Some brief bulletlist ruminations while I rewire my brain...

We're into April, which means March is over which means my March Madness mission is over. I meant to go on a spree of "what does this mean?" retrospective blogging but it's all so close I don't think I can appreciate it properly and my eyes still ain't fresh. Plus, I'm burned out after the whole trip so a concise bulletlist of some things I've noticed along the ride will do for now.

Here be some things that have hit home as I've hacked, slashed and spawned out a picture book manuscript every single day over the course of a month...

• Writing is so much fun. When you're in flow and blasting out crazy ideas, losing yourself in immersive worlds of your own imagination and riffing on the things you love and remoulding them to your own designs you are in a place of supreme fun. I've had a hell of a lot of fun.
• Knocking out a daily obligation - a self-set deadline - can be brutal but it ensures you stay sharp and just do stuff. It makes you make it happen. Plus it makes your precious creative urges into something more sacrosanct and essential. You can say "I'm a writer!" (or artist or conversely whatever else you apply yourself to) with more conviction than normal and the demons of doubt dissolve into the aether even quicker.
• Talking to yourself feels better when you're playing with ideas and creating stories. I feel less like a lunatic when I'm typing to an imaginary artist and directing them towards obscure movies and describing the look of an anthropomorphic monkey than I do talking to myself about mundane things like "where did I put my pen?"
• I have very little interest in telling quotidian tales. Without even doing a great sweeping assessment of the 31 stories I've typed up, I know that the majority have elements of the surreal, the absurd and the fantastical.
• I find it more of a challenge to be 'accessible' and not obscure or 'dark' though I can do it. I'll have to do that overall sweep thing but I'm pretty sure that most of the manuscripts have 'mature' matter within. The majority of tales are probably what you'd call 'cult' works.
• The nature of picture books is that they are about the combinations of words and pictures. As none of these things have pictures yet and are all about what I'm imagining they are simply seeds with potential. As such, the next problem is how I try and flog my magick beans to the people who can make 'em flower. How I make 'em believe in my magick beans and the potential amazing and awesome that may grow is another challenge that I will deal with another time when I feel ready to look at my bean collection again...

That's the next step of the aftermath of this odyssey - working out "what now?" I think I'm going to have to work that out soon because I'm feeling a void where the daily picture book writing challenge used to be. Still, I know I'm eager to work on different stuff now and write/draw/think on new things so I'll see what happens. More retrospective analysis may come later but for now, anyone want any beans?

It ends with exhaustion, feeling ill but perhaps the possibility of Enlightenment...

Right, I definitely think I'm done. I've written the final picture story for the March Madness daily picture book challenge and am now taking a deep relaxing breath and suddenly feeling very ill. Damn. Taking a step back I realise that I'm exhausted and drained out. I'm dazed and have spent too long looking at a computer screen ploughing on like a possessed typing monkey. Now it's over, I can stop and lie down and maybe die or something...

Or maybe I can let go and in letting go start to find Enlightenment. That's what the final tale of this trip is all about and it seemed only right that I should end on a slightly surreal, spiritual note. The story is called "The Path to Infinity By Way of the Death of Nena's Pet Chimp" and it is either absurdist mini-adventure or a profound and deep treatise on philosophy, life, the Universe and existence. You can bring your own meaning and ultimately the accompanying art that would go with it would probably play a role.

Altogether what happens in this - a young woman's Chimp (he reminds her of the Theory of Evolution and how everything in the Universe is linked) dies and, devastated, she succumbs to despair. She falls into a bowl of spaghetti and descends into a visceral version of Hell which is ruled over by the Devil in a Jersey cow-hide suit. The woman then realises that she'd brought this low on herself by clinging on to grief and pain and thus starts meditating at which point the world's illusions, attachment and pain vanish into a haze and she becomes one with the Universe and finds Enlightenment.

