A co-worker told me a story yesterday. She said her daughter had not yet named the baby she just had, because she was waiting for the right name to come to her. The family sat around for hours trying to find a name, and she shot down everyone saying 'it didn't feel right'. But the issue, we thought, wasn't that it didn't feel right, it's that they were not her ideas.

      If somebody names your child, how could you look at it any other way than they gave you the name you would call your kid for the rest of forever? I think almost any parent would need to come up with their own and discover to feel like they fully contributed.
   
      But there's a ton of names out there, so how did we finally get so many Chris's ? (Trust me there's a lot of Chris's out there.)
 
       How many times have you felt that somebody ignores your idea because it was you had it? How many times have you (honestly) not followed or listened to their ideas just because it wasn't yours, or you didn't want to admit they could have seen something you didn't.

      Being a leader is great, but being able to recognize a leader is even more valuable. Watch this video, and get a full sense of what I'm attempting to say, because I could never say it as well as this video does.

100 Pages, 30 days.

For those of you familiar with NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) where you right a ka-jillion (50,000) words in a month- It's now time for the script writers to give it a go with Script Frenzy.

NaNoWriMo worked out great for me last year, while I didn't complete the challenge I had written more in a non-scripted format that ever before, but with Script Frenzy it brings the writing back to what I'm used to and really enjoy, Comic Book Scripts.

My Plan is to complete 5 full scripts this month (22 pages each= just over the 100 page mark.)

This means 2 new issues of 'Turbulence', 2 new scripts for 'Defects' and one more untitled script just to stay fresh with Character/world creation.

Now just because I'm completing the scripts doesn't mean they will no straight into production, that takes money for artist we just don't have at the moment, but it means being more prepared for when that amount is available!

Now the questions of where to take Turbulence, Defects and selecting a third idea to develop as a back burner.

I'll be making regular post with exerts, and even ask for some feedback, so stay tuned.


To do:
Defects Issue 4
Defects Isue 5
Turbulence Issue 5
Turbulence Issue 6
Untitled New Project


First up - Defects Issue 4 script

Oh, and here is a new piture to keep you interested, the first page of Turbulence Issue 4!

This will be a short and sweet entry, I've been thrilled with the folks at Graphicly, and their work on Turbulence for their app, but now they've taken it a step further from the phone to the PC to make it so Turbulence is now embedded into this website!

Give Issue 1 a read 100% free, and consider picking up issues 1-2 for only 99 cents!

She appeared like an apparition out of the mist. Her blackened hair fell down past her shoulders entangling its self in her dress of the same shade, She moved closer to the man as the heavy silver mist parted before the spaces she stepped in.

Derek sat on the bench with his low brimmed hat tilted forward, out of habit to block the bright sun from his eyes, a habit that was useless in this place where the sun was rarely seen, much less shining.

"You're late, Berthelda." He said, not bothering to adjust his gaze at the approaching woman, he kept his eyes low, giving the three pictures he had been studying in his hand a final look before tucking them into his breast pocket.

"Me? Come now, you know better than that." She spoke to him as she always did, in whispers and half-truths. Her voice was as comforting as a block of ice to man already frozen. Derek at least took solace in allowing the shiver to run through him, and convincing himself it was just the chill of the mist, and not a wave of terror.

"Sometimes I think you keep me waiting on purpose Berthelda." Derek said while adjusting his hat and attempting to glance at his watch, the thick mist making this near impossible.

"You know why I'm here?" He asked.

"I may, why not enlighten me?"

Derek looked again to his watch, bringing his arm closer to try to make out its face.

"Seven Thirty-Two" He said.

"Alright, I get the point, since you're on borrowed time I'll stop being cute."

She let the last word hang in the air, as she let slip a murmured cackle, a cry that sounded like bones being crushed together. Her face peeled back on those words, her skin sliding away from its skull pedestal to show the depths of nothingness within her.

"I don't care what form you take, or for you parlor tricks Berthelda, you aren't going to scare me and waste my time."

The faceless form gave a sigh of displeasure.

"Someday that infernal watch will shatter and you'll lose track of how long you have been in my realm--"

"Yeah, yeah and then my face and soul belong to you. I know the speech now tell me where these missing kids are before Eight or I'll be sure never to return here and you won't get your chance."

