Steve B. Wallace Writes Things.

New Years resolutions

New Years resolutions, I don’t usually make them. You know, I think that sentence starts every blog post having to do with New Years resolutions. Most anyway. Seriously though, I usually don’t. I tend to toss the practice aside as a useless gesture that people rarely take seriously.

After reading a lot of fellow comic book creators resolution posts, however, I started to realize that I did, in fact, make some resolutions. I just don’t call them resolutions. I don’t know why, maybe because I’m too cool (I’m not) or to jaded (I probably am). Either way, I realized I have some resolutions and I might as well air them for the public, well what little public actually reads this beleaguered little blog.

So here we go:

1) I’m going to write at least 5 nights a week for at least 2 hours a night. If I can push to 6 or 7 nights a week, I’m going too. So far this is working out. I usually write for more than 2 hours but I’ll set that as goal.

I’m doing alright on this. I think this year I’ve only not written maybe 2 days total. Most of December I wrote every night. I’ve outputted around 60 total pages plus lettering a few in the past 4 weeks. That’s an average of about 2 pages per night. I’m pretty good with that.

2) I’m not going to let my social anxiety screw up my comics career.

Last year I really let this get in the way of how I approached people at New York CC and WW Chicago. I could have networked a lot better if I hadn’t been so damn scared. That’s what it is too, I get deathly afraid of talking to new people. It’s crippling, but I won’t let it screw with me this year. I need to talk to editors, I need to introduce myself and I need to network. This is my biggest one I think. No matter how much I do the work if I can’t get myself in front of people to pitch concepts, I’m getting nowhere. It’s hand in hand and I have to make this happen.

3) Get more work published.

That goes without saying I think, but I’m still saying it. I have two short stories that are going out for publication this year. I want to have a couple of OGN projects green lit and maybe a miniseries. If I can get in front of the right people and start pitching concepts, I think I can make this happen. It all becomes very dependent on #2. Either way, I’m making this happen.

OK, that’s all. Those are my resolutions. That’s what I’m working on. 2009 is shaping up to be a great year and I hope to make it an outstanding and life changing one.

There are 1 Comments to this article

Scott says:
01/08/2009

Steve, I totally identify with all three of these in some way or another. I am making more firewalled time for being creative as well and I think its a great thing, but the hard part is going to be sticking to it. Which leads to your second point of networking, which a lot of it focuses around the question “What are you working on right now?/What have you done?” so being more prolific helps with that. In addition I do not just want to be riding around on Trevor’s coattails this year as, while he is good at networking, I don’t want to be seen just as the guy that hosts his site. As for the third, as Steve Jobs said “Real artists ship.” to me that means getting it out their in the media that you want it to be in. I’m trying, this year, to be able to call my self – legitimately – a digital media producer. So if your goal is to be in print, then I think that your priorities are straight, in first creating work, finding the right people to support the process and finally finishing the job.
The long and the short of it is, I hope for the best on your resolutions, and I wish you luck in making everything work.
-Scott

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