Keep on Keepin' On

So I know I've been a big ol' bastard when it comes to updating this blog. I know it, you know it. It's the elephant in the room and I just want to say that it's probably here to stay. At least for a little while. I know you don't want to hear that, but that's the way it is. Trust me, the elephant ain't no fan of it either. The couch barely seats two normal folk, much less a giant malevolent pachyderm.

Through a whole mess of reasons, including illness, apathy, depression, and being busy with other stuff, this blog's totally fallen by the wayside. In part that's by design. I went out and got myself a nice movie blog I write stuff in with the always-fabulous Elizabeth Ditty. If you're interested in hearing mostly about movies then you can find it here.

But other than that, I've been struggling through a novel, and that doesn't engender itself to a whole lot of other writing, especially anything that isn't so heavy with ennui and self-pity that I wouldn't be mortified to post it. How long that'll be the case is anyone's guess. So until then, as always I tweet too much but that's where I always am if you really want to hear me talk about the inane stuff. And I'll be back when I have a finished book, or I get in a mood to write a short story, or any other of a hundred other possibilities.

It's really quite exciting, when you think about it.

Fruits of Labor

So, I know I've been pretty neglectful of the blog and fridayflash and all the other things I should have been doing the past few weeks. The problem was/is, that my day job workplace imploded due to a suddenly unexpected rush of work, plus one of my co-workers being out for a month, leaving us drowning and shorthanded. I've always been the kind of person who needed a lot of down time, but when I was working 60 hours a week, 7 days a week, I essentially had the energy to exist and work and sleep and not much else.

Thankfully, it looks like it's all settling down finally, and it's time to get down to business. The first order of business is what to do with the MESS of overtime I got. The most obvious choice, because it's the one thing in my life I'm least satisfied with, was replacing my older, not-so-awesome computer with something truly epic.

So I decided to set out to build my first computer, with the help of one of my friends (because work is slowing down a bit, but I really don't have time to do all the research on equipment right now within anything resembling a reasonable time frame). My needs were many, in part because I'm making a transition from being primarily a console gamer to splitting my free gaming time between PC and console.

Anyway, because I'm proud of the rig that's about to be put together (hopefully at the end of this week), I figured I'd post all the components here, both to say "look at what I've got!" because secretly I'm just a bouncing 8 year old about some things still, and in part to keep some record of what I did and why.

Case: Raidmax Smilodon
Motherboard: ASUS M4A79 Deluxe AMD
Processor: AMD Phenom II 3.2 GHz Dual Core
Video Card: GeForce GTS 250
HDD: 250 GB Western Digital drive
Other Junk: Card Reader, DVD Drive, 4 GB of Ram, 560W Power Supply
OS: Windows 7 Professional

Now I'll admit that there are some concessions made. That hard drive isn't NEARLY enough, but it was the easiest place to cut corners on my budget because I can slap in a TB drive next month and keep going like nothing ever happened. But otherwise, it's pretty solid. 4 GB of RAM will work for now, though I think I might go more sooner or later.

Windows 7 was easily the most expensive part of this rig, but that's because A) I need Virtual XP due to some of my game tastes. How am I going to mount virtual drives in DOSBOX to play Daggerfall otherwise? (No, I don't actually do this. Though I have before.) and B) I wanted support in case something breaks, so I wasn't going to go out on a limb with the OEM. If I'm spending the money anyway, why dick around with half measures?

Anyway, that's the computer. As of this morning, all three shipments are out and slowly making their way towards me. I can't wait to assemble this, but right now I'm playing the 'move everything out of my old computer to the safe haven of my external HDD. This is probably the last time I'll mention this computer on the blog, but I'll be tweeting about it this weekend, I'm sure.

And that's all the update I have for today. I swear swear swear swear I'll have fiction up for fridayflash this week, so look for that at the end of the week. Otherwise, be excellent to each other.

How We Came to This -- a ramble on editing

Hello out there in internet land! I'm actually making a blog post that isn't just me regurgitating opinions on the latest and greatest in film. No, no, instead of inflicting my massive ego on you by proclaiming my thoughts every week, today you're going to get me talking about myself! Great change, huh?

Whoa, whoa, don't click CLOSE on that tab yet. Come on back. I promise I'll do my best to make this interesting. How so? Well, y'see, this blog is gonna be about writing. You know, that thing I claim I do but never talk about? Today we're going to talk about it.

I've been kind of not writing since early in the year. After NaNo, I burnt out on the whole writing thing for a while. I toiled slowly towards the finish line of the NaNo 2008 novel, and then set the whole thing aside. It had been somewhere between not-great and aggressively shitty, so a respite was in order.

That respite has lasted until three weeks ago.

One might ask how a little break can turn into 7 months of dicking around, but really, it's pretty easy. I have a lot of interests, movies and video games and hanging out with friends and just existing on the internet. That takes up gobs of time. I spend more time refreshing twitterfox each day than I do in my entire morning routine. Not reading twitter, just physically refreshing twitterfox.

The internet is the world's second best waster of time, behind the incredible power of Man to ignore his own agenda in favor of anything else.

But now that's not what's happening. Somewhere between hearing one of the writers I follow was getting represented by an agent (congrats again Kristin!) and feeling the days starting to drift into the long hot bulk of summer, I realized that it was nearing time for NaNo again and I had accomplished fuck all in the interim.

