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I haven’t written a story in over two months and that troubles me. I knew–I know–August-September represents the nexus of all things extremely demanding and difficult in my life, so I half-believe I deserve a pass, but the non-believing half says a real writer fights through all life has to throw at him and still finds the time to take that fight and turn it into fiction.

I am not without ideas or motivation, but during this yearly downturn the needs of the world outweigh the means of the writer, and I find myself slipping into the fantasy reality of video game football, fantasy football, and quite a bit of youth futbol (which starts this saturday). Writing? I can make at least 10 minutes for that. Any more is way more difficult.

Some Thoughts:

1. Erin Burnett has a glow. I remember that glow from my wife’s 3 pregnancies. Happy times there. I wonder how she is going to balance those first six months and the job? I hope she allows herself some time off to do what needs be done and then comes back super-charged. After all, she is one of the few newscasters who I feel is a straight shooter.
2. First day in a while I haven’t played the new Madden. I would play if I wasn’t so certain my wife would wake up.

Following Nolan’s completion of the Dark Knight trilogy and Derf Beckderf’s release of his Graphic Novel, My Friend Dahmer, I began nursing a theory about the relationship between these two dark forces. Dahmer, a real-life monster and Batman, a fictional vigilante, are more closely linked than one might imagine. Both are products of their environment and social traumas. I would argue that Batman’s evolving unwillingness to take life is the only thing that separates the two men.

Jeff Dahmer was raised in troubled household. His mother and father separated after which his mother spiraled into bouts of depression and other maladies. Her troubles contributed to her unawareness of his own troubles, which included closeted homosexuality and a proclivity for dead things. This, on the surface, seems to differ dramatically from the image of the Batman, but when you look closer things click into place.

After his arrest Dahmer was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), an affliction he shares with the caped crusader. Dahmer pointed to his traumatic upbringing and lack of supervision as a key enabling factor for his crimes. The same can be said of Bruce Wayne who–for reasons that seem to have never been explained–was left to the care of his butler. While in the care of his butler (who held the precarious role of raising the person who had the power to fire him. Explain what sort of discipline could happen there) Wayne developed a curiosity about crime that was only sated by donning a cape and cowl and stamping out crime all together.

The early Batman was a murderer. He carried a gun and killed bad guys at will. He was Dexter Morgan, living comfortably behind the white sheet of his code and believing that he was doing right because the people that fell to him were doing wrong. As the makers of Batman evolved so did the character. He moved away from killing and developed into the nuanced character that we know and love today. He, unlike Dahmer, became a person who recognized a limitation. Dahmer wanted to posses people. He wanted to be linked to them in such a deep and permanent way that he truly believed that ingesting their flesh made them one with him and, perhaps, honored them in a way. Batman wanted nothing of the flesh but everything of the mind. He wanted people to fear him as they would darkness itself. He beat and abused those he encountered so savagely that his work left an impression on all that witnessed it. He didn’t eat their flesh, he ate their souls.

It sounds thin here, but what doesn’t in 10 minutes of unscripted blathering. Maybe I’ll pen a real essay on this down the road.

This American life can be summed up in a series of montages that mostly involve shopping and watching TV. There is other stuff that happens in between–writing, teaching, conversations with the people I love–but if you added up the time of everything I do it would be bookended by large swaths of my life spent doing those two things. If there is one thing in my life that makes me unhappy, it is that. Yet I somehow feel powerless against those dual forces.

TV in particular is one that vexes me. I include video games with the TV time. Games are an interactive form of television watching. Instead of merely observing the action unfold, you are participating and even directing the action as it unfolds. Now I’ve been gaming for near on 33 years, and it is only recently that I’ve felt the time spent gaming actually eroded my ability to be productive. The TV has always nipped and my productivity, yet as if it were a drug, I cannot see myself giving up these shows I watch.

I suppose what I’m getting at here is the lifestyle I live. It needs to get better in some sense. I’m a writer first, but I spend so much time doing the other things that the productivity I have is but a shade of the productivity I could and probably should have. Of course, recognizing problems is somewhat easy. Fixing them is the hard part.

This is going to be a short post, because there isn’t a whole hunk of energy left in the tank.

Half-exhausted, I sat down to write this post and my eyes closed. Look: there they go again. 10 minutes is a lot harder to concentrate for when your body wants to shut down. Before I nod off for good I want to write about the Wire. I decided to incorporate episodes from the series into my SOC curriculum. I’d never studied the film through the social structures and implications. I walked my students through episode one and afterwards reminded them that everything, even street drug sales, has a structure. We’ll be talking about that structure next week. Maybe I am more awake then.

Some Thoughts:

1. I can’t say that I am surprised that a QB other than the two presumed Jet starters put up good numbers tonight. The battle between Sanchez and Smith overshadows the quality backups this team.

I am half hoping to get to bed before midnight and half hoping I stay up a little bit longer to advance a week in Madden. Every year about this time I go into full Madden mode. I plunk down $60 to buy a game I bought so readily a year ago. There are upgrades here and there, but the experience rarely changes so dramatically that it alters the game experience. Case and point: I am still playing NBA 2K. Still the hype and allure of a new Madden game is generally too much to fight off. Given that this is the 25th anniversary edition, I had to go buy it.

I’m not disappointed…yet.

Madden is a game that lets you experience football at every level of the game. I can be a player, coach, or owner. I plan to experience all of these levels over the next 12 months, but I started with Player, so this is where I can start my review. I created a player and decided to make him an undrafted free agent. In last year’s experience, this choice would’ve meant nothing. This time around I am fighting for a roster spot and appreciating the little bit of time I get on field in the preseason and through special teams. I want to fight to line up alongside the stars. Getting it handed to me reduces the value I place on the roster spot.