Berthelda paused for a moment, raising her right hand into the air, and tracing the outlines of Derek's face without touching him in anticipation of it one day belonging to her.

"Very well, come along." She said.

"I told you I'm not leaving the bench. You don't exactly have a lot of spots where a human could leave here on their own you know."

"If I told you then you wouldn't be able to fully grasp the situation. Come along, and I assure you we won't be gone but for a few ticks of that watch." She moved away from the bench, the mist parting and accepted her, while denying Derek the slightest view of what awaited him away from the sanctuary he had depended on.

The two walked together into the shadows, the howls and cracks of untold beast and monsters would have shaken Derek on a normal day - but today they were unbearable. Each time he heard the ground give way to a heavy step, each time he heard the screeches from the other side of the mist he couldn't help but flinch thinking the monsters he had betrayed and slain would be able to leave the mist and come for him.

"How many children have gone missing?" Berthelda asked, her voice more curiousness than conniving.

"Three so far. Siblings." Derek said, keeping his voice low and answers quick, trying to persuade his other senses in vain to scan the mist.

"A shame, once a hero for the mist and now a simple commoner with an even simpler name. Derek." The name left a bitter taste on her lips. She continued.

"Now coming to ask for my help over a handful of missing children. Tell me Derek how does it feel to be reduced to a mere lap dog?" She said.

"Dog?" Something about the word made Derek slow his pace and ponder, the obvious insult set aside their was something in her tone that made his thoughts move inward, away from the deafening creaks of the mist.

"Oh come now Derek, don't tell me they took your humor as well as your prowess, I was just having fun." She said.

But Derek did not laugh. His mind raced through every creature, fable, curse and tomb he had ever encountered or head in a whisper, something didn't sit right with him, and for a man who spent his life now hunting the creatures of the mist, there was no worse feeling than thinking there could be something else outside the realm of the normal 'something else' he knew.

Bertheldea's banter had come to an end, and Derek offered no words, the only sound to be heard was the steady shuffle of brittle rocks beneath their feet, and the echoes of the word dog.

It hit Derek all of a sudden, he gave thanks to the mist for once in his life from allowing him to not see what it hide from his eyes. He also cursed it because he may have realized to late.

He knelt down without a word.

"My dear, Did the mention of dogs stir you so much you would begin to crawl like one?" Berthelda said.

Derek didn't respond, he thrust his arm into the would be ground and felt it give way, first his finger tips entered the crevasses of its soil, but it didn't start there. Soon his palm and after a moment of agonizing pain from a prick to his wrist, then his whole forearm was in the ground.

He grasped now, trying to have his hand pull out some sort of evidence to blow away the confirmation he desperately hopped to avoid. He had no such luck.

"You've got to be shitting me." Derek said.

He pulled his arm free holding in it a bone so withered with age that he threatened to disperse its self from into the air around just for being moved.

Derek pulled the bone close to his eyes, trying in vain to see through the mist, instead using his fingers to trace the outlines of the gashes on it. He repeated the motion once more in hopes he had somehow forgotten how to count.

"A Brume Hound? These things have been extinct for centuries." Derek held the bone out for Berthelda to examine as if there was any chance in the world she didn't understand what was happening, or what he was accusing her of.

"I have no idea what--"
"Don't!" He said abruptly.

"Don't you try to say this is just some weird discovery and that doesn't have anything to do with those missing kids!" Derek finished speaking and pulled the pictures from his jacket.



He threw them at Berthelda who responded with the slightest motion of her hand, causing the photographs to float before her eyes, she examined each one.

She examined each of the images. Young children that went missing with the dates they were last seen by their names. All were equally pathetic in Berthelda's eyes, young humans meant only to be used as playthings for her children within in the mist. She marveled at their imperfections, a young man with hair so long he could barely see through it. The second image, a boy holding several books and reading another, he was obviously to caught up in the world within in his mind to pay attention and take in the beautiful life he was wasting - All of these creatures were so sad to her, but most of all was the young girl, hair pulled back with a large grin, missing almost all of her top teeth, obviously proud her true fangs were coming in.

Derek watched her in return, his anger threatening to boil over from Berthelda's tricks games, and lack of concern for anyone other than her self. He loathed her, but for just the slightest moment he turned his eyes from her to the floating photographs, a spell that even a slug could cast if could speak...Gods how he missed magic.

