Feline Masters

There are many reasons why I prefer cats over dogs. Many many reasons. Today's reason is because their genius knows no limit. We have three cats, an old man and a brother and sister we adopted a year and a half ago. The young boy fancies himself the king of the jungle and regularly mauls a string I run in circles for him.

Alas, I was unavailable yesterday and his sister wanted to play too. So the young buck (heretofore known as Wolfgang) took his string in mouth, hopped up on the kitchen table, and dangled it over the side. The young lass (heretofore known as Jitterbug) then proceeded to play string with him, no humans involved.

This level of complex thought staggers me. Truly they will rule the world some day.

A Tree is Just a Tree

Way back when, I meant to pursue a career in the United States military. At first I thought the navy and then found my place with the army. I was in an ROTC program, but because I had not started from the beginning, I was required to go to Camp Challenge (or basic camp). It's like boot camp but shorter and not as unpleasant depending your drill sergeants (my DIs did not hold to that latter fact and gave it to us as much as they could--still easier than trainees, but we lost a few people to medical because of hernias and the like).

Anyway, when I came home, I was unnerved by the changes. I loved nature. I loved going out to parks and climbing a tree and just basking in its wonder. But when I came home, trees and roads and become lines of fire and ambush zones and it all proved very difficult to unhook from.

I'm reminded of this because I've been pursuing publication for two years now (my first query was sent September 2009). And I draw closer to my goal, it's been harder to disassociate from that slog and just...be. I am competitive and like to win. No one likes to have the race end right before they get to the finish line. But that has required an emotional tax that is sometimes hard to pay. I am a writer is always followed by "Have you written anything I've heard of" and "Wow you must be rich" neither of which I can affirm.

Sometimes I feel that disconnection where I'm walking through the forest but the trees aren't trees and the roads aren't roads. Twitter isn't twitter and word counts aren't word counts. They're objectives and goals and requirements and all part of this grand social puppet show I've thrown myself into.

Today I'm feeling particularly zen. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it was the delicious chicken chili I just had. Either way, today I see the trees for trees. I enjoy writing. I enjoy what I write. And while yes I do want an agent and to be professionally published, it's enough that I enjoy what I do.

Strangely, all the self-doubt and worry about not being good enough lessens when you're not so concerned with being published. If you're not obsessing about whether they love you, it's much easier to love yourself.

Toof Fairy

Someone tell me if this has already been made into a horror movie. It sounds familiar. A friend suggested a story idea while we were goofing around, but it's one that's really stuck with me. The tooth fairy takes kids teeth because there's a bit of youth stuck to the tooth that the fairy can extract, ensuring it lives forever.

Is that a movie? It seems so simple that I figure someone else has to have thought of it. If not..DIBS! ;)

Bravado

The scenes I have the most trouble writing are men posturing. I blame fantasy for this. It is one of the most used scenes in classic fantasy when two alpha males begin barking at each other and bumping chests. It also reads like the stereotypical nerd living in his parents' basement writing the hero he wishes he was taking revenge on the people that picked on him in school.

I don't live in anyone's basement, and none of my characters are representative of a person I wish I was (or think I am). They are their own selves. Chest thumping is what stalled THE 7TH SACRIFICE for the second time and I wrote another such scene this morning in my current wip. It's a necessary tension in the plot and will factor in later, but...

...but I don't like posturing. At all. It feels juvenile. Worse, it feels amateurish. I am the hero and I'm a badass therefore I am better than everyone. Did you smudge my pumas? I will have satisfaction, sir! Throw wine in face, punch to the stomach, draw swords, epic duel. Honor maintained.

What? Dude. Chill out. No grown adult is as quick to temper as a fantasy hero is. You don't need to browbeat everyone into supplication. If you're confident and skilled, your own regard is all that matters. Let the guy scuff your pumas. Throw an urchin a copper piece for a quick polish and be on your merry.

It's incredibly difficult to write because no matter how I approach it, I don't like that kind of thing, so I'll never think I've done good enough. I'll leave it there for now, but who knows whether it'll even survive my second draft.

A Self-(pub)-Study

Joseph Garrety spent the last month reading only self-published work. He blogged about his findings. I think this is a very good assessment and doesn't show a bias one way or the other. (Though I expect I would be far less forgiving on the lack of quality. I am equally harsh with traditionally published works as well.)

It's a Start

Thanks to Ted Cross and Liz Poole for pointing out that it wasn't just people not being able to find comments but that comments weren't working. Seems there was a change in Blogger's comment form since this template was made that prevented comments from working. That has been fixed.

What hasn't been fixed is adding a link to the front page. JavaScript is my weakest popular programming language so I'm still working on which expression to modify. (Similarly, I don't like author names displaying after their comments, but my fixes for that aren't working, which sucks.)

