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Back in 1860 Then candidate Abraham Lincoln gave perhaps his most powerful speech; the speech that purportedly launched him into the presidency. The Cooper Union speech was not full of one liners, zingers, or memorable quotes. It was a powerful argument built on the core aristotelian principles of essay and argument and presented a logical combination attack to all of those who felt that slavery remained in the best interests of the Republican party and America. That speech is on my mind as of late because it isn’t the one Lincoln is remembered for. Sometimes the best we do isn’t what people remember of us. Instead they remember the things they reflect on and connect to.

Recently I’ve been considering that in my own life and my own writings. In terms of life I’m a man who separated from his wife and as such I’m not remembered by her family as the guy who always helped and was always good to the people around him. I’m remembered as the one who left. In my writing I perhaps still see myself as the guy who is going to write an epic fantasy series on the scale of Jordan or Martin. I am,  however, best known for writing Shadowrun stories.

There is often a vast wasteland between what we believe defines us and what defines us in the eyes of others. We have little control over the beliefs and definitions of others but maintain absolute control over how we define ourselves. I’ve been learning how to define myself all over again and what the best version of that self looks like and what he does. This has no bearing on how anyone else sees me, and maybe that is for the best. After all, sooner or later we all have to decide which definition is more important–ours or theirs.

There is something about a project done that raises a smile to my cheeks. As I’ve noted over the past few weeks, I’ve been working on the home. I finally got around to mounting the downstairs TV, which puts me a step closer to figuring out what sort of cabinet and such is needed in that space. The task would’ve been simple work for someone skilled in such things. I am not such a person. One stripped screw and one hour later the work was done and I, ever the fan boy, enjoyed Game of Thrones on a wall mounted screen.

I call this a small victory. It wasn’t the wounded cavs edging the Warriors in game 2, or the Rangers coming back time and again to force a game 7, but it was a small victory. I’m learning to cherish these small victories. Too much of my life has been wasted waiting for the big win and overlooking the small but meaningful ones. When I coach I constantly remind my players that they can only ever control their attitude and their effort and to have full control of both–to push both to the limits of what is possible. Now in the purest form of hypocrisy, I often look too far into the future and through such means lose control of both attitude and effort. Knowing this now allows me to get better at practicing what I preach.

Some Thoughts:

1. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the year Dickens first published his classic A Tale of Two Cities.

Following this link reminded me of how art is often based on life and how that cycle–even in sic-fi–can be driven from the opposite direction than what I stated yesterday. The link is to the story of the lost man, which served as the inspiration for the Colorado Kid, which served as the basis of the TV show Haven. At each stage of that cycle more and more creatives are involved and effort to change the original idea/happening more towards what their particular vision is. It therefore is a useful skill to not care too much about what happens to your work after it leaves your hands. In a real sense you are like a trainer raising the work and caring for it to send it out into the world to be loved, corrupted, and perhaps even slaughtered. We writers are like pig farmers that way.

I’ve spent some time thinking more about the idea of ideas and the role of creating a vision of the world. It is still true in my mind that writers help to create the future, but it is equally true that writing is a response to the present and the past and at times a way to reach catharsis of particular events that transpire. There are, for example, hundreds of books that deal specifically with the events of 9/11. They are not premonitory but they are reflective. Some are even highly derivative and some TV series are the same way.

What I think now more than ever is that character is at the central of all this and that we are so often as writers talking about the individuals and how they respond to these events, these mysteries, and these leaps in technology. So, while I still feel that science fiction is and should remain the driving influence of science, I also feel like I should mention that the human response to said science is something that the writing can help us tackle and form an appreciation for…

 

Some Thoughts:

1. 1858 was the first time people were charged money to see a professional baseball game. The first pay-to-watch game was the New York vs. Brooklyn, which the team that would become the hallowed Yankees won 22-18. Meanwhile today NY beat the other LA team 8-2, continuing to dominate and torture those who do not respect the Yankee way…
2. In other news, there is a Triple Crown Winner for the first time in a really long time. This ought to absorb a great deal of air time on the sports channels and give horse racing a much needed boost. Who knows what is going to happen to the horse? I suspect lots of sex in the future of that beast…

