'Salem? Short for Jerusalem? Mind blown.

On Reading:

Until I read Wolves of the Calla, (or was it Song of Susannah?) I had no idea that 'Salem's Lot was about vampires. Seriously, I thought it was about witches in Salem Massachusetts. I had a blind spot in my vision for the little comma at the beginning of the freaking title, and clearly in my minds eye as well. How surprised was I that: A. It was a vampire story, and B. It took place in Maine.

But I've always been somewhat of a picky reader when it comes to Stephen King. And I won't say that I intentionally avoided reading his horror books. I was just more interested in novels like the Dark Tower series (fantasy with a post-apocalyptic slant), The Stand, (ok, maybe it's a horror book and maybe I did have nightmares when I read it in high school. But The Stand is Science Fiction meets the ultimate battle of good vs. evil). The Green Mile and Different Seasons were very good stories, but scary, no.

I didn't find The Shining all that scary either. Maybe it's me? Maybe I'm a sociopath?

Then again, maybe not. Because 'Salem's Lot scared the crap out of me.

These days, the vampire genre has grown to insufferable levels, choking the masses, flooding book shelves and TV channels and we're all just sick and tired of it until one day you finally just wish that Flanders was dead.

I'm sure in 1975, 'Salem's Lot was new and exciting and far from glitter, and male models, and all the vampires flocking to Louisianan.

But I think what make this story such a great read and more than just a novelty for its time, had more to do with the development of the characters and less to do with the vampires. Don't get me wrong: there were lots of vampire madness and some really creepy, bloody, and unexpected scenes. But what hooked me was that by the time the shit started hitting the fan, I was emotionally invested in the story. I'd been hanging out with these people in this small town in Maine. It felt like a real place. The story and its inhabitants felt real. I cared about what happened to them. I cared about what happened to the town.

If you've never read anything by Stephen King, this would be a good place to start.

One Writing:

I 'd been binge-writing for a good part of the summer. It's a lot like binge-drinking, only the hangover doesn't hit until you take your notebook full of scribbles and try to make sense of it while typing it all into the computer. I have a lot of content. It's now a matter of finding places to put it.

As far as story progression goes, I'm somewhat at a standstill at the beginning of Part 2. However the development of the characters has gotten a lot better. I feel like they're finally coming into their own. This had been an issue, as I was having a lot of trouble relating to one of the main characters. I think she's now a lot less two-dimensional from where she was during the 1st Draft. So I guess that's progress.

Ninja High School #176

Reading Books:

I've written about Ninja High School before. I think it's awesome that it holds the Number 1 slot in the Top 5 Influences to my Writing. It's in a category shared with Stephen King's Dark Tower Series, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s Cat's Cradle, The Matrix, and Big Trouble in Little China ("We really shook the pillars of Heaven, didn't we, Wang?")

There's something awesome about the 'high school kids with exceptional strengths/powers' genre. TV Tropes calls this the, Academy of Adventure and it's a genre with significant appeal and seems to work across many different mediums. The focus tends to be on the institution, however were the students in attendance of said institution normal disillusioned youth, the story would be over on page 1, issue 1, episode 1. No, what goes hand-in-hand with the school for wizards, gifted youngsters, and sailor-girls blessed with moon power is that they are, by their own right, exceptional.

The original run of Ninja High School has this in seemingly every character with the exception of the main character, who is an average American teenage boy. He plays the part of 'damsel in distress' to two striking female leads, one with exceptional skills in martial arts, raised in a family of ninjas, while the other is the princess to an alien race of skunk people. As the series progresses, this normal teen encounters other, larger-than-life characters, both friend and foe, and eventually shows both bravery and courage despite a lack of superhuman ability. 

Possible Spoilers lay ahead. The series has been rebooted. And it's been rebooted in similar fashion to the more recent Star Trek films, staring Chris Pine, and Sylar. When the first film came out, I was not a fan because they literally erased everything that happened before, with a major disruption to the space-time continuum. And who, who I ask you would want to live in a world without Captain Picard!?!?! But I understand why they went in this direction though, and I think it's the same path Ben Dunn and Steven Ross are taking Ninja High School.

In both cases what is gained is creative freedom. When a familiar world is made new again, one has the ability to create without having to worry about the years of past continuity. What NHS has over Star Trek is this idea of multiple dimensions that are accessible through both magical and scientific means. This allows for stories to not only exist within the context of the rebooted universe, but can also pull from other dimensional plains that the long time reader will find familiar, and perhaps even a little nostalgic.

This first issue had a Sliders vibe to it. Remember Sliders? Great show. The whole premise was about 4 lost interdenominational travelers trying to get back to their version of Earth. Along the way they met their doppelgangers and some very cool 'what if' scenarios. The rules of continuity were fast and loose because each episode rebooted the gaming console that was the known universe.

I see very good things ahead for Ninja High School: Reloaded (that's what I'm calling it anyway). The potential is there for fresh new stories while maintaining the would-be hero and superhuman heroines that brought so much appeal to the original series run. I'm really looking forward to where Dunn and Ross take us.

On Writing:

Writing for Ninja High School!

Just kidding. I wish.

Seriously though, I'm writing a lot of new scenes for my novel. I'm not paying too much attention to writing chronologically (which is how I tend to write). I'm finding that I have a lot of possibilities open to me and seem to be stressing about how and if I should change some major plot points in the story that will deviate significantly from the First Draft.

Here's what I do know:

There will be one central character in this story and the story will be told from her perspective. The development and thoughts of the 2nd main character will be revealed in a series of letters/journal entries that he dictates as audio recordings. 

Like in The Rook, even my minor characters are somewhat larger than life. They all have compelling stories that should be told. I'm thinking that each subsequent story in this series will be told/viewed through the eyes of one of these characters. Everyone gets a book!

I've started proofreading Part 1. Even if I'm changing the perspective, I have a lot of solid writing here that could possibly be used in other stories, or sections of this story. It's also a good way for me to gain some perspective, as I lost a lot of that during the extra busy month of June.