It's trippy and out there and it seems like the right kind of thing to close this thing with. I think I need to write a summary of this month's writing mission and assess the material I've amassed with fresh eyes, but these eyes in my skull right now ain't fresh. I think I need to meditate. I will come back to this later and work out what the hell I've done. For the moment though, 'fin'. Time for a lie down...

Foxy detective non-adventures through historical pseudo-Europe and thoughts about the creative future...

Today on the picture book writing trail I've ended up creating a character that I like and who makes me think "hey, I could have adventures with this fella". I've then totally undermined the idea by writing a really short illustrated story with the thought "this character should be in another tale in a different medium" running through my mind.

No matter though because if this manuscript were to be properly realised as a picture book by the right artist in the right fashion it would be beautiful. Today's piece of work is titled "Fox Curioso and the Mysterious Case of Marie Schlapstique's Missing Voice". Fox Curioso is a private eye who lives in some '30s/'40s European film noir/silent cinemarific alternate universe and investigates non-cases while looking delightfully antique and classy in an old-fashioned European manner. He is also a fox and apparently unique as everyone else around him is human. I don't know how this works out exactly but, hey, we're dealing with fiction here and I'm pretty taken with this Fantastic Mr. Fox/Sherlock Holmes/Sam Spade hybrid.

The way I see it, this daft picture book tale about the detective's search for a young theatre performers' missing voice is just one pictorial vignette based around a concept I could do other stuff with. I'd like to give this guy some dialogue and expand his universe (which would entail worldbuilding which is always exciting). What I'd like to see with this individual story is the text accompanied by outstanding, intricate illustrations that evoke a nostalgic European aesthetic, reflect the spirit of pulp adventure, detective tales and classic literary illustration whilst also cramming the scenes with glorious detail. That sounds complicated and overhwelming. I'm not sure I could get across exactly what I'm picturing without either sitting next to the imaginary artist and talking through it with them or doing it myself. In an ideal world, someone like Jeremy Bastian - the genius behind Cursed Pirate Girl - would be conjuring up images based on my words. Hey, I can dream. In the meantime, the urge to see this or other stories I've cranked out over March come to life gets too much it's extra impetus to channel my energies into my own amateur-scrawling. DIY squiggle drawings and attempts to turn the images in my head into reality to share with the wider world. Trust me - some of these things I reckon you'll like to see.

All I know for sure is that I'm eager to give Fox Curioso more adventures and he's another figure in the creative cardboard box who I can come back to when the time is right. There's now a foxy European private seamus on my stockpile, and that's good to know...

Getting superfly with some suped-up soup on the pulp fiction celebration trail...

Thinking about the kind of tales I'd like to tell to children and the sort of genre I want to celebrate and pay tribute to in text, I keep on coming back to schlock. I get high on pulp fiction and B-movie matter and so approaching stuff specifically for kids I end up writing vignettes that riff on sci-fi and horror instead of quotidian tales. I've got no interest in writing kitchen sink picture books so, hey, let's have fantasy in the things I blast out. It's way more fun to write anyway.

Today's writing effort dredges up the stuff I dig and douses it through an attempt to appeal to a family audience. The story is tentatively titled "The Fly Who Supped the Suped-Up Soup" and crosses superhero/superspy territory before finishing off with a monster-movie bang. In it a secret agent ninja woman picks up her 'special shopping' (like Popeye or Asterix, her strength comes from foodstuffs and supplements) then leaves her suped-up soup on the side while she goes to answer the phone. A jumble housefly enters and slurps some and then you know the rest. We've got a giant mutant fly on the loose...

Whether there's any value in it or whether it works as a picture book tale, I'm not sure. What I do know is that it's always enjoyable to channel my enthusiasm into writing these things and trying to twist 'em around to present in a new format (B-movies and action flicks into pictorial children's stories). It's also always fun making yourself laugh with in-jokes, scripted references and considering crucial questions like "is an innercity Chinese supermarket to obvious a place for a secret agent to pick up her supplies?" and "how big would a giant fly have to be to knock over Big Ben?"

