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Still binging my catalogue of new-ish Mr. Nightmare clips as, somewhere in the distance, the Warriors are getting clapped. I’m trying to get into a particular mindset and prepare for a solid summer of writing and of teaching writing and get back to that being the core of my professional life. Now it isn’t always that and is fluid or absent, but I want it to be that and I want to be representative of that in my life. Lately I’ve been thinking about who I want to be vs. who I am and moving in the right direction. I want to be the kind of writer who is able to go to conventions and present topics and sell books and have a good time meeting people and hanging out. That is more in line with who I am and intend to be outside of the professional.

Let’s talk about Deshaun Watson.

I want to start this by saying I am not defending this man in any way shape or form. He is an idiot. He is an idiot in exactly the same way that Micheal Vick was an idiot. In saying this I am going to acknowledge the embedded racism that makes the Watson and Vick cases front page news that may ultimately cost the latter a chunk of his career as it did the former. I am saying this largely because of the quick and dirty dismissal of the Robert Kraft incident where he solicited sex from a massage parlor and was arrested (charges dropped) and the people giving the massages (and sex) were also arrested, prosecuted for sex trafficking, and later jailed. I can’t even begin to get into the nonsense of Commanders owner Daniel Snyder and his 15 cases of sexual harassment. These owner cases vanish as quickly as possible–with Snyder’s being the catalyst for a much needed name change as an obvious way to deflect attention.

But this isn’t about right, wrong, or even racism. This is about a very dumb man who entered into an arrangement with a woman who enabled his behavior (including with her own daughter–by her own admission) and empowered him to put women is terrible situations. Let me be clear: Watson may not be willing to say it (legal reasons) but he went to these women with the intent of having a sexual encounter. He admitted to having sex with three of them, and the fact that he went to at least 40 different women indicates that this is some sort of fetish he is into. The problem is that this fetish doesn’t take into account the feelings or rights of the women being solicited. They are being abused, and while some are okay with it, some are not. He is clearly of the mindset that massages end with a ‘happy ending’ and that is not right.

So, we have established him as the bad guy. Now let’s acknowledge the culture that gave him that stupid idea.

When life beats you up, fall into fiction!

I’m going to dive a bit deeper into the Itokolian Duelists. After watching the first two episodes of Obi-Wan, I am in the mindset of trying to create something in the moments I can find inner peace. The something in this particular instance is a costume and a backstory for that costume. I’m thinking about the hair and what that hair should look like. I don’t have a ton of hair to begin with so I’m going to consider shaving vs. adding. Styling through shaving seems to be the look here–something with lines of hair reflective of a clan pattern.

That brings us to clans. In my mind the Itokolians are a clan based culture and each battled–largely as a sport and a way to settle land disputes. While most clans were roving, a few were stationary, and they represented the ‘elders’ the way the Lenape represented the elders of the native tribes of early east coast America.

I want the garb to represent that to an extent–the long cloth on only one side being a mark of defensive posture and or how they ride their beasts of burden. For this I plan to load the light sabers (oh yeah, they definitely used those and were NOT Jedi) on the right side–one logn on the back and one short on the leg.

Decided to watch a Mr. Nightmare for the first time in a long time. It sat there in a stew of other inputs that represented the backbone of my creative stew for the day. I love how Nightmare’s voice helps ease the story into reality and, for me, it helps me to get a sense of the creepy and decide from that creepy what worked for me and what didn’t in order to bring into life some creepy of my own. I am not very good at straight horror, but suspense and terror are important elements of the kind of writing I do. So, I like to be up on what works and try to get better at it.

True terror comes from situations that are entirely recognizable and devolve in a way that feels all too real but at the same time would be horrible if they every happened. In other words, fiction. The joy of fiction for me is bringing people to a place where they can identify with the characters and what is going on with those characters and, in the end, to be able to think about what choices they would make and what choices they did make in life. That is the power of fiction.

I’ve been trying to get my cosplay right all weekend and it has not gone well. Finally this morning inspiration struck. It was a combination of watching all of these Jedi types stride through the area and thinking I didn’t want to be another Jedi. But what would I be? This morning I devised the concept of an Itokolian Duelist. I see them as a sect of people from a particular planet in far rim of the Star Wars Galaxy where they are known as fierce fighters but largely seen as an ancient sect–similar to how the warriors of Mandalore are now seen. Now that I have that in place I am starting to imagine a look that is derivative of they Jedi look in a way that feels less religious and feels like it predates the look in some fashion.

Here is what I have so-far:

They (I) will wear a long piece of fabric down one side of my body that is etched with whatever honorifics I’ve earned as a duelist. It will be wrapped in middle (sorta intending to hide the belly and midsection intersection of pant and shirt). On the side of the long piece I will wear my gear belt and on the opposite side will be a piece made of the same fabric as the sash that holds two ornate sabers.

It is a start!

sitting in the audience of the fan fusion masquerade, which represents the height of costuming at the con. The beauty of the event is that these people work really hard to create a costume reflective of the anime or other creation they really love and then perform a brief skit that shows them in action. It’s a moment of power and grace and attention for people who don’t always get the spotlight and they straight up kill it.

being at these events reminds me of the sheer joy of fandom and how much consumers can be engaged in the art they consume. It’s a privilege to be in the space and see consumers become creators and take the stage. It makes me want to make more stuff that inspires and be inspired by the stuff I consume

First night of Phoenix Fan Fusion (read: Comic Con) in over 1000 nights and the event is pretty much as it was. I note less vendors and less events, but more energy and more big names in terms of signings and appearances. This has been a decent first day save for the fact that my boys got in a car accident. No one was hurt, but it sucks to recognize that I knew all day that it was going to happen and did nothing. How did I know? It was a feeling–flashes of knowing that when the three of them got in the car they’d be in a crash. It felt like me putting bad thoughts into the universe so I largely ignored it–especially since I was convinced only one of them was going out with this friend. When all three wound up going it should’ve been a red flag. Wasn’t.

