Who Do You Think You Are?

I'm not sleeping very well. I don't know if it's the lack of physical activity in this (third) lockdown, or if my head's too busy worrying about everything, but I spend a lot of time just staring at the ceiling and thinking. Wondering. Wondering why I'm not able to sleep. Wondering if Star Fleet uniforms in Star Trek: Discovery are so comfortable that you don't need socks - let's face it, Burnham wasn't wearing socks when her boots were ripped off by that baddie in the Jefferies Tube.

Anyway, at three in the morning a few weeks ago I had this idea. I wanted to write my autobiography. 

Crazy, huh? First of all, I'm not a great fan of autobiographies. I know a lot of people do get a kick out of them, but they really don't float my boat at all. I've read a few - one of the few I really did enjoy was Wil Wheaton's 'Just a Geek'. There was something about its honesty and the way it was written that meant I actually enjoyed it. 

But secondly, I don't think I'm actually very interesting. I had this conversation in my head at 3AM where I thought...

Why would anyone want to read an autobiography of you?

Well they wouldn't. But, then there are others out there who have done the same and I didn't know who they were either. Look at that Mark Barrowcliffe chap who did the one about growing up while playing Dungeons & Dragons? 

Yeah, but you didn't enjoy that one did you? 

It's no fault of the author, I'm just not a big fan of autobiographies! I know lots of people who loved that book.

But he was basically saying the same thing. About growing up in the 70s and 80s and playing far too much D&D. What could you bring to the table that's different?

That's the thing isn't it? What would make my boring autobiography different?

I had this idea many years ago about doing some of my Roll Your Own Life entries as some form of webseries - this was back when I used to think webseries were cool and before everything went horribly wrong. Of course, not only did the webseries thing come to a grinding halt, I had that realisation that (in the long run) no one would want to stare at my big bald face for any length of time.

How to make it different? And not boring?

One way of avoiding looking at my boring face is doing a podcast. But then there's editing, recording it without any background noise, adding music and stuff like that. It's doable, but is it the best way forward?

The other option is going for the comic strip. Heck, I used to draw comics. When I thought the RPG writing thing wasn't happening I wrote and published comics back during the UK Indie Comics boom of the late 90s. Admittedly, it has been a long time since I've drawn comics. I've done some drawing recently for illustrations for WILD, but I'm convinced I can't draw. 

But, I may give it a go anyway. 

So here's the pitch. My life, retold in comic strip form, in small episodes from different eras, badly remembered and slightly fictionalised, from the perspective of a long time tabletop gamer who really should get a life. It'll get me away from looking at computers in the evening (when I've spent most of the day looking at them) and it may be a laugh. It may also be rubbish. 

Now... where to start...???