Author: terribleminds (page 173 of 454)

Let’s talk about my grandmother for a minute.

My grandmother — Gram — was the kind of person to go to a restaurant, enjoy all or part of her meal, and upon completion, try to pilfer everything that wasn’t nailed down. I don’t mean that she was a thief; she took things that were from the meal or were in some way meal-adjacent. She’d take the fuck out of some rolls, for one. If there was a basket of rolls, she would upend them into her purse like a sack of bread boulders. She’d take paper napkins. Plastic forks. She’d take salt — if she had any kind of receptacle, she would put salt into it.

She was also the type at home and at the grocery store to ask for bread ends, or the unwanted ends of meat and cheese from the deli counter, or day-old bakery products.

And as a kid, I had no idea what this was about. And adults didn’t really care to explain it because frequently adults just don’t explain shit to kids. (We take an opposite approach here at Ye Olde Wendighaus. We tell B-Dub pretty much everything, and he can choose to absorb that information or let it bounce off him like hail on roof shingles.) Of course, by now a lot of you have already figured out why my grandmother was like this:

She lived through the Great Depression.

Hoarding bread was not some mental glitch; she came from a time when bread and other essentials were scarce. Further, she gazed upon the bounty in the center of the table — a whole goddamn basket of the stuff she was once denied — and then must’ve wondered why exactly we didn’t all gorge on it. WE WERE LETTING PRECIOUS BREAD PRODUCTS GO TO WASTE. So, she saved them. As if they were shelter puppies. Shelter puppies you slather in butter and then eat.

Let’s fast-forward to, well, right now.

Right now, today, a movie has come out — and if you read the reviews from critics and audience members, you will learn that this is less a movie and more a war crime against cinema. Reviews greasy with precious, snarky schadenfreude (snarkenfreude?) confirm for us what we long suspected: Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice breaks the Geneva convention and tortures its audiences for well over two hours with an incoherent, grim, babbling mess. It is reportedly not just a dumpster fire, but a dumpster full of diapers that are themselves full of the runny diarrhea from toddlers force-fed too much leafy green slurry and only then is the dumpster set on fire just before said dumpster is dropped from a helicopter onto an orphanage containing children who should have one day have become the best of us. Batman v. Superman is by many reports the worst thing ever. It is worse than an Adam Sandler comedy. It is worse than biting rats in a jockstrap. It is worse than nipple rot. It is worse than your Mom pegging your Dad on your childhood bed. It is worse than than the worst thing you can imagine right now.

And you don’t have to go see it.

The warnings are clear. People are standing at the edge of a precipice, waving torches, trying to get you to realize that the bridge is out. The river is rising. You can stop your car, turn around, and go home — you don’t have to drive your care full-speed ahead into the watery gorge.

Now, I think I know why it is that people feel the need to see this movie. It’s a many-tiered problem. First, it’s like my grandmother with the Great Depression (and yes, I realize I am straining this metaphor and totally dismissing what my grandmother went through ha ha ha oops sorry Gram just trying to make a NERD POINT here). For a long time we went without a bevy of great comic book movies. I mean, not entirely, of course, but growing up I think there was… what? Tim Burton’s Batman? Christopher Reeves as Superman? And that was it? Both great films in their own way, but the pickings were meager. Now, though, the pickings are far from slim. Superhero movies are like Starbucks — there’s one on every corner. Some of them are dogshit, but some of them are sublime, and they’re not just in the movie theaters. They’re on TV and Netflix and in video games and they’re even manifesting in this new technology called “comic books.” Comic book properties are like bread on the table — we have such a bounty I’m surprised they’re not bringing them to us free with other movies.

The other thing is, for a long time geeks have felt marginalized. Geek culture was geek culture precisely because it was not mainstream, but because it wasn’t mainstream we endured that warring feeling of a) knowing about the fun awesome geeky stuff while b) wanting also to be cool and mainstream and something-something Tiger Beat. Now, though, the script is flipped. GEEK IS COOL (which one could argue means it’s not even geeky anymore). The biggest properties and franchises out there have often been geeky things, but they have achieved a powerful saturation level. Batman Vs. Superman isn’t some niche pic. It’s a tentpole release. And not the “geek counterprogramming” release, either — it’s not the one genre film in a sea of manly action films and rom-coms. It’s thrust firmly in a year of new Star Wars and Civil War and X-Men and Warcraft and Suicide Squad.

The geek may not have inherited the Earth, but we damn sure inherited Hollywood.

