I am momentarily at a loss to remember how I usually ring in a New Year here on the blog. There is something about tradition that I always feel bound by, and when I forget it, I have these... solemn moments.
I took down the tree today. All the other decorations too - it makes the room feel a touch sadder, there's too much space now, to much room for things. It's the mandatory concession, is what it is, the acknowledgment that all the pomp and pageantry that I put so much work into, to try and make the holidays special, that's over, and there's no time to squeeze one more gesture of goodwill out, no trappings of the season for me to lean on as I try to make those who matter to me feel... special, unique, loved. Now we are in the long winter, the gray of January and February, where I'm left, not entirely unlike I was before Christmas this year. Hoping for a clean, white snow.
I lament too much.
Finished my last review just after Christmas. I'm fairly certain I have enough banked to break even for the holidays. Saving money has been so important this year, that even though I feel a little more secure, I find it kind of digs its heel in, insist that I keep those numbers up. Anywhere near my once usual poverty-line bank balance and I get nervous now. There are worse habits, and some would say such worries are just a sign of growing up. Shame on them.
Still, it's a load off. The next one's already in the mail.
Got a Christmas e-mail from Ander - apparently he's had some internet-related problems. It was great to get back in touch, and wish him a proper Merry Christmas. It'll be great to start talking to him again, once every thing's sorted..
Had the privilege to be a beta reader for a friend's novel. Talked about it a little here. I am not entirely sure if "beta reader" entails something more specific than "reading, editing, and being critical," but that is how I approached it nonetheless. I'm used to looking at fairly large pieces of finished work by friends of mine, but this was, or is tied with, the largest thing I've ever given notes on. I got through it twice - one time less than I wanted to, but it felt good. I enjoy doing this kind of thing, not the same kind of enjoyment I get from my own writing, because when doing that there's no middle man, there's what I wrote, and what I think needs changed. And the hand-wringing goes here. Plus, I'm never worried about not reading too close, or offending myself.
Still. It's writer's work. I know some writers who wouldn't think so, and I'm not sure I'd call them real writers. I suppose that's as close to a public judgment as I'm comfortable making. Funny learning things about yourself like that.
Enjoyed the experience, and my friend has an impressive of novel on his hands. Exciting enough to make me want to get back to work on... something.
Not sure how this week is going to go yet. I'm hoping to see an old friend, and a new friend of hers, soon. Good chance Justin and I will resume our weekly meetings too. My sleep schedule is just strange, and getting stranger as of late. It's to the point where I don't think I care when I get it, I just wish that when would be at the same time every night... or day.
Today is the birthday of someone very special to me. I remember when I was very young, having the difference between birthdays and holidays described to me, and thinking it was all very unfair, that someone's priorities were fucked. Years and years later, I met someone who put it all into perspective for me, in a way that... well, is very easy to get through to me with - Alan Moore - and just conveyed to me what an amazing thing it is any of us - specifically us, as we are now - are here, so each birthday for someone you know is really special, a true one of a kind thing. And it's easy to forget that, because there are so many us who are special in that way. But it's true.
It's also so funny to me to just think that a year ago, today was just the 2nd of January. And yet, during the passage of that time, I found someone who, by today, by this 2nd of January, has made me want nothing more than to fly across the country with a particularly large cake and celebrate with. Though, I'm sure those TSA bastards probably have some kind of problem with I don't know, frosting or something, but still. It's an amazing thing, the people who come into our lives, so unexpectedly.
Many happy returns.
Showing posts with label Freelance Work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Freelance Work. Show all posts
Christmas List - 2011
This is the tree this year. It's pretty similar to the years past, and the picture was sort of... haphazardly taken with a computer web cam, which explains the quality. It's just not really a point and shoot job when you're dragging mouse work, and separate monitor into it. Angles, and angles. Apologies.It's sparser than last year. I didn't use as many lights, or as many beads, and that's weird for me, because I generally think a full tree is the best kind of tree, and last year I thought it was pretty sparse too. But the tree's getting kind of old, and it sags a little under too much weight, and even though I spent the whole night on it, more of that might have went to watching Red Dwarf than digging through the decorations.
Plus, I had to cannibalize some strings of lights for the lights that wound up on there. I don't think I ever realized how simple Christmas lights were until I had to pull out bulbs and take a few sets apart. The upside to this is that fixing them was not as beyond me as I expected it to be. The downside is, as with most really simple things, it's really simple to screw up the perfectly good lights too while trying to fix or replace the bad.
Still, it made me feel handy. That doesn't happen very often.
I was writing last week, this short fantasy story called "The Mouth Devours." The plan was to post it on Friday, but the honest fact is, even though it was only a couple hundred words long, I decided it wasn't really up to my standards - which, if you've seen some of the prose I've put on here is pretty low. So, I nixed it. I meant to pop in on Friday or Saturday and write... something, but I didn't really see any reason to force it if I didn't have to. And I didn't.
Things have been busy. I actually only finished my Christmas shopping today, and that was "finished" with some caveats. There was a new book to review, and I actually polished it off a little faster than usual, just because the extra income to recover from said shopping would be nice, especially with other expenses that might be coming up after the first of the year. I'm also reading a friend's manuscript for them, and I'll admit I didn't really think about doing that with all of the Holiday-related merriment, which was... terribly short-sighted of me. And odd, because I really have procrastinated myself into a crunch in a very long time.
I'm actually pretty good at controlled procrastination, so that's odd.
Justin and I hung out on Thursday night - the long Magic games have been a lot of fun, and something I've come to look forward to each week. Surprise news this week, but Justin thinks on his current schedule, we could see "Calamity Cash and the Town with No Name" finished by February. Once the pages are finished, there will be a lot of work to be done by me again, and I'll detail it all here, as usual.
Something I wanted to add... I do something like this on the blog every year, where I write a letter to Santa, asking for whatever it is I want for Christmas. I have an Amazon Wishlist I sometimes give out which is embarrassingly huge, and my guess is, given the date, anyone who was going to get me anything and knows about it probably has already has. And anyway, the more I think about it, the more I realize that, honestly, I don't really want anything.
I mean, yeah, I know everyone says that. And I'm not going to turn down some book I want, and yeah, my scarves have all seen better days, and I have a Steam Account now, if anyone's interested in getting me a game or something on the cheap or just friending me to play Spiral Knights when I eventually get to that, and a bottle of Scotch wouldn't be so... sorry, no, no, I really am kidding with all that... because this time of year, like that's not what this is about for me. I just enjoy all this, you know? The music, and the shopping, and the decorations, and all the trappings, be they self-indulgent, commercial, and obnoxious, or just quiet, modest, and stirringly heartwarming. A celebration should be both, I think. I think that is what celebrating is.
So really. I don't want anything. If you must spend money on me, make a donation to some charity. RAINN's good, not perfect, but good. Honestly, anything pro-women's issues, or some place that's gay and/or trans friendly. Anything social justice related. Hell, try out some micro-lending. Just... nothing religious, no food banks, make sure you know where and what the money's going to.
It's gloriously cold out. There keep being promises of snow. It's Christmas time. I have this marvelous girlfriend, and a, at times mercurial, yet still incredibly affectionate cat, and yeah, things happen, setbacks like the thing with the story that I was going to post on Friday, but I feel like... it's slow, but I'm getting it back. I'm writing again, and I feel comfortable in that skin, being "the writer." Specifically, being the kind of writer I am.
Mind you, my moods are about like my cat's, so this could all change spectacularly, and soon.
So I'm enjoying my Christmas specials, the decorations, all the prep, so much of it I will never see the payoff of, but just knowing that payoff is there, maybe some of what I do will brighten someone else's season, that's really enough for me.
All right. I am not so sentimental that I can't tell when things are getting kind of saccharine. So here's the thing, Santa. I just want the mail to run a little faster, so everything can get to where it needs to be on time, and I just want a little bit of this confidence to stick around after the New Year. And that's all I'm going to ask for.
Happy Holidays, everyone.
...
...
...
P.S. I put something like this on Facebook, but I want to put it up here, too. I'm no stranger to depression. It's very much a part of who I am, and maybe it shouldn't be, maybe it's mad that I put up with it sometime. Being tortured is quickly falling out of vogue. But all that aside, I do still find it in myself to enjoy things, enjoy things like this time of year, but I would like to say, I know it isn't always so easy.
Look, it's hard. Life is not what I'd call the most pleasant experience... most of the time, but there are bright spots, and it's easy to let all the times without them get you down - sadly, especially, when there are bright spots. I know what it's like to be celebrating something, but also feel depressed, disgusted, just generally worn down by everything. And I know that for most people, the first thing you get when you mention to someone, especially this time of year, that you're down, you're probably just going to get a nattering "Why can't you just be happy?" Anyone who thinks it's actually that simple is mad, and not nearly as sensitive as they think they are. And anyone who's said as much lately... contemplate sending a very apologetic Christmas card.
Sometimes it's not as easy as just cheering up. And it can be really hard when you can't reconcile the good with the bad. And if you're feeling like you're struggling, well... be damned with the cheer up people, and don't be turned off by suddenly more upbeat disposition. Call me, write me. Or if not me, find someone to talk to, reach out. It's hard. You might have to do it a couple of times, before you find what you need. But keep trying.
To quote myself, it takes some serious mad skills to handle it all on your own, and trust me, not having said skills is probably more healthy than not.
Take care of yourselves.
Quick note.
Still alive, still here. Not writing nearly enough.
Finished a book review today, way behind on something I promised I'd look at for a friend. Plus reading for myself, and I hope another couple books to review because getting paid is rad, plus reading for myself, plus... all kinds of other things. I've got a ton of non-writing stuff to do, and hey, you know what I'd really like to do? Write. That'd be awesome. Trying to dig myself out of this hole, and I imagine I'm failing at it spectacularly. But then again, I'm imagining the hole too, so...
I want to take the opportunity to thank everyone who weighed in on my previous post. I was actually hoping in my absence, some more responses would trickle in, and I got a couple of emails too. I might try and break up the broad strokes, and just have a single post with the best stuff in it, to stick in the sidebar for easy access. I appreciate everyone weighing in - the response was about what I expected, but not who I expected it from, mostly. And it's always nice to know who's out there, watching.
If you're reading this now, and would still like to add something, or respond to something someone else has said, then feel free. I'm... sticking to my story that I said my piece, so I won't be adding much myself, unless, I don't know, the Metatron appears to me with something that needs put out there.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Mine was beyond excellent, great food, the best company, Margaritas, and "The Muppets" and so many other good things. I usually do a fairly maudlin "what I'm thankful for" post, but hey, this year, I just unplugged from the internet and enjoyed myself. Even I can't be tortured all the time. It's exhausting.
And lately, not as productive as normal. But the fruit's still there, just gotta find another way to get the juice.
Finished a book review today, way behind on something I promised I'd look at for a friend. Plus reading for myself, and I hope another couple books to review because getting paid is rad, plus reading for myself, plus... all kinds of other things. I've got a ton of non-writing stuff to do, and hey, you know what I'd really like to do? Write. That'd be awesome. Trying to dig myself out of this hole, and I imagine I'm failing at it spectacularly. But then again, I'm imagining the hole too, so...
I want to take the opportunity to thank everyone who weighed in on my previous post. I was actually hoping in my absence, some more responses would trickle in, and I got a couple of emails too. I might try and break up the broad strokes, and just have a single post with the best stuff in it, to stick in the sidebar for easy access. I appreciate everyone weighing in - the response was about what I expected, but not who I expected it from, mostly. And it's always nice to know who's out there, watching.
If you're reading this now, and would still like to add something, or respond to something someone else has said, then feel free. I'm... sticking to my story that I said my piece, so I won't be adding much myself, unless, I don't know, the Metatron appears to me with something that needs put out there.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Mine was beyond excellent, great food, the best company, Margaritas, and "The Muppets" and so many other good things. I usually do a fairly maudlin "what I'm thankful for" post, but hey, this year, I just unplugged from the internet and enjoyed myself. Even I can't be tortured all the time. It's exhausting.
And lately, not as productive as normal. But the fruit's still there, just gotta find another way to get the juice.
Parables.
My computer's casing cracked again. I'm not entirely sure why - yes, I move it around a lot, but it's not like I'm wacking it against things or dropping it on the floor. I think I have just begun to come to terms with the fact that I bought a budget-priced laptop, and the wear and tear is just the side-effect of that. It is the exact same kind of problem I paid Dell somewhere in the area of 200 dollars to fix before. This time I just took super glue, and press the cracks together, sealing the whole thing up on the outside. It looks like crap, like I actual took a butane lighter and melted the casing back together, but otherwise, it has worked perfectly.
It is in these moments I fear I may have forgotten myself.
I find myself wondering why I have strayed so far from these sorts of solutions to my problems, why I had gotten to a place where functional [when all I needed was function] wasn't good enough. It screams of trying to impress someone, and missing the point of what I should really be doing entirely.
I've been pretty busy this past week - most of it has been from paying work. My book reviews have gotten a little intense, longer books arriving at shorter intervals from each other - nothing to complain about, what I get is really just a roll of the dice, and when I get it is almost entirely up to me, when I turned my last review in. But occasionally when two land so close together it's easy to feel overwhelmed, like all I'm doing are reviews, and that's when a pretty sweet deal tends to feel a little more like a job. The company seems really pleased with the work I do though, and I like that, and I don't know this for sure but I've felt lately like I've been getting better assignments from them. I can't think of a single way they'd do that, but still.
It's one of those management tools I picked up from Terry back in the day - letting your people know they're doing good work can really make them feel better about said work they're doing, even if the tasks themselves haven't changed much.
Speaking of Terry, working on the press releases for our PRSA-WV Crystal Award win was what the bulk of last week went to. You can see a bit about our win here on the PRSA website [search "Vandalia," "Angela Beth Armstead," or "Terry Lively" on the page to see the exact info], and I'll link one of the press releases proper if either go up on the web. I got eight billable hours out of doing the releases, which is pretty accurate to the actual time spent working on them - I'm still in that place where there's always an hour or two I forget to account for, and I'm never comfortable guessing and charging the client for that, but I was much better at keeping track this time. I thought it turned out well, but I promised a final edit, which will probably come down the tube sometime this week.
I also got this on Twitter last week from my cousin Travis, concerning the copy I did for his website, TCustomz.com:
DM from TCustomz: "dude, i'm on the first page of Google for "soul beats" and "sampled beats" thanks to your writing"
This? This I really love. This is a DM notification I'd frame if possible. Twitter should look in to maybe selling prints of said tweets. If I got these for everything I worked on, I almost wouldn't need paid.
