This is not an original idea by any means. I don’t know how many people, writers, whoever, have advised “Don’t throw out your old drafts/ideas/novels” …etc. People who are probably more qualified than me to give advice, but whatever, I am only speaking from experience. So, there’s this thing I did last year called The Sketchbook Project. I probably wrote an article about it, maybe not, but these things tend to follow my life. Anyway, the idea is that they send you this little sketchbook, you fill it out, send it back, and it becomes part of the Brooklyn Art Library. Mine is currently on tour, which is super cool, and in the online digital library. Is that redundant? Online digital? Anyway, it was a lot of fun, it took up 95% percent of my time and I almost burnt the house down but…worth it.
I follow Brooklyn Art Library and The Sketchbook Project on Instagram, and seeing all of their posts and featured art made me think that it would be cool to do it again, so I made the questionable decision of ordering another sketchbook. Great idea. Not like I already have to do a comic and an enormous watercolor piece for classes, not to mention this whole Inktober thing. Anyway, who ever said all of my decisions were perfect, I apparently just need to be busy all the time? Although, I think I’m gonna leave out the fire this time. I already almost burned down my apartment once…
So, back to the whole story thing. One of the reasons I decided to do the sketchbook thing again was so I could do a narrative one. I’m gonna make the whole thing an artistic story, I guess something between a comic and an illustrated short story. We’ll see how it goes. The story I’m using though, is an idea I had for a little graphic novel sometime last year. I totally dropped the idea at some point and integrated the characters into my main narrative timeline (how mysterious, yes, maybe I’ll explain that someday), but I’m so happy I’ve finally found a use for them, they’re nice people. So, don’t forget about your old stories, they might come in handy.
You should all check out The Sketchbook Project, it’s super cool, you can look through people’s books in their digital library (mine is called Drowned Book if for some reason you’re interested), or make your own. It’s great. Do it. Be careful with fire.
