“Writers Do Nothing With Their Time…”

By Tony Lee

Well hello! Welcome to the column – grab a drink, pull up a chair, and let’s see where this takes us.

First off, the obligatory introduction. Hello. I’m Tony. Or, for my full name, Tony Lee. I write stuff. Sometimes I write stuff for money. Mainly I write stuff so that people can read it.

In the last couple of years I’ve written a variety of things including X-Men, Doctor Who, Shadowmancer, Starship Troopers, Midnight Kiss, The Tizzle Sisters & Erik and Amazing Fantasy. That’s a Marvel title, not a porn magazine. I’ve also written things that aren’t out yet, things like Raven’s Gate or Robin Hood – Outlaw’s Pride. You’ll see these names a lot over the next few months – because I intend to advertise them at every given opportunity.

I also write other things, like books, radio episodes and TV shows. I might talk about them too. Deal with it.

Up until this year, I wrote this column for Dez Skinn and Comics International, but with the changing of the guard and my new position as Group Editor of Markosia meaning that it’s believed that I can’t be as ‘unbiased’ as I’d like to be, the nice guys at SBC have allowed me to come over and play in their sandbox for a while.

I’ll be utterly honest and make the disclaimers here. I’m not going to do a weekly joke column. There will be amusing bits, there might even be amusing columns – but that’s not what I’m doing here. This is just the outpourings of a slightly stressed C-list creator who has to juggle multiple projects at any one time to ensure that he gets enough exposure to get his next paying gig. Like my stories, I have no idea what the hell is going to happen next.

Also, there will be harsh language used on occasion. If you’d prefer your child not to read such columns, may I suggest the Disney site at www.disney.com. Or amusing dwarf fun at www.analmidgets.com. Ho ho, those wacky ‘little people’ and their, um - toys.

Also, another change from the Comics International column is my occasional assistant, Dan Boultwood. Dan’s an incredible artist, as many of you will know if you’ve seen his art on The Tizzle Sisters or The Gloom (out as a collected trade later this year), and every now and then he’ll be involved here when his schedule allows him.

Anyway, I thought I’d start with something a little more highbrow than usual – I know, I know, this is the column that rose to fame when I told an anecdote about a man staring at my willy in a hotel toilet – but fear not, my little poppets, there’ll be a lot more of those in the future. Instead, this issue I shall dispel some myths. Today I shall tell you about the day of a writer – in particular my own day.

Now, one of the most common misconceptions I get is ‘wow, you’re a writer – I’d love to have a job like that, doing nothing, just chilling out’ - so first, let’s kill that one dead. You want to be a writer? Expect to put the time in. Being a writer isn’t a Monday to Friday, nine to five job. Being a writer is constant as ideas come in constantly. But you need to put some rules onto it, or else you’ll burn out in a month. Or write shitty stories like [CENSORED]usten.

Now, people put different rules on their writing depending on their situations. JMS will work best in the evening, so often writes until 4am and then sleeps until noon. Warren Ellis is in the pub by lunchtime and works in a corner on his futurephone surrounded by an army of female robot ninjas. Geoff Johns plugs his clones in first thing in the morning and lets them write his comics while he rolls around giggling in a vat of banknotes. Me? I try to keep to a 9 til 5. But it doesn’t ever work that way. Why? Well some days I’ll have deadlines, so I’ll be chained to the desk. Other days I’m camped out in the local library, or down in the British Library in London, researching. Today, for example I’m learning all about 1850’s London – and sometimes you need more than Wikipedia and Google. Other days I’m having meetings with publishers, conference phone calls, going to conventions, book launches, art exhibitions, showbiz orgies – it’s constantly changing. But let me take you through a usual day. In fact, let’s pick a Monday.

I’m usually up at about 7.30am. After showering and dressing, I’m usually at the PC desk by eight, a bottle of squash or water by my side, some toast or cereal for breakfast, if I even remember that far. And I start with the internet. I go through all the news sites, to see if anything has happened over the last eight hours. Why? Well, for example –

What if my favourite editor was poached by a rival?

I’ll need to know so I can contact their assistant to make sure my project’s still ongoing. And then of course I have to congratulate the editor on his/her new move at the new employer, on the off chance they have a new pitch for me.

Sounds cynical? Yeah, sure it is. Ask Mike Marts how many ‘well done’ and ‘good luck’ emails he got from Marvel creators the week he went to DC. I know I was one. Or, for vice versa, Steve Wacker when he went the other way. We creators, we’re a mercenary bunch. ‘Well done in your new position! Um, got anything for me there..?’

