These Cellular Telephone Things Are Fantastic

Today, well, today and yesterday, I was traveling and didn't have access to a pen and paper, these are still the things I use for writing down my ideas.  But I didn't have access to them, at that point, so I sent myself a few text messages, and viola!  I had my ideas written down before I could get them to paper.  I can't tell you how many times I 've forgotten something I'm sure was gonna land me a Nobel Prize or something.  Isn't technology great?  On the other hand, I was texting my wife at lunch, and some joker in a suit, who was doing lunges at the bottom of a staircase, started yelling into his phone, about his lunch, like he was important.  Isn't technology stupid?

American Sniper

Tonight I saw American Sniper with my wife.  I was only partially aware of the story of Chris Kyle, mostly because I find out about him some time after his death.  I knew more of the better known details, namely that he was the best sniper in American history, and his tragic death, later after his heroic service in Iraq.  I started making my way through the book, and though I haven't finished it yet, there's a lot of great details that can't be included in the movie, I would think because of time constraints, though you can certainly see the spirit of the book in the movie.  How's that for a run-on sentence?

There have been several in my family that've had the distinct honor of serving this country, and while I did not serve, this movie is one that will leave you wishing you had.  We live our comfy little lives, while strangers go off and die for us, and I think this comes out in the movie.  This movie left me feeling more patriotic, and more like I've done so little compared to strangers who go off and fight for us.  Its probably the first that shows how soldiers deal with returning back to the States, and really the first that dealt with confronting the moral decisions of doing impossible things, we'd never have considered, because we've never been to a war zone.

Two of his military accomplishments really take the forefront in this movie, which the actors, and director Clint Eastwood managed to tie into Kyle's story really well.  One was his being the deadliest sniper in U.S. military history, and his longest shot, at 2,100 yards, well over a mile away.  These two things really stood out to me, and reminded me of another movie Lone Survivor, a movie about another Navy Seal, Marcus Lattrell.  While both movies chronicle extraordinary events in the lives of Navy Seals, and while both will choke you up, even the toughest of men, American Sniper, just made Chris Kyle seem like a self-made superman.  His attitude, his grit, are just...great, and really things that are lacking in our all too sissified culture.  You come out of that movie seeing his devotion to his fellow soldiers, and to his fellow Americans, in general.

It just...sucks, that he ends up dying serving others, well after the dangers of Iraq have passed.  That for me might be the biggest gutwrencher of Chris's story.  But even then, he died trying to help someone.  I left with a large lump in my throat, and watery eyes, because of a stranger willing to put himself in danger for people he'd never meet simply because they were American.  That is the thing to take away from this movie, and really the sacrifice of Chris Kyle in general.  His was, and is, a story of sacrifce, and service to others, at the highest level he knew.

The Bad Guy

I suppose most people write themselves into the hero when they're making up a story, but you're not likely to do that when you're making up a villain.  But you are maybe likely to write people you know into a villain.  Its kind of fun.  You can write all the nasty traits of people who bother you, and then write put them all into one nasty dude.  The problem I'm having is not so much the nastiness of my villian, but his cleverness.  I'm trying to figure out how to make him go step for step, and move for move with the main character.  Making him evil is interesting, and making him clever is something that takes some thought.  Most of the people I'm modeling my villian are frankly nasty people, but very stupid.  I have to give him some intelligence.  So naturally I have to put part of myself into the villain too. Ha.

Slow Week

I've managed to get a few more paragraphs done in between my online gaming.  It seems I'm pretty good at taking breaks this week.  I'm hoping I can finish another page or two this weekend.  I'm sort of fighting an uphill battle in my story, as I'm trying to fit all the right pieces together, and make sure I can fit all this into a pretty little package by the end of the story.  The more I write about the villain the more I put things into him about people I know that I didn't get along with, or people that I know that are jerks, or folks that did me wrong.  Because of all that its a little difficult to construct an ending that isn't based solely on overcoming the villain, but is done in way that makes sense, and isn't just me having my hero just come out winning with his fists.  I want to use his intellect, even more than his body.  There's something especially satisfying in having heroes that aren't just all cerebral, or isn't all based physical in beatdowns, though thats exciting enough.  I think you've got to have both, though as a guy, and a manly guy, I wanna see more beatdowns.  There's something especially satisfying in writing a mystery, or intrigue story.  You're not just trying to solve a mystery, or make characters solve a mystery, as a writer you're trying to solve it while you build it.  Its fun.

A Little Reality For the Fiction

Today I picked up a nameplate I had made for the character in my novel.  It looks very professional, and it was cheap to make.  I wanted to have something I could see, and direct make my story more real for me.  I won't give away too much, but its a tangible bridge I can look and direct, focus, and create emotions with.  A lot of this traits stem from people I've had the misfortune of knowing, or of my own conventions about what this villain should be.  Much like hearing a song, or smelling a smell, will remind of us something, I think this thing I can see, and touch, will spark the right frequencies of emotions and ideas that I can use for my writing.  So I guess we'll see how it goes.

Novel

I'm finally found the right project for me.  After about, oh, probably 15 years, of trying to find the perfect thing to write, I finally stumbled on something I'm excited about.  I had all these ideas for different things, and just sort of pulled them together into one cool thing.  So far, I've been going on this thing for a couple of a months, and its been going really well.  Finally.  Its been actually fun to write, for a change, and I'm working at a faster pace.  Its finally good to be a writer.