The first time I picked up Minority Report I was aware of when the story was created. I felt that same twang of the premonitory when I read 1984 and again when I slid into Neuromancer and Snow Crash. Fiction—specifically science fiction—used to be about pushing the limits of human understanding by exploring undiscovered technologies and discussing the moral and human fallout of those technologies. In a very real way this is the basis of most of the zombie fiction that has gained traction across the world. Even these stories are, at least peripherally, about the virus and how it came about. That was the message I thought was going to be central to Snowpiercer but wound up merely being a vehicle to get us inside of a train that didn’t make a ton of sense. That is also what is missing in a great deal of the science fiction I’ve been seeing come across the wire.

 

Twenty five years ago I started playing (and eventually writing for) a game called Shadowrun that mixed together magic and science fiction to launch a parallel world that explored what would happen if magic returned to a world that was slowly being superceded by corporate powers. Shadowrun has evolved ever so slowly to include new science but has not been able to make the leaps that the fiction that (I believe) initially inspired it has. Shadowrun does speak to new technologies but none of it is so far removed from the now, even in the game decade of the 2070’s, that the technology itself seems like magic or feels entirely world-reshaping. That’s the secret isn’t it? Arthur C Clarke wrote that any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic.  Nothing feels magical to me anymore. When we see magic we are almost always inclined to decipher and recreate it. We say, that tech is freaking cool and we try to make that tech. In that fashion the scientific cycle is powered by the science fiction cycle. What then is the science fiction cycle powering now?

I fear that too much science fiction is derivative of something that sold well. I know this is at least in part a result of the shaping of the book market. We market what we know people bought before and may be interested in buying again. Lee Child has been writing the same book for decades. At this point I’m not even sure its him putting the words on paper. This is not how we create something new. Instead this is how we foster stagnation and political correctness. This is why ISIL is ‘winning’ because that is the narrative we know sells and the narrative that people are willing to follow to feel, something… I get that I went off the rails just there but its true.. and its also about ten minutes so back to that another day.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. Back in 1857 a series of quakes hit California and then Japan and finally Italy. It was about that time that people started thinking these things could be connected. The science of plate tectonics was already old by then, but the power to publicize and to collate information was just coming into its global form.

Not a lot to post about this evening. I keep going over ideas in my head and find nothing of significant value. I’m drained but recharging. I’m reading Love Minus Eighty and playing Tell Tale Games. I’m surfing the web and actually learning a bit about how that is carried out. I avoid the major news nets save for sports data, because I’m learning to see them more as the flashy ‘click me’ story source vs. anything of legitimate substance. I’m still not sure where to go for substance.

Or stress reduction.

Writing isn’t quite filling that space because a part of me recognizes that I could and should be doing more with the written word than I am, thus is ashamed that I am not. It is a draining bit of self awareness tat seems to manifest during the most mundane non-writing tasks.

So, thats all I can cobble together on a slow night. I can suck up the last minute or two talking about the roots of the American Civil war and how the 1856 election of James Buchanan served as a bit of a tipping point, but I’d rather wait on a lengthy diatribe about that particular war.

I suppose I’m just going to go to bed instead.

I used to hate LeBron James.

It wasn’t anything the man said or did. In fact, it had nothing at all to do with LeBron and everything to do with Kevin Garnett and Michael Jordan. After many years of watching Jordan being touted as the ‘it’ guy, I bought in. I was (and remain) a Knick fan who also became a Bulls fan and started following a team solely based on a particular superstar whose ability transcended team allegiance. I justified this by reminding myself that Jordan is a New Yorker and as such very much deserved my allegiance. This all happened before I recognized the tribal nature of team support and decided to become a bit of a sociologist largely as a result of such understandings.

Anyhow, it all led to me hating LeBron James..

