A. Lee Martinez's Blog, page 53

Things You Should Buy

Buy my books.

I think I don’t say that enough.  I like that my blog isn’t just an endless series of commercials, but the thing about commercials is that they work.  The whole reason this site exists is because I write books.  You would most probably not be here if I wasn’t a semi-famous novelologist.  I would most certainly not be writing these posts because I’m of a previous generation that understood nobody really gives a damn about what the average person thinks.  And, aside from being a writer, I’m pretty average.  Smarter, sure, and better looking.  But not enough to really get anyone excited to read my thoughts on Dinobots and artistic struggles.

So buy my books because they’re really very good and original, and, yes, they’re funny, but they’re also heartfelt and thoughtful, in their own special way.  Plus, mutant dinosaurs and moon-eating cosmic monsters and stuff.  That’s cool, right?

Speaking of cool stuff (that I didn’t create), I’ve recently stumbled across a few cool video games that might be worth your time.

First up, AWESOMENAUTS, a multiplayer game you can download on Xbox Live and PSN.  The premise of Awesomenauts is basic.  Two teams of three characters fighting it out, each trying to be the first to destroy the enemy base.  To do so, you have to clear a path through lines of opposing turrets while earning money, upgrading your character, and trying to kill the other team more than they kill you.  In this regard, Awesomenauts isn’t greatly original, but the execution is the thing, and it is, well, awesome.

Unlike nearly any other game of this type I can think of, Awesomenauts is a classic 2D sidescroller.  In the proud tradition of Sonic and Mario, it discards cutting edge 3D graphics and instead, is a cartoony sidescroller with tons of personality.  By disregarding realism completely, Awesomenauts succeeds brilliantly in terms of character design and gameplay.  It is modeled after an 80′s cartoon, right down to its own theme song and characters.

Personality is rampant.  Whether you choose to play as Yuri, a monkey with a rocketpack, or Clunk, an exploding robot, you can genuinely feel the characters at play.  With eight playable characters, you’re bound to find something you enjoy.  Each character plays differently without being overwhelming, and watching how different matchups play is half the fun.

None of this would matter if the game wasn’t fun to play.  It is, and despite the perceived limitations of sidescrollers, this game has gameplay to burn.  The battles can be short and brutal or epic and tricky.  2D means it’s relatively easy to pick up, but the depth will keep you coming back.

Plus, did I mention the monkey with a rocketpack?

The other game I’ll mention isn’t out yet, and it isn’t obscure.  TRANSFORMERS: FALL OF CYBERTRON is due out at the end of the month and has a great demo available for download.  It is an amazing game.  It’s been a while since I’ve played a Transformers video game, but if the demo is any indication, they’ve nailed it.

The Bumblebee demo basically amounts to a tutorial, but it is fun and lively.  It’s a great introduction.  The Vortex demo adds more meat, showing the great potential.  And the limited multiplayer currently available is astounding.  There’s nothing quite so satisfying as shooting an enemy, transforming into a sportscar, and zipping away before anyone can get a shot off.  Or being cornered, becoming a jet, and blasting away in the nick of time.  The game is full of greatness.

You can be a jet strafing the battlefield one moment, a robot laying down fire the next, and back and forth with no problems.  It’s all so smooth and fun, I can’t say enough good things about it.  So check out the Fall of Cybertron demo.  You’ll be glad you did.

Oh, and buy my books too.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Synchronized

Lately, I’ve been pondering synchronicity.  That’s just a fancy way of saying I’ve been pondering the artist and the audience and how often their expectations meet.  In an ideal world, the creator and the audience would share the same expectations.  This would ensure that, for good or bad, the artist’s work would be judged for its merits or its attempted merits.  It wouldn’t guarantee everything would be great, but it would make criticism easier.

Christopher Nolan is a director who has achieved pretty solid synchronicity with his audience.  He gives them exactly what he says he is going to.  In fact, he often point blank tells them, in the film, what he is giving them.  His movies are full of telling, and while from a technical standpoint, that might be bad storytelling, it really isn’t.  Because it works, and it works very well.  As an audience, we might say we want subtlety, but more often, it flies right over our heads.  We like to things (mostly) up front and center.  We like to be told, point blank, what we are experiencing and how we should feel about it.

That’s a gross oversimplification, but it isn’t wrong.  Rather, it’s not wrong as often as we might like to believe.

It might sound like I’m bashing Nolan or the audience.  I’m not.  The only wrong way to tell a story is in a way that nobody enjoys.  If the artist is pleased with what he / she produces and the audience is happy with what it gets, then goal achieved.  Giving the audience something they understand is far more important than giving them something subtle.  You can do both subtle and obvious, but it isn’t easy.

This is why the character monologue will probably never go out of style.  In the end, a character just point blank telling us how they feel and what they want will work almost every time.  It has to be done well, but if it is executed with some skill, then it won’t matter.  Tarantino’s movie are full of exposition and monologues.  Shakespeare lives on it.  And I might be one of the few people to compare these two artists, but when it gets down to it, this is what they share.  For all its talk of subtlety, Shakespeare works because a character will tell the audience they are sad, happy, angry, etc., and will leave little ambiguity about it.

Again, this doesn’t mean there’s no subtlety in Shakespeare.  It just means the foundation isn’t very subtle.  It’s laid bare before us, and we like that.  Why shouldn’t we?  Life is subtle.  And complicated.  And unsatisfying.  Stories written like real life aren’t very good.  Let’s not even pretend that they are, considering we can’t even make “reality” television interesting without manipulation and gimmicks.

