Kyle Garret's Blog, page 24

When Twitter Ruins Things

Living in the age of social networking is great.  I use and enjoy both Twitter and Facebook.  I wrote about the appeal of both of them here.

The other day, though, I experienced part of the down side, at least to Twitter.

I'm a big fan of comic books, and lately I've been on a big push for creator owned books, as I believe they are the future of the business.  I follow a number of comic book creators who feel the same way.  On Monday, one of them posted a link on thinkprogress.org about the smear campaign against Trayvon Martin.


If you've been following the Trayvon Martin story, you probably know that Monday was also the day that the police department released the version of events told by George Zimmerman, as well as statements from witnesses.  It was a fairly big development in the story.

When I read the article at the link above, I thought it was a missed opportunity.  I think only people who were already biased would believe the smear campaign, and it would have been better had the column been about the questions that arose from the day's news.  So I said that in response to the aforementioned comic book creator:

@ I think it's the supposed witness statements that are giving most rational people pause, not what's on that list.

This is the response I got:

@kylegarret What are you implying? If it's what I think, that is messed up.

Given the restraint of 140 character comments, it's not unusual for things to come across the wrong way.  Since I knew what I was saying, I couldn't really imagine what he thought I meant, but it didn't sound good.  So I tried to explain myself:

@ I don't think it's what you're thinking. I think the people who believe the smear campaign are already biased.

@ I also think the fact that they don't go into detail about the witness statements and Z's testimony is a missed opportunity.

Hindsight being 20/20, I realize that saying those who believed the smear campaign were already biased didn't connect with the "rational people" comment from earlier, so I suppose it seems like I didn't explain that part of my initial response.

 Still, I thought my two, additional tweets at least gave a fuller picture of what I meant.

This is the response I got:

@kylegarret Are you implying I'm not a rational person? Are you implying the kid deserved death? Let me imply something. You are a racist.

As you can probably imagine, I was taken aback by this.

Now, I can perhaps see thinking I said he wasn't a rational person.  I actually mentioned "rational people" in my initial comment.  But for the life of me I can't find anything that would suggest I was saying that "the kid deserved death."  I just have no idea where that came from.

And, obviously, calling me a racist was just insane on a number of levels.

But, like I said, I have (had?) a lot of respect for this creator, so I wanted to try to explain myself some more:

@ What? Woa. I was calling the people who believe the smear campaign irrational.
@ I think most rational people would see the news that came out today and wonder what else was going on...
@ ...like who are these supposed witnesses and why did is that just coming out now?

I never got a response from any of those tweets.  I'm not sure, but I think he might have blocked me, which is too bad.  I shared the fact that he called me a racist and that it was disheartening.  A friend of mine decided to step in and sent this to him:

@ @kylegarret I find your implication of racism to be in stunningly poor taste.

I thought that was a reasonable thing to say -- I kind of felt the same way.

My friend got a response:

@(my friend) @kylegarret Well, he started it implicating me. Have a nice day.

@(my friend) @kylegarret And I find his racism in poor taste as well, so I guess we're even.

I only saw these tweets by actually checking his timeline; they don't show up in my timeline, which is why I'm guessing he blocked me.

He still maintained that I implied he was irrational -- and this was like 14 hours after I'd told him that's not what I meant.  And he accused me of racism again.

I thought I'd give it one last shot:

@ I sent you like 5 tweets explaining that's not what I meant. I don't understand why you would jump to that conclusion.

I haven't heard anything back and I suppose I won't.  I doesn't seem like he was even seeing some of my earlier tweets, or at least I hope that was the case, because the alternative is that he was just ignoring what I said because he'd come to a conclusion about me and that was that.

It's weird.  I feel bad about all of this.  I mean, I don't think I really did anything wrong, aside from failing to articulate my point better in 140 characters.  It's just...well, I've always liked reading his tweets.  I've always like what he stands for as far as creator rights are concerned.

It's amazing that, given the constraints of Twitter, anyone would jump to any conclusions, particularly like this.

It's just sad, really.  I'm trying not to think ill of him based upon this one interaction, but given the severity of it, it's not easy.

I suppose this will ensure that I take a step back whenever someone says something to me on Twitter that seems off.  At the very least, I'll give them a chance to explain themselves before calling them horrible things.

Wanted

Warning: Posted without proofreading.  I'll get to it tomorrow.  Leave me alone.  I've been drinking.

Stop the spiral!  Turns out my YA book made the next round of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel contest, after all.  So I didn't go down in flames, although it did make me realize how much I have invested in this contest, and how that's probably not a good thing.  After all, getting to the next round made me happy, but then I realized that the closer I am to the end when I get cut, the worse it's going to hurt.  And so the cycle repeats.

Anyway, the other day on the way to work I was listening to the latest CSS album (which I've had for months but am just now getting around to listening to).  There's a song called "City Grrl" which is ostensibly the lead singer's story of growing up and wanting to move to the big city.  She rattles off all the things she wanted her life to be like when she finally got to the big city, from partying to making her dreams come true -- the usual, really.

