Showing posts with label Writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Writing. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Ghosts Of Christmas Past
So I don't get to sleep early and while preparing for my drift-off, Mr. Bladder led me out of the bed and to the bathroom. Both roommates are home and it has not complicated my situation any. The leasee who is usually in a foreign country seems to have landed for a spell. Probably concert season is over. But we are the kind of guys who go into our rooms and minds our beeswax. We say hello in passing and it's just so very okay that way. But an added bonus is that he practices his stringed instrument in his room. And I totally mean it. In my last NYC apartment, there had been a student living in the building who practiced her saxophone, and when she played, the soulful sound echoed in the airspace outside my kitchen window, caressing the brickwork and ascending into the night air. It was like a cut on the soundtrack of my life, playing whenever I needed a good uplift.
Anyway, I went to the john and did my business. When finished, I turned to the mirror, as I often do, for a spot check on my appearance. I seem always to need to see if I look better to my eyes than I've done in the past (which could just have been this morning). Self-esteem issues and all that, blah blah blah.at
But tonight I saw something a little bracing. I saw a man three years older than my father was when I was born. I saw a man with a beard absolutely shot through with white hairs. I saw a middle-aged man. And then, when I dared to look deeper into his eyes, I saw my father looking back out at me. Dad didn't have much to say. It was only a split-second's worth of visitation, in fact. But he was there.
It could be that I realized it was Christmas, whereas I spent the Eve earlier today in a Starbucks getting my creativity on (holidays are the most productive times for me!) as if I were from a land where Christmas isn't celebrated. It's apparently a holiday for families and friendliness, and hey, I'm pro-humanity. But I had no intention to bond with my brother man. I just wanted to get out of the house and take advantage of the mild Winter. In fact, I just never want to spend an entire day in my room, isolated. Yet when I go do out, I don't seem to reach out. I'd rather just watch them all than talk to them.
So it seems as though I had a bit of a slingshot effect tonight in the mirror. The family that I tried to avoid lives inside my head, and they wouldn't go away. But what does Dad want? Is he jealous of my admiration of other fathers? Does he want his respect?
Sorry, Dad. You should have earned it.
But I'm no Scrooge and I don't need Visitations. As proof, I submit the following;
I bought these items in the weeks prior, for the first time.
And this is what it looks like when the flash goes off.
Merry Christmas!
Anyway, I went to the john and did my business. When finished, I turned to the mirror, as I often do, for a spot check on my appearance. I seem always to need to see if I look better to my eyes than I've done in the past (which could just have been this morning). Self-esteem issues and all that, blah blah blah.at
But tonight I saw something a little bracing. I saw a man three years older than my father was when I was born. I saw a man with a beard absolutely shot through with white hairs. I saw a middle-aged man. And then, when I dared to look deeper into his eyes, I saw my father looking back out at me. Dad didn't have much to say. It was only a split-second's worth of visitation, in fact. But he was there.
It could be that I realized it was Christmas, whereas I spent the Eve earlier today in a Starbucks getting my creativity on (holidays are the most productive times for me!) as if I were from a land where Christmas isn't celebrated. It's apparently a holiday for families and friendliness, and hey, I'm pro-humanity. But I had no intention to bond with my brother man. I just wanted to get out of the house and take advantage of the mild Winter. In fact, I just never want to spend an entire day in my room, isolated. Yet when I go do out, I don't seem to reach out. I'd rather just watch them all than talk to them.
So it seems as though I had a bit of a slingshot effect tonight in the mirror. The family that I tried to avoid lives inside my head, and they wouldn't go away. But what does Dad want? Is he jealous of my admiration of other fathers? Does he want his respect?
Sorry, Dad. You should have earned it.
But I'm no Scrooge and I don't need Visitations. As proof, I submit the following;
I bought these items in the weeks prior, for the first time.
And this is what it looks like when the flash goes off.
Merry Christmas!
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Why ... Back In MY Day ...
... we didn't have no "podcasts!"
I say this because of the age-old radio program I'm currently listening to, and how it intersects with my current creative life.
