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...

Arizona

After a couple of hiccups, it looks like we get to go to Arizona for a few days to get away. I need to rest physically, and mentally. I'm hoping to recreate my last time there. I started a novel there. I'm hoping I can relax and at least get some good notes going. I need a rest too. I've been having a lot of trouble with my feet and legs, and I ain't getting any younger. I have charlie horses in both legs,  possibly bone spurs in my feet, and my knees are going out. I need to get off my feet and just lounge for a while. And there's something nice about leaving life several hundred miles behind. I'm really looking forward to sleeping for ten hours straight 4 or 5 days in a row too.

Not the Best Week

There's something to be said for endurance. When you go through certain things that really test you, often the only thing you can really take from a situation is whether or not you maintained your composure. We often find out during these little testing times whether our character stood up to scrutiny, whether we really are as firm as a redwood, or weak like a twig that snaps when you step on it. Last week I came across some moron I hadn't seen in 8 years, who was basically the same scumbag he was back in college, I've driven probably about 2,000 miles in the last couple of weeks, and the girl I got into an accident with over a month ago finally contacted me with an outrageous estimate to repair her car. I think I went batshit crazy for a few hours. It's just what you do.  And now I'm trying to figure out how to pay for some things in the next few weeks, I've gotta buy a birthday gift for my wife's best friend, cuz she hasn't seen in a while, and I need to figure out what it is we're going to pay for, because we have to travel to Arizona to go to the party... And I'm trying to get myself a new iPod because mine's starting to crash, and I'm trying to self-publish a book which is pricey if you want it done right.  And what does all this mean?  It means in the midst of trying to write, and thinking my problems center on my writing, I have to remember problems come up in other places too.

This Week

I typically commute about 700 miles a week, but last week went about 1,100, 600 just on Wednesday.   There was some kind of problem, and I picked up the wrong thing, and had to go back and get the right stuff. Needless to say, I'm very tired by the time the weekend rolls around, and I've noticed my body is starting to have some problems. Little things mostly, from driving so much to a job with a ton of physical labor. It's tough to wanna sit and work on writing, when it's a struggle to stay awake all the time. Still, I've managed to get some things done. I'm trying to finish some research before we take a little trip to Arizona next month. I'm working on a dream project, and a sci-fi book that I've been thinking about for a few years now. I'm trying to undertake some political and social projects too, but those take time, because you have to spend a great deal more time researching than you would for something like a novel. I think I can get a lot more done, now that I've finally found a rhythm. I'm hoping to have 2 more projects done by the end of the year, and another book done next year.

Dream Project

This is probably the coolest project I've ever worked on. It's not exactly a state secret, but it's such a big deal, I can't get into too much detail. I might be able to finish it pretty quickly and send it off to a publisher pretty fast. I'm trying to write a comic book script and a novelization of this so I can cover all my bases, and maybe increase my chances of getting this thing published. I might be able to write this thing in a month or so, once I've got all the info I need. It's probably the easiest thing in the world to write, partly because I've been thinking about it on and off for years.  I might be able to finish it before we take a little trip next month. It's the first time we've been able to go anywhere in 3 years. And we could use the time to relax, and I need time to figure out what I want to do after this project too.

Editing and Publishing

I gave my little novel to my stepdaughter, and she printed it out and made a bunch of marks on the printout of things I needed to fix. I sometimes miss words if I'm typing fast, I tend to "see" them even though they're not really there. At any rate, I fixed those errors, and now I'm looking for a publisher. I'm going to publish it myself, but I'm trying to find one that fits my budget. It's tough to wrangle money together when you're trying to take care of three kids. I've talked to a few this week, but I also got into a car accident, so now I've gotta figure out how much money I've gotta shell out for that too. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be able to publish soon, I just have find something that works.

