Getting Things Written
It's not unusual for me to be writing four or five different projects at once, with more on the horizon. Keeping track of each job's progress, and organising my time so I can give each one the attention it needs, is somewhat of an administrative minefield.
One of the ways I've made this process easier for myself is by implementing a modified form of the Getting Things Done system. A lot of people asked how I'd done this, and so in mid-2007 I wrote a piece called Getting Things Written to explain and illustrate. I expected maybe a few dozen people to bother reading it.
To my surprise, it was absurdly popular. Within six months the page had racked up almost 100,000 views. It has long since passed that milestone, and is still viewed hundreds of times every week. Clearly, there are more disorganised writers out there than anyone suspected!
The Process
The most frequently-asked question I hear from aspiring writers is always some variation of “How do you turn an idea into a story?” It's a perfectly understandable question, but the truth is there are no shortcuts, and no magic bullet — what works for me won't necessarily work for anyone else.
Nevertheless, my process is the result of many years spent experimenting with different methods, until finally settling on how I work today. So I've written it all out, step by step. Hopefully there's something in there others might find useful.
Scrivening Comics
It's no secret I'm a big fan of Scrivener, the all-in-one writing application. I evangelise it to my friends and colleagues, and often recommend it to random people online. It's a great app, with an admirable philosophy, that I believe heralds the future of writing applications... and also happens to be a perfect solution for writing comics.
But it's complicated. Or rather, it looks complicated, and so most folks give up before they even finish the tutorial. Assuming they actually watch the tutorial, that is.
So this piece attempts to tackle that problem by demonstrating, step-by-step, how I use Scrivener to write comics — and why I would never willingly go back to a linear word processor like Word.
Talks & Interviews
You may also find some of my talks and interviews of interest, as I often get drawn into the subject of craft and process; check the Interviews and Appearances categories of the work journal for write-ups and links.
