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I figured I better write a few things down before I lose myself at the bottom of a bag of chips. Yeah, that is happening. Some days you just gotta stress eat. What stresses me out the most as of late is the peculiar disconnect I see happening between nearly everyone in my line of sight and reality.

It isn’t even about the same stuff.

Perhaps that is the real revelation. We all have stuff that we actively decide not to be real about. For example, when I go to the basketball practices I can watch the excitement coming off in waves from the coaches. I love the competitiveness and recognize it in myself as a coach, but every so often I take a step back and don’t coach–don’t get locked into that myopia of competition and practice. When I look up, I realize that these are kids playing rec ball. I think every coach ought to do that–ought to evaluate their goals and roles here. I mean, geez. Yesterday the coaches had my kids pushing a truck at the workout.

Meanwhile today I had the most peculiar interaction with the neighbor kid. This neighbor is one who recently married and the new lady isn’t very social. He wasn’t social to begin with–at least towards me, so adding her into the mix is like putting an eraser over the word ‘opportunity’. They didn’t exactly come a knocking today but we had a moment where the kid got out of the family truck, so me and my littlest talislegger tossing around a football and had a moment of clarity. In that moment he realized that a kid exactly his age and fun as heck lived right next door. I know this because he repeated it out loud. His mother responded by dragging him inside and shutting the garage door. Such is life.

Some Thoughts:

1. There is one other dude on the facebook with my exact name. He lives in Indonesia, which is weird because neither my first nor last name is particularly indonesian and he is very indonesian. On the other hand, he appears to be muslim, which would explain the shared first name to some degree but the rest is so very random. So, what’s up, man?
2. Finally watched the last episode of flash. Just odd. What makes the show so difficult for me is that it is a form of soft sci-fi but masquerades as hard science, especially in terms of the time stream. But when you look closer it falls apart, becoming little more than made up terms and unanswered questions. I’m getting frustrated.
3. Haven’t had my boys for a week and the first day back they are so solidly amped and competing for private moments that the whole thing ended in disaster.
4. Lost track of my dieting and the body has quickly returned to the fat quadrant.
5. Been sleeping on the couch for a few nights while waiting for a much needed AC repair. My neck is jacked up beyond recognition.

Here’s the thing. I truly believe that people, deep down inside, are about self-fulfillment. I am convinced that in a simpler age self fulfillment was much easier. If your life consists of hunting, gathering, and the occasional sexual act your life is satisfied if you can meet those three needs. As we developed an increasingly complex world it became harder and harder to find fulfillment.

Sort of.

Perhaps now fulfillment is primarily attached to one key vector: respect. I present to you the curious case of the Arizona Del Taco Clerk:

When I stepped back to think about what was really going on here, I saw one key thing: Both sides of the conflict wanted respect. Obviously the guy at the window felt affronted and entitled and definitely felt like he deserved the respect of the customer. Meanwhile the customers were literally trying to get this guy fired because they felt disrespected. This conflict can be mapped on to any existing disagreement and have the same stakes. Both sides want respect and always have a different idea of what respect looks like and how to receive it.

Was the guy a jerk? Yeah, sure, but aren’t the customers doing the same thing by creating and continuing to maintain the situation? In truth, the store had the right to refuse service and the manager could have leaned on the tactic of calling the cops to force these guys out–thus forcing them to respect his will in some fashion.

I’m really tired of people trying to destroy each other. If we want respect we ought to try a new approach to this time we all share on the planet. We ought to work together to find a way to make the world a better place and not try to push someone down in the midsts of what was clearly a bad day. I don’t know the dude. He might be an asshole. Still doesn’t make it right to ruin him.

I cannot speak to the quality of tonight’s post as I write it at the end of a rather exhaustive turn of days and under the worst of desert circumstances. To begin, I spent the weekend at comicon walking around and really enjoying the presentation of people and panels and general fun. The event was wonderful and taxed me in a pleasant manner but taxed me nonetheless. There was a rather difficult moment this sunday when I discovered my pass had disappeared. I had to buy a new one to get into the event this very Sunday in a moment of what my eldest referred to as Karma. I don’t think I did anything so terrible as to deserve losing the pass, but if I did I was reminded of it when I returned home to discover my air conditioner had gone out. The way these things work here is that you are afforded one unit for each level of your home. I have two levels and thus two machines. The upstairs went out and my upstairs is at the moment 91 degrees Fahrenheit.  It is far from bearable, which is why it is so wonderful to have a downstairs. Lets hope that doesn’t go out before the night is through.

Karma indeed.

