My universe is one where there was a group of heroes who disbanded around the same time as the arrival of two friendly alien races. That was in the late 1980s, after the the Cold War ended with the United Nations becoming a benign world leader.

Now a new generation of heroes and villains is beginning to come out. This time around, these young people have powers on the level of gods, but fortunately some of the older folks are still around to teach them what to do.

The first story I have is about ColdStar, a college student who can control fire & ice. He learns that being a superhero is not something you can do alone. He quickly meets the black-budget government agency that manages people with Talents (powers).

Other characters include Novanna (a woman who explodes over Chicago), the Wolf Lords (fighting gangs in Southern California), Jade Shamaness (a magic user in the Southwest), and AfterImage (a teleporter in Miami).

Mostly, I want to write the stuff I would like to see in the genre. I do have a science background, so I am interested in a little realism, such as may be allowed in a genre where people fly and push planets around. If I can, I want to explore various ways to present my ideas. The Deconstruction of superheroes is over; I just want to put the pieces back together in different ways.

Write or Die is one of my favorite tools to beat writer’s block.  It’s a website that pushes you to write by trying to hold you to a word-goal within a certain amount of time. On the most forgiving setting, it gives you friendly pop-ups reminding you to keep writing if you wait too long.   On “Kamikaze Commando,” it will slowly delete your words if you stop typing for too long.

If you’re a writer that has trouble completing first drafts, I’d recommend checking it out.  So far, I’ve written at least 275 words every time I sat down for 15 minutes.  (If you’re interested, you can read 30 minutes’ worth here).  At that rate, I’d have a first draft of a novel manuscript within roughly 70 hours or a comic book script within 5.

As always, I recommend just getting the first draft down and saving any concerns about smoothness, style, conciseness, coherence or anything else for the rewriting process.  Having a draft complete will make it vastly easier to rewrite because you’ll have a much better idea when you’re going.