Nerd Family Powers! Activate!

Thanks, Phil for the title.

Yes, halloween was fun. My costume started with the ghostbuster t-shirt and kind of got out of control from there, what with the backpack and the vaccum cleaner attachment. I just kept repeating to myself “don’t cross the streams” all night long and I got through without destroying the space-time continuum. You’re all welcome.

And today, NaNo. And a V marathon on SyFy (seriously, today?) and grocery shopping and labs due on tuesday, and … and I think I have to go lie down now.

I WILL WIN THIS YEAR!

Things I am kind of over at this point

Because everyone cares, right?

Vampires — oh, god vampires. Please … no more, no more. I don’t want any more books about them, I don’t want to see any movie trailers starring them, I don’t want to see them hanging around at the corner of my street waiting for the twi-hards getting off the bus from the middle school. I just can’t take anymore. Really. At this point, I am not even up for a Buffy reunion. I know!

Glee. It was a short courtship, and an early break up. It’s entertaining, and I like the music parts, but I am always annoyed when even escapist shows don’t even bother to handwave things to the point of deniable plausibility. Terri as the school nurse? Seriously. I’m not expecting realism, but NO WAY someone would be hired as a school nurse without a credential. Health aide? yeah. But not a school nurse with a faky lab coat and everything. Plus, it’s the same old thing, the same old message, that nothing is valid as an endeavor until the cute jocks get involved. Maybe I’m projecting a little. Oh, and Matthew Morrison is reeeeaaaallly annoying. It may be his hair.

But Jane Lynch is awesome, so I’m not quite ready to break up with it just yet.

Face book games. I don’t have the time, what with the writing and the studying, and the cleaning, and the cat training, and the secret plans for world domination (but wait — I’ve said too much). And most of them don’t work very well. I got tired of building a kick-ass roller coaster kingdom, then logging in again to see that none of my progress was still there and having to start over again. The only reason I have not deleted myself from these games is that if I do my wife and her friends will beat me soundly about the head and shoulders because they will lose their friends points. But don’t send me gifts or invite me anymore, because it’s not you, it’s me.

and since this has been two whiny posts in a row, I will end with some things I should be over, but am not yet:

zombies
lolcats.

I know, I know.

Apologies … and a request.

I would like to apologise to the cast, the crew, the writers and producers, and most importantly, my fellow fans, for my unabashed love of the show Kings. I doomed you. I am sorry.

Dollhouse, same thing, although you’re not officially cancelled yet (maybe I should not say I like it publicly, because that never goes well.)

I add you to an illustrious list: Firefly, Wonder Falls, Drive, Pushing Daisies, Eli Stone, Veronica Mars, and others I’m certain I will remember later.

I would also like to add Heroes to the list, but it was not cancelled, it just started sucking really, really hard, so I pretend that it has been.

So, new tactic:

NBC, please, please do not renew Chuck, it is not at all a fun and quirky show my entire family adores, not at all. In fact, we tune in solely to mock it, mst3k style. My wife sooo does not have a crush on Zachary Levi (you can admit it honey. wait, don’t yet), and my thoughts about Yvonne Strahovski are all about I wish they would not let someone so unattractive defile our tv screens. The supporting cast is not at all hysterical, and I am not one of the people who wants to purchase a Jeffster t-shirt. And really, the end-of-season plot developments did not promise an invigorating evolution for next season. The fact that Captain Awesome is so awesome that he goes all the way around to being a lovable dork? Not at all awesome.

So, in conclusion, NBC. Please cancel Chuck. We want that hour of our lives back every week.

FOX, please cancel Dollhouse as well.

That is all.

edited to add: Part of it worked!

A controversial opinion (or: a rant about stupid stuff that’s bothering me).

People absolutely have the right to write about whatever they want to. But as someone who’s read a great deal of stuff, some professional, some not, I’m coming more and more to the conclusion that imagination is not enough for some things … to write about some subjects, you really have to earn the right.

That sounds harsh. But if you’re going to write about science, you would probably do some research, talk to scientists, make sure you had your facts straight.

