Bryce Moore's Blog, page 175

How to Tell What You Value

In a conversation this morning, I used a story as an analogy off the cuff, not really thinking it through as I told it. (Most of my analogies just sort of pop into my head in the same way story ideas pop in there. Not all of them end up being winners.) I was trying to discuss how to tell if something is important to you or not. The story?

TRC’s room has gotten messy from time to time, over the years. (Shocking, I know.) And from time to time, I’ve gone up to help him clean it out. This is usually a fairly big pain, especially if he’s actively involved in cleaning with me. It’s much easier to throw out someone else’s stuff than it is to throw out your own. When I go up to clean his room on my own, I can be ruthless. When he’s there, there are always questions about each and every item.

On one such occasion, I was going through his drawers to toss things. I took out a piece of paper: a certificate for passing a swimming test, I think it was. It had clearly been in the bottom of his drawer for quite some time. It was creased in multiple places, the edges were crumpled, and it had been drawn on the back by a rogue crayon. I went to throw it away, and TRC objected.

“I love that! You can’t throw it away! It’s really important.”

I looked at the crumpled up piece of paper again, then back to TRC. “If you loved it,” I said, “you wouldn’t have let it get all crumpled up like this. The things we care about, we take care of.”

I’ve used that with others over the years since, and I think it’s true in many ways. The things I really care about, I pay attention to. I keep track of where they are, and I make sure they’re looked after properly.

But as I used it in conversation today, it occurred to me that it’s not always true. Some things, we care about deeply, but we forget about them. We take them for granted. Unfortunately, those are the things that are many times most important. Family members can fall into this category. People who are always there. Who we can’t imagine *won’t* be there. We treat them poorly because they’re going to be there no matter what, not realizing that everyone has a breaking point. A point where they refuse to keep going.

Of course, if we stop treating those things with the respect and attention they deserve, then one can really ask if they’re actually important or not.

TRC might well have really valued that piece of paper. Maybe it had been really important to him at some point. But the fact is, it had stopped being important enough to him to pay attention to it. No one else had allowed it to become crumpled and forgotten. That was on TRC and TRC alone.

So my deep thought for us all today is this: is there anything we really love that we’re letting get crumpled in our lives right now? Anything that’s important to us, but which (for whatever reasons) we’ve let slip to the bottom of the drawer, confident it’ll still be there when we need it later on?

Take a bit of time to think that through. And then see if there are any changes to make to ensure the things that really are important don’t fall off the radar. That they continue to receive the attention and respect we wish we would give everything that’s really near and dear to us.

Switching Writing Gears

There’s been a lot of different writing projects I’ve been jumping to lately, and it’s getting a bit dizzying to keep track of them all. Here’s a quick outline of what’s been going on:

Around the beginning of February, I started on the first draft of UTOPIA, a Clockwork Orange-esque piece that was going quite well. I was 45,000 words into it, give or take, and getting my 1,000 words a day in pretty easily. It’s always great to get into a groove and just churn through the word count.
In the last half of March, I got the copy edit for THE MEMORY THIEF, and so I had to drop UTOPIA and turn my attention to that. It wasn’t too complex, but when I don’t have a lot of writing time (compared to people who do this thing full time), I have to spend what time wisely. There was a deadline, and so the deadline had to be met.
While I was in the middle of the copyedit, my agent got back to me with some feedback on MAGIC AT 30,000 FEET. He was liking a lot of what he was reading, but there was a fairly major issue with the book that needed fixing before he wanted to finish the read. (The main character had a sister who was derailing the plot. Pesky sisters.) I debated waiting to make this edit until I was done with the first draft of UTOPIA, but in the end I decided to give myself some more space from UTOPIA so that I could evaluate it with fresh eyes later on.
I started the third draft of MAGIC AT 30,000 FEET at the beginning of April, more or less. When I do a new draft like that, my process right now is to print the book off and read it through from the beginning. I make a list of all the big changes I want to have happen in the book, incorporating any feedback I’ve gotten from readers up until then. With MAGIC, I knew I needed to do three big things: eliminate the sister, fix the ending, and add some more complexity to the plot. (The ending was completely lame, but I was still stumped how it could be fixed. And the plot itself was too linear. The main character went from problem to problem, solving or failing to solve each one in the order he encountered them. I wanted to mix that up a bit. Add some variety.)
The third draft was wrapped up in the middle of May. I sent it off to my agent, hoping for the best. In the meantime, I figured I finally had time to work on UTOPIA again, so I printed out a hard copy and started reading.
A few days later, page proofs from MEMORY THIEF arrived with another deadline, so I had to set UTOPIA aside to work on those.
While I was working on those, my agent got back to me with more feedback on MAGIC. All was well with the world, except the ending still stunk. (The denouement, technically.) So once the page proofs were done, I fixed the ending one more time. (In this case, it involved retroactively saving the lives of most of the people on the plane. Some days I get to do nice things as the author. Which is good, since in the third draft, I’d killed all the passengers. What can I say? The author giveth, and the author taketh away.)
I finished the page proofs, made the edits on MAGIC AT 30,000 FEET, and sent them both off.
In great news, the edits passed muster with  my agent, so now the whole book is being read by other agents. (I really would like to insert the term “special agents” here, but I’m somehow not figuring out a way to pull it off. Still, with so many agents running around, it’s only a matter of time . . .)

