Tony Stewart has made award-winning films for college and universities, written acclaimed software, and now has written his first book. That book, Carrying the Tiger: Living with Cancer, Dying with Grace, Finding Joy while Grieving, tells the story of Tony and his late wife, painter Lynn Kotula, as they navigate her Stage IV cancer diagnosis, treatment, and hospice, and Tony’s journey out of grief. Tony joins me to talk about his original journey from writing to software development, how it felt to return to writing via CaringBridge after Lynn’s diagnosis, the process of writing Carrying the Tiger, the nature of grief, and more.
Episode breakdown:
00:00 – Intro
02:12 – Introducing Tony Stewart
03:02 – Creative Childhood Experiences
08:02 – Performing Shakespeare in the Park
11:34 – Understanding Client Needs
17:48 – Complex Problems Beyond Machine Solutions
19:15 – Joy of Reading Book Reviews
24:58 – Returning to Writing
26:39 – The Beginning of the Book
29:29 – Writing Addiction and Motivation
32:40 – Overview of the Book
34:00 – Writing in Present Tense
38:38 – Crafting a Thriller
41:31 – Structuring the Book
42:24 – Tony’s Memories and Reflections
45:51 – Creating Realistic Characters
48:27 – Exploring Grief
52:04 – Anticipatory Grief
56:58 – Individuality of Grief Experiences
Show Links: Tony Stewart
Tony’s website
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Transcript: Tony Stewart
Please note: This is an unedited transcript, provided as a courtesy, and reflects the actual conversation as closely as possible. Please forgive any typographical or grammatical errors.
Nancy Norbeck [00:00:06]:
Welcome to Follow Your Curiosity. Ordinary people, extraordinary creativity. Here’s how to get unstuck. I’m your host, creativity coach, Nancy Norbeck. Let’s go. Will Brooks is a freelance artist and designer who mostly works with licensed properties, especially Doctor Who. For five years, Will was the in house photo artist for Titan Comics’ Doctor Who ranges, providing more than 160 covers. He’s also produced artwork for Big Finish Productions and the Doctor Who experience and was the lead artist and designer for the second edition of Cubicle 7’s Doctor Who role playing game, for which he also wrote material. Will joins me to talk about how he got his start with licensed artwork, the process of creating covers for Titan and Big Finish, the power of just doing something when nothing seems to be coming together creatively, helpful criticism versus tearing folks’ work down, the effects of leaving social media, and more.
Nancy Norbeck [00:01:03]:
Here’s my conversation with Will Brooks. Will, welcome to Follow Your Curiosity.
Will Brooks [00:01:10]:
Thank you so much for having me.
Nancy Norbeck [00:01:12]:
I start everybody with the same question. Were you a creative kid, or did you discover your creative side later on?
Will Brooks [00:01:20]:
I was an annoyingly creative kid. I think my mother used to despair because I’d always watch we’ve got a TV show over here called Blue Peter. Mhmm. Used to be on three or four times a week, and every single episode, they would make something. And so it felt like three or four times a week, I would go into my mother and say, right. I need three washing up bottles. I need some cards, some sellotape, some felt tip pens. The ones I’ve got, they’re not gonna cut it.
Will Brooks [00:01:49]:
Yeah. I loved it, just making things. It was less actually making things. It was more thinking about making things. I always loved the process of thinking, oh, you could do this. You could do that. I rarely got around to actually doing it. But, no, I was always creative as a kid.
Nancy Norbeck [00:02:09]:
And so aside from the annoyance of, mom, I need all of these things, and I need them right now, because I’m assuming that that part was implied, if not stated.
Will Brooks [00:02:19]:
I was always offended that she didn’t already have them ready. Because I anticipated this.
Nancy Norbeck [00:02:25]:
Of course. Were were your parents supportive of this, or or were they just kind of like, it’s just a kid phase, he’s gonna grow out of it and then go do something normal?
Will Brooks [00:02:35]:
Broadly supportive, I think. I think my mother had been quite arty when she was younger. And so I think she sort of got it a bit. And she always did cross stitch and things. And as I got older, she did a lot of crafts and bits and pieces of her own. So I think that creative drive is a family trait. So she sort of understood it, I think. Maybe not exactly what I was after, but she got the general idea of it.
Will Brooks [00:03:01]:
Yeah.
Nancy Norbeck [00:03:02]:
I think that’s always helpful. When when did it start to become this isn’t just the thing that’s inspired by a TV show, this is something I really wanna do?
Will Brooks [00:03:15]:
I really don’t know. When I when I was a kid, my two careers that I assumed I would do for the rest of my life, I assumed I would grow up to present Blue Peter. That was it was never in doubt. That was Of course. My career. I’m 36 now, and the call has got to come any day, surely. Every day, I keep checking. But if it wasn’t gonna be that, I was gonna be a cartoonist.
Will Brooks [00:03:40]:
And I can’t draw to save my life, but I used to devour books about how to draw and how to make your own comics and that kind of thing. So I think, subconsciously, I’d always thought one day I’m going to do something creative. The point that I actually made that leap, I’d already moved to Wales, and I was designing kitchens, which I suppose is creative in its own way. Wasn’t what I wanted to be doing, but it paid the bills. And I got to a point in my sort of early twenties, and I thought, right, I’ve got to make a go of it. I’ve either got to try now or never get the chance. So I quit my kitchen design job on a whim, and I was very lucky. Literally, the next week, I walked into doing doctor Humerton.
Will Brooks [00:04:31]:
I was purely by chance, by accident. It it was just sheer luck, for which I’m very thankful. But it was it was less a conscious choice of I’m going to go and do that and more, I hope I’m going to do this. And then it just kinda happened.
Nancy Norbeck [00:04:50]:
Wow. So there’s obviously a story there, and I think we need to hear it.
Will Brooks [00:04:55]:
Well, it was I still don’t quite know exactly how it happened. I had I’ve been doing fan art for Doctor Who for five or six years at that point, probably even longer, and just posting it online. And I’d met various people doing that. Sort of vaguely people connected to the show, sometimes not. And when I got the call to do some merchandise, it was I’d finished my job on the Thursday. And when I tell this story, I always say, oh, and on the Friday morning I don’t think it was. It was probably sometime the next week. It might have been three weeks later.
Will Brooks [00:05:32]:
But when I tell the anecdote, it was the next day. I got a call from a friend who I knew did work with the BBC, and he phoned me up. He said, oh, are you at home? Yes. He said, great. We’re down the Doctor Who Museum, The Experience in Cardiff Bay, and I only lived ten minutes up the road. He said, can you pop down? And I said, yeah. Fine. So I go down to the experience, and I give him a call.
Will Brooks [00:05:56]:
He says, oh, we’re upstairs. We’re in the boardroom. So I go up, and I walk in. He says, oh, this is Will. He’s gonna do the Photoshop. And the the one piece of advice that I give when people ask me advice, I say smile, nod, pretend you know what you’re doing. That was exactly what I did. The guys were kinda like, oh, can you do this? Can you do that? No.