Also, without getting into all the details, as it would sound like bragging, I'm currently in possession of a Surface Pro 3, so I've been able to proof the Word doc of Part 1, using the Inking feature. So I've been able to write in red digital pen all over my document. It's working out really well.

Interlude

Reading Books (sort of...)

I'm still trying to formulate some form of coherent thought on Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell. Upon finishing the book, I started to read up on the movie. This was probably a mistake as the basic gist of the movie didn't seem to jive with the book. I'm either an idiot and missed everything, or the Wachowskis took an ton of liberties and did something gimmicky with using the same actors to play multiple parts. It could very well be me, though. I listen to books during my long commute into work and there is a certain level of comprehension that I just do not have while driving. There was a lot going on in Cloud Atlas and it was littered with clues on the characters and their relationships to one another. I'll probably pick it up again, -sometime when I'm not driving, and give it a more attentive go. In the meantime I'll watch the movie and probably be let down, the same way I have been by everything the Wachowskis have gotten their hands on that isn't The Matrix.

Writing Books

I've put an embargo on the computer and have been using pen and paper to do all my writing. This has helped me write pretty much anywhere. I don't need to be 'in the zone' to write anymore and got in a few pages before bed last night, and several more this afternoon while waiting for Samson to arrive for some comicbook buying and Elder Sign playing. (Picked up DMZ vol 2, in case you were wondering.

Most importantly, I am getting some solid scenes out of the process and I've even been able to write on the porch on these hot summer days. Even basement dwellers need to go outside once in a while.

Homework:

Hey a new sub-section. Cool. So Verses and I will do some writing exercises from time to time and a lot of good ideas have come out of these 1-2 page scenes. I'm going to start sharing some of the more notable challenges we've posed to one another. Think of this as your 'writing prompt' section. Do [with it] what thou wilt.

Challenge the First: Write a scene about a place called Red Wall Keep. Can be fantasy, sci-fi, Harry Potter fan fiction, etc. Write as much or as little as you want to complete the scene. There are no wrong answers.

Meanwhile, in the town of -UNDISCLOSED-

Reading Books:

The squeal to "John Dies at the End" by David Wong, is a book full of spiders.

"This Book is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It" is a less rough-around-the-edges tale centering around two beloved slackers living in a fictitious Midwestern town. Part of the popularity to the first book was due to it's following on the Internet, as a serialized blog of sorts. Reading the first book you could tell that -though coherent and complete- it felt somewhat disjointed. There were several stories rolled into one overarching main story that tied itself together in a somewhat chaotic way. The chaotic nature of the story and it's characters, that off-the-cuff writing style made the story work.

The squeal is much more polished. The story is tight. There are several subplots but they tie together in a way that complements the story as a whole. The tie-ins are clean.

I think the 1st book is better only because that chaos was what set the book apart, made it unique. It's not that it wasn't present in the squeal, but it was lacking.

Writing Books:

I had to look back to my last entry to see what the hell I had last talked about.

Ok, Part 1 IS done.

I need to sit down and edit it but finding the time to do that has been tough. It's the end of the fiscal year and the library I work at has a lot of extra money they want to give me. So my meager 6 hour a week shift has grown to 19 hours, just for this remaining month. So I'm working a lot.

I've reached the conclusion that in the same way writing with pen and paper is more effective than typing it out, editing in the same way is equally beneficial. But the tech-geek in me wants to desperately bridge this gap. I tried using a stylus with my iPad, Pages, and a copy of Part 1. Didn't work. Actually it sucked ass. And to be blunt, as one who owns several Apple devices and doesn't pass up a trip to the Apple Store whenever I'm in a mall, I can honestly say that the iPad is a nightmare for serious writing. It's a toy. It really is. Don't get me wrong, I like my shiny expensive toy, but I've given up on trying to use it to get any real work done. 

I've been eyeing the new Surface Pro 3, which isn't even out yet. No, I'm not being endorsed by Micro$oft. I'm merely seeing something I could actually use to get the pen and paper experience on an electronic device.

So I've been wasting a lot of time on tech I don't have instead of reading Part 1. 

Meanwhile, I'm stumbling through Part 2. I'm still trying to get a clear picture of how events play out. I mean, it's all been written in Draft 1, but I'm still discovering new things, new quirks about characters, new places to explore.

Having no time doesn't help either. I'm not in the groove, not in the world of the story.

Reading Part 1 will help.

Perhaps in July.

American Werewolves

On Reading:

Neil Gaiman is a great writer. This probably goes without saying, but I'm going to say it anyway. And before you accuse me of pandering, please note that I am simply referring to the man's ability to write. I'm not going to jump on Pinterest now and gush about his sexy hair or anything. 

Anyway...

"American Gods" is a novel about, well, gods and how they enter existence through the beliefs of humanity. A god goes out of fashion, they're forgotten and their power wanes. People of the modern age turn their beliefs in abstractions to the more tangible: televisions and technology, and poof, new gods!

I'm not going to review the entire book. What I liked about it was that he weaved several compelling stories throughout the course of the novel that came together in a very satisfying way. Gaiman could have serialized the story, the way King did with "The Green Mile." There were some very distinct breaks that kept the story fresh.

Patricia Briggs has written a series of paranormal tales in the same vein as Supernatural, True Blood and the Vampire Diaries with her protagonist, Mercedes Thompson. You'll know the books I'm taking about because they feature a hot, dark-haired bombshell with tattoos, usually holding a wrench or other tool commonly found in a mechanics garage, amid a goth backdrop. I picked up this book because I needed something light to read between the Historian and American Gods. I also wanted to read something sexy, but I have to say, it wasn't nearly as sexy as the cover would have you believe. I guess that old saying about book covers is true. Regardless, it was a good story in a genre littered with over-sexed characters and full-frontal male werewolf nudity. 

