Here is a great series of webcomics from Canadian artist Kate Beaton:
Here’s a sample I quite enjoyed:
Also, I finished Chapter Twelve Monday night and hope to get cracking on Chapter Thirteen tonight. Half-way done? More than that? It’s a very real possibility . . .
Discovery Island used to be a part of Disney World until the Mouse shut it down in 1999. It’s still there, though, and some intrepid bloggers have braved crocs, bacteria and Disney security forces to bring back some pretty cool pictures of the place:
The Photography of Shane Perez: Discovery Island
Neat, huh?
Apart from wondering does anyone ever read this blog, which isn’t really something I tend to dwell on (if a blog falls in the forest? and all that), I would admit to wondering which works better: embedding the forty-some-odd minute long video at the beginning of the post or at the end?
The following video is fascinating (to me) and thought-provoking (again, to me), so I’m sharing it. It’s not a throwaway video; if you’re going to watch it, I’d suggest turning other stuff off and dedicating yourself to watching it. I’d hazard a guess that, if you’re reading this, you’re either (a) a friend, (b) a book-enthusiast who found your way here quite by accident, or (c) from the future, reading back through the archives, chuckling to yourself at how foolish I probably sound.
If it’s (b) or (c), you’ll get something from this video. If it’s (a), you might find it interesting, and it may offer some context if the day should come when I’m begging help from you to do some bit of shameless self-promotion.
At any rate:
The TL;DR (too long, didn’t read, or watch) of that is this: there are so many frigging people writing books and offering up content, much of it free, that the publishers have to put a fire under their butts and realize the market, the paradigm, the whatever, is changing.
Which is of interest to me, at least.
Last night Jessy and I went to the movies, something we used to do with some regularity and which we really don’t do much anymore. Part of that is the current state of movies and part of it is a lack, on our part, of free time. Or, perhaps, a dearth of other, better things to do than see whatever tripe Hollywood is shoveling out the door at us this week.
Okay: there are movies out there we’d like to see. Off the top of my head, The Ghost Writer, Shutter Island and A Prophet are three I’d go see right now, given a chance.
Last night we saw Kick-Ass which was just about exactly what we though we were getting, going into it. If I bothered to rate these things, I’d give it some thumbs or some stars and basically tell you to go see it. It’s entertaining. People are going to be talking about Hit-Girl in both good and bad ways and you should be equipped to make up your own mind.
Going to the movies, though, means I didn’t write. Tonight is gaming night, so I probably won’t write tonight, either (though I will try, I always try). Sunday night I did write, and quite successfully.
I’m about halfway through the second draft of Animals. I’d hoped to be finished with it now but something that makes the book interesting to me (shifting perspectives and points of view) also makes it so I feel like every chapter is the beginning of a new story. I have to fix a tone and a setting and a voice and each time I have to do that I wrestle with it for longer than I would if the book stayed the same from start to finish.
So it goes, as Uncle Kurt famously wrote. Sunday I got up to splash some water in my face and a very clear image of China knocking her best friend, Shelly, flat on her ass as she raced, late, to make it to class. It was a flash, a moment, but it solidified something I’d been trying to nail down for more than a week.
I dried off my hands and did my own racing; I typed non-stop (except for one spot I need to go back and fill in, a list with an A and a C, but lacking a B) for more than an hour. Next I typed some notes, saved the file to four different places and called it a night.
Boom. Just like that.
They say writing or any creative endeavor is 98% perspiration and 2% inspiration and mostly I feel like that’s true. Every now and again, though, the light shines off the window in a certain way and you get what you’re looking for without dragging deep.
But oh, I might not have had to cut and dig and blast to find that scene, but I sure had to work to get it out. I was in the zone, that great place you go when you forget to make yourself push, and it was great. It’s still work, though. Get those words out. Tap-dance those fingers across the keys.
And now I think I know where the rest of this chapter’s going. The events of the next chapter are some of my favorite from the whole story. And then we’ll see where we go and if I might, maybe finish this thing up and clean it up and perhaps have something worth putting in front of someone for them to read.
What a concept, eh?
I had a pretty rotten day and a relatively crappy, unproductive week . . . but I feel great now after watching this:
This week has been awful.
Okay, let me back up: this week has been awful for writing.
What’s making this week awful is that I seem to have a lot of things scheduled at night. At night! Why would people do such a thing to me?
Tonight I have to go to a cocktail party for work (boo hoo) and I’m inviting my friend, Hope, around to some folks who may be able to give her some business. I’m hoping to catch a train home between 8:00 and 9:30, so it’s not that late . . . but it’s still later than I might like and I’d rather be writing.
I made myself go to the gym on Monday because I knew what the rest of the week would be like.
Tomorrow night I’m going to be working potentially very late (though, maybe not). It’s a new client and it’s the first real phase so I have to be there. Yes, there are worse problems in life, and even if things go incredibly quickly and I”m home early it’ll still be later than I might like and I’d rather be writing.
Friday is an early day and while I shouldn’t be working at night — and we don’t have plans with anyone — I will have teams at three different locations in the city that night. What happens when this is taking place is, yes, I can try and write, but invariably they call me up on that most hated of inventions, the telephone. They have questions which I must answer, or they want to let me know how things are going — or that they’re done.
I may be able to write, but it doesn’t usually work out that way.
Saturday is busy busy busy with lots of good things and though I wouldn’t say I’d rather be writing, the truth is that I made all these plans before learning how screwy the week was going to be, and though I will have fun, I’d rather . . . oh, never mind.
Tuesday past (we’re going non-linear in this blog-post) was a decidely non-writing night. I worked from home, thinking I might get a clear hour or two in the afternoon to scuttle away and write — no such luck. Here’s how things went:
So, it was unproductive, to say the least. And gaming was . . . well, gaming was interesting (to say the least). And sort of draining, if that makes any sense. I found my desk much as I’d left it, opened Word to write and promptly faded to black right there at my desk.
So it goes, I guess. I’ll get through this week full of fresh ideas, as I am doing an awful lot of thinking about story and the latest chapter, and just how I should be doing things. A forced break, I suppose. And Galen, Kara, China and Joe will all be there when I get back, waiting at the edges of their seats to see what happens next.
Well, what the hell, here’s number three coming right atcha. Another interesting read, and one that’s sort of important, I’d say, both for readers and for authors:
5 Ways The Google Book Settlement Will Change The Future of Reading
Big day for blog posts; maybe I’ll have something interesting to say about Animals at some point . . .
Well, at any rate, here’s a neat story I’m linking, an email exchange between a writer and an “agent” over how donating one’s time and talent can pay off in karma . . . and not much else:
The Coachella Review: The Payoff Will Be in Good Karma by Steve Almond.
Don’t know if I’ve ever tried embedding something by way of Vimeo before. Let’s see how that works:
Preview is pretending, at least, that it’s working, so that’s a good thing. What you’ve got there (in case you were fearful of clicking) is a great little video about New York City being overrun by retro video games.
Honest.
I’ve been cooking up a blog post for a few days, thinking about stuff to post beyond I wrote and it was words and hopefully I’ll put that together in the next day or so.
It was 91 degrees here yesterday. In case you’re reading this blog from the future and timestamps don’t work on you, what I’m saying is it was ninety-one degrees on the 7th of April in New York City.
Make of that what you will.