Yee Haw

I went to a Wild West show last night.

For those of you now patiently awaiting some kind of a punchline here, there really isn't one. I went to a Wild West show.

"Why?" is a fair question. The outdoors (in June, no less), animals larger than me, and an array of porta-potties* the only sign that I haven't fallen into the nineteenth century like Twain's Connecticut Yankee. It isn't exactly a 20th anniversary screening of Fargo at the Circle. It's a little outside of my comfort zone.

Well, after eight and a half years I've come to a very important realization about the job-I-do-because-I-like-to-afford-food. Work is pretty dumb. It's a necessary activity. If we all stopped working, the world would descend into some kind of Ayn Rand fever dream from which there would be no escape. Plus, that previous crack about the food thing. But, taking away its utilitarian trappings, work is pretty dumb. I've got my distractions from the drudgery. You're reading one of them now. Life is not made up of last year's performance appraisal, or the next round of promotions. It's something deeper; it's something else.

In the past year, I've really started enjoying talking to some of my coworkers, especially if we're talking about anything but work. So, when my cubicle mate told me she was playing Annie Oakley in a Wild West show, of course my first instinct was to politely decline, and then find the other engagement that will keep me from going...

That instinct was wrong. Just because other people don't try to put Alfred Hitchcock in charge of the A-Team in the space of 55,000 words**, doesn't mean I shouldn't be interested in their outside activities. Hell, I'd like them to be interested in mine; it's only fair.

So west I went. To Pawnee, Oklahoma and Pawnee Bill's Wild West Show.

And, no jokes, it was really cool.

Between the exploding wagons, death defying stunts***, and pure magic with a lasso, the performers at the show aimed big, and delivered.

Then there was quick-shooting Annie herself. Thundering around the arena during the introductions, I heard children cry out, as clearly and unironically as they could, "Wow! She is really fast!" This wasn't mechanized, pre-packaged spectacle slowly oozing out of a cathode tube****, this was legitimate wonder at a thing actually happening.

This was before she brought out the guns. Let me tell you, Annie Oakley and I are buddies, but I'm going to be very, painfully careful not to piss this person off in the future. Twenty shots, not one missed. Stationary targets, moving targets, moving targets that should have been stationary. Shots straight ahead, shots over-the-shoulder with only a mirror as a guide. It was a sight to see.

I don't know if I'm going to become a horsemanship and trick shot afficionado from here on in, but I'm glad I went. As I return to my spaceships and DGA lists, I encourage all of you too look up from your cubicles once in a while and find out what your fellow indentured servants are up to. There's a wealth of interesting stuff out there, and it sure as hell beats the Thursday morning staff meeting.

* A term that may have so rarely been put into print, that the pluralization rules are the last true American frontier.

** You'd be shocked by how many plot ideas I get from trying to come up with ridiculous examples to prove other points.

*** Seriously, some of these people were doing things on horses that should only be depicted through the use of computer generated imagery.

**** Cathode tubes? God, how old am I?

I'm the horrible pale ghost that haunts Annie Oakley. 

These aren't the cards you're looking for...

I hate greeting cards. I mean, I hate them. Nothing frustrates me more than combing through the aisles of CVS looking for the pre-packaged sentiment that will never make me sound like I've become a being of pure saccarhine, like a caller into that "Delilah" radio show with training in calligraphy.

Each year, from my father's birthday in April, all the way through my sister's birthday in September, I periodically launch onto the breach of the greeting card section. Regular cards always suck. Funny cards...? Well, they suck too. Crom, protect me from "funny" cards. And if you don't, then to hell with you.

Then I broke the matrix. I love greeting cards now. They are my third favorite thing to shop for, right after books and cholesterol.

How did I do it? How did I learn to love the long-distance social interaction that had so thoroughly defeated me in the past?

Easy. I started doing it wrong.

Birthday cards weren't getting across the idea that I was thinking about loved ones on their birthday. Father's and Mother's day cards were barely getting across the idea that I remember I still had parents. I had to look further. 

I had to start buying the wrong cards. For one mother's day, I decided my mother had worked hard to be born in this country, and it was about time someone acknowledged it. Bingo: She received a "congratulations on attaining your citizenship" card. At some point in the future, someone will be receiving congratulations on passing their driver's test, even if they did so over forty years ago.

Now, to be fair, there are pitfalls. Over a year ago, I bought a "Sympathies for the loss of your Son" card that, while it seemed hilarious and foolproof at the moment I bought it, persists to this day in being unable to find its appropriate moment. Most sympathy cards are dangerous, especially where pets are concerned. No one wants to get that card. This is supposed to be fun, not an unfortunate reminder of mortality. This can seem like a method for getting out of work during special occasions. It isn't. If you're lazy, the correct card is still available.

Father's Day 2014? You've never lived until you've bought a Bat Mitzvah card from a Walgreen's in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

CASHIER

I didn't even know we had batmitzver cards here... 

ME

Well, it's for my father. 

Another year I got him a quinceañera card. It appears I very much want to celebrate my father's burgeoning adolescent womanhood, while still honoring our eclectic (and non-existant) cultural heritage.

Mom's birthday this year? Let me tell you, your average Hallmark store has a wide array of strangely specific cards. The more specific to a religion that is not your own, the better. Unless my mother was recently ordained as a Priest in the Catholic church, my birthday wishes for her in 2016 are going to be befuddling for sure. I may only be able top that one if Hallmark starts publishing a line of "Greeting Cards for the occasion of your Scientology Auditor's 47th birthday." You have a year, Hallmark! Get to work!

The rest of the family joined in on the fun. My parents celebrated my thirtieth birthday with a card that celebrated my commitment to play an active role in my children's lives (I am childless) and extolling the proud example I am serving for the rest of the African-American community (...). I'm waiting for the day when I get an anniversary card with Batman telling me that I'm 5-years-old now, and "getting to be a big boy."

Anyway, that is how our family has managed to interrupt the doldrums of otherwise obligatory interactions. Do you have any strange family traditions? Tell me about them in the comments. Hell, I might just adopt them.

REMEMBER: Party Now, Apocalypse Later is now hosting guest blogs. We pay competitive rates, and are interested in all sorts of material. Send your stuff to submissions@partyapocalypse.com and get into business with us!

Guest Blog #1: Fat Blogging by Malea Marx

Today is a new day for Party Now, Apocalypse Later Industries. We're going to start periodically posting guest blogs here. Today, or first guest post is "Fat Blogging" by Malea Marx. Malea writes with a raw, uncompromising voice that both you and I can only hope for. I'm thrilled she is our first entry, and you will be too. You can also check out her tumblr here.

How do you get in on the guest blogging action? I'm so glad you asked. We'll pay for guest blogs, and all you have to do is send your post to submissions@partyapocalypse.com in order to be considered. If you've been reading the blog up until this point, you know what kind of posts I like. I'll entertain anything in the same vein. I'll also entertain posts that will are completely different, that I'd never be able to write in a 1000 years. Send me your best, and if you have that Party Now, Apocalypse Later something, I'll send some bucks your way!

Now, enough about the opportunities on the site, on with our first guest blog:

Fat Blogging by: Malea Marx

Have you seen the Calvin Klein ads with their first “plus size” model? To be fair, Calvin Klein hasn’t labeled her as such, but many sources have. Her name is Myla Dalbesio. She is 5’11” and a size 10. She’s absolutely stunning.

There is nothing about this photo that I have a problem with. She’s beautiful, and, in my opinion, pretty much has the ideal female form. Long limbs, hourglass shape, full breasts, collar bones to die for, and we’re not even talking about her face.

But this isn’t about her.

We’re inundated with messages about what appearance is appropriate. Too short, too tall, too fat (is there any such thing as too thin according to the media?), too scrawny, too muscular, too dark, too light, too something. If we don’t fit this fabled idea of what a body should be, it’s because we’re not trying hard enough. God forbid we be overweight. A little chub is bad enough, but when we approach the O word, there’s clearly something wrong with us.

Here’s the thing: I’m a fat girl. I don’t think I’ve ever posted a full picture of myself online. I could say it's because I'm concerned with online safety or privacy, but that would be a lie. The truth is, seeing pictures of myself is somewhat startling. I still think of myself as I was in high school (23 years ago) at 180 pounds and in amazing shape. I participated in four sports, played the quads in marching band, was involved in a ridiculous number of extracurricular activities, and was just generally fit and active. Instead, from 2000 to 2005, I doubled my weight. Since then, I have hovered around 375 pounds.