On Writing:

Part 1 of the book will be done tonight.

After a long talk with one of my writing buddies, and some careful thinking, I'm not going to go the Amazon self-publishing route. For me it's took risky and I really think this story would do better in more traditional markets. So I'm going to be querying agents once the story is done. My endgame is to make books, physical books, that'll be put on sale in book stores, book store I may one day be in, during book tours.

Hey, that Rhymes.

Roger Debris presents, History

Reading Books:

The vid has nothing at all to do with "The Historian" by Elizabeth Kostova, but it was what came to mind when thinking of how I would write this entry. The Historian was written in a unique way, which at first will sound like a somewhat gimmicky way to write a story, but was executed really well in this particular story. The story is written as a series of diary entries, letters between characters and research material. The story begins with a 1st person perspective main character in her 50's recounting her early teenage years. But even these parts of the narrative are read as if they were part of a memoir.

The book is about vampires.

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Specifically it's about Dracula.

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And to break it down even further it's about the half-monster, half-historical figure made famous in Bram Stoker's novel, which was also written as a series of journal entries and corespondents.

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I remember putting hundreds of copies of this book onto and off of the shelf in the "Literature" section at a now defunct bookstore, so I didn't expect this story to follow the same trends common in genre fiction. And it didn't. The book focused heavily on the history of Dracula the man, and of his realm in the Carpathian Mountains during the 18th Century.

The main characters, all heavily embedded in the camp of Science, were forced to come to grips with the reality that indeed, the Dracula of history had much more in common with the vampire of story and superstition.

I enjoyed this book but I felt that the last 100 pages were when the book really got good and I wished the earlier parts could have been like the later. This might have more to do with my own preference to genre fiction, and those last 100 pages were very much like a vampire story than hard lit. 

Writing Books:

I'm thinking about starting a Character Blog. This would be separate from this blog, which, despite what you may think is about a real life person. If it develops into something, I'll publish it as it's own work. Regardless of where it goes, it will be a good exercise in character development. It would also be a good way of giving you, the reader, a taste for how I write and what I write about. I realize that this little endeavor is based on a lot of talk on my part, with very little concrete proof of my talents. Unless you're part of my writing circle, you really have no idea what the hell I'm doing besides, well, this. This will either help entice or repulse you from my work. Regardless, you'll know what you're getting yourself into.

The link will be posted on the site's homepage soon. I'll also update this entry with a link should you be reading this after-the-fact.

In other news, Part 1 of the story is almost complete. I've probably said this before but it's much closer than it was the last time I said it. I'm on Chapter 6, and it will probably be the last Chapter of  Part 1. Of course, I think I might have said that about Chapter 5, so who knows.  

Up Next...

Moon Called by Patricia Briggs

and

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Clean Springing...wait a sec, that's not it...

Nothing new to report, just a little housekeeping. Tis the season after all.

I've added two new links to the site. For the politically savvy, check out my Dad's blog. Be respectful and he'll respect you back. Act like an asshole and he'll probably Choke-Slam you. Probably.

Speaking of choke-slams, check out my Bro's blog at Place2Be Nation, for all things Pro Wrestling. 

While you're at it, go check out these vids that Chris Samson brought to my attention yesterday. Credit goes to Polaris for making four quite epic short films.

Here's the first one:

Flat Characters

Reading Books:

Pandemic, the third and perhaps final installment in Scott Sigler's Infection series must be what happens when an up-and-coming-author-turned NY Times Best Seller reaches for the stars and gets a tragic third-degree burn in the process. Scott, I admire your previous works, and the methods you used to sell your wares still has me held in perpetual awe. How you marketed yourself through the medium of podcasting is, in a word, remarkable. Not everyone can do what you did, despite its simplicity and the high availability of the technology.

But damnit Scott, would it have killed you to not rush the third story in a series that first hooked me into the Sigler universe?!?!?!

The book was broken up into parts. Part 1 was probably the best out of the entire novel. The reason being that it was probably written on the heels of Contagious, which in my opinion was the better of the three stories. Part 1 felt like it was attached to Infection and Contagious, which is a good thing when you're writing a series of books. There was actually character development in Part 1. I was actually starting to feel something for Margaret Montoya and Clarence Otto, -two characters who seemed to always get second-billing in the previous stories, when compared to Dew Phillips and "Scary" Perry Dawsey.

But once Book 2 began, all the care I could ever possible hold for these characters went right out the window and fell into a fire, destroyed like many of the story's settings, as well as the story in its entirety as well.

As a fan of the Matrix trilogy, I'd be the first to admit that character development was by and large two-dimensional. In fact one of those life-sized cardboard cut-outs of Captain Kirk found in your local comicbook den of all things in geekdom had more depth than the characters in The Matrix movies. But Scott, you made me care so little about every single character in Pandemic that by the end I was almost rooting for the virus to destroy everything. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the point of a survival story to get the reader to feel something for the would-be survivors so that when every hardship happens, they are jolted back to the edge of their seat in terror of their potential demise, and anticipation on how they're going to get out of this one. There was none of that. I can't even say the characters were simply unlikable. There wasn't enough development of them to feel strongly one way of the other. The only characters who came close to some form of development, (and only because of their presence in other stories) were Clarence Otto and Tim Feely. But too much time was spent making huge brush strokes on the disaster as a whole, paying far too little to character development. I'm sorry. I went into this expecting to like this book. I was sorely disappointed. Read it if you want to finish the trilogy, but don't expect much from it.

Up next: The Historian 

Writing Books

Not a whole lot new to report. I'm writing Chapter 5 in longhand. There's something almost intimate about writing this way, -with pen and paper. There's a connection that is often lacking when writing on a computer. I don't know if the ideas just flow better, if there's a subtle barrier between the words inside my head and typing them on a keyboard, or if I'm less easily distracted from surfing the web. But it's getting there.

