RL

0 comments on "Random Thoughts of a Misanthropic Mind"

A THIN LINE BETWEEN TOTAL NUT-JOB AND ECCENTRIC QUASI-TRILLIONAIRE:  If I ever become incredibly wealthy, I’m going to be like the guys of Dethklok (Metalocalypse.) Not all violent and crazy, but just some total loon that goes along with anything people say.

Nothing super crazy, but I think it would be cool to just go along with some “I Love Lucy”-esque hijinks and just roll with the situation. To meet all these strange people and be in their lives for a couple of days to just see how it is, but to always have the reassurance of being able to say “Fuck it” and just leave if you hate it. That has got to be one of the awesomest things ever.

Can you imagine going back in time to all the jobs you’ve ever had, doing them, but totally not giving two shits about anything? Would you tell your bosses exactly what you think of them? Would you ask that one chick what exactly that is on her chin? Would you chuck politeness and tell boring-talky-guy that his word vomit annoys you? Or would you go the other route and spend all your time being the crazy friend to different people, the one that always tries to help out and manages it, but only after some highly unlikely events take place?

Basically, how cool would it be to act like Van Wilder and have a ton of money to back you up? I would totally have a Taj of my own, though one that’s not so skeezy.

I think my life would be so much better if I had an assistant and a manager, though my manager would have to be like the guy from Josie and the Pussy Cats (he’s totally the same character in Royal Pains, no lie.) I would be like a real live Jeeves & Wooster if I had the money to pull it off. Plus I’d have a Swim Spa, never ending pool.

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COMIC BOOK CHATTER:  So I read this article at Cracked.com and it really got me to thinking about Mr. Freeze and about the different levels of evil. There are just some lines that people don’t want to cross, and you can pretty much see how hardcore a book really is by how far the villain is willing to go.

For cereal, why didn’t his boss let him keep his frozen wife on ice? If the guy was truly Machiavellian, he would have seen this as the perfect leverage to use against the guy — he could keep Fries as a serf for the rest of forever as long as he had the wife housed at his facility. Fries would have been happy to stay there and would have been loyal to his boss for being cool enough to let him keep his dead wife there. I mean, it wasn’t as though the guy was the one that killed her or anything; she had sucky genes. He could have been Fries’ hero, while still totally doing the bad guy giggle in the backroom. That right there was the stereotypical bad guy cutting his nose off to spite his face tactic.

And this is where it comes around to “Dune” once again. That was a movie that had The Evil Empire make a guy betray his Duke by snatching the guy’s wife and raping the guy’s mind into compliance. The dude was so traumatized, that even knowing his wife is dead, he still serves the bad guy and gets a bunch of people killed. He was so mind-raped that it was like he was Imperius’d or something; he served the bad guy just for the possibility of finding out what had happened to his wife. He could have told the Duke what was going on at any time, and the Duke probably would have helped him go after the bad guy. There had to be someone else that knew what happened to his wife.

But the bad guy had the poor guy so twisted, that he’s not even free to have his own thoughts. That’s pretty evil right there.

David Drake’s military sci-fi series “Northworld” kicks it up a notch with one guy being kept in a cage by The Evil King and forced to keep creating weapons. The Evil King killed the poor guy’s brothers (that or the brothers were killed before then, I’m not sure. I need to re-read the books, and you need to read them for the first time), crippled the guy, then even came around to hassle him and threaten torture on a semi-regular basis. That was a bit too much evil, considering the guy nutted out and broke The Evil King’s wife and kids, just shattered them mentally.

So there’s kind of an evil guy balance that needs to be maintained. Too evil and the victim becomes an unstoppable killing machine, and not evil enough and the guy becomes an unstoppable killing machine that speaks with a thick Austrian accent and wants to kill that pesky spandex wearing boy.

Panoply at Amazon
0 comments on "Why I Write"

Why do I write? Because writing makes me happy and gives me something I desperately crave – an outlet for all of the people and worlds living in my head.

Writers aren’t exactly people…they’re a whole lot of people trying to be one person.
-F. Scott Fitzgerald

To be honest, I don’t ever expect to become rich off of my writings. I don’t exactly see myself as being the next J.K. Rowling or Laurell K. Hamilton or Stephen King.

