Shocktype Productions - The Blog!

Obligatory Super Bowl Post

2012-02-02T12:11:00.001-08:00

I was born and raised in Indianapolis. I currently live in Indianapolis. There are circumstances in which I would be comfortable dying in Indianapolis, but none that will apply any time soon.

So, on the eve of Super Bowl Weekend in which my home city will host modern day gladiatorial fights in the shape of professional sport (Go Giants!!), I will be going to Chicago. Partly as a favor to my brother, partly as a vacation, and partly to reach minimum safe distance in the event the inferior team wins (Patriots SUCK!).

It's my hope against hope that I can get caught up on a lot of things that are good for my soul. A lot of words and local pizza will be involved. Catching up with a friend or two, making making new inroads, and playing with cats will likely happen. There may even be some gym activities. And, when time permits, a few MST3K episodes await my perusal.

There's been a lot of prep work going into this little venture. A small fraction of it was even planned. Repairs to my car were not, but then neither was the need to have it repaired. Still, that and a couple minor cuts aside, I'm ready as I'll ever be. Really looking forward to it!

I've also gotten some news from the medical community that, while nothing superhuman has come up, it's actually looking like I'm going to inhabit this mortal plane for quite a bit longer, so maybe I should arrange for extra positive experiences.

While one may need to suffer to write, if you suffer too long you lose the memory of happiness that you would compare the suffering to in order to make it stand out that much more. Drama = Happy + Sad, and Drama sells, kids.

Reminders

2011-12-12T17:41:00.000-08:00

The world is full of potential frustrations. Doubly so when you're trying to go out of your way to make things better for someone else. Hence, I believe, "holiday stress".

So it's nice to find little reminders that things aren't all frustrating. That there is some good in the world. Like, for instance, coming across a bit of writing from a long way back that, despite all memory, reads well. They can be the gift we give ourselves.

I have more I'd love to share, but not the freedom to do so. Like Jacob Marley, we're all bound by chains that (some more than others) we forge ourselves. Don't worry about coming off like Scrooge at times, because at the end he turned out okay.

Janitorial Duties

2011-11-09T11:49:00.001-08:00

There are a number of strategies writers adopt when they edit their work. There are some that will keep a document active for as long as it takes. Years, even decades will go by from the completion of the first draft to the final edit, while the writer will meticulously correct, restructure, and position every letter with the diligence and precision of a neurosurgeon. I respect this strategy, but it’s not for me, mostly because it requires a number of attributes I lack.

There’s the first-and-out strategy. I’ve known a couple of people who truly believe that the first draft is the most honest, that the raw text contains the purest form of the narrative and that’s what should be published, and good for them. Such people did not grow up required to take regular speech therapy sessions. I can’t legally describe what I would do for the ability to pass what I want to say through a trusted set of eyes before it shot out of my mouth. Any clever thing I’ve said – probably EVERY clever thing – was a result of me holding back a statement that crucial half second to get just a little bit closer to truth. Thoughts are pure and beautiful things, but the language used to express those thoughts inevitably fails to convey their whole essence. I firmly believe the best anyone can do is know their languages flaws well enough to occasionally use them to their advantage.

Most people fall in the middle. They push the first draft out, ignoring the errors they find as they type, then go back and start cleaning it up enough that they can admit to another person they wrote it. Then those people tell the writer what they missed. Revise and review. The sequence and amount of time can vary endlessly, but it stops when the writer’s sick of looking at the thing. Most say “when the document is as clean as it can be before submission”, but there’s not one user of this strategy that hasn’t felt queasy at the thought of reviewing their manuscript another time.

There’s a lot that happens during the editing process that can determine how long it last, but ultimately it comes down to the deadline. How clean can a writer get their manuscript before someone with a checkbook gets bored waiting for it? Setting one’s own deadlines is a great disciplinary measure; a writer gets used to having to focus, to the best job in the fastest time, and develops skill as a result. Of course, writers have their own checkbooks. Often stained with red.

Apologies to xkcd

2011-10-21T11:41:00.000-07:00

There’s a sci-fi staple that I haven’t seen or heard in a while, it feels to me, and that is the notion of quantum computer. In the shared experience we tolerate (re: reality), all quantum computing entails is the capacity for a computer to say “it could be both zero AND one”, instead of the current “it must be either zero OR one” mentality. Such a computer could take longer to process some things (it has 50% more possibilities to work with), but could solve other problems in much fewer steps.

In science-fiction, quantum computers get a bit cooler. They take their definition of “quantum” from the idea that all options people don’t choose in life exist in other realities. This kind of quantum computer observes those other realities and, taking a set of definitions from its user, can actually predict the outcome of a situation, and even recommend actions toward optimum benefit. Does this sound familiar to anyone else? Give it the stock reports from the past week, it’ll tell you how to make 50,000% return in one afternoon of trading. Are pirates invading your home with the aim of abducting you and your cat to hold for ransom? If you have a quantumly-smart phone, you just describe what they look like and what order they burst in and your phone can tell you how to either sneak out and steal their car or go all Batman on their asses. In short, sci-fi Q.C.s could activate god mode in a person’s life.

I was thinking about this and a few side-thoughts came up. First was that this Q.C. would have one huge, critical blind spot, that is it would not be looking at its own reality. Presumably, the best reason our Q.C. could comprehensively observe these realities is because it exists outside of them. That being the case, this position would mean it could not examine any data that was not entered in by its user, itself vulnerable to bias, error, and its own limited perspective. This means that any output from the Q.C. is applicable only to a certain point for its user. For example, I could ask for the ultimate chocolate chip cookie recipe, and could get one, but if the realities it searched just happened to be silicon-based instead of carbon, I would probably not appreciate the resulting cookies as much as the Q.C. thought I would. Not to mention I would need to get a government license to legally buy a few of the ingredients, but whatever.

Simply by observing the scope of the multiverse, we would remove ourselves from it. Much like the camera man and the mosh pit at a concert, we can either be in the thick of things ourselves, or we watch everyone else have fun. We can’t have both. Taking it to another level, this means that in another reality, one with its own Q.C. that can look into the whole of the multiverse, it would not be able to look into ours. Why? Because we already took ourselves out of the multiverse by having the audacity to want to look at other realities.

It is common knowledge that the most comprehensive opinion is the one that comes from outside. Such an opinion has risen in value over time because it has so often been proven correct, if occasionally unwelcome. It’s why doctors and judges are made to remove themselves from cases whose outcomes might affect them directly. But the power to control such weighty things as health or freedom comes at the cost of being able to stand with one’s own when they need connection the most. In the case of doctors or judges, very often there are others that can act objectively so those of us with friends in need don’t have to act, they can simply be there for each other. Does the same apply to factions of the multiverse? Can we add ourselves back in after grasping the power to watch and learn from others, trusting another universe to wield the same power in a way that won’t hurt anyone?

I normally see such trains of thought accompanied by comforting stick figures. I hope their lack didn’t make the above too painful.

Decorations

2011-10-10T16:36:00.001-07:00

Here's that shorty I was talking about last update. This was typed using QuickOffice Word on a Droid Bionic with SwiftKey X. Between the breaks and "editing", this took about an hour and a half to write. One typo was corrected after moving it from the phone. It came from a joke exchanged at the comic book store that I wanted to explore just that much more.

The cold was biting again, and would bite for some time yet. It wasn't concerned. The snow had blessed it just a short time ago with its cushioning depth. The kin would benefit as the season passed and it went from loose powder to protective shell. For itself, the powder would be best loose, just for a while longer.

The tree waited. Reliably, dutifully, the savage walked into the forest. It tracked the savage as well as it could through the snow's coverage. The savage was as regular as the season. The tree had felt the screams of the kin as the savage followed the snow to fell one post-sapling tree every year. They all felt the screams, it corrected.

It felt the savage approach. It was to be the savage's chosen this cycle, and it rejoiced. It delighted as the savage prepared to take the first bite. This bite was not like the cold, it would penetrate faster than anything the tree might have imagined. It remembered the screams of the kin-that-were when, over the course of a thousand insignificant bites, each tree fell. The silence that followed was always louder still.

The tree allowed the savage one bite. Before the tree could register the pain, it flailed its upper limbs and blinded the savage with its accumulated powder. Distracted, the savage never saw the tree's lower limbs whip into his soft, watery flesh.

Heavy red rain stained the alabaster snow directly beneath, when the tree noticed that same rain would not color its ageless needles. It felt sacred bathing in the savage's sap, and while the shock of the single bite spread through its trunk, it started to sing.

Happy Holidays.

Linkage

2011-10-03T14:37:00.000-07:00

I got a new phone the other day. The last time I upgrades cell phones, I got a Blackberry Storm about two months before the Storm 2 came out. This time I promised myself I'd get something that - while it WOULD go out-of-date in side a few months, that just the nature of the beast - it wouldn't be out-of-date for a long time. Hence, the Droid Bionic.

Not being very experienced with Android phones, I have been poking at prodding like a young boy might a full-figured mannequin. The Bionic is much more responsive and rewarding. Angry Birds and the Amazon app have been downloaded and get good use. I found one game, Alchemy, that I have gotten at least one friend* angrily addicted to. I've ordered a cheap case, and mean to install a mount so I can get all GPS-y up in this. It's like I'm catching up with the rest of society.

Another friend* got me into SwiftKey, a third-party keyboard which I immediately gravitated toward over the stock program. I'm still not completely used to it yet, and since the only way will be with practice, I aim to write a short story on this little piece of tech. The results shall be posted here. Should I time it? I'll figure it out.

*I don't use friends names NOT out of shame of or for my friends, but because I want to provide them the option of anonymity.

Bloodshot

2011-09-13T11:29:00.000-07:00

A lot of my friends love to boast about how much sleep they can avoid. I may be mixing up the context a bit, but I think I have the idea: if one isn't asleep, one can do other things, and other things are more interesting than sleep. Sounds great, and I respect those that can pull it off. I ain't one of them.

It's not like I have the fun kind of insomnia where I can't physically sleep for days at a time, otherwise I'd be one of the above. Sleeping, for me, is something of a chore. I've never been able to just lie on the couch and grab an hour of rest, not without a major dose of either antihistamines or disease. At night, I can have burned 10,000 calories, worked eight hours, and played games with friends until I thought the pieces/ screen was moving on its own, my head hits the pillow and it takes an hour for my head to calm down, sometimes longer. It's not enough that I'm physically, mentally, spiritually exhausted, oh no, I have to WANT it.

This doesn't exclude me from the biological need for sleep, in fact Nature thought it'd be funny if my need was actually above average on top of being able to get it so roughly. Like many of my countrymen, I am not in shape. Sorry, Body, I have other things I'd like to do with my time. When I can, I exercise, but usually I can't, which limits my energy under ideal conditions. These conditions are mostly theoretical, and I can't recall actually experiencing them; in fact, I think that's what "ideal" means.

Last night's, for example, were what I call "good" conditions: plenty of physical and mental activity, maybe not as social as possible, started prepping before 11pm. Today I woke up feeling exactly the same as I did before sleeping, re: completely exhausted. This isn't unusual, I just drink a couple cups of coffee and it goes away. Not today. Today I drove to work, barely, my brain moves like mud in winter, and someone has replaced my eyes with burnt-out charcoal. If I could access my full vocabulary (thank you, internet, for getting me this far), I'd properly curse whatever gene was responsible for this. Though now that I think about it, one ancestor or another had to have beaten me to that punch.

And I have five more hours of work to go through. Score.

Where’s the Line At?

2011-09-06T17:39:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine mentioned that he was noticing something of a red flag I’ve come to notice, though he put it better than I did way back then, so I’ll try to put it at least as well here.

We prefer clever stories. All of us. Even when the story is about a man hitting a rock with his head, if he does it cleverly, we’re more likely to watch it. Actually, more I think about it, the man would HAVE to hit the rock with his head cleverly for that to work as a show, the nuance and pathos (note to self, new script project...). News shows and documentaries are not immune to this preference - if no thought is put into making them, we don’t think we’ll watch them. The news anchor that presents a story in a way that captures its impact on the world and connects it to their viewer is more successful than the one that reads an article off AP.org.

This holds true even for the bane of my existence: “reality” shows. If I believed the people on these things were average citizens of the USA, I’d have applied for another country’s residency long ago. I gave Survivor a longer shot than any such show to date, only until I realized no one was going to actually die. But even here, it’s the clever contestants (where applicable) that always “win” - they’re usually deceitful, backstabbing liars, but they’re clever liars.

Clever is essential. Clever is appreciated. And just like anything else, Clever can be overdone.

