The Blood Turbine - Mark Wilcox

Focus

2013-03-10T10:16:00.001-07:00

Ugh.

Lost writing momentum on The Rental Car. It's not that I have done nothing - I've been doing lots of drawing fundamentals.

I could give excuses but in reality - I'm just procrastinating. Probably because I don't feel the feedback on the writing, I do with my drawing.

I'm not giving up but rather need to do the mental reset button. Hit the reminder button. Set the clock for 15 minutes and just write.

The funny thing is that it's not even writer's block. It's just writer laziness :).

Pivoting like Affleck - a ROW80 Update

2013-03-06T07:25:00.001-08:00

So earlier this week I wrote about lessons we could learn from Affleck's Oscar win.

And that must have set something up in my head because I started hatching a new combination marketing plan and way to encourage myself to continue to draw so that I'd get better.

Basically I want to test things out on how to grow a mailing list and alternative ways to get audience attention (e.g. Pintrest, Tactilize) and what (if) really can I sell from my art.

Is it prose books?

Is it comic books?

Is it promoting friends books?

Is it t-shirts from my drawings?

Do I move into cartoons (I had some fun doing a few sketches of this for an exercise earlier this year)?

Maybe I become a book cover artist?

Maybe I become a book promoter?

And I want to share what I learn back with my ROW80 people.

So the current goals:

1 - Draw 30 head shot/portrait shots - this gives me lots of practice and things to play with for various promotional efforts

2 - Continue to write on The Rental Car. Went on the road last week and kind of paused. Got re-hooked on drawing. So the time I could just pick up the keyboard to write - I've been drawing :). So I have re-set my reminder to write 300 words tomorrow. I also suspect once I hit my 30 portraits - my mind will switch back to the writing. Basically having two (vastly different) projects in my head- means, as I mentally dip on one, I can pick up the other.

The ironic thing is that The Rental Car is probably the best thing I've written so far. But a book in embryonic state is hard to share for early feedback. So just have to slug it out with the keyboard to get it complete.

As Robert Parker said when asked what key to writing was "butt in seat".

What Writers and Artists Can Learn From Ben Affleck's Oscar Win

2013-03-04T10:48:00.001-08:00

Chasing Amy (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Last week Ben Affleck's Argo took home the Best Picture Oscar. Which was a nice capstone on a career turn-around.

It occurred to me that as creative people including writers and artists we can take something from this victory. Even if we have no intention to make movies.

Affleck has had a very interesting career. In less than 20 years he's gone from a nobody with bad teeth starring in Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy to rookie Oscar winner for best screenplay to hunky movie star linked with Jennifer Lopez (at the time they were the world's mega-star couple) to joke to disaster (though to be fair Jersey Girl wasn't that bad and he met his wife in Daredevil so life's not all bad :)) to basically out of work.

Possibly forever.

Yet he kept at it. Even if that meant switching gears and going for directing over acting.

I don't think you have to fail to be successful (in Silicon Valley people think that you have to fail first - which is a waste). But to be successful - you have to know to start small and just keep at it.

Sometimes you're going to take your lumps.

And what really counts isn't that you got knocked down but that you got back up.

Or as the Marine Corps says "Adapt and Overcome".

ROW 80 Update

2013-02-24T11:22:00.002-08:00

Slow and Steady

A short one since I'm splitting my attention between listening to the Daytona 500 and needing to get started with some weekend work for the job that currently pays me.

I'm making progress - spent most of the week training myself to write in 15 minute sprints. Which isn't a long time but given the way work is - it's a good tactic. Because no matter what I can find 15 minutes every day :).

That being said I've put down 2 and 1/2 chapters.

And my plan is to get through this week which is going to be stressful enough between myself taking a class plus helping to teach another class and then hopefully the mental energy will be increased. So that 15 minutes becomes at least 30 :).

Though also my drawing skills have taken a nice leap.

ROW80 - Finding the Meaning In My Site's Name

2013-02-20T06:43:00.001-08:00

Mark's First Punisher

Accidental Branding

I named my site "The Blood Turbine" because it sounded metal. I picked it up from an Endgadget post on some type of medical device.

Ironically- it was after I had setup my Pilgrim Screams domain. Which I still keep the email address on but have never really done anything with it.

I occasionally think I should change.

But nobody has ever complained and a few people have said they like it.

And ultimately I write stories that can be summed up as a combination of Law & Order meets The Twilight Zone. With a subtitle of "and directed by Robert Rodriguez" (for larger market I may change that to Quentin Tarantino - but his movies are too damn long anymore and Rodriguez aren't. And Machete is the coolest movie since Get Shorty).

Which means - the Blood Turbine brand can fit.

And why I decided to change my blog subtitle again.

Status Update:

On my drawing I finally figured out how to do 2 things:

1 - get comfortable drawing from scratch on my iPad (I use Sketchbook Pro and have moved back to the Wacom Bamboo stylus. It's not that much better than Jot PRo - except that you can buy replacement tips for like $3 on Amazon for a pack and I couldn't get replacement tip for my Pro after my McGuyver hack broke).

