Got my pro registration form via email yesterday and signed up today! It’s still seven months away but I’m already super excited for Con!
Category Archive: Writing
Jan 05
Nazi Zombies
Just finished working on a pitch for a story about Nazi created zombies run amok in two different eras, the waning days of WWII and today. Shipped it off to an artist friend of mine to start putting some concepts around so we can shop it to the various comic publishers. Yes, I know Nazi Zombies have been done before. I saw that movie too. But this one is different…
Jan 03
Short Story Writing
I am always happier when I am writing. Even if it is only a few hundred words at a time.
I have been working on my second novel. Been stuck at the 50k-ish point for a which and needed a break from brains and zombie hunters when I saw a call for submissions by Cliffhanger Books looking for super hero stories.
I’d planned to work on it over Xmas and New Year’s week but work interfered. I didn’t have as much time for edits as I wanted, but I still managed to pound out something. One of the themes in super hero stories I have always been interested in is “how do they handle their failures?”
The story I ended up submitting, The Hero of The City, is about exactly that, and how someone who still believes in heroes responds to that failure. Sounds more profound than it is. While I doubt it will end up in the anthology I wrote it for, it was fun to write. A New Year’s gift to myself. And I think the idea might make a good comic book one shot I can work on with one of my artist pals.
Jan 03
Final Issues! Telara Chronicles and Resident Evil
Resident Evil #6
It was a December to Dismember for me. The final, bloody issue of my Resident Evil series finally hit shelves, as did the spine tingling finalé of Telara Chronicles.
I actually started working on the Resident Evil book back in September of 2008, if you can believe it. First issue was released in March 2009 with art by Kevin Sharpe, who I really enjoyed working with. Starting with Issue 3, where the lives of the two main characters Holiday Sugarman and Mina Gere finally converged, Jheremy Raapack took over the artistic duties. I also really enjoyed working with him. The switch in art style took the book in a very different direction, but it kind of worked because the story moved from a sterile space station (Mina) and an Afghanistan like desert canyon (Holiday) to the steamy jungles of South America where zombies are running riot. Changing the artist reinforced the change in locales and the increasingly dire situation our heroes found themselves in. Now, more than two years later, the final issue is out. Going back and reading the whole series is almost like reading someone else’s work.
Telara Chronicles #4
Telara Chronicles was a very different experience. Instead of waiting, waiting, waiting, it was HURRY! HURRY! HURRY! Especially for story artist Pop Mhan, who I ABSOLUTELY LOVED collaborating with and is working on Ender’s Game now. The Zero issue for SDCC ’10 was on an amazingly short time table. And once we moved from the Zero issue to the mini-series, things didn’t let up. We (art, edit, color, letters) were literally getting things in at the last possible minute. But I have to hand it to the folks over at Wildstorm, they know their stuff and can work a deadline. My editor over there, Jim Chadwick, is a peach. Hard working dude who made every step of the process as easy as it possibly could be. Of course, I can’t talk about Telara Chronicles without mentioning my dear friend Joel Gomez, who did the back up stories. We have been trying to find a project to work together on for evar! Finally did and he really did an awesome job.
The trade edition of Telara Chronicles will be out soon as well, bundling all 5 issues (Zero through 4) into a single book. Looking forward to that. But the edition I am most looking forward to will be included in the RIFT Collector’s Edition game box. It is a hardback that also includes all five issues. But it’s a hardback. Come on. You know that’s kinda cool.
So 2010 was a good year for me and comic books. Resident Evil. Telara Chronicles. And I also did a three part story for Square-Enix’ Nier game. I’m hoping 2011 will be even better.
Oct 28
Waiting with baited breath for Scrivener 2.0
How often do you lust for software? Apple’s latest piece of finely crafted industrial design, sure. A 1975 corvette, natch. But software?
If you’ve used Literature & Latte’s Scrivener 1.0, then yes, you too would be lusting for the latest version of the app that is officially going on sale next week. The good news is that for those that just can’t wait, there is a preview version available that you can test drive today.
I’ve written before about Scrivener and how much I enjoy working with it. All the great features are still there, like a completely user driven hierarchy of written content and a file format that acts as a repository for everything in your writing project, but V2 fixes the few quibbles I had with the app, like the ability to look at two documents at the same time and more flexibility in arranging your content in non-linear views.
I used to review software for a living. I could spend another thousand words extolling the virtues of this app, but all you really need to know is that if you are a writer, of any kind, you owe it to yourself to at least try this app. It has a free trial, so all you’re spending is a little time.
I will leave you with this – every single person I’ve ever show Scrivener to has bought it. One writer friend even bought a mac laptop just so she could use it.
Ricardo Sanchez
