A Predictable Calamity (DD4, Chapter One, Pages 29-33)

…in which the Captain acts like a stubborn old pill, and he pays for it.

- - - 

This week I've been preparing federal and provincial grant applications. I shouldn't complain about the process, because it's great that these opportunities even exist at all. So I will not complain. I will just say, whoof, it is a difficult task, especially for someone like me who insists on over-thinking everything. I worry that I miss a lot of forest-for-the-trees type stuff because of that.

If you've never applied for a grant before, this is the challenge: in a handful of words, I have to explain to a stranger what makes this project worth awarding several thousand dollars of free money. Even if I had an objective, birds-eye view of that reasoning (which I do not), I would still need to put it into words… except I do not know who my target audience is. Who am I writing for? How familiar are they with comics or graphic novels? What sort of preexisting notions do they have about comics, or about adventure stories, or about art in general? The Arts Council tells me they are "peers," but to what degree? Are they comics-makers? Do I outline the themes or leave the judge to interpret them on their own, based on my description? Do I affect bold confidence, insisting that this comic is desperately needed, and risk seeming like a blowhard? Or do I take the approach that I, myself, would most respect and say, "this is what I'm trying to do and here are my hopes for what it might achieve."

Because I am not trying to change the world, here, y'all. I am motivated by a desire to entertain, and to transport you, dear reader, for a short time. Someone on Twitter—a nurse, I think—was recently praising the great value of the movie You've Got Mail. After a long, difficult shift, there was nothing she looked forward to more than being transported by that film. I've seen people tweet similar things about BUBBLE recently, like "waiting for this weekend to crack into this book." It's a good, warm feeling, knowing you're making something that brings people joy, something that they're looking forward to in that way.

Beyond putting joy out into the world, I hope the work does two things for young readers. First, I hope to provide consolation to teenagers who might be starting to realize that the adults who run their world are not unimpeachable authority figures. They make mistakes, they run double standards, they have blind spots and weaknesses. This realization continues for me to this day, and I am old. It still surprises me every time I encounter someone—someone in a role that I would have looked up to as a kid—who makes it absolutely clear: I do not know what I'm doing and I'm making it up as I go. As Alexandra (Delilah) comes to the same conclusions, I hope that teen readers feel like, "oh thank goodness, it's not just me."

Second, as with all DD books, I want to trick young boys into reading a story about a girl and the things that are important to her. That's why it's an adventure story: because adventure stories were all I was interested in as a young reader (and still, I prize nothing more highly than a well-made adventure tale). My read on the general public is that boys read things with boys in them and girls read things with girls in them and that is how it is. Sure enough, among the small children in my life, it seems like the boys and the girls do not intermingle. That's disappointing. My hope is that some action and excitement will attract boys to this book, just as it would have done for me, and they'll overlook the protagonist's gender. Maybe, just maybe, they'll find themselves empathizing with a female character, and the world will become better by a little tiny margin.

A few weeks ago, I wrote out similar thoughts, thinking it would save me time now that the deadline is soon approaching. But when I read what I wrote and can't help second-guessing everything, so I'm writing it all again. I have a maximum total of 1,250 words to make my case, and of course I want to keep it short, out of respect for the judges' time. But the stakes are high. That's 1,000 words that could make a staggering difference in my financial year. I will submit a work-in-progress work sample, too, which I'm proud of and which I hope does most of the work, but still; it's hard not to over-analyze with all that financial assistance on the line.

The deadline is at the end of the month. My work sample is done, my budget and miscellaneous information is all entered. I'm just going to let my additional grant writing simmer a little bit before I send it all off.