Scott David Brown's Blog, page 13

Am I Your Favorite Friend?

This month’s addition to Mii of the Month consists of two Miis. The first is a character from a popular T.V. show that I got from the Wii community and the second Mii is one that I created.

This Mii is based on a character from the T.V. show Friends. Hopefully you can tell who this is, but in case you can’t, it’s the loveable Phoebe played by Lisa Kudrow. Sh’s not my creation, but not a bad likeness don’t you think?

 This is Cleo. I created her for the Nintendo channel for Wii users who competed to create Miis based on a theme that Nintendo chose. In this case, I was trying to create Cleopatra. I got a good score if I remember correctly.

My New Short Story Series

The second round of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award arrived, and not to my surprise, I didn’t make it! Writing contests are tricky as luck plays a major role with who gets picked, unless you are just such a super-duper writer that your talent outshines everyone else! There are other opportunities tout there for writers who want to enter contests.

I was a runner-up in a contest several years ago with my manuscript, Fallen Raven, which is no longer around as far as I know. It’s just for screen writers now. Even so, I’m looking into entering a contest from writersdigest.com. I’m going to do some research about it first, but this particular one is involving short stories: http://www.writersdigest.com/competitions/writers-digest-annual-competition.

My new short story series is coming along well. I’m currently outlining each book and I’m looking to keep my original idea of 7 stories total. Book 1 is finished after three drafts and I am confident that it doesn’t need any more work. I love MS Office 13’s speak option which allows my computer to read my work to me. I find it helpful, because I don’t like reading out loud and it sounds like a person is speaking. I can hear how it sounds without my mental bias getting in the way! If you don’t have that kind of feature in your word processor technology, you should have someone else read it to you out loud or do it yourself. It really helps.

Book 2 and Book 3 are outlined at this point and I’m beginning to get a broader picture of what the series is about. I still have a few more books to plan out and that should help me with the title. I don’t usually write like this. But, since working on my third novel Target: Foxtrot last year, I have found that outlines really do help when writing a novel. Too much structure is constrictive, so you have to find a balance. A loose, basic structure can be helpful without forcing the writer to go a certain direction.

Once I have all the books in the series mapped out, and a series title, I’ll be adding a new page dedicated to these books. The way this will work is that I will be releasing one short story or book from the series ever so often on amazon.com. I’ll have promotions when the new book comes out, which will include free e-book copies to download, discounts, and possibly other types of promotions. So, there will be 7 standalone e-books available for a low price. Once all 7 are released, I will eventually combine them into one book, in paperback and possibly a complete e-book version too.

I hope to build a small following of readers and I also want to build up the amount of published work. What is really new about this project is that I am returning to my roots, the fantasy theme. Technically, fantasy is considered to be a sub-group under science fiction, but others believe it to be its own genre. Whatever the case, most of what I have published so far is either romantic comedy or present day/futuristic sci-fi. This is my first attempt at self-publishing medieval fantasy. I’m excited to see how this project turns out. After book 1, I feel like this might be the genre I should focus on, and I’m really looking forward to writing book 2. I hope you all enjoy reading this series as much as I have enjoyed writing it so far!

I’m pushing for an end of February release for book 1, but it may be closer to beginning of March. Stay tuned!

 

Mii of the Month Page

Stephen Colbert, the Mii version.

After posting my Wii U Mii, I thought of a neat idea, posting some of the Miis I’ve gathered over the years playing Wii. Creating an avatar of yourself wasn’t exactly groundbreaking when the Wii came out, but Nintendo did something that was later emulated by Microsoft, adding avatars for game systems. Nintendo did more than simply have a cartoon little guy or gal on your Wii system, they integrated the Miis in certain games. Like with Mario Kart Wii, for example, you could race as your Mii instead of a Nintendo character. Sharing the Miis was a fun part of the Wii system. Now, with Wii U, Nintendo is trying to integrate social features with the system in new ways. The Miiverse is essentially an online message board dedicated to Wii U users and the games they play. Sony is said to be attempting to integrate social features in the next Playstation. With the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS, the social aspect has changed and now people can share their avatars in much easier ways. The qr code is a welcome addition to sharing Miis and it allows me to post my Miis right here on my blog. So,  I thought it would be fun to make my Miis accessible to my visitors!

