I
think I know why this last story was like pulling teeth (not counting
all the crazy stuff that happened from broken laptop to trying to break
my back in the garage right around deadline time).
I
think I've been writing pulp so much lately that I'm beginning to lose
myself in what others say pulp is supposed to be. I started writing with
a more lit focus, but with a love for genre fiction, and my earlier
writing (around
Show Me A Hero and my IDW work) reflects that struggle between lit and genre in a way that made me, well, me.
I think what I need to do is embrace that again and stop trying so hard to write for a style.
I
need to tell the stories and let the style simply be what flows. I know
I have at least two now that I'm locked into a certain style
(third-person only, straight-ahead narrative, etc.) but after those, I'm
going to just tell the stories the way I tell them and if my publishers
don't like it, then I'll publish elsewhere.
I still
want to tell pulp stories, but I don't want to get locked into what was
considered pulp only in the past. I want to embrace all kinds of work
and style and create something new in pulps, horror, fantasy, sci-fi,
superheroes, whatever.
As Kermit sang:
When green is all there is to be
It could make you wonder why
But why wonder why wonder
I am green, and it'll do fine
It's beautiful, and I think it's what I want to be
So, I'm gonna be green because, well that's what I am.