I started reading the revisions out loud. There is a crystal clear voice to the narrative in Chapter 1. That voice can be heard in the Chapters that follow, but some polishing is required for it to be at the level of the first Chapter. Reading out loud also makes it clear where the flow is stifled by too many words, complicated descriptions, or awkward storytelling.

It's a long weekend so maybe I will get some solid hours of writing in next time.

"She said, 'I serve none but Korrok.'"

"You sure?" said John. "I thought she said, 'I server none but to rock.' I was about to agree with her."

"Whatever, John."

On Books:

And with that, I give you my thoughts on "John Dies at the End" by David Wong, (if that's even his real name)...which it isn't. It's really Jason Pargin.

This book is a funny-strange piece of fiction. It's written in three distinct acts that all fit together in a chaotic but seamless way. Act 1 reads very much like a science-fiction drug novel and is probably what would happen if Philip K. Dick and Chuck Palahniuk had an alien love-child. Act 2 continues the climb into the realm of the strange, leading into Act 3 which takes you places you never thought existed in the realm of weird.

The story is told from the 1st-person perspective of David, and several scenes that he was not physically present for are recounted by him, originally told by the books other main character John. Interestingly enough, since John tends to exaggerate his account of things, the retelling of events are both far-fetched but not without David's commentary pointing this out the absurdity of John's story to the reader. John and David fall into the archetype of slacker-hero. The humor drawn out through both the dialog and situations the two characters are put in make them very likable.

The book is funny. It has to be because it's equally gory. Chris Samson told me the book and the movie complement each other. After reading the book, I'm not sure I want to see the movie. I can do horror. But gore-horror is not my bag when it's on the big-screen...or the TV. I guess this really marginalizes my horror intake. Maybe I need to break it down further. alien-demon-worm-monster-gore-horror is not my bag, baby. In fact, anything with worms, mutant worms, slugs and other such variants don't set well with me. Some people have a thing against spiders or giant rats. I'm not a fan of all things squishy.

But who knows. Maybe one day I'll man-up enough to watch the movie version starring Mr. Crabs and that guy from Sideways.

On Writing:

It's pretty clear that the way the revised chapters are forming, each chapter will contain 3 scenes. The scenes seem to be divided by a change in venue. Another revision or 2 will help tighten up the transitions. Right now the process is going smooth but this may get tricky once I start incorporating the sections that have already been written into the revisions. Since noticing this pattern I may take a crack at doing something I never do and start outlining.

I started drawing a map of the main setting of this story. I feel like Tolkien every time I draw a map. I amazed by people who can draw good maps of fantasy places. Mine, like my hand writing always end up looking like chicken scratches.

Lastly, I plan on writing the last scene of the revised Chapter 4 tonight. This will end the new beginning of the story, allowing me to focus on cleaning up the material I've already written. I also end the new sections with a flashback of sorts. It's also the first really big action scene in the story. 4 Chapters in and I'm finally getting to the action. That may or may not prove to bit me in the ass. I don't know. I may have to start the scene in a prologue, then uses this last scene of chapter 4 to continue what the prologue started. I'm not going to worry about that now. 

1Q84, 1984, Make 7 Up Yours

Thoughts on Books

I haven't read any of Haruki Murakami's other works, so I don't know how 1Q84 stacks up with the rest. With that in mind I have to say that I really enjoyed that long-ass book. Audible had it clocked past 40 hours. That helped the author take his time with the characters and plot. Some would argue that he spent too much time explaining all the little intricacies, every minute detail, but for the type of story that 1Q84 is, I think it worked. Part of the appeal to the story was that I had no idea what I was getting into. I hadn't heard much about it. I knew it was being touted by the nerd community as some sort of philosophical science fiction. I found it more surreal than anything else. But at the same time it wasn't over-the-top either. At times I was reminded of the more subtle supernatural scenes from Princess Mononoke  involving the Kodama creatures in the forest.

I'm probably going to go back and read Murakami's other works, but not for a little while. In the time it took to read 1Q84 I racked up 4 credits on Audible. In case you were wondering, I used those credits to add these books to the library:

1. Pandemic by Scott Sigler

2. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

3. John Dies at the End by David Wong

4. The Rook by Daniel O'Malley

And speaking of The Rook, I finished reading that as well. This is Daniel O'Malley's first novel and it's apparently the first book of a series yet to be written. I also enjoyed this book a lot. I was concerned the main character was going to be a weakling the entire story. But she turned out to come into her own and performed some major feats of kickassery.

I really hope the author continues to explore this series. It runs along the same vein as my own writing. There were also some very funny moments that had me laughing out long...alone...in my car...shutup.

I enjoy a lot of books. I'm very hesitant to get on my soapbox, point my finger and tell an author their work is crap. It does happen, but not very often. If the story takes you to a place other than your car on the way to work, your comfy bed before going to sleep, or that waiting room...er...waiting...to see your proctologist, than the author has done their job correctly. I tend to steer clear of so-called 'reviewers' in the comment section of places like GoodReads. I know the Internet is supposed to be the ultimate social settings, but when I read comments, especially the negative ones, I just have roll my eyes. And I absolutely stop reading any comment that begins with, "I really wanted to life this, but..."

It may sound hypocritical, because here I am spouting my opinions, but if I really wanted to talk books with someone, I'll do it directly. In a forum it's really not a discussion as much as we like to think it is. It's a mean spirited person's idea followed by others who will side with or against the original post. Quite often it devolves into name-calling.

Besides, what I'm doing here is basically saying, "Theses are books that I've read. I like them, you might like them too. And if you don't, hey, that's cool. Just don't be a dick about it." And if I think a book that you like is crap, that's my opinion and I'll try not to be a dick about it. Maybe you have a soft spot for Will Wheaton and the 1980's. Cool. I personally think TNG was better without Wesley Crusher and the 1990's were better because of Chrono Trigger and Pearl Jam (which is funny because the 2000's are much worse because of Pearl Jam with songs from the Ten album that are played incessantly on FM Rock stations).

