A. Lee Martinez's Blog, page 49

Q&A FRIDAY

Hey, it’s Q&A Time again.  From time to time, I like to answer the questions offered up from the huddling masses.  Granted, I don’t get many questions from the huddling masses.  I don’t know why.  Maybe they huddling masses have lives of their own to deal with.  But when they take time out of those busy lives to ask a question, I’m always happy to answer.  Especially since I didn’t have a great idea for a post at the moment.

I did have some thoughts on the Veronica Mars movie getting some funding on Kickstarter.  Simplest overview: It’s only a matter of time before Kickstarter becomes merely another arm of the mainstream marketing machine and loses its original purpose.  There’s nothing new about that.  In a few years, we’ll be back to the same problem of the smaller creators and businesses getting noticed among the big projects that will dominate this once independent friendly platform.  I’d offer some opinions on how to fix that, but I don’t think there is a way to fix it.  It’s  inevitable.  We can fight against it, but any victories are probably only forestalling the inevitable.  Hopefully, the independents will at least get a few pieces of the pie before it’s over.

That’s life.  We’re all struggling for our crumbs.

But enough about that.  Let’s take a look in the old mailbag, shall we?

 

I know you haven’t wanted to write sequels, and I think that has been a great thing, because you have so many original books.  But have you ever considered doing a series of books set in the same fictional universe, but with different characters?  For example, Discworld or Xanth.  You have been talking about building your audience lately, and I wonder if this might help by giving you brand name recognition while still writing original books with new characters.  I guess this was more of a suggestion than a question, but I was thinking about it.

 

A terrific question, and one that I wish I could answer definitively.

If I had my druthers, I wouldn’t even consider it.  While I don’t begrudge anyone writing series or single universe stories, every time I consider it, I’ll admit to mixed feelings.

The problem with a single universe (at least for me) is that it comes with certain expectations.  It’s no different than when you’re writing a series in that respect because the books and stories can’t be too far from each other in tone and style.  There is a certain intentional style with Discworld, Xanth, or any of the other single universe series that is required.  No one wants to read a Discworld horror novel or a dystopian Xanth novel.  That would be against the spirit of those particular series, and people would be confused, rightfully so, if suddenly Discworld novels were about the zombie apocalypse.

The Anita Blake novels got away with a radical tonal shift.  They went from urban fantasy to paranormal erotica, but I don’t know how they managed to get away with that.  I guess there’s an exception to every rule.

It just comes down to why I like writing fantasy in the first place.  I love exploring new characters and new worlds.  And I like changing up narrative style if I can.  It’s true that I’m not truly experimental in that regard.  I think I have an overall consistent style in my narrative, but there’s wiggle room that comes from starting fresh with a new novel.

Profanity is a pretty solid example.  I like to slide up and down the vulgarity scale depending on the story I’m telling.  Gil’s All Fright Diner has some serious profanity, some mild sex.  Meanwhile, Too Many Curses has neither.  Both were deliberate choices based on the needs of those stories.  My next book, Helen and Troy’s Epic Road Quest (due out in July), has very little in the way of sex and language.  So much so that I’m pretty sure that a lot of folks are going to assume it’s a novel aimed at a young adult audience, especially since two of its three protagonists are college students.

(Just to head that off right here, that’s not the intent.  It just didn’t feel like it needed such things, and the young heroes beginning their adventures through life is part of the universal theme the story is supposed to tap into.  Not that this will prevent many folks from still believing this, but there’s no point in arguing with people who have already made up their minds.)

While Epic Road Quest might be mistaken for a YA novel by those who like things jammed into easy categories, my current project, One of These Doomsdays (working title), is an intentional meta novel about isolation, fear, and awkward walls we build around ourselves.  It has more swearing, more sex, far more alien invaders and ghost dinosaurs.  Even putting aside the fact that it’s a story that isn’t compatible with any of my previous universes, it’s also an attempt to explore ideas I haven’t touched upon before.

Even as I write that, I realize how much I’m asking from the audience.  It’s not that people are dumb.  It’s that they don’t necessarily want to be surprised all the time.  Part of the appeal of so many series is that they are reliable.  Notice I didn’t say they were safe.  They can still explore and create interesting stories.  They can still do a lot of amazing stuff.  But they do so in a framework that is comforting to the reader, so that, even if the reader ends up being surprised, at least they have something to hold onto.

I don’t do that.  When you pick up one of my stories, you’re in unexplored territory from the get go.  Well, not quite unexplored.  You can expect certain elements, a certain narrative style.  It’s unlikely you’re going to read extended scenes of torture or a story where everybody dies pointlessly.  But still, with no established characters or universe, you’re just thrown into the deep end of the pool from the start.

Written like that, it makes me sound as if I’m a radical genius, but rest assured, I don’t think this is true.  It’s less about talent and more about expectations.  And in this day and age, we are more and more given what we expect.  And then, if we like it, we expect to be given more of it.  And that’s great.  I would never disparage people enjoying themselves, and I’d never suggest that it’s wrong to give people stuff they like.

The problem is that if you only give people what they like, you end up walking in circles way too easily.  We see that with the vast number of reboots and prequels we’re given.  They might be good.  They might be bad.  But they are rarely, if ever, designed to be challenging.  They’re exist to please the audience because audiences are hard to please, so why take any chances?

This is why I dislike writing about this topic, especially when it’s in relation to my own career choices.  It always sounds like I’m down on other artists’ works, even while I see entirely where they’re coming from.

If I had a choice, I would probably NEVER write a sequel.  Or at least I would wait a very long time before I did.  I just love exploring and discovering too much.  As our world becomes more pre-marketed and pre-approved, I find this harder and harder.  More media hasn’t really given us more choices.  It’s just given more of the same choices, which is still a good thing, but not what I was hoping for.

The problem I face from a realistic perspective is how to build an audience while exploring.  If you read a smattering of my reviews on Amazon, you’ll see a great mix of opinions.  If my fans (I feel confident enough to say that I at least have a few) have an obvious favorite book, I haven’t figured it out yet.  And even as I write every new book, I have those moments where I ponder if it’s worth writing, if it will have anything interesting to say, or if my fans will just turn to the latest series rather than take that risk with me.

I’m sure I could write a series, and I’m sure it would be good.  Most of my novels have a good shared universe setting option, and I have contemplated now and then writing a sequel set in the universe of Gil’s or Ogres.  But then I think of a really cool idea that I like just a little better and start that.

But lest you think I am some sort of noble artist, I think about getting paid, and there are times when I wonder how my career would be different if I was on my tenth Tales of Rockwood novel.  The problem with what ifs though is that you never know the answer.  Maybe I’d be more popular.  Maybe I’d be in exactly the same place.  Maybe I’d be so sick of writing that I’d hate doing this.  Maybe I’d love it.

So that’s why it’s a confusing, gray area for me.

All I know is that I take it one book at a time, and if the next book idea is a sequel or a continuation of an already established universe, I would happily pursue it.  But for now, I just love the freedom and challenge of opening doors I’ve never opened before and seeing what’s on the other side.  I’ll probably keep doing it for as long as I can (or at least until I get bored with it), but don’t hold me to it.

In the end, a novelologist has to eat, and those Skylander figures don’t pay for themselves.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Lessons Learned (and Re-learned)

Through no fault of my own, I finally saw the new Star Trek trailer.  It didn’t wow me.  I liked the reboot just fine.  I didn’t find it necessary.  I would much rather let Star Trek, Star Wars, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and a hundred other bits of nostalgia have a bit of a rest.  I think we’ve abused the notion of prequels and reboots, and if I had my druthers, I’d enforce a NO REMAKES / REIMAGININGS / REBOOTS law for at least ten years.  But nobody asked me, and people do seem to like being given what they already know they like.