I don’t quite view the term in this particular way, but I do believe in a sense of balance. Good and bad float in opposition, so if so much bad befalls me I ought to be ripe for some good. Ought to be ripe for it indeed, yet instead I find myself tested in so many ways and have come to believe that good and bad, if they do float in diametric opposition fail to do so over the life of a single individual. Some folks just have all the look while others experience wellsprings of pain with no opposite number. I’m exaggerating here to a certain extent but there is a kernel of truth and disappointment that guides the words.

I recognize how cliche it is for me to sit here and write about the profound impact Ali had on my life now at the time of his death. I don’t care. Ali was the champ for many reasons and the greatest boxer of all time. He was an athlete at a time when black people didn’t have the ability to have many public heroes. He was our hero as a race yet he belonged to the world. He belonged to the Muslim religion and never once tried to destroy us as a nation, though there was a time when the government tried to make it seem that way. But Ali just floated right past all that and kept stinging his opponents and making it all look so easy. Ali was our hero and mine.

I came to know about Ali in the time of Tyson. Five years after Ali’s career ended at the hands of Trevor Berbick, a twenty year old Tyson would step into the ring with Berbick and offer some sweet revenge. Tyson, a student of boxing was aware of what he did and remains so to this day. He looked up to Ali. We all did. We learned about being stand up men and not backing away from what is difficult or what is unaccepted. I learned about pride and working hard to get where I want to be.

We all honor Ali by what we do in our lives. That, or we disrespect the world and opportunity he left for us.

I’m trying to get a read on what different people define as hard or soft re: science fiction. For me the term defines not only the relevance of the science to the story but the technical complexities of the science involved. For example: Star Wars is soft science fiction. The science isn’t really a part of the story, which is why the story is often confused with fantasy. The Martian is hard science. Both stories are character driven, which apparently is seen as lacking in sci-fi.

This dichotomy of sorts extends to television where more often than not the soft science does much better than the hard. In other words, when you watch The Walking Dead you don’t think about the science fiction aspects therein. On the other hand, Orphan Black puts the science in your face.

I’m interested in both sides of line. I’m interested in telling the stories that put the science to the test as a social element, as well as the stories that use it as a backdrop.

Comicon is back in Phoenix. After a year of not being around ‘my people’ there is this sea of souls powered by the idea of wonder and essence of cool. Not all of them, of course. If there was a drinking game that forced a drink for every Deadpool or Harley Quinn costume I saw I would’ve been drunk by 12:06. On the other hand, it felt incredible to be in a space where so many people cared about many of the same things I do.

There was a panel on military fiction that spanned the ages between B. Cornwell’s wars and the wars yet to come. The writers spoke true about the idea of war and what draws us to it both as writers and fans. I think it is much like what Joe Hill says about fire. I’m paraphrasing here, but he says we are drawn to the destructive beauty of fire but turn away from people experiencing personal pain. It is like that in war reading as well, though not always. I was surprised, even in this day and age, to see to female writers on that particular panel.

I was not surprised to see people I knew at the con, but I was somewhat surprised at how few. I encountered six souls known to be and I was only tangentially (and at one point legally) related to two. There will be more of that and more of the fine writing and panels and beautiful art and cosplay and energy and passion and all of the things that I wait to enjoy year after year in places and gatherings like comicon con and the grandpa of them all, Gencon.

I want to go back to gencon. I want to sit on a panel and speak and share and be merry and be a part of that wonderful community of writers, thinkers, artists, and fans. Tomorrow, I just want to go back to comicon and be happy amongst the flock.

Some Thoughts:

1. Had a chance to glimpse game 1 of the finals. I believe I watched just long enough for the Cavs to suck.

 

 

The most exciting and terrifying time as a writer is when you are between projects. There is the promise of work yet to be imagined and the satisfaction of completion. I’m in that blissful middle ground as we speak, deciding where I will go next. Wherever it is, whatever my creative brain unveils, I know the key will be to develop my voice in a way that makes me happy. I’m learning more about my influences and writing roots each day. I recognize that King continues to be a major influence as far as voice goes. R.A. Salvatore is another. These are two of the greats I read all the time growing up. Nowadays my time is spent reading and listening to a plethora of great authors. I’m listening to Joe Hill’s The Fireman with Cronin’s epic vampire work cued up next.

Brandon Sanderson’s Elantris is next up in the physical book reading world. It is about time I figured out what all the hype is about. Maybe its real.

Some Thoughts:

1. I realize now that junk food no longer works for me. It is too many calories at once and to difficult for my body to digest. I end up getting exhausted just trying to eat it.
2. Been having a really good time developing a minecraft world. Crafting is a great creative outlet so different from normal ‘must win’ video gaming that I can do it casually and not worry too much about devoting my entire day to it… until I do devote the entire day and wonder how the heck that happened.

Just gonna drop some casual thoughts here.