Planning

I got enough writing projects to last me 10 years I think. I'm going to try and write a second book by the end of the year or beginning of next year.  I figured out I'll probably write a book about every 2 years if I can, maybe sooner if I can stay focused. It took me a year and a half to write one novel, so I think 2 years per book is not too bad. I want to cover some American history, politics, a couple more novels, and maybe a script or three. It's good to be busy.

I Finished.

That's it, I'm done. I finished the first draft of a novel. A year and a half worth of work. Such a relief. My next move is getting it published. I'm self-publishing so I need to save some money and get it edited and printed. But I'm done. And there is one lesson from all of this. Once you finish one project, it's on to the next one. I've got some political and historical books I'd like to do, and several more fiction projects. It's fun, but it's hard too. It's like a boulder's off my back.

UC Santa Barbara

This past Saturday, the wife and I went to my stepdaughter's college graduation at, you guessed it, University of California Santa Barbara.  We left later than we should but made it in time for the taco truck for lunch, in front of the beachfront senior sorority house.  She shared a room with 3 other girls, and it was essentially the messiest room I've ever seen in my life.  We hung out for a while, then went to the ceremony.  Because they let her choose what ceremony she could be a part of we waited because she was nearly all the way at the end.  No big deal, she wanted to graduate with her friends, which is part of the college experience I suppose.  Some woman got up a couple of times to announce different things, and she seemed like taught at Hogwarts instead of being an administrator at a university.  Her accent was very heavy.  It was kinda over the top it seemed, because she was singing the praises of the people who put the chairs out for the ceremony, so we could sit.  It was sort of a Braveheart speech for chair putter outers I suppose.

Now for the funny part.  I'm only 12 years older than her even though I'm her stepdad.  Her mom is 12 years older than me, and my wife's other daughter is only 10 years younger than me.  Not to worry, I didn't marry for money.  I married for looks.  The wife was a model when she was younger, and she was the prettiest woman I'd ever known, so I scooped her up fast.  We get along really well, and she takes care of me, and she's my trophy wife.  It's funny though because the first I went with my wife back before we were married, some friend of my stepdaughter's asked if I had a brother.  Ha.  This time after graduation, one of her roommates came in drunk as a skunk, and seemed like she was trying to start a threesome with another roommate and that girl's boyfriend.  We were moving my stepdaughter out of the senior house and taking her stuff back home, and this drunk girl asked my kid's boyfriend, who his friend with the beard was.  She was talking to about me.  I just smirked.  See? I'm still very popular among college girls, but apparently they have to be stupid drunk to think I'm attractive.  I've been making jokes about this for the last couple of days, it's kind of an ego boost, but mostly I just like teasing the wife about it.

Memorial Day Weekend

Why is Harry Potter on every week?  There's nothing else on for Millennials to watch besides this nonsense?  Eep.  At any rate, I got a new laptop this weekend and spent half the weekend trying to get old devices to sync up to it.  How irritating.  I've got a general idea of how to use most things technology, but they really need to make stuff for normal people.  After several hours of unsuccessfully trying to figure all that crap out, I took to writing.  I'm on the last chapter of my novel.
So far it's going really well, I did more prep work for the last chapter than I did for the whole rest of it, and it shows, at least to me it does.  I think I've got just another month or two to wind it up, and figure out how to get it edited.  I've really tried my best with this, and I'm eager to finish.

Don't Rush

It really doesn't matter what you do, but I've learned that you can't rush into everything.  Every decision we make at least the big ones need a little thought, We rush into marriages, rush into job decisions, and apartments. I myself rushed into two marriages. The second one is spectacular, the first...not so much.  Recently I've been approaching the end of my novel.  And while I'm eager to finish it, I was starting to become to hasty and wrap it up in a hurry.  You can't do that as a writer, because there's things you want to resolve with your characters, that you really are trying to resolve in yourself.  And if you want some kind of satisfaction, as well as trying to finish the story well, tbeing patient is key.  It's taken me about a year and a half to get this far, it shouldn't hurt to finish this the right way.