Will Brooks [00:06:17]:
But I know how to YouTube it. And and so I sat there. Yes. I can do that. I’ve got great ideas. And we got to the end of the meeting, and we went outside. And I said to my friend, so what is it we’re doing? At that point, he filled me in, and I’ve kept blagging it since then, really.
Nancy Norbeck [00:06:36]:
It’s amazing. And I I on on multiple fronts because I think, first of all, the number of people who have started doing things for real on the basis of having done fan art or or fan fiction or fanzines or fan something related to this show is mind boggling to me and amazing. And it’s frankly one of the most incredible things to me about the show and its fandom. And I don’t know enough about other shows and their fandoms to know if it works that way there too. But but Doctor Who seems to have this magical quality where people who are into it enough to devote creative time and energy to it, and certainly not all of them because there are so many, but an awful lot of them seem to have somehow, accidentally or otherwise, ended up doing things that actually relate to the actual show. And and that to me is amazing. I mean, you know, writing the show, producing the show, creating Big Finish, writing books based on the show. I mean, the whole the whole thing is, I don’t know.
Nancy Norbeck [00:07:59]:
It’s like its own little perpetual creativity motion machine somehow. And and, you know, some of the story you’re you’re not the only one who has a story like yours where it just kind of I was doing this thing one day, and I got this phone call. It’s, like, amazing to me. I mean, I think it’s fabulous, but it’s also mind bogglingly amazing
Will Brooks [00:08:24]:
to me. It is there’s something about Doctor Who. I don’t know what it is, but there’s something about it that seems to just inspire creative. It’s like you say it’s writing. It’s fan art. It I keep seeing I’ve been buying loads lately of the zines that people are making, and they’re just incredible. Like, the amount of work that goes into it and the quality of the work as well. There yeah.
Will Brooks [00:08:49]:
There’s something unique, I think, in Doctor Who that seems to inspire people to want to make things, to create brand new things. And I don’t know if it’s the fact that the show can go everywhere, the fact that it’s been so different that you can always find something that is uniquely yours within the world of Doctor Who. And I wonder if that’s it. It feels like whoever you are, whatever your level, whatever your interests, you can find something in Doctor Who that you can take and then extrapolate and create from. I think it it’s a seed machine. That’s what it is. It’s
Nancy Norbeck [00:09:26]:
full of go.
Will Brooks [00:09:27]:
Yes. That’s what it is. We all find our own little seed, and we all grow our own little trees in the Doctor Who garden. I’m torturing this metaphor. There’s an idea in there somewhere.
Nancy Norbeck [00:09:39]:
It it’s a metaphor that works, though. So, you know, it it’s a it’s a perfect description of how it seems to happen. Wow. Why not? The other thing that that strikes me though, is that, you know, you’re also not the first one to say that someone has come up to them and said, can you do this? And you’re thinking, nope. But the answer is yes. Yes, I absolutely can. And and I’m gonna just fly the plane while I’m building it and figure it out on the go, and somehow it works. And, you know, any any responsible teacher, adult, whatever, would tell you that, you know, you have to go and you have to learn how to do all of these things, and you should never claim that you know how to do this stuff.
Nancy Norbeck [00:10:28]:
And yet, you know, the stories of, you know, actors always saying, you know, do you know how to ride a horse? Why? Yes. Yes. I do. I have, you know, this many years of horse riding experience, and then they leave the audition and go, I need to learn how to ride a horse right now. You know? It’s it seems like like it’s not it’s certainly not uncommon with actors, but plenty of people like you have have walked into situations just kind of been like, okay. Gonna go home, and I’m gonna become, you know, a Photoshop artist overnight. God bless YouTube.
Will Brooks [00:11:03]:
Oh, absolutely. I think we’re really lucky to live in the age that we do, where at least once a week, I’ll be in the middle of making some work, and I will stop to Google something or YouTube something. Or I’ll think I don’t really know what I want, but I visually, I know what I want. I don’t know how to achieve, and I’ll just play around and find something. There is a wealth of knowledge out there, and, yeah, that’s just always been my thing. I always just say, yes. I can do that, and then I figure out how afterwards. I do think we’re really lucky to be able to do that.
Will Brooks [00:11:39]:
And the fact that it’s all available for free as well anywhere, I it’s strange because in some ways, there are still a lot of barriers to doing a career like mine. But I also feel like it’s never been easier for people to get that knowledge. Because when I was a kid I mean, I did go to art school, but I didn’t study art or anything. But when I was a kid, the idea of going off to learn all of this stuff helped remote. I grew up on a farm. I could watch crafts on TV. I could make stuff at home. But the idea of going off and learning all this kind of secret arcane knowledge was incredible.
Will Brooks [00:12:16]:
But these days, it doesn’t matter where you are. If you’ve got a phone or a computer, if you’ve got an Internet connection, you can find out anything. And I sometimes think it’s better to teach yourself because there are plenty of times where I’ve been doing something in Photoshop, and someone said, oh, no. No. No. That’s not the way you’re supposed to do that. I think I don’t care. I don’t supposed to do it.
Will Brooks [00:12:39]:
This is how I do it. Or people often say, oh, there’s a quicker way of that. I don’t want to know the quicker way. This is the way I do it. It’s the way I’ve always done it. That’s that’s how I do it. I think you have to find your own way of doing this thing. And getting the information online is brilliant because it’ll I mean, I’m terrible for I will find a YouTube video explaining it.
Will Brooks [00:12:58]:
I will skip through and kinda go, I get the gist. And then I I find my own way, but they’ve pointed me in the right direction. So I I think, yeah, it’s an amazing time for anyone who wants to be creative and learn how to be creative because all the tools are there.
Nancy Norbeck [00:13:18]:
Yeah. Absolutely. So since you mentioned that you went to art school, what what all did you pick up in art school that you still use now? Or did maybe there’s nothing, but I there’s gotta be something that that at least influences what you’ve what you do. Like, what’s what’s the connection there?
Will Brooks [00:13:37]:
Very little. I I went to art school, but I studied film and television production. And it was a spur of the moment. I’d finished school. I’d finished college. And I went, I don’t know what I’m gonna do next. And it just so happened they were starting this new course at art school. And I went, great.
Will Brooks [00:13:56]:
I’ll do that. And I spent three years. I learned how to make film and television. I graduated. I walked into a television studio. Ironically, it was Blue Peter. My life seems to circle back. It’s constantly a cycle of Blue Peter.
Will Brooks [00:14:11]:
I I walked into the studio at BBC Television Centre, which felt like I’ve made it. That was that was the best bit. And I walked in, and it was the most stressful afternoon of my life. And so I watched how they made an episode of television. And I left the studio, and I said, I am never setting foot in a television studio again. Then I went off and designed kitchens for three years. I suppose for me, art school, it was less about the technique. I’ve completely forgotten how to use any of the software we learned.
