Hank's Guide to Coping with Time Travel

Cover art & design - Jo James

Hello there.

I’ve completed the first book I want to put out it the world, via the interwebs. If you are reading this, you’d like to know little bit more about the book and how I came to write the thing.

This is the synopsis I’m going with:

            Hank Lloyd is bored and rudderless, and he just got his ass kicked by his girlfriend’s ex. What to him was just a depressing night at the emergency room is actually considered a pivotal point in American history --- thirty years in the future. He is soon visited by three people who reshape his entire life in one night: a military strategist, a Ph.D., and an astrophysicist (who also happens to be the mother of time travel).  Soon he will learn that he is the central character in the possible overthrow of the government, and that time travel can be used to not only alter human events, but it’s an excellent way to reinvent yourself. 

            Plus, it’s funny.

            I’m not a big science fiction reader, but I am a big science fiction watcher.  I love the movies. The books I read are usually, well…unusual. This book, with those influences mixed into a fun gumbo, is more human and personal than spacey and epic and Asimovy. I have loved time travel for as long as I can remember. The very first story I ever wrote, when I was twelve or so, was about a time traveler.  I’ve chronicled the how’s and why’s of the genre for a few years, and I decided to put everything I love about it into the type of story I’d like to read. If you’re looking, you should be able to find nearly every trope explored somewhere.  If I’ve missed any, they will turn up in the sequel which will come out in the spring (-ish) of 2016.

            I wrote this story because it’s the type of thing that got me thinking about stories in the first place.  After the Hank story is done, I have different ideas in mind. Writing is sincerely one of the weirdest things you can do with your time.  Those of us who are hooked know how ludicrous it feels to smash keys with sore fingers after you’ve finished a full day of work doing the job that pays the bills. But you do it because something keeps sucking you back. Earlier this year, I gave in.  I put aside my other fun distractions to focus on more time alone in a room thinking about fake stuff.  I want to spend the rest of my days doing this, and I’m happy that this is the first step into the wilderness.

            It’s probably not smart to give spoilers away, but I can at least say that Hank’s Guide is a fun book. It’s meant to be a fast-paced read. (Unknown writers are better off keeping their stories to a limited word count.) I kept that in mind while I wrote this and made notes for a second book.  Dammit, I can do what I want!

            If you’re still reading this you either know me personally or you are very interested in reading the book. I appreciate both groups. (I’m new to the writer blurb thing. It’s surprisingly difficult to write about yourself and something you’ve made.)

            Enjoy it, share it, review it, pass it on.  

I Love Time Travel – Part 23 – Doctor Who – “Blink”

It’s known as one of the best, if not the best episodes of the new series of Doctor Who.  Hands down, it is my favorite episode.  I watched it again recently, while I was desperately looking for something to pass the time on Netflix. It was just as good as I thought it was the first time.  I’m hesitant to burn too many details, because it’s such a good one.  Needless to say, if you like any aspects of the time travel genre, this may be the best singular episodic TV story using time travel ever. No shit.

Television provided a few dabbles into time travel, but nothing earth-shattering. Lost played with it, and it worked when it was pulling at the heartstrings more than invoking true terror.  Quantum Leap was a show I never liked, but I guess they screwed around with it.  Star Trek played with it some…a few times.  I guess what I mean is, very few shows have the central conceit that realities can be affected by altering timelines.  Most shows use it as a gimmick, or as a way to move characters into new challenges.  Doctor Who is specifically about altering timelines.  He is the last word in conflict resolution, from the beginning to the end of eternity.

The reason “Blink” is so damn good is that it incorporates so many fun tropes into the story, and it works.  The main character is played by Carey Mulligan, who I am currently in love with, who also supports the bulk of the work in the episode.  That’s the thing.  I love the show, especially David Tennant’s Doctor, but he’s barely in this one!  The Doctor is second banana to Mulligan and the idea of time travel itself. It is also the first use of the coolest baddies the series has yet to come up with, the Weeping Angels.

If you aren’t aware, Doctor Who sometimes features alien beings who live in the abstract.  The angels have developed two noteworthy and crazy attributes. One, when they are seen, they are statues.  Actual statues. But when you take your eyes off of them, even during a blink, they can move at near-lightning speed.  It’s a sci-fi game of “red light, green light”. But what they do to you once they reach you is even better.  A touch from a Weeping Angel sends you back in time forever.  Maybe 100 years, maybe 50, who knows?  They do this to feast on your “potential energy”; the life you left behind.

Dude.

Not to mention, when they get frozen in mid-attack, they go from angels with hands covering their faces, to full-on demon head monster fangs.   But you can’t look away, or they’ll get you!  Such a great idea. 

Ah man, I want to write about the thing with the DVD’s!  The note on the wall…the doctor’s messages. Shit.  I shouldn’t have even broached this subject.  To explain it would kill chunks of the plot…damn it.  I’ll try.

Okay, so…Mulligan receives a message from the past.  Her friend…no, shit.  That blows it, too. Crap. I can’t really tell you anything.

Screw this.  You have to just see it.  If you’ve never watched the show before, this is as standalone as the episodes get.  All you need to know is that The Doctor travels through time in a big blue box with a companion, and, as described in this episode: “People assume that time is a strict progression of cause and effect, but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it is more like a big ball of wibbily-wobbly timey-wimey...stuff.”

The Unsolved Mystery of the Sewing Box Poop

Not even sure if he could crack the case.

Life is full of unsolved mysteries.  I’m referring to those events in your life that are missing essential pieces of the story as it pertains to you.  Who egged my house that Halloween? What happened to that cool dude with the blonde hair who dropped out of school?  Why was my boss really fired? 