I may have started listening to Hour Of The Wolf, on WBAI-FM, 99.5 in New York City, back in the 80's. When I listened to it then, it was companioned with the Golden Age of Radio, and both of them presented action/adventure/science fiction stories to me in audio form. These two shows both sustained my mind and kept my creative fires lit. And in hindsight, it gave me another address tucked away in my brain that I was able to tap to HUGE advantage when I met My Hero and wanted to expand on his mythos.
And speaking of hindsight, and present effect, back in the eighties I now recall that "meeting my hero" did not begin with My Hero. It was this very show, Hour/Wolf where I first met a hero. WBAI held/holds fundraiser a few times a year to stay on the air. They are madly subversive leftist radio who hates all things establishment, and so broadcasts publicly due to donor moneys and not corporate sponsorship. At every fundraiser, they call for volunteers to come to the station to answer the phones. So one mad morning, I volunteered to answer phones during Jim Freund's hour--the host of Hour/Wolf. I met him then. Afterwards, I would call into the show everyong once in a while. Then one specific broadcast, he mentioned comicbooks and the X-Men, and I dropped into his ear how cool it would be if he could interview Chris Claremont, who was writing the stories of the X-Men at the time. I gushed enough about Claremont that Jim was convinced, and he was ready to make the invite. But he did something REALLY unusual. He invited me to come along to the studio when he did the interview.
I KNOW!!
And yes, I most certainly did go. The host of Golden Age of Radio ran the nighttime elevator and let me up into the building, and then Jim let me into the studio, and there was Chris Claremont. I was too backward and shy to actually say anything on the air, which is probably why he invited me to help him, but I wimped out. But this was a budding new relationship back then. I had visited the studio perhaps once or twice after that. During one of those, I acted as runner for author Jack Womack, (around the time that this book was published)--I went to get him at a diner and brought him to the studio because it was his first time being interviewed there, and he needed the escort.
My relationship with Jim was cut short when my mother grew ill and I went out to Missouri in a whirlwind of 'religious epiphany.' I did give my goodbyes to him, but I stopped communication completely.
Well, Jim has continued to go strong since then. And now, I've come back into the creative fold as a creator, and not just a fan. And I'm realizing that I am actually bringing stuff to the table when I meet my heroes. They find something about me that makes them want to keep me around.
And I'm really grateful and humbled by that realization. It seems obvious to my therapist (in today's session) but I hadn't got it. I owe that to my beatdown self-esteem.
Anyway, listening to the May 5 broadcast of Hour/Wolf, I heard several writers give their bios as members of a writers' group. One of them had Escape Pod buy one of their stories and broadcast it. That made the big juicy intersection for me.
The show I've been listening to for twenty years, is trafficking with the internet medium that I've been listening to for only the last few years. That means Jim, like myself, is absorbing and using the new medium of the art.
Which makes me want to reconnect with Jim. Of course, I have things (my work) that I want to introduce to him because he runs a live radio show about science fiction and I could get our project some precious airtime, but I actually want Jim to know me again. I want to show him my journey. Whatever he saw in me back then, I want to find out if he could appreciate what I've become now.
So, that's what I'm going to endeavor to do.
You heard it here first.
I say this because of the age-old radio program I'm currently listening to, and how it intersects with my current creative life.
I may have started listening to Hour Of The Wolf, on WBAI-FM, 99.5 in New York City, back in the 80's. When I listened to it then, it was companioned with the Golden Age of Radio, and both of them presented action/adventure/science fiction stories to me in audio form. These two shows both sustained my mind and kept my creative fires lit. And in hindsight, it gave me another address tucked away in my brain that I was able to tap to HUGE advantage when I met My Hero and wanted to expand on his mythos.