Listening to someone sing about what they wanted as a child made me think about the fact that I've managed to go most of my life without really wanting anything, at least not in a large sense.  Part of this stemmed from the fact that I was, more or less, a pretty joyless young man, so it's hard to really want anything when you don't find much joy in anything.  Part of it was the fact that not wanting things had worked out well for me, or so I thought.  I basically just went where the wind took me.

When Nicole and I moved up to the Bay area, one of the things we talked about was how nice this neighborhood is and what a good school district this house is in.  We don't have kids.  Yes, we want to have them some day, but as I was fond of saying at the time, I felt like I was being forced to make decisions based upon things that hadn't happened yet.  Most people call that "making plans."  That's just not something I really did.

Honestly, I spent a long time not even wanting to be a writer, at least not entirely.  I spent my childhood writing, I spent my teen years writing, and when it came time to go to college, I chose an English major because writing was ridiculous.  I'm from the Midwest; we have to be practical.

I wrote throughout college, but even going to graduate school for Creative Writing was something of a desperate move to prevent the collegiate clock from striking zero.

Don't get me wrong, I had to write.  I've always had to write.  And I always had those pipe dreams of becoming the next great American author.  But that was a different reality.  Writing was something that Kyle Garret did, not what Kyle Vanderneut did (my real name, by the by).  Kyle Vanderneut had to be responsible and he had to maintain a life where he could roll with the punches and take whatever came along.

Even with a Master's degree in Creative Writing, the idea of being a writer seemed alien to me.  I think it was probably because, deep down, it was something that I really wanted, and I wasn't entirely sure how to handle such a thing.

It wasn't manufactured, either.  That was the big thing.  I'd let my chemically imbalanced, neurotic brain manufacture desires before.  I spent a good twenty years of my life convincing myself I was lonely and that I really needed someone to be with.  But it wasn't real; it wasn't true.  A string of failed relationships do a pretty good job of illustrating that.

Funny enough, it wasn't until I quit wanting to be with someone that I met Nicole.  And after that I didn't want to be with just anyone, I wanted to be with her.

That's actually a pretty good marker for me.  The first few years of my life in Los Angeles stripped me down and forced me to acknowledge both the things that I really wanted and the things that I'd fabricated.  I wrote some short stories.  I wrote a book.  I met Nicole.  I self-published a short story collection.  I wrote another book.  I got that book published.  I got a few short stories published.  I wrote another book.  It's made it to the third round of a big time contest.

There's probably some crazy "don't be afraid to want things" moral to this story.  I suppose that's a fair point.  I often wonder what my life would have been like had I actually pursued my passion from the start.  As much as I loved my time at Ohio University, I sometimes wonder what would have become of me if I'd gone somewhere like NYU, perhaps gotten out of Ohio and pulled away from my Midwestern pragmatism.

Huh.  Maybe that's why I feel like I really started writing when I moved to Los Angeles.  Maybe being there, being away from what I knew, being surrounded by millions of people all pursuing their ridiculous dreams, made me feel comfortable enough to try it myself.  That would certainly explain why L.A. is romanticized in my head.

Don't get me wrong; I was born and raised in Ohio and I'm proud of that fact.  I'm a Bobcat from Ohio University and I will be wearing my t-shirt at work tomorrow.  Ohio is who I am, or at least who most of me is.

But I think part of me was born in Los Angeles.

Who knows what the Bay area will bring me?  If Los Angeles allowed me to start wanting things, maybe Danville is when I get them.

Danville has certainly provided for me on that front already.

The Spiral

There's a quote from the movie "High Fidelity," which I'm told is also in the book by Nick Hornby (I've never read it, so I'm not sure) that goes: "Do I listen to pop music because I'm miserable, or am I miserable because I listen to pop music?"

Today, I thought to myself "Do I write because I'm crazy, or am I crazy because I write?"

I should point out that the above quote is meant to be cute.  I point that out because I generally hate it when people call themselves crazy.  It seems like a popular thing to do these days.  "Oh, I'm just crazy like that."  I think it does a disservice to the word.  If you're actually crazy you wouldn't really be aware of it, or at least you wouldn't talk about it.  But I suppose the idea of losing your mind is so frightening to me that joking about, at least regularly, kind of weirds me out.

Anyway, this was all precipitated by these three events:

1) I did not win the Independent Literary Award for Biography/Memoir.  I lost to "Little Princes," which I actually expected, as the book sounds like it's great.  Losing runner-up to the Tiger Mom wasn't as easy to take, but I'm basing that upon what I've heard about the book, so I suppose that's not entirely fair.

2) One of the judges posted her review on her blog, and it wasn't particularly positive.  She gave it 2.75/5.  It was a perfectly fine review, to be honest, as she raised legitimate points about the book, things that were ultimately a matter of opinion (unlike certain other reviews I've gotten).  Still, a bad review is a bad review, and I get so few reviews that the bad ones always hit me pretty hard.

3) I finally looked and learned that the next round of cuts in the Amazon/Penguin book contest will be announced tomorrow.  The first round cut the group of nearly 5,000 to just 1,000.  The next cut will drop that number down to 250.