Stupid tales are more my cup of tea and as I lurch on towards the final couple of days of this project I think I'm just going to hold my hands up and blast out some batpoo craziness that keeps that spirit going. Why stop now? On with the schlock and onward with as much fun as possibly as I kill off the crackers mission that's now draining me and making me think "hey, I want to do something else now..." 

Conjuring up cartoonish gangs in craptastic rhyme and getting a kick out of culturespawning...

I have a thing for gangs, probably because I've never been a member of a gang, 'cause I'm interested in culture/subculture and probably because I've watched way too many 'gang' films. I'm not really into 'gangsta' culture or ultra-lowbrow posturing on council estates and tend to prefer 'classier', cultured gang-centric works (show me the socio-cultural explorations of life in the Sicilian Mafia, the Yakuza or the Russian Bratva, please). My favourite gang texts, however, are the ones that are supercampy, kitsch and cartoonish. If I was joining a gang I'd only want to join one with ridiculous costumes, idiosyncratic lingo and a sense of absurdist fun. If you're going to be a criminal, you might as well be a fun and creative criminal, righty right?

The best gang flicks in my humble opinion, therefore, are A Clockwork Orange and The Warriors and I've channelled their camptastic spirit (especially that of The Warriors) into today's picture book script which is titled "Which Gang Should I Join?" The scenario is that there's a rough young hoodlum eager for ultraviolence and he's aspiring to join a gang. The text reels of list of potential groups he could hook up with in rhyming couplet style and the idea is that each gang gets a glorious accompanying illustration. Forming the characters and look of each unit would be a really enjoyable challenge for any artist and it offers all the awesome potential of worldbuilding.

It's been an absolute riot imagining up my own gangs and concocting awful rhymes to describe them. A sample of the craptastic kind of creation today's picture book involves...

Possibly the Harbour Hep-Cats, ultra-stylish dockyard goons.

Hair slicked back with beluga oil, they wield vintage harpoons.

I like bad rhymes and I really like spawning mythology, so even if it doesn't quite gel and succeed as my own supreme attempt to ape The Warriors, I've got a list of entities that could spin-off in a multitude of ways. I'd love to tell further tales of the Black-Mac Morbids (ultraviolent goth gang), the City Savages (cannibal Wall Street traders gone native), the Catwalk Nasties (psycho supermodel crimelords) and the Carnival Kingpins (killer clown big top freakshow bastards).

There's potential here for a whole lot of future trouble and that's one of the good things about this March Madness trip. You generate ideas and dredge up a fair bit of junk but maybe, just maybe, amidst all the muck their are gems that can be polished off and put on show later. As always, if anyone would like to join me and form a gang, just hit me up and we'll brainstorm our image. Alternatively you can just offer your artistic services and I promise I will never chop off your little finger or put a horse's head in your bed. Righty righty?

Mimicking the good manner of Mercury in an illustrated etiquette guidebook for the good of the Universe...

We live in a selfish, uncivil and apathetic age where people are rude, inconsiderate and dehumanised. People just don't care and aren't as nice to themselves, others and the Universe as they should be. I, thus, feel the urge to get all control freakish and ultra-pious on everyone's angry ass and write a guidebook for good behaviour, sending out some social instruction to usher in a new age of civility.

It's fun coming up with rules and I can see why people have enjoyed forming new countries and religions so much (I'm going to have a blast when I create my own kingdom and establish my own cult worship). For now though I'm interested in looking at etiquette and good manners so I mentally connected to the beings of the planet Mercury and filtered their codes into today's picture book script. The outcome is "The Mercurian Guide to Good Manners" and it's a pretty decent manifesto. It's daft, of course, but alongside the daftness there are actually some half-decent ideas that should possibly be adopted on our own planet.

I'm channelling the spirit of instruction manuals and 'self-help' guidebooks - in particular the vintage kind that have titles like "How to be a Manly Man, My Gentleman" and "The Domestic Goddess Chapterbook for the Truly Charming Perfect Housewife". This, though, is intended to be more along the lines of a children's picture book in terms of its format, the rules and codes exemplified by quirky drawings of Mercurians observing or not observing the good moral behaviour. As an example of Mercurian good manners...

