The Center of My Mind's Eye

Author's note: originally written in 2006.
 
I’ve been working on a post-steampunk (steampunk without the Victorian tropes) novel for a few months. I’ve found some fantastic people who have been great at workshopping my story with me; listening to my rambles as I try to figure out the tone and plot of my post-apocalyptic story world.

As such, I’ve been helping some of these friends with their creative endeavors. One thing I’m particularly excited about is that I’ve come up with some ideas for a music video for my very talented friend, Libby Lenan. The flood gates of creativity have opened. While looking at ways I could shoot this no-budget video, I had been looking into some incredible work by skilled artisans of iPhone cinematography, and have become flooded with ideas on how to improve many old scripts and resurrecting old projects like “Corner of the Mind’s Eye”. 

Of ALL the film projects I wish I had finished, Corner of the Mind’s Eye is the closest to my heart. 

I could rant about why it folded to begin with… but it came down to two things: MY lack of skill, reliance on someone else to provide that skill and equipment. I was at the mercy of their agenda. However, I learned the most valuable lesson of my career: become technical and hone the craft. Perhaps this notion of making a film by relying on visual craft and using an iPhone to shoot it, Corner of the Mind’s Eye’s re-imagining could happen.

It has come back full circle. Because of my new ideas, I’ve gained ground against creative block afflicting my steampunk novel. 

Last summer, I decided to let my creativity ‘free-flow’… which means seizing and acting on inspiration, and refusing to stop up imaginative flow— to do so stifles that creativity.

Curves of a Killer - Flash Fiction Pulp Noir

The 3 A.M. Epiphany's second exercise is titled "Imperitive"—writing in the second person was strangely satisfying. I grew up playing D&D (among other RPGs) and so this was natural for me. It's also how adventure books (like Choose Your Own Adventure) are written- telling you where to go and what to do. Kind of bossy, really. 

Still, it was a great exercise; I wouldn't mind trying to create an adventure book, someday.

Exercise #2: IMPERITIVE (500 words)

Dusk slices horizontal strips into your dim office and onto your face, waking you.  You stretch, rub the sleep from your eyes and move to adjust the blinds when a quick rap turns your attention away.

You open the door, and a shapely female silhouette is softly illuminated by sunlight splashing off your desk. Her red fitted dress and matching flat-brimmed hat hide eyes that cut through black lace, judging your gape.

“It’s customary to ask a girl in to have a seat, detective.” She breathes. Her eyes glisten, moist and red from an emotional hotplate.

“Ah- sorry. Come in, Ms-?” you stammer while removing a stack of opened, unpaid utility bills off your guest seat.

“Devry. Lorraine Devry.” She smiles as you turn and shut the door behind her. You pull the chair and gesture her to sit. She places a Virginia Slim into her pert lips and you light it in one suave move.

She takes a long drag and blows smoke to the side. She notices the wall photo from your long-gone patrol days.

“You knew my father.” She exhales. You sit and pull a bottle of scotch out of your desk drawer.

“Devry. I thought you might have been related. He doesn’t have your legs, though.” You say as you pull out two glasses. You pour two shots but she refuses. You shrug and down your Scotch and Scotch chaser.

“Didn’t, as in past-tense. He’s dead.” She lowers her head. “I’ll have that shot now.”

A lump seizes your throat; Sgt. Devry took you under his wing as a snot-nosed cadet. He was a good chum with a hearty laugh. Though straight and narrow, you never liked how merciful was to dumb bums and undeserving vermin… the ones you knew were guilty.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Ms. Devry. What happened?” You wipe a glass with a handkerchief and pour a shot for Lorraine.

She takes a shot then begins to cry. You move in to comfort her but she shrugs you off and gives you the one-minute finger. She pulls out an envelope and hands it to you.

You see it’s a letter from him penned to you. Curious.

“It’s been opened.” You give her a side glance.

She shrugs. Never mind that now. You pull out the letter, turn and walk toward the window. You notice blood stains across the bottom of the paper.

The note reads: “Grimes. You son-of-a-bitch. I’ve known all these years it was you who turned me in to internal affairs. I lost my pension, my wife. All I got left is this gun to my head. Go to hell.”

You drop the suicide note. You turn and Lorraine is holding a gun right at you. She squeezes the trigger and three whispers fly out the silencer. You fall, feeling the wet splatter drain you cold to the floor. As your sight grows dim, you see her walk out and you contemplate the swing of those hips… the curves of a killer.

NaNoWriMore or Less

NaNoWriMo is on my mind. I have been attempting it. I also have been flailing sadly at how out of sorts I have been with my own storytelling- the only creative endeavor in which I find any creative flow. 

