In Sixty Minutes

[rowyn]

I was looking at koogrr's 24-hour comic again a few days ago. I've never done something like that, though I've considered it. I'm have the week after next off from work, and (for once) I'm not planning to go anywhere during it.

So I've got the time to do something like a 24-hour comic, and mess up my sleep cycle at a time when it won't matter.

I'm not sure I want to do a 24-hour comic. I mentioned the "novel in a weekend" project that I've heard of other people doing (one quote on that: "A novel in a weekend isn't writing. It's typing.") Koogrr suggested I could do a 24-hour novel: one chapter every hour, 24-chapters. That's got a certain appeal, except that even pushing to the limit I don't think I could write more than 1,000 words in an hour. And 24,000 words isn't even a novelette. On the other hand, I might be able to do a NaNoWriMo novel (50,000 words, which is still more novella than novel) in a Friday-afternoon-to-midnight-Sunday time period. (55 hours or so.) Umm. Well, probably not, but I could give it a try.

Still, the 24-hour comic has some appeal, even if my art is kinda crappy when I spend time and effort on it, never mind when I'm rushing for a deadline. So last night, I tried one of Koogrr's "practice runs": see how much I could get done in an hour.



I was surprised that I managed to get it done on the first try. The whole page scripted, drawn, and inked in just under an hour -- 58.5 minutes, i think. I messed up on the panel layout, which annoys me. Inking seems like such a huge waste of time to me, because I'm so bad at it anyway. But it does make the page scan better.

I did cheat a little for this one: I came up with the concept while taking a shower, just before I started. It's hard for me not to think about what I'm going to do when I want to start something creative. Next time I try the one-hour page, I'm going to try to start the timer and then come up with something to write. That'll be tougher. I'm not sure how well my muse works when the clock is ticking.

Comments

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Whew. Well, all the more the challenge, I guess. =P Best of luck, whatever you decide to work on!

[koogrr.livejournal.com]

The other thing is, if you start with nothing and then finish, you have this incredible, unshatterable, "I can do anything" feeling. As Rowyn said, if you start with a project you've had in pieces, like if I drew Sunset's story, well I've been thinking about Sunset for 10 years. All I'd really be able to say is "I thought about her for 10 years, then did this in one day" which doesn't seem quite as much the accomplishment as "There was me, some paper, them BAM! This happened, one day, start to finish. From zero to wow!"