Will Brooks [00:14:45]:
I completely disagreed with almost everything the lecturer has taught us. But, again, I think it’s that sense of it was people imposing their view of here’s how you’re supposed to do this. And I’m always a little bit skeptical of that because I do think it is I don’t think creativity can be taught. I think they can show you where to look, point you in the right direction, and then you have to find your own way. But it was so for me, art school was more about I had three years to explore creatively. And I made short films, and they were all dreadful, but I had a marvelous time doing it. And I think that was important, just having that space to explore my creativity a little bit and decide that’s not my medium, and then sort of veer away from there.
Nancy Norbeck [00:15:34]:
Yeah. It’s it’s interesting because one of my first guests on this show was a friend that I knew in middle school and high school, and he really, you know, had to do a lot of convincing of his parents to be allowed to go to art school. And if I’m remembering this correctly off the top of my head, he maybe lasted a semester because like you say, you know, they they wanted him to draw their things and to do it their way. And he was like, I don’t, I don’t want to draw your bottle and I don’t want to draw it your way. I want to draw my own thing and I want to draw it my way. And, and it just absolutely drove him bonkers. And so he just kind of said, yeah. This was a nice dream, but it turns out the dream doesn’t match what was in my head.
Nancy Norbeck [00:16:23]:
So I’m gonna go do my own thing, and enough of this.
Will Brooks [00:16:30]:
I think that’s it. I, because it was an art school, they’d never done film before. But it was quite pretentious as a school. Very much the fine art courses were the important courses. Mhmm. And everything else didn’t really matter. And I used to I made quite populist films, if I can call them that. It was 2007 when I started, so web video was just beginning.
Will Brooks [00:16:56]:
And I was really interested in that. And all the lecturers sort of said, oh, web video’s a fad. You’re wasting your time there. Well, now they teach a six month course all about web video. But there was all my peers were getting quite high marks, and I was sort of floundering a bit. But they were doing really pretentious films, and I had no interest. And the highest mark I got three years of art school. The highest mark I ever got was a local shop had closed down, really big sort of megastore.
Will Brooks [00:17:25]:
And the shop I was working at had done a deal to buy all the fixtures and fittings. So I went in to help move it, and I took my video camera. And I just recorded I sat the video camera down and shot thirty seconds in that direction, thirty seconds in the other direction. And I did twenty minutes worth of this. My logic being, I’ll use this somewhere for something. It’s b roll if nothing else. And then we got to the point every month we had a group crit where the whole course gets together, and they display their latest work, and you all critique each other’s work. And you’re supposed to really savage it, tear it apart, really pick at it.
Will Brooks [00:18:05]:
And I had nothing to show because I frankly hadn’t done anything. So I just showed my 20 film of Here’s All My B Roll, and I just screened it. I hadn’t edited it. The sound, the raw sound, everything. I screened it twenty minutes. We all watched in silence. And at the end, the course leader, he said, there’s a point in the middle you cut from these price labels straight to the till. What are you trying to convey there? Well, what I was viewing was the price labels happen to be next to the till, but I came up with some nonsense.
Will Brooks [00:18:40]:
And I said, oh, it’s it’s the disparity of the price labels are designed to be run through the till. And now that the shop is closed, they will never fulfill their purpose. And it’s that kind of dichotomy between all I just made up all of this nonsense. And when I’d finished, he looked at me and he went, that’s exactly what comes across. Brilliant. I just sort of thought, oh god. You know? I quite like that. Well, I think that was the only project I got a first on.
Will Brooks [00:19:07]:
But it just made me think, if you can make it sound fancy and pretentious, you’ll please that crowd. I didn’t really care about pleasing that crowd.
Nancy Norbeck [00:19:17]:
You know, it’s funny because everything that you have just described in the context of that assignment, I I recognize so much from what tends to happen in English lit classes and, you know, the kind of writing workshops that mercifully largely did not happen in my MFA program because I did not want that kind of MFA program. And, you know, there there is an x k c d comic called imposter that I have been known to print out and hang up in in places because it is someone who is going around pretending to be, I think it’s an engineer and maybe a sociologist. And so I I don’t remember. What I remember is that the final panel is that he’s trying to snow a bunch of English lit students and making up stuff exactly like what you just described. And at the bottom of each panel, it says how long he’s lasted, how long he’s gotten away with it. And that that that final panel, it says something. I have no idea how long it is, but it’s something along the lines of, like, you know, three semesters and five papers, and they still haven’t figured it out. And and I laughed so hard when I read that because I was like, that is that is exactly true.
Nancy Norbeck [00:20:43]:
If you are good enough at making up something like that in in a lot of those classes, you will get away with it. And that’s what I hated about my English lit degree. And Oh, wow. You know, why I did not want another English lit degree when I thought about going to grad school. It’s like, I cannot bear to have to go through another couple years of feeling like that’s what I’m doing. You know? And that’s why I went for the creative writing degree, but I didn’t want to go into one of those situations where you had the workshop where you had to savage each other’s stuff because it’s so cruel and so traumatic. And what the heck comes out of that except a bunch of traumatized people?
Will Brooks [00:21:24]:
Yes. I I used to hate the good. I was terrible. By my third year, I never showed up for anything. It was awful. By that point, I was I was just doing my own thing. But, yes, I always I’m never a big fan of going the opposite direction. I don’t think just blind praise is ever a good thing.
Will Brooks [00:21:41]:
I’ve got a friend who I love dearly, but I never show them any of my work in progress because I know they will only say, oh, I really like it. And I need a bit more than that. I don’t want someone to say that that bit’s rubbish, that bit doesn’t work, that bit’s awful because I’ll feel terrible. But I also need someone to who’s gonna be constructive. I want you want that sense of, I really like it. Not sure about that. Because nine times out of 10, when someone says that, the bit they point out is something that already in the back of my mind, I’m thinking, habit, I’ll get away with it. And then when they sort of say, oh, that bit doesn’t work, I think, okay.
Will Brooks [00:22:19]:
That needs more work. But, yeah, the the group crits, they were you were encouraged to just tear it apart. What’s wrong with it? The whole tone was, where have they messed up? And I yeah. Like you said, that’s not constructive to anyone, especially not when them. You know?