Too-Much-Clever is what happens when a show or story consistently gets into and out of situations that are impossible to follow from within the narrative. Such a narrative may grip the audience, pull them to the edge of their seats, and they may even follow along, but if they do, it’s only because they’re the audience. They get to see every perspective, thus collect all the relevant data, and thus can track what’s happening and why. Within the narrative, each character can only see their own perspective, and so when they arrive at a solution to a problem that uses all the materials and data, it’s dramatic, exciting, it may even be accurate, but something in our heads recognizes that they couldn’t have figured it out if someone wasn’t helping them cheat.

Now at all times, when it comes to fiction-based stories, it’s always the writer/ creator of the work who is being clever. But when a particular problem is solved not with brawn or explosions, but with a tiny idea and good timing, the strongest narratives make the audience cheer for the characters, not their writers. The best way to tell is, again, being able to define who knows what, less than how they work with it. As soon as someone on screen starts using what other people know to get their way out of a jam, while they may still be clever, it’s not their cleverness we’re really watching.

George R. R. Martin comes to mind as someone that makes really good use of this principle by flipping it. The fastest, most reliable means of long-distance communication in his Song of Ice and Fire series is carrier-pigeon (or raven, if you want to be technical). If someone wants to tell a buddy across town something, there’s going to be a lot of running involved. Most of the main characters are very clever (in their unique ways), but Martin is very careful in establishing each of their perspectives. What do they know that others don’t? How do they act on it? Within each one’s purview, they are making the best decisions they can, but as an outside observer with access to everyone’s information, Martin gives us a perverse sense of satisfaction as we observe a very clever person make a very stupid move. If only they knew what we did.

So the question I put is this: Where does the line fall? How clever is too clever? Just how brilliant can a character be before those of us on the couch just stop believing anyone could be so amazing? When you watched the series premiere of Dr. Who, did you praise the Doctor for the way he was able to stall long enough for the answer to make itself known? Or did you praise Steven Moffat?

Mystic Lawyers

2011-08-31T10:52:00.000-07:00

It’s not possible to turn on a television or computer anymore without learning that someone meant to construct or enforce laws – be they from man or faith – has broken them. It’s an example of greed, usually; other times the corruption of the soul by power. The victim feels abused, belittled, and perhaps eternally vulnerable. There’s also a sense of betrayal, knowledge that one's fellow man is able and willing to hurt another, sometimes for as little reason as feeling superior for a few scant moments.

For the rest of us, we see just how much laws protect us. Our laws define our society, give checks and balances to those in power, and are only as strong as the determination of those who enforce them. Otherwise, they’re worth less than the paper they’re written on. Every time an official breaks the law, we’re reminded of how much protection a sheet of parchment provides from attack.

Yet The Law holds power. The Law breaks the wicked and ruins their empires. The Law shields the innocent and empowers the just. And yet it seems like more and more, all the law does is give a name for the ways people screw each other over.

If that weren’t the case, what would happen? Would someone that stole from another find their own property missing? Could someone abuse their child only to discover their own body broken? It sounds great at first, but when one follows that line of thought more, it gets muddier. Crossing the street in the middle of the block to catch up with your runaway dog? Forget it. Skip turning in that rental DVD by one day? Maybe you’ll be just as late to that interview for your dream job. Sure, a lot of criminal activity and malicious behavior goes missing, but so does free will.

So there needs to be a happy medium. A force that will respond whenever called to whoever calls it, under any circumstances. Something beyond interference, that doesn’t pay heed to gender, race, social status, age. At the same time, it would need to be completely reactive. It could be aware of what a person is doing, but unless someone directly requests action be taken (and specifies what actions need to be taken), our hypothetical Law would do nothing. The onus would be on everyone tied to this Law to know when the Law needs to be involved, how to involve it, and be responsible for the consequences. This Law is not justice in and of itself, but it is a set of tools that anyone should be able to use to make sure people behave in a way that everyone can tolerate.

This “happy medium” Law is an idea millennia old, further away than a matter transporter yet something kept very close. Harry Potter learned exactly what such Law could give people, and watched others use this Law to take as much away from those he cared for. Gandalf gave his life to enforce the Law, and the Law gave it back to him to bring those who had abused it down. Merlin tried to teach his Laws to his fellow men, and though they could not use it like him, he taught them to enforce its spirit. This Law isn’t beyond abuse, it’s simply beyond corruption. Those who would twist it to their own ends cannot bend or rewrite it, nor can they block anyone else from using it themselves. It would not stop bad things from happening, but it is a source of power independent of physical strength or material wealth and influence.

It has given life to an entire genre of fiction, one that has grown along with societies, mirroring the complexity of their laws with its own.

Rules with the power to enforce themselves, that leave it to the people to say when they’re enforced. That sounds Magical to me.

Resolutions and their Proper Avoidance

2011-08-15T15:38:00.000-07:00

SPOILER WARNING: I talk about the endings of plays over 400 years old. Odds are readers won’t be spoiled anything, but just in case…

I was watching Charlie Rose the other day, interviewing the director of the RSC Michael Boyd. The topic was the recent set-up in New York for a run of a number of http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifShakespeare plays to be performed by the company there, including a production of Hamlet for inner city youths. Early results seem very positive, and this is the kind of thing I’d like to see continue and spread – one of the biggest misconceptions about Shakespeare is that it’s incomprehensible without either a college degree or a monocle.

Rose asked Boyd what he thought made Shakespeare endure as well as it has, and his answer’s been running around my head for a few days. He said (to paraphrase) that Shakespeare knew how to close a story without resolving anything. Taking Hamlet as an example, the play’s named for the boy, he succeeds in killing his enemy at the end, so on the surface everything’s wrapped up nice and neat, but if you take a deeper look at what’s going on, the big picture is still blurry. By the end of the play, the country’s torn itself apart in civil war, the entire royal family is dead, and Hamlet’s more concerned about how it’ll sound in history than who will succeed him.

I thought back to what I remember and realized Shakespeare does this a lot. In Romeo & Juliet, the families keep the feud going even after their kids kill themselves. Toward the end of Twelfth Night, one character is swearing revenge on everyone, the only response sending a messenger with a request for peace. Othello: Iago manages to tear apart his own nation’s army and destroy the lives of a happy couple, and he is one of the few main characters to survive through the play.

Boyd goes on to explain that with every story, the temptation exists to tie up all the loose ends, and give the audience a clear indication of what the creator wanted the audience to take from the story. This exists in teaching as well – a teacher can tell students what they need to know in a certain subject and have done with it. They’ve said their piece, the audience will either take it as their own or leave it. But the best teachers orchestrate ways for the students to figure the critical things out for themselves. The effective teacher will lecture like normal, but instead of the whole of the lesson they’ll just give pieces – breadcrumbs – for students to pick up, and every now and then the teacher’ll stop lecturing and see which student has followed the breadcrumbs and can tell where the class is heading. This is a far less certain method – it depends as much on the audience’s energy and attention level as anything – but when it pays off, the lesson sticks with the audience forever. Even through finals week.

This also reminds me of the idea of a writer’s “contract with the audience,” the idea of a creator’s obligation to the people for whom they create. To put it another way, a writer will put hundreds or thousands of hours into a novel, estrange friends, family, health, hygiene, so when they finish they have every right to expect an appreciative, paying audience; an audience member has only so much time and money for themselves, the rest spent working hard to survive, so when they do spend time and money on a novel, they have every right to expect something they’ll understand and enjoy. How much can the writer explore their art and play with their audience before the audience moves on to something they can absorb easier? A tricky equation to solve.

Personally, I enjoyed the lack of resolution Shakespeare employed because it helped give each play a sense of continuity, that it was one segment out of a much richer environment that we were seeing as an audience. We’d watch characters grow and change, perhaps die, and by the end they had stopped being the people we met before, and the background had changed just as much. Both were ready to change and grown even more, but the audience wasn’t going to see it. It gave them lives – it gave them life – outside the story.

And I liked that.

Catching Up

2011-06-04T09:04:00.001-07:00

REALLY?! January? What the hell?

Okay, this is where I should promise never to let a lapse like that happen again, dedicate myself for more faithful blogging, and leave it at that, right? Well, screw that. I came here to blog.

One of the exercises I ran for this past semester's class (everyone passed!) was something I'm calling Thread Pulling. Take one thread of a story, be it a plot thread, character thread, anything that's consistently present but changes from beginning to end, and yank it out; isolate that thread's actions in the story. The story we used was the movie Chinatown, and students built these threads in an effort to understand everything that was happening in this very dense film. We ended up with six threads, each of the pretty long and complicated.

Over the past few days, I've tried adapting this technique to my novel project, isolating the main characters and figuring out what the story is from just their perspective. I've finished only two threads so far, but it's filled in a LOT of questions I hadn't even bothered asking about the beast yet. By the time I finish the threads, I hope to have a much better understanding of what my end product will look like.

The next phase of the student project was to re-weave their threads into a single swatch of story, with the ultimate goal of reworking it into a piece of prose. This mostly involved putting each thread side by side and connecting them where we could. Sometimes it was easy, two characters talking at a table links their stories just about automatically. Others were trickier - sometimes a character will be alone in the middle of a riverbed, but what they find or learn there triggers something in another thread, so a link needs to be established. It was a painful assignment in some ways, but by the end of it they knew this story so well, adapting it into a novel was almost a relief.

Visually, this is hard to pull off simply because it can take up a lot of room, and technology doesn't necessarily help for the limits screen size can create. Once I get it done, though, each moment and each connection I visualize will be something to write for the novel. These kinds of headaches I can look forward to.

The Crash

2011-01-02T08:23:00.000-08:00

I am currently experiencing what is well known, if not popularly called, The Crash. Visiting family is gone back to their homes, traveling's done, and it's the first time the body has a chance to cope with all the stress it's put up with recently. I feel like I could sleep for days, I'd like another week to really get my shit together and be ready to go back to work, but there's zero chance of that happening. in 24 hours I'll be in the mail room again, wondering how many more packages I can sort before I give myself an aneurysm and have an excuse for a break.

I take Crashes seriously. When I Crash, I take it easy, I don't push myself, and I let whatever reserves are gone get replenished. I know plenty of people that don't. They pride themselves on how they can just push past it, ride their own momentum, and get through it; good for them. Me, it doesn't work like that. I can push through Crashes as well as the next guy, but I also know that if I do, I'm pretty much guaranteed to get sick. Crashes may be a hassle, but I can deal with hassles, but I spent enough of my life laid up in a sickbed to not want to be there if I can possibly avoid it. Even if that means not staying up late for a week in a row.

My first semester as a college professor is done, and I think it went pretty well. I won't have my evaluations back until later this month, but all my students passed, I had fun (so what if the students did), and nothing went horribly wrong. I'm teaching another class this coming semester, one that plays a little closer to my strengths, so we'll see if I can keep that momentum going for a whole semester.

My writing... has slowed. Not stopped, and I suppose that's its own victory, but I wanted to have more done by now. A full time job plus a part time teaching job equals a much larger strain on my reserves than I estimated. It was the right call and I'm happier for it, but this is not a long-term thing. I'm meeting with people and am trying to change some habits to get back on top of things, my writing and fitness being the two big things, but it's going to come down to willpower. We'll see.

Happy New Year!

For You: A Short Story

2010-07-29T11:12:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine is testing out an iPad for work, and I was able to liberate it from her for about half an hour. The word processor it comes with is very VERY basic, so I kept my project simple. I didn't think much while writing it, but the friend was so happy when she got her iPad back that she sent me a copy of the story and suggested I post it here. So here you go - Enjoy!

The Roman Dead

The heat reflecting off the asphalt was enough to peel the bronze of the Collosus' crotch. The heat would have caught the thatch roofs on fire if the humidity would have allowed it, but instead the adhesive merely melted and exposed whatever hid inside the houses to the pounding rays of the sun. Among them huddled Portia and her two sons, Marcus and Gaius, all three sweating profusely before the sun had spent three hours in the sky.

Portia had watched her husband march of with the rest of the Roman legionnaires last week, and grew sick with worry when word would not come of their victory. When word did come, it was of the armies being overrun, and the blight's continuous progress toward Rome, and she was nearly mad with fright. Soothsayers declared that Apollo would give his people mercy and guide them to the River Styx before the horde could claim them, and watching her neighbors collapse under the sun maddened Portia, for she could not discern why her own sacrifices had been ignored by the son god. By the time the Undead arrived and began feasting on what survivors risked being outside, Portia had gone so mad that, when compared to the calamities that surrounded her and her family, she acted perfectly sane.