I also said goodbye to my kid brother this week. Aaron's... shipping out, sans the ship, headed to basic training as part of the US Army. My mom and step-dad threw a small get-together in his honor on Saturday, and even though I'm just as proud of him as anyone, I still have crazy-mixed feeling about my only sibling going off to join the armed forces in this particular climate. Anyone who doesn't give a shit about politics clearly has never had someone they loved in a position to be put in harms way, and I've just been kind 0f... I'll be honest, I'm not even half-way to untangling all my emotions as it concerns his enlisting. I was very lucky to have my friend Beck along with me, it helped take the edge off like you wouldn't believe, and though I've tried, I'll never really be able to thank her enough for that.
The crazy thing is, Aaron is one of the strongest guys I know, and as much as I'm sweating this for him, I imagine to him it's probably next to no big deal. He has this amazing ability to be calm in the face of things that most of us couldn't even dream of dealing with in such a composed and measured manner, and I honestly don't believe there's anything they can throw at him that will ever be able to throw him. But hey. He's my little brother.
I worry.
I'll be out from under these book reviews by the fourth [there's always more, but hopefully not in the same quick succession], and imagine I'll have notes on the press releases and will have made all the important changes by then, too. I'm hoping to have the time to work on some of my more creative projects after, either editing on "The Tagalong," or maybe starting the script for "Cherry Stone." Both have been on my mind a whole lot lately, and I'd like to have the time to put some work in on them. Plus, I have this nice stack of new books from friends for my Birthday that I'd love to start tearing into ["Bone," anyone? Also, Gillen and McKelvie's "Phonogram" - and a bunch of Tina Fey's essays].
I'm also hoping to have an update about "VHS Generation" from Ander. I know he was under the gun on deadlines for a bit, but last we talked he also seemed like he was making some headway on maybe some layouts, or something nifty I could show off here. The same is true for Justin - I heard from him around my birthday, and it looks like he's found a better way to schedule time for the comic [re: "Calamity Cash and the Town with No Name"] around or maybe during his working hours, so I wouldn't be surprised if I have something to show off for that in the next couple weeks too.
It is in these moments I fear I may have forgotten myself.
I find myself wondering why I have strayed so far from these sorts of solutions to my problems, why I had gotten to a place where functional [when all I needed was function] wasn't good enough. It screams of trying to impress someone, and missing the point of what I should really be doing entirely.
I've been pretty busy this past week - most of it has been from paying work. My book reviews have gotten a little intense, longer books arriving at shorter intervals from each other - nothing to complain about, what I get is really just a roll of the dice, and when I get it is almost entirely up to me, when I turned my last review in. But occasionally when two land so close together it's easy to feel overwhelmed, like all I'm doing are reviews, and that's when a pretty sweet deal tends to feel a little more like a job. The company seems really pleased with the work I do though, and I like that, and I don't know this for sure but I've felt lately like I've been getting better assignments from them. I can't think of a single way they'd do that, but still.
It's one of those management tools I picked up from Terry back in the day - letting your people know they're doing good work can really make them feel better about said work they're doing, even if the tasks themselves haven't changed much.
Speaking of Terry, working on the press releases for our PRSA-WV Crystal Award win was what the bulk of last week went to. You can see a bit about our win here on the PRSA website [search "Vandalia," "Angela Beth Armstead," or "Terry Lively" on the page to see the exact info], and I'll link one of the press releases proper if either go up on the web. I got eight billable hours out of doing the releases, which is pretty accurate to the actual time spent working on them - I'm still in that place where there's always an hour or two I forget to account for, and I'm never comfortable guessing and charging the client for that, but I was much better at keeping track this time. I thought it turned out well, but I promised a final edit, which will probably come down the tube sometime this week.
I also got this on Twitter last week from my cousin Travis, concerning the copy I did for his website, TCustomz.com:
DM from TCustomz: "dude, i'm on the first page of Google for "soul beats" and "sampled beats" thanks to your writing"
This? This I really love. This is a DM notification I'd frame if possible. Twitter should look in to maybe selling prints of said tweets. If I got these for everything I worked on, I almost wouldn't need paid.
I also said goodbye to my kid brother this week. Aaron's... shipping out, sans the ship, headed to basic training as part of the US Army. My mom and step-dad threw a small get-together in his honor on Saturday, and even though I'm just as proud of him as anyone, I still have crazy-mixed feeling about my only sibling going off to join the armed forces in this particular climate. Anyone who doesn't give a shit about politics clearly has never had someone they loved in a position to be put in harms way, and I've just been kind 0f... I'll be honest, I'm not even half-way to untangling all my emotions as it concerns his enlisting. I was very lucky to have my friend Beck along with me, it helped take the edge off like you wouldn't believe, and though I've tried, I'll never really be able to thank her enough for that.
The crazy thing is, Aaron is one of the strongest guys I know, and as much as I'm sweating this for him, I imagine to him it's probably next to no big deal. He has this amazing ability to be calm in the face of things that most of us couldn't even dream of dealing with in such a composed and measured manner, and I honestly don't believe there's anything they can throw at him that will ever be able to throw him. But hey. He's my little brother.
I worry.
I'll be out from under these book reviews by the fourth [there's always more, but hopefully not in the same quick succession], and imagine I'll have notes on the press releases and will have made all the important changes by then, too. I'm hoping to have the time to work on some of my more creative projects after, either editing on "The Tagalong," or maybe starting the script for "Cherry Stone." Both have been on my mind a whole lot lately, and I'd like to have the time to put some work in on them. Plus, I have this nice stack of new books from friends for my Birthday that I'd love to start tearing into ["Bone," anyone? Also, Gillen and McKelvie's "Phonogram" - and a bunch of Tina Fey's essays].
I'm also hoping to have an update about "VHS Generation" from Ander. I know he was under the gun on deadlines for a bit, but last we talked he also seemed like he was making some headway on maybe some layouts, or something nifty I could show off here. The same is true for Justin - I heard from him around my birthday, and it looks like he's found a better way to schedule time for the comic [re: "Calamity Cash and the Town with No Name"] around or maybe during his working hours, so I wouldn't be surprised if I have something to show off for that in the next couple weeks too.
Stacking Mad Paper with TCustomz.com
So, this was sort of buried in my previous post, and I just want to call attention to it again, because I'm really pleased with how it turned out.
TCustomz.com
Above is part of the mission statement - to read more, go check out TCustomz.com.
I cannot say enough about how proud I am with the finished product on this. This was a great job to work on, Travis made himself incredibly available and was just so passionate about what it is that he does, and was so willing to just sit and talk about it that I went into the actual writing process with a wealth of information to craft into the final copy. There were deadlines, but nearly all of them were self-set, and quality was valued above anything else. At this level, this is the sort of freelance gig you dream about. And not to pay myself on the back, but I think it shows in the work.
Again, I want to thank TCustomz for the opportunity to be involved in the next step of the growth of his business, and for being such a great client.
And not to shill, but I also want to say that if anyone reading this is involved in music in any way, in any genre, and is looking for someone to do website copy, or press releases, or anything like that, to take a look at my work on TCustomz.com and, if you like what you see, email me at mojo.wire.productions@gmail.com. Though not a musician or a producer myself, I'm very passionate about music, and love any chance to write about it, and hopefully help those involved with it if I can.
TCustomz.comTCustomz Productionz is committed to bringing premium beats, instrumentals, and drum kits to artists and producers looking for that perfect sound to complete their projects and support their flow. Producing both composed and sampled beats, TCustomz reflects the old school tradition, but with a new school twist, offering a cleaner, industry quality sound that remains true to the gritty, underground style. Whether you’re an aspiring musician, an up-and-coming producer looking for quality drum kits, or an established star trying to find something fresh and real, TCustomz Productionz has what you need.
Above is part of the mission statement - to read more, go check out TCustomz.com.
I cannot say enough about how proud I am with the finished product on this. This was a great job to work on, Travis made himself incredibly available and was just so passionate about what it is that he does, and was so willing to just sit and talk about it that I went into the actual writing process with a wealth of information to craft into the final copy. There were deadlines, but nearly all of them were self-set, and quality was valued above anything else. At this level, this is the sort of freelance gig you dream about. And not to pay myself on the back, but I think it shows in the work.
Again, I want to thank TCustomz for the opportunity to be involved in the next step of the growth of his business, and for being such a great client.
And not to shill, but I also want to say that if anyone reading this is involved in music in any way, in any genre, and is looking for someone to do website copy, or press releases, or anything like that, to take a look at my work on TCustomz.com and, if you like what you see, email me at mojo.wire.productions@gmail.com. Though not a musician or a producer myself, I'm very passionate about music, and love any chance to write about it, and hopefully help those involved with it if I can.
Serve the Servant(s)
Few things to run through. Just not like, you know, on a sword.
First up, congratulations to my kid brother, Aaron, who graduated from high school this past week. As you can see in the picture, like most high school grads, he can't quite see what all the fuss is about - a feeling I remember well, the sort of "what did you expect was going to happen" vibe that makes it difficult to understand what all the fuss is about. While I certainly felt like high school was going to go on forever, and even hypothesized once to a very stoned friend that maybe it would, that somewhere along the way we had died, and went to hell, and that this was our eternal damnation, two kids forced to live the same day over and over again, backs to the same wall, going through the same routine, over and over again, with no deviation. All as some punishment from some past deviation.
I think what I neglected back then, what the grads are probably suppose to neglect, is that this was not so much a day for the grad. Commencement is for the families, the relatives. A show you act in, but would really not be too keen on watching.
I enjoyed the ceremony, found a lot of hilarity in how high strung my mother was, and gave Aaron a nice gift to commemorate the day. I tracked down an old Raketa watch from the 1970s, the sort issued in the Soviet Military along with the more ostentatious and common [so I'm told] Vostok watches. He's always been a bit of a war buff, and I wanted to get him a watch because my Dad got me one when I graduated, and that seemed to fit. Plus, a proper tank of wind-up that only the USSR can make? Can't beat that.
And it's hard not to find the tiny "CCCP" pretty nifty too.
We got my grandmother home on Thursday, and most of my time since then has been getting her settled in, making sure she doesn't overdo it before getting back to 100%. She's always been intensely independent, and I personally believe that you don't live and go through the things she has, and then have to get ordered around by some 20-something, no matter how good his intentions are. So it's mostly about keeping up with things, getting them done so she just doesn't have to worry about them. We're slipping back into a regular routine here, but it might be another week before I get back to serious work on any sort of writing project.
It's good to have her home. I appreciate all the support, all the nice things said or done by folks while I was dealing with all this. Thank you.
This whole thing is the major reason while my normal, daily linking of things on my Twitter page has stopped. I apologize to anyone who thinks I might be snubbing them by not throwing them some coverage, believe me, I want to, I've just been really busy and really distracted, and that's put a crimp in things. Most everything I link tends to show up in the right sidebar there under "Blog Roll," so I'd recommend checking there daily. Even if I haven't blogged [and that might continue to be sparse too], please come back and see what all my friends have been up to.
Also, something to check out:
Some, though not all, of my copy for TCustomz.com has went live. Travis is exceptionally pleased with what we have so far, and we're really only one sit-down and probably a little bit of editing from yours truly away from being completely finished. It was a new experience for me, as I'd put website copy together before, but never for a company like this, and there is very little out there to use as examples or build upon. I'm pleased though, and again, feeling a little better about trusting myself.
Speaking of web copy, the company I was working for on the Angela Beth Armstead, DDS website - Terry Lively's Vandalia Productions - has won an award from the West Virginia branch of The Public Relations Society of America. I don't know much in the way of details yet, but apparently there's going to be a dinner/reception on the 15th that I'll be attending. We're all going as group, company solidarity, I'll probably write more about it when I have more information. It seems like a pretty big deal, though.
As personal work goes, I want to thank John, Ian, Max, and Dave for all the kind words and retweets on "Dante Hicks is Dead." That meant a lot, and along with the "likes" on Facebook, I'm thinking these essays are something I might like to pursue. I jumped the gun a little with this one - I don't feel nearly ready to churn these out on anything resembling a regular basis - but that they elicited any response at all made me think I wasn't crazy to put some time towards this first one, and that it was all positive seems like an even greater endorsement. I am sitting on about ten other rough topics for these essays- originally, I was considering something only 80s and 90s-based, but I've since had a couple of ideas concerning things like Scott Pilgrim and Bryan Danielson, so this might just become something of a catch-all "my life through pop culture" kind of memoir thing.
So there will be more, under the tag of "Casey Jones's Blues." I expect it could be a little bit before a second installment, just because, again, I put "Dante Hicks is Dead" up before I really had an overall theme in mind or anything like that. I've also got to finish "The Tagalong" and some stuff that I have been working on/putting off since before I decided to throw this first essay in a series out into the world. But I feel pretty confidant that I'm going to keep at it, and hopefully soon, if only because I've been reading so much Joan Didion, and Bucky Sinister.
If you know their work, you'll see where I'm coming from.
Brief letter from Ander recently, telling me to expect an email sometime this week. Possibly "VHS Generation"-related artwork? Fingers crossed.
Speaking of comics, my friend Sarah told me today that "Girls with Slingshots," a web comic I enjoy immensely but desperately need to catch up on, is authored by a West Virginia native, someone still actually living here in Sheperdstown. I had not known this about Danielle Corsetto, and am a little bummed that she hasn't gotten more local coverage [or perhaps I had just missed it], but I found myself almost too excited about it, a little gleam of hope that I haven't had since finding out Norm Scott [that'd be of "Hsu and Chan" fame] was also from around here. Of course, I don't draw, which is really a problem since it's so difficult finding people up for any sort of long-term collaboration, but still.
Also local, not comic-related, but still cool, the oft-linked, always quality Glen "Mario's Closet" Brogan has begun working on a mural in the city of Charleston. You can see his announcement of the project here, and some posts about his progress here and here. Big congratulations to Glen on this - we're all proud of him.
Looks, it's no secret that I hate it in this state. You can point a lot of fingers as to whose fault that is or isn't, whether I'm difficult, or if there's just nothing here. I find people will make their own decisions, there. The long and short of it is that Randall Nichols and West Virginia have not worked out for each other in many creative ways - but those who it has, those who I would like to call peers [as the gaps between their successes and my failures grow, I feel worse for doing that], their accomplishments are substantial, and I like celebrating them, want to celebrate them. And stuff like this gives me hope that myself and WV may one day work for each other enough so that the two of us can go our separate ways, hopefully in peace.
Hoping to grab just a little bit of sleep. Feeling a little more tired than usual.
First up, congratulations to my kid brother, Aaron, who graduated from high school this past week. As you can see in the picture, like most high school grads, he can't quite see what all the fuss is about - a feeling I remember well, the sort of "what did you expect was going to happen" vibe that makes it difficult to understand what all the fuss is about. While I certainly felt like high school was going to go on forever, and even hypothesized once to a very stoned friend that maybe it would, that somewhere along the way we had died, and went to hell, and that this was our eternal damnation, two kids forced to live the same day over and over again, backs to the same wall, going through the same routine, over and over again, with no deviation. All as some punishment from some past deviation.I think what I neglected back then, what the grads are probably suppose to neglect, is that this was not so much a day for the grad. Commencement is for the families, the relatives. A show you act in, but would really not be too keen on watching.