Me! The guy who's always been so sure of what he wanted to do with his life, puttering around without purpose for months!

There's an excuse for taking a break, but the break had become a habit of neglect. And somewhere along the line I kind of snapped a little. Not the guns-blazing-soon-to-be-a-made-for-TV-movie snapping, but the quiet kind where I feel something shift inside of me and suddenly you resolve to things with the kind of conviction that surprises me, because normally I'm a pretty mellow (or, y'know, slothful) guy when it comes to responsibility.

But I'm editing now. I decided to take a crack at my NaNo 2007 novel, Way's to Commit Suicide When You're Bored (shortened to WTC here and elsewhere), the third novel I've ever written and quite possibly the most personal of the books. It was written at a pretty dark period in my life, when I was just starting to wrap my head this whole 'being a writer' thing.

Going back to it has been a conflicted experience. On the one hand, I'm feeling really engaged with the writing process again in a way I haven't felt in almost a year. That alone has made the whole endeavor worthwhile. But at the same time, undertaking editing this is easily the most complicated, difficult thing I've ever done. I'm not a great editor, and this book is big and complex and parts of it are in really rough shape.

So I've been working on the edit for the past few weeks, and so far it's going okay, though a bit slow. I have a hard time getting started, though once I do it all seems to go pretty good. I might take a week or so off in September and just cut myself off and do a lot of work, see how that goes. So far I've just been managing about 1000 words a day, sometimes more and sometimes less. I'm still readjusting to making my writing into a part of my daily life. Hopefully in the next fortnight it'll become a habit and then the start up process will go faster and I can get more done.

Of course, aside from the basic mechanics of doing a full draft/rewrite of a novel, there's the emotional factor. A novel is a huge project, and when one is particularly personal it becomes a reflection of the person who wrote it. This novel, WTC, is imbued with the spirit of who I was in late 2007. Where my head was at, who I was as a person and how I related to the world, all these things are dripping from every paragraph.

The problem is, I'm no longer the person I was in 2007. And that makes approaching this book like opening up a time capsule. There are things that I can still relate to, but even after only two years, it's like looking in on someone else's life. The world view of the author is different than the world view of the editor. But at the same time, I feel so connected to it by the tethers of my memories, that separating the experiences of writing it then, working on it now, and seeing it for what it can be becomes an intricate knot of priorities that ... well, frankly, the editing tends to make me exhausted.

I'm not yet at a pace where this book's going to be edited by the time NaNo 2009 rolls around, but I'm starting to get ideas for that and I'm really excited to come off of this and write a new novel. So here's hoping that I finish the edit before then, or I'll be juggling an edit and a first draft at the same time, which sounds about as close to writing hell as I ever want to get.

And that's really all I have to say about the editing job. Maybe I'll have more later, but I really just wanted to write out where my headspace was at when it comes to the work, lately. I'm not exactly the most communcative when it comes to my writing, and this was originally supposed to be a blog about a writer talking about writing. Unfortunately, writing novels doesn't leave a lot of energy to write extra and isn't so dynamic and fast-paced that I regularly have things to say.

I still might check in now and again. This editing experience is new for me. I've never done a project quite like this, and it's a learning experience (and will continue to be so). So ... thanks for following along so far, and hopefully for listening in again in the future.

Oh, and as a parting shot, I'll put up a rough synopsis for Ways to Commit Suicide When You're Bored here at the end so you can see what it is in abstract. I might talk more about it later, in more specifics, but for now this'll have to suffice.

Max has hit an interesting time in his life—he’s dropped out of college, stuck in a dead-end job in the middle of Nebraska, and longs to have someone, anyone, pull him out of the mire that is his existence. It's become so bad that he's started retreating into his own dark imagination for respite. But when an old friend shows up at his door, he leaps at the possibility of winning her heart and escaping from his dark corner of the world.

The problem? She's knocked up, wanting his help in getting rid of the baby.

Now he's left trying to help her while struggling with his ideal of their relationship. But his mental world is starting to take over his life, manifesting in the real world and blurring the lines of what happens in his head and what happens in real life. What starts out as a complicated situation becomes a struggle to deal with his demons and confront the ghosts of his own mind, before he becomes a prisoner of his own mind forever.

Movie Rundown - April 20 to May 10

My apologies for this taking so long. Things have been kind of hectic, with the failure of my Script Frenzy attempt and some family issues. I'm probably not going to talk about either here on the blog. Maybe the Script Frenzy thing. On a day when I'm feeling particularly self-destructive.

I haven't been much in the mood for netflix movies lately, so this list is going to be short for how much time it covers. I've just been watching The Office in my spare time. Good stuff. As for the movies, here we go!

Resurrecting the Champ (****)
Josh Hartnett plays a struggling sports journalist who discovers that a homeless man who goes by Champ (played by Samuel L Jackson) is a former boxing contender to a world title. He tries to form a bond with Champ in order to write his story, a sure-fire hit.

It sounds like it could descend into the saccharine, but I found it a really good movie. Hartnett, who's never really set me afire, is surprisingly solid in an ineffectual everyman sort of way. The real star here is Jackson, though, who forgoes his typical blaxploitation schtick to turn in a great performance. Champ is run down, ancient, wobbly and screechy, and Jackson's portrayal is at times heartbreaking and others repellant. It's the backbone of the movie, and it carries it well.

