During the first five years that I was writing the series, I made plans and wrote small pieces of all the books. I concentrate on one book at a time, though occasionally I will get an idea for a future book and scribble it down for future reference.
Generally I start writing when I have even the smallest idea of how a book is going to go, because the physical process of writing itself keeps the mind active and focused on the job at hand. Usually I write in about 5 drafts, but that simply means there are 5 definite times when I go in a linear fashion from the beginning to the end of the book.
I write in the afternoon, from about 12 until 6 or 7. I use an upstairs room as my office. Once I get going I keep at it, and it usually takes about six months from the first blank screen until 'The End.'
I use photos a lot for drawing people and personalities, but they're almost never photos that I've taken.
When I write a script, I have all the old versions of the script on my laptop. They're saved as backups in case something goes horribly wrong.
I always record far more than I can use. There's probably twice as much recorded as comes out.
Producing words isn't a problem for me. And I usually write two books at a time. When one horse gets winded, you jump on the other.
I don't keep anything on paper (except within an actual novel in progress, at which point I need a file to keep track of plot threads, characters, and so on).
I love my iPad Pro and my Apple pencil. They have changed the way I work in really cool ways.
People who draw tend to think they're craftsmen, so they really want to hang onto their pens and papers, but it's not terribly productive. To be honest with you, it's faster and easier to start with the computer.
For me, the Internet's like music. I don't like working without it. I will tune it out for hours at a time, as I get lost in the work, but I'd know if it wasn't there. If that makes sense.
I don't have much of a problem with interruptions. I keep a detailed record of paint and materials as a work on each painting. I can restart exactly where I left off.
What I tend to do is I try and get as much writing done... I get as much writing done at home before I go into work.
We are just fanatics about using the technology to make it all wonderful. We laughed at the fact that we were having such a great time working this way.
To me, that is the essence of me as a photographer. It is those ideas, working with them, formulating them and eventually putting them down on paper, photographing them and then going on to the next step.
I don't know if I want to record together again. I go off and on it... In the old days, when we needed an album, Paul and I got together and produced enough songs for it. Nowadays, there's three of us writing prolifically and trying to fit it all into one album.
My process is really about little bits of inspiration. I just record them really quick on the guitar or something. I have a huge folder full of them. But if I start a song, I finish it.
It's part of the film-making business and also part of the creative process - putting all the pieces together to make a movie, so that they all line up. Sometimes it looks like you have a lot of projects lined up, but some of them are in different stages.
I write separately from the inking up. I'm sure this varies from cartoonist to cartoonist; I find that the writing is the hard part and the drawing is the fun part.
When I sit down in front of a Windows machine, I can't write; when I sit down in front of my Mac, I can write. So I only use Macs.
There's a kind of slowness and inefficiency about rendering text in paint. We're in a world that's very fast, so things that slow you for a minute-give you pause-are good.
Writing a book is as different from digital curation as night and day. Digital curation is a series of split-second decisions: good/no good. It can even be done algorithmically. Writing is process-intensive activity.
I know how long it takes me to draw a page, how long it takes me to complete a project, how long I can work before my hand gives out, that sort of thing.
I always have music on unless I'm reading aloud, which I always do before I hand anything in. It's the only way to know if a sentence really works, without clunks or cul-de-sac clauses.
About 70 percent of everything is really sketched out on my keyboard beforehand, because I do want accidents to happen in the studio.