But job offers aren’t the only reason to look. New projects are announced daily. What if the character I was pitching for gets announced as a new ongoing by someone else? I need to know what’s happening for everyone else as well as myself. Otherwise I can spend months on a pitch for JoJo the Idiot Clownboy, only to see (usually the day before I finally send the pitch in) that there’s a 4 part series coming out by two exclusive creators who want to re-imagine him as an intergalactic ninja, an announcement I missed two months earlier – which, if I had seen would have saved me all that time.

And Clown juice.

So, back to my Monday. News sites done, I read All The Rage, a gossip site up on Sundays that comes from this very website. I read The ENGINE. I check several email lists I’m a member of. And then I check my emails, replying where needed. I sometimes post on my Blog, or more likely my Livejournal. And then, around nine, I’m ready to work.

Many writers turn off the Internet at this point, but I don’t – I’m a bit of a control freak on email - if I have something I need to do, I need to know there and then. So it stays on. I’ve had to deal with two emails since starting this column, for example.

Now, a comic writer isn’t the same as a novelist – for the months it takes to write it, that novel is pretty much their only thought. A comic writer? You’re scripting one issue. You’re blocking out another. You’re plotting a third. You’re pitching three others, minimum. You have to time-manage like a bastard, and that’s not even including the interviews and columns you’ll be doing, the blatant self-promotion that’s part of the job.

Now, the reason you check emails at the start is to set priority. Say an editor emails you the night before needing some changes. Unlikely? Well, being in the UK I work to GMT. An editor in LA who has a thought while walking out the door at 6pm will send me an email that I’ll get at 2am. That time zone conundrum means that often, by the time I start work – I’m already playing catch up.

So, the music goes on – my music changes daily – currently I have Madeleine Peyroux on. Last week it was Meatloaf. Next week it’ll probably be Mika. No, I’m not going through the ‘M’s, I’m just picking the ones I like. I have a ton of dramatic Hans Zimmer soundtracks to play. It all depends on the mood of the piece. So with that on, I start my first job. Today it’s writing some of Rahbin Hood, my teenager’s novel that I’m going to get lynched for when it gets published. I write 2,000 words a day, unless it’s a busy day when I only do 1,000. While writing my last one, King Bill I stopped for a while over the summer while my workload was mental – and when I got back onto it I spent five days on it solid, and did about 25,000 words that week. But I don’t have the time to just concentrate on this, so today I’ll do a quota and move on. Scratch that itch. So now it’s about 11am, 2,120 odd words are done and I save it - put it aside and open Final Draft.

I’ve used this for my scripting for a couple of years now, since Antony Johnston and Andy Diggle convinced me to – in fact, I’ve only recently stopped using the template that Diggle sent me all that time ago. This helps me a lot, takes care of a lot of the niggling jobs, formatting, tabs etc and means that I can just cut to the chase. And I’ll spend about two hours writing whichever script is most important. Last Monday, the one in question - it’s issue #3 of the new ongoing series of Starship Troopers.

Around 1pm, I’ll have lunch. Usually I’ll stop totally and either go outside for an hour, do some chores, or I’ll sit and watch a television show. I’m not tuning out, I’m learning. I’ll watch The Wire for plot design. West Wing for dialogue. Whatever I need to build up on, I watch.

Now, I’ll also say that lunch is a luxury. Often I find myself just hammering through it. If I’m on a roll with a script, I’ll keep hanging on that bucking bronco until I’ve exhausted myself. Often I’ll work through lunch and have a break later. But in an ideal day, lunch is done properly.

By half past two, I’m back on the PC. I’m usually plotting and blocking at this point, going through finished pages and proofing them for a publisher or, if I really need to break the back of a story, I’m back scripting. That’s what I’m doing on this Monday - I don’t stop until about 4pm. Now usually, this is where people start to wind down – but me? I’m just starting. Why? Because this is late morning New York time, and various editors are just getting settled after getting into work. Which means I start to receive emails that need to be answered. And this goes on until around 6pm – when the West Coast wakes up and arrives at work. And it starts again.

Now this is a hypothetical Monday – so for brevity’s sake I don’t have evening plans apart from an hour taken out of the time to speak to my girlfriend on the phone – so I’m now sorting out things for editors, blocking out issue plans and scripting some upcoming work, creator owned stuff until 8, 9pm when Lying in the Gutters comes out. I check it out, as does a lot of the industry. Usually a wealth of new emails arrive around now from editors and US creators I know who, now hitting their afternoons have more time to chat. And while I email back replies, I’m still writing. And if there’s a problem, it’s not unknown for me to be still emailing editors/publishers gone midnight (after all, that’s only 4pm on the west coast) and waiting for replies that I’ll get the following day, when I start this all over again.