Marcus squirmed as another tuft of thatch slid off the roof and exposed another area of floor to sunlight. Portia didn't know what the boy wanted to do in response, it wasn't as if the monsters outside cared about the state of the lands they were conquering, only the state of their "prisoners." Perhaps that is why the legions had proved so helpless against them, she supposed; every enemy they'd faced before had wanted Rome, be it for its fertile lands or prodigal architecture or tomes of wisdom or the peerless beauty of its women, and for this they were predictable. The horde outside only wanted food, and was oblivious to the uniforms that food wore. Rome could outsmart just about any foe, but against such mindlessness there was no defense, except perhaps Portia's, if only she could keep young Marcus and Gaius still.

For four days the Undead scourged their land, and for all that time Portia and hers had hidden still as the Parthenon, hoping to wait them out. Where the horde had invulnerability they still had to work, still had to search, and for that they might tire before finding them - it was small chance, but more than the Caesars had apparently. The stench outside was killing whatever appetite they might have had, and they'd more or less gotten used to the moans, but thirst was breaking them apart. Portia was checking her arms for veins she could open so that her sons might have some moisture to sustain themselves when a new sound assaulted them and gave her new plan pause.

From outside could be heard a hundred clumsy butchers and prophets dropping their entrails on the floor. The soothsayers may have told truly that Apollo meant to assault the lands, but as to His purpose they were in grievous error, for in the oppressive and constant heat, the flesh of the Undead could not hold and sloshed off the bone. Portia heard the pounding of wet meat onto the dirt, then of bone without the means to support itself, and it was only after an hour's silence did she then risk a look through the window. Surely, what she saw she could only call a miracle, and did with what strength remained took a pail to the nearest well for water. Though a few Undead remained mobile, this mobility was so reduced that, after enduring their threat for so long Portia found herself laughing among them.

The More Things Act Like They Change

2010-07-15T06:05:00.000-07:00

After fits and starts, my contract with Butler is signed and I am officially going to teach in the fall. My main stressor with that development is getting all the material read and some notes taken before the class begins in earnest. I know I'm not going to have time to read it with the students, since I'm going to work full time in the Mail Center as well, but I figure if I've read it in the past year, that's good enough. I'm almost done with Dracula, which may be the densest book of the course.

It doesn't help that a friend of mine just got me hooked into the Dresden Files series. If you've never heard of it before, it's Sam Spade meets Harry Potter (to put it vulgarly) - Harry Dresden is the world's only practicing magician that advertises his services for private investigations, for $50/ hour plus expenses. The premise may not seem phenomenal, but the execution is very well done, it treats itself smartly without coming off as pretentious. It treats cliches well while adding twists where appropriate. Basically, it's fun reading that soaks up hours and days of your time, and when I didn't have many of them free to begin with, I can say freely that I hate my friends sometimes.

I've been focusing on my novel project (when my digestive system isn't invaded by legions of viral centurions), and I'm getting deep enough into it that I'm having to go back and forth in the story to set things up for later payoffs. As I do this, I find out more things about the world the characters live in that I have to go into other documents to record and explore, and then go back to the text and rewrite one scene or start another. It gives me a whole new respect for the people that do this full-time - there really is enough work to be done to constitute calling this full-time work.

Friends warned me against playing Final Fantasy 13 for various reasons. I won't go deep into my personal experiences, mostly because the game isn't worth the space. There was an essence the Final Fantasy games had, something that made you dump days and weeks into them without giving you the sense that you wasted your time. The gameplay may not have been extraordinary or the stories captivating in any special way, but it was enough that you felt you got a good return on your investment. Whatever that essence was, the series has lost it.

I'm going to visit my sister next week, and it's going to be awesome! She lives near a beach on the West Coast, so it'll be a cool bit of role-reversal from the time she visited me in Cornwall. Less Arthurian sightseeing, more boozeries!

Major Delinquency

2010-06-11T18:51:00.000-07:00

Okay, so it's been a long while since I posted. I apologize, but I also really have to pee, so this won't be long.

The screenplay is done. It's in LA. At least one reader likes it. We'll see where it goes from here.

My section at Butler was approved and put on the books yesterday. Today it was filled up. No getting out of it now, I'm an adjunct. It should be fun!

Two Things

2010-05-04T19:18:00.000-07:00

One: I just saw Iron Man 2. Overall I really liked it. Enough explosions and comic geekery to satisfy just about anyone (and in the case of myself and another comic nerd, to make them bounce up and down the walls of the theatre, though the caffeine might have had a part in that). Some issues with how they played Tony vis a vis his father figures, but I won't spoil anything. Awesome popcorn flick, and PLEASE stay after the credits. A third of the theatre walked out when they started, and it should be common knowledge by now that there are great kickers in Marvel movies for those who are patient.

Two, and perhaps the more critical: Unless something drastic happens between now and then, I will be teaching a class at Butler this coming fall. This will not interfere with either my other job there, nor will it affect my other writing projects. If anything, the effort of building and teaching a class will sharpen and enhance my output. This is an exciting (and sudden) development, not least of all because it'll give me a chance to put my Masters to work. I'll be taking a workshop for the rest of the week, and by the end of it I believe I'll have the backbone for a solid and lively course.

But I'll settle for fewer butterflies in my digestive system, thank you.

Death

2010-04-28T08:24:00.000-07:00

It woke me up at 4:20 the other morning.

I knew something was wrong before I even woke up. My consciousness sprinted to play catch-up with my senses, some of them screaming that if I didn’t figure out what the wrong thing was, I might never fully wake up. The sheets on my bed were dry and smooth, they reassured me that all was not lost. I could see nothing in the dark of my room, so fire probably wasn’t it. I was hearing something.

It was the wrong thing. It growled like a swarm of bees trapped in candy bar, hundreds of primal minds full of energy and a desire to expand and conquer. I was alone with them.

In the elapsed seconds, I’d figured that I was in my bedroom, and in the direction the sound was coming from were a lot of my more expensive electronics, my desktop computer being the biggest and best of them. I’d lost my external hard drive a few weeks ago, and had only recently gotten new copies of the material on it saved on my main drive. In those files were days of media and years of my own creative works, files I would not be able to recover a second time, and if they were lost, so to would be lost a part of my soul. If the sound was coming from there, a device that was supposed to be completely off, that would be very wrong indeed – raping God’s sister level of wrong.

But the wrong thing wasn’t my computer. It was sitting right next to it, watching it. Watching me. It wanted to know what would cause the most damage: hurting me directly, or hurting what had most of my work in it. I should have known.
It was my electric razor, and that night was the night it would try to kill me.

Seeing the opportunity, it leapt from the dresser for the quick kill, and if I’d been fully awake it might have worked. Too much instinct was in control, and like my ancestors catching snakes in the trees, I caught the sound in mid-air, and its source along with it. Now as most men know, once you get an electric razor in a good grip, there’s a pressure point you can hit that will put the thing to sleep, and that’s exactly what I did.

It didn’t pass out. It just kept screaming. I pushed and I choked and I beat at the point but it just kept screaming. The wrong thing had become clear: the razor had moved its pressure point to a spot I couldn’t get at. I was dealing with the Malcolm Reynolds of electric razors, and it aimed to misbehave.

Since technique wasn’t going to carry me through the night, I had to switch tactics. Me being an adult male human, and it being a small object, I had some advantages. The ones I elected to use were my size and that mainstay of man-vs-everything: opposable thumbs. I ripped the teeth off the head so I could get at the rotary mechanism, and held it back with my thumb and forefinger, figuring that if I could make it work hard enough, it would run out of juice and give up that much quicker.

To anyone that might find this chronicle, I must warn that such a maneuver is not easy or gentle. The mechanism will strain and jolt relentlessly, and even if you manage to wedge the thing tight enough to wear it down, whatever you wedge it with will hurt. It will tear through paper and fabric, and anything strong enough to not suffer is going to be too big and unwieldy to jam into the small opening. About the only thing that works are human digits, and the only ones I had access to were mine.

I had to change my grip a couple of times a minute to prevent my mind from breaking. The sensation of so many oscillations a second going from the tips of my fingers up my arm was not one any brain was meant to handle. It was only after I gave a fingertip a break that I could detect the threat those vibrations posed to my flesh, but in the face of a homicidal shaver I had no choice. Five minutes passed and the beast showed no sign of slowing down. I cursed myself then, cursed myself for insisting on a waterproof razor; how much quicker and simpler my current task would be if I had the option to drown this monster.

Three more minutes left, and by then I had no finger that was not shaking for the stress. Though my boys were strung out they could not be allowed to rest here. They were my only line of defense against this traitor, and like the heroes of old they braced up and carried the fight.

I thought I could hear the thing losing strength. Experience had taught me that the first signs of fatigue are followed swiftly by the last. My fingers wanted nothing but to let go then.

“It is weakened, surely we can let it die on its own now. Another minute by our efforts or another five to let it bleed out on its own, not so big a difference, is it?”

I nearly acquiesced. I came so close to listening to passivity that looking back I think I must have been mad. As I considered the option, the razor’s life flashed before my eyes. It had behaved itself, if not admirably at least adequately. It removed my hair as it was told, usually careful not to nick my skin. Especially around my neck, where a few millimeters of skin are all that separates my life’s blood and the cold, unforgiving harshness of the open air. It wouldn’t take much to breach that, this was common knowledge.

I made my decision. This would be the final push. Though they moaned and cried, my fingers kept pushing, past their own pain and past the wailing of the razor until, two minutes and inches of raw skin later…

…the wrong thing finally died.

All We Want is Life Beyond...

2010-04-14T18:07:00.000-07:00

Thanks for waiting, everyone!

It’s not possible to live in the US these days without being inundated with talk of reform. We just passed healthcare reform, we’re currently up in arms about nuclear defense reform, immigration reform, banking reform. I’m a little sick of the term at this point, but I also understand that the most effective solutions are themselves types of reform, and thus perpetuating the problem.

We need a way to mold the reform process, and I think the best step forward is to take a step back. I suggest we adapt our legal system to incorporate that most effective of decision-making policies: Thunderdome.

First effect: efficiency. From months and months of arguing, debating, drafting, redrafting, and votes that these days usually end in filibustering (the political term for “I’m going to bitch and whine until everyone else gives up because they’re not doing exactly what I want”), laws are written, champions are chosen, and a few minutes later we have a winner. The merits of the issue so rarely enter into the debate itself in the current climate, so completely abandoning them in favor of trial by combat only makes the grievance official. Also, by making the decision-making process centered on the fight itself, there will be less interest in compromise, ensuring that the bills do not suffer from being weakened in their potential to change the system by being watered down in committee to make an attempt at compromise.

While political activism in general is building, actual popular attention to Washington proceedings remains low. The only people that pay scrutinous attention to the actual proceedings are shows like The Daily Show, and then only so that they can find new reasons to run the same people over coals. The entire democratic system is built on the principle that citizens must not only be aware but be active in the political process. My Thunderdome proposal does not limit the United States to one giant dome, but a series located throughout the country. Not only will major federal laws be decided this way, this policy would go right down to concluding how fiscally responsible a neighbor is for his dog’s digging into another neighbor’s property line.

Which brings me to my next point: abuse of the system. One of the great travesties present in our current legal system is that so many people are willing to use it not to seek justice, but to earn livelihoods from the absolute minimum amount of work. There are people who make their livings through lawsuits – mostly lawyers, but also their less empathetic clients – and even worse are people who are willing to spend millions of taxpayer dollars less for the potential payout but more so that their face can get on television. The day said people have to defend their cases with their fists, such abuses will end, either via forfeit or with hilariously painful displays. My system will allow a party to arbitrate their spot in Thunderdome to another party, but with restrictions: one cannot have a second more than a decade older or younger, must be able to prove relationship for at least a year, must be within a similar earning range. This should allow anyone sick, injured, or otherwise impaired to take part in the system and yet avoid the immediate creation of a professional legal-fighting institution.

While costs for the construction of facilities to enforce this new infrastructure may be intimidating, it is important to take into account the long-term savings and additional revenue streams to be enjoyed through this level of justice. Professional wrestling has done it best, and I think theirs is a model we should learn from. Allow free admission and viewing of the municipal-level arguments, things like small claims court and misdemeanors. Main events like capital or federal offenses, with more at stake and thus demanding a higher-caliber champion, will draw bigger audiences. Legal battles like, and I’m just being hypothetical, a trade dispute between California governor Arnold Swarzeneggar and former governor Jesse Ventura, would need to be pay-per-view simply to control the overwhelming demand. Revenues from such events could fund things education, energy concerns, public transit, whichever department could prove their need best in the ‘dome.

