Meet Randall-cito, Holdiay skin [and other updates], and big news for SMAF.

I am unconscionably behind. Updates will remain sparse for the next several days, as I'm trying to get through a huge backlog of films I've missed this year before the start of the next [we'll see on that one], and I still have a lot of holiday-related things breathing down my neck, mostly in the form of taking decoration down, New Years activities, and the prerequisite "thank you" notes that need to go out. Also looking to seeing if the things I sent to people got to their intended destinations. Plus there are, for various reasons, a handful of folks who are going to be getting things from me post-Christmas, mostly because they either weren't in the country, or what I had planned on sending them sort of... kind of... hadn't been released yet. Poor planning, all around.

I have also gotten a plethora of rad things I'd like to show off here, but that involves dragging out the scanner, which is going to take time. After my uncle and cousin where here, a lot of things were tucked away to keep my room from looking like a closet with a bed in it, and digging that out is going to be a whole evening kind of thing [seriously, Jenga-level stacking of things going on].

But... here's something kind of cool. From Kyle Quinn, puppet maker of "Seth Martin and Friends" fame, based on the designs by Glen "Mario's Closet" Brogan, a Christmas gift that sort of perfectly serves my narcissism:

Pretty good likeness, wouldn't you say? But wait, let's check:

Oh yeah. Definitely seeing a resemblance. And possibly a nice proxy to send along when I want to get out of things. It was a lovely gift from Kyle, and everyone in the group got one, leading to a pretty hilarious group photo that I'm pretty sure will be popping up on some social networking site eventually.

Speaking of Kyle, Glen, and the rest of the Brainwrap crew, they recently got some much-needed and well-deserved press on the Huntington, WV Herald-Dispatch. It's a really good intro to the work their doing if you haven't been following their Facebook page [and just why haven't you been?], and if Glen's blog post on the article is any indication, it's the first write-up the group and the web show has gotten which Brainwrap has really been pleased with. So definitely go and check that out.

Plus, even though we are past Christmas proper [and I hope every one's was lovely], "Seth Martin and Friends" had not one, but two Christmas-themed shorts that came out for the holiday season, and since we have not yet reached New Years, and I'm guessing most of you still have trees up, you might wander over to the SMAF YouTube channel and check out "Trace's Tree (A Christmas Special)" and "Arthur's Gift."

I have writing to do, and ever since the half-mad winter spent slaving over the "Trendsetter" first draft, not slaving away into the wee hours of the morning on something kind of makes me feel like I'm wasting my time. But lately I've noticed I'm getting a lot more from reading and watching the good works of others than doing much myself, though once things slow down after January 1st, I'm getting back to the peep show script, and "VHS Generation."

Our Lady of the Pagan Symbol of the Season

Five days without a post is a long time for me, and even though I don't have much to report, I thought I might check in and show off the tree as promised [I think I promised that]. Of course, the pictures are from my phone, which means the quality is pretty much crap, and you don't get to see a lot of the little touches. The tree isn't real, and is fairly old [it belonged to my Mom's mother before my Dad's mom got it], so it can't hold a lot of weight without limbs slipping out of their well-worn holders in the middle support, and the decorations I used are probably more often employed on a smaller sized tree, like one of those desk, or store window models.

The heaviest things are homemade icicles, made over the years by my grandmother, and various other members of the family using pipe cleaners and clear beads. The details I'm particularly fond of are the little wooden apples [I have no idea why, but having apples hanging from the branches of a pine tree make me smile -- I've said it before, but it's just so odd and absurd], and the big snow-flake looking things are actually little picture frames made of plastic and yarn, each one holding a picture of either the children of the family, most of us at some earlier time in our lives, or those who've died, and left us behind.

Unlit.

I grew up in a craft-oriented family, which is probably why places like etsy.com and the like have always interested me. I wasn't blessed with any of that kind of skill, however, and still struggle to cut a straight line with a sharp pair of scissors, a fact that all the gift-wrapping around this season tends to remind me of. But the items the generation before mine [and the generation before that] put such care and nimble-fingered work into have held up remarkably well, so my case of stupid fingers isn't quite so heartbreaking.