Which brings me to today. Looks like it’s time to pick UTOPIA up again and see where I am with the novel. And then, if I’m lucky, I’ll be able to actually start writing new material again. It’ll be a bit before I’m back to the “churning through the word count” stage again, though. Here’s hoping it’s sooner rather than later . . .

Thanks for reading!

If Money Were No Object

A co-worker and I had a chat yesterday about what we would choose to do if we could do anything we wanted to. It’s your typical hypothetical situation: a long-lost great aunt has passed away and left you enough money to do anything you want to do for the rest of your life. What do you do?

Sure, there are simple answers. Go on vacations. Put money aside for your kids to go to college. Maybe buy a new car or new house or fix up the ones you’ve already got. But what would you really do? After the newness of it all had worn off and you’d been on vacations and bought your toys. You still wake up every day, and you have to fill the hours between waking up and going to sleep, so how do you fill them?

As I’ve thought about it, a number of things occurred to me. First, I don’t think I’d move. At least not right away. I really like my house. Sure, it’s got a few issues, but I’ve lived in enough houses of various shapes and sizes to realize they all have issues. And while having a large house seems like it would be fun, I know that in practice, it just turns into your house. The place you live. And you take it for granted. (Then again, if money were really no object, I guess I could hire maids and gardeners to take care of all the chores. But let’s assume my long lost great aunt wasn’t Lady Violet, shall we?)

I also don’t think I’d buy a new car. I’m happy with the one I have, so why bother switching? As I’ve gotten raises over the years, Denisa and I haven’t really increased most of our base expenses. We buy better food to eat, and I pay more on board games than Is healthy, but by and large we’ve kept things level, and I like that. It leaves more money to do fun things with, so I think it highly likely I’d keep doing that, even with an independent income source. I really like the feeling of not having any large debts out there I have to worry about, and no commitments to fulfill financially.

So what would I do for a job? I know I wouldn’t be able to just do nothing. It would drive me crazy. (How do I know this? Because when I’m on vacation, I end up filling my days with stuff to do. Chores. Goals. I stay busy, or I get antsy. Doing nothing is only fun when there’s plenty of other things I need to do.)

If money were truly no object, I think I’d write every day. In fact, I know I would. Not all day every day. I’d probably go for about 6 hours a day, give or take, including research time. I’d go to conferences and conventions now and then, and I’d take my family with me when I could. That would be enough to keep me occupied and not feel like a slacker, and give me the freedom to roam the world at will. That would be pretty much ideal.

So once you think of things in those terms, what do you do about it?

A few years ago, a friend of mine quit the comfort of his 9-5 job in favor of the uncertainty of the life of a musician. He had about a year or two of savings built up. Enough so that he knew he had some cushion to try to live the dream before reality brought him back to earth. Why did he do it? Because what he wanted to do every day was be a musician, not sit in a cubicle working on computers. Has it worked for him? It seems like it has to me. I mean, he’s not independently wealthy, but he’s still a full time musician, and he hasn’t had to go back to a 9-5 job yet.