Modern day problems are coming at the public faster than ever, and immediate action has to be taken. The lines are being drawn in the sand as to which direction this country should head. Given the benefits I’ve outlined above, I believe the only people being hurt by my proposal are those who lack the courage to truly put themselves on the line for what they believe.

Thunderdome may not be the most enlightened method for seeing us through this conflict, but I continue to believe it is the most effective one.

I really needed to get that off my chest. Thank you.

Do Not Complain Too Much

2010-03-18T12:48:00.000-07:00

The other day I was having lunch with a friend I haven't seen much of lately, and I figured she was doing alright with the situation because, as I said at the time, "you don't have to put up with my brain abortions." This was a statement in poor taste, and not a good use of time together that has gotten rarer and rarer, and I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize.

I should have gone with "neural abortion," since there's closer symmetry in the number of syllables in each word, and "neural" has gentler tones to lead into another word, not to mention being closer to an adjective. Still, this is why I prefer writing over speaking; I can edit my writing much easier.

I've been loaded with extra physical labor at work lately, which is bringing me down a bit, but I've had a couple of good ideas that I hope to play with when I take some time off soon. I also spent today training someone that might take some of that burden off later on. As much as I taught him, I don't think he learned what may be the most crucial thing: do not bring up the "Back to the Future" series in my presence. Those who know will be proud - I did NOT go into my full rage mode - but it was a close call.

Coming Down Off of Everything

2010-02-15T16:44:00.000-08:00

In the past two weeks, I have been sick, overseas, drunk, driven mad by the rabid brain-children of a true sociopath, and then sick again. I've also helped log in several hundred packages at work, entertain my little brother, and celebrated mine and my father's birthdays. The Colts lost the Super Bowl, the Winter Olympics started, and I got some new shoes.

I have renewed spirit to finish my screenplay and novel. I just wish I had the physical energy to follow through.

Another Matter of Perspective

2010-01-21T12:11:00.000-08:00

For this blog entry, I thought I’d vent an idea that’s been in my head for a while. You see, horror monsters, in particular the kind like Jason Vorhees or Freddy Krueger, are largely frightening (if you react that way towards them) only because they don’t fall down when perforated. Their single-minded, nonnegotiable, relentless pursuit of a goal gives them some distance from humanity, as well as the way they can travel without leaving footprints for all the dead bodies in their wake, and their extra-special attention to details whendealing with the opposite sex, but these are qualities just as easily attributed to “normal” people like politicians, obsessives, and mass-murderers. So what is so different about these particular characters that allow them to go from sick individual to unbelievable horror monster, except for the fact that any other person would drop after a 300cc injection of hot lead, but immunity to same gets you a movie deal.

Now for the above paragraph, replace “horror monster” with “action hero”, and notice that it still works.

I present to you one John McClain of [i]Die Hard[/i] fame. For brevity’s sake I’ll only go through the first film, but think about what he goes through. Once he notices that people with guns are threatening his wife, he’s determined to secure her no matter how long it takes or who’s in his way. Between all the people killed by the robbers and the robbers killed by McClain, you could just about fill an Olympic swimming pool with the blood spilt, and what’s worse is that a good share of that IS McClain’s blood. He is stabbed, slashed, beaten, burned, blown up, shot, thrown off of buildings, and while this is about the same as any slasher flick villain goes through, any slasher villain has shoes.

While the “slash” term is fresh in your mind, my next examples are Riggs and Murtaugh from the [i]Lethal Weapon[/i] franchise, and I’m going to treat them like a single entity. Whenever a criminal with greater ambition, impressive resources, and a better-than-average success ratio comes into town, Riggs and Murtaugh focus on stopping them at the sacrifice of family, regular meals, and at least two cars. Between them, they can count on being run over, kicked in the face, multiple bullet wounds, broken bones, smoke inhalation, and being crushed in any number of somewhat creative ways. Bad guys wind up strewn about the city like a bomb went off made out of corpses, the property damage is about the same too, now that I think about it.

But maybe the most perfect example is one James Bond. His capacity for ending life is so amazing that rather than attempt to prosecute him, the government of Britain decided they'd be better of licensing him, and they gave the same license to a few others so that it all looked right. He's also good at taking hits from hammers, bullets, and hats, but as if that weren't good enough he's possibly better at avoiding those same hits. Freddy liked to show off by crawling out of seemingly inescapable instruments of death, but there's something disturbing about the was James Bond can stare one in the face, find a way to make it kill everyone except the person it was aimed at, and pass it off as something casual like fixing the back of your own collar. Getting back to my point about women, both James and horror monsters face the prospect of leaving every woman they encounter dead, but where the horror monsters can't think of anything more to do with women than decorate the walls, James has trained women the world over so that they come to him willingly. That, to me, elevates him above the most vicious slasher movie star any way you put it.

So from now on, I'm going to write my action heroes like slasher villains and my slasher villains like action heroes, and I'll bet you I get praised for my efforts.

Things Rust in Winter

2009-12-26T19:40:00.000-08:00

So I need to bust said rust. The thing about working in a mail room - any place that deals in shipping, really - is that things pick up a lot during December. There are holidays, and whether you celebrate them or not those holidays affect what your life becomes. As little writing as I got around to doing, looking back I'm very lucky to have done what I did. I'm even happy with a few parts of it!

I'll try to post more in the coming days, since I have quite a few of them off coming up. Maybe I'll post my loot list, and a few other things I plan to work on. Right now, my brain is fried.

I May Be In Trouble

2009-11-19T18:59:00.000-08:00

I first realized this at the beginning of the week, when immediately after my health screening I spent twenty minutes saying everything I had wanted to say that was smartass-y, only afterward realizing that I had just said them to my boss, and if she had been anyone but my best friend I'd be fired by now. You'll be delighted to know that I'm in excellent shape - I believe they're going to name the Highlander gene after me.

It takes an average of 2,000 words a day to make NaNoWriMo happen, and I am well well short of that. The odd thing is I'm getting much closer as the process goes on. It's getting easier to start a segment, harder to stop until it's done, and my excitement builds the more I get into it and find the shape of the story. It's a lot of fun, writing this novel, so I'm almost certainly doing it wrong. On the other hand, what a fucking coup it would be if I could DO something with it, right?!

I have extra motivation to make progress, as I promised my co-conspirator in the movie biz that I'd shift focus onto the screenplay after NaNoWriMo.

So yeah. Trouble.

Video Games

2009-11-10T19:32:00.000-08:00

I might have mentioned this before, but for those to whom it's new, I used to be addicted to video games. They're what I did in high school, and little else. I spent my weekends with Mega Man X and Samus Aran, I admit it. I got a taste of life without the controller in college, and afterward made a concerned effort to put myself away from them. I've slipped every now and then, but I thought I was doing well.

So well that when the holidays came around last year, with people coming by that I hadn't seen in years and myself with a new job, I figured it'd be safe to buy a 360 and a few games to be sociable. Since then I'd been worried that I was relapsing, since my library is mostly narrative-focused, single-player games like Mass Effect and Prince of Persia, and what multiplayer I do play is with select friends only. I don't think I've joined a random game more than three times.

Well, after my spending spree two weeks ago, and Dragon Age: Origins out last week, I may have to shut the hell up. I'd been excited about DA: O for the better part of this year, but I have only put in maybe 12 hours, not enough to get through one of the four big chapters after the introduction. I've had Brutal Legend on for the soundtrack whle doing laundry, I've played Borderlands twice, and Fallout 3 - a game of the year - isn't out of the plastic wrapper yet.

I enjoy them all, and I feel like I will get to them eventually, but after a full work day and some stolen writing time, I just don't have the energy. High school me wouldn't recognize today me.

A Quick Note

2009-11-09T13:02:00.000-08:00

I am NOT going to make it through NaNoWriMo successfully, but I will be much closer than last year. I might even have a full story, though absolute garbage.

I'm considering starting a new blog that is made entirely of 50-100 word stories based around my word-a-day mailing list. Not certain yet, but lately I've been giving those emails lip service at best and I think that's a shame, on reflection.

Carry on.

Something New

2009-10-26T09:28:00.000-07:00

I like the idea of being a focused person. People that can narrow their field of interest and get one thing at a time done seem to accomplish more than average. There've been times in my life where I've been able to get into that kind of mode and have done very well, and during my course in Falmouth that was a nearly essential skill.

But I'm trying something different. A week or so ago I had a really neat idea for a story that I wanted to get out of my head, problem was I'm in the middle of a completely different project and not anywhere close to finishing. It was late enough in the day where I needed to write something then if I was going to write anything at all, and I've had a few nights that I just sat in front of the screen trying not to take the winking cursor in the wrong way. So I wrote what I wanted to, not what I was working on. It's not something I'm going to get back to any time soon, and my current project isn't anywhere closer to completion, but I got over 1,000 words out, and damn it that felt good!

I'm often torn between the confidence that comes from having a masters degree and the fear that comes from having no recent publications. Most of my favorite writers insist that developing your ability with the art of writing is a continuous process, that you will never write as well as you want to, and that this is not necessarily a bad thing. I like this philosophy, for one thing because it's accomodating for when I lose focus. I also believe that it's better to write something each day than only write when the mood fits the project - it keeps one from losing touch with the brain muscles that squeeze the words out.

In other news, I'm trying to upgrade to Windows 7 after a long series of mild frustrations with Vista, but my very compatible machine is being "finicky" about the change, and so I've had to adopt drastic measures to simply clear out the old. I won't find out until tonight if any of it has worked for real, so here's hoping.

And in a bout of weakness, I took advantage of a 3-for-2 deal for video games. I'm going to hold to my "write what you know at the time" strategy in the hopes that I can get enough of the productive stuff done at work to make my playtime acceptable. Wish me luck.

Missed the Point

2009-10-05T18:37:00.000-07:00

I spent the last few minutes writing a new post without mentioning that I spent a good half hour before that reading my first posts.

It was very comforting for me to go back and see where I was this time last year, and what I was doing. Here and now, I can look back at details I forgot and smile. It's been a good year.

Fast Notes

2009-10-05T18:24:00.000-07:00

I'm about to take my first trip to a bar I've lived by all my life. A friend is playing there (or maybe just watching friends play, I'm not sure) for the last event of its kind at this location. To be honest, I've had a frustrating day, I'm sore, I'm poor, and I don't really like dance club music, which is what this is going to end up being, but I've blown this guy off before and I hate doing that to anyone too often - he certainly doesn't deserve that - so I'm going in a few minutes.

I think I mentioned this already, but my artist is no longer mine. I haven't looked for a new one yet because honestly I need to change tracks. I can't stay on any one project for too too long, otherwise myself and my production get stale. The other web comic idea is back in the spotlight... kind of.

Over the last couple of weeks, I've made a few breakthroughs with my novel, one of those being the title change from WordWorld which I never liked to Babel Sphere - a title not as cliche as I thought at first, according to Google. I've plotted out a story that would accomplish the things a first book in a series should accomplish, if I can get a bit more of that done and find some more characters to fill it out, I think this can really work.

By the way, my trip to Kentucky went very well. I had a lot of fun, got a LOT of writing done, didn't see any weddings with only one family attending. The worst part was coming home, because within 24 hours I got majorly ill. Two and a half days off from work, never too far from a bathroom ill. I'm getting better.

I'm playing through Batman: AA again, it's still great and I'm making progress with the freeflow system. As wonderful as the gameplay and graphics are, and for the fine crafting of the story, it's really the tiny details that I love, like finding Ra's Ah Ghul in the morgue, only to notice he's missing when you come back later. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 is not so honed an experience.

Last Few Hours

2009-09-25T06:39:00.000-07:00

I'm going to take a shower, then find a quiet shop to read for a few hours, maybe have lunch, and then head back to Indy. This has been fun. I'm not looking forward to next week when the bills start coming in.

There's No SAD in Louisville...

2009-09-24T11:27:00.000-07:00

...or maybe there is. It hit me while I was in the coffee shop that I have no real energy. I look outside and it looks awful, and at lunch I lacked my usual appetite. I may have the leftovers and my remaining cookies (thanks Mom and Grandma!) for dinner. I'm talking to Garrett over Skype tonight, I have no dire need to leave the place until tomorrow. Maybe I won't.

I feel good about my writing today so far. On my short story I made a strong beginning, if less than I wanted, but I switched to the novel concept again and made a pretty significant breakthrough, linking it to a nice piece of dialogue that came out of my head right before bed.

I've got a disc of comedy I promised to watch, so I think I'll watch it, and draw as I sip my Coke.