Nancy Norbeck [00:22:36]:
Yeah. Yeah. All you’re learning is how to be terrible to other people. And like you say, like, there there are ways to be balanced, you know, to offer really helpful feedback without having to just, you know, tear someone to shreds. And I don’t, I don’t understand why the opposite point of view has prevailed for so long, but fortunately the more balanced approach where it’s like, we’re here to help you make your work better. Not we’re here to tear you down and leave you in, you know, a bloody pulp on the floor was the way that we did things. And I think that that made a huge difference in, you know, I mean, you want people in a program to be able to get along with each other, not to run screaming from each other when they pass each other on the sidewalk, you know? And so, so anyway, but, but I recognize that kind of moment. And, and also the fact that, I, you know, I, there, I took a creative writing class when I started undergrad and the things that I turned in that I put together twenty minutes before class and put almost no thought into always got better responses from my professor than the things that I put effort into, which I found fascinating too.
Nancy Norbeck [00:23:52]:
So I I recognize that bit of that story as well.
Will Brooks [00:23:56]:
Oh, yeah. Annoyingly, I find it still happens day to day. The pieces that I do and I think, oh, I don’t like that, they are always the ones that people highlight as a favor. And I always think, no. That’s not what I like. That’s what I dashed off. Maybe there’s a lesson in that that I just haven’t learned. But, yeah.
Nancy Norbeck [00:24:14]:
Yeah. I I’ve kind of come to the conclusion that I think what that meant was that I hadn’t overthought it.
Will Brooks [00:24:19]:
Yes. That’s a good way of putting it.
Nancy Norbeck [00:24:21]:
I think that’s probably what happened. But, you know, back then, it was, but I worked on this, and you hate it. And this thing that I didn’t care about, you love. What gives? So yeah. But I think, you know, from from the benefit of several decades, I think it was probably more I didn’t overthink it. So
Will Brooks [00:24:40]:
Oh, I like that. Yes. I might put that above the computer. Don’t overthink. People do that sometimes. Yeah.
Nancy Norbeck [00:24:47]:
As a as a champion overthinker, I I think the odds are good. That’s what it was. So so from that that, surprise, come and do some Photoshop for this Doctor Who merchandise gig, where did things go? It all
Will Brooks [00:25:04]:
I feel like it happened very quickly. I was thinking about this today because I was trying to work out the timeline. And looking back, it all then happened over about a two year period. In my head, it happened in about a week. But at the time, I did this merchandise. We made some exclusive stuff for the Doctor Who experience, and we did some postcards and things. And we spent about a year doing that. I never got paid, which still rankles.
Will Brooks [00:25:28]:
It’s been it’s been twelve years, and I’m still like, where’s my money? I mean, they’ve they’ve they’ve gone under now, so I don’t suppose I ever will be. But I I then had that as a kind of foot in the door. So I had a friend then who was doing big finish covers, and he was doing so many of them that some months he would say to me, can I send you five pictures and you can cut them out for me? Because it’ll save me time when it comes to putting the covers together. So I was doing those, and he’d bung me £20. And then he would do his covers, and they were brilliant covers. And then there was one month he was too busy, and he had to drop a cover. So he said to Big Finish, listen. My mate, Will, he helps out sometimes.
Will Brooks [00:26:13]:
He’s already done official stuff for the Doctor Who experience. Why not give him a cover? So that’s how I have my very first Big Finish cover. And I did that. I did two or three. I tend to do bursts with Big Finish. So I did about five of them in about 02/2014, then another five or six about five years later. I’ve just done another five or six now, and they tend to come. I’m either doing lots or none.
Will Brooks [00:26:37]:
But having done that, my big work was the Titan comics. And that came about I think it was the arrogance of youth. That’s the only I can describe it because I was, I was buying their David Tennant comics. And every month, I would go down to Forbidden Planet, and I would buy the latest issue. And the comics were great. The covers, the photo covers that they were doing, were dreadful. And every month, I would go in, and I would look, and I would think, these just get worse and worse. They were the epitome of when you think licensed product, it was kind of, here’s a photo slapped on a stock image background and sent to print.
Will Brooks [00:27:17]:
And I used to think, these aren’t selling how good the comics are. And, again, it’s that luck thing of who you know and the right time because I happened to know vaguely Brian Williamson, who was drawing their Peter Capaldi comic for them. And so I sent him a message. I said, look, who is the editor? Can you get me in touch with the editor? Because I could do a better job. And he said, oh, yeah. The editor is Andrew James. He runs all their Doctor Who titles. Here’s his email address.
Will Brooks [00:27:46]:
And I sent an email off to Andrew. And I said, look, I love the stuff you’re making. It’s brilliant. Your covers are dreadful. I could do them 10 times better. I would never do this now. I screamed at the thought. I’m like, oh my god.
Will Brooks [00:27:58]:
Who on earth did I think I was? But I sent this email off, and I read it back. I I put all my covers together for a book a couple of years ago, and I read this email back. And I was shocked by how blunt I’d been. And bless him, within about an hour, Andrew replied to the email. And he said, oh, thanks for all the positive things. The that those covers are bad is because I’m doing them myself. And I thought, oh, no. Oh, I’ve shot myself in the foot there.
Will Brooks [00:28:26]:
But he went on and he basically said that I’m doing them myself because I have no one who can do them for me. If you would like to do them, they’re yours. I kinda went, okay. So within the space of about an hour, I’d gone from not having any work to nine covers a month doing these these things. And I’d sent him sort of all my Big Finish stuff, and I’d said, look. I’m I’ve done this for the experience. I’ve done this for Big Finish. Here’s my portfolio.
Will Brooks [00:28:53]:
All this stuff. I didn’t just appear as a nobody in the door. He’d obviously seen my work. And then I did five years straight of about sort of between six and nine covers a month every month. And, yeah, it was, again, that pure luck thing of I describe my career as I’ve bumbled in to everything I’ve ever done, and that’s the perfect example of it. And like I say, these days, I would never send an email like that, and I’m horrified. But if I hadn’t done it, I never would have had that opportunity. So, again, maybe there’s a lesson for me in there.
Will Brooks [00:29:27]:
Maybe I do need to send more emails like that.
Nancy Norbeck [00:29:31]:
I mean, there is something to be said for being bold. You know? I mean, it clearly it clearly worked. He clearly wasn’t offended, which is good. You know?
Will Brooks [00:29:42]:
Very well. He took it much better than I would have.
Nancy Norbeck [00:29:45]:
Yeah. But well, I mean, he probably knew that he was out of his depth, and and therefore, just doing the best that he could and hoping that he could get away with it reasonably well. And, hey, here’s this person who wants to save me from myself, so why not let him? You know?
Will Brooks [00:30:04]:
I think you’re mostly saving his workload. But, too. Because he had a million things to do. I think he was quite happy that there was someone else willing to take on this task. Sure.
Nancy Norbeck [00:30:15]:
So what did it what does it look like to to do the cover for something like that? I mean, what I’m sure you must get a copy of the comic to to go on or something like that, but I’m I’m just making this up. So
Will Brooks [00:30:28]:
Nothing at all.
Nancy Norbeck [00:30:29]:
Oh.
