Tim Dodge's Blog, page 4

The Kindness of Strangers

I think this is a wonderful story from The Moth. A celebrity reaches out to a stranger and does a very nice thing just when the stranger needs it most. This particular celebrity had a reputation for being a prickly personality. Just goes to show that we are all complex people with our bad sides and our good.

Too Many Main Characters?

Photo by J.D. Hancock. Used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.

I have a problem with the novel I’m writing, and I think David Farland put his finger on it in his blog post yesterday:

The important thing here is to keep a limit on the number of viewpoint characters. Two or three main characters is plenty for an average novel of 80,000 to 90,000 words. If you try to handle six or seven, you’ll find that your novel expands to a couple hundred thousand words very quickly.

So keep the number of viewpoint characters down to a manageable level.

My novel, in its present form, has seven main characters, plus one villain (so far.) Why so many, you may well ask? A couple of works inspired me to try this. My favorite Stephen King novel is The Stand, which has an immense cast of characters. Of course, he could pull that off because he’s, well, Stephen King. I’ve read that 800-page novel twice and likely will again. I keep urging my sons to read it, but they’re needlessly put off by its length. Anyway, I was very consciously trying to emulate that work.

Another work I really admire is J.C. Hutchins’ 7th Son trilogy. It remains one of the finest works of podcast fiction almost eight years after its conclusion. Hutch’s deft handling of a large group of protagonists was apparently much more difficult than it appeared to me as a listener, because I’m struggling with it where he succeeded.

Fact is, right now I don’t have good story lines for all of these characters. The story, which is about some of the few people in New York City who are immune to subliminal mind control messages transmitted by street musicians, has dramatic tension for some of the characters, but others are not affected so clearly. They know people who have fallen victim to the music, but they aren’t personally involved – none of their loved ones have lost their minds.

If David Farland’s advice is sound, then I need to demote some of these characters. Keep them in the story, but stop telling it from their viewpoints. That might well make my plotting easier, too. Trying to come up with a journey and resolution that will be both believable and satisfying and that involves all of them in some way has been, shall we say, frustrating. To be honest, that’s a major reason my progress has been so slow. I don’t look forward to working on it because I don’t know what to do.

I don’t ordinarily do rewrites before a novel is complete, but this may book may call for an exception. Something to think about next time I fire up Scrivener.

 

10 Things I’ve Learned From My Latest D&D Campaign

Photo by Alan Alfaro. Used under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 2.0 license.

My game group has been involved in a pretty good campaign for several sessions now. My character is a third-level dwarf barbarian  glory-seeker. Given that my character hasn’t been killed yet (despite the best efforts of my dice), it’s time to reflect on some of the life lessons the little brute has taught me so far.

Everyone has latent talents. Who knew that a dwarf barbarian could still be an effective hunter? Sure, the meat may look a little pulverized by the time I’m done with it, but it’s still edible.
Everyone can contribute. One of our most effective fighters is a dog named “Chicken.” He has rather disgusting taste in snacks, but he comes through when it counts.
You can never have too many tools for the job. Or, in my character’s case, battle axes, longswords, broadswords, daggers, shields and chain mail.
Be careful with your tools. Throwing your battle axe in the heat of battle is a bad thing. Hitting yourself with it is worse.
There’s a place for both strength and smarts. A good fighter needs the muscle to effectively swing a battleaxe when there’s a hobgoblin who needs discipline. However, making the right decisions can win the battle before it starts.
Teamwork beats going it alone. Particularly when one is taking on a bunch of human-sized ants.
On the other hand, don’t be afraid to step up. Sometimes a guy’s gotta take the lead by charging into a hoard of disagreeable orcs.
Don’t let success go to your head. You may win a few battles, but there are a seemingly unlimited number of orcs out there, waiting to rip your lungs out.
It’s good to be surrounded by friends who can take care of you. Particularly mages and clerics armed with healing spells when a nasty fight is over.
Working and fighting hard are important, but so is playing hard. My character knows his way around a good tankard of ale. And a bad one.

We play again in a couple of weeks. If my character survives, there may be some new life lessons, along with orc guts on his kilt.

 

I Can’t Complain, But Sometimes I Still Do (or, My Pet Peeves)

Photo by Matthew Keefe. Used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.

I realize the big holiday has come and gone for another year, but I say, “Let’s keep the spirit of Festivus alive all year long! Let the airing of grievances commence!” Herewith, some of my pet peeves:

Business buzzwords. Thanks to my co-workers, I doubt that I will ever “utilize” anything, “strategize” about anything, “reach out” to anyone, nor will I likely ever “throw someone under the bus.” The overuse of these expressions ceased to be amusing a long time ago.

Drivers who don’t signal. Yeah, I know I do this sometimes, but I use my signal more times than not, even pulling out of parking spaces. Few things fill my heart with more joy than waiting in traffic behind someone who has slowed or stopped for no apparent reason, only to see that vehicle eventually make a turn. PS That was sarcasm.

People who complain about …

a) The commercialization of Christmas. Hate to break it to you, but that ship sailed a few decades ago.

b) All politicians, as if there haven’t always been a mix of smart ones and idiots in that role. Here’s something you may not know about one presidential election: Opponents of one candidate said that his election would mean that, “Murder, robbery, rape, adultery, and incest will be openly taught and practiced.” Opponents of the other said he had a defective character, was a hypocrite and a tyrant. The year was 1800 and the candidates were Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.

c) What’s on TV. Read a book or watch a video if what’s on doesn’t catch your fancy.

d) Athletes who leave a team for more money elsewhere. Because certainly no one I know would jump at a different job for higher pay. PS That was sarcasm again.

e) Millenials. The surest way to sound like a grumpy old person is to crab about young people.

People who park their shopping carts in the middle of the aisle. Does this one really require an explanation?

People who use the last item of something and don’t refill. This applies equally to napkins and toilet paper.

Bloggers who post about their pet peeves. Like I should be interested?

But enough about me. No, really. Let us gather ’round the Festivus pole and share those things about our fellow mortals that drive us positively, certifiably, spit-flying nuts. List them in the comments.

And a happy Festivus all year long, to one and all. And stop bugging me.

 

My 5 Favorite Uses For Evernote

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I suspect many of you are like me in that you’ve come to increasingly rely on Evernote. It’s rapidly become one of my favorite apps, so I thought I’d share some of my favorite ways to use it. Some of these may be old hat to a few of you, but I hope you pick up at least a couple of new ideas from my list.

For the benefit of the uninitiated, Evernote is an all-purpose note-writing, note collecting, information-archiving application that runs on multiple devices. I have the app running on my MacBook Air, my iPhone, my iPad, and I can access my account via the Web from my PC at the office. I can make a grocery shopping list in Evernote on my laptop, synchronize it over my home wifi network, and have that list available on my phone when I grab my cart at Wegmans. That is an extremely simple example of what this app can do, however. Here’s what I like to do:

Sort my notes into notebooks. Evernote gives you the ability to create individual notebooks in which you can stash information. They act like virtual binders; when you create a new note, you can assign it to any or none of your notebooks. I have notebooks for freelance projects, insurance (that’s where I keep info for my day job), library board notes and documents, writing/podcasting, general interest stuff, and an idea bucket to keep track of random ideas. The other night I made a list of people I’d like to interview on my podcast this year and stashed it in the writing/podcasting notebook. Tomorrow night, I’ll take notes at one of my library board meetings and store them in the library board notebook. You get the idea.
Tag my notes. I just recently started doing this. In addition to sorting notes into notebooks, you can tag them with categories that you make up. I’m on two library boards, so I have a tag for each. When I want to quickly call up notes for one of the boards, I just go to my list of tags, click the appropriate one, and Evernote will display only the notes for that board. I also have tags for music, books, recipes – I even have one that I assigned to Christmas shopping lists. That one can be retired for the next 11 months.
Take photos instead of notes. I live in Ye Olde Snowbelt, and last year my old snowblower’s wheels locked up one time too many. It was time to get a new one. For those of you who live in more hospitable winter climes, home improvement superstores display snowblowers outside the store, just like they do with lawn tractors and equipment like that. When I went shopping, I took photos of the snowblowers I was interested in, and I particularly took photos of the large placards showing the features and price of each one. No need to write that info down on a notebook in the dark with a pen that I may or may not have remembered to bring. I shot the photos and stored them in the personal interest notebook in Evernote. Then I went home, called the notes up on my laptop and researched the models.
Store Web pages. I have been known to bookmark a few hundred thousand Web pages in the delusional belief that I will someday go back to them all. Evernote has a clipping tool that allows you to select all or part of a Web page and store it in a notebook. Now when I want to save a page to read later, I store it in Evernote. When I finally read it, I drag it to the trash if I’m done with it.
Store documents for meetings. When I have a work or library board meeting coming up, I stash related documents in the appropriate notebook so I have them on hand for the discussion. Emails, spreadsheets, memos, PDF’s –  whatever. It’s all stored in one handy place where I can access it easily.

