2010: Doesn’t it sound like the future?

Welcome to TEN. What are we going to call 2010? Is there an official version, and who decides? Is this what that Pearl Jam record was about?

We partied in the New Year with an impromptu gathering at casa de Wendronimo, also celebrating my wife’s birthday. Double whammy of awesome. With only a few hours of notice for our low-key shindig, we had a full house of merry makers and a full evening of laughs, hugs and good times. We kept it alive, if laid back, until about 4:00am, which is pretty good for a bunch of early-thirty-something/late-twenties folks, right?

Goodbye, 2009. Few will miss you and your Dexter-like habit of killing celebrities. But what of this new, sci-fi sounding year?

I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions, but I’m all for setting goals and making plans and using a milestone (birth of a new decade) to kick-start some new habits and positive inertia.

Instead of a resolution, I’ve decided on a theme for 2010 – “Who do you want to be?” I think this is an important question; it requires self-analysis and reflection, with a focus on the desired positives as opposed to dwelling on perceived negatives. Instead of looking at myself and saying, “damn, here’s a bunch of things that make me unhappy – I should probably change those”, I’m imagining an ideal version of myself, and seeing how close to that model I can become.

I don’t mean some unreachable, fantasy version of myself, but a real world manifestation of my dreams, goals and personal happiness. Not just for 2010, but for my life in general, down the foreseeable timeline. Some of those things will be easily described, maybe easily achieved. Some will be intensely personal, requiring a lot of “behind the scenes” effort. And there might be some lofty ambitions, lifelong pursuit kinds of stuff – but this is about forward thinking and positivity, so that all works.

(My comic book brain says this is like taking an established character and revamping him for a universe reboot, What If? story or parallel universe line. An ‘Ultimate Adron’, so to speak. If it’s half as good as Bendis’ Ultimate Spider-Man run, things will definitely be looking up.)

I’m still sketching my answer to “Who do you want to be?”, designing my specific archetype, but I can say this much so far:

I want to be happy, healthy and physically active. I want to be a great husband, an excellent friend, a loving pet parent and, eventually, a nurturing father. I want to write everyday, to create a career with my words and vision, to build worlds that people love to get lost in. I want to be a leader in media (of many kinds), to generate quality, to effect change and progress. I want to be an active, performing musician – to play and sing and keep my songs alive. I want to always advance my skills, to never stop learning, to never be complacent – to always grow, evolve and innovate. I want to be strong, to take charge, to not back down from adversity – professionally or personally. I want to de-clutter my life, free it from pointless things that distract or slow me down, to streamline to the things that are important, that are enriching. I want to be a whirlwind of ideas, projects and good works – to always surprise, to capitalize on my poly-talent nature. I want my work ethic to be professional and fruitful, without interfering with the quality of my personal and emotional life. I want to look back without resentment for opportunities missed and roads not taken. I want to live a vivacious present, with eyes on the possibilities of the future. I want to be the man who achieved or failed, but always tried – never squandering my blessings. I want to do right by the ones I love, to never lose sight of their needs and their commitment to me. And I want to always be mindful and grateful, to know how fortunate I am and to give back however I can.

And there’s so much more than that. But that’s my start, that’s my beginning for 2010.

Now then – who do YOU want to be?

Watching traffic trickle in, though, it’s funny where I’ve gotten some random search engine views from. I moved a bunch of old blogs over to this site (stuff I done on Blogger and MySpace in the past), a few which mentioned movie celebrities. Apparently dropping a Kelly Clarkson or Hugh Grant reference in a blog pulls immediate metrics.

Silver is so dramatic.

I managed to get a little comic reading time in this week. Polished the trades for Marvel’s Annihilation #2 and #3.  I don’t usually go for any of the deep-space-crazy books from either Marvel or DC, but I’d heard so many good things about this serious (and the Abnet and Lanning books that spin out of it) I figured I’d give it a try. Plus, I got a good chunk of the series and related books on the serious cheap at Chicago Comic-Con ’09.

I read Annihilation #1 shortly after Con, and liked it quite a bit. Had never heard of any of these characters outside of Nova, but I immediately liked Drax the Destroyer’s character and arc. I was surprised to discover that Nova was part of a Green Lantern Corp-esque galaxy police force (the “Nova Corp”, ‘natch) as I hadn’t seen him in anything other than some New Warriors issues waaaay back in the day. Not that the Nova Corp stick around long. I enjoyed Richard Rider and his plight as the last of the Novas, and his trouble dealing with all of the power he’d been infused with.

