November 4, 2018

Mansions of Madness, small gains and tricking the brain

News

First up, Curriculum‘s Issue 2 continues apace. We’re currently up to Page 11 and things are heating up (metaphorically and literally as you can see).

I really love Danny’s work on this issue and how he gives his own voice and tone to the characters Ryan, Sami and Marissa had brought to life in the previous issue.

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Secondly, Mansions of Madness came out on ComiXology this week!

I co-edited the anthology with Lee Robson who has the full skinny on the project and the story of Mallet Productions over at his blog.

The roster of talent I got to work with on this title is fantastic, including scripts by Jasper Bark, Clay McLeod Chapman, Andi Ewington, Ruth Frances Long and Maura McHugh as well as art by Bryan Coyle, Maan House, Adam Kindred, Paul Moore and Alex Paterson.

We also have a cover by Matthew Soffe which is sublime.

As well as co-editing the anthology, I also have a somewhat timely story in the collection called Traffic Stop with art by the excellent Alfie Gallagher.

https://twitter.com/lee_robson/status/1057719171402907655

I’m really proud of the collection, the tales within and all of those involved, especially Lee who was the real driving force behind the entire project.

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The previously mentioned Project Void promptly received two rejections in the last two weeks. As it’s my first real effort in the word of (short) prose, I’m not too upset about it. At this point completing the story and getting it submitted are the real victories.

I’ve already started on the next thing. Onwards and upwards and all that.

On a similar tack, I’ve been steering into a thought process that Andrew Macrae recently put across in his excellent newsletter:

“I’ve been trialling a similar thing with writing: my daily goal is just 100 words. It’s an easy goal. It can be achieved in 10 minutes. There’s no excuse for not opening the file and adding to it.

But it must be done every day, no matter what.

So although the project’s word count grows glacially — and often goes backwards as I delete material that no longer works — I’m engaging with the work every day.

And if I miss a day, which happens, the thing I focus on is getting back to it the very next day. “

Consistency and small gains over a long period of time are key. As with comics, and everything else, this is a marathon not a sprint. I find myself doing more, way more, than the initial ‘sell’ of “Ah, it’s only 100 words” to my subconscious. Brains are silly, impulsive things.

This way of building a habit is also mentioned in Ryder Carroll’s recent book on the Bullet Journal method and James Clear’s Atomic Habits (both recommended).

Links

• Polygon has a great list of 2018’s ‘Best Comics’ (so far).

• A nice post on the moments of warmth in the new Assassin’s Creed game.

• A new book looks at World War 1 and the advent of modern horror. Vice has an interview with its author.

• A great piece over at Rock Paper Shotgun on the cognitive dissonance that comes with recognising geography in a video game, in this case the recently released, and very British looking, Forza 4.

• Just in time for Halloween, Indiewire has a well written list of the 100 best horror movies. Couple this with its list of 30 underappreicated horror movies.

• This is a hugely detailed piece on how make your iPhone a place for productivity and focus rather than distraction and frivolity. Some of these I’d already done but there’s a lot of good tips in there I hadn’t thought of or read before. Personally, I’d ignore the parts about Gmail and Google Calender if you’re into privacy, but YMMV.

• Excellent essay by Megan Nolan about a certain period in your 20s, tying it into the ever-present British pub chain Wetherspoons.

“That was two years ago. Nowadays my friends and I go to the Wetherspoons near where we live once or twice a week to drink and eat some terrible but somehow very good food. Because what is good food? What is food for? It can be the most exquisite, beautiful thing, made for you with care by a genius, and still the loneliest experience. Or it can be cheap, and careless, and objectively quite gross, but glorious because it’s an excuse for you and your people to come together. These days I mainly make a living from writing, which means in turn I am horribly poor. It means no more hotel rooms, or Sunday morning oysters, or trips to Copenhagen. For this reason, I am grateful to Wetherspoons for being somewhere I know I can go with 15 quid in my pocket to get drunk and eat with my friends.”

• A sobering post on why waiting around for everything to be perfect may not be the best approach.

• Yuki Kawauchi goes against the grain and is my new hero.

“Most of the world’s top marathon runners are full-time athletes who race two marathons a year, one in the spring, another in the fall. Chicago will be Kawauchi’s ninth marathon of 2018. As August faded into September, he ran two in eight days. He has also run two ultramarathons.

Kawauchi, 31, works 40 hours a week in the administrative office of Kuki High School in his hometown, just north of Tokyo. As a government employee, he can keep his race winnings ($150,000 for Boston) and bonus money but is not permitted to accept corporate sponsorships, including a potentially lucrative shoe contract.”

• If you really want to put yourself through the emotional wringer this weekend then McSweeneys has catalogued every horrid thing Trump has done since raising his cheeto-stained excuse of a head behind the presidential pulpit.

• The case for being good not great.

• Marguerite Bennett dropping some excellent ‘breaking in’ advice.