Month: June 2022

I spent some time in Mox Boarding House yesterday. It is the mecca of gaming in the Seattle area. Seattle is the birthplace of the Shadowrun roleplaying game. That is why is was so difficult to recognize that Mox hardly carried any Shadowrun products. In the one US market where Shadowrun should be selling, it is not. That sucks. That also reminds me of how my success is invariably tied to the success of that franchise as most of my writing is for that franchise. This is to say, I need to expand my horizons and write for other people. When you write for one thing or write one thing or get too successful doing one thing for too long that is what people know you for/as. You become locked into that singular POV and that can limit your ability to do anything else.

I love that Shadowrun straddles sci-fi and fantasy, because it means I still have stake in both. I can move from one to the other freely (I suspect) and not lose too great a market share of my audience. Of course, that means having a personal audience, which I don’t truly know if I have. I’m sure there are metrics and ways to track it, but I remained more focused on telling the stories than figuring out who is reading them. Still, I care enough to wonder if when I do write more independent stuff, will I have an audience.

Again it all comes down to telling good stories. I think I do that. At least I do it enough that I feel good about the words I put down on paper, and that in my mind is success.

I finally watched Reminiscence, Lisa Joy’s merger of cli-fi and noir. I hoped to like it more, as she has plans in place to adapt William Gibson’s work to the screen and, well, she’s married to Christopher Nolan’s little brother so… All of that is to say she has film bona fides. She co-wrote Westworld, she has Nolan as an alpha reader… what more can be asked? Well, characters. I’d ask for better characters.

A compelling character has something about them that makes them unique but instantly familiar. They are connected to the experiencer in a way that makes us want to feel what is at stake. This can be done in a number of ways, but the key way is for us to understand their core motivation or at least for us to see our own motivations mirrored in their actions. This is not easy work. If it were, all fiction would be good fiction. It is not. Therefore the lack of ease is clearly demonstrated. Stephen King is a master at this. The team that writes as J.A. Corey is a master at this. In her own way Stephanie Meyer is a master at this. Lisa Joy can create compelling characters, but the motivation of said characters does not persist long enough to sustain a movie or even more than two seasons of a TV show.

I wish it were different, but it isn’t.

It is a sad truth that modern fiction is defined by the struggles between story and character. We use that line of demarcation to decide what is literature and what is not. However, the line blurs in every story, because at the sole of every story is a character and that story ought to be about how that character grows or changes throughout the story. What then is the conflict? The way I see it the conflict comes down to the concept of plot.

Plot is best defined as what happens to the character in a story. The term plot-driven refers to stories in which the main conflict appears to supersede character growth. Recently I re-read the works of Warren Ellis. He’s a wonderful author who comes up with rich and creative stories about downtrodden men that remind me quite a bit of Warren Ellis. Here’s the thing: There is never any great epiphany for these characters. Something happens in the story to interrupt their day-to-day existence and it forces them to question who they are and how they operate. Yet in the end they keep on living. If they change it is very little. That seems entirely real to me. Too many stories force a character to be irrevocably changed from the person they are as opposed to modified by events in their lives. Change doesn’t have to mean reset, yet it feels like literature is about that reset or endgame or ultimately reflecting on who you are as a human and reaching some manner of conclusion. What I enjoy about Ellis is that conclusion is usually, “Well, I might be that guy, but I still have to wake up and pay the bills tomorrow, so…” In other words, for me the character arc and growth is about the reader reflecting who they personally are against the character and the situation.

The situation has to be important, thus there needs to be balance between story and character. You don’t get Harry Potter without the growth of the kid over, what, seven books? However, you cannot have seven books that are hundreds of pages long and yet still designed for short attention span having kids to read without a ton of stuff happening in each book and each moment. So, balance. It is best if the plot shapes the character while the character’s ‘self’ shapes the plot in terms of how they respond and how those responses force them to change and adapt.

Sounds complex? Try living life. It really helps you recognize how that balance plays out.

