Epic? What do you know about epic?

The Lord of the Rings had some big battles. The attack on the second Death Star gathered a massive armada of ships to combat the Empire. But those are mere child's play. Well, actually the child's play is below.

Just weeks ago, the forces of evil gathered, pulling their team from all over.

 Leading them? Magneto, from the Marvel X-Men comics. His right-hand man? A Star Wars Imperial Guard. The foot soldier? A guard from the original Tron universe.

 More from the rogue's gallery? Firefly, a Cobra agent and enemy of GI Joe. Bossk. Notorious bounty hunter from Star Wars who vied for the chance to catch Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back. And finally, some crazy looking dude from the DC Universe whose name escapes me.

The force of heroes opposing them was as varied and eclectic as their foes. First, a guy from GI Joe. Tracker, was his code name, I think. From DC, Crystar, the Crystal Warrior. A generic soldier from the 80s that I painted orange for some reason. Another Joe named Airborne. From Marvel - Wolverine of the X-Men. Batman, with a sword. and another Joe named Clutch. Oh and the good guys have a vehicle from Star Wars.

There were others involved, but suffice it to say their background were just as far-reaching as the ones I mentioned. I'll spare you the details. There was punching, shooting, slashing.

 

  Missiles were fired. Evil villains lied, cheated and stole in order to win.

  

Oh. The bad guys had a dog.

   

So, how did it end? Well. You know. Good triumphed over evil, the bad guys were defeated, blah, blah, blah.

  

 The important part, the detail I remember, is how much fun I had developing military strategy with the mastermind behind the whole devious plot.

My days of taking Castle seriously have certainly come to a middle

I've watched Castle from the beginning.

I started watching for two reasons:

1. Nathan Fillion, because he was so great in Firefly
2. The main character was a writer

The first two seasons were great. They achieved a good blend of wit, mystery and character. But lately, the show just isn't doing it for me. Why?

They seem to have forgotten that Castle isn't a cop. He goes to arrests, raids and busts and goes through the door at the same time as the real police. In fact, he has on a number of occasions gone through the door BEFORE the actual cops. They used to make him wait in the car, or at least wait until things are safe. He is in the interview room for every suspect interrogation, and actively questions suspects himself. He isn't a cop! They were fairly careful about these things in the early seasons. They at least set up pretenses for him to be in these situations back then... now, not so much.

I suppose they needed to resolve the sexual tension between Castle and Beckett at some point, but they're looking like Ross and Rachael from Friends. "Oh I like Beckett, but she doesn't like me, I guess I'll move on." The previews for next week show the coroner basically telling Beckett "You should tell him how you feel." Come on. Let's not stretch this out any further.

Last week, Castle's mother talked about why she never came to visit him "when he started working" at the police precinct. He wasn't working there! He was an observer, who really wasn't supposed to be there full time anyway. Why would she go visit him? It isn't his job, and I say again, he isn't a cop.

I don't know. Maybe I'm dissatisfied with the writing, or the plotting or something. It isn't nearly as witty and the chemistry between the leads seemed much better in the early going.Don't get me wrong, it is still better than most of the network television out there, which is what keeps me coming back.

I'm not giving up just yet, but I have to say it isn't looking good.

Print Edition

Hey! Turns out the story about zombie poetry with me in it is in today's (January 14) New York Times, rather than yesterday's.  It has different graphics, but otherwise it is still the same article as far as I can tell!

Holy Crap!

I got an alert today that one of my zombie poems is quoted in a NY TIMES article about zombie poetry!

I could not be more excited! Check it out!

http://nyti.ms/zlSIdg

Books, books, books.

Ok. Maybe not "Books, books, books." Just two books.

I finished the edits on the Steampunk book and it is currently out attempting to entice agents to take a look at it. The rewrites and reworks took a long time, which is where I've been for a while. But, I'm thrilled with the outcome and I've recieved some really encouraging comments from Beta readers on it.

Soooo, as I wait for news from the representation front, I've gone back to work on my Urban Fantasy novel. I had a good draft finished on this before I went to work on the Steampunk, so I'm hoping it doesn't take long to finish this one. As I'm reviewing it, I find I'm really enjoying some of the things I did with it, while hating only a few. At least it will keep me busy while the steampunk is out!

Do it yourself just took a weird turn

If only we all could build our own UFOs, the world would be a better, or pleasantly weirder, place.

Star Wars is Real! Star Wars is Real!

 

They've found a planet with two suns, just like in Star Wars! It's even called Tatooine, just like in the movie. Isn't that eerie?

The Dude Abides

Excellent list of movies that didn't exactly set the world on fire... at first.

 
In related news, the cast of The Big Lebowski reunited in New York for the Blue Ray release of the movie.

There's my problem - I'm using my name and titling my book

It appears there is a new mystery in the publishing world. A book called "Untitled" by an anonymous author is rolling out this fall. Little, Brown & Company calls it “the inside story of life with one of the most controversial figures of our time.”

Deep, Deep, Deep into the Edits

Wow. I've finished another draft - That's number 4 if you're counting. What's that? What's next? Why, draft #5, of course...

Draft four added several thousand words and took into account suggestions and notes from my writer's group on the first 75k words.

Hopefully this last draft is just spelling and grammar and little things, but who knows?

I'm not sure what my deal is, whether I'm more patient as a writer or more interested in getting the best out of my work, but I don't mind doing more revisions. It's terrible at times, changing or deleting things I'd gone over so many times, but if it makes a better story, so be it.