Book #2 didn’t thrill me. I’m no Silver Surfer fan, and I’ve always though Galactus was a big silly. The Surfer arc left me underwhelmed, though I do get a kick out of Firelord and was happy he dropped in. Super Skrull’s four issues featured art with cool character designs but inconsistent quality. The cartoony style just didn’t hold up, and moments that should have been serious looked comical. The trade finishes up with Ronan the Accuser, an exiled Kree judge, jury and executioner prone to dramatic pronouncements and being a big jerk. The art and storytelling felt like something out of Heavy Metal or 2000 A.D., with a definite Keith Giffen flare (Giffen wrote the Surfer story, actually). Seemed a big tangled mess at the end with a bunch of random characters thrown in. And any more fan-service shots of Gamora and her warrior-thong and I might have tossed the book in disgust. I’m so tired of the super-comic ethos that powerful, intelligent women feel empowered by running around in no clothes. Nothing says comfortable fighting wear than a string bikini.

Annihilation #3 started and I felt like I stepped out of the movie for a restroom break and missed some really important stuff. There must be some offshoot stuff they decided not include in the trade, or they felt like the story was going on too long already anyway, but #3 starts with the various and sundry characters from the first two collections all teamed up and fighting the big bug-apocalypse. Nova’s problems with being super-duper-powerful are not mentioned, a bunch of new people show up that seem to be important but who I’ve not encountered before and everything has gone from a micro-story scale to a macro-scale. Things get really messy, and then they get tied up very neatly, in very short order. A couple of characters introduced in #2 don’t show up in #3, which is pretty relevant to how the big plot goes down, and I have no idea why they weren’t there. Either the off-camera stories I didn’t get cover their involvement and later absence, or the writer realized that keeping them around would pretty much negate their big flashy ending. Hmmm…

Then they padded out the trade with a bunch of character bios (many of which were already included in Vol #1 & #2) to make the book the same size and pricepoint as the others. Cause, you know, Marvel really likes to do that.

All harping aside, I enjoyed the book enough to keep reading to the Conquest extension and more Nova stories (but maybe that’s cause I’d already purchased the trades – $5 TPB bins are awesome like that).

I’ve been an absentee friend lately, a non-blogger, a work-a-holic. You might have wondered, “where’s that Adron guy been?”. Or maybe not. Maybe you were too busy to notice. I understand completely.

I’m always busy – that’s just a fact of my life. My close friends know I am driven and obsessed with my ambitions and projects, and sometimes undone by them. My wife always says I’m a work-a-holic, and that’s been true these past few weeks, since work is about all I’ve done.

The weeks since our return from New York have been a continuous streak of peaks and valleys, all work related. Suffice to say that my job has been stressful lately, with the occasional upshot (for instance, I recently won my national division’s quarterly award for excellence on the job. I received the plaque today – still waiting on the bonus money).

Also since the NYC trip, my freelance work increased from a trickle to a deluge. I’ve been spending my night’s creating websites for medical testing clinics, popular area tribute bands, sports bar chains and communications schools. I love designing, and enjoy creating product for such diversified clients. I’m doing one site largely in Flash, which is a first for me, and a daunting task.

I wake up. I go to work. I come home. I work out. I do freelance stuff. I fall asleep at my desk. I take the dog out to go number two. I crash.

The freelance stuff is good – monetarily and creatively. But I haven’t spent enough time writing. My short stories remain unfinished. My redraft of the script for Gene and I’s animation project is still incomplete. My submission for Dark Wisdom magazine remains unsent.

Conversely, I have fit some writing in during my lunch break and before work, at “my desk” (ie a large table) at Starbucks in Union Station. Today actually marks a milestone for me. A little over two years ago I bought a finely-graphed, dense blank book to write in. At my wife’s practical and brilliant suggestion, it was chosen for its simplicity and free form. I had tended to try and force my creativity into “methods” previously, to frustrating ends, but Wendy saw that a free-form collective point for all my varied creative drives was necessary.

