Okay, back from a one week getaway with the family that we do every year. Well, going on 3 years. Last year Villain was out, and July was the month when it took off. I'd look at the numbers for the sales at dinner time and freak out. I mean, this isn't the kind of book that should sell, much less sell well.
Last year I was also mid-Wayward and on a mission. I dedicated 5-7 hours a day and came home from the 5 day trip with over 100 pages of first draft stuff.
This year I blew it. I had plans, I had a bunch of started scenes that I planned to pickup...This was a 6 day trip, and I hoped to do at least as much as last year. I did fifteen pages. One Five. No excuse or particular reason, I'm just working on a different kind of story this year, and unlike 1 and 2, I don't have the end.
I work that way, with a final goal, mostly in chronological order, adding missing scenes later as they're needed. I have the ending, which for Villain was an rpg game I had run. For Wayward, I had the entire finale in my head, plotted out to the last detail. I knew what I wanted to do, and then it was just question of having the free time to sit down and do it.
Three is different. I don't know the ending. I mean, I have two ideas for the final act, but neither gets me hot and heavy. So I'm working with a fully plotted first act, a partially envisioned second, and no idea about the end. It's real important to do something different than what's expected, which would be a head to head throwdown with Epic, engineered by Mr. Haha. Hell, that's what I want, too, but how full of shit would that be? I mean, we saw them go at it already, what's Epic going to do? Learn some Brazilian Ju Jitsu?
It's different because I want to do it different. Different is what's worked with Blackjack until now. Know what would be more painful and real than that kind of perma-anymosity? Have them have to work together. Now that would suck, but it'd be awesome at the same time. THAT's what I'm looking for about the ending. I don't want to just have some crazy fight among the heroes, then everyone stops, looks up and sees the Lightbringer's New Army (tm) arriving on Earth to take us over...
...actually, that doesn't sound so bad.
Okay, two related pet peeves. Why do aliens always have to land in the United States? Specifically LA or NYC? If you see images of population distribution, they'd be much more interested in the area around India than in us. If I'm an alien general with even a slight bit of military knowledge, and the goal is to subjugate/destroy the population, I drop my ships there. It's mentioned in one of the funniest lines of Monsters vs. Aliens, but they keep sending their Chitauri to NYC as if that would settle the issue. Silly aliens.
But say they get wise, and instead of land in the US, they go after India or China, places where population density is nearly off the charts. They find a nice open field, land their dropships and muster the troops in nice even rows...THEN GET OBLITERATED. I hate that movies totally disregard our conventional military save for an F-22 flyby so it can fire an AIR TO AIR missile into the huge Kaiju or alien dropship, only to get crushed 30 seconds later. I loved Pacific Rim, but those Kaiju would last 30 seconds against a flight of AC-130H Spectres. I have a cousin that flew those suckers, their 105s have a range in KILOMETERS. The Kaiju might not ever actually see the planes hurling 105mm shells into it's chest cavity, sending it back to Hell.
Then there's the B-52. We have dozens of them in our inventory and they can drop 20,000+ lbs of bombs, cruise missiles and anything else we can think of. Imagine a flight of those coming overhead as the alien army is forming up. Ground beef, that's what you'd get.
I know, they had some reasons for them being unwilling to fight the Kaiju with conventional weapons, namely their blood, and the Chitauri in Avengers came by surprise, overwhelming everything that was available at the time. I imagine that amazing final sequence of the Avengers must've taken place over the course of an hour at the most, little time for any reasonable response. But it drives me nuts when they do that. I'm a huge fan of mecha since my father got me a Mazinger Z 3 foot tall figure when I was eight. I mean, I wrote mecha in both books and I had my whole clan frothing at the mouth, waiting to see Pacific Rim...but some of these things tend to add up.
I'm ranting, I know, but this stuff pisses me off. They never do it right. They've either got no time cause it's a movie, or don't spend the effort to make things more realistic. In stories like Fallen Skies, V and others, it's up to a small band of "the resistance" to do what billions of dollars in conventional weapons cannot. Why is it always up to F-22 air to air missiles, and not everything else that we have in our arsenal (I'M TALKING TO YOU MICHAEL BAY). Hell, if you were to believe the Transformers movies, our army only has M-16s or the odd Bradley. Do people know that Bradleys can fire 30mm depleted uranium shells? So does the A-10 with it's Avenger cannon. Imagine Megatron getting a belly full of lead from a flight of A-10s. Or pegged by SABOT rounds by a column M1A2 Abrams tanks?