Even though I lived it, it’s astonishing to think that a person could gain 180 pounds in five short years. This breaks down to about 36 pounds a year - three pounds a month. That sounds like a lot. I had to eat at least 5,000 calories a day to pack on that much weight, right? Using loose math (there is no solid scientific answer as to how many calories one must eat in order to gain a pound), that’s only about 280-370 extra calories a day. One candy bar over. Twenty-four too many potato chips. One cup of yogurt for a midnight snack. A quarter of a pint of Ben and Jerry’s at the end of a terrible day.

Here’s what people don’t understand. I didn't get this way just because I like food. I didn't get this way just because I blew out my knee, had it reconstructed, and could no longer play sports or be active like I had always been. I didn't get this way because I was lazy. It’s something else that people, including myself, often can't see.

They can't see the girl who was losing her mind when her nightmares and flashbacks got so bad she couldn't sleep and for whom life is still a major struggle.

They can't see the girl whose family told her she was disgusting, going to hell, couldn't live at home anymore, wasn't allowed to sing in church because she "clearly didn't mean it," wouldn't be allowed to see her nieces and nephews because she would be a bad influence, couldn't use her aunt's pool to throw a birthday party for her girlfriend because her aunt and uncle didn't want their son to think that being gay was okay (though it was frequently used by other family members for similar events), who was forced to go to religion based psychotherapy, a process that reforms gay people after being forced out of the closet at 19.

They can't see the girl who, from the age of 13, was called sociopath, liar, trouble maker, family destroyer when she tried, repeatedly, to get someone, anyone, to listen about the abuse she'd been enduring her entire life.

They can't see the suicidal ideations and attempts, the scars that crisscrossed her arms and stomach and thighs, the pounds of junk food binged because she didn't feel like she deserved to have food that would be healthy for her, the hours of therapy, the weeks of hospitalizations, the bottles of medications.

They can't see the girl who endured practically every category of abuse, and in fact sought it out as a way to try to protect her younger sisters.

They can't see the girl who was so angry at everything that all she wanted to do was scream and be left alone to listen to music, who had been serving as a replacement parent since before she even started school, who took her anger out on her sisters because she was given the responsibility but not the authority to take care of them, who punched through a window to shatter glass into her cousin's face, who stabbed a pencil through a classmate's arm, who thrashed said classmate’s twin brother, who easily dispatched any boy who pushed her too far (other girls seemed smart enough not to start fights).

All people see is the fat.

There's no recognition of the torture and torment that went into every swollen adipose cell. There's no thought given to why those cells got that way. The assumption is that the morbidly obese (do we even need to talk about that terminology?) person is lazy, dirty, slovenly, gluttonous, unhealthy, has no self-control, has no will power, and is generally sub-human.

Obesity is the last politically correct and socially acceptable prejudice. It implies that it’s okay to judge someone for being overweight because it’s obvious they just eat too much. It’s easy to be bigoted when society supports that bias because the individual has no self-control. It’s understandable, and even lauded, when the (unwanted, unsolicited) advice is: “Just exercise!”

Am I saying that I don’t like to eat? Am I saying that I exercise the recommended amount? Am I saying that the calories I ingest are always fewer than the calories burned? Of course not. I’m not unaware of my own shortcomings. I’m not naive enough to think that anyone (including myself) would believe it if I were to claim it.

What I am saying is this: When you look at an overweight person, especially someone as drastically overweight as I am, ask yourself why. The how is simple: it’s mathematics, science, fuel intake versus fuel burned. The why, however, may very well be something you never would have considered.

What Schumaucher's Batman and Robin got right

WARNING: Heresy and rubber nipples lie ahead.

It's 3AM. My stomach is a churning miasma of unsettling notions. Naturally, my mind wanders to the work of Joel Schumacher. They go together like nausea and Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze. Between the rubber nipples and cascade of puns that have become the stuff of legend, Schumaucher's contributions to the legend of the Caped Crusader are uniformally seen as the dark ages for the Dark Knight.

Here's the unfortunate secret that most bat-fans wouldn't dare admit, unless they're waiting for an industrial-sized dose of Peptol Bismol to kick in:

There are some things -- just a few, mind you -- that Joel Schumaucher not only got exactly right with his second crack at Batman, but in fact did better than in any other Batman film to date.

I had to be wrong, so I went ahead and did the one thing I should never do: I re-watched the damned movie. Thankfully, the world is not completely upside down. Batman and Robin is just as bad, if not worse than you remember. The movie is congenitally unable to latch on to anything resembling a story arc for its characters. Every quip falls flat. It's kind of a miracle that even the law of averages wouldn't have given the movie some semblance of wit at some point in the proceedings.

Maybe it is all because the film was more of a toy commercial than it was a major motion picture. I tend to think it was because Schumaucher and company came to the conclusion (perhaps rightly so) that superhero films are for kids. Where they went off the tracks and never bothered to look back is determine that because these films are for the under-15 crowd, then it doesn't matter if the film sucks. It doesn't so much matter that the film is bright and campy and doesn't take itself too seriously. It's of far more importance that the film just sucks.

And yet, as I watched the movie again today, there they were, those few scant things that, while they hardly elevate the film in any measurable way, do show some semblance of awareness for what Batman is and can be.

1) The Batman does not kill.

Quick. Go watch every Batman movie, and then go read every Batman comic in existence. I'll wait. Done? Notice anything? The main theme people come away with is that in publishing, Bruce Wayne is bound by a particular code, springing from his origin at the end of Joe Chill's gun. Put simply: The Batman does not kill.

Except, no one bothered to inform the various screenwriters who have handled Warner Brothers' number one franchise. In Batman (1989) Bat-Keaton specifically tells Jack "I'm going to kill you," and he damned sure he puts a grapelling hook to good work to get the job done.

In Batman Returns (1992) Bat-Keaton again dispatches Louie De Penguin with a carefully orchestrated wave of bats and a steep fall. Don't even get me started on the circus strongman that blew up real good for the capital crime of asking Batman to hit him.

In Batman Forever (1995) Iceman-Batman flung Billy Dee Tommy Lee Jones from a tall height* even after Robin O'Donnell learned the important lesson of sparing one's enemies.

In Batman Begins (2005), Bale-Bat does go out of his way to not directly kill Ra's-al-Gon-Jin, but he's pretty content to not save him, when he had plenty of time and resources to do so.

In The Dark Knight (2008) Bale-Bat returns to fling Billy Dee Tommy Lee Eckhart from a tall height** after spending the entire movie not killing Ledjoker, despite literally everyone being fine with that possibility.

In The Dark Knight Rises (2012) Batman drops a thermonuclear bomb into Gotham Harbor, thereby ensuring that the next seventeen generations of Gothamites can look forward to a litany of thyroid problems, if they're lucky.

And most recently, in Batman v Board of Education: Dawn of the McMuffin (2016), Batman's antipathy for guns didn't get translated to the other 807 plot points, because Batfleck is more than content to drop a few no-names in the pursuit of... Kryptonite? Barely a month out of seeing the movie, it already feels like a blur. 

Sense a pattern here? Batman and Robin is the only post-Adam West cinematic outing where Batman does not kill. One point for Schumaucher and company. Brings the score to 787,231 to 1, but at least it won't be a shut out.

2) Who is Batman?

By the time the fourth film in the series begins, everyone should know. It doesn't take much to find out. Alfred Pennyworth, Vicki Vale, Jack Napier, Selina Kyle, Oswald Cobblepot, Max Schreck, Dick Grayson, Edward Nygma, Harvey Dent, Chase Meridian, Ra's Al Ghul, Rachel Dawes, Lucius Fox, Coleman Reese, Talia al Ghul, Bane, Selina Kyle (again), Non-Robin Gordon-Levitt, James Gordon, Clark Kent, and Diana Prince. Through the course of the Bat-films, all of these characters have figured out Bruce Wayne's secret. Here's the question: are there any other characters in the Batman universe? Outside of Bat-mite and Aunt Harriet, does anyone not know?

There's only one film where Bruce Wayne's secret identity isn't sussed out by the villains or his girlfriend (or some mixture thereof). Which film is that? You guessed it. Batman and Robin. Yes, Barbara Wilson trips over the truth***, but I'm grading on a curve here. Give me a break.