2 - I finally got square jawed hero (at least from the front) down. Now to get the various profiles done. And then the body parts. Tiny little progress every day.

On writing:

I also totally dig 2 things:

1 - The Logitech ultrathin keyboard for my iPad. I had the original Logitech keyboard and it was great but was bulky. This new one is almost as thin as my iPad cover! So now I can write pretty much anywhere with my iPad. Which is nice because it allows me to write in my living room more easily - which I prefer to do over my office. If I ever move to writing full-time, I might switch. Though more l likely it will just become an even larger shrine to toys than it is now ;).

2 - I've written the first chapter in my novella The Rental Car - coming in around 2500 words (I'm hoping to average around 1700 words a chapter - so yay). I'm going to shoot for first draft by April 5. There's at least 1 work trip in there and possibly 2 - so I may have to adjust. Interestingly enough - I've trained myself to write in 15 minute chunks. Sometimes in the morning I might do 2 or 3 chunks but I do at least 1. And by adapting this habit - it makes it easier to write when I get little breaks during the day.

Sunday ROW80 Update - Growing Snowflakes with Whacky Cards

2013-02-17T09:10:00.001-08:00

I am still hacking away on The Rental Car using snowflake method.

In this method you start with the simplest - really describe your story in 1 sentence and then you expand to 1 paragraph that gives the arc of the story. Then you expand each sentence in that paragraph to their own paragraphs.

I've completed that process. And I feel pretty good about it. It's funny how a simple idea "police find dead body in trunk of a rental car of a sales guy" expands out.

Another step in the snowflake method is that you write out a full character description of your major characters. I have done that for most of my characters. I have 1 or 2 to go.

To help provide more depth - I decided to play around with the Creative Whack Pack.This is set of special cards that you can use to help you think of alternative ideas in practically everything. For example a card might be "Conform - how do you conform and why". There is both physical and now virtual (via iPhone/iPad) cards.

I used the iPad app to give me 4 random cards to help me fill out one of my characters. The app lets you write down notes for each card. And then you can email them to you.

Here is what I turned out (for Dr. Grace Lowe who is the love interest for my primary character)
You received the following Creative Whacks in your workshop session.
What patterns do you see? What insights did these cards give you?

Your Issue:
Create a character Dr Grace Lowe.

36 - Conform
http://j.mp/cwp336
She wants to get correct bad guy though does not think the law works that way. Wants marriage & kids because she grew up like that. Stand by your man no matter what

57 - Have Something At Stake
http://j.mp/cpw457
If she gets it wrong about the cause of death or the ritual tattoo guilt go free or someone else dies

24 - Substitute
http://j.mp/cwp224

47 - Listen to that Hunch
http://j.mp/cwp347
That there is something to this tattoo. Something Brooker is hiding

Sent from the Creative Whack Pack for the iPhone/iPad:
http://j.mp/cwpap

##
I also own the physical pack - I discovered the app last night stuck at in-laws fixing their computer and wanted to do some work on the book while waiting for stuff to download.

So if you're looking for another way to help you with your story - you might want to check the whack pack out.

How To Have The Internet Tell You Your Book Title For $100

2013-02-14T15:01:00.001-08:00

One of the trickiest parts of writing any book - regardless if fiction or non-fiction or even comic books is picking a title.

And most author's (and publishers for that matter) just pick a title without any type of testing.

Probably because testing is perceived at being hard or even impossible.

However, it is possible for a little bit of money to leverage the Internet to help you choose a book title (and even a cover and sales copy) before you even publish.

Heck you could even use it to help you figure out which book to write if you have competing ideas but not sure which one to write.

While you could use the typical haunts like Good Reads or Twitter to ask - this more often than not can be met with silence unless you've established some type of rapport on these systems. That's possible but takes alot of time and effort.

And if you're only hanging out with other authors and not people who would actually read your book (besides your Mom or spouse)- it's not a good sample.

So take a page from Tim Ferris (the dude who wrote 4 Hour Workweek) (aff link) did when it came to actually choosing a title. The 4 Hour Workweek was not the original title and Ferris did not like the options his publisher came up with.

Tim did not want get into emotional argument over the title and instead wanted to base the decision on data.

So he used Google Ad Words (the system Google allows anyone to buy ads that people can click on) to tell him based on which title got the most clicks.

I mentioned on one of my ROW80 updates that I want to do this for my next book and one of my fellow writers asked how I would do it.

Here is how I plan to do it for my next book:

Brainstorm at least 5 book titles - you could do with as little as 2 but more the better

Sign up for Google AdWords account.

Generate a list of keywords (a simplest way to do this - use Google Ad Word Keyword tool - just enter a seed keyword for closest to your book - such as for example "Stephen King" if you are writing horror)

Create an ad for each book title you have. The title should be the headline.