I enjoyed the ceremony, found a lot of hilarity in how high strung my mother was, and gave Aaron a nice gift to commemorate the day. I tracked down an old Raketa watch from the 1970s, the sort issued in the Soviet Military along with the more ostentatious and common [so I'm told] Vostok watches. He's always been a bit of a war buff, and I wanted to get him a watch because my Dad got me one when I graduated, and that seemed to fit. Plus, a proper tank of wind-up that only the USSR can make? Can't beat that.
And it's hard not to find the tiny "CCCP" pretty nifty too.
We got my grandmother home on Thursday, and most of my time since then has been getting her settled in, making sure she doesn't overdo it before getting back to 100%. She's always been intensely independent, and I personally believe that you don't live and go through the things she has, and then have to get ordered around by some 20-something, no matter how good his intentions are. So it's mostly about keeping up with things, getting them done so she just doesn't have to worry about them. We're slipping back into a regular routine here, but it might be another week before I get back to serious work on any sort of writing project.
It's good to have her home. I appreciate all the support, all the nice things said or done by folks while I was dealing with all this. Thank you.
This whole thing is the major reason while my normal, daily linking of things on my Twitter page has stopped. I apologize to anyone who thinks I might be snubbing them by not throwing them some coverage, believe me, I want to, I've just been really busy and really distracted, and that's put a crimp in things. Most everything I link tends to show up in the right sidebar there under "Blog Roll," so I'd recommend checking there daily. Even if I haven't blogged [and that might continue to be sparse too], please come back and see what all my friends have been up to.
Also, something to check out:
Some, though not all, of my copy for TCustomz.com has went live. Travis is exceptionally pleased with what we have so far, and we're really only one sit-down and probably a little bit of editing from yours truly away from being completely finished. It was a new experience for me, as I'd put website copy together before, but never for a company like this, and there is very little out there to use as examples or build upon. I'm pleased though, and again, feeling a little better about trusting myself.
Speaking of web copy, the company I was working for on the Angela Beth Armstead, DDS website - Terry Lively's Vandalia Productions - has won an award from the West Virginia branch of The Public Relations Society of America. I don't know much in the way of details yet, but apparently there's going to be a dinner/reception on the 15th that I'll be attending. We're all going as group, company solidarity, I'll probably write more about it when I have more information. It seems like a pretty big deal, though.
As personal work goes, I want to thank John, Ian, Max, and Dave for all the kind words and retweets on "Dante Hicks is Dead." That meant a lot, and along with the "likes" on Facebook, I'm thinking these essays are something I might like to pursue. I jumped the gun a little with this one - I don't feel nearly ready to churn these out on anything resembling a regular basis - but that they elicited any response at all made me think I wasn't crazy to put some time towards this first one, and that it was all positive seems like an even greater endorsement. I am sitting on about ten other rough topics for these essays- originally, I was considering something only 80s and 90s-based, but I've since had a couple of ideas concerning things like Scott Pilgrim and Bryan Danielson, so this might just become something of a catch-all "my life through pop culture" kind of memoir thing.
So there will be more, under the tag of "Casey Jones's Blues." I expect it could be a little bit before a second installment, just because, again, I put "Dante Hicks is Dead" up before I really had an overall theme in mind or anything like that. I've also got to finish "The Tagalong" and some stuff that I have been working on/putting off since before I decided to throw this first essay in a series out into the world. But I feel pretty confidant that I'm going to keep at it, and hopefully soon, if only because I've been reading so much Joan Didion, and Bucky Sinister.
If you know their work, you'll see where I'm coming from.
Brief letter from Ander recently, telling me to expect an email sometime this week. Possibly "VHS Generation"-related artwork? Fingers crossed.
Speaking of comics, my friend Sarah told me today that "Girls with Slingshots," a web comic I enjoy immensely but desperately need to catch up on, is authored by a West Virginia native, someone still actually living here in Sheperdstown. I had not known this about Danielle Corsetto, and am a little bummed that she hasn't gotten more local coverage [or perhaps I had just missed it], but I found myself almost too excited about it, a little gleam of hope that I haven't had since finding out Norm Scott [that'd be of "Hsu and Chan" fame] was also from around here. Of course, I don't draw, which is really a problem since it's so difficult finding people up for any sort of long-term collaboration, but still.
Also local, not comic-related, but still cool, the oft-linked, always quality Glen "Mario's Closet" Brogan has begun working on a mural in the city of Charleston. You can see his announcement of the project here, and some posts about his progress here and here. Big congratulations to Glen on this - we're all proud of him.
Looks, it's no secret that I hate it in this state. You can point a lot of fingers as to whose fault that is or isn't, whether I'm difficult, or if there's just nothing here. I find people will make their own decisions, there. The long and short of it is that Randall Nichols and West Virginia have not worked out for each other in many creative ways - but those who it has, those who I would like to call peers [as the gaps between their successes and my failures grow, I feel worse for doing that], their accomplishments are substantial, and I like celebrating them, want to celebrate them. And stuff like this gives me hope that myself and WV may one day work for each other enough so that the two of us can go our separate ways, hopefully in peace.
Hoping to grab just a little bit of sleep. Feeling a little more tired than usual.
I always feel weird writing an invoice...
A lot of positive stuff to talk about, despite it not being the best couple of days.
Nearly finished with the copy for TCustomz.com. Sent off the invoice, and the rough draft of the biography page last night/this morning. Feeling pretty good about it - I spent a lot of my week working on the page that profiles who Travis is, where he's been, and what he's done, and while I know this is always the page of copy that needs the most adjusting, I still found myself digging what I did with it. The "problem" with an artists profile is that there are just so many ways to do them, and if you're any good at interviewing your client [I like to think I am], then you're going to have a wealth of information to pull from, and a lot of ways to utilize it. I've seen websites that just jam the information about the artist in there like it's the back of a hardcover, and that's fine in some circumstances, but I've always thought the way you present said information should reflect the person its about.
So the rough copy of that is in Travis's hands, and the rest of the work is done. Everything but the bio will be up on his website soon, and I'll do a post pointing everyone to that when the time comes. I've really enjoyed working with Travis on this, and am hopeful that my copy will help him. We really ended up doing something that not a lot of other websites in his industry does. In fact, I'm just going to go ahead and say, if you're a producer, if you do sampling and sell beats, honestly, if you're just a musician, someone in a band, and your website is looking sparse, I would recommend upping the copy on it. Your Flash Player is not showing up in any search engine.
And if you need someone to do it for you, well... hi. How can I help?
Justin has put up some sketches for the comic on his blog [re: Calamity Cash and the Town with No Name]. The first is of Tana Cash herself, just an amazing and dynamic shot, though I think Justin's having a little problem with his scanner, so you won't get to see any of the background in the sketch. Still, it's absolutely amazing, exactly how I picture our heroine at her most bad ass. He also just finished said page, and put up this thumbnail, which is absolutely worth a look too. It's hilarious to me that even with a plot point being how little ammo they have, I worked so many firearms into that script.
Unrelated to all of that, I also wanted to thank my friend John Wiswell for his blog post today. He recently received another Versatile Blogger award, a real honor in his community, and one he absolutely deserves, if you're familiar at all with his stuff. But in the post, he also made reference to our Tuesday night ritual where we watch Dragon Gate Infinity together, and just generally talk wrestling while he listens to me gush about how great K-Ness is. It's one of the highlights of my week, and one of those things that just wouldn't be possible without the internet to bring us together for it. The great downside to my years of college in Vermont means that the bulk of my friends are not folks who live right next door, and chilling together can get a lot more involved than just grabbing some beer and a DVD and popping by.
But more flattering than all of that is that John named me on a list of his versatile writers. Again, if you follow John's work at all [and if you don't you really should] you'll know there's really no one who busts genres like he does, no one who personifies versatile more than John, and to be recognized by him at all for even achieving a modicum of that is just... beyond flattering. I don't have words, or even a proper way to say thank you for him saying this. It just means a lot.
I may actually join in the game later in the week, throw out some little known facts about myself, but right now my heart's just not in it. My grandmother's in the hospital, and she's doing okay, but it's still thrown everything here into disarray. She's doing okay, which is really as much as I'm comfortable going into here, just because I know she finds it mortifying that us kids throw up so much personal stuff on the internet for anyone to read, and even with this glowing shrine to myself I kind of agree with her there. But yeah, that's why despite all the good news, the past few days have not been great.
My kid brother is graduating from high school this weekend. But it's barely Tuesday now, and that feels a long way off.
Nearly finished with the copy for TCustomz.com. Sent off the invoice, and the rough draft of the biography page last night/this morning. Feeling pretty good about it - I spent a lot of my week working on the page that profiles who Travis is, where he's been, and what he's done, and while I know this is always the page of copy that needs the most adjusting, I still found myself digging what I did with it. The "problem" with an artists profile is that there are just so many ways to do them, and if you're any good at interviewing your client [I like to think I am], then you're going to have a wealth of information to pull from, and a lot of ways to utilize it. I've seen websites that just jam the information about the artist in there like it's the back of a hardcover, and that's fine in some circumstances, but I've always thought the way you present said information should reflect the person its about.
So the rough copy of that is in Travis's hands, and the rest of the work is done. Everything but the bio will be up on his website soon, and I'll do a post pointing everyone to that when the time comes. I've really enjoyed working with Travis on this, and am hopeful that my copy will help him. We really ended up doing something that not a lot of other websites in his industry does. In fact, I'm just going to go ahead and say, if you're a producer, if you do sampling and sell beats, honestly, if you're just a musician, someone in a band, and your website is looking sparse, I would recommend upping the copy on it. Your Flash Player is not showing up in any search engine.
And if you need someone to do it for you, well... hi. How can I help?
Justin has put up some sketches for the comic on his blog [re: Calamity Cash and the Town with No Name]. The first is of Tana Cash herself, just an amazing and dynamic shot, though I think Justin's having a little problem with his scanner, so you won't get to see any of the background in the sketch. Still, it's absolutely amazing, exactly how I picture our heroine at her most bad ass. He also just finished said page, and put up this thumbnail, which is absolutely worth a look too. It's hilarious to me that even with a plot point being how little ammo they have, I worked so many firearms into that script.
Unrelated to all of that, I also wanted to thank my friend John Wiswell for his blog post today. He recently received another Versatile Blogger award, a real honor in his community, and one he absolutely deserves, if you're familiar at all with his stuff. But in the post, he also made reference to our Tuesday night ritual where we watch Dragon Gate Infinity together, and just generally talk wrestling while he listens to me gush about how great K-Ness is. It's one of the highlights of my week, and one of those things that just wouldn't be possible without the internet to bring us together for it. The great downside to my years of college in Vermont means that the bulk of my friends are not folks who live right next door, and chilling together can get a lot more involved than just grabbing some beer and a DVD and popping by.
But more flattering than all of that is that John named me on a list of his versatile writers. Again, if you follow John's work at all [and if you don't you really should] you'll know there's really no one who busts genres like he does, no one who personifies versatile more than John, and to be recognized by him at all for even achieving a modicum of that is just... beyond flattering. I don't have words, or even a proper way to say thank you for him saying this. It just means a lot.
I may actually join in the game later in the week, throw out some little known facts about myself, but right now my heart's just not in it. My grandmother's in the hospital, and she's doing okay, but it's still thrown everything here into disarray. She's doing okay, which is really as much as I'm comfortable going into here, just because I know she finds it mortifying that us kids throw up so much personal stuff on the internet for anyone to read, and even with this glowing shrine to myself I kind of agree with her there. But yeah, that's why despite all the good news, the past few days have not been great.
My kid brother is graduating from high school this weekend. But it's barely Tuesday now, and that feels a long way off.
If the Rapture is coming, I'll be starring in all 16 of those shitty novels.
Already got the client feedback for the bulk of Travis's website copy, we had a short sit down about it, and I plugged in the pretty minimal changes he wanted made. Unless you've ever worked on a project like this for someone, it's hard to illustrate how incredibly satisfying it can be to just see how pleased the client is with what you've done for them - in my experience, it rarely ever happens, even when the client is pleased. That's been the awesome thing about working with Travis on his website - this business he's started is his baby, he is in charge of every single aspect of it, and he's passionate about making it great. Which means he has made himself available and has wanted to be involved in the project, and as strange as it sounds, that actually tends to lead to less drafts, less changes, better work. Communication is key, folks. Could not ask for a better person to work for on this, either.
Still have to finish off his biography/profile page. It is one of the more involved sections, with a lot more text and about a hundred different ways it could be put together. I have a rough deadline for myself on Monday. My guess is that some, if not all, of my copy will be going live on TCustomz website sometime next week. Expect links. I'm pretty pleased with how this has worked out, and I'm hoping other music-type people will see what has been done, and think, "hey, we should get something like that too."
Preferably from me. Hah.
Justin has an in-progress preview of the most recent "Calamity Cash and the Town with No Name" page up on his blog. He's really bogged down, and having to alter the way he prefers to work [not style, time, etc - but read his entry, he'll tell you about it better than I can], but he continues to plug along on this. It looks good, and I'm always happy to see the new stuff. Hopefully I'll get to see the how page in person in the next couple weeks... we've also been trying to make a better effort of hanging out.
It's a balancing act.
Always a good excuse to remind you to get one of Justin's sketchbooks. It's awesome, and supporting fellow creatives is what this space is all about.
I've not been feeling my best the past couple of days. I think it's just been bad times, though I dislike saying so because there has been good stuff happening too.
Still have to finish off his biography/profile page. It is one of the more involved sections, with a lot more text and about a hundred different ways it could be put together. I have a rough deadline for myself on Monday. My guess is that some, if not all, of my copy will be going live on TCustomz website sometime next week. Expect links. I'm pretty pleased with how this has worked out, and I'm hoping other music-type people will see what has been done, and think, "hey, we should get something like that too."
Preferably from me. Hah.
Justin has an in-progress preview of the most recent "Calamity Cash and the Town with No Name" page up on his blog. He's really bogged down, and having to alter the way he prefers to work [not style, time, etc - but read his entry, he'll tell you about it better than I can], but he continues to plug along on this. It looks good, and I'm always happy to see the new stuff. Hopefully I'll get to see the how page in person in the next couple weeks... we've also been trying to make a better effort of hanging out.
It's a balancing act.
Always a good excuse to remind you to get one of Justin's sketchbooks. It's awesome, and supporting fellow creatives is what this space is all about.
I've not been feeling my best the past couple of days. I think it's just been bad times, though I dislike saying so because there has been good stuff happening too.
