Only a few days left to sign up for my UCLA Extension class on Writing for Comics, which begins its 10-week tour of duty Wednesday 7/5.

In anticipation, and for those curious folks out there, here is the suggested reading list from my syllabus. This isn't supposed to be a list of the best books available. But if you're interested in comics (and/or if you're interested in writing), this is a great place to start.

No formatting and no links -- what, do you think this is a real blog? Besides, you're better off going to an independent bookstore and asking for these rather than browsing at Amazon.

I. COMICS

- Akira vol. 1-6, Katsuhiro Otomo
- The Frank Book, Jim Woodring
- Hellboy vol. 1-6, Mike Mignola
- Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind vol 1-7, Hayao Miyazaki
- Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
- Maus, Art Spiegelman
- The Contract with God Trilogy, Will Eisner
- Kingdom Come, Mark Waid and Alex Ross
- WE3, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely
- Ghost World, Dan Clowes
- City of Glass: the Graphic Novel, Paul Auster and David Mazzucchelli
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer: False Memories, Jim Pascoe, Tom Fassbender, and Cliff Richards
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Ugly Little Monsters, Jim Pascoe, Tom Fassbender, and Cliff Richards

II. WRITING REFERENCE

- Comics & Sequential Art, Will Eisner
- Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud
- On Writing, Stephen King
- The Elements of Style, Strunk & White

III. THEORY

- Visual Thinking, Rudolf Arnheim
- Cinema 1: The Movement-Image, Gilles Deleuze
- Cinema 2: The Time-Image, Gilles Deleuze

While talking with Mike Mignola about an upcoming project, he dropped me this line of schooling:

"The background is as important as the foreground because that's where the supernatural exists."

Take a moment to consider this topic from the following different angles.

- If supernatural = mood, how does this apply to non-genre stories?

- Is there a way to read "background/foreground" not literally to apply this to non-visual works of prose?

- What lives in the foreground?

Yes, so, as some of you found out on my MySpace page, today was my birthday. Thanks to all who sent kind wishes and bottles. How did I choose to celebrate? My wife was gracious enough to take me out to the movies. (Thanks, Gab!)

As we were at the ticket window, whom did we see behind us?

The one. The only. Ladies and gentlemen: Leeza Gibbons.

"Now, come on," I hear you say. This is Los Angeles. If the city were a porch light, celebrities would be moths; although, their agents would call them "butterflies." But where am I specifically tonight to attract the Gibbons? The Cinerama Dome? The Chinese Theatre? Burbank? No. We're at the last remaining fulltime revival cinema in town, the New Beverly Theater.

What are we seeing? An Inconvenient Truth? No. A Prairie Home Companion? No. The Break-Up? No, no, no.

Me and Leeza, we're seeing ...

(wait for it)

Creature from the Black Lagoon.

In 3-D.

If you're looking for some birthday fun, nothing says, "hello, good times" like a classic black-and-white monster movie from the '50s coupled with "one of the most respected and recognized professionals in the broadcast industry."

Good night!

When I say beware the middle I'm not talking about the infamous second act desert in screenwriting. Screw that. You can take that middle act and, well, tell it to stay the hell off my lawn and if I ever catch it there again, I'll take it's ball. And when the middle act is crying and screaming about how unfair I am, its mother will come over to try and make peace. Oh yes, I'll invite her in for coffee while the poor middle act has to wait out on my porch and watch through the screen door and through its own tears as I feed its mother my best bourbon, telling her that "kids will be kids."

I will do this. But that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the middle of your career as a writer.

The third act of a successful writing career -- something very few live to see -- is that wonderful place where everything comes together and you get to call the shots. You're U2 and you can release Zooropa if you want. Go ahead.

The middle -- and not many make it here either -- is where you risk losing patience in getting to the end and start to do what other people want you to do. For some, this is a joy and an end in itself, especially if those people calling the shots are studio executives or high-powered literary agents.

Where this tip turns into a full-fledged tip is in the beginning of your career. DO NOT try and write what others want or tell you. That's a lot of chasing tail. And that's what the middle is for, when you have already stated your case as a writer. If you're writing a spec script or your first novel, it better be 100% you -- because now is the time. Now is the time when you don't have to listen to anyone tell you how it's not going to play in the fly-over states. All you want to do, is make connections and establish yourself as a writer ... a writer of good stuff, not half-assed shit that you think everyone might want to read.

That's for the middle. And when you reach that point, stay the hell off my lawn.

There few things worse than feeling defeated before you have even started writing.

I try to always be aware of what I'm doing when I'm supposed to be writing, but I'm not actually writing. Am I thinking? Am I reading over what I've already written? Am I looking something up?

Now one would think that all of the above are better things to be doing that checking email, playing minesweeper, or organizing your iTunes playlists. And yes, those things are "better" if they move your story forward. But -- and this is the big but -- nothing is writing except writing.

All the thinking, all the reading, all the research do no add up to words on the page.

"Research" is its own special trap. I'm not suggesting that research isn't important and necessary, nor am I suggesting that it's easy and shouldn't take a lot of time. But in my own experience, I've noticed that I can subconsciously use research as a procrastination technique.

I was working on a noir short story that takes place in a North Florida paper mill. I don't know anything about paper mills. For a long time I delayed writing the story (oh, I made lots of notes), because I felt I needed to prepare more.

At some point I cracked with a great realization. I'm not writing a history book. I'm not writing non-fiction. What the characters do and how they do it and why they do it should be based on them as human characters, not on dug-up facts about a place or a thing.

You'll find that research actually get easier if you know what you need to research. Do you need the specific name of a machine? A description of it? Do you need the mill's hours of operation? What street it's located on?

The flip side is rarely true: if you're having a hard time starting a story, more research won't make it easier. Starting is hard. You just have to do it. Trust me ... or better yet, trust yourself and your story.

It bears saying again: only writing is writing.

I can't stress enough the importance of warm-up time.

As someone who likes to keep very busy, balancing more deadlines than I can often handle, I strive for the hard-to-reach ideal of writing in every free moment that I have.

What I've found is that spare half-hours here and there are better suited for administrative tasks: responding to email, making to-do lists, editing what I've already written, researching, assembling a list of questions/problems that I'll need to deal with in my story, etc.

If I try to actually WRITE during a short span of time, it's too easy to find that an hour has flown past with only a single new sentence on the screen.

If I give myself up to an hour to get the blood flowing -- especially if I know that I have a couple more hours in front of me -- then I feel like the words are ready to come.

There's a tip in the inverse of this as well: think you've been doing well and you deserve a break to browse the Internet, get a snack, or update your MySpace page ... you may find that your creative engine has cooled too much at this pit stop. Then you need to warm up all over again.

During your time in front of a keyboard (or a blank notebook), always be aware of your ratio of writing/not writing.

Hello! Checking in from South Korea, where I'm doing some writing research (which is what writers call a vacation). And in the spirit of "Alaska is for Players" and "Iraq is for Players," I am happy to report the winner (so far) of the best T-shirt in Korea. Yup, the subject line gives it all away, but let's hear it again for:

Godard is Dog.

Anyone with any ideas what the hell this is supposed to mean, please post in the comments. Thank you.

I'll be back with some more Writers' Tips when I return!