The ad copy should be the same for each ad - just a blurb on your book.

The webpage that the ad points to should be the same - and heck can just be a 1 page saying "coming soon". We're testing titles only - though if you wanted this to be an opportunity to get people onto a mailing list to let them know when the book comes out - feel free to do so.

Set the bid price (how much you pay for click) to something low - like a penny. We're not actually trying to sell here - just testing titles so no need to go broke here.

Set to only search ads (not the content network which shows up on blogs/websites).

Set your max spend to $100.

What happens then is that as people are searching on terms on Google, the ads with your book titles will be shown based on the keywords you entered.

A percentage of people will click on the ads.

Once your $100 is spent - the experiment is over.

You will then have ads ranked based on the number of clicks. The highest ranked one is the one I would use for title.

If you ended up with 2 or 3 in a tie (unlikely) and you're writing novels - I'd just pick one for now and use the other 2 for later :).

The benefit of this type of test is that you didn't have to waste time trying to make friends on a forum (time better spent writing your book). And because the ads are triggered off keywords related to the type of book you're writing - you have a stronger signal of actual potential readers.

P.S. There are coupons out there for Google Ad Words - so you might even be able to do this without having to actually spend $100 of your own money. Search on Google for this - just make sure you get a legit coupon.

Row80 Updating - Snowflakes, Visual Outlines and Compartmentalizing

2013-02-13T07:06:00.001-08:00

An interesting thing has happened along my journey of novice comic book maker.

My inner prose writer has reemerged.

It's not that it ever truly died - I had to backburner it. Figuring I sucked so bad at it (not that has stopped thousands of others from publishing on KDP :)) that I would do the world a favor and stop.

Which then led me down the path of becoming serious about my drawing. And taking a stab at comic books.

While creating the comic books - the prose writer started to fill my head of how it would write the panels.

And then I started re-reading Richard Stark Parker novels which is perhaps my strongest prose inspiration (even if Stephen King is probably my strongest story type inspiration though I could never be as wordy as him).

And then I stumbled upon (and I literally think I found it via StumbleUpon :)) - the snowflake novel method.

If I learned one thing from my earlier adventurers in writing was that I'm not good enough to be a pantser.

But I never found an outline style that worked for me. Probably because I had a decade drilled into me about how to outline academic papers.

The snowflake method for me - feels like a system between pantsing and traditional outline.

Fundamentally what it allows you to do is quickly put together the core of the story in particular your characters with enough detail that you can get a good sense of what works, what doesn't or even - maybe the entire story can't work - before you plow weeks of worth of prose.

Now we round-back.

I'm now using the snowflake method and switching between prose and drawing. I think I may end up with 2 books. One the comic book and one prose.

To take mental pressure off me - the comic book is not something I'm intending to publish in any traditional sense. Meaning I don't think I'll take to KDP or Comixology. Though I will put it up on the Web as a combination sharing for friends & family plus potential marketing (while I'm under no delusions of my current skills - I also know people pay $ for paintings done by elephants :)).

Thus my drawing remains more of a hobby but potentially growing to something larger.

Meanwhile I'm jumping back into writing prose. Unsure of what I will do beyond giving myself a rough deadline of June 1 for the first completed draft of my prose version of my story "The Rental Car"(current working title).

And even bigger purpose - I have sketched together how 3 or 4 of these stories work together for a series. They will be novella (around 25K worth) each.

So let me put down rough goals here:
1 - 25,000 word draft (novella length) by June 1 (this extends into next ROW).
2 - Finish drawing the comic based on the long synopsis of the snowflake (the comic was the core, but now I've grown the story a bit) - by May 1.
3 - Do a second draft by July 1.
4 - Get copy edit (pay for this on eLance or similar)
5 - Test out titles and ad copy using Google Ad Words . Might even try out covers this way (Ad words can be a very cheap but effective focus group).
6 - Work on this at least 15 minutes a day (yes, of course I want longer, but if you start small - make it almost impossible to miss & becomes habit - then you succeed).

The funniest thing of this - in particular if I hit success is that age old question of "where do you get your ideas from".

The core series character "Detective Thomas Brooker" grew out because I sketched out a story last year about a vampire who could only attack women who do not shave their legs. Which came out of a silly discussion with my wife at IHOP.

And the rental car grew out of a 6 page mini-comic I needed for one of my drawing exercises.

Onwards and upwards.

Sunday Summary Row80

2013-02-10T10:57:00.002-08:00

This week's primary achievement was I fixed my iPad stylus. I have a Jot Pro stylus - that when it works, it's the closest to the pen on an iPad.

However, by default it can suffer from skipping problems. Which was bad enough I was beginning to have to rethink my entire approach to this whole comic book stuff.

Not because there are not other ways to make comic books - but given my life - if I can use my iPad - it allows me to continue to work even when the day job throws me on the road.

