Sort of resolutions for 2015?

Here are a few things I decided a long time ago that made my life easier. Maybe it'll help you, too. I didn't make this list for New Years but I suppose you could use these as resolutions, if you want.

• Answer the question that is asked.

When someone asks you a question, listen to it. I've wasted more time trying to get someone to actually answer the question I asked, instead of the question that they thought I asked.

• Don't argue

You can disagree, but once voices get raised the connection between people's ears and their brains gets cut off. Nobody is listening anymore.

• Understand that choices are choices

For example, if someone is prochoice, this does not mean that he or she thinks abortions should be mandatory. It just means that the option should be available if someone wants to use it. Likewise, saying "Black lives matter" doesn't mean that other lives don't. Saying otherwise is just a way of side-stepping the issue and provoking an argument where nothing gets settled. (See second bullet point, above.)

• Don't interrupt

Let whoever you're talking with finish his or her thought. Guys, this one is aimed at you in particular--studies show that men interrupt women much more often during conversation, even women who have a position of authority over them. This has to stop. Really.

• Listen!

Dammit! Really!

• If it doesn't make any sense or if it's outrageous assume maybe you misunderstood

At least to start with. Maybe you missed part of the conversation, or don't know the full context. Before you fly off the handle, make sure that you have a good reason for doing so. Also, see previous bullet point.

• Allowing people to live their lives like they want is a good thing

If it were up to me, there wouldn't be any churches, or religions. I think they do more harm than good. Likewise, there would be no country music, because I loathe that crap. But it's not up to me. However, I'm free not to go to church, and not to listen to music that makes me incredibly cranky or, at best, bores the hell out of me. If you love country music, or if you find comfort in your religion, that's a good thing for you, but it won't necessarily be a good thing for everyone. I'm perfectly content letting you live your life as you see fit. Let me live mine like I want, as well.

• If you can do it it's only fair that everyone can

Really. Why should you be allowed to vote, get married, own property, or whatever, but other people can't? Doesn't that sort of undermine one of the fundamental principles of democracy? I'm no expert, but it sure seems to.

• Enjoy it while you have it

You don't know when it could all come to an end. If you have something in your life that gives you pleasure, enjoy the hell out of it. You never know what tomorrow holds.


Okay, I'm shutting up now. Have a happy and safe 2015!

Post holiday randomocity 2014

So, my xmas was quite lovely. Opened a gift from my best friend and my goddaughter which turned out to be an awesome Lovecraft/Dr. Seuss mashup tee shirt. People know me entirely too well.


Also spent some time going through The Sorcerer's Daughter and creating the synopsis. It wound up at eight pages--which is too long. No need to panic, though--I'm going through and cutting and editing over the next few weeks to get it down to no more than four pages. That's why I started working on it now, so I'll have plenty of time to get it right.


I'm still happy with it, too. There are one or two places where I took a bit of a chance, doing something that people may not get, but I think overall it works. I still love the ending. Hopefully, I won't be the only one.


I got myself a basic watercolor kit, too, and I've been using it to paint a still life today. So far it's okay. You can tell I don't know what I'm doing. But that's fine. I'm enjoying playing around with it, and it doesn't look bad, just a bit amateurish. Which fits, because I am most definitely an amateur.


I'm missing my goddaughter, and my best friend (who is my goddaughter's mother, if you didn't already know), who live on the West Coast. One day hopefully we'll all be together for the holidays. As it is, there is Skype and IMing, which is better than nothing.


Other than that it's been quite nice. Quiet, peaceful, and I've been able to focus on whatever I've decided I wanted to do.


One disappointment, and this is my own fault, is I haven't decided what I'm going to learn for the next year.


That's what I've been doing every year for the past few--I set myself some skill to learn, something difficult that will require some effort to master. Last year it was art, specifically sketching and painting. While I'll never be a professional artist I am far-and-away better at it than I was before I started. And I'm going to continue working on developing my skill, as long as I enjoy it.


I do this because I feel like it benefits me as a person. I strongly believe I can master pretty much any skill, as long as I devote time and effort towards it.


So, what's it going to be for 2015? I completely forgot to think about it, so I don't know yet. I've thought about learning another language. But which one? Spanish, maybe--lots of opportunities to use that. Mandarin or Cantonese? I think those are going to be useful languages to know in the coming years. French? Maybe. Or German, even.


Anyways, I'll ruminate on it a while and come up with something, I'm sure.


Have a happy post-holiday! What are your plans for the coming year?

Happy Solstice 2014 version

It's that time again. A convergence of around 40 celebrations from various religions and traditions from all over the world.


I've never been a big fan of the holidays. It's actually for personal reasons that don't have anything to do with the religious aspects of the season--even though I think those are pretty stupid.


It's nice to have a couple days off, though, and have hours and hours of football to watch.


And, unlike a lot of other people I know, I don't really care if other people chose to celebrate whatever holiday tradition they want to celebrate. If you enjoy it, good! I'm happy for you! Now, let other people do their own things, as well.


In other words--Happy Holidays!

Status updates and watching football randomocity

In case either of you were wondering, here's what I've been up to lately:


Rereading The Sorcerer's Daughter, rewriting it, bringing it just a bit closer towards being ready to send off for a publisher to consider.


Writing "Unus" (the story I mentioned here previously). It's coming along, slowly. I'm in no hurry to finish it, since I really don't have anywhere to submit it when I'm done.


Painting, painting, painting . . . I'd upload a pic of my latest painting here but for some reason every time I try that it locks up my browser. Just as well.


Watching my Atlanta Falcons sink deeper and deeper into mediocrity. They're just a terrible football team. The fact that, at this moment, they are in first place in the NFC South is more a testament to how much the teams in the NFC South suck. And I don't expect them to remain in first place much longer.


Having technical issues left and right. Fought off a virus infection on my laptop the other day. It seems to be okay now. Of course, now that I've said something . . .


It looks like the first half of next year is going to be really busy--I've been told a film project I'm involved with will probably start heating up early in 2015. I'll be involved in rewrites on that, and I expect the notes from the others involved to be extensive.


And, as I said, I'll be hammering away on the manuscript for the novel. Even if I do place it with a publisher the editor I wind up working with will have notes that may require quite a bit more rewriting.


Part of the process. I fully expect any feedback I get to be useful and result in a better story, both on the script and on the novel.


The holidays are rapidly approaching--I almost let them slip up on me. Fortunately, I got my shopping done before it was too late. I have a very short list so it didn't take very long.


That's pretty much it, for me. Lots of stuff on the horizon, not a lot going on at the moment. I know you were wondering.

And again the Muse speaks . . .

I've had yet another idea for a short story occur to me, just recently.


At least I'm hoping it's a short story. I'm still working on The Sorcerer's Daughter and I don't know if my poor old, abused subconscious has enough RAM to handle two works of that length at the same time.


This one, unlike the previous one I mentioned a couple weeks ago, is science fiction, which is something I'm much more comfortable with. It actually started with an idea I had a long time ago, something that was just a basic idea with no details that I hadn't been able to develop.


Well, it's developing now. I've got some context, a setting, a basic story, even an idea for an ending.


Still, I need to let it sit just a bit longer. It's not quite ready for me to start writing.


That's what happened to the previous thing I mentioned here the other day--it wasn't quite ready and I started on it anyway. What I've written on that story isn't bad, and I'll return to it one day, but my enthusiasm for that little project has sort of faded.


Anyway, that's what I'll be thinking about over this holiday--developing this story idea into an actual story.


Where am I on The Sorcerer's Daughter? Still waiting on notes from my first readers right now. I'm about to begin rereading it, after staying away from it for over a month. A few things have occurred to me in the interim, a few enhancements for the basic story, and I'm hoping since it's been a while since I've read it that I'll approach it with fresh eyes now. I've got a week off from work coming up and that's going to be one of the things I'm going to work on during that time.


I do have a title for this new short story, not that it'll tell you all that much. I'm calling it "Unus."


The rest of the plan for my own holiday? I got some lovely Chinese takeout in the fridge for lunch. There is a full slate of football--both professional and college--coming up, and, unlike previous Thanksgiving NFL games, the ones happening today actually have playoff ramifications


Football. Writing, Food. As good as it gets.

The 200th Supernatural

TV shows' casts and crews legitimately get excited when they reach their 200th episode.


It's rare and a worth celebrating. That's around ten years worth of shows, and most shows commemorate the occasion with a Very Special Episode. In many cases they introduce a major twist to the plot that changes the show forever, or they do a parody episode of their own show, or, in a couple of cases, they have an episode that, in the end, turns out to never have actually happened.


I've yet to see one of these that didn't turn out to be disappointing. They may have been fun but, in the end, they really didn't do all that much in service to the show. They turn out to be wastes of time.


