A writer's interpretation of the modern world.

Anyone that knows me personally knows that I’m a sucker for comics. I’ve read them obsessively for years, almost to a bank-breaking point. So being a writer and a comic book lover, I’ve naturally had a desire to write in the super-hero space. But how do you go about doing that when you don’t write for Marvel or DC? They’ve completely dominated the super powered being universes. It’s hard to think of super powers without thinking of the Kryptonian or the X-gene. You don’t want your franchise to be derivative. And you certainly don’t want to get sued if your franchise ever becomes profitable.

Luckily, I’ve figured out my world. It hit me as I was driving home after watching Game of Thrones last night. (Nope, it has nothing to do with Game of Thrones! Much more to do with me forgetting to turn on my radio as I was driving in silence.) In issues #2 & #3, I’ll be exploring the more “fantastical” nature of my comic Good Grip. Up until this point, I had been racking my brain on the mechanics of how my supernatural beings manifested. Now I know.

Let’s just say the idea has a lot of potential. Read all about it in issue #2 and issue #3. If you haven’t even checked out issue #1 yet, What are you waiting for?

Writing is a strange animal. Anyone literate can do it. Just put a pen to paper and be honest or lie. There, it’s done. But in all my years of writing, I’ve learned that its accessibility makes it one of the most challenging things a self-criticizing artist (redundant) can do. There are so many ways to write, and so many ways to present your writing, that deciding what and how typically inhibits the first word.

I am easily the first villain of crippling my own creativity because I don’t know the “where”. I only know the “what”. And then I realized that this is my challenge. I am a writer and I have chosen the path of the rogue. I write screenplays, I write comics, I write books. All are different. But today, I’ve made a discovery. No matter what I decide to write, or where I decide to write it, I will always be the common denominator.

And for that, there is nothing to fear. There is no reason to not start, because the content will always be authentic. It will always be mine.

A few projects are scattered across my journals, my iPhone and my grey matter. All of them are incredibly exciting and in my niche. They’re big stories, they’re dark and they have great characters being thrown into fantastic new worlds. The problem is that all of them are written in completely different mediums. The context-switching is tough. It sounds strange to say it, but all the voices in my head make this effort a bit strenuous. The characters from each of my current projects are ever-present, even when I don’t want them to be. Perhaps it is because I love them so dearly. Perhaps it is because they are out to get me…

But those are my challenges as a writer. And I will face them. But I also have challenges as a person. My first challenge is being an actual person. I have a great job in marketing/advertisement that is budding into a promising career. I also have a writing career that is budding into a promising career. Not to mention a partner, family, friends and most importantly, my cat Zero. I am nowhere near close to finding a balance. I’m actually awful at it. So at this point, all I can really do is just be better.

And I will.

-Lex

I have never been good friends with 6AM. But as fate would have it, we’ve been seeing a lot of each other lately.

I work 10 hours a day at a fierce, fast-paced start-up company. By the time I get home my brain’s bandwidth is pretty much exhausted. Ads, development, testing, meetings, battles — It really takes a lot out of me. Still having scripts at home waiting for me to write when I’m done with work, a full day for me is no walk in the park. That said, more often than not I’ll find myself crashing into bed before even opening Final Draft to type a single slugline. I’ve got a deadline now, so something had to give. (ie; my sleep between 6AM-8AM Mon-Fri)

In theory, it’s perfect. I wake up early with a fresh brain, undisturbed and just out of my dreamscape. In practice, I have sensitive eyes that hurt when I turn on my laptop, a cat that whines the moment I wake up and an undiagnosed allergy to 6AM and the sound of my alarm. But I suppose this is discipline and I have to do it.

Still, two hours isn’t a lot of time. But it’s more than zero and I can at least feel assured that I’m getting two hours in as a daily minimum. I still try to write more if I have the capacity to do so when I return home, hence the lack of my social life in 2010. Pages are getting written, so I’m doing something right — I suppose.

Even so, 6AM is only a temporary ally. I’m much more fond of its counterpart, 9:30. AM? PM? I’ll take what I can get.

-Lex