Unforgiving

2009-09-24T07:52:00.000-07:00

I'm in a small coffeehouse getting some writing done while my room gets cleaned. Central Park would be lovely except it's been wet for the past two days. As I left the B&B I noticed a parking ticket for being a foot into the "No Standing" zone, only $15 but still inconvenient.

I've been playing around a bit with my BlackBerry, having just set up Facebook and installed Opera and a locking program that uses pattern drawing and not a code, all of which I really like. I'd prefer it if the alerts were simpler to change, but to date it's been a great investment.

I'm surprising myself in that I've finished a LOT of the reading I brought, more than I had any right to do. I finished a novel in a day, all but a few of the loose comics, and managed to get about 1,000 words written yesterday, all good stuff. I haven't drawn at all, I'm a little disappointed at that, but the day's still young.

Old Louisville is a gorgeous area, even under cover of rain cloud, but the variety of food isn't wonderful. I'm thinking I'll walk west for lunch, since just about everything else I've found has been east maybe something exciting will be revealed.

I should really make shit up now. Later!

2009-09-22T16:15:00.000-07:00

First off, the accommodations are great. Enormous bed, great A/C, wonderous bathroom facilities (lacking bidet, but still!!), and a tasty if unimaginative breakfast, plus free beverages and light snacks. I may most of the day here tomorrow, especially if the weather's like they suspect it will be.

I spent today outside, not just outside the room I mean with sunlight and crap. I don't know if I'm just sitting in the "right" spots or what, but Louisville strikes me with an air of insulation, I suppose you'd call it. Everyone seems to know each other, and while they practice hospitality it's clear if they don't know you, you won't get invited to the fancy parties. I'm self aware enough to know that I can be a bit paranoid, especially when it comes to socializing with new people, but that isn't the case here. Every shop I've visited had at least two people strike up intimate conversation, once a day I've seen people shout greetings across a busy street. If one of my purposes for this trip wasn't social isolation I'd be nonplussed.

I AM nonplussed that after only one week, Daily Show and Colbert Report appear to be back in repeats.

I've read most of The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett today, and may just finish the damn thing. I've missed reading so much. Tomorrow I may write. Or read more. Both rule.

It Begins

2009-09-21T14:12:00.000-07:00

After a hurried morning and a nice lunch with the grandparents, I am now sitting in lounge chair in my room at the Inn at the Park B&B. I'm trying to find a nice place to get dinner, a good bar to watch the game in, or alternatively a good place to get the supplies to watch it in my room as I type this.

Something of a big question: what do I do with myself now that I have no one else to work around? Part of the reason for this trip is to refresh my memory of what I like to do for me, not simply what is convenient and acceptable. It's not something I've had the chance to think of in a long time, and I haven't been in a position to act on what thoughts I've had in longer.

The wine the give away for free (Ryan's liver: "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!") is left out too long, I think. It's strong and drinkable, but close to turning. (Ryan's liver: "Whew.") I'm about to head out and get what I need to complete my exhaustive experiments on martinis and what makes the best ones. (Ryan's liver: "Fuck!") There's an italian place close by, I'm told, or I can go to Fourth Street live and its cajun place, I'm thinking, and close by is what looks like a good sports bar for me to watch Colts vs. Dolphins. $2 draft Buds and $0.50 wings, sounds fun!!

Failure: A Perspective

2009-09-18T10:54:00.000-07:00

The artist I was going to work with to bring "Losing Yourself" to publication will be finishing his involvement with the project after only twelve pages. My short stories continue to be denied publication, my novel series concept only gets more intimidating, and I haven't touched the screenplay project in weeks. One could easily consider this a list of failures, but I don't for a couple of reasons.

For one thing, this is twelve more pages than I had to begin with, and I can do just about anything I want with them. I own the copyright. Which means I can throw the word balloons together and at least have something I can show someone and say, "THIS is what I've been going on about." That is so much more concrete an experience than simply delivering a pitch, and it shows that I have really tried.

For another, this is not a definite ending. We've broke this relationship cleanly and all friendly-like, so should we find ourselves in a more compatible position later we can pick right back up. That is a more professional and more humane way to stop than some of the absolute horror stories one hears in the comic and graphic novel industry; tears, a sailor's dictionary, and months of defamation aren't standard, but they're also not uncommon, and I'm happy to have avoided them.

And here's something I just thought of today: when someone asks me what I'm up to, I have a lot more to say than "well, nothing much." Some people may think I'm insane for trying, others may not have meant to hear anything other than something about the weather, a couple might even think of someone that can help, but no one thinks that I'm being lazy. Except maybe the people that think I'm lying, but then those aren't the people I'm trying to impress. The act of attempting is, if all else fails, a marvelous conversation piece.

Tonight, socializing with fellow comic book nerds. Tomorrow, Windy City Con. And then, Louisville!

Next Week: A World Apart

2009-09-16T07:31:00.000-07:00

After everything that's happened over the summer, I'll be taking a vacation. The idea appeared in my head one day after my third trip to the same department, and M suggested that she'd cave my head in if I didn't take some time off, so the idea became a plan.

I'll be going to Louisville, KY, exactly where is currently in a state of quantum flux but it should be nice. I know no one in Louisville, and there's no major event going on that I know about. It's just a day's drive away, with no one but me to consider. It's the first time in living memory that I've had a vacation by myself. Not to give the impression that I don't like those close to me, but I am really sick of people these days.

The idea is that I will get a lot done of what I love doing: reading, writing, and probably drinking. I'll try to update regularly while down there.

A Super Short Interlude

2009-08-27T04:43:00.000-07:00

And one that doesn't bode well for my immediate productivity:

Batman: Arkham Asylum is a truly grand video game experience. It captures the atmosphere, mechanics, and terrible awesomeness of what you might imagine it's like to BE BATMAN. The voice acting is incredible (especially for fans of the Bruce Timm cartoon series), and the creators were clever and thoughtful everywhere they could have been clever and thoughtful. Someone noted that the only way to improve it as a game would be a co-op option with Robin, but as a self-described narrative whore I say keep the child away from this madhouse of fun.

Avoiding Writing with More Writing

2009-08-22T11:42:00.000-07:00

I have to leave soon for a gathering at 4. Before that, I wanted to get a stressful letter polished and sent. I have it drafted, I've been told it does what I want it to do, it just needs polish. But it's going to hurt, so I'll blog first.

Within three days of my coworker recovering, he hurt the same foot in a different way. This was great, as it inspired me to come up with no less than five different swear words, since I'm the one that has to cover for him. Another good tidbit is that he didn't hurt it so bad this time, so he should be fine to work Monday.

I've found myself drifting towards my book series concept recently. It began years ago when I came up with a family during a writing exercise, and theother members of my group insisted on more. They've come up time and again, and then last year I decided that I should really figure out WHERE these people live. It turned out that this concept was a much bigger beast than I'd intended, and the single short story I was planning on to cover it was a laughably pathetic package. The more I get into it, the more I find to love.

I'm planning on planning a vacation in the coming month or so. As many people and places I'd love to catch up with, I find myself very tempted to just drive an afternoon, find a place to stay for a few nights, and write all day followed by bar crawling at night. I do not remember the last time that I was alone alone for more than part of a day. I feel like that's troublesome. I don't know that I'm going to follow through yet, though, we'll see.

No Way. No. Effing. Way.

2009-08-14T13:21:00.000-07:00

It would seem that my wounded coworker has in fact recovered. Monday, I'm back at my normal routine.

I have a lot to do. A LOT. Some of that is catch up, but at least as much is fresh work. A wise and focused person would take advantage of the weekend to get some of those things if not completed, at least organized into an easily approachable obstacle.

Screw that. Screw it all. Screw everyone. Nyaaaaaaaaaaa.

Uggggghhhhhhhhh

2009-07-20T09:33:00.000-07:00

Good news: my artist continues to rock on levels I scarcely imagined being associated with. Also, the movie script I'm working on is coming along very well - in the process of getting the scene breakdowns ready, I've solved some problems my little siblings created, and I should be ready to start scripting very soon.

Bad news: work is to the point where I'm sore all the time, and I'm exhausted. Oy.

I got word that at least three good friends have had to break up with their partners recently, so it's been a stressful time for all of us. With some, at least, we can share pain over drinks before long, which will be cheerful I hope.

Ahhh, June

2009-06-25T06:43:00.000-07:00

I'm currently sitting in my boss's chair at her desk trying to track everything I am working on and wish I were working on and what I don't need to be working on and I realize a couple of assistants could be very handy at such a task. A couple other points that spring to mid are 1) coffee should not take the place of actual food, no matter how tasty it is, 2) Zero Punctuation is a hilariously aggressive review site that'll amuse whether you play video games or not but can affect the way you speak or write in potentially disastrous ways, especially if you've been drinking a lot of coffee.

The temptation to write about my negative feelings is unusually strong these past fews days, and given that this is the internet, it seems the proper forum, but screw that. Having a rough time isn't in itself very interesting, especially if you quote alternative song lyrics to make your case. There's a fine line between feeling down due to recent happenings and feeling down because it's too much trouble to pull yourself back up. As anyone with a basic understanding of narrative structure will tell you, any problem is just half a story until there's resolution, and even if that resolution is "and then the dog died," at least there's the pleasure of that particular problem being over and done with. So I'm going to take a cue from proper storytelling and applying it to my blog: no pointless bitching without some sweet ending to tie the thing together, like the rug from "The Big Lebowski."

You might have seen one of the many pictures or articles featuring Lady GaGa. I saw her on the cover of Rolling Stone a while back and proceeded to exclaim "What the shit?!" The article implied that we shouldn't think of her as a pop singer because she has some musical aptitude and isn't another cute person with someone surgically melded with a mixing board in the background. I have listened to an album by Lady GaGa, and I can comfortably say I'm done seeing her everywhere. I'm happy you pop dance club music lovers have someone you can listen to that's not hyper-filtered and remixed, but sadly this girl still can't think of anything more interesting to sing about other than how nice it is to be pretty and rich. I don't have anything against people that are either pretty or rich, but when all you do is self-aggrandize it reeks of psychological incest/ masturbation and I for one will not stand idly by and help you act either out.

Sorry, just had to get that out real fast. The outline for the movie script is very solid, getting to the point where I'm going to have no choice but actually start scripting soon. I'm reading "In the Land of Invented Languages" by Akira Okrent (probably spelled wrong) which is giving me some keen insights into the novel I plan on writing, and between that and the graphic novel I'm writing some random scenes that I may not use anywhere, but it feels better to have them out of my brain.

Anyway, I should get back to the day job.

And Then There Are Weekends

2009-06-14T17:16:00.001-07:00

Edgar Allen Poe would have loved my Friday after work. The dog dug up a dead raccoon. What's worse is that he had to have done this a day or so ago, nothing else could explain that smell, or his recent eating and crapping habits. Matt (my brother) and I put what was left of it in a garbage bag, put that in another garbage bag, and are going to put it with the trash this week. It's communal faith that will keep other animals from tearing into the bag - faith or the universe recognizing that we will not give it a third burial.

I talked with Kwee on the phone Friday also, with helped balance the day out. He seems very excited to work on a comic that will be published, sounds interested in the story, and showed me some of his more recent work. We talked about artists that we liked, some ways not to write a comic script, and what we're doing when we're not aspiring to be the next great artists in the world.

Today I helped my father and brother get an old broken refrigerator out of the basement. This is one of those fridges made from metal that could store your household adventurer through large explosions, and the basement was not made for tall people (I'm 5' 10" and the runt of the three of us). It came up to a twisted ankle, a wrenched shoulder, assorted bruises and pinches and a few near-crushings between the three of us, but we got it out there, and if heavy trash pick-up isn't this week I'm a gonna cut somebodah.

Everything's an Effort

2009-06-10T12:31:00.000-07:00

So I'm going back to the gym early mornings. I can't do a whole lot, seeing as I have maybe an hour to work with between the time the gym opens and the time I have to be at work, so I swim. It's a good way to get a balanced workout fast, and I personally love swimming, even if I'm not a very strong swimmer. Problem is I haven't worked out regularly in something like two months, and I seem to be developing insomnia, so between it all I think I'm too tired to feel the pain I'm probably in.

My mother's birthday was yesterday, and everyone seemed to have a really good time. It was a quiet little thing, dinner and cake, and she loved it.

the script for the thing I'm not comfortable talking about is coming along. For all the potential impact it could maybe have on my career, it's not a serious project, and I think that's helping me stay motivated - it means I can throw what I want in there and not worry. This kind of story is very friendly to my brand of crazy as it is, so hopefully I can pull something off.

