See me on Adventure-Treff

The guys at Adventure-Treff posted a compilation video message for the festive season and I contributed to it with a few words. You can view the video here. Much of the compilation I didn't understand because those parts were in German, but mine and a couple of other parts are in English. I laughed most when I saw the list of credits and thanks come up at the end.

Charlie the Intelligent Custard

I've just posted another in the series, The Life and Times of Charlie the Intelligent Custard.

I'm not sure it's quite working as well as it could do, so I want everyone to help. If you have a great idea for something Charlie could be thinking (keep it short and pithy) then drop me a line and I'll put it up and give you the credit you deserve. You will keep the copyright for the text and I'll e-mail you a high-res version in case you want to print it out. Send as many or as few as you like. If I get plenty of suggestions sent to me I'll do an update every day. If I get tons of great suggestions then I may update even more regularly.

You can send my your suggestions here: steve at steve-ince.co.uk (obviously tweaking the address so it makes sense).

If you're an artist and want to draw your own version of Charlie, then please do so and I'll post that on the Charlie pages, too. You will keep the copyright for your image (though the overall copyright on the character remains mine) and use it on your own site or how you see fit. You must remember, though, that the point of Charlie is that he is just custard and having him singing and dancing won't quite fit with that. Unless, of course, your idea is so brilliant it makes perfect sense.

If you have any other cool ideas of how to have fun with Charlie (remembering that he's custard) then let me know. Let's make this a great joint venture.

If you want to keep up with what's happening with this and my other comics and cartoons, you can always follow me on Twitter.

I look forward to receiving all your great Charlie ideas.

Edit: Of course, anything that's abusive or of a very questionable nature will not be considered, but I'm sure that common sense will prevail.

Playgy

Playgy is the name of a short autobiographical piece I'm working on. Below are the first three paragraphs to give you a flavour.


I'm not even sure how I should spell the word "Playgy" as I don't think anyone ever wrote it down when we were young, back in the nineteen-sixties and early seventies when it was in regular use. Although Playgy was short for playground, the way it’s pronounced sounds like someone might have been suggesting that we kids were filled with the plague – that is, plaguey. But the idea of a sweet little play area dedicated to the delightful entertainment of children couldn’t have been further from the reality and according to my Mam’s ideas about the perils that existed for anyone actually playing there, the name plaguey may have been more fitting in her eyes.

The area of ground that the name Playgy referred to was once an old school that had been fire-bombed during the second world war and had stood as waste ground ever since the removal of the damaged buildings shortly afterwards. By the time I was allowed to play out on my own in the mid sixties the site had been standing derelict and empty for more than twenty years. Empty, that is, apart from the single large structure that stood on the north-west corner that we always called Tin Shed.

For some of the adults who’d lived through the war and then with the aftermath of the bombings, the waste ground was more often than not referred to as “bomb-buildings” (which I’m sure was a shortening of “bombed buildings”), as were many other sites around Hull – a city which was then still recovering from war damage and with plenty of scars to show for it. However, to the kids of my generation who lived in the area, this piece of ground was always called Playgy. And in spite of many changes to the area in the intervening years, it’s still a name that enables me to bring back many memories of a part of my life that was relatively care-free.

New Mitchell cartoon

This morning I posted the fourth of my new Mitchell cartoons. I'm currently updating on Mondays and Fridays but may increase this in the new year to three times a week. I currently have ideas written down for about 40 cartoons, which will keep me going for a little while.

I've also been updating Story to Nowhere regularly and the latest episode can be found here, which is episode 66.

Mr. Smoozles continues on its regular weekly updates with art still done by my talented friend, Stefano. The changes to reality seem to have taken hold.

I also started posting another new "cartoon" - The Life and Times of Charlie the Intelligent Custard. Still exploring this idea at the moment.

I hope you enjoy them all.

Mitchell - new cartoon cat

Another idea for a cartoon cat forced it's way into the now-cramped cupboard-under-the-stairs that is my mind and being fired up about the look of the character and the fun I can have with him, I've already posted the first cartoon online.

I hope you enjoy his exploits. Please tell me what you think.

Mr. Smoozles - the reality change

Yesterday I posted the latest Mr. Smoozles strip. Obviously, this is still early days, but you'll already see that there's been a big change. I'm clearly not going to reveal my plans for the strip because that's tied up with the ongoing story, but I'd like to know what you think of the changes as they have more of an effect in coming weeks.

Write or Die

The following is some nonsense I wrote after going to the Write or Die website and trying it out with a 500 word limit and 20 minute time limit. I wrote the 500 words in about 14 minutes. I haven't edited anything.


I don't know what I'm going to write here, it's just a test to see if I can do the 500 words in the alotted time. It seems like a very good idea to motivate people in this way, but is it really a good tool for creativity?

One of the things that I find when I'm writing is that because I'm so often creating design documents there is no real chance to get a flow going like this. However, it may be useful for writing my novel, which has been a real problem as I'm more likely to put off opening the file than actually put off the writing when I've got the file opened.

What we need is a way of forcing me to open the file and then making me write.

Another problem I often have is that of too many ideas. Which of them should I concentrate on in order to progress something? At times it seems that having too many is a barrier and I become indecisive about doing anything at all and can flounder under this.

The interesting thing I'm finding about this Write or Die thing is that I'm almost writing without thinking. I've always loved the physical aspect of writing on a keyboard ever since I taught myself to type on a manual typewriter. Thinking about ideas and letting my fingers transfer the words to paper was always great fun and although the paper is now virtual, the feeling of satisfaction remains. What I like about a computer keyboard is the way that it's much less effort than the old manual typewriter and this enable me to maintain a higher typing speed than I would ever have been able to manage on the old machine.

I still have the manual typewriter somewhere - probably in the attic - but I don't know if it still works as I probably haven't touched it for at least 15 years. I think I shall hang onto it, though, as it's a reminder of where I came from all those years ago, professionally speaking. It was actually a present from my parents one Christmas, which shows how supportive they were in their own way.

I just pause to look at my word count and I'm up to 385 and have done that in less than ten minutes, which is pretty good for something just of the top of my head. I've now just hit the ten minute mark.

I'm still wondering what else I should write as I set myself a target of 500 words and I've still got 60 to go. I think this could be a useful tool in a small way, but I'm not sure how best to fit it into my work schedule. I don't like the NaNoWriMo idea as it feels to constricting in some ways but I ought to set myself some kind of daily or weekly target. Perhaps what Write or die needs is some kind of daily reminder that will sync with my schedule/calendar.

That's it, the word count is now 519.