decisions

So this whole plan I had to use the internet to improve my writing kind of lulled into nothing, like so many other ideas I have. I wrote two entries and then felt guilty for not doing anything with it for a month. Just like the crappy first draft of a book I wrote (four years ago) and then let it sit in a drawer for so long that a) I don't even know where it is and b) as previously mentioned, is kind of crap. So I've decided to not feel guilty about this, at least, and try to write something here. With this, the only person I'm accountable to is myself.

That reads kind if depressing, and I am the opposite of depressed. While I feel like with some things in my life, I've never made a decision, much less a proper one, those things are so far in the past that I'm an entirely different person now. I've made fantastic decisions to put myself in the place I am now.

I made the decision to find love, and love found me. I made the decision to spend the rest of my life with her, and am so lucky she made the same choice. Four years ago I made the decision to abandon the path I went to school for, something that I knew didn't suit me and would eventually lead to a life where I wasn't happy and wasn't doing what I was supposed to be doing, and now I've started this amazing career path that can take me anywhere I want to go, along with a woman that will go anywhere with me.

Growing up I wanted to write, and now I write for a living. And now there's a choice; a decision to be made. A decision for the future. My contract ended in April. I'm getting married in July, and for a while I thought I'd stay here. Grow old not 20 miles from where I was born. And I don't think I can do that.

I've been presented with an opportunity, and even if it doesn't work out, it's given me this drive to get the he'll out of here. I don't want to live in the desert anymore. It hasn't rained here in 235 days and I want to go somewhere where it snows and I have to put chains in my tires. Because I've never done it before and I want to do it now.

And then I feel guilty again. Guilty for leaving my mother and a job that has put me in the place I have today. I have a wonderful boss and mentor who has poured knowledge into me for years now. And yet I feel like I have so much more to learn and so much more room to grow. And I want to do that somewhere and I want to do that with this wonderful girl by my side.

So that's the decision I've made. And it's what I'm going to make happen.

golden age

I recently listened to a podcast where the guest (Amazing Spider-Man writer Dan Slott, on the Word Balloon podcast) pointed out that when it comes to sci-fi and fantasy fans, what you like when you were twelve years old, is pretty much what you'll be into as an adult. It's your own personal Golden Age, and where you think, somewhere inside of your head, that things should always be.

So where were you in your Golden Age? I think it's probably the age I read/saw/heard all the things I love today, or can at least trace back to. I know I was that age when I saw Back to the Future and Planet of the Apes, and those are still my favorite movies. I read Batman and X-Men comics, and when I'm lucky enough and have the money to find myself in a comic book store, I still venture over the the Batman and X-Men sections. I love the crappy characters the introduced in the 90's and tend to tune out when they change them up to much.

I heard punk rock and hip hop for the first time in my Golden Age. I can remember listening to Bad Religion's The Gray Race and it changing my life. Setting me on a path. The same is true with And Out Come the Wolves and Ill Communication.





And while I love movies, and I love comics, and I love being the white guy who knows all the words to Wu-Tang songs, none of them compare to the Tower.





The Tower stands at the center of the universe, the center of all universes, both as a reference point to all the things I ever loved, but also in the fantastic fictional universe created by Stephen King. And don't let the name turn you off. There will come a point where these books will he revered with the same respect as your other literary classics. I'm just trying to get ahead of the game.

It's a western and a fantasy. The premises of the world inside is one similar to ours, with armies and weapons and men who can't wait to point them at one another. And then the men use their science to replace magic, and the world around them collapses. Cut to 2,000 years later when civilization is trying to puck itself back up, only to be torn down again. That's where we meet our hero, the gunslinger Roland. I won't go on much further. Go read them. I recently re-read the first book and picked up on these things the twelve year old me wouldn't understand, and the 27 year old me finds so profound I can't put them into my own words. This book taught me about not only story and narrative and how to choose your words, but about genre and love and sex.

And that's it. I just wanted to get out my love of those books. It's why I like westerns, and it let's me drop some geek credit. They make twelve year old me very happy. I may know Gambit is a shitty character, but that doesn't mean I don't want him in my X-Men book.





Later this week: why I can't write, why you should also love cop shows, and how I fell in love.

a word a day

Writers should write. Everyday. I write for a living, something I dreamed of doing when I was growing up, albeit in a different kind of situation. Instead of making up stories to share with the world, I condense the stories of somebody's life into thirty second clips for someone else to read on television. And not only does it have to sound good, it has to flow with other stories that go around it, and be relevant to someone somewhere. I'd still like to make up stories someday. Something independent from things around it and that may be relevant to someone for other reasons.




I'm on day two of a ten day vacation. This comes after working nineteen days straight covering wildfires in Texas and running a telethon for a rehab center. So that's ten days of not writing, and I thought I'd start this back up again so I don't get rusty. You have to do it everyday, and all that.

I'm spending the weekend with my lovely fiancé's family. They're good people, a fine replacement for the extended family that I never get to see and feel guilty about it. The conversation goes into hunting sometimes and I'm sure my eyes gloss over. No, I don't want to go with you. Because I don't like guns and I've never killed anything and I'm 27 and don't feel like starting.

I'm hoping writing some entries will spark some ideas for the making up stories part of the whole thing. Jana says it will be therapeutic. It will probably be both, I'd imagine. We'll be home tomorrow and I have a week long vacation with my couch and a DVR full of new episodes of Doctor Who, The Killing, Camelot, and everything else I'm behind on. I'm hoping I can use this process to talk about my love of storytelling. Writers should read, too. And absorb. And think about what they're absorbing. If I never see a grassfire again in my life, I think I'll be good. Let's see what happens.