So, this is a permission slip — you don’t have to go see Batman v. Superman. You aren’t obligated. There is no surfeit of good entertainment out there. This isn’t the meager crumb-scrabble of bread to feed your geek leanings for the next year. This is just a shitty hamburger on a table full of better hamburgers. You don’t even need to see it to be part of geek culture. This doesn’t look to be adding anything interesting to the conversation except the joyless snarkenfreude-flavored obligation of reviewers and fans who just want to take a clever winky snarling shit on something. (And hey, you do you. We all need those precious Internet Clicks to live.) If you want to see the movie, more power to you. Go forth. Enjoy. Hopefully Zack Snyder doesn’t just pop out of the screen every five minutes to spit in your eyes. I hear Wonder Woman is cool and Batfleck is pretty proper. But don’t go because you feel obligated.

Ain’t nobody got time for that. Or the money, actually, since going to the movies costs the approximate value of Detective Comics #1. Feel free to go do something else.

Maybe, I dunno, read a comic book…

Trapped by his Maker’s command to protect a mysterious box, Adem is forced to kill anyone who tries to steal it. When a young boy chances upon Adem’s temple, he resists temptation, intriguing the golem. As the boy and his sister convince Adem to leave the refuge of his temple, the group lands in a web of trouble.

Now Adem will do whatever necessary to keep his new young charges safe, even if it means risking all to get rid of the box. Their saving grace comes in the form of an angel who offers to set Adem free of the box’s magic by granting his greatest desire—making him human. But first, Adem must bring back the angel’s long-dead human love from the Underworld. 

* * *

Say yes. (And no.)

As a newbie author trying to get your start, say yes to as many opportunities as you (reasonably) can. Over the past several years while writing Mud, I’ve taken writing classes that turned into an amazing writer critique/support group, contributed guest posts for writing blogs, and helped out other writers online.

And ta-da—it sounds like common sense in retrospect, but it’s blown my mind to discover that now, these contacts have turned into people I have relationships with, and they’re all happy to help me spread the word about my book.

For advanced yes-sayers, the next step is to learn when to say no, too—protect the time you need to write and do your best at the opportunities you’re lucky enough to have already.

Touch your book every day.

Not literally. That’s weird. Stop it.

But really—do something to further your manuscript every single day. Writing a book is hot mess. There’s a lot of moving pieces of character development, plot arcs, worldbuilding, and more, all swooshing around and mixing together in half-developed blobs.

While writing Mud, I learned that it only took a couple days of missed writing time to totally lose my momentum. But when I touched it every day, even if it was just five minutes of jotting down notes on a loose scrap of paper, it kept my head in the game.

Edits: NOT the worst.

Every time I got into a round of edits, whether it be self-editing, feedback from my critique group, or notes from my editor, my first instinct was to put it off. It gave me that dark looming icky feeling, like a Dementor had just entered the room.

But then I’d bite the bullet and dive in, because it was inevitable and because I was just too busy for that procrastination shit. And you know what? It was never actually that bad. Smart feedback can even be a creative catalyst for new, better ideas.

It was never, not once, the miserable experience I expected it to be.

Not all edits are equal.

I have been incredibly lucky as a writer, in that many people were willing to take the time to give me thoughtful feedback on my novel.

But when many different people give you feedback, their opinions sometimes directly contradict each other. And even when they don’t contradict, not all of those outside opinions are right for you. It’s one thing to give each critic’s feedback respect and consideration. It’s a completely different thing to blindly follow every line of that feedback to a T.

As the writer, it’s your responsibility to determine what edits are right for your book … and which ones are not.

Support everyone around you the way you want to be supported.

I knew I’d need to rely on my family, friends, and extended network to help promote my book. But I’m finding that some of the close friends I thought were given advocates are really not, while others I’d never have expected to care at all are more excited than I’d expect my own mother to be, and are going out of their way to help me any way they can. It’s a truly amazing, humbling thing to see how excited people can get for some little thing I created.

The lesson I’m taking from this is that everyone else deserves that kind of support from me, too, when thier time comes. In fact, I wish I’d been going the extra mile for some of these people for years. I’ve lived, I’ve learned, and now I’ll do better.

* * *

E. J. Wenstrom is a fantasy and science fiction author living in Cape Canaveral, FL. When she’s not writing fiction, E. J. drinks coffee, runs, and has long conversations with her dog. Ray Bradbury is her hero.

E. J. Wenstrom: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Pinterest 

Mud: City Owl Press | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Goodreads

I wrote a comic.

I mean, it’s not my first comic, really, but it is the first one where I don’t have the authorial support of fellow penmonkey Adam Christopher — who, quite honestly, is a whole lot better at this thing than I am. Hyperion #1 is my first foray into writing a comic all by my lonesome.

So, obviously, my great hope is that you go out and pick it up.

And then pay money for it.

And then rub it all over your body and take pictures.

…

I mean, “read it.”

Comics are a different animal for me — they’re some strange combination of television show and the novel. They possess the visual, episodic component of television. But they also possess an internal dimension and a POV like novels. It’s that, but it’s also not that, because snapshotting the perfect images to accompany the story is a special gift all its own, as is making sure those images are perfectly well-compressed in 20-ish pages with a proper hook out of the issue. It’s tricky business. I have no idea what I’m doing.

