What To Do When You Think You are Optimus Prime and Have a Sore Throat

Fantasy Sci-Fi Network Interview

Kasper Beaumont of the Fantasy Sci-Fi Network recently interviewed me. It is a bit long-winded but at least there is the occasional writer tip and ideas in the care for your favorite pet chicken. Kasper was great. I hope you like it. You can read it here.

http://goo.gl/wnBWEs

Work in Progress, Progress

Today marks exactly one month since I decided to start maintaining a consistent daily word count.  That is the longest I have ever gone without at least taking a day off. I have been tempted several times, but so far so good.

I started with a very modest 250 words per day goal. Sometimes writers sabotage themselves by tackling a goal that causes them to burn out quickly. I thought that 250 words was easily do-able for a couple of weeks, which is what I have heard is the length of time required to build a habit. After that, I began increasing my daily word count by 125 words per week. Ultimately, I hope to hit at least 2000 words per day.

Many people write far more than that. Some produce 5000, 10,000, and more. If I can manage more, great. I want to take it one step at a time though. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Or, as a man I once knew often said, “Aim for one percent better per day.”

I might be jinxing myself for posting the progress on my horror novel, but here is the meter so far.

Father's Day

My Father's Day presents. Happy day to my fellow fathers out there!

Star Trek and Candyman Autographs

I stumbled across these today in my files and thought I would share. I met several of the Star Trek cast in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Chase Masterson is one of the nicest people I have ever met, celebrity or otherwise. Star Trek fans will probably remember her as Leeta from Deep Space Nine.

I did not get to talk much with John de Lancie ("Q"). He was nice but quiet.

Tony Todd is very cool. As seen here, he is Candyman, but he was also Worf's brother Kurn from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. When I met him, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen had just premiered. (He was the voice of The Fallen.) I did not want to bother him and be all star struck, so I got my autograph and proceeded to move on. He stopped me, shook my hand, and asked me whether I had seen Transformers. I told him my wife and I had seen it just the previous night. He asked what we thought about the movie, and he continued to talk with me for several minutes. I hear so many stories about celebrities being rude.  Tony Todd is 100% class.

The Writer Who Sketches

          Back in March, my mother-in-law got word of an art contest, hosted by a local merchant. She encouraged me to sign up. Actually, she told my wife, “Sam needs to enter this.” It was more ultimatum than encouragement. Bless her heart.

          Well, I am by no means a professional artist. I like fiddling with art supplies. Once, I even considered a career as an illustrator after my boss at the Native American casino where I was marketing director let me design a few advertisements. But I found that I enjoyed writing fiction more.

          Besides, I had not entered an art contest since I was six years old.  (Although that entry did win me a Happy Meal.)

          The only rules were that it had to be a sketch (no Photoshop) and it had to be of ‘nature’.  My entry is below. I always liked bridges and those gnarly oaks that look like tortured souls. It is graphite on rough tooth sketching paper. I used four pencils: 4HB, HB, 2B, and 4B.

          And . . . well, . . . my sketch won.  Or at least it ranked as one of the winners. The sticky note that came back with it said, ‘Adult Winner #2.’

          This time the prize was $20, which made me seriously consider enduring the sidelong glances when a 43-year-old man ordered a Happy Meal and nothing else.

          “Is that To Go, sir?”

          “Nope!” Then, I would hold up my sketch and shout, “Booyah!”

Star Trek's Main Klingon Michael Dorn's Autograph

          My wonderful niece recently attended a Star Trek convention in Texas. While there, she met several of the Star Trek cast, including Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, John de Lancie, Denise Crosby, Marina Sirtis, William Shatner, and others.

          Always generous, she thought of her only slightly geeky Star Trek fan of an uncle and bought me the Deep Space Nine comic below. She asked Michael Dorn (Worf) to sign it for me.

          Thanks Beth!  You are awesome!

Northwest of Eden

My best friend of the last 37 years, Yancy Caruthers, published his first book.  I could not be more proud of him.  This memoir recounts a year-long tour of duty at the Al Asad Airbase in Iraq.  It's nonfiction that reads like a thriller, telling an in medias res story of a real military hospital. 

          Parts reminded me of the old TV series MASH.  Other parts played out far differently.  Not always do the scenes gush blood and guts.  There are pranks and gun barrels and broken chairs, swollen feet and good food and pitch-black chopper rides.

          Yancy also gave me the honor of designing the book cover.

UPDATE:  20 May 2014 --

         Here is an old video of Yancy that I just found when he was stationed in Iraq.

