Graphic Content

Back in September, I stopped being able to go into town every week to buy comic books. There are two reasons for this: time, and money. I was minding my niece twice a week, and couldn't always arrange to get out on the other three days of the week when I wasn't minding her. I sometimes had to go into work, or help around the house. Life got in the way, and by October I stopped trying. The money side of this was my plan to save. It turns out it's impossible to save money when you're buying a lot of comic books every week on a small budget.

I decided I would finish reading Young Avengers, because it was ending. Aside from that, I was turning to graphic novels and trade collections.

This began with one I'd wanted to read for a while: Morning Glories. Alongside that, I had Preacher. I've read a lot more of the former than the latter, but I have volume 2 of Preacher waiting for me to get around to.

It wasn't enough, though. I needed more titles, more variation, and not the standard Marvel and DC Superhero stuff. I was beyond superheroes, because reading the older stories would only remind me that I wasn't reading the newer stuff. Plus, I wanted to try something new (to me).

Enter Sandman. Enter Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Enter Haunt and Y: The Last Man.

I've finished the first volumes of Sandman and Buffy, and I'm currently reading Y, and I can safely say I'll be returning for more in the very near future. But they're not all I've got. I have a volume of The Unwritten calling my name from my shelf. I have the first volume of The Walking Dead to read. I have a couple of stand-alone graphic novels that are crying for me to read them.

I am turning to graphic content.

Sometimes, I mean that literally. Let's look at it this way. Of the ones I've read in the past few months, Y is the least violent, Sandman the least obviously violent (because, well, people going a bit mad in it... and stuff.) Buffy is necessarily violent, given the titular character's titular role. Morning Glories is outright insane, and people usually get shot or get ghostly-demon-weirdness hands forced into their brains. Because FUN!

And Preacher? Well, it's emotionally disturbing on a whole new level of violent. When the Word of God is taken literally in the first volume, things get messy pretty quickly. And it's wonderful.

I've found that reading graphic novels is a lot more relaxing that anything else at the moment. It's easier on the eyes, in terms of the density of the text, which is good for me. With a lot of morning traffic outside my bedroom, I don't get too many lie-ons. My eyes end up tired by, like, eight at night, and that's on the days I don't end up in front of a screen all the time.

The problem is that I'll very quickly run out of things to read. So, I need suggestions. If it hasn't been mentioned above, I probably haven't read it. If it's a particular arc in a superhero story (for example, World War Hulk, The Dark Phoenix Saga, etc.) I'm not interested. I want to be able to pick up volume one and enjoy for what it is, not for where it fits into a whole other story.

So, what do you recommend?

Adapting

Today something occurred to me while watching Buffy: I can adapt a short story I wrote a few years ago into a full-length novel. That might need some explaining. For instance, how does Buffy the Vampire Slayer come into it at all?

Rewind back to 2007/2008. A Buffy re-run came on television while I was trying to come up with an idea for a short story for The Literary Den Book of New Fiction 2008. Willow was talking to the First, before knowing what it was, and once of the First's lines triggered the story in my head. Just like that, I had my idea for a short story.

I loved that story. I really did. It's not perfect, but I think I can work with a larger (much larger) word count now, with some added disturbances and oddities and madness to throw into the mix to create a much darker and held-together story. I can also give it a much better title than What's in the Box? I'll be honest, when I was 16/17, that sort of title seemed cool to me.

How things change, right?

Anyway, I think that's something I can consider for the next while, turning that idea for a short story into a darker tale, and a longer tale, and really create the story I'd wanted to tell then in greater detail and with greater skill. I've grown as an author since then. I've grown as a person, too, and a lot has happened since then, and I think I can create a much better story now than I could when I was a teenager.

That's significant for me, because when I was fifteen I was convinced that my very first novel was going to be a bestseller. Without the editing. Without realising that different publishers looked for different things. Without realising that the book wasn't written very well. And I don't like it's title anymore.

That's obviously another book I can work on, though neither of these are near the top of the To Be Written pile. I have other books to work on, first, and other things that need doing. I think the whole "sorting out my life" thing has to happen sooner rather than later. (Okay, that makes it sound like I did something to screw up... I just finished college and did quite well with my exams and research paper and teaching placement... I didn't exactly screw up in that department.)

Basically, I need some stability in my life before I try to write a dozen books at once. And even then that's not a good idea. But sure, at least I have things to work with, and a game plan. First, I adapt to life as I know it. Then, I adapt my stories.

Creative Block?

Okay, that title might be pushing it. I don't quite have a block on my creativity as much as a severe case of The Lazies. I'm still getting ideas and planning stories, but I'm not doing anything with them.

And that, as you can guess, is a problem.

So, I'm going to spend a wee bit of time in the morning trying to get my creative gears going. I may end up doing some crafty stuff, like drawing or Celtic designs, but I'd like to get some poetry written and a flash story written, too. Basically, anything to get myself doing something with my time.

It's been too easy to play Pokémon Yellow all day, and follow it up with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's my childhood all over again, except I can do it all day long.