Still, there are some stories I wish we’d stop telling.  I don’t really care how Captain Kirk became Captain Kirk, but at least the last film managed to tell that story without being too overbearing about it.  But now, from what I can glean from the new trailer, we’re due for another “Captain Kirk learns to be a better Captain Kirk” story.

Captain Kirk was never intended to have a story arc.  Like any recurring character, he came As Is, and he isn’t supposed to evolve, learn, or change.  He’s basically the same guy throughout his adventures, and that’s fine with me.

There’s this trend that all characters must grow and change in some way running through most mainstream movies, and there’s nothing wrong with that when the character is new and shiny and has room for that.  But when we take old, established characters and try to shove them in that arc, it just falls flat for me.

This is probably why the reboot and prequel is so damn popular right now.  It’s a great way of packaging nostalgia while giving the writer an excuse to take established characters and graft a character arc onto them.  And it can work.  While I’m not a fan of Nolan’s Batman movies, I thought Batman Begins had a lot to recommend it.  I didn’t need the infinity+1 retelling of Batman’s origins, but at least the story managed to do it without being too dull and it made sense in context.

But then The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises have Batman go through the exact same arc again.  Heck, The Dark Knight Rises has Batman learn to be Batman twice in one movie.

It’s what I’ve come to expect, and people do seem to like it.  It doesn’t seem to matter if a character must forget the lessons they learned last time to tell it.  It doesn’t even seem to matter if the arc is a disastrous mess like in Skyfall, where James Bond doesn’t actually do anything right, screws up everything, and still somehow we’re supposed to think it’s a good thing that this incompetent, maudlin loser is the guy we’re supposed to rely on to save the world.

Maybe that’s my real problem with these enforced character arcs.  As often as not, they’re bungled.  Yet most people don’t seem to care.  Skyfall, for example, is just shoddily constructed as a story.  I walked out of it wondering how anyone could find anything redeemable about this version of James Bond, who seems like a decent enough fellow but lacks the charm or ability that defined Bond in all his previous incarnations.  Meanwhile, I keep hearing how it’s one of the best Bond films ever, which is so counter to my own opinion, I struggle to keep my disagreement civil.

Really, it’s not even a good movie, much less a good James Bond film.

Yet even that might be forgiven if I wasn’t fairly certain that the plot of the next Bond film will almost certainly revolve around Bond learning to be a better Bond.  Even though we’ve basically had three films in a row that have told that story (even if badly from my perspective).

But I could do without these stories because it boxes in characters.  It also cripples old-fashioned adventure stories like nothing else.  I don’t need another origin for Superman with a tacked on character arc about him learning to be Superman.  And I don’t need to James Bond to wrestle with feelings of inadequacy or insecurity.  And if John Carter teleports to Mars and just starts kicking ass in the name of justice, that’s just fine with me.

By The Mighty Robot King, I just need heroes to be heroes.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Old Wounds

I watched Oz: The Great and Powerful this weekend, and I was unimpressed.  It isn’t a terrible movie, but neither can I find much to recommend about it.  I could go into my usual complaints about prequels being answers to questions I never asked, and how those answers are almost always completely unsatisfying and unnecessary.  I could write about how such stories tend to end up as highly polished professional fanfiction (though I have nothing against fanfiction in general).  I could talk about the nostalgia trap, as I so often have, where we would rather reboot or recreate something we know we already love rather than take a chance on something new and how often that backfires, creating stories that lose most of their original charm while failing to remain relevant.

I could do that, but it’s all stuff I’ve written before.  Nobody really cares.  Hell, I’m not even sure I care at this point.

Instead, let’s talk about the real peril of nostalgia.  This one doesn’t get brought up a lot, but it should.  Basically, while I agree human nature hasn’t changed much in a thousand years, how we choose to express ourselves and our cultural norms do shift.  Taking something harmless from the 50′s doesn’t make it so harmless in the present, and by re-enacting old ideas and stories, we risk wallowing in troublesome ideas that might be better off forgotten (or at least left in the dustbin of the past).

For me, the good and bad witches of Oz are a terrific example.  While there’s no doubt there’s a lot of baggage still when it comes to sexuality and attractiveness, especially how society chooses to portray women, it doesn’t help anything to carry forward the old baggage.  To spell it out:  There is a real underlying theme that attractiveness equals good while ugliness equals evil.  And perhaps that’s not unusual, and as far as I can tell, a near universal idea, but it shouldn’t be.

The three witches of Oz are all attractive in the beginning.  But the “good” witch is also the very white, very blonde one.  Meanwhile, the other two witches have dark complexions and dark hair.  They are certainly very attractive women though, so it isn’t quite the broken moral it becomes.  The notion that light complexion equals a more trustworthy person isn’t exactly new.  It is, some sociology experiments, innate within us.  Yes, even in cultures where everyone is dark, the lighter shade of dark is generally considered more attractive and beautiful.  There might be cultural exceptions, but there aren’t many I, as a resident of the Western world, see all that often.

So Glinda is a petite blonde who dresses all in white, and she is unquestionably good while the other two witches are either outright evil OR confused and temperamental.  They are also both more obviously sultry than the good witch, which once again suggest that a woman with any overt sexuality is a questionable ally.

At the end of the film, Glinda has been reduced to a sexual trophy (one that isn’t too naughty though), and the other two witches are revealed to be evil for all of Oz to see.  You can tell because they are no longer pretty.  The trend doesn’t stop at the witches though.  All of the wizard’s allies are attractive.  The flying monkey is cute.  The little China Girl is the embodiment of the delicate little white girl (literally) who has had her entire beautiful delicate village crushed by savage flying baboons but is delivered to happiness by a couple of nice white people.  Even the Munchkin and Tinkerer (both at least played by ethnic actors) are still relatively attractive folks, adorable in their own way.

Even the flying monkey is a great example of the assumed virtue of attractiveness.  Once we are introduced to a heroic flying monkey, the evil version must be horrific and terrifying flying baboons.  In a film that is a prequel to the original film, it is one of the elements changed.  No doubt the reason was to make the monkeys more terrifying, but it also creates the impression that if something is cute, it must be harmless and friendly.  But ugly creatures are worth fearing.

Now I’m not going to suggest that the filmmakers intended this lesson.  I’m only suggesting that by adapting an old story where the wicked witches were ugly and the good witch was beautiful that these accidental morals were difficult, if not impossible, to reinforce.  And what was once invisible to an older audience isn’t (or shouldn’t be) quite as invisible to a modern one.

Ultimately, Oz succeeds in only being a shadow of an original, saddled with all the baggage while unable to surprise or amaze by its very nature.  There is nothing surprising about this Oz.  It’s just that familiar old place with a new coat of paint slapped on it.  It isn’t necessary, and it doesn’t accomplish much.

But, hey, at least the ugly people get banished.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

The Stuff of Legends

Hey, everybody.  I’m trying to build my audience, and so I’m trying to write and release more free short stories.  I don’t know if it’ll work, but it’s worth a shot, right?

This story has three elements suggested via Facebook.  I wrote it in the space of a few hours.  I did that for a couple of reasons other than getting an audience too.  I wanted to show that the idea is far less important than simply sitting down and writing.  Maybe it’s not the greatest short story ever written, but I’m pretty happy with it.  At the very least, it proves what you can do if you take the time to actually write.

Also, my Kickstarter project is still going.  Not sure it’s going to make its goal, but we’ll see.  And thanks to all of you who contributed and / or helped spread the word either way.

So without further ado, here we go:

 

Steve had always dreamt of finding lost pirate treasure.  There was something enticing about the notion of discovering something buried in the ocean.  Romantic in a way that few things were.