When you’re thinking during conversation, squint your right eye. This will let others know you’re thinking deeply and not rudely ignoring them.

They've got a good point. It's also understandable that cursing the heat or the Sun for its brightness is a taboo considering how close Mercurians are to our Solar star. There are many more but other Earthlings will just have to wait until the full things is published, ideally with excellent accompanying illustrations to provide clear instruction.

Today's lessons on the picture book trail, then - it's fun to create rules and customs and it's a nice experience mentally placing yourself beyond the stratosphere and approaching life from a more cosmic perspective. I feel more at one with the Universe, and I feel like a better person...

The tragedy of invisible epic writing and the boy who woke to find he was made of rats...

Today I'm all about ripping off Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis and relocating it to 1920s Yorkshire for a beautiful body horror picture book experiment. Imagine being a little boy who wakes up one morning and finds that he's made of rats. I did and thus wrote a tale titled "The Boy Who Woke Up and Found He Was Made of Rats." It's tragic. I'd be crying if I hadn't had such a good time writing it.

It's very similar in spirit to yesterday's blast in that it has a sense of the macabre about it and runs along more unconventionally in terms of structure. Looking at it, there isn't much in the way of text and there are a significant number of pages that are simply illustrations. Writing picture books - funnily enough - mainly revolves around writing pictures, telling the artist what to draw and not actually writing prose itself. This story, and others I've spawned this month, thus read more like TV/film scripts or comic scripts. It's all me describing what we're meant to look at and trying to help the hypothetical artist envision what's on my mind. If you looked at the final picture book and thought "what did this guy actually write?" on paper it amounts to a total of 18 sentences of prose. Let this serve as a reminder there's always more to things than meets the eye...

It's a shame in a way because I get such a kick out of writing epic, elaborate descriptions that will never be seen by anyone apart from the artist (who doesn't exist so, yeah, seen by no one). The best stuff is the unseen stuff. Really, the world is full of behind-the-scenes geniuses who will never be appreciated. It's almost as tragic as the tale of Arthur Whisker who woke up one morning to discover that "below his neck his entire body had transformed into a writhing rodent confusion..."

Getting radical on the format, writing "blah!" a lot and hanging with a blabbering Baroness...

Today, I'm happy because I got to write the word "blah!" a lot and bugger about with convention a little. In this picture book effort I've been playing around with the format and trying different things in order to keep things interesting. On paper, it's effective and with accompanying illustrations I reckon the end result - a printed picture book should that ever come together - would definitely work well.

What I've got is a mish-mash manuscript that features pages with no text, pages with no illustrations and a flashback sequence. It's not a straight-forward narrative typical of the medium and feels closer in spirit - as a script at least - to a comic book or filmed comedy sketch though it's definitely a picture book. Still, as I said, I reckon it works as a quirky curio and with pictures and proper production it'd be a blast to grapple in your hands and flick through.

But what is the tale? It's working title is "Back into Babble with Baroness Blahzunge" and its seed is in an idea I had about a hermit's vow of silence being broken when they answered a wrong number phonecall. I thought "ha! that'd be funny!" then imagined this person being a hermit aristocrat in a German castle. I then thought she could be a compulsive talker who stopped speaking because everyone got fed up of her never-ending blabber.  The sudden shock back into verbal communication comes as an epic epiphany that she gleefully seizes after years of repression but of course we have a tragic surprise ending. (I'm not telling and neither, unfortunately, is Baroness Blahzunge.)

It's a gloriously stupid little tale and the artistic opportunities (conjuring up a pseudo-folk-German setting and drawing a Baroness going on a wild verbal frenzy) and more atypical aspects of the formatting make it a sweet piece that I've got a kick out of scripting up. Offbeat 'quirky' tale spawning and experimenting keeps it creatively enthralling and today's lesson is: keep on trying different things and be careful if you ever go through extended spells of silence and then suddenly start speaking again.