2 Fast 2 Furious (**)
The second move in the series of things that are Fast and Furious, this is widely regarded as the worst of the series. And I'm willing to agree with that. This movie is kind of messed up from the get go. It just plods on with a formulaic adherence to mediocrity that's startling. There are moments that are fun, but there are (minus one) no moments that are great.

For a big budget summer action movie? That's inexcusable.

Also, there's a crazy amount of CGI used in this movie, especially at the beginning. It got better over time, but at the beginning it was nearly insufferable. The rule of car movies needs to be "NO CG." And its lack of faith in the subject matter is disheartening. For completionists only.

Diva (***)
I had never heard of this movie until I read an essay from Tom Robbins where he answered the question "What is your favorite movie character?" He cited this movie and one of the characters in it. The joy of the modern world, I could have it in my mailbox within a week.

This is a French movie about a young man who records a singer who refuses to record her work for his own use. But when his tape is mixed up with a tape incriminating the leader of a prostitution ring, the young man is tossed into a world of intrigue and blackmail.

The movie itself is strange, with an odd surrealist quality to everything. Tom Robbins' favorite character dances around the periphery of the story like some sort of mad monk, which is probably what appealed to him. But the action itself takes on this strange dreamlike quality where the danger feels almost unimportant in the face of people's desires as they go through the story. That detachment I'm almost certain is on purpose, and I like the dreamlike nature of it, but I wouldn't say it's particularly gripping. If you like strange French thrillers, go right ahead and watch this, though, and you won't regret it.

Earth
I'm not rating this one, and you might say that's a cop out but I'm going to defend it. Simply put, there was a narrative here, but my enjoyment of it was completely independant of whatever storytelling they were trying to do.

We all know the story. Disney nature documentary using footage from the Planet Earth miniseries from a year or so ago. There's a story about some families of mammals in the struggle to survive on a dynamic ecosystem such as ours. There is some talk of global warming and whatnot.

But what this truly is is nature porn. It's the landscape and the creatures upon it as art in themselves, presented in the most breathtaking ways. This is one of those films that thrives on camera technology, on the ability to shoot HD and slow motion and from far away with a Steadicam and still get detail. And what it picks up is amazing, from slow motion footage of a cheetah bringing down prey to a time lapse of a frozen forest coming to life. It's spellbinding in a way that is all about the image and very little about anything else.

I highly suggest anyone who is into things beautiful go see it, if it's even still playing. The nicest screen you can find it at. This is one that benefits greatly from the HD experience. I would probably not been as affected had it been on a TV running a plain old DVD.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (*)
I was going to write up why this movie was completely fucked from end to end, but you could get that from a lot of places. It stands as the worst movie I've ever payed money to see, from the terrible CGI used all over the place in glaring ways to the insipid script that ruins perfectly good actors on material that would have been at home with the Super Friends. Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber try their hardest to add some gravitas to the proceedings, but it's not enough, nor is the typically solid Harry Gregson-Williams score. Whoever made this movie like this messed up huge. It's trash. Garbage. Don't give them your ticket money. Simple as that.

Star Trek (****)
This one is easier to write about, because it's easy to gush. So I'll keep it short. Star Trek is a reboot of the franchise that everyone all over the world has heard of. It's a new Kirk, Spock and McCoy back when they were just starting out on their first adventure. It's made by J J Abrams, who apparently is pretty popular these days.

It is also fantastic. Every bit works, from the pitch perfect casting to the balance between being faithful to the fans of Trek and making a movie that nonfans would actually care about. It's emotionally strong, it's fast paced, it's interesting, it's full of actual danger and real risks and they pay off big time in surprising ways (which I won't go into, but have ramifications for any sequels that come about).

Go see it. I don't care what you think about the original Star Trek. I was sorely tempted to give it five stars, but even at four, I think that it's a movie that everyone needs to see and a movie that'll find its way onto my Top Movies of 2009 list later this year. You need to see it. It's a movie that's bigger than a fanbase, and bigger than serious moviegoers. This is THE event film.

( Also, because I have to give shout outs to the best parts of the movie, Karl Urban as McCoy is BRILLIANT. I could have watched a whole movie about him. I've been behind him since I saw him in The Two Towers, so seeing him really put in that strong of a performance is thrilling. Also, Michael Giacchino, the composer, does an amazing job of providing strong thematic material to help underscore the movie. It's big and bombastic, but it rarely feels heavyhanded. In fact, I'm listening to the score as I write this. Giacchino also did the scores to the underappreciated Sky High and Speed Racer, and the rightly appreciated Incredibles. He's a man I'm going to watch, because I ALWAYS enjoy his work. )

The Soloist (***)
I slipped this one in on Mothers Day and came away kind of ... unenthused about the whole thing. The story is easy enough, the tale of a Juliard dropout with schitzophrenia who's living on the streets playing music when he's discovered by an LA Columnist who takes an interest in his story. I'd heard of the story when the book was released, and the movie does a good job of retelling it.

The problem is that the director doesn't seem satisfied with letting the actors do their job. There is a bombardment of jump cuts and surround sound wankering with voices to help illustrate the schitzophrenia. There are strange, surrealistic scenes plopped in seemingly at random. And there's an absolutely mood-breaking moment of synesthesia placed smack dab in the middle of what should have been one of the most affecting parts of the movie. But instead of trusting Jamie Foxx to do his job, the director seemed more interested in how he could play around with his tools.