Lit.

Second Christmas without Dad... I went ahead and mentioned casually he should probably get a space on the tree now too. Last year seemed too soon, this year seems too soon, honestly, but it has to be done eventually, and among all the stars I'd found someone who had two, so we didn't even need to put a new one together [not even sure if that would be an option at this point].

Anyway. On to other business. Ander and I got an e-mail from Eric, saying very complimentary things about our comic [re: A Change is Gonna Come] and confirming our spot in "Normal." It was very vindicating hearing from someone else that the spark we were feeling while working on the project really was there like we thought. Haven't got much chance to work on the other script Ander gave me the idea for [re: VHS Generation], but that's because the Christmas season has been keeping me far busier than even I expected. And the only writing-related thing I've gotten to work on is this huge crit project for a friend.

Speaking of friends, there's a new "Seth Martin & Friends" short up on YouTube, where the Brain Wrap guys debut the new superhero character SuperUltraMan, which I think you comic-readers will appreciate. So definitely check that out, and support Seth, and Kyle, and the rest of the crew.

I'm trying to get ahead of stuff for this coming week, but I'm not entirely sure how free my schedule will be. And then there's Monday looming where... hopefully... the contest I entered "Nova" in will announce its winners. I picked up a four year old bottle of Australian Chardonnay at the local grocery store [we're talking far from glamorous here, though I've never found anything older than a year or two of any kind of wine on that shelf before], which I will either bust out to celebrate, or barring that, save and have on New Years.

Because it's not jinxing yourself if you're buying it for more than one occasion. Right?

Postcards from Arizona, Ink Stains, New SMAF...

I got this in the mail from my friend J'aime Chatfield just before the weekend:

The picture on the front is the Camelback Inn in Scottsdale, Arizona. J'aime has recently landed a sweet gig which provides for plenty of travel, and she was sweet enough to think of me and drop me a postcard from the state which spawned my favorite early-90s alternative bands, along with two of my favorite mad up-and-coming comic book geniuses, and a certain cake shop waitress who is way too willing to listen to me wax philosophically about Law and Order from time to time.

Not satisfied being just an extremely talented photographer and high-powered career woman, J'aime opted to give me a run for my money as master word-smith and world-class flatterer:

"Hi Pal, I hope everything is going very well with you in WV and I hope to hear from you soon (though I know you're bizzee). As you know, I'm in the west, talking to cacti and getting parties planned by the pool. When my life finally gets (rightfully) televised - I'll have you on team writing new, impossible scenarios. In between writing your own memoirs, bien sur! Affectionately, j'aime."

Man, if this was Earth-2, I would have some mad favors banked. Owlman would also be trying to kill me, though, so I guess I'm okay where I am now.

It was a really nice of J'aime to send me this -- I've been feeling disconnected lately, not getting much in the way of mail, not a lot of phone calls, bulk of my time has been spent writing or running errands. Most of my communications have been almost entirely online, which I am not complaining about at all, as I'm glad for the company no matter what the venue, but it's certainly nice to get a small reminder you exist outside of cyberspace.

Seriously, I heard someone say "mojo" in the grocery store checkout the other day, and turned my head as if I'd just been called by name.

And since I've already spoken to her, and thanked her as much in person as I can from here to Maine, I thought I might pass along some links. In the past, I'm sure you've all seen me name check her travel blog, in transito, in the past, but I also would be remiss if I didn't show off her tumblr delle altre cose [spell check is flipping out at this sentence], along with her online photography portfolio. It's all amazing stuff, can't recommend it enough.

I'm still writing, working on both the peep show script, and "New Hooverville." My grandmother's bulk nut orders weren't delivered today, so what looked like a busy Monday on paper wound up being a lot of "will-they-or-won't-they-show-up" sitting around. Which was just fine by me, as it gave me time to actually print off a copy of "Hooverville" and make some changes the old fashioned way -- with a Bic pen and a clipboard.