They can be benign and sweet, like the unknown person who recommended me for a job as a projectionist at the art-farty movie theater in Orlando.  I got a call one day, around 1992, and the manager said I was referred to him as a candidate.  I had a job already and declined, but I never knew who did me the solid.  Conversely, in 1987, we lived outside the district of my junior high school.  My brother and I had the option of going to school an hour before it started and getting picked up nearly three hours after it was over by my very tired mother, or going to the shittiest school in the district. We opted for the former. One day, some unknown student squealed on us. It caused an entire maelstrom of crap for my mother, who had to talk to the county and adjust custody with my dad, and I don’t know what.  We eventually got to stay in that same school, no thanks to some unknown middle school prick.  Thanks for that, by the way.

But nothing compares to the biggest mystery of my childhood.  My brother and I discussed this a couple years ago and we were a little fuzzy on the details, but to be honest, I trust my memory and my details.

Sometime in the year 1984, we lived in a rental house on Yates Street in Orlando.  My parents, my brother and I were out for a while, most likely at the beach, but it could have been something else.  That’s not important.  What is important is that we were out for an extended period of time and the house was locked. We came home, my dad opened the door, and we were immediately punched in the face by an intense smell.  It filled the entire house, which only had two bedrooms and stretched only a handful of square feet across.  Holding our noses, we spread out to find the source of the funk.

I did not find it.  My brother says he found it, but I remember it was my mother who received that privilege. On her sewing box, she discovered a turd.  A piece of doody. The box was located in my parents’ bedroom in the corner, on the floor.  It was the size of a shoebox and contained needles and thread and whatever other stuff my mother kept around to sew stuff. But that day, it was adorned with shit.

The first theory was that this gift was from an animal.  We had no pets at the time, but maybe a neighborhood cat found its way in.  However, my father insisted this was not the work of an animal.  He presumed it was manmade. I never saw it myself.  The box was whisked away to an outside trash can.  Candles were lit and Lysol was sprayed.  But we never figured out who or what did it.

Who would do such a thing?  If we had enemies that severe, why would they break in and take a squat on my mother’s sewing box to show their disdain? Why not the living room or the kitchen?  Why not just break a window and steal stuff?

 Later in life I thought about my dad, and his affinity for Busch beer.  Or, perhaps one of his work friends pranked him. But not only would the alcohol required to shit on a sewing box have killed him, he would have had to commit the crime before we left. No dice.  And I think if a friend did that to him, my dad would have been probably been convicted of murder that day.

It wasn’t us, it wasn’t an animal, and we don’t know who it could have been. There are no new developments.  This remains a 31-year-old cold case.

There is no way to summarize or find meaning in this. It will forever boggle our minds and we will never know what exactly happened that day.  It is what it is.  And that day, it was a piece of poop on a sewing box.

Gross.

Self-Doubt is (Still) My Default Setting

Thumb is in California, camera is in Oregon.

Everyone fights with self-doubt. It’s natural, it’s human, it’s part of life. Unless you are a billionaire douchebag running for president, you have moments in your day where you just aren’t sure of yourself.  The common salve for this pain is to simply believe in yourself. To me, that’s like telling someone who is struggling with obesity: “Hey, don’t be fat.”

Self-doubt is nothing unique, but there is a subset of people, of which I am a member, where self-doubt is the underlying theme of one’s life.  Everything in our lives has doubt attached to it at its inception, and we have to fight to reverse it.   All. The. Damn. Time.

Daily, I have to remind myself of the things that aren’t broken in my life.  I have plenty, too.  Things are thankfully going well these days, and I’m appreciating this and aware of this. But these are actions I must take.  I don’t wake up feeling awesome.  I need something to kick in and tell me things are cool. My default setting is dark and gloomy and impending doom.  Hey man, today you have some work, you get to work on your book and this weekend that movie comes out that you want to see. I am reminded that things are going well, then I can feel happy for the rest of the day.  The next morning, it starts all over again.

When things aren’t going well, (in my pre-Zoloft days, was almost all the time in my head) self-doubt, and all the sludge that comes with it felt oh-so-normal.  Nothing was worth the effort because if I had anything to do with it, it was going to suck.  My writing was just journal entries; bitching and moaning. 

Everything changes when I understood the importance of decisions in your life.  Not choices; I’ve never liked that word, really.  I don’t care about the options out there.  The options are where all of life’s arguments begin.  What I mean is, the decisions you make to live your life the way that works for you.  You make those decisions and you deal with the sacrifices and consequences that come with them.

Self-doubt is nothing but “I’m not sure.” A decision can be interpreted as “I’m not sure either, but I’m doing it anyway.”

So, that’s all cool. 

However, just like an ex-smoker chews gum or eat Twizzlers to satisfy the oral fixation that still plagues them, there are plenty of behaviors us self-doubters don’t even realize we possess.  Even if we have a handle on the doubt, we have a lot of shitty habits that still get in the way.

I do not know how to promote myself.  I have a nearly finished, fun book that will be thrust out into the world in a month or two.  A confident person would already have a marketing strategy in place to promote and hopefully sell this book to as many readers as possible.  My brain won’t even let me think of that.  Honestly.  Every time I try to learn about that shit, I get distracted by Facebook, something on TV, a squirrel outside of my window. 

Self-doubt is saying: Who the hell are you?  Who would read your dumb shit?

I should be in a writer’s group.  It would be great to have a few outside opinions and I need an opportunity to meet people. I am not in one.  They exist; they’re all over the place around here. I can’t bring myself to join. It doesn’t matter that the room is full of people in the same boat as I am, thinking similar thoughts.

Self-doubt is saying: Everyone there is better than you.  They won’t respect you when they discover how bad you suck.

This is want I want to do with the rest of my life.  I have forsaken all the other interests and hobbies so I can improve as a writer.  I want to imagine myself as a published writer with a following.  I want to imagine myself doing this professionally, where all my work life is centered on creative ideas and figuring out stories and making them work.  My brain won’t let me think of that for more than two seconds.