And speaking of hindsight, and present effect, back in the eighties I now recall that "meeting my hero" did not begin with My Hero. It was this very show, Hour/Wolf where I first met a hero. WBAI held/holds fundraiser a few times a year to stay on the air. They are madly subversive leftist radio who hates all things establishment, and so broadcasts publicly due to donor moneys and not corporate sponsorship. At every fundraiser, they call for volunteers to come to the station to answer the phones. So one mad morning, I volunteered to answer phones during Jim Freund's hour--the host of Hour/Wolf. I met him then. Afterwards, I would call into the show everyong once in a while. Then one specific broadcast, he mentioned comicbooks and the X-Men, and I dropped into his ear how cool it would be if he could interview Chris Claremont, who was writing the stories of the X-Men at the time. I gushed enough about Claremont that Jim was convinced, and he was ready to make the invite. But he did something REALLY unusual. He invited me to come along to the studio when he did the interview.
I KNOW!!
And yes, I most certainly did go. The host of Golden Age of Radio ran the nighttime elevator and let me up into the building, and then Jim let me into the studio, and there was Chris Claremont. I was too backward and shy to actually say anything on the air, which is probably why he invited me to help him, but I wimped out. But this was a budding new relationship back then. I had visited the studio perhaps once or twice after that. During one of those, I acted as runner for author Jack Womack, (around the time that this book was published)--I went to get him at a diner and brought him to the studio because it was his first time being interviewed there, and he needed the escort.
My relationship with Jim was cut short when my mother grew ill and I went out to Missouri in a whirlwind of 'religious epiphany.' I did give my goodbyes to him, but I stopped communication completely.
Well, Jim has continued to go strong since then. And now, I've come back into the creative fold as a creator, and not just a fan. And I'm realizing that I am actually bringing stuff to the table when I meet my heroes. They find something about me that makes them want to keep me around.
And I'm really grateful and humbled by that realization. It seems obvious to my therapist (in today's session) but I hadn't got it. I owe that to my beatdown self-esteem.
Anyway, listening to the May 5 broadcast of Hour/Wolf, I heard several writers give their bios as members of a writers' group. One of them had Escape Pod buy one of their stories and broadcast it. That made the big juicy intersection for me.
The show I've been listening to for twenty years, is trafficking with the internet medium that I've been listening to for only the last few years. That means Jim, like myself, is absorbing and using the new medium of the art.
Which makes me want to reconnect with Jim. Of course, I have things (my work) that I want to introduce to him because he runs a live radio show about science fiction and I could get our project some precious airtime, but I actually want Jim to know me again. I want to show him my journey. Whatever he saw in me back then, I want to find out if he could appreciate what I've become now.
So, that's what I'm going to endeavor to do.
You heard it here first.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
A Very Honorable Mention
Escape Pod!!
I left a heartfelt comment here, and in the latest episode here, after the new story is read, at the 36:20 mark, Stephen Eley made my response the Comment Of The Week! He read a little bit of it, and now it'll be a part of Escape Pod history forever!
How cool is that? Especially when, at first shopping around with what to do with My Hero's fictional adventures, I asked Stephen if he'd consider fan-fiction for his show. He was very encouraging in his e-mail response, but told me 'no'. Then he invited me to write something that was sellable. Since then the fan-fiction has gone on into audio adventures, and I went on to write a novel in November (still out at Tor Books, sitting in the lap, I hope, of my favorite editor couple, one-half of which I discovered is up for a Hugo award as "Best Professional Editor - Long Form").
And while we're at it, here's a reference to the story that My Other Hero read for Escape Pod, which also made me cry. The fact that Alex lent his voice and his talent to it didn't hurt any. (Alex is another of those Real Men I spoke of earlier).
I left a heartfelt comment here, and in the latest episode here, after the new story is read, at the 36:20 mark, Stephen Eley made my response the Comment Of The Week! He read a little bit of it, and now it'll be a part of Escape Pod history forever!
How cool is that? Especially when, at first shopping around with what to do with My Hero's fictional adventures, I asked Stephen if he'd consider fan-fiction for his show. He was very encouraging in his e-mail response, but told me 'no'. Then he invited me to write something that was sellable. Since then the fan-fiction has gone on into audio adventures, and I went on to write a novel in November (still out at Tor Books, sitting in the lap, I hope, of my favorite editor couple, one-half of which I discovered is up for a Hugo award as "Best Professional Editor - Long Form").