Could I do that? Just quit my job and dive into writing? I suppose I could . . . But there are a few key differences. First and foremost, he’s single, and I have a family. I need to be able to provide for my wife and kids. Health insurance, car insurance, and a steady paycheck let that happen. I like the security of knowing I’m saving money for retirement, and that Denisa and I have a plan that will let us help the kids through college. That security is really valuable to me, to the point that I’m willing to compromise on some things.

And really, working at the library is hardly much of a compromise. It’s rewarding and challenging, and I feel like it helps contribute to society. I enjoy working with the students and helping them on their way in life. My second choice behind “itinerant author” would be “librarian,” so I’m already living the backup plan to the dream. Happiness-wise, I’m at like an 8 right now. Am I willing to risk that 8 in hopes of getting a 9 or a 10?

Not really.

But I also don’t give up the dream. So instead of risking things, I keep working behind the scenes to try and make that dream job a reality. Writing 1,000 words a day. Going to a few conferences a year. How many books would I have to sell to switch from Track B to Track A? A lot of books. Enough to let me and my family continue living as we are now, with no added pressure. The thought of writing so that I can live isn’t one that appeals to me. I like to write because it’s fun and I enjoy it. Putting my livelihood on the line without knowing that I can be reasonably sure it won’t all crash to pieces? No thanks.

So after all that thinking, I ended up realizing that (barring the death of that wealthy great aunt I know nothing about), I’m doing pretty much what I’d be doing if I could choose anything to do.

Which isn’t half bad, you know?

How about you? If money were no object, what would you do? And is there a way you can start working toward that somehow?

 

Tennis for the Athletically Challenged

The whole point of tennis is that it’s pretty low impact, right? I mean, you’re not running into anybody. You don’t need to wear protective gear. It’s the second sport of choice when they want to show rich people out gallivanting, right behind croquet. You wouldn’t think playing for an hour would tire a guy out.

Well, you haven’t seen me play.

I went out and played for a bit over an hour yesterday, and probably half of that time was spent talking, not really playing. Most of the other half was spent chasing after balls that didn’t go over the net when I tried to serve. I wasn’t even able to play a full set through to the end. By the time we were finished, it was all I could do to stay upright and not collapse on the court and lay there like a dead dog. Somehow I managed to make my way to a bench and wheeze for a while.

The rest of the day, I was pretty much worthless. Cleaning dishes was beyond my abilities, and even gathering up the energy to write was a struggle.

Glad to see all that weight loss, exercise, and strength training have paid off. Why can I say that?

Because yesterday I actually was winning before I had to call off the game and melt into a puddle.

Of course, today I feel all creaky and tired, but I’m trying not to give myself too hard of a time. It was the first time I was out playing this year, and it’s just a reminder that jogging in place while watching Netflix really isn’t a substitute for going outside and actually playing a sport. Even a preppy sport like tennis.

And in all honesty, tennis has a bad rap. It’s hard. Lots of running, cutting, finesse. I took lessons for a few years when I was a kid, believe it or not. And I still enjoy watching it.

No real chance of me giving Sampras or Federer a run for their money anytime soon, though . . .

The Joy of Hold Music

My Disney vacation is fast approaching. Well, not really I guess. It’s 180 days away now, but for you Disney fanatics out there, you know that means I can now make reservations for dining at the parks. Why am I worrying about dining reservations a half year before the actual trip? Simple: Thanksgiving.

If I’m going to be giving up a homemade Thanksgiving dinner, I don’t want to end up having to stand in line at Pecos Bill’s so I can get some shoddily grilled burger and fries. Know what I mean? So instead, I researched the heck out of restaurants I can use on the dining plan to try and come to some sort of a best case scenario.

This is made trickier by the fact that other people are doing the same thing, and there are only so many reservations to go around. Also, did I mention I’m going with my sister, so we’ve got a party of 13? Because that makes a difference too.

This all means that Sunday morning I got up before 6am to get the first crack at the reservations. I had my research all done. I knew where I wanted to eat each day, and at precisely 6am, I started booking.

Or tried to, at least. Disney’s reservation system crashed. So after 40 minutes of try try againing, i went back to research mode. Phone lines opened at 7am, and I could already see that some of the places I wanted to book were sold out, so I did my best to come up with alternatives. At 7am, I got on the phone.

And was promptly placed on hold, of course.