I just like to write.

I do hope to reach the point – soonish rather than later – where I will be able to pay off all of my debts and make a fairly comfortable living. I would like to be able to give the Kid a good education and a nice place to live. Most of all, I never want to worry about him going hungry again.

But even if I was living in a gutter somewhere, I would still write, because it is my passion and my joy.

Even if there was no one to read the words, I would still write them down. On a computer, in a notebook, in the dirt on the floor… the words would still flow out of me and always will.

That being said, I really do appreciate it when someone reads something I’ve written. Whenever I sell a book, I feel a jolt of pleasure at the idea that someone out there is meeting the people I created and traveling the world they live in. And I hope they experience the same richness of feeling that I did as I wrote every word and imagined every action or scene.

Feedback is always appreciated, but to just know that someone is reading something I’ve created… that’s enough.

~Peace, love, joy

 

All Systems Red at Amazon
0 comments on "So Famous You Transcend Fame"

Johnny Depp is the kind of famous where he could stop acting in movies, have lost all his money, and could be residing in a dumpster – and people would still recognize his name and face. He’s just got this legendary kind of fame, and he also happens to be an incredibly attractive man.

He is probably one of the most beautiful men in the world, and he’s only gotten better with age. I look at his “21 Jump Street” day photos and he’s a pretty boy, but he grew up into a beautiful man.  And on top of that he’s an excellent actor and always seems charming.

There are just some movies that are made better just by having a particular actor or actress in it. Johnny Depp makes every movie he’s in better. That’s being a star.

And that’s what I’ve been thinking about: Being a star. Being incredibly famous. Being the kind of person that thousands of people completely obsess about.

I’ve been writing “Idlewile,” my band story. In it, Idlewile is Johnny Depp, Rain, Big Bang level famous. First from his boy band days, then now as a soloist. It has really made me think about fame and what it would be like to deal with being so famous that literally EVERYONE in the world knows your name and what you look like.

Which brings me back to Johnny Depp.

He has always kept it classy, or if there’s been any slips he has a good PR sense. Some people have questioned his fashion, but I think it ties in to his need for some semblance of privacy. Those hats and glasses and even the flashy things he likes to wear – they draw the eye and that’s all anyone sees: Johnny Depp wearing eyeliner or channeling Jack Sparrow.

Everyone needs a place to hide sometimes. Even if that “place” happens to just be the mask you wear in public.

 

Uramichi Oniisan 01 at Amazon
0 comments on "Where are all of the book remixes at? The Book Remix Project?"

My brain just totally popped with an idea that I feel like I should immediately share with the world:

Book Remixes

I’ve admitted my secret “shame” before – my fondness for reading fanfiction – and one of the things fanfic authors like to do is a story remix.

It’s basically when someone writes a really awesome story that lots of people love. A fanfiction story so great, that someone writes a fanfiction for it. A fanfiction of a fanfiction. It’s like some kind of unintended mindsuck, like the movie “Inception” (which has a very hearty fandom behind it.)

In fanfiction, one author asks the other for permission, then rewrites their story in a different way. Like a lighthearted comedy story could be taken to a very different extreme, or the whole story could be basically the same, except the very end. Sometimes there are remix contests where all kinds of fanfic authors throw their stories into a hat, then other authors rewrite the stories in their own way. It’s just one of those stupid fun things people like to do.

So what stops indie authors from doing the same thing? Like each one of the remixed books could have REMIX in the title and an explanation of what they are on their description pages, or maybe there could be a story collection. It could be like a fun contest for authors to enter – either to exchange books amongst themselves, or to rewrite classic literature in the common domain.

I just think it would be a really fun thing to read.

Imagine: CJ Cherryh rewriting “Brave New World.” And Aldous Huxley rewriting “Fortress In the Eye of Time.”
Mark Twain rewriting “Pride & Prejudice.” And Jane Austen rewriting “Huckleberry Finn.”
Joss Whedon rewriting “Twilight.” And Stephanie Meyer rewriting “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (or even better, what if she rewrote “Angel?”)