Honestly, this is how I prefer to edit, but I've been trying to go paper-free [or, I guess, "paper lite"] for some time now. With scriptwriting, a few drafts of a feature can easily blow through a ream of paper and a lot of printer ink, both of which are very expensive and not so great for the environment. Still, old habits, and three pages isn't so damaging. Hilariously, even with some of the tweaking I've been doing on the short before printing off, I still wound up with pages that look like this:

Click to enlarge. Not the best quality, but as you can tell, lot of fresh ink on those pages -- almost as much as I ended up with on my hands. Seriously, it looks like I got to second base with a printmaker's daughter.

Moving on before you realize that simile doesn't really make sense, while I've been sort of sequestered to my own projects, I've missed a couple of the Brainwrap crew's newest "Seth Martin and Friends" shorts. The first is "The Piano Lesson," where Norman gives the neighborhood kids some musical pointers. Norman's one of my favorite characters of the show, so I highly recommend this one:

The second is "Game Day," which has the eponymous Seth and his equally eponymous friends engaging in some good old sandlot football. According to the official SMAF Facebook page this is actually an older short which needed some last minute post work that was delayed, but I think it holds up just as well as its newer peers.

If you enjoy these, make sure you you add "Seth Martin and Friends" on Facebook, and subscribe to their YouTube Channel.

According to Kyle they still have several scripts in the works, so I haven't gotten any notes on the screenplay I did for them, and imagine it'll still be a little bit. I actually wrote a second for them recently, just scrawled out while I was running errands one day, that was a little Sesame Street-esque with Norman as a Sherlock Holmes-style detective and Seth as his Watson. The problem is, I've since misplaced it, another reason going paperless isn't exactly the worst policy. I've even tried taking a run at writing it over, but it's really hard to recreate the magic. Hopefully, it'll turn up on its own, even though I'm not sure it'd fit anymore, having seen some more Norman since writing it.

Hoping to have some solid final or close-to-final drafts of the peep show script and "Hooverville" in the next couple of days. Of course, a lot of this will depend on whether or not a hundred pounds of cashews are dropped on my door step tomorrow.

Cheers.

Quickie update

Justin sent me this over the weekend, thought I'd show it off. Basically a rough preview for page 30. As I was uploading this I realized the book's only ["only"] 45 pages long, so we're coming into the home stretch. This actually got me back to looking at the script, and the itch to make changes hit pretty hard. But there really is a place you have to put your foot down and say "This is finished."

On Justin's end though, I'm really pleased. I love the dynamic way he sets up a page, even when people are just standing around talking [which happens a lot in my work], so now that he's getting to some of the action, I feel like he really gets to show off. It's also a lot of fun for me, getting to see Tana Cash chucking people through windows, one-handing shotguns, and doing her bad-ass, Brock Samson-style shit.

Talked to Kyle, he said he enjoyed my script [re: SMAF], but hadn't heard from any of the other people involved in the project. The whole Brainwrap crew runs things sort of committee style, and there are several new things they have prepped and ready to go, so it might be a little bit longer before I have any news on that front.

Also finished the first draft of my big freelance project Sunday night. Just waiting to hear back from the client now about whatever changes they'll want, and until then, without a new book to review, I guess my time's my own again.

Teleplays, Fortune Cookies, and Pimpin' for SMAF

Nothing serves to inspire me more than having a long list of things I should be doing instead. Looking back, I am sort of amazed I wasn't prolific in college; then again, if I had been, I probably wouldn't have graduated.

So, despite all the copy work and the new book that came in the mail, or perhaps in spite of them, I got the writer's bug to sit down and turn a long-form rant/"conversation I had with myself in the shower because that's where my bad Russian accent sounds the coolest" into a script for "Seth Martin and Friends." Kyle and Ian [Nolte, not Rogers] had offered me the opportunity to write for the show, and while I don't know if they're likely to use this first script I sent them, it was fun sitting down this weekend and hammering something like that out. I'm notoriously long-winded, so writing something that came in at five pages [and would probably film at about 8 minutes] was a cool thing for me to pull off.

