Chuck Wendig: Terribleminds

Apple-Obsessed Author Fella

Tag: rantsandramblings (page 1 of 7)

Rants And Ramblings

December 12, 2012 / 18 Comments

The Real Lesson of 12/12/12

Today is 12/12/12.

You’re probably aware if you’re anywhere near social media.

You may find it a curious footnote.

You may find it cause for confetti and fire-ponies.

You may find it signals for you some kind of… ill-translated Apocalypse.

You may find it demands a cynical dismissive shaking-of-the-fist.

Here’s what I’m taking away from 12/12/12 —

This is the last time that we’ll experience a date like that. The same number repeated thrice.

That, in and of itself, matters not at all. Not one squiggly whit. Nary a blip on the cosmic radar.

What it reminds me, though, is that all of time operates like this. You and I will never experience 12/12/12 again. And we’ll also never experience 12/11/12 again. Or the 10th of November, 2012. Or the 23rd of April, 1999. In fact, this very hour — this very minute — will come and then go and never return. Each increment of time is a spaceship launched into the dark that will never return home. Every moment is a snowflake, a fingerprint, a unique atomic temporal signature whose repeat is guaranteed to be impossible.

What will you do with 12/12/12?

What will you do with this hour?

This minute?

This second?

How will you own each moment of time? How will your fingerprint meet its fingerprint?

How will you remember each day when its ember brightens and turns to ash?

Do something with your time. Because it ain’t coming back.

July 1, 2012 / 108 Comments

The Wreck Of The S.S. Censorship (Or, “How Writers Steer Their Careers Into The Rocks”)

Cause? Meet effect.

So, a couple days ago a video games freelancer, Ryan Perez, said some things on Twitter about delightful geek super-goddess (said without irony or sarcasm, as I am indeed a fan) Felicia Day.

He said:

And then:

And then:

Worth noting: by this point, Ryan Perez had about… ohh, 50 followers. I don’t know much about the dude, but it seems he’s fairly new to games journalism, and was writing for the site Destructoid at the time.

One wonders if he were tweeting to the relative vacuum of those 50 followers only, he wouldn’t have violently overturned the dinner table on which his food was waiting — ahh, but he tweeted directly to Miss Day, and therein dumped a Gatorade bucket of his own waste over top his own fool head. Because his misogynistic, dismissive opinion of her (and, apparently, drunken) got a fabulously epic signal boost in the form of Wil Wheaton via Veronica Belmont. (Here we are given an image of a schlubby mortal man, sitting on a throne made of his own emptied Pabst Blue Ribbon cans, shouting incessant invective and surly epithets at not the Greek Gods above but rather, the Geek Gods, and lo and behold one of them heard and oh shit she has friends and now they’re gonna tear open your breastbone and breathe fire and awesomeness and d20s upon your stupid drunken dipshit heart. VOOOOOOOOSH.)

(Sidenote, I now want to see art depicting a pantheon of current Geek Gods. SOMEBODY DO THAT.)

Wil called out Ryan’s current employer — Destructoid — and Destructoid said, basically, “Hey, everyone, be cool,” and that was just pee on top of poop because no, really, people weren’t going to be cool.

And so began the slow motion boat crash of Ryan Perez’s freelance career. At least, in the short term. I can’t speak for what will happen to him in the long run, as I am not an oracle — sure, sure, I like to play with pigeon guts and goat bones but that’s purely recreational quit lookin’ at me. For all I know Fox News will swoop in and hire the guy (“You speak for us!”), but for now, what happened is that a freelance writer who, I suspect, didn’t have a whole lotta career behind him now may not have a whole lotta career ahead of him because social media can give very big ripples to one poorly-thrown pebble.

Destructoid fired him, of course.

Now, this has an imperfect mirror in a situation that unfolded a little while ago about a dude not in the video games industry but rather the pen-and-paper games industry where said dude made some link-bait, button-pushing commentary about how rape is a wonderful plot device and how it’s okay because women have rape fantasies and — well, whatever. Point is, he was then surprised that his link-bait took and the buttons he pushed were actually hooked up to something (like, say, The Internet), and when the rain of shit was just a drizzle he found no shelter and instead kept pushing buttons. The shit-rain fell harder and harder until a petition arose to get him canned from one of his publishers. At that point said game-writer dude dug his heels in even deeper and then made some comments about the very real rape-threats against the petition-writer that were ill-advised, and, lo and behold, he got canned from his publisher, oops.