Self-doubt, that unbridled asshole, is saying:  Success is for other people. It’s too late.  You’re kidding yourself.  You aren’t any good.

So what do you do?  Every morning, every single morning, you have to remind yourself of what’s good and what’s working in your life.  You can’t give self-doubt an inch of room.  This process is exhausting, but the alternative is…well, I don’t know what the alternative is anymore, so that’s a step in the right direction.

When Your Spouse Is A Friggin' Nerd

Guess which one's the nerd?

My wife gave me a wonderful gift a few weeks ago.  We were attempting to cool off near our window AC unit on a particularly annoying August summer day.  Neither one of us are summer people, and the will to go and do and be and live eludes us until mid-September or so.  She asked me: “What are your favorite TV characters of all time?”

For some people that would be an inane conversation starter, but for me, it is something that could keep me occupied for hours.  You, see, my wife is married to a nerd.  She, herself is not a nerd, nor is she nerdy.  But after a few decades of living with one, she understands the potential that having one around can present.

I don’t want to detail the aspects of a nerdy person, or the difference between a nerd or a geek, or the fact that just because you liked Iron Man doesn’t make you anything special or not special. To be completely factual, I’m only part-nerd.  There are many aspects of pure nerdliness that I lack, or have abandoned.  I know when to let stuff go.  I know how to pick my battles and avoid arguments over irrelevant horseshit. I know that this is a world only partially based in logic; that human emotions, relationships and traditions factor into everything.

My wife knows that I’m into stuff.  That is a universal nerd attribute.  We are passionate.  We have an emotional attachment to a wide array of stuff. She knows that tossing me a question about putting some arbitrary metrics to a list of my own opinion and design will begin a discussion. We’ll also find some fun in it.  It’s as if I am a dog and she bought a new chew toy.  I have to rip into it.  I can’t let it just sit there.  I need to round out my top ten, AND I have to help her round out hers. 

She boiled my nerdliness down to a few personality details.  I have a good memory.  I am full of references. And, I like the stuff nerds like.  I like fiction, I like sci-fi, time travel, superheroes, and I get all excited about all of that stuff. That’s about it.  There’s no math involved, there is no dressing up, there are no fictional languages spoken.  Pretty average nerd-cred.

For the spouse, I am the entertainment center.  It’s a deal we made a long time ago that seems to be panning out okay.  I try my best to get her hyped up for things, but it’s usually a losing battle. I can say for certain she was on board with the Lord of the Rings movies and all the Harry Potter stuff before me.  She was responsible for sending me down those rabbit holes.  She picks and chooses superhero stuff.  Yes to Avengers, no to Superman.  She does not give a damn about time travel, which was a tough pill to swallow.  But I keep trying, and I think that’s the whole point.

Unless you have another nerd in close proximity, you are left to your own creative devices to play with nerd stuff.  The internet is there, but it’s not the same.  Too many angry nerds out there who don’t know how to have fun.  So, when the Mrs. throws me something like rating my favorite TV characters you know damn sure I’m going to deliver.  And, I will be honest.  This occurred on a weekend.  If this had happened during the week, when I clearly had a bunch of work to get done, the list of TV characters would be first and foremost on my mind.  I remember my old drone jobs; frittering away in front of a computer.  When the opportunity came to make a list or solve a puzzle, all work stopped.

As it should, if you ask me.

So I am thankful to my wife for feeding this undying beast.  Good luck in your endeavors to satiate the nerd in your life.

For the nerds, here’s my final list. I stuck with TV dramas only. I kept it to one character per show, and in no particular order:

Frank Pembleton – Homicide: Life on the Street

Desmond Hume - Lost

Omar Little – The Wire

Josh Lyman – The West Wing

Jesse Pinkman – Breaking Bad

Raylan Givens - Justified

Alice Morgan – Luther

Malcolm Reynolds – Firefly

Helena – Orphan Black

Sherlock Holmes – Sherlock

405,000 Keystrokes Later...

The author. Slanty.

The first draft is done.  Okay, it’s technically Draft 2.5.  I think that might need explaining.  (It doesn’t, but I’m going to do it anyway.)

I wrote very fast back in June.  I hit the ground running with a rough plot outline complete with 3 X 5 cards.  It turns out I prefer writing all my notes in a document, but it was cool to have the cards at the beginning of all this.  When I hit the mid-point of the story, I realized how quickly I was moving things ahead, and that’s when I decided to slow down. 

I hate the summer.  I’ve never been a fan.  It’s well documented that I like the weather cool and comfy.  I started writing notes in April and May, and I wrote some backstory stuff just before I began the whole thing on May 27 or so. So that meant the bulk of my writing occurred in the hottest summer on record, in my non-air-conditioned room with a box fan set to HIGH three feet from my face.  I don’t know a lot about the life of a professional writer, but I assume one typically doesn’t have damp armpits after knocking out 2,000 words.

I felt better about the process, and I reached the end of the story in August.  However, I still had to rewrite the first half.  As I moved through the draft, I realized my attempt to slow the story down still wasn’t good enough, so I ended up rewriting entire scenes.  I also cleaned up the plot, made better connections, fiddled with the dialogue.

I finished all of that yesterday. And, the novel is still a little short.

Today begins the next phase.  If I was a more seasoned writer, I would have had the tempo down a lot earlier, and could have patiently written my story.  But this is only my fifth experience, and it’s been forever since my fourth.  Also, I had to contend with an undeniable fact. I AM THE WORST TYPIST IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD. You should see the typos just in this blog entry before I went back and fixed them.  These things are usually between 600 and 1000 words.  My first draft is 72,000 words, and it still needs about 10,000 more. Imagine the amount of typos and screw-ups.

My writing time was 4:00. I posted a schedule at my desk and originally had slotted 6:00 to 8:00 for writing. I figured after dinner I have a little energy, so I’d start typing right after I finished.  The big flaw in that plan was my midday half-caf. I quit caffeine five years ago and have been drinking decaf coffee since then.  No problems.  But working and writing every day, trying to keep up with both, and knowing that you have to write EVERY day was tiring. I have to admit it. I’m 43, and Jim likes a little nap when he can get it. So, I decided to up my coffee intake a bit.  Four o’clock is when my measured dose of caffeine kicks in, so I wrote from then until I felt I should stop.  I aimed for 1,200 words a day, but it fluctuated between 700 and 2200. 

Again, why am I writing this?  I think I understand.  I love to document stuff.  I think I want to remember this process, so I won’t complain in a month or so when I bogged down with the next one.

On the topic of documentation, I also keep a writing journal.  I heard about it years ago, and I recommend it highly.  Even if your entry is just the word count for the day, you can track your progress and that can save your sanity when you hit a wall. 

After this pass, I give it to my wife to read.  Then, it has to “sit in a drawer” for a while.  You do this to give it a chance to breathe or something, and you have a chance to think about other things. The rule is six weeks, but I’m only going three or four.  Then, I see where the holes are and fill them.   In the meantime, I’m gonna read as much as I can and write a bunch of stupid horseshit for this blog you’re reading. (Or not reading. The fact that nobody reads this things does offer some creative freedom.  Why not go nuts?)

Once the story is polished (and titled, I’m still debating) it’s time to put it out there in the world. 

Then I start all over again, until my fingers fall off.

And, that’s how the tractor was made.

Writing Journal - Part #3 in the Slowing the Hell Down Series

joefentonart.com

Oh, I’m feeling it.

            I am right now in the position to fully understand the wonderful merit of slowing down.  For writing a large story it is imperative and essential. And, as I have recently discovered, it is where all the good stuff is found.

            I’d like to explain exactly what I mean by slowing down.  The words are vague, and can mean a few different things.  I think for my situation, I have to embrace all definitions of the phrase.  But as far as writing, work, and the creative process is concerned slowing down is the only way you get the emotional handshake between merely trying something and expression. It is how an activity can evolve from something you just do, to something that is a part of you.

            For years, I knew I had something to say and I had nine different ways to say it.  I tinkered and goofed around with comedy, poetry, short stories, scripts, novels, blogs, essays, and writing my podcast.  I didn’t half-ass everything, but I also don’t remember digging too deep.  I don’t remember an intensity of emotion. When I wrote my first few “longer” stories, I wanted to prove that I could do it.  I typed fast, thought fast, and put everything together fast.  What was left was a handful of neat ideas, strung together with thin strings of character development.  I had not started taking my pills yet, either.

This still feels too ethereal to explain.  I’ll keep trying. 

Yesterday, I sat down at my writing time.  The task for the day was to continue the second draft, which specifically included an overhaul of the first third of my book.  I got into the groove of writing and thinking slower after a sizable chunk of my story had been written. So the end is paced, and the beginning is a runaway freight train with huge missing pieces.

So, I knew I had to tackle a scene that I roughly fleshed out two months ago.  The lazy part of my brain wanted to breeze past it again, or even skip it altogether.  I couldn’t think of what was needed to fix the scene either.  Nothing was coming to mind.  So, I just started writing.  Purposefully and completely.  With attention to everything, including sentence structure, word repetition, as well as character development, tone, and all that good stuff.  What resulted was a half chapter of the completely unexpected.  It only comes from purposeful work.  Not hard work.  Work that matters to me.

I wasn’t painting by throwing cans of paint into a jet engine and watching it splatter on the floor.  I was painting a tree, leaf by leaf.  I was knitting a sweater, piece by piece.  I was hand-rolling 500 Swedish meatballs into identically-sized hors d’oeuvres.

I couldn’t do that with the guitar.  I couldn’t memorize all the chords and structures. I couldn’t hit the open mics five times a week to build comedy muscles. I’m not meticulous with anything I do.  When I work, I do my best to not screw up.  But with writing, I get to methodically be in control of everything, at my own speed. 

This is one of those many things in life that some people learn by the time they are eight years old.  I can’t imagine the trajectory my life would have taken if I knew what it was to slow down.  It is the focus we all look for.  It is, sociologists have discovered, what makes us truly happy.  It’s not a job you love or money or fun, it’s the ability to find something to do where the rest of the world disappears and nothing else matters.  Your brain shuts off and it’s just you and the thing.  We all get it every once in a while; being with friends or your children or throwing yourself into a project.  But it’s fleeting.  It’s not love or purpose or devotion.  It’s a connection.  Unlike anything else life can give you.

Damn, I hope this book is good.

Writing Journal - 30,000 Words, and Heeding the Advice of Stephen King

I'm willing to say, he knows a little something about the craft.

            I’ve been trying to remember the exact wording of Stephen King’s advice in On Writing.  There is a ton of great stuff in there, but he did finish up with a great line about the craft itself.  I think it was “Do not go into this lightly.”  I’m sure that’s close. I should know it by now. I've read the book three times. At least I understood the sentiment.

            Months ago I wrote about my lifelong habit of half-assing everything I had to do. I was just trying to be honest, and that is the beginning of growth.  (I think, right?) But when it came to settling down in this computer chair and beginning my fourth crack at a novel, I wanted to heed these words for once in my painfully average existence.  (Easy…I’m not taking down my life…just my attempts to do and work and be and create…) I wanted to take it completely seriously and give it everything I have.  So far, so good.

            I hit 30,000 words today. I’m not sure why that’s significant, but I’ve read my share of writing books and that specific word count total means some threshold is crossed.  I can say, they aren’t wrong.  The book feels like something now.  It was a bunch of pages before, but now it had substance; a weight to it. I like the idea of taking marble away from the sculpture, instead of, well…manufacturing the marble itself.