Will Brooks [00:30:31]:
No. Nothing. I, the thing is I’m terrible with either a brief or a deadline, which is a horrible thing to admit as a professional creative. But it would when we started off, the first couple of months, Andrew would email me and say, okay. This month, we’ve got this tenth doctor comic, this eleventh doctor comic, this twelfth doctor comic. The tenth doctor one, here’s the one line synopsis that’s going in previews magazine, and it features captain Jack, or there’s weeping angels in that one, or he would give me something. And I think the first few, he’d sent some pointers of I would like this on the cover. And very quickly, he learned that anything he asked me to do, I would ignore roundly and do whatever I fancied.
Will Brooks [00:31:15]:
So we very quickly settled into a phase where he would say, okay. Next month, I need two David Tennant, one Matt Smith, and a Peter Capaldi. And I would go off and make whatever I wanted, and then I would go back to him and say, here you go. And most months, he was happy. Occasionally, he would come back and say, stop being ridiculous. Do me something properly for that one. And sometimes he would say to me, look, we’re doing this. Can you please include this element? Or we’re tying it in.
Will Brooks [00:31:42]:
Can these all match? Or something like that. I was very lucky with the amount of creative freedom that Andrew gave me. He was brilliant to work for. He was the perfect example of that kind of supportive critical eye where he would sometimes he would say, oh, I’m not quite sure this works. But nine times out of 10, he was wonderfully positive, really supportive. I don’t think anyone I know who’s worked for him has had a bad word to say about him. He was a really good editor. And, yeah, I’m very lucky for the creative freedom he gave me.
Will Brooks [00:32:18]:
But I I think it was mostly because he just learned very, very quickly that if he asked me for something specific, he wasn’t gonna get it.
Nancy Norbeck [00:32:28]:
So how did you come up with what you wanted to do for them?
Will Brooks [00:32:32]:
A lot of the time, it was that last minute thing of I’ve had a month to do these, and now they’re due in three days. Sometimes a lot of my covers and I noticed this when I was putting them all together for the book. A lot of my covers, you find there’s a theme for each month that I was doing them. And when they hit the shelves, you might not tell because those covers will be split over seven or eight weeks maybe. But when I’m making them, it’s I’ve had the idea of, okay, I found this great image of Peter Capaldi. I’ll surround him with a couple of Cybermen. Oh, great. Now I can do the same for Matt Smith and David Teck, and I can build a set.
Will Brooks [00:33:09]:
And I think there’s something it’s undiagnosed, but I’m almost certainly autistic on some level. And I like a nice matching set. And I think that very much came to the fore when I was doing the covers. And each month, I liked to make something that would match across the whole range. Some months, that completely went out the window. And it was literally whatever photos I had to hand, and I would just put it together. But, yeah, I I always struggle with the idea of where my creativity comes from with those. There are some that some months that were hell, and I would just stare at a blank Photoshop document and get nowhere.
Will Brooks [00:33:50]:
And there were other months where the day he said, here’s what I need, I would have them all done because it would just be right there. I know what I want this month. And I loved those months. I wish every month was like that. It would have been so much easier.
Nancy Norbeck [00:34:08]:
I always love those moments when when the idea just comes together and and you just know. It’s like the a magic little moment, you know, as opposed to, what am I gonna do this time? Yeah. It’s it’s great when that little spark does its thing.
Will Brooks [00:34:27]:
I’ve learned a lot lately that sometimes the best tonic is just getting on with it, and I can spend days thinking, I don’t know what I’m gonna do for this project. And then it finally gets to three days before deadline. And I think, right, I’m just gonna have to do something. And I sit at the computer, and as soon as I do it, I go, oh, I know exactly what I need to do. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I’m still trying to learn that thing of sometimes you just have to get on with it. But I wonder if I’m now locked in a cycle where I have to wait until that last possible moment before that happens.
Nancy Norbeck [00:34:56]:
There there is something about that because I find that with myself sometimes too, and I do have the same question for myself. You know? It’s like and and the embarrassing thing is I used to teach. So do you know how many kids I would say, it’s a 10 page paper. You need to start it now. And and now I look at myself and I’m like, did I ever was there a time when I ever started the 10 page paper right away? I honestly don’t remember, but I know if I were doing it now, no, I’d be doing it three days before it was due, just like all of those kids that I talked to. I mean, I feel like such a horrible hypocrite, and I don’t know if it’s if I’ve become that way with age or not, because I honestly don’t remember, but there is something about that last minute pressure that seems to just fire the neurons differently. And it’s terrible because the panic is not good.
Will Brooks [00:35:53]:
Oh, it’s a horrible way to I don’t know why we choose to do it to ourselves, but
Nancy Norbeck [00:35:57]:
Yeah. It’s not helpful. It’s it’s terror is is not the world’s best motivator. Right. But for some of us, it it seems to it seems to work. And I think, you know, like you said, it’s like, have I just trained myself to be in this state where now I’m waiting for the terror because I know then it will work?
Will Brooks [00:36:21]:
I think so. I think you just get used to Yeah. I I always describe it as winging it. And I think every time, I think, it’s gonna come unstuck. One day, it’s not gonna happen. But touch wood, that hasn’t happened yet. I’ve somehow managed to brag my way through.
Nancy Norbeck [00:36:37]:
Yeah. Well and, you know, it’s when when you write, you know, we talk about plotters and pantsers. And and I definitely am a pantser. I have always been a seat of the pants writer, which is a terrifying thing when you find yourself in an MFA program with a graduation, you hope, deadline, because you don’t wanna be paying for extra semesters and all of that kind of stuff, and you’re just sitting there going, I’ve never actually finished a novel. Failed to mention that on my application. Not sure if I’ll be able to finish it now, but I kinda have to if I wanna graduate, so this is gonna be exciting. And and I felt better when my first MFA advisor told me that, you know, when when you don’t know where you’re going, it’s more exciting for you because you’re figuring it out, and therefore it’s more exciting for the reader. And I was like, okay.
Nancy Norbeck [00:37:21]:
That’s good. I’m not in a place where I’m going to be shamed for not having it all plotted out and figured it out because if I did, I wouldn’t be able to write anything else because now I know what’s gonna happen. But several years ago, I I realized, and and I don’t know if this is coincidence or not. I don’t know if this is like a fandom related thing or not, but I suddenly realized that like the doctor is the ultimate pantser, you know, he just like has no plan, makes it up as he goes along, pulls out the kettle and the string, you know, and somehow makes it work. And, and I really kind of wonder, it’s like, okay, so was I always like this? Or is this something that I learned from watching this show? Uh-huh. I do not know the answer. And I don’t know if that’s all related, if it’s related to the last minute. Oh, now I know what the answer is.
Nancy Norbeck [00:38:12]:
No clue.