That's what bothers me. I know why they do it, whether plotwise, or because that's the story they've chosen to tell, but to me our military is something wholesome and honorable, in particular the soldiers of all ranks that risk everything for us, and I hate that they're thrown aside as incompetent for the purpose of a plotline. When are we going to see a book or movie that takes their effort and work seriously, without over-glorifying or drowning it in bullshit?
Maybe in Blackjack three, though I'm not sure how exactly. I think it's going to be an invasion, sure, but after that I'm at a loss.
How about this: Blackjack, Apogee, SuperD...the whole bunch of them...come in hard and fast to stop the alien landing. You figure they'd be able to respond much faster than any military unit in the world, right? The author gave SuperD a plane that's as fast as plot needs it to be :) Anyway, they come in and they get CREAMED
How about that? What if we have to rely on the boys and girls in fatigues to fight this one for us? What if the supers are more of a distraction than anything...maybe going for the leadership, for the Lightbringers themselves?
Hell, I think I have my final act, after all.
And if you're wondering what I think about them:
Pacific Rim 9/10
Avengers 10/10
Transformers series 3/10
Falling Skies 4/10
V 7/10
A-10 Warthog II 100/10 :)
Friday, August 2, 2013
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Blackjack Hero Journal #3
A lot of comments I'm getting about book 2 tend to regret the lack of Apogee. Even at the end, where she appears, it's just for a glimpse. I'm glad for that, you guys liked her as much as I did to write, but her absence in book 2 was deliberate. I wanted Dale to go on a journey of self-discovery and to realize that she's only one of the rewards from crossing the finish line.
I know the relationship and his/her feelings are idealized, in a world that isn't. In a way, it rather doesn't match, but that's sort of what we go through when we meet someone, or am I wrong? We're taught through BS movies and TV that love is some holy concept when in truth it's much grittier (and screamier), and so much better than that crap.
So a large part of book three is crossing that gap, from what we idealize, what we envision out of a relationship, and the harsh realities of one. I don't know about you guys, but that was a huge learning experience for me, and I think it will be for Dale. He's kind of a man-child that never had to grow up. Now he wants to but doesn't know how. I can relate from personal experience, and I know a lot of guys do too. It's sort of the Tyler Durden syndrome - we're men who don't know how to be men. Most of us just pretend and get by.
As far as Apogee, I realize now that what I intended was good, but not having her made the book worse. She's really shining in book three, and appears from the first couple of pages and throughout. Writing them falling in love was pretty easy and a lot of fun, writing how they get to like each other, to know each other, is turning out to be quite difficult, and the greatest time I've had thus far as a writer.
Oh, and getting into the Apogee mythos is turning out a lot of really cool and fun characters. Think about it, a girl like her's been in the business awhile, and in that time, she's made some enemies...and I bet some of those were stuck on Utopia when Zundergrub let the whole lot loose.
I know the relationship and his/her feelings are idealized, in a world that isn't. In a way, it rather doesn't match, but that's sort of what we go through when we meet someone, or am I wrong? We're taught through BS movies and TV that love is some holy concept when in truth it's much grittier (and screamier), and so much better than that crap.
So a large part of book three is crossing that gap, from what we idealize, what we envision out of a relationship, and the harsh realities of one. I don't know about you guys, but that was a huge learning experience for me, and I think it will be for Dale. He's kind of a man-child that never had to grow up. Now he wants to but doesn't know how. I can relate from personal experience, and I know a lot of guys do too. It's sort of the Tyler Durden syndrome - we're men who don't know how to be men. Most of us just pretend and get by.
As far as Apogee, I realize now that what I intended was good, but not having her made the book worse. She's really shining in book three, and appears from the first couple of pages and throughout. Writing them falling in love was pretty easy and a lot of fun, writing how they get to like each other, to know each other, is turning out to be quite difficult, and the greatest time I've had thus far as a writer.
Oh, and getting into the Apogee mythos is turning out a lot of really cool and fun characters. Think about it, a girl like her's been in the business awhile, and in that time, she's made some enemies...and I bet some of those were stuck on Utopia when Zundergrub let the whole lot loose.
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Blackjack Hero Journal #2
Bad week. Little sick, but no excuses. Added another twenty pages to the mix, good stuff. Reintroduced Powermaster (remember him?), but with a surprising new spin. Finally got around to writing the Midwest All-Stars, who are more fun to write than they should be. I had no idea what I was going to do with Red Quiver until I literally got to that page. Yes, the Midwest All-Stars have two archers (since Superdynamic made Blackjack pickup his bow again).