Sunday to Sunday
"The electric white of the computer screen causes me great pain - when switched to black, the glowing reds feel like needles, slipping just under my eyes, throbbing with each heartbeat. The access it affords me is unprecedented, but I fear, more often than not, I'm stretching my perceptions in ways they were not meant to be... I think that we are absorbing information in a manner our bodies never expected. That we are committed now, pragmatically, to going in through the out door, the arrows on the floor all pointing us in the opposite direction in which we move. It's crowded; we will bump and crash into each other. It will damage us - if we're lucky."
A whole week after promising to post more. Ridiculous.
I blame the Blogger outage at least partially, though I will admit to finding some perverse glee in what a state it seemed to put so many people in. We are remarkably sensible about the internet when it's working, but when something goes wrong I think our dependence shows a little. And I kind of think that's great.
The work on the TCustomz project is going really well. I've already gotten first drafts of about 2/3rds of the copy done, and that was sent to Travis today, a full 24 hours ahead of the deadline we set. I wanted to get one of the larger chunks of copy that wasn't scheduled for tomorrow done as well, that other third of the work, but it's just occurred to me that I'm going to need several more days to polish it off, and since I'd originally said that's how long it would take, I just had to admit to myself that I was on schedule. And that was okay.
It's funny that I sweat being on time more than being ahead or behind.
I also got feedback from Kyle this week on "The Tagalong," a pleasant surprise which will come in real handy once I have some time to get back to working on it. Right now I'm a little swamped, and paying work almost always takes precedence with me, less out of a great commitment to the almighty dollar, and more because I have a tendency of letting my projects take over my life. It's counterintuitive to deadlines to work on something unrelated for days until you pass out in a stupor, only to sleep said stupor off until you've made an acceptable dent in the sleep debt you've accumulated. It can get out of hand.
Discipline.
Since I haven't written anything I can really share, I'm going to link Amy Klein's recent blog post on the passing of Poly Styrene. Or maybe just prompted by her passing. It's called "Poly Styrene Takes Her Place in History" and like most things Amy writes, it has a lot more going on than just it's obvious topic. Which means even if you're not a Poly Styrene fan [and what's wrong with you if you're not?], you should probably read it anyway. I said this already on Twitter, but when Amy Klein blogs, I realize just how much I need to up my game as a writer.
I also got to read to someone this week. Joan Didion - not who I read to, but what I read to someone. I hadn't really read to anyone, hadn't really read out loud, in such a long time. And that was really nice too.
--William Kurdt (May, 2007)
---
A whole week after promising to post more. Ridiculous.
I blame the Blogger outage at least partially, though I will admit to finding some perverse glee in what a state it seemed to put so many people in. We are remarkably sensible about the internet when it's working, but when something goes wrong I think our dependence shows a little. And I kind of think that's great.
The work on the TCustomz project is going really well. I've already gotten first drafts of about 2/3rds of the copy done, and that was sent to Travis today, a full 24 hours ahead of the deadline we set. I wanted to get one of the larger chunks of copy that wasn't scheduled for tomorrow done as well, that other third of the work, but it's just occurred to me that I'm going to need several more days to polish it off, and since I'd originally said that's how long it would take, I just had to admit to myself that I was on schedule. And that was okay.
It's funny that I sweat being on time more than being ahead or behind.
I also got feedback from Kyle this week on "The Tagalong," a pleasant surprise which will come in real handy once I have some time to get back to working on it. Right now I'm a little swamped, and paying work almost always takes precedence with me, less out of a great commitment to the almighty dollar, and more because I have a tendency of letting my projects take over my life. It's counterintuitive to deadlines to work on something unrelated for days until you pass out in a stupor, only to sleep said stupor off until you've made an acceptable dent in the sleep debt you've accumulated. It can get out of hand.
Discipline.
Since I haven't written anything I can really share, I'm going to link Amy Klein's recent blog post on the passing of Poly Styrene. Or maybe just prompted by her passing. It's called "Poly Styrene Takes Her Place in History" and like most things Amy writes, it has a lot more going on than just it's obvious topic. Which means even if you're not a Poly Styrene fan [and what's wrong with you if you're not?], you should probably read it anyway. I said this already on Twitter, but when Amy Klein blogs, I realize just how much I need to up my game as a writer.
I also got to read to someone this week. Joan Didion - not who I read to, but what I read to someone. I hadn't really read to anyone, hadn't really read out loud, in such a long time. And that was really nice too.
Catching up - new copy project for TCustomz.com.
There's really no reason for me to have not posted more lately. I've certainly been working.
Sleep is the problem. When isn't it? I've been staying up all night, running errands during the day, and sleeping just enough in the evening to stay up all night again. Sometimes it butchers my productivity, other times I hardly even notice a difference. Five to nine instead of nine to five. The short five to nine though. I should probably fix this, try to adjust to something more sensible. It's hard, because I do feel really comfortable on this schedule, even though it's not very sensible. Everything can get done on this schedule. Even if I do feel unpleasant for most of the day because of it.
Big project right now is preparing copy for my cousin Travis Cole's website - or TCustomz as it's called [that's the business, website, and artist's moniker]. I've mentioned before, but Travis is a music producer; he samples and creates beats, puts together hip hop instrumentals, and makes drum kits, and has it all online and up for sale. Along with being extremely talented at it, Travis is also a much smarter artist than I am, as he's been plying his craft as a producer on the side while keeping lucrative, steady employment, and along the way he's really found some success with his beats and feels, rightfully so, like he's ready to take his business to the next level.
As anyone who has a website-based business knows, it's all about search terms, getting those important words and all that self-promoting content onto the site proper so you pop high on Google when searched for. Accessibility and visibility translate into big business, and Travis has hired me to put together the copy which is going to facilitate that. We've had a slew of emails passed back and forth between us over the past month or so, and two good Skype conferences about what it is he wants, and now I'm just in that busy place where I'm looking over notes and trying to get a rough draft going for him.
Current deadline is loose [upside to working with someone not in a hurry, and who wants the best work possible], but I'm trying to get first copy to him by the 16th-17th. That's the tentative date. We've talked about several things we can do with this, both now, and down the line, and I may also interview Travis and post it up here after this project is done, just to get him so press to link to, as a placeholder for when all his rather spectacular work starts to get a lot of real press. Which I'm sure it will.
Check out just what Travis does on his website here : http://tcustomz.com/.
But that's getting a little ahead of myself. Right now I'm not looking much farther ahead than next week. I just polished off a book review, and I'm hoping another book won't come until I have a lot of this stuff worked out. Splitting my time has never been my strong suit.
And yet, I do it a lot. I've decided mostly what my plan is with "Walks with Angels" - I'm going to do two versions, one as the short screenplay I've written it as, and a second as a comic. It'll be a good study in the differences of the style, while still giving me something else I can send out to festivals and contests. I think though the thrust of the story will still be the same in both versions, I think the end product will be different enough so as not to be a problem. We'll see. It occurs to me that as often as I talk about trying to figure out the best mediums for telling certain stories, I've never really tried to take one story and tell it both ways before.
It feels a little like blasphemy. Self-hating blasphemy. But I'll run with it.
The comic version of "Walks with Angels" is going to feature a character from "VHS Generation." Idea came about when Ander and I were talking about how one of the characters was probably something of a hustler... it fits, really well, actually, and it also plays to the 90s aesthetic. Most of the new dialogue is already written. It's just all in the moleskin right now.
Another comic, I only recently got outlined. Sort of a... tribute, I think, to my friends here, a group of people I haven't seen a lot lately, but I wanted to write something about. In kind of a... circuitous way. Plus, there's a little spirit of The Housemartins in it, a band another friend of mine, Caitlin, turned me onto. They're not my style at all, but their message is really what's kept me listening, and given me a lot of inspiration for this too. I'm calling it "Cherry Stone" for right now. My hope is it'll only be about 18 pages long, but the outline is almost half of that which means it'll probably be over. Maybe I'll be able to make cuts. There's also a lot of really cool stuff in it to draw, which means there might be some hope of getting an artist interested in working on it once the script is finished.
I haven't gotten any more feedback for "The Tagalong." I'm holding out hope that a couple of people will still get back to me about it. But I told folks not to hurry, and they're not. I can totally dig that. I'm getting to that place where I'm busy enough with other things that I'd like to put it to bed soon.
All three of those projects are at bat after I finish the copy for Travis's website, or at least get enough of it done that I can, in good conscience, work on other things.
I know it doesn't look like it, but I'm really trying to get more pragmatic about my stuff these days. If I'm honest with myself, I don't think I have the hustle to do traditional freelance work, chasing down paychecks and elbowing other people out for gigs. I don't want it bad enough to trample on other talented people, and that's... you know, that's a problem. That's going to impede me. In the past week I've been called a "nice guy" on numerous occasions, said in a way which is both a compliment but also like the person saying it was trying to get something sour out of their mouth.
I don't know what I'm going to do about that right now. I've been lucky enough to have friends, or people familiar with what I do to offer me work. I don't expect that to last. On the bright side of things, there have been enough of that kind of thing that I would actually have a pretty robust portfolio if I bothered to put it together, and that's a good thing [probably will put one together after I get this website done for Travis - it would be the nice little crown jewel of work]. But I'm not a journalist. I'm really not. I just like to write. I like to tell stories. And I can do prose, but I really don't know if I do enough prose to ever be able to submit work, and make money that way. And it's not even medium that I like to work in.The mediums I like to work in involve connections, and funding. And the former is a lot easier to get if you have the latter too, which... well, I don't.
It's hard not to get discouraged. There is this very real part of me that thinks... if I actually had something, if there was something worthwhile about me, it would have been noticed by now. The lack of any sort of recognition brings a lot of problems, the lack recognition itself only being a small part of that. There's very little feedback. No clue as to what I'm doing wrong. No pat on the back when I do something right. There's no one here to help sharpen dull ideas into concrete plans. These things, in and of themselves, are important. But to be worth these things, that's important too. Not catching anyone's attention enough to have that... it works on you.
So ultimately, I'm left with stuff like this, Gail Simone's "Brutal Tips On Breaking Into Comics" a really great article that only partly applies to me, and to my goals. Most articles, many books I read are like that - things about writing novels, movies, comics, that are encouraging but not helpful enough, not for my particular set of circumstances, and there are never any articles about adapting these useful hints to help yourself specifically. You're left to try and mince it out on your own. In my quest to become as unique as possible, I have inadvertently stumbled on a set of circumstances that there's no guide for overcoming.
Hopefully not because no ever has.
It's a really good argument to go back to school. To hope I'll be able to, when that's actually an option again. To hope that will actually be an option again. And if not that, there will be some people, somewhere, willing to accept me, and engage me in some satisfying way. Hopes.
I do at least have the blessing of some support and time, which does allow me to consider these things on my own, even though, for as smart as I claim to be, answers don't come quickly. It is also reassuring to know that, while I might not be doing the right thing by myself, I am at least doing what I believe is right for others. It's not as "pat-yourself-on-the-back" awesome as it sounds, but it makes certain things easier. And easier does not always equal wrong.
And there's work. Work still comes in, though I am constantly worried more people are doing more than I am, both because it means they're doing better, and also because it means that there's something very deficient in me for only being able to handle this much at a time. And there are the stories I think of, that I want to tell. Not having a set idea how I'm going to turn that into a living, or what I could do instead so that I could keep telling those... that's a hard hurdle to overcome, but it doesn't take away from when I'm actually elbows deep into a script.
There's not much time to worry about it all with copy still to do.
None of that probably makes much sense. But if you read it, you deserve an explanation. It's all why I've only been writing here sporadically.
Sleep is the problem. When isn't it? I've been staying up all night, running errands during the day, and sleeping just enough in the evening to stay up all night again. Sometimes it butchers my productivity, other times I hardly even notice a difference. Five to nine instead of nine to five. The short five to nine though. I should probably fix this, try to adjust to something more sensible. It's hard, because I do feel really comfortable on this schedule, even though it's not very sensible. Everything can get done on this schedule. Even if I do feel unpleasant for most of the day because of it.
Big project right now is preparing copy for my cousin Travis Cole's website - or TCustomz as it's called [that's the business, website, and artist's moniker]. I've mentioned before, but Travis is a music producer; he samples and creates beats, puts together hip hop instrumentals, and makes drum kits, and has it all online and up for sale. Along with being extremely talented at it, Travis is also a much smarter artist than I am, as he's been plying his craft as a producer on the side while keeping lucrative, steady employment, and along the way he's really found some success with his beats and feels, rightfully so, like he's ready to take his business to the next level.
As anyone who has a website-based business knows, it's all about search terms, getting those important words and all that self-promoting content onto the site proper so you pop high on Google when searched for. Accessibility and visibility translate into big business, and Travis has hired me to put together the copy which is going to facilitate that. We've had a slew of emails passed back and forth between us over the past month or so, and two good Skype conferences about what it is he wants, and now I'm just in that busy place where I'm looking over notes and trying to get a rough draft going for him.
Current deadline is loose [upside to working with someone not in a hurry, and who wants the best work possible], but I'm trying to get first copy to him by the 16th-17th. That's the tentative date. We've talked about several things we can do with this, both now, and down the line, and I may also interview Travis and post it up here after this project is done, just to get him so press to link to, as a placeholder for when all his rather spectacular work starts to get a lot of real press. Which I'm sure it will.
Check out just what Travis does on his website here : http://tcustomz.com/.
But that's getting a little ahead of myself. Right now I'm not looking much farther ahead than next week. I just polished off a book review, and I'm hoping another book won't come until I have a lot of this stuff worked out. Splitting my time has never been my strong suit.
And yet, I do it a lot. I've decided mostly what my plan is with "Walks with Angels" - I'm going to do two versions, one as the short screenplay I've written it as, and a second as a comic. It'll be a good study in the differences of the style, while still giving me something else I can send out to festivals and contests. I think though the thrust of the story will still be the same in both versions, I think the end product will be different enough so as not to be a problem. We'll see. It occurs to me that as often as I talk about trying to figure out the best mediums for telling certain stories, I've never really tried to take one story and tell it both ways before.
It feels a little like blasphemy. Self-hating blasphemy. But I'll run with it.
The comic version of "Walks with Angels" is going to feature a character from "VHS Generation." Idea came about when Ander and I were talking about how one of the characters was probably something of a hustler... it fits, really well, actually, and it also plays to the 90s aesthetic. Most of the new dialogue is already written. It's just all in the moleskin right now.
