mike sucks at writing

i really should have posted this last week in order to capitalize on the small bump in traffic afforded by a guest post on Q’s site, but if i had that kind of forethought and agility, i wouldn’t be me, and this would site would be called mikerocksatwriting.

Notwithstanding what the voices in my head tell me, i really haven’t been slacking off all this time. i’ve actually been trying to focus on some work. Q, my brother, and i have been working on creating a card game in the hopes that we can market it through some back channels that we have open to us. While it’s been a slightly painful process to iron out, it’s also been a good deal of fun, and i think we’re really close to a working prototype.

i’ve also been focused on my characters for Venus. They really are the most important part of any story, and the more i understand that, the more i worry about the ones that i’ve created. This is one area where my propensity to distract myself with ‘tips and tricks’ really gets the better of me, and while i keep telling myself that i need to just get on with it and write, i’m terrified that i haven’t built my characters enough to serve the writing like they should.

Lately, however, i discovered a neat little trick that has not only helped me, it’s injected a lot of FUN back into my writing. A gentleman that i follow on twitter, mr. nate cosby, is an ex-comic book editor and now comic writer. He’s been posting these short character monologues, usually for well known comic characters. What i love about these little snippets of character is how much voice and personality can be packed into just a few sentences. And, as sure as anything, when i started to use this same method on my own characters, i suddenly discovered their passions, their histories, and their points of view. i’ve decided that i’m going to post these monologues for the next few weeks, covering all of my major characters.

First up is Sarah, the over-critical, motherly member of the crew of The Pope Of Fools. i hope you enjoy!

I did everything they wanted me to do, though it was never good enough. I took the piano lessons and the ballet lessons and the tutoring job. I pushed myself in school and and life, as hard as they wanted and beyond. It would be petulant and adolescent for me to say that I hated every minute of it, but I always felt like I was doing it for reasons outside myself.

I spent 6 months running with the Flippers. The things we did I will not admit to anyone outside of my own head, but by the time I walked away I made enough money to put myself through a decent school. I did that and graduated, but the past caught up to me before the ceremony. I skipped it, and ran into Eddie at the docks. I needed a ride; he needed a pilot. Done and done.

Receptionist [nasal, bored]: hello and welcome to the crime-fighters temp agency, Where We Give Your Vigilantism a Boost ™. What is your superhero name and power?

Applicant: I am Ferroman!

Receptionist: uh huh….

Applicant: I am Magnetic!

Receptionist: uh huh….

Applicant: I… I can scale buildings!

Receptionist: metal buildings

Applicant: Yes, right. I can pin bad guys to walls like fingerpaintings to a fridge!

Receptionist: metal walls

Applicant: Yes, well… I… I’m very good with finding keys….

Receptionist: uh huh. we’re now closed for the day, sir. [she slams down a metal shutter on the teller window.]

[Ferroman lowers his gaze in dejected defeat. The top of his becowled head is is immediately attracted to the metal shutter and pulls him forward, sticking him to it like a magnet. His shoulders heave a sigh.]

not dead. just wrestling…
…with the summer, with my promises, and with myself. i am writing, just not as much or as quickly as i would like.

i realized yesterday that i’m approaching a year of the experiment of the new me. i am healthier, stronger, happier, and more productive than i’ve been since my oldest son was born, but those are the symptoms. the one thing that i’ve actually gained over the last year is a comfort with the idea of dissatisfaction. My days now are marked with this nagging feeling that something isn’t altogether copacetic. Whether it’s that i haven’t written, or that i’m still not my ideal weight, or that i’m not happy with how i perform my job, or whatever, i feel like i’m constantly finding things that need improvement. That was probably always the case, but the difference now is that i’m not as afraid to address those things and figure out what to do about them: grab a notebook, look up a new diet, try a standing desk, etc. i’m a little afraid that this dissatisfaction will lead to some Mr. Toad complex where i’m constantly jumping from one new thing to another, trying to fix things that don’t need it, but at the moment there is plenty that is still broken.

