On a Grahampage

January 2012 Writing Count

2012-02-01T09:00:00.000-08:00

During 2012, I'm keeping track of how much writing and editing I actually get done. My minimum goal is 1000 words per day, except on days when I'm editing. Since it's hard to count how much new stuff I write during the editing phase (unless it's a major surgical rewrite) I'll just put a few notes on how much editing I do. **Note: I don't write on Sundays, and only sometimes on Saturdays.

2 Monday
Edited four chapters on SPECTER CELL, cleared major combat scene hurdles.

3 Tuesday
Edited another three SC chapters, zooming in on the end.

4 Wednesday
Edited the rest of SC, compiled, formatted, sent it to Joan.
Got to get cracking on Sidewinder. For every day that I delay, some other @$$hole gets closer to publishing his robot book before mine. Whoever he is, he can eat it.

5 Thursday
Started on new Sidewinder outline, making good headway. Hard to say where I'll be by week's end, but it's looking good. Outline on this one will be really thorough.

6 Friday
A lackluster effort on the Sidewinder outline. Added a few things, stumped with others.

7 Saturday
Had a better showing today, made major progress on SW and even set some deadlines. Jan 20 for the first act (nine chapters plus a prologue.) Also did two more drawings for Technomancer.

9 Monday
Full speed ahead on Sidewinder. New prologue and new first chapter. Tomorrow, the rest of the story gets underway. Boo-yah! 2100 words.

10 Tuesday
Wrote a chapter, but I didn't outline it beforehand, and least not in detail. Suffered by the end, I'll have to bat cleanup on it during edits. 2600 words tonight.

11 Wednesday
Outlined the chapter before I wrote it. 8-10 bullet points, including how one thread segued into the next. Much more fluid than last night. I'm writing this story in alternating present tense and then past tense (flashbacks, sort of.) The present-tense scenes are quicker, to give a bit more of a hit-and-run feel. Tonight was present tense, I did 1400 words. Current total, 6100 words.

12 Thursday
Outlined, then wrote. I'm liking that method. Hit a few snags, trying to keep the flow going, but I think it'll work. I've learned that I suck at writing date scenes, probably because I sucked at dating. 2K tonight, 8100 total.

13 Friday
Wrote about 1200 words, wrapped up another chapter.

16 Monday
Wrote another chapter on Sidewinder (1700 words), but it was complete s***. Gonna have to go back to the drawing board on that one. S'all good, I just got an email from the agent and I have to do some Specter Cell work now.

17 Tuesday
Brainstormed how to fix the Sidewinder problem, flipped it the bird, started motoring on Specter Cell. Far fewer things that need fixing :-D Feels good.

18 Wednesday
Finished edits on Specter Cell, wrote half of another scene for Sidewinder. About 700 words.

19 Thursday
Wrote an action scene in Sidewinder, then outlined and started another chapter. 2400 words.

20 Friday
Got in another chapter and a half. Current total 14K.

21 Saturday
Worked on an action scene, only did 1300. 15,300 total.

23 Monday
Didn't get as much done as I wanted to. Distracted. Which is lame. Wrote 1000, finished action scene, now on to next chapter. **Ha! Scratch that, went back and did another 1300. 17,652 total.

24 Tuesday
Got another 1700 in. Total now at 19,300.

25 Wednesday
1300, new total is 20,600. Should have done two chapters tonight, didn't. Need to step it up.

26 Thursday
Actually did well, wrote around 1700. Kind of bumpy, had to restart in a few places.

27 Friday
Clocked another 1600. Getting to the action scenes soon. Awe. Some.

28 Saturday
Had to deviate from the outline a little bit because one chapter--an action chapter--was running a little long. It's okay though, I've made some adjustments to fix the outline. Every time I do, it gets stronger. Broke 27K tonight, did 2500 today alone. A very good day. Should still have act 2 finished by Jan 31, only one day off original goal (and this with doing edits on Specter Cell AND scrapping 1700 words of this book. Eat it, deadlines.)

30 Monday
Did a thousand words. Wanted to do more, but am adjusting to new schedule with workouts and whatnot. Total is over 28K. Will blow a bigger hole in it tomorrow.

31 Tuesday
Killed it with 2700 tonight, now at 30,700 in this MS. Much stronger, got a good framework for the edits in February.

OVERALL JANUARY ACCOMPLISHMENT:

Finished rewrites on a 2011 manuscript.
Finished a round of polishing edits on said manuscript, agent has it on sub.
30,700 in a new manuscript.
1,800 in the outline for that manuscript.

Met my desired average of 1K/day, minus Sundays. Not. Bad.

Bring on February.

Judging a Book by its Cover (Intentionally)

2012-01-26T19:32:00.000-08:00

I find it interesting when a publisher decides to change the cover of a book they just recently put out. After a couple of years, sure, it kind of makes sense. Or if you're doing something different with the paperback, that works too. But when it's only been six months, weeeeeell...

Sometimes, though, when you see the before-and-after, you can see why they changed certain things. Two examples:

The Girl Who Could Fly, by Victoria Forester.

This is the cover art for the hardcover version. When you look at this, you think...Old. Little House on the Prairie. Bonanza. Something like that. And sure, the artwork is kind of fitting, at least for the first part of the story, but as it progresses from a folksy tale about a girl who can fly and lives on a farm, to something more like X-Men, it needs to have a different feel.

This is the paperback artwork, and I love it. I'd seen the hardcover and it didn't interest me, but this one caught me eye. When I realized I'd heard of it before, and it had a graphic-novel aura now, I went ahead and bought it, and it's great. So the change made sense.

Here's another example, The Other Side of the Island by Allegra Goodman. Think of it as an eco-dictatorship version of 1984. Very cool story, very interesting world. Felt like I was there the whole time.

Check out the hardcover art. It's all blurry and mystical and whatnot, might even feel like the island from Lost. And since the weather played a big part vis-a-vis global warming, it works.

This is the change they wrought for the paperback. Totally different, and probably a little more fitting, especially with the crack in the snow-globe. (Read the book and you'll see why.) I very much recommend this one, a good emotional read.

Anyway, I'm about to present to you another changed book cover, from Elana Johnson's Possession. The original art was rather minimalist--a plain white background, some color-coordinated text, and a thought-provoking image of a butterfly in an ice cube. Enough to make you curious, right?

This book came out in June of last year. Six months later, they've changed the cover art to this:

The changes are subtle, and if I didn't work for a company that works with fonts and text layouts on a daily basis, I might not have understood why they did what they did. Here's my take on it:

1) The made the most interesting part (the butterfly) a lot larger. More detail, more to look at.

2) They added a soft color background that offers a sharp contrast to the central piece, making it stand out even more.

3) The font they chose has softer curves, and the colors of the text blend in more smoothly with the background.

4) The tagline is longer, offering a little more mystique.

I think this is a cool change. It makes the book more of an attention-getter. You're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but surprise! People do. So maybe after six months of pushing one cover, they figured out how to make it jump out more, and they made some changes. Not a problem.

Unless you want the whole series to look the same...but that's another issue.

BONUS: Check out the cover art for the sequel, SURRENDER. Original and new art both featured below.

Tonight's Writing Music: Hans Zimmer

2012-01-25T22:45:00.000-08:00

Somehow, some blessed soul out there got his hands on an early draft of the soundtrack to The Dark Knight Rises. Selections have already gone viral on YouTube.

Tonight's piece is called "Fine Against Cats."

Bring it.

Tonight's Writing Music, TSFH: Jump

2012-01-24T22:33:00.000-08:00

24Jan2012

I use a YouTube playlist stocked with scores and instrumentals when I write. A lot of the music is really awesome, so I'm sharing it with you here, one bit at a time.

Tonight's piece is by Two Steps From Hell, and it's called "Jump."

Enjoy.

Tin Foil Hat Alert

2012-01-22T22:33:00.000-08:00

22 Jan 2012

Recently I had to inform my agent about a problem I've had for several years with regard to my ideas: they're awesome. Normally this isn't an issue, but when they're so awesome that my competition routinely send mind-reading dwarves into my home to extract them from my head while I sleep...well, it can raise an eyebrow or two.

Take, for instance, a now-scrapped sequel (2006) to my long-running sci-fi novel SIDEWINDER. In it, my protagonist Riley (a cyborg) runs into a brother he thought was dead. Turns out the brother was just reanimated as a cyborg, like Riley, and took a new lease on life. His code name was Live Wire, and he had mechanical prosthetics. He also had red hair and blue eyes.

Oh, wait. DC comics has a superhero THAT FITS THAT EXACT DESCRIPTION.

In 2008, I wrote a story about a Miami-based serial killer who, for personal reasons, only assassinates adulterers. I was hooked on Burn Notice, and that was the only reason I chose Miami as a setting.

A year later, someone explained to me what Dexter was all about.

In 2009, Michael Bay flipped me a very special bird with a key plot point to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. (I use the word "plot" in its loosest form.) Megatron (the big bad robot) wants something inside Sam (the plucky protagonist)'s head.

That'd be fine, if it WASN'T THE KEY POINT TO MY NOVEL SIDEWINDER.

I thought I'd mix it up by plotting out the third novel, wherein Riley and his friends go to a secret base on the moon. Then Transformers: Dark of the Moon came out.

And don't even get me started on this recently-announced movie billed as "Ghostbusters go military." Because it sounds a little too damn much like the veil-walkers' Ghost Infantry Corps from SPECTER CELL.

After a few reiterations, I came up with a cool start for the most recent version of SIDEWINDER. I'll spare you the details, except to say that last night when I watched Cowboys & Aliens for the first time...

I mean I know it's possible for two people to come up with similar ideas at the same time...but frick, dude.

From here on out, I'm rocking tin foil headgear when I sleep. This ends now.

Get back to work.

Fare thee well, Soobie.

2012-01-18T21:20:00.000-08:00

If you read this blog regularly, you know I'm a Subaru aficionado. Picture above is my first Outback, a semi-hand-me-down from my older brother Jordan from about 4 1/2 years ago. I'd driven my share of crappy cars until that one came around, and I was glad for it. Good mileage, all-wheel drive, lots of get-up-and-go...in the few short months that I had it, I even made some good memories.

Custom decal courtesy of my brother--these days I do my own.

Then a few months later it--quite literally--saved my life. (Don't sleep and drive, kids.)

I walked away from this without so much as a stiff muscle the next day. An eighty mile-per-hour accident, and I was fine. Subaru did a commercial about a guy whose car saved him once, and I was like yeah, I feel you bro. Been there.

Naturally I wanted to get another one to replace it, so I spent a few weeks digging one up, and found a car lot in Hurricane, UT that had an '02 for sale. On Jan. 13, 2008, I signed the loan docs on it.

Four years ago, this week. It blows my mind, how fast it's gone and what all has happened in between. First off, I've never had a car last me more than a year, so this is a big deal. More than that, this car--named Soobie Roo Bradley, the Second--was there for me when I needed it.

When I moved up to Provo, packing everything I owned inside, it was there. When the weather sucked but I really needed to get to work...when I was out camping with the guys and we couldn't sleep on the ant-ridden ground...when I started my business and had to haul packages to the post office...when I moved from apartment to apartment in Utah, and the stupid SOB University Parking enforcement tried to steal it from me...when I went on countless dates, searching until I found Schaara...on so many weekends that I had to make long drives to see her...on that final haul before our wedding, surviving Snowmageddon for ten hours...for my honeymoon, and this whole first year of our marriage...

...Soobie was there.

I know it's stupid to get attached to material things, but it's not so much what the car is, as much as it is what the car has done for me. What we've done together.

Tonight, I had to close that chapter of my life. I sold my Subaru. It's been a long time coming--Schaara and I have talked about it since at least last spring, maybe longer. We had a noteworthy sum of debt when we got married, between the cars and student loans and business start-up...eventually the smog cert would expire, and I didn't want to have to pay to register it again. As a married man trying to stabilize my financial footing, we made a decision to sell the car and just use hers.

I've been kind of dreading it, obviously. But this is one of those Adult Decisions that you make, when life is no longer about you. We made a choice that will benefit our family and put us in a better position for our plans this coming year. It wasn't super easy, it was just the right thing to do. I told myself that as I signed the payoff docs at Carmax tonight, and said goodbye to my Soobie for the final time. And I'm fine with that.

That's life, I guess. It's all good, though. Schaara says there will be other Subarus in our future, and I certainly plan on it. Long as they keep saving lives and doing that which is awesome, they'll always be on my radar.

To all my Soobie-driving brethren (and sistr-en), keep on rollin. I'll see you out there.

(The rest of you, get back to work.)

Ugh.

2012-01-11T08:28:00.000-08:00

So yeah, that whole "New Year's Fitness" thing is thus far whooping my ace.

I'm having a hard time getting back into running, because I'm so much heavier than I normally am. My first year of marriage was great, and Schaara's a wonderful cook, so yeah...that added up real fast. I'm also discovering that my right leg doesn't work properly. I guess after the dirtbike incident in '09, it never healed right. Greeeeat.

I just have a hard time reconciling where I am now with where I used to be. In 2002, I was a varsity cheerleader. In 2006, I won the Charles Atlas trophy contest. In 2010, I was running four miles in 42 minutes or better. This year I can't do a lot of the same exercises because my thighs keep hitting my stomach.

It's like when Theoden was putting his armor on in Helm's Deep, preparing his people for annihilation at the hands of a superior enemy, when just a few years ago they had peace and prosperity. How did it come to this?

Well you know what? I'm not giving up. I'm going to kick this thing right in its face, and I'm going to laugh while I do it. Then I'll steal its lunch money and I won't feel bad for two seconds.

I'm getting back in shape, that's all there is to it.

2012 in the Crosshairs

2011-12-31T12:30:00.000-08:00

Do you get what I'm trying to tell you here?

To start, let me say that by nature, I'm a mostly optimistic person. Maybe a little naive. Definitely lazy, as much as I can be. Ambitious, sure. Overly ambitious, absolutely. Sexy, well, ask my wife. American, you bet. Organized? Once upon a time, yes.

Adulthood has already been a wild ride for me, and I've only been at it for 9 years (supposed we count 18 year-olds as adults.) I've spent a year renovating houses, I've lived abroad and learned many foreign cultures, I've worked a few dead-end jobs in careers I now loathe, I've made many valuable friends and plenty of worthless enemies, I've defined the masculine mystique, I've flipped a car, I've learned Valuable Adult Lessons, and I've made it onto the next Batman soundtrack. (It's an impressive list of accomplishments, but no word yet on whether I'll run for President. :) The biggest change? Getting married to the woman I love, one year ago next week.

(Yeah, don't ask me where the time went, 'cause holy cow.)

One of the few constants in my life is the annual "What do to next year-a-thon" that I subject myself to in December. I put together a list of things that I want to accomplish, most of which I'll fizzle out on by February or March (It's the American way.) In recent years I've grown tired of it, so I trim the list down to things that I know I can do if I work at it, but won't burn out on.

I believe very firmly that if you want a goal to have weight, you have to A) write it down, B) tell others about it, and C) develop the habit of finishing what you start. C is the most important. If you consistently fail at that, people will grow tired of B, and you'll soon stop doing A.

That being the case, here is the abbreviated list of things I'm going to accomplish in 2012, barring the most personal items:

1) GET PUBLISHED. I know this depends on a variety of factors outside my direct control, and that I've been saying this for years, but man...last year my goal was to get an agent, and it finally happened, and she's awesome. Whether by traditional publishing, or by the initial success of my aforementioned Project Dread Pennies, this will happen.

2) GET HEALTHY. I weigh way too much, I'm tired, my legs hurt, and I'm hungry all the time. I'm only 27, this is bulls***. Time to get with the program: 190lbs by June 30.

3) WASTE LESS TIME ONLINE. This is actually a big problem for me. I know it's the Age of Distraction and all that, but seriously--I can be a helluva lot more productive if I just punch the Internet in its mouth, walk away, and get back to work.

4) READ MORE NON-FICTION. This will help my fiction get better. I never put a really serious effort into college, so I didn't study hard in a wide variety of topics. That puts the burden on me to expand my own base of knowledge, like Louis L'Amour did. I enjoy reading, and it's time I branch out into things that will expand my horizons.

5) GET OUT OF DEBT. Schaara and I are shopping for a house and we'll soon have our cars paid off. This is an exciting time for us--one year ago today, our debt was more than twice what it is now. (Really pisses me off to think that we could be many thousands of dollars ahead of where we are now if we didn't get the living daylights taxed out of us for being self-employed. $#@%!.)

That's about it, really. There are specifics, deadlines, and little "micro-goals" attached to it, but those are the Big Five. Everything else falls under those categories.

I know it's popular to make fun of people who make New Year's Resolutions (if it wasn't, I wouldn't do it) but in all seriousness, challenge yourself to overcome something difficult in your life. Accomplish something really meaningful, whether for yourself or someone else. It's a great feeling, and very fulfilling.

Happy New Year, y'all. Now get back to work.

Projects Yet to Come

2011-12-26T09:00:00.000-08:00

I hope you're all surviving the Christmas aftermath well. Schaara and I had a nice one in Idaho with her family. Since Christmas landed on a Sunday this year, and her mom's ward was holding services at 9AM, and there are four younger kids in the house, someone yanked me out of bed at 4AM so we could open presents. Never before have I been so un-awake during that portion of the holidays.

We also rented a monumentally awesome 2011 Ford Explorer for the drive up. Last year Schaara's Impala got stuck in the snow, and I spent an hour trying to dig it out--while it was still snowing. Determined not to repeat that episode, we got the SUV. Turns out we didn't "need" it, because IT HASN'T SNOWED AT ALL, but I'm okay with that. We're still driving back through Utah in a few days, and I can always count on Utah to snow when it's inconvenient.

But seriously, check out this ride. The computer in the dashboard has A) inspired me to add more detail to the description of Chase's Ensis in SPECTER CELL, and B) reminded me that I drive a ten year-old car.

Just look at that happy speedometer.

I'm surprised it couldn't control the car next to me, for Pete's sake.

Anywho, now that Christmas has passed, I revert my focus from manger-born omnipotent Deity and obese home-invading chimney sweeps to things like The Future. I've got a lot of professional goals for 2012, with regard to my writing and drawing.

First off, I'm finishing another rewrite of SPECTER CELL. Any of you who have read GHOST MACHINES will be familiar with the characters and setting, but the focus is a lot narrower. This rewrite won't be as overloaded as the last version. It should be done in the next couple of weeks, then it's going to my agent.

