Running a nice little promotion over on Amazon today for one of the sections of the dark fantasy anthology "Into the Dust" that I co-wrote with Kiri Callaghan. For today and tomorrow (April 24th and 25th), "Avast" will be absolutely free as a download for Kindle, right here:
http://www.amazon.com/Avast-Into-the-Dust-ebook/dp/B007FDVIVA
"Into the Dust" is a 10-episode serial retelling the Peter Pan story as a dark fantasy. It's also the prequel to another novel currently in production and due out later this year. But for now, it's a great chance to take a look at a different sort of Neverland.
Take a peek and see what you think. It only costs a single happy thought - what have you got to lose?
Apr 24, 2012
Addendum to my last post
In all the excitement about chronocling the recent conversation between my daughter and I, I completely neglected one of the funniest bits. Shame on me!
As we were driving away from the UW campus, we both remarked on how hungry we were, and ran through a quick list of the nearby foodstuffs in the area. We sped through a variety of world cuisine, and we came up on Dick's Drive In - great burgers, if you've been there you know.
I said, "oh, hey, we can go there, to Dick's Burgers."
Jillie started giggling uncontrollably.
"What's so funny?" I asked innocently. "Is 'Burgers' a funny word?"
Her: "No." *giggle*
Me: "Oh, 'Dicks'? Is the word 'Dicks' funny?"
Her: *giggling hysterically*
I'm sure this threatens to revoke any Dad Cred I might have earned, but I don't care. I totally love that my daughter laughs at things like that. It's like she's 12 or something.
Heh.
As we were driving away from the UW campus, we both remarked on how hungry we were, and ran through a quick list of the nearby foodstuffs in the area. We sped through a variety of world cuisine, and we came up on Dick's Drive In - great burgers, if you've been there you know.
I said, "oh, hey, we can go there, to Dick's Burgers."
Jillie started giggling uncontrollably.
"What's so funny?" I asked innocently. "Is 'Burgers' a funny word?"
Her: "No." *giggle*
Me: "Oh, 'Dicks'? Is the word 'Dicks' funny?"
Her: *giggling hysterically*
I'm sure this threatens to revoke any Dad Cred I might have earned, but I don't care. I totally love that my daughter laughs at things like that. It's like she's 12 or something.
Heh.
Apr 21, 2012
Leveling Up
Yesterday was a field trip. No, that's not code for playing hooky from work, I volunteered at my daughter's fifth grade field trip to UW's college of Engineering "Discovery Days". It's sort of an open house, where many of the students display some of the more vibrant and dynamic projects in which they are engaged. She was excited about it, and insisted I take a day off from work so we could hang out at a college.
Seriously, who could say no to an invitation like that? Not this dad.
So in spite of some rain - yes, this is Seattle, so what did we expect? - it was a great few hours at the event. We saw an actual wind tunnel, a human powered submarine, and - my personal highlight of the day - met Monty Reed, inventor of the pneumatic-driven lifesuit. Dude is Tony Stark, only thus far Robert Downey Jr isn't playing him in any movies. But it's still early.
Jillie had her iPod handy, snapping pictures of the architecture of the school, and remarking frequently to me how much she loved interesting buildings. We talked about going to England someday so we can look at actual old buildings. Science and innovation was everywhere, floating around the air like cherry blossoms.
Since I'd driven down, we decided to hang out a bit longer at the event, and then take a nice drive around the city. Since we live about a half hour out, we don't usually get the chance, so now that the rain had gone away, it seemed a perfect time to do so. We drove around aimlessly in the downtown streets, Jillie pointing at this building or that, and I even pointed out a few buildings I've been considering for inclusion in an upcoming novel. As most of our downtown trips require, we swung by Uwajimaya's and picked up a few new manga (which catches her up on Soul Eater) and some treats for us to share later as a family. You know the drill - pocky, Ramune, all the basics. A short lunch later and we were back on the road.
Now, ever since Jillie was a wee thing, we've tried to be open and honest with her, and tried to encourage an air of sharing between us. Frequent readers of this blog or my Middle Age books will no doubt recognize
this pattern. It does, on occasion, lead us into potentially awkward situations (such as being asked to help her shop for bras a few months back), but every time I've come away being more and more impressed by this wonderfully intelligent child that I somehow have been granted the opportunity to help raise and be a father to.
Our drive back home provided the perfect backdrop to a new series of conversations. It started with a reflection on the Discovery Days, and with both of us wondering aloud just what Jillian might be when she grows up. The choices are out there, broad in scope, with no real demand for a decision as yet. For now, Jillie is enjoying writing stories and drawing. She's not far off from how I was at her age. Dungeons and Dragons, video games, friends, comic books and music. Pretty standard fare, yes?
We talked about life wishes, and I confessed that Neil Gaiman has stepped up to share the top spot with Sting on my list of people I'd love to hang out with someday over a cup of coffee or a glass of wine. We both agreed that Yoko Kanno would also be extremely cool to meet, and she started thinking of a list like that of her own.
This conversation led naturally into one about growing up in general - exploring the world, learning everything, and yet Jillie insists that she will always live near us, calling or visiting us every day to share in the joy of new discoveries and celebrating new successes of dreams realized and boundaries broken. I can think of no greater way to spend a life, really.
I laughed when I told her that one of the things that worried Lizz and I was the general tendency of teenagers to rebel against the constraints of their parents. I admitted that although it wasn't like we just let her go insane on the world, we tried to apply logic and wisdom to every restriction we applied to her life - and even then, it isn't like there are many of them. We try to help her learn from every rule - why it exists as a rule and what we hope she will gain from it. In the end, we want her to be able to be the master of her own life.
It went from there into a brief conversation about her shaving her head and getting tattoos - by which I mean to say she made the cartoon gagging face at my implication that she'd ever do either. I told her it was at some point going to be her choice, and that like so many choices she would face in life, there would come a time where Lizz and I were not going to be in the room when she had to make them.
One of the things that I carried with me from my youth was the idea of making your decision before you ever had to make a stand - to decide what you wanted to do in certain situations long before you found yourself in a place where you were being asked to decide it. I told her, also, that things like drinking (before you're 21) and smoking, doing drugs, and having sex were all things that, in the moment, may no longer seem like such bad things. Almost as if they're good things. People might like you. They might like you more. They might not make fun of you. In that moment, it's almost too late to decide what you want to do.
At this point, we'd gotten home, but she asked if we could stay in the car and just talk - that way the dogs wouldn't interrupt.
Drinking, smoking, doing drugs - those were all clear issues for her. But when we listed off sex, she made a horrified and confused expression. "Oh my god, why would I want to do that ever? I'm not having sex until, like, at least two or three years after I get MARRIED!"
My laughter surprised her, so I had to explain. (author's note: I asked her before I decided to write this for her permission - she thought it might help other dads feel more comfortable talking to their daughters about sex, so told me to go ahead with her blessing)
Me: "You mean, you're not going to try and have babies until two or three years after you get married, right?"
Her: "Right. So I can wait and have sex, then."
Me: (after a healthy pause) "Well, you know sex isn't ONLY for making babies."
She looked at me like I was a crazy man. "But it's GROSS!"
Me: "Okay, let's be honest about it. Sex might seem gross to you, but it can be a pretty wonderful thing that two people who truly love each other and love being with each other can do. It's like kissing, only thousands of times better - it's like kissing, hugging, riding a roller coaster, eating a bite of the best chocolate ever made, laughing, tickling - it's one of the truly best feelings two people can ever share. But, yes, it's also a way that people can try and make babies. But it's not JUST for that."
We'd talked a bit earlier about Darwinism, and about how his theory suggests that (for example) only the tall giraffes could eat, so the short giraffes all died, leaving only tall giraffes. I added that people felt good having sex so that they'd do it a lot - because if people didn't make babies, then the people were all gonna die.
"But also," I added, "when you're with somebody you really really like, you're gonna kiss them (No, Jillie, stop making the yuck face, it's going to happen and it's okay. It'll happen). But when you do, you're going to feel all kinds of tingly, and your body is going to start thinking it's time to go further than just kissing. It's going to feel like it's okay to do more."
Her: "So you kiss and then you have sex?"
Me: "Well, no, there's a few steps between one and the other."
Her: "Oh, like people touching your...."
Me: "Your 'privacy bits', yes."
Her: "Well, that's OFF LIMITS."
Me: "But as you get older, and when you start to really kiss a person you really like, that part might not feel like it wants to be off limits."
Her: "Well, I'm just gonna tell them no. And if they try it, I'm gonna punch them in the face."
Me: "I'd rather there was no punching, but if you say no and they don't listen, then do what you have to do, yes."
Her: "If a boy doesn't listen when I say no, then I'm not going to be friends with them."
Me: "If a boy doesn't listen when you say no, then he's already not friends with you."
Her: "And he better not punch back."
Me: "Better not."
Her: "So that's why I'm going to wait."
Me: "Well, I just think it's best that you take any of those steps one at a time, and give yourself a chance to make each choice with a clear head. And THAT's the decision you have to make before you even find yourself kissing someone."
She pondered this for a moment, and nodded thoughtfully. And what she said next made me feel like I was somehow witness to the greatest realization of the universe.
"I think it's like in a video game. You have to start playing by learning how to fight little stuff, and then when you level up, you can fight more powerful stuff. But you have to level up and get cool weapons and equipment first, and level your party up, too. And sex is like...the BOSS. If you try to fight him before you're ready, he just KILLS YOU."
