Mania Mania

I'm getting near the end of "layout stage" for Cashiers du Cinemart #15.

I'm completely manic.

I had a few advertisers come in at the eleventh hour. I'm always happy to have the advertising but had to go ahead and work under the assumption that they weren't coming through. This means that I've got ads and no room anymore. I'm going to have to go back in and chop out some pages or magically pull a number of stories out of the air. That said, I probably could whip out a number of reviews or even an article in this current state.

Why can't I be in this mode all the time? If I kept up this pace I'd burn myself out, I'm sure, but if I could keep just a fraction of it -- enough to keep me writing on a regular basis and providing sufficient material for a regularly-scheduled publication, I'd be golden. Instead, I burn bright and then snuff out for a while as things percolate in my noggin for months or years.

Hell, in this upcoming issue I've got stories written that I began when I was on my "honeymoon" over six years ago. What I need to keep in mind is that I don't have to sit down and write the larger articles all at once -- that I can piecemeal them over a few months. Why I forget this, I don't know.

Maintaining a schedule for Cashiers du Cinemart would help me in so many ways. It'd help me gain and maintain advertisers. It'd make my distributors happy. It'd probably even make my wife happier that I wasn't a pendulum of activity. Way back during issues 9-12, I managed to set aside a night a week for writing. Now that I've got my own bank of TVs with LD, DVD, and VHS players in the basement, you'd think that I'd be able to get my shit together and lay claim to that practice again.

It's not like I'm still working 80-100 hours a week at ePrize anymore. I can actually devote some time to the zine outside of work. And, if I can find balance between the zine and my subtitling projects, I'd be living on cloud nine.

Meanwhile, on the distribution front, I've started working with a new company that should be able to get me into some more book stores. And, I've got another company that might get me into some comic book stores. The only problem there is that the comic company wants me to wait until October to put out the next ish. They're afraid that if I have it sent out through my regular channels of distribution that I'll "depress the market." That's a fair fear but I'm not sure if I can wait a few more months, my garage filled with boxes of zines that no one's reading.

Oh, wait a second... I already have a garage full of zines that no one's reading. I tried to get rid of some a few months back; offering them to various film festivals as free swag but not a one took me up on it. It's so tough to give away free things.

In short, when it rains it pours and I want a constant drizzle. Maybe I should move to Seattle.