Work wound up being out of the question. Bloody timing is everything.
Instead, I spent a nice chunk of time developing more Crossover, then wound up calling Shawn for some voice contact on the story. We had a great old time. Evidently our usual bounce-back-and-forth mode on creative projects is super-geeky as far as his friends are concerned. He got the job he was looking for. He makes more than I do. *sigh*
Comic won't be going live until January, which is a relief. I was going a little nuts thinking that I'd have to get that much done before November. I still want to get as much as possible roughed out beforehand, so that we can keep with the continuity. I want to introduce little things that are going to make a continuity difference later on, for purposes of foreshadowing. I'm working on some deliberately slashy subtext. (Gotta make some semi-canon pairings for fanficcers! I know who I 'ship already, and I'm going to try and make damn sure that anyone else who slashes can see it too!)
This is really Shawn's baby. Fair's fair -- he helped me like this on
ectogenesis, one of the reasons why I'm not doing more with it now. Well, I was the one working on the word processor in either case, but it was my baby then, despite the fact that there's so much of him in there. So when we went out of contact, the spirit of the story lost cohesion. I think there's going to be a little less of me in this one, proportionally -- there's so much to consider with the actors as well as the art and story. Shawn's doing the comic 3D, and has been taking photos of the actors he's recruited (friends, relatives, co-workers, extended social group extras) and photos of assorted scenery for references, modeling, backgrounds, textures, and gods know what else. He's been working up some 3D storyboards. He's designing armor, vehicles, equipment, FLYING CASTLES OF DOOM, cultures, creatures, and gods know what else. He's got the plot arc. I'm fleshing out the plot, putting words in his characters' mouths, and doing quite a lot of blocking. He knows what effect he wants to accomplish. I'm really damn good at accomplishing it, especially via dialog.
We can do marathon sessions or short bursts. This was a 25-minute session. I think if I keep doing this, keep in regular contact, it won't be so scary anymore...