Will Brooks [00:38:13]:
I find I’m dreadful at writing, but I’m my thing is I’m working on a project at the moment, and I have plotted it all out. But I really enjoy the process of plotting it out. I really enjoy kinda going, okay. This happens, then this happens, and then that’s the end of that issue and that arc, then this happens, and then I love plotting it all out, and I wouldn’t be able to write a thing without knowing where it ends. But once I finished plotting it out, it’s like, oh, the interest has gone now. I’ve plotted it all. I know the story. I don’t need to actually write it.
Will Brooks [00:38:42]:
And then it’s like, I defeated the whole point now. The whole idea was to write this story. And now in my head, I’m like, I’ve told myself the story. Right. No one hear it now. So, yeah, I wonder if that’s another thing where being a pantser is a good idea because you can just dive in and still find that joy.
Nancy Norbeck [00:39:01]:
Yeah. And then, you know, all of the plotters who have ever said to me, oh, you can’t possibly write something that way. I’m like, well, I’ve done it, so actually you can’t. And and, you know, I think what they don’t understand is you do end up outlining it. You just do it in reverse when you go through and you revise it, because then you gotta make it look look like you meant it that way the whole, the whole time. And to them, I’m sure that looks like a waste of time, but if there’s no other way to write the story, because you can’t write it, if you know what happens, then it ends up for me feeling like, oh, now I get to do the puzzle because I get to see how, you know, how do I make the pieces fit together? So, yeah, it’s, it’s a, it’s an interesting, it’s an interesting question. What makes one person work the one way and somebody else work the other? I’ll bet you those plotters start the 10 page paper the day they get it.
Will Brooks [00:39:52]:
Yeah. Dork.
Nancy Norbeck [00:39:58]:
Well, I’m curious now to know how doing the comic covers, you know, is that the same way that you did the Big Finish covers? Because I’m pretty sure with the Big Finish covers, you probably have to have plot elements on the cover.
Will Brooks [00:40:11]:
The Big Finish ones, yes. They always send you a script with Big Finish, which is quite fun, and you get to go through and have a read. Those ones, they’re keener to make them more tied to the content. But that’s a different challenge. I think with the comics, a lot of the problem was there are so many moving parts, and they’re on such a tight schedule. Whereas Big Finish, quite often now, will record four, five, six years in advance. So they already know that month’s release is gonna be this. With the comics, we often have the issue of a story has fallen through, so that’s been bumped back two months, and we’ve put in another two issue story.
Will Brooks [00:40:55]:
But all the covers have already gone out. So for them, it needed to be a bit looser. And so I think they quite liked the idea of just a nice picture of the doctor and his companions, or we did a whole run. They were my favorite ones to do. We called them episode celebration covers, and they were literally just an episode done as a cover. I think I did a Fires of Pompeii, day of the doctor, I think I might have done. There were a few different ones. And I loved doing those ones because it was just celebrating my favorite episodes.
Will Brooks [00:41:25]:
And they got so much flack from readers because they were like, well, the content in the story isn’t from those episodes. And it was that thing of kind of going, yeah. I see what you mean, but equally, you know, they never are with the doctor who wants, or they very rarely are. But so that was always a little bit tricky. But the big finish ones, everyone knows a little bit more. You’ve got the script. You’ve often had it recorded by the time you’re doing the covers, and so you know a little bit more who’s in it, what can go on there. And they also, I have found, give you a few more pointers.
Will Brooks [00:42:00]:
At Big Finish. You tend to get a little bit more of a, here’s what we would like on the cover. And sometimes you’ll throw in an extra element, and they’ll either love it or they’ll hate it. And it’s always my favorite elements that get knocked off the cover. They’re always gutted. I put some vaud on a cover recently, and they said, oh, no. Let’s lose the vaud. And I was gutted because everyone loves a vaud.
Nancy Norbeck [00:42:26]:
That’s like that kill your darlings part when you’re writing. It’s the part that you really love, and you just have to kill it.
Will Brooks [00:42:32]:
Yeah. I always argue back, and then I’m always over. Probably for the best. Let’s be honest.
Nancy Norbeck [00:42:38]:
Yeah. That’s that’s the depressing part is when it’s the part that you really love and yet you know in your heart of hearts, it’s like, yeah, I know, but it’s gotta go.
Will Brooks [00:42:48]:
Yeah. When you remove it and you go, oh, this works so much better now. I hate it when other people are right.
Nancy Norbeck [00:42:54]:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s like, okay. Fine. So you’ve mentioned it to me that that you’re finding that life is better without social media, and I’m very curious to hear what that means and looks like for you.
Will Brooks [00:43:15]:
I found I used to be very social media y, and I would post on Twitter a 100 times a day, and I was on Instagram, and I had a Facebook page and all this kind of stuff. And then gradually, mostly during COVID, I found myself leaving social media. And I’ve still got an Instagram, which I normally post on about once every six months. At the moment, it’s the twentieth anniversary of Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor Who run, and so I’ve made 13 new pieces of artwork. And I’m putting them out one a week every week on the anniversary. But, ironically, that’s one of the reasons I wanted to leave social media because I felt like I was constantly having to make stuff. It felt like I’ve not shared anything in the last three days. I need to make something now.
Will Brooks [00:44:05]:
And I’m I’m I’m very lucky in that I’ve never stressed too much about likes. There was always a thing of people would sort of say, oh, how many followers have you got? I don’t know. Sort of. A few thousand? I don’t really track it. I always had a friend who he would say, I’ve lost two followers today. And I’d think, how do you know? Like that but I did always have that drive of, well, I know the last post got about 300 likes, and this one’s only had about 200 likes. I need to make something else right now that’s gonna get 400 likes. And I just found it wasn’t helping my mental health.
Will Brooks [00:44:41]:
It wasn’t helping my creativity because I was churning out rubbish, frankly, just to try and get it on there. And so mostly during COVID, I left Facebook first because there was nothing on Facebook. And it was mostly people would come up who I hadn’t seen for twenty years, and I’d think, why am I looking at a picture of your dinner? Like, I don’t want to be on it. So I left that. Twitter, I just found increasingly toxic. Everyone was cross about everything all the time, and it was exhausting. Instagram, I kept because that feels like the most creative place. But even now, I post something, it gets a handful of likes, and I feel like it disappears into that social media ether somewhere.
Will Brooks [00:45:26]:
And so I’ve I’ve logged off of all of those. And it was almost immediately, as soon as I’ve left, especially Twitter, I just felt my mental health shoot up a million times. I felt happier. I suddenly felt like I’m making art for me again, rather than trying to chase some algorithm somewhere. Yeah. It just it’s that tricky age because the flip side of that is I find now when I have something to promote or to sell or to advertise or whatever, I don’t know where to do it. We launched a book on Kickstarter at Christmas, and someone said to me, oh, you need to get onto Blue Sky. I thought, what on earth is Blue Sky? So I wound up, and I had a Blue Sky, and I posted the thing on there.