It isn’t impossible for the artist and audience to be asynchronous and still produce a successful piece of art.  I have fans who consider my mostly just a funny writer even as I see myself as something else.  And if being synchronous was easy, we wouldn’t even need critics.  Often, the disparate view of what the artist and the audience is what makes for some truly fascinating art.  And if communication was always right-on-the-money between humans, I’m not sure we’d even need to create art.  If we did, it would probably be different than what we do now because it would most certainly be satisfying a different need.

All I know is that it never really seems to hurt to just have a character say how they feel and act upon those feelings.  It only seems wrong because most of the time, this is done by bad artists in an unsatisfying manner.  But this is true of most art created.  I’d offer more thoughts on the subject, but right now, I am hungry, so I am going to go get something to eat.

See how simple and satisfying that was?

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

 

Scar Issue

Storytelling is all about emotion.  Oh, sure, it helps if you can craft a good plot or have a way with a sentence.  It helps a lot.  But all the technical skill in the world isn’t going to make a difference if your audience doesn’t connect emotionally with what’s going on.  This isn’t just true for “important” or “meaningful” stories.  It’s just as true for “fluff” and “escapism”.  I don’t care if you’re telling a story about the Holocaust or a story about a little lost alien who befriends an Earth boy, it’s all about emotion.  Everything else is secondary.

One of the reasons I hate being classified as a funny writer is because large groups of people tend to view it as insubstantial fluff.  It’s not hard to see why.  In our own perceptions, negative emotional experiences leave far stronger impressions than positive ones.  If you have a great day at the amusement park, you’ll enjoy yourself but eventually move on.  If you’re father has a coronary on the roller coaster, you’ll remember it for the rest of your life.

A great example is found in the movie Up, which starts with an emotional downer montage and ends on an emotionally uplifting one.  People usually talk about the first montage, but very rarely does the second one come up.  Yet it is just as important to the story.  It is just as well-executed, just as poignant.  Yet it doesn’t leave the same impression on most viewers.

There is something about the negative, the dark, the sinister, that leaves its scars on us.  The positive stuff, the good stuff, it rarely does the same.  A simplistic explanation could be that we’re wired with an understanding of our own mortality and insignificance.  Unlike any other animal, we look into a starry night and see thousands of distant stars.  We feel our own pain, and we carry it with us.  We know we are finite and that all our grand accomplishments are fated to wither from this world.  I’m sure there have been studies into it, and I’m positive they have more thoughtful analysis than I can offer here.  But for whatever reason, nothing speaks to us quite like being depressed.

Because we respond so easily and readily to the negative, we also tend to overvalue it.  Rather than understanding it is a neurological quirk, we think it has some intrinsic greater value.  It is why we tend to value negative characters over positive ones.  We call screwed up characters “complex” and well-adjusted characters “boring”.  We readily dismiss fun stories as insignificant, unimportant while praising depressing stories as more worthy of our respect.  But this is a mistake, and a very serious one.

Positive stories have value.  Even writing that, I feel a bit guilty because it immediately springs to mind hollow tales of happy characters who triumph and live happily ever after.  Whenever a story is reviewed as “positive” or “uplifting”, I tend to find it artificial and slight.  And I’m a guy who likes happy endings.  Still, when a story is so happy it removes conflict or resolves it too easily, it is an unsatisfying experience, even for me.

I don’t believe a character has to be a psychological mess to be interesting.  I don’t think a story that ends on a positive note is worthless.  And if something makes you smile, it does so by striking some emotional chord, even if that chord doesn’t necessarily ring as long as one that makes you cry.  Joy is, believe it or not, part of the human experience, and we should take time to value it.  Perhaps a truly mature culture will understand that love, compassion, triumph over tragedy, and giant fighting robots are worthy of as much devotion as our more negative impulses.

If I am to be a funny writer, I would appreciate that I also be considered a good one too.  I don’t mind if the negative stays with you for the long haul, just as long as you appreciate that what I do isn’t easy.  It isn’t light.  It isn’t fluff.  I certainly hope it’s not mere silly nonsense.  Though writing about supervillain space squids doesn’t help discourage that attitude.

So the next time you’re having a true moment of joy, take a moment to appreciate it for everything it is.  And don’t let it be swallowed up by the inevitable crap that’s soon to come.  Because, yes, that crap is coming.

(I figured if I ended this post on a negative note, it might leave a stronger impression.)

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

World without a Superman

Storytelling is all about emotion.  Oh, sure, it helps if you can craft a good plot or have a way with a sentence.  It helps a lot.  But all the technical skill in the world isn’t going to make a difference if your audience doesn’t connect emotionally with what’s going on.  This isn’t just true for “important” or “meaningful” stories.  It’s just as true for “fluff” and “escapism”.  I don’t care if you’re telling a story about the Holocaust or a story about a little lost alien who befriends an Earth boy, it’s all about emotion.  Everything else is secondary.

One of the reasons I hate being classified as a funny writer is because large groups of people tend to view it as insubstantial fluff.  It’s not hard to see why.  In our own perceptions, negative emotional experiences leave far stronger impressions than positive ones.  If you have a great day at the amusement park, you’ll enjoy yourself but eventually move on.  If you’re father has a coronary on the roller coaster, you’ll remember it for the rest of your life.

A great example is found in the movie Up, which starts with an emotional downer montage and ends on an emotionally uplifting one.  People usually talk about the first montage, but very rarely does the second one come up.  Yet it is just as important to the story.  It is just as well-executed, just as poignant.  Yet it doesn’t leave the same impression on most viewers.

