Archives (page 454 of 457)

January 18, 2011 / 19 Comments

Hey, Writerface: Don’t Be A Dick (But Still Have Opinions)

I have occasionally seen sentiment that suggests writers should be little church mice.

They should become little peeping cheeping baby birds who shouldn’t ruffle any feathers with talk of politics or religion or publishing or any of that for fear of losing a publishing deal or scaring off an agent or what-have-you. It becomes a game of tiptoe here, tiptoe there.

Don’t shake the bushes. Don’t stand up on the boat.

I call shenanigans on that.

Because that makes you boring. A boring writer is not a writer with a big audience.

Further, I think it makes you bored, as well. And a bored writer is… well, I dunno. Probably an alcoholic. Or a World of Warcraft addict.

Here, then, is a line in the sand. I have drawn it with my big toe.

Over here, this is where adults talk about adult subjects like (wait for it… waaaaait for it)… adults.

Over there, that’s where adults devolve into foul-breathed trolls and Internet douche-swabs.

Live on this side of the line, and you’re okay.

Cross over that side, and that’s where you turn into a raging dick-brain.

We are living in an increasingly connected world thanks to this sticky spider’s web called The Internet. I pluck my dewy thread over here, and you can feel it over there. That is — mostly — a good thing.

We are further living in a world where the audience is becoming as interested in the creator as they are the creator’s creations. This has always been true to a small extent: once you start reading an entire author’s catalog or going through a director’s stable of films, you start to grow curious about the man or woman behind the curtain. But now it’s becoming that new authors are working from their so-called buzzwordy bullshit “platforms,” and the audience is starting out interested in the author as much as the author’s works.

This is in a sense a little ridiculous: we want to be judged by our novels and films and placemats and vanity license plates, not by our online personas. And yet, we are. Reality is reality. No ignoring that.

This leads to that very simple Internet truism: don’t be a dick.

But, the fear of violating that law has lead some people to become fearful of being who they are, and fearful of having interesting or unusual opinions. I think it’s caused some degree of turtling in terms of worrying that what we say will somehow violate our chances of getting published or that it will decimate (in the truest sense of the word) our audience with one ill-made statement or sentiment.

And I think to some degree you have to get shut of that. You should be mindful of the shit you say, obviously. You, like every other adult out there, should have a pair of bouncers at your brain door ready to escort any unruly thoughts before they stumble drunkenly toward your mouth or fingers.

But don’t be afraid to have opinions.

Just offer them with respect and tact. And an interjection of humor and self-deprecation just to confirm that you’re not being some super-serious self-righteous blowhard.

And, when (not if) you inevitably cross the line in the sand from “The adults are talking” to “The dickwipes are howling and keening their gibbering dickery,” then back up, throw up your hands, and offer a fast mea culpa — just like you would do off-line.

Don’t hide from your own personality. Be who you are. Be the most awesome and interesting version of who you are. You are more than the sum total of your likes and dislikes of books and whiskey. You have controversial thoughts, hey, share them — provided you share them with tact, respect, and some ground given to the other side.

Do you have to be careful? Sure, of course. I’ve seen creators (be they writers, game designers, journalists, whoever) spout off and show the world their blow-hardy cranky-pants, and it turns me off. Most of the time I come back from the brink because I know I’ve done the same thing. Others, though, keep on keepin’ on, and they won’t stop beating their audience over the head with their opinions.

See, that’s the trick. It’s not the opinions that bothered me. It was the delivery of that opinion.

Remember: respect, tact, humor, self-deprecation.

And here, at terribleminds: a fuckbucket full of sweet, sweet profanity.

Have opinions.

Just don’t be a dick about it.

January 17, 2011 / 16 Comments

From Bile To Buttercream: How A Writer Makes Use Of Rejection

You wanna be a writer? Then failure is not optional.

You know what? That feels like it needs some profanity.

Revision: “You wanna be a goddamn writer? Then failure is not fucking optional. Shitstain!”

Hm. I think the “shitstain” maybe went over the line. Cut it, and move on.

What I’m saying is —

If you are of the belief that everything you write is going to be a home run, that every ball you hit is going to pop the stadium lights and shower down magical sparks like in that Robert Redford baseball movie, then you are at best deluded, and at worst a dangerous psychotic who believes the cat is telling him to strangle the mailman.