BONUS: Record audio notes. I used this before I got my first GPS. One time my youngest son had a baseball game out of town. I knew how to get to the city where he was playing but not how to find the field once I got there. I looked up the directions on Google Maps and read the directions from the highway to the ball field into my phone. I stored the recording in Evernote and played it back when I hit my first red light in the other city. Worked like a charm. Now, of course, I have a GPS that speaks to me impatiently in a British accent and doesn’t complain when I swear at it.

Those are my current favorite uses for Evernote, and I’m sure there are many I haven’t discovered yet. Got any favorites of your own? Share them in the comments so I can steal adopt them.

 

Thoughts on the New Year

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A Blogger’s Lament

It’s been too long since I have made an entry on this site

And of great creativity I will not deign to boast

For in those stolen moments when jot some thoughts I might,

I find myself without ideas for what I’d like to post.

Oh sure, I could regale you ’bout my trips both near and far

Or vent about public affairs, with all their saints and sinners

Or treat you to another sappy post about my car

Or share pics of the mac and cheese that tonight I had for dinner.

A list of things – that always works! – yes, that could be the answer

Or videos of things absurd or photos of my dog

Or breathtaking accounts of how I bought three pair of pants — er,

Maybe that would make for just a very boring blog.

Perhaps I could opine at length with thoughts on Gamergate

Or share the pics from Pinterest of sugar-free granola

Or, to prove I’m Very Serious, I could at length create

An uninformed but passionate lament about Ebola.

The pressure’s on, I must devise a work of weighty matter

A story with a moral, like the one of Eve and Adam

For if I don’t give value but instead give mindless patter

I’ll lose my faithful readers (that’s assuming that I had ‘em.)

Oh, elusive inspiration, I so wish I had you now

The words would spill forth on the page, and this would be the log

Of undisputed brilliance, and to me all scribes would bow,

But I can’t think of anything of which I’d like to blog.

P.G. Holyfield

So I’ve been thinking all day about what I could possibly say. I overslept this morning. The alarm went off at 5:30, like it always does, but I decided to rest another five minutes before getting my first cup of coffee. Next thing I knew, it was 6:25. I went downstairs, poured a cup and sat down with my phone, planning to read the New York Times. For some reason, though, I had Facebook open, so I started to skim that instead. And that was how I found out that my friend P.G. Holyfield is fighting for his life.

I don’t remember whether or not I met him at my first Dragon*Con in 2008, though I clearly remember him being at a couple of parties I went to. The following winter and spring, I mainlined the podcast of Murder At Avedon Hill, and somehow I finangled my way into a very very small part in one of the last episodes. After that, I knew I had to meet the guy behind this tour-de-force – a captivating world, a gripping story, and a sonic artistic achievement far beyond anything I could hope to produce. I found a guy who is quiet but friendly and gracious, and often very funny. We roomed together at Dragon*Con 2010. Alcohol loosened my tongue and I talked his ears off. His tolerance for me was commendable.

In the years since, I’ve always sought him out at cons, even if we didn’t get to hang out much. It’s inevitable at cons that, if you hang around with a few friends, there are others that you won’t get to see much. I’ve been a faithful listener to the Beyond The Wall podcast since its inception. In fact, while I’m sure I would have heard of Game Of Thrones eventually, I first heard of it at Dragon*Con 2009 when I saw that P.G. had bought a board game based on the books. On a side note, I still owe him a drink due to our bet over last winter’s NCAA basketball game between his alma mater the University of Virginia and my beloved Syracuse University Orange, who frankly just did not bring it that night.

Now he’s fighting the cruelest, most ruthless enemy there is – cancer. The reports coming out of Charlotte are grim. I’ve wavered all day between disbelief, anger, sadness, resignation, then back again through all the stages. The posts I’ve seen on Facebook today, whether or not they’ve helped him, have been comforting for me, as I imagine they’ve been for all of us who know and love him. My sorrow is as nothing compared to what his children and Kim and his dear friends Chooch and Viv are enduring right now. All I can say is that my thoughts and prayers are with him and with them at this awful time.

