ASSEMBLE!

So, I'm taking a publishing class, and on Tuesday we have to submit our first book proposal.

To me, this means taking all my crazy ideas and choosing which one I think someone is most likely to pay me for.

Crap.

I'm going to need your help once more, gentle reader. For you non-blogger-account-havers (most of you that read this, I believe) I would really appreciate some form of feedback because this is driving me crazy.

These are all the books I want to write, keeping in mind that ideas look really STUPID when you write them out like this.

1.) Gaiman/Adamsesque supernatural adventure story about a completely normal boy who gets commissioned by a flamboyant Englishman to deliver packages to supernatural people like old ladies who have learned how to stop time by keeping lots of cats or undergound gnomes who operate traffic lights. Later on he'd travel to other planes and encounter his alternate reality self who ended up becoming evil because on his first day of work he decided not to roll his sleeves.
(examples: http://immaculatechronicles.blogspot.com/search/label/Justin)
Think a more lighthearted American Gods, or a less spacey Hitchiker's Guide.

2.) A supernatural horror adventure about a guy whose brother dies mysteriously. When he investigates the brother's room he finds lots of paranormal books and clues and attempts to discover what happened. When the body is found missing he has to travel into the seedy and ghostly underworld, with some allies he picks up: Burn, who burns things, Sleep, who makes things sleep, and Ishmael, a polite but mostly faceless ghastly thing that everyone seems to fear. Think Yu Yu Hakusho and a British mob movie combined (?????????)

3.) Seven Songs for the End of the World: Seven stories, each taking place on a different day as the world ends. Each would feature a different character coping with their lives and situations as shit goes down. The first day is mass histeria, the second is horrible disease, the third is war breaking out; the first chapter would be about people in general, second about a doctor trying to cope, third about a soldier trying to not die and so on. It would end roughly the way this does: http://immaculatechronicles.blogspot.com/2008/12/day-seven.html
Except, you know, spread out and expanded on a whole lot because it's 1/7th of the book.

4.) Similar to #1, a normal boy starts to work at a teashop where it turns out is an interdimensional tea shop afterhours, where all manner of beast and god come to have tea. Hijinks ensue.

5.) Dystopian future city in which classes are separated by technology and giant walls. A poor young man finds a bloody prostitute lying in an alley, and is inexorably drawn to her. Turns out she and her boss are not getting along, because she's trying to leave the city. The problem with this is that the world has supposedly ended and this is the only city left. He goes with her, and tries to flee a surprisingly bitter pimp and eventually the military as they break into the posh and sterile first sector, picking up a dirty hippie who thinks the world is talking to him and a rebellious would-be revolutionary who thinks the government is lying and that there is a whole world outside.
Example: http://www.sheezyart.com/view/1110362/
Think Children of Men but with more psychic hookers.

I KNOW I had more. I'll add any if I think of them. All but 3 and 4 I've already started in some capacity, but these are the ideas I think have the most potential.

Any input would be greatly appreciated. The truth is I need to start concentrating on one work to try and get published and this class is going to kick my ass into high gear. I just have no idea what to do.

Immortal Jellyfish, or The End of Days

Okay, so I just read about this Jellyfish called the Turritopsis Nutricula.

This thing lays its eggs, and then it reverts back into a polyp and starts its life cycle over again.

It becomes a child and then regrows up. Again and again. Forever.

The goddamn thing is immortal.

Hang up your coats, turn off the lights, this is how the world ends. Not with a bang, but with an ever-expanding master race of immortal jellyfish that are going to kill every single one of us.

I Had a Dream Last Night

That I made a blog post. It was a couple of paragraphs and I remember thinking that it was clever and well-worded.

Actually, I tend to have immaculate wording in my dreams, as well as in that in-between where you're still awake but your mind is dreaming and you're not controlling it anymore. I call it Ultimate Writing State because I come up with amazing phrases and ideas I'll never remember to get down. I also have a tendency of making epic heartfelt speeches in dreams. Like, heart-wrenching Oscar-worthy stuff. I usually know I'm dreaming in dreams so I get to feel distantly proud of myself as I do this.

Quick note, I once had a dream in which I gave a rousing speech to a racist and Snoop Dogg then attempted to solicit me for sex. Completely true.

The point is, I came up with a great blog post but I no longer remember what it was about.

I should write more.

Oh Hey Blog, How's It?

The last few weeks have been a dizzying flurry of alternating working and creativity. I have worked, with the exception of something like six, every day since coming back from school, and it has recently been pointed out to me that this has left me a bitter husk of a human whose grim wittiness belies the extent to which my spirit has been sapped.

I'm not going to complain about work because that would be trite and ungrateful in a country where people are struggling to get by. It is nice to know I will only be working three days a week again after tomorrow, however.

I have been doing a lot of creative things. I have spent, all told, about twenty to thirty hours making a dungeon for an online video game, from scratch. No more than thirty people are likely to see it, which makes it odd that I have committed so much to it. Of course, these thirty people are some of my best friends so I guess it balances out.
Shall I post some screenshots?

























The game I'm making these levels for has a level editor but I'm rubbish with it, so in a fit of madness and bravery I decided to draw my own levels. I am, by no stretch of the imagination, an accomplished GFXer, that is I have no idea how to correctly do pixel art (I "cheated," as pixel artists would say, by using a tablet). I draw all the walls, crystals, everything; the glow effect is preexisting. Some of it looks amazing, some of it looks horrible, but it's taken a horribly long time and it's more than I ever thought I'd do. I could never make a career out of this but it was definitely an experience.

I have also been working on Sterile, a manga-style comic I've drawn on and off since high school. Every time I start it up I realize how much my drawing has improved, and I do love telling stories in the shounen style. It's simplistic and predictable but so much fun. I was doing everything digitally, but ordered some manga paper and markers and have done two pages on that so far. The only issue with that is that the pages are 11x17 (so that the lines will be thinner and smoother when reduced to viewing resolution) and my scanner is not that big. Gotta get a new one, I guess. Definitely gonna be my new medium if I can get it on the internetz, I think it looks really great so far.

I am not going to link it here, but I'll gladly give it to you if you ask me for it.

So I go to work every night, come home, and stay up until five drawing cave walls and silly mangas, and all this time I have not written a damn thing. I have two stories, two very good stories, that I have probably written out in my head a thousand times, and I wont just sit down and write them. I previously mentioned that I have a rebellious streak that manifests in stupid ways, this goes for my masochistic side as well. If I just sat down and write I'd be goddamn famous.

Instead, I make internet stuff for my friends. I guess it's not so bad; eventually I may not have the time to do this. Might as well enjoy it while I can.

I go back to school in less forty eight hours and I could not be more happy. I've rather grown fond of my life at school, even if people continue to tell me I'm doing it wrong. Maybe I'll try to make friends before the last month of school this semester. If I feel like it.

I read a book called The 47th Samurai this week. For a person who often feels (and has been told) that he was born in the wrong era, it was an unequivocally pleasant read. It also inspired me to read the Hagakure again, which always puts me at peace.

Good god I'm the biggest nerd ever.