Writerly angst and fangirl squee

I have a jumble of things on my mind today (what else is new?) and I’m going to attempt to organize it all somehow. Let’s see how I do.

First of all, Johanna Draper Carlson wrote this great article, How to Break Into Writing Comics which is pretty near and dear to my heart these days. I’m not exactly sure where I fit in to those options, and I’m thinking I need to figure that out. I mean, I know what I think I’m doing, but I’m not sure if I’m going about it in a useful way. Maybe, too, my gray areas are partly due to the OEL manga industry being (seemingly) a little different than the comics industry as a whole, in that from what I can surmise (and this is the “truth” I’m currently operating on), there is really no way in at all without doing the work of finding your own artist. So I’m doing that, while still holding out hopes that I might be able to get a publisher interested sometime after that point. It seems that this is how it needs to be done. I guess I’ll find out. In any case, I’m grateful to have read the article.

Switching now to fangirl mode, we finished watching Princess Tutu on Friday night, and it affected me so strongly, I haven’t really been able to talk about it yet. I love that. I’ll try to talk a little bit now, but it may take another week or so before I can be, you know, articulate.

SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT.

MY ‘SHIP LIVES OMG OTP 4EVAH!!!1 Er. What I mean is, my heart just about burst from my chest during the Ahiru/Fakir pas de deux in which Fakir convinces Ahiru that she can let go of the heart shard that makes it possible for her to take human form, and pledges to stay by her side forever, despite the fact that she is then doomed to spend forever as a duck. And then from that point on, I had tears flowing down my cheeks to the end. I cried as Fakir struggled to control his power so that he could save the people he loved most. I cried as Ahiru, in duck form, battered and barely able to remain upright, danced to save the town, and to allow Mytho to defeat the raven and rescue Rue, who he chose as his princess instead of her. I cried as Rue, who had spent her whole life being told she was unlovable, was chosen by Mytho to love. I was, essentially, a soggy pile of mush by the end of the series, and I can’t possibly express how much it means to me when fiction can affect me in this way. This is why I read. This is why I write.

At some point in the future, I may be able to discuss Princess Tutu in scholarly, or at least writerly ways, but for now, this is your soggy pile of mush reporting for there it is, plain as daylight.

And it looks like that’s all I have time for at the moment, which saves me from attempting to organize my thoughts further. *whew* Later!

ETA: For those who read this blog in its official location, but who wish to indulge in further Tutu-related fangirl squee, check out the LJ mirror entry. That is, apparently, where the party is. :D