Disappointing, I say again. Solid performances, but the filmmaking itself left a lot to be desired. I wouldn't say its a waste of time, but it's nothing special.

------

And that's a wrap. I'm going to be trying to start writing again this week as I try to get out from under all the problems that aren't my creative work that have been pressing me down. I've also go the madness of a younger brother graduating high school this week, but ... I'm hopeful that I'll be able to get some output.

See you on the other side of this week.

Broken Extended Metaphors and Mental Explosions

So I finally started working on ITMeat again today. It's been a long time, since the end of November. I don't regret taking the time off, and I'm not sure how 'back' I am, but it's interesting getting back into the book writing thing.

Writing books is a snowball process. You start with the seed of an idea and you push it along and gather words and ideas and characters. It's a katamari of narrative. And like a katamari, as you push it up a hill, and it grows and grows, you keep having to push to maintain even a modicum of momentum.

Modicum, I say!

So, I stopped. And payed attention to doing something else very intently for a few months. I've been catching up on the crapton (this is 'as many as I have room for, plus four') of games I have lying about, and while I'm still doing that ( and will continue to do so for the forseeable future ) I also want to incorporate writing back into my life in a pretty significant way.

As an aside, I think that all+4 is a good way of signifying crapton. I think all+5 would probably be a fuckton and all+>5 would be a metric fuckton. I think these should be the universal standards. That way we all know. Metric fuckton. All that you can have + more than five. Just so you know. This is the official memo.

But yeah, so I decided today on a whim to keep pushing the katamari. And let me tell you, moving the fuggin thing after so long doing something else is just ridiculous. It's like trying to get scotch out of a bird. And let me tell you, birds have shitty taste in alcohol.

So yeah, I couldn't move the thing for the longest time. I've been analyzing my approach to building the katamari, and I realized that there were far too many cows and telephone poles. So I had to go around and knock them all off. So now I'm working with a book that's 16000 words lighter. But that bastard is rolling again.

So ... yeah. I'm writing again. It's interesting. I've been bashing my head against this one for months, so... let's see if I can't get my shit together finally.

Okay, done with this. Two blog posts in as many days is ridiculous.

In Where Matt Unloads About NaNo and Not Writing

So I finished NaNo. This was despite blowing out my hands (I have chronic hand/wrist problems) by week two and running out of steam. I crossed a joyless, difficult 50k that made me question my choice of artistic endeavor. It was the worst of times, it was the worster of times.

But I did finish, and this year saw a pretty impressively high failure rate. I'm frustrated that I was so far from my own goal, but my own goal was obviously well beyond my abilities. But at the same time, I suppose I have to put up with it and be happy that I actually succeeded in writing 50k in a month. That is, of course, no small feat.

So I have a novel that's half finished. And thanksgiving break thankfully allowed me the down time necessary to become physically capable of typing properly again.

One of the major themes of my novel is my main character dealing with the mortality of her father. Which just came as a natural extension of the story, not due to me being particularly enamored by that particular aspect.

On Sunday, either through twisted serendipity or karmic irony, my father had what appears (at this time) to be a mini-stroke. He's mostly okay, it seems, though he sometimes have trouble speaking. I'm not quite sure the extent of the damage yet. We'll find out later this week.

So ... I don't know. It hit rather close to home, and sapped all of my enthusiasm for the project. I'm dealing with similar things in real life, and they're taking up most of my time and energy with concern and trying to coordinate everything. When my creative life and my real life overlap so strongly, I just can't muster the energy to throw myself at the problem at an entertaining way.

So I'm not writing. And right now I have no intentions of writing. Not on my novel, anyway. And maybe not on much of anything. I'm mentally stretched very thin, and by the time I get everything squared away each day all I'm concerned with is sitting there until I get sleepy with a minimum of fuss.

That said, I'll try to focus on the blog. I have two-ish weeks of Movie Roundup to do, a few features I have to write, a short story I promised Sarah for her birthday (which was a few weeks ago) and the one year anniversary of the blog to celebrate (don't get excited, it passed last week without notice).

So we'll see. I'll try, but no promises. Which is the best I can do until everything settles down a bit. Unfortunately, the real victim here is ITMeat, which might end up being shelved for a few months until it doesn't make me more than a little unsettled to even think about it.

First things first, though. Lunch!

Jesus Christ, he's still alive!

Not Jesus, mind you. He's dead. Has been for ... oh, 1975 years.

Nah, I'm talking about me. Not a savior, not even a good guy, I can turn wine into vinegar and try to stay away from water because I don't like swimming. But I am alive, and I am here to once again make an entry. A good one? Ha, not hardly. I don't have enough to say to make a good post, but I'm sure I'll fill this with enough inane errata and meaningless life updates to make people glad I'm not filling my blog with this shit on a regular basis.

So lately (other than being sick [yeah, I know, I'm sick a lot] and just in the past few days feeling 100%) I've fallen back into my gaming habit. It comes and goes, and right now it's here. Hardcore. Obsession of choice these days? Blue Dragon. I've dropped an embarassing amount of time into it in the past week and a half. Thankfully, I'm almost done, so I can move on to more sane activities. But it's been a crazy week and a half. It reminds me of junior high, when I spent all summer gaming. Those were the days, those carefree lazy days, when all I needed was a spikey-haired protagonist with a big sword repeatedly killing waves of enemies for minimal gains to make me happy.