It seems to me that good things and bad things tend to happen in clumps.  The day I was told that I'd been nominated for the Indie Lit Awards was the same day that I got the release date for the book on Joss Whedon that features an essay that I wrote.  A few years ago, I had two agents reading my first novel; I got rejection letters from both of them literally within the same hour.

As you can imagine, I'm not particularly optimistic about what I'm going to learn tomorrow.

Here's the thing: I can spiral downward with the best of them.  I'm a neurotic person and I spent a large part of my life being sad and angry, so it's very easy for me to fall back into that.  Yet here I am, sending out my stories to the world, even thought I know rejection will kill me every single time.

It seems, well, crazy that I would pursue a profession in which the rate of failure is so incredibly high, given how drastic my mood swings can be.

But am I like this because I write, or do I write because I'm like this?

So I'm preparing to spiral tomorrow.  I've warned my wife.  Tomorrow I'll be at work which, while actually perfectly fine as far as jobs go, is still a constant reminder that I'm not writing for a living.  And, you know, even that is kind of hard to handle at a certain point.

I'm just going to have to hold out hope that there's some karma yet to come to me, and that even if these bad things happen  in succession, I'll get a few good things to even them out.  I don't really have any reason to believe that, but it would be impossible to keep going otherwise.

Honestly, there's more to it than what I've written, but I think I've rambled on enough for now. 

Besides, I need to try to get some writing done.

Walking Away From the Monthly Big 2 Fix

Last week, I pulled the Band-Aid off.  I dropped all comics from the Big 2 from my subscription with Tales From Another World.

It was strangely liberating.

I had a lot of people asking me why I made this move.  After all, why such a blanket decision?  Was it to save money?  Because I was boycotting corporate comics?

There are a lot of reasons, most of which stem from the inherent problems with corporate comics.

Cost played a part in my decision, for sure.  DC's insistence on maintaining 52 monthly titles, many of which are starting to take part in multi-book crossovers, was part of it.  They're not making me buy all of those books, obviously, but the intent is to maintain that number in an effort to maintain some kind of bottom line, which is perfectly understandable for a corporately owned company.  They have people to answer to, and it's going to take 52 comics to get them what they need.  But for those of us who aren't interested in the business, just the medium, maintaining that artificially chosen number seems kind of crazy.

Marvel's new double publishing decision is obviously an issue.  It's a big one, actually.  Say I bought 3 of Marvel's $2.99 books every month.  That was costing me $9.  If they all started double shipping, I'm now at $18 a month, and I'm on a limited comics budget already.  I'd have to drop other titles to make up that extra $9 a month.  But if I just drop those three books completely, I now have an extra $9 to put towards something else.

Again, from a business standpoint, you can see why they would do this.  David Brothers discusses the issue nicely here and here.  Brian Hibbs, who's a fairly prominent retailer in the comic book world, makes some great points on how the double shipping will impact sales.  His follow-up post is also worth reading.  Like I said, though, you can see why Marvel would make this move.  They need to make more money, and getting people who are already buying a book to buy an extra issue every month seems like a pretty easy move.  Comic book fans are willing to put up with a lot.

Tom Spurgeon probably says it best: "This is a really interesting example of a mainstream comics publisher favoring short-term gain over long-term benefit. Ostensibly the practice of using other talents, particularly those that might not mesh smoothly with the more closely-affiliated comics-makers, would drain readers from the regular reading experience over time. I say "ostensibly" because like many practices in comics it's not just there's an aberrant, anti-conventional wisdom policy in play as much as there's an odd practice in play and a market that's been conditioned not to punish such practices. It may even reward them."

Which, of course, is the theoretical part of my reasoning (as good a way to put it as any).  Because I think this IS a short sighted strategy that will invariable fill the coffers now, but ultimately drive away more readers.  And it's true, that comics, unlike pretty much every other industry, often rewards short term thinking on a great level.  But the risk of losing readers due to a doubling of cost, or multiple creative teams, is worth it for the additional, immediate sales, or at least that seems to be the idea.

Therein lies the problem for someone who loves comics and wants to see them vital and strong for decades to come.  By now, it's probably clear that Marvel and DC don't seem to be doing anything to expand the medium's audience.  Why would they?  They are owned by Disney and Warner Brothers, who could probably care less how well the comic book industry is going, so long as they maintain copyrights on their characters.  The money is in movies, TV, and licensing.  It doesn't matter to them that their comics make a lot of money, just as long as they break even.

A big part of this, and yet another reason why I've dropped these books, is that stories from the Big Two tend to be ignorable.  Is there a better example than Fear, Itself on how cosmetic and temporary these stories are?  So much was reversed just a few issues after it happened.  But, of course it did.  Real change can't happen in titles featuring core characters, because they're not characters any more, they're brands, and the brands must be evergreen.

I realize this is something of a generalization, but it's gotten to the point where the comics that the Big Two are putting out are stuck in story loops, unable to move forward.  With the costs increasing and the sheer number of books stretching the limits of creators (are there really 52 amazing creative teams out there, DC?), why should anyone stick around?  Particularly when better comics exist?