There’s more to that story, just as there is and will be more to the Perez story, but that’s not the point of this post. The point of this post isn’t even, “Don’t be a jizz-bag,” or, “The gaming industry has a deep, deep problem with puerile ass-hearted butt-trolls treating women like second-class citizens at best and doe-eyed sex-objects at worst.” Those things are, of course, true.

But that’s not my point. I’ve made those points already. You know that stuff already.

No, here the point is, writers? You can steer your career into the rocks with shenanigans like this. Now, you may assume that I’m telling writers to — eep, watch what they say, button up that language, don’t rock the boat with your opinions, be soft and moist and colorless like a pre-chewed glob of cardboard, but believe me, that’s not what I’m suggesting. Look at me: I’ve been a freelance writer for close to a decade-and-a-half now, and I could probably write a blog post with nothing but the word COCK-WAFFLE written a thousand times, each time in an incrementally-larger font-size, and no one would fire me. I could and have offered opinions about religion and politics, about health care and food politics, and I remain un-shitcanned.

You may also assume I’m saying, “Don’t piss off your employers,” AKA, “Don’t poop into the hand that feeds you,” but that’s not exactly it, either. That’s part of it, yes, but the heart of what I’m saying is, you need to watch out for the audience. The audience is mighty. The audience is all-seeing. The audience doesn’t want to stand for your tweaked and twisted opinion when it comes from a place of (real or imagined) hate. You turn on the audience and they will turn on you. This isn’t just about turning on a geek icon, about spitting in the eye of one of the Geek Gods. It’s about how one dude misread who his audience is — one assumes he thought the audience was just a bunch of high-fiving bro-heims like himself, when really, uh-oh, the audience has women in it, too. Women who matter. Women who will shank your ass in the shower for looking down on them and treating them like lessers when they’re an equal and awesome part of what we do and who we are as an army of gaming and geek and pop culture.

Ryan Perez took a bite out of Felicia Day.

The audience — not just women but all who recognize that they’re part of our tribe — bit back.

You can call it censorship if you like — and it is, in the sense that the audience will not stand for your bullshit anymore and would much rather see your mouth taped shut with tape and your body dumped in the trunk of an Oldsmobile swiftly sinking into the waters of a forgotten lake. But this isn’t legal censorship. This is the censorship of an angry audience. This is a vote-with-your-dollars-and-your-voice type of censorship. Natural and normal and part of the system.

Matt Wallace tweeted the very-true:

And then, of course, Perez doubled-down (as they usually do) with:

That is the sound of a boat crashing into the rocks, by the way. Remember it. Why do you think Perez has over 1000 followers, now? They’re rubber-necking. They want to see the body pulled out of the fire.

Writers, cut it with the hurtful and hateful crap.

The audience is listening.

The end.

P.S., Don’t be a jizz-bag.

P.P.S., We need more women in gaming, so, uhh, somebody make that happen.

P.P.P.S., Seriously, GEEK PANTHEON, someone get on that.

P.P.P.P.S., Yes, this is posting on a Sunday but it counts as my Monday post NO YOU SHUT UP.

May 14, 2012 / 37 Comments

On The Privilege Of Being A Writer

My mother’s father was a coal miner. (Died of black lung.)

My father’s father was a farmer. Sun up to sun down.

My father worked 4AM to 4PM in a chemical-rich pigment factory.

My mother cleaned houses. Day in, day out, back-breaking work.

I am a writer. I sit in a fairly comfy office chair put words down on screens and on paper and I tell stories. And outside my window is a pretty forest and lots of sunlight and my walls are a bright and optimistic green. I have a terrier who sometimes warms my feet (or tries to kill me with her intestinal miasma).

It’s pretty cushy business, this writing gig.

Now, here’s the thing. I don’t think that what I do is not work. It is hard work. It is real work. Stories matter. Art matters. What we do is a craft and it takes some mad combination of skill and talent to both survive and thrive, and I’m not going to take that away from myself or any other hardworking ass-busting wordsmith out there. It can be mentally exhausting. It can leave me worn and tattered and gutted like a rotten stump. Some days the words run free like rabbits. Others are like pulling teeth out of a rabid dog.