It is rare that I feel the need to make a Website News post as I don’t make major changes or additions often, so I am happy to make one for this announcement! The Mii of the Month page!  Check out this screenshot bellow:

See? The Mii of the Month page is right there next to the Writing Portfolio page. Once you click on it, you will have access to all the Miis I have posted. The first three are of me, Mark Mushakian, and Stephen Colbert (you can see a picture of his Mii at the top of this post). I will be adding new Miis each month, not sure how often, but probably more than once a month. I have many different kinds of Miis, some celebrities, some made to look like characters from video games and TV shows, and others are regular people. I’ll have a picture with the qr code next to it so you can add it to your Nintendo system if you wish. I’ll have fun adding a Mii or two ever so often and I hope you will enjoy seeing what new additions I make. Also, you can have your Miis on the page too if you want to share them with the world! Just e-mail them to me at adminscottbrown@gmail.com!

This is Mii!

I don’t know how many Nintendo fans land on this blog, but I while back I noticed that Miis can now be transferred to Wii U and 3DS users in a new way! It used to be that you would have to get another persons’ “Friend Code” and input it into your system. Now all you need is this neat little qr code that I have placed neatly in this blog post. I’ve changed my Miis over the years and I’ve collected quite a bunch from friends I met online, but now it’s easier than ever to find new Miis. For Wii U owners, you can talk to other players about the games you play and there is a gathering of Miis that show up when you boot the system. You can just copy them right then and there!

So, for those of you who are dying to have your very own Scott David Brown Mii on your Wii U or Nintendo 3DS, here you go! I thought it was proper to include a picture of me as a Mii, for those of you who are on the fence or just want to know what I look like as a cartoon. I’m striking a very Scott D. Brown pose!

The Inspiration of Zelda and My New Short Story

Crest of Hyrule (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I want to talk about my new short story that I am working on but first I just wanted to talk about a couple of books that I want to plug!

I’m currently in the process of reading two books: Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference, by Cordelia Fine and Dark Light, by S. L. Jennings. The first is more like a textbook, but it is an interesting read. For a psychologist, it is especially interesting since human sexuality is my favorite area of psychology and human development. It really tears apart some of the old traditional theories about how men and women think. Conservative minds may not appreciate this book, just a heads up! The second book is a work of sci-fi erotica. I’m enjoying it so far and I’ll be sure to write a review about it on my blog when I finish.

I’ve only briefly mentioned my current project, so I thought I’d talk a bit about it. The main influences with this work so far is Zelda and Warcraft. It’s a medieval fantasy story about an elf who wakes up in a desert with amnesia. He has magical abilities and he must discover each one in order to survive the harsh climate and ultimately escape the desert. I’ve always felt that nature was an important theme in the Zelda series, even if it’s not explicit, there are always so many wonderful climates that Link visits and of course there are the animals and creatures he interacts with. I decided to focus on nature as being the main them of my new short story series and it seems fitting to use an elf as the main character. Elves are often protectors of nature in fantasy fiction.

Normally I like to use sci-fi for my novels, involving strange creatures and conspiracies, and my short stories are reserved for the comedy genre. But it was the medieval fantasy genre where I began writing for fun back in my high school days. J.R. R. Tolkien was especially influential in my early work as well as the story of King Author. I used to love the stories of knights fighting dragons and rescuing princesses. In fact, a lot of the video games I grew up with had characters rescuing princesses.

My current story does have influences from such works, but World of Warcraft has become a big influence too as well as The Legend of Zelda series. What I love about these games is that women are portrayed differently than they have been in the traditional romantic fantasy. Sure Princess Zelda  has in the past fit the traditional princess role, but she has become a more important part of the more recent games. Plus Impa is a kick-ass woman warrior!

