All the Billion Other Moments

Dave Sim was inducted into The Joe Shuster Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame on Saturday. After his acceptance speech he sung an a capella version of all three verses of “My Way”.

brief clip courtesy The Beat.

His introduction was given by J. Michael Straczynski, who in a recent interview had the following to say about Dave:

When he first started out, the idea of telling one story of that magnitude and that duration, over a period of over 20 years, without a publisher behind you, is insane. But he believed he could do it. Even though reason said you can’t do it, his faith said ‘I can’. And, by gosh, he did.

The funny thing is, that’s how society changes. There’s those of us that just want to get along in the world and we try to blend in with and fit into the world around us. And there’re those who either believe in themselves a great deal or are insane who say ‘No, no, I will change the world to match me’. And those are the one’s who do change the world.

Dave Sim changed the world of comics because of what he did with Cerebus.

What Dave did with Cerebus has always been an inspiration to me. Because of him, and others like him, I always took it as a given that self published comics were a viable choice. Even today when the market is flooded with titles I think it can still be done, at least if it’s approached in an intelligent manner. Sure the facts seem to say otherwise. Independent books have quite a struggle today. There was a brief boom in the mid to late eighties, but that’s long past now.

But part of me still believes that there is still a market out there for well told stories. I’ve dipped in and out of comics for the past few years, and the market seems to be flooded with garbage. I don’t think this is just grumpy-old-man-syndrome on my part, because the stuff I see today is the stuff I hated in the early 90s. While the market may never turn around, at some point i think it will become viable again for new independent works.

Without Dave Sim, I would believe none of this. When all the other books I followed disappeared from the shelves Cerebus continued to show up, mostly on time, for it’s entire 300 issue run. That’s pretty damn impressive, and it shows what can be done by two guys (Gerhard really deserves some more public recognition, which should be obvious because I only mentioned him once) who commit to something.

My good friend Dursin turns 30 today. I’ve know him almost 24 years now, and there’s never been a dull moment. Happy 30th!

I used to write poetry. I wrote it all the time. I have a two foot stack of notebooks filled with it (and I’m pretty sure I don’t have all of it still). When I was in high school, study hall was for writing poetry. It’s what got me through the rest of the day. Any little thing that was on my mind, it ended up expressed in verse. It got me through a lot of tough times.

Yesterday was a very busy day. Even Rachel told me it was a very long Saturday, and she hopes today is shorter. Today, it’s snowing. Denise said I could have most of the day to myself to catch up on the giant To Do I have hanging on a white board in the kitchen. She told me she would need me to watch the kids while she made dinner, and the rest of the day was mine.

Isn’t she great? Yeah, she is, but it only took about 15 minutes from the time she said good morning until she started asking me to do other things, and watch the kids so she could do other things. So much for a guilt free productive day. I’ll settle for a guilt-ridden one if I can make it productive.

She is in no way being unreasonable. Time is in short supply in our life right now, and that’s mostly my fault. I’m doing a lot. Well, I’m trying to do a lot. I feel that I’m failing at doing a lot, to be honest. I’m working eight to ten hours a day, taking Kung-Fu one or more times a week, revising a novel, working on the next novel, being a dad, and being a husband. When I look at that list and try to pear it down, the only thing I want to drop is working. I can’t do that if I want to keep the house and eat. I’m not sleeping excessively (six or seven hours a night). So I’m having to make do with the failing.

Here’s hoping today is at least somewhat productive.

Everything has been way too hectic of late. Family, work, writing, you name it. I’ve been overwhelmed, and not overly motivated these past few weeks, but I’m hoping to change that starting now.

I need to come up with a schedule for finishing this draft. Writing as time permits is pretty much a recipe for me to be lazy about it. It seems I need a deadline of some kind. I did some fairly major rewrites of Chapter 12, but I now need an entirely new chapter to stick between 12 and 13.

Haven’t posted much lately (still waiting for my new glasses), but this is big news. The 2005 Series of Doctor Who is finally going to air in the US (there’s a nice summary at Outpost Gallifrey). I’ve seen it, and it’s great. I can’t begin to explain how great it is. Even Denise enjoyed watching it. There’s no need to have seen the classic series to enjoy this, so don’t let the show’s history put you off.

Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 00:00:54 -0500
From: Jason Penney <…>
To: Jason Penney <…>
Subject: story idea

an epic battle/war is tearing apart the land. A small time thief sees his opportunity to make good, but becomes involved in helping a refugee family (maybe just some kids?)

I found this email earlier this week. I have a lot of these ’story idea’ emails, but this one is the novel I’ve been working on since shortly after sending this to myself two years ago today. I’m slightly less than half way done my second draft, and while the story has changed with time, I can still see how I got from there to here.

I’ve been a writer most of my life. When I was younger I sort of just assumed that you learned to read, learned to write, and then wrote down the stories in your head, and that’s how books were made. Today, I’m still pretty sure that’s how it’s supposed to work, but three years ago I didn’t feel that way. That type of thinking was schooled out of me. I never stopped writing, but I really forgot about writing books.

Throughout high school I wrote poetry. Lots. Every emotion I felt hit the paper while it was still fresh. I probably wrote four or more hours a day. I have stacks of notebooks filled with the stuff (which are fading away because I can only write long hand in pencil). Inside these notebooks I can find a few first chapters or unfinished short stories. I never stopped wanting to write fiction, but I stopped believing I could (or maybe that I should). After high school the writing mostly stopped. A few ideas here and there, and the occasional poem, but mostly nothing.

Sometime in 2003 I decided to take this whole writing thing more seriously. I worked on short stories a few nights a week. Then, near the end of December in 2003 I found Mugging the Muse: Writing Fiction for Love AND Money by Holly Lisle. This free book on writing really got me going. It helped me organize my thoughts on being a writer, and commit myself to making it happen. I set out a series of goals and started working towards them.

Have I met them? Not exactly. I originally planned to write short stories for all of 2004, and try to have a draft of a novel done in 2008. Right at the end of 2003 Lazette Gifford posted on Forward Motion that she would be teaching a 2 Year Novel class. Moving from idea to completed novel over a two year period. I signed right up. So I missed my 2004 goals, but I’m ahead of things for my 2008 goal, so I figure I’ll call it progress and keep moving forward.

As 2005 winds to a close, I want to take this time to thank Holly and Zette. If it wasn’t for them I’d probably still be floundering around wondering how to get from A to B instead of making my way along the path. I also want to thank my wife, Denise, for being so supportive of my writing, even when she’s frustrated that I’d rather write than vacuum.

I’m off from work this week, but it seems that it will be the busiest week of the year for me.  Everyone wants to see the kids (and who can blame them?), so we have a lot of visitors and visiting to do.  Today is a visiting day, so I Got up early and tackled Chapter 8 before we have to leave.

I never managed to make it back to the book today, but I do feel like the day was fairly productive, which is a rarity for a weekend. Denise managed to find my missing stack of notecards (thanks!), so I’m ready to dive in tomorrow.

It’s been a rough time since I last posted. My day job has changed again in ways I don’t fully comprehend yet (although so far, so good). My youngest daughter has been ill and after a trip to the ER and numerous doctor’s visits and sleepless nights we now have the pleasure of pinning her down to take nasty tasting antibiotics twice a day for the foreseeable future. She’s doing better now, and that is, of course, what matters. Hopefully I’ll be able to get back to writing every day again soon.