Another comic, I only recently got outlined. Sort of a... tribute, I think, to my friends here, a group of people I haven't seen a lot lately, but I wanted to write something about. In kind of a... circuitous way. Plus, there's a little spirit of The Housemartins in it, a band another friend of mine, Caitlin, turned me onto. They're not my style at all, but their message is really what's kept me listening, and given me a lot of inspiration for this too. I'm calling it "Cherry Stone" for right now. My hope is it'll only be about 18 pages long, but the outline is almost half of that which means it'll probably be over. Maybe I'll be able to make cuts. There's also a lot of really cool stuff in it to draw, which means there might be some hope of getting an artist interested in working on it once the script is finished.
I haven't gotten any more feedback for "The Tagalong." I'm holding out hope that a couple of people will still get back to me about it. But I told folks not to hurry, and they're not. I can totally dig that. I'm getting to that place where I'm busy enough with other things that I'd like to put it to bed soon.
All three of those projects are at bat after I finish the copy for Travis's website, or at least get enough of it done that I can, in good conscience, work on other things.
---
I know it doesn't look like it, but I'm really trying to get more pragmatic about my stuff these days. If I'm honest with myself, I don't think I have the hustle to do traditional freelance work, chasing down paychecks and elbowing other people out for gigs. I don't want it bad enough to trample on other talented people, and that's... you know, that's a problem. That's going to impede me. In the past week I've been called a "nice guy" on numerous occasions, said in a way which is both a compliment but also like the person saying it was trying to get something sour out of their mouth.
I don't know what I'm going to do about that right now. I've been lucky enough to have friends, or people familiar with what I do to offer me work. I don't expect that to last. On the bright side of things, there have been enough of that kind of thing that I would actually have a pretty robust portfolio if I bothered to put it together, and that's a good thing [probably will put one together after I get this website done for Travis - it would be the nice little crown jewel of work]. But I'm not a journalist. I'm really not. I just like to write. I like to tell stories. And I can do prose, but I really don't know if I do enough prose to ever be able to submit work, and make money that way. And it's not even medium that I like to work in.The mediums I like to work in involve connections, and funding. And the former is a lot easier to get if you have the latter too, which... well, I don't.
It's hard not to get discouraged. There is this very real part of me that thinks... if I actually had something, if there was something worthwhile about me, it would have been noticed by now. The lack of any sort of recognition brings a lot of problems, the lack recognition itself only being a small part of that. There's very little feedback. No clue as to what I'm doing wrong. No pat on the back when I do something right. There's no one here to help sharpen dull ideas into concrete plans. These things, in and of themselves, are important. But to be worth these things, that's important too. Not catching anyone's attention enough to have that... it works on you.
So ultimately, I'm left with stuff like this, Gail Simone's "Brutal Tips On Breaking Into Comics" a really great article that only partly applies to me, and to my goals. Most articles, many books I read are like that - things about writing novels, movies, comics, that are encouraging but not helpful enough, not for my particular set of circumstances, and there are never any articles about adapting these useful hints to help yourself specifically. You're left to try and mince it out on your own. In my quest to become as unique as possible, I have inadvertently stumbled on a set of circumstances that there's no guide for overcoming.
Hopefully not because no ever has.
It's a really good argument to go back to school. To hope I'll be able to, when that's actually an option again. To hope that will actually be an option again. And if not that, there will be some people, somewhere, willing to accept me, and engage me in some satisfying way. Hopes.
I do at least have the blessing of some support and time, which does allow me to consider these things on my own, even though, for as smart as I claim to be, answers don't come quickly. It is also reassuring to know that, while I might not be doing the right thing by myself, I am at least doing what I believe is right for others. It's not as "pat-yourself-on-the-back" awesome as it sounds, but it makes certain things easier. And easier does not always equal wrong.
And there's work. Work still comes in, though I am constantly worried more people are doing more than I am, both because it means they're doing better, and also because it means that there's something very deficient in me for only being able to handle this much at a time. And there are the stories I think of, that I want to tell. Not having a set idea how I'm going to turn that into a living, or what I could do instead so that I could keep telling those... that's a hard hurdle to overcome, but it doesn't take away from when I'm actually elbows deep into a script.
There's not much time to worry about it all with copy still to do.
None of that probably makes much sense. But if you read it, you deserve an explanation. It's all why I've only been writing here sporadically.
No time to write, have to write.
...yeah. That's pretty much where I am currently.
It's actually not as bad as it sounds, it was just one of the first times since I started getting paid for writing that I actually found myself having to put off things I wanted to write for things I had deadlines for. I feel kind of bad that it hasn't happened sooner, though looking back to college, I think it probably has, and I just made the wrong decisions about how to prioritize back then.
There are worse times it could have happened. "The Tagalong" feedback I've been getting has surprised me - people are either wildly enthusiastic, or really displeased with how it ends. I didn't really expect a story about a lost love and a neglected child to be more polarizing than the thing about strippers and depression [re: The Peep Show], but hey, strong feelings are better than no feelings. Plus, having this other work to do means I'm getting a little time away from it, and will hopefully be able to pop in with a lot of good things to think about, and fresh eyes.
And I haven't even heard back from everyone yet.
"Walks with Angels" work remains on hold, though probably not for very long. Weekend, maybe. Looks like I'll have a small website copy job for my cousin coming up, too. Would like to do some comic work too. Old projects and new. I guess I am still figuring out how to balance things.
Before all this hit, I had a couple of days there where I was just reading for myself. Finally finished off "Strangers in Paradise," which I guess saying out loud would probably surprise a lot of people. Terry Moore's first big indie title was probably one of the most influential things I'd ever read, as far as my own work goes, and when I tell people that, there's usually this immediate belief that I followed the work closely, and just knew it all backwards and forwards, could recite from it the way I used to be able to do with Kevin Smith's "Clerks." And I guess that's valid... I mean, in geek culture, how much you know, what obscure thing you know, what your recall is, like any subculture that pretty much measures the size of your geek penis, but I never really bought that sort of obsession necessarily indicated your level of passion for the work, or what kind of effect it had on you.
I could write for pages about SiP, talk about it even longer, but again, my time right now is limited, and something like that I feel would demand a lot of care, like my Amy post. I think a post like that will happen for "Strangers" someday, just not today. Instead, what I will say is that when I first came upon SiP, I was fairly sheltered in the kind of comics I read, they were all super heroes and Ninja Turtles, and while all that was great, something about what Moore was doing in the few issues of that book I was able to get a hold of - they just moved me. They turned a hobby involving a niche medium into something that could suddenly be so vast. I even think, honestly, that if it weren't for "Strangers in Paradise," I wouldn't even love super hero comics as much as I do, because I'd never have gotten to that place where I could appreciate moments that weren't all big fights and cool powers.
It wasn't the only thing that made me love comics. Far from it. But it really made me want to write them, I think. I don't know. Maybe I just needed to see that nothing was off-limits. That there was a lot more ground to cover.
Anyway. A few issues, or the whole thing - there was something intrinsic there, something that wasn't going to let me down, something that I could get from a few pages or from the entire narrative. I think that's how good the series is, but I also think on some level my experience with the work made it a pretty big deal to me. And I also think that, deep down, there was something frightening about finally having no more excuses [I haven't had any for awhile], so it was just time, to buy that last trade, to finish the series.
I dated this girl once who was a huge Charles Dickens fan. Just, the biggest I've ever known. And rightfully so, his work is great, and lovely, and some of the most important in literature, love it or hate it. But she called me once, upset, not overly so, but just very... upset, because she'd just finished reading the last thing by Dickens which she hadn't read yet. For the rest of her life, there would be no new Charles Dickens, no story of his which she hadn't delved into. She could read the old stuff, and still be surprised by what was in it. She would forget things, or see things in a new light. She would discovers gems she'd never noticed before. But there'd never be anymore. There'd never be anything new.
Terry Moore has other comics. His upcoming "Rachel Rising" seems to be an idea which could easily surpass anything else he's done. But this story, this story of Francine and Katchoo and David and Casey and Tambi... I've finished it. I'll never read more "Strangers in Paradise." There will never be a time again where there's an SiP story I haven't read.
I mean, maybe. Moore's never said there wouldn't be sequel. Occasionally, he seems to flirt with the idea. And even though I'm kind of down about being finished, part of me almost hopes he doesn't. But either way, for now, having that hit me, being done with it, especially when working on "The Tagalong" which, as I mentioned before, felt like it had some of that "Strangers" vibe in it... well, it's good I'm busying myself with things.
More soon.
It's actually not as bad as it sounds, it was just one of the first times since I started getting paid for writing that I actually found myself having to put off things I wanted to write for things I had deadlines for. I feel kind of bad that it hasn't happened sooner, though looking back to college, I think it probably has, and I just made the wrong decisions about how to prioritize back then.
There are worse times it could have happened. "The Tagalong" feedback I've been getting has surprised me - people are either wildly enthusiastic, or really displeased with how it ends. I didn't really expect a story about a lost love and a neglected child to be more polarizing than the thing about strippers and depression [re: The Peep Show], but hey, strong feelings are better than no feelings. Plus, having this other work to do means I'm getting a little time away from it, and will hopefully be able to pop in with a lot of good things to think about, and fresh eyes.
And I haven't even heard back from everyone yet.
"Walks with Angels" work remains on hold, though probably not for very long. Weekend, maybe. Looks like I'll have a small website copy job for my cousin coming up, too. Would like to do some comic work too. Old projects and new. I guess I am still figuring out how to balance things.
Before all this hit, I had a couple of days there where I was just reading for myself. Finally finished off "Strangers in Paradise," which I guess saying out loud would probably surprise a lot of people. Terry Moore's first big indie title was probably one of the most influential things I'd ever read, as far as my own work goes, and when I tell people that, there's usually this immediate belief that I followed the work closely, and just knew it all backwards and forwards, could recite from it the way I used to be able to do with Kevin Smith's "Clerks." And I guess that's valid... I mean, in geek culture, how much you know, what obscure thing you know, what your recall is, like any subculture that pretty much measures the size of your geek penis, but I never really bought that sort of obsession necessarily indicated your level of passion for the work, or what kind of effect it had on you.
I could write for pages about SiP, talk about it even longer, but again, my time right now is limited, and something like that I feel would demand a lot of care, like my Amy post. I think a post like that will happen for "Strangers" someday, just not today. Instead, what I will say is that when I first came upon SiP, I was fairly sheltered in the kind of comics I read, they were all super heroes and Ninja Turtles, and while all that was great, something about what Moore was doing in the few issues of that book I was able to get a hold of - they just moved me. They turned a hobby involving a niche medium into something that could suddenly be so vast. I even think, honestly, that if it weren't for "Strangers in Paradise," I wouldn't even love super hero comics as much as I do, because I'd never have gotten to that place where I could appreciate moments that weren't all big fights and cool powers.
It wasn't the only thing that made me love comics. Far from it. But it really made me want to write them, I think. I don't know. Maybe I just needed to see that nothing was off-limits. That there was a lot more ground to cover.
Anyway. A few issues, or the whole thing - there was something intrinsic there, something that wasn't going to let me down, something that I could get from a few pages or from the entire narrative. I think that's how good the series is, but I also think on some level my experience with the work made it a pretty big deal to me. And I also think that, deep down, there was something frightening about finally having no more excuses [I haven't had any for awhile], so it was just time, to buy that last trade, to finish the series.
I dated this girl once who was a huge Charles Dickens fan. Just, the biggest I've ever known. And rightfully so, his work is great, and lovely, and some of the most important in literature, love it or hate it. But she called me once, upset, not overly so, but just very... upset, because she'd just finished reading the last thing by Dickens which she hadn't read yet. For the rest of her life, there would be no new Charles Dickens, no story of his which she hadn't delved into. She could read the old stuff, and still be surprised by what was in it. She would forget things, or see things in a new light. She would discovers gems she'd never noticed before. But there'd never be anymore. There'd never be anything new.
Terry Moore has other comics. His upcoming "Rachel Rising" seems to be an idea which could easily surpass anything else he's done. But this story, this story of Francine and Katchoo and David and Casey and Tambi... I've finished it. I'll never read more "Strangers in Paradise." There will never be a time again where there's an SiP story I haven't read.
I mean, maybe. Moore's never said there wouldn't be sequel. Occasionally, he seems to flirt with the idea. And even though I'm kind of down about being finished, part of me almost hopes he doesn't. But either way, for now, having that hit me, being done with it, especially when working on "The Tagalong" which, as I mentioned before, felt like it had some of that "Strangers" vibe in it... well, it's good I'm busying myself with things.
More soon.
Well, that was easy.
So, I hit my 20 page mark [re: The Tagalong]. It wasn't very hard, as you might imagine - it's never hard to add things, after all. That it happened surprised me, though, as I never really felt like I was adding things... sitting down to work on the script each night this week, I felt more like I clipping, and was actually worried that this early in the process I might be clipping a little too much. So I did something rare for me, and saved a copy of my original marathon run-through on the script [the thing that usually doesn't survive past the first read].
Depending on what kind of thing I'm working on depends on how much I save from previous drafts. I'm just not that taken with most bits I cut, and usually the "killing all my darlings" thing only comes in very late in the proofreading/editing stage for me. I can't think of any compelling reason for that - immaturity, probably, because when I write something that I actually like or think is clever, I do tend to want to keep it. There's a line in this that's like that, that I imagine will not make it to the final draft. We'll see.
Tried to take a break working on this last night. Failed miserably at that. Tonight, it's been a bit better. Talked to some people, read a little, did some work on the book review I have due next week. Doesn't hurt to get outside of "Tagalong" headspace.
It feels almost... shoddy to me, how quickly this came together. Admittedly, I've put in several nights, but this is a pretty rapid pace I've kept up, not odd for me in grand scheme, but odd for me lately. "Nova" took a couple of weeks to finish to a working script point, and that's not counting the months of polishing and the mad editing I did to get it to 25 pages. Which, I guess could still happen here. Hopefully not for as long. But I am still in the honeymoon period.
The process hasn't felt as solitary either. I mean, it's writing, it's always solitary. That's typically unavoidable. Hell, even collaborations have solo aspects. But Twitter, as much as people like to bad mouth it, has actually been kind of good this past week. There are times, when working, when you kind of just want to bang your head against the wall and scream like a mental patient, or just have someone to say one of the repetitive things that have been running through your head all night - so being able to post it there, whether people acknowledge it or not, takes a little bit of the edge off [Twitter's new slogan - not a stiff drink, but a healthy alternative]. Less pacing. Less moving around. Hell, even I'm surprised to say it, but the internet has, at least for this project, been the opposite of a distraction.
One of my college literature professors, the immensely talented writer Christopher Miller [good reads here], he joined Twitter this past week, and it was just so... nice that he was there, because I've been having this hang-up lately where in dialogue, I just sort of choke whenever a character says "I love you." And it's not a new problem, back when I was in a class with Chris it had come up before, and what he said back then was sort of a game changer that got me comfortable thinking about how and what people say in situations like that. With the phobia returning, Chris offered up this bit from Mamet, which was just spot-on what I needed, and I'm sharing it here because... it's a damn good point, made by one author and passed on from another.
