Full Version: More Than You Can Chew



Full Version: More Than You Can Chew

From: Warren Ellis (WARRENELLIS) [#1]
 24 Mar 2006
To: ALL

Anyone else ever find themselves partway through developing a project and realising that, far from the manageable little story you thought you writing, it's actually a massive bastard of a thing that's going to eat your brain over a period of years?

This afternoon I found myself writing the biography of the writer of the book that appears in this story for, so far, about three panels. The book, that is. The writer doesn't appear at all, ever.

Tell me it's not just me.

-- W

From: James A. Owen (COPPERVALE) [#2]
 24 Mar 2006
To: Warren Ellis (WARRENELLIS) [#1] 24 Mar 2006

Not just you.

Those pretty OBSCURO pages I've been posting?

They started with a suggestion five years ago for me to write ONE book in a series as work-for hire.

I ended up writing ALL SEVEN of the MYTHWORLD novels (four published in HC in Germany, all seven being published in France, and all of which I now own outright), am halfway through a graphic novel prequel (OBSCURO) that's running eighty pages, and had a European editor hit me up a month ago about the ORIGINAL outline for the series that was to run for FIFTEEN NOVELS - and he's asked if I had the notes for the second series of seven books, plus the standalone, all of which I composed back when I thought I'd be doing the ONE work-for-hire book...


Man... Save me a seat at the bar, will you?


/

From: Carla Speed McNeil (SPEEDMCNEIL) [#3]
 24 Mar 2006
To: Warren Ellis (WARRENELLIS) [#1] 24 Mar 2006

Short stories are the miracle of the age to me. Getting everything to fit, ruthlessly sawing off the arms and legs that don't, and making it all curl up at the end into a satisfying conclusion... I keep my school copy of THE LOTTERY on a shelf over my drafting table. A few others with it. I sat down to write a little bridging piece between two stories for my next TPB today, and hoop-la it flowed like that gravy train with biscuit wheels, but GODDAMMIT IT'S TOO LONG. Supposed to be five or eight pages. Gonna be about sixteen.

And, thematically, it isn't the story I need for the spot it's supposed to go into. I like it and it has no place to live. Still have to come up with something that goes there. Blew another precious day doing the wrong story. Big ice-cream scoopful of brain eaten.

Muh. Bedtime.

From: Warren Ellis (WARRENELLIS) [#4]
 24 Mar 2006
To: Carla Speed McNeil (SPEEDMCNEIL) [#3] 24 Mar 2006

And, thematically, it isn't the story I need for the spot it's supposed to go into. I like it and it has no place to live. Still have to come up with something that goes there. Blew another precious day doing the wrong story. Big ice-cream scoopful of brain eaten.

Story of my fucking life. My loose ideas folder is stuffed full of things like that, marked with notes like WAIT UNTIL YOU HAVE A YEAR WITH NOTHING TO DO, YOU FUCKING IDIOT.

From: Carla Speed McNeil (SPEEDMCNEIL) [#5]
 24 Mar 2006
To: Warren Ellis (WARRENELLIS) [#4] 24 Mar 2006

Aha. Think I'll have a pack of post-it notes printed with that message.

In some sickly shade of orange.

Really bedtime now. Now that I've gone down and dug through my short story shelf again, that is.

From: Craig_A_Taillefer (TOOHIP) [#6]
 24 Mar 2006
To: Warren Ellis (WARRENELLIS) [#1] 25 Mar 2006

I've been writing little 1, 2, and 3 page stories lately (whether I'll ever find the time to draw them I don't know) partly as therapy to counteract the drowning feeling I get when I look at the beast I started with Wahoo Morris and how long it's going to take me to finish it. Admittedly I abandoned the project for 5 years off with no work on it, but with the day job it's going to take me close to two years to finish the story. And I started the bloody thing as a spare time project almost 10 years ago.

My mantra for a long time has been "3 issue story arcs". If I ever start anything more ambitious without financial backing, I'm hoping somebody will slap some sense into me.

From: Michael L. Peters (MLPETERS) [#7]
 24 Mar 2006
To: Craig_A_Taillefer (TOOHIP) [#6] 25 Mar 2006

After doing short work for Heavy Metal (no more than 8 pages per story -- that's the rule there ), I want to do something long-form (plus I have a big story that won't leave me alone) -- it was a struggle to get it formatted into arcs, as the series is conceived as a huge story. I found a way to make every 6 issues or so reach semi-natural endings.

I don't think I'm biting off more than I can handle story-wise (the business side is another issue), but convincing publishers of that might be a little tricky. I don't plan to show it until the first issue's drawn -- I already have a solid outline for the 6 issues, tentative scripts for the first three issues (I re-write drastically after drawing) and a loose outline/synopsis for the whole series.

