The Secret

The festival was over, the boys were all plannin’ for a fall,
The cabaret was quiet except for the dillin’ in the wall,
The curfew had been lifted and the gamblin’  wheel shut down,
Anyone with any sense had already left town.


I’m going to give away a secret.   For many of you reading this column (if there’s anyone reading it after the break I’ve been on) you probably have hopes of one day working in comics yourself.

You want to be a writer.

Well, today is your lucky day, I’m going to tell you the secret of how to be a writer.  It’s a secret that all the Big Time Writers don’t want getting out.  They don’t want any new talent nipping at their heels.  That’s why it’s kept such a secret, not because it’s difficult or anything.   So you have to promise you that you won’t go out and spread this all over the place.  Let’s keep it between just us.  Ok?

So you want to know the secret?

Are you still there?  Waiting for me to give it to you.  A little impatient?  What is it you ask?  Stop all this screwing around and just tell us you yell.  Ok, I will.

The secret is simple.  I can give it to you in one word.  The secret to being a writer.

Write.

There now you have it.  Don’t go crazy with it.  Remember you promised to keep it between us, don’t go spreading it all over the internet or we’ll have everyone wanting to be a writer.

What?  I can’t hear you.  Oh, what do I mean the secret is  to write?  Am I trying to be funny here you ask?  Well, maybe a little.  But it’s also the truth.  If you want to be a writer….

Write.

It’s that simple

And that difficult.

It doesn’t matter how talented you are.  It doesn’t matter how well you can write.  You might be able to write such words that the readers will weep when you want them to.  Your prose might sing such songs as no one has ever heard.  But it doesn’t matter if you don’t do one simple thing and that is the secret.  Write.
How many people have you heard talk about how they could be a writer if they just had the time?  How hard can it be?  It’s just putting words down on paper and making things up.  You’re good at making things up, right?  So it should be so easy.  But I know, I know, it’s just hard to find the time.  So many other things get in the way.

You could be the most talented person in the world, but if you don’t write it doesn’t matter.  You’re not a writer if all you do is sit around and talk about what you could do.  You know the old Saints saying…Coulda  Shoulda Woulda.

You gotta walk the walk and not just talk the talk.

And it’s a lot harder than it sounds.

As evidence of my MIA for the past month or two.  When I started this column my hope was to make it a weekly, but I figured I’d be happy if I made it at least every other week.  And at first I was doing pretty good.  The columns were coming out.  I stumbled a bit here and there, but I was managing it fairly well.  And than…..well, you know what.  Nothing.

No words.

No column.

It wasn’t like I wasn’t thinking about it.  At first it was because I was traveling for work.  Than when I got back things had piled up and I had to much else to do.  But I kept telling myself I’d get right back to it.

While I wasn’t writing the column I was thinking about it.  I plotted out some great columns.  A column about Greg Rucka and his recent work on such books as Batwoman and Stumptown and how I was fan of his prose writing but had really read nothing of his comic work until recently.  And there was the column about the Kody Chamberlain comic Sweets.   And DC’s recent re-working of two of their Big Three: Superman and Wonder Woman.   All plotted out in my mind.  I wrote some of them in my mind, the sentences and phrases were there.  All ready to go.

But you haven’t read any of those columns, have you?  (At least not yet.  I’m hoping that I might still turn some of those ideas into columns.   So hopefully you’ll see them soon.)

Everyday I’d come home and tell myself it was time to go write the next column.  But something always came up.  I had to paint my kitchen.  I had to watch that Television show.  I had to read that book.  Always something, but what I should have been doing.

Writing.

And it wasn’t even just the columns.  I’ve mentioned in these columns before about how hard it is for a writer to find an artist and without an artist how hard it is to submit a proposal to the comic publishers.  Well, in the last few months I’ve found some artists.   I’ve been in touch with three artists that I’ve batted ideas back and forth and we’ve come up with some really good ideas.  And than it was my job to get something on paper, so the artist could turn our ideas into something resembling comic pages, so we could have something to send to the comic publishers to look at and hopefully drool over.

And I haven’t kept up my end of things here either.  One artist I’m afraid I may have damaged the relationship beyond repair, one I’m not sure what’s going on and the other one I’m holding onto by the tips of my fingers.

When I first started out trying to break into this field I was nothing if not prolific.  One former editor told me he was always amazed at how quick I would get something to him.  We would be talking about something one day and before the week was over I’d have a script to him.  I was full of energy and determination.  I wanted to break into comics.

Now when I have to write the words I find other reasons to procrastinate.  It’s not writers block.  In my mind I write entire scripts, fill in the dialogue ballons, come up with the following issues.  All of it.  But I don’t sit down and turn those thoughts into words on paper.

Why?  I have no idea.  Maybe I’m afraid of trying again and failing again.  Maybe I don’t want to go through all that again to only find myself at the margins trying to break in again.   But whatever the reasons, whatever my mental state, if I want to consider myself a writer I have to do one thing.

Write.

And I promise to do that.  I’m not going to be so foolish and try to guarantee  a weekly dose of my words here, though at the base that’s what I’m hoping for.  Sometimes weekly will just be too hard to do.  But no more breaks like this last one.  I will get something out at least once a month, with the hope for more often.

And I’m going to sit down and get back on track with those artists and see if I can salvage my relationships with them.