WIP Wednesday! - Amelia from above ✏️

Did anyone catch The Sandman on Netflix? 

'Catch', lol?? Who 'catches' a TV show these days? You just watch whatever whenever!

Anyway, it was really good and one episode in particular resonated with me. It was about a novelist who keeps reassuring his publishers that he's nearly finished his second book, when in fact he's barely started, despite having taken a huge commission, and is sinking in a whirlpool of procrastination. Growing desperate, he buys Calliope, the Muse of Poetry, from another writer, and locks her up in his bedroom, forcing her to give him inspiration.

Spoiler alert: he writes his book and it's a triumph, but he's then punished by the Sandman (who used to be Calliope's boyfriend - oops!) with limitless story ideas. So many that he can't stop blurting them out at random, and ends up covering a wall in blood-written notes, so that he doesn't forget any. Of course, the irony is that with all these ideas he can't actually write anything, because his mind  is constantly tossed between them, drowning in an ocean of inspiration.

Well, this rang true for me! Not the part about having a Greek goddess in the wardrobe, alas, but the flitting. Recently I seem to have spent so much time jotting down an idea and/or starting a pic, full of excitement. Then I'll take a break, see something—in real life or on YouTube—and a new ideal will sprout, supplanting the previous one, and I'll feel compelled to work on it. And then it happens again, and so on.

So my New Year's Resolution—in fact, let's just make it a "New Resolution" so that it can start now, is this: Less flitting; more focus. 

We'll see how that goes! 😅

What I worked on this week

• 👩‍🎓 Amelia at university
  The overhead pic with this post, in case you can't tell, is Amelia. If you're new to my stories, she's the main antagonist in The Perfect Dress.
  
  But the pic is from a short story that will be set 6 months before the start of that one, and is about Amelia's time at university. Exposed for the first time to such quaint Northern delights as the stottie and the sausage roll, our upper-class equestrian is starting to put on a scandalous layer of pudge.
  
  I drafted scene or two of this story a couple of years ago (see the above about 'flitting') along with several pics, and have recently returned to it. I won't say too much, only that the story centres around a rivalry, though perhaps not the type you might expect.
  
  It'll be either and illustrated story or comic, or possibly a bit of both. Working on it has been a really fun and nostalgic exercise for me, as Amelia went to Newcastle Uni, as did your humble servant! So for once I'm actually writing about things I have some experience and knowledge of, lol.
  
  As for the pic itself... Here we have Amelia, a touch hungover, on her way to a café to meet the only person in the world she truly trusts: her childhood friend Philip, who's also become her personal private investigator. Judging by the attire and the tummy, I'd say it was around April or May.
  
  As with previous WIPs, the final pic will be from a different angle, though I like this one, and am keen to use it in future pics too.
  
  
• 🏍️ Hold on tight
  Really random one, this! The other pic with this post a very rough concept for a new and as yet unnamed character, who will feature in a fairly short comic strip inspired by and in the style of the awesome Magmaman! (Check out his DeviantArt and Patreon!)
  
  The character came to me after watching, totally at random, a YouTube video of the Sturgis Motorcycle rally in Deadwood. Well, not totally at random. YouTube recommended it to me, almost certainly because it features a number of delightfully soft and feisty young ladies in bikinis.
  
  The story came out of nowhere. It's only in the very early conceptual stages, short, and will be told in a more direct and intimate style than is usual for me.
  
  
• 🍗 Take these away from me!
  The follow up to I've got to stop eating these, wherein two exceedingly greedy young ladies, Kari and Yaz, are involved (without knowing it themselves) in a festive eating contest, thanks to a bet between their feeding-inclined other halves.
  
  This—alongside a commission and a picture for our competition winner—will be my main focus in the weeks leading up to Christmas, and will probably be released in two parts.
  
  
• 🍽️ The lady wot lunched a little too much I know, I know... it's taking longer than the bloody Winds of Winter! But I am working hard on Chapter 8. I know how the current arc of the story will end for Gemma, Holly and Abby. I'm just struggling to draw the threads together. But I will get there!
  
  

What's been inspiring me?

• The Mangaman's brilliant comics - As mentioned above, especially this one, which is based on You Made Her So Fat, by ChubbaDubDub.
  
• Show Your Work - Fantastic little book about creativity by Austin Kleon.
  
• A Christmas Carol - It occurred to be that I hadn't read this. Big fan of Dickens: his perfect balance of the believable and the humorously absurd, and of course his character descriptions and dialogue, which always provide great inspiration for my own writing. Can't help but feel a slightly better person after reading his books, too.

Phew! That was a long one! Sorry to ramble. I hope you enjoyed the pics and the update. And once again, thank you all so, so much for your support. I've said it before, but it's worth saying again: it is incredibly humbling and inspiring to know that people are willing and generous enough to pay to help me do something I love. 

On a more practical note, your support has enabled me to buy some new hardware this year - including a better graphics card and a Wacom tablet - both of which have dramatically improved my scope and ability to make better quality images and at a faster rate, so thank you so much! 🙏 

Thoughts and feedback (good or bad, but preferably not ugly) are, as always, very welcome. 😊