This morning, I filled the last page with notes for an animation script. Every right side page of the book is filled with my miniscule, draft print. The left sides are scrawled with hasty notes, random asides, character sketches, snippets of dialogue. The pages contain story ideas, extended narratives, poems, song lyrics, website layouts, a full comic script, the first draft of a novel prologue, short editorials later published as newspaper columns, accounts of dreams, free form ramblings.

Any time I feel like I haven’t accomplished anything, I flip through that book and know that, while most of the projects are not complete, I have still written more in the last two years than in all those previous. More of those creative sparks have kindled into full-fledge concepts, detailed storylines, actual prose.

I filled that end page. Then I unwrapped the successor, the same style, gridded ledger, this one’s cover black where the other is blue. I wrote my name in the front of the book, and continued where I had left off in the last. I covered the first page in my angular scrawl.

I can’t wait to fill up the rest.

Another fantastic show from Carbon Leaf. Last Friday, a small contingent of Armadians attended the CL headlining show at the Blueberry Hill Duck Room. It was the band’s first sold-out St. Louis show, which they were obviously excited about. Somebody offered Doug a hundred bucks for his ticket (which he turned down). The concert was incredible, an absolutely revelatory performance. Carbon Leaf is my favorite band. Wen and I have seen them live four times now. This show was my favorite so far. Interesting show highlight: they began their encore by going completely unplugged. No mics, no amps, just the band (sans drums) projecting “Learn to Fly” to a packed room struggling to remain silent. Other highlights – friggin’ everything.

Dork out moment: Doug, Wen and I walked up to CL guitarist Terry Clark after the show to shake hands (and hugs from Wen). Before even exchanging a greeting, he tells us that the bands sound tech had spotted Doug’s shirt (which says “Joss Whedon is my Master Now”) and excitedly called the bands attention to it through their ear-monitors. Turns out the band just watched all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD via their laptop while on tour. They were completely stoked to see a Whedon fan in the crowd. We all dorked out for a minute, and insisted that they spend some quality time with “Firefly” next (appropriately, I was wearing my “Browncoat” shirt from “Serenity”). It’s good to know that our favorite band is our kind of people.

Hot Blog-on-Blog Action: awhile back I commented on a short story collection, “Little Gods” by Tim Pratt, that I had really enjoyed. I sent the author an email telling him how much I liked the book, and which stories I found most affecting. He was kind enough to write back about a week later. He also apparently checked out my blog (the link is on my email signature), and wrote about my comments on his own online journal (he linked off to me, too). Pretty cool. This evening, we made a Borders run and I picked up Pratt’s novel “The Strange Adventures of Ranger Girl”, to be perused during our upcoming trip to New York to visit Mary and Gene.

I also cashed in all of my Christmas gift certificates and, with a 30% coupon, picked up Absolute Sandman volume one for just over fourteen bucks (it’s regularly priced at $99). I discovered Sandman with issue #50 in early high school and have been a Neil Gaiman fan every since. This Absolute edition collects the first four story arcs of Sandman in an oversized hardcover with a gorgeous slipcase. The pages have been recolored, and it includes a slew of “special features”. Now, if the absolute editions just come out every Christmas, maybe I’ll be able to use this tactic again…

Last weekend I attended a book signing in my hometown by one of my high school teachers for her recently published book of poetry, “Leaving the Limberlost”.

I stupidly wrote the quite long journal entry about the visit in my web browser, then MySpace crashed before I could save it. I can never bring myself to rewrite a lost blog like that, so here’s a summary: 1) it was nice to see my teacher again, and talk shop about writing; 2) chatted up some other old instructors who didn’t recognize me at first with the long haired that characterized me in school; 3) had nice chats with my (long-time-no-see) high school friends Jessi and Ben. Jessi runs the coffee shop that hosted the signing which is really cute. Ben and his adorable wife actually live pretty close to Wen and I. He’s a dentist now; 4) a little hometown nostalgia got me stalking through the MySpace High School listing to find profiles of my old classmates. There’s quite a few of the folk in my class and the ones around it on the ‘Space. Mostly, I was struck by how old most of them looked (though I should note that Jessi and Ben both looked almost exactly as I remembered them). In particular, any classmates who had children looked in the neighborhood of 40ish, instead of our actual late twenties / very early thirties.