Weird Western rambles with the resolute Sheriff on the trail of his horse...

Yee haw and whoop whoop for weird Western action. Today's tale is crossing absurdist territory again and channeling my love of genre, riffing on old Western movies with extra love for other assorted sci-fi B-movies in there as well. The tale is called "Sheriff Samuel Goodgallop Looks For His Lost Horse" and concerns a slightly-inept Sheriff's attempts to apprehend banditos and recover his beloved stolen steed, Eureka. He follows the hoofprint trail and is so resolute in his retribution mission he doesn't care that he's passing warring Indians, ghost cowboys, runaway tarantulas, alien invasions and other assorted exceptional encounters. Of course it has a surprise twist ending. There's me trying to hook you in with suspense. Oh! The suspense!

It's the kind of schlocky, irreverent, culty stuff I get a kick out of the most and I like it as a fun tale. In my mind it'd look really cool with some cartoonish artwork, packaged up as a proper picture book. Same as other things I've spawned on this March Madness trip really - I have most fun scripting up the absurd and geektastic, packed full of in-jokery and irreverence. I can't say much else beyond I'd love to see someone art this up and that the things I'm most eager to share are the ideas that are more on the 'quirky' side.

Even though I'm feeling drained and looking forward to letting go off this challenge, it's still so much fun splurging out ideas on a daily basis. Sheriff Samuel Goodgallop has given me a good time today, and I think it reinforces what kind of material I most enjoy grappling with. This kind of stuff is probably going to keep me going to the end of the month. The days to come are going to be packed full of junk that is intentionally absolutely crackers...

Catching nightmares and contemplating picking up pencils and performing my own art experiments...

Having written a lot of stories on this March Madness trip (it's Day 23 and that means I've got 23 manuscripts) I'm finding very interesting things as I enter the end stretch. For a start I'm tired of looking at computer screens. I think without the obligation to type up tales every day, April is going to be designated as a time to unwire and get the hell offline. Constant keyboard rattle is making me crazier and spending more time hooked up to the internet is giving me bad vibes...

Anyway, with regard to the writing itself I'm finding that the more I go on the more I want to try different stuff, push boundaries and screw with convention. I'm typing up ideas, looking at them and thinking "maybe I should have attacked this as a comic script" or "does this work as a picture book and would an artist, publisher or other third party get it and really understand what is on my mind here?"

I'm also more inspired to get back to some sketchy-doodle action after taking a bit of a break and that's no doubt partly due to the 'cyber-drain' I'm feeling. Altogether, I'm pushed towards taking some of the tales I've spawned over the month and trying to visualise the ones that are less ambitious myself and today's effort is very suitable.

What I've got today is "The Nightmare Catcher" which has a dark shadow being - the Nightmare - creeping into a child's room only to be caught by a dreamcatcher before it can work its evil will on the sleeping child. It's another reel of rhyming couplets but I've approached it more from a visual perspective and have particular ideas about it being a chance to experiment artistically. The more limited scale and the opportunity to play around with style makes me think "yeah, I should probably try this one myself" and if I like the accompanying images maybe I could self-publish it on the web or in a zine or small-press-style picture book.

This thing is now tiring me out but I'm getting a kick out of the challenge and the discoveries - both finding that the word processor doesn't recognise the word "apotropaic" and that by writing lots I end up wanting to draw more, especially in the moments where I get a sense that what I'm writing won't ever see visualisation.

Basically, I may draw today's -and other day's tale - myself at some point and I'm going to probably be ramping up the experimental in the final stages of this odyssey.

Mad scientist crackpot experiments inspired by collaborative creative idea generation...

After yesterday's sojourn into really sombre, serious territory (we were with a little girl and a squirrel in a concentration camp) today's picture book writing effort goes back to funner themes. Let's have some mad science, steampunker spirit and a crackpot eccentric main character, says I. I had an idea about an inept amateur scientist throwing himself into basement experiments and blowing everything up so ran with it and wrote "Aeschylus Abrahams: Threat with a Chemistry Set".