However, I really liked Supernatural--the Musical, which was Supernatural's 200th.


I realize I'm probably in the minority here. There are many episodes of this show that I haven't seen yet, so I'm hardly a scholar. I know many people were disappointed that there was no Misha Collins or Mark Sheppard or any of the other regulars besides Sam and Dean.


To me, though, that was what made this episode so charming. It was a basic Supernatural episode--they discover a case, go to the area, get involved and eventually destroy the monster/demon/god/whatever. That the case involved a group of kids performing a musical based on the Supernatural books was the meta touch this episode needed.


I think, in the end, this is what made this episode work. Instead of going all fireworks, bells-and-whistles, major plot twists, etc., etc., they returned to their bread-and-butter, the basis for the show--Sam and Dean battling monsters. It would have been fun to see the other regulars, too, but they would really have cluttered everything up. It struck the right notes--true to the story and the characters but a little bit more fun with winks and nods towards the fans along the way.


So, I dug it. Just FYI.

Finally, the muse speaks . . .

An idea for a story occurred to me yesterday.


This is the first time in a long time I've had an idea for a story. My ideas are usually novels, or at least novellas. Or TV shows. Or feature films. Never anything shorter.


But this will be a short story, one that will start out looking like one thing but winding up as something else. If I do it right.


I'm still thinking it through, so revealing too many details would be kind of pointless right now, but it'll be heavy on the metaphor and allegory, I'm thinking.


Part of the inspiration came from reading this lovely book.  I recommend you click that link and get this one for yourself. While there really wasn't all that much in it that I didn't know already, it sort of articulated a lot of concepts that I've had floating around in my mind for a while.


It also helped me come up with a new way to generate ideas, and that is, coming up with a symbol or a metaphor that can be used to build a story around. I know a lot of writers use this but it had never occurred to me to use it myself before.


My idea for this thing is a failed rebirth. You see stories where a character emerges from water--rain, a fountain, a river, whatever--which marks an important point in the story where the character is reborn. It's like a baptism.


But what if you come out of the other side of being reborn as stillborn? What if you don't survive the journey?


That's what I'm going to construct this little story around. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to get it published, even if I don't manage to screw it up--stories like this don't have much of a market these days. I'm mostly doing this for myself, I guess. I'll have it in my back pocket in case I should get asked to provide something for an appropriate venue for this sort of thing.


And I'll still have this idea generating thing, too, that I'm sure I can use for years to come.

Dear Falcons

I'd like to start out by saying it's not you. It's me.


It's hard for me to say this, and I've been wrestling with this decision for weeks now, but I think today I've definitely made up my mind.


I think I'd like to follow another football team.


I need to follow another football team. I'm thinking the Jets. Not because they're a better team than you--in fact, they are probably one of the two or three teams in the NFL that is worse than you. No, it's because, while the Jets also suck, they do so in a way that is refreshing and entertaining.


Instead of sucking the way you do--predictably.


Hell, who am I kidding? It is you.


Today is a case-in-point, with the game in London against the Lions. A Lions team missing several key players, including their future Hall of Famer wide receiver, Calvin Hill. Yes, you jumped out to a 21-point lead in the first half.


Score at the end of the first half: Atlanta 21, Detroit 0.


I said predictable. How many points did you score in the second half?


Zero.


How many points did the Lions score in the second half?


Twenty-two.


If you need help with the math, here's the final score:


Atlanta 21, Detroit 22.


22 is one more point than 21. Which means you lose.


Your record now is 2-6. I'm thinking 2-14 is within reach.


That number on the left is the number of wins. That number on the right is the number of losses. Ideally you want the number on the left to be higher than the one on the right. The bigger difference between the two, the better. The other way around--the way it is now--is not good.


An NFL game is composed of two halves. That's why they're called "halves." No matter how well you do in the first one, you still need to come out and play in the second one, too.


Look, from what I'm seeing, it looks like all the passion in this relationship is one-sided. You just don't seem to care anymore.


Not only do you lose, you're boring.


So, I'll follow the Jets, or some other team. Sure, I'll still watch your games, but my heart won't be in it until I see where you've actually made real changes. Like doing what every other team in the NFL does that wins games occasionally--making adjustments at halftime, even when they have a lead.


Your lack of a pass rush is tremendously unattractive, and it's something you keep promising you'll address, and, somehow, that never happens.


I've followed you since you've existed. Almost a life-long commitment for me. But I keep seeing the same old crap from you, no matter who your owner is, no matter who your coaches are, no matter who your players are.


Same old crap. Every season.


So, I'll leave it up to you. If you want to salvage this relationship, you'll address this pass rush thing, seriously, for once, in a way that shows results. And you'll begin making adjustments at halftime instead of doing whatever it is you're doing now--smoking cigars and drinking tequila shooters, I'm guessing.


The ball is in your court, Falcons. Are we still a thing, or should I finally just give up on you and move on?

Sunday morning watching football randomocity

So, I'm sitting here watching my Atlanta Falcons play the Detroit Lions. Yes, the time stamp is correct--they're playing in England, so airtime for the game here in the States is 9 a.m.


At the moment the Falcons have the lead. I have an idea for a pretty funny posting for this blog when they lose again, so of course they'll win. Whatever they have to do to break my heart, they'll do.


Like most people I'm getting tired of the political ads. I am drawing some hope from the tone of the Republican attack ads--they're repeating the same tired old, and long since debunked lies that their base will believe no matter what. They sound desperate. Let's hope they have good reason to be desperate. It'd tickle me to no end to see Georgia turn blue after the midterms.


Speaking of elections, I took part in early voting. I wish there was a way I could opt out of having to endure all these stupid commercials for candidates now, since they're irrelevant to me. Oh, well.


I've been on vacation all week. For once I didn't have a particular goal I wanted to accomplish. I had some errands, but no definite projects I wanted to work on. It's been pretty glorious, to be honest.


Though I did make a start on the script for this pilot for this TV show idea I've had for a while. It's coming along pretty well so far. I can definitely work with what I've got on the page now, tweaking it to get the tone I'm looking for.


I'm waiting for my first readers to give me their notes on The Sorcerer's Daughter. I've heard from both of them that they are enjoying it so far, so that's heartening. I'm trying to resist doing another read-through until I hear from them. It'd be kind of pointless for me to do a rewrite before then. They're both extremely busy people so I'm just glad they're taking the time to do this for me.


And it's back to work for me tomorrow morning, after being off all week. That usually means my Monday morning will be crazy busy.  I guess that's a good thing, though.


Wow. The Lions still haven't scored on the Falcon's porous defense. Maybe they've got jet lag or something. I'm entirely sure it won't last.

Getting started on something new. Finally.

So, I finally feel like I can sit down and start on the pilot to this TV show thing I've been going on and on about.


Yeah, there are still a couple of technical issues that I haven't resolved, but to hell with those. I can either figure out a way around them, or make it so they're no longer issues.


All this while I'm waiting on the notes from my first readers for The Sorcerer's Daughter.


I think most writers, when they are at this point on a project, work on short stories and the like. My problem is I rarely have ideas for short stories--most of my ideas are for projects that will take a while, like a year or so. Short stories just aren't my thing.


Anyways, I'll start banging away on this later today. I'll also start plotting out the series arcs, character trajectories, and so forth. Writing the series bible, in other words.


By the tine I get the notes back on the novel I'll be at the point where I can then work on both projects at the same time.


I'll also be watching football. Lots and lots of football. Which is what I did yesterday, actually, all day long.


I'll be working on some painting, too. I still have a couple of photos from my recent trip to Chattanooga of those lovely flowers that were growing outside of the venue. I'm priming a canvas now for it, and I'll be moving from writing to painting back to writing most of the day I'm guessing.


All the while the football game playing in the background, providing a necessary distraction when one is needed.


This is as good as it gets.

Time to breathe . . .

I've now done three rewrites of The Sorcerer's Daughter.


I'm at the point where I need some outside opinions on it, so I've sent it to a good friend who is also a good editor for her to take a look. I'm also asking another old friend who is quite an excellent writer herself as well as someone with good very good taste to look it over. Haven't heard back from her yet---she may be too busy to help me out--but she's an excellent first reader so I hope she can.


In the meantime I need to set it aside and quit fiddling with it, until I get the notes back from my friends.


So, what do I do while I wait? Well, plan the next project!


I've got a very basic idea for something an old buddy of mine calls a "bitter homeboy novel." I'll be mulling that over, writing down some thoughts on it, maybe plotting it out.


There's also that pilot for a TV show that I keep droning on and on about. I need to get some work done on that, too. In fact, that'll probably take up most of my creative writing time until I need to resume working on The Sorcerer's Daughter.


It's hard, just letting it sit, but screwing around with it now, while I wait for input from my first readers, would be counter-productive. But sit it must, for now.


