Working on an animated show takes a long time. Features can take three to five years from the first idea to finished mix. Heck, they can really take a decade or more. The television shows take a few months. It’s tough to keep your enthusiasm for months on end. When you keep hearing the jokes over and over, it’s hard to keep laughing AND keep thinking that it’s going to work.

When writing something, all you have is the words. And sometimes those words sound horrible just seconds after you write them. Through dedication and hard work the story can take shape and resonate. Make sense. Make the characters real.

I’ve been working on this story, The Spectacles of Wiley Wogglesmith, for about 3 years so far – the most work being done this past year and I’ll have to say – it is still resonating. Resonating big time with me.

Summer and I went to a coffee shop in Pittsburgh last weekend. I was still reading the manuscript and she was writing her second book. I would hit a passage and laugh out loud. She would ask me what I was laughing about and I would elaborate. We would talk story and characters and how one scene built upon another. It was a nice moment of learning story and talking story.

And I got excited. More excited for the book. More excited to finish it out.

Because it is good.

I’m not saying that ONLY because it’s mine and I have an unbelievably large ego. It’s true. This is going to be big. Very big. Not only because I believe it but because I’m going to will it to happen.

Just wait and see. I promise, you’ll be as excited as I am.