You will write. You will submit. And you will be rejected.

Not once. But resoundingly over and over again. You’ll start to feel like you’re on a carousel ride, and on every go-around someone is punching you in the face instead of giving you cotton candy. The calliope music will be dizzying. The scent of funnel cake, cloying.

Rejection is a default state for the writer.

And so it falls to you to make use from it. Make hay from your failures. Build sculptures from your wreckage. Compost your garbage and let it grow new things.

In the past, I told you How Not To Deal With Rejection.

Now, it’s time to find truth in rejection. Time to find a way to make it useful, energizing, empowering.

Or, as the title says, time to churn bile into buttercream, baby.

“See This? This Is My Battle Scar. It’s In The Shape Of A Rejection Letter.”

See this table full of little green plastic Army men? Right. Let’s pretend a tactical nuclear missile tumbles out of the sky, belched forth from a North Korean rocket tube, and it takes out a good 3/4 of these toys.

*swipes them off the table with an angry arm*

We have now separated the Real Writers from the dilletantes.

I know, I know, it’s not popular to talk about “real” writers. But I’m going to do it anyway, because I’m just that kind of blue meanie. I’m not talking about hobbyists. I’m talking about the talkers. The dilettantes. The people you meet at a party and they tell you, “Oh, I’m a writer, too,” except no they are fucking not a writer, too, because they don’t know shit about shit and they write shit (if they write at all) and they wouldn’t know what being a writer is like if it snuck up behind them and shoved a typewriter up their ass.

Writers write. And writers submit.

And writers get rejected.

It is your battle scar.

Pull a sword from its scabbard and you can see if it’s the weapon of a well-coiffed, soft-handed officer type because the metal is unmarred. No nicks in that edge. No flecks of blood still nesting in the nooks and crannies. A real soldier — the dude out there getting muddy and bloody — his sword looks like hell. Like it’s cleaved skulls and pierced guts.

When you get rejected, it’s like I said in the past — that’s some Viking shit, right there. Sure, you got your ass handed to you, but you still stepped into the ring. You’re no coward. You’re no dilettante.

“Wait, So I’m Not Supposed To Submit My Manuscript On A Roll Of Previously-Used Toilet Paper? Are You Sure?”

I think a lot of writers do not possess the proper cognitive separation of The Manuscript and the Submission Of Said Manuscript. I know I felt that way once when I was a young buck, wet behind the ears and with a full-up diaper and other metaphors of youth and inexperience. I thought, “Well, my manuscript should sell itself. That, after all, is why I wrote it.”

Yes, but you’re ignoring reality just as I once did. The book in the bookstore doesn’t let the manuscript sell itself. It has back cover copy. It has lovely cover art. It has quotes from other writers. None of these things are contained within your manuscript but rather, outside of it. And so you must embrace that.

The submission process is beholden to rules. It is, as the name suggests, a process.

You must follow those rules or otherwise be outed as a special snowflake (translation: jerkoff). You may think it’s unfair. Sure, okay, but you did pass puberty, right? You’re an adult human being? Then by now you’ve surely shed any illusions that life operates by the playground laws of Fair and Unfair.

You’ve been rejected over and over again, it is maybe time to reexamine your method of submission. Does your query letter snap-crackle-pop? Have you selected the correct five pages or chapter to submit alongside of it (if that’s what they asked for)? Are you submitting to the wrong agents and editors?

Sometimes rejection is not a failure of your manuscript but rather, a failure of delivery.

“They Don’t Actually Hate Me Personally, Do They?”

Rejection demands a shift in perspective. When you go up to a woman at a bar and you say, “Hey, can I buy you a drink?” and she’s like, “Ew,” and then stabs you in the hand with a cocktail fork, you can be pretty sure that her rejection is a little bit personal. She doesn’t like your face, your shoes, your sour milk odor. Something about you personally made her all stabby-stabby.

This is not likely true of your submission’s rejection, however.

Understand that this is a purely subjective industry. It’s nothing personal. You maybe just haven’t found the right editor or agent yet. When I was submitting to agents, I found that some really loved what I was showing them, but I also had rejections like, “I’m just not feeling it.”