Second, once I'm done with SPECTER CELL, it's time for another rewrite of SIDEWINDER. Over the past few years I've rewritten it a couple of times for different small-press editors, and now it's just messy. I've changed tenses and viewpoints and worldbuilding details...I need to start over. It'll be easy to outline it and make it better, and I really want to get it right. YA lit needs more robot books.

Those two books will be my biggest focus for 2012. Once they're taken care of, I'll probably work on a new manuscript, a secret secret secret book with the working title of QUARRY.

The above projects comprise the agented work on my radar. I have another project that I'll be using as a pallet-cleanser/branding effort. I've mentioned it before as "#PDP." Here's the scoop:

The acronym stands for Project Dread Pennies. I've been studying web design and started building a site, to be hosted at dreadpennies.com. In the spirit of old penny dreadfuls, Dread Pennies will feature a number of serials, short stories, comics and drawings done by yours truly. I've already queued a list of projects that will find their way onto the site in the years to come, and it will keep me busy for a while.

I'm super stoked for this one. Over the past five years I've been getting ideas for different stories that I think are cool, but that I probably couldn't flesh out into a full-length manuscript. Using the short format, I can get these ideas down on paper, tell the interesting bits, illustrate them, and put them online so people can read them for free. I think it'll be a great addendum to my published books.

Unfortunately I can't give you a finite timetable for when the site will go live, but once it's ready, I'll of course announce it here. Probably late spring, I imagine. I won't put much effort into it until SIDEWINDER is done.

That's all, folks. Have a great New Year, and I'll see you out there.

My Best Books of 2011

2011-12-18T15:46:00.000-08:00

Since I'm not really doing book reviews any more (at least not individually), here's a list of the best books I've read this year. This isn't a comprehensive list of all of my reading, just the ones I'd actually recommend. Here goes:

I was living abroad when this happened, but Marcus Luttrell was the last surviving man from SEAL Team 10 after they were killed by terrorists in Afghanistan (June 2005.) His true story hit me right in the heart. I'd always appreciated our military before this, but reading his account reminded me why.

A great YA dystopian. As predictions of the future go, it's rather left-leaning (I notice this, since I lean to the right) but not in such a way as to be preachy. The pacing was great, the cause-and-effect were very clear, and the world was vivid.

I've been reading these as they've come out, so this year I just read the third one. Tremendously unique--a major contribution to the YA horror genre.

I love Larry Correia's Monster Hunter series. B-movies in print, with smart characters who have guns. This second book was a major improvement over the first, in just about every sense. The third MHI book, Alpha, was probably the best. (For some reason I couldn't get a picture to load.)

Also by Larry Correia, and definitely the best thing he's written thus far. 1930s noir, plus superheroes and magic.

I pretty much read the entire Dresden Files this year, all the way through #13. This is the benchmark for urban fantasy, the standard against which it should be graded.

I've read Gaiman before, but not Pratchett. This book was the perfect introduction. Witty, humorous, clever and meaningful. Very fun.

If you thought Louis Sachar didn't have anything left in him after Holes, please let this book change your mind. Yes, it's that good.

The Lagos brothers were awesome enough to let me interview them for books 1 and 2 of their Sons of Liberty graphic novel series. I thoroughly enjoy these books, both the stories and the artwork.

This is the 5th in what will be a series of 7 (see below) and it didn't disappoint. James Owen has many talents, and he unleashes them all on these books.

But if you don't want to invest in a series that long, start with his non-fiction autobiography. Easily one of the best--inspiring and informative.

I'd be remiss if I didn't list one YA paranormal romance, because I've read a few this year. Most of them strike me as repetitive--100 of the same book out there, etc--but I like Aprilynne's take on it. The main character is a teen girl who is confident and capable. The story centers around her, and it progresses because she actually does things.

And when you get to the inevitable "force the two love interests into an enclosed space so they can square off" scenario, she took it in a direction that actually made me laugh aloud.

Premise: Laurel is a faerie, but didn't know it until just a few years ago. The fae live longer than humans. Two boys are in love with her: a human and a faerie. She's currently dating the human, but the faerie gets jealous. They get in a fight, and end up in detention, where they have a Serious Talk about what's best for Laurel. Tamani, the faerie, diplomatically points out that Laurel will only have lived half her life by the time David (the human) dies of old age. When that happens, Tamani will step in and take Laurel anyway, so better to have her now.

I read it thusly:

Good times, good times.

Okay, finally: I can't stop poring over how awesome Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus Trilogy is. If you think you know the ending to every story about orphaned magician boys in London--character arc, plot twists, the works--you're in for a pleasantly rude awakening. As a reader, I was delighted. As a writer, I was instructed. It was refreshing to read about characters who were realistic, crappy human beings, that had to really learn how to do good things.

And I'm serious, you'll never predict the ending to this trilogy. Read if it you haven't.

That's all folks. Enjoy, and get back to work.

December Update

2011-12-15T13:50:00.000-08:00

I had ambitions of publishing a weekly Christmas comic this entire month, all the way up to December 25th. Then I took an arrow to the knee.

Figuratively speaking, of course. What really happened was "work." About 140 hours of it...in nine days.

And to think I wanted to get another draft of SPECTER CELL done.

I've actually made significant progress on that front, thanks in no small part to Joshua McCune, who's awesome. I'm stoked to read his book next year--he's made dragon fiction sound interesting to me again.

But I digress.

Yes, I'm working on SPECTER CELL. It'll be done by the end of the month. Work's just been crazy, because when you're in retail, people buy twice as much stuff in December. So you work twice the hours, and end up with half the health. (Up yours, mathematics.)

And if you're a writer, you make crazy promises to your agent like "Oh yeah, I can rewrite that whole thing in 5 weeks." Present Day Graham is looking at Past Graham and thinking what an ***hole he is.

Anyway, I took down the previous post, which was Part 1 of the Christmas comic. I'll be better-prepared next year.

I'm only planning on doing one or two more posts before the end of the year, one of which will have my "best of 2011" reading list on it. My book consumption has gone way down--50% of what it was in 2009--and that's okay, 'cause I've been busy with other things (like my marriage :-)

Okay, back to work now. Merry Christmas folks.

How would you fight a giant turkey?

2011-11-13T18:53:00.001-08:00

There's a poll to the right. Respond. -------->

If a pack of gigantic, 7-foot wild turkeys laid siege to your home...

WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

A) CALL THE POLICE

B) GET YOUR TWELVE-GAUGE

C) RUN TO THE KITCHEN AND GRAB A MEAT CLEAVER

D) GIVE IT YOUR BEST UFC-STYLE RIGHT HOOK TO THE FACE.

You have 10 days to fight the savage poultry to its festive end. Get your friends here. Vote.

Porter's Place

2011-11-11T09:00:00.000-08:00

In Lehi, UT, there's an awesome western BBQ joint called Porter's Place, where I've been a semi-regular customer for about six years now. (I used to be a fully-regular, but only when I lived there.) It's old-school, it's rustic, it's homely, and I've got a handful of really fond memories there.

I've never blogged about it until now, but I got the idea the other night when it started to get cold here. I thought to myself, I could really go for a Destroying Angel right now. Except I couldn't. Because the nearest one was 430 miles away.

Sideburns from 2006 not included

Porter's Place is a cozy little joint right off of Main and Center. It's named after Orrin Porter Rockwell, a famous gunslinger who couldn't be killed by anyone. (Plenty tried.) My friend Porter is named after him, and most of the time he works at the restaurant.

^ No seriously, he's working here

Porter got me started on The Dresden Files, a series of urban fantasy novels featuring a wizard who works as a detective in Chicago. The wizard, Harry Dresden, frequents a bar/restaurant called McAnally's, where brick-oven bread, warm brew and red meat are the bulk of the menu. I often think of Porter's Place as a real-world McAnally's, where a six-foot dude in a leather duster and a ten-gallon hat can sit down and order a four-pound steak, and nobody gives him a second thought.

But really, I loved going there, and dropped by often. Porter's an old friend and a fellow writer, so we've always got plenty to talk about.

Corby, Jaime, Porter, Me

During the 30 months I lived in Utah, the restaurant was like a constant. If I was bummed out, I'd go chill at Porter's. If I'd just swam a mile and was hungrier than a pothead at 4am, I'd go to Porters. If I had a date and she'd never been there, we went to Porter's.

On that note, Porter probably got tired of me bringing in a different girl every time I came by. "What's the flavor this week? Redhead, huh? That's a new one. Sit down."

If you ever get the chance, swing by and tell him Graham sent you. Order the Rodeo Burger. It's not on the menu, but you're welcome. (Because you'll thank me.)

One day Porter and I will be writing full-time, so he won't work there forever. Seriously, make it a weeknight hangout, enjoy the food, mess with the waiter (his name is Chiz), and have a good time. Every now and then, I wish I was still there.

Now get back to work.

Open mouth, insert caffeine

2011-11-09T20:59:00.000-08:00

Had a phone call with my agent today.

Nope. No details. Not here.

Gonna do a full rewrite of a manuscript for NaNo.

By Thanksgiving.

I'm looking at around 7K per day that I have to average.

And it's not even for a guaranteed pickup by an editor. It'll help. But it's not guaranteed.

Part of me isn't sure why I'm about to put myself through this.

But the other part, which is the larger, sexier, more powerful part of me, the creative part, is telling that first part to STFU and get back in its Prius and drive to Sissy Island where it came from, because that's not the kind of show we run around here.

This is me. Getting back to work.

So should you be.

Now. Pass the caffeine, please.

No, not that one; the syringe.

YESTHATSTHEONE.

Guess what? I'm on the next Batman soundtrack.

2011-11-04T21:20:00.000-07:00

We have access to something that our parents didn't have when they were kids. (I say this as if I weren't a 27 year-old man, but I digress.)

The Internet, despite being a bullhorn for a lot of stupid people to say a lot of stupid things, has its positives. Tonight I got to partake of two of them.

Lemme splain.

Three years ago today, Michael Crichton passed away. He was a giant among writers, a guy who wrote medical thrillers to make his way through grad school so he could become a doctor. He wrote The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Jurassic Park, Timeline, Prey, State of Fear and many other great novels. He produced the TV show ER, which ran for what, 14 seasons? He remains the only author to have the #1 movie, book and TV program at the same time.

I started reading his books in middle school and pretty much never stopped, all the way to his final novel, Next. Truth be told, I didn't enjoy it that much. When I heard about his passing in 2008, I thought--among other things--about how much it sucked that Next would be his swansong.

But then there were good tidings! Two of his books would be published posthumously! One of them was Pirate Latitudes, a Caribbean pirate novel that was less science and more outright fun than his other works. The other book wasn't finished, so Harper brought on Richard Preston to finish it. That book, Micro, finally comes out this month.

I guess the basic gist of the book is that it's a more serious version of Honey, I Shrunk The Kids.

The people managing the Michael Crichton Facebook page are having a fun contest where you "Micro yourself" and submit the results. In a shameless attempt to endear myself to Harper, I have done the following:

"Harper! Publish me too!!!"

Hopefully I'll be one of the winners, and get some sweet swag.

But what's even more unbelievably awesome is this! (<--that should be a colon, but it's so exciting, it needs an exclamation point) :

Hans Zimmer, the soundtrack titan behind Gladiator, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Lion King, and most importantly, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, has put out this totally awesome call-to-arms. For whatever reason, he's recording a "worldwide chant" for his current project, The Dark Knight Rises. I've heard it has something to do with Bane, but I can't be sure--I've been avoiding spoilers on this flick.

Anyway, you can find the deets here. The basic idea is you log into this site, record yourself doing the 40-second chant via your webcam's microphone, then submit it to Zimmer.

And he'll probably use your voice in the worldwide chant on the actual soundtrack to the movie.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!

I did it about twenty minutes ago, and it was totally boss. I don't know if my individual recording will make it or not, but for sake of incontestable bragging rights, I'll assume it will.

The Internet is usually a scatological maelstrom of digital excrement, but on days like this, I'm really glad Al Gore invented it.

Vision and Clarity

2011-11-03T23:18:00.000-07:00

One of the wisest men I've ever known is John Watson--not Sherlock Holmes' sidekick, but someone else entirely. He was my mission president in Spain. An established businessman who could make anyone feel loved, he had a God-given talent for inspiring people to be their best.

My friends and I often make references to Pres. Watson, sometimes in jest, sometimes with purpose. When he has something important to tell you, he gets right in front of you, puts his hand on your shoulder and looks you straight in the eye. If it's deadly serious, he'll use both hands. Whenever John Watson locked both hands on your shoulders and gave you The Eyes, you listened, and you followed whatever advice or counsel came next.

(Dramatic example.)

"Bro, why did you walk onto that farm and put that bull in a headlock like that?"

"Dude, Watson gave me the double-shoulder-grab..."

"Oh..."

You get the point.

He's just as well-known for dropping an oft-repeated dictum at the perfect moment, and in the years that I lived overseas, I became very familiar with them.

"Leave it better than you found it."

"Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough."

"O, be wise...what can I say more?"

Well, one particular Watson quote (which is actually a Proverb) has been running through my head this past evening: "Where there is no vision, the people perish."

Too often I get bogged down in the hubbub and daily to-do that I focus on putting out fires when I really ought to be ~~burning to death~~ looking past all that. There are so many things that I want to do, and I try to do them all, and the result is I get very little done. My real vision is, well, blurry.

This is where President Watson would come up to me and say--probably with a single-shoulder grab, head tilted forward, eyes boring into me from under his brow--"You need to have a clearer vision."

And he'd be right.

And I'd get one.

Right now, #PDP is halted. That means I'm not working on TECHNOMANCER drawings for a while. Unfortunately, SIDEWINDER is on temporary hold again (and only three days into NaNo!).

That's okay though. Because as I move those things out of my immediate frame of vision, I can see something better, with much greater clarity. Know what that thing is?

Two days ago I had an early-morning phone call with my agent. She had heard back from...

[NAME AND CONTENT REDACTED, BECAUSE I CAN :-)]

...so long story short, I have given myself two weeks to get her the outline. I'm basically rolling a grenade into my story and laughing like Mayhem as it blows apart the world I've spent 2+ years building. And that's okay, because that grenade landed in a crappy neighborhood, and it was time for urban renewal.

I've heard Aprilynne Pike say often that the book that got her an agent is not the book that got her an editor. I'm thinking this might end up being the case with me, if this new outline really tickles the fancy of...

[DUDE I'M SERIOUSLY NOT GOING TO TELL YOU]

Vision. My vision is to write great stories, with great characters in a great world. I have the latter two, but the first part needs work. And unless I get a good vision for the story, those characters--my people--will perish in an unpublished slush file somewhere in the bowels of my hard drive.

Hence, everything else in my writing life can wait until I get this done, and get it done correctly. Then I'll set my sights on something else.

Once November 15th rolls around, I might tell you what the heck I've been up to.

Until then...

Variant, by @robisonwells

2011-11-01T17:42:00.000-07:00

Hey y'all, I've got a plug for you here. Robison Wells just had his national debut novel, Variant, come out last month from HarperCollins. It's a good addition the growing lineup of boy-books, one that promises to hit you with a hard WTF-slap at the end.

There's also a plot twist coming that you won't see, and I can't say anything lest I spoil it. Suffice to say, it's an interesting book.

And that alone would be a good enough reason to plug it, but in all honesty, that's not the only reason why I'm doing so. After all, the book came out a month ago, right? And I read an ARC several months before that, right?

Well, I'm mentioning it now because Rob's hit a rough patch as far as temporal things go. After spending six months unemployed with an MBA in marketing, he finally landed a job earlier this year, only to have a major medical flare-up that kept him out of work. As stated on his Twitter account today, he was laid off for said medical reasons, which is a really crappy way to go out.

On the plus side, it doesn't hurt that he's got a book deal with Harper, and I hope he's in good enough shape to fulfill it. At least he's that far along, right?

Anyway, if you feel like giving him a hand (which would be nice,) and you want to get a book out of it too (which is also nice,) pick up a copy of Variant and help a brutha out. Spread the word while you're at it.

In the meantime, get better, Rob. Best wishes.

Out today!!!

2011-10-31T09:00:00.002-07:00

It's finally here! A year and a half in the making--from the original announcement last April, to the Moment of Acceptance in December, to a near-the-last-minute announcement that I'd get to illustrate part of it too, Monsters & Mormons is for sale!

B10 Mediaworx has it here. The page also has links to their Amazon Kindle and B&N Nook listings, for your eReader of choice.

And of course, as promised, I have a surprise reveal for you. I got to do two pieces for my story, and you can see the first one here. That's the final version, and it takes place early in the novella.

For as simple as the artwork looks, it was harder than I thought it would be. The editors wanted a "chiaroscuro" style, which isn't what I normally do, so I had to teach myself this new heavy-contrast style of drawing on the fly. It was fun though.

Here's the piece that shows up at the end:

(Spoiler alert, I based both these guys' faces off two of my friends.)

And for kicks and giggles, here's a mockup non-cover I made tonight :-)

Thanks for all the support and encouragement you guys. Have a great Halloween!

Cover art revealed!!!

2011-10-27T21:55:00.000-07:00

Big update! B10Mediaworx (the host site for Monsters & Mormons) now has the listing live!

Release dates!

Prices for the eBook and hard copy! (Buy both!)

And mini-descriptions of all the stories in the anthology!

Sweet jeepers!

Check it out here! DO IT!

I guess I'll be canceling all my scheduled posts for the next four days, since this is ultimately more interesting :-)

I will say this though: tune in Monday, Halloween, the Launch Date, for a special reveal!

T-5 Days! Five more stories.

2011-10-27T09:00:00.000-07:00

For a more detailed plug of each of these, check out this page on Motley Vision.

1) "The Baby In the Bushes" by S.P. Bailey. Not supernatural, but still applicable.

2) "The Blues Devil" by TV McArthur. A deal with the devil?

3) "Experimenting With Life at Extraordinary Depths" by Bridgette Tuckfield. Hmmm...something about diving...

4) "The Eye Opener" by Brian Gibson. ***I guess this guy works in television.

5) "The World" by Danny Nelson. Apparently this one has an "unguessable" monster. I'm interested in the challenge.

T-6 Days!

2011-10-26T09:00:00.000-07:00

No more music videos for ya--I couldn't really find anything else good, but if you scroll through the previous posts, there's plenty of good stuff.

