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.
We’re working on a schedule shift here where I start my day a little bit later because I find I function better after the mid-morning hours. However, I also was just having coffee and decided to upload the second-to-last chapter of Gigantigator Death Machine to Patreon so my readers there got this week’s update bright and early. If you’re not reading Gigantigator Death Machine, please do. One more chapter to go and the book is done. Once complete, it will remain on Patreon while we start up the second serial novel in a few weeks.
The plan for the day is to make comics. We’re gaining a ton of ground on Fredrikus. While the drawing is going on, so are other behind-the-scenes items so that come launch, all the necessary ducks are in a row.
It’s been a busy week on the blog. Didn’t mean to but things needed to be shared.
Newsletter written and ready for tomorrow. Join us.
Today’s plan is . . . well, I’m not sure on the specifics. We have Fredrikus drawing to do and a few other things. What the work ratios for those things are, I don’t know.
Side note: For some reason the blog’s theme keeps resetting to its default presentation so if you come by and the site looks different, it means nothing is wrong but I haven’t reset the theme yet. Working on troubleshooting the issue.
A while back on Patreon, I gave my patrons a patron-first announcement (a perk to being a patron), which was the reveal of the true title of Project Jackass.
Project Jackass was the placeholder title for an upcoming comic strip series from me called Fredrikus.
Fredrikus is that dog you see on the cover of Canister X Comix or throughout my Inktober 2019 sketches. Fred the Dog was a character I created during my time in animation school way back when animation was done on stone tablets that you’d throw past a guy at rapid succession to create the illusion of motion. (Har har.)
Fredrikus is structured as episodic strips, ranging between a single-panel gag and a couple comic pages, and is a mix of humor, heart, and a little bit of social justice with a dose of cynicism.
The plan is for the strips to be collected at some point in comic book format for collectors.
As for how this thing will be published–as in the business model–we’re looking at making it a webcomic (with the aforementioned print version once enough–or close to enough–have aired). The goal of the comic is to simply create an anything-goes comic playground where I can noodle with ideas and styles and experiment with the medium. There’s a general overarching plot to the whole thing, but readers can jump in at any point and will have no trouble piecing it together.
I’ll reveal more of the premise at a different time, but if you like dystopian sci-fi with some of the monster and superhero stuff I normally do, you’ll dig this.
Release is still a ways off, but plenty of strips are written along with some fun side material, and the drawing phase is about half complete in regards to where I want to be before launch.
After years of putting it off, I’m stepping down from being solely an author. “Solely” being the operative word. The book publishing industry rewarded me in the ways I needed, taught me the things I wanted to learn, and helped me meet the types of people I wanted to meet, both creator and reader alike. And while true that since I’ve been back from being ill, I’ve taken on the mantle of writer/artist instead of just writer, I thought it’d be a fair thing to tell you what the current road map looks like career-wise so I don’t accidentally mislead you.
This is the general plan:
2020 is a year of rebuilding hence Project Rebuild. Throughout the course of the year–with the very end of the year being the ideal-but-flexible deadline–I’ll be bringing my book list into the 21st century and will release a new thing or two along the way. And it will take the whole year or potentially more because I have a lot of titles and all this takes time.
Going forward in 2021, I have a few books that are done that need releasing so those will be tended to as well as finishing off some works-in-progress to wrap them up.
While the above two are occuring, I’ll be spending most of my time and energy devoted to making comics. Comics are what started me on the publishing path and are a great love of mine. In short, writing books will be a secondary thing compared to the comics.
All I want to do is finish the last bit of my book publishing life and make comics going forward.
For Axiom-man fans, don’t worry. Lots of prose adventures coming. I’m referring to my non-superhero work.
I also need to point out something to my readers that needs to be taken into consideration: I’m still sick. I’m much better than before, but even when I started up again at the end of last August, I was operating at around 65-70% capacity. Going hard at 1000mph has dropped me to about 50% on a good day, 40-45% on every other day. Each day I come to the keyboard, I’m not healthy on multiple levels, but I work anyway because making art and stories is what I do and it’s what helps me survive. All I’m saying is I’m changing things on various levels so I don’t keel over and die one day in the middle of a script or while drawing something. It is also important to point out that my shift to comics isn’t about accommodating for being unwell. It’s about looking ahead to my deathbed when I’m lying there and looking back. I know I’ll regret it if I don’t do comics and since time is the most valuable thing on this earth, I want to spend it doing something I love.
This blog is now reactivated for new content after a temporary hiatus
due to my web provider switching this site to a new server. It took longer than
expected, no one’s fault. Details were given in my newsletter.
I am . . .