Nothing personal. They don’t hate you. Let that lessen the sting.

“Hand Me Some Duct Tape, A Hammer, And That Lemur! There’s Work To Do!”

A single rejection is not particularly useful. Whether it’s a form letter or a detailed analysis, you shouldn’t take it as anything indicative of your manuscript.

But get a bunch of those motherfuckers together and you start to see a picture emerge.

That picture might very well be: “Needs more work.”

And so that’s what you’ll do. This is a good sign. It means you need to slap on some to-the-elbow rubber gloves and get deep in the guts and the junk and the radioactive materials and the rhinoceros uterus and start rearranging parts and wiping away the crap and delivering a squealing rhino baby. Rhino baby? No, I don’t know. I think my metaphor got away from me there. Like a squirrelly gazelle, it leapt from my grip.

What I’m saying is, look at the big picture and decide: do I need to take this back to the drawing board?

Then do that. You have the power to make it more awesome. Especially if someone hands you specific criticisms. Criticism is a blessing in disguise, like a diamond ring in a pile of horse crap. Rescue the diamond. Use the criticism. Huzzah.

“Once More Into The Breach, Dear Friends!”

Rejection knocks you down.

So get your ass back up again. In fact, don’t just get up. Grab that adrenalin rush from the pain two-handed like you’re catching hold of a goddamn screaming bald eagle and let it launch you upward with a mighty shriek and as you land on your feet, start swinging.

Let rejection energize you, not enervate you.

As one project is out there drawing fire, take each rejection on the chin and as you get jacked up, keep writing. Write more. It’s not only a good way to use that energy, but it’s also a good way to remain distracted from the rejections. (This can backfire, too — as you get rejected, you might start feeling like you’re not worth more than a sippy cup full of gopher diarrhea. Man, my dog once rolled around in gopher diarrhea — it was greasy and shot through with half-digested berries. That took a long time to wash out of his shepherd’s coat, so trust me, you do not want to have to clean yourself of that feeling.)

In fact, it’s not just about writing more. It’s about submitting more. Fine. Editor X and Agent Z said “no.” Your ten submissions came back as “Sorry, nuh-uh.” Submit more. You’re not done. You’ve got other avenues. Keep on keeping on. It’s like that Tai Chi move where you redirect your opponent’s attack, using his energy against him. Or something. What the fuck do I look like, a Tai Chi master? Please. I have a writer’s body. I don’t flow like water, move like air. I flow like Nutella and move like a pregnant narwhal.

“Oh Yeah? Ohhh Yeeeaah? I’ll Write Something Even Better, And Then You Can Suck On That Lollipop, Publishing Industry! Boo-yah!”

Alternate version of the above lesson is, your rejections may teach you that this book just isn’t The One. It’s not going to be a bestseller. It’s not going to even make it to the bargain bin.

That’s a sad realization, but an important one.

And once more, it’s time to redirect that energy. It’s time to write a better book. It’s that easy. This one didn’t work, fine. Write a better one. All those successful authors on the shelves? That’s exactly what they did. “Oh, this one sort of sucks, so the next one must suck less.” And on and on until they don’t suck at all.

You have to know when to give up on the book and focus energy on the next one.

“Turns Out, I’m Not A Writer After All. Who Knew?”

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: not everybody who wants to be a writer can be a writer. The numbers aren’t just against you. They’re really, holy shit what the fuck was I thinking? against you.

There may come a point when you have a stack of rejections from multiple projects and they are all uniformly non-glimmering, non-shimmering, not happy rejections. Nobody has hinted at your potential, no letter says that it wants to see more from you in the future, no one offered any notes at all. The majority of your rejections say “FUCK NO” and are written in pigeon’s blood on a postcard.

You’ve had nothing published after repeated attempts across multiple projects.

Just as there comes a time to give up on one book to make way for a better one, there comes a time to give up on one career path to make way for a better one. This is not popular wisdom, of course. Popular wisdom dictates that we all follow our dreams endlessly — except, sometimes, our dreams are callous elves leading us down a path that dead-ends in a pocket of quicksand or a dragon’s crushing maw.

I’m not saying that’s you. I’m not saying to give up easily or even to give up at all. But I am saying that there comes a moment when you have to check your gut and say, “This really isn’t me.”