Just the same, I think it’s important to find a little perspective. A little… appreciation. Because being a writer — being allowed to earn a living doing what I do — is obscenely delightful, unwholesome in its privilege. I’m a lucky fuck. I’m lucky I don’t have to wreck my body and break my bones and come home dirty and pissed off and ruined doing something I don’t want to do. I’m not saying that there’s not room for complaints. Or room for improvement or examination or a place to talk about our struggles and our fears. But I think from time to time it’s a good idea to stop and sit back and say, “At least I’m not castrating llamas or mopping up the floor at a porn store.” I think it’s a good idea sometimes to say, “This thing we do, it’s pretty great and we’re pretty lucky to be able to do it.” Because it is. And we are.

May 10, 2012 / 40 Comments

On The General Weirdness Of Having “Fans”

(Thursday interviews will return next week, I promise!)

I’ve noticed something over the last year.

I have fans.

I don’t say this to brag — I certainly don’t know that I deserve to have fans and I know of many great writers who do. But the fact remains that a number of people over the last year have identified themselves to me (via e-mail or tweet or even in-person) as “fans.”

Not readers. Not my “audience.” Not… y’know, people who just follow the blog.

Fans.

It bakes the noodle, it does. What the hell did I do to deserve fans? And just to be clear, I don’t use “fans” as a pejorative — I consider it a somewhat exalted (and certainly lucky) state to have your audience interact with you as more than just a passive audience and as an active and interested fanbase.

Readers help make a book. Fans help make a writer’s career.

So, this is not me looking down on fans but rather, looking up in wide-eyed weird-ass wonder.

Part of the reason this is crystallizing for me is this Guardian article yesterday.

The article, by Damien Walter, asserts that (from the article’s title): “Fandom matters: writers must respect their followers or pay with their careers.” It’s for many authors a rough and troubling assertion — in it is the suggestion that the book (or movie or comic or whatever) is not enough (and, taken to an illogical degree, may not even matter). I don’t know that I’m willing to say that a good book isn’t enough, nor would I put it all on the line to say that you need to have a fanbase or your work will be born into this world DOA.

You’ll also note that, to my shock and awe, I am name-checked in the article. (Thanks, Damien!) Specifically in regards to this blog right here and the success of the next Atlanta Burns book, Bait Dog.

What I will say is that, having fans really really helps. Because you have people who identify with you, who join with your… I dunno, your creative ecosystem, let’s call it. Again, these aren’t readers of a single book or viewers of a single television show. They’re folks who will follow you from project to project, regardless of what it is. I know that I’m a fan of certain creators (a quick-and-dirty list: Robin Hobb, David Fincher, Robert McCammon, Joe Lansdale, Christopher Moore, Jane Espenson) that whatever the hell they do, I’m there. I’m there with a big shit-eating grin and a tub of popcorn and a big wad of whatever money they want. I’m there because I love their work. I’m there because I dig them as creators, too — I think they’re interesting on a level beyond just the work they put out as auteurs.

You might say, “Well, what’s different now? This isn’t new.” And it’s not that the phenomenon is new — I’m sure Aeneas and Homer each had fanbase of which to speak (“I FUCKING LOVE SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS DUDE”). But the opportunity to engage with audiences and earn fans (note that keyword: “earn”) is bigger, now. You can in fact earn those fans long before you have a proper “[insert commercial creative project here]” to release. You have Twitter. And blogs. And Kickstarter. And all kinds of as-yet-unforeseen grottos and cubbyholes online in which to earn those fans one at a time (and that’s how they come to you, I think, slowly, over time). That’s what’s different. Our connectedness makes finding an audience and interacting with them easier and weirder and harder all in equal measure.

And it does mean that there’s an increasing burden to be more than just an author or a filmmaker or a [insert your creative title of choice here]. It means that you may find advantage in doing more than just creating your work in darkness and delivering it out of shadow while remaining hidden. Audience are becoming increasingly interactive. It’s the author’s job — or at least one of the author’s potential jobs — to meet the audience in the playspace, in the sandbox, in the fucking Holodeck that is a growing fandom.

As to how you do that? Well. I suppose that’s a post for another time and I haven’t yet gotten my slippery mind tentacles around it. But I know it involves engagement, authenticity and diversity. And I know that at the heart of the thing it’s still about creating the best damn thing (book or movie or comic or game or animated GIF or pornstache or sentient nano-hive) you can create.

Oh, and just so we’re clear: you guys out there? Who read this blog? And my books? And my insane half-drunk Twitter feed? And who bring me dead chipmunks and chocolates?

YOU RULE.

Thank you.

January 18, 2012 / 59 Comments

Why SOPA And PIPA And Other Anti-Piracy Bullshit Measures Matter To Writers

First and foremost, let’s just put it out there —

No, this site did not blackout for the protest.

Wikipedia blacking out? Thumbs-up. They have a global audience. I don’t. I blackout and what happens? I miss a handful of new readers and a handful of new sales. In the all in all, nobody soaks their pillows with tears that I’m gone. Besides, what will I do if not obsessively refresh my blog numbers?

RIDDLE ME THAT, CAPED CRUSADER.

Instead, I’d rather talk a little bit about SOPA and PIPA.

It is, I think, easy to convince writers that anti-piracy legislation is a good thing. And while I’m not stridently anti-pirate (for a number of reasons we can discuss in the comments, chief among them being “I don’t think it matters as much as people think it matters”), I grok those who want to shut down All Pirates All The Time. Pirates are bad, after all. They steal our shit. They plunder our grog barrels. Fine. Good. Yes.

Problem, though:

You done got swindled, sons and daughters of the creative age.

SOPA and PIPA are not about piracy.

They are about control.

See, the Internet is this unruly pubic tangle of possibility. It is raw potential given form and it puts a great deal of power in the hands of the individual (are you listening, creative-types?). Power in the hands of individuals can, in some cases, wrest power from the hands of corporations. And corporations don’t like that, so they go to the government and they pour giant buckets of money into the government’s slavering maw and lobby for legislation and the result is, in this case, SOPA, PIPA, and any other naughty anti-pirate hydra-heads that pop up.

Writers and creatives — again, as individuals — have a lot of opportunity in the Internet Age, in part due to the innovation and distribution the Internet offers, in part due to the social media that connects us all. Harming these by harming the Internet then harms free expression. And that’s no good.

Just to be clear, in case you don’t realize what it means to give corporations power over censorship and the subject of artistic originality, please cast an eye no further to the MPAA, whose arbitrary and often insane ratings of films put out by the film industry help stifle creativity and the craft and art of filmmaking. You really want that kind of control over sites like YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr, Google, Wikipedia?

No, you do not.

SOPA and PIPA hit the issue with a hammer when what’s called for is a scalpel. (That’s how our government seems to respond to everything anymore, but I suppose that’s a conversation for another time.)

Anyway, others can discuss this matter with far greater aplomb than I —

Visit AmericanCensorship.org to learn more.

In summation:

Fuck SOPA. Shit on PIPA.

Freeze-frame high-five.

CARRIER LOST

January 18, 2012 / 48 Comments

Bitches Don’t Know About Paula Deen’s Diabeedus

“Hey, y’all! Sorry, I didn’t realize that deep-fried butter-stuffed meatballs with a pina-colada-pork-cracklings-crunch exterior dipped in a whiskey-chocolate Dr. Pepper dipping sauce would or could ever give someone like me the diabetes! Oops, y’all! Sorry. Please enjoy my new Paula Deen whipped-cream flavored insulin poppers. And don’t forget to watch my new Food Network show: Paula Deen’s Savannah-Style Down-Home Diabetes Pancreas-Palooza. Starring my four sons, Bobby, Jamie, Baconface and Chondroid Lipoma.”

Dear Paula Deen,

You’re kind of an asshole.

Listen, it’s not that you get on your show and write your little cookbooks and tell people how to basically make like, Butter Salad or Cookie-Dough-Stuffed-Thanksgiving Turkeys or, I dunno, Sugar-Crammed Sugar-Balls (coincidentally my nickname when I attended the Culinary Institute of America, and by “attended” I mean “hung out by the dumpster eating hot gourmet garbage”). This is America. You’re free to eat and cook however you feel is most appropriate, and instruct your audience to do the same.