But, I’m figuring it out. Slowly! The good news is, the team behind the book is so great, they are very clearly propping me up and making me look not terrible. Nik Virella’s art floors me every time I get it in my inbox, and then you add colors by Romulo Fajardo, Jr. and it’s like, holy shithell. And Emanuela Lupacchino’s cover? Plus all the great editorial support from Katie Kubert, Alanna Smith, and Christina Harrington? I’m a lucky ducky.

Thanks too to folks like Jim Zub and Gail Simone and Ron Marz and people whose online presence is often chockablock with great comics-writing chatter and advice.

Go forth and procure cool comics.

You can nab Hyperion at your local comic book store, or at Comixology.

Other cool comics out today: Hellcat, Mirror, Cry Havoc. What else? What comics are you reading and digging these days, folks? Drop in the comments and gimme 20.

I’m slowly, slooooowly crawling out of the spongy lung-slurry and finding my way to the light. I’m back at the desk today doing some work (yesterday I worked from bed on the iPad — WORD on the iPad is surprisingly robust, by the way), and I thought, well, hell, I’ll go say hi at the blog with a macro photo.

That there is a simple enough object: a stack of LEGO squares. Looks like LEGO DNA.

What’s the health scoop? Well. I’m here dealing with not just pre-pneumonia, as was reported last week, but rather: both flu and pneumonia at one time, which is to say, FLUMONIA. (My new authorial pseudonym will be Flumonia Lungbees. I will use this new name to check into hotels and it will also be my Tinder handle. Don’t tell my wife.) I was coughing up blood, but my lung X-Rays say that’s fine, believe it or not. And the antibiotics have run me ragged. But I’ve got deadlines that will eat me if I do not appease them, so here I be.

Sad to see the nightmare unfolding in Brussels. I’d love it if we could all keep a cool head about it and wait for details to come in and not resort to vilifying Muslims or refugees and I sure hope that we don’t let Trump say anything, anything at all, oh, too late, never mind. We should really all come together as a country and disavow him. I’d say that white people should also disavow him, but he’s clearly one of Boehner’s own Orange People. Probably not even human.

Whatever.

Be well, Belgium. And Europe. And refugees. And everybody.

P.S. tomorrow Hyperion comes out so I might pop by to remind you.

P.P.S. *coughs on you*

The word pneuma means one’s vital soul, one’s spark — a creative spirit.

The word pneumonia probably then means some kind of goblin that attaches to your lung meat and drains you of your creative spirit and spark. I’m pretty sure it’s Latin. Shut up.

Anyway, so, this last weekend I went to the Tucson Festival of Books — which is really such a stellar festival, expertly run with a volunteer army that operates flawlessly — and on the last day, when traveling home, I started to feel…

Well, not so hot.

Feverish, achy, all that good stuff.

Got home and had a pretty rocking fever, and the next day I went to the doc. Flu has spiked hard in our area, and apparently all over, and so I worried that’s what it was. He said usually flu knocks you flat, makes you feel like you’re hit by a truck. His fear, instead, was that my pneumonia from December had returned. Once you get pneumonia, you can be pretty susceptible to it going forward. And that’s the diagnosis — that I have pre-pneumonia, or walking pneumonia. Which means it is developing, I guess? I still get that crispy campfire lung-crackle when I breathe, which is exactly what I felt last time I had this totally charming illness. Ugh.

Anyway, last time I was out of commission in whole or in part for a month — from Thanksgiving to Christmas. This time, I’m hoping because we got ahead of it and I started antibiotics early that maybe I can cut this thing off at the knees.

Just the same, it means blogging will be light for the next week or so.

And it puts my travel next week to Denver for AnomalyCon in question. The doc doesn’t feel that traveling right now is necessarily the hottest idea, and that it could foster the illness to take stronger hold. Huge apologies to anyone who was hoping to see me next week, but I don’t think it’ll be in the cards. And apologies too to AnomalyCon, which by all reports is a stellar convention.

So, if you’re looking for something from me in the next week or so — ennnnh, I’d maybe expect a delay in that. I will try to ramp up back to work fast as I can muster.

This challenge is, as many of them are, both simple and complex, both easy and difficult.

I want you to write a story in five sentences.

No more than 100 words.

You can view it, if you’d like, as:

Sentence 1: Beginning / Inciting Incident

Sentence 2: Middle

Sentence 3: Middle peak, act turn or pivot

Sentence 4: Climactic turn or twist

Sentence 5: Resolution

That is not a strict map, but rather, a reminder that a story is a story, not a snapshot: it has a beginning, a middle and an end.

You can post it below in the comments if you’d like, or if you’d prefer to post at your blog and offer a link back, that’s fine, too.

Please, only one story. Do not spam the comments with a ton of these.

Just one.

So, make it count.

Due by next Friday, the 18th, at noon EST.