I'm at work and can't devote too much time to fixing this, but wanted to get things operational. While I wouldn't necessarily expect you to go out and learn JavaScript, I strongly recommend you all learn at least basic HTML. You will all have blogs and/or websites and you should not be imprisoned by your own technology. You shouldn't have to hire someone or beg for help every time you want to make a tweak or add on a little something here or there.

It may seem overwhelming, but go to W3 Schools and browse around their instructions on programming languages, specifically HTML. You'll pick up the fundamentals. Remember, you are the master of your fate. And that means you're the master of your blog too. Don't let the machines keep you down!

How to Comment

So this new template I'm using doesn't put the comment link on the front page. You have to click on 0 Comments and then click on comment. I will fix it when I have some free time. I notice that I've received NO comments since I made the switch. Thing is, other than that and a few other minor quibbles, I like this template, so I'm going to stick with it. So if you don't mind, in the short term, taking the extra step to comment. I miss hearing from my peoples. :'(

Oh, you're a writer?

I stopped telling people I write fantasy unless they directly ask what I write. Even then, they get that masked look on their face like they're trying their damndest to hide their disdain. That or they had a sudden bout of diarrhea they were fending off.

Any more, really, I don't like telling people I'm a writer at all. Unless I'm around other writers (and even then the dick measuring can be tiresome). The first thing people ask is whether you've written something they've read. No, because it hasn't been published yet. Then how are you a writer? Well, sir, that is an oft discussed topic and one I do not care to repeat with someone who doesn't really care but is only making small talk.

What I don't mind telling them is that I work for a publisher. I do and have been in the industry for 8+ years now. I know my craft well. BUT the first thing I have to stipulate is that I'm not in acquisitions because the first thing people say when you tell them you work for a publisher is that they have a book idea.

It's always an idea too, never a book. "I have this book I've been trying to get published." If only. "I have this idea. Maybe I could give it to you and someone could write it." Yeah, you've read plenty of other posts that properly enumerates our disdain for such comments. I won't repeat them here.

BUT, last week, I got the comments to beat all comments. There is a crazy guy that comes into Jackie's that they've dubbed El Grosso. Once he leaves, they put on rubber gloves and clean his spot at the counter, his chair, and everything near where he sat. He doesn't look crazy when he first comes in, but once he sits for a bit, he starts...leaking. Dirty tissues every, a pool of syrup on the plate the ducks could swim on, and so many other nasties that I won't bother telling you about because really, his name tells you all you need to know.

Well he asks me a question the other day. It's a closed question. Question. Answer. I know it. I tell it to him. I don't extrapolate but return to my book. Speaking to him, however, turns out to be the only invitation he needed. And now we're off to the races! Oh I work in publishing? Yes but not in acquisitions. I have a book idea. Of course you do. I work in educational publishing. We do textbooks. Oh, it could be a textbook. You'll certainly learn something if you read it. You'll learn about life!

They have that class in college? I don't think it was offered at my school.

So I have this book idea, but I'm just too lazy to write it. (At least he's honest.) You could publish it (the idea or the book? I don't think anyone will buy a printed idea). You work in Boston. I'd like to go to Boston. It would be a lot better than here. I thought about going to Oxford and giving them my book. They're smart over there. But you're here, so I'll let you publish it if you want.

I don't publish. I build the media that goes along with the textbooks. Websites, ebooks, that kind of thing.

But you know someone. Not really. You gotta know someone. I should just go over to Oxford. I could study there. Learn a lot of stuff.

Listen. You're a writer. Do you know any good universities in Las Vegas?


And I swear, not a thing of that is made up.

A Double! (The War Makers)

Man, I'm not having the best luck with names today. Discussing whether it's okay to be happy about the death of Osama Bin Laden (short answer: yes, yes it is), I had an idea for another story. Not sure if it would be novel length. Maybe short story or novella. I think there's more than than a short story.

Anyway, so general concept, five war mongers, bankers or what have you, vying control of a central McGuffin. It's a great international chess game with armies rather than pawns. Two main characters, the generals of the armies that will battle until only two are left. In the end, they meet before their armies clash and agree that rather than they and their men dying, they should simply kill the war makers, each giving free passage to the other (as they could not trust each other to kill their own).

Not sure if it won't be too hokey, but I like the idea of it. It speaks to me about our efforts to pursue and destroy those people that make war against us.

The Invisibles

I stayed up late last night, so I think I've mentioned a little of this before but I will start from the beginning so I can organize these ideas for later reference.