I'm taking a couple days off from work--in addition to the holiday--to sort of give myself a chance to breathe, think, mull over, make some decisions, take care of some business. And just relax, without stressing out about anything, for a while.


How am I celebrating Labor Day? Like I said--relaxing. Thinking pleasant thoughts. Maybe watch a few movies or something. I'm not planning on going anywhere, unless something really good turns up.


So, if you are celebrating Labor Day, what are your plans?

Post read-through randomocity

I finished the second rewrite of The Sorcerer's Daughter today.


I still think it's pretty good. I like the characters, and the ending, and I think the language I've used is effective and evocative. I think people will dig it.


Of course, I'm the worst judge of my own work. Hopefully, when I get someone else to read it, I'll get a more honest and detached assessment of its quality.


But that will have to wait a little while longer. I'm planning on spending all day tomorrow just reading it again, straight through, just to get an idea as to the pacing, the flow of the narrative. I won't be making any changes with this pass, though I'll be noting areas that need a little more work.


I did get some ideas for my next novel project, when I'm done with this one. It'll be sort of a coming-of-age psychological thriller. I've got all of the pieces I think I'll need for this one but I'm not sure yet how they'll all fit together.


No hurry, though. It's going to be a while before I can actually work on something else, and I do still have this TV show pilot that I want to write, too. So, I have plenty of time to plot this thing out.


It's been a very long week. I can't go into why, except to say it involves my day job and some frustrations I'm having there. I've got some time off scheduled next week, which I'm planning to devote to working on my manuscript and maybe the TV show project, and that'll give me a respite from all that crap, too.


It's nearly time for the NFL to get started again. I can't wait. Football, how I've missed you!


Oh, well. I'm rambling. But that's why it's called "randomocity."

Struggling to find the cheerful . . .

What a depressing week last week was.


Robin Williams dying, and then the situation in Ferguson, has made me sort of wonder what the point in everything is.


Robin Williams's suicide isn't a mystery to me--I wasn't surprised to learn about his struggles with depression and addiction. Having suffered most of my life with depression--and being hospitalized for it twice--I understand a bit what he was going through and how others around him didn't know about it.


And, for the record, here's my advice if you have someone in your life who suffers from depression. Commit to being there for him or her, or stay away. In other words, don't promise to be there if you don't mean it. Because once you make that promise, the person you made that promise to is going to expect you to be there when their world is at its darkest. If they call on you and you aren't there for them, that makes it much worse. As to what you should do if and when they call? Listen. Maybe they don't have anything to say, and maybe you don't know what to say, and that's fine. As long as they know you are there, and willing to listen, as long as there is that connection, that helps immeasurably. So, even if they call and there's nothing but silence on the line, as long as they know you are on the line, that'll help.


If, however, you promised to be there and they call on you and you just don't have time for them or don't feel like dealing with them, that will only make whatever they're going through that much worse. I can't stress that enough--if you don't think you can be there for that person, then don't make that promise.


As for what's going on in Ferguson, I can't even talk about it now. The authorities in that city provoked the whole thing and they keep making it worse. It seems like nobody in charge has any clue how to handle a volatile situation--it almost seems like they are deliberately trying to keep things stirred up there. It's like they asked experts in how to handle these types of things and did the opposite of what they were told. It's going to get a lot worse there over the next few days, and it'll all be so unnecessary.


I've spent the weekend working on my manuscript, painting, trying to stay inside my own little world for a while. I feel a bit better about things now, but we'll see how long that lasts, when I have to go back out into the world tomorrow.


As for The Sorcerer's Daughter,  I'm pretty happy with the progress I'm making with the rewrite. I'll be through it for the second time in the next couple of days. One or two more passes and I'll be ready to send it to a friend of mine who is a good editor for her to look it over and rip it apart.


So, I've managed to get some stuff done, in spite of this dark mood I've been in lately. I'd say that's a minor victory.

There's no place like home . . .

I got back from my business trip a couple of days ago, safe and sound. And thoroughly reminded of how much I hate to travel.


I did have an alarming moment in my hotel room on Tuesday night. I was wishing I was home and when I closed my eyes and tried to conjure mental images of "home" what came up were images of my apartment back in Savannah. It actually took me a moment to remember what this place here looked like. Sort of freaked me out for a minute.


It's not like I just moved here. I've lived here over three years. But I had to struggle to remember what the living room looked like--I kept envisioning my old living room from before.


Anyway, that was weird.


I was hoping to get a little background work done while I was away, maybe research a couple of things for this TV show idea, and get some work done on that. Did I? Hell, no. I pretty much just vegged out the whole time I wasn't required to do anything. Didn't do a lick of work on any of my own projects.


I did take some pictures of some beautiful flowers at the venue where the event was held. I've started painting one of them now. An associate told me they were Knockout Roses. I guess she would know.


This same associate committed a couple of big time sins when I went to show her the pictures of the flowers I'd taken, by the way--she took the phone I used to take the pics away from me and dropped it (no harm done other than an unwanted adrenaline surge) and then she started flipping through my photo album, even though I asked her not to. Oh, well. She won't be able to unsee some of the things she saw, and she has no-one but herself to blame. She did like the flower pictures, though.


I got home Thursday afternoon, pretty much as tired as I've been in a long time. So tired, in fact, I decided to forego my plan to begin the second pass through my manuscript yesterday. Instead I spent most of the day relaxing as much as I could.


Yeesh. Being around people all flipping day long is exhausting. At the end of the day some of my associates wanted to go out on the town. I wanted to go back to my hotel room, lock the door, and just sit and stare off into space until it was time to go to bed. Which is pretty much what I wound up doing.


Hopefully this will be the last of these things I'll have to do for a while. It'll take me at least a year to finish recovering from this one!

Sunday morning vegging out randomocity

I'm taking some time off from the rewriting, now that I've managed to finish the first pass. Now, I'm going to let it sit for a while.


I have to take a business trip this week and I'm thinking I'll do the next read-through when I get back from that. At that time it will have been a week, which seems to be about the right amount of time to spend away from it.


So, no further updates on The Sorcerer's Daughter other than I've done the first rewrite, and it is now marinating for a while. And yes, I'm still happy with it, overall, though there are some specific areas that I believe need more work.


The trip I mentioned is for my day job--I'm providing support for my co-workers at an Expo out of town. I'll be spending some time on the road and hopefully, since I won't be driving, I'll be able to at least make some notes about this television project that I've been mulling over for a while now. It's time to actually get some words down on the page, I think. At least it's time to plot out the pilot, even if I don't quite have time to write the screenplay.


I'll also be thinking about the show's bible, the central characters, the over-arching story-line, and general thinking about the entire milieu. Specifically, I'll need to develop the politics of the time a little better, because a lot of that will come into play. I've also got to work out some religions that will become important.


This is a bit of a scary time for me, creatively, though--I'm almost done with a project and don't really have another one in mind to start on when I start shopping The Sorcerer's Daughter around to publishers. I don't know why, but it always causes me some anxiety. I've got some ideas for novels but nothing is stepping forward, demanding to be written, at this point.


Which means, once I'm finally done with the rewrites, and had an editor look at it and dealt with the issues that she finds, I'll go back to writing scripts. Which is not a bad thing, considering I enjoy writing scripts, and this TV show idea can eat up an awful lot of my creative time. But I'd kind of like to have an idea for a novel sitting there in my mind, too, just in case I need one.


Oh, well. It's not like I need something right now. Got lots of time yet before it's even a consideration.


I'm watching Apollo 13 on TNT right now, and this movie is a great example of what I try to remind people about--don't consider movies about historical events to be an education about those events. For example, in the movie, Nixon comes across as a total ass. In Jim Lovell's book, Lost Moon, the basis for the movie, Nixon is actually quite sympathetic. Since Lovell was actually there I tend to trust his perception over the folks who wrote the screenplay. While I'm no Nixon defender, there's no point in falsely portraying what he did and said during the events of the movie--the man gave history plenty of material to work with to make himself look like a slime-ball outside of the events of a failed moon mission.


But, if a movie gets you curious about something that actually happened, by all means, go out and educate yourself about it. Even if the movie gets it completely wrong, you would have learned something, and you can amaze and amuse your friends, pointing out exactly where the movie screwed it up!


I try not to do that, myself, but sometimes it's hard to bite my tongue and let a glaring error slide on by . . .

Progress report and pet peeve randomocity

I'm almost through the first rewrite of The Sorcerer's Daughter.


What I'm doing at this point is changing the stuff I changed my mind about during the first draft, correcting typos, tweaking a few places where I thought the language was awkward or unclear, that sort of thing. I need to insert a scene, too, which I will do in the next couple of days, as soon as I find a good spot for it. The new scene would resolve an issue that keeps bugging me. Basically, it takes care of an issue that is always lurking in the background, and really needs to be cleared up.


