Oh No... I've Been Hit

Tagged actually, Briane Pagel tagged me with the 7/7/7 thing. I go to page 77 of a WIP, scroll down to line 7, then copy and past the next 7 lines. I'm struggling to etch in even a few moments to post right now, so I'll quickly go to the excepts.


From my super old WIP, and the novel for which this blog is named, The Blutonian Death Egg:

“What’s wrong now?” I asked, slamming my book shut and tossing it onto my desk.

Josh paced from one side of the room to the other a few times before responding. “The school sent a note to Granny, told her that I’m going to be sent to a school for problem kids.”

“They said that?”

Josh nodded, “I got caught with Mr. Patterson’s missing billfold and a bag of weed.” I think I’m done for.”

My eyes went wide, “Weed?” Does Granny know?”

And there you have it. I think that was seven sentences. Hard to believe from that excerpt that it's sci fi, but it was a random passage. Every sentence can't have flubodium or cheetah robots. 


You know what, just because I'm tired, I figured I throw in a bonus piece... from the same portion of last fall's unnamed nano novel. This one is a fantasy:

          Jeb opened up the door and saw a workbench to his left, there was a bloody surgical tool next to Lem’s bag. It was dark inside and he couldn’t make out anything further due to the darkness. He heard shuffling.

          “Lem?” It’s me, Jeb. Are you in there?”

          Lem stepped out of the shadows and into the light shining in from the open barn door. He had blood on his hands, his clothes, even his face.

Lookie there, twice what you asked for.... wait, if you asked for nothing then it's probably closer to three times. Anyhow, I do enjoy talking about my own stuff, you'd think I'd do it more often.

And I appreciate Briane tagging me. I think I'll fall back on the old, "if you want to be tagged, then please consider it done, don't make me call you out," defense. 

My Favorite Topic. Me!

A few months ago I made an offhanded comment on this blog that I’m an amazing conversationalist, and did so again on Wednesday’s post. I figured that if I were to keep making that claim then I better see how it goes. I started to ask my wife, but decided that would be a huge mistake, she seems to think that I’m a great conversationalist as long as the other person doesn’t talk back. A point I happen to agree with most of the time, depending on the company. However, when she says it somehow sounds like I’m the one with an issue.  

My favorite character on Cheers was always Cliff Clavin, the guy was just soo interesting. When my wife explained to me that I’m pretty much a real life version of Cliff, I was thrilled at first, and wanted to offer that up as evidence of my amazing verbal skills, but she’s informed me that the rest of the world might not find that as endearing as I do.  So I’ve amended my self-image a bit. I may not be as great a conversationalist as I thought, but if you liked Cliff from Cheers, then you might like me.

Anyway, all that was just a segue into this: I got tagged.

I can think Trisha at WORD + STUFF for that gift. I always am amazed when I stop by her place to visit, she’s always somewhat disappointed in her productivity, yet she manages to be orders of magnitude more productive than I do. Looks like, if I read her post correctly, all I have to do is talk about myself some. Um, I can do that. Hell, that’s kind of all I do. But, to follow the format she sat out in her post.

6 things about me.

·         I’m an amazing conversationalist. Wait, have I mentioned that? Maybe if I keep insisting that it’s true people will start to believe me. Hey, I can’t be the only guy in the room that wants to talk about how the angle of the tip on Spock’s ears changed from episode to episode on the old Star Trek, I mean, who doesn’t want to talk about that?

·         I think about death more than I should. Actually, I probably think about everything more than I should. Weird. But each time I am about to leave the house to drive anywhere, before I get in my car I tell my wife and kids. “As you know, I might be dying later, as I have to drive to the grocery store. If I don’t return, please do the following…”

·         I believe that the most vocal people usually have the least interesting thing to say. Also, I’m an amazing conversationalist and sometimes have to get pretty vocal about it before other people finally realize it.

·         When I was a kid, I had no idea that Superman wore an ‘S’ on his chest. I thought the image was formed by the bright yellow portions of his insignia. I had no idea what it was supposed to be, I thought it was kryptonian letters or something. When I began attempting to draw him, I created the S by drawing the negative space around it.

·         I’m pretty sure that upper management types at large corporations and people that hold high ranking political positions (Senators, Congressmen, etc) are sociopaths. All of them. I also think that people with a moral compass generally don’t do well in their attempts to gain power because in order to obtain it, they have to compromise their moral code. It’s complicated. I probably shouldn’t have even bothered to bring it up. Just take my word for it.

·         Finally, every year that I bothered to dress up for Halloween, I went as the incredible Hulk. Why? Because we shared the same physique. All I needed was little green body paint and people thought the comic book was brought to life. Also, I think the biggest fit I ever threw as a child was when my mother bought me a Frankenstein costume for Halloween. Hello? That isn’t the Hulk. If memory serves, the hulk costume was the Frankenstein costume, minus the neck bolts and forehead scar. However, at the time it went from being something I was proud of to something I was too embarrassed to be seen it. If my mom would have just let me take my shirt off and paint myself green everything would be fine. But she was afraid I’d get cold. Whatever, I was the friggin Hulk, I could handle a little cold weather.

And there you have it, a glimpse into the soul of silent stranger. If only Clint Eastwood would have answered such questions about himself when he traveled as the man with no name back in the day it probably would have saved a lot of bloodshed.