Speaking from experience, the worst possible time to be stuck listening to a Disney-fied version of The Trolley Song (From Meet Me in St. Louis) is at 7am on a Sunday morning when you’d rather be sleeping but are instead on hold with Disney because their computer system is bugged. Also speaking from experience, music you listen to at 7am while on hold is music that stays with you. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. (“Clang clang went the trolley . . .”)

To make a long story short (too late!), I have my reservations. Where will we be eating Thanksgiving dinner?

With Eeyore and ftiends.

That’s right. Crystal Palace baby. And by ancient custom, anyone I eat Thankgiving dinner with becomes related to me, so after this Thanksgiving, I’m going to be Eeyore’s brother. Or something. I’m excited.

Where else will be be snarfing down food? San Angel Inn, Marrakesh, Be Our Guest, Sci-Fi Drive In, Tusker House, Akershus, and Ohana’s. There’s no way I’d go to that many places normally (in addition to all the counter service food we’ll be eating), but free dining makes everything different. Akershus is $60 per adult? Who cares? It’s free to me, and my girls get to eat with Disney Princesses. Sign me up!

In hindsight, and if anyone else is looking to plan a Disney trip in the future, allow me to offer a super secret ninja level bit of advice when it comes to dining reservations:

They open them up to you 180 days before the first day of your on-site stay, and that then opens up 10 days of reservations including that day. So in other words, the absolute earliest you can make a reservation for is 189 days before your first night. But the reservations aren’t tied to your hotel booking, and if you cancel your hotel, your dining plans stay there. So if I wanted to eat at Liberty Tree Tavern for Thanksgiving (that had been my first choice, and it was completely sold out), I should have made a hotel reservation starting 9 days before Thanksgiving. Then I would have had first dibs on Thanksgiving day.

Ah well. I’m still happy with everything we ended up getting. Dole Whips! Turkey legs! It’s all waiting for me . . .

The Case of the Disappearing Wife

It was a cool, clean Friday morning. The kind of a morning you get out of bed just thankful to be alive. Sleep had been long and peaceful. Nothing of import in the night at all. I opened my eyes before my alarm had even gone off, and all felt right with the world. Looking over, I noticed Denisa’s side of the bed was empty. It caused me to pause for a moment, but then I remembered it was Friday, and that meant baking day.

“Probably already getting the loaves into the oven,” I thought, then took out my phone to enjoy a bit of leisurely email perusal since I didn’t have to worry about waking her up.

Once Facebook had been well and truly checked, I decided it was high time I got out of bed and got on with my day. Grabbing a change of clothes, I left the room and padded through the kitchen, expecting to say good morning to Denisa on my way through.

Except the lights were off, the oven was cold, and the only sound I could hear was the tick-tick-tocking of our kitchen clock.

I frowned. Maybe she’d gotten sick in the night and headed to the bathroom early? But the bathroom was empty as well.

The garden. It had to be that. She’d woken up, noticed how nice it was outside, and had decided to go get some weeding when it was still nippy. But I was a little worried now, because like I said: it was baking day, and that meant she’d been up late the night before getting those loaves ready. Staying up late and getting up earlier than I did? Not Denisa’s typical MO on a Friday. So I slipped on my robe and headed to the garage on my way to the garden.

But the garage door was closed. No chance Denisa had gone out that way and closed it behind her. The car was still there. She hadn’t driven off anywhere.

I went back inside and thought for a moment, checking the other rooms on the main floor. All of them empty, except for our living room, where the degus were merrily running on their wheel.

Had she gone up to check on the kids for some reason? They’d been quiet all night. Why would she do that?

Curiouser and curiouser.

I took off my slippers so that my 200 pound frame might have at least a chance of being quiet on the way up the stairs, which traditionally squealed like a frightened pig anytime I even thought about walking on them. They squealed this time too, but what can you do?

DC’s room comes first, and it decidedly just had DC in it. TRC’s room is next. He was sprawled on the bed, dead to the world. MC’s door was closed, and I might be foolhardy, but I know better than to summon the wrath of a sleepy three year old without good cause.

I glanced back at TRC. Maybe he knew something. A detective has to know when to turn to his snitches for information.