Up the street from where I lived, there was a small utility company office. This is strange in that AmerenUE has a monopoly and it wasn't an Ameren office. It took me years to hear the name and I never did confirm it was what it said it was. It did not have a sign or anything. All it had was a sculpture on its front lawn. A concrete lightning bolt.

It took me a few years before I even noticed it was there. I don't know how many times I had driven up Watson to Hampton and on up to the interstate. It was one of my three main routes around the city. So I was astonished when one day I was walking rather than driving and there was a lightning bolt on someone's lawn.

It reminded me of the kind of lightning bolt you'd see on a comics superhero, a yellow bolt in a black circle or something. And I thought to myself, how interesting would it be if that was a headquarters for a super group and they put a sign right out front because it was a place of business but no one questioned it. We just move on past without thinking about it.

Now I'm in New England. I work on the west side of downtown just before Back Bay in Boston (sw corner of Boston Common). If you walk toward Back Bay, the pike and Tremont move at an angle askew to the normal urban grid, which causes one street to seem more like an alley because it doesn't really go anywhere. It just has a triangular building that reminds me of a rundown, brick version of the Flatiron building. This building has a defunct Italian joint, a Mexican restaurant, and a biomedical supply company (or so they claim!). The doors to the biomedical side of the building are all wooden with black iron bands. They have gargoyle head, iron-ring handles with a stone gargoyle over the door. If Doctor Strange was ever to have a headquarters, this would be the place!

AND THEN! I find out in Boston's North End, there is Henchman Street. I swear to god, that's a real street. Henchman Street!

This only stokes the fire of my imagination of a whole hero/villain panoply hidden in plain sight. I've been wanting to do this for awhile (since the lightning bolt) but I keep writing Hellboy. I need something fresh. I think this will work better as a graphic novel. The visuals of seeing these places out in the open will communicate better.

I thought of a title this morning, "The Invisibles," which unfortunately is the title of a comic that Vertigo ran from 1994 to 2000 (even though the stories are nothing alike). Granted, titles can be reused, but that's not always a classy way to go. And since I don't even have a story yet, it's nothing I need to sweat.

It'll be fun if I ever get to do it, though.

Better Late than Never?

I have SO many thoughts going through my head, some of them articulate, some of them...not. I remember where I was, what I said, what I thought when the towers fell. When we went to war. When we diverted personnel to a second war that would take the life of someone I care about. And now all these years later and the deed is finally done. There are many different posts I might write about the death of Osama Bin Laden, each of them with its own meaning and relevance to me. But now that my initial jubilation has tempered itself, I am struck by one resounding thought that seems more relevant than all the other things I could write.

Burn in hell, motherfucker.

God's (Book) Country

So I've had two really good posts all week but I've been so busy at work. In my off hours, I've been spending time at Book Country. It's a place for authors, aspiring and successful, to gather and share and critique. It reminds me of Authonomy without the used-car mentality or critique.org with less strict tit-for-tat rules. Or Critters (or at least what I've seen of Critters since my application went unanswered). It's in open beta right now which means there's still plenty of room for improvement. But they have a healthy attitude and a positive community approach. So far I'm enjoying myself.

Speak More

The first novel I ever finished is titled BLACK MAGIC AND BARBECUE SAUCE. While it needs some tweaking, I still enjoy it. I actually read a few chapters a month or so back because I was in that type of mood. I posted chapter 2 (which should be chapter 1) to Liz Poole's 50-follower blogfest. Of the people that read this blog now, only LurkerWithout has read the entire story. Much like THE TRIAD SOCIETY, I have avoided writing a sequel because the first was never published (though it did receive a full request). This is also the novel that got compared to Percy Jackson, which upsets me even a year later since the two only have two things in common, that Greek gods are somehow involved in some way somehow in the plot and that they're both written in English.

I was watching the new "Clash of the Titans" movie with incredibly low expectations. The production value was surprisingly good. They put a lot into effects, setting, and makeup. Even the actors involved pull down some serious dollars. Too bad the writing wasn't up to snuff. It got me thinking, though. I had been asked for a sequel to the story for some time. I had a ghost story in mind, but really it was weak tea. Maybe a short story¹. But then I'm watching this movie and I start wondering if the fates show up, the Moirae, the three women with golden sheers who apportion a person's thread of life.

Then I started thinking of a woman in a dingy New York high rise sitting at a typewriter, chain smoking and guzzling bourbon. Ham up all the classic stereotypes. Except she's not a wannabe writer. She's a Moirae (whose name is Moira). BEST SELLERS AND BARBECUE SAUCE.

No plot yet, but there's a seed there. I think I'll plant it and let it grow.


¹ Which, funny enough, is how BLACK MAGIC AND BARBECUE SAUCE was first born.