Scary stuff. Made me examine myself in the mirror for signs of age. Over the last year or so, I’ve been told several times that people think I’m a guy in his mid-thirties who looks like he’s in his late twenties. I’m not really sure what to make of that…

As previously mentioned, Wendy and I are flying out to NYC later this week. We’re working on all the preparations now. It’s been a very long time since we had any kind of vacation, so we’re pretty excited. I’m hoping Gene and I will be able to attend the New York Comic Con for a day (it happens to be going on the weekend we’re there) but, in general, we’re just stoked to spend some time with the McKellys.

Currently:
/// watching Invasion (complete series on dvd). Three episodes from the end. It’s pretty good.
/// reading Peter and the Starthieves (sequel to Peter and the Starcatchers).
/// watching Batman: The Animated Series season #1 while I work out.

My January underground wrapped up this week without a great deal of creative activity. I had a couple of nights of decent productivity, but I’m still having trouble staying awake at the keyboard past 10:00pm.

I have been toying with something new on my lunch breaks at Starbucks. I think it spawned as a result of my reading “The Cthulhu Mythos” by August Derleth, and feeling like I could do better. Derleth was a contemporary of H.P. Lovecraft (kind of the Stan Lee of horror, for the uninitiated), and took up his mythos after Lovecraft died. I’ve owned this story collection for years (I went through a big Cthulhu phase in early college), but just now got around to Derleth’s work. And, no sir, I don’t like it.

I’ve read almost half the book, and the author seems a one trick pony. Most of the stories seem practically identical, with a few different names and places. Worse, Derleth resorts to the meta-fictional technique of referencing H.P. Lovecraft in almost every tale! In each story, at least one character has just discovered extensive knowledge in Cthulhuian lore. They inevitably reference the same set of ancient tomes and evil texts Lovecraft created for his own stories. Yet Derleth goes a step further by having his characters cite “the fictional accounts of one H.P. Lovecraft” as filled with insights into the stories’ strange and horrific phenomenon. This has happened in no less than eight stories so far. Ye gods!

The last time I encountered such literary bungling was in “Vengeance of the Black Donnellys: Canada’s Most Feared Family Strikes Back from the Grave”. I was working at a bookstore in DeKalb, IL, which had a discount branch that sold markdowns and closeouts. We literally bought books by the crate, without knowledge of what we would receive. In one shipment, we were cursed with about a hundred copies of “Vengeance of the Block Donnellys” in a small, plain trade paperback. They became a joke around the stores – we’d display them everywhere, priced at a whopping ten cents, and hard sell them to any customer who’d listen. “Vengeance” is a fictional sequel to a non-fiction book (itself wholly inaccurate, sensationalized and poorly written, yet has somehow managed to maintain some popularity since the 1950s). The novel, a hack job of epic caliber, makes constant reference to its precursor, often with characters espousing the book’s virtues and “widespread” fame. It would be laughable if it had not managed to be published time and again over 50+ years. Look it up on Amazon and you’ll find four customer reviews, all 4 or 5 stars. I’m guessing these are family members still pulling in the royalties…

I didn’t watch the Super Bowl, but I was informed that the 2nd Quarter Sprint commercial featured the voice of my work buddy Rob Naughton. Rob does imaging for KSHE 95, and on the side has been trying to get into the big time movie preview / commercial business. He’s read for several high profile companies, but hadn’t made it on screen yet. Awhile back, he cut a VO for Sprint, was paid for his work, but never told if it would be used. So he’s sitting with some friends tonight watching the big game, the Sprint ad rolls and it’s his own voice playing back to him – and 100 million other television viewers. I think it’s safe to say he was pretty stoked.

Meanwhile, I was hanging some art in the kitchen, washing dishes and watching a few minutes of Puppy Bowl III on Animal Planet. Go team.

Wen and I went to Stars on Ice on Friday night. She’s a lifelong fan of skating, and in the past couple years has gotten me into it. We watched the USA Nationals last week, and I was really excited to see a gold medal win for Kimmie Meisner, and an explosive, first place performance from Evan Lysacek. Stars on Ice didn’t have the big bangs of the competitions, but was still a lot of fun. Some of the routines were a little dull, but Michael Weiss proved to be a strong entertainer (though I’d seen him live at Nationals last year and was not impressed), and Olympic Gold Medalist pair Jamie Salé & David Pelletier were outstanding.