I can sometimes be too ambitious for my own good, but I just don't feel 1-8 page shorts in HM are leading anywhere that will let me grow as an artist and writer. I love writing character stuff, but I never get to do more than imply that aspect in short fiction.

"Financial backing"? What's that?



From: Craig_A_Taillefer (TOOHIP) [#8]
 25 Mar 2006
To: Michael L. Peters (MLPETERS) [#7] 25 Mar 2006

I think it is a general true-ism that those doing long form works ache to do short stories and those doing short stories ache to do longer works.

For myself, being in the middle of a 200+ page book (which is only the first arc in a 1000+ page story) which I can't work full-time on, just finishing something, whether it be a 1 or 2 page story, is very therapeutic and satisfying. It kind of breaks up the daily grind which is the main project.

"financial backing"?: A publisher paying an advance/page rate; An arts grant; A supportive partner/spouse willing to pay the rent while I stay at home and write/draw; A pipe dream. ;)

From: johnrieber (JRIEBER) [#9]
 25 Mar 2006
To: Warren Ellis (WARRENELLIS) [#1] 25 Mar 2006

it's not just you.

oh, they want you to believe that they're manageable little short stories...just long enough for you to invite them in. but they're really out to consume your grey cells and your hard drive.

From: Rhymes With Weezer (SCOTTBIESER) [#10]
 25 Mar 2006
To: Warren Ellis (WARRENELLIS) [#1] 25 Mar 2006

This happened to me about a decade ago when I had the notion that I could write an illustrated "hyper-text" story and sell it on CD-ROMs.

I expected the project to take 18-20 months. Forty months later, I was barely 20 percent finished, and I abandoned it.

From: Matt Fraction (FRACTION) [#11]
 25 Mar 2006
To: Warren Ellis (WARRENELLIS) [#1] 25 Mar 2006

There's a thing in my head and... and, and now people are kind of talking to me, you know? And asking me for ideas in a way that's not happened before. Opportunity.

It's a thing that I could only do when those people talk to me and ask for ideas. And: they want to listen. Motive.

I have absolutely no idea where I'd find the actual fucking means to do it, though.

How long does that door stay open, you know? How long is that candle that's burning on both ends? I feel like I don't have the luxury of cold storage.

From: Warren Ellis (WARRENELLIS) [#12]
 25 Mar 2006
To: Matt Fraction (FRACTION) [#11] 25 Mar 2006

How long does that door stay open, you know? How long is that candle that's burning on both ends? I feel like I don't have the luxury of cold storage.


It's the worst part. The hardest thing is learning when to say no, and getting over the fear that if you say no they won't come back again.

From: Matt Fraction (FRACTION) [#13]
 25 Mar 2006
To: Warren Ellis (WARRENELLIS) [#12] 25 Mar 2006

fuck, even at MK12 we can barely say no. even when it's frankly counterinutitiveselfdestructiveentirelyretarded to do so.

this is a bit of a new problem, otherwise. or rather it's the same shit on a different day.

From: Brian Wood (BRIANWOOD) [#14]
 25 Mar 2006
To: Matt Fraction (FRACTION) [#11] 25 Mar 2006

i haven't learned how to say no, yet, despite repeatedly promising myself i wont get in over my head, again.

then i lose a year of social life. oops.

-bri

From: Warren Ellis (WARRENELLIS) [#15]
 25 Mar 2006
To: Matt Fraction (FRACTION) [#13] 25 Mar 2006

See this stuff below? This is background for exactly three panels of comic, so far. Here's your selfdestructiveentirelyretarded:

-------------------------------------------------------------

THE DARKENING SKY by Henrik Boemer, a Dutch art professor (1918 - 1976), published by The Fourth International Press 1966. Described as "a new exploration of the philosophy of Fatalism" on its back cover, this short-run paperback combines treatise and fiction in its discussion of cyclical history and its notion that humanity can combine into a perceptual-reality "machine" that can overthrow the tyranny of "time" itself. It's a frequently bizarre, self-sabotaging work that often conflates inevitable, almost Creationist cycles of rise and fall with the Elder Gods of HP Lovecraft, whom Boemer had something of an obsession with. One chapter simply lists the more frightening events in world history that occurred in 1925, the year he estimated that Lovecraft first conceived of his main sequence of horror tales.

