Brian Corley's Blog, page 4

Blog Post #20 Take a Look at Me Now

This past week I listened to a thoroughly enjoyable, yet slightly sad This American Life Podcast episode about break ups titled: Break-Up. If you listened to it, it had some great stuff, especially the Puppy Boy bit at the end.

However, the first story has stayed with me all week. The one about a relationship between two people that had a shared affinity for Phil Collins, and during the break-up, she paraphrased the lines from “Against All Odds,” and recited them to her now ex-boyfriend. “How can you just let me walk away? I’m the only one who really knew you at all.”

I know, I know—it’s corny, but it got me.

But then—then! Phil Collins enters during the next scene, and he’s on the phone talking to her about writing Against All Odds and giving her advice on how to write her own break-up song. What???

Maybe it’s hard to understand now, but growing up in the eighties, Phil Collins was a bonafide rock star. Sure, he may have kind of looked like one of your friend’s dad, but he was still cool. Now, all of a sudden, here he is again, back in my life, talking about song writing.

He didn’t have much air time on the show, but it seemed like from the conversation he had with the contributor that he really listened to what she had to say. She was a completely untrained writer. Couldn’t play any instruments, and had never written a song. Still, he gave great advice: simple is better.

I recommend the episode for anyone reading this hoping to get any writing advice, you have to hear it for yourself.

She went on to write a few songs, then collaborated with a couple of people to finally bring the break-up song to life. She was surprised that they picked the song that they did. It was from her “crazy pile,” and didn’t think anyone would read it.

I wonder if it was because it was so simple and straight from the heart, that it seemed easy to write, and she thought that writing had to be harder. Or was it too scary to write, so she didn’t want anyone to read it?

I think as writers, we’ve all had that moment. The moment where we almost delete something because it seems too close, too honest, too strange, too weird, too preachy … but we keep it on the page just in case.

 I think sometimes those are the moments we find our voice.

Where we move past agonizing over a sentence or paragraph because it’s not good enough. We think that there should be flowery words because this writing is forever! Once it’s on the page, we can’t change it.

We freeze ourselves out and cover our real intentions.

I remember the moment where I finally got out of my own way. I was probably two years or so into trying to write songs. I’d start a verse or two, look at it, retool it—replace my vocabulary with fancier words. Read it later, think it was garbage and throw it away.

I’d complete songs here and there, some better than others, but I couldn’t find consistency.

One morning I finally told myself that it can’t all be Shakespeare. Literally those exact words, “It can’t all be Shakespeare.”

That was enough, and I was free.

I just wrote whatever came into my mind from then on and got out of my own way. Some songs were better than others, but I was writing consistently. Some songs flowed out in one piece, that I’d be happy to play, while others—not so much. But after a while, I had a catalog to draw from. I could borrow verses, choruses, and bridges from songs that didn’t work and mash them together to create a Frankenstein’s Monster of mid 90s angst.

It translates to writing short stories and novels too.

That first draft is going to be ugly. So is the second, and the third. Eventually, you’ll get there over time—you just have to make sure you don’t stop yourself. What’s more, it’ll be your voice. You may not sound like Shakespeare, Neil Gaiman, Anne Rice, or Ursula Le Guin, but that’s OK—the world already has their work.

So, there it is, a blog with a great podcast recommendation, and a piece on voice. Also, let me tell you something, Phil Collins’ stuff still holds up.

I’ve had “Against All Odds” in my head all week, and that’s a good thing.

Blog Post #19 LitFest Pasadena (California)

By this time next week, I’ll be done with my first book festival panel. Incredibly excited to participate in the Shades & Shadows event at LitFext Pasadena next Saturday, May 19th. If you live in Southern California and want to make the trip, the event will take place from 8:00-10:00 pm at the address below:

 

Pasadena Playhouse

Friendship Room

39 S El Molino Ave

Pasadena, CA  91101

 

I’ll be reading a passage from Ghost Bully alongside some other great writers from the area. Hope to see you there!

P.S. I know I said there would be dumb jokes and writing tips for this week's blog post, but apparently I'm a huge liar. Sorry.

Blog Post #18: The blog that votes and buys cigarettes.

The Twitter Bug, and what it means for you.

 

Pretty good headline, huh? Disclaimor: I’m not a security expert, but I used to work for a large technology company that talked a lot about cyber security.

Some of us use the same password for everything—it’s easier to remember that way. Maybe you worked hard to create a strong, easy to remember password like Gh0stBullyismyF4vBook100%. Phrases like that are great (better than a password of, say: password). In fact, it’s exactly how you want to think about passwords, so you have a better chance at avoiding bots that are good at guessing those types of things. However, the problem with having one password for everything is that once someone figures it out, they might be able to get into all your other accounts as well.

This week Twitter realized that every user’s password was written into an internal log before completing a masking/hashing process. Meaning that if you knew where to look, you’d see usernames and passwords instead of ####$@$%@#$% or something to that effect. They don’t have an indication that there was a breach, but they’re letting us all know just in case someone else figured it out first or would have … because … of course they would have.

What does this mean?

When a hack occurs, someone or a group of someones figure out how to hack a database. They may know that user: Gh0stBully logs in with the email of BestBookEvarrr@madeupemailserver.com and uses the password: J0n4hSoC00l

Now, they can run a script that tries to log into Facebook, Insta, Twitter … your bank … log in, change the password, and presto-change-O, they’re now you for all intents and purposes. Because a lot of people don’t just use the same password for everything, they also use the same email address a lot of times as well.

