2025-W16 EOW Report

Anti-Goal Cycling

• Lots of meetings this week. Had my first introductory meeting with Scott Snyder on Monday morning and Cat Rambo on Friday afternoon. I talked for the most of both calls as I wanted to give them context as to who I am, where I’m at, and what I’m looking for. I noticed with both that I would say sorry for things (like a Canadian) and they would say “no, that’s OK” (as if I was down on myself or lacking self-esteem), and it wasn’t until afterwards that I realized how much I do say “sorry” out of politeness but don’t really mean it, and them being American thinking I’m being insecure or negative. Which is either a wrong assumption, or funny, I can’t tell. I mean, Scott works with and/or talks to Chip Zdarsky, Jeff Lemire, Ryan North, and many others and I can’t be the only Canadian who apologizes profusely for trivial things and probably also don’t mean it. And I cannot imagine Cat Rambo not having similar experiences with other Canadian SFFH writers. So maybe I’m doing it wrong. Maybe I am apologizing too much. I am over-indexing on my apologies in my Canadian verbiage portfolio. ANYWAY – I think things went well. Scott is aware that my intent for these monthly 1on1s is to be held accountable for producing pages that he can look at. Cat is aware of the same. At least one short story a month to her, at least 5-10 pages of script to Scott. And I am not spiraling into a void of I-don’t-know-what-to-do this time around because I’ve figured out ARCs and it’s the most amazing feeling ever to finally crack the fucking code on how story spines work.
• I did sneak in at least one question to Scott before our call ended, which was “How do you decide which of your million ideas do you decide to work on?” And he said, don’t worry about the marketing side of it. Pick something you’re excited about, pick something you think you’ll genuinely enjoy writing. Which, when it came to the end of the week, a bookend of mentors if you will, and I was telling Cat about some of the projects I was half-committed to, she asked me if I was excited about it, which ultimately, verified the compass artists use to pick projects to commit to. And it’s a 180º shift from what I’ve been doing in marketing for almost two decades now. We don’t pick projects out of excitement, we pick them based on what we think will have the greatest potential for success based on market trends, market pain, and the uniqueness of the unique selling proposition. If the mechanism isn’t “cool” enough, don’t do it. If you don’t think it’ll resonate with the market, don’t do it. If you don’t think you’ll make millions, don’t do it. So with this 180º turn on artistic projects, where I don’t care what the market thinks because that ends up getting in the way of getting said art done, and I have to pick purely out of selfish reasons of… “does this excite me?”… I get the luxury of following my emotions. It’s freeing, but also immobilizing. So of course, me being me, I put some criteria on it to help me navigate my hundreds of ideas. (It’s not hundreds, more like just over 50). The number one criteria is it’s something that I can actually get done and completed inside a month. So that means no crazy worldbuilding, no insane amount of research into slang, lingo, accents, no reading a giant book just for research. That’s not to say I can’t do those things but I need to plan them out better. At least for this first deadline(s). Another rule that would really help is if there is research, it’s related to the long-term goal of landing in the historical fiction target of Renaissance/Reformation period. Put another way, the first stories due for Snyder and Rambo have to be worlds/rules I already know, and/or stuff I can easily make up or hand wave. So with that, I think I’ve narrowed down the ideas to three for Snyder and six for Rambo. I think the discrepancy is fine as I’ll be moving at a much slower pace for Snyder anyway. Ten pages is half an issue, which is one tenth of a five issue arc, and since I can’t draw at all, it’s not like it’ll magically come into fruition unless I’m willing to pony up for an artist, and I would have to really believe in the script before I did that and attempt to sell it to Image, or Vertigo now that James Tynion IV is bringing it back. I mean, I guess Boom and Dark Horse are still available, but who knows where IDW will be in a few months. I joked about buying IDW with Simon. I mean. Trading at 33¢ OTC, it’s a 8.9M market cap. So no, I can’t actually buy it, but nine milly also isn’t insane for picking up with proper leveraging haha. I think the only challenge is what do they have aside from TMNT? Just checked. They also have Sonic, MLP, Godzilla, Locke and Key and Beneath the Trees. Ok, that’s enough of a tangent and meandering for me.
• Last ASSW, was my turn up for story workshop, and the first draft of prj:MUSIC was submitted. Feedback was mostly positive with similar constructive feedback across the board. Surprisingly, for someone who keeps pounding on MECH as the thing, that was what I needed most work on. A more clear idea of the rules. I did not think about it thoroughly. Easy to fix. Reduce the lists was another, which I knew was an issue the moment I submitted it but didn’t care because I just wanted to hit the Monday deadline. And from Cat herself, the ending could be drawn out more, ALSO something I knew was problematic going in. The final scene was rushed. Some other useful ideas was to create more emotional anchors for the owner, the love interest. In short, this felt like a win. It was a pretty solid story that resonated with a lot of the group and I have edits that didn’t surprise me and I know how to get it to the finish line. Hurray.