I picked up “Batman: The Animated Series” Vol. 1-4 on DVD from Slackers (in large part on the merits of my recent Xbox console and games trade in). My immersion in the “Justice League (Unlimited)” cartoon series has hooked me on the DC Comics / Bruce Timm – Paul Dini animated universe. Since I don’t have the time or money to devote to comic books right now, this has definitely filled the void.

Watched “The DaVinci Code” on DVD with Wen last night. I saw it in the theatre as well, and read the book before that. Critics called it slow-paced and dull, and I’ve never understood that. I think it’s a very well constructed adaption of the novel. It has a lot of big ideas to communicate in a short time, and I think it does that pretty well. Some of the dialogue gets heavy-handed, but it doesn’t weigh the film down too much. The media made a big deal about Tom Hanks’ hair in the film as well, which is ridiculous. It suits the character, looks good on him, and was simply something to gripe about. Up yours, movie critics.

My “underground” month continues, though the last two weeks without the benefit of being on vacation. I’ve learned an important lesson in these 14 days: I am not one of those “write my best stuff at 2:00am” nocturnal writers. I am way more productive in the typical 9-to-5, probably as a side effect of working that for years.

Now that I’m back in my daily work routine, I’ve generally been fitting an hour or two in a night, between 8:00pm and midnight. My productivity has gone way down, which was to be expected, but I’ve been rather caught off guard by my penchant for falling asleep at the keyboard around 10:45. (Cory and Amy will have a laugh at that because, as they know, if casual conversation around the house goes that late, I tend to fall asleep on the couch or, sometimes, the floor.)

Despite all that, I’ve gotten some work done. “Pitch” has progressed a little, but I spent a couple of nights scrapping a big chunk of it, removing a character and rewriting a page. It’s starting to feel right, but I think this one is going to see a lot of action on the redraft frontlines.

Late last week, a casual observation on the Metrolink kicked my brain into momentary overdrive. In the three minutes between stepping off the train and Wendy arriving at the station to pick me up, I had a whole new story, beginning, middle, end. I’m never at a loss for ideas, but I don’t often get the whole package delivered at once.

Since I was feeling some strain with “Pitch”, I decided to step aside a bit and explore this new short story. It’s tentatively titled “Mercury People”; I’m 8 pages in, about 4000 words. Which is a lot wordier than I expected it to be (cue snickers from the in-the-know crowd), because I initially envisioned the language and action in a kind of clipped, matter-of-fact fashion. I’m at the end of the second act (of sorts), and the language and situation has become, well, dense. Right now, my plan is to finish it in its present style, redraft it in the same, and then go to town on it with the methaphorical red pen, maybe cut it by half. Perhaps I’ll send different versions to my creative-crit friends, and see how they react to each.

This past Friday, another “train of thought” on the Metro (how it hurts me to pun it that way) stuck with me into my morning Starbucks ritual. I sat to jot down a few notes and turns of phrase. The second stanza was just beginning when I realized I was constructing a poem. Again with the freaking poetry. Perhaps since I’ve not done much in the way of songwriting lately, that part of me manifests in the poetic structure. In any event, this new thing is called “The Kind Man Looks Death”, and it’s not at all like the last one I wrote. Its tone seems fitting for a publication like “Dark Wisdom”. If I don’t have a polished short ready during their next submission period, a sharpened version of “Kind Man” might be worth a shot.

OTHER STUFF

. Friday night, a small handful of Armadians ended up in little, out of the way Trenton, Illinois, at a bar called The Jailhouse Rock. I was highly skeptical of the locale and venue in question, but it turned into a really fun time. The place is really quite large, with a decent bar area, and a whole other section with a big stage, dance floor and game room. The motif is very Elvis, obviously. I imagine it was once a schoolhouse or church, or maybe even one of those tiny concert halls that used to litter the country fifty odd years ago. They had karaoke that night and, as you may know, Armadians are black belts in Karaoke-Fu. The guy running it was really nice and respectful (all too often not the case) and the song selection reasonable. And the Boulevard on tap was dynamite.