It took a prod or four to get TRC out of his slumber, and when he came to, he wasn’t quite with it. “What?” he mumbled.

“Where’s Mom?” I asked him.

“What?”

“Mom. Where is she?”

“I don’t know.” He wouldn’t have known his name or the state we lived in right then, the way he was looking. Minecraft can wreck havoc on a twelve year old boy’s sleep patterns.

I needed to get more specific. “Is she in MC’s room?”

He blearily stared at MC’s door. “No.”

“Are you sure?” I asked. It was literally the last place in the house I hadn’t checked. Something was not right.

“I don’t know,” TRC said. “Maybe? What time is it?”

“Go back to bed.”

I snuck over to MC’s door and opened it as quietly as I could. Denisa was lying in MC’s bed, our daughter asleep but Denisa very much awake. Who knew what she was doing or why. I eased the door closed again and went back downstairs, my troubled mind at rest.

When I got out of the shower, Denisa was back in our room. “Can you believe last night?” she asked.

I blinked, my mind racing through what she might have been talking about. Last night had been, as I said before, nothing special. Quiet. Serene the whole time. “Why?” I asked. Better to keep myself non-committal until I knew what I may or may not have believed.

“You didn’t wake up at all?”

When asked a direct question like by your wife, the time for non-committal is past. “No,” I said. “What happened?”

“MC was up three times, crying. TRC came down each time to get us. I had to keep going upstairs to comfort her, and I didn’t get to bed until after midnight from all the dough. You didn’t hear a thing?”

There’s a reason my sleep had been so deep, it seemed. Denisa was covering for me the whole time. The kids have been trained over the years that when the rubber meets the road, the person you want to go to is Mom. Dad? He sleeps with ear plugs in. Mom? She hears a butterfly sneeze.

Anyway. Thanks for being on kid duty, Denisa. You’re an awesome parent! Glad I don’t have to put my sleuthing skills to work on anything really serious. I might be in real trouble then . . .

Page Proofs are Here!

For some reason, seeing a cover is exciting to me, but a book doesn’t really feel real to me until I see the interior. I guess that’s because I spend a lot of my day every day looking at texts, typically in 12 point font, probably Times New Roman. When I write and deal with drafts (before things head on the road to publication), it’s all just print outs and pages and pages of paper. So seeing things cleaned up and displayed on a page just like a real book?

That’s pretty exciting.

And today, page proofs for THE MEMORY THIEF appeared in my inbox from my editor. There’s not a whole ton for me to do compared to other drafts. Just go through them and answer questions or make tweaks as needed. But it’s a really exciting thing to have the book be so close to publication now.

And if you missed it on Facebook or Twitter, Publisher’s Weekly did a write up of the book as it was presented at Book Expo America. Particularly relevant is this nice summary by my editor:

“The Memory Thief explores what happens when memories that are near and dear to you are erased,” Hamessley said. “It explores the power of memory and family, with some magic and adventure thrown in the mix.”

I’ve heard some other news about the book that I can’t share quite yet, but it’s got me excited for the September release. More on that when I can make it public.

For now? I’ve got some page proofs to go through  . . .

The Wire 5:8, 5:9, and 5:10

Here we go. The end of the show. Tons to get through. Little time to do it.

Episode 5:8

Omar!!! Kenard!!! It’s fitting, in many ways, to have Omar go out by a little rat like Kenard (who had just been in the middle of setting a cat on fire before he decided to kill Omar instead). Here was the man who made Chris and Snoop panic. Who was so feared he could walk to the store in his jammies, unarmed, and still have dealers give him their stash. Killed by a grade schooler. (Fun fact: Kenard was the kid back in season three who “wanted to play Omar” when Bunk was investigating the aftermath of the big shootout that left a kid dead in the neighborhood. Remember that episode?)

Did you really think Omar was going to get a happy ending, though? Not after the way he’s been behaving, and not after watching this show for almost 5 full seasons. Still, a moment of silence for one of the best characters in the series.

…

McNulty, meanwhile, is finally starting to come to his senses, and it took a whole lot of lying for him to get there. The scene with him hearing about himself at Quantico was hilarious, and watching him unravel as he began to be extorted by the same police who’d been singing his praises moments before . . . priceless. But that scene with Beadie, where he finally opens up and comes clean with her about what’s going on. That’s the scene that gave me hope for him. That made me think he might yet be saved, and that he and Beadie might work out. Because he was willing to tell her the truth, just like he was compelled to tell Kima the truth. McNulty is inherently good, and he can’t stand what he’s been up to (especially not when he’s sober.)

