• Tag Archives blog post
  • On Writer’s Block

    Writer’s block can be discouraging. You’re on a roll with your project then suddenly you hit a mental brick wall and the words cease. Hours go by, days, even weeks. You just can’t seem to get past that certain point in your story. You kinda know where it’s going but how to get there? Good question.

    My suggestion to overcome writer’s block is to write through it. You can certainly pick the project you’re working on and give it a go, but if that’s not an option, write something else. It doesn’t have to be for publication. It could be a snippet, a thought, a blog post or article, poetry, even a rant about how frustrated you are. The point is to keep writing anyway.

    That’s been my personal experience and writing anyway eventually beats down that wall and let’s you resume your project again.

    This applies to drawing or any creative outlet.

    Your mileage may vary.


  • The Daily Schedule of a Writer/Artist 2

    The Daily Schedule of a Writer/Artist 2

    canister x transmission collections

    Since recovering from being ill–and I’m still recovering–here’s what my current daily schedule looks like:

    Wake up and pet the dogs. I’m usually up before everybody else.

    Post my daily Good Morning post on Facebook and give the day’s positivity rating. The rating is given based on how I feel at that exact moment.

    Make coffee.

    Have a small bite to eat.

    Have coffee and surf the feeds and check email, taking note of which ones I need to respond to later.

    By now Melinda is up so I have more coffee and spend time with her before she has to go to work.

    Work on the current project. As of this writing, it’s proofing the galley for the reissue of REDEMPTION OF THE DEAD.

    Break

    Non-committal work. By this I mean work I can do and get done but not share with anybody yet (i.e. a blog post, the newsletter, YouTube video, etc.).

    Break

    Work on the current project.

    Break

    Review and share the non-committal work

    Personal tasks (i.e. personal correspondence, bills, etc.).

    Break

    Nap

    I may or may not call it a day at this point. Depends what time it is. Melinda gets off work at 4:30 and then it’s time to get ready for supper.

    Evening walk with Melinda and then a quick walk with the dogs.

    Chill out time.

    Bed.

    And that’s the daily schedule of a writer/artist.


  • What’s in a Name? Web Domain Issue Resolved

    I have my own web domain name back.

    Forever ago, I used to own the APFuchs dot com domain name. I can’t remember what happened, but I forgot to renew it or something fell through or whatever and I lost it. When I went to re-register the domain, at the time, it took me to a lady’s site which was all in German. Sigh. So, in a pinch, I came up with the CanisterX dot com domain and used that ever since. (For the meaning of the Canister X name, please go here.) Unfortunately, to this day, the dot com that bears my namesake is still unavailable but, being the proud Canadian that I am, and after talking it over with author Melinda Marshall, it was decided I should get a dot ca domain, and so I did.

    APFuchs dot ca is now mine and the web domain redirects here.

    Why have two domains leading to the same site? The short answer is search engine rankings. The dot ca works to my advantage because I’m in Canada so it helps with Canadian searches. It also helps simply because it has my name in it. And, lastly, it’s just nice to have my name back. Regarding keeping the Canister X name, I’ve done so much marketing and linking with it that to make it disappear would be foolish.

    That said, for the interim, the APFuchs dot ca domain will link here to the blog. In the future, it might get its own site, one that will have a link to this blog but won’t be a blog itself. It’ll just be an on-line presence used more as a brochure than something with regularly-changing content. The Canister X blog is for that, so we’ll see what the future brings.

    As for today, before writing this blog post I posted a new essay to Patreon about how to write well every time. It’s worth checking out, especially if you’re a writer. For the rest of the day, the plan is to work on a freelance project or two then see where I’m at after that.

    Hope everyone has a pleasant Tuesday.


  • Cracking the Webcomics Code – Thoughts

    Read Fredrikus webcomic Title Red

    For what seems like ages, I’ve wanted to get back into webcomics. I briefly had one when I aired the first issues of Axiom-man many years back (along with some Canister X Comix stuff), then took everything down for various reasons. Recently, I’ve been wanting to do a comic again but know it’s a long slog and one that may or may not pay off, whether via viewership or compensation. (Ideally both.)

    As I mentioned in my Patreon reflections article, if I didn’t have bills to pay, I’d gladly give away my work for free. But I can’t. I have myself and a family to take care of.

    I love comics . . . but they take a long time to create. It takes anywhere from approximately eight to twenty-four hours to make a single page depending on your process and how many people you’re working with. Twenty-four hours. A whole day . . . just for the page to be read in a minute or less. And that’s the main hangup with webcomics: Time. Comics take a ton of time and unless you are independently wealthy, a good chunk of that time is taken up by a part- or full-time job so you can fund the basic essentials for life.

    The standard model for webcomics–which typically make money from ads and merchandise while the comic itself is on-line for free–only works for a tiny percentage of webcomikers. All those other webcomics you love have someone behind them who stays up to all hours working on pages and making enough money off it for a few items but not enough to make a full-time living (if they make any money at all).

    And this is the conundrum: How do I make my webcomic monetarily worthwhile so I have the time to make more of the comic on a regular basis?

    I have some ideas, but thus far they all cater to the standard webcomics’ long game. And by “long game” I mean that getting traction can take anywhere from a few months to several years. There is no recipe I can think of that will shrink that time frame, and I’ve done my research.

    This blog post isn’t a complaint, by the way. It’s just getting my thoughts on webcomics out in front of me so I can see them.

    I’d like to be able to share with you my still-formulating webcomic plan–which incorporates old ideas with [hopefully] new ones–but I can’t because it’s still formulating.

    I’ve had a webcomic in my head for coming up on a week–or maybe it has already been a week? I don’t know–that’s slowly being added to every day, my subconscious bringing ideas and notions to my conscious brain and filing them away as both solid form and possibilities. I’m also not overthinking this stuff either because overthinking and painfully analyzing something leads to disaster, if not immediately then inevitably.

    All I know is there is room for innovation in webcomics. I think what happened was webcomics came out under a certain model thus that model became the norm for comic readers. It’s going to take time to break that norm.

    After being in publishing for sixteen years, I know the industry is constantly changing. What worked for book authors ten years ago doesn’t work now so writers made changes. The same holds true for comics: What worked in the old webcomics model doesn’t work now so it needs an upgrade.

    Back to formulating. Will post more thoughts when I have them.


  • Prairie Superhero Companions – Axiom-man and Auroraman – The Herald

    Herald Article Apr. 20, 2017
    Prairie Superhero Companions – Axiom-man/Auroraman: Frozen Storm Kickstarter

    Today, the citizens of Winnipeg found out about the Axiom-man/Auroraman: Frozen Storm Kickstarter via The Herald, a weekly newspaper. The city also found out what’s coming up for Axiom-man and the plans I have not just for him, but for the city as well.

    Thank you to reporter Sheldon Birnie for latching onto the news story and writing such a fantastic article.

    The article can be read on-line at the Winnipeg Free Press‘s website here.

    Also, please consider pledging to support Axiom-man/Auroraman: Frozen Storm. The Kickstarter wraps May 4 and Auroraman creator, Jeff Burton, and I need your help. You can check out the Kickstarter here, which is packed with amazing reward tiers and all sorts of goodies. As well, feel free to share this blog post or link to the Kickstarter however you can.

    Thank you in advance for any and all support.