Jason Rodriguez's Blog, page 17
November 20, 2012
November 19, 2012
DISTRICT COMICS named one of the Top 10 Graphic Novels of 2012 by the Washington Post
I just wanted to re-post this for the folks who aren’t reading Tumblr at 7AM on a Saturday morning, which is when I first learned about it.
I did a story in this book with Charles Fetherolf about the 1867 Washington Nationals. Huge kudos to my editor Matt Dembicki and the 30+ other contributors. Also, huge kudos to Fulcrum Publishing for pushing these books. Fulcrum’s been publishing for 30+ years. Three years ago they took a chance on Matt and published their first Graphic, Trickster. This year they published their second graphic novel, District Comics, and it becomes a Top 10 GN of 2012 by one of the most prestigious papers in the country.
And they’re expanding. Many of you know I signed a three-book deal with them to do a series of graphic novel anthologies about colonial New England and Mid-Atlantic. I hooked them up with another very talented writer who’s publishing his book with them in 2014. And one of my old Writing for Comics students had her book picked up there, as well (Matt brought her on).
Matt started something great over there and I’m thankful to him for bringing me in. I think you’re going to see a lot of great stuff from Fulcrum in the coming years so get ready and, as always, jump on it.
November 17, 2012
Washington Post Names DISTRICT COMICS one of the 10 Best Graphic Novels of 2012
Exciting because…
I have a story in the book with Charles Fetherolf
The Washington Post is the sixth most circulated paper in the US so it’s a real paper and all that jazz
I’ve never been on a top-10 anything list
I’m editing Fulcrum’s next THREE history-based graphic novels (the Colonial Comics collections) so, you now, it kind of sets a new bar that I have to jump over and that’s OK, I love challenges.
November 15, 2012
RIFFS’ FAVE READS OF 2012: ‘District Comics’ anthology renders a rich D.C. history
District Comics gets a nice feature in the Washington Post, complete with an interview of editor Matt Dembicki and a page from my story with Charles Fetherolf about the 1867 Washington Nationals. Check it!
Story List for THE BOY WHO COULD SEE THROUGH MOUNTAINS AND OTHER STORIES
The Boy Who Could See Through Mountains - A story about a boy who can see his family’s vile and evil enemies through the neighboring mountain range but can’t get close enough to see what makes them vile or evil.
Detective Know-it-All and the Glittered Up Glue Stick - The third-grade detective, who literally knows the answer to every question, agrees to help Sally find out who’s removing her class president posters. At a fee of two candy bars a day he ain’t cheap, but he always solves the case.
Rocket Ruiz Builds a Warp Drive - Rachel “Rocket” Ruiz has won the soapbox derby four years in a row. This year she faces her toughest competition, the well-financed Philip Jones, whose state-of-the-art soapbox racer is considered to be unbeatable. Not wanting to relinquish her title, Rocket Ruiz sets out to build a soapbox racer that’ll make the finish line come to her.
Write Like No One's Watching
In my Write Right Now course we do a lot of in-class exercises where I’ll throw out a prompt and students have 7-minutes to write a complete story. It’s not easy.
Last night one of my students asked how it’s even possible to write these somewhat longer, complete stories in seven minutes. She was having a difficult enough time setting up her story. Along with some of the usual tips I like to give (start with the third act or at least compress the first and second act into an intro sentence) I decided this was a good place to talk about one of my favorite subjects: write like a goddamn maniac.
I told her that the first step is to stop trying to write. I realize that sounds counter-intuitive, but “trying to write” basically means there are no “dogs” in your story, there are “mangy mutts with the smell of sardines on their breaths, one of them with flecks of feces caked between his front right paw.”
No. In the first draft, they’re dogs. You can go back and make them whatever the hell fits your story afterwards. If you have ten minutes to write, you don’t want to spend nine minutes thinking about ways to describe a dog. If it flows, it flows. If the first thing that comes to your head is “dog,” it’s a dog. That’s it.
Write like a maniac. Write like no one’s watching. Get the story out and don’t edit it in real time. I work with a bunch of cognitive psychologists at my day job. I was once told it’s actually impossible to multi-task and what we think of as multi-tasking is the act of switching back and forth between tasks without really realizing it. They explained it much better, trust me. Anyways, this can be applied to writing, too - every time you think, “That’s not the right word,” or, “That sentence was choppy,” or, “Man, I keep writing ‘he said’ and ‘she said,’” etc your brain switches from writer to editor and you lose your momentum.
So write like a maniac. Write against the clock. Write like you’re up against a deadline every time.
One of my students had a great suggestion - he said that if you’re working on a computer you should turn off spell check. No matter how good you get at tunnel visioning, that red, squiggly line forces you into editor mode.
I actually tried that last night and wrote manically. I wrote like no one was watching…although my dog was watching, tho.
November 14, 2012
Get pumped!
On Monday, November 26th, my new short The Boy Who...
Get pumped!
On Monday, November 26th, my new short The Boy Who Could See Through Mountains and Other Stories will be available for free on Amazon.com for five days! The Little Particle That Could will be free for two days and The End of Stars will be free for one day. Mark your calenders! The Girl Who Could Live in Yesterday and The Monster Hunter will be 99-cents, as always. So, on November 26th, you could get five great stories for $1.98.
Moving forward, I’m trying to get some real press and promotion going now that I’ll have five books under my belt with seven more to go. So if you have a website and want some review copies ahead of the November 26th launch please let me know.
(Album cover by Rafer Roberts. The Little Particle That Could cover by Dylan Todd, art by Noel Tuazon)
