The Red Case

 In my last post I mentioned about my new obsession; creative writing. It's not really that new. Well, the writing bit may be, but my passion in life is story telling. It always has been. Over the last couple of years I've put a lot into that particular area of my creativity. Running workshops and events, for sketchers, that involve building stories.

One of those stories was called The Red Case.

 And, I've had this idea, born out of that story, for making a little case full of writing prompts (I just didn't know that they were called prompts back then. I do now, that I've been on a creative writing course) for a long long time.

 On Saturday I was at Sheffield Zine Fest peddling my wares. As always I need to have a deadline to make any of my ideas come to fruition. You know how it is, right? So I spent the days leading up to it building a production line of little red cases.

 And, after lots of drawing, cutting, printing, gluing and packing, here they are.

 Little handmade red cases, each containing eight handmade illustrated cards all with characters on the other side (I can't show you them as it'll make your stories less spontaneous), and a little handwritten letter.

 All ready to be mailed out with instructions and in a little gift box.

 The idea is to see how many different stories people can come up with from the same bunch of characters, a letter and a red case. WHAT is in there? Well, that's up to you.

The Red Case is now available in my Etsy shop right HERE.

these dreams of you

A little while ago I signed up to a Creative Writing class. It was a course about creating short stories.

The reason I took the course was to give me a push with a graphic novel that I've had hanging around, in various sketchbooks, for a few years. Also I was really interested in learning some of the tools for building stories as I felt they could be transferred to the graphic novel. The same rules must apply, right?

Plus, I wanted a new challenge.

Well, it was all that and more. I have loved every minute of it. In fact, I've become a little obsessed. I can't stop writing and the main character, from my graphic novel, has been following me around wherever I go. I've been thinking about her in almost everything I do and wondering whether she would do the same thing, spend time with the same people, like my favourite coffee shop (she would).

Now I'm finding that I have to divide my time, not just between myself and her, but also between writing and drawing. All of those times when I'd normally take the opportunity to sketch are now writing opportunities too. My graphic novel originally, in my head, had been all pictures. No words. But, after the course I've changed my mind and I want to get some text in there somehow. I want her voice to be heard. I'm sure I can manage that. See above.

I like to think that this is the push I needed. One way or another I will have to finish this book. Because, whilst I love Marci, I want my own life back!