Lester doesn’t seem as worried about it as McNulty. Maybe because he’s not the one out there having to lie about it day after day. Or maybe because he’s closer to the end of his career, and he doesn’t care as much about what he has to do, as long as he can take down the bad guys with him. (Watch him lie to Clay Davis, knowing full well there’s no real threat there, but knowing Davis can’t know that. Lester is one smooth character.)

Carcetti is still telling himself that he’s doing everything for Baltimore, even as he starts selling piece of Baltimore to Clay Davis and Nerese, and half(!) of what he’ll get as governor to PG County. Watching him watch himself on the news . . . it embodies everything I dislike about him. He’s in it for himself, and the rest is just the story he tells himself so he can sleep at night.

But there are good things on the horizon. Bunk has a solid case against Chris, for one thing. The code is broken, and the unit can perhaps get ahead of Marlo for once.

In other tidbits, it was great to see Poot again, working at Foot Locker no less. Funny to see him in such a different element, and nice to see someone else escape the game without too many scars. (He’s Poot. Practically made out of rubber.) Dukie is still looking for something better, even though we all know what he’s looking for is back in school, not in trash cans. (And all the money going to the police makes you wonder what’s happening to those schools, doesn’t it?)

It’s a great episode, with real movement for the characters, and real jaw-dropping developments. 5/5 from me, though telling that I don’t care enough about the newspaper folks to really want to write that much about them. Scott’s a weasel, Gus is cool. What else is there to say?

Episode 5:9

As I was rewatching this season, there were a few episodes when I wondered if I’d just been too kind to the season in my memory. As a favor to how great the rest of the seasons were. Because there were some episodes in season five that were just okay at best, and yet I remembered saying to some people that The Wire had the best series finale of any show I’d seen. And I remembered not liking the serial killer plot, but still being okay with the season as a whole.

Episodes like number 9 helped me to see I really wasn’t making stuff up.

The biggest thing for me was seeing Bubs finally get some redemption in his life. That scene where he stands up and really speaks to his support group was fantastic. Here’s a character we’ve seen in so many different situations for so long. A character we’ve liked and rooted for, even when he made terrible decisions. A character who came so close to succeeding in a suicide attempt. To see him finally get some good closure to his arc was inspiring. A great moment in a great show.

On the flip side, we see other pieces that aren’t as inspiring. Seeing Herc turn on his former buddies and use them as information sources to help Levy is just maddening. I can’t stand Herc and everything he represents, and yet he seems to be doing just fine when so many other people are suffering. Seeing Michael use the training he’s been given to get the jump on Snoop is good on one hand (this is Michael, and we don’t want him to die), but really hard on the other, because Michael finally completely embraces the murdering lifestyle he’s been getting into step by step.

And seeing him have to say goodbye to Dukie and Bug? How sad was that? Poor Bug, even though we know how Michael’s doing him a huge favor by sending him off to his aunt. Dukie looks like he’s in for a much darker future . . .

Crazy to see Marlo and the gang actually get busted. Lester and McNulty’s grand scheme actually paid off. Go figure. But then we see that they’d made perhaps a few too many assumptions about the intelligence level of their opposition. Marlo had guarded that code to the extreme. Lester assumed drug dealers would be sloppy, and that just saying “a source” gave them information on the drug deals at work. But because Marlo’s organization was such a tight ship, Levy knew enough to tell something smelled off, and Herc was able to confirm it. (Curse you, Herc!! Though really, Levy probably would have been able to weasel without the knowledge. That’s just how he do.)

Kima going to Daniels with the truth makes total sense. Remember, this is the same Kima who wouldn’t name Weebey as a shooter back when Bunk asked her to to make things easier for the murder police. She might be like McNulty in some ways, but when it counts, she’s too much of a straight shooter to cover things up just to keep them covered. So she tells. Who knows where it will go, but that ship has now sailed, and it totally makes sense that someone finally can’t live with what McNulty and Lester have been up to.