I’m supposed to select six people to pass this too. The passing it along generally is the most stressful part of this sort of thing for me. As some people think it’s an insult to be selected, while others might feel left out. So, if you’re reading this, and you want to answer some questions about yourself, then you’ve been tagged.

Me, The 90's, and Potential

I have a funny story to tell, funny because while it’s true, and not funny, it’s illustrative of how other people perceive me. Or did at one time. 

Pretty much at the apex of my life

At a time of my life when I was still pretty young, early 20’s I guess, I was a bit of a wonderer. I was drifting along through life (I still am, if I’m being honest with myself here) without any real direction. At the time I worked in a gas station. The gas station was filled with people who had lots of other interests and tons of things that filled their out of work hours.

Let’s see, two guys were in a band that had just gotten signed to a record label and were on the verge of breaking it big.

Two guys had just graduated from college and were football players. One in particular was a QB who had dreams of playing in the NFL – he had an agent, offers on the table to play in the arena league and wrapped up his collegiate career as a pretty successful player.

One of my best friends, who had gotten me the job there, was in a band as well, they were just signed to a record label too. In fact, they were signed to, what was at the time, the largest record label in the world (well, a small label that was owned by the largest label in the world). They knew they weren’t budgeted to be superstars, but they had their foot in the door. Again, it was a big deal.

One day, my good friend and I were chatting about things, the future, what we’re going to be doing in life, you know, when you don’t have any real responsibilities and don’t know that the odds aren’t in your favor. He says to me, “Have you ever thought about how much talent we have here at the store?”

“No.”

“Well,” he said, “think about it, we’ve got Andre, Chris, Scottie, (all discussed above), I feel pretty good about my chances… and yours too.”

“Me?” I asked. “I’m not even playing much anymore.” A reference to my guitar playing.

“Yeah,” he said. “But you’ll do something great.”

And that was that. I never forgot that conversation. He was sincere, and I was touched. I lost touch with most of the guys, except for being Facebook buddies. But none of us, except for him possibly, really achieved anything close to what we’d envisioned. Later on, at his wedding, he introduced me at the rehearsal dinner to the rest of his rather large party as, “the smartest guy I’ve ever known. Go ahead, ask him anything you want to about Star Trek.”

Yeah, that's sounds like something he would say. Good times. In some ways, it was probably close to the high point of my life, in regards to having friends, having no worries, and feeling that the world was my oyster. 

Sigh. I love my life now. But something 'great' hasn't just fallen in my lap. Here's hoping that I'm just a late bloomer.

Old Times

I'm burned out on a lot of stuff right now. I'm feeling very much like I'm in a rut in life. I thinking of growing the hair out long again and starting a new band.

Wait. That would be a real bad idea. I just miss being a kid for some reason. Weird. I've been thumbing through the archives (i.e., Facebook) and reminiscing about my youth. So, enjoy a photo of me from 20 years ago. When I was cool, and I was the one doing the mocking. Make note young people, you'll be standing around one day, scratching your head and trying to figure out when you stopped being awesome.

Before I discovered beer and tacos

On Endings

Or, more to the point, on not knowing how to end things. Lots of folks have spent lots of time talking about what kind of writers they are. Pantsers, Gardners, Architects, Plotters.... what it all boils down to, for me anyway, is this: Do you know how it will end?

To this point, only my first novel, one in which I have rewritten a hundred times, that is out on submission right now, and that I keep discovering things that no real writer does, I did. That book, I had an ending in mind right from the beginning. I also had my premise... but no idea of how to get my MC from the beginning to the end.

That book, in a lot of ways, is a labor of love for me. I don't know if it's really ever going to be publishable. But dammit, it means a lot to me. So I keep tinkering with it, over and over, I've added characters, removed them, added a subplot, introduced a love interest, all after the original first draft was written. I should have trunked the thing and moved on, but I can't let go. I think there is something in there, deep, that needs to get out, but I don't know if I can pull it out of what I have written.

In the end, after I feel like I've done my due diligence when it comes to seeking professional markets, I'll probably create a pen name, and sneak it out to the Kindle or something so I can have my precious, but not quite right, baby.

But that was a big digression, everything else I've ever written. Ever. I've had no idea of how it was going to end when I began. I'm more of a premise kinda guy. "Hey, what if the scene starts with a one legged male prostitute that finds a dead baby cupid in an alley, then he opens a matchmaking service with quiver full of love arrows?"

That's how they all start. Not with that exact premise, but with a scene or set of circumstances dancing around in my head. I'll start there and go until the story works itself out.

I've decided that method may work, but it's inefficient as hell. My last novel that I drafted had a pattern emerge pretty quickly. A group of people were being chased by an assassin, they sit and discuss why they've been targeted for a while, then get chased, talk about why, get chased, etc. The rational part of me knows that is me trying to work out the story myself, so I'm all over the place, essentially asking the characters to tell me what's happening as I write. Ugh.

I do like the premise, of course I like the premise of all my stuff, but it take so much work to turn stuff like that into something that's even readable, let alone publishable, I think I'm going to try to change things up a bit. I'm going to try, and I mean really try, to really plot things out before I start writing my next piece. I'm not saying I wouldn't be willing to change some stuff as I go, but I've got to have a plan, I just have to.

So, I'll finish up this short story, play some more with my Wacam tablet, then get to outlining. Can't wait.

Anyway, saw this pic of mine from facebook and thought I'd share.

I'm not saying it is photoshopped, but I'm not saying it isn't, either.