(As it happens, I did something earlier, but it will remain, for a wee while, a secret. It's not done yet, so I don't really want to show it around. I'm calling it a prototype.)

We watched a movie today, though. Myself, my brother and my dad all sat down and watched Jack the Giant Slayer. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Funny, adventurous, and with clever twists on the story we all know. If you haven't seen it, I would definitely recommend it. It's especially good as a family movie (and I don't just mean families with young children!)

Anyway, I'm going to keep this short. There's tea to be had, stuff to be read, and if the television is free, Buffy to watch. Tomorrow, I'm going to beat The Lazies to death. Creative block my arse.

Day 29: Poetry, No Motion

I spent the day writing a bit less poetry than I'd planned to, but watching a lot more Buffy than anyone would consider healthy.

That said, I did write a few poems. I started with one addressing Milton and Dante and their versions of Hell. It was a fun one, but I can't help thinking I'll never escape the Dreaded Research Paper. It doesn't help that I later wrote one about the seven deadly sins.

The day's work also saw poems about relationships creep into existence unexpectedly. I don't think I ever really intend to write those sorts of poems. It requires trying to explain how life works with other people, and I'm not entirely sure I can ever really reach a conclusion about anything that happens. I mean, I can only ever say how I feel about how I perceive things, and that's not an explanation I can rely on.

Aside from that... just Buffy.

Season 4 was fun. Really fun. Between the college experience and the flashbacks, the Big Bad battle, the silence and the wicked dream episode, it definitely caught my attention a lot more this time around.

It did require a lot of not moving today, though. I think I'm okay with that. I got to drink tea, eat a brownie, relax, write the aforementioned poetry, and I was with out worry the whole time.

I could get used to days spent writing poetry all the time. I think I'm better off just letting them happen, though, for the time being. I'm nowhere near the writing-a-poetry-book stage, so I think I'm okay taking it easy.

Day 28: Silence

Is it weird that two of my favourite episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer are (1) the episode in which nobody can talk and (2) the episode in which everybody sings?

I just watched the former, and oddly it spoke volumes to me. I wondered about silence, about how we would communicate if we couldn't talk to each other. Go one further and eliminate electronic communication. The written word in printed (or handwritten) format would be our primary means of conveying messages to one another, not just over long distances, but in face-to-face interactions.

That is, of course, if we survive that long without the sounds of our voices in our ears. The show demonstrated a city-wide depression, aggression and numbness from the loss of voices, and I'm not sure how long society would last in the 21st century without electronic communication on top of that silence. (I'm taking that into consideration because the show was set in the 90s, and email wasn't that big a feature of regular life for most people in Sunnydale.)

It's interesting, of course, because we live in an era in which fewer people are writing to each other, and while we encourage people to talk about their feelings, few actually do. Imagine if they couldn't, literally speaking. If people couldn't voice their opinions, how would that change them? Would we all become mindless, or would we be more willing to read what those around have written? Would violence be the first response to anger, rather than a last resort?

I suppose right now, I'm considering this on an emotional level, too. For the first time in a week or so, I haven't felt like I was under any undue pressure. I don't have the book to worry about, I don't have to be concerned about meeting a word count. I can relax. I could relax. And I did. I suppose I still am. I got to eat breakfast with my family and know that the only thing I had to do was get ready for work afterwards. I could eat dinner when I returned home, and afterwards relax on my bed, and then go to watch Buffy with a cup of tea and an ice-cream (I'm not sure they're a pairing that usually go together, ice-cream and tea, but they seemed to work well.)

All in all, the emotional silence of the day was a relief.

To be fair, I did it to myself. No one said I had to write three books in a month. No one forced me to only focus on those books. On top of that, no one has done or said anything wrong to me that might get me unduly upset. All of the emotional noise of the past week has been brought on upon me by myself and my own decisions, and the pressure I applied on myself.

It felt good to get a break from that.

Tomorrow, since I don't appear to have any other plans, I think I'm going to do my Big Bad Poetry Day. It could be fun, it could be productive, and writing poetry has always helped me to deal with whatever's on my mind. Tomorrow, of course, it won't just be a twelve hour catharsis session. I'll probably write poems about nature and friendship and all the usual things people write poetry about. But I have ideas to experiment with, and I'm going in with one goal in mind: to have fun.

Day 26: Baker, Poet, Cinema Goer

Could I tell you where the day went? I could not. Could I take a guess? Darn tootin'.

I know I spent a lot of time watching Buffy. Again. Season 3 has now been watched, complete with prom and school explosion. I will admit, I got a little bit emotional watching it. Aside from the flashbacks to childhood, it also reminded me of my final year ball. We had less demons.

In the midst of the final episodes of the season, I also put a cover on an old-but-unused-copybook, complete with card on the inside covers, and coloured paper on the outside. I'm using it to track the publication - if any - of my poems. Since May 30th, I've written 70 poems. I'm hoping to do a massive write-a-thon of poetry soon in an effort to increase my creative expression. I'm talking about more than a poem a day; I plan on writing about twenty to twenty four poems in a single day. In my head, it sounds like fun.

