Post-Traumatic Tech Disorder

“You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?'”
–George Bernard Shaw

The smell of beer and party sweat still lingered in the air of that old dayroom. The chill morning air and the glimmer of sunrise danced through the open window–both passing by with barely an acknowledgment from me. Focused. Determined. I poured myself into my work. Well, “play” would actually be a better term for it, and therapy would be a close second. I pressed on and didn’t even notice when the Chief entered the room.

He settled his massive frame into a chair near the television and propped his head back against the wall. A sigh spilled forth from his huge lungs. I glanced up from my work as he rolled his eyes over in my direction. A few more weeks until he retired, and you could see the change creeping into his body…and drowning his spirit.

“Son, do you have a dream?”

A simple question. I had a small window of opportunity coming up soon–a second chance at one of my dreams. A few weeks from now would be a test of strength, speed and endurance that stood between me and the career I longed for. I peeked over at the crutches propped up against the wall beside me. Then I glanced to the swollen, blue-green tinted flesh that used to be a perfectly good ankle. I could feel how trampled my hopes were deep inside. I hung my head and just let the feelings overwhelm me for a moment.

But something grabbed hold of my hope and pulled it to safety. My work…my play…my therapy. On my lap sat a notebook filled with scribbles and blurbs of text. I flipped through it to see character descriptions, story ideas, sketches, poems, song lyrics, one-liners, memorable bits of dialogue I’d heard…and more. It was all right there, and it was something I’d always gone to for fun and to escape the stress of the day. I remembered telling campfire stories to my friends as a kid. I cherished a few memories of sitting with my friends and putting together our own comic book stories. I thought back about how eager I always was to do writing assignments in school. I recalled the day I was forced into making some kind of career decision and giving up on struggling down the path of writing. But I never really gave it up, did I?

I looked over to the Chief. “Yeah, I have a dream.”

“Good. Don’t ever let it die. See it through and don’t be one of those guys looking back on their lives and wondering what the hell happened to all their dreams.”

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You’re a dreamer. You know it, and I know it. You have to be…it’s part of the job. Whether you dream up stories, envision the shapes and lines of exotic locales and people, walk through all the lights and shadows of a scene, or dance through color schemes in your mind, you bring to life dreams on a regular basis. You probably also dream of making a career out of this, but that can be a struggle most of the time.

Any number of obstacles can stand in your way, but you can reach your goal…as long as you don’t let your dream die. If you dream of creating entertaining stories, it needs to consume you and be the motivating factor to carry you through the troublesome times. But some people hold back on their dreams. Maybe they’re embarrassed by what they enjoy working on–afraid of what others might think. Maybe the fear turns another way, and they constantly wonder if they’re good enough. Maybe they can’t deal with rejection or criticism or all the work involved with promoting themselves and their work. Maybe…just maybe…they don’t really want it at all, and they’re doing it just because they think it would be neat or cool. Writers, do you sit there at a restaurant having dinner with family or friends and suddenly turn a misheard phrase into some crazy story about Viking fish? And do you immediately share it with the people around it or do you hide it? Artists, do you find yourself compelled to sketch all the time? Do you find yourself filling sketchbooks, book margins, napkins, old bill envelopes, walls, and anything that could pass for a writing surface with line after line whenever you don’t have to be working on something else?

Do you hold onto your dream to create comics because you love to create comics…or do you hold onto the dream thinking you’ll get a little prestige one day if you keep at it? Search deep down inside yourself and find out what you really want to do…and then do it! The only thing stopping you is…you. If the dream consumes you, you’ll practice and train and hone your abilities. You’ll keep at it day after day no matter what…because you love to do it. Find your dream…and don’t ever let it die.

Well, we had that big article on portfolios for artists, so let’s take a moment to discuss a technique for writers. I call this my “conversational” portfolio technique because it’s designed to enhance a writer’s discussions with fans, editors, other creators, passersby, kittens, sushi, or whatever else they feel like talking to at the time. It is NOT a portfolio designed to be brought up to someone to request an analysis of your writing. It is just a sampling of your published or finished work.