He thought of several things at once, his anger for his present situation and his past choices, what to say to the parents of these now surely deceased children, and about how coming to the mist, to the spot where he once trained beast that fed on innocent people, was all just a waste of time.

Time.

Derek checked his watch, and easily read the time of "Seven Forty-Eight"

He had 12 minutes to get back to the bench.

"Damn Witch!" Derek said.

"So you noticed the time now that the mist thins? I honestly can't believe it took you this long to realize it." Berthelda said followed by a hearty laugh.

The steady tick of his watch sent a silent echo through his body , he tried to focus on only its vibration, hoping that between each tick he would come up with a plan to get back soon enough, if only ---

"'Grraaa----" The bellow was deep and full of spite.

The mist, had thinned out, removing the layers of depict and deception and sound dampening that had made the trap possible.

"Graaaaaaa----"
"Raa----"
"Mraaagggaaa---"


The roars swelled up, drowning the sounds of Derek's thoughts and Berthelda's foot steps as she strolled away. The floating photographs vanished and Derek felt them appear in his hand, a gentle reminder that he would never cast a spell again.

Derek didn't take the time to count how many of the Brume Hounds had him surrounded, he was ready to run back to his own world the moment he found a bone that just looked like it had come in contact with one of his old pets. He sprinted away from the death he was sure to receive had he stayed any longer, and rushed back to the only place he knew would be safe - His bench.

"Idiot! You keep an eye on the watch, and the mist! How did I not see it thinning out?" Derek hated himself for being so obsessed over Berthelda's tricks that he let time slip away from him.

Shades of red and orange raced after Derek, their low rumbles drowned out by the heavy weight of their steps crushing the bones beneath their claws.

"Seven Fifty One." Derek thought to himself, he had only nine minutes left to rest himself on the bench and return to his own world or stay trapped in this limbo forever.

"No time to hide, and I can't outrun them." Derek glanced over his shoulder to see just how far of a head start he had over the Brume Hounds. The first of them was close enough to see Derek's hesitation and took that moment to leap, it's mane was long enough to cover most of it's face, leaving the eyes a mystery and keeping the fangs it bore sheathed away.

The remaining vapors of the mist Derek could see in front of the beast were scattered apart as claws and fangs move through the air in an effortless motion from the beast. It had been almost a century since anyone from the human’s side of the mist had seen a Brume Hound; their fur once coated the floors near the fireplaces of the greatest hunters that had ever lived. Derek never was one of those greats.

He fell to the ground in a heroic moment of evasive maneuvering and definitely not out of terror for his own well-being; Derek convinced himself, just as the Brume Hound would have shattered him. Instead the monster collided with a tree. With a howl it bit into the tree, only a moment later the leaves shook themselves from their branches, wilting and rotting away they peeled off and crumbled into the wind.

"Haha, I had forgotten about the poison! Oh how I have missed our children!" Berthelda's cackles could be heard between the sounds of the Brume Hound chomping its way through the tree, trying to shake the hair from it's eyes away long enough to find it's him again.

Before Derek could think to stand up the second beast had him pinned to the ground, it's claws dug into his shoulders sending Derek's mind spiraling. Derek looked up at the over sized mutt, its top row of teeth almost missing, but the bottom fangs more than enough to end him.

Derek held it’s throat back with his left hand as his right hand desperately reached for anything to assist him, when no rocks, tree branches or magic swords presented themselves he decided to do this the hard way.

"Get off of me!" Derek yelled as he swung his right arm the best he could directly into it’s eye. Howling and whining the Hound staggered back letting Derek slide away from it.

"It hurts."

Derek had already risen to his feet and turned his back to the monsters again when he heard the sound, a low gargling noise that sounded almost like speech.

Derek glanced ahead one more time and could see his bench, only a short run from where he stood, but was compelled to look behind him.

"What?" Derek said to the beast pawing at its own eye.

"It hurts." It said again.

The two other Hounds were at the side of there injured companion, the one still spitting tree bark from its teeth didn't move it's fixed gaze from Derek, but the last one, smaller than the rest seemed to be...nudging the injured hound. Derek took a step towards them, against every piece of logic that told him to take the moment and just run.