Plus, I think I managed to fit in a running joke/reference more obscure than anything that has ever been on Robot Chicken.

...the jury's still out on whether that's an accomplishment or not.

If they decide to go forward with my script, you can be sure I'll report back here. And as I said, it was kind of neat to do something so short, concise, purely funny-oriented, and I'm going to try and do a few more.

Between being sick and busy, I actually haven't gotten to show off some of the stuff the Brainwrap crew have been doing, and I always feel like it's a shame if I don't get to spread the word to my [very moderate] readership.

So, first up is the new "Seth Martin and Friends" that went live today, "A Bird Catches the Bug." It is, to my knowledge, the first appearance of Arthur, and he's joined by Norman from "Gone Campin'," who naturally finds this whole business just dreadful.

When you're done with that, I suggest checking out "Duet" and "C'est La Vie," two shorts that debuted while I was otherwise occupied. The latter is especially interesting to all two of you who have been reading for awhile, as it stars my Trendsetter collaborator Kyle Christian Quinn. Always good to put a face to a name. I don't have the writing credits or anything else handy for these, so I'm just going to direct you to my previous posts for the usual suspects. And don't forget to subscribe to the official SMAF YouTube channel if you haven't yet.

Seth Martin and Friends - "Gone Fishin'"

Less than a week out of the gate, and we have a sequel.

This is "Gone Fishin'," the second episode of "Seth Martin and Friends" from Brainwrap Productions.

In this installment, Trace Cherokee and Seth ditch their entourage for a quiet day fishing out on the lake. Seth's no angler, but under the wise tutelage of Ole Trace, certainly they'll finish out their trip with a fish story or two.

Starring Seth Martin, "Gone Fishin'" runs just under 6 minutes and 30 seconds, and is written and directed by Ian Nolte, and filmed by Kyle Quinn. Michael Valentine returns doing music, voices, and acting as the puppeteer for Trace, with Max Nolte as the sound engineer and boom operator, and Glen Brogan providing the graphics. Featuring Special Guest star Nicole Lawrence. Trace Cherokee puppet made by Kyle Quinn.

To keep up with the most current updates, check out their Facebook page, or subscribe to the "Seth Martin and Friends" YouTube channel, which will have new content, as well as some behind the scenes footage.

I'll be leaving this up for a couple of days to try and get the Brainwrap guys as much attention as possible. I know I haven't had as much to post about myself these days, but my friends have been doing a ton of great work, and I'm glad to be getting the word out for everyone's projects. Meanwhile, I haven't really produced anything of note lately, though I'm hoping that'll change and I can take my blog back soon.

I kid, of course. Enjoy the short!

Seth Martin and Friends - "Gone Campin'"

So this is a pretty big deal.

A few of you may remember me talking at length about my collaborations and friendship with Kyle Christian Quinn, who had a big hand in work done on "Trendsetter" and "Nova." And while both of those projects are currently on hold, Kyle's been hard at work in the interim with "Seth Martin and Friends" for Brainwrap Productions.

Brainwrap has produced several quality pictures, including the oft-screened "Johnny Boy" [also starring Seth Martin] and along with Kyle is staffed by various friends of mine like insanely talented and regularly-linked Glen "Mario's Closet" Brogan, as well Michael Valentine, Ian Nolte, Seth Martin, and severally others I've shared at least one game of mini-golf with.

"Seth Martin and Friends Presents: Gone Campin'" is the first in their new web series/public access show/who knows where else they'll pop up, starring the eponymous Seth Martin along his puppet friends Norman, Chappy the Chapstick, Trace the country singer, and the ghost of Soviet Spaceman Yuri Gagarin. In this 13-minute short piece, the gang takes a much needed vacation into the great outdoors for a relaxing night of s'mores, ghost stories, and campfire songs. But with such an eclectic cast of characters, you can guarantee their night out will not go exactly to plan.