My current work is codenamed: Nature. Hopefully I’ll be ready to self-publish the first short story in a month or so. I’ll  be sure to post updates of my progress!

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

It’s a bit late for this, but I like to write a post each year about Martin Luther King Jr. Day. As a progressive, social equality is very important to me. We all have the right to be who we are. As a child, learning about Dr. King’s work in the Civil Rights Movement inspired me. One thing that I take away from his example is that we should all live together in harmony and peace. I learned that even when something seems impossible, you can’t give up.

Today was Inauguration Day and I am excited to see what the next four years will bring. I missed it this morning, woke up at 9:30 am PST, but I saw some of the highlights. It was truly a historic day and I am proud of how far we have come as a nation. There may still be progress to be made, but I believe we can become the more perfect union that our founding fathers imagined!

The Link Between Conservitism and Low Intellegence

brains! (Photo credit: cloois)

The brain has been studied for thousands of years and thankfully today we can study the brain without doing strictly autopsy. Brain studies usually don’t become political, but for the last decade or so, psychologists and neuroscientists have been comparing conservative and liberal brains.

The Huffington Post had an article last year about a new IQ study comparing the IQ of people who say they are conservative or liberal. Here is the link if you care to read it: Huffington Post Article. The study certainly sounds interesting. There have been others like it and there are theories that there are conservative and liberal brains. Meaning that biology might play a part in a person being conservative or liberal.

I think we need to make sure we are clear about how we use the term “conservative.” Being conservative does not automatically equate to politics. The study seems to refer to political definitions. However, conservatism can mean economics or social behavior. This is important, because being politically conservative does not necessarily mean you behave conservatively.

I think about the conservative mind as traditionally narrow-minded. This means being focused on one aspect of a situation. It’s not necessarily a bad thing in the right context. Sometimes it’s important to focus on one thing at a time. In contrast, I see liberals as being more open-minded. They tend to look at the big picture. When it comes to either focusing on one aspect of a problem or looking at the whole thing, each method has its place.

In economics, conservatism’s strength is in saving for a rainy day and reducing deficits. It makes sense in the individual family context. You want to have a budget that allows for saving and is not spending too much. Liberal economic principles tend to be more focused on stimulative growth from spending and taxation. However, if we talk about spending and taxes, this usually refers to government polices. After all, a family cannot tax a group of people!

It’s not fair to assume that liberals want to raise taxes without cutting spending or balancing the national budget. Nor is it fair to say that conservatives don’t like to spend money. Economic policy has to shift depending on the situation. From what I have studied, and from playing a lot of SimCity, boom times mean it’s safe to cut taxes and unnecessary spending. This can influence growth in good economic times. However, in a slow economy taxes usually go up and spending increases in order to make up for the lack of private sector investment. All in all, economies need someone to spend money in order to function. If no one is spending, the economy stops. Conservative and liberal economic perspectives generally clash in debating who should be spending and how to incite said group to spend.

The labels of conservative and liberal often are missed or have different meanings depending on the context. I want to talk about the conservative and liberal brain. When I say this, I’m not talking about politics or economics for the time being, I’m talking about mental process, how one thinks.

A person with a conservative brain is generally afraid of change or of the unknown. It is important to point out that most of us experience some degree of fear of change or unknown experiences. However, how a person reacts to these fears make a difference. People who react negatively, through hate or violence, could have a lower intelligence than the average person. This is because we tend to fear the unknown, which often creates anxiety, and a person who does not know how to react to these new situations will revert to behavior that is instinctual or how they reacted to a similar situation they experienced in the past. Also, if a person has a negative experience around someone of a particular group, such as a homosexual, that person will tend to associate all homosexuals as being the same. Of course that is where we get stereotypes. We make judgements based on our own history, which can be helpful, but in social situations this can hinder us. Therefore, part of living in a diverse society requires us to remember that one person is not the ambassador to their social, ethnic, sexual orientation, or religious group.