So, as things progressed over time the media hyped up a kid named Kevin Garnett. He was amazing and fun to watch and played for the most uninspiring team imaginable: The Timberwolves. I didn’t want to watch them, I wanted to watch him. Eventually I gave up and decided not to waste my minutes on the dude and as a result missed some radical basketball. I saw some of the highlights… Years went by and athlete after athlete was hyped. I avoided the first five years of Kobe before I relented and recognized his greatness. That moment changed me, because I knew that I was going to want to watch the next legit ‘King’ no matter where he ended up.

Then along came James.

I didn’t buy it, same as Kobe, then I did. I watched him light things up as a Cav and hated the Cavs (its a Buls fan thing) the entire time. Then I watched him form the Big 3 in Miami and get to the show every single year. Now he’s back in the finals with another team and his legacy is cemented. It doesn’t even matter if he wins. I’m a LeBron fan because I like good basketball. It is the same reason I enjoy watching Jaden Newman torch people all day and night.  It is the same reason I enjoy watching the Warriors play.

I am still a Knick fan, which means that come playoff season I’m always a free agent fan. Steph Curry’s jumper is, as they say, ‘wet’. LeBron hasn’t even shown his A-game all year. Kyrie ‘Uncle Drew‘ Irving is hurt worse than he lets on. Still, this is going to be good basketball and I am going to watch without prediction.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. I’ve been researching religious and historical mysteries in preparation for a class. One such mystery is the 1855 Devil’s Footprints incident. Back in 1855 a hundred + mile stretch of snow near and around Devon, England was marked with a mysterious set of cloven hoof prints that, at times seem to march up to drain pipes and houses and reappear on the other side… This ‘evil Santa’ was seen as an incarnation of the devil and the prints have never been explained… The world is full of spook stuff.

Next year the boys and I will storm the comicon dressed in full gear and ready to look the part. I dropped some cash on a variant Red Hood helmet by an awesome California artist named Tamara Jones who runs an etsy called Shop the Mystic. I’m shamelessly name dropping here, and I didn’t even get a discount. It helps that she’s fantastic. Despite all that I’m feeling a bit of buyer’s remorse from the show.

Beyond the mask I put down cash on several ultra sabers, which are light sabers that look movie real and you can actually fight with. The boys tested that theory several times already. They are blunt, so nobody drew blood, but the light show was pretty amazing. Expensive, but amazing.

The best part of the con was the joy of watching all of the people in their costumes and watching my boys ooh and ahh and ask about getting dressed up next season. The worst was jacking into Amazon and recognizing opportunities where I could have saved a lot of money.

You pay for the experience I suppose.

Some Thoughts:

1. While we are on the subject of gun-toting vigilantes in the vein of Batman, 1854 is the year Smith and Wesson got around to patenting the metal bullet cartridge only two years after setting up shop. The patent helped them grow their empire to the behemoth it is today.

There are two more episodes left of Game of Thrones. After what has to be among the top episodes of any season, I am grateful I still have Direct TV. Unfortunately for Direct TV they soon won’t have me. I have reached a point where it no longer seems necessary to have the service. I can unplug and in may ways need to unplug. It is long past time to untether from the elements of my life that keep from doing the things I really want and need to do with my time.

It is time to start publishing on a serious schedule and making the moves necessary to do for my audience what I have sought to do for a frighteningly long time. It is important to do so now because for all intents and purposes my life is nearly half over. The more I consider this revelation the more I wonder why it has taken me so long and cost me so much to get moving on who I want to be as a writer…

 

Some Thoughts:

1. Ahh glorious 1853, also known as the birth year of the potato chip and by extension the death year of my stomach. I’ve been taught that we become socialized into habits and mannerisms by our parents. I was socialized into eating a lot of potato chips. I’m talking bags here. The result? A belly that could easily be mistaken for Ascites and additional fat that accumulates in all those unfriendly places additional fat starts to accumulate when you aren’t looking. I’m not proud. I’m still eating those chips though. Call it an addiction coupled with the lack of drive to actually do something about it.

We are all too often held back and de-individualized by the things we are afraid to say that we are into. There is rampant fear that people will laugh at us or hold some power over us through their ability to label us as one thing or another based on our ‘secret fetishes’.

