While I’m plugging away at other kinds of posts (I just found a cache of late 90s, early 2000 magazines that I absolutely will figure out how to use), I thought it might be fun to go over some questions that I get asked all the time.
I have a list of ten that I’m working from. Here are the first three!
The short answer is, Danny Lore and Matthew Rosenberg made me do it.
The longer answer is that I have been writing since I learned how to read (longer, because I had a secret language as a kid that I used to write down stories shorthand). Writing is the one constant in my life, something I do compulsively.
I worked on and off at a comic shop in New York City for about ten years. On my last stint (which started in 2012 and ended in 2014) I met Matt (Danny and I were already inseparable platonic homo soulmates for years at this point).
Matt liked to play "is this a good idea" on the floor to keep from going insane, and we hit it off pretty quick.
Danny and I already had a strong writing partnership (Twin Speakz 4eva) at this point, and they were maybe the only one I really told what I was working on/trying to do.
I would come in an hour or so early to work a few times a week and sit in the basement writing. Matt noticed and asked me when I would pitch to publishers. I laughed, I think, and was self deprecating. (I had this plan, you see, that I would fill notebooks with work and one day one would fall out of my bag and an agent or editor would find it and track me down...I'm a Pisces, I have a very active imagination.)
Matt pressed me about it, and offered to set up a meeting with a publisher he knew. He came with me to the meeting, and was wildly supportive. He made it a point to introduce me to as many people in the industry (on the publishing side, but also on the creative side) he knew, and asked me to co-write a book with him. He let me trail behind him like a lost soul during conventions, and talked me up to editors and peers.
Danny, for their part, kept me from retreating into my shell and helped me workshop pitches and outlines. They edited my first creator own book and (lovingly) bullied me into not quitting whenever I was wavering.
I was working at a museum as a night guard when DC accepted me into the Writer's Workshop (shout out to Sarah Miller, Andrea Shea, Bobbie Chase, and Scott Snyder). That got me my first actual published work.
So it breaks down to 50% kindness of friends, 30% luck/people taking a chance on me, and 20% my compulsive need to write every day.
I tell the story all the time [like on OFF PANEL], but it involves a spinner rack at a bodega, Storm and Bishop of the X-Men, and misidentifying Wonder Woman as Puerto Rican...
Also a Marvel/Fisher Price collab that brought Arabian Nights to life such that the stories burned itself into my brain in the best way.
The short answer is, literally everywhere. Like, music, weird shadows in the shower, ADHD disassociating...
The longer answer is, it depends on the project!
For work for hire, it's usually a mix of questions I have about the characters or world, plus whatever homework I have to do for it.
For creator owned stories, it's a million things all coming together.
Characters, dialogue, setting that may have been jotted down (I keep either a notebook on me at all times, or use my Notes app in my phone) at different times, all coalescing into a coherent whole when you’re taking a shower or doing chores and letting your mind wander.
For Submerged, the evening before Hurricane Sandy hit the New York City, I was walking through Union Sq. It was absolutely desolate, no one on the streets except for me and it had barely started to drizzle.
I passed by one of the subway entrances and happened to look down. The gates were closed (I’d never seen that for this particular station), chained shut, and the lights were super dim. The chain was longer than it should have been to secure the gate, and it looked like there was enough of a gap that an adult could wiggle through.
I was overcome with the absolute Horror Movie Trope urge to go down there and have a look around. My hands itched with the desire to do it. I put a foot to the top stir, then a strange, echo-y moaning floated up towards me and I froze.
All my common sense came rushing back and I remembered that I was Black, and that I would be the first to die if I was stupid enough to fuck around down there.
I quickly retreated and went about my business, but as the power went out and I was lying on my friends couch, I started thinking about what it would take to compel me to go down into the dark, abandoned, watery subway station…
I’ll get around to more questions next week. But until then!
The rest of TQS: Leah Williams and Tini Howard both have Substacks!
I also have a website where you can find more info on my work and some comic industry resources!
THANKS SO MUCH!
I’m grateful that you’ve decided to join me here, I hope to make it worth your while! <3
i was a queer mexican kid growing up in the 80s and i idolized linda carter's wonder woman. i remember tin foil bracelets, a towel wrapped around my head for that luxurious hair and lotsa spinning. i had asked my mom if wonder woman was mexican (she had hair like my mom and eyes like veronica castro) and she said no, 'es guera'. i was crushed.
so when i learned that linda carter was indeed half-mexican many years later, i was overjoyed.