As it were, I had picked up The 3 A.M. EPIPHANY by Brian Kiteley about ten years ago from Borders Books. I wouldn’t say I was intimidated by the work that would go into it, but rather the fact that I wasn’t ready. The book was forgotten and gathered dust on my bookshelf… shame on me. 

That said, as I was looking through my personal library for my BOOKSHELF ACADEMY series, I pulled this off the shelf and perused it, promising myself that I WOULD indeed do the exercises and, hell, why not post them as well? 

I thought I had done the first exercise but it wasn’t to be found on any hard drive, but I suspect it may live in typed form- playing on an old Smith-Corona Classic 12 that I had found at an estate sale; something about channeling Hemmingway, Kerouac, and Asimov. Meh. I suspect they would all willingly use a laptop with Word had one been accessible, but I digress. 

Here’s the first exercise in what will likely become another attempt at legacy in some form or another. There’s very little editing- it could probably use some, but moving on:

Exercise #1: THE RELUCTANT “I” (624 words) 11/11/18
The exercise asked to write in the first person, but keep the amount of “I’s” to a maximum of two… I managed three by using “my” as a crutch. I also realized I tend to do too many grisly endings. 

There were about a million pieces to this investigation that nobody could fit together. All clues, all pertinent, but nothing was gelling. Perhaps it was all a matter of coincidence? It was likely the lack of sleep and coffee. The city doesn’t sleep, and apparently, we’re not supposed to either.

Charlie had enough. He was in my office looking through the day's report, laying across my couch as if someone were going to listen to his childhood problems.

“You realize that once Mrs. McCleavy lawyers up, this case is lost.” He said, not taking his eyes off the casefile photos of Mr. McCleavy’s remains in the kitchen, the bathroom, the livingroom, and the back patio.

There’s nothing to say but shake one’s head at the entire mess. “There’s no way she could have done this anyway. What is she? Ninety?”

“Sixty-four,” The words were dry and telling- there was no way my throat could keep the pitch low, “And she worked out. She may be tiny, but she looks strong.”

Charlie darted up and walked over to the office door. The office was empty save for the night dispatch and some snoring down by the holding cells. He turned around and looked straight at my eyes with a tremor.

“What does she do for a living?” He asked slowly. He knew, but he putting the pieces together.

“She’s employed by… hold on,” All the papers had become scattered and it took a second to dig out her personal information.  “Ah, here it is… Genome Dynamics.”

Charlie pulled out his phone and ran a quick search.

“Genome Dynamics. There isn’t much, but they do look like they have quite a bit of government contracts.” Suddenly, a call lit up his face.

“Weird. This is a D.C. area code.”

“Well, answer it.”

Charlie shrugged and took the call. “Detective Watts.”

A sudden ear-splitting sound shrieked into his ears and he dropped the phone. Still staring at me, his arm fell to his side and he collapsed to the floor, a steady pool of blood began to grow about his head.

“Charlie!” I jumped over to him- the phone continued its deafening shrill- grabbing it and hung it up. It was hard, pulling Charlie unto my arms and pulled my own phone out dialing 911- only to get a busy signal.
“Damn it!” Looking down at Charlie, he was beginning to convulse –  I tore one of my shirt sleeves off to try to stop the flow of blood now coming out of his mouth, nose, and eyes.

Running to the door and screaming at Old Sarge on dispatch- “Get on the radio and call in an ambulance! NOW!” Sarge hasn’t moved like that in likely fifteen years. Gotta give him credit.

The tremors stopped and he let out one last breath- a hollow rattle that never leaves you. Jumping on his chest the compressions we learned in basic training came back, but blowing down into his mouth only gave me a mouthful of blood. Spitting it out and continuing, but he wasn’t getting air- as if there was nowhere for the air to go. Sitting back and wiping my mouth, looking over at the night dispatch officer who had pulled over the cb radio. 

“He was gone the second he hit the floor, Lieutenant. Was nuttin’ you could do.” Old sarge was right. 

Sirens howled in the distance and shouts came from the drunk tank. The paramedics came in, again trying to revive old Charlie and hitting him with voltage to kickstart his ticker… Sarge screaming into the dispatch and calling in the Chief. 

I looked down at the report and knew fine and well that this case, the mauling of Mr. McCleavy was out of our league.

Inktober so far…


I am falling behind on these prompts. I am two days behind- partially because of some impromptu overnight plans this last weekend, but more because I am drawing a blank (pun unintended, but approved).

