Ink thinks

My two-penneth worth

2010-12-17T02:31:00.000Z

It's been a while since my last blog and I'm trying to stay awake during the overnight shift at a homeless shelter so here goes...

I work in a university so, naturally, I should have something to say about recent events. And that something is this. It's rubbish. All of it is just rubbish. If I were more alert I like to think that I might be more articulate than that - but I'm not and so, well, I'm not.

What gets me is how we attribute value to things, because this seems to be increasingly materialistic in nature, e.g. 'This course is worth more to me because it leads to a highly paid job', as opposed to, 'This course is worth more to me because it speaks to my needs as an individual.'

I know that's all a bit whaffy but that's because I'm tired. I think the point is a good one though.

I'm not saying that the pursuit of a well paid career is a bad thing, just that the pursuit of a well paid career, to the point where we fail to see value in other areas, might not be entirely positive.

For instance, I was one of those people who probably could have pursued either the sciences or humanities. It's odd to think of it now but I was pretty good at science - especially physics and biology. But they didn't really excite me. On the other hand, english and writing has always captured my imagination. So there I was making my choices re: what to pursue further in my education. There was a clear career path through science. English and writing? Not so much.

But I decided to pursue that which I am passionate about (English and writing in case that wasn't clear earlier) and it was the right decision. For me anyway.

Faced with the same decision today, in the context of rising tuition fees, I'm not sure if I would have been brave enough to go for the thing I really care about. I might well have played it safe with the more certain career path. But I valued learning about something that really excited me far more than the money I could make as a result.

It seems to me that we are encouraging young people today to consider what they may gain in purely economic terms, without a moment's thought for the less tangible, difficult-to-quantify gain the comes from pursuing that which you are passionate about.

We should not perpetuate the belief that knowledge is important, only in so far as it gets us that new 3-D telly/car/insert meaningless status symbol here, rather we should emphasise the importance of learning to better understand ourselves and those around us.

Or at least that's what I think is really important. But then I would. After all, I like writing and that.

The Walking Dead is among us (warning, spoilers)

2010-11-06T15:20:00.003Z

"When there is no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the earth."

In the new TV series, The Walking Dead, hell isn't just full, it's evicting everyone.

Image via Wikipedia

The first episode aired last night and it delivered something genuinely fearful, and in the midst of horror it has given us some beautiful insights into human relationships and love.

There will be a number of people wandering around looking ever so slightly pleased with themselves because, for the last few years, they've been following the graphic novel (see pic above). They were the people sitting in the corner of the kitchen a few Halloweens ago, talking about this amazing new comic they'd been reading, and that you - yes you - ignored, because they were talking about a comic. A comic. How much relevance can a comic have to us grown-ups? Well. In your face. Now you'll be talking about this great new series and how much it has to say about modern society; how it scares you, not because it is in the horror genre, but because these monsters are us. And the comic geek will be a little bitter now it's popular, so - in my face - I guess.

But you know what? This kind of thing should be popular. It has something to tell us about what it means to be human, how we can love, and how we can hate, and everything in-between.

And that television can even do this, that it can deliver this kind of creeping horror intelligently, and in a way that actually makes me feel sorry for the zombies, and not just scared of them, is amazing. Don't get me wrong, the zombies themselves are terrifying. They exhibit no recognition of us except as a tasty treat (nom, nom, nom), and they will keep coming for us because they are driven by this need to consume. (Thus proving my point that shambling zombies are more terrifying than running ones.) It's the survivors that bring us this sadness. The man who tries to kill his wife because of what she has become, the man who has her in his scopes, the man who weeps for the woman he loved. And the child who cries into a pillow.

It set its stall out last night, and while I expect it to share many similarities with the comic, I hope that it continues to be brave enough to flex its muscles and say, 'hey, this is what TV can do'. The opening of this episode and the first book are very different, and the result establishes the tone for the whole thing.

Spoiler ahead:

In the first few minutes our hero shoots a little girl in the head. Of course, this is because she is a zombie. Nevertheless. A little girl is shot - in - the - head. By our hero.

This is a bleak world. And in a place where not being eaten by Mrs Jones from across the street is the baseline for happiness, the little things really matter. There is no place here for sweeping romantic gestures, but holding someone's hand, giving them a bite of your sandwich, a hot shower, a high-five - these everyday things are suddenly exposed for what they have always been. Truly caring gestures. The stuff that makes life great.