1. Finally took the time to watch the Frank Miller Dark Knight Returns pt. II and I gotta give respect to how much Snyder’s newest Batfilm pays homage to Miller’s work alongside Nolan’s work. Its all there–the burned mansion, the rather specific batsuit, the battle traps, even how he injects dude with Kryptonite comes from Miller’s work. Previously I focused on the stills and the way the movie matched actual comic book frames, but watching the animated version just reminded me that there was a great deal going on there both on the Bat side and the Sup side.
2. Then I tortured myself by bothering to watch some of the new Fantastic Four. I say some because it is horrible. Really, really horrible. Watching that makes the new X-men all the more impressive. It also gives me hope for Spiderman: Homecoming, because if this movie can make a halfway decent portrayal of NYC (in the first part of the film) then I’m excited about what a legit film can produce.
3. The New X-men is impressive. Beyond doing an expert job of cleaning up the timeline and effectively retconing a portion of the wolverine history and appropriately filling in the blanks to create space for more story. Beyond that the Phoenix story happened. Yep, we are officially going there and I am excited.

Tonight I watched the Thunder choke. They shot an abysmal 38% from the field and a hair shy of 26% from three point range. But did they stop shooting three’s? No. Did they change up their game plan and adjust to the poor FG percentage by hammering it in? Nope. Instead they turned on each other, arguing and complaining and feeling rather powerless. In fact they were not. They just made mistakes. Despite a stupid good game by Steph Curry, the Thunder were in the game until the final few minutes. The Thunder just could not hit anything. Layups would turn into air balls. Three pointers into house-forming bricks.

They caught the yips.

In the end we wind up with the matchup we did want from the beginning: A healthy and ferocious Cleveland lineup facing the Splash Bro’s at the top of their game. This is going to be a wonderful showdown that will highlight what the NBA is today. Yet along the way we discovered what the NBA will look like tomorrow. We saw young teams and even younger superstars emerge from as far as Canada. We were greeted with a rare sighting of hope from the Knicks (just release Carmelo. It’s okay). There is even chatter that the sixers could be average one day.

At the same time we were forced to say goodbye to legends. The Black Mamba is out. He and Tim Duncan are the last remnants of an era of basketball that doesn’t exist anymore. Fans today probably don’t even know about the heroes that brought those two to the game. All they know is Steph and Bron and a half dozen Kevin Love commercials (where did he get all those dimes?).

I’m excited to watch the finals. I tend to follow basketball once the playoffs begin and get hyped all through the summer off of that. This is an olympic summer so the hype is raised yet another level. I just hope the superstars have enough left in the tank after these next seven games to bring home gold.

You take the job, do the job, and move on. That’s how things work. You can’t get invested beyond that, because attachments make you sloppy. You start to take a stake in things that aren’t about you and don’t belong to you. Eventually you care too much and then they can use that against you, reel you in, make you do more for less. It turns into a life and not work—not a job you can walk away from. I’m talking about being a mercenary. In some ways that is what I am, a literary mercenary. I do contract writing work. They bring me in, I sign a non-disclosure agreement and then they tell me what to write. My value is the voice, the productivity, and that hint of creativity I bring to the project that makes it mine and lets them know that they chose someone who gets the job done well as opposed to any old trained monkey you’d slap down in front of a keyboard and hope it types. The getting tied up is real too. It happens, and when it does the consequences can be devastating.

 

I’ve been doing contract work for one company or another since I was 18. My whole life is based around it, drawing me into it like a way of life. I contract as a writer. I contract as a teacher, moving through section to section, creating an appealing world of information and adventure for each class with no two ever meeting or being taught precisely the same way. I even used to contract as a DJ, a conduit between the music and the joy that aural an experience tailored to the specific people, place, and mood can bring. All of it was about the contract—the job. It never became about me.

 

These days I write primarily for one company in service of the RPG Shadowrun. I’ve been with them so long that I am more than a merc. I care about the people and the setting. I strive to put my fingerprint on every aspect of the world. However, it is important (and difficult) to recognize that I am still a merc. I write at their leisure and discretion. Furthermore, I tend to write the stuff they tell me to as opposed to telling the stories I want to tell. Today I had the chance to sit down with my writing group and reflect on that. Six years. I’ve gone six years without writing a story that was about me and what I want to say to the world. That 2190 blog entries worth of time and engagement that didn’t serve the stories born out of me and my experience and desires outside of Shadowrun. It was just a whole lot of me behaving like a shadowrunner and doing the jobs I’m paid to do, no matter how I feel about the work.

 

I don’t expect to stop anytime soon. Like I said, It’s a part of me now. Still, there are other parts and they need attention. I need to tell other stories and explore the things in my idea archive that have nothing to do with fulfilling a contract or mercking (yeah, I made that word up) through someone else’s project spec. Its high time to tell my own stories.