Today

Today I got to pitch a couple of comics projects live on the phone. This is a departure from my standard operating procedure, which is to convince unsuspecting editors to permit me to send them pitches electronically.

My preference for digital transmission springs from my tendency when talking to people I'm not 100% comfortable with to either a) get nervous and shut the hell up, or b) get nervous and start talking really, really fast and really, really quietly simultaneously. Or to put it another way: I don't mumble as much in type.

I've been working on fixing my ineptitude when it comes to one-on-one conversation for... wow, must be more than a decade now. The idea of being on a convention panel no longer fills me with terror, and I absolutely love doing comic readings. And I don't completely freak out when I learn my managers have arranged for me to talk to a producer or editor or whatever. I'm just not very good at it yet.

In spite of that, I did what I had to do this evening. Awkwardly, but I got the point across and the people I was talking to seemed to think we were on the same wavelength (so much so that they'd recently picked up a couple projects a little too close to the ones I was pitching for them to go to the next level with mine) (which is a shame, because I spent a fair amount of time the last few days getting fully-fleshed out proposals for the two of them nailed down, but such is life.) I got the impression that the conversation would continue, but I've gotten that impression before. Hollywood, man. You just never know.

***

Speaking of Hollywood, apparently Han Solo's going to be in the movie based on a comic I have a co-writing credit on. I choose to believe this is entirely down to my being mind-bogglingly awesome.

A