Here are five more M&M admits. Again, check out this post by Motley Vision for more details on what they're all about:

1) "The Mission Story" by Bryton Sampson

2) "Bichos" by Erik Peterson. ***"Bichos" is the Spanish word for "bugs." Hmmm...

3) "A Letter From The Field" by James Paul Crockett.

4) "Baptisms for the Dead" by Christopher Birkhead

5) "Out of the Deep I Have Howled Unto Thee" by Scott M. Roberts. ***This one sounds awesome.

T-7 Days! "Wings of Icarus" by Celldweller

2011-10-25T09:00:00.000-07:00

Not a Halloween song by any stretch, but still an awesome one. Made it into the trailer for Real Steel, so that's why it sounds familiar to you.

Two things: first of all, I fubared the countdown all the way back on "T-16 days" because it was on the 16th, and there aren't 32 days in October (at least not until leap year.) But whatever. "T-1" will just be launch day.

Second: for the next week I'll be cross-posting the announcement posts for Monsters & Mormons over at Motley Vision. The whole anthology has almost 30 contributions, and at this point you're familiar with mine, so you need to know what else is in it:

I don't know the order on the Table of Contents yet, so however I list them here isn't necessarily how they'll appear in the final book. I suspect Dan Wells' piece will come first--he's the biggest name among the contributors--but we'll see.

For more details on these pieces, check out this post at Motley Vision.

1) "Water Spots" by Terressa Mae Wellborn.

2) "Pirate Gold for Brother Brigham" by Lee Allred. ***I've heard some cool folklorical/urban legend stories about the Great Salt Lake, so this will be intriguing.

3) "Bokev Momen" by D. Michael Martindale.

4) "Allow Me To Introduce Myself" by Moriah Joven.

T-8 Days! "Crystal."

2011-10-24T09:00:00.000-07:00

One week from today, folks. Just one week!

This is the final snippet I'll be giving you from BROTHERS-IN-ARMS. For the next seven posts, I'll have something else for you. Tune in tomorrow to see.

Cannon snorted at Trex. “Monsters? What is this, a bedtime story? They’re stiffs with wires shooting out of their butts. They go down if you shoot ‘em right.”

“Yeah,” I said, “but you don’t shoot right, Cannon. You just shoot.”

“Stuff it, Reverend,” Cannon said.

Job Security

2011-10-23T20:37:00.000-07:00

I got to thinking today--three of the biggest religious categories (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) all have, in one form or another, an "end of days" scenario where sometime soon, the Big Omnipotent Being In The Sky comes down and sets everyone straight on what's right and what's wrong. Ostensibly the believers make the cut, and the rest get whatever they get.

(Unless it happens for all 3 at the same time, which I can't imagine would be good for anyone)

Image courtesy of SnorgTees

But anyway, my question is: what happens after this end-of-days scenario?

I can't speak for all religions, but this just came up at church today as an aside during one of the lessons. Someone asked whether our jobs would be necessary after the Second Coming of the Lord. (All of the cops and lawyers shook their heads.)

My response was, "People will still need stickers."

Seriously though, what kind of job skills will I bring to the table in a Perfect World? What will people NEED that I can provide? Well, here's the list of my job skills--and I'm only counting jobs that I've held and got taxed for, in order to simplify things. Here goes.

1) At age 16, I was a referee for a city sports league. (On a religious note, getting yelled at by parents because their kid sucks at soccer and I don't throw the game their way is a good example of what hell must be like.) The job sucked, and I quit before long. I was never good at it and none of my co-workers liked me anyway, so there.

2) Still 16 years old, I applied at Discount Tire and got a job as a tech. So I can change tires and do the basic service pertinent to them.

Air hoses can be fun.

3) Around the time I was 18, I quit Discount Tire to work on houses full-time. It was the family business, so I learned how to do minor drywall repairs, texture and paint walls, install cabinets and baseboards, set tile flooring, install sliding glass doors, frame windows, put in a toilet, and install minor electrical thingamajigs. I also got to break the hell out of stuff whenever we cleared out a new property, which was fun but only lasted three days. Then we'd spend three months fixing the place.

Ian and I, after painting a home interior with a sprayer.

4) After I got home from Spain, I started working as a loan adviser. This was a stupid mistake and a waste of everyone's time, and in a lot of ways I regret taking the job. I didn't sell squat in six months, while my co-workers were selling adjustable rate mortgages left and right. Two years later the housing market collapsed, so on the plus side, I didn't contribute to it. Job skills? None, really. I learned a little bit about investing and managing one's own money, though.

5) Right after that, I got a job at a credit union. Long hours of sitting on your butt for slightly less than you could make busting tires full time? Yeah, I lasted about three months there. I got good at counting money that wasn't mine, and I know the basics of how banks foil robbers. So that's kind of cool.

6) Then I landed a job driving a flatbed for a commercial kitchen company in Vegas. So I can drive a C4500 five-speed, I can haul massively large and heavy equipment around, I can stage commercial freezers and refrigerators, and I know the basics of operating a forklift. I also know a little bit about yelling at union guys, and how to survive a Vegas summer in a work truck that has no A/C.

7) When I moved to Provo, my first job was at a rest home. I probably regretted this more than working as a loan adviser. I don't think I gained imperative job skills from it, I just gained a ton more respect for the people who do that kind of work. I can move 500lb freezers all day long--it's feeding and dressing ten of them in thirty minutes that I can't do. Or maybe just don't want to. Not for nine bucks an hour. Kudos to the people who can and do.

8) After quitting there, I worked at APX Alarms for all of three months (yeah, 2008 was a bad year for me.) I did data entry and telemarketing. One of them sucked, and the other one sucked for less money. Plus if you're a single dude in Provo trying to get a girlfriend, don't work at APX. There's a stigma that you don't want. Again, I didn't really learn job skills that I didn't already have--and besides, if we won't have cops and lawyers in a Perfect World, we won't have scumbag telemarketers either.

9) Then I worked for a bookstore for two long, fun years. I got a lot of hands-on experience in retail, learning how they market materials throughout the year by rearranging their main displays; doing inventory and stocking shelves; and generally keeping the place up. (The handyman stuff I'd learned in my teens was why the manager put me in charge of fixing stuff when it broke.) This particular job taught me a lot about the selling-side of the book industry.

10) Simultaneously I got into vinyl decals (the stick figure families you see on cars? yeah that was me) and learned how to make vector clipart with CorelDraw. That's the same program I've used to make a lot of the drawings I've blogged recently. The skillset I developed over a year and a half of tinkering with vectors and vinyl is what got me my job today, and I've been doing it since last summer.

11) Then of course, writing. I hope there's fiction in heaven. :-)

Out of all these, it's hard to guess which one will be the most useful in a Perfect World. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

What about you? What are your job skills?

T-9 Days! "Hall of the Mountain King."

2011-10-23T09:00:00.000-07:00

SINGLE DIGITS!

The above song is great--not even the stupid Twilight images can detract from it. Just listen, don't watch.

I tried to spot XXXXX, but no matter where we went the fog still only gave us about five yards of visibility in any direction, and he was nowhere to be seen.

I've Missed My Calling in life...

2011-10-22T22:29:00.000-07:00

...I should've been a model.

My sister took these shots tonight. (Check out her blog.) She does actual photography, in the sense that she's taking classes, has legit professional equipment, and no Facebook page. She's pretty good. It helps that I'm handsome, too.

Shakespeare and apple cider. Another fine Saturday evening in the Bradley home.

Jane Austen: not so palatable.

People stay awake through this?

Light reading. For a land anchor.

Winning hearts, conquering nations.

The few. The proud. The...frick, what are we again?

You would follow this man into battle.

T-10 Days! "All Hallow's Eve."

2011-10-22T09:00:00.000-07:00

Whoever made this video was a big Angel fan. I've only seen maybe three episodes of that show, my favorite being the one where the editor forgot to crop out one of the cameramen IN THE MIDDLE OF A FIGHT SCENE. (Seriously, it happened.)

Anyway, M&M Snippet:

“Where are the controls? We gotta shut ‘em down,” Compa said.

“Good luck,” Baxter huffed. “The only active control node is in the command center. And I’d bet you’ll all be dead before you get within fifty feet of the door.”

T-11 Days! "Funeral March of a Marionette."

2011-10-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

Today's song is called "Funeral March of a Marionette." I could only find one YouTube video of the Mannheim Steamroller version, and the embedding was disabled, so follow the link here.

M&M Snippet:

“How many dead servicemen do you keep in this place?” asked Ninja.

“We had twenty-eight in cryogenic preservation when the base fell.”

“There were a lot more than twenty-eight of these zomborgs up there,” I said to Claire.

A #PDP Sneak Peek

2011-10-20T21:29:00.000-07:00

There's a little over two months until the end of 2011, and then I'll whip into a frenzy to come up with all sorts of resolutions I'll break for 2012. I'll set way too many overly ambitious goals, which will turn me into a stressed-out headcase until February. It'll be a busy time.

So I've got to manage myself well for the next 72 days, 'cause that's all 2011 has left.

My biggest priorities are work-related, because that stuff actually pays the bills. But this isn't my work blog. This is my what-I-wish-work-was blog. It's about writing--and lately, drawing, too.

Here's where I stand with my current projects:

1)SPECTER CELL--My agent is shopping this one around. I'll spare the details of the process, suffice to say that I'm happier than a fat kid on Donut Day with regard to the work she's doing. So, so, so very close.

2)SIDEWINDER--I spent the summer fixing this book, but like a drunk plumber trying to read the instructions in Swahili, I fixed it wrong. So, so, so very wrong. Again, I'll spare you the details, and again, my agent is amazing. Bottom line, SIDEWINDER will be my 2011 NaNoWriMo book. And I know how to fix the problem this time.

***Side note on this one, I learned a really valuable lesson, and the experience was a double-edged sword. I did a ton of revisions before sending it to her, but I wasn't 100% satisfied with it when I did. Something about it bothered me. I won't let that happen again.

3)PDP--Again, keeping a lid on the details here. I'll say this much: earlier this year I tried my hand at comics here on the blog, and liked it a lot. I've revamped my formula and am taking a more structured approach to it. PDP will have a comic component to it, some of which will be single-panel, but most of them will tell some kind of story in a series format.

Also, if you've heard me talk about TECHNOMANCER, it's part of PDP. I'm excited about this and so should you be. Excited. Happy. Be it.

Speaking of which, I have a lot of drawings to do for TECHNOMANCER.. I need 25 total, and I've done 6. They're coming along nicely--I draw them in pencil, scan them into Corel, convert them to vectors and clean them up. They're simple, rough and serve a purpose.

T-12 Days! "Z-Row Gravity" by Mannheim Steamroller

2011-10-20T09:00:00.000-07:00

Most of these songs are available on a "two-disc" download on iTunes/Amazon.

M&M Snippet:

“How do the zomborgs fit into all that?” Cannon asked.

“The what?”

“Zombie cyborgs. Zomborgs. The guys outside.”

“Oh, now they’re cyborgs,” I said under my breath.

T-13 Days! "Flying Dutchman" by Mannheim Steamroller.

2011-10-19T09:00:00.000-07:00

If Mannheim Steamroller does something called "Flying Dutchman," you have to listen to it.

M&M Snippet:

The doctor nursed a bottle of water, keeping it at his lips like he might die if he stopped. Next to him was a vending machine with a boot-sized hole in the glass, and I put the pieces together: Ninja had given the dude a hand.

Sorry, a foot.

T-14 Days! Mannheim Steamroller does Halloween!

2011-10-18T09:00:00.000-07:00

Ever since I was a kid I loved Mannheim Steamroller's Christmas music. While Halloween music can't really hold a haunted candle to Christmas, they still crank out some great tunes. Here's "Rock and Roll Graveyard" played to jack-o-lanterns.

And of course, your M&M snippet:

When my vision cleared, we were in a dark cellar and there were two less of us. I couldn’t see much—my mask was off—but everyone’s name badges lit up in the dark, along with the rank emblems on their shoulders. XXXXX’s insignia had upgraded to Corporal.

Which meant XXXXX and XXXXX were both dead.

Names redacted to prevent spoilerfications :-)

T-15 Days! And what else? THRILLER!

2011-10-17T09:00:00.001-07:00

Often imitated, never duplicated. Thriller is a classic.

Today's M&M Snippet:

Cannon wrapped his huge arms around the hostile and squeezed until bones cracked and metal snapped, then tossed the body aside and scrambled for his weapon.

“No junction boxes on these ones!” I said.

“The head! Just go for the head!” Ninja screamed, peppering the swarm with fifty-cal ammo.

T-16 Days! The Munsters Theme.

2011-10-16T18:00:00.000-07:00

The real question is, if the Munsters and the Addams family got into a feud, who would survive?

Nobody. They're all undead.

BA-DA-CHING!!!

And now, a Monsters & Mormons segment:

I stepped away and cycled my rifle back to its standard caliber ammo, but Trex tapped my arm and gave me the “don’t do that” signal with his hand.

“Keep it on the forty-four cal,” he said, raising his voice so the others could hear.

“For what?”

“Them.” He nodded past Maxwell and Ninja; the fog pushed away from us, clearing out in a wide radius. If not for my vital readouts on screen, I’d have sworn my heart stopped.

We were surrounded, on all sides, by at least two dozen of the zombie-cyborg things like the one we’d just shot to pieces. And they were all armed.

More Excellent Music and a Snippet

2011-10-14T00:00:00.000-07:00

First things first, I've seen a piece of art for Monsters & Mormons over at David's blog. I'm interested in your take on it, so go check it out.

Second, here's your musical selection for the evening. It's an instrumental trailer piece that was used for X-Men: First Class, and has appeared in at least three episodes of Burn Notice. Not outright Halloween-ish, but definitely evocative and helps set the right kind of mood.

And now, another snippet from BROTHERS-IN-ARMS:

“Hey, I got movement in that direction,” Ninja said suddenly.

He pointed toward our comrades, still visible about ten yards off.

“It’s just Oswald and Compa,” I said.

“No it’s not: the sensors ignore our suits,” Ninja insisted.

A voice called out through the fog: Oswald. “Hey! We got a civilian! He looks sick.”

T-minus 17 days and counting. I'm sooooooo ready for this anthology. I'd read it for Dan Wells and David West alone--but there's so much more than that too. It's going to be great.

Appreciation

2011-10-11T22:48:00.000-07:00

If you're going to start reading this post, please take five and read the whole thing.

In the last few days I've realized that ten years ago, I lost two men who have had varying degrees of influence over me throughout my life. The first was my grandfather, Robert Eugene Bradley, a veteran of the Korean Conflict, reformed alcoholic, ex-smoker, and semi-truck driver.

I didn't know this until my twenties, but apparently he'd been less than ideal in his role as a father. Around the time my brothers and I were born, he got it together and fixed his relationship with his family. I'm glad he did, because my siblings and I really liked spending time with him.

He was from Kentucky, and had smoked Camels most of his life, so between the scorched vocals and the pedal-to-the-medal hick accent, it was hard to understand him a lot of the time (but the swear words always came out loud and clear, haha...). He loved to fish, because certain TV channels considered it a sport, but you could still do it while drunk, though to my knowledge he'd given up alcohol at that point. He'd school you at checkers no matter what, and to hear him tell it, he "wrote the book" on just about everything.

"Whatteryadoin there, Graham?"

"Playing with Legos, Papaw."

"Whatterinnahell 'er Legos?"

"Well, you put them together like this, and make stuff. This is a boat."

"Ahknowthat, I wrote the book on Legos."

He got the Purple Heart in Korea. He was a pretty tough guy, all the way to the end.

His late wife MaryAnn gave this to me eight years ago. At first glance, I thought it was a picture of me.

I remember when I was in middle school, his wife (he'd remarried) called to tell us that Papaw had been in an accident at work. He was hauling a trailer for some guy, and it was handling funny, so he pulled into a truck stop to check it out. He crawled under, couldn't figure out the problem, got out, and BOOM! Truck tire exploded right on top of him.

If you've never worked with tires, you can't appreciate how loud and scary-as-hell that can be.

What'd Papaw do? He got up, walked over to the payphone, bleeding all over himself, and called the owner of the trailer to tell him hey, this thing almost killed me. The owner was like whatever dude, your fault. Then Papaw was like dude, I've got a Purple Heart from a Korean grenade. Don't start no bull$#@&, there won't be none.

(That might not be the actual conversation verbatim, but the point is, Papaw was tough, and he took the guy to court, and got what was his.)

Anyway, Papaw passed away ten years ago this last February. I'm kind of bummed because I didn't realize it until just last week. I was a junior in high school, and we drove down for his funeral. Twenty-one gun salute and everything. I'd never seen one before, but they did one for my grandfather.

His story has a lot of personal meaning for me, as far as getting-his-act-together and making amends with his family. Anyone can change, and more importantly, anyone can earn forgiveness, if you do it right. He did. And I'm glad he put the effort into it. Couldn't have been easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is. Rest in peace, Papaw.

The other gentleman who passed away was one Jim Heller, of Henderson. Jim lived in our ward at Church. He was a well-versed historian, a sci-fi aficionado, and loved trading good stories. He also had interesting preferences when it came to food. (He liked to drink beet juice through a straw, for example. I always thought that was kinda gross, but I'd still prepare it for him whenever he asked.)

BTW, Jim was a quadriplegic.

He was also a very talented painter. I imagine that the 1/4-inch's worth of movement in his right wrist made for some precise brush strokes. I don't remember exactly what it was that put him in a wheelchair (he wasn't born that way, just slowly degenerated) but I do know that he outlived his life expectancy by about twenty years. So there's that.

Our ward had a calendar set up to where every night, someone would go to his house and make dinner for him. Our night was the 2nd of every month. Usually my brother Ian and I would ride our bikes to his place, make him dinner, cut it all up and feed it to him. It took a while, but after the first few times, we didn't mind. He was a great friend. At the end of the night we'd set him up in front of his easels with all his brushes and pallets, so he could work on one of his paintings. He sold them at local shows and stuff, and that was how he paid the bills.

In the summer of 2001, six months after I lost my Papaw, I went to EFY in Provo, UT. (For non-Mormon readers, it's a week-long summer "camp" with dances, activities, Church talks, etc.) There was a song by Jon McVey called "I'll Be" that came out on the EFY 2001 CD, and it reminds me a ton of Jim Heller.

Especially because he died that month.

