Thought-Drive

Recently, I got about as close to beating a video game as I ever do: the last, gut-wrenching level that requires the player to compress all their long hours of training and resourcefulness into one fifteen minute battle with a nightmarish scenario dreamed up by some designer somewhere with too much time and not enough friends. Which is to say I lost. Repeatedly. And overall, the game wasn't an utter waste of my time and energy. I enjoyed playing it, and even more than that, I enjoyed playing the same company's next offering even more. It was evident that they had learned some things. A friend sitting on the couch next to me commented sagely as we waited for the scenario to load again so we could give it another go: "I would really like to see them remake this game with all the knowledge they've accrued." And I second that, however impossible such things sometimes are. The decision has more or less been made. The publisher that had one of my novels gave me a cont...

I'm not sure when last I posted, so that probably means something. I have been writing though; I'm getting some traction in the novel and it's gaining momentum. Yesterday, I revised my latest short story a bit more and sent it off. The automated email told me it could take up to 10 weeks to get a reply. So, more waiting. And I'm not complaining (much), because you never want the reply to come back too soon. Sending something off on a Monday and getting a rejection by that next Tuesday is an indication of more negative things than positive ones. So, more finger-crossing, which is to say, putting it out of my mind and setting my sights on the next idea to put to paper. A couple weeks ago, when I set out to start this next novel, I posted on facebook that I was "climbing another mountain." This past week I realized how wrong I was about that. Metaphorically speaking, the act of writing a novel, for me at least, is less like climbing a mountain and more like cli...

I think it's always funny when the hero says "I don't believe in prophecy," in reply to someone that just told him or her what will or won't happen because of predestination. Because the character is a construct, a grouping of ideas, a made thing. They don't believe in anything, not really. Whether they're right or wrong, whether prophecy, in their context, functions or not, has already been predetermined in and of itself. I think to myself: "you poor foolish idiot. Don't you realize the princess is already in another castle?" The writing group went well last night. My gut's confidence is restored. The group liked my story, fairly unanimously, using words like "tight" to describe the condition of the story having very few and minuscule places where the body bends strangely or gears where the transmission catches. It does everything I wanted it to do, and does it well enough to start thinking of the next draft as the final draft...

On Thursday, some wily cameraman got some really good footage at the 2010 NBA Finals Game 1 in LA. Chris Rock, plugging his upcoming movie, was at the game with co-star David Spade, and as comedians do, they were cracking jokes while the game was still in jeopardy of being lost by the home team. Then, the shot expanded to not only include Rock, and Spade, but Kobe Bryant (yeah, they had really good seats). He was sweating, and breathing hard, and most definitely in ear shot of Rock's antics. Actually (or at least that's what people said later) he was actually talking to Kobe. And the hall-of-famer didn't laugh, or even smile. A clever commentator used the NBA star's expression to make a point about being focused, keeping one's mind on the task. I think wow is what my contribution to the conversation was. Last year around this time, I was writing a novel. It's so foggy now, like a dream. I can remember what happened, but the more I try to decipher the details ...

I'm learning again. Growing, too.Which also means I'm sort of failing. It's the first of a new month, at least it was earlier this week. Naturally, I thought it was a good time to pull the trigger on this new novel. I had my outlines, character synopses, motivations, sketches. I knew who was who, who was where, where was what, all that jazz.  And *counts fingers* four days later I'm more or less where I was when I began. I even started the day with a facebook status message before spitting in my hands and rubbing them together (that's how it's done, right?). Then I jumped. And now, I'm doing my impression of Wile. E. Coyote at the drawing board, tapping my foot in consternation.  More specifically, my explanation to a friend was " the problem is that it's a fantastical situation, so [certain] things get thrown out the window, but in the vacuum I've created, the assertions [that I'm trying to put forth] don't have legs." That, als...

Two weeks ago, I was given a DVD to watch at the behest of my writer's group. I say it that way because it was less of an assignment, and more of a social obligation in that it was put into my hands along with the burden of their expectation that I would watch it then we could discuss it. So of course I didn't. When it came back around, an up and coming screen writer in the group somewhat excitedly said "I think one of us had a movie to watch," and I was given the terrible duty of disappointing all of them. However, that sick feeling in my stomach was just enough to get me to pop it into the player and view Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn. There was only the one down side, where something like a scratch made the DVD slow, stop, and skip, forcing me to work my techno-craft and fix the problem. With only a ten-minute break in activities, I managed to watch the entire film. I say film because it was good. Shatner didn't sound (to me) like the Priceline guy; he sou...