So there it was. My 11 year old daughter just explained sex with a metaphor as playing video games. Leveling up.
We laughed about that for a few minutes - I admitted that I couldn't have imagined a better metaphor to use for that entire conversation, and we decided it was a good point to wrap it up, go on inside and watch a bit of television and relax. Meanwhile, I sat there and pondered the fact that my daughter is simply amazing.
Twelve years ago, I was terrified. I felt - no, I was certain - that I was unfit to the task. I didn't think my experiences or knowledge were anywhere close to being adequate to the responsibility of being a father. There are still days I feel that sting of life-applied humility. But yesterday... I felt like I'd kind of leveled up in the Dad video game. Or at least, she leveled up as my little girl. She's just awesome. Eleven years old, and already making analogies like an old pro.
So, yeah, college is still a few years off, and no, I'm really not in any hurry to see my little girl going off into the world - - but I definitely feel a lot better about her ability to do so in a grand way.
Hear that, world? Get ready.
Seriously, who could say no to an invitation like that? Not this dad.
So in spite of some rain - yes, this is Seattle, so what did we expect? - it was a great few hours at the event. We saw an actual wind tunnel, a human powered submarine, and - my personal highlight of the day - met Monty Reed, inventor of the pneumatic-driven lifesuit. Dude is Tony Stark, only thus far Robert Downey Jr isn't playing him in any movies. But it's still early.
Jillie had her iPod handy, snapping pictures of the architecture of the school, and remarking frequently to me how much she loved interesting buildings. We talked about going to England someday so we can look at actual old buildings. Science and innovation was everywhere, floating around the air like cherry blossoms.
Now, ever since Jillie was a wee thing, we've tried to be open and honest with her, and tried to encourage an air of sharing between us. Frequent readers of this blog or my Middle Age books will no doubt recognize
this pattern. It does, on occasion, lead us into potentially awkward situations (such as being asked to help her shop for bras a few months back), but every time I've come away being more and more impressed by this wonderfully intelligent child that I somehow have been granted the opportunity to help raise and be a father to.
We talked about life wishes, and I confessed that Neil Gaiman has stepped up to share the top spot with Sting on my list of people I'd love to hang out with someday over a cup of coffee or a glass of wine. We both agreed that Yoko Kanno would also be extremely cool to meet, and she started thinking of a list like that of her own.
This conversation led naturally into one about growing up in general - exploring the world, learning everything, and yet Jillie insists that she will always live near us, calling or visiting us every day to share in the joy of new discoveries and celebrating new successes of dreams realized and boundaries broken. I can think of no greater way to spend a life, really.
I laughed when I told her that one of the things that worried Lizz and I was the general tendency of teenagers to rebel against the constraints of their parents. I admitted that although it wasn't like we just let her go insane on the world, we tried to apply logic and wisdom to every restriction we applied to her life - and even then, it isn't like there are many of them. We try to help her learn from every rule - why it exists as a rule and what we hope she will gain from it. In the end, we want her to be able to be the master of her own life.
It went from there into a brief conversation about her shaving her head and getting tattoos - by which I mean to say she made the cartoon gagging face at my implication that she'd ever do either. I told her it was at some point going to be her choice, and that like so many choices she would face in life, there would come a time where Lizz and I were not going to be in the room when she had to make them.
One of the things that I carried with me from my youth was the idea of making your decision before you ever had to make a stand - to decide what you wanted to do in certain situations long before you found yourself in a place where you were being asked to decide it. I told her, also, that things like drinking (before you're 21) and smoking, doing drugs, and having sex were all things that, in the moment, may no longer seem like such bad things. Almost as if they're good things. People might like you. They might like you more. They might not make fun of you. In that moment, it's almost too late to decide what you want to do.
At this point, we'd gotten home, but she asked if we could stay in the car and just talk - that way the dogs wouldn't interrupt.
Drinking, smoking, doing drugs - those were all clear issues for her. But when we listed off sex, she made a horrified and confused expression. "Oh my god, why would I want to do that ever? I'm not having sex until, like, at least two or three years after I get MARRIED!"
My laughter surprised her, so I had to explain. (author's note: I asked her before I decided to write this for her permission - she thought it might help other dads feel more comfortable talking to their daughters about sex, so told me to go ahead with her blessing)
Me: "You mean, you're not going to try and have babies until two or three years after you get married, right?"
Her: "Right. So I can wait and have sex, then."
Me: (after a healthy pause) "Well, you know sex isn't ONLY for making babies."
She looked at me like I was a crazy man. "But it's GROSS!"
Me: "Okay, let's be honest about it. Sex might seem gross to you, but it can be a pretty wonderful thing that two people who truly love each other and love being with each other can do. It's like kissing, only thousands of times better - it's like kissing, hugging, riding a roller coaster, eating a bite of the best chocolate ever made, laughing, tickling - it's one of the truly best feelings two people can ever share. But, yes, it's also a way that people can try and make babies. But it's not JUST for that."We'd talked a bit earlier about Darwinism, and about how his theory suggests that (for example) only the tall giraffes could eat, so the short giraffes all died, leaving only tall giraffes. I added that people felt good having sex so that they'd do it a lot - because if people didn't make babies, then the people were all gonna die.
"But also," I added, "when you're with somebody you really really like, you're gonna kiss them (No, Jillie, stop making the yuck face, it's going to happen and it's okay. It'll happen). But when you do, you're going to feel all kinds of tingly, and your body is going to start thinking it's time to go further than just kissing. It's going to feel like it's okay to do more."
Her: "So you kiss and then you have sex?"
Me: "Well, no, there's a few steps between one and the other."
Her: "Oh, like people touching your...."
Me: "Your 'privacy bits', yes."
Her: "Well, that's OFF LIMITS."
Me: "But as you get older, and when you start to really kiss a person you really like, that part might not feel like it wants to be off limits."
Her: "Well, I'm just gonna tell them no. And if they try it, I'm gonna punch them in the face."
Me: "I'd rather there was no punching, but if you say no and they don't listen, then do what you have to do, yes."
Her: "If a boy doesn't listen when I say no, then I'm not going to be friends with them."
Me: "If a boy doesn't listen when you say no, then he's already not friends with you."
Her: "And he better not punch back."
Me: "Better not."
Her: "So that's why I'm going to wait."
Me: "Well, I just think it's best that you take any of those steps one at a time, and give yourself a chance to make each choice with a clear head. And THAT's the decision you have to make before you even find yourself kissing someone."
She pondered this for a moment, and nodded thoughtfully. And what she said next made me feel like I was somehow witness to the greatest realization of the universe.
So there it was. My 11 year old daughter just explained sex with a metaphor as playing video games. Leveling up.
We laughed about that for a few minutes - I admitted that I couldn't have imagined a better metaphor to use for that entire conversation, and we decided it was a good point to wrap it up, go on inside and watch a bit of television and relax. Meanwhile, I sat there and pondered the fact that my daughter is simply amazing.
Twelve years ago, I was terrified. I felt - no, I was certain - that I was unfit to the task. I didn't think my experiences or knowledge were anywhere close to being adequate to the responsibility of being a father. There are still days I feel that sting of life-applied humility. But yesterday... I felt like I'd kind of leveled up in the Dad video game. Or at least, she leveled up as my little girl. She's just awesome. Eleven years old, and already making analogies like an old pro.
So, yeah, college is still a few years off, and no, I'm really not in any hurry to see my little girl going off into the world - - but I definitely feel a lot better about her ability to do so in a grand way.
Hear that, world? Get ready.
Apr 11, 2012
Emerald City ComiCon 2012
I spent a weekend at the 2012 Emerald City ComiCon, and I'd meant to jot down my thoughts on it sooner, but...well, I'm still filtering bits of it into my conscious mind. It was a fun and satisfying venture. A nice little write up can be found over on the Talaria Press site - go check it out here if you have the inclination.
But I also got to hang with some great folks - new and old friends alike - and got to deal with a nice little case of laryngitis, so clearly I was doing a monster bit of chatting.
Some of the particular folks I got to hang with were (in no particular order):
Joe Benitez - who drew a fantastic sketch of my daughter, cosplayed as Rom from the Aesirium books. He's also giving me some great advice on further ways to expand the books into a few other mediums, but this is a larger project I'll tell you more about later.
Emonic - he and Chemix are some amazingly cool cats, and if you haven't at least met them, then no wonder you've been feeling like your life's just not been complete. Wish these guys lived closer, we'd totally hang out more.
Alexis Cruz - okay, don't look at me like I just started name dropping. Alexis and I go back years, but I'll be damned if the man didn't just walk up randomly to my table. That was just an awesome moment.
Sometimes, crossing paths with certain people can be viewed as a simple happenstance, but I choose to see this creatively delicious convergence as an indicator that things are truly moving in the direction I've been trying to get them to go. Something about just sitting on the other side of the table all weekend long, talking to hundreds of total strangers - at one point talking to THOUSANDS of total strangers - reminded me exactly why I love this business. Telling stories, sharing the creative bent of my fractured brain; it's just a wonderful experience - - talking with others who share a similar path was a great way to reassure my little 7 year old boy shadow that things are gonna be just fine.
Writing is a wonderful experience. Totes worth the effort, worth the occasional self-doubt and the struggles it's taken to get things lifting off. And the best part is that it's just starting.
But "Into the Dust" is finally up, in both ebook and paperback - - which was shockingly easy to produce. It's made me re-examine a lot of the production processes that have served as "common knowledge" thus far.