The unknown often makes people uncomfortable, because they are not sure how to react in a new situation. This can be especially true if a person has an unhealthy concept about another group of people. It is the unknown that leads to fear and in turn leads to things such as sexism, racism, homophobia, and other forms of prejudice. Of course, parents can pass on these fears to their children and religious leaders can preach hate. The good news is that prejudice that is taught can be un-taught.

Ironically, it was my experiences attending a social conservative church that sparked my transformation. I evolved from a social conservative Christian to a progressive liberal leaning atheist. I wonder how much my genetics played a part in this, but I never thought about how intelligence relates to it. I am sure there are plenty of intelligent people who label themselves as “conservative” in the political context. But studies about brains are not dealing with simply politics, they are also dealing with thought process and cognitive function. Perhaps I have a “liberal” brain and I was forcing it to act conservatively. We do know that genes alone do not make the person. Environmental experience, meaning cultural, is an important influence on development. I person can have a genetic trait of alcoholism, for example, but never become an alcoholic. That is because said person can be taught not to drink and choose consistent behaviors that lead way from drinking.

I feel that the lesson from this study is that some people prefer simplicity and structure and become uncomfortable when that consistency is disturbed. Hence the yelling and screaming when debating. Others instead can handle change  better and tend to be more fascinated by the unknown as opposed to fear it. It is not so much the labels of “conservative” or “liberal” that is important, it is how the brain functions.

I should note that I am not a licensed psychologist nor am I apart of a research team. I do have a BA in psychology and I am working on a Masters in psychology as well. So, you can judge my credibility based on that.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01...

Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award

Each year around this time the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest starts up. Submissions include various types of fiction. I entered the contest this year, the last time was back in 2010, and I’m not feeling too confident that I will win. It’s difficult to get very far in this contest, but it’s still fun to see what happens. The last time I didn’t even make it to the second round! This year, I have submitted my current unpublished manuscript, Target: Foxtrot, a sci-fi story that takes place around 2040-ish. I managed to get two drafts finished before the submissions opened up. It could use a few more drafts and I feel the ending might come a bit sooner than desired. But, that’s what happens when you have a deadline.

The last contest I entered was the Writer’s Block International Contest, which I don’t think exists anymore! I think it was operated by a small group of people, but I did get a runner-up position with Fallen Raven. It’s always nice to get some recognition, even if it is small! I always like to enter writing contests even if they cost a little money to enter, but this year money is tight, so the Amazon.com contest will probably be the only one I enter in 2013.

Writing a novel takes a long time and it makes me appreciate short story process. It’s much easier to write a 11k word story and edited it in s reasonable amount of time than writing a traditional novel. I guess that is pretty obvious. If I had all the time in the world, I’d focus more on novels! However, now I have two novels to work with, so I probably won’t start a new novel anytime soon!

Generally, once I finish the second draft of a novel, I send copies to friends and family to read it. Then I put the book away for a while. I like waiting several months before going back to the novel, because I think it gives you a fresh take for the next draft.

But before I decide to work on another novel again, I feel the urge to go back to the short story format. So, I decided to start a new series of shorts, about seven in total that I would self-publish. I’ll be going back to the genre that started it all, medieval fantasy, and plan on doing one a month. It might end up being too much work, so that could change, but it would give me a way to write several books and get them out quickly. I’m going to attempt to create a fantasy world that is somewhat unique to my own imagination. I’ll try not to borrow too much from other well-known fiction, such as Warcraft or Lord of the Rings, though they will be a source of inspiration. I do want my stories to stand apart from anything else or at least be distinguishable!

Anyway, if you are entering the Amazon contest I suggest you do it soon. There is a limit of 10k submissions and you have till January 27th. Good luck!

Writting and Storytelling

Writing (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Writing can be a pain in the butt. Many people hate to write, even on a computer, and choose a career that doesn’t require much writing. Before writing, we had story tellers, who passed down stories by word of mouth. Of course, that meant the story could change as each person retold it to the next. When the concept of writing was developed, storytellers could make sure that their stories were told properly. Now you had a book you could read and get the original story from the author instead of hearing it from a friend, who probably told it wrong!