3) At least they didn't run out of money.

I don't think anyone is going to get this far into this blog post and get the idea that I'm actually defending the core of this movie. It's a completely wrongheaded cluster of half-baked almost-ideas, packaged into a cheap sausage casing of '90s fashion. It's the cinematic equivalent of haggis, although saying that does a grave disservice to a sheep's stomach filled with food you wouldn't otherwise want to look at.

But at least they, you know, finished the movie.

It's not neccessarily high praise to say that Warner Brothers didn't just cut their losses and release a rough cut of the turd they had in the oven, but it does make it, fundamentally better than other fourth entries in superhero franchises. Superman IV (1987) is content to just use the same footage of Christopher Reeve flying towards the camera, and has a climax that confirms the long-heard suspicion that Mariel Hemingway can breathe in the vacuum of space. It's important to keep things in perspective. 

There are a lot of other examples from there. The villains' origins are -- if goofy -- more or less correct. The mythos isn't contorted to make it so that Mr. Freeze is the one who pulled the trigger on Thomas and Martha Wayne, even if that would've been one hell of a flashback. The Schumaucher movies also make Gotham City appear as if it may have the actual scope of a major metropolitan area, even if that city might be a maddening mish mash of Greek statues. In retrospect, Burton's movies look like they take place on a remaindered set from a dinner theater production of Our Town. The movie tries to be funny, which isn't the worst thing in the world. Batman can be funny. Adam West as Batman is funny. The problem is that the movie only tries, and forgets to bring the laughs. It is an important distinction.

So, maybe Batman and Robin is the worst. Making movies is hard. We can't imagine what they might have been up against, and even if Schumaucher's myopia is to blame, there are far more serious sins in the world. Don't believe me? Go watch Superman IV: The Quest For Peace one more time.

* A lot of falling deaths in these movies, no?

** Sound familiar, no?

*** Again, it's not like a lot of deductive reasoning is applied; she uses an infinite amount of password tries to unlock an interactive CD-ROM.

The Weekend is Nearly Over - Thoughts on a Writing Convention

All heroes must be tested. It is an undeniable truth that has been ingrained into the DNA of storytelling since Odysseus first met the Cyclops. In our collective quest to become known as writers, we at Party Now, Apocalypse Later, Nevermore Edits, Inkubus Publishing, and A Murder of Storytellers must also be tested. Ours will be an arduous reckoning, and comes at the Oklahoma Writer's Federation Incorporated* annual conference in Oklahoma City. Not all of us may get out alive. A continental breakfast is also provided.

The weekend is fraught with dangers unseen. The agent you've scheduled time to pitch with may think your stuff is "smart" but maybe "too smart" for their market. I mean, there's no reason that the children's market isn't ready for a densely plotted trilogy of books centered around Orson Welles saving the world, but whatever. 

The agent may flee your pitch session, having suddenly become ill. I'm not going to use any names on this one, but I know for a fact some variation on this story happened both this year and last.

The vast majority of the weekend may be consumed with the politics of writing far more than the writing itself. Seriously, we're local authors trying to get better at our craft and maybe, one day, make it big. Stop treating it like it's House of Cards fantasy camp. People flexing their egos only for show ought to be flogged. And caned. And then shamed. Repeatedly.

You might try your hand at the contest. You may win something and feel vindicated. You may win nothing and feel slightly discouraged. You may win nothing and get a critique back on one of your submissions that read, in brilliant fortune cookie fashion, "Your reputation as a writer will be very poor indeed." At the time of this writing, the contest winners have yet to be announced. I may yet change my tune.

It can be a frustrating, discouraging experience for many. Maybe it needs to be. Maybe it doesn't have to be.

Ultimately, I'm left with one question: So what? So what if it's frustrating? So what if it can be demoralizing? If a less than productive weekend is going to cause you to fold up your sails and put up in the harbor forever, then something else would have stopped you before too long.

Remember, if you put pen to paper and plan to keep putting pen to paper, you belong among the other writers. If you're out there, come next year. Good things will happen. I have no idea what they may be, but they will happen. I guarantee it. No matter what happens, don't buy into the hype, and don't listen to the harshest things you think about yourself. Tomorrow, get back to work on the writing. Don't let any more time you could spend working on your craft slip away; the weekend is nearly over.

*OWFI: It's like wi-fi, except it hurts. Ow. Ha.

Typewriters: Big, noisy mistake machines

Woo, boy... I thought I'd try to experiment with something new for this blog entry. I'll display how it's important to live with errors in your early writing...

And I really did it. 

Anyway, here's a blog entry I wrote entirely with my IBM Selectric. How did we ever blog before we had computers? 

*Oh, man. I was in pretty big trouble, like, ten words into this thing.

"Beer, Wine, and the Apollo Program" OR "Yes, but I've loved Batman for far longer"

Coming up with blog subjects can be a bit of a chore. Luckily, one of my friends from Nevermore Edits has been similarly searching for blog subjects, and was advised by people-in-the-know that creating a list of 100 things you love is a great way to send a jolt through your entries. Naturally, when she shared this with us, it became a free-for-all to finish our own lists. Here's mine, in some particular order. Some will notice that my wife, Lora is listed first, but Batman comes in a close second. That seems fair, although I have loved Batman for far longer...

Some of these have already been blog posts, others may yet become posts. Some are absurd, but probably more truthful than I would like to admit (I'm looking in your direction, freshly starched shirts...).

1. Lora

2. Batman

3. Wrath of Khan

4. The West Wing

5. Buffy

6. Nicholas Meyer

7. The Twilight Zone

8. Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman

9. 30 Rock

10. Not being in Law School

11. Not being in middle management (This has been on my mind quite profoundly as of late, see my argument with myself from a few weeks back to see how that discussion has been going nowhere)

12. Black and white monster movies (If James Whale made it, assume I love it)

13. Pretzels

14. Tea

15. Pepsi?

16. Community

17. Chicken (fried)

18. The Reuben at Margaret's

19. Rick and Morty

20. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

21. Unbreakable

22. Schmidt (From New Girl. Really, all three of the guys on that show feel like parts of me split up into the cast of a sitcom, but the echo was far more important than anything else. Sorry, Nick Miller.)

23. Woody Allen movies... (I know...)

24. Sherlock Holmes

25. James Bond

26. Cheers

27. Wheel of Fortune (I'm not kidding... I'm developing a real problem. Happy to report my Vannamania is still under control. For the moment. Although, my next great creative undertaking may be an audition video to be a contestant on the show.)

28. Movie scores

29. Fountain pens

30. Typewriters

31. Fargo

32. Don Draper (take that to mean what you will)

33. Orson Welles

34. Charlie Chaplin

35. Time Travel (it's a living...)

36. DVDs

37. Writing

38. Writing group

39. Michael Keaton

40. Ice cubes

41. Jon Stewart

42. Billy Joel's "The Stranger"

43. Ron Funches

44. Drive-in movie theaters

45. Pinball

46. Star Wars (all of it? The prequels are often a drag, but the larger tableau of the Skywalker clan has always been and will always be quite strong)

47. Productive days

48. Comic books

49. CJ the Labradane

50. Really Good Man

51. That feeling after a final exam/publishing a book

52. Scarves on ladies (is that my kink?)

53. Journey

54. ...Enya

55. The Simpsons

56. David Schwimmer as Robert Kardashian

57. Pinky and the Brain

58. Mark Twain

59. Primary Colors (the book and the concept)

60. Doctor Who

61. Adele (I'd ask you not to judge me, but if you don't love Adele, I judge you)

62. Breaking Bad

63. The Rancher's Club in Stillwater

64. House of Greek

65. My writing room

66. Sushi

67. Fish eggs

68. Used book sales/flea markets

69. The Marx Brothers

70. Boobs (I could try to be a little more evolved, but that would be pretty disingenuous)

71. Stephen King

72. A freshly starched shirt

73. Johnny Carson

74. Walter Mondale

75. Dill pickles

76. Breakfast foods

77. Ribs

78. House of Cards

79. When my co-workers have interests outside of work (Just hearing about the singers, football players, and rodeo queens with whom I work makes the world make a little bit more sense)

80. Alfred Hitchcock

81. The Universal logo they started using in Back to the Future III and stopped using with the Lost World

82. Back scratches

83. Naps (or as I like to call it, leisure time)

84. Reading

85. Bacon

86. The random feature on the FXNOW app's "The Simpsons" section (Netflix, get with the times!)

87. Cinnamon things

88. Beer

89. Wine

90. The Apollo program

91. Pop vinyls (I tripped over a rare bloody variant Leatherface this weekend. It's like hitting the jackpot on a slot machine)

92. Lego

93. Kisses (I'm not without my romantic notions)

94. Murphy Brown (start releasing those DVDs already, Warner Bros., will ya?)

95. Murder, She Wrote

96. Playing lizard people in RPGs

97. Politics

98. Being released by surgeons (95, 97, and 98 paint a decidedly geriatric picture of me)  

99. GPS (it's saved me from having to learn how streets work)

100. Die Hard

A couple of other items have occurred to me since putting the list together on Wednesday night. I really love not accepting as important what other people would insist are important. That feeds into a lot of the other items on the list, but it is often the overriding motivation for the big decisions in my life.