In the immortal words of Forest Gump, 'That's all I've got to say about that."

Currently reading "John Dies at the End'. No spoiler intended. It's surreal, but in different ways from 1Q84. 

Thoughts on Writing

Not much to report except that I'm back in the swing of writing 2000 words a day. I'm also on Chapter 4 of the quasi-revisions. Chapters 2-4 are all new. So I guess they're a first draft. But I'm going to be spending a lot more time on revising these chapters myself before handing them off for outside scrutiny. Chapter 5 will be a much better version of the old Chapter 2, and, for the moment, the story should flow from there with revised version of what I've already written.

I've noticed a pattern as I've written these revisions. The revised chapters, from 1-4 all contain 3 scenes, usually based on a change in venue. In the first draft, some chapters would only be one scene while others would be upwards of 6 or more. I like the order, the organization of this 3 scene per chapter. It sort of gives me a space to work with and helps me plan out what I need to cover.

My one fear is that I've introduce A LOT of new things in these new chapters, and I already had a lot of material to work with as it is. So I hope I'm not adding more questions to an already long list. But I'm very happy with the results, the new characters, and the direction the story is going. 

Finding the Momentum

Writing Books:

The character of Aryel Lessard should have been one to come easy for me. Anyone how has gamed with me, from MMOs to pen&paper RPGs would know that a version of this character has been lurking in the echo chamber of my mind for close to a decade. But maybe since she had been around for so long that I stopped actually thinking about her. By 'thinking' I mean, putting some analytic thought behind who she is, and not staring dreamily into space, occasionally letting out carefree sighs while sucking down chocolate-covered strawberries.

I had to actually do some thinking when it came to creating the Basilisk because up until the start of this project, his formidable presence had not set foot into the hallways of my mind. What he wanted in this life I had thrown him in, and how far he would go to get those things were established, and written down. I had answered the questions that needed answering. By the time I started writing him into the story, I knew what made him tick.

With Ary, I'm still sort of finding that out. Which sucks when you've written an entire first draft and are just realizing one of your principal characters needs to go back to character development school. It feels kinda like a soldier being sent off to war when the commander realizes that he never learned how to shoot. I don't know. Maybe it's different. 

But Ary is a far better character now than she had been a week ago. And, until the beta-readers tell me otherwise, I think she's come a long way sicne the 1st draft of the story. It's not been easy, but it's been an experience I'm glad to have gone through because I've learned a great deal by going through this process. I used to write a 1st draft of a chapter, revise it, and then call it good. But it's not good. There are a lot of questions that need asking. I've written more revisions of just the beginning portion of Chapter 2 than I care to count. But it's important. I need to see what works and what doesn't. Yes, it's discouraging to not have all the answers when I sit down to write. Sometimes sessions feel as though I'm just spinning my wheels, but it's all important. It's all necessary. In the end I think it makes for better characters and hopefully a better story.

And it's important to keep even what you don't use. Because you never know when I scene might come in handy elsewhere. 

Reviewing Books:

Not going to write a review this week because I'm just under the 5-hour mark on finishing 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. I want to see how it ends before I put my thoughts into words on the screen.

I used my 2 credits from Audible to get John Dies at the End by David Wong, and The Rook by Daniel O'Malley. Chris Samson recommended John Dies to me. Though I forget if he said to read the book first or see the movie. I remember him saying that the two complemented each other.

The main character of The Rook is a woman who is a high-level operative of a secret clandestine agency that protects the world from supernatural threats. My hope is that she is an example of a strong female character that I can hopeful gain insight from. We'll see. Dan O'Malley's only written one book according to Amazon and he may very well be as bad at writing woman as I am. But he's published and I'm not so he's probably doing something right.

Look alive, Sunshine.

The editing and revision process of the "Dream" story is going very well. Considering the sheer amount of work that is need to turn the 1st Draft into something ready for prime time, my awesome beta readers are more like alpha readers with what they've had to deal with.

They've been kicking my ass though and that's a good thing. When this is all over I think I'm going to have to 'make [them] a cake or something'. Perhaps subscribe them all to Omaha Steaks.

Since I discover while I write the 1st Draft, I basically told myself the story. The  plot comes out in an out-of-order way, characters are either really well thought out or cardboard cutouts, and settings are either over or under developed. But by the end I have a better idea of the story then I did before this all began.

I kinda feel that the revision process is where the most grueling work begins. Writing a story is easy, presenting it in a way that doesn't sound like the ramblings of a lunatic is hard.

To give you an idea of how it's going. In the 1st Draft, Chapter 1 was 2,803 words. In the revision it is just under 4000 words. That was the result of listening to my beta readers and establishing plot points right at the beginning that weren't fully realized until much later in the writing of the 1st Draft.

I always knew this story would be a series. By this point I know that it will probably end up being 3 books. Together the series will resemble a 3 Act play...or the original Star Wars movies. 

Finally, I resubscribed to Audible. I've never been a fast reader but I greatly enjoy books. Might as well listen to them. With my 1st two credits I got "Ready Player One" and "Snow Crash".

RP1 got good about halfway through, after the author stopped 'telling' me what his story is about, instead of showing me scenes and character interactions.

And maybe casting Wil Wheaton as the voice of the novel was ultimately not the best choice. I'd like to think he'd be a pretty cool guy to hang out with, but he's typecast as somewhat of a conceited prick. Again, he's probably cool in real life, but seriously, he 'sounds' like a high and mighty douche-bag. So when he, as the voice of the narrator-protagonist bestows upon me the virtues of the nihilistic mindset of Internet subcultures, popular in the comment section of Gawker, and splattered across the walls of Reddit, it comes across as sounding preachy. And, staying true to form, any opposing viewpoint is instantly dismissed by the hive-mind by labeling it: Bullshit.