I felt really bad because Ian and I hadn't gone down to feed him on July 2nd, 2001. I don't remember what Ian was doing, but I had been busy with work, and someone else covered for us after Jim called to ask "Hey, you guys coming down here?" In the back of my mind I figured "I'll just make it up to him next month." I never got the chance.

The other young men in the ward decided to sing at his funeral, and I was invited to join them, so I did. Hopefully that made up for it, but when I see Jim again, I won't take it for granted.

But back to the song: "I'll Be" is about a guy who goes to a rest home to spend time with a man in a wheelchair. The guy is apprehensive at first, maybe a little uncomfortable, but as they spend time together, he realizes what he has to learn from this older man. There's a key line, where he says "He didn't need me as much as I did him." Every time I hear that song, I think of Jim Heller, and all the things that I didn't know I was learning from him back then.

I hadn't heard the song in quite a while, but it randomly popped into my head the other day, and I finally figured out why: when I was trying to sketch out a drawing for a new project, I was having a devil of a time getting it right. The people in the sketch looked weird, their body positions were wrong, and the whole thing looked stupid as hell. I actually got mad at my own work for sucking so bad.

Then I got the idea to Google a bunch of images--people in different poses; certain weapons and articles of clothing; and an explosion from a grenade thrown into the air. I took a second crack at the sketch, and I was much more satisfied with the result.

I thought about it tonight and realized, that's exactly how Jim did his paintings. He did frontier-themed stuff--John Wayne, cowboys, Indians, mountain men, wild animals in the forests, etc. But he never just wheeled his way up to an easel and painted from his imagination; he found several images of what he wanted to paint, and modeled his own work off of what was real. (I wish to high heaven that I had one of his paintings, but I don't.)

Figuring out that I could draw better if I do it the way Jim did it is probably what got that song stuck in my head, and it's come ten years after Jim's passing.

Dunno. I won't make too much of it, but hey; if he's had anything to do with this, I owe him a shout-out for it. At the very least. "Jim, you're the man. Sorry I wasn't there that day. I hope you'll forgive me. Thanks for what you taught me. About multiple things."

I guess that's what I really wanted to talk about. I'm grateful that I got to know these two men. I hope that by the end of my life, I'll have been able to help more people the way Papaw and Jim Heller helped me.

And...don't take the best people in your life for granted. That is all.

Thanks for reading this.

Your thoughts?

2011-10-09T23:35:00.000-07:00

As part of the super-secret #PDP, I'm illustrating a story called TECHNOMANCER. I've given a few updates about it on Twitter. The story is short--less than 25k--and took about two weeks to do the first draft. I'll be finishing the revisions this week.

I'm also illustrating it, and I'm a bit rusty at drawing, though I'm getting better. Still, I wonder if I'm lacking anything. So I'm sharing three of the drawings here (one of which I've shared before) and I'd like your feedback.

What do you think is happening in these images? Do they make sense?

Now scroll down to read what's happening in each one.

In the top picture, the main character is riding his mechanical dragon while some hick shoots at him with a rifle.

Bottom left picture, a wizard is meeting another wizard in a New Orleans back alley and offering him some moolah for a job.

Bottom right picture, the main character is throwing a grenade at two wizards riding brooms.

Was your assessment correct? If not, where did I go wrong?

I'm going to draw about twenty more, and if I've got a flaw in my style, I'd like to nip it now.

Thanks y'all. Now here's a Halloween song, for your contribution:

Thinking about starting my own superhero comic...

2011-10-08T22:18:00.000-07:00

...but I have no idea where to start. I mean it's not like there's some formula for it. It's really challenging.

Even DC Comics scrapped every single storyline they've been doing for decades and started over.

It looks like Marvel might soon do the same thing.

So what should I do?

Wait...I know! I'll just make characters that fit specific, unique roles! It's never been done before!

I mean there's no way the two biggest names in comic books could possibly have beaten me to every single combination thus far, right?

More October Awesomeness!

2011-10-07T08:34:00.000-07:00

Today's Halloween song is the theme from Addams Family. (The original one, not that stupid remake they did a few years back.)

And your random, cryptic line from BROTHERS-IN-ARMS, which comes out in 24 days!

“Be aware: we have three hours to report back to Command."

He didn’t say what would happen after three hours.

Yet another #PDP drawing

2011-10-02T10:45:00.000-07:00

As I refine the drawing process, I'll get quicker at this, and the quality of the work will improve.

The process for this piece was the same as the previous one, minus the color (some pieces are meant for just B&W), so I'll just put the final one here. This is a scene from the second chapter of PDP.

*Note: "PDP" is just the mysterious acronym I'm using for the project. I will reveal the actual name of it at the end of November.

New drawing for #PDP

2011-10-01T21:17:00.000-07:00

This has already made the rounds on Facebook and Twitter, but here are the step-by-step sketches that led to the final version.

Using images of a Kawasaki KLR650 and "Toothless" from How to Train Your Dragon, I did a rough sketch in pencil and then inked my permanent lines with a Sharpie. I had to fold the huge paper and run it through my scanner in two pieces, but here's that version:

After converting the bitmaps to line drawings, I deleted all the pieces I didn't need and then welded the remaining ones before making them all a uniform black. This is the most time-consuming part of the process, and it renders this black-and-white vector:

After that you just have to break the pieces apart, color the outline black, and choose the colors you want. This took less than ten minutes.

I can't tell you why there's a dude on a flying motorcycle that looks like a dragon. I hope you're excited, 'cause I am. I've written about 9000 words for this particular piece.

Also, take a minute and check out the PeculiarPages blog; they announced their "Inktober" event, and mentioned yours truly re: Monsters & Mormons artwork. Thanks to Theric, Wm and everyone else who's making that anthology happen. T-minus 30 days and counting.

It's October!

2011-10-01T01:02:00.000-07:00

Last November I posted once a day for the entire month, usually giving a blurb about work, about NaNoWrimo, about P90X, and then a picture from my phone. Random, but fun.

Well, I'm changing it up this year. I plan on doing frequent posts this month (not daily), which will include two things:

1) A Halloween song of some sort

2) A random, cryptic line from BROTHERS-IN-ARMS--the anthology does come out on Halloween, after all.

I would do them daily, but I'm too lazy to find 31 Halloween songs. So instead, you just get songs I like.

Here we go!

The first song is

And the line:

"I’m not one to get worked up over feelings, but I couldn’t ignore what nagged at me."

2011-09-28T22:44:00.000-07:00

There's nothing clever about what I'm going to say tonight. I don't have a title for this post. It's not about being poetic, it doesn't even really have a point. I won't lead in with a thesis, then crack a few jokes, then give you a moral to the story. I can't come up with one. I am completely smashed in my head right now.

I've lost family before, whether because of death or other circumstances. I've lost people I cared about. I'm not a stranger to it, or at least I thought I wasn't. I thought I had a pretty good handle on life, on my emotions, on my sanity, on my general perspective of things...I thought for the most part, I'd figured everything out. My next 75 years of mortality would just be a matter of working hard and doing the right thing.

I'm an idiot.

Last weekend we found out that my bishop's wife was in the hospital. We didn't have a lot of details, just that the stake (that's a large group of multiple congregations, for my non-Mormon readers) was doing a fast on her behalf. When Schaara and I heard, we joined in the fast. Then we went to church Sunday morning. Everyone was quiet. Everyone was crying. Our bishop's wife had passed away.

What do you do? What do you say? Even among Christians, even among people who firmly and adamantly believe in eternity and salvation and heaven...how do you ease the pain of that? She was an amazing woman, and their family has been so kind and friendly to Schaara and I since we moved here in January. It feels like it's been longer than 9 months that we've known them.

Being as close-knit as we are in our ward, there's no shortage of support, but at the same time, how could any of us possibly provide comfort for that family right now? It feels like shooting BBs at a battleship. They have seven kids. The oldest is married. The youngest is in preschool. And in a twist of fate only slightly less sudden than a car accident, everything has changed for them.

One of the counselors asked me to help print up programs for the funeral on Friday. Someone in the family put together the images, and I was supposed to format it, then figure out the print costs and stuff. I got it all together, printed a sample and ran it over to the counselor's house about 45 mins ago. Then he and I went over to visit the bishop and show him the program for his final approval before I print up a few hundred tomorrow at Kinko's.

He didn't say much, just looked it over and signed off on it. I didn't know what else to say, so I shook his hand, said good night, and told him, "We're always around." Said good bye to the family who were awake (most of the kids), and headed out.

On the drive back to the counselor's house, I asked him, "What do you say to people in his situation? I mean I know we all want to help and stuff, but what do you do?"

"Nothing. There's nothing you can do. There's nothing he wants that any of us can give him. He wants his wife back."

I feel like a frigging idiot--I told Bishop what the cost of printing the programs would be. I should've just eaten the cost myself. I should've just said "screw it" and paid out of my own pocket. I'd have explained it to Schaara later. Maybe I'd go without books for a few months or something, I don't know. I shouldn't have said anything to him. This wasn't a stupid invoice or a price quote or something--the man just lost his wife. Those kids just lost their mom. I offered to help them. What, throwing a few jpgs into my printer counts as help? I could've taken one small thing off their burden, could've just said "I'll cover it, please don't worry about it," and instead I wasn't attentive enough or sensitive enough. I fumbled the ball.

I don't know what else to take away from all this. There are lessons to learn, sure--I just can't see what all they are. I know the Gospel of Jesus Christ is still true. I know what's coming after this life. I know that it's not over for that family. And I know that there's jack squat I can really do for them in the meantime. I had a chance to do something, even something miniscule, and I missed it.

It reminds me of a crappy, run-down apartment in the dive of a Barrio next to the Pilar Cathedral in Zaragoza, Spain. I went there as a missionary, knocking doors, trying to share a message about God with anyone who would listen. My companion and I were in this building which by all rights should've been condemned, only it wasn't. The poorest, brokest immigrants were living in places that were short on things like comfort and privacy--things that I admittedly took for granted sometimes, living in a rich country like ours.

Anyway, we knocked on these doors and one of them opened up to us. Inside were four Africans, I think they were all from Ghana. They spoke English, not a whole ton, but we understood each other. To this day, several things about that meeting remain fresh in my mind:

1) They had no furniture but crates and a few boxes.

2) They had very little food for their dinner, just enough for small portions between the four of them.

3) They had no idea who we were, or which church we represented.

4) They smiled a mile wide and invited us in. They sat us down on their crates around their little box table. They split the food six ways and offered us little paper plates with some spicy, oily meat and a mashed white powder that I can't remember the name of.

5) All they wanted to hear about was our message.

6) If I didn't cry myself to sleep that night, I sure as hell wanted to.

We went back a week later, but they didn't answer the door. I don't know what ever happened to them--maybe they got evicted, maybe they managed to find somewhere else to live. Sometimes I remember to pray for them. Sometimes I hope to see them in the next life. Sometimes I hope to be as good a man as they were.

I felt the same thing when I left my bishop's house tonight and drove his counselor home. There are some people in this world who endure things I could never endure. It scares the hell out of me to think that someday, I might have to. Because I think about those Ghanans, and I think about men like my bishop, and I know I am not on their level. I look at my wife and I'm constantly aware of how much better I have to be, in order to be the man she deserves. And just maybe if I could be a little more selfless, a little more giving, I could be like those men that I see.

I hear people complain about how hard they think their lives are. I hear them detail the stupidest things, just stupid, petty BS, and they go on and on about what the world owes them. Far as I'm concerned, the only thing the world owes them is a solid right hook to the jaw and a cold wake-up call. You don't have it that bad. Get over yourself.

Like I said at the beginning...I can't pretend to have a point right now. I don't know the root cause of everything I'm feeling. I wish I could do more for that family than just sit back and give them their space, but that power is not mine. Sometimes the best thing you can do is sit back and pray that the Man Upstairs will fix that which you are powerless to fix.

That's all I can do at this point. I know this much though--I'm not gonna fubar the next opportunity to do something as simple as covering a printing bill. Seriously, what kind of moron...

#PDP Steams Right Along

2011-09-23T21:23:00.000-07:00

I suppose it's not too late for 8-10 of you to swamp the poll on the right, but barring a miracle, I'd say our choices are pretty much settled.

The good news is, all of these ideas will be written in the next year or so.

The bad news is, if you didn't choose "Magic vs Science," your choice will be written out later.

It's still too early for me to give any details about how "Magic vs Science" plays into PDP, but I'll just say that I really think you guys are going to like this.

I'll also throw out this much: the project was inspired (in varying degrees) by Mathew Inman, Howard Tayler, and Charles Dickens.

*Note: the author is sorry to the Universe for this kind of creative gene-splicing.

If you want to know why, keep checking back over the next few weeks.

Oh, and it looks like I'm going to do NaNoWriMo after all. Deets pending.

GET BACK TO WORK. Oh whoops, friggin' caps key...

IMPORTANT:

2011-09-18T00:17:00.001-07:00

Vote in this poll: -------------->

If you don't, someone will kick an innocent puppy and it will be YOUR fault.

(I said that on the Internet, that makes it true.)

On Deck

2011-09-10T17:03:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Kirk and Joy for the pic.

I finished another manuscript this week. That feels good, you should try it.

I also finished my second drawing for BROTHERS-IN-ARMS. It's not a 100% guarantee that it'll be in the final version of the book, but it's like...90% sure. If it doesn't make the cut, I'll just post it here. I'm pretty proud of it, and I'm excited that at least one drawing will make it in.

Sometimes when I'm writing, I come down with a bad case of Scumbag Brain: it won't focus on whatever I have in front of me, but will instead "inspire" me to work on something else. That gets old fest, especially with deadlines looming.

And now that I'm finished, I'm trying to get a handle on what to write next. (Seriously in this last round of edits I had ideas for 2-3 new stories.)

Well, I'm not going to work on my next novel until November. Maybe it'll be my NaNo MS, maybe not--depends on how crazy things get. I've done NaNo for 5 years now and hit my goal every time, so I don't really feel like I need to any more.

In the meantime I'm working on another project. Can't say what it is because if I do, I won't finish it, then I'll come back and look at this post and get mad at myself for failing to finish yet another idea.

I need to finish things. Otherwise, I'm not like Clint Eastwood. He finishes things.

So yeah, next 7-8 weeks, new project. If I tweet anything about it, it'll have #PDP as the hashtag.

Then in November comes my next MS...provided I don't have too many edits to do. Aun queda por ver.

Until then. See you...out there.

2011 Summer Bracket: ULTIMATE CHAMPION!

2011-09-06T00:19:00.001-07:00

Want to see who wins the whole thing? Watch the video! And don't be surprised.

The drawing process

2011-09-02T19:48:00.001-07:00

Next month my very first published piece comes out in the Monsters & Mormons anthology. I'm really stoked about working with the guys over at Motley Vision who have put this together.

There are a lot of cool authors involved in it, including Dan Wells (internationally best-selling horror writer), Eric James Stone (Nebula Award-winning short story writer), David J. West, and more.

I emailed the editors a few months ago and asked if I could throw in a few pieces of art. Page space is at a premium, but they greenlit a few of them, and I just did the first one this week. I thought it would be interesting to share the process.

1) First I drew the whole thing out by hand, outlining the figures--there are two Marines in fully mechanized armor (story takes place 20 years in the future) and a pair of zombies. Then I shaded them in a sharp black-and-white for contrast, like so:

2) I imported it into CorelDrawX3 with a flatbed scanner, then converted the bitmap to a line drawing. This wasn't a clean conversion--I had to weld about 200 individual pieces together, but the initial result was pretty good. My editor said to drop the zombie on the left and just include the three figures. (I didn't actually send him the "Zombie" text, I added it for kicks and giggles.)

3) It looked better, but he still wanted the lines to be sharper. Up close they were really jagged, and the overall quality wasn't up to snuff with the other pieces they'd accepted. I went back into Corel, smoothed the lines out, and added some mechanical detail-lines to the Marines' armor. The deleted zomborg made a return appearance as a corpse lying on the ground.

4) Editor said he didn't like the dead zomborg, so we nixed him. Here's the final version.

My next piece is going to be really cool. I actually hope it gets accepted over this one--if it does, I probably won't show it here on the blog. You'll have to read the anthology to see it :-)

In 8 more years, I can run for President.

2011-09-01T07:52:00.000-07:00

A disclaimer: this isn't a "Republicans versus Democrats" thing, but rather a look at how we approach the process of electing our leaders, with a specific focus on the office of the President.

In May of 2003 roughly a dozen men and women held "THE FIRST PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE OF 2004 OMG!!!" on one of the major news networks. I think it was CNN. I was 19 at the time, and the gesture left me scratching my head because wasn't the 2004 election about...hang on, let me do the math...mmm....carry the two...

EIGHTEEN MONTHS AWAY?

Eighteen months, are you friggin' kidding me?!

I mean I get that the Democrats hated Bush, and they were anxious to replace him, but holy crap that's like the three year-old who's excited for his soccer game on Saturday, so he puts on his uniform and cleats on Monday and wears them all week, everywhere, regardless of the occasion.

It gets old. Fast.

The nonstop coverage, the polls, the projections, the postulations, the perpetual pontification and asinine alliteration...I just wanted it to go away.

Well, a few months after that first debate I went to Spain, where I was hammered with the European view of American politics. If you can believe it, it's even harsher than the CNN/MSNBC/FOX view of American politics. So I didn't pay much attention to it (I was on my mission anyway).

First, Howard Dean had the nomination locked up tight. Then Wesley Clark. Then Howard Dean again. Then somehow, John Kerry ended up with it. Then Bush beat him anyway.

How much money was spent by all of the candidates in those 18 months? A ridiculously stupid amount--more than anyone reading this blog will earn in their lifetime. It's the most expensive resume-padder of all time. "I also ran for President in 2004." Yeah, good job, buddy.

The moment John Kerry lost, both the DNC and pretty much all the news outlets began to wax philosphical about who would replace Bush in the White House in 2008. Hillary Clinton? John Edwards?

Meanwhile the whole country is saying "2008?! I've never even thought about that year before! 2008! Seriously? It's 2004!!!"

Well, then the 2006 midterms came and went, and right away the cartoon nightmare started over, only this time we got a double-dose of primary madness: Bush's second term was over, so roughly ten Democrats and twelve Republicans announced that they would seek the nomination to replace him.

Think back to 2007-2008. It was a long time ago. It was also the "Two Years Of American Media Hell" because everyone and their dog was running for President, and every pundit in the country--qualified or not--had an op-ed about just how hard their guy was going to beat everyone else.

Shots were fired. Spittle was exchanged. Sixty-two debates were held, and millions upon millions were spent on straw polls, campaign stops and advertising.

Then the primary actually started, and all those numbers tripled.

Eventually the rubber hit the road, and the pushover candidates were annihilated. Romney, Huckabee and McCain traded jabs all the way until March, while the Democrats--who had real primary fighting power!--dragged theirs almost to the end of June.

Then the general finally started.

Once it was finally over, did you think you could sigh in relief and get on with your life?

You fool.

What happened next is key: for the rest of America, it was over. Republicans figured they'd take back the White House at a future date, but for now, the GOP guy had lost. Democrats were elated, because they'd won. The process served its purpose.

But the media didn't let go of it.

Right away, they started floating names--who's gonna run in 2012?

"2012?! WTF, MAN?!"

Only this time it was even worse. Everyone was fair game for a presidential run. You could basically get up and tie your shoes in the morning, and some pundit somewhere was seductively pitching your name to his audience as a potential candidate for the next election.

And if you were already in politics, forget about it--anything made you a shoe-in for President.

Scott Brown won a special election to fill the MA Senate seat previously held by Ted Kennedy. The moment he won, reporters asked him if he was running for President.

Chris Christie took the New Jersey governor's office. Same question. (He's also driven the point home a hundred times since then that he won't run, even going so far as to say he'll commit suicide first. Pundits still postulate that he will.)

Bob McDonnell in Virginia. Same office. Same question.

Carrie Prejean, who got snubbed for Miss America because she didn't support same-sex marriage, was pushed by right-wing blogs to run for President (for about fifteen minutes, since she was only in her early twenties.) (I'm not screwing with you, this actually happened.)

More recently, NY governor Andrew Cuomo (D) signed a bill that legalized same-sex marriage in his state. "Whoa-ho! Maybe he'll be our next President!"

Marco Rubio, FL Senate (R). He just got elected. Presidential material!

Paul Ryan, WI Senate (R). He proposed a federal budget. President!

Donald Trump (?). He's on TV and his hair scares you. President!

Scott Walker, WI Governor (R). He's working on state problems. Let him solve ALL the problems!

I attribute this to the fact that Obama was a Senator for less than two years, of which he only spent 140 days on the job, during which he mostly voted "present," so he might as well have not been there anyhow. People look at that and say "Shoot, I don't need to run a state, I just need to have held office somewhere, doing something." But I digress.

The list goes on and on. The most recent examples are all GOP, since Obama's not facing a primary challenger in the Democrat party.

And heaven only knows that whoever wins in 2012, the very, very, very first thing we're going to hear in the wake of the result is, "Who can take this guy out in 2016?"

Most of the speculation will surround the twenty people who didn't get the nomination.

We are in a constant state of presidential campaigning. Soon we'll have one group running for 2016 while another runs for 2020. We're going to have primaries within primaries. We're going to have...Electception.

At the beginning of the summer I said I'd be ignoring the GOP primary for the sake of my own sanity. I watched the NH debate in June and the IA debate from last month, (the latter of which was a brutal waste of time). I'm renewing that promise through the end of this year: long presidential primaries only serve to burn through time and money, regardless of what your politics are or whom you support.

(I already do have a candidate in mind, but I'll take the time to watch him more closely when the NV primary actually rolls around. Because until then, it does not matter.)

So there's my two cents on it.

When you're having a bad day, just remind yourself that regardless of what you accomplish, you're a valid, serious candidate for the US Presidency. Maybe that'll make you feel better.

And if the brilliance of this post has left you in awe of my youthful wisdom, well...thank you, but I can't run for President until 2020.

I'm not taking any more questions today, thanks, you guys have been great. You can donate to my campaign though. :-)

2011 Bracket, Round 15: SPY KIDS versus APOLLO 18 CREW

2011-08-26T09:00:00.000-07:00

Ugh. Screw this, even in concept. I say send both teams to the moon and hire Michael Bay to blow it up.

Seriously, a fourth Spy Kids? Take that cast, lock it in a cage and pit it against the guys starring in "The Blair Witch Project: In Space." You know they lost a bet anyway, how else did they end up in that film?

Unfortunately, someone wins this one.

The good news is, next week we find out who the Summer 2011 winner is, and the cartoon nightmare will be over!

2011 Bracket, Round 14: LOTS OF MONKEYS versus HARRISON FORD

2011-08-19T09:00:00.000-07:00

Yeah, yeah. Misleading title. This week's matchup pits a swarm of simians from this summer's must-miss B-movie, "Rise of the Monkey Apocalypse, Without Even Something Like Charlton Heston In It To Hold You Over", against Harrison Ford as Woodrow Dolarhyde.

Ask me if I care what the outcome is.

Scumbag Zuzu

2011-08-13T16:53:00.000-07:00

SCUMBAG ZUZU
by Graham Bradley

Zuzu is my sister's half pit bull, half Aussie shepherd. She once wrestled an entire convent of nuns in exchange for not annexing South America to her backyard. The Energizer Bunny often Tweets at her for pointers on how to keep on going and going. And you can only gain her respect by playing tug-of-war in a marathon format. That's just Zuzu.

In April, Schaara and I watched Zuzu over a weekend. It was fun, but there was a learning curve with her unique personality. Apparently she'd read ENDER'S GAME before Schaara could finish it.

I thought she was enjoying our playtime, but she took it a little seriously.

We even took her to the park, where she discovered all kinds of new smells.

She also discovered disobedience.

Well, we're watching her again this weekend. I studied what we'd done wrong last time and vowed not to let it happen again. I'd rule the house with an iron fist. Zuzu would respect me no matter what my preferred tug-of-war format. I would command, and she would obey.

Boy was I wrong.

Schaara went to bed a little after 10PM. I stayed up to write. Zuzu stayed up to randomly bark at the walls and thrash about with her chew-toys.

Finally around 2AM I told her it was bedtime, and I shut everything down, then took her outside so she could go to the bathroom. Didn't want to have to wake up and take her in the middle of the night, right?

She wrapped up her business and followed me into our room, and I told her to sleep on the floor. Then I got into bed and slipped into beautiful, blissful sleep.

Half an hour later, Zuzu whimpered. Then she whimpered again. Then she whimpered louder.

"Okay," I said. Grumbling to myself I got up, put on my FC Barcelona robe, and took Zuzu outside. It was dark, the moon was almost full, and it was warm like any Vegas summer. Zuzu ran a few circles in the grass like it was Christmas morning, did what she had to do, and came back.

"Finally. Now I can sleep." No way she'd have to go again.

Frick, I got that wrong. 4AM she came over to my side of the bed and wet-nosed me bad.

"FINE," I said as she started another chorus of whimpers. I'd left my robe in the living room, so I grabbed it, threw it on again, and took her outside.

"Let there be peace now," I prayed to myself, letting her back in and locking the door behind me.

5:30 in the morning. Again. I. Kid. You. Not.

Even Schaara sounded ready to hurt something helpless when Zuzu made all the noises she'd been trained to make in order to get us to take her out. I don't know what she ate aside from dog food, but she wasn't interested in sleeping, only polluting the grass next to our apartment building.

But don't worry, we've got a handle on it. She really is a sweet dog, so we're taking her to the park later tonight, where I'm going to run her ragged, under the belief that it'll tire her out and she'll be forced to sleep tonight.

We shall see.

(FIN)

2011 Bracket, Round 13: RED SKULL versus STUPID EXPENDABLES

2011-08-12T09:00:00.000-07:00

Seriously, this has to be the worst matchup. Even Nazi Hugo Weaving disapproves. The nameless kids in these dumb slasher flicks are so easy to kill, the only pictures I could find of them are as pixelated as Bigfoots, making me question whether they were ever real in the first place.

See who wins.

Grahamobile the third: 1982 F-150 Stepside

2011-08-08T09:00:00.000-07:00

My third vehicle ever was a 1982 Ford F-150 stepside with a 302 V8. I was carless at the start of my senior year, but my parents came through and with some money from my savings we got this beast. It was in pretty good shape, and I had a lot of fun with it.

Like the Eldorado, there was some disparity between what the truck actually looked like and what I thought it was in my head.

I didn't get into too much trouble with it. Well, that's a lie. I got into some trouble here and there, but I regret nothing.

It had its fair share of mechanical snafus. Getting the beast started on a cold day in the morning was about as easy as rousing a twenty year-old hound to chase a healthy rabbit. We had a three-car garage and I parked on the side with a single garage door; the truck was so wide that I had to pull the mirror in on my side in order to get it through the opening. Then, in the morning when I went to start the beast, I had to put it in neutral, push the truck out into the driveway, stop the truck with naught but my 17 year-old brawn, get back in, and start it up. After idling for a few minutes it was okay.

The first on-road snafu I experienced was with the cooling system. One day while en route to school the engine just started spewing white-hot steam through the grille, so I pulled over and popped the hood. My brother Ian was with me, and he very helpfully stood there and peered into the engine so that he'd look good if any girls drove by. I located the problem (a hose had just popped off) and fixed it with a Swiss Army Knife keychain I had. By the end of the day I was still single, but Ian had +4 girlfriends, so it worked out for somebody.

It didn't take long for me to discover some other personality quirks that this truck possessed--which I had come to name "Big Red." For instance: the fuel gauge didn't work, so you had to go by the odometer. It had an 18-gallon tank, and I only got 180 miles to the tank. Oh, you're a math whiz, aren't you? You figured out that it got 10 miles to the gallon. Gold star. The thing also had gobs of horsepower, and I positively loved mashing the accelerator from a standstill because it would just take off like no other vehicle I'd had before. Of course, when you do that for a full tank's worth of gas, you only get 144 miles out of said tank.

(Come on math whiz, impress me.)

So I had to be careful when it came to drag racing.

This created a new problem: when you mashed it hard, the engine revved up to 3000 RPM, which is huge for a low-gear engine like that. Just because it's a 5.0 doesn't mean it's a friggin' Mustang. I'd keep my foot on the gas until the tach passed 3K RPM, and then dump the accelerator.

BOOM!

Sucker would backfire like a 12-gauge, every time. I figured out the secret for making it do that on the freeway, too: get it up over 80mph (which almost always takes 3K RPM or more) and then dump the accelerator. Same thing.

The truck had a right-side exhaust, which came in handy when a jerk in a Trans-Am cut me off on the way home from picking up Ian and Moira at piano lessons. I revved up and caught the guy (his car was convertible,) let off the gas and about gave him a heart attack when the muffler exploded right next to his door.

Except it only SOUNDED like it exploded. It didn't really explode until later, when I was racing Shaun Mitchell down Horizon in his Suburban. 3K, back off, BOOM, suddenly the engine loses horsepower but it's making this awesome GLUG GLUG GLUG sound like a muscle car. Turns out big engines do that when the muffler gets blown wide open on one side.

You'll notice a meme where I'm leaning shirtless against just about every car I owned before I turned 19. Happens.

I washed that truck all the time, waxed it, shined up the tires real good (I worked at Discount Tire that year) and generally didn't beat up on it, despite stories like these. The only real abuse to which it was subjected was when I took it off-road with a couple of friends on a Thursday night, despite it being an absolute street truck, with no off-road provisions whatsoever. When we came back to town I wasn't exactly easy on it--we hit a huge bump as the dirt road turned into asphalt, and I came at it so hard that the whole truck bucked forward. A look under the hood would reveal later that I sheared the heads off the bolts that held up the water pump.

I tracked down some hardware and fixed it myself, only I was an idiot 17 year-old and wasn't 100% thorough with my work. If I remember right, the water pump and the alternator ran off the same belt, and I didn't tighten that belt well enough when I put it back together. A week later my battery died in downtown Las Vegas 3PM rush hour traffic. That was cool.

This is also the truck I used when I tried to get rid of the 1970 Cadillac Eldorado From Hell. When I dragged the Caddy out to the desert on a dolly, I shut off the truck, figuring I'd just get out, unstrap the car from the dolly, restart the truck and drive out from under it. It was a flawless plan.

Until the truck didn't start.

God, the Universe and Everything mocked me from above. It was, mathematically, the least probable yet worst possible time for the truck's starter motor to die, but it did. Why?
Because, 1) I'd snuck out of the house,
2) I'd snuck out of the house at midnight,
3) I'd snuck out of the house at midnight without my phone to call for help,
4) I'd lied to my dad and told him I found a legit way of getting rid of that Caddy, and
5) Earlier that same night, my brothers had rolled my dad's car in freak accident, so my parents were already cheesed.

My plan to abandon the Caddy (it'd never been registered to us so it couldn't be traced) was in motion pre-car-roll, so I went ahead with it anyway, and paid the ultimate price: having to run to a friend's house a mile away, knock on the door, explain to her (policeman) father what I was doing and why I needed to use his phone, so I could call my parents and explain to my (pissed off) parents what I was doing and why I needed a ride home.

Hindsight being what it is, I still regret nothing. (Except for the fact that I learned later I could have jump-started it by sticking a screwdriver between the poles on the solenoid in the engine compartment, proving once again that when stupidity isn't painful, it's at least expesnive.)

If there's one thing I regret with Big Red, it's that I didn't hold onto it. All things considered it was a wonderful truck. I'd even bought a piece-of-crap PA system at Pep Boys that I installed in the cabin, and could use it to (illegally) yell things at other drivers whilst on the road. It also made animal noises.

But unfortunately by the end of my senior year I had a shot at buying my friend's '68 Dodge Dart with a slant-6, so I tried to sell the truck fast enough to get it. We ended up getting the Rambler instead. The moral of the story is, if you've got a good truck, hold onto it.

My truck on the right, and a '79 Dodge on the left.

The Inspirational Nature of Professional Sports

2011-08-06T21:06:00.000-07:00

Had some fun fooling around with potential designs today. I better copyright these quick before someone steals them. I've heard that can happen.

2011 Bracket, Round 12: CONAN versus VIN DIESEL

2011-08-06T15:53:00.000-07:00

Ah, crap. It's August, the month of terrible movies. As stated back in May, the list of films for this month is so bad, I had to pull decent fighters from movies that came out some other time.

It's my hope that somehow, somehow, everyone this month loses. For now, see how these two guys fare against each other.

Interviewing the Lagos Brothers on "Sons of Liberty: Death & Taxes."

2011-07-28T20:45:00.000-07:00

Last year I had the chance to interview Alexander and Joseph Lagos, the brain-trusts behind the awesome SONS OF LIBERTY graphic novels. The first issue came out in May of 2010, and the second one hit the shelves just this month.

The premise: Ben Franklin's jerk son William experiments with some unstable tech, and accidentally turns runaway slaves Graham and Brody into superheroes. Caught up in the pre-Revolution days of America, Graham and Brody struggle to make a better life for themselves, and discover their true potential. They make plenty of enemies along the way, but they're not the quitting type.

You can read the first interview here. SONS OF LIBERTY was my favorite book of last year (not including sequels/series books) and a real surprise. This second installment, called DEATH & TAXES, is just as intriguing, with more action, higher stakes, and an ending that leaves you wanting much more.

After finishing it, I got in touch with the Lagos brothers and they were gracious enough to grant me a second interview. Their answers were fantastic, especially on #7, and they sent me an exclusive page scan from the third book due out next summer.

Bottom line is, if you haven't picked up this series, get with the program, or it's going to be hard for us to keep being friends.

In the meantime, check out what the brothers had to say about the series at this point:

1) So, straight out of the gate: how different was it to write the sequel? Did you find it harder, or was it easier since you have the origin story out of the way?

Joseph: Great question and it really goes to the heart of what we are trying to do with the Sons of Liberty series. We do not consider book two a sequel to book one, but a continuation of the same story. We follow Graham and Brody’s development and the reader has the opportunity to see how their experiences and setbacks shape who they are and who they will become. Having most of what we wanted for book two introduced in book one frees up space for storytelling. In the end, it’s neither harder nor easier - it’s just the continuing journey.

Alexander: I think we found the process and collaboration a little bit easier- we certainly enjoyed working on book two more. When we finished book one, we nervously hit the send button to our publisher,but when we finished book two, we felt excited and secure in what we were delivering.

2) Book 1 opened up with Graham and Brody as adults, obviously with a reputation as vigilantes at that point, getting ready to throw down with a bunch of red coats. The rest of the book then flashed back to a "How it all began" story. In Death & Taxes, we see them take several important steps toward becoming the superhero tag team we know from the cover art. How close are we now to seeing them "fully loaded," as it were?

Joseph: Book three hits the ground running with plenty of fully loaded “Sons” action, many dangerous villains and plenty of drama- very satisfying!

Alexander: There is still a lot of historical weight to the story, and exciting new characters are introduced, but as Graham and Brody are now older, their actions produce greater challenges. We think you're going to like it!

3) Naturally your fans want to see more of your work--last time we spoke, you were contracted for four books in this series. Has that changed?

Joseph: Beyond book four, like everything else, I guess it all comes down to how the series is received by the readers. If folks want more, we are happy to oblige!

Alexander: Ditto! There is so much we can do with these characters and the frontier is rich for exploration.

4) You guys have been working on this series for the better part of a decade now; while it would be nice to have many, many more volumes, do you have a definite finale in mind?

Joseph: The Sons of Liberty is an unorthodox graphic novel series. The protagonists, Graham and Brody, like the rest of us mortals, have a finite life span (albeit riskier). This series follows the arc of a particular story that will have closure at the end of the fourth book. There is, however, plenty of time for further adventures (and series) before they are ready to hang up their tricorn hats and retire to the shuffleboard court.

Alexander: We’ve always had a definite ending in mind, but as we’ve progressed with each book, the story has evolved in so many exciting ways that we are keeping ourselves open to other possible resolutions.

5) Is there anything else you guys have produced that your fans can chew on while they're waiting for the third book?

Lagos Bros: We have several projects, both together and individually, in addition to the “Sons”, but overseeing the production of book three and scripting book four is commanding most of our attention at this time. As in any professional field, the “FISO Factor” is always at play-“Fit In, Stand Out”. We have accomplished the “fit in” part by getting published by Random House. The “stand out” part depends on how dedicated we are to making the story worth the reader’s time.

Short answer: We want to see this project through the best we can, before diving into other things.

6) Death & Taxes is such an awesome title--both in and of itself, as well as for this specific story. Can you share some of your other title ideas?

Lagos Bros: Here‘s an exclusive: Book three is titled “Join or Die” which is equally apt for the subject matter. Book four has an awesome working title that may or may not change before we are through with it; so we feel it’s better to keep mum about it for now.

7) In recent years, diversity and multiculturalism have become more of a focal point in publishing, especially in young adult literature. Do you find your work resonating with just one kind of audience, or has the reception been broad?

Joseph: Very true about multiculturalism and diversity in YA literature and that’s a good thing. So long as it gets people reading- it’s valid. The one thing that must be avoided at all costs is thinking of diversity in literature as the exclusive property of any particular group of people. When Shakespeare wrote Julius Caesar, I doubt he was targeting a Roman audience exclusively!

The Sons of Liberty series was never intended for a particular audience; it is for anyone who cares to read a good story and folks out there, of all walks of life, are responding positively to it.

Alexander: The Sons of Liberty graphic novel series is for everyone just like America is for everyone. Regardless of cultural back ground, it has a universal theme of freedom that anyone can identify with.

8) A lot of superhero stories have predictable character arcs, or plot twists that don't require a whole lot of foreshadowing. However, Death & Taxes threw me for a few loops that I didn't see coming, and Graham & Brody didn't exactly end up in a better position than when the book started. Is it hard for you guys to beat up on characters that are so likeable? Do you wring your hands over the things you have to put them through?

Lagos Bros: Graham and Brody are like family to us and it does hurt to watch them feel pain and distress; they live in unsettled times and their experiences reflect that. As in real life, we can only assume that the “loops” will keep coming and the growing pains will continue-but remember this: Graham and Brody can dish it out as good as they can take it!

9) One of the characters in Death & Taxes had a habit of idly using the word "GNYOFF." I'll admit, this took some getting used to when I read it, and eventually realized he must have just had a facial tick or something when he spoke. Was this a notorious historical detail that you wanted to maintain, or did you develop yourselves just for the character?

Joseph: Colonel St. Clair and his “Gynoff”! I love that character and we see quite a bit of him in book three. There was a Quartermaster General named Colonel John St. Clair during the French and Indian War who was, by many accounts, a notorious hothead and disagreeable fellow. Our Colonel St. Clair’s physical attributes, hot temper and position in the British military are based on the real man, but his appetite and habit of saying “Gynoff” is purely fictional. Funny you should think of it as a “facial tick” we always thought of it as a nasal issue-Gynoff!

Alexander: Ha! Yeah, his nasal/breathing problem is similar to the character of Felix Unger from the 70’s sitcom the “Odd Couple”

10) Last question: can you give us a hook for book 3? Shock us. Make us pull out our hair with anxiety for the next twelve months. Come on. :-)

Lagos Bros: Since pictures speak louder than words, how’s this:

(Click to enlarge.)

The new artist for Join Or Die is Sami Kivela; Oren Kramek is still the coloring artist, and as you can see, they're an amazing team.

The above artwork is even more awesome after having read Death & Taxes--I have a pretty good idea of who's dishing it out and who's taking it. After the ending of book two, getting this glimpse into book three is a total OH MY HOLY CRAP moment.

You can check out the official SONS OF LIBERTY site here, and their Facebook page here.

Enjoy!

The Cardturner, by Louis Sachar

2011-07-24T14:36:00.000-07:00

Got some news for you folks: after a two-year run, I'm going to retire this blog and focus exclusively on my main blog, here. I just don't have time to post here regularly, and if you really want my opinion on books, you can just check out my Goodreads account. (And if we're friends on Facebook or Twitter, all my Goodreads stuff links to those anyway, so yeah.)

So this, my final Chop, is of Louis Sachar's (HOLES, SMALL STEPS) The Cardturner. It's about a kid named Alton who helps his blind uncle play bridge, and he learns some life lessons in the process.

I'm sure that sounds generic, like maybe it's been done before, but I can tell you I've never read another book like this one. Alton is a very well-written 17 year-old boy. His uncle is a very convincing grumpy old man. His parents are overbearing (realistically), his best friend is kind of a piece, and the main love interest is perfect for him.

The writing was wonderful. Alton frequently broke the fourth wall, most often to explain the rules of bridge (a difficult card game with billions of possibilities) to the reader. These sections can be skipped without detracting from the story (I think the way Sachar did this was very clever.)

This book reminds me of Holes, not by formula but by feel, because of how well it all comes together in the third act. You don't realize what the author's been setting you up for until it happens, and you're impressed by the creativity of it.

Overall, The Cardturner is the first "WOW" book I've read in 2011, the book I'll recommend to everyone no matter what genre they like to read. It's not a sci-fi or a fantasy, it's just good teen literature that is good for anyone.

And as far as the rating is concerned, it's a PG. Mild profanity here and there, one A-word, and one instance of blasphemy. (Personally I'll never justify blasphemy, but the frustration with which is was used is certainly understandable. You'll know when you read it.)

I read the hardcover version, and I think it would be wise to read it in print. Normally I do audiobooks but I doubt this one would translate very well into that, because of all the bridge lingo.

So pick it up and enjoy!

And thanks to all of you who have made this a fun blog. I'm sure I'll still review movies and books over at OGP from time to time. See you out there.

2011 Bracket, Round 11: HARRY POTTER vs BUMBLEBEE

2011-07-22T09:00:00.000-07:00

The Boy Who Lived takes on The Camaro Who Set A World Record For Headshots In The Last Movie.

Who will win?

And who will be the July champion overall?

Watch and see.

Shoveling Uphill

2011-07-21T00:19:00.000-07:00

Tonight I realized that while I care about sleep, running and writing, I only get to pick two out of those three things. And with work being absolutely insane these past two weeks, sleep's at a premium. I haven't run since Friday, and I haven't written since last Tuesday.

I consciously decided that this week, with my time being at such a high premium, I care more about writing than I do about running. I'll still run, but I'm so far behind my writing goal that it's more important.

On a side note (though equally important), the older I get, the lower my BS tolerance becomes. True story.

Now get back to work. It's after midnight, and I've got to slay several thousand words.

2011 Bracket, Round 11: OPTIMUS vs CAPTAIN AMERICA

2011-07-15T09:00:00.000-07:00

Straight out of the gate: Optimus Prime versus Captain America. Why run from it? There could not be a more American showdown this summer.

Who will win?

Car Comic: Owning an '81 Cadillac

2011-07-10T14:38:00.000-07:00

The shortest-lived of all the vehicles I owned growing up was a 1981 Cadillac Eldorado. We knew a guy who knew a guy who wanted to get rid of it for about $200, which I thought was a steal. (It was, I had just been unclear at the beginning as to whom was robbed.)

Sorry for the quality, I was really pixelated back in high school.

The dude who sold it to me was a real winner. It didn't run, but it had a 368 in it. (He said this like it was the kind of car Nicholas Cage was looking to spend 60 seconds with.) Like an idiot 16 year-old, I got pretty jazzed at the idea of a...hang on...let me do the math...5.9 liter engine!

Surprise: when it's a busted piece of crap, it's just as fast as your hippie neighbor's Prius.

But it's not like this was a surprise, and I figured I could fix it. Mostly it needed a fluid swap, and the fuel pump wasn't working. The electronics all worked--including the (I kid you not) 8-track tape player in the deck. (The digital odometer did NOT work, and had a habit of displaying +/- 28,641 miles' of difference every time I started it.)

It did have an auto-leveling suspension, which was pretty cool, and the seats were really cushy, and everything was all automatic and stuff. For a car that was twenty years old at the time, that was neat, especially in light of the fully manual truck I'd driven before.

Still, let me be clear: there's a big difference between what I SAW:

And what it WAS:

Sadly I don't have a lot of jokes to tell about this car because once I got it rolling, it worked for exactly one week before doing this to me on the freeway:

Dunno why. The engine decided to suicide itself. It made the knocking sound that engines make when they're out of oil, but unless I had a MAD leak somewhere, it was just a crappy motor that was tired of life on this planet and took matters into its own hands, leaving me stranded on the side of the 95 South at about 3 in the afternoon on a Tuesday in July.

(Yeah, up yours too, Car.)

In the end we donated it to some company that takes POS cars, and my parents got to write off $1100 on their taxes for it. So somebody won, it just wasn't me.

At least not right away. Then came my next vehicle, but that's another story for another day.

Flash Artwork

2011-07-09T00:44:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite funny websites is The Oatmeal, done by a guy in Washington named Mathew Inman. It's clever, it's a good social commentary, and the artwork makes me want to get better at Adobe Illustrator.

Today he posted his response to a piece of crappy fan mail he got. Among the author's many errors was the phrase "Statue of Limitations." (He meant "statute.") Oatmeal hammered him on that.

It brought to mind a funny mental picture, so I drew the above in Corel and posted it to his Facebook wall: a Statue meant to inspire Limitation, telling you what you can't do.

So far it's gotten about two dozen "likes" and some encouraging comments, including from Oats himself. That feels pretty good.

I guess the moral of the story is, when you get an idea, run with it and make it happen. You'll feel better about yourself.

And then I found ten dollars.

2011 Bracket, Round 10: VOLDEMORT vs LONERGAN

2011-07-08T21:06:00.000-07:00

The Dark Lord versus...I dunno, some alien cowboy guy. Guess I'll find out when I see the movie.

WHO WILL WIN?!

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

2011-07-06T22:29:00.000-07:00

Maybe you've heard of this movie that came out, called Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Being the big TF fan that I am, I saw it on opening night and in 3D. I know a lot of TF purists and die-hards like to get together and hate on Michael Bay, and that's fine. Whatever. The guy doesn't exactly crank out Shakespeare, but spoiler alert: the original cartoons weren't that great either. (And if you want to argue otherwise, go back and watch them. I'll wait.)

(Oh, what's that? Not that good anymore, now that you're not a kid? Surprise.)

Anyway, I had a ton of fun watching it. Nobody does "demolition porn" like Michael Bay. Of course, nobody does plot holes like he does either, but one could argue that he's keeping Transformers true to its original form, because the 1986 movie had more holes than Swiss cheese.

(Seriously. Go watch it. I'll wait.)

Anyway, in thinking of a way to review the movie, I figured I'd just go through character-by-character and tell each of their stories briefly. Major spoilers ahead, so come back and read this after you've seen Dark of the Moon in theaters. Ready? Here we go.

Basic plot: back during the Cybertron war, some Autobots got on a ship called the Ark and tried to escape with some secret technology that could have changed the war. Their ship was shot down, and it drifted through space until it crashed on our moon in the 1960s. America and the USSR then engaged in a space race to get to the moon and examine the ship. We brought some parts back, and they've been in hiding. Present day, come to find that the ship was captained by Optimus Prime's predecessor, and the tech he carried was for a massive teleportation bridge. The Decepticons activate the bridge and teleport an army from the moon to Earth.*

**I don't remember the explanation of how the army got there. I think there actually was one, but I just don't remember. Also, a deep analysis will probably find some plot points that are temporally incongruent with the previous two films. I don't care.

ANYWAY. Characters.

OPTIMUS PRIME: We get to see more of his history, and his relationship with his mentor, Sentinel Prime. We see him get his hands dirty in battle the way kings of old would lead troops into war. And while he doesn't revel in destroying his Transformer brethren, he sure doesn't hesitate when the time calls for it. The final battle between him, Sentinel and Megatron shows that when some bad dude needs his head chopped off, Optimus will do it. He's a great character in this one.

SENTINEL PRIME: Recovered from the Ark and revived by Optimus Prime's Matrix of Leadership, Sentinel learns of the end of Cybertron, and realizes that he has a way to save his home planet. He just has to betray the Autobots and enslave the humans in order to do it. After five Autobots and a ton of humans risk their necks to protect him from a Decepticon ambush, he turns around and shoots Ironhide in the back, killing him. He doesn't go 100% evil, but he's definitely bent. He defects because he feels its the right thing to do, and ends up answering to Optimus for it. The fight between Optimus and Sentinel was just epic. Two sides of the same coin. Gandalf versus Saruman. Just amazing. PS, Optimus wins.

SOUNDWAVE: Hey hey, they got him out of orbit! He's not a satellite anymore! He's a sick Mercedes roadster, ostensibly given to the new female lead as a "work perk," then later revealed to be a trap. In the final fight, he dies by a headshot from Bumblebee.

SHOCKWAVE: Heavily marketed, and heavily underused. He had an awesome intro, totally ominous, like there was some sick backstory to why he was there on Earth, piloting some huge tentacle-driller-machine...but we never got it. In fact, he only had one word of dialog we could understand, and that was "Optimus." The rest of the time he was speaking the Decepticon language. Oh, and he never transformed either. He had his moments in the final fight in Chicago, right up until he died via a headshot, probably from Bumblebee, but I think it was Optimus who got him.

BUMBLEBEE: For the first time he's really away from Sam, at least in the beginning, when he's off working with the Autobots to protect Earth. But he and Sam team up for a couple of epic rides. And Bee is as heroic as ever.

SIDESWIPE: Somehow he's a convertible Corvette this time, and they don't bother with the holographic drivers. I question the wisdom of that decision. Sideswipe gets his moment in the highway battle protecting Sentinel, and later in Chicago fighting Decepticons.

MIRAGE: I don't understand why they called him "Dino" instead of "Mirage." This isn't the freaking Flintstones. He was a Ferrari, and had a cool Italian accent. His moment of awesomeness came in the fight to protect Sentinel from the Dreads.

WHEELJACK: Like Mirage, they didn't call him by his name, but referred to him as "Q", like a James Bond character. His head made him look like Einstein, and he was a scientist. He died in Chicago, executed by Soundwave shortly after being taken prisoner.

THE WRECKERS: Topspin (blue), Leadfoot (red), Roadbuster (green.) Nothing says AMERICA like freaking NASCAR vehicles loaded to the kills with machine guns. These dudes primarily stayed in NASA custody, working on the Autobots' spaceship, because--to quote one of the human characters, "We don't let 'em out much...they're @$$holes." And they were. But when it came time to throw down, these dudes were merciless.

MEGATRON: I liked the first Megatron scene in this movie, although it makes absolutely no sense. Why is he in Africa? I'll accept that he stayed there after the Egypt incident in Revenge of the Fallen, but then how did he get to America later? No ship, and he doesn't fly anymore. He turns into a beat up Mack Titan, and in his robot mode he looks like a ravaged desert traveler complete with cloak and shotgun. The look totally worked as far as awesomeness, but not for practicality. I guess it went to show that he lacked the resources to save himself after the second movie, and was surviving as a pile of scrap in the desert.

Still, when he met up with Sentinel in Washington DC and then made his way to Chicago, I felt like he was regaining some of his former glory. Then he picked a fight with Sentinel, and later Optimus, and he got his head handed to him.

The moment was perfect, too: he tried to play the classic villain card, saying to Optimus, "After all...what would you be without me?" (Because villains define their heroes, right?)

Optimus simply replies, "Time to find out." BOOM. Kills Megatron. Awesome.

WHEELIE and BRAINS: Wheelie was the RC truck from TF2, and he's joined by an equally small guy named Brains who turns into a laptop. They managed not to be crude, and to be more than just annoying little mechanical Jar-Jars. When it came time to shine in Chicago, they captured a Decepticon fighter, flew it up into one of the larger ships, and tore the ship's controls apart from the inside, crashing it into the river. Presumed dead, they have a hero moment.

RATCHET: He goes up to the moon with Optimus to recover Sentinel, and...doesn't really do much else, just helps with the fighting.

IRONHIDE: As stated above, Ironhide gets betrayed by Sentinel and is killed. He gets an insanely brave moment though, because as all the Autobot sportscars are making a mad dash to get Sentinel safe inside NEST headquarters, Ironhide floors it back out into the action and rushes head-on to take out two of the Dreads by himself. (Sideswipe gives him some backup.) They end up in a Mexican standoff, two Dreads, two Autobots, and when the fight gets real, Ironhide kills both of the Dreads. It makes his bold sacrifice all the more tragic when Sentinel turns around and caps him. He died well.

STARSCREAM: I must say, I am disappointed in Starscream. As much as I hate those who bellyache about the original cartoon, I'm on their side with this one. Starscream wasn't an unbending sycophant, he was a traitor! He tried to subjugate Megatron at every turn! If Megatron was so obviously weak, Starscream would've capped him and taken over as ruler. Instead he got taken out like a punk, killed by none other than...Sam Witwicky.

Yes. Sam Witwicky killed Starscream.

That's all for this post. In the next one I'll discuss the human characters--because they were all equally interesting as well, and even a little inspiring.

Car Smashing

2011-07-03T15:41:00.000-07:00

In 2002 a group of guys from my church decided to plan a fun car-smashing activity at a local junkyard. The junkyard's owner was also a youth adviser in our ward, so that worked out real well. We'd done the activity once before in 2001 and we were itching to do it again.

One of the cars set aside for us was a 1970 Cadillac Eldorado. When we showed up at the junkyard and saw it there waiting for us, I was very, very peeved. Me and that car, we had a history:

That POS Cadillac had been decomposing in our front yard for almost two years after someone gave it to us. (Restoring Cadillacs was a family project, and ostensibly it would be a good parts car. The only parts we took off it were the friggin' seatbelts.)

I wanted to hold onto the engine because it was 500cid of American iron, pushing four hundred horsepower through eight cylinders, and when you're 17 that sounds like a freakishly awesome chunk of metal. (I had no idea what I'd put it in, but I figured the engine was worth something. Or would be, if it worked.)

So during Spring Break of 2002, I spent four nights under the front of that car trying to disconnect the motor from the transaxles. Eldorados are front-wheel drive, so it's not as simple as unbolting it from the motor mounts and taking the drive shaft off. Plus I had no idea what the hell I was doing, so it took multiple nights to do what should have taken like, two hours.

Every time I unscrewed something, I expected the engine to pull free. I'd crawl out from under the Cadillachiosaurus, crank the engine hoist, and...nothing. Then I'd sigh, say something un-Christian, and crawl back into the dirt and darkness, hoping to find something else. (I had to do it in the dark because it was too hot during the day.)

Finally on Thursday I located the knuckles that connected the transaxle to the wheels. I figured what the heck--I can't disconnect the trans from the engine, so I'll disconnect the trans from the wheels, pull the whole thing up and then remove the trans while it's suspended!

Brilliant!