Thus begins a 100 blog block about writing. For this next stretch of the Ten Minute Rule I intend to focus on all things writing. It is a necessary departure from talking about myself, because, well, I need to get back to the core of my being, which is writing. The first thing about writing is BIC, or Butt in Chair. Many famous writers talk about how important it is to read and that is true, but you cannot be a writer without writing. You have to put in the time and that time ought to be more than 10 minutes a day if you intend to produce any functional work over the course of a month or year. Presently my personal docket includes a 30,000 word sci-fi project (NDA precludes me from speaking on this work), Three short stories I mean to write, an AI-focused sci-fi novel, and two additional novels that merge fantasy and sci-fi. It is a lot to think about and that thinking doesn’t begin to include the massive fantasy world I am developing in order to tell a story (that I haven’t entirely uncovered in my mind). In order for any of this to occur, I need to be in the chair and writing–largely undisturbed for swaths of time.

How much time a writer needs in order to be productive is a personal preference. I crapped on the idea of ten minutes being enough, and maybe it is for someone out there, but for me to really get going I am going to need hours. Probably three. If I am being fair to myself and honest about my habits, I cannot sustain focus for longer than three hours and any longer feels like I am doing a disservice to my partner at the very least. She deserves my time and focus too. So my plan is to snip off three hours from every day (over the next 100) and write. I do have a professional teaching job that requires at minimum an hour of my attention each day, so that is a minimum of 4 hours gone each day. Of course, this is all relative. There will be times I don’t write. I’m going to be in the woods a couple days next week and I don’t see words happening much over those days. I’ll get ten for sure, but some days you have to chalk up to rest and reset. Every job requires a day off. Every lifestyle requires a moment to let go.

So, dearest reader, consider this the first of 100 lessons on the written word. Sit in the chair. Get something out. It doesn’t have to be good, but you have to try and you have to condition yourself to write.

Some Thoughts:

1. While typing Sci-fi I found myself accidentally typing sci-fu and that hit different. There could be something there.

I am in Seattle. There was a time or two I thought we’d move here, and it still remains a possibility. For now we are just here for the immediate future, enjoying the weather and appreciating a city life that feels like a city life. Today we walked around a small section of the main isle and chilled and ate and hung out. This is what being in a relationship is supposed to feel like without kids. Now I’m relaxed and truly feeling like I have a chance to be healthy here and make some real progress with losing weight and getting in shape. I challenged the 13 year old to a 6 lbs in six weeks duel. I lose and he tries to gain muscle. He needs to gain 3 to my losing six, and that seems doable at his age, but it requires work. On my end I am 231.5 lbs and a lot of body fat.

Getting my weight down is as important (if not more) as getting my finances right. I need to be right for the long term for my partner, family, and myself. It helps to feel that I still do have stories to tell–both inside and outside the world of Shadowrun. I’m excited to put myself in a position to live long enough to be able to tell them.

I’m even more excited to be in a climate and a city where I can feel good walking down the street. Politics are different here. Fox News is not the default, and people feel more open-minded and willing to meet you where you are at vs. alienate you for who you are. I’m looking for a life that is more centered in that feeling.

Some Thoughts:

1. Obi Wan finally showed the power of Darth Vader and at the same time showed how damaged he was physically by his loss to Kenobi. He’s not the same warrior, but the force is remarkably strong in him. Seems like Dave Filoni is working through an interesting story arc with this one.
2. Also of note: Andrew Stanton co-wrote episode 5. He’s that dude who co-wrote Nemo.

I’ve been struggling with finances these past few months. Namely I’ve lost control of my spending and I do not make enough money to pay off all my bills. The closest to optimal choice here is a cashout refinance when the financial market stabilizes (hopefully) come fall. The second option is to sell the house to consolidate bills and debt. Neither feels optimal in any real sense. It feels like I am screwed, to be honest. I just prepaid 3/4ths of my paycheck to credit card debt and it doesn’t seem like I made much of a dent. This is the result of random spending sprees and a crap ton of current and future vacations. I am living beyond my means, but I am enjoying the living as it progresses.

Some Thoughts:

1. Remember when this blog used to be about writing? Gosh I need to get out of my head and back into my dreams.
2. Yes, I riffed on a very old song.
3. Just picked up an apple watch. We will see how that goes. One thing I’ve noticed about the watch is the power consumption. It drains faster than my phone, which means it needs to charge more. I’m not sure how I feel about that. The amazon halo charged every few days. I’ll go back to that if this doesn’t work as well as planned.
4. The general goal of all of it is to create a video game-like atmosphere to exercise to help me stay motivated to work out. A secondary goal is to build a set of data a doctor can use to pinpoint any troubling issues–or just crowdsource solutions based on the data profile and similar profiles out there.