Comics are a hard habit to break.  Comics from the Big Two are the worst of the bunch.  We care about these characters and want to know what happens to them.  We're given the illusion of change, because it's all they can really offer.

I said that dropping all of the Big Two books from my pull was liberating.  It was.  I suddenly found myself with extra money and the desire to start looking into some of the creator owned books I'd always wanted to try.

I know how stupid this sounds, but comics from the Big Two tended to be package deals.  I really couldn't buy just one.  And I always had to allow for the eventually tie-in book or annual.  Going cold turkey cleared the decks.  Suddenly all those slots I held in reserve for corporate superheroes were free for...well, anything at all.

Cold turkeyAnd "anything" is the key for comics' survival.  It should be clear, by now, that people who are interested in movies about superheroes are not interested in comic books about superheroes.  If that was the case, the gravy train of superhero movies would equal a golden age of comic book sales at the Big Two, but that hasn't been the case at all.  So it begs the question: do people just hate the medium?  And, if so, will superheroes really convince them to like it?

Comics hasn't really tried diversity at a high level in decades.  Marvel and DC will periodically publish titles that don't feature superheroes, but those invariably get canceled after just a few issues.  I can't blame the Big Two for this -- the books need to make money to stay alive.  But is a four to six month window really enough time to establish a non-superhero book?  And then for said book to start getting attention outside of the comic book store?  It's doubtful.  Had Marvel or DC been publishing The Walking Dead, it would have been canceled after six issues.

I could go on and on, and I do, about creator owned comics and diversity and how they are the only hope for the industry.  You can find more ranting from me over here and yet another post about the same issue over here.

I've rambled enough for now.  Next time: the cool creator owned comics I've recently discovered thanks to my new windfall of cash.

Unrequited

I'm a bit behind on my blogging, but I'm hoping to get back to it soon.  Blame it on the strange illness I fought off this past holiday weekend.

In the meantime, I present a post from a few weeks ago, featuring a sample of my story, "Unrequited."


It was our seconddate when the world ended.            Thiswas someone's basement once.  There's awasher and a dryer down here and if the power were still working I'm sure wecould use them.  The fact that the showerupstairs worked was blessing enough.  Myclothes might not be clean, but at least my skin smells better.            Sophybrought a few things down from the bathroom. She found a compact.  She foundsome make up.  It's still light outenough for her to put it on.  She's justkind of sitting there, compact in one hand, eyeliner in the other.  I'd be flattered if I thought she was actuallydoing it for my benefit.  She's not.  She's doing it for her own.            Ibrought a few things down from the kitchen. I found a really big knife, the kind they only sell on the Home ShoppingNetwork.  I found some canned goods thatcan be eaten raw.  I found some bottledwater.            Isearched every inch of this house and every inch of the garage and the shed outin the yard and I didn't find a shotgun or a hand gun or anything that could beconsidered a fire arm.  In the moviesthey always find a gun somehow.  In themovies they always know how to use it.            Iknow she'd rather be sleeping upstairs in one of the beds.  But I feel like the rooms are too shut offwith only one exit route.  The basementhas a door to the upstairs and a door to the back yard.  The floor is concrete and the walls arecinder blocks.  I feel secure down here.            There'sa small window, the kind made from a really thick block of glass.  I can see the swing set in the backyard.  I can see the sand box.
            Iremember when internet dating was a joke.            Idon't know when it happened, but at some point meeting people online became trendy.  I guess the ability to screen people wasappealing.  You could literally type inthe kind of person you wanted to meet and the computer would spit out results.  It was like natural selection with photos.            That'show I met Sophy.            Ithink most people have a list of traits that they look for in a significantother.  And I think most people are smartenough to realize that they'll never find someone with every single one ofthose traits.  To a certain extent, weall know that we're going to have to settle. You trade wit for kindness.  Youtrade taste in movies for taste in music. You trade intelligence for looks. Everyone knows that this is how it works and everyone knows thateveryone else does it.  You have tosacrifice to survive.            Ididn't feel like I was settling with Sophy.            Thisholds true for meeting people online.  Goahead and do a search for someone who has the exact same favorite movie asyou.  I can guarantee that they won'tlike the same music.  Do a search forsomeone with a post-graduate degree. Chances are good that they'll be dull as dirt.  When the facts are laid out and pixilated onthe screen twenty inches in front of your face, you learn to pick andchoose.  You learn to prioritize.            Itwasn't like that with Sophy.  She likedthe best movies.  She valued wit.  She enjoyed getting drunk.  She was nearly as aimless as me and just afew months younger.  There wasn't asingle trade to be made.  I didn't haveto pick and choose.  Everything lined upthe way I wanted.            Andthen, of course, there were the pictures. As online dating had gotten more popular, more and more attractivepeople were actually using it.  I'm sureinitially it was the last resort for the homely and misanthropic, but it turnedinto a veritable potpourri of beautiful people. No matter what your type might be, you were bound to find someone tomatch it.  The problem, of course, isthat everyone knew this.            Youget a lot of glamour shots, pictures that seemed to have been takenspecifically for the purpose of having a great online profile.  You get a lot of action shots, pictures ofpeople doing something "cool" with their friends.  Those are actually kind of intimidatingbecause you're getting a glimpse of that person's entire life in onephoto.  It's a world that seems foreignand complete and not a world that needs you in any way.  You also get a lot of artsy shots, created tobe mysterious and appealing when, in reality, they're just annoying.            Sophywas different.            Ifound her by doing a search for favorite movie. We were a match.  Her picture wascandid enough (and cute enough) for me to think she had potential, so I clickedon her name to view her profile.  Notonly did we like the same movies, we liked the same music, too.  It seemed to me that I had every single oneof the qualities that she looked for in a person.  It seemed to me that her hobbies paralleledmy own.            Withina few minutes of reading her profile, I'd already fallen for her.
            Wemanaged to slide a mattress down the stairs and we took sheets and comfortersfrom the linen closet.  It felt weird totake them off the beds.  The mattress wasone thing.  Sheets made what we weredoing seem too real.            Nighttime is always the hardest.  I watch asthe last light from the sun fades away. Sophy crawls on to the mattress and pulls the sheets up around her.  I look at my watch.  It's only 6:30.  I wonder howmuch longer the battery will last in this thing.  I suppose at some point time will cease toexist.            Wesleep in four hour shifts.  I know itdoesn't sound like we're getting a whole lot of rest, but it's not as if eitherof us is getting any quality sleep. You're half awake the whole time, anyway.  Part of you doesn't think you'll wake up.            Therewas one point when we felt comfortable lying next to each other.  I think we preferred it.  It was a way for us to stay warm.  I liked to think it was comforting, that Iwas just as comforting to her as she was to me. But we've been pretty scared lately, too scared to be lying down at thesame time.            "Ifeel like we're buried," she says as she rolls over on to her side.  She always starts off on her side.  At some point she'll end up on her back.  Gently, casually, and sound asleep, she'llroll on to her back, no longer curled up in the fetal position, open andaccepting of the world around her.  Ithappens that way every night.  It'salmost graceful.            I'vewatched her sleep every night for a week now.            Ilook back out the window.  The sun isgoing down and the last bit of light is starting to form shadows anywhere itcan.  I try not to let my mind fool me.  I've got enough to worry about withoutimaging things.Those trees in thedistance are just trees.  They're notmoving.  They're not headed this way.            Ialmost wish they were.