And while we're at it, here's a reference to the story that My Other Hero read for Escape Pod, which also made me cry. The fact that Alex lent his voice and his talent to it didn't hurt any. (Alex is another of those Real Men I spoke of earlier).
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
A Little More About Alex And His Story
(Originally 1/11/07)
(Not in that particular order)
The name of his story is "Outgoing". It has a duel meaning. The protagonist is a poet (and so is Alex), and a part of her struggle is that she is an introvert. I don't know what it's like to be a poet, but I think everyone who spends hours at a keyboard, enjoying, reviewing, and typing out the contents of their mind is going to be chiefly an introvert. Alex has expressed his own introversion, yet he was able to go to Clarion, participate in a local improv acting troupe, and most importantly, able to propose to his girlfriend (now wife) and follow through with being a husband.
But he wrote from the familiar territory of wanting to get into one's own space, staying there, and love, love, loving it. Having to see no one else's face, meeting no one else's expectations, breaking no one else's heart, saying nothing wrong to anyone, not subjecting yourself to anyone else's scrutiny, nor being oppressed by anyone else's personality. That part of the story I enjoyed more than any other aspect--not only looking into Alex's heart where introversion lives, but knowing that he is connected to me by the same thread. Connected by our desire not to be connected.
And in the end, whether I like being around people or not (or whether I want to change that or not--and yes, I do), it is always a gratifying, human experience to know that someone you care about understands you.
Ironic isn't it?
(Not in that particular order)
The name of his story is "Outgoing". It has a duel meaning. The protagonist is a poet (and so is Alex), and a part of her struggle is that she is an introvert. I don't know what it's like to be a poet, but I think everyone who spends hours at a keyboard, enjoying, reviewing, and typing out the contents of their mind is going to be chiefly an introvert. Alex has expressed his own introversion, yet he was able to go to Clarion, participate in a local improv acting troupe, and most importantly, able to propose to his girlfriend (now wife) and follow through with being a husband.
But he wrote from the familiar territory of wanting to get into one's own space, staying there, and love, love, loving it. Having to see no one else's face, meeting no one else's expectations, breaking no one else's heart, saying nothing wrong to anyone, not subjecting yourself to anyone else's scrutiny, nor being oppressed by anyone else's personality. That part of the story I enjoyed more than any other aspect--not only looking into Alex's heart where introversion lives, but knowing that he is connected to me by the same thread. Connected by our desire not to be connected.
And in the end, whether I like being around people or not (or whether I want to change that or not--and yes, I do), it is always a gratifying, human experience to know that someone you care about understands you.
Ironic isn't it?
"Is It Just You...?" And Other Thoughts
(Originally 12/3/06)
"No," I responded to the restaurant host, "It's me."
People are so tactless and ignorant these days. Technology has snatched away any people-skills our society may have possibly possessed, I do declare. I walk into a restauant to be seated, how you gonna look me in my face and ask me if it's JUST me? I'm all I need, you dumb-ass peasant. Now seat me before I put a hole in your dignity.
Bah, I wasn't really that mad then, and not so much now either. But it did start a process for me today that saw me to this blog. I wasn't mad enough to leave the restaurant, may I also add. So I sat, "just me" and ate a rack of ribs. And read "The Privilege of The Sword" (yes, still. I only read when I eat out). Then I had two "first X-Men movie, Rogue on the train before Wolverine finds her" experiences.
1) About 20 middle-aged bikers and their spouses and daughters (or their 2nd/3rd wives) came in for Sunday nosh, ponytails, moustaches, bandanas, and leather jackets galore. Chatting amicably, smiling, laughing, flipping hair. A great big family. Years-long in the making and the maintaining. Successfully human, in my eyes.
2) I went to Starbucks for latte and dessert. I was close to the end of the book. Next table away from me, a woman had left her sleeping baby in its carrier, facing me. The little creature looked as though it were actually having congress with angels behind its paper-thin eyelids. Then mother came and joined it, and took it out of its berth. The baby was a clone, I would swear it. A genetic doppleganger of her mother. She woke peacefully, curious and a little disoriented, but soon discovered she was in her mothers arms, so she knew (you could just tell) that she was okay with it. Mother saddled her on her shoulder and nuzzled her mossy head against her cheek. One loud kissy on the head and baby was good for the rest of my book read, which I immensely appreciated.