It was why he’d taken up scuba diving in the first place.  He knew that salvage was serious business, and you didn’t just stumble into lost artifacts by going for a swim.  He didn’t dive in hopes of getting rich and famous.  He dove for his love of it.  If he should happen to get rich and famous while he was at it, he wasn’t going to complain.

He was already rich, but like most people, he wouldn’t have minded being richer.  He blamed his lower class upbringing for that, but he also knew that was a just-so-story for perfectly normal behavior.  It was human nature to want more.

Steve had already done most everything he wanted to do, and he’d semi-retired to the islands when he’d hit thirty, where he spent most his days enjoying the sun, teleconferencing with managers, and diving.

He swam the same stretch of ocean four or five times a week.  Nothing ever came up, but he liked to imagine one day the tide would move the sand to reveal something magical.

He never imagined it would actually be something magical.

The half-buried sword gleamed under the water.  How long it’d been down there, he couldn’t say, but it looked brand new.  His first thought was that it must have been a replica, fallen off a tour boat, but there was something about it.

It might have been the mermaid standing next to it.  Not standing exactly, but swimming in place.  She was beautiful with long blue hair that billowed in the current and a great pair of breasts.  Her golden fish tail shimmered.  She smiled at him and without saying a word pointed to the sword sticking out of the sand.  And then she was gone, disappearing like a shot, leaving only a trail of bubbles in her wake.

It wasn’t difficult to unearth the sword.  Despite the ornate nature of its jewel-encrusted hilt, it seemed light as a feather, lending more credence to the replica theory.  But it was probably as close to real treasure as he’d ever get, so he carried it back to shore.

He came up on the same spot of his private beach he always used.  It was technically all his, but he didn’t mind sharing with the locals.  The only guy who was always there was a beach bum named Marlin who always carried a surfboard but Steve had never once seen in the water.  Not even swimming.

Marlin was a tall, lanky fellow with the crisp brown tan of someone who spent most of his time lounging around on the beach.  His eyes were his most striking feature.  He had heterochromia.  His left eye was bright blue while his right was so dark, it was almost black.  His long brown hair was a tangled mess.  And he smelled like old fish and marijuana smoke.

Steve called Marlin over.  He was eager to show someone his new find.

“Hey, check this out.”

Marlin loped over, his hands in his pockets, his posture slouched.

“Oh, shit.  Not this again.”

Thunder boomed from the clear blue sky.

“Get bent,” shouted Marlin to the heavens.  “I bow to no man.  I think that’s well-established.”

The cloudless sky rumbled like a muttering old man.

“Congratulations, Steve,” said Marlin.  “You are now King of England.”

Steve chuckled.  He swung the sword a few times.  It felt so natural in his hands.  It almost seemed made for him.  “Take that, Mordred!”

Marlin took a joint from his pocket and lit it.  “It’s too early in the morning for this.”

It was three o’clock in the afternoon, but Marlin had his own sense of time.

“Do yourself a favor, Steve.  Throw it back.  That things nothing but trouble.”

“It’s just an old sword,” said Steve.

“You have no idea how old.”  Marlin puffed on his joint before offering it to Steve who refused.

“Just one hit,” said Marlin.  “You’ll need it.”

“Never touch the stuff,” replied Steve.

“Of course you don’t.  Real straight arrow, aren’t you, Steve?”

“I prefer not dulling my senses.  No offense.”

“Senses are overrated,” said Marlin.  “Had humble origins, I’m betting.  Grew up poor?”

“We didn’t have a lot of money,” said Steve.  “But we weren’t super poor.”

“Humility.”  Marlin shook his head.  “Aren’t you the total package?  Shit.  I should’ve seen this coming.  Only way you can fit the profile more is if you were an orphan.”

“How’d you know I was an orphan.”

Marlin laughed that wheezing stoner laugh of his.

“Throw it back, Steve.  Throw it back before it’s too late.”

“Too late for what?”

Thunder cracked and a towering figure in emerald armor with skin to match pushed his way through the palm trees.  He literally pushed every tree over that got in his way, and several that hadn’t gotten in his way but were still within reach.

“For that,” said Marlin.

The green giant (the thought put a smile on Steve’s face despite the giant’s obviously enraged nature) stomped toward them.  His every step shook the earth as if he were a hundred feet tall, though in fact, he was only nine feet at the most.

“I ISSUE THIS CHALLENGE!” bellowed the green knight.  “STRIKE ME, AND IN RETURN, I SHALL STRIKE YOU AN EQUAL BLOW THAT—”

Marlin held up his hand.  “Could I have one second here with Steve?”

“THIS IS HIGHLY UNORTHODOX!”

“Use your inside voice, big guy.”

“BUT WE ARE OUTSIDE!” roared the green knight.

Marlin put an arm around Steve and led him away.  “I’m going to need you to throw that sword back into the ocean, buddy.  I’ve got a pretty sweet thing going here, and trust me, this guy is just the beginning.”

“This is like that story,” said Steve.  “Is that the Green Knight?  Like from Gawain and the Green Knight?”

“Not like.  He’s the guy.  Glad you’re read up on the subject.  Makes this easier.”

Steve examined his sword skeptically.  “Is this Excalibur?”

Marlin put his finger on his nose.  “Got it in one, buddy.”

“Holy shit.  That must’ve been the Lady of the Lake.”

“Yes, glad we’re all up to speed here.”  Marlin took a long drag on his joint, sputtered and coughed.  “Throw it away.”

“But this is—”

“It’s trouble, is what it is.”  Marlin poked Steve in the chest.  “It’s more trouble than it’s worth.  It ruins lives.  It brings glory first, tragedy last, and while it’s a hell of a ride while it lasts, you’re just going to end up betrayed and dead with everything you hold dear crumbling around you.”

“But—”

“You like that hot wife of yours?  You’ve got a best friend?  They’re going to end up screwing behind your back if you hold onto that sword.”

“But—”

“I’ve seen your son.  Good kid.  He’ll stab you in the back some day.”

“But—”

“Listen to me, Steve.  I’ve seen it a hundred times before.  Some schmuck gets chosen, and he thinks he’s going to be master of the world.  But all he is some poor bastard who is stuck enacting out the same old story.  You can’t change it.  You can only choose not to participate.  That’s what I did.  I’m a conscientious objector to legend.  Join me.  We’ll hang out.  Get a burger.”

The shadow of a soaring dragon passed over them.  The great, fire-breathing reptile roared as it flew into the horizon.

“Damnit,” Marlin said.  “Every minute you hold that sword the harder it is for things to change.  Get rid of it before . . . . ”

But it was too late.  Marlin had seen that look before.  Few mortals could resist Excalibur’s promises, and those few were never called in the first place.

Marlin scruffy face sprouted a long gray beard that reached to his navel.

“Aw shit.”

 

Marlin could no longer fight his role in this.  Magic coursed through his veins like electricity, and he had in him the ability to move worlds, to see into the infinite patterns beyond, and to know everything without any power to change it.  It was all so pointless, so endless.

That was what bothered him most.  Legends made mockeries of them all.  Legends made people into puppets, and even the most powerful wizard in this world and at least seven others was still dancing on those strings.

“EXCUSE ME!” said the Green Knight, “BUT ARE WE DOING THIS OR NOT?”

“Have it your way, Steve.”  Marlin stepped aside.

Steve walked up to the knight.

“STRIKE ME DOWN, BRAVE KNIGHT!  STRIKE ME DOWN AND—”

“I don’t think I’m going to do that,” said Steve.

The Green Knight was struck speechless for a moment.

“I mean, why would I do that?” asked Steve.

