Stories just “bustin'” to get out!

THERE comes a time when something you have been thinking about for a long time demands attention. Actually, there are a lot of those “thoughts” that pile up. Which one gets to the top of the pile?! This one did, this week. I have been storyboarding, writing, rewriting, restoryboarding, and on and on, a story about a gal and her ma. They live on a ranch, managing a herd of monsters to keep them “out of folks’ dreams as nightmares”. So, there are always chores to wake up to. The important sub-plot is the mother/daughter relationship. It is a fun puzzle to begin sketching page layouts and design: where to put the type, how to dance around the center spine of the book, how to tell the story on each spread…

THEN the work of “given circumstance” (that’s what they call it in theatre) begins. “Given Circumstances is a principle from Russian theatre practitioner Stanislavski for actor training: what are the conditions of the character’s world, history of the character’s environment, and elements from the character’s personal situation, like, who the heck is Hamlet?!!!

I SPENT some time with the gal character: Delaney Blu. Is she sassy, brassy, big eyed, oozing with certitude and cuteness? Mmmm, perhaps a little quieter confidence, figurin’ things out, obedient not rebellious (there ARE those, lol), still gets into “scrapes”, is a “getter done” kind of gal and yes, cute.