Chris: Advice from Mamet: "People may or may not say what they mean, but they always say something designed to get what they want."
Chris: I.e., it doesn't matter whether or not your characters MEAN it, as long as it's plausible that they would SAY it.
And maybe there was just something in the air, but one of my favorite comic book writers right now, Kieron Gillen, one of the many talented persons behind the CBGBs comic I liked so much, and the guy writing my new favorite teen X-Men book, Generation Hope, was also talking about writing, and his process, and also about how he always tries to avoid using songs as titles for stories. His reasoning was just not wanting the medium to feel any more derivative, but his point was, more than anyone else following his rules, was how important it was for writers to have rules of their own, boundaries that may seem restrictive, but push you, even in a small way, to do things others aren't doing. I mentioned in response that I was trying to eliminate instances of characters talking to themselves when no one was around, a common trope that annoys the piss out of me, because only in a handful of situations do people really talk to themselves like that. I didn't expect him to see my response, because honestly, the dude writes for Marvel, and has a lot on his plate, so imagine my surprise when, upon mentioning a day or so later I'd already broken my own rule, he replied back "It was a good one, but a fucking hard one."
Always nice to get encouragement from writers you respect, look up to. I know it gave me a bit of charge, got me back to work. In both cases neither Chris or Gillen had to go out of their way, but even their little bit of help meant a lot, the acknowledgment got me going again, and I appreciate that. It's easy as a writer to put people on these levels, where your heroes and your teachers and the successful are kind of unreachable, and your peers, not all of your peers mind you, but some of them come across like they want to impede your work, as if there's some sort of adversarial relationship there [which is, by the way, a poisonous way to look at writing, or any creative endeavor]. But small courtesies can go a long way.
So thank you, Chris. For a lot more than just this one thing, I should probably say. And to Kieron Gillen. I appreciate it.
I've sent the short off to a few people. Not many. If anyone else is interested in seeing it who I didn't think of, or get it to, feel free to e-mail me, comment here, etc. Always interested in readers, feedback... though I might put you off until I get one more draft under my belt.
More soon. Cheers.
P.S. I removed the Google Search Bar from the blog. It's not been working properly since 2010 ended, so I'm not screwing with it anymore. Hopefully, I'll find an alternative, or something that'll make going through my archives easier.
Depending on what kind of thing I'm working on depends on how much I save from previous drafts. I'm just not that taken with most bits I cut, and usually the "killing all my darlings" thing only comes in very late in the proofreading/editing stage for me. I can't think of any compelling reason for that - immaturity, probably, because when I write something that I actually like or think is clever, I do tend to want to keep it. There's a line in this that's like that, that I imagine will not make it to the final draft. We'll see.
Tried to take a break working on this last night. Failed miserably at that. Tonight, it's been a bit better. Talked to some people, read a little, did some work on the book review I have due next week. Doesn't hurt to get outside of "Tagalong" headspace.
It feels almost... shoddy to me, how quickly this came together. Admittedly, I've put in several nights, but this is a pretty rapid pace I've kept up, not odd for me in grand scheme, but odd for me lately. "Nova" took a couple of weeks to finish to a working script point, and that's not counting the months of polishing and the mad editing I did to get it to 25 pages. Which, I guess could still happen here. Hopefully not for as long. But I am still in the honeymoon period.
The process hasn't felt as solitary either. I mean, it's writing, it's always solitary. That's typically unavoidable. Hell, even collaborations have solo aspects. But Twitter, as much as people like to bad mouth it, has actually been kind of good this past week. There are times, when working, when you kind of just want to bang your head against the wall and scream like a mental patient, or just have someone to say one of the repetitive things that have been running through your head all night - so being able to post it there, whether people acknowledge it or not, takes a little bit of the edge off [Twitter's new slogan - not a stiff drink, but a healthy alternative]. Less pacing. Less moving around. Hell, even I'm surprised to say it, but the internet has, at least for this project, been the opposite of a distraction.
One of my college literature professors, the immensely talented writer Christopher Miller [good reads here], he joined Twitter this past week, and it was just so... nice that he was there, because I've been having this hang-up lately where in dialogue, I just sort of choke whenever a character says "I love you." And it's not a new problem, back when I was in a class with Chris it had come up before, and what he said back then was sort of a game changer that got me comfortable thinking about how and what people say in situations like that. With the phobia returning, Chris offered up this bit from Mamet, which was just spot-on what I needed, and I'm sharing it here because... it's a damn good point, made by one author and passed on from another.
Chris: Advice from Mamet: "People may or may not say what they mean, but they always say something designed to get what they want."
Chris: I.e., it doesn't matter whether or not your characters MEAN it, as long as it's plausible that they would SAY it.
And maybe there was just something in the air, but one of my favorite comic book writers right now, Kieron Gillen, one of the many talented persons behind the CBGBs comic I liked so much, and the guy writing my new favorite teen X-Men book, Generation Hope, was also talking about writing, and his process, and also about how he always tries to avoid using songs as titles for stories. His reasoning was just not wanting the medium to feel any more derivative, but his point was, more than anyone else following his rules, was how important it was for writers to have rules of their own, boundaries that may seem restrictive, but push you, even in a small way, to do things others aren't doing. I mentioned in response that I was trying to eliminate instances of characters talking to themselves when no one was around, a common trope that annoys the piss out of me, because only in a handful of situations do people really talk to themselves like that. I didn't expect him to see my response, because honestly, the dude writes for Marvel, and has a lot on his plate, so imagine my surprise when, upon mentioning a day or so later I'd already broken my own rule, he replied back "It was a good one, but a fucking hard one."
Always nice to get encouragement from writers you respect, look up to. I know it gave me a bit of charge, got me back to work. In both cases neither Chris or Gillen had to go out of their way, but even their little bit of help meant a lot, the acknowledgment got me going again, and I appreciate that. It's easy as a writer to put people on these levels, where your heroes and your teachers and the successful are kind of unreachable, and your peers, not all of your peers mind you, but some of them come across like they want to impede your work, as if there's some sort of adversarial relationship there [which is, by the way, a poisonous way to look at writing, or any creative endeavor]. But small courtesies can go a long way.
So thank you, Chris. For a lot more than just this one thing, I should probably say. And to Kieron Gillen. I appreciate it.
I've sent the short off to a few people. Not many. If anyone else is interested in seeing it who I didn't think of, or get it to, feel free to e-mail me, comment here, etc. Always interested in readers, feedback... though I might put you off until I get one more draft under my belt.
More soon. Cheers.
P.S. I removed the Google Search Bar from the blog. It's not been working properly since 2010 ended, so I'm not screwing with it anymore. Hopefully, I'll find an alternative, or something that'll make going through my archives easier.
Leaders and Followers
I've mentioned before that I tend to go through down periods after finishing things. Never really understood why, just always feel a little hollow whenever I get done with with a project... I realize it's weird, and that there's supposed to be some "Don't I Rock?"-style elation, but that's just not me. Post-"The Peep Show" I was having the same kind of feeling, but I felt like even being a little depressed, I still had some momentum going, momentum I should try and follow through with on other things.
I spent a night or two transcribing some old notes, mostly for that new romance comic I've been thinking of about. It's nowhere near close to being finished [there are huge gaps in the action, scenes where I know things are supposed to happen, know what's supposed to happen, I just can't seem to get those things... right], and I didn't really want push it in the mood I was in, so I figured it would be better to follow up with something that was close to being done, and that I'd put off. I figured it was pretty unlikely finishing a second thing would make me feel worse at this point.
A couple of choices popped up. This first is this old, near-completed short screenplay [really short actually... only five or six pages] called "He Walks with Angels." I've been sitting on it for a long time, and this would have made the fourth time I picked it up again, but on one read-through I realized it really wasn't something I wanted to work on now. It's ending is similar to "The Peep Show," and I wasn't feeling up to writing more about the subject, even if, barring the ending, the two stories couldn't be more different.
There was one other script I remembered wanting to work on, an idea I had last Spring during a pretty intense period of insomnia. I started going on walks during this time, because it was still cool out, and because I had a couple hours to go over to the nearby school yard's playground before anyone arrived there. I get this weird nostalgia pang when I see dew on playground equipment, something I don't know how I'd remember because I don't ever recall being allowed to play outside early enough that there would be dew on anything.
The idea wasn't wholly my own, as it was partially inspired by a story an ex-girlfriend told me on a couple of occasions, that on my remarking on she said I was welcome to take a stab at, which was awfully good of her because she's a writer too, and a way better one than me, in my not-entirely-humble opinion. Somewhere, between what we had talked about and me leaning on a soaking wet jungle gym, I got down what I remembered being a pretty thorough outline for a short piece, and was even excited enough about it at the time to tell Kyle. I got distracted with other things, other ideas I had on this early morning walks, and while I didn't forget about the project, set it aside. I figured with a full outline, I could always come back to it.
Usually my outlines are pretty detailed, to the point they often will break down a whole story scene by scene, even conversation topic by conversation topic. I kind of expected the same thing here, so imagine my surprise when I dug up the file that had said outline, titled "Misdemeanors" and just found this:
- House - Wake up.
- School - Talk, kid, breakfast, arrested.
- Police station - motivations.
- Back to House - Sex. Fight.
- Morning - Next afternoon, alone.
- School - School's out, kid.
...goddammit.
Of course, that wasn't all, I had a few little snippets of dialogue to work from [it is me, we're talking about here], and some character names [the principles anyway], but compared to my usual level of detail, it wasn't much. So I was more than a little surprised when I opened up Final Draft and got to typing, and realized that the story I wanted to tell was still really vivid and fresh in my mind from the year previous. In fact, it all flowed out naturally, and as prompts go, that... I don't even want to call it a skeleton... up there was pretty helpful. And it's weird the things you can recall in a pinch. I found myself in the pantry yesterday, completely dumbfounded as to why I went out there in the first place, but working on this, a whole year after the first heavy thoughts had been put into it, I could still remember that I needed to decide if my protagonist's sidekick/boyfriend was from the town it was set in, or had moved there with my main character after college.
Anyway, a few sleepless nights later, what I've ended up with is a rough, 19-page short titled "The Tagalong." I'm actually feeling pretty good about it, really excited, actually. There's a lot in this that's new, sort of unexpected for me. I have a female protagonist, and I think she's a pretty good one, there's this personality there that I like, and I enjoy writing her interactions with the other characters. I get to write a kid, which I've never done before, not really, and I've sort of been obsessing over whether or not I got the voice right or not [seems like one thing I can't remember is how I talked when I was six]. And it's not all new ground either, there are still some Randall Nichols hallmarks, which yes, I know are masturbatory, but I feel good knowing they're in there. So "Tagalong" rocks that small-town dynamic, has a guy with a girl's name in it, and rocks a few references so obscure I can already hear the "I don't get it." And swears. There are lots of swears.
It still needs a lot of work, of course. Trying to write a kid is just going to be a headache, I already feel pretty far outside my wheelhouse with it. And there's another entirely, another transition near the end, that I'm already sweating every spare moment I get. But... there's just something about this one I just like.
I'm hoping when it's finished it'll be 20 pages even, which is another weird, new challenge since I've been mostly trying to cut down on page length lately, not add more. Still, having that whole extra minute to work with is going to make changes and edits a lot more comfortable, and while I'm not ruling out ending up with a 15 minute movie, I'm still going to aim for that 20.
I have some bigger things I want to work on. Comics, features-length scripts [re: Mary Hobb, Untitled Bigfoot Horror Film, etc], but this is going to be a good primer I think, and nice transition piece while I figure out a good schedule/system for the extra books I'm getting to review, and few other things I need to do too. Watch the tags. There will be more soon.
And if anyone's interested, I'll probably be looking for readers, and notes.
I spent a night or two transcribing some old notes, mostly for that new romance comic I've been thinking of about. It's nowhere near close to being finished [there are huge gaps in the action, scenes where I know things are supposed to happen, know what's supposed to happen, I just can't seem to get those things... right], and I didn't really want push it in the mood I was in, so I figured it would be better to follow up with something that was close to being done, and that I'd put off. I figured it was pretty unlikely finishing a second thing would make me feel worse at this point.
A couple of choices popped up. This first is this old, near-completed short screenplay [really short actually... only five or six pages] called "He Walks with Angels." I've been sitting on it for a long time, and this would have made the fourth time I picked it up again, but on one read-through I realized it really wasn't something I wanted to work on now. It's ending is similar to "The Peep Show," and I wasn't feeling up to writing more about the subject, even if, barring the ending, the two stories couldn't be more different.
There was one other script I remembered wanting to work on, an idea I had last Spring during a pretty intense period of insomnia. I started going on walks during this time, because it was still cool out, and because I had a couple hours to go over to the nearby school yard's playground before anyone arrived there. I get this weird nostalgia pang when I see dew on playground equipment, something I don't know how I'd remember because I don't ever recall being allowed to play outside early enough that there would be dew on anything.
The idea wasn't wholly my own, as it was partially inspired by a story an ex-girlfriend told me on a couple of occasions, that on my remarking on she said I was welcome to take a stab at, which was awfully good of her because she's a writer too, and a way better one than me, in my not-entirely-humble opinion. Somewhere, between what we had talked about and me leaning on a soaking wet jungle gym, I got down what I remembered being a pretty thorough outline for a short piece, and was even excited enough about it at the time to tell Kyle. I got distracted with other things, other ideas I had on this early morning walks, and while I didn't forget about the project, set it aside. I figured with a full outline, I could always come back to it.
Usually my outlines are pretty detailed, to the point they often will break down a whole story scene by scene, even conversation topic by conversation topic. I kind of expected the same thing here, so imagine my surprise when I dug up the file that had said outline, titled "Misdemeanors" and just found this:
- House - Wake up.
- School - Talk, kid, breakfast, arrested.
- Police station - motivations.
- Back to House - Sex. Fight.
- Morning - Next afternoon, alone.
- School - School's out, kid.
...goddammit.
Of course, that wasn't all, I had a few little snippets of dialogue to work from [it is me, we're talking about here], and some character names [the principles anyway], but compared to my usual level of detail, it wasn't much. So I was more than a little surprised when I opened up Final Draft and got to typing, and realized that the story I wanted to tell was still really vivid and fresh in my mind from the year previous. In fact, it all flowed out naturally, and as prompts go, that... I don't even want to call it a skeleton... up there was pretty helpful. And it's weird the things you can recall in a pinch. I found myself in the pantry yesterday, completely dumbfounded as to why I went out there in the first place, but working on this, a whole year after the first heavy thoughts had been put into it, I could still remember that I needed to decide if my protagonist's sidekick/boyfriend was from the town it was set in, or had moved there with my main character after college.