When I was in High School I played role playing games with a group of kids from several different social cliques. Not many of us openly admitted to the gaming because we knew what people who didn’t understand would think. I remember one dude’s girlfriend would say to me, ‘you know it’s weird that you guys hang out in his room and do that all the time.’ She was against it. Other girlfriends accepted it as a minor inconvenience. One, purely out of love for her guy, even tried to play but it wasn’t really her thing.

Full circle, I teach now and a coworker recently made it known (proudly) that her boys were very much into My Little Pony. I immediately labeled them bronies and considered 47 different versions of trash I could talk. I wound up talking none at all, because I recognized that them being bronies was actually pretty interesting. I didn’t know any bronies up to that point and, for me, the act of learning about things I don’t know is actually kind of fun and helps me grow. I even tracked down an episode of the show on youtube to see what all the fuss was about. I’m not a fan.

I have watched every episode of Dawson’s Creek and am currently burning my way through the Gilmore Girls. Neither would be shows that people generally assume are watched by a black guy, but there it is. I can think of a dozen ways to label me based on that admission. Throw in the fact that I write roleplaying games and sci-fi as my passion work and the number is squared instantly.

Labeling makes life easier. It helps keep the society together (and quiet) by allowing us to very quickly form judgements and categorize people; it also is terribly defeating. We tend to make fun of what isn’t normally accepted and marginalize people because what they believe an or do aren’t mainstream and that make us different. Frankly I find the whole thing backwards. What makes us different is what makes us unique.

Some Thoughts:

1. No ‘white whales’ chased or published today, so I won’t be reaching as far into my psyche for 1852. Instead I will regale you with tales of water and waste. 1852 was the year that the first public female toilet opened (in Britain). Meanwhile in NYC, the U.S.’s first public bath was opening, only a year after the first YMCA opened… There’s a connection there. I know it.

In my ‘other’ life I’m a Creative Writing Teacher. The question that is thrust my way more often than any other is: Can I write fan fiction?? Honestly, my gut reaction is to ask them, ‘why would you even ask me that?’ however, that is neither productive nor a real answer. Does that mean I hate the stuff and will not tolerate it or does that mean that I have come to recognize the validity of fan-written prose in an established fictional world? As with everything else, the truth lives somewhere in-between those two extremes.

For the uninitiated, fanfic is writing based in the world of established character–usually characters in a series such as The Hunger Games, Bleach, Twilight, etc. In this fiction the writer often tells a tale that peripherally involves characters from the novels or shows and tends to include characters the writer has created on their own. Equally often the writer tells a story about the main characters that reflect parts of their lives we haven’t seen before. Today at Comicon I met an author who wrote a series of graphic novels based on the parts of Mass Effect that are eluded to in the books and games but never actually told in story form. Now he was contracted for his work by the company, so that technically isn’t fanfic, but it started out as such. Fifty Shades of Grey started as fanfic of Twilight and became something very profitable. That in of itself doesn’t legitimize fanfic, but it does tell us that there is a large audience for that kind of writing.

Amazon seems to agree that there is an audience eager for fanfic. The company started Kindle Worlds, a self-described “a place for you to publish fan fiction inspired by popular books, shows, movies, comics, music, and games.” The work on the site is sold and the writer can receive royalties. This in a sense financially legitimizes fan fiction.

Still, I think all of this misses the point: We write because we love to write and we love to tell stories to those willing to listen. As such, if you are writing then you are an author and anything you write is legitimate and deserves a proper critique. I’m never going to tell a student they cannot write fanfic for my class. What I will say is, you ought to develop original characters and work on digging deeper into your ability to tell those stories instead of telling someone else’s story about someone else’s character. As for writing stories in someone else’s world, we all do that anyway. When we write about the world we live in we aren’t writing about the world we created. It is a shared world that, like the Seven Kingdoms, or Narnia, or the may worlds of the Star Wars Universe, was here long before us and will be here long after we leave. It is the characters we bring to that world and the stories we tell about them that makes it meaningful.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. In 1851 Moby Dick was first published. Imagine the irony (perhaps only in my head) that on the day of said post this article is front page news on CNN.com. As it turns out, this particular Captain was  stabbed by his ‘white whale’