Today's tale was also inspired by conversations I had with comrade and webcomics collaborator, the very excellent WG. Discussing the kind of things we wanted to write, draw and creatively mess around with, I got the impetus to write a story for her to tackle. Knowing that you've already got an artist on board makes writing things a little easier. There's less sense of having to convince someone and you don't fear that your references will be misunderstood as much. Not writing for a hypothetical collaborator who doesn't exist takes away a layer of doubt and ambiguity and in transcribing the tale of Aeschylus Abrahams I didn't feel like I was talking to myself.

The lesson is that it's nice to have awesome artistic friends with whom to spitball ideas and generate collective creative inspiration with. It's nice being a writer knowing that your ideal artist is eager and amiable and not a figment of your imagination. That helps occasionally. It's also nice to jump in and out of genres tackling wildly diverse themes and concepts.

Tomorrow it's a totally different tale and back to talking to myself, but that's also very liberating because you're not tailoring something for a single person. Onward with the experiments then. I just hope I don't blow anything up...

Seeking freedom and hope with the squirrel in the forest next to Auschwitz...

This morning my thoughts are on freedom. I like stories about achieving liberation and overcoming oppressive imprisonment- hence I end up scripting tales of apes escaping Alcatraz. Today's picture book writing effort, however, is a more sombre affair - it's about a little Jewish girl in a Nazi camp like Auschwitz.

"Freedom Beyond the Fence" isn't ultra-dark though and I've tried to make something that's beautiful and optimistic. It's a children's picture book tale about a little girl who starts to believe in freedom when she sees a squirrel playing in the dead woods beyond the camp's barbed wire fence. I've got visions of sweet illustrations working to make it a nice uplifting little package that's more about "life is beautiful" than "the Holocaust was horrible". Maybe there's a little of Art Spiegelman's Maus or the influence of films like The Pianist and Schindler's List behind this little story. This isn't an attempt to try and encapsulate the gross sweeping horror of history in a picture book format for children though - it's intended as a personal tribute to freedom and the notion of finding hope when you're imprisoned (physically or metaphorically).

A while back I had to spend a lot of time stuck in an unpleasant place and watching squirrels outside gave me a lot of pleasure. I guess I've remembered that and that's why the symbol of freedom ended up being a red squirrel in this piece. I'm not having a hell of a lot of fun when I write stuff like this (as opposed to the ludicrous offbeat uptempo gonzo whackness) but it feels good to pour personal experience and emotion into the writing. It also feels good writing accessible material that offers hope and optimism in defiance of bleak despair and if these tales were to be turned into beautiful artwork then that'd be brilliant.

Hooray for freedom and for tales that help you picture it. Right, enough of the sappy and the personal for the present moment - I'm going to think on squirrels, freedom and see what nuts are rolled out tomorrow...

Astral projection adventures and more instructions for artists to go on a psychedelic spree...

I told you I was going to try and channel some psychedelic, out-there energies again on this March Madness mission and that happened for today's manuscript blast. Its title is "Thucydides DeLyra Hits the Psychic Highway" and it chronicles the adventures of a man who, bored of being in a coma, astral projects himself out of his physical Earth body and goes elsewhere.

It all no doubt stems from the fact I find the idea of transcendence and the notion of separating soul/psyche/spirit from physical form fascinating. Today's writing also undoubtedly comes from my wish to gleefully 'crazy' material and get my kicks out of doing off-the-wall stuff that elevates events above the mundane. I also wanted to write instructions for a hypothetical artist that encourage them to let their imagination run wild and embrace total creative liberation. The script calls for said artist to envision the astral plane and the psychic highway and draw them which is undeniably a mindblowing challenge. It's also a glorious opportunity if you're inspired and open-minded to try and smash some boundaries. If I had artistic skills (or a lot of LSD in my system) I'd love to throw myself into imagining up some of the stuff I'm describing.