To me this flaw in the book relates back to 'show' vs 'tell'. I, the reader was being told how it is. Period. Were I shown the culture of this polluted dystopian society on the edge of annihilation, where a 3D graphically intensive virtual reality version of the Internet is somehow able to run on solar energy, maybe just maybe I wouldn't have felt as though the author had an agenda. (On a side note, I wonder how much electricity is required to run just one of Google's data-centers, and could it run consistently on solar power?).

Maybe I'm reading too much into it. Again, it wasn't a lousy book. The story, once it got going was good. By the end I really felt for the characters. Setting the scene needed work. And I feel that I can say this because it's what needs the most work in my owe story.

Snow Crash, on the other hand was awesome for 99% of the book. I felt the ending was too sudden. Where the ending worked was that it was very open-ended. I, the reader had the responsibility to determine what happened next, who lived and who died. This was fine. I don't know how I'd have ended it. But it felt incomplete to me, from the final line of the story to the sound of a different narrator informing me that, "This has been an Audible Production of, Snow Crash, but Neil Stephenson..." I was like, "That's it!" and then after a moment I thought, "well, OK, it works."

And today I began 1Q84 which is over 40 hours long! You would do well to expect another book review from me, 40+ hours from now, staggered between commutes to and from work.  

The Forest for the Trees

A while back I came to the conclusion that if I'm spending time reading books about writing when I could be writing, then I'm doing something wrong. Yes, the information in these books are important, and the successful authors who write these kinds of books are doing so in a way to give back and to inspire a new generation of writes. I get it. But I think it can be very easy for the unproven writer to do nothing but merely study the craft, never putting what they learn into practice. 

I don't know. For me, so much of what I do is discovery and you can't discover anything until you go out and explore and take risks. Write! Write with no expectations. You're not going to discover the Lost Ark during every writing session. But relish in those moments when you make a major breakthrough, and except that a big part of exploration is getting from Point A to Point B. Even Indiana Jones had to get on a plane and fly for hours before reaching Nepal. 

I've made one exception to my stance on books about writing. I've almost finished reading "On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft" by Stephen King.

My rational is that if I'm going to read about writing, it might as well be from one who has clearly been successful at it. Plus, I like the way he writes. Plus, having read most of the book, I've discovered that the way I write, my process, is very similar to the way he does it. That's not me being egocentric. I was just as surprised to find out as you.

I don't want to go into a big thing about the little similarities I've found between writing style blah blah blah. It's there and I'm happy about it. That doesn't mean I also have the same writer work ethic, or self discipline as Mr. King. I could very well be a hack writer the same way Seth Macfarlane is a hack whatever-the-hell-he-does. 

In other news, I've begun to read and edit Draft 1 of my completed story. When I announced this on Facebook, I got a lot of Likes. I'm going to go ahead and assume that the Likes were because of the writing and not because I was at Buffalo Wild Wings drinking Long Island Ice Teas. It felt good to see the support, you have no idea just how thankful I am, seriously.  

I think I have the title, but I'm not going to share it just yet. I think I ALSO have the title and a rough idea for the next book in this series. Oddly enough the title I came up with is also the name of a song by U2. I'm going to start writing it out in longhand and making notes for this next story while I edit the current one. Not sure if I'll be putting any of it into the computer until the first project is done. But who knows. This whole process has to have room to change. 

I'll leave with this:

Strange Verses own Chris Samson and I hung out yesterday to do what all aspiring writers like to do: Eat Mexican and watch old episodes of The Critic. In between that time, we drank coffee at the local coffee shop and gave each other writing challenges. Each of us took a turn describing a setting in a very general sense. For example, one of mine was simply, "A Wake in a funeral home". From there, he and I wrote two very interpretations of that setting. His involved a futuristic UFC-style fighter who died due to his power-armor being too heavy for his body to carry. And mine was about a conspiracy where the closed casket at the wake was in fact empty and the spouse/girlfriend of the diseased was tormented at the thought of who besides she knew about it. Two very different ideas formed from the same setting.

The First Draft is DONE!

20 minutes ago I finished the first draft of a story I've been writing since around the time I started this blog. 2 months ago I began taking the writing seriously. How seriously? This could turn into a career someday seriously. Writing over 2,000 words each day, 7 days a week seriously. Spending the entire day, not just when I'm writing, thinking about the story, seriously.

The editing process will begin soon, after I've had some time to rest.

Once all the rough edges have been smoothed over and it's polished and shined up all nice and pretty, I will be releasing the story into the world. Hopefully others will like it as much as I do. We'll see. Still a long way from publication, but I'm a lot further than I've ever been before.

Researching Settings in the Desert

What began as research on a new character turned into an all day binge researching session on a somewhat major setting in the story. This setting has only been referred to by other characters, but the reader has not been there yet.

I guess this place is different from other settings in the story because it is based on a real location in the real world, while everywhere else is made up.

I spent the day on Google Earth and the Internet, lost somewhere in the Nevada wilderness. I was looking into the Nevada National Security Site (N2S2). There's a huge facility out there and this was one of the main locations where they tested nuclear weapons back in the '60s. I really wanted to keep true to what is actually out there because I think it makes for a stronger story. Anyone can conjure up a secret lair in the heart of an active volcano. But if that lair were built on the foundation (both literal and figurative), of an actual mountain used to store nuclear waste, it makes for a much more compelling setting, in my humble opinion. 

I've been marking up Google Earth with various pushpins and paths, trying to put together not just a base of operations, but a very large section of map that will be used both now and it future stories in this particular series. There's a lot of ground to cover and I almost wish Google Earth had more friendly tools for doodling all over their maps. A desert wilderness in Nevada might appear flat in boring. But when you add the nuclear mountain repository, research facilities, test sites,  airfields, army bases, Area 51, and a closed town built specifically to house the government employees and their families, you end up with a story in and of itself.

"They're waiting for you Gordon...In the test chamber."

The Christmas Ninja

This will either be a new Christmas tradition or a short lived fad. 

There can be only one... 

Stalking the Christmas loot.  

Facing his greatest challenge. 