However, in came the thoughts of Rogue on the train, looking at the affection between parent and child and knowing she could never have that again, dancing like sugarplums in my head. But since I was reading the book and drinking a latte, and since I've felt this way before, I soldiered on.
Then I got to this part in the book;
"The kissing was very different: more like eating really, satisfying an appetite you hadn't even known was in you until you found yourself with a big mouthful of pleasure."
The narrative is from our sixteen-year old heroine, kissing a boy whom she has been having a slowly developing relationship with, starting off as friends. She has also previously kissed a full-grown woman, and fought with love for a female peer's honor. Her sexuality flows and ebbs throughout the book and I never knew which way she was going to go.
And that was yet ANOTHER Rogue moment.
Ellen Kushner, the writer, is a lesbian, unabashedly so. I learned this back when she had been on Hour of the Wolf, when she spoke about her book and her radio show and her wife (who was on Hour of the Wolf yesterday morning, as no small coincidence would have it). I tried not to care and got the book anyway because I liked her style of reading and the ideas she spoke of, seeing as how I was trying to write about a fantasy society and I wanted more in it than just magic and monsters. I'm still also trying not to care now that I've finished the book. And there's no "buts" really. I'm just trying not to care.
Okay, there is one 'but'. It comes in the form of someone else's words;
"I'm sure that somewhere there's a writer who had a happy childhood, but my experience is that a bad childhood makes you a tuning fork for other people's emotions. Fiction is a machine for evoking emotion, and you have to feel those emotions to be able to evoke them." That was Robert J. Howe, quoted from October's Analog Magazine.
I quote him, not to analyze Ellen Kushner's approach to sexuality in her book, 'but' to approach my own experience--as a writer--while reading it.
Was THAT what kissing is like? Or was that what kissing is like for a lesbian? Ellen wouldn't know what I, Alan, is supposed to expect from a good kiss, but I'm sure she didn't intend to use her writing to instruct me in particular, or the general population for that matter. Nevertheless, I was just left with all these "outside-looking-in" emotions.
In my fiction writing, when I've been really transparent and it's representing me in earnest, I find that I'm writing as though I were a homosexual. How does one do that? I guess, the way Ellen does. The lines of sexuality are blurred. My protagonist loves his hero as much as he loves his wife. I haven't figured out if that's good for my ability to write or bad for my hope to be 'normal' some day.
Because yeah as much as I try to come to terms with who I am, and with what has happened to me in the past--and as much as I try to laugh off statements from restaurant seaters that say "Is it just you?"--and as much as I reflect on my good days when I've been alone--and as much as I like my Benefactor's weeklong disappearances (yes, he's doing that again)--the truth is I get lonely. I don't get SO lonely, but I do miss the relationship with other people at times.
The truth is, I want to be normal. I want to have a wife. I want to have a kid or two, and I want to feel pure. I want to trust myself and believe that I would never bring a wife or a kid the kind of heartbreak that comes with "discovering who I really am" after 15 years of marriage and a son who is on the football team in high school. I know people survive that kind of event, and some even go on Oprah or Dr. Phil to make the audience weep and cheer for the success of weathering the change, but I would not survive it. I've been hurt too much for too long to live with myself if I did that to someone else. Especially to a child of mine, whom I took the responsibility of creating and promised to take care of when they had no one else to do it for them. Why would I? Not when I know what I know now, before the event. I'd have no excuse.
So I live the alone life. If I were a woman, maybe I'd enjoy homosexuality, but I would not enjoy it as a man. Society has made it a feast for the eyes to see women being friendly with one another, cooing and kvetching and holding hands and being arm in arm and kissing. (And it helps if one of them doesn't look like a man). But if two men do it, no matter if I'm in Missouri or in the middle of Greenwich Village, I am skeeved completely out. I want to be a man and I want men to be men. If I can't do that or have that, and so far the odds have been against me, then I live the alone life.
