Been A While...

... But I haven't given up. Events continue to avalanche over my grand designs; the detritus is replaced as soon as I've cleared some away. I continue to work towards my goals, ableit slowly. I'll repeat that for emphasis: sloooowly.

I sketch, and draw, and even write a little. I'm taking a crack at the next installment of The Futurists. (I pause here to choke on some water. Can you drown from a water bottle?)

Half of my layouts are done for the next Futurists. I can imagine the final product will take me some time. I have the tendency to dwell for far too long on the minutiae of detail in a project, which usually brings the whole thing grinding to a halt. Frustration ensues, and I wrestle with a conflict of talent. Finally, abandoning the whole thing becomes the only way to get peace of mind. I convince myself that I just need more practice, more time, but now I realize that no matter how ready I feel, at some point I must proceed.

So, here I go, again.

Blog Update

No, I have not given up on this blog, and I remain true to the goals that I hope these posts facilitate. The past few weeks have been hard, harder for others to be sure, but not easy on those of us who narrowly escaped the deluge. Tragically, some of our neighbors did not survive the flood, and I needed to only open my door to witness the worst of it.

The recovery effort has been incredible in this area, but even though we have been drawn to such a powerful initiative, events continue elsewhere in my life with the authority to clobber my spirits. Last night I learned that one of my oldest friends, Jade Shaklee, passed away at his home in Philadelphia.

I visited his sister's Facebook profile a short while ago, and saw pictures of my friend happy with his family and young wife, and I erroneously concluded that his battle with cancer had tipped in his favor despite earlier, dire reports. It's so easy to pretend that compassion for his family's pain have brought on the tears that I've shed today, but that's a selfish deception.

I've been out of touch with Jade for many months. His struggle was no secret, but I guarded myself against the details. He deserved far, far better from me. I'll do with this fresh shame what I should, and be a greater friend to those who remain in my life.

I've reread the above, and I'm aware that it's self-centered, but that is my greatest flaw, and the reason I neglected my friend, so this is truly in the spirit of Imperfiction's theme. I remain, like the back list of my art projects, a work in progress. The difference here is that Jade, and not myself, is the craftsman. Even now- especially now, he refines me, and takes me nearer to being the person I need to be. Great people have a power that is often most potent after they have left us.

Jade's greatness is undeniable.

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