Hiding in plain sight. 

Editing Made Easy with RD Client

I've started editing my 'short' story and I've come up with a very comfortable means of doing this. I've made a point not to chain myself to my desk for the editing . I really want to keep this stage in the writing process about cleaning up embarrassing spelling and grammatical errors, and less about rewrites. I really want a very clean first draft to start revisions from and since I've not finished the story yet, I cannot consider these initial revisions part of a new draft. Not being at a desk, with a keyboard keeps me from rewriting when I should be writing. 

How I've achieved this is using my iPad and a little app made by Micro$oft called RD Client, which is available on the iTunes and GooglePlay store. RD Client turns your tablet into a Windows Desktop. But it's not just any Windows Desktop. This is YOUR Windows Desktop. Interacting with the desktop from your tablet is very responsive because RD Client only works within your home network and does not need to travel outside the network in the way similar products like TeamViewer have to in order to authenticate.

The experience is access to my entire personal computer, which means I have access to the full version of M$ Word instead of a dumb'd-down 'tablet' version. I am able to edit my work while sprawled out on the couch. The onscreen keyboard allows me to make corrections, additions or subtractions, but is cumbersome enough to discourage me from rewriting entire sections of work. It can be done however, and I've already found that I have added entire paragraphs using just the onscreen keyboard. But it is still a bit too awkward to do any substantial, long-term work. If I connected a Bluetooth keyboard that may be a different story and I may end up doing that for a writing session in the very near future. But it's really working great for this editing/first-read-through process. 

Setting this up is also very simple:

1. Make sure your tablet is connected to your home network.

2. Make sure your Home PC is ON (duh!)

3. On your Home PC, go to the Start Menu and Right-Click Computer

4. Locate where it says Computer Name: , and write down the name of your computer. Chances are it says something generic and dumb like "Owner-PC". Maybe now would be a good time to make your computer less dumb and change the name to something awesome like SHUTtheFKUPDONNIE, or IWRITEBKS4LULZ.

4.5. If you get an error trying to connect by the Computer Name, you'll have to use an IP address. To do this, go to the Start Menu and in the box that says Search for programs and files type cmd and hit ENTER. In the black box type ipconfig and hit ENTER. Write down the string of numbers to the right of IPv4. This is your IP address and 2 examples of what it should look like are: 192.168.0.10 or 10.0.0.5 They are always 4 groups of numbers separated by periods (.)

5. On your tablet, open the RD Client app and select New Remote Desktop.

6. Under Connection Name, type a name for your computer. This is handy if, like me, you have a lot of different computers to keep track of. This name can be anything. You can call it something like Home Desktop, or Home Laptop, or even just a bunch of nonsense so long as you know what computer your accessing.

7. Under PC name, you are going to want to type the actual name of your computer described in Step 4. So go ahead and type in "Owner-PC" ;-p

7.5 Again, if you're getting an error connecting, go back to Step 4.5, get the IP address and then type it in, in replace of the Computer Name.

8. Under User Name type the Username and Password you use to log into your home PC. If you don't use a username and password to login to your PC,  then I see you like to live dangerously. I'm not sure if leaving this field blank will work. Windows has a fetish for security. You may need to secure your computer if you're getting errors connecting.

9. Ignore Gateway, hit Save, and then tap your newly created Computer entry to connect. If you get a Certificate Error, simply click Always Allow. If you can't connect, check your firewall or call tech support. Leave a comment below and I may be able to walk you through it. 

Enjoy

An Age Old Excuse

Everyone will say that their reason for not doing something, or for something that usually happens not happening, has something to do with the time of year. The Holiday Season is a great scapegoat for justified slackery.

And I for one embrace this useful excuse for why I haven't written or blogged as regularly as I'd have liked.

In all honesty, with Thanksgiving happening so late, Christmas 2013 has unexpectedly fallen upon me in the same way that the tsunami fell on Tea Leoni and her dad in the movie 'Deep Impact.' The only difference being, I'm not dead...but I still have a great deal of Christmas shopping to do, so I think we can all agree that Tea Leoni came out the winner in all this.

I've discovered that I'm the type of person who will avoid things that I do not understand until I absolutely can't avoid it any longer. Somehow I push through it, it all gets done despite it not happening in a timely manner. I think I'm there right now with the story. Right now the antagonist is this abstract idea. It's not tangible. The "villain" is very 2-dimensional. Right now he pretty much sucks at this job of being a villain. I keep going back to this idea that maybe his lack of substance is the point. Maybe he is supposed to be this obvious 2D antagonist in order to distract the protagonists and the reader from the true antagonist. Right now I have a puppet, and I'm toying with the idea of keeping him that way or killing it all together. 

Two new characters entered from stage-left. One is big and the other is tiny.

I have a Christmas party to go to tonight and I'd like to be able to say in a somewhat bragging tone, that I spent the day writing and that I've really begun to shape the story. Not sure if that'll happen yet but we shall see. 

Celebrate Turkey-Day the Ravishing Way!

No, you didn't mis-click and end up on my brother's blog. (That's 2 endorsements, bro).

Growing up, Thanksgiving was the holiday spent with uncles, aunts, and cousins. There was typically a lot of yelling and tears, that mostly happened prior to our arrival of their house. I didn't -not- like spending time with the extended family, but the years spent much later, when Thanksgiving was just with the immediate family were so much easier and fun, partly because we didn't have to drive anywhere.

So my fondest childhood memory of Thanksgiving had to have been the WWF Survivor Series from 1989. It was mine and my brother's first major Pro Wrestling event. It also happened the evening of Thanksgiving, so after the spectacle that was Thanksgiving dinner, we had a good 2 solid hours of wrestling entertainment. I'll let my bro tell you all about the wrestling event. As for me, I'll talk more about what I'm thankful for.

I'm thankful for:

1. My wife. Because it goes without saying that she's awesome. She makes me coffee when I ask, and she has a sense of humor that's both unique and a bit evil that syncs up nicely with my own. She also is my number 1 fan and support when it comes to writing. She doesn't let me get away without it and for that I'm most thankful for.