So yes, it's bleak. It's also magnificent. And seeing this series, in a world where people believe that the baseline for happiness equals celebrity and all the extravagance that entails - The Walking Dead gives us a message that we need to hear.

Perhaps this is part of a new television wave that uses darkness to see, not unlike Battlestar Galactica in its finest moments. The Walking Dead looks set to give us this every week. And I, for one, can't wait.

Day seven: page 7

2010-10-31T15:17:00.000Z

It is done! A page-a-day for seven days! Hahahahahhahahaha...

From now on I will be uploading two-pages a week. On Mondays you will be able to read the next installment of 'it's Happening', the zombie story that I began in this Halloween Special. And on Fridays you can look forward to the usual autobiographical Growing Pains comic.

And now - laughing, falling over and dribbling...

Day six: page 6

2010-10-30T11:36:00.000+01:00

HA HA - in your face Saturday! It's not even the afternoon yet and I've uploaded page 6. Go read it and stuff. And now I must try to cobble together something to wear for the zombie slouch in Huddersfield. I haven't even begun thinking about a suitable zombie costume...

Day five: page 5

2010-10-29T17:33:00.000+01:00

Phew - almost there - just two more days to go and my challenge will be complete! Hurray. However, I'm not sure that the story can be wound up in the time I've got left. I think I'm basically writing the story I've had in my head for years. Basically it's what I would do in the zombie apocalypse... Not all that imaginative really, but a whole lot of fun.

Today I have tried to draw some of my friends and I think they will agree with me that my drawings look nothing like them. I hope, however, that they will forgive this and at least see their personalities coming through in a way that makes them smile.

A page-a-day is not sustainable within my current work load. However, I am thinking that I will go for two pages a week. And I suspect that I will employ November to finish this zombie story... any thoughts?

And if you haven't already, go read the comic.

Day four: page four

2010-10-29T09:08:00.000+01:00

Sorry about the lack of blog yesterday - I didn't have time, so expect two lovely blogs today. Yesterday was day four and a page did go up to the website so woohoo! And now I must depart to work on page 5!

argle...

Day 3: Page 3 of the Halloween Special

2010-10-27T13:30:00.000+01:00

Ok - so three days down and four to go. This is enjoyable in a way. I mean - I don't have a spare moment to call my own, but it feels good to be producing so much work and to feel like people are enjoying reading it. Of course, it could be that they're just polite, but I'm choosing to take their lovely comments at face value...

I return to the theme of where the hell do I go from here?

I can't go back to one-page a week after this, but there's no way I could continue to produce this much work without my other work getting compromised in the long run. So I'm contemplating two pages a week - I could book-end the week with a page on Mondays and Fridays. That might be the solution I'm looking for. In the mean time though, I just need to survive this, and I have another page to draw for tomorrow, a full evening of other stuff, and work between now and then. Hmmm...

A little help?

View page 3 here!

Ta, ta for now...

Day 2: Page 2 of the Halloween Special

2010-10-26T16:41:00.000+01:00

What was I thinking? What was I thinking! What was I thinking.

Ah well - day 2 and I'm not cracking - honest I'm not. I foresee difficulty with day 4 but watch this space. I really enjoyed drawing the tie for the zombie in page 2, it gives a sense of the season and rather sadly suggests that this was a family man - why else would he wear a tie like that?

Must rush - have a train to catch and the third page to draw!

Day one of the Halloween Special

2010-10-25T16:48:00.000+01:00

Concerning what may have been a foolish decision:

I post a new page a week to my comic Growing Pains. Since I have a pretty demanding job I reasoned that this would be about as much as I could manage.

This week, for reasons that defy logic, I have decided to post a new page every day from now until October 31st as a Halloween Special story. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I'm a little concerned about my sanity right now, as the week begins and all the work that must be done looms ahead.

I'll try to post here every day this week as well, to chart the ups and downs of this particular challenge. I decided not to use colour for this story - I definitely don't have enough time for that, and black and white has a certain charm when you're dabbling with the horror genre. Any comments, and/or support will be gratefully received!