Today has been something of a train wreck, full of disappointment and difficulty. Some of it i’m trying to heal as the days goes on, the rest i’ve set aside and decided to have a better day tomorrow. Here’s to hoping that it works.

not going to talk about all of the things that i should be posting right now. instead, i’m going to post a piece of Venus that i’ve had kicking around in my head for a good long while.

“This is a culture that never forgets. It remembers everything that it’s been told was good, all the way back to the birth of the internet, back to the beginning of the television, back to the first radio show, back to the first telephone call, back to the first photograph, back to the first novel, back to the first painting, back to the first cave drawing. We’ve scanned and digitized and catalogued and stored away all of it, made it all available to anyone with a connection and a subscription fee. Jeff looked around in the store, at the towers of stacked comic books, at the cases upon cases of fiction and cookbooks and role playing game books and self-help books, at the rows upon rows of cards that represented disks that represented digital files that represented the sounds of musicians playing instruments into computers that represented music, and thought, ‘Dear god do we ever need a case of Alzheimer’s. We need a lobotomy.’”

thanks for reading.

i want to be clear: i don’t believe that the world will “end” or that there will be any kind of apocalyptic event that will alter the face of the human world. In fact, i believe that is the great tragedy of the modern world.

But lately i’ve been thinking a lot about the end of all things. It’s hard not to with the rapture passing us by and 2012 right around the corner. And, as always with these types of musings, i turn to the stories that i know for inspiration, insight, and context. It seems–”seems” because i don’t like making broad statements without doing the research, and i’m really not in the mood for research–like there have been an increasing number of books, movies, video games, and other entertainment that have been focused on this idea of the end of the world. most zombie movies classify, and those have been more prevalent, as well as some science fiction, and also speculative fiction–which is my new favorite name for a genre. But why? Why are these types of stories more and more popular? Why are we so eager to watch the world burn? i have some ideas.

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Let’s do something different today. i’m a little tired of talking about how crazy i used to be and how tomorrow is going to be a better day. This isn’t an Anthony Robbins blog, goddamnit.

i really enjoy cooking. (i promise that this will be relevant.) I prescribe to the Robert Rodriquez mentality about cooking: we’ve all got to eat: might as well try to be good at it.

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here is something that i made. It’s called Venus. i’m pretty proud of it, and i would like to share it with anyone who wants to read it.

this is something that i’ve been working on for a long time. eventually, it will become a serialized novel, and it will have it’s own website. I just really felt like i needed to get it out there. For now, i’m going to plan to have the next part out in a month. there will be other regular updates between here and then.

i’ve uploaded a pdf version of the piece which should be readable by just about anyone or anything. please let me know if this is not the case. It’s available here.

feel free to leave a comment if you wish. overly negative comments will be ignored and/or deleted.

It’s been eight months since my little experiment gained a lot more variables.

It’s also been about two months since i’ve written anything here. Nothing has changed, broken, or relapsed to cause this–not really. Maybe that’s part of the problem. i don’t have a reason for the hiatus, though, good or bad. i’ve been working, slowly, on a post or two as well as the “novel” that i hope to begin distributing in the near future, but production slowed to nearly a halt in March and i’ve only recently gotten some momentum back.
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Some days are harder than others

i’m finding more and more that divergence is an important part of my creative process. That’s part of the reason why i’m writing a blog post every week as well as working on the fiction project. It’s impossible to stop inspiration, and there are times when lightening strikes, but it completely misses the story over here in favor for one over there. i’ve struggled a lot with capturing these kinds of things–i’m forever terrified that i’m not going to be able to find out where i wrote that one thing about that one story when i’m finally around to writing it. i’ve developed a somewhat complex system of notebooks, Evernotes, Google documents, labels, etc, but i think it works. My expectation is that when i finish with Venus and move on to the next thing, the first few days will consist solely of hitting all of the myriad bits and pieces of character notes, setting ideas, plot points, dialog snippets, etc.

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