On the one hand, you maybe should’ve warned people — like with a pack of cigarettes, a casual, “Hi, y’all, if you go ahead and make my scrumptious French-Fried French Toast with Spackled Goose Grease your heart may explode in your chest” may have been welcome. On the other hand, you know what? We’re supposed to be a smart country. If you’re sitting there telling us how to roll up a pumpkin pie and then barbecue it before slathering it with foie gras and whipped marshmallow frosting, I think we’re all educated enough to know that maybe what you’re selling us is not exactly diet food.

We knew your food wasn’t health food.

You knew your food wasn’t health food.

And now you have diabetes.

Or, more to the point, you’ve had diabetes for three fucking years.

To clarify, that means for three years — over a thousand days — you have been shilling your Microwaved Pork Roll Munchiladas and your Bacon-Gorged Jabba Rolls and your Powdered Sugar South Carolina Soul Food Gummi-Bear Casserole and not once have you said, “Hey y’all, by the way, I totally have diabetes, which is a plague amongst Americans, a plague that for many could’ve been avoided if you chose to avoid making foods like my Lady’s Brunch Burger, a hamburger topped with fried eggs and bacon and shoved unmercifully between two pillowy glazed doughnut buttocks.”

That’s where you get me. That’s what chaps my rosebud, Paula. That you knew you had diabetes and refused to tell anyone. Not even because you didn’t feel like you wanted to out your own medical condition but because, let’s be honest, you didn’t want to lose any money associated with the way you suggest people eat. Not money from your shows, from your cookbooks, from your appearances or your ad revenue.

No, instead you waited to tell people until —

Wait for it.

Waaaait for it.

— until you replaced any potential lost income with a fucking Novo Nordisk pharmaceutical deal. Essentially saying, “Hey, my lifestyle actively causes diabetes, but I didn’t want to tell any of you that while you were still paying me to tell you to eat human infants rolled in Cocoa Puffs and sausage fat, and now by waiting three years and announcing a deal with Big Pharma I’m basically telling you that you can live how you want and eat what you want and by god it’s not going to impact the way any of us do anything because Thank the Baby Jesus for mah diabeedus medication!”

(Next up on her show: Deep-Fried Baby Jesus topped with Pork Jimmies!)

Like Anthony Bourdain said yesterday on Twitter:

“Thinking of getting into the leg-breaking business, so I can profitably sell crutches later.”

You know what Paula really said? Quote for quote?

“I don’t want to spend my life not having good food going into my pie hole. That hole was made for pies.” Now, I’m all for silly statements regarding pies and holes, because, c’mon. Fuck yeah, pie. But here she is, a three-year-diabetic, basically telling you, “Well, just because I have diabetes doesn’t mean I have to change the way I eat.” Yes! Yes it does! That’s the whole fucking point!

That’s the message you should be telling people! Gah! Fuck!

Further, on the subject of why she waited three years, she says: “I made the choice at the time to keep it close to me, to keep it close to my chest. I felt like I had nothing to offer anybody other than the announcement. I wasn’t armed with enough knowledge. I knew when it was time, it would be in God’s time.” Oh. Ohhh. Announcing the diabetes thing late is… God’s fault?

God didn’t give you permission until now? We’re on his time for this kind of shit, are we?

You didn’t wait because of God. Don’t blame this on him. I’m sure he’s up there sitting on his throne made of Dixie cups and human bones and he’s just shaking his head and making frowny-faces.

“BOO, PAULA, BOO,” he’s saying. “YOU HAVE DIABETES BECAUSE YOU FREEBASED HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP. YOU DIDN’T TELL THE HUMAN MOO-HERD BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T WANT TO LOSE ANY ENDORSEMENTS OR GET BOOTED OFF YOUR SHOW. DON’T BLAME ME FOR THIS ONE, YOU PLUMP SNOW-HAIRED SHE-DEVIL. BOOOOOO!”

Man, sometimes it’s fun to write in all caps.

Anyway, Paula Deen, you’re kind of an asshole.

I’m sorry about your diabetes, but, y’know, maybe you should’ve told people sooner.

I hope God takes some of your toes. Just a few of them. As penance.

Feel better!

Love,

Little Chucky Wendig, Age Eight-and-a-Half

P.S., please read this great piece by Andrew Zimmern.

P.P.S. Okay, fine, no, I don’t want God or any other invisible space being to remove her toes.

P.P.P.S. What about just a pinky toe?

P.P.P.P.S. OKAY FINE SORRY JEEZ

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