Also, I really like selling a book to somebody. It only happens every once in a while (although it is, thankfully, happening more and more often) but the little money I get from those efforts are far more important than the rather good living I make from my day job.

Got a list of your own? Share it in the comments! Or, better yet, blog about it yourself and link to it in the comments.

 

Books Written by Friends, Part 3: Happy Days, Sweetheart

I've written at length in this blog about the magnificent turns my writing career has taken since I've stumbled upon the group of people making up both A Murder of Storytellers and Nevermore Edits. For this third entry in my series of "Books Written by Friends," I thought I would venture into the beginning of their work. Thankfully, the book I read isn't the end of their work. If it were, the ending might not be a happy one at all.

The endings in Happy Days, Sweetheart are all designed to be unhappy, but this--the first anthology from Murder--proves to be a thrilling beginning to a creative output that has already lit the local writing landscape on fire and shows no sign of stopping there.

While Murder is primarily a horror imprint, the stories in Happy Days... keep to the macabre by virtue of their theme, but do have some variance in genre:

"Finding Annie" by Shannon Iwanski starts off matters in a darkly comic tone.

Iwanski and C.J. Miles IV eventually steer matters into the abjectly tragic with "Good Morning Mr. C" and "Repeat After Me," respectively. 

Kaz Kirkpatrick offers a quick sharp, detour into the subversive with the aptly titled "Repelzul." 

Jack Burgos and editor Adrean Messmer finish the proceedings with "Bloody Lizzy" and "Left and Leaving." Fair warning about the final stories in this volume: they are not for the faint of stomach.

The book is short and a breezy read, despite its heavy subject matter. The editing is polished* and indicates a level of professionalism that always challenges me to do better in my own work.

I highly recommend Happy Days, Sweetheart. You can acquire an eBook or paper copy for yourself via Amazon. Alternately, you can acquire a signed copy of Happy Days... and all of the other Murder books at the Hastings in Bartlesville this Satruday, April 30th from 1-5 PM. The authors will be there to sign copies.

Oh, also, I will be there. I have books as well. Maybe I should review one of them in this blog? No. As we all learned last week, I tend to not to get along with myself.

* There are very few typos that I found. Most of them might be attributable to me reading the book on a progressively antiquated Kindle Fire. Those that I did find were almost entirely found in Jack's stories. This is the part where Jack goes quite mad and starts searching all of his stories for bugs. Ha! I'll never tell where they are! Mainly because I can't remember where they are, and those few errors did not interfere with the proceedings in the slightest.

KILL US BOTH, SPOCK! A Study in Duality

"The Enemy Within" is a truly great episode of the original Star Trek, and one I've been thinking about a lot lately. In fact, it's one of the first episodes where the show became the truly special thing that I won't shut up about to this day. It's a bonkers premise -- Kirk is split into two halves, one "good," the other "evil." Experiments on space poodles, arch camera angles to tell the different Kirks apart, and some truly horrendous gender politics* ensue before we realize that neither the ineffectually compassionate Kirk, nor his power-hungry beast of a brother can survive on their own.

If you've never seen it, Netflix it now. I'd put it ahead of "City on the Edge of Forever" as a showcase for young Shatner at his Shatneriest. It's written by Richard Matheson, who is second only to Rod Serling in my pantheon of truly great science fiction television writers. He also wrote "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," which, speaking of Shatner... Just go Netflix it.

Why bring this up now? Good question. I've always had a bit of an "Enemy Within" thing going on. For more on that we go to Gary. Say "hi" to the readers, Gary.

"Hi" to the readers, Gary.

What did we talk about it? I do the jokes around here.

Fine. My name is Gary M. Boyle. I was named for my father, and for once, we'll hear a little bit from me. I figured I'm entitled. I write all the checks, and Mac couldn't get a social security card if he tried. I've seen to that much.

We are all two people on some level, I suppose. Clichéd storytelling might call one half "dark" and the other "light." Just as in Mac's example from that space ship show with the guy from Boston Legal, "good" and "evil" doesn't cover the whole truth. I don't have a goatee. Well, any time I have had a goatee, Mac had one too, but that's beside the point. We're not separate people. Of this much, I can assure you. In truth, Mac and I are just better at different, albeit sometimes conflicting, things. We just happened to have the odd fortune of having one legal name, and another nickname. We've had both since birth. I should probably stop using that "we" pronoun, lest we--damn it--alarm some of you.

I'm more analytical; Mac is more creative. My greatest weakness is my ambition will sometimes blind me to the most prudent path. Mac's tragic qualities come from a desire to screw up on purpose, purely in the interest of creating a better anecdote for later on. Mac thinks he is the funnier one--

Hey!

--and he's probably right.

Mac was the one who wanted to do a story about Orson Welles and Charlie Chaplin fighting demons. I suggested that it be a larger metaphor for the McCarthy era and that it state unequivocally that there are far worse things in the world to be than a communist. The book landed somewhere in the middle.

It was my idea to go to law school way back when.

And I put a pretty effective stop to that, if I do say so myself.

To be fair, I needed to have a better reason--or any reason, really--to be there. Also, my brief flirtation with a political career was all me.

And I've learned to forgive you for both of those indiscretions. Without them, I never would have found the basis for that first novel.

And, yes. Thank you so much for basing the villain of that book on me.

Ronald Reagan?

You know what I mean...

Are you saying you didn't deserve it?

I'm saying that you'd have a hard time finding someone at the age of 22 who isn't the villain of their own story.

Fair point.

But I digress. The problem has always been that for one of us to feel as if we are pursuing our best selves, the other has to be on the decline. The moment I've been slightly open to career advancement--

...

--advancing the career at which we actually make money, that is--you tend to freak out.

My freaking out is directly proportional to the degree to which I think you're selling out.

And every time you are able to tune the whole world out and focus on the dream we both had since we were young...

I feel like I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing.

And I secretly wonder if we're not living up to our potential. Actually, I wonder if we both need to grow up and join the larger world.

It's not much of a secret. You won't shut up about it.

Look, this sniping at each other is going nowhere. You really want to finish this blog post and go to bed. Here's the truth: I really don't know if I'm ever going to consistently help you be a better writer.

And the odds against me helping you be more traditionally successful are pretty long indeed.

But if either of those things are ever going to happen, I'm pretty sure we're going to have to start working together, so...

Truce?

...

Mac?

I'm thinking! Fine, truce.

For the moment.

I was just about to say the same thing. Struggle with your other half? Tell me, or us about it in the comments.

*Evil Kirk's sexual assault of Yeoman Rand, even before they figure out that strange things are afoot. I fully intend to expound on it later, but by all honest accounts, Gene Roddenberry was a terrible person. He stole brazenly from other writers (when he was even actively involved in the show that gave him his legacy), was absolutely brutish to a slew of women, and basically drank and snorted his way through the last ten to fifteen years of his life. I think this makes him a far more fascinating figure than the saintly pop-philosopher that we remember, and I--we?--want to write that book someday. 

Cheat Week Part Two: Enjoy it While You Can

Ours is a difficult business, writing. If it weren't for a more-than-healthy dose of compulsion, I would imagine most of us (read: me) would default to engaging in some more obviously lucaritive endeavor. Blockbuster Video franchisee comes to mind.

Therefore, when you're having a good week, it is probably worth taking a break and enjoying the fruits of your labors. I won 1st place in the Tulsa Library Writing Contest, and the awards ceremony was today. It's a win, and I intend to enjoy it as much as I can.