Anyway - I found a trick. By putting an extremely small (you don't even see it once everything is in place) piece of aluminum foil in the joint where the tip attaches to the pen- the skipping goes away. Heck, it works better than new!

While I could whine that it should work this way in the first place (I'm sure the next generation will) - it's a simple and cheap "hack".

And now I'm back in business.

In fact, for my next page - the Jot works so well, I'm going to try and draw straight on iPad without pencil.

I still like my pencils (and growing collection of art supplies) but I think I might just use those for pure hobby stuff so that mentally I won't feel pressure of "what to do about my comic when suddenly I find myself in the Westin in Reston, VA".

And the comic stuff which I'm trying to use to make some $ at - can continue on this way.

Next week I hope to have a couple of pages done.

Sunday Row80 Update - Page 1 Inked

2013-02-03T08:55:00.000-08:00

Above is the first panel for my new comic - "The Rental Car". It's the first in my series of books I'm going to do on my character Detective Thomas Brooker. And the series pitchline is "Law & Order meets The Twillight Zone".

I've got my first page drawn and inked. I'm now going to play around with coloring.

I'm very fond of watercolor in comics.

But I might even use crayons (yes, your ordinary Crayola crayons - they are actually quite remarkable art tools that we have tricked ourselves into thinking they're only for kids).

Or I may fall back to digital.

Hopefully by next Sunday update - I'll have a direction decided. And possibly page 2 drawn and inked. I have work travel this week and next weekend is the spring Comic-Con here in Dallas so I'm not going to expect too much of myself in terms of this project.

Row80 Update - No Fear

2013-01-30T05:55:00.003-08:00

This week was a personal historic week for me in terms of my art. The image above is my quick pencil sketch version of Roy Lichtenstein's "Crying Girl". I found his stuff via a newsletter from one of the online art shops newsletters.

It's not perfect and I didn't bother even erasing my mistakes which is why the scan has lots of artifacts. But it's about a 90% perfect comparison for me.

And after doing a 90% version of a Jim Lee Wonder Woman -

I no longer fear needing to draw anything for my stories.

A year ago, I was frustrated over drawing a basic Manga eye.

Now - I'm confident I can draw what I need to draw.

And the second is the most inspirational quote I've come along in a very long time.

In particular since I turn 40 this year.

Here's the quote:
"Stan Lee is 90 years old. Which means he was 40 when he created Spider Man. Which means you haven't even started to live your life yet." Twitter/TEDDOW.

I have this printed out and pasted on the wall next to my monitor.

Today I started the first panel drawing of "The Rental Car".

Why You Should Watch Parker - The Movie

2013-01-28T08:19:00.002-08:00

This weekend a movie I have waited for a long time to come out was released - Parker starring Jason Statham and Jennifer Lopez.

Parker is based on a series of books from Richard Stark which was the pen name for Donald Westlake. One of the reasons for the pen name was that Westlake was known more for funny style robbery series (Dortmunder) and Parker is the complete opposite.

As I told my friend Derick - The Parker books are perhaps the most violent series of novels I've ever read.

But they are not violent for violent sake. Parker is a bad dude. He's a professional robber. But he has a code.

In modern parlance - he's Batman or Punisher without the crime-fighting.

Except the reality is that without Parker (and later Don Pendolten's Mack Bolan) there is no modern Dark Night, Wolverine or Punisher.

Stark created that genre and the anti-hero.

And by anti-hero I don't mean the bad boy with heart of gold.

I mean a bad guy who is only slightly better than the guys around him.

The books are fast paced and a quick read. In fact, the movie almost lasts longer than it takes you to read a Parker novel :).

Now onto the movie.

This is the character Statham was born to play. Parker is a tough guy but he's not indestructible. He spends most of the movie (including the final fight scene) pretty beat up. And I don't mean they just sprayed some red corn syrup on him and called him "wounded".

He limped.

Couldn't use one of his hands.

Plus there was the "fun" elements - Statham gets to play different disguises and voices. Maybe if Parker doesn't work out - he's a lock to do the next Fletch? :)

Also the supporting cast - in particular Jennifer Lopez as the realtor who gets involved to help Parker and Emma Booth as Parker's girlfriend was excellent.

JLo was much better here than she was in "Out of Sight". She plays romantically unlucky, financially frazzled and comedy of living with her mom better than tough as nails marshal.

Parker isn't an Oscar movie. But it is a fun time.

Sunday Summary -

2013-01-27T07:22:00.001-08:00

Quick summary.

Day job was bad this week. Motivation to make my creative side pay off.

Anyway - I started planning out my long term plan for the books. This isn't really some massive story arc but rather how to increase my odds I can make some $ at this.

I've been listening to the The Self-Publishing Podcast -which is by far the most informative podcast on self-publishing I've found (except it's very much not NSFW or anyone who is offended by foul language - the show is like if Howard Stern gave weekly business advice :)).

The core there is to build a funnel effect with your books.