But there are a lot of writers who think they can write about different experiences they’ve never personally experienced, experiences that bore right down into the core of people’s lives, and they get it wrong. Maybe not offensively so, but you can tell the writer just didn’t “get it” with an issue.

As an adoptive parent, stories that flippantly deal with adoption, or with an adopted child searching out their “real family” bother me. This is a valid subject, but in most cases, it is not handled with grace. In most cases, it’s a lovely little quest that reunites the child with some inheritance or family group, completely oblivious to the fact that that child already had a family …

As a person with Bipolar disorder, and the parent of a child with severe ADHD, I see these conditions used as jokes in many, many stories. And people try to write about them without really understanding how they feel to the person experiencing them. It’s one thing if its characters making jokes, quite another when its right there in the narration, or when ADD, or Bipolar are used as quick and dirty descriptors. Usually by people who don’t really understand what they mean, and haven’t bothered to talk to anyone with these conditions.

Divorce, death of a child, career paths, legal issues (this one’s for you, Jared), life in different countries, etc (this list could go on for thousands of words), you need to do your reseacrh.

No work of fiction should be completely research free, even if your research is simply digging into your own life.

The good news … no one gets through their first tweny years or so without becoming one of life’s walking wounded. We all have experiences that can be poured into the vessel of fiction and shared with others. And if something that hasn’t happened to you interests you as a writer … talk. to. someone. Even if it’s just having someone else read it to make sure you’re getting it right in the important ways.

This doesn’t even get into the area of writing from the perspective of a different ethnic group than you … do it. Be brave. Take a risk. But talk to someone, let others see your work. It will be stronger for it.

None of us are experts on everything. We are usually experts only on ourselves, and because of the nature of our lives, that does give us a wide base to stand on, but … let’s get it right, people.

Gone so long ….

Sorry about the gap, so soon after my promise to post more prolificly. Blame Facebook. Seriously, blame it. It it the ultimate time-suck, a black hole of attention, which I don’t have a great time controlling in the first place.

But I do have an announcement:

My short story, “Dust in the Stellar Wind,” will be published later this year in the Hadley-Rille Books anthology, Footprints.

Other than that, I am at work on my novel, Maps of Perdition, and a couple of short stories I’ve been kicking around for a while. Since selling “Dust,” I’ve still got one out there circling, not rejected, not accepted. I hope to hear about that soon …

So, that is the status as of thsi moment. It changes hourly. Actually, it changes secondly, but it’s best not to think too hard about that.

The details of my life are quite inconsequential …

One of my new year’s resolutions was actually to post here at least three times a week. I’m glad I didn’t write that out loud because, obviously, that didn’t happen. No reason really, just … life.  School started. I’ve been writing a lot, and editing. There’s been family drama of several different varieties. And I have developed a facebook addiction (I wonder if there’s a facebook anonymous facebook group?).

And I’ve needed extensice therapy sessions after watching each episode of Battlestar Galactica. Gaeta! How could you? Actually, I know exactly how he could, and that’s what makes it all so wrenching.

But I digress … as usual.

It’s actually been a decent time. The novel is gelling in the ways I was hoping it would gel, and surprising me in the ways I always hope to be surprised.  It’s been retitled, as well:  Maps of Perdition.

So I’m going back to my hole now. The next time I come out I’ll be announcing six more weeks of winter.

novel-gazing

OK, so, I’m working on a new book. This is not my first, but it could be (fingers-crossed) my first published. It’s a horror-adventure story, based on the old gem “a group of normal people are thrown into extraordinary circumstances and must first figure out what’s going on and then try to survive, with a few fleeting fantasies about one day returning home thrown into the mix.”

No, LOST did not invent this plot structure. It’s not a rip-off.

I wanted to build a cast of characters that would not, vocation-wise, have any obvious leaders. No doctors, cops, city councilmen, managers of the geek squad, whatever.  Also, because it is a novel with horror aspects (channeling much?), and will have a signifigant body count, I wanted to randomize it somewhat. Everyone is on THE LIST, even my viewpoint characters, and victims are pulled, ahead of time so I can plot and develop properly, out of a hat. Well, out of a container of popcicle sticks with their names on them, but the effect is the same.  If a couple fo names come up, it will break my heart. But … that’s baseball, isn’t it? And it should make for some effective emotional movements.

