With the Eisner book entering the publishing/marketing phase (a significant time consumer, but not a major intellectual challenge for the writer), I’m starting to think seriously about my next large project. Both the Taschen DC History program and the Eisner book partially came to me, so I’ve not yet had the experience of really hawking a new book from scratch. I’ve had one YA fantasy project kicking around for a while (translation: sitting on my desktop with a handful of words attached), and there’s a popular culture book I’d like to do which would require a fair amount of research. And the only idea I’ve pushed away has been a memoir per se–it just feels too early and too final, if you know what I mean by that contradiction.
Suggestions could get posted in the comments section if anyone’s inclined. After four decades as a writer who got assignments, this much of a blank page is a lot more challenging than I’m used to.
Have you read Jim Shooter’s blog? He’s not updating it now, but he did for a long time, telling many anecdotes (his side of things, at least) about his long career (which, of course, has not been without controversy, making for good anecdotes). It’s fascinating, and it would be fascinating to get something like that from you. Wouldn’t have to be a memoir, any more than “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman” is a memoir.
That aside, you could put together some teaching materials into a how-to or advice book for aspiring creators.
But I think your most commercial options would be fiction. Ask your agent what would be easiest to sell, and then think about what would be the most exciting to write.
Or a novelization of the JSA-LSH crossover we’ve all been waiting for since JLA 147-148. That’d be good, too.
*****
I occasionally read Jim’s blog, sometimes finding his side of things interesting, sometimes pretty far from what I recalled at the time (his kind words on “Paul Levitz’s Greatest Scam” were vastly overstated, for example, though I was glad to cooperate in getting Jack Abel from one medical plan to the other). The “defend yourself years later” stuff I can’t see myself doing much of. While there were an ample number of things I wish I’d done differently, or had the information to know to handle in a different way, overall I’m more than content with how my reputation played out. In a job like the ones I held, some of the people you deal with are going to leave unhappy, through your fault, circumstances, or, often, their own choices. Confidentiality doesn’t allow me to make the historical case in the few where I really care, at least for now.
I hope to do some prose fiction, but that involves acquiring some discipline for spec writing; not one of my skill sets to date. We’ll see