So for example that you do a series of books. The first book is 99-cents (or even free to get people hooked) and then you sell say the others for $2.99 in the series with a bundle price where it's like buy 3 get 1 free.

I was inspired here because in my workbook I'm going through I need to create a mini-comic anyway. And back when I was doing the prose thing I started toying around with a couple of detective characters to make into a type of series.

Thus I decided to make the mini-comic the kick-off point for these characters. Then figure out a way to link them into my larger comic I started working on.

The book series in my mind right now is "Law & Order meets the Twilight Zone". And the detectives would be more like Rod Sterling - they bookend the story but not necessarily the drivers. At least not in each case.

This week I did write down the basic script for the mini-comic working title "The Rental Car". The premise - a salesguy rents a car. He gets stopped for a routine inspection (like maybe the fruit inspection at the California border) and they find a dead body in his trunk.

So this weekend I've been doing some stuff that needed to get done art-wise (I did some character sketches). And boring clean-up wise (finally clearing up the landfill that my office had become so that I can get the workspace setup).

Next this week - do the thumbnails. So that next week I could start laying down a page or two.

While work has been hell - I'm reminding myself is that I can still find time to work on this nearly every day - even if it's only 15 minutes. Because Jan 27, 2014 will be here in any case and I can either have worked 15 minutes a day on this and be that much closer or not.

Power of Community #Row80

2013-01-24T19:02:00.001-08:00

I wasn't planning on a check-in.
Work has gone to hell and I've been into back to back 15 hour days. Which while I'm lucky I work from home 15 hours of stress is 15 hours of stress. An example of my work stress - I'm working past 9pm after starting at 7:30 trying to figure out why an app used by our global sales force stopped working.

And this is just one of the multiple items I had to work on.

And there are times being part of Row80 - that I wonder - am I just in the wilderness and that the check-in is really just a Jedi mind trick to keep me progressing. I get the occasional comment - but not sure how much it really sticks.

I don't expect the Row80 to be my book audience - just a collection of people who can cheer each other on.

And this is a long winded way to get what prompted this. I got an email from Cate Russell-Cole telling me the linky wasn't up because Kait was out (luckily she just lost track of time dealing with home issues). And that I could check-in on a Facebook group.

Cate doesn't know that this simple act of random kindness gave me more courage to continue on.

On a non-sappy note - I had an accomplishment today. I did a drawing based on a drawing of Wonder Woman that Jim Lee (arguably the best working comic artist today). And it was about 90% of what Jim drew. I can't post here because technically it's a trademark image but I'm feeling more confident about my drawing abilities.

Row80 Sunday Check-in

2013-01-20T09:12:00.002-08:00

Writing The Comic

The core goal of this ROW is to get through the "Drawing Words - Writing Pictures" workbook which is a textbook/self-paced study from zero to a complete (if basic) comic book.

Even if you can't draw (though I'm a bit better than that :)).

An interesting discovery from this exercise (I'm about 1/5 of the way through it) is that I discovered another potential option for my work - doing a weekly strip similar to the way The Far Side was. This is because 2 of the exercises is that you do a couple of pages (1 1 panel and 1 4 panel strip) that are intended to be funny.

What sparked this - was I showed my 1 panel to my wife when she came home from work and she burst out laughing.

This opens up more potential ways of creating and taking my work.

Learning Spanish

Last week I announced my goal to see how much Spanish I could learn in the ROW to test out the principals behind 4-Hour Chef. And in particular since my mother-in-law is a native speaker who usually comes over to the house a couple of times a week to do the laundry.

Ironically I didn't get much started with my initial plan because my mother-in-law didn't come over last week.

But I discovered a new FREE web/iPhone application called Duolingo that is setup to help you learn Spanish/French/German. I discovered it because a new study had come out showing that 30 hours of this app was equivalent of an entire semester of college Spanish based on comparison testing on the standard test of college Spanish.

I'm addicted to this app now and not only because I want to learn Spanish. It's addicting because it's designed as a game (each lesson is broken into 10 parts and you have 5 "lives", you get points for collecting, it shows you progress like a maze) and no boring memorization of verb conjugation.

So I feel pretty good about this.

hope everyone is doing awesome on their own progress.

Why You Should Buy Walking Dead Comics

2013-01-15T05:54:00.003-08:00

The Walking Dead (Photo credit: andres musta)

The most amazing thing has happened in the past 3 years.

My wife got me into a comic book.

Which is amazing because my wife doesn't read comic books. In fact, until The Walking Dead came out, I don't think she had ever read a comic book since she was a little kid.

She started with the comic because she wanted to know more about the story because she had heard the TV show was coming to AMC and she wanted to learn more about it.

So she started with the compendium from the library. This then lead to me buying her the later trade paperback collections as birthday gifts.

What was funny was that even though she was reading it - it wasn't for a couple of years that I started it myself even though I was watching the TV show and I read (as well as now, create) comic books.