Hence, another cheat week here on the blog. Stay tuned here in the next few weeks for a brief study of unhappy endings, my attempts to re-kindle my romance with my typewriters, and if the stars do truly align, some thoughts on returning to the directors chair for the first time in nearly fifteen years.

In the meantime, enjoy your wins where they may come. I know I will.

Nicholas Meyer: One of pop culture's most influential figures (trust me, you've heard of him)

A piece of news more than a month ago lifted my spirits immensely. As CBS' All Access prepares to go into production on the sixth live-action* Star Trek TV Series, showrunner Bryan Fuller is assembling his team. While Fuller is the mind behind many recent TV triumphs, including Pushing Daisies and most-especially Hannibal, he made his bones in the Final Frontier during the famine years towards the end of Star Trek: Voyager. Mild concern, I'm sure, but Fuller completely nullified any concerns I had when he made the best hire since Jimmy Smits appointed Alan Alda his Secretary of State**.

He hired Nicholas Meyer as a writer and consulting producer.

This is like Johnny Carson hosting The Tonight Show again, or Michael Jordan finding the fountain of youth just in time to re-sign with the Bulls, or even Michael Keaton playing Batman just one more time. This is an absolute master of a particular field returning to contribute once again. I couldn't be more excited for this new series.

I know. You're asking, "Who?"

For shame. Nicholas Meyer wroter and directed The Wrath of Khan (1982)*** and The Undiscovered Country (1991). He also co-wrote The Voyage Home (1986). In essence, when people say the even-numbered Star Trek movies are the good ones, he is the constant factor.

His influence goes beyond those three films for which he may be most likely be known. Many moments from modern blockbusters are stolen directly from Khan. In The Dark Knight Rises (2012), when Commissioner Gordon quotes from A Tale of Two Cities at Bruce Wayne's graveside, I can't help but think of Kirk speaking similarly as he watches the Genesis Planet form beyond. When, in Batman v Superman (2016****) the funeral of (REDACTED) is filled with the sound of Bagpipes belting out "Amazing Grace," maybe that's just a thing that people do at funeral,s but I can't help but think of Scotty in a kilt and photon torpedo caskets. At the end of X2 (2003), as we are exposed to just hint that the recently departed may not be permanently gone, just as the opening narration is echoed by the deceased, I would bet anything I have that Bryan Singer was thinking of Nicholas Meyer's masterwork. Had Singer been given the chance to follow up his Superman Returns (2006), he would tell anyone who would listen that his first order of business was to, quote, "get all Wrath of Khan on it." Meyer is everywhere, even if hasn't directed a film since Vendetta (1999) for HBO.

All too often, the imitators in Meyer's wake are just, to borrow a line from Star Trek IV that he didn't write, mimicking the sounds, but not the language. When the sequel needs a big bad from the past, or the current political climate is a thin inspiration for the action, or even when a beloved character is only mostly dead as the final credits roll, I can't help but think some people are just trying to imitate what happened before*****. Don't even get me started on Star Trek Into Darkness. 

But there are several less-remembered works from the maestro that you should check out:

The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976)

Sherlock Holmes meets Sigmund Freud. Correction, Sherlock Holmes desperately needs the help of Sigmund Freud. If the popular conception of Holmes is as a deeply troubled, it entered the popular zeitgeist by way of Meyer's typewriter. 

The novel that first brought Meyer notoriety made a terrific film starring Nicol Williamson and Robert Duvall. I'd write more about it, but it’s a deeply fun story with a lot of surprises. You should go watch it now. The Seven-Per-Cent Solution also received a recent graphic novel adaptation, which is definitely worth a look.

Time After Time (1979)

H.G. Wells chases Jack the Ripper through time. Not enough of an argument for Meyer's directorial debut? Malcom McDowell plays against type, making the author of War of the Worlds into a sprightly nerd for the ages. Anything else you need? David Warner is in it. If that's enough for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, then it should be enough for you too.

Volunteers (1985)

Tom Hanks is a complete, unrepentant asshole. It's a rare thing, but also a glory to behold in this movie, bridging the gap between Meyer's Trek gigs. In an age when it was thought Tom Hanks and John Candy were thought of as a new Hope and Crosby, Meyer produced his most obviously commercial film outside of the Star Trek milieu. Despite all of this, it also manages to be one of both Hanks' and Meyer's strangest movies, somehow managing to mix The Bridge on the River Kwai and a Marx Brothers movie. It also sports a score by James Horner in his bombastic prime, and that is something that will be in tragically short supply from here on.

I could go on and on about his work, but that would take away time from your own discovery of his work. He is far and beyond the number one influence on my work. Who's the bedrock of your output? Let me know in the comments.

*Yeah, there's an animated series. It's on Netflix. All of the original series cast (save Chekov) are back from the proceedings. It isn't the worst thing in the world.

**That's an entirely different blog entry, one I'm sure I'll get to soon enough. In the mean time, kids, ask your parents.

***The screenplay for Khan is credited to Jack B. Sowards, but every source who would be in a position to know indicated that Meyer took the disparate parts from the development of the first sequel (a large share of which were from the Sowards draft) and over twelve days gave them life in a new draft where the film finally took shape.

****Man, the conventions of writing about film seem silly sometimes, don’t they?

*****Myself included. At its core, Orson Welles of Mars is a Nicholas Meyer mixtape. My only hope is that I understand the language and the sounds more than most. Small ambitions get more work done, if you ask me.

Batman v Superman v Nuance

EXT. GOTHAM POLICE HEADQUARTERS - ROOF - NIGHT

In the light of the bat-signal, BATMAN and SUPERMAN are trying to punch each other for some reason.

BATMAN

YOU ARE DANGEROUS!

SUPERMAN

I'm trying the best I can...

BATMAN

YOU ARE--

(beat)

Wait, are you trying to say you aren't

the bad guy?

SUPERMAN

Yes! But no one will listen...

BATMAN

ARE WE BEST FRIENDS NOW?

SUPERMAN

(nods)

Yay!

The two heroes frolic into the sunset together, even though I previously established that this was taking place at night. Somehow, Doomsday is also involved.

TITLE: Justice League Coming Soon.

FADE TO BLACK

<<<<<>>>>>

Okay, so I won't go see Batman v* Superman: Dawn of Justice: Part One of the Justice League Trilogy: Man of Steel Part Two: The Movie until later today, but I feel like the above scene needs to be in there. Superman and Batman are supposedly two conflicting sides of the same coin. The film sells itself on the false premise that the two characters simply can't exist in one film, and that one of them must "win."

I'm not entirely sure why we think the world isn't big enough for both The Dark Knight and The Man of Steel, but the idea sure as hell propels a movie to undeniable box office in defiance of lukewarm reviews. I shouldn't be terribly surprised. So much of our collective rationalization is absolutely dependent on the idea that when two seemingly conflicting ideas present themselves, one of them has to be wrong, and the other right.

Isn't there enough room for nuance in the universe to allow some conflicting things to be true?

Objectivists put the advancement of self-interest as the only truly moral consideration. Altruists believe that the only avenue for humanity to better itself is through service to others. Why can't we individually attain the best versions of ourselves through service to others? Why can't it be both?

Some Republicans say that Donald Trump isn't truly one of them, and that his putsch-like march on Washington is nothing more than opportunism. Others are pretty sure he is a Fascist and an ominous omen** of dark days ahead. Can't he be both?

Some people like ham sandwiches. Others like chicken sandwiches. Some people like both, but at different times. The fine people at Arby's know what's up. They offer the Chicken Cordon Bleu sandwich, and it's... Well, it's fine, but it is certainly both of those things. Only less intelligent creatures than we insist on choosing in instances like this.

In the end, isn't there enough room for both Batman and Superman in theaters and on the shelves of comic book stores? I don't want to spoil the ending of a movie I haven't seen yet, but I tend to imagine that there is plenty of room for the two.

So, dear reader, if you ask me, the easiest way to tell when someone is pulling a fast one on you is if they try to make a binary choice out of a complex decision, whether it is your vote, the type of person you are going to be, what movie to see this weekend, or what type of meat you're willing to entrust to an Arby's employee. Go for the third option; go for the answer that mixes the best of the available information you have in front of you. The world is a much more interesting place when seemingly conflicting things can both be true.