Samizdat copies of THE DARKENING SKY have existed into the 21st Century, the few remaining original copies often jealously guarded in private libraries: far outliving Boemer himself, who, after a series of psychotic breaks following the publication of his final book in 1971 (THE EUROPEAN LLOIGOR (Weisen Books), an attack on what he saw as an usurpation of the occult traditions by middle-class European intellectuals like Colin Wilson), hanged himself in a jail cell in Amsterdam on June 6 1976 following an arrest for public indecency.


The Fourth International was an international organisation of Trotskyist communists, founded in 1938 with Trotsky's backing and informed by his theory and program of "permanent revolution". The Fourth International suffered two serious splits in the 40s and 50s, and a partial reunification in 1963. It's believed that the short-lived Fourth International Press was a small esoteric-minded splinter group that fell away from the main direction of The United Secretariat of the Fourth International sometime in 1964. They published spottily until late 1966, when they reconfigured as the San Francisco publishing house International Echo. THE DARKENING SKY was the last book they published under the Fourth International imprint.

-------------------

THIS is how fucked I am.

-- W

From: Matt Fraction (FRACTION) [#16]
 25 Mar 2006
To: Brian Wood (BRIANWOOD) [#14] 25 Mar 2006

yeah.

i think the depth of my strategy is "go until stuff breaks."

From: Matt Fraction (FRACTION) [#17]
 25 Mar 2006
To: Warren Ellis (WARRENELLIS) [#15] 25 Mar 2006

Wow.

Yeah, man, you're fuX0r3d.

From: Michael L. Peters (MLPETERS) [#18]
 25 Mar 2006
To: Brian Wood (BRIANWOOD) [#14] 25 Mar 2006

"financial backing", " social life" -- I'm hearing all sorts of foreign concepts today.

I really should learn about these things someday... but right now, there's a damned epic in my head that wants to be born on paper.



From: Chip Zdarsky (CHIP_ZDARSKY) [#19]
 25 Mar 2006
To: Matt Fraction (FRACTION) [#11] 25 Mar 2006

I started saying "no" when my doctor told me to.

From: Lee Barnett (LEEBARNETT) [#20]
 25 Mar 2006
To: Warren Ellis (WARRENELLIS) [#1] 25 Mar 2006

It's not just you.

About two years ago, I started writing something which I then abandoned, realising that there was simply no way I could find the time nor energy to complete. What started off as a short story grew and grew to the point where I thought there's no way I could get to the end and still have both a job and what's left of my sanity.

As memory serves, the final words of the outline - just when I realised how big it would have grown to, read something like "...and that's the point where we reveal that you've lost your fucking mind, Budgie..."

From: Matt Fraction (FRACTION) [#21]
 25 Mar 2006
To: Chip Zdarsky (CHIP_ZDARSKY) [#19] 25 Mar 2006

He's a doctor of literature, right?

From: Chip Zdarsky (CHIP_ZDARSKY) [#22]
 25 Mar 2006
To: Matt Fraction (FRACTION) [#21] 25 Mar 2006

Ho ho! Too good, M. Fraction!

But seriously, the story I tell is as true as my love for lies. As soon as you feel your health or relationships slip, you start saying "no." Easy.

From: Matt Fraction (FRACTION) [#23]
 25 Mar 2006
To: Warren Ellis (WARRENELLIS) [#15] 25 Mar 2006

waitasec--

I just started googling to see what the hell you were up to and-- and that's all made up, isn't it? You're not folding in weird odds and ends, right? That's all wholly fictional.

From: Matt Fraction (FRACTION) [#24]
 25 Mar 2006
To: Chip Zdarsky (CHIP_ZDARSKY) [#22] 25 Mar 2006

hah! no, i actually thought you were fucking around.

but yeah. a fine point you make.

From: Michael L. Peters (MLPETERS) [#25]
 25 Mar 2006
To: Chip Zdarsky (CHIP_ZDARSKY) [#19] 25 Mar 2006

I don't have to worry about doctor's limiting my creativity or workload -- no medical insurence. -- so, nothing can't stop me! (unless, I get hit by a car, catch a cold or something...)



From: Warren Ellis (WARRENELLIS) [#26]
 25 Mar 2006
To: Matt Fraction (FRACTION) [#23] 25 Mar 2006

I just started googling to see what the hell you were up to and-- and that's all made up, isn't it? You're not folding in weird odds and ends, right? That's all wholly fictional.

Yeah. The only thing I didn't make up is the existence and history of the actual Fourth International. And Colin Wilson.

From: Matt Fraction (FRACTION) [#27]
 25 Mar 2006
To: Warren Ellis (WARRENELLIS) [#26] 25 Mar 2006

Right. Wow.

It's gotta feel like there's a black hole in your head.

