REVISION DAY

I slept for a glorious eleven hours last night. I physically didn't have a choice in the matter because, the night before, I didn't sleep at all; there are too many projects going on, some greenlit and in motion, some in holding patterns, a lot more in pitch stage, and I couldn't turn my brain off. It wasn't all bad, though, because while I felt more and more sick at my stomach for lack of sleep, and the bags under my eyes grew more pronounced, I got more work done in that 24-hour period than I had in the full week before that. Makes me think of that episode of The X-Files with Tony Todd as the soldier who'd "had his sleep removed."

In any case, yesterday I wrote the entirety of the script for issue #4 of the comics mini-series I'm currently working on (I already had the story mapped out, mostly in my head and partially on paper), as well as two full pitches for other comics projects--one an original period piece with artist John Nadeau, the other a crossover between a property I own and one owned by another comics guy (I can't say anything about that one in the public forum yet).

With all of that done, I've decided to relax a little today and work on revisions. I've got notes from the editor on issues 2 & 3 of the above-mentioned comics mini-series; I've also got notes from the (same) editor on an original, 80-page, Young Adult graphic novel I'm doing with fellow writer Shawn deLoache and artist Marlin Shoop. The editor has assured me that the notes are light, so I'm planning to lounge around on the couch while I implement them.

(I'm also waiting on editor's notes on a Middle Grade prose novel from a Major Publishing House. I'm expecting those to be quite lengthy and in-depth, but they haven't shown up yet, so for the moment I'm not worrying about them.)

Also this week I'm revving up to attend the New York Comic Con. I don't have a table in Artists' Alley this year, but I will be signing copies of BLOODHOUND (and whatever else anybody feels like bringing by) at the Dark Horse Comics signing station at 6:30 Saturday evening and 10:00 Sunday morning. BLOODHOUND inker and all-around awesome guy Robin Riggs will be signing with me both times, barring any complications or acts of God. Speaking of BLOODHOUND, thanks to Dark Horse you can now read the first issue of it right here for free. You have to create an account at digital.darkhorse.com to see it if you don't already have one, but that's both fast and free.

I expect that, periodically throughout the day, I'll be unable to stop myself from switching over to one of the news channels to see what's going on with the government shutdown and the impending debt ceiling crisis. I'm still kind of stunned that I care this much about current events; for most of my life, the news was that boring stuff that took up space before something good came on. Ever since I turned 40, though, I've begun paying pretty close attention to what's going on in the country, while at the same time I'm looking at myself and thinking, "Who ARE you?"