“Ignore what must have been another of Berthelda's tricks” The thought ran through his head but despite himself he couldn’t leave.

"Don't just sit there! Attack him, he's the one that trapped you here!" Berthelda's voice echoed in the vast emptiness, without the mist around him to take in the sounds he hadn't realized how large this realm had grown.

"She's lying." Derek said.
"Talking to a Brume Hound. I really have lost it." Derek thought

Derek took another step forward, but the tree smashing Hound darted to cut him off.

This one didn't speak it only growled, taking slow steps forward between each warning,

"OK, I'm leaving." Derek said backing away, he stole a glance at his watch, only three minutes remained.

Several steps and ticks of his watch later, Derek's leg bumped into the bench. The Brume Hound stood there with a constant low growl daring Derek to try something. Derek sat down on the bench preparing to leave, he adjusted his now tattered hat and jacket, and pulled out the pictures of the missing kids.

"Poor Kids." Derek said, letting the pictures fall to his lap, he closed his eyes and prepared to leave empty-handed, without so much as a lead on where they could be.

The pictures fall as he began to fade back to his own realm. He thought of the images as he faded away to safety and home, the boy with the large necklace, the girl with the toothless smith, and the older boy with his long shaggy hair that covered any distinguishing features he may have had, even his eyes.

Derek opened his eyes.

He tried to reach for the pictures that were still falling through his faded form, but his hand went through them. He looked at the top one as it descended and at the Brume hound in front of them, both with their hair so long that the eyes couldn't be seen.

There wasn't time for hesitation or second guessing, Derek stood from the bench and the safety of home. At once the mist was on him, filling the void ghostly area's of his body with it's fumes threatening to keep him as a prisoner again if he waited any longer to leave.

The large Brume Hound didn't waste time to in lashing out at Derek, his enormous paw going through his body and colliding on the bench. Derek knew he was to far phased to feel the blow, but there was always the chance he was wrong about what he was thinking, so it wouldn't be to far to be wrong about the pain aspect of it as well.

White light through through the mist binding the Brume Hound to the Bench, it let out a wail of pain and anguish before it's rear legs buckled, then falling through the phantom form of Derek and onto the bench.

The beast fur shed it's self, dissolving into mist that hurried it's self away back to the shadows as the beast's body shrank to the size of a child, that moved around quickly, he would have been the most terrified wide eyed thing Derek had ever encountered, if you could see his eyes through his hair.

Derek turned away from the boy, thinking it best not to place a nearly invisible hand on the boys shoulder for comfort and looked to the other Brume Hounds. They were already charging at him to help their falling friend, he didn't move to challenge them, and this time didn't even close his eyes- against his brains better judgement as they leaped.

Much like the other, they landed on the bench, turning from monsters into what they had been before entering the mist.

"Sorry!" Derek yelled into the emptiness before throwing himself back on the bench.

Horns buses, trains and police sirens filled the air as Derek and the children opened their eyes to the world around them, the world that they all knew and belonged too. Each of the children looked around at their surrounding each thinking they had just returned to a place they didn't even realize they had missed.

"My eye hurts." The little girl finally said giving it a gentle touch and looking at Derek.
"Yeah, sorry about that." Derek said.

"Come on, let's get all of you home, your parents have been missing you." Derek removed his hat and examined it, with a sigh he tossed his hat into the garbage bin near the bench, as he had so many times before.

The boys each thanked him as they ran inside, and the parents asked questions Derek didn't answer.

"They ran away, hide in a playground, and they must have fallen down and hurt their head they didn't seem to remember to much when I found them." He said to the parents, it took more time to explain the little teeth missing girl's black eye but they were more grateful than curious.

Derek walked away from their home, the final child now safely in the arms of their parents removing his heavy jacket and placing the envelope of money they had given him in it's pocket. Inside the jacket he felt the photographs of the missing children, and removed them.

"Guess I don't need these." He said, and walked back to the door, the parents should probably have a picture of their daughter before he gave her a black eye that may never go away.

He raised his arm to knock on the door but stopped for some reason.

"Graaaaaaa----"
"Raa----"
"Mraaagggaaa---"

Roars filled the home, Derek took several steps back as heavy stomps shook the home inside. Derek ran back to open the door to see what was happening when the mist rose up from the cracks beneath the door to answer his question.