I've noticed a few things while attempting Inktober—I have a long way to go with the particular inking style I want to master, but my default technique is actually decent.

Creative block is my current struggle. Between home life and work projects, my artistic well is running on fumes. Despite distractions of everyday life, many of my ideas are from personal projects that I’m not ready to share publicly... and it's pushing me into a self-imposed block.

I’ve had a hard time with the official prompt list; though many other lists are a bit more literal on WHAT to draw, I haven’t had much inspiration. Again, like I said, I’m drawing a blank.

Here are some of the better daily ink drawings. Hopefully, I can come up with something decent fin the next couple of weeks.













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The Bookshelf Academy: Part II


In a previous entry, I realized that I have an incredible resource under my nose- my own personal library of books I’ve bought over the years. My art books, in particular, are my most valued. This will be an ongoing, intermittent series of my personal favorite books culled from my personal library. Books that actually TAUGHT me something. Each upcoming entry will briefly highlight three books.

However, before we get into it, I want to outline my approach to actually USING these books. I could drone on in an intense article- but I'm doing us both a favor by simply outlining the facts.

How I self-teach using an art instruction book
  • Get to know the book:
    • Go through it, cover-to-cover.
    • Don’t be afraid to jump ahead if you feel inspired.
  • Make a concerted effort to start at the beginning and do the exercises within:
    • LABEL each art with the book and the exercise/page number! This will give you a reference as you go through your sketchbook notes.
    • If there are no exercises, try your own drawing using the presented technique.
    • Keep these in your main sketchbook- write notes on what you like and don’t like about your own work.
    • Don’t be afraid to mess up your drawings with notes- these are exercises not works of art!
  • While doing the learning exercises, if you create a sketchbook drawing that you find you really like, then it’s okay to save it—but that can be counter-productive.
    • Fear in destroying/writing over an exercise drawing drowns your confidence. Be confident-simply recreate. Use emotion to draw, but don’t become sentimental of your past sketchbook/learning work.
    • Improvement comes by pushing forward, not by resting on lucky laurels.
    • All that said, if you want to preserve a drawing but want to draw over it with notes or corrections, tape tracing paper over the work to draw on. It’s also a great way to protect your work from smearing on the opposite page.
  • Posting on Social Media:
    • This one is tricky… IF you decide to post your exercise- make sure you post credit to the book and artist you are working from. Plagiarism is a fine line, don’t cross it!
    • An old professor of mine once said, “To design is to give up a pound of flesh.” It’s blood, sweat and tears. You are allowing yourself to be vulnerable and art is subjective. Ask for friendly critique and blow off harsh or rude reviews… develop that tough skin- it will DEFINITELY help you later in your career!
    • Art is subjective. Post attention is a great way to measure your artwork's appeal. Keep in mind of the size of your audience, though.
Do you have anything to add? How do you use your Art Instruction books?

A world of Inktobers…

Brush pen illustration by Juan Maestas, Copyright 2018.

I have been using a Faber-Castell PITT artist pen, soft brush #199. I love it. The point is fine, the bristles are soft. The ink is dark. And I found it at Michael’s for only $5.

I’d rather ink with a brush, but it’s a messy affair- and clean-up is brutal. With a brush pen, you get the experience. However, it’s water soluble ink… meaning that it’s not waterproof and erasers pick up the ink when you try to rub out pencil lines.

I had been teaching myself how to ink for years. I was trying to develop my confidence as nervousness leads to shaky results.

One way to gain confidence is to draw with a ball point pen: I filled up an entire small sketch book with hundreds of messy pen drawings. As I was feeling more confident, I moved on to crowquill. I would also use india ink mechanical pens, but you get no flexibility in the line.

It’s been a few years of on/off use, and you’ve seen me post some stuff before. Now that Jake Parker has released the Inktober 2018 list (here’s a print friendly copy) I am going to use the brush pen as much as possible. Follow @InkTober and @JakeParker on Twitter and Instagram!

Print-friendly version of Jake Parker's Inktober 2018 list.
A print friendly version of Jake Parker's Inktober 2018 list.


Exorcising Old Ghosts with Brush, Pen, and Ink

It’s been an interesting few months since I’ve updated last. I have been working diligently in my sketchbook—which I will share with you right now (most of these lifted from my Instagram).

You can see I’ve been working hard at inking with traditional tools instead of the India Ink Pilot pens- which I love, but are inflexible when it comes to line thickness.







I’ve also been experimenting with style. Here are some cartoony ones that I had done a number of months ago, as well as an homage to G.I. JOE fan art. It is what it is… nothing is really refined. I also took some time to work on some pages from Brian K. Morris’ Masked Pilot story.