What do I plan to do after that? Read it again, this time looking for issues with pacing, plot, story-telling . . . I won't actually make any changes during that pass, just focusing on how it reads. Pacing, mostly, is what concerns me. Nothing makes a story seem more amateurish to me than a story where the pacing is not considered and the story seems hurried, or seems to be really slow. It should have a faster tempo in some places, a slower one in others, a medium tempo in others. Like a piece of music.


This something that seems to be a lost art to many of today's writers, and it drives me nuts. I suspect a lot of novels get rushed into publication so what you actually read isn't what would be considered a final draft a few years ago--the writer would have been asked to make another couple of passes through the manuscript in the days before everyone got to be in such a hurry to have something published.


So, that's where I am with that.


As for the pet peeve, it involves lazy writing, especially on TV shows, and in crime dramas in particular.


It goes like this: "The victim was stabbed. Angle of the wound suggests the suspect is left-handed." So, we spend the rest of the show looking at who among the suspect pool is left-handed. Finally, we see someone writing something and see that he or she is using---dum dum dummmmm . . . his or her left hand! Gotcha!


Here's my problem. I write left-handed. If I ever stabbed somebody, it'd probably be with my left hand. I also fire rifles and shotguns left-handed.


However, I play guitar, golf, and tennis right handed. I bat right-handed. I throw with my right hand. My right hand is my shooting hand when I play basketball--though, oddly enough, I score more baskets when I use my left-hand, though that feels awkward to me. But I suck at basketball, just like I do most sports.


I had a friend who threw a baseball with his right hand and a football with his left. My dad was right-handed with almost everything, except golf.


What I'm saying is, just because you write with your left hand, doesn't mean you do everything with your left hand. There is a distinct possibility that someone who is inclined to stab people would write with his or her right hand and prefer to use the left for stabbing folks. Or, maybe he or she deliberately used the left hand to throw idiot television detectives off the trail.


It's just lazy writing. It's a quick way to resolve a story without having to work too hard at it.


Drives me nuts.

Rewriting randomocity

So, I'm about halfway through my first pass through the first draft of The Sorcerer's Daughter.


I actually enjoyed rereading it, even though, as a first draft, there are a lot of things that actually don't make any sense because I changed my mind about some plot points along the way. That's one of the things I'm fixing through this pass.


There are a couple of things I need to add to it, a couple of beats I need to add. Maybe one or two that need to be deleted or at least moved around. On the whole, though, I think it tells the story I want to tell.


In other words, so far, so good. Still got a lot of work to do on it, but it's coming together.


Now that I'm at this point I feel like I can allow myself to entertain other projects, so I've been revisiting my idea for a TV series. I still don't want to give away too many details, except to say that it involves a series of stories and novels written by a science fiction icon that debuted in the 1950s. I've got some technical details I need to research, and I may as well go ahead and do that now. Normally, research is something I do later, after a first draft is completed--I try to tell the story first, and worry about the details later. However, in this case, since an important plot point revolves around some science that I'm sort of foggy on, I'll need to have a better understanding of it before I even get started.


Bummer. But I will have learned something. That's never a bad thing.


I'll probably spend some time putting together some stuff for that, too, over the next little while, just to give myself something to occupy my mind when I'm not obsessing over the novel. I've even sketched a  few ideas I had for certain characters who would appear in the thing, along with a motif that will become critical down the road.


So, that's my weekend--rewriting, researching, relaxing. My three "Rs".

First draft is done!

Yes! I just typed "END". The first draft of The Sorcerer's Daughter is done!


Yes, it needs some major editing. There are a lot of places in it I'm not happy with. But I now know where the road is going to wind up, and that makes telling the story so much easier.


So, please forgive my exuberance. Other writers will understand, I think.


Now, I'm going to take a little time off from it--the rest of today, at least--and then reread it. I won't touch it, other than to look it over, until I've read through the entire manuscript.


Then, it's getting out the hammer, chisels, the sanding paper, and all the other tools to start knocking this thing into some semblance of a coherent, interesting, readable work of fiction.


That, my friends, is the fun part!

Fourth of July randomocity

I apologize in advance for any excessive surliness. It's been one of those weeks.


I guess it would be appropriate for me to write about my thoughts as to the state of our democracy---that it appears to be dying on the vine, that every day it seems the voices of greed, hatred, ignorance, and religious lunacy seem to be getting louder and the voices of tolerance, fairness, and reason seem to be growing quieter. I could go on and on about how the wealthy now own this country and have mastered the art of getting the ignorant to do their dirty work for them. I could say that behind almost all of the problems in this country lies one single cause--greed. I could go on and on and on about how I just don't see our society surviving much longer without something dramatic and traumatic happening to force things to change.


I could do say all that, but I won't. Instead, I'll just say, have a happy Fourth, everyone, regardless of your ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion (or lack thereof), citizenship status, or economic station. We need you. We need everyone. We just need to realize that. Our country is not just white picket fences, two kids and a dog in a yard, a white house with a Chevy in the driveway. Our country is also Chinatown. It's Little Italy. It's the ghetto. It's all those places where people may not speak English, and where most people don't have white skin. Those people aren't African American or Asian American or Italian American or Hispanic American or whatever American. They're just American.


Anyways, I won't say any of that. That's what would be expected of me. I try not to be predictable.


So, my own plans are to write as much as I can. I'm inching closer and closer to the end of the first draft of The Sorcerer's Daughter. I may actually be done with it by the end of next week.


The weather here is supposed to be beautiful, which is fortunate, since the driver's side window of my truck is stuck half-way down. I'll be calling someone to have it fixed tomorrow--since it's not expected to be raining anytime soon, it can wait one day. But I'll at least be out walking around in the mild, sunny day. I may take some pictures of some lovely little flowers I saw on the property, to use as inspiration for a painting or something.


That's what's on my mind today. What's on yours?

I can see the ending . . .

15,000 more words to go before I reach my minimum word count for The Sorcerer's Daughter.


For a first draft a word count doesn't mean all that much, I know. But it gives me a good idea how long the finished draft will be--it'll probably be a tad shorter than the first draft. And no, I'm not shooting for 75,000 words, per se, it's just that is the minimum length before a lot of publishers will consider it a novel.


I should get there with no trouble. I'm getting near the end but I'm not that near. Still got lots of plot left to write about.


And I'm coming up on the really juicy stuff, too. What I'm going to start on next is what has kept me plugging away on this thing for months now. The really good stuff.


I mean, it's all good stuff, but this is the payoff. This is why I started writing this thing in the first place.


So, why I'm I sitting here, writing this, instead of writing the thing?


I don't know. I think I'm just kind of catching my breath. What I'm about to do involves a lot of action, a lot of running around, that sort of thing, and it actually wears me out, writing about that stuff, almost as much as if I were doing it. Weird, huh?


Part of it, though, is fear.


Fear of what, though? I guess, fear that I won't be strong enough as a writer to do justice to the story and these characters. Sounds kind of pretentious, doesn't it?


But I believe I'm telling a powerful story that people will get into, I have a central character that people will relate to, and, if I pull this off, the part I'm about to start on will probably be considered the best part, by the millions and millions of people who will be reading it once it gets published.


Kind of intimidating. What to do?


Easy, actually. I'm just reminding myself that the only person I really need to please, at the end of the day, is me. As long as I like it, anybody else liking it will be gravy.


Okay. Let's dive back in.

On seeing that light at the end, getting closer . . .

I'm about three-quarters of the way through the first draft of The Sorcerer's Daughter now.


This happened quick, too! It seems like yesterday I was not even a third of the way, and, right after I hit the halfway point, suddenly I start feeling that ever-decreasing word count.


I still need to resolve a major event that's happening with the part I'm working on now, then, after cooling things down for a little bit, ramping up the final, cataclysmic finale. And, I need to do that with around 25,000 words.


That sounds like a lot of words, doesn't it? But trust me, it ain't.


I don't really have a hard-and-fast final word count to shoot for, but I'd love for it to come in at 75,000. Though, it just might get up around 100,000 before I'm done.


In fact, the higher word count may be better. I hate it when the writing in a novel gets choppy and out of rhythm because the author had more story than the word count would allow.


Anyways, I'm rocking right along on this thing. When I finally hit that last page I'll take a week off before starting on the rewrite. My goal is to have this thing ready to ship out to publishers by the end of the year. Maybe even sooner.


So, wouldn't you know it, but a pretty damned good idea hit me last night, for another novel. In addition to the TV show thing that just will not quite go away.


On top of that, I'm trying to find a short story I read years ago, in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction., because I'd love to try to adapt it to a script for a short film. It was a beautiful story, one I found deeply moving, but I can't remember the title or the author. I've searched my back issues and can't find it, searched the archives at the magazine's website, and didn't see it there, either. I also emailed the magazine and haven't heard anything--doubtless they think I'm some random nutcase.


