Aspirations of Writing

Nothing Good

Nothing good happens inside my head. I tear my friends and loved ones down to distance them from myself, I rip myself to shreds, and I make plans that have no chance of working out so I can rake myself over the coals later for not following through on them.

Decent things happen here, on formerly blank pages and screens. Contrary to the recommended wisdom, I’ve actually enjoyed stories I’ve written. I think that if you write often, you see the flaws in past works. If you write sporadically, you see something finished and have the odd feeling of being envious of yourself.

I’ve been trying to formulate a plan to come back here for a while. I’ve been trying to figure out what to write. Not just on this blog, but in general. What do I want to write? When will I write? How will I write?

Other people fantasize about writing The Great American Novel. I’m just after The Great American Life Regiment, where everything is safely in its place on the clock, and I Do It All, including write. But it turns out that there is no brilliance rattling around up here in my head. I don’t have enough knowledge, experience, or intuition to formulate a plan, let alone the plan.

But some things have made their way out on here, in this space, that I do like. Things I couldn’t have planned. Things that got their genesis in a writing prompt, or a stray idea, or the commitment to fifteen minutes a day of writing and the driving motivation of “Fuck, I have to put SOMETHING here.”

I don’t know if I want to write, what I want to write, when I want to write, or how I want to write. But I think there’s something to be found here, even if it’s the end of a story rather than the beginning of one. If I ended a post with “And now I know, writing is not for me,” and I felt confident in those words, I’d be happy.

Until then, I’m going to try and figure some stuff out here.

ncmerc asked: When you started in comics, how did you go about handling payment & contracts & intellectual property rights when working with artists for the first time? I'd like to start working with artists, but having a contract drawn up & shoving it in someone's face seems like a lot to do to someone I'm reaching out to via DeviantArt or Tumblr. When you consider finding a colorist & a letterer as well as a penciller, I'm a little baffled at how to manage payments, IP rights & other fine details.

samhumphries:

First of all, there’s no need to shove a contract in their face when you first reach out to them! 

C’mon, take your time, get to know each other. Compliment their artwork. Talk about the book you want to do. If they’re interested, send them your script, talk about concepts, schedules, and so forth.

THEN say, “hey, I’m so glad we’re on the same page, really excited to work with you, before we roll up our sleeves, let’s talk out contract stuff so we’re both protected and we both know what to expect.”

If they balk at signing contracts, maybe say something like, “Look, we’ve got a good rapport here, but who knows what the future will bring. A contract is about protecting our partnership, protecting that rapport. If something happens, we’ll know what to expect and there won’t be any surprises. With a contract, we can both relax and concentrate on making an amazing comic together.”

If they still balk, then think about whether you really want to be in a creative partnership with this person. Because it IS forever. 

(OUR LOVE IS REAL was 2011 and Steven Sanders and I just had to touch base about it the other week. SACRIFICE ended in 2013 and Dalton Rose and I will need to maintain contact probably until we die, just for legal and financial maintenance reasons. I’m lucky that they’re both great artists and great dudes, and I always enjoy spending time with them. When I think about them, I think about the laughs, Mexican food, and amazing creative experiences we’ve shared. Not bad feelings about wanting to do what’s right for everyone.) 

Anyway. Sanders and I found a contract template online, and massaged it to suit our situation and mutual benefit. We both had lawyer friends who looked it over pro bono, since it was only three pages. Then we signed it and we were good. That contract still holds up!

Payments…I pay my collaborators with check or Paypal, their choice. If they have the same bank as you, you can probably do direct deposit via your bank’s website. Get an invoice for every payment. PAY WITHIN THIRTY DAYS OR LESS NO MATTER WHAT! Pay the day you get the invoice, if humanly possible!

For everyone else: yes, you need to do this. You need to have contracts with your collaborators. Do it!

Thanks a ton for answering @samhumphries. Reading your response, it seems to boil down to “act like a human being.” I appreciate the smack upside the head. And I’m glad to know that some contract templates exist out in the wild (which, granted, I should likely have assumed, this being the internet and the year 2016).

Run

by Nick Mercurio

Run. Run fast. Run far. Run wide. Don’t stop running. Don’t fucking stop running. They are faster. They are stronger. They have more stamina and better tracking skills than you. There is nothing to do but run, hide, and try to drink more liquid than you piss away out of fear. 

But you will not stand and die. You will not quit. You will not hesitate. You will not make their job easier. You will not be easy prey.

Because they can be beaten. They are not gods. And even if they were, God is clearly dead. No one is immortal anymore. The more of you that stay alive, the better the chance we have of finding out how to kill them. They are monsters. And we will not willingly let monsters rule the earth, barren ball of shit though it may be. We hide in holes now, but we’ll make sure they die in them. Stay alive, and think of all the fun we’ll have repopulating the planet when they’re gone.  

Cacophony | by Nick Mercurio

It was the sound. Always the sound. She had long since learned not to see the violence, like commuters in New York City learn to pretend the homeless simply aren’t there. But she had never learned how to relegate the sound to background noise. It had never faded, never blended into the general din. Instead, it ripped through anything and everything else in existence, seemingly making its way straight to her. She had tried plugging her ears. She had saved for months to buy an old CD player, and a few weeks more for headphones. But the music did what the sounds of screams and bludgeons had never achieved—it had faded, and quickly left her alone again with the suffocating noise. 

Without silence, she could carve out no place for just herself. She felt as though she were drowning, and began to lose her sense of who she was. She eventually discovered that the only way to drown out the screams was to scream louder. But the thought of adding to the noise horrified her more than drowning in it. 

So she did the one thing left for her to do: she listened. And because she couldn’t escape it, she began to dream of a way to make the violence, and its terrible symphony, cease once and for all. 

The Blank Page by Nick Mercurio

It was a canvas for ideas and a landscape of indecision. It was thrilling and terrifying in the same breath.

He felt that it hated him. He knew that he hated it. Every day it challenged him to be his best self. And every single day he came up wanting. Somehow his ideas—perfect in his head—turned to shit as soon as they landed on it. His stunning epic turned into mundane garbage. 

The blank page was poison to ideas, yet it was the only place they could become solid, tangible, real. But they also became flawed. So very, very flawed. He didn’t know how they became so flawed. 

When they lived with him in the realm of his imagination, they were magic, so incredible he would stake his life on them. But when his ideas were on the page he didn’t recognize them. They embarrassed him, and he wanted nothing to do with them. 

After a time, he stopped chasing ideas and instead started chasing them away. Because if he followed them long enough, they tried to make their way to the blank page. 

The blank page is vicious. Abandon hope all ye who enter there. But for those who don’t, give it hell.