Eric Johnson Comics

Well, I did that stupid thing....

I spent about 45 minute writing a blog post.    Quite a few words.  Longest one yet.

Several pages long.

Moderately clever.   Pretty well constructed, I thought.

(some of you probably know where this is going already)

I had an extended metaphor built up.  And a lead up to future blog posts.

Hundreds of carefully constructed words.

Then, I clicked publish. 

and got sent to a page for me to log into my account.   My session had timed out.

Entered my name and password to log in.   And got a black blog post entry page....

Everything lost due to session timeout.  No way to recover using back button or anything.

I hadn't even hit  "save as draft" every so often...

I KNOW better than this.

Stupid, stupid beginner's mistake.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to find the best way to kick myself repeatedly.

So, I've set myself the goal of posting one blog post here every day.

Shouldn't be too tough, right?  Lots of people do that, and more, on a blog.

Of course, I'll have to have something worth "saying" each day.  I'm not really the type of person to blog about a random boring day, but since it's happening to ME, I'll share the details of the day with everyone who stops by the appropriate website.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.  Some people just like to share, talk about what's going on, and keep everyone informed as to what's up.  Not usually me. I can be a pretty private person at times.

And I'll need to do *some* slice-of-life stuff.  If nothing else, then distant friends and family can get some way of seeing what's up with me life.  I just need to find something worth talking about each day that I don't mind hypothetically sharing with the whole online world.   Avoid the "baring-my-soul" extreme, as well as the trap of TMI, while still opening up enough to find something worthwhile to write about.

And, I'm setting myself some ground rules for this blogging.   I've established 5 categories.   This should keep me to containing my subjects to mostly things covered in the main areas of the website.   Which should also help me safely avoid hot button topics like politics or religion or philosophy.   Not that I don't have a lot to say in those areas, but there's other places to discuss that kind of stuff.

So, my goals with this blog:

1) Establish the disipline of writing something each day.  Even if it's just a paragraph.  Get in the habit, and keep up the basic reflex to type up something with a coherent sentence structure every day.

2) Provide an easy way to regularly add content to the website between publication of comic books or mission arcs.   Get it out there what I'm working on, how it's going, etc.

3) Have a blog where my regular updates can provide an opportunity to see how I'm doing for friends and family that are interested.  Yes, I'm neglectful at keeping up communication sometimes.  I hope to have this mitigate that somewhat.

And, in the interest of sneak previews, here's the topics which are currently bouncing around in my heads as good blog topics for this site, and likely to show up soon:

- The Mission Architect of the City of Heroes game.  Why I love it and my frustrations with some recent issues.

- AC Comics, FemForce, Good Girl Art, and what they mean to me.

- A thank you letter to people I don't even know personally, several years overdue, for how their work helped me get it together and submit my first scripts to AC.

- Pen and paper RPGs with superhero themes.  Why my two favorites are so different, and why the worse one of the two got a lot more use from me in the end.  Maybe some thoughts on the official FemForce RPG from years ago, and how RPG game mechanics can impact sexism in storytelling.

-  Weekly reccomendations of comic books to read.  Thinking of doing two suggestions a week, split into a light vs. dark or heavy vs. light dichotomy.   Still mulling that over.

- going over the list of webcomics I read regularly

Hopefully, that will be enough to get me through the first few weeks. 

Welcome aboard, anyone who's reading this.  Hope I can at least make it interesting enough to be worth the time it takes to read it.

So, why this month to get a website up and running?

Well, so I'd have something to put on a business card to give out at a convention...

I'm going to be going to Cherry Capital Con on June 12th and 13th.

http://www.cherrycapitalcon.com

And, I'm not just going as a fan, I went ahead and rented an exhibitor's table...

...Yep, I'll be sitting behind a table, watching the comic book fans walk by for hours and hours... Just like a "real" comic book creator! (well, except I'll probably be ignored more by passer-bys than most people who bother to pay for a table).

Got the website up and going, so now I need to get some business cards made, some flyers, maybe some basic signage.... got some stuff to do in next few weeks.

I'll have a sign that says something like "Eric Johnson, Traverse City guy and published amateur comic book writer." I'll be selling my issues of AC comics at a discounted rate and signing them for the interested.

So, anyone near Traverse City, stop by and see me at the con, so I don't get TOO lonely.

Friends in tight financial situations who can make it to Traverse City, let me know if you need one of the spare con passes I bought. And for close enough friends,  crash space in Traverse City can also be found for those who wish to avoid hotels.

Well, here it is.  I've got a website.

Most who come here should have at least *some* idea as to who I am.   A hypothetical visitor at this stage is either friend, family, or someone following a link from my sig file from another website of mutual interest. So, probably not a lot of fresh, vibrant, and new content for most people.  But it is some information nicely arranged in one place. 

Still a bit of work to do, such as on the Links section. I've got to ask a lot of artists for permission to link to their sites, for example.

Still, it's satifying to be able to declare this website "mostly done".

Now, the blog section...  Let's see how close to once-a-day posting I can get for a while....

The journey of a thousand miles beings with a single step.  Guess that makes this a single step.