Part of me also wants to maintain a poetry blog. So, that might happen soon.

Aside from prom and poetry, I baked some brownies. I'll be brief: they're delicious, and everyone who's had one agrees. I brought some to the cinema. We went to see The Wolverine. How was it you ask?

Well, it was significantly better than Wolverine: Origins. It was better than X-Men: The Last Stand. It was violent, it had swearing, it was better than the trailer suggested it might be. There were a couple of things I didn't like - nit-picky comic book things - but overall it was fun, and the after-credit scene leads on nicely to Days of Future Past, which is going to be awesome.

All of that aside... no writing. I don't know if I'm just lacking enthusiasm to sit down at my laptop, or if I'm just being lazy. It's probably laziness. However, I'm not giving up on the book. I just need to get my head back in the game.

To be honest, I want Camp NaNoWriMo to be over. It's not making me more productive. If anything, it's making me wary of doing anything else. Which is exactly what the exams did to me in May. That's less than convenient. Hopefully I can get The Blood of Leap completed soon, and then I can get on to doing what I want with writing, when I want, without a month-long challenge hanging over my head.

Day 24: Childhood Obsession Marathon

Eight.

That's how many episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer I watched today. I couldn't help myself. I only stopped because we were sitting down for dinner, and I decided I needed to do something of relative value today. This was after sleeping in to eleven in the morning. That's late for me. Thankfully, Joss Whedon and tea know how to make everything okay.

When I was a child, I watched this show religiously. My friends and I were obsessed with it. Every week, when the new episodes aired, we would spend all our time out of class talking about it.

We were eleven.

Somehow, the idea that we might be too young for the show never crossed our minds. To us, it was okay to watch a show in which people were hurt and killed or had sex, and we readily accepted the same-sex relationship of Willow and Tara.

Of course, it wasn't the worst thing anyone in the school watched (in terms of how young we were to be watching it.) Plenty of people were watching South Park then, which is clearly and definitively more offensive, less tasteful, more racist and sexist and unsuitable for children than anything else that we laid eyes on.

I think the line, "It's not all like that" got us off the hook more than a few times when our parents walked in on sex scenes. To be fair, that's a true statement. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the original nerd show of the nineties, as far as I was concerned. (That, and Star Trek in its various forms... I watched a few of those, too!) Before my interest in Doctor Who, before Supernatural even existed, there was Buffy.

It was my childhood obsession in the days before we had Internet access, and before HMV closed I managed to buy the entire series boxset for €50. That was money well spent.

Buffy is one of the most influential television programmes of my life. It gave me an interest in the supernatural, it created some amazingly wacky characters, and it stood by a set of values that really stuck with me. Love and friendship and courage were some of the most commendable traits of my youth, and where I could show them I did. I think it's safe to say that Buffy the Vampire Slayer changed my life for the better.

Today's writing may have been limited to a single flash story, but it's one that reflects some of my childhood influences in fiction, the supernatural and horror. These are the roots I need to return to for The Blood of Leap, and as far as I'm concerned my time spent watching 90s television is well spent.

Day 23: Sick Leave

After a wonderful day yesterday, I woke up at 4am. I was thirsty, I was a bit dizzy, and I needed to get out of my room. I headed down to the kitchen to get a drink, and stayed downstairs feeling like the worst was yet to come. Turns out my instinct was right. Shortly after my mum came down to check on me, I got sick.

I can't really plan for being sick. Worse, I can't plan for the feeling of being exhausted and drained and completely unlike myself. Once again, I didn't get to write. I think I need to re-determine what it is I want to accomplish this month in terms of writing. I reckon if I can at least just finish writing The Blood of Leap I will have done something I can be proud of.

As for today... well, once I was free from the great white phone to God, I sat in the living room with a blanket over me and a glass of Sprite on the table, most of the fizz removed. It seems to be the go-to drink when someone gets sick in this house. I watched a short show on BBC about royal babies, and headed back up to bed.

It was after half seven by the time I fell back asleep, and I woke up at half ten to a phone call from my mum asking how I was. Although I was tired - then, and from that point on - I didn't get sick again. It took a long time to get my appetite back, though.

Since I knew it wouldn't be a good idea to sit in my room all day, I stayed downstairs and watched DVDs. My room is both too hot and too far away from a bathroom to be a good resting place when I don't know if I can keep food down.

Anyway, I ended up watching a lot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I'd been watching Season 2 a while back, but one particular episode kept freezing on me. I took a guess at where I'd left off, and started with the next episode. And that's how I spent the day, watching the remainder of Season 2.

I'm hoping that tomorrow I can do some work. Mainly, I just want to feel more like myself again. I'll write some poetry, write some fiction, do some reading, and hope that my stomach doesn't bother me again.

I'll leave you now with a quote from Buffy, one that I thought was worth remembering:

“Bottom line is, even if you see 'em coming, you're not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So what are we, helpless? Puppets? No. The big moments are gonna come. You can't help that. It's what you do afterwards that counts. That's when you find out who you are.”