I haven’t had the play experience to deliver a full review, but from what I can see I will have a lot to write about. Not tonight–I still have playing to do.

When it comes to the extremely niche market of the role player, popularity is a moving target. Unlike the wide open fiction market, you don’t become popular by overnight success. This is the turtle vs. turtle, book by book slow saturation of the market that makes you popular. You become known by knowing, by becoming approachable, and by maintaining the appearance of reliability. Instead of being the high flying super author known for creating movie adaptations and wallowing in your own personal version of the Hank Moody life, you are a friend to people who write good stuff. You go out for a beer at the Rula Bula and maybe watch the game at someone’s house.

The fact is I’ve looked at success all wrong for a long time. It isn’t about how many books you sell or how many total strangers know your name. I started writing because I wanted to tell stories that made my friends feel something. Now I feel that is the only sort of popularity worthwhile.

Some Thoughts:

1. Waiver Wednesday is likely to be a Madden edition as I unboxed the 25th anniversary edition of the popular game today. Yeah, it is dope again.
2. Early shout to my buddy and fellow writer Alex A. He’s going to hit 40 two years before I do.
3. My youngest recently asked me if I’d still sit and play games with him when he turns 63. I lied and said yes, but I knew that I would already be dead by then. It is a terrible feeling to know that you won’t always be there for your kids when they need you. At the same time it is somewhat of an inspiration, because it forces me to be healthy for as long as my body is willing to hold out. They deserve at least that from me.

Another long night of getting right for the semester. The beginning of a school year is a time of great stress and bonkers crazy chaos. I made it through the better part of the storm with my classes intact and my sanity as well. Tonight as  I prepare the second unit of my online class, I find myself thinking about planning for the rest of the school year. Seems high time to get back ahead of the game. Of course, I said that last week and I’m right back here again.

The culprit this time is fantasy football. I spent a bit of time preparing for and then drafting a  fantasy football squad that is primed to roast the competition. Of course, having three skill players from the same team might qualify for the stupidest move ever, but I saw a couple of opportunities in those three Eagles and I decided to fly with them. This season almost cannot be worse than last year’s 2-12 shellacking. I so bad that Rex Ryan called me up and offered to tattoo my jersey number on his arm. None of that this time around. I’m in the mood for dominance.

Yesterday I spent 10 minutes talking about the relationship between heroes and villains. Tonight I sat down and watched Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. with the kids followed by a few other shows that featured the great green one. I find the Hulk to be a prime example of a poorly designed character. Once upon a time the Hulk was a modern representation of Jekyll and Hyde. Today he is a washed out super who seems to fill the ‘adequate thug’ roll without any attention being paid to the nuance of character and character development that made the Hulk an attention grabbing character and someone, who at one point, could carry a TV series.

The Hulk I was raised on shared a body with scientist Bruce Banner. When Banner lost control the monster would come out. Hulk had little self control and a strength that had no ceiling. In fact, the angrier he became the stronger he grew. It was once said that the Hulk could destroy the Earth if he was pissed off enough. One day a bunch of heroes figured that out and launched him into space, figuring a preemptive strike was the best way to go. It wasn’t. Needless to say he was pissed when he came back and wreaked havoc upon the world. That World War Hulk highlighted the relationship between big green and Banner as well as creating a sense of character for the once unthinking beast. It showed that he was vulnerable emotionally.

Today’s cartoon Hulk is big and strong and occasionally stupid. All he wants is to be appreciated. As a bit character in every show but his own, he is treated like a character with a strength ceiling and one who is easily knocked down or knocked out to the point where he is defeated every episode. In essence, the Hulk has been degraded to a Green Man’s B.A. Baracus. That is not enough of a strong man character to make a difference.

I think it is time to bring back powerful characters whose power is their curse. I want to see a Hulk afraid to let go. I want to see the beast unchained and the beast that loves and fears and hunts. I want a character that is funny, thoughtful, and powerful. I guess I must not want the Hulk.

One of the hardest things for developing authors to grasp is the idea that the villain is inherently stronger than the hero. The reason this is so hard to swallow is because a story is supposedly about the hero, and most developing authors, particularly in the fantasy and sci-fi genres, are looking for heroes that are more than mere protagonists, but are unique and outstanding individuals who are probably misunderstood and definitely have a wealth of power or skill in them that cannot be matched by any individual.

This is where things get hard for the author. The heart wants what the heart wants, and if the heart desires a powerful protagonist it feels antithetical to that desire to create an even more powerful antagonist. It doesn’t have to. Of course, the other side of that coin is the David and Goliath/Tortoise and Hare conundrum. In these classic tales an obviously powerful antag is defeated by a protag with minimal skills and a lot of heart and patience. This dichotomy feels to me as false as the all powerful hero, and it is explained by Proverbs 16:18 which says something along the lines of Pride goes before destruction. In other words, the antag screwed up so royally that it left an opportunity for the underdog to succeed. Most writers I work with aren’t writing that story. The story they are writing is about the superman-esque character, and they cannot find their Luthor.

A villain has to be strong where the hero is weak. They need to be willing to take chances and do things a hero would never try. The reason the Joker is such a great foil for Batman (not the Affleck Batman, because that is just nonsense. Heath Ledger would kill himself again over that noise) is because he is willing to do and act in ways Batman ever could. So, even if your hero is powerful in one way, there is always a way they are weak. That is where you find the strengths of your villain.

And you better make those strengths more powerful than your hero can possibly imagine.