Who knows, maybe I am. I may find this story again, finally, and discover that it really isn't as good as I remember.


Not matter what, now, though, The Sorcerer's Daughter takes priority now. TV shows and other novel, short film, and movie ideas, will all have to take a back seat until I'm done with it.


The ending is still a long way off, but I can see it now. It's coming up, a lot faster than I realized.

Sory I haven't been around much lately . . .

I haven't exactly been inundated by concerned emails from the folks who read this, demanding to know why I haven't been around much lately.


Which is no surprise, actually, and any outrage you may be picking up on is feigned on my part. This blog is mostly just me talking to myself anyway--if you dig it, great! If not, then you won't be reading this anyway, so, again, I'm talking to myself . . .


Anyways, I haven't been around much because I've been devoting all of my writing time to The Sorcerer's Daughter. It's sort of interesting to me--I'm now at the point I'd reached during my previous attempts and instead of just completely losing interest in it like I did before, I'm obsessing over it and spending as much time as I possibly can working on it.


Which is a good thing. It means this time I'll finish writing the bloody thing.


I'm still thinking over this idea for a TV show, too, and actually sketching a few ideas for different things that'll be prominent in it, but I've finally reached the point where that thing is content to be on the back burner for now. It's still in my head, still making noise, but it's being a lot more polite about sharing think-time with the novel.


And, so far, I'm liking what's showing up on the page. Yes, it'll need a serious rewrite, but this is a first draft. Nobody is going to see it but me, so it can be embarrassingly bad in places. I'll fix all that with the rewrite.


That was the secret, really, realizing that the first draft is not the final draft. I'm not going back and rereading and rewriting stuff this time--I'm just letting it sit there, not worrying about it, content to let it wait until I come back to it during the rewrite.


You'd think I'd know that by now, considering how much of my life I've spent writing. For some reason, though, it's a difficult concept for me to grasp, and it's really gotten in the way in the past. Hopefully this will be a breakthrough for me, and I'll be finishing more stuff now.


Anyways, that's my weekend--writing, making as much progress on this as I can on this novel, meditating on the TV show thing, watching some TV, too . . . maybe making some more art, if I get inspired. Who knows?


In any case, I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, and it's getting closer and closer . . .

Disgusted with my own species and randomocity

I'm finding it more and more difficult to tolerate many of my fellow homo sapiens.


Mostly because of all the dripping, vile hatred I'm seeing towards people who have a different skin color, sexual orientation, religious belief, or whatever.


I'm not talking about random people who show up in my newsfeed on Facebook. I'm talking about people who, in many cases, I've known all my life.


Apparently, if you lose your job and have to go on unemployment and get government assistance to feed your family, or if you're a victim of a vicious, violent crime, or if you've become addicted to drugs, you have forfeited your humanity and don't deserve sympathy, empathy, or any assistance whatsoever.


Christians, each and every one. One or two of them are even pastors.


I wouldn't be a Christian in any case, even if so many of them weren't spewers of the most sickening hateful vitriol imaginable. But I'd be a lot more patient with them if they weren't the source of so many terrible things going on in the world today.


Sorry. I'm just terribly disappointed in someone who is actually a pastor at a church and an old friend who has pretty much revealed himself to be one of those people, too. Though he's not quite as loud about it as many others. I also haven't confronted him about it--there would be no point.


I'm going to spend this weekend working on the first draft of The Sorcerer's Daughter. Now that I've worked my way around this little roadblock I'm making pretty good progress.


I'm about half-way to my minimum word-count of 75,000 words. Of course, since it's a first draft, that may not count for much, but it's a pretty ballpark idea as to how long this thing's going to be. I'm thinking right now it'll wind up around 100,000 words, altogether. Maybe too long for a YA, actually, but I'm not going to worry about that right now. I may wind up splitting it up into two books before I'm done, but, again, I'll worry about that when I finish the first draft.


I'll be working on another painting, too. For the sake of my sanity.

This week in randomocity

H. R. Giger died this week.


In case you didn't know (and I can't believe you'd be reading this if you didn't) he was the artist who inspired the creature and several of the sets for my favorite all-time movie, Alien. That was my first exposure to his work, and I became curious to see more.


What I've found over the years has almost always blown my mind. Disturbing but beautiful work, haunting and powerful. It's the sort of stuff that bypasses your conscious mind, and takes root directly into the subconscious. I've used his work to inspire the tone for a lot of my writing--look for my novella, "Warden," which I published here a while back.


He was a genius, a towering talent, and he will be deeply missed.


I'm taking a couple of days off from work to try to make some more headway on the first draft of The Sorcerer's Daughter. It's slow going. I'm still in love with the story, and the characters, but for some reason it's really difficult to get the words on the page.


Therefore, for writing inspiration, I turned to Ramsey Campbell, specifically his novel, Creatures of the Pool. Campbell is a great example of how you freakin' write a novel. He sets the scene and advances the plot better than damned near anyone else. Sometimes he's a little bit too economical and I have to put the book aside just because what I had just read was so dense with detail, subtext, and plot advancement. I urge you to check him out, if you haven't already. Any of his work, not just this particular book. This is how it's done. There are tons of writers--many of them bestselling authors--who would benefit a great deal from reading Campbell's stuff.


It does my heart good, that there are still a few writers out there who actually write novels instead of outlines and first drafts that somehow get published and purchased by people who don't seem to know better.


So, that's my next few days. Writing, maybe doing a little painting or sketching or something, and laundry.


As good as it gets!

Skeleton writing

I came across this in a novel I'm reading:


He looked up and saw a group of people dragging a machine.


And my teeth started grinding. Why? Because that was all the author gave to describe the scene.


Part of the job of the writer is to decide how far to go in descriptions. The less the writer describes, the more work the reader's imagination has to do to fill in the details. Some writers go way too far, describing every detail, whether it's relevant or not. Too many, though, do what the author above does, and don't describe anything at all.


And it really bugs me, because the details the author left out are important and leave the reader kind of struggling a few paragraphs later. For one thing, this 'machine' this group of people are dragging--machine is an ambiguous term. There are all kinds of machines. We can assume it's a fairly large machine, since it has to be dragged, but the mental image I arrived at conflicted pretty dramatically with what the machine later turned out to be.


This was jarring and completely took me out of the story. This is a Bad Thing. This is not something an author will want to happen.


It's made worse because the viewpoint character knew what the machine was when he saw it, as becomes apparent a few paragraphs later. That sort of pisses me off, too--it's a fake way to build suspense, and it actually would not have made any difference if the reader discovered what the machine is when it's first introduced. So, I'm also feeling a bit manipulated, too.


Now, how about this--I'm just making this one up:


John met the private investigator in the PI's office. The PI was a tall man, a bit younger than John thought he'd be. There were piles of papers on his desk, along with overflowing ash trays. The room smelled of stale cigarette smoke and spilled Scotch.


Maybe the details you subconsciously glean from the above paragraph will mean something later, maybe not. And you'll notice other than the PI being described as tall and young, I didn't go any further in describing him. So, I'm meeting you halfway--you know he's tall and young,  and you can plug in his eye and hair color--even his race--and everything else. I also implied he's a slob, a smoker, and maybe an alcoholic, and that may or may not be relevant to anything. Now, isn't that better than:


John met the private investigator in his office.


It's a major gripe of mine because I'm seeing this in a lot of novels these days--many of these read like first drafts, not like a finished manuscript. It's becoming more and more acceptable. Drives me nuts. It's lazy writing. It's the author not doing his or her job. More importantly, it's an editor not doing his or her job, catching this, and making the author fix it. If I were an editor I'd be pissed if I ran across this.


Unfortunately, I seem to be the exception. Dammit.

It's good to have goals

My goal, during this week of vacation, was to get to the end of Part One of this first draft of The Sorcerer's Daughter.




It took a little longer than I anticipated, but I made it, just a few minutes ago. And I'm exhausted.


The best part of setting and achieving a goal, though? The opportunity to reward oneself when one hits it.




Now I'm going to celebrate by giving myself a couple of days off from it. I'm going to work on painting and drawing, and catching up on my reading.


Right now I'm reading Berserker's Star, by Fred Saberhagen. If you're not familiar with the Berserker series, I suggest you check it out. The initial idea behind the stories--doomsday machines built by a long extinct civilization, haunting the Galaxy, wiping out life when they find it--is quite interesting to me.


I went out this morning and took some photos of some beautiful lilies that are blooming on the property around here, with an eye towards painting and/or drawing them. That'll be enough to keep me busy for a long while, I think.


