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In Die by the Pen, Jared Gniewek discusses what feeds his fires as an author of comics, screenplays and radio dramas.

Writing can be lonely.

It can hurt when you empathize too much with your characters and allow yourself to feel what they are going through too clearly. It is a solipsistic activity that can drive you to tears of frustration and joy. It is a good thing, to be this involved with the act, but sometimes it can make accepting criticism all the harder. You feel like a judged parent on a talk show screaming, YOU DON’T KNOW ME!

Remember that your work is NOT you. Remember that all the work you did on a piece; thinking about it (sometimes for years) and executing it really are meaningless to a reader. You can’t call everyone who went “meh” over your piece and yell at them. Their job is to receive and they are good at it. They’ve been doing it since their moms were staring at them in the crib and playing pee-ka-boo. Your job is to transmit artfully and in an entertaining fashion. At least as good as Mom.

One of my writing pals told me that I learn to need to “phone it in” but to me that is unacceptable. While I could work a bit faster that way I feel that any emotional depth I’m reaching might be sacrificed. I mean if it’s not worth the time to write it “for real” is it worth it to read? But, at the same time, is being a slave to my personal muses making me too personally involved in each work?

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Michael Carlisle examines the world “outside” sequential art to find… more sequential art.

Flow, as a mathematical idea, is based in the notion of time. When looking at a discrete-time flow, we are really talking about a sequence of things, moving in time. Since this is a mathematical idea, though, the sequence can be examined “outside of time,” and so we have a directed sequence, laid out for all to see. When multiple sequences share elements, we have a directed graph. There’s another word for his when content is present: flowchart.

Flowcharts are typically thought of as technical devices used for complex decision-making processes (and so are often considered BO-RING, but lately (last 30 years) they’ve offered writers, game designers, and comics creators a nice device in which to construct work.

Is flowcharting a sequential art?

click here to begin

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Michael Carlisle is a mathematics Ph.D. candidate at the City University of New York, where he earned a certificate in Interactive Technology and Pedagogy. When not teaching or researching probability or rambling about dystopian films and surrealist animation, he volunteers with the Sequential Art Collective and New York Center for Independent Publishing.

Justin “Mr. M.” Maudslien is in Europe unearthing more arcane facts for his Alphabet…  Allan “Doc” Dorison is studying the mystic and surgical arts with Stephen Strange on the astral plane…  Luckily, Matt. Murray has emerged from a month’s long pharmaceutical coma to report from the front (of his television set).

As of my next birthday, I will be 33 years old. Being a hobbit, that places me somewhere in my early teens developmentally, but as I recently spent an inordinate amount of time stationed in front of my 25-inch GE tube, I’ve come to realize that in television years, I’m as ancient as my recently diagnosed sciatica makes me feel.

However, there is one certainty as far as age-appropriateness goes, and that is that I am still too young to be a fat man with a cane – so my immediate future definitely holds twice-a-week trips to the local Y until some weight drops or my back realigns itself… and then of course there will have to be some maintenance involved, at least until my hair falls out, then it will be time to bust out the walking stick, the white suit, the ascot and live out the rest of my days on the cosplay circuit as Wilson Fisk.

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