Losing Yourself is coming together. The web address is bought, will be speaking on the phone with the artist for the first time hopefully tonight, and some of the more bureaucratic details are coming together. I wonder if this is what's causing my sleep problems - I told myself I was prepared mentally for the reality of publishing my own work, but actually being here's a very different thing. I do wish my subconscious would get used to the idea soon, because I truly am exhausted.

You don't believe me? Well, I'm going to stop blogging and start sleeping, you just see if I don't!!

It's Not You, Blog... It's Me

2009-06-08T07:09:00.000-07:00

So this once-a-day deal isn't working out that great, is it? I'm trying to keep the pressure on myself so that I update at least almost-daily, but I don't know if I'll be able to put in 30 updates this month. We'll just see.

Yesterday I had an accidentally productive day. I emailed a lawyer to make sure he was going to work for me, I reset my iPod to work with my desktop, I went to the gym (more later), helped Mom and Dad in the yard, and cleaned my room a bit. If I'm going to not go out in public much, I might as well get crap done.

Saturday's visit to Evan went awesomely! They've made incredible strides with the back yard, their cat is huge and shy, and my baby brother has developed truly mad skills with a grill. Evan's installation in Milan seemed to go pretty well, Erin's job is working out, and they have plenty of opportunities to spy on the neighbors. It seems great, I'm happy for them.

Running Til I Pass Out

2009-06-06T04:36:00.000-07:00

I spent yesterday working on parts of the script for one project, waiting for a lawyer to contact me, and in the evening playing Rock Band with Tim and his closest friends. I felt young.

Just a quick update today, I'm spending the day with the family traveling to and from Chicago. May the traffic gods watch over us and smile!

For My Next Trick

2009-06-04T12:52:00.000-07:00

I'm going to blog about nanomachines!

Nanomachines are small like brain cells. Brain cells hurt because they argue, and arguing hurts my ears. Ears of corn are delicious, and one time they told Nero Wolfe who the murderer was. Nero Wolfe doesn't listen to vegetables very often, maybe that's why he's rich.

Rich foods can be delicious like fudge, or overwhelming like a meteor. Why is it one meteor kills the planet and makes people go "AAUUGHHGHG," but a whole shower of them is pretty and makes people go "ahhhhh?" Isn't it nice when we can say one little word and mean everything we want? That's why swearing's fun. Another thing that's fun is backgammon, butI haven't played in forever.

Four could be the loneliest number if it wanted to. It's one lonely number that happens to be with three other lonely numbers, and someone said you're never lonlier than when you're in a crowd. It might have been the guy that sold breath mints, but I don't know why he'd do that, except that he thought people felt lonely due to bad breath anxieties. I don't like mint, it feels like I'm setting fire to my mouth, only it's cold, but I have to brush my teeth anyway. I like my fires hot, it's kind of how I know they're fires. Fire's another thing that makes people go "ahhh" or "ARHRHGHGHGH" depending on the details.

The tails are connected to the butt.

That Didn't Last Long

2009-06-04T06:38:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I missed yesterday. My month-long streak of consistent blog entries lasted two days, and that's okay. You know why? Because I'm going to make up for it.

I'm reading an article on historical languages (Science Vol 324, 29 May 2009, p1165), and I wonder how much most people take language for granted. Information gets transmitted in more ways than a lot of people think about. Any time two elements interact, information is transmitted. When proteins align to form bigger proteins, that's information transmission. It's as fundamental to the working of the cosmos as mathematics, but there are hundreds of different schools regarding language while math is more or less universal.

It sounds unfair when it's put like that, but there's a counter-argument that kind of puts math back a peg, and it's that math doesn't carry cultural significance the way language can. It used to, millenia ago when the Greeks were tinkering with theoretical geometry and the Arabians had come up with zero. Over the centuries those and other schools of math became global constants, and it's as though the cultures those constants came from didn't matter. Can you imagine a world where children learned, for example, the iconography of Chinese alongside the meter of English poetry in the same class and couldn't identify the distinctions? Did advanced math students in Greco-Roman times imagine a world where the questions their teachers couldn't answer would be solved by grade-schoolers?

Here Comes Two!! - SPOILERS BELOW!!

2009-06-02T09:23:00.000-07:00

Thanks to one of my readers, I'm giving a quick review of another movie seen since my last post from April: Star Trek. It was a great movie with excellent characters and actors to portray them, a smooth-yet-fast plot, and incredible special effects and action sequences. I do NOT agree with the reader's assertion that I "forgot" to mention the movie, in fact I think its omission was an act of brilliance. Seriously, anyone who has seen these movies would acknowledge that Star Trek is far too good to be listed with the movies I reviewed yesterday. It'd be a grievous insult to Star Trek, and now that I think of it I'll spend the rest of this blog entry insulting Star Trek in exactly that manner.

(In all fairness, I'm making Angels & Demons seem terrible when it's not, it's a decent movie... just NOT when compared to Star Trek.)

In fact, perhaps the only thing all four movies (Star Trek, Wolverine, Angels & Demons, and Terminator) have in common is that they are all franchise movies, single stories involving settings and characters established elsewhere. Franchise movies are beloved be Hollywood these days because, among other things, you don't have to work as hard to find an audience. They already know the property, maybe better than anyone involved in the new movie, and need much less effort in order to get them into the theater. Within the story, you have more freedom in regards to introduction, like you can introduce less and add more time to the meat of the story.

This works against creators when they're not careful. The audience that already knows the property has also come up with their own opinions of what the next story should include, and they probably LOVE the story they came up with before even hearing about the official one. It's the job of the team behind the next official production to create a story that blows away any possible idea the audience came up with, at the same time without disrespecting the views of the characters or setting the audience may have. This point is what makes the difference between a great franchise movie and a poor one.

Let's take Star Trek: the producers made it clear in their promotions that this was the crew from the original series, so fans right away know pretty much which characters are going to be in it and where they'll spend a lot of their time. This is a franchise decades old, so people have had a long time to imagine the story of how these characters got together. Seems like a Kobiyashi Maru - no story could satisfy everyone's expectations build on years of obsessive study and speculation; hell, even a small fraction of that demographic would be a lofty goal, so the creators need a way to tell THEIR story in a way that gives them an escape in case the audience doesn't like it. Solution: time warp to an alternate reality. They didn't tell the origin story of the original crew, they told the story of their versions of the original crew, meeting the goals set before them without putting their views above ours, and it was a brilliant way to do it.

You can note that this is one of the rare rare RARE occassions where I will praise the use of time travel in a story. These guys did it right.

Another thing they did right was focus on the characters rather than the ship or one story from the series. I always thought of Star Trek (TOS) as an anthology like The Twilight Zone, as a vehicle for zany science fiction stories. The difference between Trek and Twilight is that Trek had characters that tied each episode together, and I'd argue that Trek's greater commerical success comes from the love the fans had for the characters. All the central characters in the new movie have great moments that give a nod to the original series without being ruled by them - Kirk gets in fights and scores with ladies, Spock arches eyebrows and pinches neck, Bones insists that he's a doctor, they all assert their connection with the classic characters while making them their own.

For the counter-example, I'm going to use Wolverine. This franchise started from the comic book continuity, but also had to pay respects to the movies in the X-Men series. There was an origin story to the character in the comics, but by now the movie continuity is established as seperate, so they could have done whatever they wanted. What happened was they took the comic-based origin, something like six issues worth of material, compressed it into a ten-minute sequence with massive changes, and spend the rest of the movie covering the story of Wolverine's adamantium skeleton and missing memories.

The movie is supposed to be an origin story, it says so in the full title, but it doesn't tell the character's origin. His beginnings, both in the comic and in the movie, take place in a mansion where young Jimmy Howlett makes his first kill, setting him on a fighter's path. The comic book took its time in connecting the dots from this moment to Wolverine's defining characteristics: his sense of justice, his desire for peace, his struggle to retain a sense of humanity. While the comic series didn't receive the widest popular or critical acclaim, it did something very right that the movie missed, and it fact it wasn't until I saw the movie that I appreciated this aspect.

The Wolverine everyone loves both in the comics and the movies began AFTER having his origins wiped from his mind.

Think about that, and then think about the movie. The movie ENDS with his brain getting blown apart, and all his memories leaking out. That origin story we just watched was rendered pointless, and where they could have spent the time showing how Wolverine's personality in the movies might have been formed, they instead had a bunch of action sequences than introduced a school full of different characters. They did a better job introducing half a dozen different characters than the one they promised to introduce.

So I've been griping this whole time to make a point, and that point is: Stories disappoint when they don't follow through on the promises they make. "But Ryan," you may say, "no one actually promised anything. You're being a judgmental prick!" Screw you, person that's actually me! Any product makes a promise the instant it steps into public attention, and in the case of movies they usually make the same promise five or so different times in 30-second montages.

And just like in real life, it hurts when someone breaks a promise.

June Delusions

2009-06-01T10:34:00.000-07:00

First: I am challenging myself to update this blog once a day this month. Maybe I'll fail, maybe I'll get in the habit and update more regularly from now on. We'll just have to find out, won't we?

Next: Losing Yourself the Web Comic. WEB COMIC?!?! Yeah, that's what we're going for as of right now. The pages will see web publication first, and as we build an audience we'll have a better chance to cover costs when we print the full story as a single volume. I didn't intend for this story to make its debut on the web, but this makes a lot of sense given everyone's situation, and I couldn't resist.

I cobbled together a draft of a contract over the weekend, and it was as much fun as I was afraid it would be. It's not that it was especially complicated - legal text is written to be exact more than clear, but if you concentrate it's hard to get lost - it's simply a long process. I hope to get a bunch of the bureaucratic components taken care of soon so that page production can begin.

Last: Movies. I've seen Angels and Demons, Terminator Salvation, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine recently, and I'd rate them in that order. Angels is okay, nothing remarkable but you feel entertained. Terminator has explosions and robots abusing puny humans, and that's really all it has going for it. Wolverine has characters named for characters that appeared in comic books that you may have really liked, but the resemblances range from passing to malicious mockery; it's a shame, because it had decent actors.

Maybe tomorrow I'll blog about the disappointment potential to some stories. I feel inspired.

Titles, Those Tribulations

2009-04-29T06:38:00.000-07:00

I should make a note - assuming I keep this job through another year - that the months of April and May are an absolute bear carrying a number of plagues to get any writing done in. Along with the extra workload that comes with the end of the academic year, I get called in to cover when everyone uses up the last of their vacation days. To be fair, I've taken days of this time period myself, and made constructive use of them, but it's not helping me keep an energy level that's anything above hibernating sloth.

With the complaining out of the way, I am happy to report that the short story is more or less done. Unless my readers come up with any notable errors I'm ready to put it away save ONE problem. I need a better title, and it turns out I'm crap with them. I thought it was just an attribute I was casting onto my villain but it's true for me as well. I'm hoping I can put it into the back of my mind while I'm working my day job, and while the monotony chips at my soul maybe something will come to me. Or I'll trick someone into making it up for me.

With that done, I can devote more time to a couple other things that're coming very close to something interesting.

First is Losing Yourself, the graphic novel script I will not let die. I have an artist that has talent, a sense of professionalism, some interest in the story, and a genuine interest in the medium. Assuming he comes through on this little litmus test I have him on, I can start going over the atrocious details that will eventually become a contract. That would be something very, very exciting, so much so that I'm not letting myself get excited about it.

Speaking of, another project that was almost a joke of mine caught the interest of a friend, so I'm hoping I can steal some time someplace to work on it a little more and have something concrete we can work with. If nothing else, this will be a good exercise at something I haven't done in years, and loved doing anyway, so I can't lose.

It's become a habit of mine to twist situations into a position where I come out ahead in some way. Everyone does this to some degree, but I'm wondering in my case if I'm trying to WIN or simply NOT LOSE. It's a world of difference, and the further I get with things the more I need to know which it is. Trying to win is a scary thing, with a lot more on the line and it calls for a huge investment, but the payoff is bigger, where trying to not lose is generally easier and safer, if not a little more dull. I feel like I've been trying to not lose recently, but the reason for that is that things are happening that feel much better than simply not losing. They're great feelings, but the only way to maintain or improve on them - and really the only thing to do with them - is to switch to a trying to win attitude, and that's more intimidating than I care to admit.

It's been said that the only way to succeed in life is to make everyone believe you've already succeeded and will only continue in the future. It's an art that, if you're either good or lucky enough, life will come to imitate. We'll see, I guess.

Broken Records

2009-04-13T11:57:00.000-07:00

I could apologize for the lateness of my post, but I'd sound like... well, my blog entry title.

