to each other. Stopped me worrying quite so much.

But I do need to tackle my character, especially as he's the only one I've got and therefore the only one that the readers have got.

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c

Sunday morning

I'm having quite a gentle time at the moment. I've just done a couple of sketches as to what the spaceship may look like - utilising babylonian symbols for numbers and roman symbols for powers of 10, 

We really should have had a discussion as to the overall look of the piece. However, we haven't and now I think we're experiencing some 'issues'.

I'm going to research some images of Saturn for Alex now.

And the Silver Surfer.

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C

Day Two: Some Improvement, Could do Better.

It felt great to actually get started on the inking.  I had realised at the start of the day that the way of improving, of learning, is to actually finish some pages.  We talked a bit about Dave Sim's work on Cerebrus; in the first collected edition he points out that he's only reprinting the first strips for narrative completeness, because the drawing isn't very good (my paraphrasing).  And the improvement in the drawing by the end of the first volume is remarkable.

So getting page one done felt good.  I know, it's only one page.  It's no where near as competent as what I had in my head, but it seemed to get a fairly positive response from Chris and some of our visitors.  Page two started quicker, and we seem to be working well on developing and changing the structure and layout, now that Chris is giving me his loose layout ideas.  He's also revised the narrative well, so now it doesn't take three pages to establish that Ulam is sitting in the middle of the Nazca Lines.  Sometimes he changes the script and forgets to tell me, but so far that hasn't led to any major disasters.  

I realised I had got the lettering far too big on page one.  May have to get re-done.  

So, day three's work: finish inking page two, pencil and ink page three.  If we get there, after two and a half days work, we'll have done okay, I think.

Pattern

In what is becoming a bit of a pattern, I'm printing something out and sticking to the wall. 

Because I don't what to with the bottom of page 4.

c

Rough layout ideas

I've discovered that Alex and I can collaborate on a much clearer level if I do my own rough layout of what I think the panels should look like. It helps me too.

Here's what I gave him for what I think page two should look like.

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c

Page 1, inked

Click on image to see full size.

Mess

The story is just a mess. There's this spurious mission that starts at the end and has nothing really to do with the rest of the stuff that just happens in the background. I can't think of a decent way of linking up the two.

Maybe I shouldn't worry about it, it works/worked for Vonnegut and worked for Douglas Adams but I am having a crisis of confidence that it can work for me. And then there's all the numbers that I would ideally like to saturate the whole work with. Maybe this isn't the piece to do that with.

I keep finding myself thinking with an editors sensibility and not with a writers sensibility. As an editor everything has to work and be reasoned and link together. The small writer bit of me is currently losing the battle to the overbearing and experienced editors side. I've stopped reading any reference material, even though I bought it Watchmen today as it seems like looking at the Taj Mahal when I don't even know how to lay a brick wall yet.

'

C