Why I Draw

I’ve done posts in the past called “Why I Write” and “Why I Read”, both of which were huge successes. Now I’m going to do one called “Why I Draw”. While it is true my drawing skills are second to my writing skills (maybe third or fourth, realistically), it doesn’t take away from the fact that I love to draw. In fact, last night, for no particular reason, I drew pictures of Deus Shadowheart from Fireball Nightmare and Mitch McLeod from Brawl Mart. I’ve done lots of pictures of these two in the past and I’m really proud of these newest versions of them.

So why do I draw when I could just as easily write a blog entry, a poem, or a short story? Several reasons. One, it expands my creative repertoire and the way I see it, the more artistic skills you have, the better off you’ll be. Two, and this is the most important part, it’s fun! It’s lots and lots of fun to draw characters in my own weird ass, simple style. And three? Because if I don’t draw the pictures I want, nobody else will. I don’t have many friends who can make Deus Shadowheart or Mitch McLeod look like they’re straight out of a World of Warcraft demo. While I don’t have those same skills, I do have a good idea of what I’d like my characters to look like.

Will these drawings get me the same amount of money as my literature? Probably not, but it wouldn’t hurt to include these drawings in future copies of my books. Perhaps that’s what I’ll do for Fireball Nightmare once it’s ready for publication: include my latest picture of Deus somewhere in the pages. Or maybe I can use it as the cover, there’s another cool idea. It won’t look any worse than any other book cover I’ve made so far.

Let this be a lesson to anyone who loves to draw, but doesn’t do it for a living. Don’t do it because it will earn you a shit ton of money. Do it because you love the craft. Yes, making money is nice, but there are lots of ways a person can make money whether it’s refueling a Delta Airlines plane or cooking French fries at McDonald’s. I don’t know about the rest of you, but drawing a picture of Deus Shadowheart sounds more fun to me than cooking French fries. Artists do what they do because they love the creative accomplishments of their work. Writers are the same way. We’ve got ears, say cheers!

***GARRISON’S LIBRARY***

If you’ve been there lately, you would have seen posts for “Chalk Outline” by Three Days Grace, character sketches of Wade Bryan and Cameron Gillespie, and a positive review for “Love Letters to the Dead” by Ava Dellaira. Of all four of those posts, people seem to take a liking to the one I did about Cameron Gillespie for some reason. I haven’t had any comments yet, but I did get a lot of page views on Miss Gillespie’s post. Coming up next on my blog is a post about “My Friends” by Red Hot Chili Peppers. The song is just as much of a tearjerker as the most recent book I’ve read. You can You Tube this song if you don’t believe me.

***WEEKLY SHORT STORY CONTEST***

This week’s theme is “A Fly on the Wall” and instead of doing another contemporary drama, I’ve decided to go with my dark fantasy roots with “Wand of Change”. It goes like this:

CHARACTERS:

Funch Hellfire, Jaguar Warrior

Kole Machete, Zebra Warrior

Natalya Shadowlaw, Ostrich Witch

PROMPT CONFORMITY: Natalya’s castle walls are covered in flies and other disgusting insects.

SYNOPSIS: Funch and Kole raid Natalya’s castle in order to steal the Shadowlaw Wand. They only planned on selling it at a high price, but when the time comes to actually use it on the assailing Natalya, they don’t know how. The two warriors are on the verge of getting murdered by this powerful wizard and must come up with a plan quickly before that’s allowed to happen.

***MOVIE DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

TRAUTMAN: It’s over, Johnny. It’s over!

RAMBO: Nothing is over! Nothing! You just don’t turn it off!

-First Blood-