“Well I used to change body depending on my mood.” replied Spider. “If I was relaxed I was a cat, angry I was a bull, thoughtful I was a tortoise.”
“Aha,” said Serpent.
“I was a dolphin once,” said Spider.
“Gosh,” said Serpent.
“Yeah,” sighed Spider. “I lacked a porpoise.”
~
I often get asked how I come up with new posts every day. Blind luck to be honest.
Some people use prompts. So how about the title of each days Little Fear works as writing or blogging prompts for you lovely readers? Everyone is more than welcome to link to their own blog posts below in comments. Link backs welcome, but certainly not necessary. Today’s prompt is Dolphin. You can post a photo, an illustration, a story or a blog post about dolphin conservation. Anything that relates to Dolphins.
I am a texture lover. For those out there that did not follow my old web site, I used to use newspapers to doodle on. Towards the end of my old website I had an impending feeling of doom. What if someone recognises a photo that I do not have rights to modify and upload and comes looking for monies? It never happened, but it was burbling away in the back of my mind. So I stopped doodling on newspapers, and found my work lacking. The main thing missing was that grainy newspaper texture.
I then came across copyright zero images on Unsplash and Pixabay. Print them off in medium to low quality on 80 gsm paper, and like magic, that texture has returned!
Scruffy is Awesome
I am not saying doing a bad job is awesome. Those little imperfections, those grains, the bumps and flecks. They can combine to create something more than a doodle. Intentionally imperfect. That’s the scruffy that’s awesome.
I am not the only texture lover out there. I know DMS at DMStrachan.co.uk is a texture lover too. In a very different way to me and my messy textures, but the way she writes about the feel of the fibres.
It’s a pity you can’t squish this fibre through a monitor, I can’t look at fibre without reaching out to feel the texture of it.
For a worryingly colourful post, and much wool, artworks and paints, give her a visit and a follow.
My one review remarks that they love the texture of the paper I printed on.
The canvas textured paper is a nice touch.
It’s a canvas effect paper, at 200 gsm, it has a sexy look and feels awesome. Glad the buyer liked it too. I take that as more evidence I am best served warm, with texture.
Now here’s the problem and point of the post. My TellyTube videos. Have you seen them?
The humour and artwork is all very me. Scruffy, kinda, with minimal colour. But in the same breath, it is lacking. The voice is me, daft London accent. The music is kinda goofy. It currently masks background noise I cannot eliminate in my home without a better mic. My voice has enough character to go without music. I hope to deal with that in a few months time.
But the thing that is really missing, is the texture. The visceral feel of every other art work I put there. Canvas or paper. Grainy or clean. It is missing that scruffy edge everything takes on when it has some texturing to it.
That pretty much sums it up doesn’t it? My TellyTube needs texture. I have been thinking about this, and there is a few options I can take.
The first would be to take the original art work, and do close ups of each part as it comes up in the spoken word tale. I think that would look and feel jaunty and awful, but it would be textured.
Another alternative is to draw each scene individually. I am not a consistent doodler, even of my own images. That would go over the scruffy edge into sloppy inconsistency.
I can achieve the above effect digitally. Take this as a test card. I would probably run this effect on white paper.
They grey and black background is printed on 80 gsm paper, with Fuen and Yuffie added digitally. Hey I think this is the first appearance of Yuffies actual image on this website!
It looks scruffy, would be more consistent, certainly better than both the other options above. Even with that terrible grey, it looks more ‘Little Fears’ than the super clean format images I currently use in the videos.
The last option is to record the video as me telling the story to the camera. I look as daft as I sound. My facial features and animated movements would make for a great story teller to the camera. My hands and face constantly move in exaggerated ways when I tell these tales to people in person. I get much more in character too. My voice is toned down in the current videos.
Don’t point that camera at me!
The problem there is I really struggle to talk to a camera. I have tried so many times, I just can’t seem to do it. Give me a stage and an audience, and I am up there. You can give me a social group, and I always end up leading the pack. Or a class room of people, and I will be the clown, getting everybody’s focus. But talk to a camera? Holy crap, do I get self conscious.
But that could work. I mean, imagine a fella, sitting on a tree stump, or heck even in an alley way, somewhere odd. With my voice, behind that mask, wearing a shirt, grey wool jacket and jeans. Reading the Little Fears tales from a book. That could work. I would still be animated with the body, it ‘might’ give me the right head for talking to the camera, and a mask like that would fit for tales of whimsy, humour, terror and courgettes.
Where am I?
After all this writing, I still am not sure what I want to do with the videos. I want create them, even for creative sake. I really enjoy making them. They never take long to create. Man, I want to do something else with them though. I need to get some texture in there! I’ll figure it out. If you have any ideas yourself, let me know in comments.