Don't forget to read the comic! See the link in this post...

Another train blog (not about trains – written while on a train)

2010-08-14T17:05:00.000+01:00

Ok – well I’m on the train and if my Internet connection were working I would be blogging right now. Since it isn’t I am preparing my blog – how do you like them apples?

The train manager just mucked up on the tannoy and blamed it on the fact that it is Friday the 13^th. Not a great thing to remind people about when they’re travelling. There’s a mother and daughter sitting opposite me and I keep stealing sly glances at them to see if they pull a Freaky Friday.

Well… I have been at my parents’ place (otherwise known as home) for the last 2-weeks. I’ve caught up with long serving friends, drunk a lot of coffee and not a small amount of wine, and now I’m travelling down to Southampton to camp with my fiancé’s family for the weekend where we will be celebrating his parents’ 30^th anniversary.

In the time I’ve been away I have finished scripting my second comic book, ‘All About Phil’ and I’ve begun rough sketches and panel planning. I’ve designed and made my own t-shirt cause I was so fed up of not finding any that I like in the shops. This has in turn prompted me to begin a new Web Comic alongside ‘Growing Pains’, called ‘The Remarkable Adventures of Space Cat’. I’ve been drawing Space Cat in birthday cards for my friends for years and now, for the first time ever, I have drawn the little guy’s origins. And it’s on my t-shirt! How great is that?

Here is a sneak pic at said t-shirt:

So I guess you could say it’s been a pretty productive couple of weeks.

Now I’m looking forward to seeing my lovely Kevin and to going back to Wakey on Sunday. Here is to camping this weekend – may it be mighty!

T-shirts suck

2010-08-10T20:53:00.001+01:00

T-shirts suck!

Actually - no, they don't suck. To be honest T-shirts are great. I just can't find any that I like right now. Being a girl is so annoying sometimes. Our bodies hurt us at least once a month and force us to seek chocolate, which we eat only to discover that our thighs have enlarged like traitors. Then we eat more chocolate to make us feel better.

In amongst all of this we also get some really rubbish clothes choices. Occasionally (very occasionally) there will be a flurry of cool, fun t-shirts for ladies. I always forget that this is rarely the case and might buy one of the t-shirts that are on offer - for the bounty is so great I cannot conceive of the time of famine to come. One month later and here it is. There are no cool t-shirts. None. Nadda. Zero.

I am declaring war on rubbish t-shirts.

Well, not quite war. I'm not sure how that would work.

So instead I am going to make my own. Yes - you heard me right. I am going to design my own t-shirts. Hah.

Here is my first design for you to delight in. It charts the origins of a character I've been playing with over some time - Space Cat. Some of you may have even received birthday cards with little space cat adventures in them. Here at last you will learn of Space Cat's origins...

Trying new things

2010-08-03T16:13:00.000+01:00

Well - I've spent much of the day creating a 'Growing Pains' banner so it will stand out, having registered the comic with Top Web Comics (TWC) in a bid to open it up to a wider audience. What do you think?

That's not all I've done - oh no. I decided that the web page that Growing Pains features on in my main website is a little too wordy to link with TWC - so I created a new page in the section of the website that includes my CV etc. I know that I'm doubling up my work load by doing this, but it does look cleaner. I guess this is what comes when you're trying to redefine a website that used to be for something else entirely. There's probably a much simpler way of doing pretty much everything I've spent several hours on today - but I don't know what that is, and at least it works. Hopefully I'll figure out a smoother way of running things as I go.

I'm not sure what to expect from registering my comic to TWC. There are lots of cool comics there, so I'm sure I will burn hours on TWC, and I'm hoping that other people like me are doing the same thing and will discover Growing Pains. If you like the comic then what are you waiting for? Go vote for it - if it gets a higher ranking then that should encourage even more people to read it. And I'll let you know how it goes. At the very least got a cool new banner out of it...

N.B. If you do go to the TWC website you'll need to type 'Growing Pains' into the search bar, which is at the bottom of the page (weird I know).

Autobiography and that...