From: colleendoran [#28]
 25 Mar 2006
To: Warren Ellis (WARRENELLIS) [#1] 25 Mar 2006

quote:

Anyone else ever find themselves partway through developing a project and realising that, far from the manageable little story you thought you writing, it's actually a massive bastard of a thing that's going to eat your brain over a period of years?

Um, yeah.

That's what A Distant Soil turned out to be. I started working on it when I was twelve, until the day it made me want to gnaw off my own leg.

c

From: Warren Ellis (WARRENELLIS) [#29]
 25 Mar 2006
To: Matt Fraction (FRACTION) [#27] 25 Mar 2006

It's gotta feel like there's a black hole in your head.


Totally. Four months ago I said to my brain, Brain, I want a nice simple linear kind of thing that I can apply some post-SIN CITY stylings to, a technical exercise with a really kind of raw, gut-level plot/character combination.

At the top of this month, Brain says Shut Up You Tart and starts spilling out this mess of stuff...

From: Warren Ellis (WARRENELLIS) [#30]
 25 Mar 2006
To: colleendoran [#28] 25 Mar 2006

That's what A Distant Soil turned out to be. I started working on it when I was twelve, until the day it made me want to gnaw off my own leg.


Funny, I was thinking about that earlier. "This is what happened to Colleen. She thought she was doing a book or two and then the fucking thing started telling itself."

From: Matt Fraction (FRACTION) [#31]
 25 Mar 2006
To: Warren Ellis (WARRENELLIS) [#29] 25 Mar 2006

Kick! Splode! Extrapolate fictional polythematic worldviews of supporting cast!

From: colleendoran [#32]
 25 Mar 2006
To: Warren Ellis (WARRENELLIS) [#30] 25 Mar 2006

quote:

Funny, I was thinking about that earlier. "This is what happened to Colleen. She thought she was doing a book or two and then the fucking thing started telling itself."

Some days I actually feel as if I have been kidnapped by it.

c

From: Warren Ellis (WARRENELLIS) [#33]
 25 Mar 2006
To: Matt Fraction (FRACTION) [#31] 25 Mar 2006

Kick! Splode! Extrapolate fictional polythematic worldviews of supporting cast! 

Also, weave in huge absurd treatise on Teh Future, add eight counterplot layers... gah. Keeell me.

From: Craig Maloof (CRAIG_MALOOF) [#34]
 25 Mar 2006
To: Warren Ellis (WARRENELLIS) [#1] 25 Mar 2006

Same thing happened to me last weekend. I've been writing this Post 9/11 Terrorist story for over a year now, taking my time with it so I can make sure I do the damn thing well. Lots and lots of reading, lots of plotting, lots of writing. I've finished four issues of the twelve issues I've plotted for it, and then I realize that there are elements that need to be expanded upon, and that basically, there's a huge chunk of story here that I need to insert into the book to make it all work.

So, this involves me basically rewriting everything I've written so far, and actually adding on another aspect of this story that I had touched upon, but now needs to be fleshed out to add another dimension of the story. There goes sixteen months of work down the drain so I can spend another sixteen months getting it just right.

I pray for a day when a computer can extract all of my thoughts, and write the story for me.

Craig

From: Carla Speed McNeil (SPEEDMCNEIL) [#35]
 25 Mar 2006
To: Warren Ellis (WARRENELLIS) [#29] 25 Mar 2006

UG

Maybe, uh, maybe, like, when you get HALF a great idea, or when you get a great idea and forget half of it instantly, or when you get a whole great one but when you sit down to work on it it squirts out half a quart of bodily fluids and just lies there flat, maybe every time a good idea goes tits-up on you it's because some other fucker somewhere was thinking along the same lines and SUCKED IT RIGHT OUT OF YOUR HEAD.

Pointless thought in and of itself. Good NIGHT.

From: colleendoran [#36]
 25 Mar 2006
To: Carla Speed McNeil (SPEEDMCNEIL) [#35] 25 Mar 2006

I had great ideas when I was on my medication last week, but I can't remember them a half hour later and the meds ran out today and I fear they won't come back.

But it's probably the meds talking.


c

From: Carla Speed McNeil (SPEEDMCNEIL) [#37]
 25 Mar 2006
To: colleendoran [#36] 25 Mar 2006

If a drug was created that made the taker feel inviolably brilliant the human race would be dead within a month.

If I was a better writer I'm sure I could make something out of that. Nung.

From: johnrieber (JRIEBER) [#38]
 25 Mar 2006
To: Warren Ellis (WARRENELLIS) [#15] 26 Mar 2006

hell, go for four panels. jean ray.

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