Not anymore. No way, Jose (unrelated to Jesus). No, now I demand ... well, no, it's the same shit, different disk. But now it has achievements. That's gotta count for something, right? Certainly it's motivated me to drop ridiculous amounts of time into the damn thing.

In other news, I think I might have mentioned I have a netflix account. Because I'm a movie person, I'm serious about my netflix. And I'd like friends. So if you read this, have netflix, and aren't my friend on there yet, feel free to add me. I'll mostly just judge you based on your ratings and queue, not tell you that I think I'm better than you, and look over what you've seen to find stuff I've seen to rate because I'm too lazy to try to remember and rate them individually.

Good times

Speaking of films--good god (related to Jesus, if you believe those Christian folk) it's been a crazy movie season, hasn't it? One weekend after another, stuff I needed to see. I might as well go ahead with the obligitory "What I watched and what I thought of it" but instead of listing everything I'll just point out the three I enjoyed the most and maybe a bit of why

1. Speed Racer

The fact that nobody saw this film is, quite frankly, fucking embarassing. It's still the best thing I saw all year (so far). It's absolutely fantastic. What should have been a train wreck turned into a thing of beauty. It's very experimental, at times edging towards impressionism and abstraction. And it works. I don't know how, I just sit down and enjoy the damn thing. But it's worth it

So when it comes out on DVD, put it on your netflix queue and watch it (or better yet buy it so the Wachowski's can stop crying) so I'll respect you again.

2. Wanted

It's stupid. Yes, I'll admit, it's very stupid.

It's also very, very stylish. And I'm the kind of guy who appreciates a film that doesn't mess around when it comes to being cool

I have nothing else to say here. Watch the trailer. If you don't think it looks cool ... well, then I can't talk to you any more. And guess what? The best stuff isn't even in the trailer.

3. Wall-E

Lots has been said about this one lately, because those right-wing crazies are calling it leftist propaganda. You wanna know why? Because they'd be happy to have us all floating in chairs all day, oblivious to the world around us.

Wall-E is probably going to turn out to be Pixar's dark horse film. It's not really for kids. They know they have an adult demographic, and I really think they played to that this time. There are some surprising subtexts here, and plenty of the typical Pixar touches that add up to make the film something special.

If you have the attention span of a newt, you might find it a slow-starter. It's certainly a lot less funny and a lot more competant as a film than some of their films. But it is, without a doubt, worth seeing.

Today is the day Hellboy 2: The Golden Army comes out. I have to tell you, I'm crazy excited for this one. Hellboy was great. This one almost HAS to be better in probably every way. That's just how it goes

Though, needless to say, my excitement is somewhat overshadowed by something coming out next week. Hehe.

(Lies. I'm really hoping for earth-shatteringly influential, but again ... modesty is a virtue and I need all the help I can get.)

Um ... let's see. Anything else?

Oh yes. My friend Sarah writes really good movies but nobody reads her scripts for her. I think we should all give a collective 'aww' and if you have free time annoy her to do something with her scripts so we can have movie versions in our theatres before we're all collecting social security.

And maybe, if you have free time, see if you can't pry her screenplay draft out of her greedy fingers. I'm totally not running this by her, so she could say no to total strangers, but the thought would likely flatter her and I do what I can. Not to mention you'll get to see her squirm as she fights warring impulses to show her work to people and to be protective of where it goes, all the while trying to turn you down gently in her overly-nice way.

Speaking of readers, Kris got around to reading MS this past weekend, making my failure rate on people I can rely on somewhat less embarassing. Too bad she already had a free pass, since my books aren't anywhere close to her typical reading habits. Especially a novel as full of navel-gazing art-house sensibility as MS.

That said, her opinions were solid, even if she maybe wasn't super keen on the book. Which is fine. She suffers for having known the author longer than is healthy for anyone.

Speaking of, my vacation to see said Kris is coming up, so I'll be going on hiatus from August 6th to the 10th to soak up the rays (more like the rain, since it's monsoon season there) in hot and desert-like Tucson. Should be a gas. Or something.

Expect me to get wasted, wander off into the desert, and be eaten by scorpions. Or something similarly grisly.

Of course, given how often I update this blog, nobody would have noticed my absence anyway. But ... I figure advance notice is a good idea, regardless.

And I'm done. Now let's see how long it takes me to give a shit and do this again. Bets? Winner gets a free drink of their choice*!

*Drink of choice limited to one beverage purchased under $10 by me at a time convenient by me at a location of my choosing. Offer not valid for those living out of the United States, unless they come back here to claim their prize. One play per customer, one winner will be chosen, not all who play will win (unless only one lucky bastard plays). Prize can not be redeemed for cash. In the event of a tie, I'll pick whoever catches my fancy at that moment.

Alive!

So I've spent the past week being horrendously sick. Like bed-ridden, my soul is being crushed kinds of sick. But I'm slowly crawling out of it and that's (of course) a plus. There's nothing quite like the feeling of wellness after illness to make you appreciate what it is to be healthy.