I also did a fairly decent colored pencil drawing of a rose, based on a picture a friend sent me. Roses are really hard--there are a ton of subtle details you have to get just right or it won't look like a rose. This one does, sort of. I tried to post a picture of it here but for some reason Google won't let me. Dammit. Well, you're not missing anything, actually, but I was proud of it.


What's my next goal? I want to be finished with Part Two by the end of next month. There will be five parts, altogether, but I've found taking it one piece at a time is the best way to handle this sort of thing. All the while keeping the ending in mind, of course.


But first I'm going to let it rest for two or three days. We all could use the break, I think.

Rereading favorites

I have a question for those of you who consider yourselves avid readers.


Do you go back and reread a favorite book?


I ask this because I've been derided in the past by people--some of whom claim they are avid readers, themselves--because I'll go back and reread a book I particularly enjoyed. Their response is, "Why? What do you think you'll get out of it that you didn't the first time?"


I usually respond, "Do you only listen to a song you like only once?" The usual reply is, "No, but that's different." I'm not sure how it's different, and no-one has been able to explain it to me so far. I've taken a lot of crap from people because of this--for some reason people seem to think it's a character defect or something.


To me, rereading a treasured book, like The Lord of the Rings, is like dropping in on old friends that one hasn't seen in a long while. Sure, I know what's coming, and there won't be any surprises, but somehow that makes it more pleasurable for me, not less. I don't necessarily read it for the plot, but for the characters I love.


So, to restate the question--do you reread books? Why or why not?

Distinguishing between horror and action/adventure

This is the sort of thing I think about.


At what point does a horror franchise morph into an action/adventure franchise? It always happens--the question is, why?


Think about two movies I know you've seen--Alien and Aliens. The first is undoubtedly horror. The second, while it has horrific overtones, is more action/adventure. But why? What invisible line did the second film cross?


I think it has to do with knowledge, specifically, knowledge of the threat. In the first one the nature of the creature--even it's very existence--was unknown to the characters in the movie. Once it became a problem for them they had to struggle with their own lack of knowledge as they attempted to deal with it. In the second, the characters did have some knowledge about it--not much, but some, so it wasn't completely unknown.


That's the secret, the definition of horror--dealing with the unknown. Once it becomes known, it's no longer horror.


Why is this important anyway? It's probably not to many people. To me, though, it gives me a line, something to keep firmly in mind, as I work on this TV show project I've been thinking about for a while now. It starts out as horror and I want it to remain horror, and that means our heroes will need to be in the dark about whatever threat they are facing.


Fortunately, this won't be too hard, with the nature of the forces that will be bringing the threats the characters will be facing. As soon as one is figured out another, completely different one, will emerge and have to be dealt with.


On a random note--just did some book shopping at a local used book store, and found a hardback addition of John Crowley's Little, Big.  For some reason this sort of freaked me out, and I had to buy it. I love those independent bookstores--they have just enough organization so that, if you're looking for something specific, you can find it, but they are just disorganized enough that you can encounter all sorts of things that you weren't looking for. Like the aforementioned Crowley. I also saw Tim Powers' novel, Declare, in the general fiction section instead of fantasy. Whoever buys that book, while probably looking for an espionage thriller (which it kind of is, actually)  will be in for a shock with the supernatural elements. Yes, I've read it--I have it, actually--and it's a cracking good read, and I recommend it highly.


On another random note--as I was checking out the owner of the store asked if I was trading in some books, and I said no. (For the record, in addition to the Crowley, I had Fred Saberhagen's Berserker's Star, and Ramsey Campbell's Creatures of the Pool--one fantasy, one science fiction, one horror novel.) The owner laughed and said us science fiction/fantasy people never trade in books. I told her, "I don't either. They're mine."


My total tab? Twelve bucks. For three books, two of them hardcover.


Not bad at all.

Staycation randomocity

I'm taking this week off from work. No, I'm not going anywhere.


I had an appointment earlier today and, when I was scheduling the time off from work for that, I noticed that this Friday is Good Friday, which is a holiday for us. So, I decided, what the hell, and scheduled the whole week.


I'm using the time to get back to my neglected project, The Sorcerer's Daughter, among other things. My goal is to be done with Part One by the end of the week. I figured that would be easy but, after working on it a while this morning, I see that I have a bit more work than I thought.


Oh, well. I'm a writer, right? That's what I do. So, that's what I'll be doing. Writing.


Also going to work on this treatment for a RomCom that I keep talking about but still haven't done. I may do another one, too, for a private detective sort of film that I originally wanted to do as a novel.


I also got a few errands I want to run, sometime this week--there's this Chinese restaurant that I want to try, for one thing, and I want to go back to the used book store for a little shopping. And I need some new shoes, dammit--the ones I wear to work have holes in the soles. Hopefully, I can find another pair like them. They're very comfortable and I've had them a long time.


Plus, I plan to watch a few movies. Mostly old favorites that I haven't seen in a while. Yes, one I plan to watch is Alien. I may sneak in Prometheus, too. And a few others.


I also plan to paint, relax, and do some TV watching, too.


This is the exciting life of the up-and-coming writer. Not everyone is cut out for it.

Seasonal allergy randomocity

The pollen count is in the "extremely high" range here today.


It's mostly trees. Mostly oak. Which is the worst, for me.


Sadly, it's also a beautiful day outside. I actually went out there earlier and my eyes haven't swollen shut yet, though my voice has this raspy quality it gets during days like this. We'll see if there are any further consequences.


Sorry I haven't written anything in a while here. I've had this inability to focus over the past few days. I'm guessing spring fever.


My thoughts are like millions of shards of broken glass in my head. Every time I move, a different shard comes into focus, and I lose the previous one. Makes it really hard to follow through on anything.


I get like this sometimes. I guess everybody does. Hopefully, it won't last long and I'll be able to concentrate once again.


Fortunately, I should be able to manage to bang out a treatment for a film I've been thinking about doing for a long time. This one is a romantic comedy, which is definitely outside of my comfort zone. Can I be funny, on purpose? I guess we'll find out.


In other news, because of an elaborate accident almost a week ago that occurred because I'm really clumsy, I've managed to sprain some ligaments in my right foot. The good news is, it's getting better. The bad news is, it's still sore as hell. I'm glad I've got some loose-fitting shoes I can wear to work, and flip flops I can wear around the house.


That's about all that's up with me, at the moment. Sad, isn't it?

O! You Muse of Fire, you . . .

As I'm leaving for work yesterday morning, literally as I'm locking my apartment door, this idea for a story, a novel, something, hits me.


It's a good idea. It's one I like a lot. But right now I need to concentrate on The Sorcerer's Daughter, so it'll have to go on the back burner.


But it asks a question I've always found intriguing, and I'll pose it here, too, for anybody who wants to respond. Imagine that you are given a chance for an ultimate experience. For a few years it will be exciting, full of intense adventure and almost unbearable ecstasy It's guaranteed.


The flip side, though, is when it's over it'll be over.  It'll be the high point of your entire life, something that will never be repeated. You'll never experience anything like it again. You know you'll live the remainder of your life wanting to go back to this and knowing it will never happen again.


The question is--knowing this, would you say "yes" to this opportunity? Would the inevitable crash and the years of not living that life be worth it for the few years when it's happening?


I'm not sure what my own answer would be--I'd like to think I'd go for it. But, really, I can't say that for sure. How about you? What would you do?

Let Us Burn

I finally broke down and got the new Within Temptation CD, Hydra the other day.


I love Within Temptation. One reason I love them so much is their music is so dramatic--damned near every song could serve as the soundtrack for any number of films. In fact, I imagine quite a few of their tunes as the soundtrack to the stuff that I write.


Their music also inspires me. Just sitting and listening to it causes ideas to come to me, to begin to coalesce into something that may or may not be worth developing. The inherent worth of the ideas is not the issue--it's the fact that the ideas come when I'm listening to this music.


That's the highest compliment, I think, an artist can pay to another one, by the way--when you as an artist can tell another artist that you find his or her work inspiring in your own work.


And speaking of being inspired, this CD--specifically, the first track, "Let us Burn"--has convinced me that this would be good material for a musical drama. Unfortunately, at .the moment I lack the time and resources to put something like that together, but there is a wealth of material here to create a pretty interesting story to go along with a lot of tunes that were just made to be presented in a setting like that. Maybe one day I'll be able to do something like this. I'd love to give it a shot.


If you don't believe me, check this CD out for yourself. Hell, just go to You Tube and listen to them. See if their music inspires you as much as it does me.

March 1 and the sucking is now over . . .

This is a discussion I had online with an old friend the other day. February has been pretty rough for her (and it hasn't exactly been a picnic for me, either), but I decided that this was just all of the suckiness we were going to get in 2014 getting out of the way early. Starting today it's just going to be good stuff for the rest of the year.