. . . A.P. Fuchs. I’m a writer, artist, and freelancer in pretty much anything to do with publishing. This is Canister X, my official web presence and the Realm of Heroes and Monsters, where we broadcast our pirate signal and hack into the Matrix.
Or something like that.
I’ve been writing since 2000, drawing since before then, and publishing
books and comics since 2003.
My Patreon page is here. It’s a fun place where I post serial novels, essays on the creative arts business, stuff from behind the scenes here in the Great White North at Axiom-man Central, and more. Join me and my other patrons and be a part of something entertaining and interesting with consistent content.
On Saturdays, I send out my newsletter, The Canister X Transmission. It’s a weekly newsletter where we all come together after a busy week, unwind, and kick off the weekend. Presently, we are finishing off The Long Year Five, and Year Six will start before the first half of 2020 is over. Join us.
Tip: If you see an Agent, you do what we do. You run. You run your ass
off.
It’s been a long while since I wrote the daily schedule of a writer/artist (me, in this case). It might have been in one of the newsletters I sent out in the fall that I last talked about it. Might have been on the blog though I’m leaning toward the former. Anyway, regardless, a new layout of the schedule is probably due so here is what a typical day looks like for me at Axiom-man Central. Of course, like in any life, things happen that can throw a wrench into the following general workday. However, I stick to this schedule as the backbone of my whole operation and make time for it as able on days that get screwy. I’ve long advocated a schedule for creators as one of the important ingredients to making a successful career out of the arts.
Monday to Friday:
Wake up – Lately it’s been averaging between 8:30 and 9:30am. Next, roll around in bed for a short while to let the brain come online before checking the news.
Coffee – Go down to the bunker and turn the computer on. Go back up to the main level and get coffee while the computer is loading (older machine so takes a bit to warm up).
Patreon – On a day a Patreon post is scheduled, I do this first and get it done for my patrons. For example, today was the latest chapter of Gigantigator Death Machine so that was posted before writing this entry. Market Patreon entry.
Blog – Skip previous step if a non-Patreon day. Write and/or edit blog entry. Take any required picture(s) and post. Market blog entry and set up in the broadcaster a couple of extra notices about the latest entry to air throughout the day on the social feeds.
Break – Maybe around 15 or 20 minutes. Used to change mental gears. On the break I’ll either read something or play a game or fiddle with something around the house.
Email – Check email and respond, if needed/able to.
Work – Writing, drawing, editing, freelancing, book production, marketing, etc. Could be all of those or just one of them. Depends what’s on deadline and what isn’t. Work until 4 with a couple breaks thrown in there between tasks to rest the eyes and/or hands and get blood moving throughout the system. I’ve been trying to give careful attention to lunch because I get so wrapped up working I forget to eat then around 2 I start to feel real sick. A bad habit I’m working on. Back to the job: Pressing work is in my day planner so I consult it every morning so I know if I’ve set the day aside for something(s) specific. Whatever the day planner says I’m doing is priority one for the day. If the day planner shows the day as open, then I work on the next thing due. If things are due more or less around the same time, then I pick whatever I’m leaning toward at that moment.
End of day – Around 4pm. Start shutting things down; possibly do a couple small tasks that had to wait until the end of the work day for whatever reason (i.e. a quick marketing thing or a phone call or whatever).
Evening – Cooking is my thing so after the work day is done, I put on my chef’s hat and start thinking about what I want to make for dinner. This involves scoping out the deep freeze and scanning the pantry for ideas (though I usually start getting ideas mid-afternoonish). Then I cook dinner and let the day’s issues–if there are any–melt away. Once dinner is done, the evening is mine to do whatever with whomever (I usually hang out with author Melinda Marshall and this ranges from playing games to reading to TV to going for groceries, etc). On other nights, Melinda and I hang out with my boys.
Bed – 10pm or thereabouts.
Saturday:
Wake up – Somewhere between 9:30 and close to 11am.
Coffee – Enjoy a cup of coffee with Melinda.
Newsletter – Head down to the bunker to send Saturday’s newsletter.
The rest of Saturday and all of Sunday are days off, and it typically takes until late Saturday afternoon for me to put the week in my back pocket. Saturday evening and all of Sunday are used to do next to nothing and purposefully not think about work so my brain can heal from the week and be sharp for the week to come.
And that’s what a typical week looks like here in the Great White North.
To touch on what I said above about this schedule being the backbone on days things don’t go as planned, on such days I still let this overall schedule float in the background of my mind so that when a window of time opens up amidst that particularly goofy day, I can still do what needs doing or at least get a start on those things so the day isn’t a wash.
Right now, this schedule works well and hasn’t changed much since I last talked about it. It will no doubt change somewhere down the line since life isn’t stagnant, but this method works for the time being.