. I felt like crap all weekend, something like food poisoning without the vomiting. Might have been my recent flu shot just catching up with me. Watched a bunch of mediocre movies to distract me from whining: Idiocracy, the lost Mike Judge picture with Luke Wilson. Futurama without the sci-fi (and most of the biting wit). Extremely funny at times, with some poignant observations, but overall not a good film; Crank, an all-out actionfest that would have rocked at 30 minutes but lost its edge at 90. Sorta fun, if you’re feeling ADD; and Beerfest, from the Broken Lizard comedy troupe. Actually pretty funny, in that Saturday Night Live spin off movie way, it’ll entertain when you’re holed up on the couch and don’t feel like doing shit.

. I parted ways with my Xbox. The console and all my games made the trip to Slackers today. I picked up the first Clone Wars animated dvd and ordered the first four seasons of Batman: The Animated Series. I’ve been loving the Justice League collections, and feel its time to catch up on the series that got it all going.

. Finally took all the Christmas decorations down. Woo-hoo!

. One of my favorite high school teachers, Connie Brubaker, just published a book of poetry. Connie was always a big proponent of my writing, and shared her work with me as well. She’s doing a sale/signing at a cafe in my hometown which I’m hoping to attend. It is, incidentally, the coffee joint my old friend Jessi runs that I’ve been meaning to visit. Economical use of a stone, that.

. Just finished reading Tim Pratt’s short story collection, Little Gods, a Christmas gift from my wife. This is a wonderful little gathering of fantastical-stories of many flavors and tones. I haven’t enjoyed a new author find like this since I discovered Kate Atkinson. There’s plenty of material to dig into, here, but my two favorite stories from the collection are “Bleeding West”, a gritty piece of mythology in the spaghetti western tradition, and “Behemoth”, a tale of forsaken friendships, unrequited love and the creatures of the apocalypse that left me weeping in a corner at Starbucks.

My week’s vacation from work is over and the first quarter of my January “underground” is done.

Late in ’06, I decided to get my creative projects in gear by taking January and throwing myself headlong into the process, swearing off my social life and cuddling up to my new laptop. I burned a handful of vacation days so that I could take the first week of the month off. My plan was to spend about 2/3 of my time writing and the other third working on my music demo.

I’ve had a nasty, lingering cold that’s made me varying degrees of miserable over the past week, effectively eliminating my voice most of the time, so I didn’t so much as pick up a musical instrument or sing a note. (You might be thinking, hey, you could have recorded the instrumental tracks even if you couldn’t sing. True, but my plan had been to lay rough simultaneous voice/guitar tracks first, to use as guides for the multiple musical lines and then finish up with the vocal track. With my process mangled, I put it on hold.)

So, I’ve spent the majority of my time writing, which is really what this was all about anyway.

My original plan was to primarily focus on my first novel length effort, with a backup short story and (somewhat uncharacteristically) a poem to play with if I needed a diversion from the novel. I had a rough draft, hand written, of the prologue to the novel. I ended up spending several days typing it up, revising, adding new parts, cutting things, re-evaluating dialogue and revising again. Now I have what I think of as a second draft, 14 (microsoft word) pages, just shy of 10,000 words. Even considering the deeper cuts and cleanup I’ll perform on it, that’s one hefty prologue.

During this time, I have also been researching the market for my kind of fiction, and have found the most obvious place to break into the fiction business is in the short story market. There are numerous magazines that print first-time, genre writers. They don’t pay that much, but if I can get published in them, it’s a stepping stone to where I eventually wish to be.

With this in mind, I also came to the decision that a novel is too big a project for me at this stage of my practice. While I have a detailed plot prepared for it, the prospect of tackiling it is honestly quite daunting. After a long discussion with Wendy about the whole thing, I’ve made up my mind to focus on shorter works first, and to move up to novella and novel length pieces as my craft improves.

With this in mind, I’ve begun writing a story called “Pitch”, based on a concept I’ve been kicking around for about a decade. Over the years, my excuse for not writing it (in my head) was that I thought it was a really great, original idea, and I didn’t want to attempt it until I had some writing chops. Which was another way of saying I was scared to try it, or just lazy. I still think it’s a very good story but, skill or no skill, it’s time to write the damn thing. At the point of this writing I’m five (ms word) pages in, about 2,600 words. And I’m just now getting to the event that really sets the story in motion. Apparently I’m going to be one of those long-winded writers that will eventually need to cut, cut, cut. *sigh*

Also, after examination, the prologue for my novel stands very well as a short story unto itself. With some re-tooling, it might be worth submission to publishers. If I can get it in print, reaction to it could tell me if the subsequent novel is something I should really invest my time in.