I finally got motivated to get caught up in the comic because I wanted to know what the big reveal was going to be in issue 100.

So I started with getting the compendium on my iPad, then each of the volumes and now I buy it monthly because the story is so compelling.

Note - if you're just started out on the comic - the early issues can be a bit tedious at times. Just stick with it :). They do have a payoff - but Kirkman likes to build up the story. By the time we get to 90 - he really has figured out the proper way to keep story moving and each month a good cliffhanger. Which is what you want from a monthly comic.

So if you're into the TV show and want to know more about what inspired it (the TV show and the comic book are on different paths so you won't necessarily be repeating yourself). Or if you just want to read good literature - you should get the Walking Dead comic.

I personally read it via Comixology but if you have the Kindle Fire, Kindle Touch, Kindle Paperwhite or the Kindle app for your tablet - you can also buy them digitally from Amazon.

Or you can of course buy them in paper form.

Can I Learn Spanish In A Single ROW80?

2013-01-13T10:47:00.001-08:00

I will get to my update but this weekend my wife brought home The 4 Hour Chef by Tim Ferris.

Ferris is famous for 4 Hour Workweek which most people misunderstand. They think it teaches you a myth about a scheme so that you only have to work 4 hours. What that book is about is about improving your effectiveness so that you can dramatically improve productivity. In theory if you increased productivity 10 times you would go from 40 hours in your job to 10.

That is not totally realistic but it makes for catchy title & series branding. And that matters in selling.

At a high level 4 Hour Chef is about cooking though it's much more than a cookbook. It's closer to the old FoodTV show - Good Eats than a plain set of recipes. Except by which Good Eats really just used cooking to show you science, 4 Hour Chef uses cooking to show you how to learn anything very quickly.

And by learn anything to become better than 95 % of anyone else doing it - which is how Tim Ferris defines "world-class".

Thus I get to Spanish.

Ferris has devised a system based on the system the most prolific polygot ever (who knew 30-90 languages depending upon how you define fluency) used.

Fundamentally it's based on 4 things:
1 - Access to a native speaker who can help you practice and get you started
2 - Having the native speaker translate 8-12 specific sentences that teach you core language principals
3 - Analyzing those sentences to see if there is anything that will prevent you from becoming fluent (e.g. sounds that are too hard for you to make as a non-native or will totally screw you up on sentence structure)
4 - Learning the 100-200 most common words in the language

Then you start. Basically you memorize the sentences so that you can start to deconstruct them (e.g. what is the noun, verb and object). From the sentences you learn verb conjugation of the most common. And the common words. Then you start practicing speaking. Though you can do this all mixed together.

Does this work? I don't know.

But here's the thing - I'm insanely curious to know.

I'd like to learn another language. Spanish is natural not only because I'm in Texas but because my mother-in-law is a native speaker. And she comes over to the house twice a week to do the laundry.

And I have ROW80 to help me because the reporting nature of this tricks your mind into feeling the need to keep up or you let people down.

So now to the weekly report:

Last Week Comic Goals:
I completed my anatomy exercises I wanted

Next Week Comic Goals:
Do at least 2 exercises from my "Drawing Words - Writing Pictures" workbook which is like a class in a book on how to go from zero to creating your own comic.

Next Week Spanish Goals:
I'm going to use Wednesday ROW80 as the weekly update for this though I won't link to the Linky so not to distract. But it's a nice reminder to post :).
This weeks goals is to verify the sentence translations with my mother-in-law and start the deconstruction process.

Dedicated Practice Makes Perfect

2013-01-09T06:44:00.002-08:00

This dude is an exercise from Hart's Simplified Anatomy for Comic Book Artist's .

It is the happiest I've ever been from a drawing yet. Because it's the first time I've done a person where the proportions are 98% correct. Though I realize the left leg as you look (his actual right leg in his mind) is still screwy.

But in comparison here is my first body I drew about 4 months ago:

Which is probably correct from the way most Americans look but not what you want to see in a comic :).

So my advice to anyone who wants to get started on this - just do dedicated practice. Even 30 minutes a day.

If you're trying to do this and drawing - don't complicate your kit when starting out. I'm just drawing with a cheap mechanical Bic pencil on printer paper. Though I would get good erasers (I use a plastic art eraser and one of those erasers in a pencil). The art eraser is great when you need to erase a bunch without making a mess. And the pencil eraser is best for the smaller.

And I recommend getting a clipboard with a storage box. Initially I got one just to keep my pencils and papers together - in particular when I have to do any business travel. But in a trip to Hobby Lobby (I have one within a mile of the house and while I'd just buy everything non perishable from Amazon because I really hate leaving the house now if my wife would let me- I do visit Hobby Lobby when I need a break away from the day job) - I found a t-square, circle template and a triangle that were all small enough to fit in the storage box.

The t-square was the key find because if you want to do this the old fashioned way - the t-square & triangle are key to squares and perspective.