“BECAUSE . . . BECAUSE . . . .”  The Green Knight scratched his mossy-colored beard.  “WELL, BECAUSE.  THAT’S WHY.”

“That’s a pretty stupid reason.”

The Knight clapped his gauntlets together.  “I KNOW!  IT’S A TEST OF HONOR!  THAT’S WHY!  HAVE YOU NO HONOR, SIR?”

“How does that prove my honor?”

“I COULD INSULT YOUR WIFE IF THAT WOULD HELP!” suggested the Green Knight.

“Feel free,” said Steve.  “I love my wife.  Doesn’t really matter what you say, does it?”

“NO, I SUPPOSE NOT.  ESPECIALLY SINCE I’VE NEVER MET THE WOMAN.”

“She’s smokin’ hot,” offered Marlin.

“Yes, she is,” said Steve with a smile.

Whistling a merry tune, carrying the sword over his shoulder, he walked away from the knight and the wizard.

“WELL THAT WAS MOST PECULIAR!”

“Yes,” said Marlin.  “It was, wasn’t it?”

And in the patterns within the patterns, Merlin saw, for the first time, something he hadn’t seen before, and while the path might very well lead back to the tried and true formula in the end, for the moment, there was the tiniest possibility it might not.  For the first time in a long, long time, Merlin was intrigued.

“CAN I GET A HIT OF THAT?” asked the knight.

“Help yourself, brother.”  The giant’s hands were far too big, so Merlin held it while the Green Knight bent down and took a puff.

A sea serpent raised its head from the ocean and sang its long, beautiful song.

And  Merlin and the Green Knight spent the rest of the afternoon reminiscing about the good ol’ days until the sun set.

Imaginary

It’s been a little while since I’ve mentioned Finding Bigfoot, my current favorite pseudoscience “reality” show on television.  As I’ve mentioned before, I find shows like this to be fascinating because it illustrates both the virtues of skepticism and the scientific method as well as the dangers of wanting to believe something so much, you’re willing to do just about anything to justify it.

One of my recent favorite moments involved the bigfoot hunters spotting a horse running around in the distance.  Objectively, the only thing that could be said was that, but it didn’t prevent the hunters from reaching the conclusion that bigfoot must be nearby.  Here’s how it works:

STARTING FACT: A horse is running around.

ASSUMPTION #1:  Horses don’t run around for no reason.

ASSUMPTION #2:  The horse has to be running because something has frightened it.

ASSUMPTION #3:  Bigfoot is frightening.

CONCLUSION: Therefore, the horse must have seen a bigfoot.

I wish I was making that up or exaggerating in some way, but this was the exact line of reasoning (to use that word loosely) that allowed our intrepid team of bigfoot hunters to determine they were on the right track.

This is pseudoscience at its finest.  It knows the conclusion and will take any path necessary to reach it.  Honestly, the only known fact in the above chain is the first one:  A horse was running around.  There was certainly no way to know if this was unusual.  There was no way to know about the horse’s state of mind.  And, even assuming the horse was frightened, there was no way to know what frightened it.  Yet the Finding Bigfoot team has no problem contorting the smallest fact into a twisting road to bigfoot discovery.

The fact of the matter is that there is only one real way to prove bigfoot exists.  It isn’t eye witness accounts.  It isn’t historical records.  It isn’t folktales, grainy photographs, panicked horses.  It’s none of those things.  It’s as simple as producing a genuine animal or at least a convincing portion of one.

We all know this is true because if someone walked up to you and said they knew dinosaurs were still alive and prowling the Pacific Northwest, you probably wouldn’t believe them if they offered the same type of proof that bigfoot hunters do.  If someone said that every bigfoot ever captured on film was a bunch of leprechauns in a fur suit, you probably wouldn’t believe them.  Yet this isn’t implausible compared to the notion that a hulking breeding population of hominids are lurking through the woods without leaving anything more than the occasional footprint and hazy photo.

This make me wonder exactly what is it about bigfoot, ghosts, and aliens that makes them more “believable” than leprechauns or ninja-like dinosaurs?  It can’t be plausibility because there are plenty of good reasons to not believe in any of them.  How many grainy photos of leprechauns would it take to convince a bigfoot hunter that they’re real?  How many stories of backwood dinosaur encounters would be required before people started believing it just might be possible they’re out there?

Conversely, how long do we have to search for these imaginary beings before we admit that maybe they’re not real and never were?  Finding Bigfoot has been on several seasons and has yet to produce even a single piece of compelling evidence.  Ghost Hunters have a few creaky doors and some garbled audio recordings.

Will there be a day when we admit that bigfoot isn’t real?

Probably not.  There is something about bigfoot that appeals to us on such a primal level, we’ll probably never be rid of him and his ilk.  And it is our nature to see willful agency in every little noise, every little inexplicable thing that happens to us.

I wish English had a word for Unexplained that wasn’t synonymous with Mysterious.  It’s the same way that Unidentified Flying Object is the same as an Alien Spaceship.  Admitting the limits of our knowledge is probably the hardest thing for a human to accept.

I can’t know, for instance, that bigfoot doesn’t exist.  Not for certain.  I can only look at all the data and say he doesn’t seem to.  But I’ll admit that this is an assumption on my part.  It isn’t a big one, but it’s true it could be wrong.  And if someone ever captures a bigfoot, I’ll happily admit my mistake.

How long do paranormal researchers have to search before they admit maybe they’ve been looking for something that isn’t real?  The hallmark of pseudoscience is vague experiments with vague expectations that can be ignored when disliked and amplified when they suit the researcher’s needs.  Until they define their parameters, they aren’t proving anything other than the woods are kind of scary at nighttime and it’s easy to see human shapes hidden in shadows and blurry images.

The question doesn’t seem to be whether or not bigfoot exists.  It’s whether we’ll ever be aware of ourselves, our flawed perceptions, our wishful thinking, our own biases, to understand that the simplest explanation isn’t found lurking in the woods but in our own minds.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Ghost Stories (a short story)

Hey, everybody.  Today, I’m posting a complete short story.  Why?  Because I had the idea, and I wanted to give something back.  Hope you like it.  As always, love to hear your comments and thoughts.  And if you have friends who you’d think would enjoy the story, send them over here.  The more, the merrier.

Also, the Kickstarter Project is still going, and maybe seeing a short story would get people excited to read more of them from me.

For those of you playing along at home, this story is a sequel (of sorts) to the previous short story I released on the site about a nameless guy who deals with things that go bump in the night.  However, he doesn’t do so by fighting them or using magic powers.  He is basically a troubleshooter who handles these problems in less flashy ways.  Hope you like it because I think he’s got more potential to explore the supernatural and paranormal genre from an unique angle.

Without further ado . . .

 

If you ran a hotel of any distinction in this town, odds were good you knew who I was.  Not every hotel was haunted.  Your Motel 6’s, Howard Johnson’s, Best Western’s, etc., they didn’t have the proper mystique.  A few had ghosts, but these manifestations were minor.  They might knock your deodorant off the bathroom sink or turn on your TV in the middle of the night, but they were easy to ignore.  They didn’t become the stuff of urban legends, and nobody told creepy stories of the time that ghost used up the hot water.

To get a real good ghost, you needed certain things.  An older building.  Or at least a building that looked older.  Bad acoustics didn’t hurt either.  And if you happened to overlook the sea or have a good view of an old lighthouse, you were pretty much guaranteed to have a ghost or two.

The manager of this particular establishment looked me up and down.  He must’ve been new to the job.  Too bad.  I’d liked the old guy.

“You’re the . . . expert?” he asked.