Literally, the entire project took a bit more than one month, start to finish. The sales have been spectacular, and, because of that, I've changed the timeline for the novel for which this collection serves as a prequel. But that just means I'll be working on potentially all three novels simultaneously.
I'm a madman.
Thankfully, one of those novels will be co-written with another author, so it won't be as brutal of a process, and both this and the third novel are already mostly structurally built out. But just know that though blogging might dwindle a bit, I'll try and post updates either here or over on Twitter or on Facebook. So, yeah, you're not rid of me yet, by any stretch.
Ah crap. And there's the anthology of children's stories I'm doing with my daughter. And the next Talaria Press anthology. Hrm. Okay, no, don't worry. I can juggle it. It'll be another adventure. :)
Anyway, thanks again to Jim Demonakos and his team of convention staff and volunteers - - with an extra shout out to Joe Parrington, who is pretty much an all-around awesome person.
But I also got to hang with some great folks - new and old friends alike - and got to deal with a nice little case of laryngitis, so clearly I was doing a monster bit of chatting.
Joe Benitez - who drew a fantastic sketch of my daughter, cosplayed as Rom from the Aesirium books. He's also giving me some great advice on further ways to expand the books into a few other mediums, but this is a larger project I'll tell you more about later.
Emonic - he and Chemix are some amazingly cool cats, and if you haven't at least met them, then no wonder you've been feeling like your life's just not been complete. Wish these guys lived closer, we'd totally hang out more.
Alexis Cruz - okay, don't look at me like I just started name dropping. Alexis and I go back years, but I'll be damned if the man didn't just walk up randomly to my table. That was just an awesome moment.
Sometimes, crossing paths with certain people can be viewed as a simple happenstance, but I choose to see this creatively delicious convergence as an indicator that things are truly moving in the direction I've been trying to get them to go. Something about just sitting on the other side of the table all weekend long, talking to hundreds of total strangers - at one point talking to THOUSANDS of total strangers - reminded me exactly why I love this business. Telling stories, sharing the creative bent of my fractured brain; it's just a wonderful experience - - talking with others who share a similar path was a great way to reassure my little 7 year old boy shadow that things are gonna be just fine.
Writing is a wonderful experience. Totes worth the effort, worth the occasional self-doubt and the struggles it's taken to get things lifting off. And the best part is that it's just starting.
Speaking of which, we're now in the 4th month of 2012, and I still have 3 novels to finish this year, PLUS a lot more short stories.
Literally, the entire project took a bit more than one month, start to finish. The sales have been spectacular, and, because of that, I've changed the timeline for the novel for which this collection serves as a prequel. But that just means I'll be working on potentially all three novels simultaneously.
I'm a madman.
Thankfully, one of those novels will be co-written with another author, so it won't be as brutal of a process, and both this and the third novel are already mostly structurally built out. But just know that though blogging might dwindle a bit, I'll try and post updates either here or over on Twitter or on Facebook. So, yeah, you're not rid of me yet, by any stretch.
Ah crap. And there's the anthology of children's stories I'm doing with my daughter. And the next Talaria Press anthology. Hrm. Okay, no, don't worry. I can juggle it. It'll be another adventure. :)
Anyway, thanks again to Jim Demonakos and his team of convention staff and volunteers - - with an extra shout out to Joe Parrington, who is pretty much an all-around awesome person.
Choose Your Own Adventure
A couple weeks back, the most ridiculous idea for the most ridiculous publishing concept came up in a half-joking conversation: a do-it-yourself choose your own adventure. Basically, all the page numbers were filled in, and every couple of pages or so would be capped off with “if you choose to do one thing, turn to page 37; if you do something else, turn to page 61, and if you choose to do nothing at all, turn to page 114.” And then, random pages would be covered in endings, such as “You have died” or “You won!” or whatever. Everything else would be blank. I don’t know why somebody hasn’t done that already.
I really loved the “choose your own adventure” books – they were, to my mind, the ancestors of the RPG (though I wonder if they didn’t actually come out later), in that you, the reader, had some say in how the book turned out. There’ve definitely been a lot of books and movies I would love to have had the opportunity to choose my own ending, that’s for sure. Is that arrogance on my part? I don’t know. It’s not so much that I think I can do it better, but I would love a chance to have done it differently. For example, I agree with Joss Whedon when he said that he’d have done Return of the Jedi where Luke and Leia were not actually siblings, but the “other Skywalker” would’ve been a female jedi who totally kicked ass. Tell me that wouldn’t have been awesome.
But those CYOA books just fell in line with my youthful ambitions to tell stories, create my own endings to whatever tale I was reading. Even when I get the occasional moment to play video games, the parts I enjoy most are the storyline elements. The gameplay, sure, it’s fun, it’s dynamic, totally. But give me a cool story that I get to help define as my characters level up, and you’ve got me in the palms of your hands. Most of all when you surprise me in a good way. Tell me a story I haven’t heard before; or tell it in a really interesting way. Don’t just tell me the story that tested well in development or that mirrors the narrative arc that did so well in the theaters last year. Don’t just find a new way to retell Titanic, don’t just reboot dwindling franchises, don’t just do cover songs that sound a lot like the original (though I admit, I kinda liked Pseudo Echo's version of that, much to my deep and abiding shame).
As I was watching a recent episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, he had a guest on there – Elon Musk, entrepreneur made wealthy for his involvement in PayPal who is now developing a private company dedicated to developing space travel. One of the first statements the man said in response to the question “how do you go from PayPal to Space Travel?” was quite illuminating and inspiring. He said “when I was in college, I believed that there were three things which would revolutionize the whole world: the internet, sustainable energy and space travel.” I completely agree, and for the very same reasons that he stated. He explained that the whole problem with the world right now is that we’ve to a very large part abandoned the spirit of exploration. We’ve stopped boldly going; we’ve begun to shift in many ways into a process of just trying to monetize the things we do – rather than following JFK’s indication that "we choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills; because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win ...", we do things only if they are easy and we can get paid for them. Granted, sure, I understand the idea of wanting to have a comfortable lifestyle, but also… we need to keep an eye on the adventures we have not yet dreamed up. Life cannot just be about problem solving. It has to be about dreaming up a world we haven’t yet built and saying “why not?”
Jon’s parting words to Musk were ones I could feel echoed in my own mind: “Take me with you.”
Because come on, what’s happened to us? Last night, my 11 year old daughter was asking me about current technology – a conversation that came out of the innocent question “What’s a Walkman?” – and I pointed out that not 25 years ago in Star Trek, they had datapads, which, at the time, seemed to help place the show physically in the realm of Science Fiction. These conceptual future computers in turn inspired the iPads that now pretty much everyone either has, has seen, or desperately wants. I myself fall into the last two categories, but only for the short term. Sad Ren, huh? I’m still waiting for the flying cars that the movie industry has promised me – though I’d be happy with the maglev cars seen in Minority Report, just so we’re clear. But I’m concerned by the perception that we appear to be catching up with our imaginations a little bit. At least… at least it has SEEMED that way.
I personally do not believe this to be the case. I think it’s a matter of time, really, before things punch through to a new level of imagination and comprehension.
I see it like this: until the world’s explorers fir circumnavigated the globe, there was not yet definitive belief or understanding that the earth was truly round. But discovering that – proving that – forced us to universally update our perceptions. Currently, we have the perceptions of things we publicly indicate to be unchanging and unwavering principles – things like the theory of relativity, for example, which we’ve decided are going to be unshakeable truths.
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Things can’t travel faster than the speed of light? Well, who knows? We used to think things couldn’t travel faster than the speed of sound, and we eventually learned that wasn’t the case, either. And if we proceed with the notion that perhaps things CAN exist in a structure of believe not aligned with what we have traditionally accepted, what will that do to the thousand other possibilities that exist?
In a series of observations woven into the classic postapocalyptic novel “Earth Abides”, one that always stuck with me was the notion that the past does not define the future. Just because you’ve never broken your arm does not mean it is unbreakable. Just as the fact that you have not yet died does not mean you are immortal. Things can happen – sometimes radically – to utterly devastate previous dogmas. Sometimes, the world does it to you. Sometimes you go looking for it.
But these new observations do not happen on the roads which lay so paved and neat, tramped down by generations of travelers. You have to take that path less travelled – or maybe take no path at all, forging ahead into the dark wilderness that yawns wide before us.
Our family tries to take an adventure every year. Sometimes it’s a simple journey, like to Disneyland or whatnot, but other times we have simply jumped into the car and headed out, following our noses. Those are the vacations I love the most – though they’re often quite complex and not always easy. They recharge me, showing me parts of the world I’ve never seen, feeding into the hungry Pit of Carkoon that exists at the center of my creative process. Feed the maw, I say.
Find your own maw, and see what it craves. Feed it. Explore. Experience. Choose your own adventure.
And then come back and share your stories.
I really loved the “choose your own adventure” books – they were, to my mind, the ancestors of the RPG (though I wonder if they didn’t actually come out later), in that you, the reader, had some say in how the book turned out. There’ve definitely been a lot of books and movies I would love to have had the opportunity to choose my own ending, that’s for sure. Is that arrogance on my part? I don’t know. It’s not so much that I think I can do it better, but I would love a chance to have done it differently. For example, I agree with Joss Whedon when he said that he’d have done Return of the Jedi where Luke and Leia were not actually siblings, but the “other Skywalker” would’ve been a female jedi who totally kicked ass. Tell me that wouldn’t have been awesome.