*The actual title of the movie is still 712 pages long. Would the extra "s" to make "vs." have made that much of a difference? I don't get the movies made for the kids these days. And when did they stop making movies about things other than explosions? Also, I remember food tasting better twenty years ago. I'm old and tired.

**I can't get away with that kind of alliteration, can I?

If you listen closely, you can forever hear the sound of the Macarena on the wind: thoughts on the eighties and nineties nostalgia boom

I watched one episode of "Fuller House." All right, I watched an episode and a half of "Fuller House." Cut it out* with the third degree. I remember watching the original show when it aired, but it held no particular special place in my childhood memories. Rather quickly on its course from Friday Night ABC staple to perennial Nick-at-Nite favorite, the show struck me as the same sort of crass, commercial calculation that comes about when TV executives come to the conclusion that kids will watch just about anything.

But when Netflix released their new original movie "Pee-Wee's Big Holiday?" I watched the thing within 24 hours after release. The man who was once the boy who claimed he wanted to be P.W. when he grew up** would not let a whole day pass without seeing his latest exploits. It was terrific! It was funny! It was... almost exactly like the much more anarchic "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" from thirty years earlier.

Before you point out the hypocrisy of my Pee-Wee fandom coupled with my desire to never hear Dave Coulier speak again, I get it. The nostalgia marketplace is big enough to include people who seriously wondered what Fred Savage's little brother is up to these days, and the people who suddenly realized they had the capacity for human emotions only when they saw Han and Chewie on the Millennium Falcon once again. The Venn diagram between those two groups may have a larger overlap than I originally thought.

Between "The Gilmore Girls" and "The X-Files," we as a society may have developed the cure to the scourge of cancellation. There are even a few unrealized avenues for nineties nostalgia. Amazon can't shell out the duckets to get us a few more episodes of "Animaniacs?" I might be in the minority, but if Crackle were to foot the bill for 6 more episodes of "Murphy Brown***," I'm liable to take the day off of my day job to binge watch. DC Comics recently rejected a pitch for a series that would have depicted the ongoing adventures of the Caped Crusader as portrayed by Michael Keaton. I'm not sure why DC would be against a money printing machine, aside from their desire to hurt me personally, but there it is.

What's behind the appeal for nostalgic things? If the nineties last forever, do we never age? It seems like a dumb reason, but if there is another motivation, I don't know what it is. I want to resist the glut of 90s nostalgia. I want the world to be weird and wondrous, but then again I also voted for Hillary Clinton, so I may be a big old pile of contradictions. If you have a problem with that, feel free to cancel me. I'll only come back more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

Maybe the solution is to embrace that weird and wondrous in our own work. Big companies will be happy to make the same old thing we've already seen, and we'll be happy to pay for it to keep the sense of time passing at bay. But I can resist the temptation to make my stuff like what came before. That is, of course, unless the current rights holders of Short Circuit are reading this. I have a pitch for a third movie. You know where to find me. #johnnyfiveisstillalive

*My wife suggested I put periods after those last three words, a la Coulier, but I just won't do it. #teamalanis #yououghtaknow

**My pre-pubescent ambition made for an awkward conversation after Paul Reubens infamous arrest for indecent exposure in 1991.

DAD

Pee-Wee was arrested.

ME

What did he do?

A silence transpires, long enough to fill the Alamo basement.

DAD

...he stole things.

ME

But what did he steal?

DAD

He...he stole things.

***Remember what that lady did to Dan Quayle back in the day? No? Well, kids, ask your parents. Then imagine what she could do with the current crop of self-righteous used car salesmen (all right, and women... Contradictions!) that we have running for President today.

In the interest of not hanging separately

Stop me if you've heard this one. After all the clack-clack-clacking of drafting, and the excruciating bleeding of editing, you have written a book. It's done*. Your work isn't just a pdf file floating out in the information superhighway**, but an actual, physical copy of a book. It smells of glue, and paper, and one day it may smell like the shelf it sat upon for years on end. You can touch it; it has mass. It is a thing that, were it not for you, would not exist in this world. You are filled with a quiet gladness that you had more resolve than you might have previously thought. I can't imagine the experience is anything like having a child. If the child smells like wood pulp and Elmer's, something else is likely wrong. But another key difference lies beyond the elation of the creation:

You have to sell the damned thing.

Online engagement and posts -- like this one -- have their place in the process, but something else will elevate those sales. Face-to-face contact is key. Have you ever tried to sit at a table on your own, peddling your wares to an indifferent public? The first book even I went to after I finished Right - A Novel of Politics went about as well as you'd expect. I sold one book in four hours, to a very nice lady who was far too polite to admit that she thought I was someone else. She may have taken pity. Either way, I hope she enjoyed the book.

The Murder folks faced similar disappointment when they previously went to the Underground Monster Carnival they collectively only sold one copy from their catalog during the entire event.

Writing is lonely work. It's part of the reason I live for it. The quiet battle with the blank page is as close to a meditative trance as I'm likely to achieve. I believed for so long that making the case for your book should be a similarly long and lonely road. I was certain that going it alone was the only path to success.

I was wrong. There's so much out there to consume. Individually, our work is only a small drop in a churning, ever-expanding ocean of content.

Last weekend, the Nevermore Edits group*** had a huge weekend in sales. I sold plenty of books. Others sold plenty of books. The important thing is that we sold a lot of books. A rising tide lifted all boats, and we all quenched a little bit of our thirst for success in a field that is content to knock us down at every turn. I admire the hell out of these people, and while publishing success may prove tricky for anyone, I would much rather fail with the gang I belong to now, than fail on my own.

*Yes, I know "done" is a relative term. I've only abandoned books when I've published them.

**Apparently, I'm writing this blog entry in 1997. Time travel is hard, folks.

***Made up of myself, the aforementioned Murder folks, and more than a few other brilliant writers working in common purpose.

Books Written by Friends, Part 2: A Body to Die For

A writer who I tangentially know recently lamented* the pigeonholing of writers into genres. Authors are expected to be innovative and create new things, while at the same time fitting into an easily identifiable market. They are often conflicting goals. Where the nameless author I mentioned before felt the only solution was a poorly considered rallying cry to break free of the shackles of genre, I think the solution is far simpler. Just write out of your genre. While it's not done that often, it's not that difficult to do. Mainstream success through writing is so elusive, I reject the argument that building your brand should be the chief concern of budding writers.

Need more encouragement? Perhaps I can recommend an author that has already built a catalog of titles that refuse to be placed in one single category. Shannon Iwanski has written dystopian science fiction, and contributed horror titles to a number of anthologies. This list doesn't even begin to cover the long list of work he has published under various pen names, which truly explore the farthest reaches of every genre possible.

Iwanski's second novel A Body to Die For, brings the authors talents to the Cozy Mystery genre, but surrenders none of the courage and biting wit that he consistently brings to his other works. Max runs a gym in a Tulsa strip mall. As he returns from a Barbados vacation, he finds that his ex has hired Skylar to work in the gym. Skylar's sketchy past would make this unwelcome news enough, but it doesn't take a huge leap in deductive reasoning to realize that Skylar is the new man in his ex's life.

Max will have to use far more deductive skills to put his life back together, keep his customers happy, and most importantly, solve the murder that happened in his place of business. When I told Shannon that I was halfway through his book, he got a stricken expression on his face and asked if I had already figured out who did it. I hadn't, and I can honestly say I hadn't figured it out, even as Max reveals the truth. A Body to Die For will keep you guessing until the very end. The characters are likeable, and the story moves along at a brisk pace. It is perfect beach reading. What's more, Iwanski deftly weaves his own experiences into the character's background stories, making Max and friends leap from the page in a pointedly real way.

A Body to Die For is available in both eBook and paperback via Amazon. I highly recommend it. In the annals of artists who regularly transcend genre, like J.K. Rowling, Neil Gaiman, and my personal hero Nicholas Meyer, Shannon Iwanski emerges as a talent to be envied, who already has a body of work to die for. Go find his work now; you won't regret it.

*In the most moronic way possible, but I'll leave that for other people to pick apart. Let's just say the writer in question was champing at the bit for Black History Month to end before he could make his point.

I've got plenty of rooms of my own: Privilege and Writing

I started this blog entry wanting to explore the various writing spaces of both myself and others. I love my writing space. It's where I make all of my most embarrassing mistakes. The sun room has research materials*. All of my grandmother's writing is here, too. It has a typewriter, and pens, and paper. It needs little else. It also has plenty of windows to distract me from what I am supposed to be doing. Why is that cricket staring at me? What does he** know that I don't?