In that hesitation, he’d no doubt thought of using the word Ghost Buster, but dismissed it as too silly.  He also wasn’t sure what to make of me, a guy without a proton pack on my back or a crucifix around my neck.  My suit was a bit wrinkled too.

“I’m the guy,” I replied.

The manager was a big guy, once muscular but now past his prime and having some of that muscle slowly turning into fat.  He wore little, wire-rimmed glasses and had a tiny mustache I assume he’d grown on a dare.

“Do you have any others with you?” he asked.

“Nope.  Just me.”

He sniffed and snorted and squeezed in a scoff as he led me into his office so we could discuss things in private.

“You understand, sir, that I never believed in ghosts before,” he said.

“Very sensible of you,” I replied.

And it was.  If you ignored ghosts, most of the time they ignored you in return.

He said, “When I took this job, my predecessor told me the stories of room thirteen.  I didn’t believe them of course.  Who would?”

“You’d be surprised,” I said.  “People like ghost stories.”

He frowned.  I could tell the very notion of liking anything offended his sensibilities.  He was one of those guys who spent their whole lives quietly disapproving of things.  Not a great way to live, but I tried not to judge.  He had enough judgment for the both of us.

“Yes, well, my predecessor left your number and told me to call you if the . . . ghost ever got out of hand.”  His face twisted.  “Is that the right word?  Ghost?”

“Good a word as any,” I said.

“Yes, well, is it safe to say you know the story of the Hanged Lady?”

“It’s safe.”  I loosened my tie.  “Abandoned lover.  Suicide.  The usual, right?”

“So they say.”

“The details aren’t important,” I said.  “The details can always change.”

“Indeed,” he said.

I swear to Yog-Sothoth, he said Indeed, like he was a butler from the 20’s.

“The . . . entity has never been dangerous before,” he explained.  “There’s a cold spot in the center of the room we never could get rid of.  And guests of the room sometimes reported seeing a figure in white silhouetted against the window when the moon is just right.  We had one of those ghost hunting groups stay one time, and they claimed to have recorded some ghostly voices.  Sounded like static to me.”

“Always does,” I said.  Especially to guys like him, who had probably asphyxiated his imagination at a very young age and then spent his youth sitting in the corner, wondering why none of the other kids liked him.

“Then, a month ago, guests started complaining about being awoken in the middle of night with the sensation of being choked.  Didn’t make much of it at the time.  Not until Mr. and Mrs. Thatherton . . . expired.  A rather lovely couple, both strangled in their sleep.”

I read the look on his face.  “Unpleasant business.”

“Quite.”

It took all I had to not laugh then.  It would’ve been out of place at the moment, and I didn’t want to waste time watching the manager harrumphing in response, which would only make me laugh more.

“Take me to the room,” I said.  “I’ll take care of it.”

“Do you need any . . . supplies?”  This guy loved his pauses.

“Nope.  I’m good.”

He escorted me to room thirteen.  Neither of us said a word until we got to the room, where he unlocked it with a keycard.  He stood in my way.

“Are you certain this is safe.  I would hate to have anything happen to you in there.”

His concern was touching though I assumed it had more to do with the idea of having to explain a new corpse to the cops.  I couldn’t honestly blame him.  It wasn’t like we were friends, but letting a third guy get strangled would probably earn him a write up or demerit or whatever they gave hotel managers.  Little ink stamps with the Monopoly guy dropping his monocle maybe?

“It’s fine.  Not my first ghost story.”  I undid my tie and handed it to him.  Just to be safe.  “Give me an hour or two.  I’ll let you know when it’s over.”

I entered the room.  There was a chill as I crossed the threshold.  I didn’t bother pulling my coat tighter.  It wasn’t that kind of chill.  I closed the door without acknowledging the manager again.

The room was nice.  Nothing to get excited about.  It had the usual upper class furnishings and amenities.  It did have a swell little balcony though and when you opened the doors, the sheer curtains billowed in the breeze like dancing phantoms.

I sat on the couch, turned on the TV, and waited.  It took forty minutes for the Hanged Lady to appear.

She first manifested as a dangling shadow stretched across the bed.  Creepy, sure, but nothing I hadn’t seen before, so I ignored her.  Usually, if you ignored a ghost, they went away.  But some ghosts, the strangling people in their sleep kind of ghosts, did the exact opposite.

The TV crackled with static and the room got cold enough that I could see my breath.  I shivered, but still acted as if nothing was happening.

It was only when I felt the touch of icy tightness around my throat that I figured the Hanged Lady and I were ready to have our conversation.  It wasn’t choking me.  Not yet.  But it wasn’t pleasant either.

I turned my head so that I could see the balcony from the corner of my eye.  It was hard to see ghosts directly, but if you know how to look without looking, they weren’t hard to spot.  The secret was to trick yourself into forgetting what you were looking at, to convince yourself that what you were seeing wasn’t unusual.  It helped that I had years of experience at this point, and this was just business as usual, even if a part of my brain still wanted to reject and hide from it.

The Hanged Lady was a delicate figure with long white hair and a dress that hung off her like she was a skeleton.  Her eyes were black pits.  Her throat bore the bright red scars of her death.

I waved to her.  “Heya.”

She pointed her finger and spoke with a voice, cold and angry.  “This is my room.  You do not belong here.”

“That makes two of us,” I said.

“You don’t know the pain I bear.”  She floated forward.  My throat tightened, but I pretended not to notice.  “But you will.”

“Yes.  I get it.  You’re angry.  But if you insist on strangling people, you’re going to have to go.”

She laughed.  “My sorrow clings to me like a second skin.  Even in death, I have no escape.  So I offer death to those who dare trespass.  Is death not the ultimate mercy?”

I rolled my eyes.  I hated the melodramatic ghosts.  I blamed the architecture of this place.  Too damn gothic for its own good.

“Let me tell you a story.”  I went to the balcony.  The Hanged Lady put her ice cold hand on my shoulder as if pondering whether to push me off.  She wouldn’t.  That wasn’t her schtick.

“There once was a young bride-to-be.  Hopeful and full of cheer, she checked into an old hotel and waited for her betrothed.  But he never came.  Maybe he died.  Maybe he ran off with another woman.  Maybe she murdered him in his sleep because she went crazy.  Could be that.  Could be a hundred other reasons.  The why isn’t important.  It’s incidental.”

She pondered me like a curious thing.  Without fear or awe to feed her, the Hanged Lady lost a lot of her punch.  She probably wasn’t even aware of it herself.

I continued.  “So this bride, she either throws herself off a balcony or jumps into the sea.  Locks herself in her room until she starves to death or dies of a broken heart.  Maybe she hangs herself.”

The Hanged Lady touched the scars on her throat.

“From then on,” I said, “her spirit dwells in the room, lost forever, trapped, waiting for her lost groom to return to her one day.  A day that never comes.  And so she waits.”

“That is my story,” she said.

I shrugged.  “Sure, it is.  It’s your story.  It’s the story of a thousand other ghost brides haunting a thousand other hotels.  Every hotel with creaky plumbing or thin walls has one.  Nobody knows where the story comes from.  It’s just something people hear about and share with other people.  Everybody loves a good ghost story, right?  Doesn’t matter if it’s true.  Only matters if it sounds good, if it seems like something that could happen, if it satisfies some archetypical niche in the human psyche.”

I could tell I was losing her.

“I guess what I’m getting at here is that you don’t exist,” I said.  “Or rather, you do exist, but you never lived.”

“I know my story,” she said.  “I know my pain.”

“Everyone knows your story,” I replied.  “That’s how it works.  Everyone knows a ghost bride story, a phantom hitchhiker, the little girl trapped in the mirror.  But it’s all bullshit.  It never happened.  You aren’t really a person.  You’re a story, a feeling.  You aren’t a product of tragedy.  You’re a byproduct of the collective imagination.”