But those CYOA books just fell in line with my youthful ambitions to tell stories, create my own endings to whatever tale I was reading. Even when I get the occasional moment to play video games, the parts I enjoy most are the storyline elements. The gameplay, sure, it’s fun, it’s dynamic, totally. But give me a cool story that I get to help define as my characters level up, and you’ve got me in the palms of your hands. Most of all when you surprise me in a good way. Tell me a story I haven’t heard before; or tell it in a really interesting way. Don’t just tell me the story that tested well in development or that mirrors the narrative arc that did so well in the theaters last year. Don’t just find a new way to retell Titanic, don’t just reboot dwindling franchises, don’t just do cover songs that sound a lot like the original (though I admit, I kinda liked Pseudo Echo's version of that, much to my deep and abiding shame).
Jon’s parting words to Musk were ones I could feel echoed in my own mind: “Take me with you.”
Because come on, what’s happened to us? Last night, my 11 year old daughter was asking me about current technology – a conversation that came out of the innocent question “What’s a Walkman?” – and I pointed out that not 25 years ago in Star Trek, they had datapads, which, at the time, seemed to help place the show physically in the realm of Science Fiction. These conceptual future computers in turn inspired the iPads that now pretty much everyone either has, has seen, or desperately wants. I myself fall into the last two categories, but only for the short term. Sad Ren, huh? I’m still waiting for the flying cars that the movie industry has promised me – though I’d be happy with the maglev cars seen in Minority Report, just so we’re clear. But I’m concerned by the perception that we appear to be catching up with our imaginations a little bit. At least… at least it has SEEMED that way.
I personally do not believe this to be the case. I think it’s a matter of time, really, before things punch through to a new level of imagination and comprehension.
I see it like this: until the world’s explorers fir circumnavigated the globe, there was not yet definitive belief or understanding that the earth was truly round. But discovering that – proving that – forced us to universally update our perceptions. Currently, we have the perceptions of things we publicly indicate to be unchanging and unwavering principles – things like the theory of relativity, for example, which we’ve decided are going to be unshakeable truths.
In a series of observations woven into the classic postapocalyptic novel “Earth Abides”, one that always stuck with me was the notion that the past does not define the future. Just because you’ve never broken your arm does not mean it is unbreakable. Just as the fact that you have not yet died does not mean you are immortal. Things can happen – sometimes radically – to utterly devastate previous dogmas. Sometimes, the world does it to you. Sometimes you go looking for it.
But these new observations do not happen on the roads which lay so paved and neat, tramped down by generations of travelers. You have to take that path less travelled – or maybe take no path at all, forging ahead into the dark wilderness that yawns wide before us.
Our family tries to take an adventure every year. Sometimes it’s a simple journey, like to Disneyland or whatnot, but other times we have simply jumped into the car and headed out, following our noses. Those are the vacations I love the most – though they’re often quite complex and not always easy. They recharge me, showing me parts of the world I’ve never seen, feeding into the hungry Pit of Carkoon that exists at the center of my creative process. Feed the maw, I say.
Find your own maw, and see what it craves. Feed it. Explore. Experience. Choose your own adventure.
And then come back and share your stories.
Mar 13, 2012
From a Certain Point of View
I wonder how many people would flat out argue with me if I said that a venti white chocolate mocha from Starbucks is the best drink ever in the history of the universe.
Hmm. Probably most people.
I was pondering a few things all at once - as I am wont to do - and they rather jumbled into a thick stew in my brainy parts, and this was the thing that came out. But I'm starting out with the punch line; arguably the wonkiest way to start a joke. Ah, so WABAC machine set, Mister Peabody. Allons-y!
When I was, oh, about 5 or 6, I remember sleeping in the back seat of our family car. It might have been the toyota pickup or it might have been the blazer - hard to say, because I was asleep at that moment. But I remember thinking very specifically in that moment that how a car drove around the world was a complex thing, and what if the car itself wasn't moving, but what if the car remained still while the world moved beneath it? Once I did the math on that and realized that there was no way that the world could move independently beneath every single car, I maintained that little half-illusion for a bit more and thought it was an amusing concept, nonetheless. Years later, there are dreams I have at night that I hit the snooze button a couple times for, just on the off chance I can just jump right back in and enjoy a few more moments of.
Some dreams are good that way.
That recollection mingled with a few current political conversations that I won't bore you all with, but I'll let you enjoy the recognition of that particular metaphorical interplay for a moment.
Yeah. Funny, huh? Okay, moving on.
John Carter of Mars came out this weekend, and all the internet was talking about how much of a bomb it was. Yeah, 100 million dollars in its first weekend, and it's a bomb. Huh. Weird. I gotta say, I wouldn't mind having a bomb or two like that in my media empire. I'm looking forward to seeing the movie - yes, I haven't seen it yet, but I really don't see a lot of movies in the theaters anymore (I'll be making my rare exceptions with Hunger Games and The Avengers, for those of you keeping score), so please don't take this as a vote of dismissal.
But up or down, the quality of a movie these days isn't as interesting as it is to watch everyone see how quickly they can form a strong opinion for or against it. As if they want to be remembered as the voice of reason amongst the tempest. I've got two things to say about that: "Star Wars", and "Shhh."
When Star Wars came out, there were several weeks - a few months, even - when the critics just tore it to pieces. Siskel and Ebert, I'm looking at you. The best they could come up with was to say it had pretty cutting-edge special effects, but that was pretty much it.
Oh, I'm not suggesting that Star Wars was the pinnacle of cinematic mastery, I can be realistic and still love that film. But what I really have found to be so interesting is that all those critics, only a year or two later - much less in some cases - recognized how wrong they had been and all began changing their tune. Many tried later to rephrase or amend their initial reviews, or simply pretend it never happened.
But let's be honest, shall we? You got it wrong. You put all your chips on the wrong number, and you took a hit for it. It happens.
I'm much more impressed by critics who recognize that they might be wrong - well, I say that from a very theorhetical perspective, because I can't really think of any of those sorts of critics off the top of my head. If you know one, please let me know. I've gone through many podcasts of various movie critics and invariably unsubscribe to them not when I disagree with them (because I actually like viewpoints that differ from my own) but when their opinions are delivered in the context of "anyone who doesn't realize I'm correct is a moron and is no longer entitled to an opinion." Movies, their success and the enjoyment a moviegoer experiences at their viewing is subjective. This enjoyment is dependent upon the experiences of the moviegoer and may also be dramatically influenced simply upon their mood that day. But this is not the case to hear a critic review them - - oh good lord, no. If it's bad, it's bad, and that's all there is to say about it.
Look, there are probably even people who liked Battlefield Earth. I'm not one of them, but I'm sure there's someone out there who liked it. Someone. Somewhere. (Pause)
My other point harkens back to elementary school. This is back before the days of videotapes, back when we actually had those wonderful movie projectors. I miss those - there was the click-hiss and the wonderfully mechanical sound of the machine as it warmed up, the flickering light on the roll-down screen, and the countdown: five....four...three... two.... click click wwhhhhzzzzzzzzz... Loved that. But the part that was always a little bit annoying was getting the class to shut up.
It became a Shhh war. Remember that? One kid would keep yammering on, someone would try and shhh them, and then someone would shhh them and so on and so forth (and there was usually one kid who'd chime in "it!" - that was, I will confess, occasionally me). But the issue was that the people who were trying to shush the one kid actually made more noise than that one kid was making. And they would often remain talking just to tick off the shushers. It was a lose-lose situation, and to tell you the truth, I have no idea how to fix that kind of thing.
The next intercepting observation was a recent YouTube video a kind and thoughtful gentleman made about how to help traffic jams. The key to it all was knowing that you cannot fix how people ahead of you are driving, and all you can do is try to help the people behind you. The solution is to simply drive steady, leave ample space ahead of you and let people merge. Seriously. That's all there is to it. I've seen crazy traffic conditions in other cities - I remember being on the 80 going out of the Bay Area in rush hour traffic - and all the cars were going 50, with less than a car length between them. It was madness. But if you signalled to change lanes, an opening would appear, just like magic. Best rush hour experience of my life.
So that brings us back to the title of this little blog today.
Been doing my best to keep up on blogs lately - not my own, clearly, but yours. Yes, you. No, not the person behind you, I'm talking to you. Been doing a lot of reading, actually, and one of the things I've noticed is that a lot of folks are pretty sure they're Right.
Now, being right is all well and good. I've been right a few times, myself - if my wife is reading this, I'm only kidding - so I don't have anything against people wanting to be right, or even being right. But the part that starts to worry me is when that rightness is perceived as unique and solitary rightness.
The best lesson I had in college was a stark reminder of one undeniable truth: that no matter how right you think you are, there is a truth that you do not yet know which will one day prove you wrong. And I believe this goes for anything. Truth is a layered perception of the exploration of our own layered perception of truth. The more we truly know, the less we see that we understand. If we think we have all the answers, it's only because we've not been asking the right questions.
Returning to my earlier comments about Star Wars, let's think back to a classic conversation from the 3rd movie - - Return of the Jedi (yes, I still think about them in terms of their chronological release, back off). If you've seen the movies, then cool. But for those who haven't, ** SPOILER ALERT **
Luke: Ben, why didn't you tell me? You told me that Darth Vader betrayed and murdered my father.
Ben: Your father... was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force. He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker and "became" Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed. So what I told you was true... from a certain point of view.
Luke: A certain point of view?