The rest of Unrequited can be found as a 99 cent eBook, available on iTunes, for the Nook, and for the Kindle, as well as pretty much any other eReader or Tablet. Unrequited can also be found in print, as part of the short story collection, Unrequited and Other Stories .

Love in the Time of Internet Dating

Here's another little something that I wrote a while back, but this has never been published anywhere.  I mostly wrote it for my own benefit, which is something I seem to do a lot.

This is from a longer piece on my relationship with Nicole, something that has actually found its way into print in "I Pray Hardest When I'm Being Shot At," which is nearly as much of a love story about Nicole and I as it is about my grandparents.

If I remember correctly, I left all of these bits out of the book, though.

I just checked, and the document this is excerpted from is almost 70 pages long.  I am a crazy person.

Anyway, here you go, a little insight into how Nicole and I met...



            "Hey," said Brandonin his usually upbeat, somewhat innocent manner.            "Brandon," I said.  This is the relationship we had: I was meanto him.  I mean, I wasn't literally meanto him, but I joked around in a very mean fashion.  I knew he could take it though, or else Iwouldn't have done it.            "I just gota message from some guy telling me I'm cute and funny."  See, he said things like this and it wasimpossible for me to not be mean to him. It was impossible.            "I take ithe's never met you," I said.            "OnFriendster," he said, which is funny because the assumption here is that I notonly knew what Friendster was, but I knew how it worked.  But it was a safe assumption to make.            "You're onFriendster?" I said as I typed the address into my web browser.  I wasn't doing anything work related, anyway,and this gave me yet another source of distraction.  It was hard work finding ways to spend somuch free time when I couldn't leave the office.            I pulled upthe Friendster page and logged-in – as I said, I not only knew what Friendsterwas, I was well aware of how it worked. Hell, the last girl I really dated I met on this thing, but that didn'tlast too long.  Still, it was aninteresting system, particularly for those of us who had a hard time bravingthe Los Angelessocial scene.            "Add me toyour friends' list," said Brandon,so I looked him up and added him to my friends list.  "Isn't that a great picture of me?"            By thispoint, though, I'd quit listening to him. I was now scanning the people in hisfriends list in hopes that they weren't all gay men.  They weren't.            Inparticular, one photo caught my eye.  Thename above it was Nicole.  So I clickedon her.            "Hello," Isaid as the page loaded, "who's Nicole?"            "You shouldsend her a message," said Brandon,"she's totally chill.  You'd get alongwith her."            So Idid.  And this is what I sent:
Date: Sunday, October 24, 2004 11:42:00 AM Subject: Hello Message: Brandon said I should send you a message. It
happened much like this:

Brandon: Some guy I don't even know sent me a
message on Friendster telling me I'm cute and
funny.

