by Brett Warner

It’s a brand new year, and if you’re anything like me – young, broke, and sitting on a dust-gathering fine arts degree – you’re probably thinking: okay, this is the year I start/finish my (insert writing project here). A lot of us have them – those nest egg ideas, gestating deep in our brains, waiting for just the exact perfect moment to materialize in some quantifiable, word-countable form. Sure, there’s a lot of reasons not to write nowadays: we’re job hunting/working, seeing somebody, going back to school, finally getting into Lost on DVD, etc. Nevertheless, 2011 is as good a year as any to finally take that secretly amazing television pilot idea (The West Wing meets George Washington’s first term in office), Star Trek fan novel, or earth-shattering poetry collection out of the realm of “maybe someday” and into the nitty, gritty real world.

Every writer works and thinks differently, but just about every professional will tell you that writing successfully is work – damn hard work, usually, and needs to be approached as such. In the spirit of aggressively engaging your long put-off writing projects, I’ve compiled a list of five off the wall methods that have helped me over the past few years. A few standards, one or two drastic measures – these not-fucking-around variety techniques have pulled me out of many a blinking cursor bind and, who knows, might help others do the same.

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by Damon Martin

The ball has dropped and the calendar has flipped, and now that we are entering 2011, comic book fans are looking forward to the biggest books and events for this upcoming year. The landscape over the next few months will most likely be shaped by DC Comics juggernaut series Green Lantern, which will feature expansions into a new series, with one mega event wrapping up while another begins, and of course the summer release of the new Green Lantern movie.

The Green Lantern was often thought of by comic book fans as a second tier character to the bigger named heroes like Batman and Superman, but over the last few years current DC Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns has turned the book into the most popular series for the comic giant.

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by Carrie Borzillo

“It’s like going to your high school reunion.”
– Rob Zombie

When Rob Zombie got to work on compiling the White Zombie box set, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, his first thought was “I don’t really remember all of this.” The second thought was, “What were we thinking?!” Anyone familiar with the musical horror show that is White Zombie knows that the band’s 1998 demise wasn’t exactly an amicable one. So, putting the 5 CD/1 DVD career-spanning box set together wasn’t exactly a fun trip down memory lane for Mr. Robert Bartleh Cummings.

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Rourke Suicide in Sam Malone

• INTO: Philosophizing, inquiring, speculating, and dreaming.
• NOT INTO: Animal abuse/neglect, jealousy, cattiness.
• MAKES ME HAPPY: Baking/ freshly baked goods, my puppy, new tattoos, new friends, being in bed when its super cold and my bed is super warm, sunny rainy days, handmade gifts, road trips, Tootsie pops.
• MAKES ME SAD: Being alone, being cold, when people don’t answer/call back/reply to calls/texts.
• HOBBIES: Snowboarding, getting tattooed, getting naked, eating, traveling.
• 5 THINGS I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT: French fries, MAC makeup, a toothbrush, the interwebs.
• VICES: Anything baked or fried, tattoos, Italians.

Get to know Rourke better over at SuicideGirls.com!