I struck me earlier today as I was working on comics that the strips I have running right now eat ideas for breakfast. They literally suck them in, chew them into a meaty pulp and crap them out a little later, in a form that is no longer usable. It’s quite an ideas mill we have going here.

This presents a bit of a problem from my point of view. On the one hand, I have to get a new strip out every day, Monday to Friday. On the other hand, there are only so many jokes I can make with the characters I have available. What, then, is a person to do?

Well it’s simple really. Either I revisit old topics and try to put a new spin on them, or I bring in a new character to change up the dynamics. Alternatively, I can move the story to a new setting and bring in difference that way.

At no point should “just stop the comic, you’re done” be something that is considered. Rest the comic, perhaps, if you really feel you need time away from it, but don’t drop it altogether because I guarantee you’ll start thinking up new ideas for it; probably right away.

Over the last few weeks I’ve tried all three of my options to bring life back into the comics. The Life of Nob T. Mouse got a new character recently in the form of Speckleton Q Speckworth, the Journalistic Reporter of Newsworthy News. He has let me make fun of traditional print media and the way newspapers were a vital part of frontier life when towns were just being formed in the Old West.

Not that you’ll see that in what has happened with him so far, of course, since I now plan storylines out in full before they get released. I learned that the hard way after the last storyline, with the Abstract causing all kinds of trouble for Nob Mouse. That was supposed to be a three week long story but it went on for so long that I went house hunting, arranged a mortgage and actually moved house during the time it was running. Never again am I getting into that trap. Never again!

The other two techniques came up on All over the house. Firstly I have been revisiting old topics for a while over there because it’s part of life that some things repeat but play out differently, so going back to the ideas well makes for a more realistic strip. I repeated a topic within the first fortnight of the strip running, in fact, (episodes one and three are both about “interactive telephones”) and I’ve no problem doing it again.

Lately Emily moved jobs, getting her own government department to run. This introduced a whole new dynamic for the character and opened up far more joke and storyline potential. It is part of a long-running plan for Emily’s character development so it’s not like I did it on a whim because we ran out of ideas but it does serve to demonstrate how a bit of a change of scenery lets us do more with the character than we otherwise probably could.

Today is episode 335 of All over the house. The strip has now run to more episodes than Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation combined. If we add to that the 300 or so episodes of The Life of Nob T. Mouse, you can imagine that I might be thinking about the possibility of running out of ideas for these strips a lot and it’s true, I do worry about it.

Nevertheless, as long as Jenny and I can keep coming up with new jokes, we’ll keep running the comics. It’s just too much fun to be stopping now.

'Eyestalk clock', by me, via Flickr

The biggest problem with being bipolar is the inevitable down time, when you can’t do anything because you are so lacking in ability. With me it often comes in the form of either wanting to hibernate until it goes away, or worrying incessantly over things to the point where I can’t possibly do anything to overcome them.

That’s how the last few weeks have been for me. I hadn’t been able to get through as much work as I wanted to because of assignments, having a friend stay for a while, family visiting, and a caravan trip to Wales that we had been planning for ages. As a result, I was terrified of not being able to pay bills, and ended up unable to do any work because of this terror.

The fact is, there was never anything to worry about. Okay so my savings went down a little because I hadn’t worked as much but that’s what savings are for. We are fine, we were always going to be fine, and there was nothing to worry about. Yet I worried nevertheless.

Then when I woke up today, everything was fine. I felt happy, I felt accomplished, I felt like I could do anything. The downward cycle is over. I’m back to being me. Huzzah!

The final law exam for my degree is on Wednesday. I’m going to be busy preparing for that for the next few days but I’ll try to continue to write my articles and also keep my vlogging going, because I don’t want to get back out of that habit. I’ve found that if I take a break from things, it is hard to get back going with them so it’s probably for the best if I keep up ZJKR at least.

Speaking of which, here is today’s episode:

The comics have had to take a break however. I can’t put aside four to six hours a day for the next few days to draw comics when I have an exam to revise for. Still, I put up an apology video. You can see it on both comics.

Speaking of comics, Ink Proof Cannon is coming back! It will begin again in November and I am currently using my Tumblr account to publish the redesign sketches I’ve been making for the characters. So far I’ve done the main characters for Bounty Bunny and Dave Wetherby and the Devil’s Accountants but the rest will be coming up over the next couple of weeks. Those of you who are interested in that kind of thing can find the sketches here.

'Concrete elephants', by me via Flickr

It is an amazingly sunny day today with hardly any wind. I’m not keen on days without wind but with lots of sunshine because the heat rises quite rapidly, making me feel sick. Nevertheless, the sunlight in general is very much welcome. It lets me take wonderful photographs like the one to the left.

It’s amazing to think that I am already on day 50 of the 365 Days of Photography challenge. I seems like I only started this a couple of weeks ago. It is also good to see that the challenge is serving its primary purpose; namely to help improve my photography skills.

I am now very much more aware of the weight of an image, how it is balance and what the overall composition is like. I think I have a better understanding of ISO settings, how colour affects the feel of an image, and the general points to look out for when setting up a shot.

Now if I could only remember to keep my fingers out of the way of the lens when I press the button to take a photograph, I will be very happy indeed! Keen-eyed readers will spot that today’s image is cropped slightly. Now you know why.

Jenny and I went sailing earlier this week (her blog about the day can be found here. I opted instead for a video). I have never sailed before but I am glad we went because it was amazing. We almost capsized shortly after setting off, thanks to a sudden and very powerful gust of wind, but I’m happy to say her sailing skills and my memory of windsurfing combined to save us. She let out the sails and did some other things while I leaned as far out of the boat as I could, shifting its centre of gravity as far over to the side that was coming out of the water as I could (which anyone who looks at some pictures of windsurfers will see happens quite a lot).

Although my feet froze and it was very difficult to thaw them out because of the high wind chilling them again (Raynaud’s is a horrible condition for anyone who fancies doing any kind of outdoor pursuit) I did eventually stop being an ice cube so we could go out again. It was even better the second time because I knew a little more about what I was supposed to be doing. Maybe next time I can try steering the boat; which would be fun.

I don’t know what has gone wrong with regard to the poetry challenge. I have four poems that have not appeared on the website, so I will have to sort that out later today. I am up to my eyeballs in work during the rest of today so I can’t get to it just now but rest assured, you will be exposed to more of my poems at some point!

Like the photography challenge, this April Poetry Month is a great way of developing skills. I am really enjoying it and it seems everyone else who is taking part is also enjoying it; which is fantastic. It doesn’t matter how good or bad you think your poems are, the point is that you are writing poetry and therefore developing your skills as a poet. That, to me, is a great thing.

Anyway, this is getting very long now. I should get back to work, otherwise I will end up working well into the night; which I don’t want to do. Tomorrow I’m drawing lots of comics for next week so we can get The Life of Nob T. Mouse and All over the house back on schedule. If all goes to plan, Ink Proof Cannon will be back on Monday too. If that happens, I will be thrilled. It has been on hiatus for too long!

See you later!