The downside to writing was that you had to write a copy of the story each time you wanted a book. Imagine trying to sell your stories to millions of people if you had to write each copy by hand! Enter the printing press and mass production. Follow that with the internet and suddenly people are able to publish whatever and whenever they want. We are bombarded by stories. Readers now have plenty of stories to choose from, both fiction and non-fiction. The downside for writers is that we have to be good at what we do more so than ever before!

The first story I ever wrote was a fantasy story. I still have the rough draft, my first and only pencil and paper project, that I wrote in high school. I’ve been a story-teller since birth, of that I am convinced, but it wasn’t really until high school that I took a stab at writing. I had several of my friends read it and give suggestions. Unfortunately, they were all fellow high schoolers, so I didn’t really get any good advice about writing!

Fast forward to 2006 and The Last Rejection was born. My first completed work, which I self-published after trying for months to get a literary agent with no success. I was excited about the possibilities and that was compounded by my naiveté. Now let’s move on to 2013, where I am now working on draft two of my third novel. Yes I have a second novel stashed away somewhere in my computer. Novel number three is a bit different from what I usually write. Still sci-fi, but no horrible virus made by a pharmaceutical company bent on making a ton of money. To be fair, I am still using the evil cooperation idea, but it’s more for background and not a major character in the story. I’m working feverishly on it to be ready for the next Amazon novel contest coming up soon. I do wonder, as I reflect on my 7th year of my literary career, if I have made enough progress in my ability to write a story?

I have taken breaks from my literary career quite a few times over the years. In fact, most of the writing I have done since going back to school has been academic in nature. If you listen to what many of my instructors have said, I’m a pretty good writer. Many of them have liked my style and how I use points and references to back up my statements. At least on a technical aspect, I seem to have improved my writing skills. Even so, writing fiction is not the same as writing a term paper.

The question of whether or not I am good at telling a story comes up in my mind, usually once I’ve completed a project. There is no real easy way to know if one is talented at writing. It’s not like singing where  it is fairly easy to tell if you can sing or not. It shouldn’t require going on a talent show like American Idol to find out if you can sing. In fact, I am aware that I can’t sing, because when I do I can hear what I sound like! If on occasion I begin to delude myself into thinking that I might actually be able to sing, my family will be brutally honest. Hence, no embarrassment needed to prove my lack of skill.

For writing, it’s not quite as simple. All you can really do is write something and put it out there. Maybe, if you get mostly negative criticism, that might mean you suck. Then of course there is the matter of spelling and grammar. If you handle the technical aspect of writing, you’ll have a tough time coming up with a polished work. Try not to make too many mistakes and catch the ones you do make! At the end of the day you may miss one or two little things and that’s ok. Afterall, even textbooks sometimes have a spelling error here or there!

Finally, I’ll conclude with a little advice, never give up no matter how much someone else thinks you suck! You might risk being that person who lies to themselves or you might learn how to improve and become better at what you dream of doing. My dad used to say that anyone can sing, you just have to learn how to. I think that might be true of just about anything. As long as you can afford to do it, follow your dreams to the end, because you never know what you can do until you do it!

The NEW scottdavidbrown.com

Welcome all to the new look of http://www.scottdavidbrown.com! Yes, a new surprise look for a new year. You can blame my friend Mark for inspiring me to change things when he moved his site to wordpress.com. I have done the same and it saves me some money each month on hosting, which is a significant savings. I’m happy to be better integrated with the wordpress community now. And now for the first time, I’m completely responsible for the site design, meaning I’m managing it instead of getting a friend to do it. It’s a good feeling and I don’t have to worry about designing the site from the ground up. I just use a pre-designed theme.

Most of the same features are still here on the site. I have my twitter feed and other various features from my old site. I also have a facebook page for the website, so be sure to like it! My downloads page is gone, but the writing portfolio page is still here and I may be adding new pages in the future. So, have a look around and thank you for visiting my blog!

Oh, and by the way, happy New Year!