I looked deep into her large black eyes.

“Sorry to break it to you like that, but there’s really no good way to tell someone they aren’t real.”

I’d done this plenty of times before, and there was no way to know how a ghost would react to the news.  Some spirits, when confronted with their own nature, disappeared without raising a fuss.  Others, put up a fight.  And some lost their shit.

The Hanged Lady howled like a banshee.  An invisible force picked me up and hurled me into the room, pinning me onto the floor, started strangling the life out of me.

For just a moment, I panicked.  I couldn’t help it.  It was instinctual, flight or fight, the fear of the Great Unknown.  It was that fear that gave the Hanged Lady her power.  That fear, and the false believe that she was anything more than an imaginary friend gone bad.

“You dare mock my pain!”

She shrieked.  The room went dark and became cold as ice.

I sat up, coughing.  It wasn’t easy to keep calm when gasping for breath, but I’d had plenty of practice.  I’d always been good at finding my center.  It was how I ended up with this job.

The air stilled as the Hanged Lady quieted.  She pounced on me, wrapping her hands around my throat.  Her fingers were cold, but they couldn’t do much more than give a little squeeze.

“Everyone loves the story,” I said, “but sometimes—and I don’t really know why—the story gets out of hand.  Instead of being just a little shiver down your spine or a phantom in the dark, the story starts killing people.  Which brings us here now.”

I stood, pushing her away as easily as a cloud.  The fight had gone out of her.  She had the same look on her face that every imaginary lost soul ended up with.  She might not have been real, but then again, who the hell knew what was real?  Not me.  A good story lived on and on, and this one, or a variation of it, would be around long after I was dead.

“What am I?” she asked.

“Let me tell you a story,” I said.  “Long ago,  a young bride-to-be waited for her handsome groom to come for her.  And he did.  He came and married her, and they ran off together to live happily ever after.”

The spirit of a striking young man materialized on the balcony.  Being a new ghost, he wasn’t formed very well yet, mostly just an outline of hazy white smoke.  He reached out his hand to the Hanged Lady, who took it.  The scars on her throat disappeared.

“And nobody remembered them, and nobody cared.  And after living a perfectly ordinary life, they died, happy but forgotten.”

The No Longer Hanged Lady smiled at me.

“Good luck, kid,” I said.

The ghosts dissolved.  The room was cleared.  Nobody would be dying in this room.  Not for a while yet.  Of course, the story would eventually return.  It might not be in this room, though the mysterious death of two guests probably meant it would be this room.  But maybe not.  All it took was a shadow in the wrong place at the wrong time, a bit of unexplained noise in the dead of night, and any place could become haunted.

People loved their ghost stories.

Q&A Thursday

It’s not quite Q&A Friday, but I thought I’d go ahead and jump ahead of schedule because this week’s question is just so darned interesting I couldn’t wait.

 

If you had free reign to write a current comic book superhero 5 issue arc as you wanted to, would you & which character would it be?

Great question.  One I get asked (in some variation) every now and then.  While I have grown dissatisfied with the general direction of modern mainstream superhero comic books of late, I still love the medium of comic books and the genre of superheroes.  I suppose it’s because I love the Anything Goes nature of the genre.  Aliens?  Vigilantes?  Mole people?  Deathrays?  Giant monsters?  Guys robbing banks with heat rays and evil geniuses seizing the eastern seaboard?  What’s not to love?

Speaking of which, I never miss an opportunity to mention Red 5 Comics excellent Atomic Robo series.  It isn’t technically the superhero genre, but close enough for my tastes.  It really is the last ongoing series (or, in this case, ongoing regularly released miniseries) that keeps me invested in comic book adventures.  If you like my stuff, odds are pretty solid you’ll love Atomic Robo, and you really can’t go wrong with any of the mini-series, all released in collected volumes.  Well, I wouldn’t recommend Real Science Adventures because it’s not so much an adventure as a series of vignettes by various artists and writers.  Fun, but not really what I love about Robo’s adventures.  But otherwise, you can’t go wrong.  And while there is a continuity at work in the series, each collected volume stands pretty much on its own, allowing you to jump in wherever you like.

Buy it already.  Thank me later.

But enough of other people’s stuff.  Let’s talk about me again.

First, I’d obviously love the chance to write a mainstream comic book superhero.  It would be a chance to try something new and to reach out to a new audience.  Two things I always enjoy.  I’ve said some unkind things about the comic book industry now and then.  Some I stand by.  Some I see as hyperbole now.  And others were just pure nerd rage.  Regardless, if I haven’t offended anyone too important, and they chose to come to me with an offer, I wouldn’t be averse to taking them up on it.

It’s always struck me as a peculiar that anyone would want to write a character they didn’t create.  To clarify, I see that it might be fun, but I never understood anyone who held it as their highest ambition.  Maybe I get bored too easy.  Maybe it just smacks too much of professional fanfiction to me.  Or maybe I’m just too egotistical to invest in a character I didn’t create myself.  Who knows?  It would certainly be fun to dip my toes in that pool, and sure, I’d love to write a Superman story, even knowing I’m merely playing with someone else’s toys.

The second part of the question: which character would I pick?

This isn’t an easy one.  I love Howard the Duck, for instance, and while technically, he isn’t a superhero, he does live in a superhero universe.  He also fought Dracula once, and that’s just awesome.  But Howard is a tricky character.  As much as I love him, I’ve read an awful lot of dreadfully “clever” Howard the Duck stories that soured me to the possibility of writing him.  When Howard is done right, he’s fantastic.  When he’s not . . . well, let’s not get into that.

Stever Gerber created Howard, and really, he was the only one who could consistently make great Howard stories.  Gerber passed in 2008, and I’ve had a Howard-shaped hole in my heart ever since.

Speaking of Gerber, he also wrote a lot of Man-Thing stories, a character I love very much as well.  Man-Thing isn’t a superhero either, but the same thing applies to Manny as to Howard.  Superhero universe = Superhero character.  But Man-Thing is a difficult character to write for, and I haven’t read many great Man-Thing stories outside of Gerber either, so the same dangers as Howard compel me to keep my distance.

Over at DC, I think I’d love the opportunity to write a fun Batman comic, to take the character away from his maudlin, grimdark “realism” and unpleasant noir enslavement.  But then The Brave and the Bold beat me to it, so anything I do will be only a pale imitation of that genius of that show.

Superman is a favorite of mine, but, like Batman, I’m just not sure there’s room in the post-Watchmen world for comics that are unashamedly heroic.  If I did write a Superman story, you can bet your ass that General Zod or Krypton would have nothing to do with it.  Seriously, am I the only one who is sick of that guy?  But Krypto the superdog, yeah, he’d be there.

(I can’t remember the issue or who wrote it, but the last great Superman story I read was actually a Krypto story, where the superdog fought a bad guy so that Superman could find the time to figure out how to beat the guy.  It ended with a fantastic splash page of Superman and his loyal superdog that I would kill to have as a poster.  Get on that, DC.)

Returning to Marvel, I’d love to write something with Slapstick, the obscure cartoon superhero, or Gravity, the up-and-coming character who deserves more attention but will never get it as long as high sales are guaranteed just by slapping Wolverine or Spider-Man on the cover.  There’s the Great Lake Avengers (or whatever they’re calling themselves now), Squirrel Girl, Thunderstrike, and probably a dozen other characters most people have never heard of.  All very tempting, but in the end, I find one stands out above all.

That character is DEVIL DINOSAUR.