To which I'm sure gay guys are now responding "Serves you right you closeted, self-hating queer!" Heh.
To which I respond back, "Whatever, Miss Honey. Just like you, I am what I am."
I'm "Just" Me.
(Oh, and I'm a friend of My Hero's, so that's all right then.)
"No," I responded to the restaurant host, "It's me."
People are so tactless and ignorant these days. Technology has snatched away any people-skills our society may have possibly possessed, I do declare. I walk into a restauant to be seated, how you gonna look me in my face and ask me if it's JUST me? I'm all I need, you dumb-ass peasant. Now seat me before I put a hole in your dignity.
Bah, I wasn't really that mad then, and not so much now either. But it did start a process for me today that saw me to this blog. I wasn't mad enough to leave the restaurant, may I also add. So I sat, "just me" and ate a rack of ribs. And read "The Privilege of The Sword" (yes, still. I only read when I eat out). Then I had two "first X-Men movie, Rogue on the train before Wolverine finds her" experiences.
1) About 20 middle-aged bikers and their spouses and daughters (or their 2nd/3rd wives) came in for Sunday nosh, ponytails, moustaches, bandanas, and leather jackets galore. Chatting amicably, smiling, laughing, flipping hair. A great big family. Years-long in the making and the maintaining. Successfully human, in my eyes.
2) I went to Starbucks for latte and dessert. I was close to the end of the book. Next table away from me, a woman had left her sleeping baby in its carrier, facing me. The little creature looked as though it were actually having congress with angels behind its paper-thin eyelids. Then mother came and joined it, and took it out of its berth. The baby was a clone, I would swear it. A genetic doppleganger of her mother. She woke peacefully, curious and a little disoriented, but soon discovered she was in her mothers arms, so she knew (you could just tell) that she was okay with it. Mother saddled her on her shoulder and nuzzled her mossy head against her cheek. One loud kissy on the head and baby was good for the rest of my book read, which I immensely appreciated.
However, in came the thoughts of Rogue on the train, looking at the affection between parent and child and knowing she could never have that again, dancing like sugarplums in my head. But since I was reading the book and drinking a latte, and since I've felt this way before, I soldiered on.
Then I got to this part in the book;
"The kissing was very different: more like eating really, satisfying an appetite you hadn't even known was in you until you found yourself with a big mouthful of pleasure."
The narrative is from our sixteen-year old heroine, kissing a boy whom she has been having a slowly developing relationship with, starting off as friends. She has also previously kissed a full-grown woman, and fought with love for a female peer's honor. Her sexuality flows and ebbs throughout the book and I never knew which way she was going to go.
And that was yet ANOTHER Rogue moment.
Ellen Kushner, the writer, is a lesbian, unabashedly so. I learned this back when she had been on Hour of the Wolf, when she spoke about her book and her radio show and her wife (who was on Hour of the Wolf yesterday morning, as no small coincidence would have it). I tried not to care and got the book anyway because I liked her style of reading and the ideas she spoke of, seeing as how I was trying to write about a fantasy society and I wanted more in it than just magic and monsters. I'm still also trying not to care now that I've finished the book. And there's no "buts" really. I'm just trying not to care.
Okay, there is one 'but'. It comes in the form of someone else's words;
"I'm sure that somewhere there's a writer who had a happy childhood, but my experience is that a bad childhood makes you a tuning fork for other people's emotions. Fiction is a machine for evoking emotion, and you have to feel those emotions to be able to evoke them." That was Robert J. Howe, quoted from October's Analog Magazine.
I quote him, not to analyze Ellen Kushner's approach to sexuality in her book, 'but' to approach my own experience--as a writer--while reading it.
Was THAT what kissing is like? Or was that what kissing is like for a lesbian? Ellen wouldn't know what I, Alan, is supposed to expect from a good kiss, but I'm sure she didn't intend to use her writing to instruct me in particular, or the general population for that matter. Nevertheless, I was just left with all these "outside-looking-in" emotions.
In my fiction writing, when I've been really transparent and it's representing me in earnest, I find that I'm writing as though I were a homosexual. How does one do that? I guess, the way Ellen does. The lines of sexuality are blurred. My protagonist loves his hero as much as he loves his wife. I haven't figured out if that's good for my ability to write or bad for my hope to be 'normal' some day.
Because yeah as much as I try to come to terms with who I am, and with what has happened to me in the past--and as much as I try to laugh off statements from restaurant seaters that say "Is it just you?"--and as much as I reflect on my good days when I've been alone--and as much as I like my Benefactor's weeklong disappearances (yes, he's doing that again)--the truth is I get lonely. I don't get SO lonely, but I do miss the relationship with other people at times.
The truth is, I want to be normal. I want to have a wife. I want to have a kid or two, and I want to feel pure. I want to trust myself and believe that I would never bring a wife or a kid the kind of heartbreak that comes with "discovering who I really am" after 15 years of marriage and a son who is on the football team in high school. I know people survive that kind of event, and some even go on Oprah or Dr. Phil to make the audience weep and cheer for the success of weathering the change, but I would not survive it. I've been hurt too much for too long to live with myself if I did that to someone else. Especially to a child of mine, whom I took the responsibility of creating and promised to take care of when they had no one else to do it for them. Why would I? Not when I know what I know now, before the event. I'd have no excuse.
So I live the alone life. If I were a woman, maybe I'd enjoy homosexuality, but I would not enjoy it as a man. Society has made it a feast for the eyes to see women being friendly with one another, cooing and kvetching and holding hands and being arm in arm and kissing. (And it helps if one of them doesn't look like a man). But if two men do it, no matter if I'm in Missouri or in the middle of Greenwich Village, I am skeeved completely out. I want to be a man and I want men to be men. If I can't do that or have that, and so far the odds have been against me, then I live the alone life.
To which I'm sure gay guys are now responding "Serves you right you closeted, self-hating queer!" Heh.
To which I respond back, "Whatever, Miss Honey. Just like you, I am what I am."
I'm "Just" Me.
(Oh, and I'm a friend of My Hero's, so that's all right then.)
Monday, May 7, 2007
What I'm Working On...
(Originally June 5 2006)
A Wendy's Spicy Chicken sandwich, for starters. At 9:24pm. Not good. I also had a Sausage McMuffin, Hash Brown and coffee for breakfast, but only six pieces of sushi for lunch, and drank a few bottles of water, so I justified this meal. I also jogged to the gym an hour ago, did two exercises, and had a protein shake before I went and got this sandwich. I had planned on stopping with the shake for the rest of the evening but...I mean, have you ever HAD a Spicy Chicken from Wendy's?
Despite this confession, I will be complaining and whining about my big round stomach in posts to come.
But what I'm also working on is a script for a fourth installment of the X-Men franchise. Everybody and their agent is saying there won't be anymore due to the casting coordination problems and blah blah blah, but The Last Stand has broke new records and everybody's happy with the profits. They have also agreed to produce spin-off movies that center on one character, "Wolverine" already being in negotiations, and "Magneto" spoken of, so how long will it be until they make X4?
Especially when they see my awesome script!
I love the energy I get when I'm writing. I love the ideas that accompany me all day long. The stories unfold in my head as though I'm watching the new movie that someone else has already written.
Of course I can't tell you anything about it until it gets soundly rejected because The 'Net Has Eyes! If its as good as I think it is, I need to keep it hush-hush until I've cashed the check. Then they can leak it over at AintItCoolNews.com the way they did "The Last Stand".
Back to the drawing board..!
A Wendy's Spicy Chicken sandwich, for starters. At 9:24pm. Not good. I also had a Sausage McMuffin, Hash Brown and coffee for breakfast, but only six pieces of sushi for lunch, and drank a few bottles of water, so I justified this meal. I also jogged to the gym an hour ago, did two exercises, and had a protein shake before I went and got this sandwich. I had planned on stopping with the shake for the rest of the evening but...I mean, have you ever HAD a Spicy Chicken from Wendy's?
Despite this confession, I will be complaining and whining about my big round stomach in posts to come.