In the mean time, you can check out my current set of video offerings on TellyTubeHERE. Also if there are any another texture lovers out there, you can check out my Etsy store, with matte and canvas paper art prints on sale from £12.
Kathy looked behind her. There was a woman using a terminal, on the other side of the room. Quite tall, but delicate looking. Slender arms and legs. Her thin dress seemed to hang of her bones. Easy mark.
Kathy turned back to the terminal. “Kill her.”
A shadow loomed up behind her, as a slender arm bought a hammer down upon the back of Kathy’s head.
“As you ask,” said the slender woman to her terminal.
The Little Fears do have a Patreon page, and Hydra has eaten a forest on it. If you read and love the Little Fears tales, but do not want to buy our book, T Shirts, prints or course, Patreon would be a darn fine way to keep the creativity flowing.
If you are here to find out what I have planned, well… To be honest I am not sure.
I mean there is a million things I can do, some even pay and support my obsession for writing flash fiction. 99% of it will still be free for everyone to enjoy. I do want to earn a bit more off of the Little Fears though. Even getting to £600 a month of them would be good, that would cover darn near all of my expenses, and would mean no more freelance work was required. That would be helpful for the dry work months.
There is of course a lot of work to do though. First of all, when I started the Fears, I never expected them to actually take off like they have. So I never worked the SEO. The Little Fears are absent from every search engine on the Internet. I need to go back over the first 100 posts and make them all SEO friendly. A long, dull job. Also something that will be hard, as flash fiction is so short, it will never be 300 or more words long. You do not need to hit 1,000 words a post like you used to in the old days of blogging. But you certainly do need to reach 300 or more to get noticed.
Then I need to create more saleable content. I have to get more prints on the Etsy store. More T Shirt designs on Threadless. I have to complete the paperback edition of January. Not sure if I want to teach more on Skillshare yet. I want to write a course that is worth while, something useful. My brains blank on that right now, so it is something I will come back to. I also need to put some more incentives on Patreon. The top two Patreon tiers were not working for me wording wise, so before anybody took them, I whipped them down for a working.
I definitely need to work on my social media skills going forward. Funny thing, give me a brand and I can work up huge followings really quickly and do something useful with them. The Little Fears reached 30,000 followers combined across various platforms, and I am useless and utilising that. That partly comes back to no SEO though. When I started I never intended Little Fears to be an earner. It just sort of happened.
With that I need to talk more. I have always been a massive advocate of the idea that talking to other people is how you get ahead in blogging. Not just spamming the crap out of people, but actually going out, reading posts that interest you, and leaving genuine comments. Am currently reading a post, then just hitting like and moving on. That is annoying the heck out of me. It’s insincere.
I will be working a copyleft license into my work in April too. I guess we will find out if it is possible to make a living as a copyright free, opensource, illustrator and writer.
For future fears, where to start?…
Today I sent off 190’ish pieces of flash fiction to my editor. 96 funny flash fictions, and 96 horror / weird fiction flash fictions. That will be my next two books, and 190 odd posts.
I also hope to write a short ABC’s of the Little Fears book, which will be available for free. 26 pieces of flash fiction and illustration to show off our awesome. Now there is an idea. Make it free for a time, then give it away as a Patreon incentive? That could work.
Science Fiction, flash fictions, from the alien fear I drew some months back. A mix of inspirational ideas, digital art,ASCII imagery with 8 bit creations. Micro fiction, 6 word stories. How does a six word story work?
“Siri, delete dad from my phone.”
Boop. That’s how. Super short form fiction.
I found I was able to animate the bugs I drew some time ago too. It would be fun to make some silent animation films with them in a similar vein to the game Botanicula.
Then there is comics. Depending on how well the horror and weird fiction tales are received, there is a character called Denver. An old British detective, who features in a few tales. The ideas I had of him chasing after the strange inhabitants of the Little Fears world as they cross into the real world seemed to write themselves. A comic book would be a perfect format for that.
There is a more long form story in my mind for the Little Fear Reala, who featured in a single story. She is a hang over from my old Tales of the Blue Moon. The story would explore what the Little Fears are, how they came to be and the world they inhabit. All from the confines of a shabby London bar. it would be novella length by the time it was done. 20,000 words at least. Oh hey, camp Nano is in April? Good time to start a novella. Lets work that into a schedule.
A lot to do, and there is a plan there. It needs some hammering out and arranging. But with all that coming out of my mind and onto paper, I believe there is enough there to earn a living.
In the mean time, if you would like to see these ideas come to fruition, a tip of $1 a month or more through Patreon would help me an awful lot!
Thanks again for being awesome readers, and congratulations to anyone that managed to read this entire post. That was a long one!
Little Fears 