There is something about the negative, the dark, the sinister, that leaves its scars on us.  The positive stuff, the good stuff, it rarely does the same.  A simplistic explanation could be that we’re wired with an understanding of our own mortality and insignificance.  Unlike any other animal, we look into a starry night and see thousands of distant stars.  We feel our own pain, and we carry it with us.  We know we are finite and that all our grand accomplishments are fated to wither from this world.  I’m sure there have been studies into it, and I’m positive they have more thoughtful analysis than I can offer here.  But for whatever reason, nothing speaks to us quite like being depressed.

Because we respond so easily and readily to the negative, we also tend to overvalue it.  Rather than understanding it is a neurological quirk, we think it has some intrinsic greater value.  It is why we tend to value negative characters over positive ones.  We call screwed up characters “complex” and well-adjusted characters “boring”.  We readily dismiss fun stories as insignificant, unimportant while praising depressing stories as more worthy of our respect.  But this is a mistake, and a very serious one.

Positive stories have value.  Even writing that, I feel a bit guilty because it immediately springs to mind hollow tales of happy characters who triumph and live happily ever after.  Whenever a story is reviewed as “positive” or “uplifting”, I tend to find it artificial and slight.  And I’m a guy who likes happy endings.  Still, when a story is so happy it removes conflict or resolves it too easily, it is an unsatisfying experience, even for me.

I don’t believe a character has to be a psychological mess to be interesting.  I don’t think a story that ends on a positive note is worthless.  And if something makes you smile, it does so by striking some emotional chord, even if that chord doesn’t necessarily ring as long as one that makes you cry.  Joy is, believe it or not, part of the human experience, and we should take time to value it.  Perhaps a truly mature culture will understand that love, compassion, triumph over tragedy, and giant fighting robots are worthy of as much devotion as our more negative impulses.

If I am to be a funny writer, I would appreciate that I also be considered a good one too.  I don’t mind if the negative stays with you for the long haul, just as long as you appreciate that what I do isn’t easy.  It isn’t light.  It isn’t fluff.  I certainly hope it’s not mere silly nonsense.  Though writing about supervillain space squids doesn’t help discourage that attitude.

So the next time you’re having a true moment of joy, take a moment to appreciate it for everything it is.  And don’t let it be swallowed up by the inevitable crap that’s soon to come.  Because, yes, that crap is coming.

(I figured if I ended this post on a negative note, it might leave a stronger impression.)

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Rise of the Geeks

Honestly, I don’t get the appeal of the midnight showing. It’s not like the movie is going to disappear the next day. It’s not like it’s a limited asset. It is a movie and it will be showing many, many, many times. Somehow, we’ve been convinced to treat films as if they are rare and valuable things and that seeing them first is some sort of worthy accomplishment.

It’s strange. Not because we like movies. But because we’ve all become nerds at this point. We live in a culture where obsessive devotion isn’t unique. It’s standard. It’s waiting in line eight hours to get a marginally improved version of a product we already have. It’s going into work exhausted because we had to see a Batman movie. It’s fantasy football, watching a whole season of a TV show in a day, etc., etc.

I don’t get it. If anything, this sort of obsessiveness seems like it should be less appealing. After all, you used to have to hunt for your obscure back issues, scrounge for recordings of your favorite TV shows, fight for every scrap of your personal obsession. Now, corporations have figured out you don’t need to make something rare to be treated as such. You merely have to act as if it is, and the rest will follow.

If anything, I’m the opposite at this point. I find myself less obsessive because when a marathon of my favorite show was on, it seemed like a rare treat. Now, if I want to watch 12 hours of Kolchak, all I do is turn on my Netflix streaming.  My favorite comic book stories are available in easy to find graphic novel collections. And every mainstream movie I want to see is just a five minute drive from my home.

I don’t know if it’s a good or a bad thing. It’s just a thing I don’t get.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Familiar Foe

It occurred to me the other day that I could probably go a few years without seeing Spider-Man.  I don’t say that just because of the recent movie reboot, and I don’t say it because I’m not much of a Spider-Man fan either.  Those are doubtlessly connected to the issue, but there’s also the fact that, by now, I’ve probably read over a hundred Spider-Man stories.  And I’m not even a big fan of the character.  But if you count comics (both those titles he stars in and those he’s guest-starred in), cartoons, and movies I have seen and read a lot of Spidey stories.  After a certain point, I need a break.

This is happened to me with the Punisher.  He was a character I did like and who I read regularly.  At one point, I was buying his every title, his every one-shot graphic novel, anything and everything with him appearing in it.  Then one day, I just wasn’t interested any more.  I hit a saturation point where he lost his appeal.  Every story just seemed like a variation of a previous story.  The character was fully explored.  The bad guys were just different versions of previous bad guys.  He was having his Nth fight with the Kingpin, Daredevil, or Spider-Man.  And while there was nothing wrong with any of it, it just seemed run-of-the-mill.

This is probably why I was one of the few folks happy when the Punisher came back as an avenging angel with supernatural powers.  I’d felt the Punisher himself was used up, but that the new concept had new stories to tell, new opportunities for growth.  Sure, it was fairly radical, but that was what I liked about it.  It was, of course, undone, and there is every reason to believe that this was the right course of action for the character.  I was in the minority when it cam to that notion.

One of my biggest complaints about modern comic books is how most mainstream companies are just slapping new paint on old characters and ideas.  That’s not to criticize the writing, but am I the only one who wants to read about new characters, new heroes and villains.  Rebooting a character is fine, but I don’t need a new “edgier” version of Batman.  I’m not sure I really need Batman at this point.

Heresy, I know.  I like Batman, but I have seen hundreds of his adventures, and while there’s some variations in his incarnations, it’s still basically the same set of stories.

I know I’m unique in this regard.  There are plenty of folks who have spent the last 30 plus years reading Spider-Man stories and will be happily reading those stories 30 years from now.  There will probably always be an audience for Indiana Jones, James Bond, Spider-Man, Batman, etc.  And to be fair, when characters last long enough they become new again to the next generation.

But I think this is why people respond so favorably to more independent comics.  The Walking Dead, Invincible, Fables, and Atomic Robo (just to name a few) are new ideas and characters.  One of Harry Potter‘s biggest strengths has always been his relative newness.  And while Firefly had potential, I feel like fans love the show because it wasn’t based on anything previous.  It was a chance for sci fi fans to discover something new, and that is all too rare in the mainstream.

I’m not criticizing anyone for their tastes, and I’m not criticizing creators for catering to those tastes.  If I ever have a breakout character that people are scrambling to buy stories for, I would be happy to provide them.  That’s not selling out.  That’s just giving the people what they want and trying to make a living.  But I haven’t had that character.  Until I do, I’d much rather write stories I like, full of new characters and worlds.  I’d much rather explore than settle into a nice comfy safe zone because after a while (and it varies by character and creator) every character, every concept, becomes more popular for its familiarity than anything else.  There’s nothing wrong with that, and it isn’t a mark of declining quality.  It’s just the way the cycle goes.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

 

Mack Megaton Story, Part 2

Here it is.  Part Two of that Mack Megaton story I’ve been very, very slowly working on.  Better late than never, as they say.

If you haven’t read the first part, here’s a link to the post: www.aleemartinez.com/?p=1104

The third (and possibly fourth part will come in a couple of weeks).  Not sure if it will be three or four parts yet, but stay tuned, folks.

 

The dinos would have to wait.  I had a party to get to.  Jung dropped me off at Proton Towers.

“You’re going dressed like that?” he asked.

“I’m sure Lucia has a change of clothes waiting for me.”

Jung smiled.

“What?” I asked.

“I’m still trying to figure out how you have a girlfriend and I don’t.”

“Must be my tough guy mystique.”  I adjusted my fedora at a jaunty six degree angle.

“Just try not to crush anyone, Mack.”

He skimmed away, and I went inside.  The doorman greeted me with a freshly pressed suit.  He let me change in the back room.  As a robot, nudity wasn’t a problem, but I was a bot.  Full citizenship came with perks, but there were obligations.  As one of Empire’s automated citizens, I did my best to fit in, be a good example.  The more I acted like a biological, the more readily the biologicals would accept me among their own.  So went the theory.

If it were just about me, I wouldn’t have given a damn.  But if it were just about me, I wouldn’t even have been here.  A working class bot who made his living prowling the mean streets, mixing with the lower class, wouldn’t have made the guest list.  I wasn’t insulted.  I wasn’t looking forward to this.  But Lucia wanted me to make an appearance.  Hell, if I knew why.  I still hadn’t gotten the hang of this relationship business.  I hadn’t been built for it.  A cocktail party was more dangerous ground than the lowlifes I ran across in my job because in those situations, I could always fall back on tried and true directives and the worst that might happen is getting scrapped.  But a social faux pas might have far ranging consequences.

Deranged Robot Spills Wine on Mayor, Runs Amok would declare the society page.

My difference engine predicted a 95 percent chance Lucia would get a kick out of that, but it was still something I wanted to avoid.

The party was in full swing.  I stepped out of the lift pod into a room full of people I didn’t know.  I’d been briefed, and my electronic brain recognized their faces.  This was my coming out party, so to speak.  Lucia and I had been going steady for a while now, and thanks to our mutual celebrity, a lot of people, especially the people who kept tabs on such things, were aware.  But this was our first official event as a couple.

Empire was progressive, but being the first acknowledged human / bot couple was a scenario I hadn’t been able to simulate with any certainty.  Eventually, my difference engine just stopped trying, and there was something terrifying about dealing with a probability of UNKNOWN.  Biologicals dealt with that degree of uncertainty every day of their lives, and I wondered how they kept from huddling in the corner.  Must’ve been why evolution must have forced eating and excreting on them.

Humbolt, Lucia’s custom butler auto, was the first to greet me.  He carried two trays loaded with finger sandwiches.  “About time you got here, Mack,” he said in his Brooklyn accent.

“Been busy.  On a case,” I replied.

“The lady was worried you might not show, but I told her you were smarter than that.”

I scanned the crowd.  Lucia was talking to a group.  She smiled at me and waved me over.

“Means a lot to her,” I said.  “Don’t know why.”

“Biologicals,” said Humbolt.  “Who can figure ‘em?”  He handed off one of his trays to a waiter drone, then used his free hand to fix my tie.

“The doorman already helped me with it.”

“He did it wrong.  Guess you’ll always be a clip-on guy.”

“Through and through,” I said.

“Go get them, Mack.”  He slapped me on my back.

I waded through the crowd.  Crowds of fleshy biologicals always made me nervous.  It’d never happened, and there was no reason to ever believe it would as long as my safety protocols kept working, but I expected to break bones and inflict serious injury with every move.  It was a paranoia I’d never been able to completely bypass, a side effect of the freewill glitch that gave me that extra jolt setting me above most robots.  It was called fear, and that it was such an irrational, bothersome fear only made it all the more irritating.

I reached Lucia without killing or maiming any of the very important people along the way.  If nothing else, I could classify this party as a successful objective just for that.

“Mack, darling, so good of you to make it.”  Lucia took my hand.  I bent down so she could plant a kiss on my faceplate.  “Don’t you look handsome.”

“I don’t know.  Do I?” I asked.

The nearby party-goers laughed.  Only Lucia knew the inquiry was genuine, but she only smiled.  I loved her smile.  I didn’t have the requisite biological drives to make a relationship work, but despite that, we’d still made something that worked.  Her smile.  The way her fragile warmth registered on my tactile web as she hugged me.  The way her hair smelled.  More accurately, the way I imagined her hair smelled because I didn’t have that sensory array but I was 94 percent sure her hair smelled delightful.  Like equal parts motor oil and hydraulic fluid mixed with butterflies.  Though I had no idea how any of those things smelled either, but they were all things I enjoyed, so they worked for purposes of simulation.

“Have you met Mayor Mahoney?” asked Lucia, knowing perfectly well I hadn’t.

Diamond Jill nodded to me.  Her glittering crystalline skin reflected every light from the room.  “Lucia has been telling us all about you, Mack.  I hope I’m not speaking out of turn when I say it’s clear she’s absolutely crazy about you.”

Lucia blushed as she put both her hands in my oversized metal mitt.  “It’s easy to be crazy about the big lug.”

The Mayor smiled, and my facial recognition program rated her as sincere.  It didn’t score high for the rest of the crowd, but Lucia and I had known not everyone was going to approve.  They didn’t understand.  I didn’t understand it myself.  I only knew that Lucia and I worked together somehow.  If the world needed it to make more sense than that, it was on its own.

I navigated the party with Lucia as she introduced me to the movers and shakers of Empire City.  I mostly kept quiet, playing the strong, silent model that I had been built to be.  The few times I spoke up, people tended to laugh in that politely delighted manner that said, “We have been trained to feign amusement as a matter of course.”  I catalogued each passing minute, charting the ratio of titters to guffaws and trying to extract some meaningful data from the entire affair.

But the only data worth registering was Lucia, who kept hold of my hand the entire party.  The gesture was meant to be comforting because Lucia knew how uncomfortable I was, but it was also a declaration that we were together in every way that mattered.

112 minutes after stepping off the pod, Humbolt brought the phone over.  “Call for you, Mack.”

It was Jung.  “Sorry to bother you at you fancy shindig, but I think I have a lead on those dinosaurs.”

“Already?” I asked.  “I thought you were calling it a night.”

“Just checked with a contact of mine on the way home.”

“You have contacts?”

“You don’t?”

Jung was better at the detecting part of our business than I was.  I mostly just smacked people around until I got where I needed to go.  It worked, but there were advantages to Jung’s methods.  It was why we made good partners.

“I hate to tear you away from the party, but I’m thinking a little backup might be nice,” he said.  “Unless you’re girlfriend has a problem with that.”

I lowered the phone.  “Lucia . . . . “

She chuckled.  “Go on, Mack.  You put in your time.  I’m surprised you didn’t find an excuse earlier.”

“Baby, you’re the best.”

She planted a kiss on my faceplate, wiped the lipstick off with her thumb.  “And don’t you forget it.”

I left the party, feeling both relieved and like a bit of a bum for doing so.  My directives twinged at the notion of leaving a soldier behind, but  Lucia didn’t need backup for this particular battlefield.  Here, among these people, I was less of a partner and more of a liability.  I said my good-byes and left.  When the pod doors closed, I classified the mission as a success and counted myself lucky to get out of there in one piece.

 

Ask a Smart Guy

Time for another Q and A with a semi-famous, mostly obscure novelologist.

 

@_Mech_ asks “When you have writer’s block, what is your cure?”

A very common question.  I’d love to be able to give you an easy answer, so I will.

Writer’s block doesn’t exist.  It is a boogie man created by people who are too busy second guessing themselves to just sit down and write.  Sometimes, it’s because a person liked the idea of being a writer rather than actually doing the work.  And often, it stems from the false notion that inspiration is required in order to write.

Writer’s block only exists as a concept because non-writers think creativity is a special gift, bestowed from some divine or magical source.  Such is the notion that writers and artists don’t work so much as function as conduits to creative energies.  Even if we remove the metaphysical baggage associated with creativity, there is still the illusion that talent is something you’re born with.  There is some truth to that in the broadest strokes.  A blind person will never be a great photographer.  A very short person won’t be an NBA all-star.  Countless other examples could be used.

But even with talent, you have to work if you want to be good at anything.  Creativity is no different than any other job.  You have to push through the difficult part if you want to get good at it.  You have to deal with a lot of frustration and deal with your bad days as you struggle to find those great days.  If you work hard and if you’re very lucky, you’ll create something worthwhile.  Or at least something someone might pay you for.

I sit down, and I just do it.  I won’t lie to you and say it’s always easy.  But I sit down, I write something, anything, and hope it doesn’t suck too bad.  Often it does.  Sometimes it doesn’t.  But worrying about it is pointless, and you just need to write and give yourself permission to write badly because it’s better to be a bad real writer than a great imaginary one.

So that’s my cure for writer’s block:

Write.

 

@wetblnkt asks “Does any particular book best exemplify your style?Can one book exemplify an author?Is that like picking favorite child/pet?”

Another common question.  I think it is just human nature to want to classify and categorize things, to file them away in neat rankings.  It isn’t something I believe in.  Too often, such attempts end up arbitrary and silly.  I saw Brave this weekend and really liked it.  It isn’t my favorite Pixar film though because it lacks a giant robot fight.  I know such a thing doesn’t belong in the film, but I also know I really enjoy a good robot fight.  In the end, I think we do ourselves and our media disservice by such ranking systems.  They present us with false choices, and I don’t like to play that game.

As for my style, I’m not even sure what it is.  I don’t think of myself as a literary writer (and I doubt anyone else does either), but I also don’t think of myself as a funny writer or a satirist or goofy or any of a dozen other labels that might apply.  I tend to have certain recurring elements (monsters as heroes, weird matter-of-fact fantasy, extended action sequences, Seinfeldien conversations), but even these are not universal to every book and every story.

I don’t strive to create a perfect A. Lee Martinez story.  I don’t strive to master a particular style.  I don’t seek any recurring theme.  I just write stories that I want to read and hope have some originality and fun to them.  Maybe some depth too, if you’re willing to entertain that books about space squids and monster gods can have depth.  Not everyone agrees on that.

I don’t think I’ve written the definitive A. Lee Martinez novel yet.  I hope not because I’d hate to have already hit my peak.  Plus, I’m pretty sure the definitive A. Lee Martinez novel will have robots fighting dinosaurs in it.

 

@kylenorris asks “Of all your novels, which one was the most fun to write?”

Most of them have been fun to write.  It would probably be easier to say which one was the least fun, which would hands down be Chasing the Moon.  Perhaps because it is a cosmic horror story about the incomprehensible, but it nearly drove me mad at times.  It was still fun to write, but there were moments when I felt overwhelmed by it.  But, as in the “How do you get past writer’s block?” question above, I stuck with it, and I was very glad I did.

Compared to that, every other book has been much easier.

 

Andreas Ravenwell asks “If you could write a comic book would you like to write an existing character or make your own one up?”

It would depend on who I was writing it for.  If I were to write something for a major publisher, I’d feel more comfortable writing an established character.  I wouldn’t want to create an original character just to hand it over to someone else, and also, established characters already have personalities, origins, and are usually effective story engines on their own.  Plus, if the character isn’t mine, then I think editorial mandate would be easier to deal with.

If I could create, control, and own my character, then I’d definitely want to create an original.

Not that either option seems very possible at the moment.

 

Brandon Henrikson asks “What is your favorite giant monster?”

As above, I’m reluctant to categorize such a diverse and wonderful category, but I’ll play along just this once.

Godzilla is definitely the king in terms of longevity and quality.  Even most of the goofy Godzilla movies are pretty damn fun, and like Batman, Godzilla has developed a distinctive rogue’s gallery of kaiju.  Yet I have to say that Godzilla reluctantly falls to the less prolific but very badass Gamera.

What puts Gamera ever so slightly above Godzilla is the series of three films that came out in the 90′s.  The Gamera trilogy is just a masterpiece of kaiju cinema.  It is well-worth checking out, and I recommend it without hesitation.  Even if you don’t like kaiju like I like kaiju, you’ll enjoy them.  Unless you don’t have a soul, and in that case, you have bigger problems than I can deal with here.

 

Phil Krause asks “What are the chances we’d see another novel featuring some characters from a previous novel?”

Tough question.  The odds improve as time goes on simply because eventually some previous character will have a story to tell that appeals to me more than something wholly original.  I don’t know when it will happen, but it will happen at some point.

It might help get the ball rolling if one of my books sold a million copies and had such a proven demand for an audience that my publisher would be willing to throw some more cash my way.  I’m not saying it’s your responsibility, folks, but selling out is a lot more tempting for me and my publisher when there’s some indication that there’s a real demand for a sequel.

I know it’s my own fault for giving you so much awesome stuff to pick from.  I suggest you form some kind of organized club, have meetings, vote on it, and buy as many copies of the selected book as you can get your hands on.  It would probably help, and the fact that I would earn more royalties in no way influences that suggestion.

 

Finally, Aaron Knowles asks “Are they ever going to turn one of your books into a movie? I would definitely go see it?”

I wish I could tell you.  It really isn’t up to me, but I’m with you on this one.

 

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

 

Another Self-Publishing Rebuttal

Apologies all around for my lack of presence lately.  Been busy.  This is why I haven’t quite finished that next portion of the Mack Megaton story I promised, folks, and I can only say I’m sorry for that.  You’ll have to give me a little more time on that, but I have to concentrate on my paying gigs first.  A guy has to make a living.

Onto the post:

I hate writing about self-publishing.  I hate doing it because I’m not out to be a killjoy.  I’m not out to discourage anyone.  It sometimes feels like when I write about this topic that I’m the successful guy telling other people that they’re doing it wrong.  I don’t believe that.  I can’t tell you how to be a successful writer.  I can share the way I did it, but it’s not as if there’s one path to take.  Self-publishing might even be one of those paths.

My only problem with self-publishing and its advocates is that it is too often oversold.  It’s offered up like a glorious beacon, a smart way to beat the system, the only way to keep your integrity as an artist, etc., etc.  These promises sound too good to be true, and they are.  Now, don’t go quoting me, saying that A. Lee Martinez says self-publishing is stupid and self-indulgent.  It isn’t.  I have every confidence that it will continue to grow and become more viable as time passes.  But we’re still a ways off from that.

Self-publishing is, first and foremost, a business.  Let’s get that right out there.  And it is a business designed to sell a product.  The big difference is that in traditional publishing, the author is not one of the customers of that product, whereas in self-publishing, the first person being sold something is the writer.  As the saying goes, Buyer Beware.

Here is, more than anything, where my concern lies.  When you work with a traditional publisher, you are a collaborator.  It’s important to note that the writer is, generally, not an employee in this relationship.  My publisher gives me an advance.  It isn’t meant as a paycheck, but as a promise that they will invest time and money in their part of the equation.  I don’t work FOR the publisher.  I work WITH them.  By paying me some money up front, they’re showing their willingness to put their substantial resources toward the success of the book.

This is why advances exist.  This is why they’re important.  As a writer, if you think about the amount of time you’ve put into your novel, you’ve invested a lot in it already.  So when a publisher gives you an advance, they’re acknowledging their own forthcoming investment.  No advance means no acknowledgement, no promise.  While that doesn’t mean they won’t come through, it still comes down to a good faith gesture.

Yes, just by writing that check, a traditional publisher is committing themselves to your book.  While a first time writer (or even a third or fifth time writer) isn’t going to make a fortune, it still represents a vital investment.  No advance, no money, means no real commitment.  And without commitment on the publisher’s part, you’re mostly relying on their good graces.  This might pay off, but it’s important to realize this.

Let’s put this all aside and talk about one of the “truths” about traditional publishing that bothers me most.  There is this notion, more and more, that traditional publishing is stagnant, and that it is just too hard to break into.  Worse than that, there’s the oft spoken notion that “My book is just too good to be accepted by traditional publishers.”

Bullshit.

Self-publishing is not this bastion of creative freedom.  It isn’t a realm of unfettered freedom.  And your book (if you are one of those above people) is not as brilliant and groundbreaking as you would like to think it is.  There is no conspiracy to keep you from getting published.  No one is flabbergasted by your incredible talent as they run shrieking to the secret council of editorial lords to warn them that you are changing the world of fiction / non-fiction in forbidden ways.

I resent the hell out of being told, as I have been on occasion, that I am a sell out because I write for a traditional publisher.  And I have no tolerance for self-satisfied chumps who stand around, feeling smug that they chose the self-publishing route.  It just ain’t true.

As a novelologist who has been around long enough to see the growth of the self-publishing business, I endeavor to keep an open mind about the subject, but I have seen the changes in the business because of it.  Most of them are not good.  I don’t give a damn if someone wants to self-publishing their book.  Odds are good that they were probably never going to be incredibly successful in the first place, and if it makes you feel better about yourself, earns you a few bucks, and gets your book into the hands of a few people, then what’s the harm?  To a significant portion of self-published writers, it’s about as much success as they can expect.

No, I’m not talking about talent.  Talent and success are not the same thing.  Never have been.  Never will be.

But too many aspiring writers are lured by false promises toward self-publishing.  While I’m not complaining (it’s less competition for me), I am going to say that, even not knowing you, you can do better.  And, yes, I am saying traditional publishing is better than self-publishing.  That might change, but it will be a while yet.  In terms of popularity, money, and exposure, self-publishing can’t compete.  Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.  Probably as much to themselves as to you.

I know this because I (an obscure, mildly successful traditionally published writer) am doing better than every self-published writer I’ve ever met in whatever metric you choose to measure.  The few really successful self-pub writers I know either were traditionally published before going the self-pub route OR work their butts off.

I could write about this all day, dance around the issue, but if someone is telling you self-publishing is a surefire way to success, they are wrong.  Self-publishing’s appeal is that it’s easier to break into than trad-pub.  But easier doesn’t mean better.  And if you really believe in yourself, in what you’re writing and the worth of what you have to say, you’re often selling yourself short going the self-pub route.

Everyone has to find their own path, and I will do my best to respect everyone’s choices.  Respect doesn’t mean I have to just keep quiet while promising writers are led astray.

I believe you can make it.  I believe it’s worth the effort.

I believe it’s nice to get paid something and have your book reach the widest possible audience.

(No, having your book on Amazon isn’t the same thing.  It’s certainly nice, but Amazon is a vast warehouse where standing out is next to impossible for all but a handful of books.)

I believe that self-pub is too often the false path, leading to all the superficial joys of publishing with so very few of the rewards.

And I believe I’ve said enough about this for now.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Ask a Smart Guy

Time for another Q&A session.  The people ask, and I answer because I like to keep in touch with the common humans.  At the end of the day, my career lives and dies by their affections, and it helps me when I can’t come up with a topic on my own.

 

@badrobotbrain:  “Cake or Pie?  Coffee or Tea?”

In the eternal struggle between pro-cake and pro-pie factions, I have to side with pie.  But only barely.  Truthfully, I’m not much of a fan of cake or pie.  I don’t like many varieties of either, but in the list of possible desserts they can offer, my favorite in pie (cherry) edges out my favorite in cake (carrot).  So there you have it.

The coffee tea debate is a bit simpler.  I’d go with neither.  I drink soda.  If pressed though, tea beats coffee because I don’t often drink tea, but I never drink coffee.  Mostly because I worked 7-11 for a year and had to make coffee as part of the job.  While I wasn’t a fan of coffee before that, coming home reeking of it turned me away from that accursed beverage forever.

Fie on thee, coffee!  Fie!

 

@BigHeath2099 asks:  “Which of your novels do you think would work best as a Pixar film?”

All of them.  Every single one.  In fact, if anyone who works at Pixar happens to be reading this, please feel free to contact me anytime to make this happen.  I’m sure we can work something out.

To get more specific, it’s not something I’ve thought about in detail before.  I love that Pixar does original stuff, and that they don’t feel the need to go look for already popular properties to make into stories.  It’s that sort of daring that I really respect.  That, and their ability to make amazing movies.  Still, if they came knocking at my door, I wouldn’t try to discourage them.

The book I would probably like to be adapted most would be The Automatic Detective. Not because it would necessarily be the easiest to adapt but because it would have the potential for the most visual distinctiveness.  Detective was already optioned by one animation studio, and although that option has expired, they sent me some truly amazing concept art that blew me away.  Empire City and its retro-future is just screaming to be made into a visual feast, and I still hope that somebody figures that out some day.  If that somebody is Pixar, I wouldn’t mind one bit.

For the same reason, I think Emperor Mollusk could make an awesome film too.  But the evil genius market has been tapped with both Despicable Me and Megamind so the odds of a Mollusk film getting made are pretty damn slim.  Too bad really because if it was even remotely true to the book, we could have mutant dinosaurs, giant robots, kung fu, fungal monsters, and stone men from Saturn.  While I enjoyed both those previous films, they are both too narrow in scope to be truly amazing supervillain adventures.  They are personal character studies that just happen to feature supervillains.  The true supervillain / hero epic has yet to be made, and Mollusk and his world of Terra would be the perfect candidate for that.

My third and most viable choice is probably Too Many Curses, but while it could make an outstanding animated film, it might be deemed a little too “traditional” nowadays.  There’s no twist to it.  It’s a straight fantasy featuring an unlikely group of misfits who rise to the challenge to save the day.  Not that I consider it a traditional book, but it’s surprises and thoughtful ideas don’t stem from a questioning of fantasy conventions, but of looking at those conventions from different angles.  It’s a great story (probably my most underrated if I do say so myself and I do), but while it would be the most family-friendly of anything I’ve written, it also probably lacks that surprise that makes people take notice.

Finally, I’d love to see a version of A Nameless Witch done right.  But that’ll never happen, so that’s about as much as I’ve thought about it.

 

A two-fer from Samantha and Aaron from Facebook:  “Have you seen Prometheus?  If so, what did you think of it?” and “Why are the characters in Prometheus so annoyingly dumb?”

No, I haven’t seen the film yet.  I have little interest in it because, as previously mentioned once or twice, I have absolutely no interest in prequels.  Not even vague prequels that have very little to do with the original films.  Prequels answer questions I never even bothered to ask, and almost always, those answers are stupid and disappointing.  INSERT NEGATIVE PHANTOM MENACE REMARK HERE.

But I especially have no interest in this particular prequel because I don’t want any origin for the xenomorphs.  Like most terror, they work best when they remain mysterious and unknown.  The true terror of the Alien film has never been the monsters, but the notion that, out there, in the unexplored universe, there is something very nasty waiting for us.  It has nothing to do with us.  It’s not even hostile.  It just doesn’t give a damn, and it’ll eat us all in an orgy of madness and death.

Alien has always been about the unknown.  It draws on the same primal fear ancient mapmakers called upon when writing “Here be dragons” at the edge of the known world.  Telling me where the xenomorphs came from and, even worse, giving them an origin related to humans, robs them of their Lovecraftian core.  It intentionally or unintentionally makes humans prominent and important, which is kind of counter to the entire point of the monster that lurks in the dark and eats you because you’re easier to catch than the cat.

As for why the characters might act stupid, I can’t say much on that since I haven’t seen the film.  Characters in prequels usually act stupid because they seem to know, subconsciously, how the story should end.  They and the writer who create them have surrendered these characters’ free will to service the needs of a predetermined conclusion.  And it almost always shows.  INSERT TIRED COMMENT ON THE LABORED “LOVE” STORY IN STAR WARS PREQUELS HERE.

 

Finally, Jeremiah asks: “When brainstorming ideas, how do you determine when an idea is good enough to pursue?”

You don’t.

Rather, you don’t worry about it.  Ideas are strange and wonderful things.  Some great ideas run out of steam fast.  Other seemingly stupid or silly ideas can easily support themselves once you start working on them.  There’s usually no way to know in advance.

Since I write standalone novels, it’s a little simpler for me than many other writers.  I don’t have to come up with ideas that can sustain a long-running series.  I only need something that’s good for a single novel, but because that’s what I’ve chosen to write at this stage, it also means I’ve come up with a lot of ideas.  I’ve discovered most ideas are only as good as the amount of work you put into them.  So I don’t worry about whether an idea is good enough to sustain a story.  I just write the idea and determine to give it my best shot.

I’ve said it before.  I’ll say it again.  The idea is meaningless.  Anyone can come up with an idea.  Some great and popular stories have sprang forth from the most uninspired ideas.  There is nothing innately unique or innovative about Harry Potter.  Twilight is a generic tale of serious teenagers being serious because love is serious!  Both created multimedia empires.  We might argue about the merits of either, but if a young J.K. Rowling had walked up to you years ago and said, “Hey, I have this idea about a boy wizard that is going to make a billion dollars”, you might be justifiably skeptical.

The best thing to do is just sit down and write your story, paint your painting, sing your song, etc.  Whatever you’re doing, remember how important DOING is.  Anyone can have a great idea for a book or come up with a cool guitar riff or neat sketch.  It’s in the execution, in the act of creating, that artists are made.  And the best thing about it is that anyone can be an artist as long as they keep this in mind.  Maybe not a great artist.  Maybe not even a good one.  But more of an artist than anyone who has ever just come up with an idea and been satisfied with that.

 

Thanks for the questions.  Until next time.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee