Friday 25 June 2010

Last week of college madness

This week has been full of celebrations and pubs for Kathryn and I. We've both officially found out that we both received a triple Distinction and I know I'm over the moon about it and I'm sure Kathryn is too! :D We then went out to the pub last night (which meant I didn't sleep much, woke up at 6 and then later fell asleep on the sofa haha!) and I think it's about safe to say that a certain few of us got just a little bit drunk! :P

Course, not mentioning any names what so ever! (*coughs* Kathryn!).

We both had a brilliant time though! :D And I wouldn't have changed last night at all!

I think our "media years" as we've sometimes referred to college will always be quite special to this project as it's where we spent the majority of the time making it! The header you see above, was drawn in the LRC, the script was practically written (well the first one in my little notebook) whenever I was in a tutor lesson and had nothing to do (or just a general lesson :P).

Ahhh good old college!

I'm knackered, so I'm afraid there's not much else to say this week! I did start a bit more of V2 again after I eventually managed to find it, and stopped sulking! And I've nearly finished editing the V1 script so the drawing can commence! :D

Over all, GREAT WEEEK! :D

Friday 18 June 2010

50th blog post

50?! SINCE WHEN DID I MANAGE THAT?!

Anyway!

So this week Kathryn is in Ireland which means there hasn't been any development together on this comic. Whether she's done any drawings for Heartstones whilst being over there I have no idea, but I have began to write volume two, at least I did until I realized it didn't save and when I went back to do more was:

"Page One:

Title Page."

I was gutted, literally gutted.

I did cheer myself up by writing a bit of a synopsis for volume two, although I haven't had the heart to go back and write more of the script because (silly as it sounds) I'm mourning the loss of the old one.

Any writer who loses a bit of work finds it very irritating, and me being irritated means I sulk for a day and a half until I get back into writing the bit that was lost, again!

I will write it again when I've finished updating this though. :) Before I lost the said first bit of volume two, it was getting very exciting and I've managed to piece together what happens in the opening moments.

In a way, they're very critical (because of what happens in the end of V1!) and I need to give V2 the beginning it deserves because otherwise I'm not going to be happy with it. It's the same for the ending (the middle is the easy bit!), what happens at the end of V2 needs to live up to what I want it to be, because the characters and story deserve it.

Jack, Robert and Jane story

AN: Kathryn gave me a prompt of "sad violin" or something along those lines a few weeks ago, and this is what came from it. It is part of the universe, but it's nothing that's crucial to the story line (although it does have a bit of a foreshadow in it!) So you can read it on it's own without any of Heartstones being spoiled! :)

If you want to know what Robert and Jane look as (as I haven't actually described them, but then I didn't need to really did I? :P) click here.

*loves little boy Jack*

Enjoy!

*****

The crescendo of the haunting, dramatic and sad violin music reverberating up through the theatres high ceiling, allowing the final notes to carry on a little longer before they disappeared, leaving the audience silent from the impact of the tune.

Robert chuckled to himself as the five year old Jack wriggled impatiently in his knee. Jack had only been silent during the more dramatics moments of the music, but staying silent and still for more than five minutes just didn't work for him. His games were far too important and much more interesting than sitting in a theatre, listening to music that made everyone cry for reasons Jack didn't understand.

“Is that the end Daddy?”

“Almost...now shhh.”

Robert smirked as he heard a small huff of impatience coming from his son and wrapped his arms around him gently. Jack soon had hold of his fingers and began to play a silent game with them as the music started up again. Robert didn't know what the game was, only that Jack needed his fingers to play it. Robert didn't mind though, now Robert had turned into a lively boisterous little boy Robert didn't get a chance to just hold him on his knee closely like this.

He had to let go instead.

By the time the concert had finished Jack had fallen asleep on Roberts knee. The applause that erupted at the end of the show being the liveliest moment within the theatre, yet Jack was so tired from boredom that he'd fallen asleep soon after he'd played with Roberts fingers.

Robert and Jane walked back through the city, happily discussing their thoughts on the concert. Jane had wanted to see this particular violinist since she'd been a teenager. So when Robert found out they were playing in the town they lived in, he'd surprised her with tickets.

Jacks head leant against Roberts shoulder as he continued, his arms gently tucked up against Roberts chest. He roused briefly as a the chilly winter wind picked up and blew over their faces, but he'd soon dropped off back to sleep by the time they reached their street. And he was soon snuggled up amongst his toys in his bed when they got home.

Jane could tell that Jack was going to be asleep until morning and so persuaded Robert to put Jack to bed when they got home.

Robert smiled when he came back downstairs. He watched silently as Jane read a newspaper on the sofa, happily sipping at the wine she'd poured herself. He sat down next to her and gently kissed her shoulder instinctively.

“Anything interesting today?”

“Just an article about that illness that has doctors confused. Says there's been another death. But...”

Jane put the newspaper down cuddling into his side.

“You're much more interesting.”

They smiled at each other lovingly.

When Jack awoke early the next morning, he didn't question why his parents had fallen asleep on the sofa the night before.

Instead, he quite happily played with his toys.

Friday 11 June 2010

First off, I'd just like to say that I loved Kathryns update last week when I was away! And thankyou for all the lovely little compliments you gave me. I know sometimes you worry if you don't do my writing justice, but I'm the opposite and worry about whether my writing does your art justice! :P

This week, Kathryn and I have been FINISHING at college (and that's FE college for those of you outside the UK, we're not at uni yet) and Kathryn I think has officially finished all of her work. So congrats to her! I've still got a little bit to go but I suspect that will be finished on monday/over the weekend.

Then I'm finished too.

It feels very weird I can tell you. Although sometimes I think we get distracted by other things about college, when I thought about it in more detail this is everything we've been working for over the last two years. We've been trying to get a qualification that'll get us into university.

And we've almost, very, very, nearly done that :D

Heartstones was a project that was thought of whilst I was at this college and soon became a topic that Kathryn and I discussed for hours in class as we did our work. If anything, I'll look back on this when it's all finished very fondly and I'm sure the words “college” and “heartstones” will be linked in small ways.

I still remember very fondly the day she asked me to do a comic with her, oh yes it wasn't my idea! :P It was all Kathryn!

We were standing in the LRC (or library in other words but for some reason it's called the Learning Resource Center at our college!) during one of the breaks and she just suddenly said "would you like to do a comic of one of your fanfictions with me?"

Of course I said yes, immediately from what I remember.

A few days later she brought in a wolverine comic that had a script example inside it at the back, as I hadn't really been into reading comics yet alone writing one! I can remember looking at it very carefully during that lesson and grabbing my notebook to have ago at writing the doctor who comic.

That then grew into the first comic project of ours and I was penning Doctor Who comics for weeks, everywhere I went in these little notebooks I carried around with me. Which then finished two months later, but I couldn't let this kind of storytelling go after that and we decided to start our very own, original webcomic. And on Boxing Day 2008 I came up with this comic and now have a website, plus millions of words in the script and a lovely artist (and best friend :D) who draws brilliant pictures very much like the one below!



This is a lovely drawing of Jack and Eliza dancing that Kathryn's done this week. I really love it!

Wednesday 2 June 2010

The Writers Journey

Yes I know, two days early! I'm away on friday, so Kathryns updating the website this week (and I can't wait to see what! I'm rather excited! :D I love surprises) and because of that, I'm updating early because I wanted to do a blog and then also she has something else to play with on the day! :P

Those of you in the UK will probably be aware that it's the half term holidays this week. This means I've had so much more time to sit back and read, write and doodle. Because, I've done all three of those! :P I've also had enough time to recuperate from college work which has had me more exhausted. I don't quite understand why I feel more exhaustead than I do when I'm actually working at college, but never mind!

As I stated a moment ago I've been doing a lot of reading this week. And one book I managed to get a copy of was The Writers Journey by Chirstopher Vogler, which of course is all about the similarities in the Hero's Journey theory that's explored through the book by Joseph Campbell "A Hero with a Thousand Faces".

The theory is (and do bear in mind I'm still getting my head round it, so if it's wrong then sorry!) about how myths take on a certain structure within the story telling and and the said structure is followed out through many of the different myths that are read everywhere, and of course this is now incorporated into stories from books, films, comics/any kind of story you can possibly name in this day and age.

This useful little diagram is all about the structure I'm on about and shows the different (not all of the ones as the one in the book but it's a good example anyway) parts of the storyline that the theory is saying is common in many different myths and modern stories. It's also very adament to say that it's NOT rule of storytelling, just that it's a simple structure that's common within a lot of different stories.



In my opinion, this diagram (and the one in the book, because that's not the one in the book but it gets the point over) made complete sense and now whenever I look at stories I can't help but see the structure of it there, whether it's intentional or not!

Which brings me onto Heartstones. I decided to experiment and work out if my own story was following a similar structure, and my findings were that, in a very simple way of saying it:

IT DID!

And annoyingly, I can't say anything more about the storyline because it would ruin everything for people who haven't read the script. :P

But I do find this interesting because I've unconsciously told my story in a similar way to what this theory is talking about, obviously my story isn't going to be exactly the same, as I say it's just a similar story sturcture.

What's going across my head now is thw question of why I've unconciously done that?

Is it the films and books I religously watched as a young child? Or is it me attempting to make something similar to the stories I love now?

I can't answer, I haven't found the answer just yet.

The book also talks about the idea of the hero going on this journey within the stucture I'm talking about. So I've been debating who the actual “hero” in Heartstones would be. It was a long debate inside my head, there were two characters that were the obvious candidates for the role.

Who did I decide?

You'll have to wait and see. :)