That said, it's time to pick back up the writing again and start kicking ass on it. I'd like to get a good chunk of my current novel pounded out before I leave on vacation (going to Tucson for five days in August), and that's going to take some concentrated effort on my part.

Oh, and my novel has a title now! The CDE Project is now known as The Cafe Between Reality and Dreams. I'll undoubtedly still refer to it as CDE, but now it has something more official to go by. Updates will be shown in the sidebar

>>>>THIS WAY!>>>>>>

Whenever I get around to updating them.

That is all.

getting back into the swing of things

So I've been writing daily, for the past few days anyway. The goal as it stands is 1000 words a day, and that's been all right. 1000 words a day is a focused effort of 30 minutes, which is about all the patience I have lately. I'm trying to write around my apathy, and work past it.

At this rate, the book should be done sometime late summer. >.< I need to speed it up, but I really just ... can't push myself too hard. Another burn out would throw me entirely off course, and I can't have that.

Lately I've been out of a reading mood, and into a movie mood. I got a netflix account, and have been enjoying that. It doesn't hurt that I can watch movies at work. If I make the effort, I can get through four movies in a day. It's great to get paid for that. I also watched all of The Office.

I should have more to say, but I don't, really. Second section of the Sugoi story is up, I suppose. Yay for that. I need to figure out where the hell it's going. Expect a new one next week, perhaps.

Writing that Works, and a Long-Awaited Entry

So lately I've been working on writing. Not much. I'm aiming for 1000 words a day on CDE right now, which isn't much but it's enough to get the ball rolling without being too much to expect considering all the time that's passed since I seriously wrote.

Not to mention 1000 words can go really fast, so if I focus I can pound it out in 20-30 minutes without any problem. It doesn't entirely suck, either, which is a plus.

I think the goal for NaNo this year is going to be 100k words. I know it's early (November's some ways off, still) but I want to aim bigger. I probably won't hit 100k, but I'd like to at least try.

I also started working on the Hiroki Sugai blog, which is the serial detective stories that I'll be putting up. I'll likely work on them during the morning here at work. The first one, should be you interested, is right here behind this generic link. You'll get a first-hand look at just how rough fiction is when it comes straight from my head onto the page, as I struggle to figure out where I'm going daily. Expect some huge plot holes down the road. =D

Link-tastic!

So on Wednesday I went to Family Fun Center with Tony and Kathleen. Family Fun Center is the local arcade where all the cool games hang out (despite the most atrociously inefficient maintenance crew evar).

The main reason to go was for the Bemani, of which they have tons of types. But unfortunately, the Pop'n Music machine had two broken buttons and all that was left was ParaParaParadise. Hours of ParaParaParadise.

Needless to say, my arms were rubber. I've been working on getting better slowly at home, but it had been months since I had played seriously and I don't think I had ever played that many times.

So I'm still feeling sore, 2 days later. Lovely. Oh well.

There was a death vortex forecast for yesterday, which isn't so fun considering the crazy amount of tornados this year. So I had to unplug Ghita and let her sit out the ensuing lightning blitzkrieg (rather redundant, ja?) and was left with little to do but to replay a case in Phoenix Wright and then sleep. Sleep lots. With crazy dreams that might have been in HD. They felt abnormally vibrant.

Today is Friday. I'm left with some options about how I want to spend my evening. I could go out and finally see Indy 4, or head to my favorite bar with Adam. Because my job transition has put me into a weird paycheck thing, I'm thinking I'll probably end up going with movie, since that's cheaper, but we'll see how the day plays out.

This weekend is reserved for trying to get back into the writing groove, which has been incredibly difficult. I'm tempted to work on the new project, but I'll likely end up finally writing a bit for my serial fiction Hiroki Sugai. I think it may be easier to get back into writing with short fiction than it will be to try to jump headfirst back into my novel after so much time off. But I'm not positive, and in the end it's all a bit of a crapshoot.

Now that Boston Legal and House are done for the summer, I lack a show to watch. I don't know really what I should go for next, if anything. I'm currently catching up on Boondocks and watching Dirty Jobs on and off.

I really really want to play MGS4 now that it's on our doorsteps. I've been a huge fan of MGS for years now (I even like Raiden!) and having to sit one out doesn't make me happy. But, I refuse to buy a PS3. It's just ... not worth it. Two games (MGS4 and FFXIII) do not justify that kind of price tag. Going the Wii60 route, even if it limits me from two of my favorite series, is much more cost-effective and fulfilling in the long run.

Is that it? Hrm, I think so. Expect a music-related post this weekend, but outside of that I'm not sure I have all that much to say. Sarah's been bugging me to offer writing-related posts, but I really don't have that much writing news. I'm lazy, I'm struggling, and while I could write angsty emo-poetry about my writing troubles it's not exactly going to be something I want to share.

See? Told ya I wasn't dead!

Okay, here we go, new post. Lots of stuff's been happening, which is in part why I've been so crazy quiet. Let's address the issues.

Since we last sat down and talked, I changed jobs again. This new place is pretty awesome, but it's actually busy (most of the time) so it's been kicking my ass.

In the time that transpired between jobs, I took a week to just sit on my ass and do nothing. I played video games. I watched movies. I went golfing for the first time. All in all it was hella enjoyable.

Oh, and I bought a new computer.