But what I'm also working on is a script for a fourth installment of the X-Men franchise. Everybody and their agent is saying there won't be anymore due to the casting coordination problems and blah blah blah, but The Last Stand has broke new records and everybody's happy with the profits. They have also agreed to produce spin-off movies that center on one character, "Wolverine" already being in negotiations, and "Magneto" spoken of, so how long will it be until they make X4?
Especially when they see my awesome script!
I love the energy I get when I'm writing. I love the ideas that accompany me all day long. The stories unfold in my head as though I'm watching the new movie that someone else has already written.
Of course I can't tell you anything about it until it gets soundly rejected because The 'Net Has Eyes! If its as good as I think it is, I need to keep it hush-hush until I've cashed the check. Then they can leak it over at AintItCoolNews.com the way they did "The Last Stand".
Back to the drawing board..!
Good Morning
(Originally June 2 2006)
I'm having one.
I went to bed early last night listening to a short story, and woke up early. Heard My Benefactor's phone ringing upstairs and decided to get the heck out. Went to the gym. Saw the parent of a former child client of mine at the gym and avoided them, hoping they didn't recognize me or wish to chat, and they didn't.
Usually, I lump around until past the last moment and go to work upwards to 1/2 late. Then I work without a break to make up for it. Then I find a way to have lunch back here at home to break up the day.
It's all good.
I'm having one.
I went to bed early last night listening to a short story, and woke up early. Heard My Benefactor's phone ringing upstairs and decided to get the heck out. Went to the gym. Saw the parent of a former child client of mine at the gym and avoided them, hoping they didn't recognize me or wish to chat, and they didn't.
Usually, I lump around until past the last moment and go to work upwards to 1/2 late. Then I work without a break to make up for it. Then I find a way to have lunch back here at home to break up the day.
It's all good.
"My" X-Men
(Originally May 31 2006)
Please see the column to the left. I have created a side blog for my fiction work, starting with a piece about the movieverse X-Men that I made in year 2000. I won't be posting new work since I might try to submit them and whatnot. But I will give you stuff that I've done before, just to get it out there and get some feedsback.
Please see the column to the left. I have created a side blog for my fiction work, starting with a piece about the movieverse X-Men that I made in year 2000. I won't be posting new work since I might try to submit them and whatnot. But I will give you stuff that I've done before, just to get it out there and get some feedsback.
Given My New, Current Situation
(Originally Oct 27 2005)
...I foresaw myself with the time to do some structured writing. Well, I found the resources and impetus to do that. I will be adding them to the Links section. Here quickly, they are the following;
I Should Be Writing
Michael A. Stackpole's "The Secrets"
National Novel Writing Month
Online Writing Workshop for Science Fiction and Fantasy
That last link is because that genre is what I'm most comfortable with. I will, at some future date, attempt to use the blog for writing grist in the literature genre without the edifices of dragons or elves, but it won't be in November.
Can I write a novel in a month? Well, check out the site and ask yourself the same question. I do know that I need to start and that I've written three novels already. One was a mystery, and two were science fiction. All of them were just what they sound like--the energy of a young creative mind put to paper. Publishable? Great works of fiction? Errrr...no. So I've been wanting for a while to see what I can produce these days. I'll be letting you know--linking you to be entries and whatnots.
Stay tuned!
...I foresaw myself with the time to do some structured writing. Well, I found the resources and impetus to do that. I will be adding them to the Links section. Here quickly, they are the following;
I Should Be Writing
Michael A. Stackpole's "The Secrets"
National Novel Writing Month
Online Writing Workshop for Science Fiction and Fantasy
That last link is because that genre is what I'm most comfortable with. I will, at some future date, attempt to use the blog for writing grist in the literature genre without the edifices of dragons or elves, but it won't be in November.
Can I write a novel in a month? Well, check out the site and ask yourself the same question. I do know that I need to start and that I've written three novels already. One was a mystery, and two were science fiction. All of them were just what they sound like--the energy of a young creative mind put to paper. Publishable? Great works of fiction? Errrr...no. So I've been wanting for a while to see what I can produce these days. I'll be letting you know--linking you to be entries and whatnots.
Stay tuned!
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