Christoffer Petersen blog

I’ve been really trying to fix some older works. In fact, I’ve been working at it off an on for the past five years or so. So, here’s a big shout out to Janos for giving me an encouraging nudge in the right direction. Of course, I went for the covers first – it’s the easy part. 🙂

The genre is Steampunk which is what I started with. At least, I started publishing Steampunk books. I had already written The Ice Star but was, as repeat offenders might remember, tired of the traditional publishing myth of rewriting and rewriting and… you guessed it… rewriting. My Steampunk stories are not as well known as my Greenland stories, but I do love them so.

Books 1, 2 and 3 are ready – once I’m done polishing. And then we’ll see if I can write books 4, 5 and 6 within the next five years!

Chris

The Adventure Engine

© Christoffer Petersen

 Part 1

 

She saw it through a chain-link fence,

Fingers poked through the rusted diamond,

Metal flakes on her skin as she clutched the

Wire, pointing—one finger, at the adventure

Engine—boxy, robust, with space for trunks

And barrels, metal crates, rope and such.

 

It was squeezed between the camper and the van

Too close to open the doors, although she

Managed with a tiny bit of effort, slim tongue

Clamped between bright white teeth, plus

The grin that sheep make when doing what

They ought not, but just try to stop ‘em.

 

Then, hands gripping the wheel, she stared

Through the windshield, past the pasted bits of

Bugs, and the stripe of something grey left by

The wiper, while I took a photo, then another,

Putting off the we can’ts and the if onlys for

Later, when we got back on the street and narrow.

 

She countered all the way home, with creative

Means of finding the cash, of car washing in the lot,

Baking for the neighbours—a lemonade stand, or we

Could just steal it, boost it off the lot, and I know she

Stopped joking the minute she slid behind the

Wheel, eyes fixed on some distant horizon.

Rather, she is finally in paperback! It’s only taken 13 months! I was struggling with the sky, and then just brushed some smoke into it, hit the film grain filter and wahay! Adelyne’s back! 🙂

Don’t know Adelyne? Here’s that shameless link!

Chris

Well, the poetry books have yet to land in my local library, so I’ll just take a second to reveal another project I’m working on. 🙂 I’ve always wanted to write a graphic novel, and by write one, I also mean do the artwork too. I’ve been playing around with the idea for a couple of years, and then, just a week or so ago, I had a bit of a breakthrough. I took some 3D images I’d done of Ukaliina and went a little deeper into the textures, adding some Greenland flags to her patches, and Ukaliina’s call sign to her helmet. Previously, I had superimposed the patches on top of the image in a new layer, and had to add fake shadow on top. This time I went into the texture layer, built the badges there, and then added the textures to the 3D model prior to rendering. This might be small potatoes for 3D artists, but it was earth shifting stuff for me!

Now, I’m no Frank Miller, but I do love his work, and his Batman particularly so. But I’m going to play around with this some more, and then, when I’ve got a finished comic, or part 1 of a graphic novel, or when I’ve got a finished ‘something’ then I’ll do something with it. 🙂

I’ve sketched a rough storyboard for the first couple of pages (might even post that at some point) and I’m working on the images in 3D, before making them more comic-like with filters in Photoshop. But this is all very new territory for me, and I’m loving it.

The story I’m starting with is one of my adventure stories with dinosaurs, but I think there’s scope here for a Maratse or Petra story. Just like the proof of concept I did with Ukaliina. The above images of the “critter camper” are the so-called ‘hero shots’ and I’ll be sure to make them more arty for the comic/graphic novel/something. For those of you who are curious to see the original 3D model I adapted, you can find it here. Repeat offenders might recognise some of my dinosaur art from other covers. 😉 Oh, and I need to remove the Iveco name before I put the comic together, but for the life of me I can’t find it in the texture folder. I guess I’ll be airbrushing that out soon.

Yep, it’s all still very much a work in progress. I have the story in my head, and I’m trying not to write it, meaning I want to work on the images first. However, spoiler alert, ShanuTek from my adventure series are definitely involved, as is a little slice of jungle in the fictive African country of Gazania, and at least one guy named Bob.

More soon!

Chris

P.S.

What really spurred this project onwards was when I was contacted by an AI comic company looking to use my stories to create comics. The comics could be produced, they claim on their website, within 48 hours. I’ve used a couple of weeks on my comic so far, a few hours here and there, maybe a long evening or two, and I’ve enjoyed every minute. Why on earth would I want to reduce that period of creative exploration to a couple of prompts and a click and let AI do the rest?

I still don’t get what the tech ‘guys’ don’t get… Why do they want to make creative work effortless and fast? Creating and taking the time needed for it, is where the fun is at! 🙂

As for the AI company… I said no, of course.

So, I was looking for another challenge, or something to spice things up a bit – literary-speaking – and I came across The Sealey Challenge, created by the poet Nicole Sealey. The challenge is to read one book of poetry every day in August, and to read as many diverse voices as possible. Now, my “go to” poets are the likes of Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, and Seamus Heaney, for example. I might read some Wendell Berry, and I absolutely love Galway Kinnell’s The Bear.

However, these guys and gal are all white. So I’ve ordered a bunch of books from the library, including lots of black poets. I won’t get through a book a day as I have to write, but I can easily read a couple of poems each day this August. And then, just because it’s fun, I’m going to try to write a poem each day too. I may even post a couple here on the blog.

And… that’s when everyone runs away, screaming – most likely, but as fast as humanly possible. 🙂

I understand. Really, I do. But I’d rather read a bad poem than bad prose. So, brace yourselves, there’s bad poetry comin’!

Unfortunately, the Danish library – usually beyond amazing – doesn’t have a single book by Nicole Sealey. I’ll have to track her down elsewhere.

Chris

I did promise, a couple of posts ago. We’ve seen him before, just recently, and now he’s back. 😉