Me: You're on Friendster?

Brandon: Yeah.

Me: Let me add you to my friends' list.

**I look up Brandon.**

Brandon: Isn't that a good picture of me?

Me: Yeah, it's fan-freaking-tastic, Brandon.

Brandon: Isn't that a good description?

**I ignore Brandon and scroll down the page to his
list of friends.**

Me: Hello. Who's Nicole?

Brandon: Nicole! She's a girl I used to work with.
You should send her a message.

Me: Okay.

It dawns on me, however, that this could be the
worst conversation starter ever. But I hold out
hope.

Back Inaction

Two points you should know about this blog post before going any further:

1) It will consist of things you will probably find hard to take seriously.

2) It was not my intent to write this blog, at least not today.

Writing isn't an easy thing to do.  I could go on and on about the mental, emotional, and social difficulties that come with making a go of being a writer.  Honestly, if I haven't gone on and on about those things before now, I probably will at some point down the line.

Here's the thing no one ever really thinks about, though: the physical problems that come from writing. 

No, seriously.

I'm a pretty fragile guy, I will admit that.  I have more ailments than is generally found in a person not living in a bubble.  I drew the short straw in the genetic pool.  But I also exacerbate a lot of my problems by writing.

Let's look at right now, for example.  I'm doped up on pain killers and this is the longest I've been vertical the entire day.  This is all because my upper back spasmed and the got progressively worse over the course of the morning, until I had no choice but to leave work, come home, pop pills, and lie on a heating pad.

And that was my upper back -- it's usually my lower back that goes out.  I was actually laid up 2 days before my wedding day because of my chronic back problems.

This all makes sense if you consider the fact that I spend upwards of 12 hours a day sitting at a desk, and probably another 1 to 2 on a couch in front of a TV.  I was also born Pectus excavatum which, while I had surgery for it when I was five, it left behind some physical issues (and a couple of major scars).  Needless to say, said physical issues have only been made worse by insane desire to write.

Funny enough, my back issues usually take a backseat to my carpal tunnel syndrome.  I've gotten a number of cortisone shots in my wrists to pat down the inflammation, but I've reached my limit.  At my last doctor's appointment I was told that surgery was basically my only option.  So that's something to look forward to.

All this is to say that writing has been strangely destructive to my body.  But who would ever even consider such a thing?  If you had told me 30 years ago that problems that could be attributed to writing would have me laid up in bed, I would have looked at you like you were crazy.

Not for nothing, but this could just be one more reason why writers drink.  Alcohol definitely helps with inflammation and pain, at least in the short term.  It also helps with all those mental, emotional, and social issue I mentioned earlier.  Sadly, it also only helps with those problems in the short term, too.

It'll be interesting to see which goes first: my mind or my body.  Right now, I'd say they're running neck and neck.

An uplifting short story to start your week

You can find this short story in the Literary Town Hall collection, conveniently listed over there on the right.

As the saying goes, never apologize and never explain.  But this short story is eight years old and I have to admit that there are parts of it that don't really hold up.  Then again, there are parts of it that, I think, hold up extremely well.

As you will probably be able to guess when you read this, much of it is based on real life events.

Also, I think there might be some swearing in there, not to mention a few disturbing metaphors.  This is probably a PG-13 story.


Gateway DrugByKyle Garret
            Iam a guided missile without the guidance.I've never been tothis doctor before.  The only thing Iknow about him is that he accepts my insurance and that his office is less thanten miles from my apartment. Unfortunately, each of those miles is shadier than the next.  By the time I get there, I'm beginning to questionthe validity of my new doctor's qualifications, not to mention the quality ofmy insurance company.            Hisoffice is in an old brown building.  There'sno sign on it anywhere that would indicate a doctor resides there, at leastnone that I can see from my car. Mathematical deduction is the only reason I even find the place; thishas to be his office because the building after his has an address that is twonumbers higher.            Ipark and get out of my car, making sure to hit the "lock" button on my carkeys.  I hear the car honk and I'msuddenly very thankful for technology. Then again, I'll draw little comfort that my car is safe if I'm beatento death inside this building.            Andthen I see the sign.  The sign is apiece of notebook paper with "Dr. Daley" written on it in blue pen.  It is taped to the front door of what I'massuming is his office.  If my wristsweren't actually throbbing as I stood there, I would have turned around.  But beggars can't be choosers and apparentlyI've turned into a beggar.  I supposeevery girl I've ever slept with would attest to that.            WhenI enter I immediately notice two things: two attractive young women who appearto be medical assistants and a framed picture of who I am assuming is Dr.Daley.  The assistants are nice to see;the picture is less so.  The photo is a pastellooking shot of a middle aged man in a shirt, tie, and cardigan sweater.  He's wearing those black, horn rimmed glasses– the kind they used to wear in the 50's and 60's.  And in the picture he appears to be aboutfifty years old.  Those pesky math skillsquickly alert me to the fact that this man could be over a hundred.            "Areyou here to see Dr. Daley?" says one of the assistants, no doubt picking up onmy look of complete bewilderment.              "Uh,yeah, I have an appointment," I say.            "Okay,just sign in for us here," she says as she points to the sign-in sheet with onehand and grabs a clipboard with the other, "and fill this out for us.  You can sit over there."  She points towards the opposite side of theroom.            SuddenlyI notice that there are, in fact, chairs in this room.  I hadn't noticed them before because there's no one sitting in them.  I'm the only patient.            Iput my name on the sign-in sheet and sit down, wondering how long I couldpossibly have to wait since I'm apparently the only one here.  In fact, the medical staff outnumbers thepatients in this scenario, something that really can't be good forbusiness.  Then again, maybe Dr. Daleygets a lot of wealthy divorcees who have been coming to him for decades.  Judging by the neighborhood, I tend to doubtit.            Ifill out all the paperwork that's required of me and hand it back to theassistant.  She smiles and thanks me andgoes back to talking to the other assistant. I'm beginning to wonder how many assistants this guy could possibly needconsidering his average number of patients.The door to what Iassume is the examination room opens and all of my questions are answered.            Slowly– oh, so slowly – walks out Dr. Daley. If he's a day under one-hundred and fifty I'd be surprised and it dawnson me that perhaps he's some kind of medical miracle in his own right, andthat's why he's still practicing: healing magic through osmosis.            Hedoesn't see me as he heads towards the main desk.  One assistant scurries up to him with afolder containing all of my information as the other one heads back into theexam room.  Maybe the assistants willactually examine me.  Maybe Dr. Daley isjust here to put his stamp of approval on the HMO forms.            Theassistant with Dr. Daley points in my direction and he turns to face me.  He smiles and begins to lumber in my generaldirection, much like a mummy or a zombie who's just noticed how so very tastymy brains are.  I have to resist the urgeto scan the room for something to decapitate him with.            "I'mDr. Daley," he says in that old man voice, and you know exactly what I'mtalking about.  He holds out a quiveringhand to me, undead body language for wanting to shake.  I grab his hand as weakly as possible and wedo a quick up/down motion before I let go. Depending upon which movie this is and whether or not he's a mummy or azombie, he could suck my life force away with just a touch, so it's best not totake any chances.            Hesticks his hand out as if to indicate that he'd like me to head in the directionof the exam room, as if he wants me to go in ahead of him.  My ADD and entire lack of manners would havemade this happen, anyway, as there's no way in hell I could have handledwalking behind him at half an inch per minute. So I eagerly walk past, fully aware that this could be the part where Ifall into the secret undead death trap.            Everythinghappens in slow motion.  Dr. Daley asksme my symptoms, I tell him.  He gives mewhat most folks would call "practical advice," in this case holding my armsunder cold water for forty-five minutes every night.  This is all well and good and within thebounds of what I was expecting.  I waitfor him to prescribe me some industrial strength painkillers.And then ithappens.            "Jarred,"says Dr. Daley as his assistant suddenly appears standing beside me, "with yourpermission we'd like to include you in our prayers."            Okay,so that's a little unorthodox (or very, depending upon your definition of theword), but I figure that's fine.  If thiselderly man wants to say a little something to god for me tonight before hegoes to bed, then so be it.  I imagine Icould use all the help I can get.            Butno.            "Sure,"I say.            Andno sooner is the word out of my mouth than do he and his assistant each grabone of my hands while simultaneously grabbing each other's hand – in essenceforming a circle of three.  They thenproceed to put their heads down and close their eyes.            Thereis no praying for Jarred tonight.  Therewill be praying for Jarred right the hell now.            "OurLord Jesus, through whom all things are possible," he says and my head isalmost as not down as my eyes are not closed. It's like I'm in another world, a crazy world where insurance companiesdirect you to faith healers.            "Pleasehelp our brother Jarred, who in these trying times needs your guidance."            There'san implication in there somewhere.  Iknow there is.            "Ifyou could ease his pain, Lord, make his wrists feel better."            Ionce saw a stripper put her legs behind her head while felating acucumber.  I'm more stunned now than Iwas then.            "Weare your humble servants, Lord.  InJesus' name we pray."            I'mtrying not to laugh.  I'm trying withevery ounce of strength that I have and I am not a strong man, physically ormentally.  And I feel like a total shitfor finding any of this funny at all.            There'sthirty second of silence and they both open their eyes and look up at me.  "Amen," he says.            "Amen,"I say.  I'm going to hell now.            Igive Dr. Daley and his assistants the most sincere sounding "thank you's" I canmuster and make my way for the door.  Itry not to look like I'm fleeing, although I do look back to make sure they'renot following me.  When I get outsidemy car is still there.  I pull my pack ofCamel Wide Lights out of my pocket.  Ilight up.  I had assumed I'd be going tothe pharmacy after this, that I would then go home and vegetate on federallyregulated opiates.  Instead I'm left withJesus.I'm a littleworried; I've heard he's a gateway drug.

Writer's Block

I don't get writer's block, not in the traditional sense, at least.

Not long after "Pray" was released, I did a Q&A at the library in my hometown.  One of the people there asked me how I dealt with writer's block.  I'm pretty sure Nicole smiled when she heard the question, because she knows only too well that I have different types of problems with writing.