Too many other highlights to name them all: Lester pumping Davis for information, Marlo finding out about how Omar had been publicly making fun of him, Augie cameo, and more. The penultimate episode each season is always a doozy, and this one is no different. The serial killer stupidity is stopped. All we’re dealing with is the aftermath, and that all makes sense. I love this episode. 5/5

Episode 5:10

After revisiting it, I stand by my earlier statement. This is the best ending of a show I’ve ever seen. It’s practically perfect. I can’t think of things to criticize. Why? Because it brings the whole series full circle. Sydnor is McNulty. Dukie is Bubs. Michael is Omar. Valchek is Burrell. Nerese is Royce. Carver is Daniels. The finale is a full reset back to where we were in the series premier, and that feels so right. All the problems we’ve looked at are still there. Nothing has been solved. And as depressing as that is, how could it be any different? This is the point this show has been making all along, and to see it all snap into focus like it does in this episode is just incredible. Coupling it with the version of the theme song from the first season? Even better.

Are there things that are upsetting? Of course there are. Daniels is strong-armed out of his job, replaced with Valchek. Unbelievable. And why? Because Daniels wouldn’t do the thing Burrell was fired for doing. And sure, someone might try and claim Carcetti doesn’t directly know what Daniels is being told to do, but let’s be honest: Carcetti put a weasel in charge of his career, and then stepped back and let that weasel work his magic.

Sigh.

The fallout from the serial killer case is pretty spot on. Seeing Carcetti wheel and deal with Rawls and others in order to make it out of that tight spot politically was pretty epic, even if it was depressing. And I think that’s why in the end I accept the serial killer story. Yes, it’s far fetched, but if you had a McNulty and a Lester who decided they needed to do it to get their way, it played out pretty realistically, all told. And the fall out is completely believable. McNulty and Lester lose their jobs over it, but they don’t lose them publicly for those reasons.

The copycat killing by a random insane homeless guy that miraculously shows up to give them all an out? That’s a bit weaker. But then again, I think they would have found an out no matter what. The whole point of this season with the newspaper arc is that people don’t really care about the truth. They care about what they’re told is the truth, and there’s a huge gap between those two points. What’s worse, the newspaper folks aren’t able to keep doing what they’re supposed to be doing: reporting the truth. They’re too worried about keeping their jobs or winning awards to be able to do what they should be doing. Or they’ve lost their jobs. In other words, the same ills that affect the schools, the police, and the blue collar workers affect the papers as well.

It’s one big mess, and it’s all connected.

But hey, at least Kenard got arrested, right?

Interestingly, Marlo and McNulty end up in similar positions: ousted from the thing that defined them. The difference is that I think McNulty had finally come to see that police work was killing him, and I have hope for his future. Marlo, on the other hand, is thrust into a Stringer Bell position, when all he really wants to do is be Avon. Judging from the last scene we have of him going back to the corners just for the thrill, I tend to think things won’t last long for him. But you never know.

It was hard to think that Bubs would be able to top last episode’s developments, but him sitting down to eat with his sister managed to do it, quickly and effortlessly. His journey was complete at last. Seeing Cheese get gunned down also felt nice. I was cheering Slim Charles big time on that one, enough that I felt guilty for being so happy someone got killed. But Cheese . . .

In the end, I don’t know what else to say about this show. A year and a half ago, I wrote a post about how awesome the series is as a whole, and that’s still true today. This is a show that got me to view our society in a different light. It’s eye-opening and compelling. Still the best television series I’ve ever watched on so many different levels.

The finale is an easy 5/5.

Thanks so much for watching this with me. It’s been a long process, and it’s been harder to do sometimes than I thought it would be at first. Any time you take something you love and turn it into a commitment, it can bring surprises with it. Jobs feel less fun than hobbies, you know? So I don’t know if I’ll be doing any more series revisits anytime soon, but it’s been a very fun experiment. So once again, thank you.

Addendum

If you want a good read, check out this interview with David Simon, the creator of the show. It contains a wealth of information for Wire fans, including tidbits like the fact that the real life person Omar was based on actually survived with light injuries a jump from a balcony two floors higher. It’s a case where they made the jump shorter than real life, because no one would have believed it, and even then, people still didn’t believe it. Some great stuff here. Cheese is Randy’s dad?! Read it.

