Birthday

Today I turned 34.  I got some cash and a gift card to the bookstore.  I also dropped my wife's cell phone on my small dog's head on accident when it flew out of my hand.  Poor little thing is smaller than some cats, and after her trip to the animal hospital a couple weeks ago, she shakes horribly if she's scared, and can't stand being left without human company.  Very sad.  She's my little pal.  I felt like crap.  I've got a three day weekend, but today kinda sucked.  Just another day.  I should be able to get some writing in I guess, but who knows?  I've got quite a bit of writing that has to be done, but I never seem to get as much done as I should.  Its hard to write at home, the dogs want to sit in my lap, or there's some nonsense going on around here to distract me.  I'm too lazy to drive to a Starbucks.  Though I found my pair of noise cancelling headphones, it can't hurt to drive out the world for an hour or two.

Politicizing Comics

Its odd that a medium like comic books which is read by children and adults is made into a propaganda movement.  Many of the individuals writing for comics these days are easily some of the best storytellers I've ever come across.  These visual writers are able to convey things, ideas, and concepts we might not see anywhere else.  My contention is that while in the past comics were an apolitical entertainment medium, these days the reverse is true.  The writers these are writing for themselves, much like the rest of entertainment media.  Issues like gay marriage, and "social justice," and even outright anti-religion bias seep into storylines, that quite honestly, didn't even need to be in those stories to begin with.

It would make perfect sense to maintain the usual, non-political stance that comics have taken throughout their history, simply because you're not agitating half your fanbase.  It seems to me the market is shrinking already, why add to it?  I was hearing about the comic industry shrinking 10-15 years ago, but hey, if these guys want to lose some money promoting propaganda, have at it, I guess.  It seems to me that you have heroes for a reason.  Writers, tend to sit and write, some have actually done things with their lives, as most people do, working back breaking 9 to 5 jobs, but most do not, because they cannot.  Especially these days.  We live in an era of sissies.  I too, am trying to be a writer, I work on a few projects when I can fit the time in, because I bust my hump at a strenuous manual labor job.  Our culture today, and really the people trying to steer our culture, wouldn't know hard work from a hole in the ground.  And so you get writers who are divas, who can't handle the slightest disagreement from fans about politics, or you get writers who say God was behind an alien invasion as was written in Marvel's Secret Invasion, or that "science lost out to religion" as was the case in DC story called Rock of Ages.  Its sad.  These stories were good enough they could've been done without injecting some anti-faith nonsense.  Even now we're seeing anti-cop and political propaganda even apart from anti-religous sentiment in mainstream comics, and little kids read this stuff.  Its silly to me.

What it comes down to is fiction writers are people to fantasize.  Few have really lived any sort of heroism that they put into characters.  That is, they want to be heroic, but they've no stomach for doing anything like that in real life.  It could be why many people aren't writers, or actors, or artists.  They're out there doing something themselves, they don't have to dream up what they wish they could be like.  Much like the media that is majority liberal, and more specifically like sports media, where commentators may even more liberal than standard media, as one conservative commentator points outs, they offer nonsense, or scathing rebukes of athletes who don't win a game, its the former athletes themselves who offer better analysis because they've lived through the careers that have success and failures.  Comics would do well to return to its apolitical stories.  Notice I said, "apolitical."  Stories should be neither conservative nor liberal.  Instead you have whiny, though talented storytellers, shrinking the market because they're telling stories for themselves, instead of for the readers.

Puzzlement

Probably the only thing harder to solve a mystery, or at least guess at the solution to one, is to write your own.  I've got nothing.  I've got one mystery story in the works for a small anthology I'm working on, but I also wanted a stand alone mystery too.  So far all I've really done is write down old sayings I like and sometimes still use, to see if I can fit them into a story.  I'm really behind on all my projects and starting another one isn't probably the best idea, but hey, why not?  Its been such a weird year, I figure why not be as wacky, as I can be do things I might not normally.  It makes sense to try and see how to solve mysteries, and probably do a little research on police procedures and the like.  Story ideas seem to be fewer these days, but I've been getting better at writing them down before I forget them.  I don't know even know how many genius ideas I've had but didn't remember them later.

Lucy

My dog Lucy is back from the hospital.  She likes to eat or tear up what she can find.  We've found nails, paper clips, stuffing from toy animals, and string in her mouth.  She ate something, probably some kind of fabric, and spent a couple of days vomiting and from both ends.  We took to the vet and left her at the hospital there.  They rehydrated her and she passed whatever was in her system.  Its a little crazy how much time you spend crying over a 10lb chihuahua mix, wondering if she's going to be ok.  We just got Lucy back about 3 hours ago, and she's got a couple of medications to fight off infection and some pain, but she's back to her old jumping off the walls self.  I've had pets before but for some reason, my gut was ripped out over a tiny little dog who dances around in excitement when I get home from work.