I have written three books and I have three more in the works -- literally, I have pages of work completed for each of them.  This doesn't even take into account various short stories, comic book scripts, and the random television or movie idea.

I have more ideas than I know what to do with, but I would hazard a guess that most of them are awful.  But that's the thing with writing: you never really know until you write it.  I've spent months working on something that I ultimately kill off because it's not going anywhere.  I might later go back and pick apart the carcass to find parts I can use elsewhere, but I don't get back all the time I put into it.

This isn't to say that I don't get writer's block, because I do.  It's just that my version doesn't involve ideas, it involves sentences.

I labor over every single sentence I write.  If I manage to make it through an entire paragraph without stopping to consider what I'm doing next, it's a huge accomplishment.  I read about people who just crank out first drafts and I'm always amazed.  I see writers on Twitter saying things like "Just hit 50K words, shooting for 75K before the end of the day!"  I can't even wrap my brain around that.

There's something more debilitating than writer's block, though: apathy.  I find that apathy kills more of my writing than anything else.  At some point, whether it's a paragraph into a new blog entry or ten chapters into a novel, doubt creeps in.  Why am I writing this?  Is it really any good?  Does anyone really care about this?  What's the point?

That shit can kill you, but I can't imagine there's a writer in the world that doesn't experience it.  Fortunately, I think most writers also have the ability to rationalize just about anything, so when those doubts do creep in, they can be pushed away.  The issue is how long that takes, and how difficult it is to recover.

In some ways, I might be better off if I actually had writer's block.  Perhaps writers who struggle with such things eventually break through with only good ideas, as opposed to my situation which has a undefinable signal to noise ratio.  Imagine being able to invest in one idea that you know is good instead of ten ideas that you're unsure about.

Maybe writer's block wouldn't be so bad.

The Upside of Ditch Digging

This would all be different if I dug ditches for a living.

Back in the heady days of 2004, I got a promotion.  At the time, I was a leasing agent at an upscale apartment community in Los Angeles.  Because I had shown some aptitude with computers, and a willingness to own our online related activities, I was made the E-business Coordinator for all the properties the company I work for owned in Los Angeles.  Over time, that role would expand to include not just all of California, but all of the Pacific Division of AIMCO -- I was the EBC for the AIMCO PD ROC.

You heard me.

Anyway, the expanded job came with, among other things, an assistant, or at least that's what he was called, as Matt was never really an assistant in the traditional sense.  He actually preferred being called the "Deputy E-business Coordinator," because we both liked the West Wing.

Matt was (and is) a screenwriter.  He likes baseball.  He has vast knowledge of meaningless things.  We got along great, which was good, given that we shared an office.

Now, it would be easy for me to downplay the work we did in that office.  Matt's then-girlfriend-now-wife lived a good drive away, so he and I rotated weekends so he was actually able to visit her.  Eventually, though, we realized that no one in charge was around on the weekends, so we just stopped showing up altogether.  In other words, if you had the weekend shift that week -- which meant you officially had Thursday and Friday off -- you more or less had Thursday through Sunday off.

One afternoon we just decided to go see a movie.  It was Sideways .

I should point out that my extreme weekend hooky was initially Nicole's fault.  Not long after we started dating she wanted to get lunch on a Sunday, but I was at work.  So I skipped out and met her.  And then we went to Ikea.  And the next thing I knew, I'd been gone the whole day.

We did work, though.  Our job performance was measured in time, and it was the rare hour that at least one of us wasn't by a computer, even when we weren't in the office.  This, I think, justified our lackadaisical schedule; we were almost always working.

Still, it was a pretty cushy gig.

As I mentioned, Matt was a writer, struggling to break in, just like I was.  I wouldn't say that we talked about the process of writing a lot, since we were coming at it from different schools.  But we did talk about the work involved, and how thankless it could be.

Every so often, we would talk about the fact that our cushy jobs were probably a detriment to our writing, because it made us comfortable.  We didn't have a lot of motivation to change our current situations, at least not the extent that, say, digging ditches for a living would.

My cousin is a writer, newly graduated and out in the real world, working where she can.  I told her that such jobs are great because they don't just provide material, they provide motivation.  Seeing what you don't want to do for a living is a great way of driving you towards what you do want to do for a living.

I don't think the average person realizes how difficult it can be to be a writer who doesn't make a living that way.  Writing is hard work.  It's a second job to go along with the first job that pays the bills, but also takes 40+ hours away from you each week.  And while that day job makes demands of you that you can't ignore because you like being able to eat food and you like having some place to live and you need to read books to keep yourself sharp, writing makes demands of you in ways that you can never escape.

I'm 36 years old and I have every reason under the sun to stop with this nonsense, and yet here I am.

I'm actually okay with my current job.  In fact, it only has one real downside (aside from the fact that I could probably afford to be paid more): it's not writing.  And that's the thing.  I could have the greatest job in the entire world and it would still be second fiddle for me.

I have never had difficulty finding the motivation to write; I don't really have a choice in the matter.  As exhausting as it can be, I'd have it no other way.