I don't have pics (I'll work on that) but she's a beauty. Dell Inspiron 351 AMD Athlon Core Duo 2.80 Ghz with 2 gigs memory. Not like ... top of the line, but she's suiting me rather nicely after Deborah became old, bitter, and ready for retirement to the occasional coffee shop.

I've named her Ghita. And to top her off, I put THIS on top to sweeten the deal.

So all of this week (when I wasn't working) was mostly spent getting everything set just how I like it. Some minor hiccups aside (my music library has been added about 5 times now, because I keep messing up some setting and throwing it all out of whack) I'm about in business.

Which means it's time for writing.

Screnzy's over. I'm getting settled. And the spring is slowly starting to give way to summer so it's time to throw down and do what needs to be done. CDE Project is calling me. Too much potential not to explore it. And the countdown to clear my project queue (one new book, two edits) by November is creeping up faster than I'm entirely comfortable with.

In other news, I have down time here at work each morning before FedEx arrives. I'm not sure if that means that I'll post more, but I certainly have a nice slice of time carved out for it, if I choose to exploit it.

Oh yeah, Morgetron interviewed me last night because she's silly and I like to talk. When it's up, I'll link it. But people should be checking her out anyway. I mean daaaaaayum, if only all teachers were so stylin'.

Here thar be lists!

Here’s another arbitrary update because I’m uncompelled to produce content. It was either this or work on the script, and to be completely honest I’m just not feeling the whole noir vibe under fluorescent lighting. Maybe it’s just me.

By all accounts (barring complete block or disasters both medical and technological) Tony and I should be finishing the script up by Friday. Which means that I’ll be free to pursue other things. There are three that are standing at my door waiting for me.

1. Finish writing Tango
2. Edit WTC
3. Do a third draft on MS

I’m not really keen on 3, since it’s been only two months since I kicked it back out, so I’m bouncing between the other two. Opinions have been weighed in, though they’re mostly biased. I don’t know what I want to do, though, and since I’m the one who has to sit down every night and be happy with my output, this is something of a problem.

I also am tempted to do something rash and foolish. I won’t say what, but there are a few options not listed up there (4-6, I think, offhand) and they’re tugging at me from time to time.

I have until Friday to figure out what the hell I’m doing. Saturday, if I really want to press it. When these are decisions about what you’re going to be spending the next two months of your life focused on, this sort of indecision is a real pain in the ass.

Maybe I’ll just do all six of them at once and break down from the stress and lack of sleep.

New Bibliography!

Well, I updated my bibliography with redone blurbs (practicing for the querrying process) for the novels that were already on there, and the screnzy script and other novel I've put on hold for the moment.

Follow the link to the bibliography in the sidebar to the right if you're interested.

Other than that, I have nothing to report. Raining cats and dogs, which makes me feel wonderful. Sleeping poorly, which makes me feel not-so-wonderful.

And thinking of vacationing in the desert, nearly inexplicably.

A long-expected update!

So, I’ve been more than a little negligent lately. Not just about this blog, but about everything in general. Moving twice in a month I think drained me mentally more than I care to admit. And, also, the three weeks between those two moves threw me out of my writing habit.

So lately I’ve been trying to get back into it. Tango was a bit of a lost cause—returning to a novel after three weeks away is a terribly hard thing to do, especially when you went cold turkey with your writing like I did.

I decided instead to focus on my Script Frenzy script I’m writing with Tony. It’s light, it’s fairly straightforward, and it’s serving as a good way to ease back into my previous writing habits. It’s not quite NaNo, but it’ll hopefully bring me back up to something resembling speed.

Which is going well. It’s noiry (that’s a word!) as hell, but mostly a positive experience. I don’t know what I’m going to do with it once it’s done, since I’m not trying to be a screenwriter. Tony can gussy it up if he wants, or else I’ll just sit on it and publish it on a website someday as miscellanea.

After that I’m completely unsure. Two of the nine or ten readers I’ve sent MS to have finished it (the rest of you, two weeks left until shame on you) and that’s gone very well. So I can approach editing a third draft of that. There’s also a desire to give a second draft to WTC.

Of course, there’s also Tango. Oh Tango.

I’m suffering from an embarrassment of riches, here. Too many irons, many of them hot enough to strike.

But it’ll work out. As for the blog? I’ll see what I can do. Getting back into the writing swing of things might mean I get more inspiration. It might not. It’s really hard to say, honestly. My focus is all over the place. Pointing it in a constructive direction is little more than guesswork these days.

Miss Snark, I hardly knew ye.

Hey all. I've been hellishly busy and it doesn't seem like it'll get better anytime soon. Expect me to update this only under duress or fits of inspiration until further notice. Something to do with being sick and working and writing all at once.

My current distraction at work is this blog. It stopped updating fall of 07, but it's still worth reading if you're a writer (like myself) or interested in the business end of writing/agenting/publishing. It's one anonymous agents take on the business from her end. I find it not only endlessly entertaining, but incredibly informative. When I start my agent hunt, I'll feel much more prepared for having read it.

Novel is progressing. Been laid low by the flu and a certain show that a certain someone has gotten me hopelessly hooked on. I'm not in any hurry, though. I'm content to take a little more time with this one if I have to. It's coming out really well, considering how early it is. I suppose that means I've learned something the last three times I've done this. :p

Expect some sort of description of the project (plus excerpt) as soon as I cross the 10,000 word line. Which should be late this week(end) at the rate I'm going.