Q&A w/Cat + Notes

1. Where you see yourself as being right now, and where you’d like to be in five years.
   • RIGHT NOW
     • I am at the very beginning. This is the first time in my life I’ve taken a proper concerted attempt at writing fiction and focusing on story craft consistently.
     • I’ve been stuck on figuring out story craft for two decades it seems. I think I’ve finally cracked the code? Structure, plot, character arcs. Not worried about voice.
     • Wanted to write fiction since early twenties. Attempted one novella in 2007, one rejection, quit to focus on career. Second attempt 2015-2017. A lot of first scenes that I thought was flash, but no middle, no end. Fell into structure rabbit hole.
   • FIVE YEARS
     • The dream is to be a full-time novelist, with comic books, TV scripts on the side, but so much of that is based on luck and I don’t want to think about it at all.
     • I cannot see myself replacing my income to tell stories in five years.
     • So a more honest five year goal is to have maybe
       • Two novels written and being shopped around
       • At least 20 short stories published
       • Perhaps a few miniseries at the Big 2 comics (preferably DC)
2. What projects you’re currently working on, and what would help you with them?
   • I do not have any current projects that are hard coded. I think I would simply like to get into a rhythm of producing one short story a month. That’s the most important thing for me. A rhythm where something is made and completed each month. I really just need to put In the reps
   • I have short story ideas, but each one needs work and development.
     • How do I decided which idea to commit to and get done?
     • I have an addiction to research — creating a sense of gravitas and authenticity and easter eggs.
     • I have an addiction to showing off — playing with language.
3. What things would you like to focus on in terms of developing your writing?
   • I know I have language and prose down. I know I have an ear for it.
   • STORY CRAFT -
     • Making sure my arcs hit resonance.
     • To get really comfortable riffing on arc/mech/prog.
     • Memorable characters that fit the mechanism.

Four Thousand Weeks

• The six hour blocs of meetings for Client A continues this week as I’m sitting in on all interviews for performance managers and media buyers. It’s an honor that my managerial and leadership experience, wisdom, and whatever is being tapped. It’s nice. But it’s also a lot more meetings back-to-back. Related to that was this week’s pursuit of a candidate, a dumb mistake, and the loss of getting said candidate to a competitor. I want to be angry, but that’s not professional, and surprisingly, I haven’t been. But I am vexed. Client B returned from a ton of travel and it was good reconnecting on our weekly calls.
• Middle one had a friend who had moved to California visit for the week and ended up being out a lot. Dinner plans ended up being slightly haphazard this week. Eldest got one university rejection and one acceptance. Youngest continues to waffle on what she wants to do for an extracurricular. I know she’s hanging on to the violin only because she’s waffling and that’s not what she really wants to do.
• But the most eventful story of this week was me rushing to work Black Friday (after said mistake above, and losing sleep over it), and then cutting my lip, just below the philtrum, and putting a cotton pad on it for over two hours before it finally stopped bleeding. My god there are a lot of blood vessels there aren’t there? So I rush in to handle multiple calls for Client A, video off on Zoom. It was this inconvenience that didn’t annoy me, so much as just got in the way – putting on a shirt one handed, driving to the office one handed, not being able to type because typing one handed is stupid.

Story Introspection

• Middle one put on Sakamoto Days (2025) on a night wife wasn’t home for dinner. Very entertaining. Charlie Brooker is back and the first episode was solid, but I think the criticism for Black Mirror the last few seasons that it’s no longer predictive so much as it’s reflective is accurate. Brooker had a sense of where things were going fourteen years ago and it was scary how many episodes of Black Mirror ended up in our reality, but reality since 2016 has just moved way too fast. We’re living in history and not just reading about it. I think it’s almost a mistake to do near future sci-fi at this point. You’re just pointing out things we easily accept now. I don’t know what to say to the boring dystopia we live in.
• Found a copy of Lafcadio Hearn’s Kwaidan (1904) at Western Sky Books on a whim. This was a book I saw at a bookshop in Tokyo in 2015 and kept on my wish list since, but never acted on. Got it for free too due to accumulated store points. Really good ghost stories that remind me of the television dramas I used to watch on TVB as a kid. It’s just got that vibe that only childhood memories can tap into.
• Not a lot of comments on comic books this week. Read my last issue of JSA, Batgirl, and Poison Ivy. I might keeping reading them on DCUI later. I don’t know. I think Batgirl is the one that I truly enjoyed but it’s just not want I want to shell out money for.

Archive of all EOW reports here