Ben: Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view. Anakin was a good friend. When I first met him, your father was already a great pilot. But I was amazed how strongly the Force was with him. I took it upon myself to train him as a Jedi. I thought that I could instruct him just as well as Yoda. I was wrong.
For me as a young teenager, this was one of the points in the movies where it just broke everything down and became real. Here was Obi Wan Kenobi, master of the force, admitting he had been wrong, once upon a time. It was surreal. Was that possible? Could you be so wise and yet have made mistakes?
And that's when it hit me.
The mistakes you make are what make you wise.
None of us are perfect. Not a one. We are going to make bad calls, poor decisions, sloppy bets - we're going to turn left when we should have gone right, we're going to forget our car keys in our other jacket, forget to put the gas cap on, hit reply when we meant to hit direct message, I mean there's a thousand ways we can screw up on a daily basis. It's part of our individual progress.
But the really cool part of this is the realization that no matter how right we think we are, there's someone else out there who gets it just a bit better than we do. They may not wear a clever hat or have really cool robes or sit atop a mountain dispensing wisdom. They might be in the car next to us on the highway, they could be on the other end of the phone, and perhaps they're the person fixing us that heavenly white chocolate mocha. We don't know. On the other hand, if Schrödinger had it right, then they are.
There's your homework for today - next person you see, imagine if they had the secrets to happiness, the key to universal wisdom. Ponder that for a moment and see if your expectations change.
Have a great day, everyone.
Hmm. Probably most people.
I was pondering a few things all at once - as I am wont to do - and they rather jumbled into a thick stew in my brainy parts, and this was the thing that came out. But I'm starting out with the punch line; arguably the wonkiest way to start a joke. Ah, so WABAC machine set, Mister Peabody. Allons-y!
When I was, oh, about 5 or 6, I remember sleeping in the back seat of our family car. It might have been the toyota pickup or it might have been the blazer - hard to say, because I was asleep at that moment. But I remember thinking very specifically in that moment that how a car drove around the world was a complex thing, and what if the car itself wasn't moving, but what if the car remained still while the world moved beneath it? Once I did the math on that and realized that there was no way that the world could move independently beneath every single car, I maintained that little half-illusion for a bit more and thought it was an amusing concept, nonetheless. Years later, there are dreams I have at night that I hit the snooze button a couple times for, just on the off chance I can just jump right back in and enjoy a few more moments of.
Some dreams are good that way.
That recollection mingled with a few current political conversations that I won't bore you all with, but I'll let you enjoy the recognition of that particular metaphorical interplay for a moment.
Yeah. Funny, huh? Okay, moving on.
John Carter of Mars came out this weekend, and all the internet was talking about how much of a bomb it was. Yeah, 100 million dollars in its first weekend, and it's a bomb. Huh. Weird. I gotta say, I wouldn't mind having a bomb or two like that in my media empire. I'm looking forward to seeing the movie - yes, I haven't seen it yet, but I really don't see a lot of movies in the theaters anymore (I'll be making my rare exceptions with Hunger Games and The Avengers, for those of you keeping score), so please don't take this as a vote of dismissal.
But up or down, the quality of a movie these days isn't as interesting as it is to watch everyone see how quickly they can form a strong opinion for or against it. As if they want to be remembered as the voice of reason amongst the tempest. I've got two things to say about that: "Star Wars", and "Shhh."
Oh, I'm not suggesting that Star Wars was the pinnacle of cinematic mastery, I can be realistic and still love that film. But what I really have found to be so interesting is that all those critics, only a year or two later - much less in some cases - recognized how wrong they had been and all began changing their tune. Many tried later to rephrase or amend their initial reviews, or simply pretend it never happened.
But let's be honest, shall we? You got it wrong. You put all your chips on the wrong number, and you took a hit for it. It happens.
I'm much more impressed by critics who recognize that they might be wrong - well, I say that from a very theorhetical perspective, because I can't really think of any of those sorts of critics off the top of my head. If you know one, please let me know. I've gone through many podcasts of various movie critics and invariably unsubscribe to them not when I disagree with them (because I actually like viewpoints that differ from my own) but when their opinions are delivered in the context of "anyone who doesn't realize I'm correct is a moron and is no longer entitled to an opinion." Movies, their success and the enjoyment a moviegoer experiences at their viewing is subjective. This enjoyment is dependent upon the experiences of the moviegoer and may also be dramatically influenced simply upon their mood that day. But this is not the case to hear a critic review them - - oh good lord, no. If it's bad, it's bad, and that's all there is to say about it.
Look, there are probably even people who liked Battlefield Earth. I'm not one of them, but I'm sure there's someone out there who liked it. Someone. Somewhere. (Pause)
My other point harkens back to elementary school. This is back before the days of videotapes, back when we actually had those wonderful movie projectors. I miss those - there was the click-hiss and the wonderfully mechanical sound of the machine as it warmed up, the flickering light on the roll-down screen, and the countdown: five....four...three... two.... click click wwhhhhzzzzzzzzz... Loved that. But the part that was always a little bit annoying was getting the class to shut up.
It became a Shhh war. Remember that? One kid would keep yammering on, someone would try and shhh them, and then someone would shhh them and so on and so forth (and there was usually one kid who'd chime in "it!" - that was, I will confess, occasionally me). But the issue was that the people who were trying to shush the one kid actually made more noise than that one kid was making. And they would often remain talking just to tick off the shushers. It was a lose-lose situation, and to tell you the truth, I have no idea how to fix that kind of thing.
The next intercepting observation was a recent YouTube video a kind and thoughtful gentleman made about how to help traffic jams. The key to it all was knowing that you cannot fix how people ahead of you are driving, and all you can do is try to help the people behind you. The solution is to simply drive steady, leave ample space ahead of you and let people merge. Seriously. That's all there is to it. I've seen crazy traffic conditions in other cities - I remember being on the 80 going out of the Bay Area in rush hour traffic - and all the cars were going 50, with less than a car length between them. It was madness. But if you signalled to change lanes, an opening would appear, just like magic. Best rush hour experience of my life.
So that brings us back to the title of this little blog today.
Been doing my best to keep up on blogs lately - not my own, clearly, but yours. Yes, you. No, not the person behind you, I'm talking to you. Been doing a lot of reading, actually, and one of the things I've noticed is that a lot of folks are pretty sure they're Right.
Now, being right is all well and good. I've been right a few times, myself - if my wife is reading this, I'm only kidding - so I don't have anything against people wanting to be right, or even being right. But the part that starts to worry me is when that rightness is perceived as unique and solitary rightness.
The best lesson I had in college was a stark reminder of one undeniable truth: that no matter how right you think you are, there is a truth that you do not yet know which will one day prove you wrong. And I believe this goes for anything. Truth is a layered perception of the exploration of our own layered perception of truth. The more we truly know, the less we see that we understand. If we think we have all the answers, it's only because we've not been asking the right questions.
Returning to my earlier comments about Star Wars, let's think back to a classic conversation from the 3rd movie - - Return of the Jedi (yes, I still think about them in terms of their chronological release, back off). If you've seen the movies, then cool. But for those who haven't, ** SPOILER ALERT **
Luke: Ben, why didn't you tell me? You told me that Darth Vader betrayed and murdered my father.
Luke: A certain point of view?
Ben: Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view. Anakin was a good friend. When I first met him, your father was already a great pilot. But I was amazed how strongly the Force was with him. I took it upon myself to train him as a Jedi. I thought that I could instruct him just as well as Yoda. I was wrong.
For me as a young teenager, this was one of the points in the movies where it just broke everything down and became real. Here was Obi Wan Kenobi, master of the force, admitting he had been wrong, once upon a time. It was surreal. Was that possible? Could you be so wise and yet have made mistakes?
And that's when it hit me.
The mistakes you make are what make you wise.
None of us are perfect. Not a one. We are going to make bad calls, poor decisions, sloppy bets - we're going to turn left when we should have gone right, we're going to forget our car keys in our other jacket, forget to put the gas cap on, hit reply when we meant to hit direct message, I mean there's a thousand ways we can screw up on a daily basis. It's part of our individual progress.
But the really cool part of this is the realization that no matter how right we think we are, there's someone else out there who gets it just a bit better than we do. They may not wear a clever hat or have really cool robes or sit atop a mountain dispensing wisdom. They might be in the car next to us on the highway, they could be on the other end of the phone, and perhaps they're the person fixing us that heavenly white chocolate mocha. We don't know. On the other hand, if Schrödinger had it right, then they are.
There's your homework for today - next person you see, imagine if they had the secrets to happiness, the key to universal wisdom. Ponder that for a moment and see if your expectations change.
Have a great day, everyone.
Mar 7, 2012
Consenting Authors
I remember hearing a story when I was younger about how to kill a frog. Now, questions of "why the hell are you wanting to kill a frog?" aside, the interesting bits of it really lie in the social commentary of the metaphor. For those unfamiliar with this little chestnut, it works out like this:
I've never actually tried this before, just for the record, so I can't actually vouch for its authenticity. And no, this should in no way be taken to be an invitation to test this theory. Leave the frogs alone.
The point of it is that we become complacent in the face of slow change. I'm just not sure, sometimes, how much we pay attention to the changes in the social landscape. I kind of think we don't.
Dennis Miller - back when he was liberal - used to shake his head at the country, verbally worried that we kept letting ourselves be distracted by the crap that was shot out into the national consciousness, so much so that we let the important stuff skate right by. I don't know what happened to him, but this one old (and I'm guessing abandoned?) opinion of his has stuck with me.
