Everyday People

I've been thinking about taking a page, so to speak, from Alfred Hitchcock. Most of his movies, and tv shows, featured regular people, who are in the wrong place at the wrong time. The first story I wrote was something akin to that, but I want to make something more believable. I'm not sure I can write a cop story, or a spy thriller, because I'm not horribly familiar with the procedural side of those jobs, but I'm still mulling it over. I've been trying to read and learn as much as I can, but I may just stick to something happening a regular guy. There's something to be said for a guy who shows some bravery for the first time, who's never had to, and has been living a cushy life. On the other hand, we want to be the guy who fights bad guys all the time, wins the girl, and rides off into the sunset. I think either way, I'm looking for human characters, with good stories, that showcase the unexpected. And that's sort of what you want, anyway.

Batman Movies

I've been thinking about all this for a while.  And I've prided myself on being a fan of Batman since I was a kid. I mean little kid. I was looking at comic books at 3 or 4. Even if I couldn't understand what I was reading I still enjoyed comic books and was enthralled with the idea of people being able to do things normal people couldn't or wouldn't do. Naturally I read a lot of Batman and Spiderman because they were the most human. Batman because he didn't have any superpowers, and Spiderman, not because he had them, but because he had the most human responses to things he was doing. Batman is more of a favorite because he's sort of the ultimate man. Brains, brawn, detective skills, advanced technology, cool vehicles, hidden lair, sometimes he chases Catwoman around too.

Now I know what you're thinking, it's time for men to put away childish things. But what are you supposed to do when something meant a great deal to you in your childhood, and if the story is written right, as there's a great deal of talented writers not me necessarily, Batman has the ability to appeal to people of all ages. It's an escape. To revere something or someone, even a fictional something that can do things we can't. Look at The Dark Knight Trilogy for instance. I've made some mentions of this before I think, but I'll try to delve a little harder here.

Christopher Nolan took Batman seriously, which is what you'd really have to do with the story anyway. A kid witnesses the murder of his parents in front of him, then proceeds to put his life on the line when he fights the mob, and terrorists with his bare hands. That's not some hokey little pie in the sky thing. There'd have to some kind of examination of that struggle to show the emotion of a child dealing with that to an extremely rich man putting his life and fortune on the line to fight evil. We tend to think of evil as a word used for the cheesy sci-fi movies from the 50s with their dastardly villians or we tend to think of evil as something from comics. Never mind that evil is all around us everyday. People are murdered, robbed, raped, around us or around the world constantly.

Heroes are people we can look up to, either by example, or by trying to do the things they do. Not too mention the fantastic behind all of this, there's a lot of things that hold sentimental value in regards to stuff like this, and most fans just want somebody who'll respect the things we've been around our whole lives as much as we do. That's what should drive the making of a movie. Should. We've seen a lot of hokey takes on Batman. From the tv series to Batman and Robin that horrifying movie with George Clooney. The costume had nipples for crying out loud. NIPPLES!

Now when Nolan rebooted Batman, it opened the door for a lot of things. It respected the material, and put it in a realistic world. He managed to do that for 3 films, which is kind of unheard of, though Marvel Studios, has done it well for a lot more than 3 films... Still DC has had trouble putting more than 3 films together that fans can take seriously.  Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy produced probably the greatest comic book based movie in The Dark Knight, and provided a springboard for possible expansion of the universe he created. And naturally when Man of Steel came out people assumed that was taking place in the same universe. And now with the unneeded reboot of Zack Synder, Batman is back to square one.

Cringeworthy Ben Affleck is Batman now. Eep. Apart from minor mistakes in Nolan's Trilogy, such as mispronouncing Ra's Al Ghul's  name, it's pronunced "Raysh" not "Raz" and using the phrase "close to the chest" instead of "close of the vest" which a Marvel movie used correctly, I think its a mild dig at DC for messing up the saying, and all this does is show how big douchebag fans like me are quick to point out things like that. Nolan's a very fine director, and did us right by fans, and really did right by storytelling in general. If I'm not mistaken he and his brother are the ones who wrote the scripts, and they've got a knack for setting up loose ends and then tying up those ends into nice emotional and satisfying conclusions.

Zack Synder seems intent on being DC's version of Joss Whedon, which he isn't. He's barely had some mediocre success, while Whedon and the Marvel crew are breaking out into TV and continuing to develop runaway successes with movies. The Dark Knight Trilogy left room to continue the story in a realistic way, while Synder has opted to cram parts from different comic book stories in an effort to give this new universe some history and make to make it seem more established. They didn't even call Batman Batman, and Jesse Eisernberg's Lex Luthor was annoying. I tend to think at this point what comic fans are going to be stuck with is subpar movies with DC Comics' characters and above average movies with Marvel characters. It's "just comic books" but it's what now kids and adults have distracted, entertained, amused, and escaped into fantasy with. And that's all I have to say about that.

Book Ideas

I've been getting ideas for books, but I'm stuck on the stuff I'm working on now. There's a lot of stuff going on these days, the holidays are coming up, so now I've gotta juggle buying Christmas gifts, possible family getaways, bills, endless research reading, the occasional sentence worth or progress I can add to whatever story I'm working on, and a partridge in a pear tree. 2016 seems to be the Year of the Grey Hair. Its either endless traffic and work, or trying to rest and catch up on sleep from everything, and not getting enough done everywhere. I'm optimistic in some regards because I managed to get 3 different book ideas this weekend. There's a lot to digest because there's a bunch of ideas, and research to do. I say a bunch, but I'm actually too sure how much I'll have to do. About 90% of the things I'm working on are fiction, but a few things need to sound mildly technical. Sometimes you have to sound like you know what you're talking about especially if you don't know what you're talking about. You have to get wordy when you're trying to sound technical, as opposed to say murder mysteries, or thrillers, where you only have to sound techie maybe when you're trying to solve a crime at the end of a novel. I'm trying to make even the format of certain books part of the storytelling, so I'm trying to do subtle things, but it takes a while. It took me a year and a half for one novel, and the thing wasn't even that long. I'm not trying to write for length though, you just have to go till the story is told.

Puzzles and Motivation

I bought a book about puzzle making in the hopes I could put puzzles into my stories, not word problems necessarily, but puzzles that were hidden in the text, and maybe help solve a mystery novel I'm working on. The reader doesn't have to see the puzzles to solve it, but if they can spot any puzzles it could help solve the story.  I've found a couple I'm going to try and use actually, one or two I found I'm going to build into the plot, and one subtle puzzle I'm trying to build as part of the story, but not part of the plot. Sorry if that's vague, but you can't give away everything.  Anyway, I've been trying to find puzzles I can build, which is really the premise of this book I'm using as research, the problem is its confusing. The language is well...confusing. Bet you thought I was going to say puzzling right?  Its confusing to understand, I was hoping I could learn how to build my own puzzles not try to cypher simple English.  How do people crack codes, or solve the unsolvable?  The puzzle aspect isn't all that important, they're going to be visible, but they're also going to be invisible too.  I get bored easily so I'm trying to do things that keep things interesting, I figure if I get bored others will too, and what better way to get somebody to read your story over and over again if they know there's something there but haven't found it yet?

Second Book

I started a second book tonight. I know some things about books and collecting different things, so I'm writing a very brief little book on all that. Very brief. It went beyond 30 pages I'd be surprised, its just supposed to be something like a tutorial. Its probably short enough I can get it published in an e-book too. It really shouldn't take too long, I'm just jotting down a few things I've picked up along the way, to pass along to the reader. I might be able to finish it in a month or so. It may annoy some people too because I know some things they may not like to see in print too.

4 States

I had to make a delivery near the Canadian border last week. I drove from the LA area to the Washington State side of the border, while a Canadian company came down from Vancouver and picked up the load to take it back over the border. I then drove 18 hours all the way down to the Bakersfield area to crash for the night because I was starting to see colors. I managed to make it the last 3 hours down to Orange County before I was supposed to drive my family to Arizona for the weekend. Arizona was my 4th state in 4 days and this was all driving, something like 3,500 miles. Now we're talking about moving to Arizona because the cost of living is cheaper, and I can probably get a better job. It could mean more money and more time to write, which I really need. It took me a year and a half just to write a tiny novella, and I'm trying to tackle larger projects. I might even be able to buy a house down the road. BUY A FREAKING HOUSE? IS SUCH A THING POSSIBLE? I suppose it is, can you imagine, being able to have a home office or a den and be able to hang all the dopey things you wanna put up, and put out books that have been in boxes for years? What a liberating concept, to be able to make a home your own and hopefully not have to worry about moving anytime soon? Naturally I'm really excited about making an office I can hide from the family in, with a nice lock on the door. Oh...to dream the impossible dream...

I'm The Awkward House Guest

I did a job in Arizona back in 2014, and stayed at my wife's friend's house. Her husband showed me this cool patch thing, and I asked if I could have it. I don't do stuff like that normally. Worse yet, I've no idea why I wanted it. So after a little over a year and a half later, I've gotta figure out a way to return it. Do I sneak it in somehow or do I just give it back? This sounds like a Seinfeld episode...