Three Day Weekend

Its Mother's Day weekend, and I got a three day weekend out of it, so I'm going to try no dig a bit deeper into finishing this novel thingy.  I've already got the ball rolling on the climax of the story, but I'm trying to draft a nice victory speech for my hero.  Let's face no victory is complete without a little speech that rubs the bad guy's face in the mud.  Now, for Mother's Day I got the wife a gift card to shop with, a tote bag, some pairs of socks. I think she liked it all, I didn't get to too crazy, because I also have to get her an anniversary gift this month too.  This is after we've celebrated her dad's 80th birthday, her sister's 50th, and we have to come up with money for a graduation gift for one of the girls, because she's graduating college.  At the moment I've got a nice pair of noise cancelling headphones to drown out everyone talking, because I'm trying to enjoy the last hours of the weekend. It's amazing how much you get done when you can't hear anyone else.

It's the end!

For a year and a half I've been working on a novella, and it's almost finished.  I've managed to put in a couple of things than will all tie together at the end, and I'm even a little satisfied with how it's gone so far.  I don't like my own work, so I'm always nitpicking it to pieces, but this time I'm not doing it as much.  This story sort of mixes a lot of things together, and I resolves it nicely. Even a couple of years ago I would've had trouble trying to finish a story and I'm nearing the end of this one, which is gratifying for a whole host of reasons.  I'm down to consulting my two "props" again.  One is a professional nameplate, I had made up for the main baddie, so I could sort of focus things on, and another is sort of this weird crossword puzzle looking thing I made up.  I took the villain name's name and wrote it in bold letters across a piece of paper, then I used the names of people I know that I didn't really like and used a letter of the villain's name and matched with a corresponding letter in someone else's name.  It's sort of gives my villian real traits, because now I see real people, emotions, and characteristics I can associate with my villain. The paper looks like I crossword puzzle now, as some name are sticking out of the villian's name at different directions, but I really found this to be a useful exercise.  I'm really trying to show my bad guy more deeply in these final chapters, and to resolve everything nicely in a way that makes sense. It's a shorter book, I wasn't sure I could just draw things out forever, and it's a story that should need hundreds of pages to finish anyway.  Plus, I wasn't sure people's attention spans can handle long books anymore, and I want to accommodate readers as well as write something I'm comfortable with, so I'm happy on all counts.  The finish line is fast approaching!

Motives

I'm a writer apparently.  It's really sort of a nothing job description because you're either not making much if anything, or you could be a colossal success, and the difference between success and not making is kind of a big one.  At any rate, at times it can be a title that tries to make a person seem more important than they really are.  Projection is everything.  People care what others think about them, it's science.  My point here isn't about titles, so much as it is about reality.  A writer is nothing.  With the exception of a select few telling about their exploits of things they did before writing, most writers seem to be people who don't do dangerous things, or things of real significance.  Most of them are people who fantasizing, at least fiction writers are.  Fiction writers are people who write heroes.  What they're really writing about are people are what they wish they could be.  I think that's really what writers are doing.  They write for themselves to see themselves as something stronger, smarter, better than what they really are.  At least, that's what I'm doing in my stories.  There's enough of some aspects of life that I'm trying to slip into my stories, and resolve things in a way real life never got the chance to.  There's some gratifying in that it motivates you to finish whatever it is you're working, but there's always a reminder life didn't turn out the way it could have, or should have.                                            

Millennials

This generation is probably the worse generation.  While 18 kids could be counted on to be sent off to Europe to fight Hitler in the 1940s, these days Millennials can be counted to whiny little nervous wrecks if they don't get their pumpkin spice lattes, or frappuccinos, just the way they want them.  Kids were going off to die fighting the Nazis, and these days kids are playing video games acting like they're in Special Forces.  This is a generation that think having a YouTube channel means you're famous.  These are the same idiot emo generation that wears pants so tight you'd think they were all wearing tights or something.  This participation trophy bunch can barely stay off their phones long enough to do five minutes of work in an eight hour work day.  I have to deal with this kind of pussy shit on a regular basis. My boss often gets people to help with the work we do, which is mostly manual labor.  These little assholes can't go a few minutes without checking their phones every five minutes to see if they got a text from their boyfriends or something.  These entitled little douchebags think their degree in art history will give them some kind of special knowledge about the world, while the rest of us are trying to figure out how to get something done besides wiping our ass in the course of a day.

