This Brain is Closed, Please Try Next Brain

Comic book writing is not my only current job. Nor is it my main occupation. I'm a stay-at-home father first, and everything else second and third.

In general being a house-bound father does leave me plenty of time for writing stories, or at least day day-dreaming about them. However, the last few months have been some of the least productive of my life.

The reason I've been struggling with writing is because I've been struggling to do anything at all. We have a new baby in the house, and he is wonderful, but he does make sleep a rare commodity. So writing has been limited to this blog and Straitjacket Ninja. The blog because it motivates me to write everyday no matter how brain-dead I'm feeling, and the nutty ninja because he is easy to write.

There's a host of other stories queuing up in my head, but they can wait since they require development, which requires active thought. Straitjacket Ninja is easy to write because he's clear in my head. He's familiar and fun. An old friend. He's been bouncing around in my head for years.

I have to admit that when Simon suggested reviving the looney lunkhead I was worried I would quickly run out of ideas. However, the realization that the stories should focus more on the people SN interacts with than on his straitjacketed self means the ideas just keep flowing.

There is no pressure on me to write SN scripts. Simon has other work to draw. We don't have a publisher for it yet. The scripts that exist at the moment may never see the light of day. But it's all practice. It's keeping me believing that I'm a writer during a time where I'm not even sure I'm human most mornings. So even if Straitjacket Ninja never makes it he is still really important to me. The insanely constrained one is keeping me sane at the moment.