My largest project is an 88-page graphic novel. Accountability to myself is difficult; I have a wife and family, and a very demanding full-time job, and other responsibilities- I have precious little time to myself.

From time-to-time I get inquiries about working for a project. I’m humbled that people find my work valuable and appealing. However, when I join up, my personal projects are put on the back burner, and the result is an immense backlog of stories that remain hidden on notebooks and hard drives. I need to be selective. It is difficult.

With so many stories that I want to tell, I needed to cull my library of writing. I had a few contenders, but in the end, one stood out: my monster huntress story. Yes, the concept not new, but the character and synopsis are unique. Horror isn’t much my forte, but I like monster stories set in exotic locales, and my strategy to finish is to focus on ONE character doing ONE job- a personal struggle I share with the main character. I'm not ready to show her off yet, but I hope to have something by this fall.

A friend of mine told me a monster hunting story sounds therapeutic… maybe it is. I’ve dealt with many who have burned me in the past, so perhaps this is a way to exorcise old ghosts. I’ve certainly paid my dues… so now it’s my turn to get out there into the world.



Writing Prompt #20: Ten Thirty One

10:31pm.

He’s thirty-one minutes late. Grundy was never good about keeping time, but he’s never left me to wait this long. Something’s happened.

The dishes clatter in the back as broken Spanish curse noodle-fingers and aching backs. I finish up the cold coffee and place a five on the counter. I smile at the waitress and she nodded a wink.

The February chill cut me to the bone. It hadn’t snowed all season; the drought saw to that.

I turned the corner and slipped on wet cement, catching myself against the wall.  Warm and sticky- with a heavy whiff of iron and alcohol… I nearly heave at the sight of Grundy’s headless form prostrate on the ground, arms and hands frozen defensively in front of him. Giant teeth marks where his collarbone should have been said it all- the beast is awake, here, and on the prowl.


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Yep. I'm starting these up again. I find my best creative flow when I write. Let me know what you think!


Finding Focus

My signed copy of Spawn #9.

I had met Todd McFarlane briefly at the 1994 San Diego Comic Con. "Met" probably isn't really the most accurate word- he signed my copy of Spawn #9 (first appearance of Angela). At the time, I was more interested in meeting Greg Capullo, who was Todd's first penciller other than himself who worked on Spawn.


I came across this interview of him on Youtube by Complex, and have realized a number of very strong points that are helping me bring my focus ever sharper. I am dropping my games for now- I need to focus on the sequentials, and I am going to concentrate on ONE property... and I know which one.

Things have been rocky this month- my father-in-law has passed away and that's been rough. We are laying him to rest next week. Some other family items have come up, but life happens while you make other plans. The trick is to stay on course, and this video helped solidify my goals.

The Perpetual Chase

A few things have happened recently that really cemented my resolve in the direction I should be following; my one true path, so to speak.

I had left my day job a couple of months ago- the original intent was to hone my illustration skills. As it were, I was given an opportunity to work with a friend; while it's a great opportunity for anyone that wants to move into that industry, it simply wasn't the right fit. Aside from that, it clearly demonstrated to me that I had detoured from my original intent of becoming an illustrator.

I know I have a way to go. I tell myself "Gee, if only I had been working on my draftsmanship I'd be pro by now." That's true, but I forget that I have also been working on my storytelling ability through filmmaking. I like to write, but I also love visuals. I have been told BY AN INDUSTRY PRO that I have a firm grasp of storytelling sequentials on par with those working as pros.

So, all this work has not been in vain, and it's an unfair assessment that I don't have any qualifying skills. It's a matter of doing what I was meant to do. In the end, I just need to work on my execution and polishing skills. I'll get there. It's a matter of practice, which I do daily.

Here's an example from a webcomic I had attempted a few years ago, aptly named Tales from the Lost Skies:



I am going to resurrect TFTLS as a personal imprint. I have a number of short stories that would work, including my work with Brian K. Morris and a few other personal projects I had worked on.

SO- I'm writing it here- it's a personal challenge to get going on these and I want some accountability. You can expect these stories as short oneshots (some with cliffhangers):

Queen of Spades
Yasmine
Sirens of Proxima
Ceres Gambit, read my original story
Masked Pilot, written by Brian K. Morris
Unnamed monster hunter story

I am moving forward with becoming a comic book artist. I have printed out the mantra and hung hung this on my wall: I can plan all I want, but without a body of work, I am nothing. GREATNESS CANNOT BE ACHIEVED WITHOUT OBSESSION.

Bleak and bold, but it motivates me.

Here we go!