I had a contest over on Facebook to change the name of Despoil (which by the way, I HATE. Have I told you guys?), and the response was pretty awesome. I ended up falling in love with Lilith in part cause of Cheers/Kramer - LILITH! - but also because the way the character is coming about, she's not an established character with a full name yet, despite the fact that she's the first Class-X super since the Original Seven. Besides that one, I loved most of the other names you guys came up with, so I'm going to add them to my list. Look for most of them to make the book in one way or another. Some of them were pretty damned clever.
Another thing that made my output a little crummy this week is that I was beset with doubt. Not about Blackjack, but about some of the other projects I'd like to work on. It's a funny/strange thing to have too much to do, then you get all depressed and then you don't accomplish anything. Are those stage two and three of procrastination according to the DSM-IV? I'm suffering from "wanna-do-too-much-itis" and its killing my focus.
See, with the time I had after I was 'done' with Blackjack 2 and the time it took to get polished by my writing partner Josh, I started screwing around and wrote a few things. One was Heart of the Jungle, an adventure fantasy inspired by the Indiana Jones movies, and the Tomb Raider and Uncharted games. I wrote about 100 pages of it, before time ran out and I had to turn my attention back to Blackjack, but as I was finishing that first act, I came to an epiphany on the whole idea, discovering an ancient Inca "code" that would serve my story. I'm dying to return to that book. I love writing Tommy Walker. The guy just speaks to me and tells me what to put down on the page. And Alicia? It shouldn't be so natural for me to write a uber-rich, cover-girl debutante trying to renew herself after a decade of drug abuse and sexual excess. I know how to channel my inner Paris...
Then, I had another pause while my editor finished the book and came up with another idea, something shorter and serialized, something futuristic, but trying to show the dark veneer beneath the utopian bullcrap. It's based on a story I wrote ages ago, but more defined, and as I started to put together the first episode, much darker than anything I have ever written before. It's called Interstellar Overdrive and the idea is to do it quarterly, as long as it doesn't interfere with the other works. It should be a shorter work, maybe 80-120 pages per episode, in an ongoing story that we're looking to wrap up in a dozen or so episodes. When done, we intend to put together a show bible and pitch it to the TV networks.
IO is as close to a buddy cop movie as I'll ever do, uniting two friends who are veterans of a recent intergalactic conflict, who have no one else to count on but themselves as the past comes calling with a vengeance. We have episode one almost done (it's out of my hands except for tinkering), and I finished the final touches of episode two Friday night.
The fear is straying to far from Blackjack. I owe you guys and I'm not going to leave you hanging. Blackjack is my number one priority and will continue to be, while at the same time pulling away from it for little bits when I need a change of pace. Episode one of IO took me awhile, but Episode two came together in a couple of weeks, working on the side, so I think I can do both for now.
Blackjack 3's outline is kind of in the air at the moment. I have a strong acts one and two, but my five act structure might not endure. In part, it's because of some of the awesome comments and suggestions you guys have been throwing my way. It's impossible to get such good ideas and discard them outright. This week, I plan on finishing act one of the third book, and try to finish the epilogue. When I have those two done, I'll get them online to you like I've done before. It's a hell of a nasty cliffhanger, if I can manage to get my ideas down on paper properly, and I know you'll like it.
As far as Dale himself, things are changing. As you saw above, or maybe you've read in a book 3 teaser I spread around a few months back, Superdynamic is kind of "in charge" of Blackjack, and in order for him to take the next step in the transition from villain to hero, is making him jump through some hoops. For his part, Dale will do whatever it takes, he's ecstatic about the possibility and for the first time, he's playing nice, being a good boy...but that never works for Dale, does it? His most positive kindness and good deed has a way of turning around and biting him in the arse.
The world might be willing to forgive our transgressions and trespasses if we show contrition, or go through the long process of redemption, but that is usually the exception to the rule. As we've seen many times with misdeeds of people like Charlie Sheen, Chris Brown, Michael Richards, Lindsey Lohan and now Paula Dean, beware when you anger the populace.
Okay, enough pontificating. Next week, Sunday, act one of Blackjack 3...now to think of excuses for my impending failure!
I had a contest over on Facebook to change the name of Despoil (which by the way, I HATE. Have I told you guys?), and the response was pretty awesome. I ended up falling in love with Lilith in part cause of Cheers/Kramer - LILITH! - but also because the way the character is coming about, she's not an established character with a full name yet, despite the fact that she's the first Class-X super since the Original Seven. Besides that one, I loved most of the other names you guys came up with, so I'm going to add them to my list. Look for most of them to make the book in one way or another. Some of them were pretty damned clever.
