Yeah. Epic failing at the blog thing. Oh well.

Kids are almost in bed. Maybe a few minutes to proof a few DOWNfALL posts tonight.
posted by Ethan at 19:16

Not Enough.
Not enough time to fit it all in.
Not enough time to do it all.
Not enough time with my kids.
Not enough time with my wife.
Not enough time writing.
Not enough time playing.
Not enough creativity.
Not enough innovation.
Not enough effort.

Too much.
Too much playing.
Too little working.
Not enough time doing what I should.

Too much selfishness.
Too little sacrifice.
Lots of luxury.
Not enough pain.
Too little money.
Too much excess.
Too much dissatisfaction.

Too much of me.
Not enough of You.

Forgive me.
posted by Ethan at 16:26

Goals. These are good to have

My goal is one page of writing a day. Doesn't matter which project it's on, as long there's one more page than there was the previous day. Should be totally do-able. Shouldn't really have any excuses with low, easily-reachable objectives like this. It's like setting the limbo bar at 5 feet. Hardly have to bend down at all and you're a winner. It's a start.

No, actually, it's a restart.
posted by Ethan at 00:54

Ok, trying the blog thing again. We'll see how it goes.

Balance. This is something I'd really like to have between all aspects of my life. Writing is something that's been out-of-balance for me for the past couple of years now. Of the hobbies I have, writing is the one I should enjoy the most, and yet I find myself looking for ways to get out of it. I suppose this is probably because writing is, when it comes right down to it, work. It takes effort--especially if it's actually going to be something worth reading. I enjoy writing a whole darn lot, but it's definitely easier to play World of Warcraft than to sit down and figure out what happens next in DOWNfALL. It may have started when my wife and I had our first child, but the overwhelming urge these past couple of years has been to turn my brain off after the kids are in asleep. You see, writing seems to require my brain (though some people who've read my writings might argue otherwise), and gathering the resolve to write after a day's activities is often beyond me.

But still, the balance between writing and not-writing must be brought back into check.

Again, we'll see how it goes.
posted by Ethan at 22:59

I wanted to give brief descriptions and backgrounds on my current projects. I have two main projects at the moment:

1. DOWNfALL is a serial sci-fi story of the dark future. The story follows three main characters (Aran, Phoenix, and (2)syl) as they attempt to survive in a world that finds itself suddenly without the entity known as cyberspace.

DOWNfALL is written by myself and two other authors. We each write our story from one character's point of view. I was just out of college when we started it, and like many spur-of-the-moment ideas, it's turned out to be more daunting than we'd ever imagined. The story kept getting more and more epic as our plots took shape. It was definitely one of those things where we might've been better planning the scope of the project before starting. But that's not what we did. Currently, the story stands at just over 400,000 words. Not too shabby for a project none of us are getting paid for. DOWNfALL should be finished by now--I think all three of us authors would admit that. Life and other interests have delayed the story from reaching its conclusion in a timely manner. Sometimes, that's just how it goes. The story was started in 1997, and 2007 coming up means we'll have had this story in progress for 10 years. Now, if we'd been writing all that time, it woulda been done within a couple years. But, I don't worry about it much. It's our story and it's not dead by any measure. I know how the story ends (maybe not all the nitty-gritty details)--I just have to get (2)syl and her friends there.

2. Angel the Demoness (or A+D) is the story of Angelina Liferot. She's a demoness, but she's not a very good one. As punishment for her incompetence in torturing the Damned souls in Hell, she is sent to the front lines of the Heaven/Hell conflict. There, she must fulfill her assigned tasks and avoid an early trip to The Abyss.

I write, and one of my best friends draws. Comic books were a big part of my life growing up. (And would be now if I could afford them!) The webcomic medium has made it relatively easy for a couple of friends to get a comic started and readable online. That doesn't make a comic good of course, but it does mean that those who have the motivation are able to create their comic and advertise it without having to invest a lot of money on the front end.

A+D is a story that allows me to explore certain spiritual themes from an unconventional point of view. Angelina is not on the side of good. She is a demoness, aligned against truth and purity. The focus of the story is the question of whether the unsavable can be saved. Though the story must, by its very nature, contain certain elements of "spiritual warfare," that is not the foundation on which the plot rests. I have the story plotted out for ten chapters of varying length. As I've been writing, I've also been rereading some of my old comic books (Wolverine, The New Warriors, X-Factor, X-Men, etc.) so I can remember how some of the professionals paced and plotted their stories. Everybody does it differently, that's for sure. I tend to think cinematically. Since there is a time delay between each page, I try to end each page with something that will make the reader want to come back to the site and find out what happens when the next page is posted.

One of my pet peeves about webcomics is posting an update schedule and then not sticking to it. This is the reason, with A+D, we haven't yet posted a schedule--we know we're not able to deliver. On some level, that's the easy way out, but at least we're not breaking a promise to our readers. The downside is that people are a lot less likely to keep visiting your site if you don't have regular updates.

So, there you have it. These are my two main creative projects at the moment. I have some other ideas that I'm going to put up under the heading of "back burner," because they feel good to have waiting in the wings, but they're not projects I can be devoting time to right now and still expect to make any progress on my mains.
posted by Ethan at 20:38

Ok, I'm bringing this beast back to life. I've carried my shovel to the graveyard, disturbed the ground, and unearthed its body. Now it's laying here, all maggoty and gross, waiting for me to carry it back to the lab and inject it with electricity until it quivers and shakes with newfound breath.

Most of the time, bringing something back to life isn't a good idea. If one of my favorite movies taught me anything, it's that sometimes dead is better.

But that's not gonna be the case here, right?

This new beast is intended to be more focused on writing than its last incarnation. For me, focus is a good thing--though it's not something that comes easily. I have to be careful to avoid letting too many ideas run loose. All those ideas are fine, but it's better for me if I run my current projects through to completion before starting on new ones. Difficult, but it if you never complete anything then all you have to show for your hard work is a lot of cool, unfinished ideas. And people always want to know how the story ends. If you've ever had your favorite serial TV show canceled before its natural conclusion, then you know what I mean.

My next entries will deal with the projects I'm currently working on.
posted by Ethan at 16:40

ALIVE AND GROANING

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- Angel the Demoness
- DOWNfALL
- The Giftless
- What Happened On My Space Vacation


STILL HAUNTING

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- The Dark Talent
- Digidamned
- Horripilations Asylum
- In the House of the Queen of Cyberspace
- Murder^2
- Odometer
- Shadowdwell
- The Veil
- Vilevilive


FRESHLY BURIED

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- Chimera Summer
- Dethret
- The Serenity Massacre
- Horripilations Unearthed (with Ben-G)
- Nine One Two: A Novel of Invasion
- Outcasts
- Phidlestix
- Soldiers: A Tale of XX Chromo Warfare


R.I.P.

---

- De FUNnies
- DELTA: The Future Force
- Heartland
- K.I.D.
- Laser Comics
- Out of the Depths
- The Terminators


All content (c) 2006 by Ethan A. Cooper. All rights reserved.