Once again, I refer you to the superhero universe = superhero character, and Devil is kind of a superhero among dinosaurs.  He even has a plucky sidekick (a hairy caveboy named Moonboy) and has fought aliens.  And that’s pretty sweet, I’m sure we can all agree.  I think the biggest reason I’d choose Devil though would be to return him to his badass roots.

Right now, nearly all Devil Dinosaur stories are designed to make fun of the character.  At the very least, they tend not to take the character seriously.  And, yes, a red space dinosaur who lives in a secret primordial jungle hidden in Antarctica sounds dumb, but no more dumb to me than a guy being bitten by a radioactive spider or a mutant with the primary power to stab people with claws that come out his fists.

I recently read a Marvel Team-Up comic where Spider-Man teamed with Devil, and it was pretty good.  So the character has potential, and I think mainstream superhero comics could benefit from more dinosaur action in general.  Also, Devil is a great character to avoid the “conflicted hero” and / or “louse with superpowers” cliches that dominate mainstream superheroics.  Devil kicks butt, and he doesn’t apologize for it.

As for the possible story I would want to write, well, that’s probably the biggest question of all.  I would want something suitably epic, something involving lots of action and adventure.  Given Devil’s limitations (he can’t exactly blend into most settings), I still think there could be some great potential, even if he remained in the Savage Land he currently calls home.  Basically, Devil and Moonboy would fight a bunch of dinosaurs and aliens, save the world, all the usual stuff.  Don’t ask me the details.  I don’t know them all yet.  But one thing I do know.

It would be awesome.

So, hey, if someone at Marvel in charge of such things should come across this, you know where to find me.  (Hipstercthulhu@hotmail.com.)  E-mail me.  We’ll talk.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

 

Demi-Famous, Semi-Successful

Kickstarter.  You know the drill by now.  I’d put a direct link up but I can’t seem to figure that out lately, so here’s something you can copy and paste into your browser.

http://kck.st/11Sqo1v

While anything is possible, I’m beginning to doubt this thing will get funded, which is a shame, but not completely unexpected.  As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m not exactly Stephen King or Janet Evanovich.  If those folks (or folks like them) started a Kickstarter, it’d be funded within the hour and the internet would be abuzz.

I’m not bitter.  Really, I’m not.

All right, gang.  All kidding aside, the Kickstarter project is still up.  Maybe it’ll get funded.  Maybe not.  But this was my first effort, so I’m not giving up on the idea of using crowdsourcing to increase my productivity.  I’m certainly not bothered if the current project fails.  Just a bit disappointed, but hey, I’m a professional novelologist.  Disappointment is part of the job.

Before anyone takes this too seriously, let me state for the record that I am not bothered by the possibility of failure on my first Kickstarter project.  The great thing about Kickstarter is that I really didn’t have to invest much in the project at this stage (which, for all I know, might even be a reason for its possible failure).

This is the paradox of our modern era.  Everyone wants the easy score.  Always have.  The notion that I could write a series of novels, build an audience, and somehow coast my to fame and fortune is a tempting one, but it is highly unlikely.  We love the stories of people who stumble into success, but so often, when we scratch beyond the surface, we discover that those “accidental” successes are the result of years of hard work and a generous amount of dumb luck.

The problem is time.  There’s just never enough of it.  If all my job involved was writing stories, I’d have time to spare.  I’d sit down, write a few pages a day, play video games until my wife came home, and then go for a swim in my money bin.  But my job, I realize more and more, is about promotion and excitement and getting people to notice my stuff among a foaming, churning sea of creative people, all eager to stand out in a crowd.

The battle isn’t about getting your stuff to the public.  It’s getting the public to care about your stuff.

Sorry to sound like a broken record on this point, but it is a point worth repeating.  If you’re an aspiring writer (or a creative person of any type), your biggest fight isn’t in mastering your art.  It’s in convincing enough people out there that your art is worth their time (though mastering your art does help with that I’d like to believe).  I’d give you some advice on that, but I still haven’t figured it out.

Even this blog isn’t a great tool for that because most visitors are probably already fans who (hopefully) don’t need a lot of convincing to buy my stuff.  And if you’re one of those people, I love you.  Really, you have no idea how important you are, and how your continued support keeps me going.  But how shall I put this delicately?

I need more than you.  I need a lot more.

Although, obviously, I’m very, very lucky to have you, and wouldn’t trade you away for anything.  When I become a household name and live on my mansion on the dark side of the moon (the only place the paparazzi won’t hound me for changing the face of modern fantasy fiction), I’ll be sure to include your DNA on my escape rocket so that you can be cloned when that asteroid inevitably hits the Earth.

But in order for that to happen, I have to continue to grow my audience.  Like the blob, I must consume or die.  Except I guess the blob didn’t need to consume.  It just liked to, and maybe that was the blob’s biggest strength.  It was made to devour.  It had no life, no desires other than that

Me, I’ve got video games to play and board games to master, cartoons to draw.  Oh, yeah, and books to write.  Can’t forget about that, can ?

Yet the luxury of writing and writing alone isn’t something I (or many writer) have.  So I take time out of my busy day to write blog posts I’m not sure people read (though I do appreciate all you fine folks who have taken the time recently to show me that you DO read these things), and I ponder how I can reach the biggest audience without it interfering with the actual job of writing books.

Life is a frustrating experience now and then, but you’ve got better things to do than read about the trials and tribulations of the demi-famous and semi-successful.

Next time, I’ll be answering this question:

If you had free reign to write a current comic book superhero 5 issue arc as you wanted to, would you & which character would it be?

So that’s something to look forward to, right?

Meanwhile, I have to get back to work.  Those books don’t write themselves you know.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

 

 

D-Listed

Hey, hey, kids!

I have a lot on my to do list today, but still, I find time to drop by and share a few thoughts.  Though I’ll admit I sometimes wonder why I bother?  Blogging is a weird thing in that it’s a great way to reach an audience, but that audience is almost entirely invisible.  If I were printing pamphlets, I could tell by the number sold if people were interested in them.  I have records for books sold, and while that isn’t a perfect system, I can at least estimate the number of folks interested in what I’m writing.  But blogging . . . who the heck knows?  So if you want to leave a comment or send me a tweet or send me an e-mail at HIPSTERCTHULHU@HOTMAIL.COM, it’d be greatly appreciated.  Nice to know if I’m reaching anyone out there.

Also, Emperor Mollusk versus the Sinister Brain should be coming out in trade paperback any day now, and if you were reluctant to pick up the hardcover, maybe you’ll consider the trade.  Your call.  No pressure.

Also, the Kickstarter project I’m trying to get funded. (http://kck.st/11Sqo1v)  Some people have corrected me that it isn’t an anthology, but a collection.  You’d think I’d know that as a professional novelologist, but you’d be wrong.  Anyway, take a look.  Spread the word.  Help a brother out.

Enough with the self-serving ego-driven requests already.  Let’s get to it.

Recently, I read a negative review of Monster, and while I follow a policy of not rebutting any criticism directly, I do enjoy responding indirectly occasionally.  The reviewer disliked the book mostly because its protagonist didn’t learn or grow or become a better person by the end of the book.  That isn’t so bad because that was part of the point of the story.  I wanted to write a story where the hero starts out an idiot and remains an idiot by the end, where he doesn’t learn any lessons, where he deliberately avoids personal improvement.  It’s not an easy thing to make work, and for some readers, it doesn’t.  That’s fair.  In fact, as negative reviews go, I’d much rather have a reader dislike a book for what I was attempting to do rather than for something I wasn’t aiming for.

It’s why I hate when I get poor reviews for not being “funny” enough because, despite what you might have read elsewhere, I do not consider myself a comic fantasy writer.  But, honestly, I don’t complain about positive reviews that call my books “hilarious”, so it’s not like it’s a black and white issue.