Except for one problem: once the transaxle isn't holding the wheels in place, nothing really is. The parking brake was a vacuum-powered deal, and while the rest of the car sucked, the vacuum-powered stuff did not. I had the heavy front end up on ramps, and being 17 I hadn't thought to chock the back wheels. So the moment I undid the last bolt on the second knuckle, the whole car shuddered and made a saurian metal groan like a giant beast being freed from a cage for the first time in decades.

Right then my Shoulder Angel popped up and gently whispered "OH S***!" into my ear, and I had no greater desire in the world than to be out from under the car, because it was rolling backward off the ramps. I scooted forward in the dirt, grabbed the bumper and--in a move that only my agile 17 year-old cheerleader self could manage--threw myself to freedom. The moment I was on my feet, I spun around and saw the three-ton car roll the rest of the way back and sag to the ground, belly-flopping onto the dirt where I had been only seconds before.

It made a loud noise, which drew one of my parents out of the house, yelling in that frantic parental tone, "What just happened?!?!"

I replied with "Yeah, uh...nothing." 'Cause it was true. Plus I'd gotten the engine out.

Anyway, the next project was to get rid of the stupid car. I towed it down to the junkyard, but they wouldn't take it because I didn't have a title. The next option was to have it towed by a professional service, but I didn't want to pay the hundred bucks it cost. Since it had never been registered in our name, it couldn't be traced to us. I figured what the heck, I'll just dump it in the desert, then the city will take care of it. (I was young, not perfect.)

For reasons that need to be explained in a car comic, that didn't work out: my truck died and I had to call my parents and tell them what I was doing four miles away in the desert at midnight with a massive Cadillac strapped to the back of my F-150. That went over real well.

When we eventually did call a tow truck, I coughed up the money and watched someone do what they should have done a week prior: they took it to the freaking junkyard.

The pictures that follow are an account of the justice I executed against the Cadillac for what it put me through.

Enjoy.

Caddy on the left. I'm on the hood with golf clubs.

Sledge to the deck.

Sledge to the roof.

The windshield might have been worth something, but this was more satisfying.

It's tiring work, so we took turns.

First blood

Took like ten swings to completely shatter the windshield.

Explaining the backstory to Gary.

Bored at the computer?

2011-07-03T14:21:00.000-07:00

I searched for this comic on my blog recently and I must have deleted it by accident or something, so I'm re-posting it as this week's comic. It was my first serious attempt at one.

Mission Accomplished

2011-07-02T14:52:00.001-07:00

Wow, that didn't even take 24 hours. To all of you who retweeted the previous post and helped get the word out,

THANK YOU!

(Too soon?)

2011 Bracket, Round 9: SMURFS vs SHOCKWAVE

2011-07-01T21:36:00.000-07:00

Holy crap, it's July. That means it's time to get moving with the ninth round of the bracket.

The first matchup of the month will pit the little blue Smurfs up against the mighty Decepticon Shockwave, who was heavily marketed for the film, but had a very marginal role and no dialog! (Whoops, spoiler alert.)

Don't take that as me knocking the film, because I really liked it. Just a fact.

Who will win? Watch the video. Or just use common sense, your call. See you next week!

The Shortest Pixar Movie Ever

2011-06-27T19:51:00.000-07:00

With the possible exceptions of Cars 2 and Wall-E, Disney-Pixar have yet to make a bad movie. When I heard they were slated to make one set in the mythology-rich highlands of old Scotland, I thought for sure they'd hit another winner out of the park. Then I saw this teaser trailer for Brave:

I think it's safe to say I've just seen the whole movie. Pixar bit off more than they could chew with this concept. I mean, I'll accept talking cars, toys that come to life, and a superhero flick that proves a good story could have been told with the Fantastic Four characters...but when you pit a little ginger chick up against a ****** *******ing grizzly bear, well, sorry Arianna Huffington*, but the bear wins.

The only difference between this trailer and the full movie will be the nice little snack that the bear has once the scared girl's arrow misses and he tears her apart.

*The Huffington Post practically fell all over itself with joy that Pixar was finally doing a story with a lead female protagonist. Because apparently Elastigirl, Princess Atta, Jesse, and all of the other female main characters don't count.

Gremoticons.

2011-06-26T22:54:00.000-07:00

#1-#4. Enjoy, more to come.

2011 Bracket, Round 8: JOE vs MATER

2011-06-24T09:11:00.000-07:00

After today we're halfway through the bracket! Who will win between JOE (Super 8) and MATER (Cars 2)?

And who's the overall June champion? Watch the video, friend!

Book Chop: Hard Magic (Grimnoir Chronicles #1)

2011-06-22T08:12:00.000-07:00

Title: Hard Magic
Author: Larry Correia
Genre: Noir/Historical Fiction/Speculative/Probably a few others
Verdict: A complete success.

When Larry Correia said that the first Grimnoir Chronicles title was the best book he'd ever written, he wasn't just being his usual animated self. The juice is worth the squeeze with this one.

History gets a nice shakedown with this series. People all around the world start developing magical abilities (mostly akin to superpowers, think X-Men) during the 1800s, and this changes the course of several worldwide wars. The most notable among these is World War One, in which America employs "actives" (people who use magic) along with high-tech weapons and equipment developed by the likes of Nikola Tesla. Because of these developments, World War Two never happened, Hitler was executed before rising to power, Japan becomes America's biggest threat, and a brewing social conflict between actives and normals looms on the horizon.

Enter Jake Sullivan, an active "heavy" (he prefers the term "spiker") with the ability to manipulate gravity. He's a veteran of the Great War, the youngest of three boys, and a convict who was sprung early from jail so he could help the FBI bring in criminal actives. Sully works with the likes of Melvin Purvis and J. Edgar Hoover (both portrayed well in the book), and he's one job away from full freedom. Things are looking fine until he has a run-in with the Grimnoir, a group of organized actives who are actually fighting to save the world from evil magicians.

From there, the story is a rip-roaring ride of fun and intrigue. Correia shows his very adept hands when it comes to manipulating history and science for interesting storylines. The writing is an improvement over what he's shown in the MONSTER HUNTER books, and I think the fact that this one is written in third person really lends itself well to revealing the deep characters. Everyone in here has a good backstory, and it's all relevant to telling the tale as a whole.

I listened to the audiobook version, narrated by Bronson Pinchot, who also did ON STRANGER TIDES. The guy is awesome. I think it was better than it would have been, had I read it in print. To put a rating on it, it's a solid R, for language and violence (lotta gore) but no sexual content.

A fun book, and I'm looking forward to the next book in this series even more than I'm looking forward to the next MONSTER HUNTER.

Enjoy.

Songs of Summer

2011-06-21T22:32:00.000-07:00

Well, it's officially the first day of summer. I was working on ARMALECT re-writes, but then I heard back from my editor on the Monsters & Mormons project, and I've got to do edits on BROTHERS IN ARMS instead.

Happy day. (No, seriously.)

Here's a happy summer song for you.

Car Comic: Owning a '59 Rambler

2011-06-19T21:48:00.001-07:00

In 2002 my brother Jordan saw this piece of crap Rambler sitting on the side of the road for $1500. At the time I was helping a friend of mine get his '68 Dodge Dart up and running in the hopes that he would sell it to me for about that same amount of money. I tried to explain to Jordan the difference between a '59 Rambler and a '68 Dart, but he just kind of glazed over and was like "Ooooh, fins." Since we were going to put whatever car we got on our parents' insurance, we could only get one, and we ended up with a car that was exactly the same age as our mother.

When you've got a car that's that old, there are going to be problems. Those problems are compounded when the manufacturer is no longer in existence. Do you know who made Ramblers? If you do, you're either a car nut or you're old enough to remember, so answer carefully.

The first problem we had was when the stabilizer bar snapped.

"Whoa, Graham! What's a stabilizer bar?"

I'll tell you.

Back before cars were made with stuff like technology, people attached rods of metal to everything in order to hold it into place. No matter what the physics involved, you solved every problem with another piece of metal. That's why the Rambler weighed roughly 536 Grahams. (See what I did there?)

Anyway, the stabilizer bar kept the axles aligned with the body, so that when you did complicated things like "turning," the axle would also turn with the car. See the diagram below.

Green: the car
Black: tires
Gray: Axle
Orange: Stabilizer

That bar was bolted to the left side of the axle and the right side of the frame. It snapped right in the middle. As a result, when I drove the car (even in a straight line), the rear end would fishtail comically and earn me many a smile from police officers hoping to catch a daylight DUI.

Fortunately with the car being so Stone Age, most of the problems were an easy fix. We unbolted the bar (two minutes, after cutting through rust and grease), took it to a friend's house, welded it, brought it back, re-bolted it, and could drive anew.

We had similar problems with the clutch. It liked to disengage at random, leaving me wholly unable to use even one of the three gears. We fixed that with a three-inch piece of metal, some bolts that might have been the right size, and about 3.6 swear words per minute.

Fixing the leaky brake line was a hit-or-miss exercise, as it took me several hours to bend the replacement line into what I hoped could be the right shape. I couldn't jerry-rig this one too much 'cause when you're trying to stop three tons of Auto-saurus, you need good brakes.

And there was just no fixing the power steering...because there was no power steering. They solved that problem in the fifties by making the steering wheel larger than the frigging tires. You didn't drive a Rambler; you sailed it.

Eventually we hit a wall when it came time to fix the clutch for good. We had to buy an original manual off the Internet (some dude actually had one) and I sat down to read it. It took a while to figure out, but it had plenty of helpful pictures:

We propped it up on blocks and disconnected the three-speed manual transmission ("three-on-the-tree" 'cause transmissions grew on actual trees in those days) and opened it up to pull out the old plate. It was shot to hell, and no amount of amateur kludgery could bypass the problem.

This opened up a new world of hurt: try finding a part for a forty year-old car. Try finding a part for a car company that's defunct. Now combine that difficulty level. No matter how simple the part is, unless you kludge it or make it yourself, you've got to track someone down who has one. I quickly learned that every single Rambler part in existence was exactly two weeks away from me, and in Ohio.

This is because 2 weeks is how long it takes you to go back in time to Ohio, find the right part, and then get back to the future (the present, but really the...well, you get it.)

Because I didn't have two weeks, I still tried to find one on my own and kludge it. That was stupid. The Rambler was up on blocks for two months. I should've hired Doc Brown on day one, but you live and learn I guess.

Anyway, by the time we sold that beast and got a reliable pickup truck, we'd had it for a grand total of six months, during which time I drove it past 40,000 original miles on the odometer. It was a sluggish brute, with a top speed of 70 mph (down hill, tailwind, third gear) and not much else going for it. You had an AM radio whose tubes needed to warm up, shocks that were so worn out it felt like riding a horse, and the turning radius of a pregnant submarine.

But on the plus side, the front bench seat could slide all the way forward and then recline ninety degrees back, turning the whole interior into a plush cabin...

...llllllllllllllladies.

Unfinished Business

2011-06-17T23:13:00.000-07:00

Brandon Routh didn't get the shot he deserved at the Superman role. I blame Bryan Singer, and the fact that Superman Returns wasn't the great film that I was promised. But that's neither hurr nor thurr. At least Routh did a great job in Scott Pilgrim versus The World.

The above is a drawing I started in 2007. It's a giant mechanical dragon. It was actually going to appear in one of my books, and I'm glad I've matured enough to remove it from the intended story. It would've been absolutely preposterous, the equivalent of shooting myself in the foot twice with a harpoon dipped in elk poison. (It's pretty cool to think about, though.) (The dragon, not the elk-poison foot-harpoon.)

I find myself bogged down in a quandary. I promised that I would finish the first draft of TERRA INIMICA by my birthday. I'm losing steam on that front, and here's why:

--I need to do more research, but even that wouldn't matter until the editing stage.

--First drafts suck. I'll edit all day, but first drafts SUCK.

--There's an old project (an old, dead, I-killed-it-months-ago project) that won't leave me alone, because I have a shot at resurrecting it, and meaningfully so.

Last night I saw the list of publishers to whom SPECTER CELL had been submitted. It's amazing, and I really, really, really want it to go somewhere. My agent expressed interest in reading my sci-fi book, ARMALECT. After all the time I've put into it, I really want that to go somewhere too.

But as I pointed out in the above link, the story is too formulaic. All I did was take an unwitting teenage hero who finds out that the world is not what he thought it was, and plug in some robots. And a hot chick. And some explosions. (Don't let Michael Bay's version fool you, my book actually had a story.)

I digress.

I want to fix ARMALECT. I told myself I'd wait until TERRA INIMICA is done. The only reason is that I set a goal for TERRA INIMICA draft 1 by my birthday.

But there's a fire under me to finish ARMALECT and send it to A-J.P. first. And fires burn. If you don't tend them, they can destroy things. (And smell.)

So TERRA INIMICA is now on hold only for as long as it takes me to finish retooling ARMALECT and send it to my agent. Then I'll get back to my magical pirate steampunk book.

I'm also prepping more comics to post weekly here, so I'm plenty busy. I told you to expect more, and you'll get it. (Are you following the bracket?)

That is all. Get back to work. There's a manuscript in my computer--we have unfinished business, I and he. (Tell it to the cleaning lady on Monday...)

Houseguests

2011-06-17T08:28:00.000-07:00

Just had some friends visit and stay the night on a road trip. It was my buddy Shane and his wife Robyn--it just got me to thinking about how time goes by and we grow up and move forward in our lives. I'm glad some of my friends are such a constant.

Shane and I went on a hike with our friend Eli about three summers ago. We'd spent the whole summer beefing up, eating like 3000 calories a day and pumping iron at the gym every night. A lot of things sucked about that summer, but hanging out with Shane and Eli was like therapy. Anyway, here are a bunch of photos from that hike with the guys.

The water eroded random holes in the rock.

Eli and I

Shane

Awesomely cold waterfall

Still awesome

I actually did sleep on the car. The campground was full of bugs.

Definitely the whitest of the three.

These were really cold and deep.

Stay thirsty, friends.

2011 Bracket, Round 7: CONAN O'BRIEN vs LIGHTNING MCQUEEN

2011-06-17T08:18:00.000-07:00

Wow, won't this be interesting! Probably not.

Place your bets, people.

Book Chop: The Forgotten Locket (Hourglass Door #3)

2011-06-14T21:51:00.000-07:00

Title: The Forgotten Locket
Author: Lisa Mangum
Genre: YA Paranormal romance
Verdict: A solid finale.

Two years ago I got to read an advanced copy of The Hourglass Door at work. I occasionally spice up my reading list (robots/dragons/explosions) with some YA paranormal romance, because despite the large amount of crappy books in that genre, there are some that I enjoy--maybe even as a guilty pleasure.

Mangum's trilogy doesn't have to be a guilty pleasure, though. Even dudes can enjoy this one, though it is a straightforward romance. In the first book, Abby meets a new boy at school, Dante. Dante is a time traveler from Italy...500 years ago, to be precise. They hook up. (That's the point.) In the second book, Dante is taken from her, and she actually has to work to get him back.

This is the third book, the end of the story.

I liked it, as I liked the previous two. One of the great strengths of the trilogy is that the main character girl is smart (without reminding you on every page,) attractive (without pretending she's not, or assuming she is,) and capable of taking initiative. A common staple of this genre is the helpless stupid whiny girl who sits around and spends 400 pages describing how hot the Main Guy is while he does all the heavy lifting for her.

Not so with Mangum's books.

The first big challenge of this book is when Abby goes backward in time, and has to leave behind the familiar setting of her hometown. Granted, a lot of that town changed in the second book when Dante's rival, Vicenzo, really started to bugger things up with the timeline. I guess the next biggest challenge was dropping her 500 years in the past, away from Dante, who was--when she last saw--blinded by Vicenzo's knife.

What happens in the next 400 pages...well, it's not relevant for me to tell you hear if you haven't read the previous two books. Suffice to say that it's an intriguing exploration of Mangum's previous time travel ideas--building on it, evolving it, keeping it exciting.

If I have one complaint, it's that it took a long time to get to the crowning moment of the trilogy; it was really near the end of the book, and I went from feeling suspenseful to getting impatient. Maybe I'm just a guy. If you've read these, let me know in the comments.

Overall, I'm glad to see the series ended well, and that while it's a romance, it played its sci-fi elements very well. Even a dude can enjoy this. So check it out.

Movie Chop: X-Men First Class

2011-06-14T21:31:00.000-07:00

X-Men: First Class

I think I've managed to see every X-Men movie on opening day, with the exception of this one. It wasn't for any lack of excitement, but more of a case of practicality--I like taking the missus to the theater when it's not so crowded, so these days we wait a week.

But anyways...

This one's a prequel to all the other X-Men flicks. As I said on Facebook the other day, I like how it completely made X3 and that lousy Wolverine movie into something of the past. Granted, there were a few things that were inconsistent with all of the previous X-men films, but this one on its own was a really good story.

You've got Erik Lensherr in a Nazi concentration camp in WWII Poland. At the same time, Charles Xavier is in New York. They're children, they don't know each other, but we see how they meet each other and how they end up working together. Erik is on a revenge-bender for the murder of his family, while Charles is trying to figure out his role in the next phase of human evolution.

Ultimately, Erik's scenes were more fun to watch, but that's not to say Charles was a waste of screen time either. In a lot of ways they were the same character, just with a different set of circumstances behind their upbringing. They share equal levels of passion in the pursuit of their goals.

It's cool to see that Professor X wasn't always the moral bastion that we know from the previous films. There was a time when he wouldn't hesitate to mess with someone else's mind if he thought he needed to. And there were other times when he did it and really shouldn't have. His discipline had to come from somewhere, and it comes from the experiences he has in this flick.

We get a taste of how Magneto got his start, and what it was like when he worked with Xavier. However, the amount of time they worked together in this story is inconsistent with the other films. (In X3, they were still together well into their sixties, and Prof. X was still walking. The events of First Class make that impossible.) But if one movie has to lose in the annals of franchise history, I say screw X3. First Class was better.

Saw some cool mutants, too: Havok and Banshee being my favorites. Ultimately I can't pick just one, because McAvoy as Xavier and Fassbender as Magneto were flat-out brilliant picks.

Overall, if there is one thing about that flick I didn't like, it was the F-bomb that Hugh Jackman dropped during a really cool ten-second cameo scene mid-movie. And if there are two things I didn't like, the second one is January Jones as Emma Frost. She belongs on a soap opera, not my movie screen.

So go see it. It's a really fun one.

Pool Day

2011-06-11T17:19:00.000-07:00

Went swimming with my brother's family today. Lotta fun.