Alas, I don't and the images in my head as realised by Kevin O'Neill or Moebius (rest in peace) are never going to be reality. These words just remain words waiting for an imaginary art genius and I remain talking to myself. Never mind, though - I'll just keep typing and seeing where my mind goes and what it comes up with. I can't astral project (yet) but I can summon up words and with a finite amount of time left on this escapade it'll be interesting to see which of them end up articulated and battered into picture book script format.

On with talking to myself. Seriously, I'm having some excellent exchanges and crossing some supercool ideas in these conversations. If you don't hear from me, I've got bored of my own company and have gone astral travelling...

Some things die but then vampires show up and I get the guidebook out...

Elements of the accursed and the damned are in operation today on the picture book writing trail. I have some vampires, but they didn't manifest immediately. For most of the day I grappled with a different idea and worked it about before deciding that it was reading like synthetic custard made by someone who thought they were making coleslaw. I don't know how that works because I'm not a culinary expert until I try writing a recipe book for one of these daily challenges. Anyway, long story short, I had a good idea and tried writing it but after a long time decided it wasn't gelling. I wasn't enjoying it, was distracted and lost enthusiasm so dropped it for the day and contemplated something else.

That something turned out to be vampires because I'm a sucker for bloodsuckers. Wishing for some fun after getting frustrated, I decided to riff on folk monster legend and channel my affection for Dracula and Nosferatu into "Signs That You May Be A Vampire". It's a simple and silly guide to the symptoms and warning signs of contagion that could be fun to read with the right 'toonish' artwork. This I may ultimately end up providing myself and pushing out as a cheap zine. With the NHS being ripped apart I feel a sense of responsibility to release healthcare materials to help us all through future affliction because no one else is going to care if you can't pay for the required treatment and compassion.

Politicised wrath (I have a surfeit right now) may also get poured into one of these daily exercises but today I'll leave it be with the vampire guide. It makes me realise that writing the official guidebooks to supernatural menaces would be an excellent job to have. I'd like this job. If tomorrow I end up writing the manuscript for 'The Illustrated Guide to Incubus Attack', you'll know that I'm really taken with the idea and am in the process of expanding my portfolio ahead of pitching to the powers that be...

Sunday morning needs some rhythmic silliness and cases of spontaneous combustion...

Yesterday's Banshee wailing and mortal woe bleaked me out way too much so I set about scripting up something slap-daffy and silly today as a more cheery change. What I needed was corny rhymes, kooky characters and surreal flourishes. "Have some fun!" I thought so I thought about fun things. Hey! Spontaneous combustion is fun!

Today's tale is thus titled "Spontaneous Combustion!" and does get back to the kind of gleeful rhythmic ridiculousness that I get a kick out of the most. It starts with a man watching his friend burn up and then to help him through the shock and confusion, Lola Pyrola (super-chic hazmat-spacesuit-wearing song-and-dance star) teleports in from the coolest party in the Solar System to lyrically learn him on the notion of spontaneous combustion. It's an opportunity for me to put together lots of rhymes about fire and focus on a phenomena that I find fascinating. I mean, fire just happening out of nowhere: how cool is that?

A sample of the scribbled nonsense...

Young children, innocent and sweet,

Are burning up on the high street,

Sadly to perish in the heat,

Spontaneous combustion!

Is this morbid? Perhaps it's a little dark but - as I say repeatedly - I like to do offbeat and slightly odd. The main impetus is on writing for the sake of writing and amusing myself but if I'm thinking on potentially audiences it's got cult curio potential (as a lot of the ideas I've spawned have). "Spontaneous Combustion!" could be a lot of fun for an artist or may actually be the kind of thing I could attempt to tackle badly myself and blast out as a web presentation.

I'm itching to share some of this junk I'm spawning and may have to get pens out and sketch 'em myself to ease that urge. That itch could, of course, also be the early warning sign preceding the spontaneous combustion outbreak... *explodes*