So the reviewer didn’t like Monster for its intended “No character arc” element, and that’s cool.  If I ever figure out how to write a book everyone loves, I assume I’ll spontaneously ascend to a plane of higher existence.  Since I’m still here, I guess that hasn’t happened yet.

What struck me as amusing was that the reviewer wrote this sentiment (paraphrased):

“A book clearly written to cash in on Martinez’s popularity.”

First of all, I haven’t ever written anything to cash in.  It’s not due to artistic integrity either.  It’s that the opportunity has never really arisen to sell out yet.  I’ll let you know what I decide when it does.  I’m honestly not sure how it’ll go and am just as eager as you to see how it’ll end up.

Secondly (and far more importantly), I am not very popular.  Certainly not popular enough to rely on it to fuel sales so much so that I can just phone it in.

I know it might seem a little weird to say that when viewed from the outside.  I have nine books out, a tenth due out in July.  I’ve been doing this for around ten years now, and I have books in stores (for as long as stores remain), have my fans, have a meager amount of demi-fame.  I’m even lucky enough to have earned enough over the last few years to do this full time.  Yes, I’m a full time writer for the time being, and I’m not going to complain that I don’t earn enough (though more would be nice) or haven’t accomplished what a lot of aspiring writers aspire to do.

It doesn’t change the fact that I am not popular enough to get away with much.  I sell a decent amount books, but not enough that my publisher can’t live without me.  I have fans, but I don’t have fan clubs (aside from social media ones which are so easy to join and maintain that they really don’t require much from the participants).  If you mention my name to 90 percent of science fiction / fantasy readers, the most you can expect is a vague nod of recognition, if even that.

None of this is meant as a complaint.  The majority of established writers, even if they happen to be your most beloved (as I’m sure I am yours because . . . well, humor me), are not setting the literary world on fire.  We aren’t millionaires.  We don’t live in palatial estates.  And for the most part, nobody gives a damn about us.

I have no illusions about where I reside in public consciousness at the moment.  I am somebody most people have never heard of.  I write books most people will never read.  And I’m lucky to have that.

I can assume you have heard of me since you’re reading this.  I can probably assume you find me at least a little bit interesting since you’ve read this far.  And I can assume you like something I’ve written if you’re here.  Or you’re at least considering picking up one of my books and are here for me convince you.  (Buy ‘em.  You’ll like them.  I promise.)

But I am not famous.  I am not popular.  I’m not rich and famous.  I’m not setting the world afire with my genius.  And, despite what you might imagine my life is like, I spend most my days at home, writing books, hoping people will continue to buy them, always quietly convinced that this career might come crashing down at any moment.  In fact, I pretty much write every story on the exact opposite philosophy of cashing in, assuming that nobody will give a damn about my next book, and I better do my best to make it interesting, entertaining, and worth reading.

Maybe I don’t always succeed for everyone with every book, and that’s cool.  But until HBO adapts one of my books into a TV show or a movie, I’m just a guy trying to make a living.  Just like you.

Except for my solid gold robot butler, but he breaks down so often, hardly seems worth the trouble sometimes.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

 

Die Hard: The Phantom Menace Legacy

Am I the only one who finds it a bit sad that the Die Hard films have become synonymous with “big, dumb action films”?

Don’t get me wrong.  I think too often we assume that a movie with action is “stupid” automatically.  That’s a real shame, but it’s also one that isn’t going to change soon.  I also haven’t seen the newest Die Hard flick, and while the trailer makes it look like “Destruction porn” (as a friend of mine put it recently), I’ll withhold judgment until I’ve seen it.

What I’m talking about here is the perception (no doubt earned to some extent) that Die Hard are big dumb movies about explosions.  It’s a bit disappointing to me because it glosses over the fact that the first Die Hard flick is a very subtle, interesting, and intelligent action film.  It was (and still is) a game changer, and yet, with a string of more over-the-top sequels behind it, the legacy of the original film is all but forgotten.

It’s easy to forget, but at the time of its original release Die Hard was something of an odd duck.  It starred Bruce Willis, who was known for his comedy roles.  It featured a hero who was in over his head, who struggled against a small force of bad guys.  And its scale was small, taking place in one location, over the course of one night.  These weren’t accidental choices either.  These were very deliberate decisions meant to subvert audience expectations about everything action movie were.  It could’ve gone down in flames.  Instead, it redefined the genre.  So much so that the genre of Die Hard on a BLANK was born.

Die Hard 2 continued the tradition and managed to keep the charm without stretching things too far.  Again, the formula is followed.  John McClain is on his own, fighting devious criminals, struggling to stay one step ahead.  It also dares subvert its own formula by not putting McClain completely trapped.  It’s hard to follow up a film like the original Die Hard, but Die Hard 2 manages to succeed.  Mostly by not losing sight of the importance of what made Die Hard work.  It’s about a tough, yet not invulnerable, cop.  He’s far from perfect.  He seems in over his head.  And that quality makes him more human and relatable than most action heroes.  Sure, John kicks far more ass than you or I ever will, but he also seems like a guy living in a real world, surrounded by real people.

The problem is that it isn’t a formula you can maintain endlessly.  With each new adventure, the stakes are raised, the action becomes ever more ludicrous.  And eventually, Die Hard came to represent all the excesses of action adventure films.  What started as a movie about a cop trying to stop a sophisticated robbery in his bare feet had become a blowing up helicopters by driving cars into them, save the Eastern seaboard story.  Absurd.  Ridiculous.  Guilty of so much excess for excess’s sake that it’s easy to get lost in it.

I’m not against absurd adventure.  I’m looking forward to mountain climing ninja fights in the new G.I. Joe flick.  The notion of giant robots battling lava-spitting kaiju in Pacific Rim fills me with glee.  But this wasn’t what Die Hard was supposed to be about.  Or rather, not what it was supposed to be about originally.

This is the nature of sequels, I suppose.  It’s no different than Star Wars filling the screen with light saber battles or horror movies where the slasher becomes tougher, more powerful in every installment.  It’s power creep in storytelling.  And perhaps it is unavoidable.  Given a long enough timeline, everything becomes an imitation of itself.  It seems inevitable.

It is also highly profitable.  So it’s hard to criticize Hollywood for going in that direction.  My only point is that the original Die Hard isn’t a dumb movie.  It briefly reinvented the entire action genre before the genre sank back into the predictable mire that it tends to be.  It ironically transformed Bruce Willis into the action star he was meant to NOT be, and it became everything it was meant to offer a counterpoint to.

It’s also why I’m so reluctant to write sequels myself.  People sometimes think I don’t like my worlds and characters enough to revisit them.  In fact, it’s the opposite.  It’s so easy for the greatest idea, more original characters, coolest stories to collapse into more of the same.  It makes Star Wars into The Phantom Menace and Raiders of the Lost Ark into Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.  And it happens almost every single time.

I’m not saying people don’t care about their work still.  Phantom Menace is a bad movie, but it’s not because Lucas didn’t care.  It’s just because there was no need for it in the first place, and Lucas, despite his best efforts, was working with tired old clay.  And John McClain was designed to have one adventure (maybe two) and walk away and live a more ordinary life.  Instead, he’s been imperfectly cloned and pushed through explosions for our amusement.

It makes money, and we are eager to embrace it even as we deride it or pretend not to notice.  But let’s not forget that behind every Anakin Skywalker there’s a Darth Vader who deserves to be recognized as the original cloth from which the lesser version was cut and molded.  Underneath all those explosions, all those ridiculous set pieces, John McClain is still somewhere in there.  Just one good cop in way over his head.

That’s the guy I miss in these sequels, but he ain’t coming back.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee