A month of well-mannnered frivolity... NaNoWriMo style :)

I'm going to try to say it three times fast.

Babbling
Bumbling
Band of
Baboons

Babbling

Bumbling

Band of

Baboons

Babbling

Bumbling

Band of

Baboons

Yeah, I got nothing on the Weasley twins.

But on NaNoWriMo... I am laying the smack down.

NaNoWriMo, you ask. Let's get a few things clear: it's not haiku for little people, or poetry written by the Space Time Continuum. Although that would be interesting. For me it's about the little things.

I feel a chant coming...

All the small things. Truth care and truth brings... hmm-mmm-hmmm--

My mind is all over the place today.

Got some good news. Some great news... and still waiting to hear about a short story I submitted. Over all a great month. My friends have talked about NaNoWriMo for years. And they've all encouraged me to give it a shot. Why not? It's a month of absolute writing bliss. Well, it's supposed to be that way. One month. That's all. I can do it--

But I'm a very slow writer. My usual daily word count is somewhere around 300 words. Sometimes I can hit 500. On a very rare occasion I can dart passed 1,000. But if you've got kids. You know what I mean when I say that by the end of the day you're exhausted. I have two toddlers. Not so easy. Breakfast by 9:30. First nap at 11:30. Lunch at 1:30. Second Nap at 2:30. Break, for, oh, maybe 45 minutes. By this time I've got either West Wing, Start Trek, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Jurassic Park, Smallville, or Heroes playing in my computer. Then its dinner prep and cooking. By the time I sit down to write it's close to 8:30.

So, I knew that going into this National Novel Writing Month the obstacles were great. There was no way in hell that I would even approach half of that number, until I put my mind to it.

I said screw it. I'm doing this cerebral triatholon.

Well, it's week three and I've clocked in more than 30,000 words. Not bad for 18 days. Not bad at all. But there have been some effects. I'm tired more throughout the day. Some of my writing rambles. I drink way much more coffee than normal. But really, in the end, what have I done?

Seriously?

What I have accomplished?

For starters. I attempted it.

That's not that huge, but it's huge for me. I don't like starting something and then quitting. Cuz once I'm invested I want to push myself. And learn from that experience. But more than anything, I like writing. I enjoy storytelling. For me storytelling is very much like cooking. How many recipes are there? How many ways are there to tell a story? You get the drift...

So, here I am. Pleased with myself. Wondering if I cane ver go back to writing only 300 words a day. By the way, the word count up to here is 492. (And I haven't even started working on my fiction yet.)

Ahhh. Feels wonderful.

I can't say that enough. Feels absolutely wonderful.

There's a hole in my fantasy TV time slot...

I miss Legend of the Seeker, the television adaptation of Terry Goodkind's The Sword of Truth novels.

To get my viewing fix I've been watching it again on Netflix Instant, and I gotta say, I'm still bummed out the show was cancelled, but darn it if I didn't try to help the peeps at saveourseeker.com with some graphic design to get the powers that be to think about it one last time before dumping it.

There were a bunch of rumors floating around last year as to why the show got the axe, only after two seasons--and of course a ton of fans leaped at the opportunity to support the show and to convince the leadership to either bring the series back or sell it off to a network so that it might continue.

Rumors of a possible courtship between Scifi Channel and a few others (although these few others as far as I know weren't legitimate. I think I even heard Disney whispered in there, but who are we to actually know. These things are hush-hush until they're public. Like James Bond. MGM was getting cut up and so there was fear the greatest spy of movie history might be a 00 without his downturned pistol, that missing number 7).

It's too bad, really. Seeker was an awesome show.

Helmed by Spiderman director Sam Raimi, it featured a great cast of actors and those heroic characters that followed the journey of a hero learning the values of service in order to lead his people out from under the clutches of the villain, Darken Rahl.

Every episode had something memorable.

Sometimes it was a character, like the Listener (the boy who could read minds), the meddling witch Shota (who switched the Seeker with a groom on his wedding day) as well as a revolving cast of Mord'Sith, those treacherous assassin women sworn to serve Rahl.

Ah, it was just good fantasy storytelling. Deep. Rich. Funny. Sordid. Swashbuckling. You name it. the show had it. At least Seeker got to Season Two. The Charlie's Angels reboot didn't even get that far. It's getting harder to keep a good show on the air it seems.

Well, that's not entirely true.

The Walking Dead is doing just fine.

That might be because it's not competing in its time slot. It's on AMC, plus all the other issues affecting programming, advertising, audiences, local station buy-in, the list goes on. I'm no expert on television management but hey, if the show is good, I'll watch it. And buy the box sets.

And watch it again... and again.

Any other Seeker fans out there?

p.s. Its got 4/5 stars on Netflix. Don't know about Hulu, but I've heard good things there.

I don't suffer from short-term commitment loss. I'm a graphic artist!

For the past, oh, six months or so I've been balancing -- and when I say balancing I mean juggling, and why I say juggling what I really mean to say is working on several short stories (one a candidate for an anthology) and a few others an ongoing project with a few friends of mine, an iPhone video game app (with all the art done by yours truly), and an RPG game setting that if all goes well on that front will be publishing sometime next year.

But as will all projects, a deadline isn't a deadline until it's broken.

Good thing I don't have newsroom editors anymore, cuz crazy talk like that is just asking for trouble.

I was a newspaper designer for many years, so juggling projects even on deadline isn't really stressful.

Right now, it's finding the time to concentrate.

Designing A1s, Section covers, doubletrucks, you name it, for me like being a flowing river. I can work slowly, gently and find the idea, and then blitz over rocks, and then roar around bends. Design has always been easy to do. Problem is when I'm in the zone, everyone around me notices.

It just happens.

I start by warming myself up. Could be anything from checking Facebook or e-mail to calling a friend I haven't heard from in a while. And if it takes an hour to catch up, so what. Work can wait, because in the end, when I start designing my fingers are flying across the keyboard and holding down those hot keys.

A few hours later, I've got a mock-up, or a shell, as its referred to on the inside. A few rounds of does it work, does it flow, does it make sense, is it the right vision, the right message, the right art, and then its off to the finishing touches--unless its ripped because the news changed. Happens. I've designed an A1 twice in twenty minutes. Sounds monumental, but not really. Only some story packages get reworked.

That's the nature of the biz.

So, with all this experience is it any wonder that I'm always juggling a few projects simultaneously?

Nope.

The goal is to balance them and complete them.

So, here's to completing them, while doing laundry, cooking, cleaning, finding time for a shower and brushing my teeth, oh, and going to grocery store.

Hot keys, my friends and readers. It's all about the hot keys!

Sounds Like Theme Spirit

For the past few months I've been huddled over my computer crafting a modern-day supernatural storyline, with a huge cast of characters, that, well, has taken me into a direction I was not expecting to tread.

I'm pulling out all the stops.

It's nothing I've ever attempted before. I'm pushing myself. Hard. Thanks to a few professionals in their respected fields I won't come off (crosses fingers) like an amateur...

Just for fun I decided to create a playlist for the main character cast featured in this first installment. I wasn't looking to compile a soundtrack, just something to listen to, something I could rely on for some occasional inspiration.

So, I dug around.

I'm still digging.

It's a different exercise for me, to consider a musical component as characterization, but can you honestly tell me you can't instantly recognize the theme song or a featured artist of your favorite sitcom or drama, or movie trailer?

Yeah, I can name about fifty off the top of my head... starting with Remy Zero, then The All American Rejects, and very close after that One Republic; the list goes on to include many artists my friends didn't know rotated in my playlist...

Oh, like Filo and Peri, or Eva Cassidy, or Face to Face, or Metallica.

Do any of these sound familiar?... (:

See you guys around.

It's back to the story...

It was inevitable. Life sucks.

Baring fangs...

I have turned this crappy string of luck into a deep well of emotional resource material for a storyline I have been developing. I'm broadening my genre writing. Most of the time I craft high fantasy stories. I've decided to dabble into the paranormal.

Oh, not just any paranormal.

A spectrum of it.

Can't tell you anything of course.

It would ruin the surprise.

But just think of it as my way of branching out, while still keeping to my fantasy roots, because in the end isn't paranormal just fantasy anyway, but with a different stereotype? I'm not talking vampiric elves here... I'm talking about zombies and werewolves.

But--thumbs twiddling--which to choose, and why?

This'll be the shortest blog I've written so far because I can't turn away from developing the setting for too long. There's just so much in my head...

I'll keep everyone posted on when the first installment will be released, and where you can pick up a copy, or e-copy... (:

My boy could win a shatter glass contest with his screech

If you've spent even an hour with us you'll know what I mean when I say JJ can sing.

He can belt out those high notes like Mariah Carey.

He can scream bloody murder better than the bimbo running for her life in a horror flick.

I think we can it and send it to a movie exec as a gag gift, complete with resume and glamour shot. Who knows, right? JJ might get noticed and be on his way to a wonderful career in scream acting.

Did I mention that the other day he screamed so loud my ears were ringing for about a half hour afterward? Yeah, it was that bad. Too bad we weren't cruising through an elven forest. They could have shot him in the dark.

Or better yet, send him to the School for the Gifted where Professor X can help him control his vocal chords, cuz the boy can put Banshee to shame.

Oh, yeah, I'm bragging. Because I can.

When I get around to it, I'll record him, and put it up on the blog. Maybe then, you'll have an appreciation for the absolute ear shattering screech he can produce. Then again, it's probably a precursor to some musical talent.

We have an old guitar lying around the house. First day he found it, he flexed his fingers gently, strumming the guitar with practiced ease. Not plucking at it like he was trying to snap the strings. No. Gentle, dancing, from his fingertips. Everyone who stops by comments. He's only 15 months old. Amazing.

I'm hoping to find him a good music teacher. Hopefully a teacher with ear plugs.

A new beginning and Moby Dick

Feels good to be hitting the keyboard again.

The click, click--

The tap, no wait, erase that--that's what I want! Yeah...

Most nights I'm working on a short story, novella or some form of writing.

Over the last few weeks I've been Facebook chatting with a good friend of mine. He's going through final edits for his sci-fi story. He's almost done. He's got cover art (and a cover design thanks to yours truly), some marketing ideas, and as we were talking about our respective heroes: his in a sci-fi world, and mine in a high fantasy world, we both realized how invaluable this experience has been. I'd say so far, but so far it isn't even close to being far from anything. Really, it's closer to a beginning.

A new beginning.

Oh, there's no cash flow yet. We may never make enough money to sustain rent or mortgage, but we can't say we haven't tried.

Most importantly we're having fun along the way.

In this e-publishing experience we've realized how important writing is to us. How reading... books period are important to us.

Reminds me of a conversation we had a few days ago when he said everyone is so busy trying to write the next big novel that they aren't writing something people want to read.

Might as well have handed out three for one coupons to Hometown Buffet. The next few hours were a blur. We talked about Melville, Dickens, King, and I think somewhere in there Hughes and Asimov and Sagan.

We talked about what is popular. Why it's popular. The changes in the industry. The push for independent artists. The publishing world in general. The economy and how it effects decisions, and then people, which if I remember correctly semi-coloned into Marx.

The road maps that publishers and authors have used for the last few decades are not so reliable anymore. Blame it on e-readers, blame it on book markets, blame it on genres, blame it on whatever you want to blame it on. There is no absolute to this constant disorientation in publishing.

Hours I tell you... just flew by. Not much writing got done, but it felt good that for those hours, huddled over the computer, coffee beside me, the whip-click-whip of the kitchen fan I felt like a university student again arguing virtues.

Someday we'll be adding our stories to the Kindle market. Someday we'll be adding our stories to the market after that. It's best to just keep a weather eye open because we're not just staring down Moby Dick from the bow, harpoon ready, fighting for our souls; we're trying to balance ourselves on swells, at the same time.