Chooch and Viv started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money to offset the uninsured medical expenses and to help provide for his daughters. The results have been astonishing – $8600 raised in less than 30 hours. If you’re reading this and you haven’t donated, please consider doing so. P.G. poured his heart and soul into creating stories and shows to entertain us. Now his audience needs to come through for him.

My words are woefully inadequate at a time like this, so I’ll end this with a quote from a Bob Dylan song. “There’s some people that / You don’t forget / Even thought you’ve only seen ‘em one time or two / When the roses fade / And I’m in the shade / I’ll remember you.”

And I will, always. God bless you, my friend.

This is What Life as a Red Sox Fan Does To People

Michaela Murphy told this terrific story on The Moth about growing up in a house full of Red Sox fans and her adventure taking her younger brother to the Major League Baseball All-Star Game. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Find more excellent stories on The Moth at www.themoth.org.

Indecision

Photo by Robert S. Donovan. Used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.

My children are grown, and I’ve noticed something interesting over the past year. The youngest is 19 and about to start his second year of college; the older two are living on their own. From December 1988 until August 2013, my days were filled with working and my sons. Diapers, risk management when they learned to walk, toys, looking for lost toys, bedtime stories, school, and sports. Lots and lots of sports. I enjoy sports even though my talents for them came from the shallow end of the gene pool, so I also enjoyed watching the boys play. Baseball, basketball, soccer – it was fun. Time-consuming, and not always played in what one would call pleasant weather conditions, but fun. Still, more than once I found myself thinking, as I was driving to another game in Rome (New York, that is,) that a break from all this would be nice. I’d get to do activities that I chose, rather than having them foisted on me by my sons’ schedules.

So now they’re grown and mostly out of the house, and I have the opportunity to do what I want on a Saturday night. And you know what?

I can’t pick out anything I want to do. That’s right: Faced with what parents of younger children see as “freedom,” my response is – meh.

Tonight is a good example. Here are some of my choices:

The Chiefs are playing a doubleheader over at NBT Bank Stadium.
The New York State Blues Festival is going on right now in Clinton Square.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is playing at three different malls within a 10 mile radius of my house, including theaters showing it in 3-D.
I have season one of Breaking Bad on DVD that I borrowed the other day from the library.
I also borrowed the DVD of Ken Burns’ PBS series The Dust Bowl .
I am surrounded by unread books.
I have a guitar and a list of songs I want to learn how to play.
I have an Xbox 360 and a cabinet full of games.

And yet, with all these choices, I can’t pick anything. It’s on nights like this that I wish I could make all my friends from Balticon magically appear. I could discuss movies with Christiana Ellis, talk recording with Bryan Lincoln, laugh my ass off at anything that comes out of Norm Sherman’s mouth, crack a beer (or more) with Tee Morris, talk about writing with Katie Bryski, Abbie Hilton and Lauren Harris, talk about anything with P.C. Haring, and basically have one hell of a fun night. I apologize to those I left off the list; it’s not a slight – it’s for the sake of something approaching brevity.

So yes, the kids are grown, I can do whatever the hell I want, and for the life of me I can’t decide what to do. I am not anticipating waves of sympathy coming my way from those of you with kids at home, especially those still consumed with getting the nighttime ritual of baths, pajamas and story time done. Believe me, I remember all too well how tiring it is. My oldest is taking the bar exam in 10 days, yet it feels like yesterday that I read him The Hobbit as a bedtime story. Sometimes, I catch myself half expecting to walk in the front door and find the middle one excitedly working his way through his latest video game purchase. Or walk into the family room and find the youngest building something with the K’Nex that he played with constantly for so many years. It’s a trite cliche, and if you’re a parent you’ve heard it way too many times, but it’s true – they grow up way too freaking fast.

Parenting is chock full of challenges, but what I’m surprised to learn is that you still have challenges when the kids move on. For years, the kids fill your every moment, and then one day they don’t. And you find yourself on a Saturday night wondering, “What the hell do I want to do tonight?”

Right now, I’m leaning toward a good book and a couple of episodes of Breaking Bad.