(Nimue)
About this time last year I started asking myself some tentative questions about what would change if I took myself seriously. In the last few weeks, working on the current Hopeless, Maine kickstarter, I recognised that this was a project where I'd entirely failed to do that.
I've been working on Hopeless for easily sixteen years. I've written scripts, blogs, and novellas, I've done all the social media side and most of the marketing. I wrote songs and performance material, and organised performances. I've worked on page layouts, sourcing references, and colouring the pages. As we went along, Tom spent less time on the page art and left me to try and make it work at the colouring stage. I did a lot of work for Hopeless, Maine in a whole array of ways.
However, I spent most of that time centring the artwork as the main feature. Granted, people can respond quickly to art and it takes longer to get people engaged with stories. The Hopeless, Maine graphic novels are a story – told over six books (five in the Sloth Comics editions). It's a story that matters to me, with themes of identity, and the use and abuse of power. The main character is so afraid of her own power that she seldom really uses it, not until the very end of the tale. Learning how to be powerful and how to use your own power effectively is something I think people need stories about.
Right at the beginning of the project I wrote a novella which has languished in limbo for more than a decade because it wasn't a priority. I'm delighted that Outland Entertainment are going to publish it, and that will be coming out in December. I'm looking at how to get my other Hopeless, Maine books out into the world. I've got stories to share, and they are strange, sometimes funny tales and I think people will enjoy them.
I spent a long time not taking myself as seriously as I could have done, on this and other projects. I wrote a story about a young woman who was afraid of her own power, and who thought that being powerful meant she must be some kind of monster. I did not consider myself powerful, but I certainly worried about being a monster. Some of this story rose unconsciously from things I wasn't dealing with on my own account, I realise.
After the graphic novels, the story of the island continues, but in very different ways. From here it's much more about community and people working together – in deeply weird circumstances – to do the best they can with what they've got. These days there are a number of people writing for the project, and a few people stepping up on the art side. I've been making spaces where anyone who wants to can easily join in, and there will be more of that. I started building a community around this project as soon as I got involved with it, and I shall keep that going, and offer space for anyone who wants to join in. We still sing the songs.
Sometimes the most important story to tell yourself is the one where the things that drag you down do not have all the power. The story where you act with both power and integrity. The story where your truth wins out over falsehoods and petty tyranny. That's Salamandra's story in the graphic novels. It's my story too, because I wrote it.
You can find the current kickstarter over here - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hopelessmaine/hopeless-maine-1-3-sinners-a-graphic-novel-series
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