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.