"Gone Campin'" stars Seth Martin, with Michael Valentine as Editor, Puppeteer, Impresario, and Voice Actor, Kyle as Producer, Puppet-Maker, and Puppeteer, Josh Edwards as the Director of Photography, Max Nolte as Sound Editor and Boom Operator, Nicole Lawrence as Guest Puppeteer, Dave Humphreys and Glen Brogan as Production Assistants, and Ian Nolte on Writing, Editing, as well as making a Special Guest Appearance. Glen's also provided the old school, Saturday Morning Cartoon-style opening graphics. Together, they've put together a charming, funny video, and if you like it, I hope you'll tell all your friends, and help spread the word about the great work they're doing.

You can find out more about Brainwrap Productions at their official website, and "Seth Martin and Friends" at the SMAF Facebook Fan page.

On a personal note, I've been invited to a do some scripts for the show, but have just been waiting for them to put a couple together to better get to know the characters and format they're shooting for. I really hope it works out and I get to be involved, if for no other reason than I enjoy working with Kyle so much, and when we were talking about making "Nova" last summer, Seth was actually my pick for the role of Nick. Would love the opportunity to work with the rest.

Enjoy!

And we're back.

I actually would have been back sooner, but my grandmother went into the hospital at the end of last week, and that took precedence over almost everything. It wasn't anything too serious , and she's thankfully back home now [they released her this morning], but whenever a trip to the hospital is involved it's hard not to get worried. There's also a weird sort of etiquette in my family when someone's in the hospital, which this really isn't the time or place to get into, but makes this whole thing a little more stressful. But it's over now, and she's settling in well, and feeling better, and just glad to be back home. A few changes might have to be made in the way we've been eating around the house, but I guess it won't hurt anyone to be a little healthier.

And to anyone who checked in or asked, I appreciate it.

On to business. While I was away, Justin filled out that panel we both previewed. The finished panel can be seen over on his website, and by the time this posts I'll be back in touch with him and probably know better where the comic is. He's been moving, or at the very least working on the place he's getting ready to move to, so I haven't heard much about the comic. He's a busy man.

And I'll admit, I'm starting to know what that feels like. The past couple of weeks have been as manic as I expected, with probating Dad's estate being at the top of the list of things to get done. It's not finished and out of the way completely, but everything is filed and now we play the waiting game, to see who is going to make a claim, and what from his estate I'm going to have to sell to cover that. I also need to start work on a small insurance claim, though admittedly I just got the proper paper work out for it and am not entirely sure what my next step should be. Plan currently is that if they don't call me, I'll call them.

It also looks like both jobs I spoke about in this post are going to work out. The first starts this Friday with my old boss Terry Lively [who I worked on "Crossings" with], and is just some copy work for a website she's doing for a local business. I've been brought in mostly to give it a... warm feeling, and just make sure that what goes on the website reflects the wishes and personalities of those involved in the business. Also, spell-check. And though I haven't seen a contract yet, I'll probably talk about it/link the finished product on here, unless for some reason I'm just sworn to secrecy [I really can't imagine why I would be for something like this though]. The hope is, if the work goes well, this could turn into a semi-regular freelance gig for me, and it'll be something else to add to my portfolio.

The other job I mentioned has also started, though I'm still in the early stages and probably shouldn't get too excited until all the paper work clears. It's a pretty straight-forward work-for-hire review writing job, and while I would love nothing better than to post about it here [trust me, I already want to], I'm just not allowed. Sorry. On the upside, it's pretty flexible hours-wise which means it'll fit into my schedule well, and while I won't be making big bucks [it is freelance work, after all], it could easily turn into regular, steady income. Hard to say how much at this juncture, but we'll see.