Let's hope I was not just being optimistic. And, honestly, I do feel pretty good about the rest of the year. I can't really say why, so much--I've got a couple of things working that may turn out to be big deals, and you never know what else could come up--but I don't really have that hovering black cloud over me that I normally have.


I feel like the film project I'm currently collaborating on will turn out to be Something--I'm pretty happy with my early draft of the script and I think the producer is, too. We have a looooonnng way to go before there's any hope of it ever getting made but I think we've made a good start.


I've begun another version of The Sorcerer's Daughter and I'm pretty happy with it, so far. Now that I've decided just to do it in one novel instead a series I'm a lot happier with the pacing. I'm hoping to be done with it by the end of the year so I can begin shopping it around to publishers.


And, right now, I've got some baby back ribs basting in barbeque sauce in the slow cooker. Maybe that lovely aroma is tempering my mood. One can't feel sad when one is anticipating having ribs for lunch.


Anyways, I'm feeling pretty good about the next few months. Hopefully, it'll turn out to be for good reason!

3 years ago . . .

Tomorrow it will be three years since I said goodbye to my big, silly dog, Atari.


I still dream about you, Atari. I still think about you all the time. If I believed in such things I'd say your spirit still haunts the backyard at my dad's house, running and sniffing around and barking at the cows and staring in hypnotized fascination at the horses. Watching Sheba--my brother's chocolate lab who has also left us--chase after a tennis ball and wondering what the hell was the fun in that?


Your ashes still reside in their box atop my dresser, along with your collar. One day I'm hoping they'll be mingled with mine and we'll both be buried in some peaceful, scenic spot where we can mix with the earth. Maybe the flora and fauna in that area will be able to find a use for what's left of us. I sincerely hope so.


The pain and grief I feel over losing you is still too much for me to bear. I can only allow myself to feel it a little at the time or it will overwhelm me. Just typing these words is causing my hands to start trembling again and my eyes to fill with tears.


I love you. I always will.





Pleasant Sunday afternoon randomocity

For once it's not freezing, snowing, icing, lightning, flooding, earthquaking, or whatever other issues we've been having, weather-wise, for a while. It's a pleasant fifty degrees with a slight breeze and sunny skies, which is as nice as it has been for a while now.




So, I just got in from a little walk out in this pleasant weather, and really enjoyed it. Also, I've been thinking about other projects to get started on. I'm thinking something prose-based, maybe a novel, while I wait for the notes from my collaborator on the screenplay thing.




I also did some playing around with colored pencils this morning and created these two pieces. I'm pleased with both of them--not bad for a dilettante if I do say so myself.

Anyway, that's been my Sunday so far. I'm going to chill (pardon the pun), relax, maybe make some more art, and maybe write a little. We'll see.



Milestones, ice days, and randomocity

I finally got this screenplay thing knocked into decent enough shape to send off to my collaborator. I sent it to her an hour or so ago. I haven't heard any explosions yet so either she's happy with what she's seen so far or she hasn't read it yet.


This is a big step in this process, for me, showing the work to others. It always makes me nervous. Sure, I like it, but it's difficult to remain objective about your own work. Especially so, for me.


You could say I've gotten lucky a couple of times on this project, too--the weather helped me out, giving me a total of four extra days to work on it, with two snow days a couple weeks ago and two ice storm days this week. I wasn't expecting to be at this point until this weekend.


As I mentioned, it's an ice storm day, for me, as was yesterday. If you didn't know already, a huge storm system moved through this area and dumped snow, sleet, and freezing rain all over everything. The office where I work was closed yesterday and again today because the roads were a total mess--fortunately, the power didn't go off here. I took advantage of this opportunity to get some serious work done on the rewrite.


I just took a look around the property, after being cooped up in my apartment all day--the ice is now melting. It's supposed to get below freezing again tonight so any ice that had only partially melted will refreeze, but hopefully there won't be all that much. My poor old truck was covered with a sheath of ice and snow--hopefully, that will be gone tomorrow morning, too.


What's the plan for the rest of the day? Hmmm . . . I can't work on the screenplay until I hear back from my collaborator, so that has to sit. Maybe I'll make some art, if I can come up with something that interests me. I may start putting together some notes for another project I can work on in the mean time.


Or maybe I'll just not do much of anything the rest of the day. I have gotten a lot of stuff done the last couple of days, and tomorrow at work is going to be insane I think.


That plan sort of resonates with me. I think I'll go with that one!

Beware! Here be metaphors . . .

I managed to finish the first draft of the screenplay I've been writing.


Actually, I finished it a few days ago. I've given myself a mini-vacation from it for a few days before beginning the rewrite. It's something I have to do at this point--I've been submerged in this world for a while now so I need to stick my head above water and catch my breath for a time before diving back in.


The first draft, for me, is the most difficult part. Once I get the words down it's much easier to work with them, to make it into something. If I can get through the first draft I'm pretty much golden.


To use another metaphor--it's like I'm creating a sculpture. At this point it's a hunk of marble that, when I'm done, will look like a lion. I've  meticulously selected that hunk of marble. Now, I'm going to start carving away all the stuff that doesn't look like a lion, and shaping what remains into as attractive and as interesting a lion as possible.


And I think what wound up on the page is pretty good. Hopefully, my collaborator will agree, and hopefully this is the movie she wanted to make. Or, at least a start on it.


So, that's my plan for the weekend--making a couple of passes through this thing, knocking it into shape. Hopefully in a week or so I'll have it in good enough shape to send off to my producer/co-writer, and see if she either a:) loves it, or b:) hops on a plane, flies down here, and kills me with her bare hands. I'm hoping for a:), needless to say.


Then the real work will begin, when she gives me her notes on it and I have to rewrite it again.


If it sounds like I'm complaining, I'm not. This is the fun part, for me. The first draft is the part that I have the most trouble with, and that is now behind me. The fun part is making that first draft into a movie that you will plop down your money to see in the theater.


To use yet another metaphor--the first draft is the pregnancy. Now the baby is home.


Remember--great stories aren't written, they're rewritten.

Random randomocity--things you may not know about yours truly

Here are some things about me that are probably blindingly apparent to the one or two of you who bother to read this thing:

• I don't read much fiction these days. I'll read a ton of non-fiction--mostly history or biography--but don't usually read any fiction longer than the occasional novella or short story. I just lost interest in it a long time ago.
• I have no "guilty" pleasures. I love flowers. I love paintings of flowers. I like floral comforters. If I went to a concert put on by one of my favorite bands, I'd probably be the oldest person there. I'd probably also be one of the few males in attendance. If I love something, I love it, and I no longer worry about what other people may think.
• I'm really careful about whose opinions matter. I value constructive criticism from anybody--anything that makes me produce better art, or work, or live my life a little happier, is welcome, but there are only a few people in the world who can hurt me with their words if they so desire. Not that any of them would, deliberately, because they aren't like that, which is one reason they mean so much to me in the first place.
• I really have no interest in what most people do with their genitalia. Really. If you think this is a weird bullet point, look over your Facebook feed, at all the arguments against marriage equivalency. Apparently, we have a significant portion of our population who obsesses over this for some reason. No, I don't understand it, but I felt like I needed to say it.
• I'm not a big "movie" person. Really. There are an awful lot of movies out there that everyone else in the world has seen--like Pretty Woman, or Ferris Bueller's Day Off, or any of the Back to the Future movies, or just about every Tom Cruise movie--that I haven't seen. The reason is simple--I have zero interest in them. I know this may shock some people, since I write screenplays, but it's true. If I like a movie I'll obsess over it, want to know all the details, listen to the commentary tracks on the DVDs, study the script, all that. But for the most part I'm not one of those people who feels like he's going to die if he doesn't catch the latest Hollywood blockbuster or film that Everybody is Seeing.
• I'm not the most sociable person in the world.. I hope you were sitting down when you read that one. I'll take a few days off from work and not have any face-to-face interaction with another human being unless I go to the store or something until I go back to work. And I'm perfectly happy--I won't even realize it, usually, until after the fact.
• But I'm not shy. I get accused of this sometimes, but it's not true. I guess I'm an introvert. I have no problems getting up and speaking to a bunch of people--I've given presentations to a couple hundred people before, at work, and I will sing karaoke in a crowded bar and be stone, cold sober--but interacting with all those people afterwards is a big drain to me. But I don't consider myself broken--I'm happy this way.
• I love The Big Bang Theory. The TV show, that is, though I'm partial to the cosmological theory, as well.  I discovered it when TBS started showing the reruns. When I had to have my dog, Atari, put to sleep, I bought all of the available seasons on DVD and watched them over and over again. It was a big help with the chasm of grief that opened inside of me. Without that show, and the long-distance support of my best friend (who lives in California) I'm not sure I would have made it.
• I hate to travel. I know, people don't understand this one, but the idea of packing a suitcase, spending a few hundred bucks on a plane ticket, and going somewhere just so I can say I've been there, strikes me as a totally unnecessary and overly expensive pain-in-the-ass. I don't mind going somewhere for a particular reason--to visit a friend, or for work, for example--but I'm not going to Paris, say, just to say I've been there. The impulse people feel to do that is just so weird to me.

Okay, that's enough about me. Your turn.

Snow day!

In case you haven't heard we've had a bit of a blizzard over the past couple of days.

For people in some areas it would barely be newsworthy, but this is the Deep South--we barely get an inch of snow a year. So, getting about two-and-a-half inches in a few hours is an event.

Our office closed yesterday afternoon and I thought I could drive home--nope. I finally gave up and parked the truck in a parking lot and walked the rest of the way. Fortunately, it's only a mile or so. I used to walk a lot further than that all the time. There are those who had to walk a lot farther. Some of my co-workers in our other office couldn't leave at all and wound up spending the night at work.

In other words, this is a snowpacolypse.

The temperatures not rising above freezing today isn't helping. Even though the snow has long since stopped, it'll melt a little then refreeze. The resulting sludge is not conducive to walking, driving, or anything.

Of course, the disruption to my schedule, even though it's sort of an extra vacation day for me, makes it really hard to focus. I've done some writing--and it wasn't bad if I do say so--but it's kind of hard to concentrate..

I did get everything I needed to file my income taxes yesterday so I went ahead and did that today. So it's not a total loss.

So, if you live in my area (Georgia, USA), you do not want to go out and go anywhere unless you absolutely have to. Really. Alabama, too.

I'm sure my Scandinavian, Canadian, and Northern US friends are having a hearty belly-laugh at our expense. If you find out plight amusing, just you wait until summer gets here . . .

The problem with stupid characters . . .

I really needed a character in this thing I'm working on to do something stupid.

The problem is there are entire constellations of stupid things that stupid people can do. I needed to decide on what particular stupid thing this idiot would do. Fortunately, what I decided advanced the story in multiple ways, and what another character--not quite as stupid--does in reaction to it sort of gives the plot a nice little twist that it desperately needed. Basically, you think the story is going one way when suddenly it heads off in another direction.

Let's hope it's a good direction. I think it is. It feels right, to me.

This is Act III of this little thing I was hired to write. I've still got a long way to go on it--it needs to weigh in at around 120 pages and I'm at 80 or so now. Still a lot of story to tell, though I'm seeing the ending now.

And this is just the first draft. I'll have a lot of rewriting to do on it--but, for me, the first draft is the hard part. Once the words are on the (virtual) page, it's a helluva lot easier to go in and change them.

I think for any project--novel, screenplay, what-have-you--the first draft is probably the most important step. Most writers I know approach it incorrectly. They want their first draft to be producible, or publishable, and it won't be. And it shouldn't be. There are a lot of things in this screenplay that I'm going to have to redo, rethink, rewrite, delete, replace,, what-have-you, when I do the rewrite. Not to mention the notes I'm going to get from my collaborator, when she reads it.

You know what? I'm not worrying about it. That's relegated to the rewrite. Worrying about that stuff now would be inappropriate. I will worry about that stuff--and fix the problems I know this thing has--down the road. Right now I just need to tell the story.

Okay, lecture over. For now.

Projects, ho!

I've been obsessing over this screenplay I've been hired to co-write over the past couple of weeks. It's coming along nicely, I think--we'll see what my collaborator thinks when I send it to her. She's the producer, too, so making her happy is priority number 1 right now. My guess is she'll really like parts of it, and other parts she'll want to kill me after she reads them.

That's what rewrites are for. It's part of the process.

I also had an idea for another movie--or maybe a novel or something like that. I'm putting it on the back burner--the movie thing has to take priority now, and this is new thing is going to take an awful lot of research. It's sort of a legal thriller, and since I'm not a lawyer and don't have easy access to one anymore I'll have to find one to use as a source for help with the technical details.

It's a long weekend for me--MLK Day is a holiday for our company--and my plan is to work on this movie thing pretty much exclusively. I'll toy around with this new thing a little bit, when I need a break, but for the most part I'm going to get as much done on the first draft of this screenplay as I can. I've got a couple days off in February and my goal is to finish the first draft by then and begin the rewrite.

It's good to have goals. It's even better to make a serious effort to meet them. The pressure you put on yourself sort of acts as a goad for the creative parts of the personality, forces you to stay on schedule so you get things done. Of course, you shouldn't put too much pressure on yourself or you'll either produce crappy work or not be able to produce anything at all. But you do have to put some emphasis on meeting self-imposed deadlines or there would be no benefit and no point.

I hope that previous paragraph doesn't read as if I'm just talking to hear myself talk.

So, the plan for the weekend--writing, writing, writing, laundry, making a little art maybe, and writing.

The Sorcerer's Daughter . . . redoing the redone redo

I think I'm going to take another stab at writing The Sorcerer's Daughter.

I've decided instead of making it five books I'll just make it one. One big one. That feels like the right decision to me.

Of course, I need to reconfigure the plot, but that will actually be easier now, I think. I can jettison some stuff that I wasn't wild about in the first place.

So, that's the project for this weekend, plotting that out and maybe starting the first draft. That, and working on my art.

I'm going to stop attempting to paint anything for a while--my last few attempts have been less than successful. To put it mildly. I think I'm going to play around with pastels and just work on my sketching, which is coming along pretty well.

I know I'd get better at painting if I took some classes or something, and I probably will at some point. But not right now. Right now I need to work on writing.

2014, at least so far, has been pretty good to me. It started out poorly but has picked up quite a bit over the past couple of weeks--lots of good stuff going on, not just with me, but with people who are important to me, too. I think good things are in store for us.

I just wish at least some of these good things would hurry up and get here!

Stone cold randomocity

I've been drawing my ass off over the past few days.

It's nothing I'd like to post for anyone to see--it's mostly just doodling. Mostly practicing drawing things like animals (birds, frogs, toads, etc.) and faery faces, that sort of thing. I'd like to get to the point where I can sketch this stuff quickly.

So far, so good, on that front.

As to painting--not so much. I've attempted several paintings over the past few days and they all sucked. Oh, well. I'll keep working on that.

I've made some decisions about some prose work, changing some story ideas around so that they appeal to me. I may revisit The Sorcerer's Daughter series and plot it out a little more--I've identified a couple of problems with it I need to address. I may also revisit The Harvester of Faces--or, rather, the milieu in which it is set.

I don't know. Eventually something will speak up.

I also have a film project I need to be working on. I'm going to start looking at that again today.

I did get some good news about a personal situation involving a good friend--this was something that I was really worried about, and have been for months now. It's now resolved, in the best possible way, so that is one thing I can stop worrying about.

If you live in the US you've probably noticed the weather here. Temps here are supposed to be in the single digits Tuesday morning. While some parts of the country expect winter temps like that, here it never gets that cold. So, weatherwise, it's going to be interesting this week.

See, I'm talking about the weather. I must be out of things to say.

Logic has nothing to do with it--what the Left doesn't get

I keep hearing, from other Lefties, that it befuddles them that so many people here in the United States continue to vote Republican, and, therefore, against their own interests. They present arguments about how trickle-down economics doesn't work, how cutting the social safety nets is a bad idea, and how taxes on the wealthiest people need to be increased and loopholes closed.

All to no avail. There's a reason for that.

If you talk to these neo-Conservatives you'll find the overwhelming majority of them are Evangelical Christians. Back when Ronald Regan ran he reached out to that particular demographic, promising them that they would have a strong voice in his government. These people started hearing in their Sunday morning sermons about how they needed to vote Republican. The GOP became the GOD party in their minds.

Forget that Regan pretty much ignored these people once he was elected. To these people, that doesn't matter. All they hear is "Vote Republican." So, that's what they do. These people do what they're told and they aren't going to spend much time thinking about it.

You have to have that mindset or you wouldn't be a Conservative Christian in the first place.

So, that's the problem. You can lay out your position, logically, giving real-world examples that anybody would understand. Hell, they may even agree with you.

But they'll still vote Republican. Doing otherwise is now inconceivable.

Fortunately, most of this crowd is getting old and dying off. Younger people are growing up with the Internet and finding out that there is a big world out there--they're making friends with gay people, people of other or no faith, people of other nationalities, and discovering that they are, in fact, people, just like them. They're seeing the faces of the people who are harmed by cuts to Food Stamps, to other programs designed to benefit the less fortunate. It becomes harder, then, to support more cuts, and to support the politicians who keep trying to implement them.

In the meantime, though, we still have to put up with the backwards, racist, Christian-centric idiots who are just going to vote Republican no matter what. Hopefully it won't be much longer.

That's why I don't argue. When it comes to religion, arguments are pointless.