by Jeremiah Tolbert
I once sat beside a campfire in Washington and listened to a man with a pistol strapped to his waist lecture for an hour about the ecology and habits of the Sasquatch. Meanwhile, my companions–a college professor and two high school teachers–had taken up buckets in a circle around our camp and were drumming to attract the great skunk ape into our midst.
I’ve spent much of my life jealous of those around me who were naturally talented at things. I’ve always wished I had something resembling talent in visual arts; I have never been able to draw, and it’s a talent I greatly admire.
I can’t tell you much about the experience of writing a graphic novel in general. I can only tell you specifically about my experience for this particular graphic novel I’ve been writing for the past six months.
When I first decided to take up writing as a serious pursuit, I figured the best way to get started was to ask a writer for advice. My lucky break was that Connie Willis happened to be in town to give a reading, and she gave me a wonderful tutorial in the basics; just Connie, her husband, and my wife, talking for a couple of hours in a Laramie bookstore. I owe a lot to Connie’s early advice.
Set in NYC and a fictional feudal planet, this novel tempts the feral temperament of Internet connoisseurs with a lubricious story that puts the R back into romance. Alas, an AI’s effort to participate here flashes like a horror show throughout.
Robyn Dabney, an author and freelance copyeditor, is known for her fantasy trilogies, The Soul Mender Trilogy and The Daughter of the Summit & Sea (The Ascenditure), as well as her sci-fi short Cracked and horror short The Utburd.
