Idle thought

I have been considering having a go at writing a novel. It occurred to me that I have a good outline for one in the comic I played around with a couple of years ago, and then left on the shelf. Yes, it is somewhat self-indulgent casting myself as the main character and bossing round famous artists from history, not to mention the plot being silly and far-fetched, but so what?

I am not considering a straight novel, however. I am thinking of a mix between words and pictures, though I'm not entirely sure how that'd work. The idea is to use words for the bits that are best conveyed through words, and pictures likewise. I'm not thinking an illustrated novel, but one where pictures play an integral formal role.

I think that this approach has two main benefits. One is that getting it to work would be an interesting problem, and a good solution would be a good thing in itself. The other, and more important one, is that I find writing anything of any length an intensely boring experience, and so when I get bored with writing I can play around with some pictures.

I am far from sure that this idea will come to anything, but I've been contemplating it for a while now, and have concluded it's worth having a go. I haven't got much further than that though. I haven't even solved the first problem, which is how to go about it.

Do I write on the computer? That's obviously the best way to write, so that you can go back in and rework things without having to cross out lots of stuff and connect it back up with arrows and numbers and things. But then how to integrate the pictures? I sure as hell am not going to draw on the computer. Do I do the pictures separately and include in the text things like '[insert picture A]'? That could get very tricky very quickly.

Hmmm.