So, what now...

Now that the editing of Marton Syan is done, I'm left in something of a state of flux. I'm waiting for people to get back to me on critiques of the MS manuscript, something that I'm absolutely dying to see. I'm also ready to move on. Very much so.

I've so far written three novels. The first one might as well not count, though I'll dust it off one day. The other two are good, and they get better one after the other, but they're very serious and full of nuance and characters dealing with life and whatnot.

All in all, what could be considered 'boring literary stuff'.

I don't think it is. In fact, I LOVE the stuff that most people call 'boring literary stuff'. But I can't make a living writing that. Not unless I also write it with all the aplomb and finesse of someone who can make prose sing. Someone both brilliant and witty.

Someone like Tom Robbins.

My next novel, which I'm still not 100% ready to spill the beans on, is my attempt at a Tom Robbins-like novel, through the skein of me being me and having to do things my own way. It's not anything like a Robbins novel, but if I could write with 1/10th of the skill he puts into every sentence, I'd consider myself a victor.

Of course, I write 5x faster than he does (seriously, the man claims he aims for two pages a day). And he's been doing it forever. And he's a genius. But I want to write like that. So it's the high water mark of the moment.

Anyway, this next book is a bit of a stretch for me. It's light-hearted (sorta) and funny (supposedly). It's tongue-in-cheek and seat of the pants. It's full of piss and vinegar in the best way.

It's also absolutely terrifying to think about.

I'm feeling very lost with this one. Drama is easy, comedy is hard. But I'm going to go for it. I consider this an expansion project. Even if it bombs, it'll be a learning experience. I'm just not sure how far down the rabbit hole I'm going to go with it, or how long it'll take me. If it ends up taking longer than the expected two months, I'd be okay with that, so long as the end result is worth it.

I'll post up a plot synopsis as soon as I have ... a plot. I have a half-cooked idea and an opening chapter that I adore, but right now I'm sitting on chapter two wondering how my opening sentence took a brilliant book and drove it striaght into the ground. Such is the life.

This one's going to be a fight.

If I win, expect something amazing.

If I lose, expect me complaining about the book that never was.

I will spill the title, though. The next book is going to be called Tango Diagonal.

State of Blog (ver 1.2) Dry Spells and Priorities

I said that I would be doing periodic updates on the state of the blog, and I’m doing so in accordance with that. But first, a bit of an apology.

I’m bad about updating my blog regularly. That doesn’t mean that I’m abandoning it, or anything remotely like that. In fact, I plan to have this blog for a long, long time. Years upon years. It might eventually morph into a proper website, but it’ll still be here in some form or another.

Yet, lately I’ve been blogging less and less. Partially, I’ve been busier. Full-on editing mode took lots out of me, and I have other things I’ve been pursuing and other dalliances that have build up (friends convinced me to start watching TV shows, which is a bad bad idea when it comes to me being motivated).

Now the editing’s done and I’ll be moving on to another novel. I still don’t feel the desire to write any great articles on here. The problem is knowing what to say and how to say it. Lately I’ve felt the demands of ‘becoming better’ more keenly than before. Going through and looking at what I thought was decent work and seeing how much it lacked has driven me to improve my efforts on the novelling front. That said, I don’t really feel like spending time here, aside from the odd rant or jotting or whathaveyou.

I have a few things up and coming. The most important thing is the next novel, which I’ll start work on tonight. I will go ahead and set my word count expectation at 100000 words again, since that seems to be my standard. I’m actually guessing this one to come in at about 75,000. Just in terms of content being a lot more sparse than my usually densely narrated novels.

We’ll see. Once I’m comfortable the plan is working, I’ll throw up a plot description and title. It’s a great idea, I think. Maybe I’ll even put up an excerpt or two. This’ll be the first time I write a novel while blogging, so there are a lot of possibilities if I choose to explore them. I don’t know if I will or not. There are lot of things I could do with this blog. So many directions, and I’m only one person with a very limited amount of time and energy.

Word count goals for daily writing: 3000 words (settle for 2k), off Wednesday and maybe Friday

And it's done!

This morning I finished my second draft of Marton Syan. The final word count, a neat 15,000 words less than when I started, can be found on the right for a little while longer until I take the bar down for a new one.

The book is off to my initial readers now, where they'll look it over and tell me what I missed or did wrong. Later, in the summer, I'll gather their opinions and give it another go. For now, I'm willing to bask in life without Marton Syan hanging over my head for a little while.

I have other updates forthcoming, including the next book I'll be starting work on come today or tomorrow. I'm very excited about this one, even if I'm very unsure of how it's going to go. It's much different than my usual work.

Until then, celebration!

A new project of sorts.

Hi there. Random update. As a side project, I'm going to be doing a few short stories in the mystery/detective/noir genre. Because I'm weird, I'm doing them as a hopefully ongoing project that I'll be posting on a fictional blog. I just started, so if you go over there don't expect a whole lot yet. But you can get in early if you want. I haven't even put up a template or removed my test post yet.

The blog is called The Wonderful World of Hiroki Sugai.

Peruse (or ignore) at leisure. I'll write some for it this weekend, I'm sure, in between editing.