It will also present challenges and keep me engaged in a way that should keep the project barrelling along. Not even I really know what happens next. Yes, there is a plan, an end point, but how we get there, and who exactly makes it … we’ll have to see.

Maybe sometimes I should think INSIDE the box…

It’s depressing seeing the date of my last entry, even if I don’t have a lot to report right now.

I made my deadline, sent of “Dust in the Stellar Wind” on time. Yes, the title is cheesy, but it’s on purpose. This story was odd for me, but I can’t get too specifically into the why without spilling the whole thing, which I don’t really want to do yet. I don’t like to talk about them too much while they’re out there, searching for a home. So that makes 2 things I have out right now. Nothing’s been rejected … yet.

Other than that, I used NANO to jump start a new novel, but at this time I have no hope of making the 50,000 word count this month. It’s a horror/adventure novel, and I’m writing it in way that is a bit … well, part of the joy for me is the discovery process of the story, so there are elements of this that I’ve, I guess, randomized. Oh, the destination is planned out, but how I get there, and who makes it there, is still up in the air.

Yesterday, we celebrated my son’s sixth birthday with laser tag and go-karts. Mom won everything, I will admit, though I will say circumstances (and the spirit of the game, really) conspired against me.  And this morning  I woke up and found out that I was out of coffee.  Well, not totally out, I had a bag of coffee beans, but no grinder, since my grinder disappeared sometime during last year’s move. Undaunted in the manner of true addicts everywhere, I put a pile of beans between two coffee filters, placed this whole mess on the cutting bored, and got out the hammer.

Worked pretty well, actually.

Hell, Yeah infinitum and shame, shame, shame.

I am very proud of my country for electing Barack Obama. This … I’m choked up over politics for the first time in my life. This really might change everything, we’ll see.

But … California? What the hell? I live in a state of bigots. We have now singled out a group of people specifically to eliminate their rights in THE STATE CONSTITUTION!. And everybody has all sorts of “think of the children!” bogus excuses, but it really all comes down to the fact that they think being gay is “icky.”

Two people who love each other should be allowd to get married. Marriage has cultural weight. You cannot create a separate but equal state. That, actually, weakens amrriage, as hetero-sexual couples will, of course, petition to have civil unions too, which will have all the rights of marriage but not the same status. THAT weakens marriage.

Oh, and the skyrocketing hetero divorce rate. But no one talks about that.

Gay people have been getting married here all summer. I’m still just as married to my wife as I was before. And tell me how the creation of more stable relationships weakens anyone?

shame on you, California.

My shameful confessions …

It’s time to come clean. Here are some things about me I’ve been keeping secret.

I cannot NOT tear up whenever I hear the song “I Hope You Dance,” especially when performed live by someone I know (thanks a lot, Tori and Kim).

As long as we’re on the subject, that happens a lot at the end of certain episodes of Eli Stone. And Ugly Betty. And, ok yes, The Office.

The first presidential candidate I ever voted for (and was crushed when he lost) was George H.W. Bush. I was young and naive and attending Bible college. But I’m all better now. Go Obama!

I used the metal piece on the back of my Obama button to fashion a tiny rod with which to manually open a recalcitrant optical drive in class the other night. I am so, so sorry … but it really was necessary (and did make me feel like MacGyver, so there was that going for it as well).

Actually, those action figures on my desk aren’t just for decoration (and no, son, you can’t play with them).

I still have a crush on Erin Gray from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

Despite my love for the current show, my inner seven-year-old (yes, inner) thinks it could be improved by the presence of at least one daggit.

I would much rather listen to an Indigo Girls album than Radiohead.

I’ve totally lost patience with Heroes and still have everything from this season (except the premiere) on the DVR waiting to be watched.

While I recognize the lyricism of the writing, I hate the book Moby Dick. But I love Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivener.

Sometimes, when work and school have me stressed out and I just need a good brain-cleanser, I go here. Yes, i said these confessions were shameful, didn’t I?