Very few big social changes ever happen at once. Only the dramatic ones. Hitler didn't just appear at the head of Germany, Rome wasn't built in a day - rarely does anything HUGE happen all at once - - - and when it does, it really sucks.
So in this vein, I'm looking at a really horrible thing developing, and not really shocked that more people aren't at arms about it. We don't notice our lack of rights until we've lost the one that matters most, you see. The ones we don't really care so much about... well, those get pruned back, cut back, diminished, downplayed, and reduced until there is nothing left.
And I'm not talking specifically about gun control, abortion rights, voter rights, taxes, or really any one single law of the land that has become one of a thousand talking points about which people want to beat their drums and act as if it is the Single Most Important Decision You Will Ever Make In Your Entire Life. Those are all important, yes.
But I'm seeing a problem that lies at the root of it all.
Respect.
Respect for each other's differences, respect for each other's value and worth, respect for each other's opinions, respect for the right to be - as unique as we all are from one another.
This is kind of a whole issue in and of itself, though, clearly. It's an emotionally charged word, full of personal experience and it generally gets caught in everyone's throat. Even now, as you read this, you're probably trying to figure out what I meant by the word "Respect" to you personally, and so on.
I really want this to launch into a big discussion about the different ways in which we as a culture have broken the basic laws of respect - there are so many to choose from - but this week I'm starting to see that people are not so immured to this as I had feared. And for this, I thank - once again - the internet.
Recently, there has been a big kerfluffle (as an aside, can I just tell you how much I wish I could get away with using that word? I swear, I'd use it hourly if I could) between internet payment service PayPal and ebook publishing website Smashwords.
The small version of it is that PayPal - citing pressure from its banking associations - was going to force Smashwords to remove any material which PayPal defined (loosely) as "obscene".
Now, listen. I'm not the sort who deliberately wants to go around offending people. I've always been a proponent of the idea "if you don't like something you see, stop looking at it" - and also a supporter of this one line I heard in a movie, which, paraphrased, is: "there are two kinds of crazy. The crazy that strips down, covers itself in flour and water and runs around in a circle, screaming and waving its arms. And the other is the one that does that in my front yard. One of those, I never have to deal with."
I don't really care what people do in the privacy of their homes. I start caring if it impacts me and my world, my life, my family, and so forth. What flavor ice cream you eat - if you eat it at all - doesn't negatively impact me. If you like to eat it while watching bukakke (I'm not going to provide a link. If you really want to know...well, don't look it up if you don't want to know. Fair warning.) ... hey, whatever floats your boat.
I myself LOVE the differences that we all have. As a writer, I've found that it's the little details which set us apart from one another that make us as interesting as the things we have in common. Sometimes, it's the differences that we have in common which really make us fascinating. I don't prefer homogeneity, I like diversity. If I draw lines, it's only a mathematical tendency towards pattern recognition and categorization that I've had since I was a wee child. I used to sort my M&Ms by colors, but only because I was curious to know which ones I had more of. Every M&M tastes the same, and if you ever close your eyes while you eat them, you know this is true.
So when I heard about PayPal trying to push Smashwords around under the pretense of "This stuff is offensive!", I was sad. When I saw that Smashwords was pushing back.... well, I was pretty excited.
An interesting twist for me personally popped up here.
And here's a little backstory:
My good friend and co-authoring partner Jen Ashton and I were chatting back on this past Sunday and our conversation turned to this whole nonsense. She joked that we ought to write a parody, showing how ridiculous this all was, and an idea began to form out of our brainstorming that made us both laugh hysterically. She told me "okay, we need to write this." I laughed again, "yeah, sure. We should."
"No," she said. "This is my serious face. Write this. Write it now."
So we did. The story "Two People Having Sex" was conceived of, written, edited, and published within twelve hours. Seriously, by the next morning, people were already downloading it on Amazon. We decided to take it a step further, and put it up on Smashwords.
Thirty minutes later, I got an email from Mark Coker, founder and CEO of Smashwords. He loved it. Called it "Brilliant". He tweeted about it. He blogged about it. He emailed a reference about it to the Smashwords customer base.
Jen and I had a bit of a spaz about this, justifiably. She and I have been writing for several years with decent financial success, but this was something wholly different.
Then, yesterday, actor Stephen Fry tweeted this:
"Two People Having Sex" brilliantly addresses the Paypal CC madness: https://t.co/MdkRW7H5 And that's my lunch break over. Back to work.
This is me, losing my monkey mind.
Yeah. Wow. Huh.
* deep breath *
So, ubermentalfreakout aside, it's really good to see that the conversation is out there. See, I understand the mindset of people whose actions mirror that of PayPal's. They fear the differences of others, they abhor that which they believe to be bad or evil or whatever. They want people to be just like them, either for validation or for comfort, or for any of a thousand reasons that really, in the end, only really matter to them. It's difficult to have your own opinion. People by nature want to associate with other like-minded people, and, when confronted with the distinct, they are faced with three choices: effect change, be changed, or live with the differences. That third one....well, it's the one we tend to forget about.
And yet, I believe it's the one we should be embracing the most. We're meant to have different voices. We're meant to be different. And rather than spend your time and energy trying to establish which one is better or worse, why not spend that trying to find ways we can both coexist?
Seriously. Why not?
Rush Limbaugh is in the news at this moment for some incendiary things he said, and everyone's up in arms about the different sides inherent to the "big debate", but what people AREN'T talking about is that his JOB - - what he is literally paid to do - is to get people talking. Seriously. He's a vuvuzela. Do you hate the vuvuzela? Or do you hate that yahoo that won't stop blowing it in your ears?
Does it matter what Rush Limbaugh says? In truth, no. He can't make you change your world, your mind, your job, your sexual orientation, your number of days in sobriety, your political affiliation; he can't make you do ANYTHING. Only you have the power to do that. Do I agree with him? Almost never. But do I respect his right to say what he says? Yes, absolutely, although I do wish he didn't. He can, though.
When I was 11, I learned about Dungeons and Dragons. I really wanted to play it. My mom had heard all about how evil it was, however, so I wasn't allowed to get a copy of the books for myself. But then my Aunt Margaret surprised me with a birthday present - the full white box kit of Dungeons and Dragons.
I still remember the look my mom gave her. But I think my mom must have seen the look on my face, and she just knew she couldn't take this away from me. Bless her, she let me play. And even in spite of a few clear and amusing conversations ("How was your game? Did you win?"), she came to see that it was precisely the creative outlet my young mind needed. I loved stories - even back then - and wanted to not just read them, but participate. Create them. I wanted to TELL stories.
So here I am, years later, with an 11 year old of my own (who only recently began playing in her very first D&D game!), and I'm still telling stories. And to think, there were people, back when D&D first came out, who tried to get those games banned. Oh sure, their reasons sounded good on the surface, though even more than a passing comprehension of what the games actually were would inevitably show you how wrong and ridiculous the accusations truly were.
And these accusations about books are ridiculous and wrong, too. They are. You can't ban a book any more than you can ban the idea that created it.
So, instead of ignorance and intolerance, we need to look to their opposites: understanding and respect. We must. We're at an interesting crossroads in our culture - a hair's breadth either way can change us all dynamically. I just want us to make that change in a way which will improve all of us. The whole country, the whole world. Not too much to ask, huh?
There's my homework for the day. Find a way to embrace someone who looks at the world differently than you do and respect them for their opinion - - even if you don't agree with it. Especially if you don't.
UPDATE: WOW. Mark Coker is pretty damn awesome. Take note, other CEOs - - - THIS is how you should be doing things.
If you decide that boiling the poor amphibian alive is the best course of action (and I'm assuming consumption of said Kermit is on the horizon), then simply tossing Brer Ribbit into the pot of boiling FrogDeath is the wrong way to go about it. Apparently, he'll have the instant presence of mind to toss yon hopper-booty out of the cauldron, and you're left with an empty pot. Sad panda.
But if you gently and tenderly escort Mister Frogger into a pot of cool, fresh and tranquil water, he'll just hang out there and enjoy himself, even as the water rises steadily to a level wherein his goose - well, his frog, anyway - is good and truly cooked.
Dennis Miller - back when he was liberal - used to shake his head at the country, verbally worried that we kept letting ourselves be distracted by the crap that was shot out into the national consciousness, so much so that we let the important stuff skate right by. I don't know what happened to him, but this one old (and I'm guessing abandoned?) opinion of his has stuck with me.
Very few big social changes ever happen at once. Only the dramatic ones. Hitler didn't just appear at the head of Germany, Rome wasn't built in a day - rarely does anything HUGE happen all at once - - - and when it does, it really sucks.
So in this vein, I'm looking at a really horrible thing developing, and not really shocked that more people aren't at arms about it. We don't notice our lack of rights until we've lost the one that matters most, you see. The ones we don't really care so much about... well, those get pruned back, cut back, diminished, downplayed, and reduced until there is nothing left.
And I'm not talking specifically about gun control, abortion rights, voter rights, taxes, or really any one single law of the land that has become one of a thousand talking points about which people want to beat their drums and act as if it is the Single Most Important Decision You Will Ever Make In Your Entire Life. Those are all important, yes.
But I'm seeing a problem that lies at the root of it all.
Respect.
Respect for each other's differences, respect for each other's value and worth, respect for each other's opinions, respect for the right to be - as unique as we all are from one another.
This is kind of a whole issue in and of itself, though, clearly. It's an emotionally charged word, full of personal experience and it generally gets caught in everyone's throat. Even now, as you read this, you're probably trying to figure out what I meant by the word "Respect" to you personally, and so on.