Anyway, a few sleepless nights later, what I've ended up with is a rough, 19-page short titled "The Tagalong." I'm actually feeling pretty good about it, really excited, actually. There's a lot in this that's new, sort of unexpected for me. I have a female protagonist, and I think she's a pretty good one, there's this personality there that I like, and I enjoy writing her interactions with the other characters. I get to write a kid, which I've never done before, not really, and I've sort of been obsessing over whether or not I got the voice right or not [seems like one thing I can't remember is how I talked when I was six]. And it's not all new ground either, there are still some Randall Nichols hallmarks, which yes, I know are masturbatory, but I feel good knowing they're in there. So "Tagalong" rocks that small-town dynamic, has a guy with a girl's name in it, and rocks a few references so obscure I can already hear the "I don't get it." And swears. There are lots of swears.
It still needs a lot of work, of course. Trying to write a kid is just going to be a headache, I already feel pretty far outside my wheelhouse with it. And there's another entirely, another transition near the end, that I'm already sweating every spare moment I get. But... there's just something about this one I just like.
I'm hoping when it's finished it'll be 20 pages even, which is another weird, new challenge since I've been mostly trying to cut down on page length lately, not add more. Still, having that whole extra minute to work with is going to make changes and edits a lot more comfortable, and while I'm not ruling out ending up with a 15 minute movie, I'm still going to aim for that 20.
I have some bigger things I want to work on. Comics, features-length scripts [re: Mary Hobb, Untitled Bigfoot Horror Film, etc], but this is going to be a good primer I think, and nice transition piece while I figure out a good schedule/system for the extra books I'm getting to review, and few other things I need to do too. Watch the tags. There will be more soon.
And if anyone's interested, I'll probably be looking for readers, and notes.
To Ben, to Sarah, and now, to Jack.
So I keep looking at this picture that I got off of Facebook...
I don't want to post it. Mostly because I'm not really sure if that would be okay. I'm fairly certain if celebrities have a problem with random websites putting up pictures of their newborn babies, it's probably not in the best taste to do it on my little tribute to myself out here in the middle of the internet.
But the picture is of my friend, Ben Garner, and his newborn son, Jack.
I've had a unique privilege when it comes to Ben and his wife Sarah. I remember sitting in my room, my senior year, cordoned off in my darkened room, and one of the only visitors I tended to get, who would stick around, talk, was Ben. You see, Ben was the first person I met at Bennington College, a roller coaster ride that involved two men with pony tails looking for a copy of Thriller and disposing of/storing cutler under dorm room beds [okay, it only happened once - and no, it's not a euphemism for anything]. But anyway, senior year. I was less pleasant to be around my senior year, that I'm sure of, but it never stopped Ben from popping by, because he had a girl, which was not odd for him, but what was odd was that Ben wanted to talk about her. This one particular girl. This girl he was more than taken with. Sarah. His Sarah.
He was never bold enough to just out and say that to me. Besides, we were guys. Guys don't say that stuff to each other. But I could tell. There was some lovey-dovey, possessive pronoun talk just under the surface. Dude was in love.
Sarah was one of those women that a lot of guys what. She complimented Ben. She was a little more straightforward, she was less whimsical... but she shared this talent that I always saw in my friend too, which was this ability to see and pull beauty from things that, like many of things Ben appreciated himself, and I personally hardly noticed anymore. Flowers, especially, I remember these brilliant flower arrangements she'd do, gorgeous colors that she'd bring out even when I thought the seasons had faded them, they'd look alive in the vase. Brand new.
I always relate bright colors to Ben. Something about a big bus. That part you'd have to ask him about.
I could say more. I wish, honestly, that I had my wedding toast that I gave written down somewhere, so I might share that. But I chose to wing it, actually I didn't really have any plans to speak, but I had something to say, and I was told several times that evening that it was quite wonderful [so much so, that Sarah's mother offered to put my wedding together in repayment, which was very sweet considering I'd met her just hours before]. It's lost now though, gone in the in the haze of the intense alcohol consumption of that night, washed away by the rain that soaked my suit as I waited for Ben's father to give me a ride back to my hotel. Shame. I winged it then, like I'm winging it now, but I feel like that night was special.
Their wedding, and maybe more so the next, seeing them off on their honeymoon, looking at them arm and arm, dressed more like I remembered them from school [suits and wedding dresses color things]... I count that day among some of my fondest memories. So naturally, when I pulled up Facebook, I saw this, and that same feeling came flooding back to me:
Kind of simple. Straightforward. Certainly expected, as Sarah had well-documented her swelling [in that way where it's not insulting to say someone is swelling], the whole pregnancy for those of us far away to see. World we live in now, the beautiful moments posted up like adverts on a bulletin board. I think it's why the feelings we attach to them matter so much more. I mean, it's highly unlikely Sarah even posted that herself, probably someone else, with access to her account, just to let everyone know.
Still, it's a hell of an announcement. Jack Garner, son of Ben and Sarah Garner, welcomed into the world. And I have this picture now, of my friend Ben, looking pretty different, looking pretty grown up, holding his son Jack. Looking a touch overwhelmed, a little surprised, but more than capable. Beyond capable. And Jack... well, if you ask me, I already see a resemblance between the boy and his mother and father.
Congratulations, Sarah, Ben. Welcome to the world, Jack. It's been my pleasure, even though I wasn't always present, to get to watch you guys become a family.
I don't want to post it. Mostly because I'm not really sure if that would be okay. I'm fairly certain if celebrities have a problem with random websites putting up pictures of their newborn babies, it's probably not in the best taste to do it on my little tribute to myself out here in the middle of the internet.
But the picture is of my friend, Ben Garner, and his newborn son, Jack.
I've had a unique privilege when it comes to Ben and his wife Sarah. I remember sitting in my room, my senior year, cordoned off in my darkened room, and one of the only visitors I tended to get, who would stick around, talk, was Ben. You see, Ben was the first person I met at Bennington College, a roller coaster ride that involved two men with pony tails looking for a copy of Thriller and disposing of/storing cutler under dorm room beds [okay, it only happened once - and no, it's not a euphemism for anything]. But anyway, senior year. I was less pleasant to be around my senior year, that I'm sure of, but it never stopped Ben from popping by, because he had a girl, which was not odd for him, but what was odd was that Ben wanted to talk about her. This one particular girl. This girl he was more than taken with. Sarah. His Sarah.
He was never bold enough to just out and say that to me. Besides, we were guys. Guys don't say that stuff to each other. But I could tell. There was some lovey-dovey, possessive pronoun talk just under the surface. Dude was in love.
Sarah was one of those women that a lot of guys what. She complimented Ben. She was a little more straightforward, she was less whimsical... but she shared this talent that I always saw in my friend too, which was this ability to see and pull beauty from things that, like many of things Ben appreciated himself, and I personally hardly noticed anymore. Flowers, especially, I remember these brilliant flower arrangements she'd do, gorgeous colors that she'd bring out even when I thought the seasons had faded them, they'd look alive in the vase. Brand new.
I always relate bright colors to Ben. Something about a big bus. That part you'd have to ask him about.
I could say more. I wish, honestly, that I had my wedding toast that I gave written down somewhere, so I might share that. But I chose to wing it, actually I didn't really have any plans to speak, but I had something to say, and I was told several times that evening that it was quite wonderful [so much so, that Sarah's mother offered to put my wedding together in repayment, which was very sweet considering I'd met her just hours before]. It's lost now though, gone in the in the haze of the intense alcohol consumption of that night, washed away by the rain that soaked my suit as I waited for Ben's father to give me a ride back to my hotel. Shame. I winged it then, like I'm winging it now, but I feel like that night was special.
Their wedding, and maybe more so the next, seeing them off on their honeymoon, looking at them arm and arm, dressed more like I remembered them from school [suits and wedding dresses color things]... I count that day among some of my fondest memories. So naturally, when I pulled up Facebook, I saw this, and that same feeling came flooding back to me:
"Jack was born at 8:39 am Monday. He is 7 and a half pounds and 21 inches long. Labor began Friday afternoon." - Sarah Garner
Kind of simple. Straightforward. Certainly expected, as Sarah had well-documented her swelling [in that way where it's not insulting to say someone is swelling], the whole pregnancy for those of us far away to see. World we live in now, the beautiful moments posted up like adverts on a bulletin board. I think it's why the feelings we attach to them matter so much more. I mean, it's highly unlikely Sarah even posted that herself, probably someone else, with access to her account, just to let everyone know.
Still, it's a hell of an announcement. Jack Garner, son of Ben and Sarah Garner, welcomed into the world. And I have this picture now, of my friend Ben, looking pretty different, looking pretty grown up, holding his son Jack. Looking a touch overwhelmed, a little surprised, but more than capable. Beyond capable. And Jack... well, if you ask me, I already see a resemblance between the boy and his mother and father.
Congratulations, Sarah, Ben. Welcome to the world, Jack. It's been my pleasure, even though I wasn't always present, to get to watch you guys become a family.
---
On the home front, things here have been strange. Had some worries there for awhile about some financial stuff, but it all worked itself out. Also some good news, seems the outfit I do my book reviews through, they legitimately seem to like the work I've been doing, so I'll probably be getting a few more books each month to go through. It was kind of a surprise, I guess when I finish a review I always sort of expect it to be my last, to get an e-mail that says I have totally missed the point and there's no way they can accept this. But the quite the opposite is true, it seems. It's very good news, not just for my ego, but for my bank account.
I wrote previously it was in my plans to work on the peep show screenplay over this past weekend. I did okay, wasn't really getting anywhere, but I was trying some new things, and felt like maybe I'd stumbled on a pretty good fix, if I could just execute it properly. But Mom dropped off a stray box of stuff, something left behind in the move [some days I wonder if I'll ever stop getting boxes of things left behind in my sudden relocation], and going through I found a stack of postcards from my Dad, so very much like him, but also a little like me, in the wording, the tired, almost mopey, but still endearing glibness. One even had a stack of post-its stuck to it, a favorite trick of dad's, a short letter on what was probably about half a pad of those little sticky-backed pieces of paper. I can't imagine the post-office would have let him send those stuck to a postcard like that. They must have been mailed, stuffed in an envelope, or a care package, or some comics, or something else.
I don't remember. Reading them... broke me up a little bit. Kind of put a kibosh on the writing. I remain, sometimes, too sensitive for this kind of work. Sometimes, when people call Sterne sentimental, I laugh, and wonder how that could have been true, when he actually got things done? Oh, puns.
Never stops feeling like a weakness. I don't see my peers pulling off to the side every time some memory gets a little too hard to handle. It is probably not a trait of the successful... which, seems bolstered by the fact that it remains a trait inherent to me.
I've been conflicted about other things too lately. The week+ without a post was not intentional, and is not, for once, a sign of inactivity by yours truly. In fact, I've been writing for a couple of hours most days, but in a dramatic change of pace, mostly on paper, which is killer on my hand, and not great when I'm looking to feel accomplished. As I've complained to some of my friends, for some reason, writing not done at the keyboard doesn't seem much like writing done at all to me, so it's been hard to come on here and say I wrote what could be a romance comic book, everything but the layouts and interludes [yep, it needs interludes], when there's no polished copy in Final Draft to show. It's ridiculous that I don't register writing on paper as "counting" as writing - that seems to be the consensus among people I've asked, though many have sympathized with where I'm coming from. And it's really the best kind of problem to have - a non-problem, and I'm just glad to be filling up a moleskin, and relishing those moments when I can't quite write as fast as what I'm working on is coming to mind.
Plan is to break the habit. Get a little more work done. Post here again much, much sooner.
On the home front, things here have been strange. Had some worries there for awhile about some financial stuff, but it all worked itself out. Also some good news, seems the outfit I do my book reviews through, they legitimately seem to like the work I've been doing, so I'll probably be getting a few more books each month to go through. It was kind of a surprise, I guess when I finish a review I always sort of expect it to be my last, to get an e-mail that says I have totally missed the point and there's no way they can accept this. But the quite the opposite is true, it seems. It's very good news, not just for my ego, but for my bank account.
I wrote previously it was in my plans to work on the peep show screenplay over this past weekend. I did okay, wasn't really getting anywhere, but I was trying some new things, and felt like maybe I'd stumbled on a pretty good fix, if I could just execute it properly. But Mom dropped off a stray box of stuff, something left behind in the move [some days I wonder if I'll ever stop getting boxes of things left behind in my sudden relocation], and going through I found a stack of postcards from my Dad, so very much like him, but also a little like me, in the wording, the tired, almost mopey, but still endearing glibness. One even had a stack of post-its stuck to it, a favorite trick of dad's, a short letter on what was probably about half a pad of those little sticky-backed pieces of paper. I can't imagine the post-office would have let him send those stuck to a postcard like that. They must have been mailed, stuffed in an envelope, or a care package, or some comics, or something else.
I don't remember. Reading them... broke me up a little bit. Kind of put a kibosh on the writing. I remain, sometimes, too sensitive for this kind of work. Sometimes, when people call Sterne sentimental, I laugh, and wonder how that could have been true, when he actually got things done? Oh, puns.
Never stops feeling like a weakness. I don't see my peers pulling off to the side every time some memory gets a little too hard to handle. It is probably not a trait of the successful... which, seems bolstered by the fact that it remains a trait inherent to me.
I've been conflicted about other things too lately. The week+ without a post was not intentional, and is not, for once, a sign of inactivity by yours truly. In fact, I've been writing for a couple of hours most days, but in a dramatic change of pace, mostly on paper, which is killer on my hand, and not great when I'm looking to feel accomplished. As I've complained to some of my friends, for some reason, writing not done at the keyboard doesn't seem much like writing done at all to me, so it's been hard to come on here and say I wrote what could be a romance comic book, everything but the layouts and interludes [yep, it needs interludes], when there's no polished copy in Final Draft to show. It's ridiculous that I don't register writing on paper as "counting" as writing - that seems to be the consensus among people I've asked, though many have sympathized with where I'm coming from. And it's really the best kind of problem to have - a non-problem, and I'm just glad to be filling up a moleskin, and relishing those moments when I can't quite write as fast as what I'm working on is coming to mind.
Plan is to break the habit. Get a little more work done. Post here again much, much sooner.
With Great Reverence and Love to the Martin Family
It says a little too much about me that I'm more comfortable doing this here, but... ah, well.
I'd like to start by sending my best wishes to my friend Seth, and his wife, Nichole, who just yesterday welcomed into the world a beautiful baby daughter, Chloe Martin. I hardly even know where to begin, and my only message to Seth, up until now, has been a "Congratulations" on his Facebook page at the posting of the picture of their wonderful new addition. It's... just how these things are done nowadays, especially with Seth several hours from here, and me with next to no idea how I'd word that phone conversation.
