October 14, 2001
The buffer is suffering. As of this writing I'm down to a mere 13 days colored and uploaded, with maybe a week's worth of scripts beyond that ready to be pencilled and inked.I'm not sure what the problem is, although I strongly suspect that losing 12 days to travel had something to do with it. Usually when I get this low in the buffer I'm itching to crank out a couple of weeks' worth of schlock, but right now I just want to take a nap. *sigh*. I did that TWICE on Saturday.
The strange thing is that I'm happier with this storyline, and with the associated artwork, than I've been with any previous set of strips I've grunted and groaned over. And I love this time of year here in Utah as the landscape starts to curl in on itself in preparation for winter. Dry leaves, autumn smells, the promise of Halloween... usually these things stoke the creative fires.
It's not like I've got writer's block. I know where the next two month's worth of stories will take us, and the overall story arc is still being driven by characters who talk amongst themselves in my head. No, it's more like "I don't want to draw anything today." And I've been suffering from it for a couple of weeks now.
Oh well. I'll either figure it out, or I won't. I'll keep you posted.
In other news, I finally finished Peter F. Hamilton's 6-volume Sci-Fi epic (the one he started with The Reality Dysfunction.) I started reading it in 1995, and he finished writing it sometime in 1999. I've had the last two volumes gathering dust for a year or more, and let me tell you, there's nothing like the promise of 20 hours on the same aircraft to put you in the mood for Big Fat Fiction.
I liked the ending. Hamilton's got nice scope. Part of me feels like I should say more about the work of a guy who stayed consistently entertaining for nigh on 4,000 pages, but hey: HE is the wordy one. I'll just succintly say "good books" and leave it at that.