Distraction or Research?

A couple of weeks ago the History Channel had their Civil War week, which featured several great documentaries on the subject. I couldn't watch them all as they aired so I saved them on the DVR. I finally got around to watching some of it last week and finished the rest of them over the weekend.

The book I'm writing takes place not long after the Civil War, so each of these programs gave me inspiration and details I can use in the story. Civil War Journal had some wonderful material on what the day to day life was like for soldiers on both sides. Lee & Grant had important background on the lives of these leaders and insights into their command styles, but the program I enjoyed most was Gettysburg.

Gettysburg was produced by Tony and Ridley Scott and features a crazy amount of special effects.



I'm not entirely sold on their us of Placebo's cover of "Running up that Hill" in the promos. I like the song, the commercial is intriguing, but I go back and forth about whether the song is the best fit for a civil war documentary.

This program gave me some really good items to add as background material, including some great illustrations of how certain weapons worked. There was a part that showed the ins and outs of cannons and their ammunition that really helped me out.

I've read some reviews of Gettysburg that suggest it isn't an accurate portrayal of the events and people, but as source material and inspiration, I found it invaluable.

I wasn't aware of the Union soldier Rufus Dawes. A good portion of Gettysburg was about him and his contribution to various victories throughout the battle and his efforts before the battle of Gettysburg itself. This was one criticism I heard in several reviews of the program - his contributions were either exaggerated or overemphasized. I'm not a historian and can't debate the historical accuracy of it, but I found the actor that portrayed Dawes to be compelling to watch and found his story to be exciting.

So, at a time when I should have been writing, I was spending hours watching Civil War programs. I honestly felt bad that I wasn't writing, but the ideas and information I gained were truly worth it. In fact, I may have come up with way too much stuff to try to use in my book. Nice problem to have, I guess! I suppose I save it for the sequel!

Attacking the Draft

Done! I'm done with the first draft of the steam punk novel and I've begun revisions for the next draft. So far, it has been easy going, at least for the revisions of the first 20 or so pages. I've eliminated about 5 pages, but written about 4 new pages, so I'm close to coming out even as far as page/word count.

Some basic ideas have changed since I've started the book, so some points I thought were going to be key to the plot are no longing needed. I expected a little of this, I suppose it is inevitable that an author fine-tunes their ideas as they go through revisions. I easily could have had to rewrite the whole thing, I guess, and I can't discount that I may end up doing just that.

I'm happy with my writing so far, but I wrote the first chapter so long ago as a short story, I'm having trouble remembering some of the characters. To the end, I started a chart of all the main characters/ship names/ancillary personalities and locations, just to keep them fresh and easy to access. There is a character or two that appear in the first chapter or two that doesn't show up until much later in the book, so I kept putting a placeholder in, so I didn't have to keep looking back. Lazy. Should've been keeping track of these people in the first place, would've saved some time and effort on my part. Write and learn, I suppose.

I've kept a list of scenes and elements that I know I have write into the final story, so I'm really not concerned about cutting too much. There's plenty to write yet and I'm very closet to the 80k mark right now

The only real problem with my first draft was with a main character. I'd intended for certain characters to live through the novel, so I could use them in other works. There came an opportunity at the end of the book for this character to die, even though they were supposed to live. It made sense to the plot and honestly, as I was writing it, I couldn't think of way out of it. Don't get me wrong, it is my story, I can make anything happen, but it just seemed to work well in the first draft. Maybe in revisions there will be a sudden intervention and someone else will intervene. Who knows what'll make sense then?

Reminds me of one of my favorite Mystery Science Theater 3000 quotes. When they're making fun of "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians", Joel asks Crow what he wants for Christmas and he replies "I want to decide who lives and who dies."

Hey! That's why we all got into writing, right?

Another cute story about my kid... read at your own risk

We tend to keep the television news off around my 4 year old. Its pretty intense sometimes, and we're not quite ready to expose him to that. So, it kind of made what happened the other day even funnier to me.

He got an Imaginext Bat Cave for his birthday and it came with, among other things, a Mr. Freeze figure. He already had one, so he was wondering what to do with two of them.

So when the Justice League catches both of the villains, my son says "Let's see who the other Mr. Freeze is!"

In a shocked voice he then shouts - "The governor?!!"

It was hilarious, and considering he has no idea of what's happening in politics and has never heard of Arnold Schwarzenegger, it was doubly funny for me!

War!

I thought it would be cool if I introduced my son to a toy from my childhood, Green Army Men! He saw them in the Toy Story movies, but he hadn't actually seen them in real life.

We found them at a nearby drug store, but my son got distracted and decided to buy a set of plastic police figures instead. I'm not sure why, but I feel like the army men would've been more fun.

They have guns just like the army... but it isn't the same, somehow.

I suppose firearms are firearms, but why does the police pack seem to have so many officers talking to someone?

In a pack of 52 figures, there must be at least a dozen people talking into their phones or walkie-talkies.

And what is going on here?

It looks like he's holding his cell phone to his chest and yelling to everyone to shut up because he's on the phone. "You witnesses quiet down, I'm voting on American Idol!"

On the bright side, I suppose the blue figures will be harder to loose in the woods than the green army men. There's that.

Sidewalk Chalk

My son and I busted out the sidewalk chalk and attempted to steampunk our driveway.