2013 ROW80 Goals

2013-01-07T05:35:00.002-08:00

This is my goals post for Q1 2013 ROW 80 (Round of Words in 80 Days) . For my fellow comic book authors (I joined a comic book writer group in Google Plus over the holidays) - ROW80 is a great way to help keep motivated to finish your books.

Year Goal

The big writing goal is that I want to complete my comic book "The Locket". This is a working title. My plan is that it will be 4 books (so that I can release individually - perhaps serially and an omnibus). In my head it's a cross of Quentin Tarantino-Stephen King-Alfred Hitchcock influences.

Q1 Goals

There's 3 writing goals:

1 - Complete my Christopher Hart Simplified Anatomy For Comic Book Artists exercises (that's where the eyes above come from). I've come a long way in my drawing skills (maybe it takes 10,000 hours to become a master at something but focused practice on the key items you can become "good enough" much more quicker) but I want to tighten up this.

2 - Finish up my script for The Locket. I already have a first draft I wrote over Christmas holiday. The core story, I think I'm ok in - but I decided to add a beginning story and that needs to be beefed up.

3 - Finish up my character thumbnails - basically my core character reference drawings. Already have a first draft on this. Want to complete them after I do my Hart exercises

It's 80 days - I might get through all of these and then add on (which would be a good thing) but mixed into the 120 days is the time of year in my day job where we close 80% of our business (um, there's a lot of 80 in this post). And my normal 12 hour day may get extended into 15. And weekends.

Though a work goal in 2013 is to work on saying No more often and guarding my first 2 hours of the morning (I typically get up at 5:30 AM) to my personal projects.

Fitness/Health Goals

As is tradition with other ROW80 authors - we like to share personal fitness/health goals.

The 80 days marks a simple way for me to try to establish a new workout regimen. Which is 100 Kettlebell Swings twice a week.

I've got my 50lb weight coming (hopefully) today.

Reminiscing 2012

2013-01-03T06:32:00.003-08:00

chimchim_office_bed (Photo credit: Mark Wilcox)

2012 Review

Instead of having resolutions - I'm trying the approach of reminiscing the positives of 2012 to gain inspiration for 2013.

While I want to focus on the positives - I can't forget that 2012 is the year I lost my dog - ChimChim. I know we all lose pets. ChimChim hurts the most not only because he was with my wife & I for so long but because I work from home. And so I was with him 24x7 for probably 10 of his 12 years (I travel for work and for the first few years, I lived more out of a hotel than I did at home).

But now for the happiest bits:

For a decade, I kept my weight within a pound or two of the year before.

I proved that if I lifted weights even minimal - I would gain strength - to the point where my 20lb barbells are almost toys - even testing out the 35lb Kettlebell at Walmart it was too light. Thus I'm awaiting my arrival of my 50lb Kettlebell so that I can try out the Kettlebell swing.

I finally got to see Guns N' Roses in Concert. Yes, you might say "it's only Axl Rose" but the reality is that everyone in the current line-up has been in the band longer than the original lineup. And they can really play. And it's an awesome show.

I got to meet Slash in person and watched him put on a hell of a show at House of Blues in Dallas. The Les Paul guitar was created so that Slash could play it. After seeing GnR and Slash solo - you realize why the two would never mesh. Just different styles. And since both have been successful on their own (a very rare feat) - I doubt they will ever play together again.

I got to do a signing and photo-op with Stan Lee (the co-creator of Spider-Man, X-men and pretty much saving the entire comic book industry).

I taught myself to draw good enough that you can recognize what I'm drawing and even got a few "wow's" from people. I also learned telling people you are creating a comic book impresses them more than just saying you are working on a novel.

My 2013 Goals

Turn my niche sites profitable - I have played around with Internet marketing in the past but never enough focus to have any success. I've already started some work on this. And I hope the sites earn enough to at least cover my art supplies.

Do 2 Kettlebell workouts a week for 6 weeks (short enough that it doesn't feel impossible, long enough I should see results).

Complete my Locket comic book. I'll cover this more in my Row80 but scripts are done and drawing has commenced.

Make $1 from a stranger via Locket - so that on my next vacation I can tell people I create comics for a living. I'm ok with my day job but after almost 30 years of computer programming (I've been programming and dealing with computers since I was 12) - I'm over talking about it unless I'm getting paid for it. And while I could just make up whatever job I want on vacation - I'd like to have some sense of truth for it ;).

My Review of Jack Reacher Movie

2012-12-22T21:24:00.002-08:00

My robber from my first comic

The wife and I went to go see the new "Jack Reacher" movie tonight. This is based on the popular series of Reacher novels by Lee Childs. Ironically while it's the first Reacher movie it's not based on the first book.

I'm a huge fan of the series. And while I was surprised to hear Tom Cruise would be playing him - I figured it would be done well. While Cruise is not as physically imposing as Reacher in the books - the truth is that probably the only person who is - would be The Rock.