2. My job. It's nice to have one. It's also nice to have a job with benefits that didn't get canceled on me. So not only is it simply a job, but it's a damn good job that made sure the help stayed happy. Having been unemployed and knowing what a lack of job security feels like, it's really great to have some form a stability in these crazy-stupid times.

3. My family. This includes the mom and dad, the sister and brothers. But it also extends to The Wife's folks and fam as well. In spite of the reality television and family drama, which no family is exempt from, we all somehow manage to get along.

4. My friends. We don't see each other all the time, but I know that they're a text or phone call away. There are the friends I've had forever and the new friends I've met through work. You guys are great.

These sort of "I'm thankful for" posts always feel a bit stale for me. I'm mean, what am I supposed to say: I'm not thankful for my family, or, I'm thankful for my iPhone and headphones? That might be both creepy and funny but in the end, it's kinda sad. If that's what you're into, go watch some Real Housewives or read a supermarket tabloid.

It's good take a minute, at least once a year to put things into perspective though. Were it not for my family, I'd probably be homeless right now. And having no friends would probably speak volumes to who I am as a person. The term, "basement dweller" comes to mind. I'm thankful for not being a basement dweller despite my predisposition towards IT and computers. And speaking of computers, I'm so very, deeply, utterly, profoundly, and ultimately thankful that I do not work in retail anymore. It's nice having a job in a field that is based on a skill that the 'common man' does not possess. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I have the nuke codes or anything. But it's surprising what I know compared to what the 'average joe' knows. It's kinda like how I don't know squat about building a house, but my father-in-law could probably do it from start to finish in a weekend...maybe a long weekend.

And lastly, you have to be thankful for your wife...unless you're the one who is the wife in which case you're probably married to a dude...or a wife if that's your thing. I don't judge. Regardless, your significant other has got to be the most important person in your world. I'm thankful that she and I didn't meet over the Internet and that she was never brought up on charges of possession of a weapon of mass destruction. I'm also thankful that we're still together despite a bumpy first few years of marriage. If needed, she'd probably drop everything for me, were I in trouble. I'd probably do the same for her. I like to think so anyway. She also keeps me honest. In real life I'm a terrible liar. But I'm really good at lying to myself. She keeps me in check and I need that.

Anyway, I'm done being thankful for stuff. I haven't had a single piece of turkey yet but I have had a relaxing morning which is something I am also thankful for. I like a good morning to ease into. I'm armed with coffee and have spewed enough words on the screen to start writing make-believe things.

Happy Thanksgiving

Kids these days have it easy

If you're 30+ you'll know what I'm talking about. Anyone 20 and under will probably start scratching their heads in confusion while wandering into their local bookstore's anime/manga section to peruse the mountains upon mountains of available titles from the cute, to the demonic to the disturbing, and everything else in between. Kids today do not realize how easy they have it. They can trip over manga. It's completely embedded into our culture.

It wasn't so easy for the 30+ anime/manga fan when we were kids. For anime, you had to know a guy. Some would put this person on the same level as drug dealer as far as the logistics for acquiring said titles. This guy for me was an unusually tall mix between heavy-metal rocker and alternative music junkie who always wore black combat boots and a matching black trench coat. And he had everything! And it was all on VHS! This was a time that predates CD burners being the standard in all new computers. This guy had an entire dresser filled with VHS copies of titles he had received from his overseas supplier in Japan. (At least that was what I was told between playing a Japan-only version of Tekken on his modded Playstation). And he had the titles we all knew and had probably seen though they were interrupted by commercials, censored, and poorly dubbed because we first watched them on the Sci-Fi Channel's "Saturday Anime": For the longest time I didn't realize Ninja Scroll had an implied rape scene, and Vampire Hunter D had brief full-frontal.

But it was the manga that was not only impossible to find, but if you didn't know Japanese you were pretty much shit-out-of-luck on understanding the plot. The manga section at your local B&N did not exist back-in-the-day. Many may wonder what they did with all that empty space. I suspect that the space was used for CDs, which at the time were packaged in large rectangular plastic or cardboard security cases in order to discourage would-be thieves from pocketing the goods. But needless to say, in the US, manga was whispered about being this thing that everyone, young and old, professional and homeless had access to in Japan.

In walks, Ben Dunn and everything changes. Ben Dunn has become synonymous with American Manga. Here's a guy who cut out the supplier, (Japan)  from the equation. He was creating the manga style and it was also in English designed specifically for an American audience. The uncouth may look at the title Ben is most known for, "Ninja High School" and proclaim that it's a comic about Ninja's and Aliens, and there's this normal dude who the audience is supposed to relate to, and there's something going on with the power of steam. But what they fail to see is that Ninja High School contained remarkable parody, humor, and pop-culture references from both American and Japanese culture. Who can forget the Chef of the North Star, the controversial Archie parody, or iconic characters from popular movies/tv drawn into frames, often simply lurking in the background (Tom Servo, I'm looking at you). Those are three examples. I know there are more but I haven't read through the original run in quite a while. I'm sure now that I'm older and hopefully wiser, I'll get a lot more of the references.

Obviously I'm writing once again about Ben Dunn and Ninja High School to help promote Ben's Kickstarter that is now in it's final days. This will be the last of these for a while. What you have to understand is that as a kid, Ninja High School was comic books for me, and Ben Dunn might as well have been Stan Lee. I wasn't really into the super hero genre. Even now I'll occasionally read a Batman book. And being only in middle school at the time, I wasn't allowed to read anything from DC's Vertigo line. (Laugh all you want. I had parents). NHS was both entertaining and it was drawn to be provocative without being pornographic. It was an important part of my childhood and it's still important.

It's also pretty clear that I like complaining like a curmudgeon about how incredibly easy these pesky kids have it these days.

Now get off my lawn!