2010-08-01T00:28:00.000+01:00

So I’m on a train that’s been diverted because of ‘problems on the line' between Leeds and Sheffield and I’m reading some Jeffrey Brown and thinking about autobiography. (For those of you unfamiliar with Jeffrey Brown, he is a comic book writer and his main output has been autobiography – makes sense now doesn’t it?) I’ve been working on some of my own comics recently as well. The first attempt is a fictional story called ‘All About Carl’ to be followed by two more comics set in the same world. In-between all of this I’ve been writing some autobiographical comics that I’ve dubbed ‘Growing Pains’. These are regularly appearing on my website and are currently a lot of fun to write (and hopefully to read). This whole thing has got me thinking about autobiography though. Why we write it, why we read it... what is so fascinating about the everyday bits in someone’s life?

My computer’s dictionary defines autobiography as ‘an account of a person’s life written by that person.’ But calling something autobiography invests it with a kind of authority, and you’d be forgiven for thinking that if you’re reading an autobiography you’re reading the truth. But memory is a subjective thing, you and I can experience the same event but our accounts of it will differ. The stories that I’m writing are not complete memories because I can’t recall all of it. I only remember my perspective – and even that’s altered over time. I only remember the highlights, the parts of an event that were important to me. I suppose it’s like the distilling process in some ways. Over time, only the essential elements remain. And that should make those parts more interesting. At least I hope so.

And then there’s the process of writing it. So far I’ve recounted some pretty gentle things – no one comes off particularly badly – and it isn’t my aim to write something that would portray others in a negative light. But the fact is that sometimes my memories involve others being, well, idiots. As well as myself being, well, an idiot. Do I change their names, the places? I don’t think so. That would begin to peel away the integrity of the memory. Besides, we all have our different perspectives of shared events – all I’m doing is to write about mine.

Then there’s what it means for me to write about things that really did happen and that really did affect me in some way. It’s a fairly vulnerable thing to be doing – even just writing the funny stories. I didn’t start out asking myself these questions. I was aware of them as academic issues. But encountering them has made me look them in the eye. Some months ago there was a tragedy in my family and I found it really hard to write autobiography, even though the story I was working on was in no way related to it, writing nevertheless made me think of a time in my life that is gone. It made me think of the people that I knew then and of the things we hoped for and where we are now. At the same time I couldn’t stop working on the story. I just wanted to bury myself in it. It was an odd period and I seem to have worked through it now. I was surprised at just how much sorrow made me reconsider writing my memories. But now I think it’s important to write about those little events. It’s a bit like panning for gold. Don’t worry – I’m not going to extend that metaphor. Suffice it to say there’s something for me to gain in writing autobiographical comics, and I hope there’s something to be gained from reading them. As for the rest, I’m not sure, but I’ll keep you posted.

If you’re interested in reading ‘Growing Pains’ you can find the stories at my website: www.inkthinks.com

Or just click on this link to go straight there!

Cheers for reading.

Brand new Website!

2008-09-30T18:26:00.000+01:00

See Ink's new website: www.inkthinks.com

The Ink Spot: One-to-One Package

2008-04-29T10:36:00.000+01:00

The One-to-One programme is a flexible way to develop your writing, and is especially suited to the writer with a busy calendar!

I will work with you to create a Personal Development Plan identifying your goals over a 6-12 month period. This document will form the basis of our meetings. The One-to-One programme also offers constructive critical feedback of your work as you develop it.

Because the one-to-ones focus on you as a writer as well as your writing, the approach is far more effective than simply reviewing your work in isolation.

The package employs a combination of face-to-face meetings with phone calls and emailed feedback:

· X 3 face-to-face meetings
· X3 combination phone calls and emailed feedback

Each one-to-one will last for approximately one hour – though of course, this does not take reading and preparation of feedback into account.

This programme is flexible and works around you. The style and frequency of our meetings will be agreed in the initial meeting.

Subsequent meetings will involve a focussed discussion about how you’re progressing with your plan, and will give you an opportunity to receive direct feedback for your work.

A series of six one-to-ones can be held over the course of 6-12 months (to be agreed at the beginning of the programme).

Programme Fee: £270

Unfortunately I will not be able to accept payment in instalments.

If you would like to apply for this package please cut and paste the following link into a separate Web browser and fill in the online application form:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pyyc0DZxsSDeSNQAv7SOQLA

If you have any further quires please contact me via email or phone:

Email: beccy.ink@gmail.com
Phone: 07749 976 168