Where was I? Ah, yes. Writing spaces. I wanted to celebrate them, and hopefully keep my New Year's resolution at bay for another week.

But something happened along the way. It became several different posts, and the thesis got a little lost in the shuffle. I could go into the wide array of personal studios, from the crowded nests of Mark Twain and Roald Dahl to the austere rooms and simple tables of people like Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf, but you can find a plethora of pictures of such spaces. They're everywhere.

Virginia Woolf's writing space.

Virgina Woolf kept coming back into my mind. Her essay "A Room of One's Own" brings to mind images of a sacred space (beyond one's own mind) used for the sole purpose of exercising the creative spark.

Except, that isn't what "A Room of One's Own" is about. Not one little bit.

One of the plethora of blog posts I looked at as I tried to cull a list of writing spaces to feature called me out on a problem. You can read it for yourself here, but I am exactly the type of person that the author describes who thought they knew what Woolf was talking about, but had never actually read the piece in question.

So then I read it. You should do so as well here.

Woolf's essay isn't about longing for the magical space that will unleash your imagination's potential. That's the easy part. It's about society's refusal to allow women to unleash that potential.

Which is something we've most certainly fixed in the twenty-first century. Right?

Why is that damned cricket making such a damned racket all of a sudden?

If we've made any progress in female empowerment in the last 100 years, it certainly isn't in leaps and bounds, but in incremental measurements, and most of it has been cosmetic***. It stinks, and there aren't likely to be a lot of large-scale societal ways to make things better anytime soon.

Writing is hard enough on its own. I want to stop blogging right now, curl up into a ball, and watch monster movies until I slip into a coma. For those of us trying to carve out a career with our words, our work is like trying to craft magnificent sculptures using only water erosion. It's functionally impossible, even for the insanely talented. To try and persevere without a disturbing amount of privilege in your corner must make the process beyond impossible. But many do stagger onward, and so did my grandmother. She submitted pieces to magazines up until the week she passed away, and didn't get her final rejection letter until several months later.

I can't make it easier, and I can't remove the problem. If I could, I'd be mansplaining anyway. In fact, I won't try to tell you to do anything. If you're trying to write, or do anything along those lines, you don't need me to tell you what to do. You already know.

*A dictionary, a thesaurus, a style guide I never look at, and the largest collection of Orson Welles biographies in my cul-de-sac.

**Or her. Jesus. I'm starting out with the privilege. Doesn't bode well.

***Has this blog post turned into an endorsement of Hillary? I think, in this moment, it has. Who knew? She's smart and knows what she's doing. Bernie's fine, but I voted for Mrs. Clinton in 2008, and I can't really come up with something she has done to lose my vote. I'm for Hillary. Bernie's great, too. If that isn't enough ideological purity for you, I can accept that. I still think you're terrific.

Cheat Week

I started this year with the goal of blogging at least once per week. Blogging is real hard, folks. In the past several weeks, trying to maintain the pace of the blog has taken precious time away from producing the novels that I first built this site to promote. So, I'm revising the initial promise I only previously made to myself. Every eight weeks I'm going to give myself a cheat week, kind of like people trying to diet*. 

So next week I'll be back. Some of the blog entries I'm working on for the next few weeks include an ode to famous writing spaces (and the inherent misogyny of such a concept), a new book review (someone's been up to murder in a strip mall, and I for one would only trust Shannon Iwanski to guide us through the mystery), and a study of nerd blind spots**.

As I'm letting myself off light, I think you should do the same. If you're putting in your time with whatever it is you do, don't be afraid to give yourself a break every now and then. Your blog will always be there tomorrow.

What's that? In the process of avoiding a blog entry this week, I've somehow managed to make a blog entry? What are you, the blogging police?

*Diet. Ha. I know, right?  

**Spoiler alert: That entry will be spent largely complaining about a certain TV show I prefer to think of as "Two Dim-Witted Gap Models try to figure out the Devil."

The Dread Part Three, Part Two

Last week, I did a brief analysis of trilogy-enders that in some cases didn't live up to their series, and in some cases diminished the movies that preceded them*. I stand by the movies I included, even if George Lucas has been sending me the most vulgar text messages, and I'm pretty sure the dead horse head in a UPS package was a special delivery from the Coppola winery.

I don't want to trash on things in this blog, though. It's much more fun to like things than to dump on things. Unfortunately, the good trilogy capper is a hard thing to find. It took me an extra week just to find the three that I list here. 

Toy Story 3  (2010)  

The final moments of Toy Story 2 (1999) allude to a grim fate that--despite Buzz (Tim Allen) and Woody's (Tom Hanks) adventures in the film--still awaits them. Andy will still grow up. That day is coming, and no manner of madcap antics in an airport baggage area can save them from their ultimate fate.

Early discussions regarding the third trip to Andy's (John Morris) toy box revolved around a massive Buzz Lightyear recall. In this version, Pixar would not be involved. It's not a bad idea for an inciting incident to propel Woody and company into another adventure, but I can't imagine that version of the movie wouldn't have been a let down from the first two entries.

Eventually, Pixar and Disney merged in a way never thought before possible, and the real house of ideas was once again back in the helm of the franchise. Pixar's answer to the story problems was simple, but also bold for a children's film. Make that sad hypothetical fate a pointedly present reality.

Andy leaves for college, and the toys are fresh out of future. It seems the only thing left for them is the furnace at the end of a landfill (Max von Sydow**). Just as we are thinking Pixar is actually going to kill off everyone, the film manages to find its way past the doom that hung over the previous movie and give the characters a new lease on life. If your story can make you face your own mortality and make you fine with that eventuality, you've done something miraculous, regardless of whether or not it is a part one or part three.

The lesson: Don't be afraid to bring your characters not only to their doom, but to the very brink of their worst nightmares, and then retrieve them from that brink. Also, Michael Keaton (Michael Keaton) always helps. I'm looking right at you, Batman Forever.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly  (1966)

The film that defines the western for so money is actually the capper of a trilogy that started with A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and continuing through For a Few Dollars More (1965). Beyond Clint Eastwood's Man-With-No-Name, there is little to connect the three films. This may be part of the virtue of The Good... Few watch Eastwood's gunslinger and not have to say, "Yeah, that was all right... but Fistful is way better." Pure standalone films may be the secret to getting over the trilogy curse.

The lesson: You can be a lot freer to take liberties with your trilogy if the three parts are only loosely connected and your protagonist has no name. Not trying for a trilogy at all can't hurt the third and final part of your story. Ennio Morricone will make up any lost ground, too.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home  (1986)

Yes, I know it's a part four, but when you really consider the storytelling at play in TOS-based Star Trek movies, the death and resurrection of Spock (Leonard Nimoy) forms a loose trilogy opening with The Wrath of Khan*** and concluding with this movie.

The virtues of the 80s Trek movies are on full display here. Genre hopping within a series is a virtue. While Wrath of Khan is a submarine movie in the stars, and The Search for Spock is a competent, if more by-the-numbers adventure story, The Voyage Home complete upends the status quo and offers us an environmental fable masquerading as a fish-out-of-water comedy. From the debate about Italian food that should be more at home within an Abbott and Costello**** film, to the madcap chase through a San Francisco hospital, the film actually works. It shouldn't, but by the end of the movie, the franchise has new life in the shape of a brand-new Starship Enterprise, and the "even-numbered movies are better" theory is solidified, until Nemesis shit the shuttle sixteen years later.

The lesson: It doesn't hurt that the conclusion of your trilogy isn't actually your third story. Actually, it is far more useful to genre hop in your series if you want to keep things lively. Also, when in doubt, just have Nicholas Meyer write it*****.

What "part three” worked for you? Which ones did I leave off of this or last week's list? Did the Evil Dead series perfect itself with Army of Darkness? Do you prefer your Bourne movies to be Jeremy Renner-less? Did you watch Ocean's Eleven and think the movie could use 100% less Julia Roberts and 100% more Al Pacino? Leave me some feedback in the comments so I can know what not to avoid, or in the alternative, approach my doom with eyes wide open.

*I didn't even get to The Matrix Revolutions, a movie that is getting off light in this series. It can thank Reloaded for its clemency.