Has anybody told them to stop cracking their knuckle, tapping the glass on their iPhones every five seconds, or to close their mouths when they're eating?  Do they have any concept of productivity, or usefulness?  It's like we went from the greatest generation to the gayest generation.  The entirety of the world is trying to produce, live, or better themselves, and these little fools find work to be an inconvenience interrupting their Snapchat sessions.  I'm not sure who's to blame, society, lazy parenting, or these little pukes themselves, maybe it's a combination, but tend to think these people need to trying to wear fedoras ironically and figure how to do something that actually matters in life.  This is without question the worst generation ever.

Walking Dead Season 6 Finale

I wish I was writing a review of the Walking Dead finale, but instead I'm writing about reviews about reviews.  People are so upset about this because the finale did not show who died, only that someone from the viewer's point of view was getting beaten to death.  Supposedly there's clues as to who died, and if I get motivated enough I'll try to figure it out, though most likely I'll just wait till the Season 7 premiere.  It's' funny because some of the stuff I was reading online said things like, "the show is broken" or "this was a half-measure at best" as though the show is somehow on its last legs.  The very fact that people are whiny about the finale because they don't who died is an accomplishment in itself.  Personally I'm not excited about not knowing, I think it sucks not to know, but from a storytelling standpoint and from a TV writing standpoint it makes perfect sense.  If you're trying to up the game and be original why not do something other shows won't do, or are unable to do.  This thing has people talking.  That's the whole point.  You do something big, you do something unexpected, you do something that other stories won't.  This finale was a huge success, even if you hate it.  It leaves so many possibilities open, and it continues to follow the same model, or ripping you apart emotionally, the same way the zombies rip up everything else.

I Went to Sprouts and Whatnot

I went to Sprouts to get hair vitamins and chocolate covered cherries. I made the mistake of trimming the sides of my face, so I wanted to see if I could correct my mistake and make it grow back fast, plus make the goatee area, grow faster too.  I get in line, because some crazy lady is complaining about her change, and then some weird creepy dude with a lot of ear hair cut in front of me in line.  Sprouts is full of uppity people.  And the creepy dude bought Michelob Ultra.  Who freakin' buys Michelob Ultra in public?  Now for the important part, I've been trying to figure out how to wrap up my first couple of stories.  I bought some more books to research some historical and technical background for a couple of stories.  It's tough to read all this stuff and try to fit in time to do things.  My reading list is up in the hundreds now, what with all the projects I'm looking to do.  How are you supposed to have time to rest from a manual labor job of 50+ hours a week, 20 hours of commuting back and forth, or have time to read, to write, or have some semblance of a life?

Stuff

I broke the glass in my new iPhone that I've only had for two weeks.  I managed to get my phone fixed, but it sure was a hassle.  I also have enflamed tendons in my arm, and it's tough to work and do things. I'm not able to weightlift the normal little bit I do because my arm hurts so much.  This has been going on for about now, I don't have health insurance right now, so I'm checking to see how it goes.  And of course today I slipped and fell and wrecked my knee pretty horribly. It's got a pretty nice bump on it, I guess that's what happens when you're not paying attention.  I did manage to get a three day weekend, so hopefully I can rest a bit, and get some writing in.  I've got the ending worked out I think for one story, that has really turned out better than I thought it could.  The entire thing is written in the present tense, which took some time, because you have to stop and think a lot harder about what you're writing.  Most stories are written in the past tense, it's often taken me a week to finish a sentence, because it would take me so long to figure how to convert something into present tense language. I think the idea going forward is to put two or three stories into my first book, and then jump onto some other things.  There's literally a dozen things piling up because I finally got my act together and came up with some things to write about.  Too bad there's not enough time to finish them.

6th Place

Last night I found a medal for a 6th place finish, for a cross country meet for junior varsity conference championship.  To put this in perspective, I think they gave out medals to the top ten. In junior varsity.  Oddly enough I think this is the only thing I've really won.  A friggin' 6th place medal.  I was a high school senior, and I wasn't even good enough to be on varsity, and the sad thing was I think I could've placed better, because I still had a little in the tank, at the end, to hold off, some guy coming up behind me.  How embarrassing.  6th place in a JV race, is rather embarrassing to say the least, and as far as I can tell is the only thing that would go on a "trophy" shelf.  I'm 34, which is like 24, but you move slower, have kids, and the beginnings of grey hair.  It means if I want to do something important there's less time to do it in, I've been trying to write books, and scripts, and novels, most of my life, only recently have started finding my work coming together on some things. At 34.  And I don't know if there award winning projects or not, and frankly, that's not the point.  I'm still trying to do things I love, because I love them, and I want to do something important, and even that process is way better than 6th place.  Don't be in 6th, keep going at whatever it is you're doing, because it's important to you, and can leave a bigger stamp on the world than sitting home doing nothing, or taking a runner up to the runner up to the runner up to the runner up to the runner up prize.

Non-Working Weekend

I managed to get about 15 pages of reading done this weekend, when I was supposed to get done around 200.  I'm severely behind on my research as I've been trying to relax more on the weekends, because my workload at my paying job is ever increasing.  I suppose that's a good enough excuse, but it's more likely I'm just being lazy.  For instance, I got my income tax refund, prior to this past weekend, and I bought some comic books, 4 novels, a sign at Hobby Lobby that shows all the Batmobiles from the comics from the 40s to the present, a couple of movies, a Batman nightlight that projects the Bat-signal, and some things for the wife and daughters, including $150 of Barbie stuff for the soon to be 8 year old.  Still, I'm regretting not getting more reading done, and I'm realizing I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to properly organize the notes for the next project I'm working on.  I should be getting more done, but it's tough working 50 hour work weeks, with 20 hours of commuting thrown in, to find motivation to finish things.  I should figure this out better. There's a lot to get done, and time seems to go by a lot faster as you get older.

A Bunch of Little Things

I got my hair cut this week, and I've been letting my beard grow, so I'm starting to look like a Viking with his hair buzzed. I think in some weird way it makes me feel a little freer and a little more comfortable. I've been getting more reading and writing done, I don't know how that works, maybe I feel like a wild man, and it's coming out in my writing or something. I did get sort of a wacky idea today. I remember hearing how there have been movies filmed on iPhones and I was thinking, why not write a book on one? I managed to download a word processor onto my phone, so I'm going to give it a shot. I suppose I'm trying to keep my mind going, since my body's been getting a beaten from working so much lately. I'm really tired, and finding I've less time to do some of the things I want to do, so I've been trying keep occupied and focused on writing instead of how tired I am. Pretty clever if I do say so myself.

Holy Shit I Saw Deadpool And It was Fucking Amazing

I got to see Deadpool yesterday.  My stepdaughter took me, one of my nephews, and her boyfriend.  It fits into the X-men movie universe pretty well, and quite frankly was one of the best superhero adaption movies ever.  From the self-depreciating opening credits to the closing credits bathrobe wearing Deadpool teasing a sequel, it really had no hiccups, slow parts, or things that would give you a moment to cringe.  You could maybe cringe at the violence, but the story itself meshed really well.  There were some flashbacking, because let's face it, they have to tell his origin story, as well as the story of the whole movie, but that's probably to be expected.  I'm not a fan of the flashback type stuff, but comedy of this thing made it more than bearable, it was downright enjoyable.  Stan Lee did a cameo, which was easily the best of the ones Marvel movies have had yet, as an emcee at a strip joint.  It was unexpected, but comedy gold for the comic nut.

Now it was mildly awkward to see some nudity with my nephew, stepdaughter, and her boyfriend next to me, but I've got to say all in all a great movie.  It was definitely a movie for guys, but it had a female hero, a female villian beating the crap out of Colossus, and Ryan Reynolds' backside.  A+ to the movie makers.

Marvel Movies Vs. DC Movies

Today I heard that Jaimie Alexander was a possibility to play Wonder Woman for the DC Comics movies.  She's played Lady Sif in the Thor movies, and is on this new show Blindspot.  I was trying to figure out why she wasn't playing the part.  According to the article I saw, they obviously didn't pick her, especially since by now, we know they casted Gal Gadot instead.  I'm trying to figure what the hell DC does with its movie.  Marvel has managed to make excellent casting choices and has even been able to bring some of their secondary characters and make them first stringers.  With the Batman vs. Superman movie due out in about a month, people are still cringing over Ben Affleck being cars as Batman, and Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor.  I've literally no idea why they've got Zack Synder directing this thing.  I mean, holy hell, Jaimie Alexander would've been perfect, she has the right look, and already has the whole ability to fight thing down, as this article I read points out.  I don't understand why DC makes such obvious mistakes.  They should've kept Christian Bale as Batman too, even if he didn't want to do it anymore, you throw enough money at him till he agrees.  They made a ton of money with the Dark Knight trilogy, but hey, why continue success, when you can throw a huge turd on the wall to see if it sticks?

Made You Look

There's nothing horribly exciting going on here. I'm watching a Johnny Carson rerun.

I Edited and A Funny Story

I gutted some stuff from one story, and put it in another and it was pretty glorious.  I've tried to be in the mindset of writing something perfectly the first time, but you miss punctuation and grammar and a ton of other stuff you don't pick up on cuz your brain sees one thing, but reality is something else.  I tend to think I've written some wonderful clear and genius sentence and find out I'm missing a word or two, that my mind filled in the blank, but didn't actually type it out.  I do that a lot, but I ended up getting some great plot devices out of the editing and they're working out great.  I should've edited sooner.  Ok, so today my mother-in-law thought my father-in-law was cheating on her because he was talking to someone named Lisa, who was leaving him messages all day, and some money in their bank account.  Yeah...Lisa is one of their daughters, who put money in their account.  Freaking hilarious.

Time

I'm not supposed to exist.  At least, not in a literary, or professional sense.  I have a manual labor job doing overtly back breaking work for little pay.  I then come home, after spending two hours in traffic to attempt to work on writing, books, short stories, or research reading for other future projects.  Manual labor types don't come home to write books, do they?  I seem to get more energy at night, before I have to go to bed to go to my crappy job. I've been trying to squeeze in about 20 or 30 minutes or writing type stuff into my day after I spend 8-12 hours doing everything else.  I need more time.  More to write, more to relax, more to read, and so forth and so on.  Now I'm thinking about breaking into script writing too, and I think I'm going to try and self-publish a couple of books this year too.  I need more time.  That and money.  I can tell I'm getting better writing, well maybe but there's enough time to get any done.

Meh

Don't worry, one day I'll blog something important.  For now, I'm editing.  It's a long and boring process.  Ho hum.

2016

This is my first post of 2016.  Much like most of my other posts I've written about family, writing, and various things I'd done in 2015.  But there is something odd about 2016.  I'm not sure what it is, but this is the year something important will happen.  I'm not sure what it is, I'm hoping that it's the year I can get a book or 2 published.  But I don't think that's it.  Maybe this is the year I win the lottery, or correct certain things that have gone the wrong way for me, or find a way get a house.  Who knows really?  All I know is something big coming.