I have had the privilege of knowing Seth for several years now. Not what I think most people would consider well, certainly not as well as I'd like, a fact that remains true for... a lot of people I have the pleasure of knowing, actually. I'd honestly like to fix that, and heaven knows I've tried, but let's face it, anyone reading here is well aware that I'm that rare-mix of socially-retarded and self-obsessed, which generally leaves my friends getting this reserved admiration from me, that I'm sure reads less like admiration, and far too often as self-satisfied interest. It isn't, but genetics are against me - my nose just naturally turns up. Add to that the distance, and my not driving, and it's a wonder that I have gotten to know Seth at all, but I have, a little, and as strange as this is to say, every single time has been nothing short of an 'event,' at least in my mind.
Some of them are fairly obvious. You don't often get to see a man spin-kick a guy while starring in his own motion picture, or perform a shooting star press on one of the fatter wrestlers on the indie circuit, and unless you travel in far different circles than I do, you very rarely get to see the same guy dolled up for a friend's wedding, or in the sweltering back seat of a station wagon on its way home from Chicago. Probably don't get the opportunity to say your first prolonged exposure to such an interesting dude involved way too many gay jokes, and a softcore porn version of Spider-Man chased with a Melvin Van Peebles biopic. So I guess you can see why so many of my run-ins with Seth have seemed like such big deals, so epic, if you will, though none of those mentioned are necessarily my favorites. My favorite, really, is much more selfish than all that.
Seth has the unique distinction of being one of only two people I know to really connect themselves to something I've written. The first person, she... overtook me, somehow, and I wrote for her as much as what I wrote became, at least in my mind, very much a part of her. But Seth worked his way into my head in an entirely different matter, digging out a place for himself in "Nova" [now the project which may never happen] during an early table read that forever connected him to a character I had actually written with no true, discernible person in mind. He found the rhythm of the dialogue, the one thing I always work so hard on, and nailed it so completely I remain amazed when recalling it even to this day [and I probably shouldn't be - as in all things, Seth never fails to excel]. I am not a man used to being understood, I suppose, and this went a step farther, for the first time in my life, Seth, being an genuinely talented, exceptional fucking guy, just "got it," and this, this tied him to a part of me in way [in a totally hetero, non-bondage way] that I'll never forget. Always be grateful for it, always felt... less lonely for it, I guess.
I don't have a lot of friends who have kids. Seth's not the first, of course [unless I'm forgetting somebody], I think the first is probably my friend Lisa, who I know reads this space occasionally, and who I have also done a real shit job of keeping up with, and who has started a wonderful family in her own right [I doubt there's a more sly and loving mother out there]. But again, with the company I keep, it's not something you ever expect, even at this age, and while I have been aware that Nichole was pregnant since Christmas, it hadn't yet crossed my mind that the baby would soon be with us, late to the party though I was already. And it's truly a special occasion, a real achievement in a world where achievement isn't so easy to gage.
There's no doubt in my mind that Seth and Nichole will be amazing parents. I hope I'm not insulting anyone by saying this, but I can't imagine a better father than Seth, and though I do not know Nichole well, every time I have met her she has seemed warm, and kind, and affable, a true beauty both inside and out. If she is like Seth [and I imagine she would have to be to keep up with him] she too must excel in so many of her pursuits. I'm sure this will be no different. I think, all of us, looking back, even if you loved your parents and thought they were the greatest in the world, might give pause if offered the possibility of being raised by Seth and Nichole Martin. And their daughter Chloe is truly blessed with just such an opportunity.
They are, of course, blessed to have Chloe too - which, I think, now, has to go down in history as the most obvious and unnecessary sentiment I've ever felt need to voice. But it's my way. It is also my way to wish them well, to send them good feelings and all the love that can be spared. I am just so truly happy for them both... I can only imagine how their own hearts must be bursting, I can only imagine what they must feel.
Welcome to the world, Chloe Martin. We're glad to have you, and the place is a damn sight better now that you're here.
I'd like to start by sending my best wishes to my friend Seth, and his wife, Nichole, who just yesterday welcomed into the world a beautiful baby daughter, Chloe Martin. I hardly even know where to begin, and my only message to Seth, up until now, has been a "Congratulations" on his Facebook page at the posting of the picture of their wonderful new addition. It's... just how these things are done nowadays, especially with Seth several hours from here, and me with next to no idea how I'd word that phone conversation.
I have had the privilege of knowing Seth for several years now. Not what I think most people would consider well, certainly not as well as I'd like, a fact that remains true for... a lot of people I have the pleasure of knowing, actually. I'd honestly like to fix that, and heaven knows I've tried, but let's face it, anyone reading here is well aware that I'm that rare-mix of socially-retarded and self-obsessed, which generally leaves my friends getting this reserved admiration from me, that I'm sure reads less like admiration, and far too often as self-satisfied interest. It isn't, but genetics are against me - my nose just naturally turns up. Add to that the distance, and my not driving, and it's a wonder that I have gotten to know Seth at all, but I have, a little, and as strange as this is to say, every single time has been nothing short of an 'event,' at least in my mind.
Some of them are fairly obvious. You don't often get to see a man spin-kick a guy while starring in his own motion picture, or perform a shooting star press on one of the fatter wrestlers on the indie circuit, and unless you travel in far different circles than I do, you very rarely get to see the same guy dolled up for a friend's wedding, or in the sweltering back seat of a station wagon on its way home from Chicago. Probably don't get the opportunity to say your first prolonged exposure to such an interesting dude involved way too many gay jokes, and a softcore porn version of Spider-Man chased with a Melvin Van Peebles biopic. So I guess you can see why so many of my run-ins with Seth have seemed like such big deals, so epic, if you will, though none of those mentioned are necessarily my favorites. My favorite, really, is much more selfish than all that.
Seth has the unique distinction of being one of only two people I know to really connect themselves to something I've written. The first person, she... overtook me, somehow, and I wrote for her as much as what I wrote became, at least in my mind, very much a part of her. But Seth worked his way into my head in an entirely different matter, digging out a place for himself in "Nova" [now the project which may never happen] during an early table read that forever connected him to a character I had actually written with no true, discernible person in mind. He found the rhythm of the dialogue, the one thing I always work so hard on, and nailed it so completely I remain amazed when recalling it even to this day [and I probably shouldn't be - as in all things, Seth never fails to excel]. I am not a man used to being understood, I suppose, and this went a step farther, for the first time in my life, Seth, being an genuinely talented, exceptional fucking guy, just "got it," and this, this tied him to a part of me in way [in a totally hetero, non-bondage way] that I'll never forget. Always be grateful for it, always felt... less lonely for it, I guess.
I don't have a lot of friends who have kids. Seth's not the first, of course [unless I'm forgetting somebody], I think the first is probably my friend Lisa, who I know reads this space occasionally, and who I have also done a real shit job of keeping up with, and who has started a wonderful family in her own right [I doubt there's a more sly and loving mother out there]. But again, with the company I keep, it's not something you ever expect, even at this age, and while I have been aware that Nichole was pregnant since Christmas, it hadn't yet crossed my mind that the baby would soon be with us, late to the party though I was already. And it's truly a special occasion, a real achievement in a world where achievement isn't so easy to gage.
There's no doubt in my mind that Seth and Nichole will be amazing parents. I hope I'm not insulting anyone by saying this, but I can't imagine a better father than Seth, and though I do not know Nichole well, every time I have met her she has seemed warm, and kind, and affable, a true beauty both inside and out. If she is like Seth [and I imagine she would have to be to keep up with him] she too must excel in so many of her pursuits. I'm sure this will be no different. I think, all of us, looking back, even if you loved your parents and thought they were the greatest in the world, might give pause if offered the possibility of being raised by Seth and Nichole Martin. And their daughter Chloe is truly blessed with just such an opportunity.
They are, of course, blessed to have Chloe too - which, I think, now, has to go down in history as the most obvious and unnecessary sentiment I've ever felt need to voice. But it's my way. It is also my way to wish them well, to send them good feelings and all the love that can be spared. I am just so truly happy for them both... I can only imagine how their own hearts must be bursting, I can only imagine what they must feel.
Welcome to the world, Chloe Martin. We're glad to have you, and the place is a damn sight better now that you're here.
---
Not much has been done on my side of things. I have been feeling very much under the weather the past few days, a weird combination of not quite sick and not quite depressed [all right, quite a bit of both, but I'm not fishing for pity here] that has left me ill-equipped to much in the way of usefulness. I am still without one, over-arching project, and so I've spent what little coherency I've had looking at some old things, and will probably continue to do just that until something new crops up, or a breakthrough is made. The passion still isn't there, and it may just be the coming of spring, or it may just be the accumulation of winter goings-on, but for the most part I feel largely unmotivated, and until that changes, I'm not entirely sure what to do next.
Even the exercises I try to get in, the little bit of writing each day, have been clumsy and weird, and I abandoned one yesterday in disgust when I could no longer look at the jagged red lines each time I misspelled "delivery." It's very odd for me to walk away from the page angry - sure, unproductive spells might make me anxious, or depressed, but to be actually annoyed was odd and not something I want to make a regular habit of. I've never minded when it wasn't easy; I can even handle it not being fun sometimes. But I'm not sure what to do with that.
I've filled most of my non-productive hours with television, specifically "Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood," which I got sick of waiting on and crammed all 64 episodes into a week-long marathon. I'm always interested in seeing different interpretations and adaptations, and this filled that need pretty spectacularly, and I found myself especially charmed by how even with the sleeker animation - the more cartoon-y visuals, if you will - this story was quite a bit darker than the previous series, with a great deal more emotional weight. I've always liked that [it's why Todd Nauck always wowed me], and it was nice to see here. The empathy, the willingness to sympathize with almost every character, even if they were "bad guys" was also sort of... stirring, with one scene with an enemy soldier pinned down on a stairwell doing more than some of the best war movies every have, as far as it concerned "the other side." I think if there is a lesson, something in FMA: Brotherhood to be looked at and emulated, it's probably that, and I might try and explore it further, down the line, though it is admittedly a little outside my usual subject matter.
I wound up a little uncomfortable with the ending, as everything tied up a bit too neat for my tastes, but considering this one had to live up to the experience of watching the original series with friends at Bennington, it more than held its own. Regrettable that it too can't be shared in a similar fashion, but...
Well, anyway.
Want to thank everyone who took the time to read "Conversation Between Future Lovers in the Psych Ward." I will admit to being a little disappointed... I quite liked this one, I mean I didn't at first, but once I did the edits and really got everything hitting just so, I thought there might be something to it, but I didn't get quite the response I was hoping for. I'm starting to think there's really no point to writing up these dialogue pieces anyway. If I can't fit them in scripts, there may just be no future for them. I poked around a little, too, just to see what some places take in the way of submissions, and didn't feel much like they'd be welcome, either, so... At least they're nice to play with. Again, really appreciate all those who said supportive things, "liked" it on Facebook. I may just have to think about their applications a little more.
Comic stuff is still going strong. Justin set up a private website for me to keep up with Calamity Cash work, particularly the thumbnails he's been doing in his spare time, and I expect to have more updates about that project in the near future. I'm actually really into what he did with the website, as now we can both make comments on things, but we don't have to be free at the same time. It's a lot like me and Ander's e-mails, now, which is a nice, and yeah, I expect to have some more news about our project together [re: VHS Generation] soon.
But I'm not really rushing anyone. Again, I've hardly felt like I've had it together, lately, and I've still got some little things to do. Still have to file my taxes, still have books coming in to review.
Feel so exhausted lately. More soon.
Not much has been done on my side of things. I have been feeling very much under the weather the past few days, a weird combination of not quite sick and not quite depressed [all right, quite a bit of both, but I'm not fishing for pity here] that has left me ill-equipped to much in the way of usefulness. I am still without one, over-arching project, and so I've spent what little coherency I've had looking at some old things, and will probably continue to do just that until something new crops up, or a breakthrough is made. The passion still isn't there, and it may just be the coming of spring, or it may just be the accumulation of winter goings-on, but for the most part I feel largely unmotivated, and until that changes, I'm not entirely sure what to do next.
Even the exercises I try to get in, the little bit of writing each day, have been clumsy and weird, and I abandoned one yesterday in disgust when I could no longer look at the jagged red lines each time I misspelled "delivery." It's very odd for me to walk away from the page angry - sure, unproductive spells might make me anxious, or depressed, but to be actually annoyed was odd and not something I want to make a regular habit of. I've never minded when it wasn't easy; I can even handle it not being fun sometimes. But I'm not sure what to do with that.
I've filled most of my non-productive hours with television, specifically "Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood," which I got sick of waiting on and crammed all 64 episodes into a week-long marathon. I'm always interested in seeing different interpretations and adaptations, and this filled that need pretty spectacularly, and I found myself especially charmed by how even with the sleeker animation - the more cartoon-y visuals, if you will - this story was quite a bit darker than the previous series, with a great deal more emotional weight. I've always liked that [it's why Todd Nauck always wowed me], and it was nice to see here. The empathy, the willingness to sympathize with almost every character, even if they were "bad guys" was also sort of... stirring, with one scene with an enemy soldier pinned down on a stairwell doing more than some of the best war movies every have, as far as it concerned "the other side." I think if there is a lesson, something in FMA: Brotherhood to be looked at and emulated, it's probably that, and I might try and explore it further, down the line, though it is admittedly a little outside my usual subject matter.
I wound up a little uncomfortable with the ending, as everything tied up a bit too neat for my tastes, but considering this one had to live up to the experience of watching the original series with friends at Bennington, it more than held its own. Regrettable that it too can't be shared in a similar fashion, but...
Well, anyway.
Want to thank everyone who took the time to read "Conversation Between Future Lovers in the Psych Ward." I will admit to being a little disappointed... I quite liked this one, I mean I didn't at first, but once I did the edits and really got everything hitting just so, I thought there might be something to it, but I didn't get quite the response I was hoping for. I'm starting to think there's really no point to writing up these dialogue pieces anyway. If I can't fit them in scripts, there may just be no future for them. I poked around a little, too, just to see what some places take in the way of submissions, and didn't feel much like they'd be welcome, either, so... At least they're nice to play with. Again, really appreciate all those who said supportive things, "liked" it on Facebook. I may just have to think about their applications a little more.
Comic stuff is still going strong. Justin set up a private website for me to keep up with Calamity Cash work, particularly the thumbnails he's been doing in his spare time, and I expect to have more updates about that project in the near future. I'm actually really into what he did with the website, as now we can both make comments on things, but we don't have to be free at the same time. It's a lot like me and Ander's e-mails, now, which is a nice, and yeah, I expect to have some more news about our project together [re: VHS Generation] soon.
But I'm not really rushing anyone. Again, I've hardly felt like I've had it together, lately, and I've still got some little things to do. Still have to file my taxes, still have books coming in to review.
Feel so exhausted lately. More soon.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
