Getting It Done

Like clockwork, every Sunday night, I become outraged for the time I've wasted. The future I want is pushed back another week. Monday, I sulk, but by Tuesday morning I'm resolved to give my best effort on the next weekend. The cycle begins again.

I see the pattern and I recognize the need to alter course, but my will is spent by the time I edge up to my drafting table on Friday. The best I'm managing nowadays is sketching at the coffee table while I watch reruns of Firefly at 2am. Sometimes I have to ask myself "Do I really want to be a storyteller?", but on Sunday night, with a work day just under the horizon, I declare that I wouldn't want to be anything else.

Something must be done about this graphic novel, and soon, or else it's condemned to the scrapyard of older dreams. I made the mistake this weekend of sharing the idea with some friends. Clearly, it was a desparate grab for validation that pushes me one step closer to abandoning the whole project. So, I'm throwing it a life perserver by quickly scratching out a shot from the script.

It's rough, I know, and the 5 minutes I put into it is a pathetic contribution toward this weekend's goal. Nevertheless, here it is. Now I just need to follow this with a few hundred more.

Getting Things Started: Part Three

"Wait. Part three? What happened to part two?"

I'll tell you what happened to part two. It's called muscle memory. I reached for a mouse that wasn't there and mashed the buttons on my track-ball. One of those buttons is programmed to cycle to the previous web page, and it wasn't a simple matter of cycling back to my blog-in-progress. Also, the auto-save feature on Blog-spot was sleeping on the job.

Ergo, "Part Three" is born a day early. Honestly, there was never supposed to be a part three. Part Two was named "Part Two" because I'm so slack-jawed tired right now I couldn't think of a better title.

There's no art to go with the blog tonight, but I'm going to try and get some storyboards up tomorrow, and maybe some concept art, too. Wait, I might have a few lousy scribbles of costume-sketches sitting around here...

Well, crap. I have some some doodles of pretty girls and a Hawkman sketch that I know I won't finish by Saturday. It's not like I haven't been productive since the last post. Tuesday, I was able to cast a few parts for a test shoot. Believe me, that's major progress. Today, I aimed at getting a test script to shoot from, but this whole "sleep debt" thing left me so addled that I'm obliterating blogs with ham-handed mouse-mashing and trying to drink from an empty cup, which I think has been a fixture on my desk for a few days now (ewww).

Fortunately, genius (or, just memory) struck a few minutes ago when I realized I had not one, but three scripts sitting next to said empty cup. One them just happens to be Act I of the script I'm doing the test shots for. I just have to swap out a name to make a girl a dude, fix the relative pronouns, and I'm ready for storyboards. I aim to put something up tomorrow night.

Look forward to more meaningful content in the coming days.

Getting Things Started

This is my first blog site, and I distrust my rationale for starting it. The idea behind "IMPERFICTION" is that showcasing the progress on my art and writing projects will keep me focused long enough to see them through to completion.

You see, I'm notorious for generating ideas, sharing them, and then basking in the "oohs" and "ahhs" of my audience. Their praise restores my belief in my potential, and I enjoy the buzz. Once I come down from that brief high I find that I have absolutely no motivation for finishing the ideas that once sounded so great.

The buzz was my motivation. I move on to the next big idea, which never evolves beyond a concept, an outline, or some sketches, no matter how adamant I am that this time will be different.

New plan: I'm not going to tell you what the projects are about. I'll keep the core concepts under wraps as best I can, and just share what's born from them. Hopefully, the pictures and excerpts that I post on this blog will generate "oohs" and "ahhs" a-plenty, or else I have a whole other problem on the back end (i.e. maybe, I suck).

Hopefully, this blog is not just another false start for another brainstorm. I may need to grab a Sharpie and write "blog" on the back of my hand for a couple of weeks until updating this thing becomes a habit. We'll see.

Thanks for reading!

Patrick