Little Emeryck loved it:

We kinda threw Reagan around...

He still has to learn to swim, but it's fun.

And if he had superpowers, he'd be a slippery kid.

Some family shots.

Jordan punched me in the mouth, so I had to destroy him.
After that, he picked on someone he could handle...

This last picture is just a rebuttal of something that's become popular in recent weeks, and is appearing on sites like 4chan and Memebase. It's called planking, and it involves lying flat across objects at random. It's completely stupid, and it doesn't make you look cool. More to the point, it doesn't make you worth anyone's attention. It just makes you an idiot.

Oh, and last week I tore my shorts open at work. Schaara helped me fix them with packing tape so I could finish working. See here.

2011 Bracket, Round 6: PROFESSOR X vs SINESTRO

2011-06-10T08:34:00.000-07:00

The beat goes on, da-da-dum-de-dum-dum:

Sorry I've been quiet on here. But I have a really good reason: I procrastinated. Boom.

Book Chop: Good Omens

2011-06-05T21:39:00.000-07:00

Title: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
Authors: Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Genre: Magical Realism/Fantasy/Satire
Verdict: A real gem

Note: I listened to the audiobook.

Prior to picking up this book, I'd only read three titles by Neil Gaiman: Stardust, Anansi Boys and The Graveyard Book. The first was a case of "the movie was better than the book " (IMO), the second was something a sleeper that I rather enjoyed, and the latter was quite a treat. I think Gaiman's a cool guy and a talented author, based on those three. I've never read any of Pratchett's work, though I understand he's something of a heavy-hitter.

Good Omens is the story of an angel and a demon who team up to bungle the Apocalypse by causing the delivery of the infant Anti-Christ to go awry. He's raised by an American living in England, and plays with other children like normal. These scenes where he's playing are some of the more philosophical parts of the book, without being preachy or featuring characters that speak much higher than their age level would permit. In the category of "kids say the darnedest things," you see real wisdom in the words of eleven year-olds. (One of my personal favorites was the scene where they decided to be the Spanish Inquisition.)

The exchanges between Aziraphale (the angel) and Crowley (the demon) are also entertaining. You have one character who can't see the faults of being so uptight and rigid and obedient, and another who can't be trusted or valued based on any system of morals because he has none.

There's actually a whole array of interesting characters--a witch-hunter and his apprentice; the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, in various forms; and an antique book dealer who holds the titular collection of prophecies. My personal favorite was the group of bikers who followed the Four Horsemen, adding themselves to the mix with such titles as "War, Famine, Grievous Bodily Harm, Really Cool People," etc. That scene alone makes me want to own the book in print so I can go back and re-read it often.

I appreciate how each scene, each chapter, stood out as its own short story in a way. You could read one portion independent of the rest of the book (at least until you get to the climax) and have plenty to discuss and ponder, theologically speaking.

And above all, the humor is top-notch. I laughed aloud at plenty of it, and stopped to recount certain portions to my wife as I read it. I've been told that Pratchett is a remarkable satirist, and if that's the case I'll be looking into his work (especially since this one was written all the way back in the early 1990s.)

Be warned that there is some profanity speckled here and there. A few S-bombs, one F-bomb, and some Adult Topics that pop up without much warning. Still a PG-13, but not a light one.

2011 Bracket, Round 5: MAGNETO vs GREEN LANTERN

2011-06-05T21:26:00.000-07:00

Sorry for posting this a few days late. I worked like 30 hours of overtime last week. So I'm not actually sorry--I'm accepting YOUR apology for complaining about it. Except you didn't complain, so we're cool. Thanks guys.

It looks like PO (Kung Fu Panda 2) is the May 2011 champion. Who will be our June winner? We'll know in a few weeks. For now, let's see how MAGNETO fares against GREEN LANTERN.

Also, watch the video the whole way through--it features the draft for June, so you know what fights to expect for the next three weeks. Enjoy!

DotW: Voting

2011-05-29T22:14:00.000-07:00

Sketched this out while watching the recorded version of Barcelona vs. Manchester United at my mom's place tonight. It's a little smeared, and the shading was hasty, but that's what I'm going for.

(Superman and Captain America as moderators of a presidential debate between Megatron and Optimus Prime.)

Persuasion

2011-05-27T23:34:00.000-07:00

There is nothing persuasive about having a pair of mutton chops like the gentleman above.

There is, however, a reason why I titled this post "persuasion."

This one's going to be blunt and honest. I'm not in the mood to puff it up with flowery prose and be all artistic about it or whatever. Truth is on the menu tonight.

Back in 2008, I got really involved in the presidential election, mostly in the primaries. My guy lost. Then my party lost. I spent a lot of time being angry and upset, and in general I was a tool to a lot of people. After the dust settled and I got back to work on making my own dreams come true, I tried to figure out what I'd learned.

Presidential primaries are a time of heightened emotions. Often times those emotions are negative. Lots of name-calling, lots of judgment, lots of condescension and holier/smarter-than-thou attitudes. It's like for a year everyone takes their "Right To Be An @$$hole" license and gets every inch they can out of it.

I was one of those people.

I didn't like it. It sucked. I promised myself I wouldn't let it happen again.

Magically here we are three years later. A few candidates have announced--eighteen frigging months ahead of the general, nine months ahead of ANY primary or caucus--and already people are pulling out their licenses. I'd be lying if I said I didn't get caught up in a few online arguments in comment threads or chat boxes.

Already we have celebrities, pundits, journalists and talking heads, throwing their two cents around, smug and sanctimonious about who they want to win, and treating others as if they're dumber than a sack of hammers for disagreeing. Why? What does it accomplish? (Other than starting an interminable argument about who's the bigger horse's arse?)

Well, I'm serious about not letting every small piece of (often fabricated) news dominate my attention and determine how I feel. I'm not going to let the snide remarks about one candidate or another ruin my day. I'm not going to waste time on it.

Because it is a waste of time. It's time I could spend writing, drawing, blogging, advancing my career.

Paying attention to it isn't going to change it anyway.

So in an effort to overcome that natural human tendency to become a complete tool during political season, I'm going to abstain from political news from the rest of the summer. I'm not going to read any articles, or comment threads, or tweets, or what have you, on the presidential primaries until September.

I won't waste time getting worked up over something that absolutely does not matter right now. We have half a dozen good candidates, they're going to make their case all summer long, and I don't see how beefing one up or tearing another down will matter by Christmas. Screw it. I will enjoy this summer, I will be productive, and I'll worry about civic duties when the time is right.

And I make this promise to you: when I do start to pay attention to the primaries--and the polls, and the candidates, and the whatever--again, I won't get pulled down into all the negativity of it. This is America; we're better than that. We can choose to be better. I choose to be better.

Thanks.

Get back to work.

2011 Bracket, Round 4: BLACKBEARD vs PO

2011-05-27T08:18:00.000-07:00

The video is taking a freakishly long time to load, so I'll just put it up later.

Last week, MEL GIBSON W/ A BEAVER PUPPET made hay of CAPTAIN JACK SPARROW. This may have something to do with Jack's less-than-worthy movie this year...let's hope that in future brackets, he gives us back that good old magic.

This week, CAPTAIN BLACKBEARD goes toe-to-toe with PO. If you're a loyal Grahampager, you'll wait for the video to see the result.

If you're a sneaky, sneaky sneaker-sneak, you'll scroll to the bottom and see the image of the entire May bracket. Sneaker.

Tune in next week for the first battle of June!

UPDATE: The video is here.

Countdown

2011-05-26T00:33:00.001-07:00

I set a deadline to have the first draft of TERRA INIMICA by my birthday weekend. Right now it's looking like 40 chapters or more, but none of them will be super long. This is a fast-moving novel. Probably under 70,000 words.

And somewhere in the midst of it all, I have to find time to overhaul a book that I had previously declared dead. It turns out, it wasn't all dead, just mostly dead. I have a chance to get it looked at, so I'm going to clean it up first.

Looks like it's another two-book summer.

That's okay. We're in hardware mode.

DotW: Ninjas versus Clowns

2011-05-23T12:08:00.000-07:00

TJ Bronley commissioned me for this drawing, which will be used in a series over at his blog, T3MI. I heartily suggest you read it. There will probably be more Ninjas versus Clowns to come. (Though I doubt I'll color them in the future.)

2011 Bracket, Round 3: JACK SPARROW vs MEL GIBSON

2011-05-20T23:01:00.000-07:00

Now on to week three! Last week, LOKI defeated HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN. Ooh, tough guy.

This week, Captain JACK SPARROW goes up against MEL GIBSON W/ A BEAVER PUPPET.

Who's your money on?

You'll only know if you watch the dice roll! (And sorry for the sound quality.)

Movie Chop: Pirates of the Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides

2011-05-20T22:16:00.000-07:00

Breaking from my regular format, I have some things to say about the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise in general, but I will get into specifics about On Stranger Tides.

In 2003 when I first heard of The Curse of the Black Pearl, I thought meh, they're making a movie about a Disney ride. I saw the trailers, it seemed decently interesting, so I made plans to see it. After all, it had been a hard summer: my grandmother passed away, and I was about to leave the country for my mission, and my little brother Ian had already seen the movie and wouldn't stop talking about it.

(Ian never gets like that about stuff, so that's how I knew it was cool.)

So like everyone else on Earth with a pulse, I saw it and fell in love with it. Brilliant story, great acting, visually delicious, wonderful soundtrack...just enjoyable on all levels. Bruckheimer and his gang knocked it out of the park.

Then 2006 rolled around, and with it Dead Man's Chest, the eagerly anticipated sequel. It was to Black Pearl what Empire Strikes Back was to A New Hope: a pretty good story, but totally incomplete, and would remain so until the cliffhanger was resolved.

And let's be honest with ourselves: it was a pretty big damn cliffhanger. Darth Vader was Luke's father, and Han Solo was frozen in carbonite to be delivered to Jabba the Hutt? That's not nearly as big as Captain Jack Sparrow looking a kraken right in the mouth and running straight at it, going down with his beloved ship...only to learn moments later that Captain Barbossa is still alive.

A lot of people disliked Dead Man's Chest. I understand why--it was a different treatment from the first one, but I still thought it was great. Jack Sparrow was still wildly entertaining, had plenty of good quips, and generally kept things moving in a curious direction.

A year later, At Worlds End hit theaters...and you'd better believe I had midnight tickets. It had everything that I expected from a third film: we found out how Barbossa survived (sea goddess), where Jack went (Davy Jones' locker), and how the crew of the Black Pearl could retrieve him (sailing to the end of the world.)

The whole thing ended with an epic sea battle between the Caribbean's two most awesome pirate ships: the Black Pearl and the Flying Dutchmen. Some argue that it was pointless to unite a pirate navy against the British fleet only to not have them fight, and I agree...but I also get why they didn't do it (time! budget! whatever!) so I'm not bothered. (Although I did start to yawn and roll my eyes when Calypso grew to 50 feet tall, spat some jibber-jabber, turned into a pile of crabs, and fell off the side of the Pearl.)

And now, in 2011, we have On Stranger Tides. In a lot of ways...I'm unhappy.

Don't get me wrong: it wasn't a bad film. I for one got my expectations up way too high. Last year I read the Tim Powers novel twice, because it was so amazing. It had very little in common with the movie's story (which I anticipated, and that's fine) but I did hope that the movie would still enthrall me. Maybe not in the way that the book had, but in the way that the previous three had.

I could bore you with a long and detailed list of why I think this is, but...wait, yes, I'll bore you with that list.

1) CHARACTERS
In this one, we only saw three characters who had been in the three previous films: Sparrow, Barbossa, and Gibbs. Keith Richards reprised his role as Captain Teague for a whole three minutes, and my wife insists that one of the British sailors was in the previous films, but I dunno.

Blackbeard was historically and folklorically accurate, so that's cool. They even threw in the "Hell, if I didn't [insert dastardly act] every now and then, you'd forget who I was" line.

This story did lack Will and Elizabeth. I didn't think I'd miss them. But I did.

In fact, I missed all of Jack's crew. That was a problem: what's a Captain without his crew? Can you really have a whole Star Trek story with just Kirk and Spock? I don't think so. This film didn't get me the way the others did, because it was basically Star Trek with no Scotty, Uhura, Bones, Sulu or Chekov (or even the Enterprise for that matter.) I guess that while you couldn't have an awesome POTC movie without Jack, you can't have one with just Jack either.

And the crappy thing about that is, they could've included the old crew. But instead they injected a bunch of new (and really, really meaningless characters for whom I cared nothing.) There was, I dunno, some nameless missionary who hooked up with a near-pointless mermaid, then some zombies (that talk?) and a Spaniard who's like, ooh-aah, dangerous, and he appears all of four times.

I will say this: Barbossa was really something in this flick. Not enough to be a scene-stealer, but pivotal and meaningful. A man of passion. Watching the whole movie really pays off to see how it ends for him.

2) SETTING

They filmed this one in Hawaii--and it feels nothing at all like the last three.

I think it's cool that they used mermaids in this one. They've done everything else--skeletons, sea monsters, fish-people, massive storms...it fit well.

Wonder where they'll go from here.

3) ORIGINS

It's lost the original feel of being based on the Disney ride. (Even the third one had the sounds that came directly from the ride, including the parrot saying "Dead men tell no tales."

Jack did say "It's a pirate's life for me," which was close, but still. Maybe I'm being too nitpicky...

However, the redeeming moment in this category was when Jack and Barbossa went aboard Ponce de Leon's ship. I won't spoil it, suffice to say that it was very entertaining.

4) COMIC RELIEF

It also lacked Pintel and Raghetti (the two dunce pirates, one of whom had a wooden eye.) I missed them too.

Jack was still funny, but not as funny. No really quotable quips or memorable one-liners from this one. Well, maybe one or two, but not like the last ones. :(

5) CONTINUITY

I will say this much: each of the three previous films gave me an ending that wrapped up the whole thing in spectacular form, and when I walked out of the theater I was wholly satisfied. This fourth film had a wonderful ending, even if it took a really weird road to get there. In a lot of ways it solved its own problems and set up the any future films to be as good as the last ones...if they handle it right.

I even really liked the way the third movie ended. It was really heart-wrenching, a great conclusion, a victory for all the good guys. Again, so was this one. I just hope that if they do a fifth one, they look back to what made the first one great.

I dunno, I think I'm done complaining now. Go see the movie and decide for yourself. And if you don't see the movie, at least buy the soundtrack. Hans Zimmer will never disappoint you.

I'm kind of burned out on pirate stuff for a while, so I'll let it be and go read something else. Have a great night.

Outlining

2011-05-18T23:28:00.000-07:00

Two summers ago I figured out a basic way to help me outline my stories more thoroughly. (DJ cataloged it here on the Inker blog.)

Funny thing is, I haven't re-used that method more than once or twice since 2009. At least not in its purest form. Which might explain why I haven't completely finished any new projects since then. (Wow...I just realized that. And it hurts. I mean yeah, I moved like four times last year, but still.)

Well, tonight I rebooted, and supplemented my note card method with a large plot map. Basically you write out what happens to your POV characters, and chart out the connectivity between them, then apply the note card method. This lets you maintain continuity, include all the elements and scenes you want, and move the story quicker.

And it keeps it all in order.

Here's a pic of the overall outline for TERRA INIMICA. Should start drafting next week. This will be fun.

Book Chop: Lamplighter (Monster Blood Tattoo, #2)

2011-05-18T08:26:00.000-07:00

Title: LAMPLIGHTER
Author: DM Cornish
Genre: Middle-grade high fantasy
Verdict: Really picks up the series and puts it on its feet.

In December I read and Chopped the first book in this series. You'll note that I described it as a "delightful book about nothing."

Well, after having time to chew on that (and read the sequel) I have more to say about it. As mentioned before, Cornish's road to publication was a little off the beaten path: he'd spent years developing the world of the "Monster Blood Tattoo" series, more as a hobby than anything else. When a literary agent came into the mix, he was paid small advances to write 1000 words per week. Eventually they got a story good enough for one book, and that was FOUNDLING (book 1.)

FOUNDLING was a good adventure. New words to learn, new concepts to understand, and characters to meet. The entire book is about Rossamund, an orphan, who leaves his orphanage and reports for duty at the Lamplighter Corps. On the way he gets delayed, and meets a bunch of people who are important later.

In LAMPLIGHTER, things really start to pick up, and we see this vivid and detailed world through a much larger scope. The Lamplighters are a military organization, protecting people on long country roads from monsters. They walk from one fortress at dusk, light the lamps, and sleep at another fortress, then return the next morning to douse the lamps. If they find monsters, they fight them. If they kill them, they take the blood-ichor from the monster and give themselves tattoos (hence the series title.)

Rossamund meets new characters, reunites with old ones, and learns of a sinister plot within the Lamplighter Corps: people are making monsters and hiding them inside the fortresses, attempting to take them over.

I really don't want to say any more than that, because the story and world are both interesting enough to merit your full attention. Especially the last few chapters, wherein you learn something devastating about Rossamund's true origins.

The third book, FACTOTUM, is already out. I intend to read it soon. The series gets a PG rating--some grotesque monster violence, and some characters get injured, but nothing worse than say, the Spiderwick Chronicles movie.

Enjoy!

Wedding Fight

2011-05-17T22:11:00.000-07:00

My sister got some candids back to us from right after Schaara and I got sealed. I totally forgot that my new aunt Jess and I got in a fight that day. Don't believe it? I've got photographic proof.

There I was, standing right behind my brand new wife, when Jess comes up (pink sweater, between me and Schaara) saying something like I stole her dessert out of the fridge last night or whatever.

And I was like woman, this is a dog-eat-dog world, and I'll take whatever dessert gets in my way, I don't care who put it there.

Then she was like, come over here and say that to my face.

So I did. And she tried to bust out some crazy karate moves, 'cause she's like a 4th degree black belt or something.

But then my sister-in-law Eliza confessed to eating the dessert, and was like "It wasn't even that good but I ate it anyway, what are you going to do about it, punk," so Jess ran off to throw down with an eight year-old.

Then I went back to Schaara, and we took more pictures.

Happy day. :-)

Quixote in the 21st Century

2011-05-16T08:40:00.001-07:00

Wherein Don Quixote de la Mancha trades in his horse and lance for a V-Rod and a rocket launcher, to slay wind turbines in lieu of windmills.

(I mean come on, the book was written 400 years ago, let's update it...)