Writing is Rewriting

I've been on a writing kick lately. Your previously scheduled pictures will comeback shortly.

Aug 27, 2025

Here’s the thing about writing…

That first draft that you feel really good about isn’t actually the thing that you will end up making. It changes a lot. Even for me, a guy who plots the heck out of his stories, the story changes dramatically from point A to point B.

The “magic” of writing comes from the characters taking control and making decisions you were not consciously thinking about. So much work happens off the page. So much of writing is just sitting at your desk to trick your body into thinking it’s working.

Often, there is something in the final pages of the book that will inform the front of the book and make a much better story. Could be dialogue, could be adding a whole MacGuffin that warrants an entire (best case) rework (worst case) rewrite. Guess what one I am doing…

Let’s talk about Lorenzo Cult, shall we?

I wrote the Lorenzo Cult story a couple of years ago and got about half way through it. Something like 30 pages. I knew going in it was going to be around 64 pages. I like that page count, I like the flexibility of it. It’s easy to offset some moments so that they don’t hit the same beats book to book. Lorenzo Cult started off as an Instagram comic. 6 panel pages posted twice a week. I am a fan on the comic strip (as we all know at this point) and I wanted to do something in that vein. It didn’t really work that way so I posted the pages here on the Substack and it didn’t really make any more traction. It got engulfed by the Baboon Daily Strip and then I stopped putting it out all together.

But, I still love the character and the story and didn’t want to lose it so I started running it in SPAKOW! a couple pages an issue. It was there that Lorenzo finally felt at home. And now at issue 5 of the magazine I am hitting my runway of completed pages. It was time to relook at my notes and see what the second half of the book is/was. I reread the pages that I had done and compared it to the second half and determined it needs a fresh coat of paint. So that’s what I intend to do!

I also plan on taking the book out of the strict 6 panel page layout that was only used as a way to post online. I plan on rearranging some panels and cutting the book together in a different way so it reads as one full story rather than a bunch of vignettes strung together. I’m basically going to reink all of the pages I have already done too and give it a fresh coat of paint. Make this story and character really sing. Somewhere along the way I lost my initial idea of who the character was. He peeks up every now and then in the pages but he never gets enough time to really breath.

Here’s a page of notes and restructuring. The number at the top denotes the new page number and the numbers inside the panels denote the old page numbers and corresponding panels. Page 16 panel one is the old page 10 panel 6. Made it a long skinny panel to run the entire length of the page. I like this method of reworking the book. It’s fun.

This makes the layout different than what it was. It’ll look a little more like this. Now, this was all super quick and squished together in photoshop. I’m going to be redrawing all of these panels so it’s cohesive but here’s the vibe!

Some final thoughts

Going through my old note book I found this page of sketches and it’s here that Lorenzo is on the page. He is so full of life and not as stiff as he appears in these pages of the book.

As per my last email.

I think I want to wrap up this Lorenzo Cult story line. So here’s my thought (everything I am about to say is subject to change because SPAKOW! works in ways that I am really not in control of any more… ID has taken over and it kind of just happens) But a future issue of SPKAOW will just be the first half of the Lorenzo Cult story rewritten and a subsequent issue b will have the rest of the story. These two books would come out within a month of each other. So you won’t have to wait around.

I’m real excited for what this story has turned into and I’m excited to get it in your hands. I’ll be real diligent and post the pages as I do them over here. I’ve been working on such short form stuff I’m really excited about playing around with something a little longer again.

Get ready for more CULT!