With my recent transition into another round of unemployment (no I can’t collect unfortunately), I decided to take a bold step and empty my Comic Convention Fund and repurpose it. I took the money saved for Baltimore Comic Con and New York Comic Con and enrolled in The Comics Experience Writers’ Workshop and Intro to Comics Writing class.

I’m not going to give all the details about the classes. You’re perfectly capable of reading it from the official website rather than here. That’s the point of linking, right?

My first “assignment” was actually an optional one. I need to read other people’s work and get some critiquing done; but for writing I took up the first Writers’ Challenge because it was designed to get the creative juices flowing. Specifically, the challenges are there to help new writers learn about things like format, exposition, clarity, character motivation, etc. The challenges aren’t really meant to be scripts that will be handed to an artist for creating a real comic book. The other assignments are for that.

The first challenge was to write a three-page script about your vacation. Since I haven’t had a real “vacation” since my honeymoon to Niagara Falls some six years ago, I used the closest thing. Since I’m taking this time to attempt to de-stress as well as take on creative writing rather than just journalism, I had visited the Baltimore Aquarium a couple weeks ago to be surrounded by tranquil tanks of fishies. This is something I wanted to do for a long time. I had wanted my husband to take me, then boyfriend and with things not working out I figured I better just treat myself to the experience. Since I’m the one that loves aquariums and sharks in particular, the hardest thing for me would be driving alone and hoping my 1996 sedan would hold up and then not having a panic attack in the crowd.

So I did it. I took pictures and video; and today, I wrote a script about it.

Founder and Editor-in-Chief of AmberUnmasked.com and Vodka O'Clock Podcast. Author of The Farrah Wethers Mysteries, comic book short stories, prose, and non-fiction. Cosplayer and figure model.