I really want this to launch into a big discussion about the different ways in which we as a culture have broken the basic laws of respect - there are so many to choose from - but this week I'm starting to see that people are not so immured to this as I had feared. And for this, I thank - once again - the internet.
Recently, there has been a big kerfluffle (as an aside, can I just tell you how much I wish I could get away with using that word? I swear, I'd use it hourly if I could) between internet payment service PayPal and ebook publishing website Smashwords.
The small version of it is that PayPal - citing pressure from its banking associations - was going to force Smashwords to remove any material which PayPal defined (loosely) as "obscene".
Now, listen. I'm not the sort who deliberately wants to go around offending people. I've always been a proponent of the idea "if you don't like something you see, stop looking at it" - and also a supporter of this one line I heard in a movie, which, paraphrased, is: "there are two kinds of crazy. The crazy that strips down, covers itself in flour and water and runs around in a circle, screaming and waving its arms. And the other is the one that does that in my front yard. One of those, I never have to deal with."
I don't really care what people do in the privacy of their homes. I start caring if it impacts me and my world, my life, my family, and so forth. What flavor ice cream you eat - if you eat it at all - doesn't negatively impact me. If you like to eat it while watching bukakke (I'm not going to provide a link. If you really want to know...well, don't look it up if you don't want to know. Fair warning.) ... hey, whatever floats your boat.
So when I heard about PayPal trying to push Smashwords around under the pretense of "This stuff is offensive!", I was sad. When I saw that Smashwords was pushing back.... well, I was pretty excited.
An interesting twist for me personally popped up here.
And here's a little backstory:
My good friend and co-authoring partner Jen Ashton and I were chatting back on this past Sunday and our conversation turned to this whole nonsense. She joked that we ought to write a parody, showing how ridiculous this all was, and an idea began to form out of our brainstorming that made us both laugh hysterically. She told me "okay, we need to write this." I laughed again, "yeah, sure. We should."
"No," she said. "This is my serious face. Write this. Write it now."
Thirty minutes later, I got an email from Mark Coker, founder and CEO of Smashwords. He loved it. Called it "Brilliant". He tweeted about it. He blogged about it. He emailed a reference about it to the Smashwords customer base.
Jen and I had a bit of a spaz about this, justifiably. She and I have been writing for several years with decent financial success, but this was something wholly different.
Then, yesterday, actor Stephen Fry tweeted this:
"Two People Having Sex" brilliantly addresses the Paypal CC madness: https://t.co/MdkRW7H5 And that's my lunch break over. Back to work.
This is me, losing my monkey mind.
Yeah. Wow. Huh.
* deep breath *
So, ubermentalfreakout aside, it's really good to see that the conversation is out there. See, I understand the mindset of people whose actions mirror that of PayPal's. They fear the differences of others, they abhor that which they believe to be bad or evil or whatever. They want people to be just like them, either for validation or for comfort, or for any of a thousand reasons that really, in the end, only really matter to them. It's difficult to have your own opinion. People by nature want to associate with other like-minded people, and, when confronted with the distinct, they are faced with three choices: effect change, be changed, or live with the differences. That third one....well, it's the one we tend to forget about.
And yet, I believe it's the one we should be embracing the most. We're meant to have different voices. We're meant to be different. And rather than spend your time and energy trying to establish which one is better or worse, why not spend that trying to find ways we can both coexist?
Seriously. Why not?
Rush Limbaugh is in the news at this moment for some incendiary things he said, and everyone's up in arms about the different sides inherent to the "big debate", but what people AREN'T talking about is that his JOB - - what he is literally paid to do - is to get people talking. Seriously. He's a vuvuzela. Do you hate the vuvuzela? Or do you hate that yahoo that won't stop blowing it in your ears?
Does it matter what Rush Limbaugh says? In truth, no. He can't make you change your world, your mind, your job, your sexual orientation, your number of days in sobriety, your political affiliation; he can't make you do ANYTHING. Only you have the power to do that. Do I agree with him? Almost never. But do I respect his right to say what he says? Yes, absolutely, although I do wish he didn't. He can, though.
I still remember the look my mom gave her. But I think my mom must have seen the look on my face, and she just knew she couldn't take this away from me. Bless her, she let me play. And even in spite of a few clear and amusing conversations ("How was your game? Did you win?"), she came to see that it was precisely the creative outlet my young mind needed. I loved stories - even back then - and wanted to not just read them, but participate. Create them. I wanted to TELL stories.
So here I am, years later, with an 11 year old of my own (who only recently began playing in her very first D&D game!), and I'm still telling stories. And to think, there were people, back when D&D first came out, who tried to get those games banned. Oh sure, their reasons sounded good on the surface, though even more than a passing comprehension of what the games actually were would inevitably show you how wrong and ridiculous the accusations truly were.
And these accusations about books are ridiculous and wrong, too. They are. You can't ban a book any more than you can ban the idea that created it.
So, instead of ignorance and intolerance, we need to look to their opposites: understanding and respect. We must. We're at an interesting crossroads in our culture - a hair's breadth either way can change us all dynamically. I just want us to make that change in a way which will improve all of us. The whole country, the whole world. Not too much to ask, huh?
There's my homework for the day. Find a way to embrace someone who looks at the world differently than you do and respect them for their opinion - - even if you don't agree with it. Especially if you don't.
UPDATE: WOW. Mark Coker is pretty damn awesome. Take note, other CEOs - - - THIS is how you should be doing things.
Mar 5, 2012
More fun with Wren Emerson! (part 2)
Continued from part one:
Me: Okay, I’ve been trying to avoid asking, but clearly I have little to no conversational restraint. So, I'll just ask - - Horror Erotica? How did that happen?
Me: Erotica is a tough genre to write in, if you have plans to write in any other genre. Do you agree or disagree?
Me: It’s definitely a challenge to manage it all, but there have been so many authors who’ve done so, and quite successfully. What's another genre you'd like to cross erotica with?
Me: That would be awesome, actually. Let me know when you do get that one written! So, you’ve been epublishing a while, now - how do you think the present state of epublishing affects the overall publishing industry? Do you think it's a good thing or a bad thing?
Me: I totally agree. I blogged recently about this concept of “literary gatekeepers”…I think I was pretty specific as to my opinion on it. *grin* Where do you think we'll be, publishing-wise, in the next 5 years? where do you hope we'll be?
Me: Where do you think you’ll be in five years? Where do you hope you'll be?
Wren: I'll still be writing stories because I'll never run out of ideas that I want to explore. I just hope that I'm writing them from beside my pool while cabana boys fan me with palm fronds. Me: Don’t forget the grapes! Everyone always forgets the grapes. So, here’s a classic chestnut from the Generic Questions vault: If you weren't a writer, what would you be?
Me: What's next for Wren?
Wren: Ready!
Me: What did your last tweet say?
Me: Comfort food?
Me: Guilty Pleasure:
- Meet Seth Green
- See something I've written made into a movie (either a book that's been adapted or a screenplay I've written)
- Dry hump a transvestite. I don't care to explain this one other than to say it's important to me
- Visit all the Ripley's Believe it or not museums in the continental US
- Own a segway
Me: Well, I still respect you. Though, to be honest, I’m pretty easy.
Yeah, I know, he hates that. Sorry, man.
Thanks to Wren Emerson for being such a delightful conversationalist and hostess, and thanks to you for reading along - be sure to help support this wonderful (and just between us, incredibly funny) author by going here and indulging appropriately.
website/blog: www.wrenemerson.com/blog
amazon page: http://www.amazon.com/Wren-Emerson/e/B0050Z3980twitter: @wrenem
Facebook- personal: http://www.facebook.com/wrenem
fan page: http://www.facebook.com/wrenemerson
Feb 27, 2012
QA with Wren Emerson! (Part 1)
I forgot how warm it gets in Georgia. It’s been a while since I was back, but oh, how the humidity embraced me like an old friend. You know, one of those old friends with no concept of personal space. l missed the thunderstorms. Wow. Lightning for days. But hey, I’m not here to discuss the weather, am I? No ma’am. I’m here to have a chat with my new favorite internet sensation, author Wren Emerson.
She was kind enough to tear herself away from writing (though I’m pretty sure she tweeted several times while I wasn’t paying attention, but that doesn’t really count) to sit down with me across a pair of oh-my-god-delicious nachos at Nacho Mama’s in downtown Augusta. She tossed them back with a coke, but since I had nowhere else to be, I ordered up a margarita. I would’ve gone with the Guinness, but the Margarita won the coin toss.Once the noms slow to a steady enough rhythm, we make small talk. Seth Green dominates the early parts of the conversation.
She admits to finding a strong connection to Janeane Garofalo’s character in The Truth About Cats and Dogs, which breaks the ice almost instantly. “I AM the under-appreciated friend with the snarky sense of humor,” she says evenly. I find it impossible to argue the point, because I am already a fan of both Wren and Janeane. This is going to be a nice chat.
The conversation also touches briefly on music, where I learn that she began her music collection by picking up “Regulators” by Warren G and “Crazy Sexy Cool” by TLC. I try to get her to show off her TLC dance moves, but she gives me a look that chills my spine and I politely withdraw the request. Damn this margarita.
