Muskrat Ramblings
NaNoWriMo? NoNoNoNo
posted by John
So if you follow my Twitter Feed or catch my facebook page, you might have heard tell that I’ll be doing a regular podcast with WEREGEEK’s Alina Pete and GOBLINS‘ Tarol Hunt.
We’re trying to get a few in the can, to work out the bugs and have a bit of a backlog. We’re not announcing what it’ll be called, yet, but I love the name and we’ve grabbed the URL. (Hint: given my Wisconsin residency, it will not be called “Two and a Half Candaians). Thundernerds are GO!
It’s been a far more interesting project than I’d have imagined. And goodness knows, I’m sure adding another “gawrsh what fun!” gig to my schedule that I don’t get paid for thrills the Lovely and Talented Judith no end. But last night was an…odd recording. At least for me: It’s been almost a month since I’ve drawn a Dork Tower comic strip (I was four weeks ahead of the game, for a while there, but spent almost the entire month of October working on Munchkin Zombies – the first full, 164-card Munchkin game in nearly three years). So I was feeling a bit disconnected from my work, as we were discussing it in great, great detail.
Obviously, my life has seen some enormous, and enormously wonderful, changes these past three years, and overall I’ve been quite happy with Dork Tower these last 12 months. For the most part, I’ve kept to the schedule pretty DARNED well, which was one of the goals. Plus, I’ve been mostly happy with the quality of the gags, which was another. But finding time to do it – and to do it well – certainly gets more difficult as Louisa gets older.
Indeed, Louisa is home sick, today, and what little time I’ll have to work on the Dork Tower bible (that some Hollywood folks want – trust me, not NEARLY as glamorous as you’d think) and a new backlog of strips (which I think will be quite good) will come during the Bean’s nap.
DO NOT GET ME WRONG: any time spent with my daughter is magical and memorable, and is to be cherished. Right now, she keeps running into room in as I’m writing this, to hand me pictures of Brobee, Muno and Foofa (from Yo Gabba Gabba) that she’s colored…along with one of Widget (from Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! – my pal Bob Boyle’s show, which is like crystal meth for kids).
For the longest time, if you’d given me one wish, it would have been to develop into the best cartoonist that I could possibly be.
Now, that’s changed. By far my main goal in life is to become the best possible FATHER I can be, to this beautiful little blonde-haired, blue-eyed sprite who keeps running into the room, thrusting crayon drawings at me, and yelling (alternately) “HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY” and “HAPPY HALLOWEEEEEEEN!” Which is particularly thrilling, as it’s neither my birthday nor halloween.
There are places I want to go, things I want to see. There are cons I want to attend. But there is NO place I’d rather be, than with my wife and daughter. Right now, life is magical, and I don’t ever want to take that for granted.
I just wonder, though…are being the best Dadda I can be, and being the best cartoonist I can be, mutually exclusive?
Probably not.
Maybe I’ll figure that out, sometime.
Possibly one of these days, while Louisa’s napping.
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It’s National Novel Writing Month (or, as professional authors call it, “November”).
Chris Presta-Valachovic, on my facebook wall, asked “John, by any chance, could you repost your NaNoWriMo strips from a couple years ago? Pretty please? I’ve lost my prints of them…and they gave me impetus to keep going.”
Well, far be it for me to go all Casey Kasem Request Line on your consciousness, and painful as it is for me to look at ANY piece of my work that’s more than a couple of weeks old (srsly)…here you go. From 2007, the Matt Takes On NaNoWriMo series
Muskrat out,