Last week I submitted a brand new short story in to a new contest. They're both new to me, and the story at least was new to many of the people I told it about. The bad news is that I don't think the story is actually DONE. IT has a beginning, an ending, and characters who - by the time they get to the end - aren't quite who they were at the beginning. Depsite this, I think it could be better. I thought about holding the story back and missing this contest, but I feel like I have to have something out there. I could easily stall forever on the pretense that "my work isn't perfect," so I figure it's worth the attempt at least.

This isn't the only development I've had recently. I'm in talks with an art student about illustrating Losing Yourself, and to date this is the closest I've come to actually locking an artist down! With some helpful albeit grounding advice from the uber-talented Stuart Sayger, this project is starting to look like a concrete book. Getting the material together and trying to be professional about vetting the guy out certainly feels like concrete.

I also had a wonderful surprise concerning a story I came up with at a bar one night in London. I shouldn't say anything about it, more for fear of jinxing it than disclosure liabilities, but it could be an amazing and fun opportunity.

To help fund any or all of these, I have invested in something called Powerball. Just a little investment, and true to the economy they've told me my money's gone. Grand.

Had a Good Day Today

2009-03-09T19:26:00.000-07:00

Nearly 1,200 words written. Coraline 3-D witnessed. Credit card bills paid. Fence materials for injured dog moved to back yard. Chicken dinner eaten.

Post-Vacation

2009-02-26T09:12:00.001-08:00

Florida was great! The beach was lovely, the water cold but fun to swim in regardless, and there's a decent amount to see and do. After all the greasy spoons I ate at, I feel like I could render paper transparent just by looking at it.

Mike and I did have a chance to go over the stories, and without revealing too much, he's playfully intrigued. This means I'm not catastrophically screwing up, and that if I finish that's another person that would like to read it. I can only hope this is the first of what will be an army.

I also learned just what 12 hours of straight driving will do to a body. It's not great.

Travelling and Tribulations

2009-02-20T09:08:00.000-08:00

If all goes well, I'll be driving to Florida within a couple of hours. This is my first time venturing into the deep South, and while I'm not expecting much in the way of culture shock, I'm sure I'll see a lot of curious stuff. This is also the biggest road trip I've attempted solo, and while I'm not worried per se, some of my family and co-workers are voicing concerns/ fears/ zany schemes that will be rendered useless should I become an impressionist art piece in the medium of fiery twisted metal, and I'm catching a bit of bleed off.

This trip started as going to a European folk music concert, when I was no big fan of European music, and my good friend Mike lives down there and didn't want to see it alone. The concert got canceled. Since I'd already started planning and setting aside dates, it seemed rude to let it all go to waste. Besides, I enjoy seeing places I haven't before, and Mike hasn't moved in the intervening weeks, so why not.

Something I just realized yesterday, and I feel ashamed and penitent in confessing this to you interwebs, is that I haven't done any substantial writing in almost two weeks. Birthdays, family events, work rushes, none of these things by themselves are enough to really distract me, but they haven't hit all at once like this for a long long time. It's depressing.

I'm not sure exactly when it happened, or maybe I was always this way and didn't know about it until adulthood, but I do get noticeably depressed when I haven't written for long periods. We all have something, I suppose, that we do to keep the glooms away, and as odd as it sounds I think we tend to build our lives around those things. Considering how much we each have to go through in our lives, when we find something that gets us to the next day it's worth that bit of effort to make sure we keep access to it.

Anyhoo, I'm hoping that I can at least go over some of my work with Mike, himself not unfamiliar with the intricacies of the writing arts, and get a new perspective. Those are refreshing, much like oceans, which I shall insist on visiting while I'm down there. If I were a kinder blog entity, I might open a twitter account just so I could provide continuous updates to all my concerned readers and regale them with my adventures and escapades. But I'm not.

Adequately Laid Plans

2009-02-05T06:52:00.000-08:00

So one of the purposes of this blog was to keep me honest about a writing schedule. I figured if hypothetical people were keeping track of how much I hypothetically wrote, it would motivate me to write more, hypothetically speaking. This is requiring, of course, that I update the blog on a regular basis.

Oops.

The past couple of weeks have been pretty dramatic, both at work and at home, and only some of that drama was useful for the short story I'm writing right now. Pacifying drama is a very necessary skill for a writer to have, but difficult to cultivate.

In real life, you want to calm things down first off, identify the source of the problem, and find a way to correct it that leaves all parties walking away sated, if not happy. In writing, especially fiction, this is exactly the opposite of what you want to do. Action movies would have muscle-bound guys speeding towards grocery stores before the last Cadbury egg was bought, political and medical dramas would be a bunch of smiling people agreeing with each other, and the soap opera genre would be dead. Dead. Without emotionally driven people devoid of empathy to take things out of proportion and mess things up for the maximum number of people involved or not, most fiction would read like a stereo insturction manual. I don't care if it's written in iambic pentameter from the perspective of God-King Xerses and penned in the blood of a dragon, an instruction manual is not the aspiration to shoot for.

It should not be surprising when you read about a writer or any artistically-thinking person acting like a moron and throwing away what appears to be a wonderful career. Odds are it's because of some clusterfuck of a personal situation that probably never would have happened if someone had said, "Well, I can maybe see you point..." six months prior. Drama sells. Drama has a wide audience. People love to see drama if for no other reason that to identify what they have successfully avoided in their lives. And if an artist is able to understand and present drama well enough to sell, the risks that they won't be able to handle real life drama responsibly go higher than Amy Winehouse locked in a hospital pharmacy. (Okay, that was a cheap shot well out of date, but you get the idea, right?)

This is not a confession to some grand error in judgment on my part that is leading me away from writing and to hermitage in Montana, though I understand that's a good place to go for such things. It's as much a reminder to myself as a warning to any hypothetical readers: there's a distinct difference between fiction drama and nonfiction drama, and handling both right is crucial to prosperity and very likely posteriors.

By the way, I'm 4,139 words into the story, and I could easily have enough written by the end of the day to start showing my test people. Occassionally I manage to do what I say.

Humility

2009-01-23T18:43:00.000-08:00

The next time you find yourself marveling at the majestic faceted nature of humanity, consider this:

One of our ancestors looked behind him and remarked "Hey, food came out of my butt!"

Foul Things

2009-01-15T09:28:00.000-08:00

As I write this, the temperature is -2 degrees F. I BELIEVE that's -10 C, but no matter how you measure it, humans weren't meant to survive those temps for very long. I love this time of year, even when the weather's like this, because it's pretty and it more or less forces you inside, huddled in covers or other people. Being out in it, though, is foul.

I promised you my take on foul language last post, so I might as well follow through with that shit. I like swearing, it's fun, but it's a flawed thing. Anytime you swear, people around you get the idea that you're probably upset about something, but it's not easy to tell what. A passerby may think you're swearing at him for wearing ugly pants, or accidentally bumping him as you were on your phone getting directions, and it would affect the rest of their day negatively because they didn't see the fresh dog poop you just stepped in. Swearing gets your idea across, but modern society's far too complex to say WHAT it is you're pissed off at and WHY using a few short words. I don't want to be ambiguous, and I'd like people to know what I'm talking about, so there'll be a cap on swearing. That only applies to the main body, in the comments it's a whole new game.

So WordWorld is still going strong, and I think I've come up with a couple of ideas for short stories in the same setting. This is something I was worried wouldn't happen - I wanted a couple of shorter things to work out the bugs and really get a feel for writing this piece. The ideas are fun, give love to a few conventions and challenge others, and make people laugh, so I'm going full-tilt.

Oh, by the way: Happy New Year!

Digital Diversions

2008-12-05T06:35:00.000-08:00

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged, hasn’t it? I could bore you with details of my recent exploits, but I’d rather talk about narrative. A couple of things have crossed my palate recently, and it seems appropriate to share them here.

Video games are as much a medium for storytelling as they are for personal distraction or strategic exercise. Take the latest Ace Attorney game, Apollo Justice. This is the first game in the series starring young rookie defense attorney Apollo Justice, a young man still trying to find his precise fit in a cutthroat world or legal acumen and detective skills. For those unfamiliar, the Ace Attorney games make the player interview characters, examine scenes and evidence, and present their findings in a way that brings each case together to reveal the who-what-where-when-why, and this game delivers this gameplay.

It expands on the older series by including a wider variety of ways to interact with just about everything. This isn’t just about gameplay, it’s also about story. Story is incredibly important to this series of games in that with each case you take on, you’re thrown into a different story and have to piece everything together so that by the end, all those bits that made you scratch your head and wonder how the Japanese can be so fucked up ACTUALLY makes some sense.

And it is with story that Apollo Justice screws up. This is the second version of the Ace Attorney series of games; the first followed another rookie attorney, Phoenix Wright. Through three games players guided him as he lost his mentor, watched adversaries become friends, friends become murderers, murder victims become accomplices in framing their mother’s rival’s daughter for murder only to be foiled by her secret twin sister that is in love with you and oh sweet Jebus I am not making this up.

The point is, Phoenix Wright was an unforgettable series and the follow-up character had to be just as strong and tenacious to exist out of Phoenix’s shadow. Instead, Phoenix Wright is in the game. All the time. Literally taunting you. Where I can only imagine the production team intended his presence to act as a transition to guide the player into being comfortable with AJ, instead it only reminds us how much PW could do at the end of his series and how little AJ actually accomplishes for himself.

Narrative and gameplay don’t always exist separately. Take the latest Prince of Persia installment: no Sands of Time (something of a mercy for my own sake) and no goatee, a completely different set of characters, setting, everything. The gameplay’s different as well, in that instead of being able to, in essence, call a certain number of mulligans, you’ve got a partner ready to grab you when you do something wrong.

Here the narrative-gameplay dichotomy is a much trickier balance – in previous games, if you messed up too much (or in certain cases, just once), your character died and you had to reload the game to an earlier point. In Sands of Time, when this happened, your character ADDED context by telling you “No, that’s not right” after you died. The story they were telling had your character do everything right the first time because A) you’d be dead and unable to tell your story otherwise, B) the world would be gone and no one would hear your story otherwise, and C) your character was a muthaf*&^ing badass and didn’t need more than one chance to beat insurmountable odds, save the world, and woo the girl.

In this latest installment, you do not get mulligans. Instead, if you mess up, your partner covers for you, and you can try as many times as it takes to get it right. Does this make your character then fallible? Is he less capable, less deserving of your time and energy? Is this worth worrying about when the time and frustration of reloading after a grizzly death is done away with? Is playing the game and enjoying the interactive experience more or less important than the story’s main character truly risking life and limb? The game’s been out two days and I’ve already had debates over this, and the truth is I can’t bring myself to answer these questions definitively. I would like to see the character I’m playing experience some anxiety over whether or not he can make this next jump and live, but I’d also like to have to go through less frustration myself to see him make that jump.

If you couldn’t already tell, yes, I am using this blog to justify my recent playing activities. I publicly shrugged off video games a few years back to focus on writing. That didn’t work so well, in that instead of writing I found other ways to not write. Now I’m trying something different: I’m going to play video games and then write about it. So far, not bad.

I AM still writing the novel, tentatively called WordWorld (I hate the title, but I need a quick way to refer to it). The plot’s coming along okay, but I find my characters are coming off a bit flat, and I realized that for every other story I wrote with them, they’ve never grown within them. They didn’t have to, the stories were too short, but I can’t get away with that here, so I’m trying to figure out where I can make them change from beginning to end without losing them. I fully admit now, thinking I could write a 50,000 word draft of this in a month was really freaking stupid.

Next time – why I’m making an effort not to swear in this blog even though I really fucking want to.

If I Can Make It Here...

2008-11-16T17:53:00.000-08:00

My attempts at writing a novel in a month are not very successful. I've got no shortage of material, but making prose out of it isn't going fast. Every time I get started I find I need to stop and figure another five things out.

My visit to New York has come and gone and went very well. I'll play around with getting photos from facebook to work here, but I'm a bit tired now. Me and Dunk did a lot of tourist stuff - we probably couldn't have done any more - but it's taking a while for my body to spin back up to speed.

Throwing My Hat In

2008-11-04T20:12:00.000-08:00

I'm no expert, activist, I can barely talk politics. Yet I am thrilled that Barack Obama has projectively won the presidency of the United States. I believe he'll prove himself a president I can be proud of.

Appointments and Disappointments

2008-11-04T09:10:00.000-08:00

I knew that the month of November would be tumultuous, chaotic, perhaps even worth the risks of cryogenic freezing to avoid, but I didn't think it'd kick in so soon.

The pains of working while writing came full force October 31st when the computer connected to our mail metering machine, for lack of better words, melted. I'll spare the details, but the efforts to remedy either the machine or my state of mind took up more of my weekend than I wanted. And so, while writing my novel has begun, it's a very slow start.