Her youth found her in Kansas – the sort of Midwest environment which can be an undeniably fertile ground for the creative sorts of people. Nothing like tornadoes and being landlocked to make you seek out other worlds, I suppose. What, specifically, did it teach her? “I would say that I learned a lot about loyalty and being true to your roots. I'm still friends with a lot of the people I went to school with. If I ever made it "Twilight big", I really don't think that would change anything. I'm married to a man that I've known since I was 13. Even if I forgot my humility, he'd be there to ground me and remind me that I'm still the same gawky, awkward girl inside that I was in middle school.”
And in Wren’s case, family also played a major part in setting her on the path to writing. “I remember my maternal grandmother reading nursery rhymes from my set of Childcraft books while I acted them out,” she recalls. “Old Mother Hubbard was a favorite. That crazy dog was always up to some shenanigans.”
So how did you transfer from reading stories to actually telling them? Did you always want to be a writer?
She laughed at that, so I braced myself for an epic journey. I wasn’t disappointed.
“At different points in early childhood I have wanted to be president, a professional football player, and a science teacher. Around 6th grade I finally figured out that I wanted to be an author. I started writing stories (awful) and wrote articles for a family newspaper (moderately bad). Around high school I started to carry around a spiral bound notebook and constantly worked on a high fantasy story that was heavily influenced by the Dragonlance series and my involvement in table top RPGs.”
Me: Ah, yes, Dragonlance. I was always in camp Tasslehoff, personally. (I pause here and consider getting my full geek on, but I show restraint.) So, literary-wise, what happened next?
Me: Ah, yes, Dragonlance. I was always in camp Tasslehoff, personally. (I pause here and consider getting my full geek on, but I show restraint.) So, literary-wise, what happened next?
Wren: “When I was about 12 years old I got my hands on a copy of Stephen King's It. I don't think my family even realized what I was reading. I spent all summer reading and rereading it. It captured my imagination in a way that other books hadn't. I think it was the fact that for half the book the main protagonists were my age, but it wasn't written in a way that made the kids seem stupid, which most of the stuff I was reading that was geared to YA did.
“It was that connection to the characters that made me want to do that myself. I'm not saying I'm the next Stephen King, but I hope that I've been successful in writing a book with a YA protagonist that doesn't make the teens reading it feel as though I'm talking down to them.”
Me: That’s incredibly important, I agree! I could always tell when authors weren’t taking me seriously as a reader. Ugh. Annoying. (as an aside, I still can't finish "It". I'm such a wuss with that book.) So where are you at now in your resolve? How do you feel about where you’re at as an author?
Wren: I view writing as an activity that's both personally fulfilling, but also a viable career. I've luckily never been a position where I've had to compromise my artistic urges due external pressure. I went directly into indie publishing so I've never had anyone tell me that what I'm doing is wrong and I should change it all. The things I want to write are commercially viable so it's not a choice between my art and my mortgage either. I'm very fortunate.
Me: There’s definitely a tradeoff about being the first one to land on an alien planet like self-publishing. It’s still pretty early in its development, so most people are still working out what works and what doesn’t. Hats off to you at figuring it out so soon! So, how do you get yourself ready to write?
Wren: I make very elaborate outlines before I start any long work of fiction. With short stories I will write several paragraphs of summary, but with a novel I have a scene by scene background of every single event that needs to happen and since I write in series, I also know what's coming up in future books too.
Once I have my outline (which I make based on notes that I create using a software for Mac called Curio), I start writing. I have a set in stone word goal for every day and I use a spreadsheet to make sure that I'm keeping on track. I've been writing lately in a program called MacJournal. It's been great for short stories so we'll see how it holds up to writing a novel.
And that's my process. Pretty simple, really. I always listen to music while I write. I don't really hear it, but I can't seem to write without it.
Me: Oh, I’m the same way - gotta have a playlist going, or my brain just doesn’t know what to do. How often do you write; how long do you usually spend at a time?
Wren: I try to write every day, but I don't always make my goal. If I could improve only one aspect of my writing it would be my self discipline. You can pick up everything else you need to know with enough practice.
When I write I set a timer and work in blocks of 50 minutes. When the timer goes off, I take a 10 minute break and that's when I get to check Facebook or answer emails. Ideally, because I think of writing as my job, I try to spend at least 5 hours a day on writing. Eventually, I'd like to work my way up to spending a full 8 hours a day.
Me: And that’s where it does truly become a full-time job, but it’s like they say, you find a way to get paid at what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life. What's your favorite genre to write in - if you have a favorite one, that is?
Wren: Right now I'm really drawn to paranormal/urban fantasy concepts. I'm very much a dreamer. I want to live in a world where magic exists and the man you love might surprise you one day by turning into a wolf. Even in the horror I've been writing there is an element of the fantastic. I have a short list of projects to tackle in the upcoming months and every single one of them has a supernatural spin on them.
Me: Now, one thing I noticed about you, your books tend to span multiple genres - do you find this to be a natural part of your storytelling process, or is it by design?
Wren: I get these really compelling ideas for stories. I can't limit it to just one kind of idea so I write whatever speaks to me at the moment. That's why I love the short story format. I can explore ideas that I normally wouldn't want to work with because there's not much risk. I'm only committed for a few days as opposed to months spent working on a novel.
Me: I can totally appreciate the way you seem to approach your writing; it’s hard not to admire someone for grabbing the stories they want to tell and just making it work under their own steam. And speaking of that sort of DIY approach to publishing, your books are currently published through Lakehouse Press. Could you talk about how that came about?
Wren: Lakehouse Press is a venture that my friend Courtney Cole and I started last year when we were both publishing our debut titles. At this point it's just a two man operation, but we've discussed the idea of setting up some sort of structure for helping other new indies who would rather have someone else tackle the business end of things so they can focus on writing.
Me: Very nice. So, there you are, creating a press and putting out your first novel. Let's talk about "I Wish" - - when did that story begin for you? Where did the inspiration come from, and how long did you spend developing and writing it?
Wren: I feel like I could say writing I Wish took 2 years or that it took 2 weeks and both are true. The original idea was something I started playing with a couple of years ago. It's based on my paternal grandmother. She was very much the matriarch of our family. She was a hard woman. I never doubted that she loved me, but she was not a milk and cookies kind of lady.
It wasn't a stretch to imagine what would happen if you got a whole town full of ladies like grandma together. Of course, they are heavily fictionalized versions of grandma. I swear, she's actually a really sweet lady once you get to know her.
When I heard about indie publishing I decided right then I'd finally found a reason to give up my excuses. I was going to write a novel, dammit, and I knew I already have a great idea. I hadn't done anything with it beyond the world building. So I spent a week populating my town with characters, determining the "rules" of the world and the magic they use there, and writing an outline. I was so enthused that it's all I thought about from the minute I woke up until I went to sleep (usually hours after I went to bed because my brain just wouldn't shut down). When I started writing I Wish, I had a word goal that I met every day. And I wrote every single day, even weekends. I finished it around 2 weeks. I think it was 16 days, but I'd have to check my blog to be sure. Of course, it was less than 50k words and I later went in and added 12k more words, but the core of that story was done in days. This is why I'm such a huge fan of working from an outline. Once you've determined the story, it becomes a matter of putting words on the page.
Me: Wow! That’s pretty impressive! Please tell my readers a little something about the book, beyond the description over on Amazon and the Lakehouse Press website.
Wren: I Wish is Thistle Nettlebottom's story. It's told in first person point of view with a generous helping of snark and sarcasm. She feels like the only sane girl in one strange situation after another. She grows up on the road with a dysfunctional family unit: her emotionally detached mother, her cold (and oftentimes cruel) grandmother, and Shep, who is part body guard, part personal driver.
They go to a town named Desire where she's evidently from, but she has no memories of it. The people there are weird. The women seem to hate her on sight and the men are all a little too eager to get to know her. She thinks her life is wrecked when her grandmother tells her that they are going to stick around, but that's nothing compared to how she feels when she finds out that she, like everyone else in Desire, is an actual broomstick-riding, cat-having, drop-a-house-on-her-head, genuine witch. That's a bad day for anyone, but add in a tough choice between sweet and sexy Evan or dark and broody Ben and the fact that someone wants her dead and you can understand why Thistle is rethinking her wish to finally have a place to settle down.
Me: It's been online for close to a year, now, and seems to be doing very well - - what are your plans for a follow-up novel?
Wren: I Wish is the first book in the Witches of Desire trilogy. Book 2, Your Word is My Bond has an anticipated release date of April 2012 and Book 3, Reality Bender, is scheduled for June or July.
Me: Can’t wait! What are your other projects in the works?
Wren: I have been working on a series of short stories that delve into the backstories of some of my favorite characters from the WoD universe. Those will be coming out in the coming weeks. I have plans to write a series of short stories about a "zombie" apocalypse that is heavily inspired by the movie 28 Days Later and the comic book series Crossed, but there are no plans to expand that past short stories at this time. As for novel length works? I have plans for a new urban fantasy series based in the world I used in the Witches of Desire books. I'd like to see that ready around August of 2012, but no promises.
Me: You had me at Zombies. We’ll talk about that when the recorder’s off, yes?
Wren: *smiles conspiratorially*
The interior of Nacho Mama’s started getting a bit crazy about this time – small wonder why this place is so popular, I can’t even remember eating my nachos, and yet they’re GONE – so we decide to wander over to the Metro, which Wren assures me is a pretty cool coffee shop. I can never turn down cool coffee shops, so I’m in. This also gives me a chance to turn off the recorder so Wren and I can talk about zombies. And I know you wish you got to hear all of that, but you’re going to have to wait.
To be continued!
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