Furthermore, it’s not just big companies like Yahoo, Google, or Twitter that get hacked. It could be your favorite blog about, and now your info is out there on the dark web (spooky sounding, right?) for all to see, which is why it’s crucial to have a different password for every site.

But how you say—how in the world could I ever remember all the passwords?

You can’t, probably.

I can’t anyway, so I use a password manager called LastPass. There are a bunch out there, so do your research, but for like thirteen bucks a year, I get super-secure, unique passwords for each site, so I don’t have to freak out if one gets hacked. I just change the password for that site and move on with my morning. Maybe peruse my favorite donut blog, I don’t know.

 

Password managers take some work to set up initially as you go around and load your sites and create new passwords for them all, but afterward, they’ll make your life a lot easier. Just remember to change your password for the password manager periodically … and don’t write it down on a post it and put it on your computer monitor (people really do this)!

TL;DR (Too long; didn’t read)

Twitter found a bug in their system. Change your password and take a look at a password manager if you haven’t already.

Back to dumb jokes and writing tips next week.

Blog Post #17

Another busy week of editing. Additional side quests and revision continues to dominate time spent on book two, so much so that I’ve barely been able to get past chapter twelve so far. I’m confident that the work done up front will all pay off for all of us down the line though (writer, characters, and reader … well, maybe not all the characters).

Talked to a friend about a podcast that could lead to an audiobook for Ghost Bully. Probably premature to write about it here, but why not? We’re thinking a couple of chapters a week that would finish out on Halloween (or the week of), what do you think? Go ahead and @ me wherever you feel like on social media.

Also looking forward to LitFest Pasadena next month, and thinking about which scene(s) to read. Funny, scary, or action? Maybe something that encompasses all three. A little nervous about a public reading, but it’s part of the storytelling gig, and it seems like an incredible event hosted by Shades and Shadows, so I can’t wait.

Blog Post #16

This weeks post is a link to a guest blog I wrote for Book Room Reviews. You'll have to sit through a glowing review to get to it, but you've been through worse--I believe in you.

http://www.bookroomreviews.com/ghost-bully-brian-corley/

 

Blog Post #15

Started the revision process for the second book this past week after letting it sit for about a month. I noticed a difference in my attitude between the first revisions of Ghost Bully, and I’m pleasantly surprised.

I’ll never forget writing (in bold, mind you) The End on my first book. It was exhilarating—I’d done it. To quote Lisa Mangum, I was ready for my “Rich and Famous Contract,” where do I sign? Turns out it doesn’t work out like that for most people.

I’d read plenty of advice from other authors like Neil Gaiman or Jim Butcher that tell us to let our story sit for a while until we forget about it, so I did. Reading Ghost Bully again for the first time, I was horrified to see than many typos (in a dazzling variety), misspelled words, poor grammar, etc.… and that was before I knew what I was really doing wrong. I’d curse myself as I fixed the problems with the prose or dialogue, punching up jokes as I went along, and thinking I’d fixed everything by the time I finished.

Then cursed myself all over again on the next revision.

This past week, I’ve been more forgiving of myself. This time around, I’m treating the manuscript like a piece of scrap metal that needs to be beaten into shape and polished before sending it out into the world. It’s OK if jokes aren’t hitting right now, or parts aren’t connecting like I thought they might … or that I even forgot to put the connections in. I just need to fix the story. It’s a much healthier attitude, and I’m happy I’m in that place … at least at the moment.

I’m also thankful to have a writing group this go-round to give me direction and counsel on how the story is shaping up and ways to improve it.

There’s a lot of work to do between now and the release next year, but I’m excited about doing it. I’ll be revising this thing pretty much non-stop until the Fall, but it will be worth it, and I hope you enjoy it.

*

Also, watched Loaded, the second season of A Series of Unfortunate Events, and Nailed It this week on Netflix. Highly recommend along with The Magicians which ended their season with a bang this past week as well. Fun and well thought out story telling on that show, can’t wait for next season.

Blog Post #14 Hoppy Easter

I’m almost upset when people don’t post “Hoppy Easter” whenever they’re posting pictures of their kids wearing bunny ears … or at all. Hey, this is the one holiday you can make a hilarious play on words with well-wishing … as a group. I suppose you could wish your friend a “Hoppy” Birthday if they were into IPAs or just sprained their ankle and refused to get crutches.

Blog Post #13 (So Unlucky)

Tomorrow I'll be Writer of the Day over on r/fantasy on Reddit. Feel free to join in the fun, happy to answer any questions you may have even if they're performance sock related.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/878mn1/fantasy_writer_of_the_day_brian_corley_author_of/

Blog Post #12

In lieu of a blog post this week, I thought I would post a link to an interview I did for The Indie View. Check it out: http://www.theindieview.com/2018/03/1...

Blog Post #11 (Stranger Things)

Welcome back to another mailbag where I'll take your Qs and throw back some As. Ready? Here we go!

Question #1

Dear Brian,

Would you enable comments on your blog so we can say mean and hateful things?

Signed,

Let The Good Times Troll

 

Dear LTGTT,

I'll think about it.

Brian

Question #2

Dear Brian,

I'm from Germany and your book changed my life! Thank you for writing it.

Signed,

Euro Number One Fan

 

Dear ENOF,

I don't believe you.

Brian

 

Question #3

Dear Brian,

Hiya! I practice judo in Austin, and wanted to see if I could sign up with the Psy-Kicks.

Signed,

Kicking It Old School

 

Dear KIOS,

First off, I see what you did there with intro, good work. Secondly, they're not real. Sorry.

Your Pal,

Brian

 

Well thanks everybody, glad we were able to get through this without any SmartWool questions--double checking ... nope, no SmartWool questions this week. See you again next time!