Today being election day, I hope my US citizen readers vote or have voted. To foreign readers - and I've been told they exist - I invite you pull up a chair and a beverage to witness Clusterf*ck '08. I recommend alcohol, the purchase of which is prohibited on election day; this is either genius or despotism, I'm not sure.

I got a phone call from the David Letterman show today, and though a job on their writing staff never came up, I did win tickets to see the show next Wednesday! I'll be in New York most of that week with one Duncan Heaney, who I'm sure will leave a lasting impression on the U.S. of A. Or at least their deportation list.

Death Throes

2008-10-28T08:16:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning in theory, but in practice I don't think the wheels have quite spun up to speed yet. It was a long day yesterday, subbing for our regular mail courier Gary who just had his first grandbaby (a boy for the curious), refilling a flat tire, getting library books when I was too stupid to have them transferred to walking distance, watching the Colts valiantly lose to the Tennessee Titans, and getting drunk off unique-yet-powerful beer in the process. Perhaps waking up was a mistake.

I also noticed as I rose what appeared to be bug bites. They don't itch anymore, but when I showed them to the family physician assitant (read: Mom), she said it looked like the beginning of a rash that's afflicted half the house already, and has a habit of covering as much as half the body. Imagine how many jubilant backflips commenced when I heard that bit of news.

Still, things aren't all bad. The staff for my Starman costume's almost done, could be as soon as tonight if I'm vigilant (though the odds of that are very low). My new Xbox is just about set up fully, but if I can find a cheap HDMI cable I may get it for when we visit people with big TVs. I'm foraying into the marvelous world of liquid dieting to remove the only viable black mark on my latest check-up, as much to see if I can handle a "healthy physique" as anything.

Oh, and as the that whole pesky writing career... "Room to Scratch" is off to another magazine, a fate I hope to share with the other story whose name eludes me right now. The graphic novel scripts are both freshly edited - and CRAP did "The Dosage" ever need it - and artists are being scouted, which is more fun than I remember. The way's becoming clear for my stab at NaNoWriMo, so this week will hopefully have me finishing notes and outlines so when November 1st hits, I can hit the ground scribbling.

That is all.

Scheming

2008-10-15T09:50:00.000-07:00

I've been ignoring this blog for a few weeks now in favor of concocting dastardly plans.

The first is Halloween, a holiday that for all its possibilities I do not have a good record of observing. I'm changing that with an attempt to assemble a costume for Starman (DC Comics character, the James Robinson version). Considering my fascination for weapons and artifacts, it was an easy sell. Whether I succeed or fail, I promise to post the results.

Second and perhaps most exciting is my impending trip to New York. The lodgings are theoretically taken care of, I'm getting suggestions for things to do, and otherwise I'm going to let one of the wildest places in the world have its way with me. Perhaps I should be more afraid.

My plan with the largest scope is NaNoWriMo. I've loved writing for over a decade, have known about this contest for years, but never had the inspiration (or maybe patience) to participate. Besides, I feel I'm better at writing for comics, so it never entered my mind to try. That changed this year over lunch one day - I felt random so rather than polish my other projects I tried my hand at something new. I only half-succeeded by writing new things about an old story set I came up with in a writing group a few years back. I'd never actually done the background for some of this stuff, and seeing it in front of me demanded that I do more.

Now 50,000 words a month, while daunting, isn't the challenge here. The challenge is doing that much (or close to it) while working a full time job, going to New York for half a week, and entertaining Duncan Thanksgiving week. Should be fun!

Feets a'Draggin

2008-09-22T09:16:00.000-07:00

One thing I don't know that I'll ever adapt to is my sleep schedule. At it's best, it's a very regular mechanism. Up 16-22, down 4-9. No breaks inbetween, I've never been one for naps unless I'm drugged, ill, or in some other way rendered less capable. Another factor is mornings - I don't like them. I recognize their importance, without them the day would start after lunch and that's not right. Unfortunately, when you prefer sleeping/ working late and your paying job does not, it's going to mess one up.

There are things worth getting up for, though. For instance I found a cortland apple on my desk courtesy of Marsha, which if you didn't know is one of the bestest apples evar. As I type this most of the day's work is done, and I find the concept pleasing.

But the best of all is finding messages from people interested in your work! I've gotten several emails from the Herron institute of art and some of them could turn into something significant. I don't want to jinx myself by saying too much, and also I've discovered I have a way of depressing myself when high things are promised, so let's just leave it at "I'm excited".

Also, Heroes Season 3 starts tonight. Hooray!

This Day

2008-09-11T08:32:00.000-07:00

Where was I on September 11, 2001? Oddly enough, I was right here in the Butler Mail Room.

I had just come in when the first plane hit. Marsha told me there'd been an accident. We listened to coverage while doing the morning sort and heard that the second tower had been hit, and it became clear these weren't accidents. For the rest of the day work was sporadic as people went back and forth to offices with TVs or radios, internet coverage and email checks to make sure people were knew weren't hurt. After the first hour, memories start jumbling.

Today, while dashing back and forth between two mail rooms, I'm going back over an old chestnut: my first extensive comic book script. It's a three-issue story that I'm reediting. I knew I'd grown as a writer since I first wrote this script, but... well let's just say I have a lot of work to do. The basic story is one I'm still proud of, so it'll be worth it in the end.

Shroedinger's Road

2008-09-04T09:33:00.000-07:00

Work continues to proceed, both the kind that I try to focus on in this blog - the kind that gets me up in the morning - and also the kind that pays me.

I’m of the mind that the Arts are interconnected. That is to say, someone who can play music very well might have an easier time composing their own, or even drawing or cooking. I also like to believe that the more arts one is skilled in, the more robust each art skill is made by the others.

I’m doing a LOT of drawing right now for the webcomic I’m doing, and as I'm figuring out how to draw people's hair and all that, I find I'm learning more about these characters as people. My main character's a young woman, but aside from earrings she doesn't like most jewelry - this is something I never thought about until I tried drawing bracelets on her and discovered she didn't look right. Even the tiny characters I put next to no thought into, as I'm drawing them they become... fuller. It's an odd sensation, but certainly a welcome one.

I had finished six such strips by the time I sent them to my friend Stuart Sayger for review, and his response (positive - let's be clear) has me reevaluating the style I was using. I'm looking at thicker lines lengths now and am even toying with the idea of using a brush for the figures. I've little aptitude with a brush, but a lack of aptitude hasn't stopped me yet so what's the point?

Censor Thyself

2008-08-18T19:58:00.000-07:00

A blog like this can be a tricky thing. I'm working now, and my job presents challenges to my pursuit of writing, but I like my job so I need to watch what I say here for hear of reprisal. It's frustrating as well because I want to be able to vent.

So it's a little fortunate that my brother's driving my nuts. I can vent about him till Hollywood calls and no one will care!

My brother doesn't have a lot of initiative. Sorry, but there it is. He's been sitting around "playing by ear" and "improvising", his code for watching Star Trek DVD's while I've been at work. He does his share of the chores while the 'rents are off in England but nothing else, unless it's make a cake he eats half of before I know about it. He spent the weekend with a friend this passed weekend, leaving me to do his share of the chores on top of my own AND my own errands and plans AND working Sunday at the Comic Carnival, so I ask him to do the grocery shopping one last time and clean the kitchen and bathroom.

I get home today and he's there,watching TV and eating. I ask how his weekend was and he says fine. I ask if he got my note and he says yes. I noticed that some of the dishes weren't put away and ask if he got everything on the list and he says yes. My brother's a liar.

Kitchen: not clean.
Bathroom: not clean.
Groceries: oh yes let's.

My list is glanced at. He notices I list (with a question mark asking him if he'd like it) spaghetti sauce makings. He notices a section of the note that says we need to talk to Mom and Dad about the pets, who're down on food and we won't be able to afford all of us, stocking up. And for the first time in a long time, my brother takes initiative. He buys pet food. He buys people food too, let's not get too crazy, but it's people food he knows I don't like. And we're just about out of money. And he made zero effort to communicate with me on this, he made choices that were slightly more convenient for him with no regard for the others he's living with.

I'm still working on the webcomic. I stayed late at work to ink the latest pencils, and I scanned/ finished it tonight. After 3 beers. I'm fine working like this, but it almost seems like my brother's claiming the other parts of the house as territory by default.

I am obviously very tired and cranky and need to go to bed.

Networking

2008-08-10T17:23:00.000-07:00

It can sound like a cliche, an excuse, and sometime an ugly truth. Nine words:

"It's not what you do, it's who you know."

The ugliness comes from the idea that you can produce the highest quality of work, but if no one knows about it you'll never succeed. The definition of success is the key here. If all you want to do is make the best stuff you can, without anyone's knowledge or approval, then the saying's useless. Homo sapiens being a communal animal, though, this scenario rarely applies. Most of the time we're all running around trying not to yell "LOVE MEEEEEEEE" without sounding desperate. And the fact of the matter is if you want to live off of what you love, you're going to have to convince other people - eventually - that what you love can support life.

A trip to the fair proved a recent good example. The last few times I've gone have been with the Endres, a fine friendly group of people when they've all had their naps. I've known them since college, they're some of my best friends around, the kids are cute and bite softly, and Marsha Endre's my new boss at the mail room. I've got a few reasons to make them smile.

This short drink of water's Lily. For a two-year-old, she was mostly very content with watching everyone at the fair. She fed the animals, played a bit in the water, and basically was a lovely child. It's possible that this was to lead the general populace into a false sense of security.

The pater familius, David. A lot of the pictures this trip were taken by the boy, Xander. I swear I'm WAY taller than him. Stronger too, and and and I know more words. For reals. Ohh, to the right is the rarely pictured mater familius, Marsha.

I was able to take care of some extra networking with this trip. You see, one of my bestest buddies from my masters course has (or had, he might've hit his head at some point) an obsession with a classic fair food. Why don't we look at the next few pics and try to figure out what it is, shall we?

It seems that the obsession has a contagious element to it. Here's Xander presented with HIS lunch.

Note the expression on Mommy's face.

So that was my Saturday. Networking can be fun, even if I still have a thing or two to learn about it. The rest isn't important unless you're Duncan, in which case you should probably highlight the last of the this post.

HA HA! I had a corn dog and you didn't! It was hot and golden and deliciously fat-filled! Xander at ALL of his, too, that's the power of a real corn dog and YOU don't get any!! HA HA HAAA HAA!!!!

First Impressions

2008-08-05T17:35:00.000-07:00

So far, I gotta say it's a lot better than I could have feared.

My previous experience at the job has turn my learning curve into a dull incline. I need to touch up on names and the machine - while very user-friendly - is completely different, but I'm picking things up fast. Everyone's been very excited about me being back and I feel very welcome. And it doesn't hurt that my old benefits have apparently been waiting for me.

Of course, my routine is disrupted. Focusing on one aspect, I'm trying to fix it so that I wake up, go to the gym, straight from there to work. I tried the gym then home for breakfast then to work today, and that didn't work so well. All I need to do is get myself some cereal and a coffee maker there and I'm golden.

My research endeavors have been slow but steady. I finished a key book in character research for the webcomic, and the ideas just keep on coming. I am running out of ways to stall on producing the thing, and I'm sure the universe is worried. The fact that the Large Hadron Collider is about to come online cannot be a coincidence.

Inaugural Address

2008-08-03T16:51:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow begins a new phase in my attempts to be a professional writer: trying to write while working a full-time job. Many have overcome the rigors to persevere, and by keeping a diary of my experiences maybe I can at least contribute to the community of wannabes, if not document the path.

I find myself having to admit I'm helluva lucky. The job it one I've done before, I know I can have time to myself when conditions permit, and my immediate boss is one of my closest friends from college. So long as I don't do anything too stupid, I'm going to be okay. On top of that, I'll have little things like medical and dental insurance, so those are classified as "uppers." This is a job, and as such I'll need to focus on what they would have me focus on, but I know I have plenty of things to focus on when the other things are lying in wait.

Shocktype Productions has a lot of things going on at the mo. My graphic novel is still looking for an artist, but the list of potentials trying out grows. I'm doing research for my webcomic project, and a lot of what I'm reading either inspires ideas or reinforces the ones I already had, all of which is glowing. I have the tingling of a new idea thanks to a New York Times article, and as soon as I come up with a hook I expect the world won't stop me. My two finished short stories are still making the rounds, but I am pleased that I'm developing the skin necessary to handle rejection. I suppose high school DID teach me something.

I look forward to posting on this at least weekly, as I don't want to promise more and dissappoint. See you later, everyone!