As for the previously mentioned poem, it’s called “Corners”, and is currently in second draft status. While I fancied myself a poet-type in early high school, it’s been a long time since I’ve put any non-prose together outside the purpose of songwriting. I generally don’t enjoy reading poetry. It’s just not my thing. Long ago my interest turned towards the lyrical, and I don’t often stray from that. Once in awhile, though, an idea forms on paper (or computer screen) in poetry form, rather without my consent. This is one of those times and, for once, I actually like it. It’s really a narrative in poetic form. I’m not sure if it’s good, but I really felt it when I wrote it, even in revision.

I hope to soon pass along these works to some creatively-bent friends for real constructive criticism, but I’m waiting to complete third drafts first.

TOTALLY UNRELATED STUFF:

If you’re a fan of horror, stuff that’s crudely funny and/or Nathan Fillion (Mal from Firefly/Serenity), you should watch “Slither”, now on DVD. Sadly a box office bomb, this is a really entertaining film, thick with classic horror homage, great dark humor and ridiculous amounts of old-school-meets-new-school, over-the-top gore. While gross, the movie isn’t really scary, more creepy in a fun way. Plus, the DVD special features are awesome and generally quite funny, especially the ones devoted to Nathan.

If you’re looking for non-cerebral fun in theaters, check out Night at the Museum. This is purely a kids’ movie, but it’s a good ride. Yes, you could nitpick the hell out of it, but take it from a kid’s level, and it’s a blast. Plus, it encourages kids to learn! It sure is silly, but sometimes, that’s just what the brain needs.

X-BOX FOR SALE: In case anybody is interested, I’m selling my Xbox gaming system, with two controllers, for $60. Intent on pursuing the writing life, I’m trying to purge unnecessary distractions, video games being a big one. So, my Xbox and games are on the market. (Now, if I could just tear myself away from New Super Mario Bros. on my wife’s Nintendo DS…).

Today, after over a year of saving and oddball freelance jobs, I finally acquired a new computer. I call her Serenity, and she’s a MacBook Intel Core 2 Duo, all white, sleek and lightweight.

This is a pretty big jump from my Mac Mini, which is 4 processors back (G4-G5-Core Duo-Core 2 Duo) and feeling the strain of heavy programs like Photoshop CS2, Flash 8 and Dreamweaver 8 (and I tend to run these and other programs all at the same time).

The thing, though, is that I bought this machine primarily for writing. Some time ago, I started clearing the spare room first used for video games and random storage to create a writing room. I wanted a separate space from the office, where the Mini is and where we do all of our general computer stuff, plus my freelance design. It’s also where I practice and record music, my (seldom used) drawing table is in there, and a ton of books, files and other who’sits and what’sits live there, too. It’s a cluttered space, and I wanted to escape that to some degree to write. Plus, having the second machine in it’s own space allows Wendy and I to both get online and do our stuff at the same time, instead of hovering over the other, waiting for them to log off.

To a degree, I’ve been waiting on this machine to really dig into my writing projects. Which, of course, was an excuse to procrastinate. I’ve not been completely idle, though. Over the past year and a half, I’ve filled a dense, gridlined book with my tiny, hasty print, detailing story ideas, comic scripts, full scenes, character descriptions, scraps of song lyrics and even, uncharacteristically, a poem or two. Only the script to a comic project with my buddy Gene, Good Intentions, has made it’s way to the computer screen.

In January, I’m going underground. When I’m not at work, I’ll be writing and working on my (long overdue) music demo. I’m burning some vacation time and taking a week off, to concentrate on my creative projects. The rest of the month, my evenings will be devoted to advancing those projects. I’m reserving one night a week for my girl, and one for being social. If all goes according to plan (when does that ever happen?), the rest of the time I’ll be a hermit. Hopefully I’ll make some real headway, and it will give me an honest idea of what it’s like to pursue that kind of creative life.