Lately I’ve been feeling more connected to people I know and love but in the ethereal sense of connection. The other night I am convinced that my partner and I shared a dream–at least we had the same dream of perceived and experienced different parts of it. I don’t know what it means. I get strange feelings all the time, but not like this. Here is another odd one: When I go into VR and I’m watching a movie in that big theatre space that prime video projects, I am convinced there is another avatar in there with me just out of view. Strange. I ought to write that story.

Maybe I will.

I’m talking SPORTS here!

I moved this one to Thursday in order to have a conversation about the Warriors. I love watching them play. It is not thuggish basketball as you see from the Mavericks. It is a fluid and fun exchange that is NOT driven by a single dude dropping his shoulder and careening towards the basket in search of a foul. That’s the Mavs. That’s the Bucks. That is not the Warriors. They have slashers and shooters and ball movement and off ball movement. They are fun to root for and I’ll be doing that for the NBA finals. I want them to win, but I want to see a great series between them and whoever emerges victorious from the East. Who do I think that will be? The Celtics.

I wish the Giants would emerge from the East. Honestly, I wish the Giants would take Colin K and see if he has anything left. I’m not sure we can believe in our man under center and that worries me. This new offense should give him a chance though. Meanwhile, I don’t think the Patriots are going to do very well either. They are looking to Joe Judge for play calls and the Giants discovered the folly of that. He’s just not that guy!

Sports gives me something distant to cheer for at a time when I really do need to feel good about something in my country. The gun violence is so far off the scale that we have more mass shootings this year than all of the other countries combined. That is a sick stat to process (if true–I have doubts). Regardless we are number one in the world in gun violence. We kill more Americans than anyone else in the world and those self-inflicted wounds are constantly politicized to push us further and further apart. Recently our former president re-truthed (not ready to talk abotu that sad debacle of a money grab) a simple phrase: Civil War.

No. no. no. I’m hoping to live in a country that doesn’t turn into shadowrun. Yet here we are. It worries me that most of the people making the noise in this nation are not actually doing anything to stop this and in truth are helping to further the nonsense. This is not the way. We need to be a better nation and we need to be a unified nation. We haven’t been that since Obama took office. I don’t blame him. He can’t help but be a physical manifestation of the fears drilled into people. Moreover, he cannot be held responsible for the hyper-politicization of the nation that followed. The Russians and our other cyber-savvy enemies did more towards that then he did.

Why, as a race, are we so damn divisive. We need a common goal in order to promote a common future. Alas, the allure of power is too compelling to even consider all being on the same page. If only we had a common enemy instead of turning each other into our enemy…

Dang. This was supposed to be about sports.

The irony of watching Prime’s Upload in VR is not lost on me. It is in fact intentional. I wanted to reflect on the massive improvements in technology over the past 40 years while simultaneously enjoying that tech and a dissection of that tech being streamed right to my seat as I stationary bike my way to a semblance of better health. Lately it feels like science fiction is a reflection of ‘just around the corner’ though the distance between here and there is categorized by invasive surgeries that, up till this point, have not been formally legalized. Well, some have. Implanted credit chips have been a reality for years. All this is to say that I, as a science fiction writer, have serious thinking to do.

I’ve been asking myself what story I am trying to tell. Generally speaking it has been the story of a young kid bristling with raw talent who is thrust into a leadership position that ultimately defines him as someone he’d rather not be. As such he is left to figure out who he wants to be while toting around that responsibility of leadership and trying to merge those two lives. In other words, I write about me. A lot. It is long past time to move beyond that story–especially considering that I don’t tell it very well. Instead I’ve started to take on other ‘responsibility’ tales, most of which seem to be born from that core of my youth experience.

Tech factors into what I do, because I grew up at the intersection of technology and society. I grew up alongside the internet. I created multi-user dungeons when they were still in their infancy. I still have notebooks full of handwritten code and dot-matrix printouts of even more code properly stored in three ring binders. My past was science fiction. So what is my future? What is the future I am predicting or even warning about through my writing? I’m not quite sure. More thinking is required.

I am having the kind of day where I want to blog quickly and be done with computers for the rest of the day. I’m not even finding a ton of joy in playing video games right now. These days happen and they are hard. If you get knocked off balance as a writer, then everything that follows reminds you of what you are not doing and why you are not doing it. This is how it is for me now.

How I got here is a complicated story. It involves an argument, but prior to that there were a number of small shoves that had me heading in one direction or the other. I am back at the gym, which is good but I am still not in a place where the gym is getting me to where I need to be at the speed I want to get there, and that is frustrating. I have classes to rebuild and no organizational setup to get that worked into a normal day and that is frustrating. Back to the gym–I tried to use the sauna and largely failed and that is frustrating. That brings us to the argument where all of the frustrations of my life tend to manifest. The argument itself was as mediocre as they come. Questions were asked. I didn’t have good answers. Frustrations rose on both sides. So here we are.

Now what? Well, I am going to do as many mundane tasks as I can as I usually do when the brain shuts off. Then, I’ll come back to it tomorrow.