            Even though I’ve been here before, I feel this one is being written by a more experienced, less insane version of me.  Also, I’ve been writing all of this in the summer, which normally for me is a time to withdraw, concentrate on input, stay in the shade and count the days until the leaves change.  I built up a head of steam before the real heat kicked in, and here I am.  I’m in my shorts, (or just my drawers) with a box fan eight feet from my face.  I’m sticking to my chair, but things are happening.  It’s a fair trade.

            Back to the Stephen King quote; I guess I’ve never understood how satisfying it is to throw yourself into something if you have found that thing.  I was all in with my marriage and family, even though I never knew what I was doing.  But work was always…work.  I watched the clock, and always daydreamed of a life where I gave two shits. 

I am not going into this lightly. I’m in it.

            One of my favorite musicians, Jack White, talked about how he used to challenge himself with every album and every performance.  He would concoct new ways to make his shows more difficult to do; including purposely separating instruments on stage.  He had pianos, organs, and guitars on stands, and they were all placed in specific places to be used in the course of a single song.  (It’s what you do when you are basically the entire band.)  He would nudge the piano just a bit further away from where it needed to be. During the show, he would have to cover a slightly longer distance to get to the piano and keep time with the song he was performing. He needed this challenge to overcome. 

            I don’t need to fabricate any obstacles.  I have plenty; including a job, a home to take care of, one kid still at home, my goofy dog, and a wife who wouldn’t mind spending time with me once in a while.  It’s all part of the challenge, I assume.  It would be so easy to stop. Just walk away, like I’ve done a half dozen times before.  But something pulls me back.  One of those things, is the unexpected.

            I just wrote a little chunk that literally popped out of nowhere.  I didn’t imagine the scene beforehand. I just knew I had to get this set of characters out of one place and put them in a different place.  What I came up with was kinda beautiful.  It was downright sweet, and unexpected.  The unexpected is what we all crave in life. It is that spice, that jolt of electricity that reminds us of how cool it can be to be alive and fell what’s around you.

            (This is really a hippie-laden post.  Deal.)

Writing, (and/or throwing yourself into something) can surprise the hell out of you.  You will create things you never knew were in your brain, ready to come out. It’s happened a few times so far, and I’d forgotten how singular that feeling can be.

            “Hey.  I did this.”

Writing Journal - Learning From the Loyalty of Hired Goons

           

          

Always make room for Statham in your movie.

             I’ve slowed down my blog stuff because I am working on my magnum opus.  For me, anyway.  It is a book (or two) that I have to write and try to put out there in the world.  Things just stated clicking this week and I have that energy you feel right at the beginning of something special.  It’s not unlike that moment on the first day of an extended vacation.  You take a deep breath, realize you have the day off, and you can see the calendar in your mind with blanks across the page.  For the next week or so, the world is open to you and you are excited by the prospects of the almighty different ahead of you.

            Taking time to plot a novel is a strange process.  You have to make your characters do stuff that makes sense, but isn’t predictable, but also isn’t too unpredictable. For some reason I thought of bad stories.  If I’ve seen this plot move before, I reconsider it immediately.  Since I usually quit a shitty novel that doesn’t grab me or just pisses me off, I relied on bad movies for my story ideas.  That is, I put my ideas up against shit movies to make sure I’m not hacky or lame or wasting everyone’s time.

            I guess I should reveal I like many crappy movies. Mostly crappy action movies. They provide a thrill and if I can ignore the alarming plot holes and ridiculous dialogue I can have fun.  It’s a lot like 80’s rock.  If you just have fun with it, there is something there for you.  If you think too deeply about the message or the idiotic lyrics, you are in trouble.

            Intentionally bad movies, or schlock or Ed Wood or Birdemic is not really my thing. I’ve learned to accept there is entertainment value when you witness the Truly Awful, but I never really make the time for those. 

            Shooter.  Last Man Standing. The Rock. Con-Air. Statham movies you’ve never heard of. The 2^nd and 3^rd Die Hard’s. Revenge stories. Vengeance stories. Bruce Willis. Liam Neeson. Nic Cage. Cars. Explosions. Paper-thin plots. Gorgeous women. Over-the-top bad guys. Horrible accents.

            These are my Saturday afternoon movies.  If I’m desperate to kill a lazy day and one of them is on TV, I toss the remote aside and I’m good for an hour. It is the 12-year-old boy inside my head who longed for more GI Joe and Star Wars playtime.  I don’t yearn for a good cry. I want excitement.  With these movies, you get plenty, however you have a lot of baggage.  It is what I hope to avoid when I’m plotting my own story.

            The first thing that jumps out at you is the question of motivation.  All stories need it, but action films only rely on a few tried and true reasons for endangering one’s life.  Duty, revenge, and money.  Duty is for cop stories and a handful of military stories.  It keeps John McClain from saying “Fuck this” and leaving when terrorists show up.  Money is the motivation of a lot of villains.  One has to separate humanity from themselves to truly blow up half the world just for a nicer home and an updated wardrobe. I always think about the henchmen.  How dedicated would you be to be earning a paycheck at the lowest rung of a hired goon ladder?  Would you really take a shot at Jason Statham after you know he’s just leveled a room full of cronies?  No, you’d get the fuck out of there and change your drawers.

            That leaves vengeance.  My wife loves vengeance movies, as, I was surprised to discover, many women do.  Vengeance is interesting because it excuses just about everything in an effort to right a wrong.  It serves as a neat plot device because your character has a well of hate and pain and extinguishes it as the story progresses. Hopefully the pain is gone once the big bad is laid to waste.  That is rarely explored in these shitty movies.  Mostly it’s a ride into the sunset with a hot girl and a smoldering pile of asshole bad guy in the background.  Guitars. Credits.

           What do I hope to learn?  Well, the best possible outcome is capturing the fun of these movies without the embarrassment of their true validity as stories.  I could also get my head out of my ass and just like what I like without shame.  That will help with my day-to-day life.  But for the story, I’m looking for something a little more substantive. But not too much.