When Does the Confidence Come?

Yesterday my agent called. I was in the middle of a meeting, so I couldn’t take the call, but as soon as I saw it was him, the wheels in my head started turning. Why was he calling? What could it be about? I’d just sent a new draft of MAGIC AT 30,000 FEET to him on Saturday. Surely he couldn’t have read it already had was ready with feedback. It had to be something else.

Maybe something was wrong with MEMORY THIEF. Maybe something had gone wrong with the agency, and they had to trim authors. Maybe he was totally disgusted by my writing in particular. All of these thoughts literally went through my head. (There were a few other thoughts: “Maybe I have a new offer” was one, but my mind furiously throttled any potential good thoughts. Defense mechanism.)

I spoke to him today. He was calling to say he really enjoyed MAGIC AT 30,000 FEET, with the exception of the last 1,000 words. We had a good chat about the ending of the book and how it can be improved. I asked how the rest of the book was. “Typos here and there,” was the response. I kept digging. “The pacing was good? The action made sense?”

“Do you want me to come up with some major problems with the book?” he asked. “I could encourage the next reader to find something really wrong with it. Or maybe you should just realize you’re getting better at this. Better as a writer. Your responses from editors are more positive. You’ve had more practice. Be happy!”

Of course I was really happy to hear the book had gone over well. Since I stepped back from my writing group, I’m having less and less feedback from my new material, and clearly I need to have a bit more confidence in the work I’m putting out. So why am I not more confident?

I think a large part of it is that defense mechanism still going strong from my years of writing without “success.” (Success is in quotation marks, because it’s a bit of a red herring. It’s the rainbow’s end that’s never there when you get to where you thought it would be. Always one step ahead of you.) But I started writing in earnest back in 2000 or so. I’ve been going at this for 16 years. Even before 2000, I’d been working on books as far back as second grade. It’s been a life-long pursuit.

I sold VODNIK in 2010 and signed with my agent at the same time. Since then, it hasn’t always been the smooth sailing you picture as soon as you get published. There’s been ups and downs, and I know I have a tendency to focus on the downs more than the ups.

It’s easier for my agent to see the growth and improvement, I think. He’s been through this with many different clients, and he’s seen careers build over time and writers improve. So it’s nice to hear words of encouragement from him, but I do think I need to do a better job of having more confidence in myself. The books I write, I really enjoy. (Even the books other people don’t. Is it wrong to say I’m my favorite author?

I’ve finished 14 novels now. 3 of them will have been published, 2 of those professionally. MAGIC AT 30,000 FEET will be my fifth book that my agents have given their seal of approval to and sent out on submission. Am I selling copies like hot cakes? Nope. Not yet. But I definitely am improving and growing as a writer, and I need to do a better job of having faith in myself.

Any pointers?

Inching Towards Acceptable

This will sound like one of the lamest posts I’ve written in a long while, especially to all you people who live in the land of milk and honey otherwise known as “places where they have fast, abundant internet.”

I don’t live there.

I love my town. I’m a huge fan of the small atmosphere and knowing people wherever I go. But if there’s one thing I’d have to list at the top of Things I Don’t Like About Here, up until today it would have been that the fastest decent internet I could get was 3 mbps. Three. T-h-r-e-e. As in, the number that comes after 2.

When you’re in a house with multiple people who want to stream or play things online at the same time, splitting 3 mbps is like this:

We literally have to go around turning things with wi-fi off in an effort to try and conserve bandwidth each evening. And I know that comes across as a total First World Problem, but you know what? The struggle is real.

But not anymore!

I just got off the phone with our ISP, and they checked the house and confirmed we can now have speeds up to a blazing fast 15 mbps. FIFTEEN! I didn’t want to splurge too fast, so I just bumped us up to 7 mbps for now to see if that’s enough for us to be happy. But the idea that we went from 3 as the fastest we could go to 15 in one fell swoop . . .

It’s enough to make this hardened, cynical librarian shed a tear or two of joy.

Of course, I still have to go home and confirm those speeds are real. But for now, I’m doing the happy dance.

So if any of you punks out there are thinking about posting what great speeds you get at home, don’t bother. I don’t want to hear it. Because I get to live in western Maine, and you don’t.