Now, on to this space, and creative projects. I think even though what I'm doing is a far cry from the kind of writing for money that I'd like to do, until I figure out how to insert these new jobs into my routine, I don't know what in the way of creative work I'm going to be taking on. I will say that in-between meetings over the past couple of weeks I've been turning "Trendsetter" over in my head again and had some movement there, and I've promised Kyle and the Brainwrap crew that I might turn out some work on a project that's their current focus. So it's in my plans to do something creative next [and soon], I'm just not entirely sure what -- especially with the later stages of probate, and these new jobs, and a few other personal things going.

That said, I've hated that when I stop doing the creative writing, the work on comic scripts, or movie scripts, or anything like that, that I suddenly stop posting here. I think I'm going to work on that, and you might be seeing some slightly different sort of things on the Mojo Wire in the near future, things meant to keep me writing for myself, and not just for others. It'll take a little time, but I don't want to neglect this space, since it does seem to help keep me going. And I'm starting to realize that, out like I am, no longer in the boondocks but not exactly in a real social, happening place, this blog does help me feel a little more connected. Which I think was one of the reasons I started it in the first place.

Loneliness fucks with everything.

So, different things are coming. Even I'm not sure what's next. Probably more journal-like stuff is going to crop up, probably more me-centric stuff, which if that isn't your thing, I apologize, and am slightly confused as to why you're still reading now. And maybe some reviews too -- I really need to do some more of those, even unsolicited, something I realized while trying to put writing samples together for the aforementioned new job. I keep talking about it, but I really, really should have a portfolio.

It's on the list.

I'm back. That was the point of all this. Easy to fall off once you get out of the habit. Here's to not doing that. Cheers.

While You're Twisting, I'm Still Breathing.

I feel exhausted.

Past few days I've had what I guess you could call a breakthrough. I don't feel great using "woo, writer's block is over, time to kick ass, etc, etc" rhetoric about it yet, and because of that I've been putting off mentioning it here. But I am writing, and talking about what I'm writing is what this blog is for.

So I'm doing some prose work. I'm not wild about prose, nothing against it, I'm just not as comfortable with it as I am other forms -- scripts make dialogue feel more natural, internal monologues are more fun in comics. I also lean pretty heavily on one sort of voice, so my prose work in short stories and essays really isn't much different than what I write here, or in letters to people, or, according to everyone except for one girl in a writing workshop I took in college, the way I talk. I guess because of the similarity it always felt less artful, and more like a gimmick.

But gimmick or not I'm soldiering forward. I've put three really rough pieces together, each about 2500 words long. I don't know if I'm going to go back and try edit them, or just use them for things to cannibalize lately. I don't have a strong opinion on any of it, but if I manage to get up the courage to make them presentable, I might post them or part of them here like I have with other writing in the past. A lot of the content now seems like stuff I'd normally just delete at the end of the day, but I've produced almost no work over the past two months and I'm really not wild about the idea of trashing anything until I feel a little bit better about my output.

I'm still a little split on what I'm doing next. Right now, I'm happily sitting on a few things to help other people with, which is always flattering when I'm asked, and a nice break from being worried about whether or not my own writing is worth the time I'm not giving it. Kyle and the Brainwrap crew have also offered me a chance to write for their current/next project [Re: SMAF], which should be a fun opportunity too.

All of this depends on outside factors, but I'm sort of hoping the past few days haven't been a fluke, and that I can keep being productive in one way or another. I'd like to write a couple shorts, or maybe pick up some old work again. I also have a plan to submit a few screenplays here and there to try and get myself attention and maybe a monetary prize or two [though I will admit I'm more interested if I can make some sort of an impression than I am winning anything], but those all have entry fees to scare off the uncommitted, and I remain sans debit card after my Christmas Disaster.

Finally, a request, to anyone reading. I'm going to put up a link bar down the side of the blog in the next few weeks, nothing fancy, it just seems like a nice way to share what little attention this site gets. If anyone reads regularly, and would like a link to their site posted on the page, just let me know in the comments section. If I comment on your blog regularly, or follow you on Twitter, I probably have plans to include your url already, but if you're not sure, don't hesitate to mention it to me.