Will Brooks [00:46:12]:
And then it was a bit awkward because then I felt like, well, I’m only here to sell you something. And that felt awkward. And it wasn’t my own art. We’re doing a book of Adrian Salmon’s brilliant Doctor Who art, and so I I could rave about his work all day long. So that wasn’t quite so bad. But it was. As soon as that campaign was finished, I logged off of Blue Sky, and I haven’t been back on since. And occasionally, people sort of say, oh, I messaged you on Blue Sky.
Will Brooks [00:46:34]:
And I think, I’m not sure I remember the password, to be honest. I I feel no particular desire to go back on. But it is that kind of necessary evil. Because now when I have a new project, we’ve got one to launch in a couple of weeks, I don’t know where I’m gonna tell people about it unless I’m on social media. So it I I haven’t yet worked out what the perfect balance is between not feeling like I always have to be making and sharing and posting, but also having some engagement somewhere. I don’t quite know what that world looks like yet.
Nancy Norbeck [00:47:10]:
It it’s such a tricky thing for all of the reasons that you mentioned. I mean, you know, everyone always says, oh, consistency is key. And, like, so what you want me to be is a hamster on a wheel.
Will Brooks [00:47:20]:
Yes.
Nancy Norbeck [00:47:21]:
You know, I, I don’t, I’m, I’m not a hamster, not particularly into wheels as a general thing I need to be doing. And, you know, and I don’t know that I want to commit to being a hamster on a wheel. You know, like you say, I how how often do I need to be churning stuff out and that whole addictive, how many likes do I have? I haven’t posted anything. I need to crank something out so that I can post it. It’s like, why am I doing this? You know, I think, I think it’s so easy to lose track of why am I actually doing this. And, you know, the keeping track of those, those numbers, whichever numbers they are, follower numbers, your number of likes and all of that stuff. I mean, I know for a while, Instagram wasn’t showing how many likes were on a post unless you were the person who posted it. And it was, I think it was supposed to make it less, less fraught mental health wise.
Nancy Norbeck [00:48:18]:
I don’t know if it worked, and now they all seem to be back. So I guess they stopped doing it. My
Will Brooks [00:48:25]:
Instagram is set not to show like numbers. I think it it it’s almost a sense of trying to find a bit of control. So it’s that thing of I don’t feel like it’s the algorithm judging me. Right? Because it then doesn’t matter how many likes. But there was a thing recently where they’ve changed the layout on Instagram. Mhmm. I’ve never felt more like an old man because now I’m not on there. I feel like it all confuses me.
Will Brooks [00:48:51]:
And a friend sort of said to me, oh, you need to go on and redo all the thumbnails because they’ve changed the aspect ratio and it blah blah blah. And it messes up the and I sort of said, well, I don’t really care. You know, the things I posted four, five years ago, one person might look at a month. Like, it doesn’t matter. But, yeah, it I’ve turned off the likes and things on there because, like you say, it’s that thing of it does help your mental health, I think, because then it’s less of a competition.
Nancy Norbeck [00:49:16]:
Yeah. Yeah. And it and it’s an internal competition, like you were saying. You know? Oh, this one wasn’t as good as the last one, so I have to do something else to make it better. And what do I what do I need to do? What made this one better than the other one? You drive yourself absolutely out of your mind if you’re not careful.
Will Brooks [00:49:33]:
I always find it used to bother me. And I’m told see, this is the thing. All my information now is secondhand. But it used to bother me that when there was a new episode of Doctor Who on, people would, like, compete to be the first person to put brand new artwork out for it. And a friend of mine said to me the other day that someone has just posted artwork for not even this week’s new episode of doctor who, next week’s new episode of Doctor Who. I think they’ve just released, like, the first two or three photos, and someone has already done, oh, here’s my artwork for episode five of blah blah blah. And I think, I haven’t even seen it yet. Like but there’s such a drive of, right, I need to be the first person to post this, and I need to get ahead of the crowd, and I need to that’s never gonna be you’re never gonna do your best work by trying to win some competition like that.
Nancy Norbeck [00:50:21]:
No. Not at all. And and, you know, I I deactivated my Facebook account in 02/2017, so almost eight years ago. And one thing that was striking to me when I did it was that it came up with this bar with it. It was a row of faces of my friends With each one of them, it was like, Katie will miss you. Joe will miss you. You know, Samantha will miss you. And and it got me for a second before my brain clicked back in, and I thought, this is the most incredibly manipulative thing I have ever seen.
Nancy Norbeck [00:51:03]:
And I took a screenshot of it because I knew nobody was gonna believe me if I didn’t.
Will Brooks [00:51:08]:
Yeah.
Nancy Norbeck [00:51:09]:
And I accidentally reactivated that account a couple years ago, and they no longer do that. And I you know, then when it asked me why I was deactivating, you know, it gave my reason. And then I said, also, your little manipulative thing up here just convinced me that this was the right thing to do, so well done. But, you know, after I did it, I mean, it it really became clear how addicted I had been to it because I felt I don’t know if you experienced this, but I was, like, for about two weeks, I had this impulse to go post something and had to remind myself that I had deactivated my account and that that was not an option. And then once that period ended, it was so nice because that that impulse was gone, and and I just felt like, oh, I’m free of Facebook. Isn’t that nice? It’s beautiful. All of the time that I used to spend on there, I can do other things
Will Brooks [00:52:05]:
now. Absolutely. I still find years after I left Twitter, I still sometimes find myself going to the I sit down with a coffee, and I go to the bar at the top of Internet Explorer, and I just go, oh, no. What am I doing? I took off that one. Yeah. I by Facebook, they’ve made it harder now. I had to reactivate mine. About a month ago, a friend of mine died, and I thought, I know I had photos of him on there.
Will Brooks [00:52:29]:
And his wife had asked for some pictures for the funeral, and so I reactivated it to go on and get some. And then it took me about three days to find out how to deactivate again because I was going through every setting. And I was googling, how do you deactivate your Facebook? Oh, you go here, clear, here. And I was going in. I was like, it’s not there. And eventually, I found my way, but they’ve really buried it. They don’t want you to leave, which again just makes me a little bit suspicious because it’s something, you’re this desperate to cheat me around. Why? What what are you using my data for?
Nancy Norbeck [00:53:03]:
Yeah. They’re using it to make a heck of a lot of money is what they’re using it for. Yeah. Yeah. They they all are. And and that’s part of why it’s like, I’m really glad that, you know, every once in a while, you know, I find out that I’ve gotten a piece of news, like six months later than everybody else, which I’m sure you have also experienced. It’s like, oh yeah. That’s because I’m not on the Facebook.
Nancy Norbeck [00:53:25]:
And, and I got a text from one of my cousins a couple of weeks after I did it. And she’s like, did, did you block me on Facebook? Did you like unfriend me on Facebook? And I said, well, only in the same way that I did to everybody because I deactivated my account.