If you don’t have any kind of finished work…get some! Volunteer to write some portfolio stories for some artists in exchange for copies of the artwork to letter and show off to editors (the “I’ll be a walking advertisement for you” technique), collaborate with an artist to help bring his or her stories to life (the “I’ll help you if you’ll let me ride your coattails” technique), or just hire someone to pencil some pages from your own stories (the “I’m light-headed from my ramen noodle diet and constant plasma donations” technique). There are a lot more options than that out there–you’re a writer…just be creative and have some fun.

Now, you have some artwork to put into your portfolio. What else can you add to it? Let’s see…I’m thinking of something… it’s on the tip of my tongue now… oh yeah, writing! Articles, reviews, flash fiction, tutorials, interviews, short scenes from screenplays, excerpts from a novel. The key is to make sure the writing is something simple, creative, and concise enough for them to digest in a quick glance. Or it could be something that you can just point them to for reading at a later time.

“Here’s a scene from my screenplay, I have the rest of it available at my website.”

“I wrote an article on that very subject. Here’s a sample of one of my articles from my column at the so-and-so website. I’d be happy to email you a link to the article after the convention.”

For my online articles, I like to print out a copy from the actual website to show off the site logo (which also gives the person glancing through it a feel for all the different places you’ve dealt with in the past). If you don’t have any articles or reviews or anything like that out there… just write some up! Find some place looking for some help and jump on in, or just write up some more content for your website (which makes a good marketing tool for your work anyways).

Artwork and samples of your writing… anything else? I threw in copies of letters from screenwriting contests I entered to show where my writing placed in the competitions. If you have similar writing accomplishments, throw them in the stack (we’ll sort it all out later). You can also put together a list of quotes from reviews of your work. You can write up a page with a listing of your published credits. You could toss a page in there with nothing more than “Damn you, four-layer chocolate cheesecakes! Damn you and your accursed, tasty calories!” in super-large, bold font. Well, you should find your own phrase for that… but just think of a quick attention-getter that causes them to pause and think about the portfolio for a second (and maybe get a good chuckle out of them).

We have some material and we’re ready to jam on that portfolio now. The biggest thing to remember here is that you want a single item that you can carry around easily with you and show off samples anytime anyone asks about them (or refer to at opportune moments in a conversation). For my portfolio, I use a single three-ring binder with plastic sheet protectors to hold the pages (and to ward off coke, queso, and chocolate).

As you work out the placement of your portfolio pieces, keep in mind a very basic principle used in your craft… hook them from the beginning, keep them moving forward, and then finish big. Since this is for comic book work, you should start right off with comic book work. Use some sample pages from one of your finished stories or a short story and make sure it’s something that will grab the viewers attention right away. Continue with the comic pages and throw in some of your other writing here and there. Here’s a sample of what my binder looks like:

Outside of binder: Color cover by Ryan Ottley from my Arazel & Xarenia submission
… 10 pages from Jim Valentino’s Task Force 1
… 10 pages from the Brat-halla webcomic
… a quick mock interview–the Devil interviewing me as we barter for my soul
… 5 pages from the published Dungeon Bears story
… 5 pages from the published Bob the Battleship story
… a Breaking Out! article
… 5 pages from Spook’d (webcomic and published pieces)
… letter from the Nicholl Fellowship stating that my Arazel & Xarenia screenplay placed in the top 6%
… letter from the Austin Film Festival stating my screenplay made it to the quarterfinals
… opening pages of my screenplay
… published Arazel & Xarenia comic short stories

And that’s all I take around with me. I use the binder to refer to my works during a conversation. It also helps when I’m talking with someone that’s familiar with a project I’ve contributed to, so I can easily point out what I worked on. In essence, it’s a tool to help out when you meet new people and also provides a way to promote yourself and your work. You’ll still need to be proficient in public speaking to make an impression, but you’ll at least have a visual aid to give people you meet an extra little something to remember you by. “Oh yeah, you’re that parody Care Bears guy!”