Some of you might be thinking, “he’s kind of a hermit anyway”. And that’s true at times. I guard my private time fiercely, mostly because my busy lifestyle has always been an obstacle to my creative life. I’m learning, though, that I need to be my own Ganesha and clear away those obstacles, and excuses. When I’m creative and productive, I’m a way happier guy, and generally more social.

So, January, me and Serenity get to know each other. But first, Christmas and the hallowed Armadian tradition, New Year’s Eve shindig! Happy (insert appropriate religious / social / Hallmark holiday here)!

A groomsman again. The new writing gig.

Over the weekend, my friends Gene and Mary got engaged. They’ve been together for over a year and a half, and live together in New York. Gene was the bass player in my old band, Kessel Run. I met Mary in the theatre department at SIUE, but didn’t really get to know her until Carrie inducted her into the Armada. When my wife’s father died unexpectedly, Mary proved herself an invaluable support, having experienced a similar loss. Gene and Mary had both moved into the Chicago area around the same time, but didn’t actually meet eachother until they were both visiting the E-ville crowd on Oscar Night. We had gathered together to witness LOTR: Return of the King destroy the Oscar competition, and they shared some coy flirting. A couple of months later, Wendy & I and Travis & Carrie (then still together) visited Mary in Chi-town, and Gene joined us. We left the two of them in a room together long enough and sparks flew. They were ridiculously cute together before even being official and swiftly proved to be the coupling that should have painfully obvious to any of us who had bothered to consider it. They are both independent, creatively-driven folks, unconcerned with material possessions. Their quality of life is based on the realization of their career objectives, and the amount of time they can spend together. Theirs is a lovely union, and example of what a relationships should be like.

Sooner after their announcement, I was asked to be part of Gene’s “League of Extraordinary Groomsmen”. I was surprised and flattered. Geno and I have been good friends for about six years, and creative partners in the band and in some comic and web projects. Yet, we weren’t terribly close back in the band days. It’s been in the past couple of years, with him living first out of the area and then out of state, that we’ve gotten tighter. As we’ve gotten older, our ambitions have aligned more and more often, our creative fires focused in similar ways. Our conversations now are decidedly adult (even when discussing silly things), the talk of peers fighting their ways down similar paths. (Quite similar, in fact, to my chats with my pal Josh, now a professional artist in San Francisco, making quite the name for himself.) The maturation of our friendship has been a very rewarding experience, and I’m pleased as can be to have a spot in his line-up.

The Gene/Mary wedding will be my second appearance as a groomsman this year. I’m also in Big T (a Travis, not the recently divorced) and Amanda’s nuptials, to be held in April. I met Big T and Gene on the same evening years back, and they have been constants in my life ever since. T is, surprise surprise, another arty type, a graphic designer of ample skill and creative flair. His fiance, Amanda, was at first my coworker at Emmis, and eventually my good pal, co-conspirator, and Chai buddy. They hooked up on the second visit to see Mary and Gene in Chicago and, again, were an obvious match. (I saw this one coming. In the early days at Emmis, I would often lament “it’s too bad Amanda has a boyfriend – she would be perfect for Big T. I purty smart sumtimes.) Along with Cory and Amy, they are Wendy and I’s closest “couple friends”, that great combination of folks that we can spend couple time with, or break apart into various combinations for socializing. They’re just as silly and obsessive as we are, too.

A note: Wendy is a bridesmaid in both of these weddings, too.

In other going’s ons, I’ll be doing a lifestyle/humor/social commentary column in On The Edge, a weekend insert paper in the Edwardsville Intelligencer. The first one is supposed to go out this week. The first article is titled “Carts Gone Wild”. It’s a trial basis thing, unpaid and testing the waters, but it’s a chance for me to get something some kind of published. And it’s fun. The column is basically a way for me to bitch about things that irritate me in a funny, good-natured fashion. It also gives me a regular writing assignment with a deadline. That’s good experience for me, being as I want to pursue writing as at least an additional career to the nine-million other things I do…

So now I’m doing this to. This blog thing. My intention is that it is for my benefit – a writing exercise to get me to put something down in prose (almost) everyday. I’m getting better at this in general, sitting at Starbucks on my lunchbreak, scribbling stuff into my little notebook. But I don’t think it would hurt to have another forum for easy expression.

Let’s see how long I keep this up…