And while The Rock is a better actor than you would think - he's not Tom Cruise. And luckily at this point in his career - Cruise is still good looking enough that you can believe that the ladies swoon just be seeing him - he also has the "I really don't give a damn what you think and just leave me the F alone" quality about him.

Most importantly - he can play a good guy who isn't always doing good guy things.

Reacher in effect is a literary version of The Punisher. Though, to be candid, The Punisher is the comic-book version of "The Executioner" (aka Mack Bolan) - which gets very meta :).

However, Reacher is much more literary than The Executioner series. I love me some Mack Bolan (those novels were what I first got me into being a voracious reader) but they are not of the same merit.

In particular - the best Reacher novels (such as One Shot which this movie is based upon) are really detective novels. There's a strong mystery being played out.

And thus they did a pretty good job with keeping the core points of the book with a pretty decent action movie.

Even the wife said she was never bored. Her test for me is me seeing Les Miserables next week (I'm ok with musicals - I fear this maybe an overwrought mess though but we'll see :)). Though Reacher was still a bit long.

It wasn't quite to the point that I'd like to take a chainsaw to the film but it was getting close. The only thing that saves it - is that the too long scene is anchored by Robert Duvall.

Anyway - if you're a Reacher novel fan, they did a pretty decent job with the movie if you can get over Cruise is about half-size of Reacher. If you're just looking for an action flick to see over the holidays - it's a good one.

Hit The First Milestone On The Locket

2012-12-17T05:54:00.003-08:00

While I had intended to wait to get started on next project during the next ROW80 in 2013 - work is relatively quiet so I had to take the opportunity to get started because January through April is when we sell most of our software at work.

In other words - I will probably be super busy.

My next comic book is currently called "The Locket". It's based off another short story I wrote. I'm aiming for around 75 pages or 220 panels. I try not to think of those numbers :).

For comparison - your average comic book - is around 24 pages. Thus, The Locket lands into "graphic novel" territory. Which is how I might label it after I get around to doing the market research.

This morning I completed the first draft of the first third. And even though it's based off a short story I wrote - I surprised myself.

I've added in new characters and depth.

And in particular I like a sequence that I put down that shows one of the things I love about comics over prose - I can have 2 or 3 pages of silence with a montage.

This is because a sequence I need to show is one of my main characters meeting his wife and courting her while our protagonist goes on his own. This ends in a wedding.

These 5 pages will be pushing my limits of my artistic skill - but I no longer fear that I can't do it. It's only a question of how many tries will it take.

And if you're doing any last minute shopping - please check out my store.

The Final Check-In For 2012

2012-12-16T12:40:00.001-08:00

Hard to believe 2012 is almost over. And this will be my last check-in since this is the last week for the final Row80 of 2012.

Creatively it was a good year. I made significant improvements in my drawing skills. And I got a chance to meet many of my artist heroes.

And I produced my first mini-comic. Even though it's short and silly and later I'll probably truly recoil in horror of how bad it is :) - it is complete.

And this week I produced my two best sketches of female body pose and legs. I know this may sound like typical guy talk but the cornerstone of my next book is a beautiful and sexy woman. It's also a noir style story so I need to do more practice drawings on that style.

And I've already started on my script and thumbnails for the next story.

And just as important - I'm working on my marketing plan. The cornerstone of that is to produce a mini-comic from a section of the bigger book.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday.

What Talk Radio Taught Me About Blogging Daily

2012-12-14T05:59:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to post daily (at least Monday through Friday). Even if it's something short.

And I realized watching ESPN Mike & Mike in the morning - why this works for growing an audience. There is a technical reason - more content, gives more things that someone might be searching on to find (though most of my posts are updates - not instructional though I do occasionally provide reviews).

More importantly - posting regularly means people can expect to see something and get to know you.

Which leads to my lesson. I regularly listen to talk radio - both in form of traditional and podcasts. I start my morning by quickly checking out the local weather and then I flip over to ESPN 2 and watch Mike & Mike. I know that's TV - except it's a radio show. And I would listen on radio but I've managed to setup myself so that I can do my art in my living room before heading to my office.

I work my day job from home (which is very nice except that going into my office psychologically makes me feel like I must work for Mr. Ellison at all times) so keeping myself out in the living room in the morning, lets me focus on my own stuff. Which is typically from 5:30am until about 7:30.

I also usually listen (or watch over lunch) Dan Patrick show (a regular part of my life for almost a decade).

Now - I listen to these shows not just because I love sports but also because I've listened to these shows enough that it's like they are friends. I know about their own personalities and passions and their families. In some cases - better than I know my own coworkers.

And of course (and here is the real lesson for creative people) - when they release new stuff or happen to be local - I'm eager to buy. Not because of hard sell but because I like to support my friends.

Speaking of which - My Store.

Tumblr Test Post

2012-12-13T14:45:00.001-08:00

Testing to see if I post here it shows up as a link in my Tumblr Blog.