You can purchase Northwest of Eden through . . .

Kindle

 

Paperback

Also, drop by his Facebook page.  He would love to see you. 

          If you read Northwest of Eden, please leave a review.  Each improves his book’s visibility in the vast crowd.  He reads every comment, because he is the type of writer who wants to know his readers and appreciates their support.  

About the author:

Yancy Caruthers retired from twenty years of service in the U.S. Army Reserve after completing his second deployment to Iraq. He left the nursing profession in 2010 and now lives abroad with his family.

Midwest Tornado

          I intended to talk about the second episode of Salem today.  However, yesterday a tornado tore through some of the surrounding towns, and so one of my snarky reviews just doesn't feel right.

          I don't want to go into a lot of glorified, gruesome details about tornadoes and commit the written version of rubber necking.  One of my friends, while uninjured, lost everything.  Otherwise we are all okay.

          Keep 'em in your thoughts, folks.

Salem Witch Trial Viewing

          Hear ye!  Hear ye!  Here there be spoilers.

         

          I watched episode 1 of Salem last night.  Judging the show at this point is probably not fair.  This was merely the get-to-know-us-and-our-thigh-suckling-toads episode. 

          My first thought was a phrase my best friend often used when we were children:  extremely mediocre.  It doesn't really mean anything.  It is just fun to say.

          The part of me my wife calls the Writer Snob thinks they are trying too hard to shock.  Besides the whole toad sucking thing, lots of people get nekkid.  By "lots," I mean we see butts and side boob and the witch-hunting reverend preaching doggie style.  (Oppa Salem Style!)  Nekkidness doesn't bother me, but I suspect this will become a cheap ratings device.  The first couple of episodes we will see several of the cast's finest heinies.  Then we will enter Puritan wasteland where we have lots of plot and other story thingies occasionally interrupted by a gratuitous cleavage shot.  Depending on whether it is Sweeps Week.

          The show opens by telling you it is September 21.  I know little of the historical facts of Salem, but this strikes me funny that the date is also Stephen King's birthday. 

          Isaac "Fornicator" Walton confesses to "gazing upon the nakedness of Abigail Cook."  I love how Iddo Goldberg delivered this line, almost bored.  I'm in stocks, I'm about to get "ten hard ones" with a whip across my back, a scarlet F branded into my forehead, and I have to pee.  Can we hurry this up?  I haven't had coffee yet.

          He also confesses to "self pollution."

          My wife looked up from her Facebook game and said, "He did what?"

          "Self pollution."

          Blank stare.

          "He defiled himself.  He peeped at Miss Abigail and took Little Isaac in hand."

          Still a blank stare, but this one was to inform me that I am a goober.

         

          At the end of Act I, Tituba and Mary perform a sort of Satanic abortion of John Alden's child, complete with some Satanic baby oil as personal lube.  The Devil cavorts satyr-like through the forest, while the procedure is performed by a tree (a tree surgeon?) with its black goo that resembles Venom from Spider-Man.  As best I can figure, Mary agrees to this so no one knows that she and John Alden played Doctor in the graveyard, and so she doesn't have to say, "No, the F doesn't stand for Forehead!" the rest of her life.  Suddenly everything is over, Mary looks down at herself, while Tituba is obviously calling Ye Ole Guiness Book of World Records to report the world's fastest tummy tuck.  Immediately, we jump into Act II and seven years into Salem's future, where John Alden has returned from war and Tituba's accent is gradually becoming more Marie Laveau-ish. 

          Mary married Mr. Sibley and apparently gave him a frog in the throat as a wedding gift.  

          There are many thinly veiled morals of the story.  The witch hunt seems to be telling us to look at our own hypocrisy.  Also, the story emphasizes an ongoing comparison between the two Puritan "enemies," which are the witches amongst us and the Native Americans beyond the town borders.  Both are savage "nature worshippers." 

          This is not addressed in the show, but whenever I hear anything about the Salem Witch Trials, I think back to something I read when I was still in high school.  (In the era my son refers to as Before Technology.)  The Salem prosecutors hosted various, no-win tests to see whether you were a witch.  The one that fascinated me most was dunking the person's head in a bucket filled with water.  If they lived, they were a witch. 

          Honestly, Salem is not that bad.  There were a few moments of genuine creepiness, in a The Exorcist sort of way.  It is WGN America's first originally scripted series. Star Trek's Brannon Braga creates, executive produces, writes, and generally kitchen-sinks the whole thing. 

          I would watch again. 

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