On the other hand, if you’re saying, “I don’t want that to be me,” then fine. Don’t let it be you. Writing is about failure. It’s about perseverance. But it’s also about improvement. It’s about learning your craft and using the corpses of your failed manuscripts as a stairway to publication. You want to give up on being a writer, I wouldn’t blame you. But if you don’t want to give up, if you want to get published, then you need to take the rejections you’ve earned and use them. Use them to give you energy. Use them to get better.

This is the writer’s thorny path.

January 16, 2011 / 23 Comments

Minecraft Jacks An 8-Bit Pick-Ax Into Your Brain

This, then, is Minecraft.

Imagine a game where you build with LEGO.

You have 13 minutes to do so.

Sure, you can waste those 13 minutes building spaceships or funny statues.

But you’d damn well better spend that time building a shelter. Because at the end of those 13 minutes?

Night comes.

And when night comes, so do the monsters.

And if you haven’t built yourself a place to hide? You’re dead.

Welcome to LEGO: Survival Horror edition.

My First Day Cycle

The game dropped my ass onto a sandy beach at morning. Not far away I saw them: great and mighty hills — hills comprising voxels of dirt, grass, and stone — rising up out of the fog.

I figured, hey, let’s explore. I wandered up into those hills. I chopped down a tree for shits and giggles. And by “chopped,” I mean, “punched with my blocky orange dildo hand until the tree yielded its sweet sweet tree meat to my violence.” The tree, mysteriously, hovered there even when its base was destroyed. (Destroy its canopy and you may find yourself with a sapling in hand.)

Then I wandered some more. I witnessed voxel sheep and boxy chickens. Clunky cows be-bopped around. In the distance, out in the ocean, big Cthulhu-beard squid jerked and twitched.

I wandered across chasms.

I found a lake, and half of that lake was ice.

I almost drowned, but then learned how to swim.

Somewhere, I thought, “Hey, I’m going to dig. Just to see.” So, with a hunk of wood in my hand, I began bashing the earth. My first mistake? The first several blocks, I bashed beneath my feet. Clarification: directly beneath my feet. I dropped down into a pit of my own making but thought, “I can get back out of here easily given how simple it is to bash earth into its component bits and bytes.”

So, I kept digging. This time, at an angle.

Eventually, my tunnel grew dark. No light shone down here.

I started trying to make my way back up, but I noticed something:

The sun had gone down.

Uh-oh.

I began furiously punching and kicking the ground, making steps to get back out, but it was futile: I couldn’t really see anything. I didn’t know if I was even going up.

Then, I heard it: a phlegmy growl.

Little did I know, someone was down here with me. Suddenly, my screen filled with some awful face, and then a zombie murdered me and sucked marrow from my bones.

Well, I don’t know that those are the exact details. Mostly, I died in the dark, a zombie atop me.

Second Day Cycle

I respawned back on my beach. I thought, okay, I need to build a shelter this time.

So, instead of digging down, I dug laterally — boring into the side of the hill like a worm toward the apple’s heart. I bashed a tunnel, then a small room. When night came, I sealed myself into it.

And it was very dark.

Behind me, something growled.

Next thing I know, some monster was molesting my dead flesh.

Third Day Cycle

Fuck. Fuck. I figured, okay, I have to learn to survive here, or this just isn’t going to work. I watched the “first night tutorial” found on the Minecraft site. And by watching that, I learned a truckload of information that would help me not get mouth-raped by skeletons, spiders, zombies, and creepers. I needed a pick-ax. And a workbench. And a sword. And a shovel. And, above all else, I needed some motherfucking torches.

Thing is, to get torches, you need coal.

And on this hill, I found no coal.

I ran around as the big voxel sun slowly slid like a pad of butter toward the horizon’s end, struggling to find some way to make some goddamn light.

I did not find any coal.

Feel free to predict what happened. It probably involves words like “rectal violation,” “monster,” and “used my sweetbreads as pillows.” Goddamnit. Fuck you, coal. Fuck you big.

Fourth Day Cycle

Once more, I spawned on the beach, increasingly convinced that this was some kind of 8-bit nightmare Groundhog Day rehash: this beach was becoming my accursed birthplace into this unsettling world.

I decided, fuck those hills right there, because those hills offer me only death.

I crossed a small oceanic strait and found myself amongst other hills. There, pressed up against the cliff-face, lurked a vein of coal next to a vein of iron. Huzzah! A cheer! But no time for celebration: only time for getting coal so I do not die horribly in the night. I quick did some crafting, ensuring that I got a pick-ax (the pick-ax is necessary to get coal), and I carved myself a uterine pocket of earth. As night fell, I sealed myself into what I prayed would not be my tomb.

Then, I watched night through my window. This is a long process. Night is seven minutes, and there I stood like an asshole, just watching the blinky stars creep across the sky.

I… heard things. Out there. And above me. The hissing of beasts. The rattling of bones. The growls of zombies. Occasionally, I heard a chicken die. Poor goddamn chicken.

But eventually, as it is with all bad things, night passed. The sun arose. Morning arrived.

I kicked open my earthen door, stepped out into the light.

Where I was promptly assaulted by a fucking giant spider.

What the hell, I thought? It’s sun-up! Spiders can survive the sun? Seriously? Oh, goddamnit, they can, can’t they? Shit shit shit. I took my sword out, though, and I whupped up on that blocky fuckface arachnid until all that was left was a tapeworm-esque pile of thread. Which I quickly absorbed into my inventory.

Ha. Hahaha! Hahahaha! I survived the night!

I did a little dance.

Then I went in search of more coal. I turned the corner, and came face to face with this blockhead asshole who promptly blew himself up.

He took half the cliff-face with him.

Oh, and me.

Death welcomed me anew.

Fifth Day Cycle

The beach belched me back up onto its sun-baked sands. Once again I crossed the strait, knowing that yes, I would find my little grotto, but that all my equipment was lost.

Except, it wasn’t.

I rounded the bend and there, along the cliff-face and in the water were my blessed items: the ax, the blade, the building materials I had been carrying. I quickly swept them all up. I kissed my sword, which is not a euphemism for masturbation or self-performed blow-jobbery.

To celebrate, I murdered some cows. Which lead to the discovery that cows yield leather.

Chickens yield eggs.

I also found, mysteriously, bones and arrows. (No, not bows and arrows. Bones.) I guess some skeleton archers had a raucous party or something and… uhhh, exploded? Who the fuck knows? And really, who cares? Because now I have their bodies. Ho ho ho.

Once more, night came.

I hid. I dug more. I waited. Night came. Night went. Morning arose, and so did I, resurrected from my tomb. I heard the hissing of a spider, and I fucked that fucker up with my pixel-blade.

I was triumphant.

Thereafter

During the day, I explore. At night, I dig.

I’ve since dug myself a small labyrinth connected to my little hut. I found an underground stream. I found a cavern, too, but I sealed that back up, because I suspect that giving the sinister malefactors and undead interlopers a back-door entry into my zone of safety and comfort is bad news bears.

I carved myself a path all the way from the opening to the other side of the island. So now I have two exits and entryways if I need them. All of them lined with torches.

I don’t know what happens now. I keep building. I keep crafting.

And somehow, I stay alive.

Later in the week I might mumble about the things I think make Minecraft… well, not great, but certainly interesting. I mean, I did all of the above in an hour, maybe an hour-and-a-half. Not a serious time commitment, but it felt epic. So, I have thoughts in that direction, but I need to play a little more and put them together. Anyone else play? Anyone do anything with multiplayer yet? I’ve only noodled with the one-man-world and found it surprisingly unsettling. I grow fascinated.

(Want a great fan-made trailer to sell you on Minecraft? I’ve embedded it below.)

January 15, 2011 / 12 Comments

Anatomy Of A Flying Cat: An Irregular Creatures Update

The flying cats. They invade my dreams.

Okay, they don’t really. Last night though, I did have a dream where I had a sleepover — like you do in high school, except mysteriously, we were all adults. And instead of bringing a CD to listen to or your favorite Hanna Barbera pajamas, everybody had to bring a bladed weapon. I think we were on the lookout for a zombie attack? So I guess the sleepover was just a way to make the zombie apocalypse fun? I dunno.

I brought a camping machete. Leather sheath and all. It was very nice.

This is all irrelevant.

So! Irregular Creatures has reached the end of its first sales week. Okay, no, I didn’t advertise it until Wednesday, but dangit, it went up last Saturday. So, you shut up. No, you shut up! Stop touching me.

The Numbers

Sales-wise, I continue to be happy with the overall reports. As noted, I achieved profitability in the middle of the first day, and from that point haven’t looked back. Which is just an expression because clearly, I’m looking back with both vigor and scrutiny.

First day sales were brisk, as noted: Amazon (88), Amazon UK (7), PDF (15). Total of 110 sales.

Second day sales did a bit of an interesting flip-flip: PDF sales went up, while Amazon dropped. In fact, PDF sales out maneuvered all others that day: Amazon (13), Amazon UK (1), PDF (19). Total of 33.

Third day sales are at Amazon (7), Amazon UK (1), PDF (4). Total of 12.

Fourth day — Amazon (5), Amazon UK (0), PDF (1). Total of 6 sales.

No sales today, but it’s a wee smidge early, too.

Each day dropped by about 33% until the last, which saw a deeper 50% cut.

At present, we stand at 161 sales.

Random Thoughts

I went ahead and made some moves to try to, uhhh, “maximize my sales potential.” Eeeegh. I hate saying those words. I recognize the reality, but it’s one of those key things that will forever illustrate why self-publishing won’t totally dominate: many writers don’t want to become their own publisher. I don’t mind it, really, but trust me, the time and energy spent on this book? I’d rather have used it for writing.

I updated the Amazon description of the book on Thursday to include a description of each story. That still hasn’t populated here on Saturday morning. Amazon can be a wee bit slow.

I updated my Amazon Author Page.

I slapped a visual link to the right and updated the Books For Sale page above.

I updated my Goodreads author profile.

I have not yet played with Kindle Boards.

I’ve had some incredible reviews — some at Amazon, for instance. Cat-Bird stole Eric’s afternoon. The Unsanity Files describes the book as like nothing you’ve ever read.

The most glowing review comes, assuredly, from Elizabeth White (“All-Purpose Monkey”), where I think she sells the book far better than I have.

I did a couple interviews, arranged a couple giveaways. Also did a guest blog about cats and inspiration over at the aforementioned Elizabeth’s site: blog post called “Four Kinds of Kitty.” That blog maybe talks a little about vaginas, too, so, uhhh. Get excited?

Had a lot of great response about the tentpole story in the collection, “Dog-Man and Cat-Bird (A Flying Cat Story).” I mean, some really gushing praise, and for that, thank you so much. The fact that the collection got pimped across #fridayreads was equally awesome.

I slapped the book up on Smashwords, see if it’ll propagate from there.

Also arranging to get it up on Drive Thru Fiction.

My favorite sales are the PDF ones. Not just because I make the most money (which allows me to procure a higher class of hobo handjob), but also because it allows a small but compelling interaction with the audience. Instead of just a click, it’s an email, and an email is really a letter, and a letter is a connection between two people. It’s the 21st century way of selling the book on a street corner. Quaint. Probably not the future, and certainly not the way to a million sales, but more the equivalent of a book signing.

Would love to figure out a way to do a book signing, but with digital product.

Seen JC Hutchins’ Kilroy app? He will actually autograph your app. So, it’s possible.

Talking to horror bad-ass James Melzer about maybe a spoken podcast version of the stories.

Right now, my sales are largely within my own sphere of influence. The key is getting outside that circle. The key is getting into your circle of influence and beyond. One supposes I’ve sold to my core audience, so now it’s about pushing beyond those margins. I’m surprised that my Amazon entry still doesn’t list, “Those who have bought IRREGULAR CREATURES have also purchased SEVEN BRIDES FOR TEN MULES, BLOWJOBS FOR DRYADS, and THE LUDLUM PROLAPSE: A REXINALD PERRY ADVENTURE.” Does it for you? I dunno. Love to hear your reports and experiences.

Equally Random Questions

What else can I do?

Again, if anybody wants a review copy, please let me know. Definitely looking for places to do reviews and interviews and giveaways and sexy breathy podcasts and whatever else we can muster.

If anybody cares to write reviews on their spaces or at Amazon, I’d totally appreciate that, too.

Everybody liking the book?

Would I Self-Publish Again?

Way too early to say, but an interesting question just the same. I’m fairly happy with the results so far, but if the sales from here just drop off a cliff, I’d find myself less likely to do it. Would like to try to put up a novel or novella at some point just to see how that goes as another factor of the experiment, but I dunno. The fact I’m operating at a profit and not a loss after four days is a good sign for what is ultimately an unpopular purchasing target — the short story collection. But even still, it’s distracting from actual writing, which isn’t good. (Though I do recognize that having, say, a novel in stores is just as distracting what with the book tours and interviews and what-not. This may not be all that different. Even still, it’s nice to feel like you have a publisher pushing your work, a team backing your play. On the other hand, it’s also nice to be 100% in control of your own destiny.)

So, what I’m saying is, totally on the fence. Experiment not yet proven, not yet disproven.

The truth won’t probably be realized for months.

January 14, 2011 / 44 Comments

Of Turtle Shots And Zodiac Signs

Went to the Obi-Gyn Kenobi’s office yesterday to learn which particular brand of bait-and-tackle our upcoming child would possess. Boy parts? Girl unit? Some squirming squid-like mish-mash, some Cthulhu’s beard of uncertainty lined with stinging nematocysts?

Of course, to discern this secret truth it was necessary to get busy with the ultrasound wand. If you’re one of those people with kids older than… shit, I dunno, 10?… then I guess they can see a lot more these days with ultrasounds. You tell my mother about the ultrasound and basically it sounds like they had to rip her open and shove a submarine full of tiny doctors in there to report back on the health of my unformed heart.

Our first ultrasound showed an adorable poppet with cartoon cloud fists who persisted in punching invisible ghosts. Our second ultrasound revealed a child sucking its thumb — or, it did until you looked at the 3-D ultrasound, which actually revealed some kind of greasy unformed polecat curled around a boulder.

So, this ultrasound, we didn’t know what to expect.

Mostly, the kid looked like some kind of… specter? Wraith? At one point the tech lady pushed in with the ultrasound and the child’s face peeled away, illustrating some sort of… howling monkey skull, some wrothful rage-filled incubus. I honestly wish she had snapped that shot as one of our take-home Polaroid print-0uts so I could show it to our spawn years later.

“You’re 13 now,” I’ll say. “It’s time to show you the truth. See this picture? That’s you in there. In your mother’s womb. No, no, I know. You’re right. That is so not the picture of a human being. That’s an image of an undead baboon, its flesh flensed away by the keening winds of the underworld, scoured free of the bones by sand born of the Devil’s dandruff. You’re not our child. You’re some kind of hell-imp. Which explains your nascent teenage behavior. P.S., stop stealing Daddy’s liquor.”

It was truly horrifying. Then she pulled back and sure enough, there’s the kid again, sucking its thumb in the womb. Did you know they did that? Suck their thumb in the womb? I didn’t know that either. They can do all kinds of shit in there. They suck their thumbs, they cry, they do robot dances, they put up shelves. They’re busy. No wonder they scream coming out. I wouldn’t want to leave my kickin’ pad either.

She continued noodling around in there like some kind of ultrasound ninja, doing all these clicky-clickies and boop-boops. She showed us some crazy stuff — like, the four chambers of the heart, lub-dubbing away. Then we got to hear the heartbeat, which really just sounds like some news guy broadcasting from inside a hurricane while construction work goes on in the background. I was pretty sure I heard some construction worker catcall in the background. He used the word “gams.” Do people say “gams” anymore? They really should. Maybe there’s a time traveler inside our baby? Yeah. That’d be cool.

Sometimes the ultrasound tech lady would get so close to the baby it was like a Magic Eye painting. I’d sit there wondering, “Is that a dolphin? Mating with a tugboat? Is that Lady Gaga?”

One point she zoomed in good and close and I was like, “Oh, hey, there’s the child’s little face!”

And then she was like, “These are the kidneys.”

“Are the kidneys part of the face?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Very.”

Whatever, lady. You’re just a glorified joystick monkey.

At another point she asked, “When’s the due date?” And we told her, June 1st. I had no idea that I’d come home and find out that June 1st now meant our child was going to belong to the 17th Zodiac sign of Herpecin the Syphilitic Brine-Carrier. I mean, what the hell, people? I go to the hospital for a couple hours and I return back to find you’ve totally dicked up the Zodiac. Ophioucus? Ophicus? Ophiucus? Ohfuckus? Odie, from Garfield? C’mon, somebody’s just making that up. They’re just fucking with us. The astrologers figure we’ve had it too good for too long and now they’re just flicking nuggets of bullshit into our eyes. I’m onto you, astrologers. Your shit’s already not real, you can’t make it less real. What, are we going to add new Chinese Zodiac, too? “This is the Year of the Sugar Glider. Next year will be the Year of the Two-Cocked Coelacanth!” Are my Tarot cards broken now? Why does my divining rod only divine Diet Doctor Pepper? Someone went and broke all the mystic hoodoo!

Hrm. I feel like I’ve gotten on a tangent.

What I’m saying is, I gave the poor ultrasound tech lady a hard time, but she was actually quite nice. Right from the get-go she asked, “Do you want to know the gender?”

And we said, “Yes, yes we would.” We never bought into that, “But then it won’t be a surprise!” business. Really? Because it’s a surprise whenever I learn it. Whether I learn it at 20 weeks or when the baby karate kicks his way out of my wife’s baby compartment, it’s still news I did not know before. And knowing it at 20 weeks means we don’t get a shit-ton of “gender neutral” baby stuff. And “gender neutral” pretty much means “brown” and “yellow,” which are (perhaps not coincidentally) colors that are going to be coming out of the child at regular intervals.

Upon confirming that yes, we’d like to know if our child is going to want a ninja sword or a pink pony for Christmas, she instantly zoomed in real close and said:

“This is the turtle shot.”

And then she drew a circle around, well, what looked frankly like a turtle.

“Here’s the shell,” she said, pointing. “And here’s the head poking out.”

Then, just in case we were brain-diseased, she typed onto the screen, “BOY!!!!”

Which is, of course, what we’re having.

I knew it all along. See, during the first ultrasound, what was playing over the Obi-Gyn radio? Don Henley. “Boys of Summer.” And the first stuffed animal we bought for the tyke was in Hawaii — drum roll please, a sea turtle. Which is apparently a metaphor for “baby penis.”

I’m excited. At first I wanted a little girl, but now, I’m onboard with the whole “boy” thing. Frankly, I’m just happy he’s healthy. And that’s he’s not some kind of angry goblin hermaphrodite.

Oh, my wife wanted to ask all you people:

Advice!

Need baby books. But not crazy-person baby books, okay? But we need to catch up on some baby-reading. Anything you have, shoot it my way in the comments below.

Our baby thanks you. Gratitude, after all, is a trait of the 17th Zodiac sign of Herpecin the Brine-Carrier.

January 13, 2011 / 31 Comments

And Now, I Give Thee: Pandemic 41.410806, -75.654259

Earlier in the week, I said, “Hey, check out this short story collection.”

Middle of the week — aka, um, now — I say, “Hey, check out this short film.”

Sundance has been very kind to our little film and given it lots of great attention. Not only is it a big part of this year’s Sundance 2011 app, but now it’s online at the Sundance screening room.

I’ve embedded it here for ease (might I recommend full-screen?) but I encourage you to check out the screening room for other gems of cinematic goodness.

Funny story — when I went to… I think it was the second day of filming? The first thing I encountered was the scene with “Mom” on the bed. A bed pink with fluids. Her head swaddled in stained sheets. And Bree (Alexia Rasmussen) sitting by the bed, a revolver in her lap.

Awesome. Crazy to see stuff you helped write come to life. Grim, fluid-stained life.

Anyway. Check out the film. I know I’m proud of it, and I think Lance did a bang-up job of bringing our storyworld — or, at least, a glimpse of it — to life. Make no mistake: he’s a visionary.

Of course, it doesn’t stop here. We’ve got the feature film moving toward fruition, and during Sundance will be the Pandemic storyworld experience. What’s that, you ask?

Well. Just wait. You’ll see. Expect something pretty crazy-go-nuts.

But it doesn’t stop there. Sinister plans circulate. They fester like a sickness, they do.

Keep your eyes peeled.

www.hopeismissing.com