So the next time you think of being a writer, remember this. I’ve had days where I’ve realised at 4pm that I haven’t eaten breakfast or even left my study, when I’ve been writing since 8am. And that’s not uncommon. I’ve had deadline days of over twenty hours a day for three to four days straight doing four projects simultaneously, and not lessening the quality on any of them. People say ‘but that’s crazy! Lessen the workload!’ - But I’m still the new boy on the block. I need the product out there so my name is known. I need to pimp myself on the internet so my brand is remembered. I calm down when I can afford to. You think I like being seen as the boy who self promotes everywhere? Hell, in private I’m my own worst critic. But I need to build the brand. I need to build the product. I fly to New York? I’m writing in the airport, on the plane and in the cab to Manhattan.

And when I do calm down – I’ll probably still write for stupid hours. Because you know what? There’s not a better job in the world.

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So February’s an interesting month. Although I’m working like a man possessed, I actually only have one comic out this month, Starship Troopers – Damaged Justice #2. Which of course is where the story really picks up, as Will Tanner and the Tigers build up to an epic confrontation in their respective stories.

It’s technically the tenth issue of a 12-issue series that started off as a trilogy for Mongoose, and I can’t tell you how happy I am to see it almost over. I’ve had this book done and dusted for over two years now, and finally I can say to people ‘and this is how I ended it.’

And of course don’t forget that due to book delays (issue #2 was supposed to out in January) the third issue is early March and the final issue is at the end of March, and then that leads into the brand-spanking new Starship Troopers ongoing series that starts in April.

By which time, more stuff should be out there again.

That said, I do have technically a second one out, Midnight Kiss #5, which was cancelled April 2006 has finally been released online, at Markosia.com. You can find the links by travelling to www.Markosia.com and looking at the NEWS section. It’s available as both PDF and CBR.

A Dan free column – mainly as I’d written a lot of this one already for Comics International before they dropped the column. But the little fella did manage to throw me a few words and a picture –

“After being born great and having greatness thrust upon one’s self, a life of greatness was my inescapable destiny. No man born of whippet could have matched my immense feeling of immenseness as I looked down upon what could one day be mine. All the colours of the rainbow - like the rotting corpse of a clown in the gutter, marvelous.

With dignity and pride I explored every crevice for tightness and security of which had never been witnessed by the likes of man before. Doubt filled my opium addled mind as the specters became too strong to control, mother’s ruin beckoned from the cupboard and who was I to refuse?

With gumption failing and the control on my bowels soon to follow I stepped up my search with renewed vigour. The thought of seepage and the social faux pas this would cause to the clergy became the coke to my fire. Choices flashed past like dreams long spent, sweat glistened of my glisteny brow and made me sweaty, but still I pressed on.

Suddenly In one momentous moment of momentousness, I was a woman.

I couldn’t really think of anything to write so I decided to give you an extract of my impending memoirs, from the chapter entitled ‘My First Training Bra’

Always a pleasure, never a chore.

“Laird of the Shed”

Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you. And today’s picture is a teaser for one of our projects – The Crimson Todger – Hero of the Western Front.

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And of course, as a final note, it’s the Eagle Awards in May, on the Saturday of the Bristol Comic Expo – at www.eaglewards.co.uk/nominate.asp. Although I’m unlikely to win anything on a good day, it’ll be interesting to see what happens here – we have until the 28th of February to get as many nominations in – after that the top five are ‘nominated’ and the voting section starts.

Currently I have a vested interest in…

Favourite Comics Writer (me), Favourite Editor (me), Favourite Publisher (Markosia), Favourite Colour Comicbook – British (Starship Troopers, Midnight Kiss, Shadowmancer), Favourite New Comicbook (Starship Troopers), Favourite Comics Story Published in 2006 (Starship Troopers #0), Favourite Original Graphic Novel (The Tizzle Sisters & Erik), and Favourite Reprint Collection (Starship Troopers).

Feel free to vote. It’s always nice to feel wanted.

That’s all for me today. Enjoy.


Tony Lee is the award-nominated writer of things including The Tizzle Sisters with G.P Taylor and Dan Boultwood, Starship Troopers, Doctor Who, X-Men and Robin Hood – Outlaw’s Pride with Sam Hart. Michael Moorcock says that ‘Tony Lee is one of the best story-tellers working in comics today’. He drinks, though. Tony’s website is www.tonylee.co.uk. Feel free to email him on itsonlyacomic@gmail.com and interrupt his day.

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© 2008, Tony Lee

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