**Look it up. No. Don't do that; come back. Come back.

***If you're not okay with people referring to Wrath of Khan, then we're going to have a difficult time being friends. Seriously, it’s entirely possible that I really loathe Star Trek as a whole, but that I love TWOK so much that I forgive anything that even resembles it. Seriously seriously, 97 out of 100 times when my wife wistfully asks me "What are you thinking about right now?" I'm thinking about the Genesis Device and Ceti Eels.

****I was about to say I would watch the shiiiiiiiiiiiit out of Abbott and Costello join Starfleet, but then I remembered Abbott and Costello go to Mars. Withdrawn. Wow. Those guys did do everything, didn't they?

*****I'd be so on board with a movie starring Michael Keaton (Michael Keaton), scored by Ennio Morricone and written by Nicholas Meyer. I'd see it five times opening weekend.

The Dread Part Three, Part One

I've spent most of the last year and a half feeling an odd sympathy for George Lucas. I mentioned it in the acknowledgments of Orson Welles of Mars, but prequels are hard business. Trying to conjure real stakes out of the ether while the fate of your characters has long since been written is not a simple thing. I think I did okay with the challenge. If you start ignoring the rules of the space-time continuum, you can kill anybody with impunity. Multiple times*. Don't take my word for it. Find out for yourself here.

Unfortunately, I never knew how easy I had it.

Prequels are hard, but there is another type of story that has repeatedly made mincemeat out of storytellers great and small. The trilogy finale is the waterloo for so many. As I continue work on the third book in the Orson series I can't help but wonder if I am typing my way into my own private quagmire. Here are just a few examples of objectively great movie series that ended up leaving a funny aftertaste.

Return of the Jedi (1983)

I know writing unkind words about the Original Trilogy these days is sacculturous**, but before my buddy George unleashed The Phantom Menace, many considered Episode VI the nadir of the series. Ewoks were often marched around as a chief sign of the film's uneven qualities. Had the great bearded and flannelled one stopped there, we might have viewed Jedi as the dull thud of a great film series. As it stood, it was only a portent of things to come. This, of course, was all before Lucas replaced the unbridled joy of the celebration song with a Gungan refrain and a cameo from Hayden Christensen.

What's the lesson to be found in Jedi for other trilogies? Don't give in to your worst instincts.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade*** (1989)

There are only two absolute truths in the Indiana Jones series. First, Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) is nearly perfect. Yes, Indiana Jones has nothing to do with the progress of the plot, but if that ruins the movie for you, then you're broken. Deal with it. Second, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) is significantly less than perfect. If you disagree with that assessment, well... I don't know what to do with you anymore.

Some might say that Temple of Doom (1984) is the inferior of the pre-Labeouf entries. Mrs. Spielberg is shrill. The thugee cult isn't...super culturually sensitive. Monkey brains. I get it. However, Temple of Doom is a shamelessly different movie than Raiders. Aside from the reversal of Indy's shooting of the swordsmen, there is not one beat that is similar between the two films. Temple starts, not with a giant rolling boulder, but a musical number. "Anything Goes," indeed.

Last Crusade , aside from Sean Connery relishing playing the greatest nerd of the twentieth century, is merely a house built on the greatness of Raiders. Nazis. Marcus Brody. That moment when there's a painting of the Ark of the Covenant in the Venetian catacombs. I'm really sorry, George. Things were getting out of control for you far before you met Ewan McGregor.

What's the lesson in Last Crusade ? Don't go back to the well. 

The Dark Knight Rises  (2012) 

An aggressive letdown from the superlative second entry in the Nolan trilogy, Rises suffers from several problems that aren't necessarily the fault of the filmmakers. For my money, Heath Ledger's Joker is left alive at the end of The Dark Knight  (2008) with an intention to bring him back for the inevitable sequel. Imagine Cillian Murphy's cameo as the Scarecrow if it had been played by one of the most iconic screen villains of all time. In that case, one could even have imagined the role expanded to introduce some much needed terror and chaos into Bane's lawless Gotham.

Beyond this minor quibble, the film is overcrowded. In its nearly three hour run-time, Nolan tried to distill several notable comic storylines into one movie. Elements from Year One, Knightfall, No Man's Land, and The Dark Knight Returns all make appearances. Trouble is that is two and a half years’ worth of comics jammed into one movie. None of the storylines are able to breathe, and many conflict with one another. Batman has to quit being Batman twice during the course of the movie in order for any of the events to approach cogency. It also doesn't help matters that the entire third act hinges on Batman trying to get rid of a particularly pesky bomb. It all sounds so familiar... 

What's the lesson to learn from Rises? Don't try to jam everything into your finale. Make sure the basic plot of the story doesn't need anything more than thirty back issues to explain it.

Back to the Future Part III  (1990) 

Yes. I know. In the past, if someone suggested to me that any part of Robert Zemeckis' time travel epic was anything less than perfection, I would activate hissy fit mode. The only thing that would calm me down? A viewing of Back to the Future Part III.

Here's the confession part of the blog: I get it. The western motif is largely out of left field. The whole "nobody calls me chicken" runner through the sequels isn't really character development. It's a character trait that disappears when it stands in the way of a happy ending.

Then there is the Jules Verne Train. That's its name. Look it up. Throughout the whole series, one of the main struggles Doc Brown and Marty McFly have is keeping the DeLorean time machine in working order. No "easily" accessible plutonium in the 1950's. No combustion engine in 1885. However, when the happy ending demands it, Doc Brown is able to make a fully-functioning, steam-powered time machine off screen. I always thought the final minutes of Part III would have worked better if Joe Flaherty showed up at the wreck of the DeLorean**** with another Western Union telegram from the distant past. Doc Brown could have given the same message with the same soaring score, and every rule established in those movies didn't have to fly out the window. I guess if they had done that, then people would have wondered what happened to Doc Brown's dog, Einstein. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, I suppose.  

I feel so dirty admitting all of that.

What's the lesson from Back to the Future Part III? Sometimes you absolutely stick the landing! No... Time to cut loose from the denial. The real lesson is: Don't ignore the rules of your world, even if you feel like that is the only way your saga can have a happy ending.

The Godfather Part III 

Just... 

Just... 

Just don't. 

The lesson: Just don't.

I try to make a rule of not being negative in these blog posts. I would even venture to say that I like the above examples, but can acknowledge their pitfalls. Except for Godfather III...  I mean, come on Coppola, even if you got Winona Ryder to play Pacino's daughter, it still would have been three hours of muddled Vatican intrigue punctuated by Michael Corleone dying out of nowhere years after the movie took place*****.

But what about those good part three's out there? I had to comb the depths of IMDB just to find a few examples. 

Those will come next week. In the meantime, what trilogy cappers fell on their face for you? Which ones even managed to tarnish the memories of the preceding movies? Let me know in the comments.

*Now there's a pair of sentences only a writer can get away with. 

**A word I just created fusing sacrilegious and cultural. I’m not terribly fond of it.

***Sorry again, George.

****Spoiler alert?

*****Spoiler alert?

Books written by friends, Part 1: Of Noble Blood

Quick. Name the top five masters of horror. If Bram Stoker and John Carpenter didn’t find their way onto your list, go make another list. Are Stoker and Carpenter on the list now? Good. Now the conceit of this blog post can work.

Your list will still need a new entry: E.P. Ferguson. Her debut novel Of Noble Blood has been called the horror version of Downton Abbey, but that hardly does justice to the craft on display. Ferguson has wildly succeeded in merging some of the trappings that make Downton so engaging, with a pulpy horror influence that sucks readers in from the first page. I wouldn’t pitch the novel as “the horror version of Downton,” I’d ask the reader to imagine if the creature from John Carpenter’s The Thing was uncovered not in Arctic, but in the Earl of Grantham’s library.

This isn’t like the obvious genre mashups—Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter­—that flood the market. It’s savvy. It’s subtle. You’ll be hooked within the first few pages.

Ferguson also understands the key to profoundly effecting horror. She’s used the tools that Stoker used in Dracula to enhance the verisimilitude of the awful events that bring her characters to the brink. The horror within isn’t described, you live it.

Of Noble Blood is currently available in both paperback and eBook editions from Amazon. Get it now. When she has usurped Stephen King as the undisputed monarch of horror, you can tell your friends that you read a first edition of the book that started it all. You won’t regret it.

This is the first in a series on this blog. If you would like to be featured on the blog, be my friend! I'll get to you soon enough.