Seriously, it slipped my mind till now—and I’m left writing it on my phone where a random slip of the fat finger leads to uncorrectable errors like the unicorn below. Such is life. Such is the distraction of the moment. I’ve been preparing for an opportunity to have pure one on one time with my partner for the longest time to date. It is a Chance of growth and an opportunity to see what kind of life we have when it is just us.

it will be more of just us as we move forward and I need to figure out what that looks like and what that means in terms of the kind of life we want to live.

in the meanwhile this dry run is going to be heavenly.

some thoughts:

1. I seriously cannot delete that unicorn.
   
2. The Warriors in 6? I say yes.
   
3. Unstable unicorns is a mid-level game.
   
4. yes, the unicorn bothers me and has my attention. Also I don’t really have much to say tonight and need filler.
   
5. working on layout for the sequel to Imposter I realized that I have a few more stories left to tell in this world.
   

Ten minutes on the clock. Let’s see how many things we can get out of…

Some Thoughts:

1. Interesting how some people are more persuasive than others despite not being charismatic in the classic sense. I just watched my boys go on about how much they were enjoying an anime and one of them piped up and said it was trash and the others immediately acquiesced to that opinion. That’s too much power for one kid to have.
2. No, it isn’t trash, but he’s a critic-type with extremely high standards and an understanding of audience that lists himself as ‘the audience’ for a number of things he is not. On the surface that seems like an insult, but again it makes him perfectly suited to be a very good critic. He could find a calling there.
3. Arizona is hot. 110+ every single day kind of hot…
4. Under these conditions they have decided to start middle school at the end of July… in the deep hot.
5. Speaking of ‘The Deep’ I’m watching the new season of the Boys and it feels like Empire Strikes Back level of Antagonist hard winning.
6. Be it true or not, Mr. Nightmare’s Police Horror Stories are always quite engaging.
7. My first born still intends to pursue a degree in criminology and perhaps even forensic sciences as a minor. He will make a good cop after all. He’s gotten stranger and more interesting (yet distant) as he’s gotten older. He’s really into self-improvement, which reminds me of me at that age. Interesting indeed…
8. Also interesting: The NBA Finals. I’m calling Warriors in 6.
9. Less interesting: The Jan. 6 hearings. To quote the famous SNL Skit, “Ain’t nothin gonna happen.”

One of my sons pointed out the fact that movies spend so much time and money and energy making sure a film looks good but often fail to put that same effort into telling a good story. I suspect he’ll end up teaching English one day or, more likely, being a critic. He’s geared for both. He also is right. The conversation came as a result of his mom saying how much we take the magic of CGI for granted–which she is also right about. We were exiting Jurassic Park: Dominion after a dissapointingly rushed few hours of storytelling that, if I am being fair, was more about closing the loop and paying homage than it was about telling a story. I’m not entirely sure it succeeded in telling a story. Effort was made to inject new content, but more effort was made to show us the history of the franchise in an enjoyable way. See it? Of course. But only the once. Only if you’ve seen all the others first.

Jurassic Park started as a Crichton Science Fiction novel discussing the perils of genetic manipulation. The final movie ends, heavy handily (and with full voice over) in this very fashion. From start to finish we are treated with a roaring ride of Dino-fights, chases, and some scene stealing by one very talented DeWanda Wise. It is worth watching for the nostalgia of the thing and to close the loop. It is worth noting that the film is heavy handed and speaks volumes about who it thinks are the bad guys in our world. It may not be wrong. It also may not be good. As a standalone film it does not work. As a serious film it does not work. However, as a big screen summer spectacle, it hits most of the right notes and carries enough action and acting and visually stunning scenes to say it was worth the time spent.

First, I need to bring back freewrite friday. I’ve been slacking on the freewrites as of late and they truly do keep the ‘engine revved’. That’s the end of the coherent thoughts for the night.

Some Thoughts:

1. Writing this as all the boys are sitting around watching versions of twinkle twinkle little star (including the trap remixes) out of sheer boredom.
2. I think that’s been the issue here for a few days–I am back, at times, to feeling like the cruise director and I don’t know if I should be. I probably should not.
3. Now they are watching videos of rabbits. The thing of it is it is not my job to do this anymore, even though the youngest is 13, he is in fact 13. My partner, who is way past this has to put up with me still being closer to this feeling than needed.