Steven D. Forbes

This is probably the last post before the end of the year.

Got some interesting news today. Something I was pretty heartened about. Also have some things I have to do, and my non-comics life has been a pain the ass. Shall we get to it?

I’ve been writing a comic for Jamal Walton, and I think it’s coming along pretty nicely. Since I cleared things off my plate, I’ve been able to give it the attention it deserves, and I’m liking what I’m seeing. If things go the way I want them to, I should be finished with the first draft of it pretty soon here. I like the thought of that. Like I said before, it’s been haunting me.

The projects I’ve been editing are also coming along, which is good. The projects with artists attached should have strong showings, which I’m glad about. One of the artists is VERY good and VERY enthusiastic. I like working with him. Heh. I played a small trick on him concerning a couple of panels that he was asked to redo, dragging out the fact that I liked it. I made it seem like I didn’t, and that I didn’t know what to do with him. Made him sweat a little. It was fun! He got the joke, and we had a nice laugh over it. Can’t beat a good artist with a good sense of humor. I look forward to working with him on one of my own projects. Hopefully, that’ll happen in the coming year. We’ll see what happens.

The replacement artist for another project is also coming along well. I have to look at the thumbnails he sent over. I’ll be doing that today, and giving my thoughts on them. The writer seems to like them. I have to compare them to the script before giving my take.

I have to make a decision about something else, and it’s not something I’m happy about, but it will turn out making that something else stronger. It will also help my long-range plans, because when I make a proposal, it should have a better chance of succeeding. That, however, depends on other things, so it’s on the back burner.

I heard back from Lee today on about a cookbook proposal I sent him. It’s basically being written by myself, with my wife’s recipes, and I’m using her as a character in it. I wrote the pitch and a three-page script, which he sent over to his partners for review.  One of his partners is an editor and writer herself, and she’s pretty tough. Getting some things past Lee is hard enough–then she comes out like an editorial dragon and breathes fire all over things, sometimes leaving a charred husk of a script lying in her path. Yeah. Anyway, she said that the script was “awfully good,” and said what she liked about it.

That is validation that is hard to beat.

I’m going to tell you a little secret: I hate rewriting. I hate it with a passion. I understand the need for it, but I hate it with every fiber of my being. Especially if I have to start from scratch. I know that people say that writing is re-writing, but for me…it’s VERY difficult to break out of how I see something once I write it down. I think I’m pretty decent at writing what I see in my head, and getting that across.

Because I hate re-writing, I try to write as close to a final draft as I can get. I try to get it in one or two takes, changing a word or phrase here or there to be a LOT more direct than I am in this blog. Basically, I wrote that particular three-pager in one take, with a few tweaks. And it was “awfully good.”

Why am I happy about that?

Because I cannot get the same validation from my peers. I’m usually the one they come to in order to get an editorial eye on their stuff. If I write the way I edit, and people come to me for editorial review, how can I go to them for the same thing when they’re not editors? So, yeah, getting an attaboy like that from someone who is definitely my superior fills me with glee. The script has some problems with what it’s projecting, but NOT with functionality or storytelling. And there were a couple of typos.

Lee has also started up his own column over at Project Fanboy. Check it out, if you aren’t already. It is DEFINITELY worth the time. I’m learning things, as well, which only help to make me a better writer and editor. I think it compliments and surpasses what I was doing with Bolts & Nuts, and since it also runs on Tuesdays, I think it is a great replacement for it.

However, in reading the column, I find myself wanting to talk more and more about comics theory. It’s making me want to start up yet another column to do it, too. There are LOTS of niches to fill with comics, and while I don’t think I’ll ever fill them all, I’m definitely interested in learning and doing more and more in my chosen medium.

Anyway, that’s comics stuff. Real life? That’s been interesting this past week, as well.

On Tuesday, my car’s ignition switch broke. This was early Tuesday evening. Angie, my stepdaughter, had taken the car to the storage unit to put some stuff in it. The storage unit is just over a quarter mile away, if not a little less. Easy walking distance. She comes to get me at about 7:30 or so, and we go there, getting a ride from her boyfriend. Usually, when something like this would happen, all it takes is turning the wheel a little bit in order to get the tumblers straight and insert the key. Kinda like sex, really. Gotta sometimes coax it in a little.

Well, I tried that, with no luck. The gate locks at 9, it was cold and raining (one of the few nights it decided to rain in Tucson!), and I had to get back home in order to see if I could find a ride to work, and call in to work if I couldn’t. I couldn’t. So, it was taken as a Holiday day, not using vacation, since I had it to burn. Nice, right? I thought so.

Anyway, I went back the next morning. I walked. The rain had cleared up, and while it was chilly, it wasn’t cold. I put a hoodie on under my jacket, because I didn’t want to freeze my shaved-head off. I tried it again with no love.

Now, there was a nice thing about the situation. The storage facility is set back from the road. In front of it is a car care center. The garage was open, so I stopped in on my way back home. I wanted to get a ball-park estimate of the problem and the cost. I could take that home to my wife, and we could talk about it. (It’s not as if we have a lot of money.)

Well, they ball-parked it at close to $400. Not only that, but they wouldn’t be able to get to it until after Xmas, and probably not until the new year.  I kept a straight face at that, and took the figure and their timeframe home to my wife.

She didn’t want to pay it. I didn’t want to pay it. I then remembered that one of my friends is married to a mechanic. I got in contact with her about it (especially since I was going to ask her to go out of her way to take me home in the morning), and she told me that he could do it, but it probably wouldn’t be until Saturday morning, the day after Xmas. I was fine with that. Truly. He also had a suggestion about calling a locksmith.

I did that, and the first locksmith who answered the phone was a chick who acted like hers was the only locksmith in town. Not only that, but I’d have to wait until the next day to get someone out to see my car because her ignition guy was out of town. I didn’t like her attitude. I called someone else.

The next guy was TOTALLY helpful! He asked if I had squirted any lubricant in the ignition. I hadn’t. He said to do that, and if it works, to bring the car to his location. So, I walked my happy ass back to the storage, squirted some WD40 in the ignition, and prayed. It didn’t work. So, I walked my ass back home. I called him up, and arranged for someone to come out to the apartment to look at the car. He would send someone out later that day.

Then I called my insurance company in order to set up a tow. With that done, I walked my happy ass back to the storage in order to meet the towtruck driver, let him in, and get the car. With the car back home, I went back inside to find my wife sitting there. Imagine my surprise, because she was supposed to be at work. Well, now, I had someone to stay up and meet the locksmith when he came out, because I had work that night.

The guy came out, but couldn’t get the ignition freed up. The problem was the switch itself. The switch for my car is the same switch for the Ford Focus, and they were always going out. They went out so much that they stopped using that particular switch in the car, going to a different switch. The guy could do it for half the cost the garage was trying to charge, but it would have to wait until Saturday. Lenora went for it.

The next couple of days were interesting. I went to work by getting rides and borrowing my other stepdaughter’s car. Fun times. And then today rolls around, and the locksmith comes out and does the entire job in about 30 minutes. The garage was estimating 2 hrs worth of work.

Yeah.

So, the car is fine, I got some sleep, and now, to do some more editing work and spend some time with my family. I’m a little hungry.

Go watch Gone in 60 Seconds, just because it’s that kind of day.

-Steven

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 26th, 2009 at 6:39 pm and is filed under blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.