This week in Running Up That Hill, Elton Pruitt comes clean on why you should stop listening to him and start trusting your own instincts.

Sound like a farewell column? It's not.

But it is the Shortest. Column. Ever.

And it's only available at Scryptic Studios, the #1 site for aspiring comic book writers!

Artists: without them, we’re merely delusional dreamers.

If you want to write comic books, you’ve got to find artists to bring your words to visual life. But where do you find them? And how?

Learn all the Ecto has learned – and hopefully a lot more – in “The Courtship of an Artist,” this week in Running Up That Hill.

Brought to you by Scryptic Studios, the #1 site for aspiring comic book writers !

Our primary goal as writers is to defeat that mythological, multi-headed beast: the dreaded blank page. This week in Running Up That Hill, Elton Pruitt (aka the Ecto, aka recent accomplisher of the fabled NEGATIVE BURN Hat Trick) shares a couple of tips and stategies that work for him.

Read Defeating Blank Pages, part 1: Outflank Your Enemy today!

Brought to you by Scryptic Studios, the #1 site for aspiring comic book writers.

Is Elton Pruitt, aka the Ecto, aka recent accomplisher of the fabled NEGATIVE BURN Hat Trick:

A. An idiot with way too much time on his hands?

B. So confident in his own pitches that he welcomes all competition? Or perhaps...

C. A straight-up guy who actually wants to do something constructive and helpful for the aspiring writers out there who may come across the contest late in the game?

You decide -- but only after reading The Shadowline Who Wants to Create a Super-Heroine Contest Ultimate FAQ!

Brought to you by Scryptic Studios, the #1 site for aspiring comic book writers!

Elton never got to read Jack Kirby's Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth as a kid.

So when he finally read it 2.5 years ago, it made him lose his mind and decide he wanted to write comic books for a living!

Read It all started with Kamandi today, only @ Scryptic Studios.

In this week's Running Up That Hill, Elton brings us up to speed on all things Ecto, including (but not limited to):

• His quest to interview Aimee Mann for an upcoming column
• The first-ever review of something he wrote
• His over-use of the third person
• And the three short stories he's rushing to complete for his upcoming Anthology With No Name

Read Odds and Sods today!

Well, this week's Running Up That Hill was originally going to be about (a) Elton's hitting the bigtime with his first-ever published work this week, and (b) the Ecto's super-savvy top secret plan to save Major League Baseball from itself.

And while that would've rocked (and may perhaps still rock a week from now), it can't hold a candle to the actual subject of this week's column:

Fat Elvis!

Because YOU demanded it:

The smoldering despair and giddy optimism that led to the Ecto's upcoming collaboration with one N. Tuazon, Elk's Run artist extraordinaire.

That, and some really good advice not to follow.

Read Joyeux Noel today, ONLY @ Scryptic Studios.

After a week-long hiatus spent digging himself out from beneath an ever-growing pile of rejection letters, the Ecto returns to his humble origins as a Scryptic Studios columnist and aspiring comic book writer.

This week, the sad but true saga of Shark-Man, Twilife, and the Submission/Rejection Shuffle.

In this week's Running Up That Hill, I interview writers Caleb Monroe, Drew Melbourne, and Joshua Hale Fialkov -- along with editors Jason Rodriguez, Kristen Simon, and the mysterious TEFKAT – to find the answers to Everything I Always Wanted to Know About the San Diego Comic-Con, and Wasn't Afraid to Ask.

In this week's Running Up That Hill, Elton ponies up a three-page script-to-page comparison of his upcoming first published story, "Fall of the Triumvirate," and shares 4 valuable lessons -- or perhaps only 2? -- that he learned from collaborating on this story with (should be) award-winning artist Juan Romera.

Read The 4 Things I Learned from Sequential Suicide today!

In this week's column, Elton spills the beans (well, only a couple of them for now) on his upcoming, first-ever submission for a comic book series, TWILIFE, and shares his fascination with adapting novels and short stories into comic book form. Plus, he proclaims Meltdown to be the most surprisingly wonderful book in years!

In the spirit of the season, Elton gets all earnest and heartfelt as he talks about a recurring dream of France, artists reinventing themselves, and how there are only four degrees of separation between him and Aimee Mann.

And a little bit about comic books, too!

Read Dreams of France, and 4 Degrees from Aimee Mann today!

In last week's Running Up That Hill, we learned the shocking truth about how Elizabeth Genco's butt inspired Elton to get serious about his writing. This week, Elton answers the question of the ages (“Where do you get your ideas?”) while introducing us to bizarre concepts like MindSpace, Idea Balloons, and an Aimee Mann Christmas album.

Plus, Elton reveals the titles of 2 of his next 4 comic book projects, all while referring to himself in the third person as “the Ecto” (and with a straight face no less!)

Read MindSpace, Idea Balloons, and Aimee Mann's Christmas Album today!

In last week's Running Up That Hill, we learned all about Elton's love/hate relationship with Rejection.

This week, we'll learn the shocking truth about how Elizabeth Genco's butt inspired Elton to get serious about his writing.

Read Are You SERIOUS? today!

In last week's Running Up That Hill, we learned all about Elton and his first, failed shot at romance... romance comic book writing, that is. This week, we'll delve into rejection, and why it's such a wonderful thing for aspiring writers to experience – especially when it ultimately leads to Success (with a capital S)!

Rejection, Rejection, Rejection... Success! is only a click away.

I'm writing a column for Scryptic Studios (the writers' resource website) called Running Up That Hill. In it, I'll be sharing the knowledge, insights, and lessons in abject despair gained in the past two years of my five-year-plan to break into comic book writing.

This week's debut column, "By The Southern Grace of God is a Lovely and Wonderful Story", features:

• The bio that never was


• Your free beer recommendation of the week


• My first-ever submission to a comic book publisher, and what it taught me

In upcoming columns, I'll be examining my own experience as an aspiring comic book writer to see what might be helpful to others starting down that same path, interviewing industry professionals to seek their insights and recommendations, and talking about Luke and Laura as if I wasn't the only guy in the world who loves both comic books and General Hospital.

I hope you'll join me!