Monday, June 12, 2006

I have a stack of everything to get done here. I have just spent the last week dropping everything, and I mean everything, to work on a script that had to be in by the 11th. A call had come in last week from parties interested in producing this story idea Ian and I have been playing with for the last few years.

Fortunately, as it turned out, our Simpson's story for Treehouse of Horror was bumped to next year leaving us this little window of time to do it (leftover free time from all the wedding madness of the last few weeks).

Thank you notes, bills, e-mail correspondence, sketch requests, dinner appointments, house cleaning, laundry...all dropped.

And somehow we did it. A complete 90-ish page script, done, within deadline. Me doing the first draft, Ian taking it in parts and rewriting as it went.

And I really have to say, regardless if this thing ever gets made or not, that it was such a wonderfully satisfying experience to just write like that. Work down the outline point by point, adding bits, solving problems, giving this sucker life after so much planning and talking about it.

Yeah, I could get used to this writing thing.

But for now, back to everything else...
I had this dream this morning where I was visiting someone on a bike. I had to lock it up with one of those combo locks because the area was rough and there was a person standing nearby that I had apparently had a history with, enough to make her want to steal my bike the moment my back was turned.

I had used this lock before but it had been a while so I wasn't sure of the combination. I looked at the numbers already on there and tried to memorise them knowing that the moment I locked it up those numbers would be scrambled and I'd be screwed if I forgot them. To make matters worse it was a 7 digit code, a lot of numbers to remember. I got a piece of scrap paper out of my bag an rummaged for something to write with which turned out to be a colour marker, the colour being "coffee with milk"

So I write down these numbers, watery coffee looking numbers and I lock my bike and I go inside.

Then I wake up and realise where those numbers came from and why they're so important: they're DC's fed ex account number which I use all the time to send pages out.

And then I remembered an issue of Planetary I'd read a few months back where the lead character uses this special code to activate some vault or weapon or something: the same number only the one and zeros were removed.

So, sacred mathematics or the result of deadline pressures seeping into the subconscious of the artistic mind?

Hm.

Friday, June 2, 2006

We're back and I've been meaning to post for a while now about the absolutely wicked wedding reception we held after getting home (I should be getting photos shortly) but today I was prompted to write in after hearing some absolutely, knock-me-on-my-ass great news.

Recently there was a story on an NPR show (All Things Considered I believe) talking about Y and as a result the first trade has shot up the Amazon charts ahead of the Da Vinci Code and the last Harry Potter book. Granted those are hardcover sales but holy crap! Number 37!

My face kinda did this weird Tex Avery thing that I'm sure others would have found amusing had I not been alone in the office listening to the It's All Gone Pete Tong soundtrack.

Wow. And wow.

Add to this the wonderful news of the book being nominated for a Harvey and this has been a lovely week indeed.

Wow.