Very few people read this compared to the viewership I get at , but for some reason it feels right to record this here. Maybe because it actually relates to Nia Black.

I'm tired of being indecisive, so I've decided to stop trying to figure out what the "best" choice is and just do something, for the heck of it. What I will do is return focus to my greatest creation, Nia Black, for good or for ill.

I plan to do the following:

1. Edit the novel to perfection...one thing I will do is rewrite the story in parts so, instead of taking place in the fictional "River City", it will take place in my native Philadelphia, PA.

2. Break the novel into two or three parts. The book is entirely too long as is. When I first wrote it, I intended for it to be three graphic novels, and the Word documents were segmented as such. Only when I discovered Lulu and put the book online did it occur to me to make it one big novel. Speaking of Lulu...

3. Take the current book off the site. As long as it's up there, there will be a part of me that believes the production is final and doesn't need any more work. I haven't sold any copies in a few months so now is a good time.

4. Resurrect the plans to add images to the book. I've pondered it many times, and after seeing the many books at ECBACC that did the same basic thing, I know it's a good idea now. The doubt is gone; all that remains is the work.

5. Draw all the story's major characters. I have often told myself that the characters in the book, aside from Nia and Shauntia, would not be that interesting visually; that was one of the biggest barriers in drawing the graphic novel. While I have abandoned plans to draw that graphic novel, I do want to have good images of the characters to put in the back of the book (or in some sort of compendium) along with bios for archival purposes. Despite the fact that I love to write, I will always consider myself an artist first. It will also make it easier to come up with the images as mentioned in #4.

What does this mean for this particular gallery? Not much. If you peruse this gallery you'll find that only the first three chapters of the book are viewable here (the rest are in this gallery's storage). I may update or upload new deviations with the revised chapters if need be, but on the other hand, the changes may not be great enough to justify it. I'll probably upload the character and in-book images to my art gallery for crits and suggestions. Perhaps I'll upload the character images and bios here as well, just to have something here. My goal is to overcome my stigma that the characters are dull by drawing them looking interesting--even heavily uninteresting people like Charlie from the night club or Vincent Marks. Because it's all in the presentation.

Time to get to work.