I Love Time Travel - Part 22 - Interstellar and Harry Potter's Wand

Let's all be grateful to this guy right here.

            Medium-sized spoilers ahead.

            What I know of quantum physics I learned from Neil deGrasse Tyson’s reboot of Cosmos last year.  I had Physics in high school, but I did not pay attention. I was too busy… not paying attention. Interstellar is a film about travelling through a black hole, and putting the theory of relativity through practical paces. There is no time travel per se, and what I gleaned from it was merely an observation about the entire idea of time travel.

            So, it is a bit of a tease that I wrote about this movie.  Sue me.

            McConaughey’s character, an astronaut on a mission to find another habitable planet, unexpectedly finds himself adrift through a black hole. During a sequence that is sure to break some brains, he observes his daughter from decades before. (I kinda saw this coming. ) It is time travel by observation only, and the slightest of interaction.  What Interstellar and the science behind black holes does is alter our perception of time.  It is, as mentioned it the film, another dimension; one that can be manipulated and bent. 

            That is the physics behind what we have theorized about the mechanics of time and gravity.  What is also understood is that there is no backwards.  There are no working theories behind travelling backward through time.  As of today, it is a concept.  An idea.  A fiction.

            That’s where I come in. 

            I’ve watched all of these movies and read a sizeable stack of books about time travel.  One thing is clear, the way in which time travel works is completely up to the writer.  Can you go back and kill Hitler or not? What happens when you come back?  Can you come back?  We don’t really know if it is anything more than an idea, so we can shape that idea to fit our narrative.  There is no wrong way to do it scientifically.  It only makes sense if we make some sense out of it for the reader.

            Harry Potter’s wand can shoot out spells, remember spells, have relationships with other wands, and, it knows exactly who is wielding it.  We know this because Jo Rowling said so.  Those are the physics of this magical stick that doesn’t exist. George Lucas created a laser beam that just stops in midair after about 3 feet.  It is a lightsaber, and we bought it.  I have to try and sell my version of disturbing space-time.

 I am attempting a story of my own.  It is big and it is made out of a few other projects that stumbled or ran out of steam.  I have to make a very big decision how the time travel will work. I get to do it.  I get to create time travel.  It is like creating a tiny system of governance for one small world. It has to be consistent, and obey the laws that I establish.  I get to also make the laws and decide when to disclose them. I am the creator!  My ego aside, I am hesitant, because it needs to be just right for the story I want to tell.

Loop time travel? Single string? Consciousness time travel won’t work.  A combination?  Can combinations work?

Every single idea of time travel is fraught with paradox. It is one of the reasons we can’t get our heads around it.  It is a zero in the denominator.  It is undefined. I have to make an excuse for the paradox, or accept that there is no way around it. I have to remember that this is fiction first; I’m not trying to prove my favorite flavor of travelling through time would actually work. 

So there was a method to the madness of writing all these blog things where I break down time travel stuff.  It’s all a bit of research.  

Walking Through an Oregon Neighborhood While Listening To Sly and the Family Stone

Spring reboots once again and I’m never ready for it.  Years of no transition between dry winters and deathly humid summers dulled my senses; I was color-blind. I try to start with the smells that drift in an out like waiters in a restaurant, each carrying their own aromas of blossoms, pine needles and the faint background of a farmer’s manure. There are too many to sort.

            I follow one to a tree with tiny buds and the beginnings of red leaves.  I curse myself every year for not know the names of trees.  I don’t know why it makes a difference, they are all still here every year, names or not, but I want to know all the same.  The tree stands near the street, shading a patch of grass that is surely a popular spot for dog walkers to stop and let their little guys mark some territory.  Up ahead there are a dozen trees of different varieties (Damn, it would be so cool if I knew what to call them!) The pines reach up the farthest, and the candy-corn shaped flat-leaved fellahs, some with rusty yellow, some with burgundy, and some with a deep plum shade keep them company.

            The sky cannot be ignored.  It is what my wife and I call “an Oregony day”.  The weather is cool, not cold and the sky is overcast.  When it lasts a week, it’s a bummer, but when it sneaks in and interrupts the sun, I welcome it.  To me it’s a giant blanket, tucking me in and loosening my shoulders.  These days are in balance with the sun, each one trying not to stay too long at the party. 

            I see a blue cardboard sign for a garage sale pinned to a telephone pole. “BABIES FOR SALE”.  Looking closer, they have intentionally made the rest of the print smaller.  What it actually reads is: “BABIES’ clothing FOR SALE”.  I appreciate the hell out of the writer and wish I had a few bucks on me to buy some of their crap.  I see a lot of that here.  Intentional dips into a creative pool, all for the collective enjoyment of the rest of the community.  I hear the nearby dogs bark and I move on.

            It seems that everyone here owns a dog.  I see my fair share of kitties and a handful of horses and pigs as well, but the dog is number one.  I am a dog person, as in I own one and the majority of dogdom just flat-out loves me.  Even these two yipping assholes that spend their lives in a backyard, who have barked at me 20 times a month for the last eight years, would love me if I hopped their fence and played with them.  Dogs live and breathe for love.  They pass the time with food and sniffing butts, but it is love they give and love they want in return.  It is an inescapably comfy energy.

            Oregon has changed me.  It changed me two or three times over.  I have seen my darkest lows and my sweetest highs in the same place, surrounded by all these gorgeous trees I can’t name.  We look for that sense of belonging in people our entire live, but we also try to find it on earth.  Many of us are not born or raised in the place that suits us.  There is no substitute for it.  You either feel it or you don’t.  I feel thankful to this place.  I want to thank you for letting me be myself.

            (Again.)

I Love Time Travel - Part 21 - The Flash - “Rogue Time”

Dude is fast.

           Lay off superhero fiction.  I’m tired of hearing the bitching.  Hollywood is only making movies and TV shows about people with capes and superpowers. Wah,wah, wah.  You know why?  There are two reasons:  They make zillions. The second reason is, for the most part, they are good.  They are just flat-out good now. The right people are making them, writing them, starring in them.  It is as if America had these characters sitting around for decades and we’ve just recently figured out a way to bring them to life and not be embarrassed by the results.  I, for one, can’t get enough of it.

            The Flash is in its first year on the previously unwatchable (save Arrow) network, the CW. By the end of the first episode, I knew it would work.  The show accomplished what so many movies in the past fail to do when you create a superhero world.  You create a fictional town with fictional problems, full of conflicts and villains and relationships.  You create superpowers and peril and secret identities.  You mix in some inner turmoil.  All of this is negated if you fail to nail down the tone.  The tone is everything.  The tone is the difference between a haunting and interesting Batman, and one with Bat-nipples and a car that looks like a giant dick. The wrong tone takes all the lore and throws it against wall to be laughed at and ridiculed.

            Barry Allen has superpowers, like so many other famous heroes.  But the character is known for being light-hearted and fun.  He is the class clown of the Justice League.  He has abilities that defy physics but he’s also sort of a goofball.  It maintains a balance of the potential danger of such a power with a likable guy who just wants to help people. The Flash got the tone just right.  Barry is a sweetie-pie who is also a nerd.  That’s all you have to know.  There is no brooding, no hidden darkness. He’s just a young guy trying to do the right thing.

            When the show began, the idea of Flash as a time traveler was planted early.  Barry’s mother was killed when mysterious strangers invaded his home when he was a boy.  They could not be identified because they were moving too fast.  It’s not too difficult to connect the time loop dots.  But in the most recent episode “Rogue Time”, we finally see the Flash take a trip backwards, albeit by accident, and have to deal with the consequences.

            I guess that’s what makes this episode unique in time travel lore.  Most of the time, when the past is altered to one’s benefit, the character learns a lesson about reconstructing a timeline. That’s fine. Certain events cannot be changed without repercussions; every change causes ripples, space-time continuum, etc.  “Rogue Time” was a little different.

            Barry tries to keep a tidal wave, unleashed by a weather-controlling bad guy, from destroying the city. He circles the beach at warp speed to create a something that will stop the something.  Because he reaches a certain speed, he zips back about 24 hours in time.  The Flash is right back at the beginning of the previous week’s episode.  He knows where the bad guy is and he figures he can stop all this mess from happening before it starts.  However, he learns that old time travel chestnut that time cannot be toyed with; that preventing one disaster may create another.  Barry makes the decision to alter time to change the city despite the consequences.  Of course, it sucks for the Flash.

            Instead of following Barry through his mess, the episode turns to his friend Cisco and what previously would never have happened if Barry had not changed things.  In fact, unbeknownst to Barry, Cisco was murdered for uncovering someone’s true identity.  The bulk of the story is now the events that fill the vacuum caused by Barry’s immediate disposal of the bad guy.  Cisco ends up in trouble, there is a Captain Cold sighting and Barry has to clean up a completely unrelated mess.

            Plus, the actions of the previous timeline led to love for Barry.  Iris, the woman he pines for, admits to Barry that she loves him.  Barry reveals he is the Flash, they kiss, and then…he tries to tackle a tidal wave.  In the new timeline, the drama never happens, but Barry assumes the feelings are still there.  He is wrong.  It is explained to him that emotions are not predictable; it could have been the events of the previous timeline that led to Iris professing her love.  Now, the feelings are still locked away.

            And you know what?  Barry has to deal with that shit.  There is NO resetting of the old timeline. That is what makes this episode kinda funky. The new timeline is life now.  He threw away the old one. Iris still isn’t into him, Cisco is alive, and Barry got a really shitty lesson about time travel.

            In time travel stories, there is always that moment characters decide meddling with time isn’t worth it and the DeLorean is inevitably run over by a train.  The Flash got that lesson, but to Barry, he’s stuck in a kinda crappy timeline.  His friend is alive (no one knows he was killed), but the love of his life thinks he’s kind of a creep now.  Plus, he has that loneliness of being the only one who knew what could have been. The worst part is, as far as speeding fast enough to travel through time, he is absolutely positive this is only the beginning.

My Anxiety Files – The Splinter in the Floor of My Downtime

             Apparently I am just not satisfied unless I address something that occurs in my brain that makes me appear to be an absolute nut bar. I’ve written about all manner of idiosyncrasies sparking around between my ears, from the impulse to always hurry, to my overthinking everything and squashing fun. I’m cool with that.  This is one that defies explanation; or at least is so mysterious and flat-out dumb that I have a hard time pinning down exactly what it is, or what it does to me.

            It is under the umbrella of my difficulty with free time.  I have always let anxiety or insecurity in even when it is time to relax or goof off.  When all my work is done, and it is now my turn to do what I want.  I can write or read, play a game, play guitar, take a nap; whatever.  I never know what I want, so having that choice wide open is a bit too much for my brain to handle.

            Here comes the strange part.  Whenever I do make a choice, there is a small part of my brain that has the most fucked-up criteria for deciding with what flavor of activity I engage. For a second, and usually only one second, my brain says Is this the thing you want to be associated with if you die right now?

            Yep.  You read that correctly.

            My brain actually has a list of movies, songs, settings and activities that are representative of me as a person.  If I am trying something new, watching a poor-quality Chinese action flick, or dipping into some old music that has sat in my collection for ten years, I get this ridiculous thought. For some insane reason, it sends a signal to me that this is not in that library of what I am, that the characteristics of this pastime would not jibe with who I really am.

            Yeah, I know.

