Come See Me at Awesome Con

So what are you doing the weekend of April 26-28th? If you’re planning to be in D.C., you should check out Awesome Con downtown at the convention center. If you’re not planning to be in D.C., you should plan to be in D.C. and come check out Awesome Con downtown at the convention center

I will have a table (Q-09) in Artist Alley with three other local writers: Nick DeWolf, Slade Grayson, and E.J. Wenstrom. We’re going to be planted across from Wild Bill’s Olde Fashioned Soda, which I’ve never heard of, but I think it’s reasonable to assume Wild Bill knows how to party. I mean, his name is Wild Bill. We’ll also be adjacent to Dark Horse Comics, which, cool!

Friday evening, Nick, E.J., and I will be on a panel of local writers with Neil Cohen, David Salkin, and Alton Simpson, so you should come ask us questions. “Ask us questions” may also be read as “heckle us.” Earlier that day, E.J.’s on another panel, and then Neil has one on entrepreneurship on Sunday. Mostly, I’ll just be hanging out, enjoying the con, and hoping I get to meet some cool people (and hopefully sell a few books).

If you decide to come, please swing by and say hello. Mention this blog post, and get a free bookmark!

Under New Management, The Walking Dead Shambles On

I haven’t written about The Walking Dead for a while. I haven’t felt like it’s been worth writing about for a while. But now that it’s under new management and a major cast member has exited the show, I was interested to see where the series stands after nine seasons, an eternity on network television.

(Coincidentally, this ended up being 3,600 words, an eternity on the Internet, so if you don’t feel like reading that and want to leave right now, I really can’t blame you. I wrote it, though, so I’m posting it, dammit!)

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One Sentence About This State of Emergency

After two years of holding partisan control of the federal government during which border security was not an emergency, a president the American people don’t want is declaring a state of emergency that doesn’t exist to build a wasteful and ineffective wall the American people don’t want, by taking money from the military’s tax-funded budget, not Mexico as he promised, and to satisfy prejudices and assuage fears he helped create with lies and demagoguery, thus sidestepping democracy and invoking autocracy in the country that used to be the leader of the free world where self-proclaimed patriots and champions of liberty used to criticize a black president for using the power of executive order and now are celebrating victory for getting nothing their country wants or needs, because one failed businessman turned celebrity exploits the popular scorn of modern American politics to convince them he knows best and reinforces that belief with propaganda, confirmation bias, and the cognitive dissonance of a generation that stripped future generations of their prosperity and is losing its grasp on the modern world.

Confidence in Writing

Last week, a young writer asked if I had any insecurities about my writing. My initial response was, yes, of course I have insecurities. I wouldn’t be a writer if I wasn’t on some level insecure about my writing (and in general about everything for always and forever).

However, after some retrospection, I realized I’m in a much better place than I was when I started.

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The Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons

(Update: I mention below that I recommend the first two books in this series, but I no longer feel that way, since I discovered Dan Simons is a terrible human being and I believe we not only can’t separate the artist from the art but that we shouldn’t. Maybe that’s a blog for another time, but suffice it to say I can’t endorse the work of anyone who distorts American ideals and espouses beliefs that hurt innocent people simply trying to live happy, fulfilling lives the best way they can.)

I acknowledge it’s unfair of me to review Dan Simmons’ entire Hyperion Cantos together because it’s a long, complex journey with highs and lows in terms of both narrative drama and writing quality. In many ways, it’s less a four-book series, and more a duology of duologies. Unfortunately, the first two books are far superior than the latter two, which mainly serve to button up the universe. If these books interest you at all, I might recommend reading only the first two; however, the Endymion books might compel you, and you might find yourself beginning to resent them and questioning whether it was worth beginning the series in the first place.

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On Telling Students ‘No’

Nick Mamatas went on a Tweet storm yesterday about creative writing teachers barring students from writing genre fiction. It sparked conversation in the various Internets where writers dwell. I had thoughts.

I think Nick took it too far. Were we close, I’d ask him who hurt him, but alas, we’re not. I do think Nick was onto something, though.

(I should preface the rest of this with the disclaimer that I am not a fiction teacher, nor have I ever had the opportunity of teaching fiction writing, and nor is this a criticism of any creative writing teacher in particular. It’s a hard and thankless job, and it takes a special person to legitimately be excited to help others grow and succeed.)

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Thor: Ragnarok, A Review In Questions

I grew up reading comic books and was firmly in the Marvel camp, more specifically with the X-Men.

For the last couple years, I haven’t watched any Marvel movies (save for the X-Men movies, but they’re in their own bubble universe). It wasn’t for lack of desire. I just missed them at the theater, and then I missed them at home, and before I knew it, I was like seven movies behind. I wasn’t going to jump back in with the latest at that point, and the new ones kept coming out.

So the lady and I have been catching up, and we finally got to Thor: Ragnarok. I liked it. It was fun. Trouble is I feel like the filmmakers did everything they could to not make a Thor movie while making a Thor movie. I don’t think they were subtle about this (there is no other reason for them to cut Thor’s hair than for it to be symbolic).

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A Picture May Be Worth A Thousand Words, But An Imagination Is Way More Efficient Than That

If you had someone encourage you to write when you were young, he or she may have said, “paint me a picture.” As it turns out, this would be the worst advice anyone would ever give you. Even more dire is it may be the foundation of what many people believe to be good writing, and it’s evident as one of the most pervasive problems I see in the work of new writers.

Sometimes I think, maybe one day, I’ll get to teach a creative writing class. I think I would really enjoy it, and I think I could be reasonably good at it. In these times of grand fantasy, I consider the lessons I might bestow upon the next generation of writers.

Chief among them would be, as the writer, you’re not the painter. You’re the person at the paint store. Your readers aren’t using your imagination. Your readers are using their imaginations.

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Dark Fiction, Author Anxiety, and Personal Judgment

The lady and I recently watched Netflix’s The Staircase, a docu-series about the novelist Michael Peterson who was charged with murdering his wife in 2001. Similar to Making a Murderer, it’s another fascinating investigation of the American justice system. I highly recommend both of them.

A bit of a disclaimer, though: these are not mystery stories. They are not about whether the suspects did or did not murder the victim (I realize the marketing image I chose to plop down to the right of these words poses that very question, but it’s the most compelling way Netflix could find to sell you on it).

These docu-series put the American justice system on full display, exposing its flaws. They will make you question your faith in the fundamental tenet of American justice that a defendant should be considered innocent until proven guilty, and they will make you question our very humanity, especially given the context of the cruel times in which we live. If you watch them, they will anger and sadden you because the reality they portray is not one we confront often, or maybe because it’s one which we are increasingly forced to come to terms with.

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