Will Brooks [00:53:43]:
You know? I had exactly that a couple of weeks ago. My ex wife, she came around to pick something up, and she said, have you have you blocked me on Instagram? And I said, no. You haven’t viewed my story in weeks. And I was like, I don’t think I’ve been on in weeks. Like, oh, okay. It was sort of like but there is that sense of if you’re not seen on social media, people think that’s strange. They sort of question that a little bit. And, yeah, it’s an odd one.
Nancy Norbeck [00:54:12]:
You kind of cease to exist to them.
Will Brooks [00:54:15]:
Yes. Yeah.
Nancy Norbeck [00:54:17]:
Yeah. Yeah. I found that out in a hurry. It’s it’s so weird. It’s like, no. I I’m I’m still here, but but you’re not regularly a name on their screen. So so you’re just not there anymore.
Will Brooks [00:54:32]:
I just sort of find it was that thing of there were a handful of people that I would interact with every day on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. So now I just text them because I very quickly became a rare it it’s always nice to connect with other people. But the people I was speaking to every day, I can just send them a WhatsApp. It’s kind
Nancy Norbeck [00:54:51]:
of Exactly.
Will Brooks [00:54:52]:
Does the same thing. Yeah.
Nancy Norbeck [00:54:54]:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s easier, and and it doesn’t include all of the stuff you didn’t wanna see on there in the first place. And it’s not the time sync, you know, I mean, so much creative time and not just time for, for creative stuff, but, you know, if you’ve been saying, oh, I don’t have time to write my book or do my art or, you know, sing in a choir or whatever it is that you’ve been wanting to do. How much time are you spending on social media? Because if you didn’t do that, you would suddenly have a lot more time to do the thing that you’ve been saying you wanna do. I mean, so much time opened up that, you know Doctor.
Will Brooks [00:55:33]:
Because I found it was I was opening my phone. Like, I boil the kettle. I open my phone straight onto Twitter. Yeah. You go to the loo, up comes Twitter. You you’re walking to the car from your front door, up comes Twitter. Mhmm. It was just that constant thing of, I mean, hours and hours a day of just mostly reading people shout at each other.
Will Brooks [00:55:54]:
It was like
Nancy Norbeck [00:55:56]:
Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, if if you feel like you don’t have time and and that you wish you had more time, you might wanna think about how much time you’re spending staring at your phone or staring at the screen because you could be losing hours and not realize you’re doing it.
Will Brooks [00:56:13]:
Yes. And you really won’t miss it either. Like like we say, you’ll have that pang for a couple of weeks, maybe a month, but I I I don’t think you could pay me to go back on at this point. Like, it’s so nice. I don’t miss it at all. And anything important, someone will send me a message.
Nancy Norbeck [00:56:29]:
Exactly. Exactly. You’ll hear about it one way or another. You don’t you do not need Facebook to tell you what’s going on in the world. So so what are you working on these days?
Will Brooks [00:56:41]:
So a lot of my work at the moment is with Cutaway Comics and Roundel Books, who are doing doctor who things on the fringes of the doctor who universe. So we’ve just finished. It’s just gone to print, Go Figure, which is our big book all about the character options, doctor who action figures. It’s a massive thing. It’s 456 pages. It’s taken up about the last two years of my life. It feels like I’ve looked at nothing but doctor who toys for the last few years, which has been very strange. It’s been lovely.
Will Brooks [00:57:12]:
I’ve really enjoyed it, but I’m also quite glad it’s finished. We’re now doing a lovely book. We did one last year with Philip Hinchcliffe, who produced doctor who in the nineteen seventies. And it was 18 essays, brand new essays, one for each of his stories, looking at deeper themes and things like that. We’re now working on one for the Graham Williams era. And so we’ve got a load more essays, and I’m currently laying all that out. We’re doing comics that are officially licensed with the original rights holders and creators. We’ve just done Inferno.
Will Brooks [00:57:47]:
Gary Russell has written a brilliant Inferno comic, and he’s got a whole series planned. So we’ve just done that one. That’s just gone off to print as well. We’re about to launch a happiness patrol comic set in the world of the happiness patrol. I’m strongly advocating to have some licorice all sorts as one of the rewards on our Kickstarter for that one because it’s the obvious choice. So we’re doing a lot of things with that at the moment. I’ve just done a couple more big finish covers, and I hope there’s a few more of those in the pipeline. But I’m quite I feel quite happy at the moment because I’m at a point in my life where I’m kind of picking and choosing the things I want to do.
Will Brooks [00:58:30]:
And it there are some months where the money’s a little bit tight, but as long as my bills are paid, I’d rather be happy doing the projects I want to do. And I’m in a fortunate enough position where I’m able to do that a little bit. And working with the guys at Cutaway and Big Finish and things like that, they’re always great to work with, we have the best time. And yeah. So I’m very happy to be doing those at the moment.
Nancy Norbeck [00:58:55]:
That’s fantastic. And you’re right. Being able to pick and choose is is kind of the the ideal.
Will Brooks [00:59:01]:
Oh, it’s the best. My my favorite thing is my son is six, and he’s with me sort of 60% of the time. And it’s quite nice just having the freedom to do that. And I walk him down to school, and I walk down and pick him up, and we go and do things. And it’s just quite nice doing all of that and fitting work around it. I feel like that’s the way life is supposed to be. So, yes, I’m very much enjoying that at the moment and still getting to play in the world of Doctor Who, but maybe without the the stress of having to know quite so much of it and having to find new images every month.
Nancy Norbeck [00:59:34]:
Yeah. Well and you never know when you’re gonna get that call from Blue Peter. So,
Will Brooks [00:59:38]:
you know One I live in hope. One day. I’m badge ready. I I can be there on Tuesday.
Nancy Norbeck [00:59:46]:
Well, I’ll I’ll be curious to see where where you go from here, and I have really, really enjoyed this conversation today. So thank you very much.
Will Brooks [00:59:54]:
Thank you. I’ve loved it.
Nancy Norbeck [00:59:56]:
That’s this week’s show. Thanks so much to Will Brooks and to you. Will’s links are in the show notes. I hope you’ll leave a review for this episode. There is a link in your podcast app to make it super, super easy, and it really makes a big difference. If you enjoyed our conversation, please do share it with a friend. Thank you so much. If this episode resonated with you or if you’re feeling a little bit less than confident in your creative process right now, join me at the spark on Substack as we form a community that supports and celebrates each other’s creative courage.
Nancy Norbeck [01:00:30]:
It’s free, and it’s also where I’ll be adding programs for subscribers and listeners. The link is in your podcast app, so sign up today. See you there, and see you next week. Follow Your Curiosity is produced by me, Nancy Norbeck, with music by Joseph McDade. If you like Follow Your Curiosity, please subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And don’t forget to tell your friends. It really helps me reach new listeners.