            The only conclusion I can make to explain why this thought is even in my noggin is that it some type of protection against an embarrassing death scenario.  It’s some sort of Michael Hutchence/David Carradine deal, except with shitty movies and Hagar-era Van Halen replacing the belts and closet doors.

Yes. Gross.  Not denying it.

Whatever this is, be it fear or insecurity or just wacko bananas talk, it has affected me.  For years, I was so hesitant to try new things.  You name it, my brain had trouble associating with it.  My intellectual side had no use for this glitch and I had to step over it like splinters in a floorboard.  I like to read new books and listen to new music.  I don’t mind plays and arty-farty films. I also don’t mind taking a look back at old shit I used to love.  There is plenty of room in anyone’s mind for all of that input.  It will sort out what you like.  That’s in its job description.

So, if I have reasoned that it just silly to have a glitch in your brain that sorts out the input before you interact, on the sheer chance someone thinks you embrace it, then why does that thought come back?  Why is that splinter even in the floor at all?

Time. It has to be time.  It’s the only thing left.

My brain might be saying: Hey asshole, life is short, you don’t want to kill two hours with a movie you won’t like.  You don’t want your last minutes on earth to have a shitty soundtrack.  You don’t want to fritter and waste the hours that make up a dull day.

Again, the logic falls flat.  Whether you think life is long or life is short, you would like to fill it with memories and activities, and in your down time, you would like a smorgasbord of ideas and sounds and art and stories.  You can’t do that with the same old shit flashing in front of your eyes.  

              I tried to explain earlier, I do not have this figured out.  The point is, I have a minor, yet persistent stumbling block in my mind that tries to prevent me from acquiring new sights and sounds.  I do not know from whence it came, I do not thoroughly understand its reason for existence, and it is a pain in the ass to destroy.

Half-Assin' It Since '72

“No one lives their life doing all the things they say they should.”

I suck at everything.

Let me start again.

I think I suck at everything.  Just two minutes ago I realized I wasn’t going to exercise today, and I had even planned a time to go.  I don’t have a valid reason for not going, but I am a little beat after a long day and that excuse will just have to do this time.   I also want to start fleshing out my book idea, and those ideas are coming slow in the last two days.  I look around the house and I see no less than 20 projects I need to finish. I have a hole in my garage ceiling, kitchen remodeling is almost done, the yard is a mess, I have four books I’m reading at the same time, and I still have tax forms on my desk screaming at me about home much of a slob I am.

I know it takes some self-love to let this shit go.  I can do that now, even on crappy days.  And, I would never write an essay about how tough it is to get through the day and finish all your chores.  That’s for daytime TV and grocery checkout magazines.  The feeling I am describing is just not caring about what you’re doing.  It’s darker, more sinister and scarier.     

A lack of passion is that familiar signpost of depression.  The dark and heavy afghan of depression robs you of your will.  I can say that I am not fighting the beast right now.  However, a lifetime of living under its shadow has left me with some nasty habits. 

For most of my adult life, I have been an exemplary employee.  I am usually relied on to accomplish tasks on my own, and I usually have a decent rapport with the boss, owner, or corporate lackey in charge of my comings and goings.  I have had the adult responsibility of bringing home some kind of bacon since I was the wee age of 21.  Mouths to feed.  Mortgage to pay.  Hair to lose.

Inside my head, I was a giant pile of who-gives-a-fuck.  I did the work, showed up on time, was honest and dependable. But I never experienced one good day of work.  I just could not manufacture an ounce of pride. I could never buy into what the boss and the company were selling.  I’m not cool.  I am somehow broken.

So, I was a stand-up Joe at the job, but I was no go-getter. I kept my head down, sometimes literally,  and punched in and out on time. I can blame anxiety and depression and being a young dad, but the truth is I could not find a reason to excel.  I half-assed it all.  When you half-ass your 40 hour a week job, you can easily slip into half-assing your entire life. It becomes easy to quit things. It is so easy to let messes accumulate, stop caring about yourself, leave the house without deodorant.  It’s easy to cut corners and you forget what that sensation of a job well done is supposed to feel like.  I had a few of those sensations in my college classes.  It was nice.

I work for myself now.  I have a client, and I recently caught a little shit because my work was getting sloppy.  It’s fixable, and I’m sure I can right the ship.  In the past, this news would have sent me spiraling.  I hated when I screwed up at a job I couldn’t give two shits about.  From the outside, it makes perfect sense that I would screw up at a job where I had no focus. But, I would just feel like a super-loser; I couldn’t even correctly perform at a job I felt wasn’t worth my time. But I was at the job.  And this was my time as well as the company’s time. I couldn’t put that together.

There was no freak out after I heard from the client.  Which is good news. I also am nursing new ideas for a book, and things are taking shape.  I remember feeling passionate about the first novel I wrote, and how it was as if I carried a little backpack around with me; I could fill it with every dumb idea I came up with and I could sort it all out when I got home like Halloween candy. The key word is passionate, right?  I’ve never had a damn thing published and it irks the hell out of me.  There is a passion in my chest for this.  There is a fight.  It could be all ego and I’m doomed for another disappointment, and it is likely that I will fail, but I still have to do it.  That’s what passion does to you. 

None of those jobs ever ignited anything inside me.  They were a means to an end.  I judged myself and all the residual half-assing it caused by my failures at those jobs.  Jobs I didn’t like.  It is so very corny to repeat the notion that you have to find something you are passionate about.  Most people would like to make money at it.  Yeah, that would be sweet. But I’m willing to bet most of us will never make a nickel off of our passions, or at least not enough to retire on. But you still have to do it. Its passion...it’s kind of an asshole.

So I’m screwed.  This is my passion. Typing letters and symbols to express thoughts.  I love to do it and when I’m on a roll I feel like I am exactly where I am supposed to be.  Everything else, outside of my personal relationships, is basically a waste of my time.   

Except exercise.  Yes, I’ll go tomorrow.