plasterboard falls
last week i connected with a novelist called jw manus [please check out their blog]. typically, it was the tag ‘zombie’ which led me to jaye’s blog – but i found myself staying to read the posts regarding the differences between standard press versus self publication.
i dabbled with creative writing a good many years back. a poem here, a short story there.. and even though i didnt mean to, i began to write a story. just few lines at first.. but it grew and grew until id been workin on it for several months. the story grew and it absorbed more time. the problem with doing something like this though, is that because i never meant to start it, i didnt know how to finish it. so i typed it up and showed it to a few people, i even read the first chapter at my creative writing group.
“oh my christopher, what a dark mind you have!” was the overwhelming reaction! indeed.
the general concensus was that while the story had some creative merit, it was impossibly dark. nobody would be willing to read a story like this. one suggestion to make it lighter was something along the lines of “it would be much more palatable if all the characters were dying from cancer.”
being the artist that i am, it was impossible to write without also drawing. i drew a fair amount of sketches, illustrations and even a few paintings based around the characters. this image below was my vision for a potential book cover to complement the story.
“the lost girls of plasterboard falls” [acrylic on canvas, finished in photoshop+painter. circa 2005]
the image should give a flavour of the story. grim huh? oh, and yeah – im afraid the entire thing is written in rhyme. looking back, im not convinced this is a good thing – but i can only assume i’d been reading tim burton’s oyster boy at the time.
so, i briefly considered self publishing [which is where my interest in jaye's posts comes in!]. however, i quickly realised that i didnt have the knowledge, skills, or finances to go down this route. alongside all of the sketches and character illustrations id been working on, i packaged my story away. and its been in that cardboard grave for over 5 years..
but maybe its time to dig out that old corpse and see how it looks in the cold light of the day?
“the lost girls of plasterboard falls” [detail]
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