Another thing that made my output a little crummy this week is that I was beset with doubt. Not about Blackjack, but about some of the other projects I'd like to work on. It's a funny/strange thing to have too much to do, then you get all depressed and then you don't accomplish anything. Are those stage two and three of procrastination according to the DSM-IV? I'm suffering from "wanna-do-too-much-itis" and its killing my focus.
See, with the time I had after I was 'done' with Blackjack 2 and the time it took to get polished by my writing partner Josh, I started screwing around and wrote a few things. One was Heart of the Jungle, an adventure fantasy inspired by the Indiana Jones movies, and the Tomb Raider and Uncharted games. I wrote about 100 pages of it, before time ran out and I had to turn my attention back to Blackjack, but as I was finishing that first act, I came to an epiphany on the whole idea, discovering an ancient Inca "code" that would serve my story. I'm dying to return to that book. I love writing Tommy Walker. The guy just speaks to me and tells me what to put down on the page. And Alicia? It shouldn't be so natural for me to write a uber-rich, cover-girl debutante trying to renew herself after a decade of drug abuse and sexual excess. I know how to channel my inner Paris...
Then, I had another pause while my editor finished the book and came up with another idea, something shorter and serialized, something futuristic, but trying to show the dark veneer beneath the utopian bullcrap. It's based on a story I wrote ages ago, but more defined, and as I started to put together the first episode, much darker than anything I have ever written before. It's called Interstellar Overdrive and the idea is to do it quarterly, as long as it doesn't interfere with the other works. It should be a shorter work, maybe 80-120 pages per episode, in an ongoing story that we're looking to wrap up in a dozen or so episodes. When done, we intend to put together a show bible and pitch it to the TV networks.
IO is as close to a buddy cop movie as I'll ever do, uniting two friends who are veterans of a recent intergalactic conflict, who have no one else to count on but themselves as the past comes calling with a vengeance. We have episode one almost done (it's out of my hands except for tinkering), and I finished the final touches of episode two Friday night.
The fear is straying to far from Blackjack. I owe you guys and I'm not going to leave you hanging. Blackjack is my number one priority and will continue to be, while at the same time pulling away from it for little bits when I need a change of pace. Episode one of IO took me awhile, but Episode two came together in a couple of weeks, working on the side, so I think I can do both for now.
Blackjack 3's outline is kind of in the air at the moment. I have a strong acts one and two, but my five act structure might not endure. In part, it's because of some of the awesome comments and suggestions you guys have been throwing my way. It's impossible to get such good ideas and discard them outright. This week, I plan on finishing act one of the third book, and try to finish the epilogue. When I have those two done, I'll get them online to you like I've done before. It's a hell of a nasty cliffhanger, if I can manage to get my ideas down on paper properly, and I know you'll like it.
As far as Dale himself, things are changing. As you saw above, or maybe you've read in a book 3 teaser I spread around a few months back, Superdynamic is kind of "in charge" of Blackjack, and in order for him to take the next step in the transition from villain to hero, is making him jump through some hoops. For his part, Dale will do whatever it takes, he's ecstatic about the possibility and for the first time, he's playing nice, being a good boy...but that never works for Dale, does it? His most positive kindness and good deed has a way of turning around and biting him in the arse.
The world might be willing to forgive our transgressions and trespasses if we show contrition, or go through the long process of redemption, but that is usually the exception to the rule. As we've seen many times with misdeeds of people like Charlie Sheen, Chris Brown, Michael Richards, Lindsey Lohan and now Paula Dean, beware when you anger the populace.
Okay, enough pontificating. Next week, Sunday, act one of Blackjack 3...now to think of excuses for my impending failure!
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Blackjack Hero Journal #1
So I've got 45 pages of Book 3 so far and I'm just getting started. The plan is to break it up into five acts with a short prelude. I don't want to do what most stories do, to skip the uncomfortable, difficult recoveries.
Blackjack had a hard time in Book 2, not the least of which was getting a majority of his bone structure pulverized by the man-god Lord Mighty. In most stories, we'd get a shot of him in the hospital, as we had at the end of Book 2, then the next time we see him, he's got a band aid on his cheek, and one hand on a sling as he bitterly says goodbye to his dead mom/dad/girlfriend/wife at the cemetery (in heavy rain).
Part of what I want to do is show the growth of this poor guy, and I think we learn a lot about ourselves when we're laid up and have to recover. Especially after the experiences of Book 2.
The other thing I don't want to do is to skip the relationship between him and Apogee. Most books have the almost-die-kiss-I-love-you stuff, then the next episode/movie/book they're already living together, fighting...that's kind of a cop out. The hardest part of a relationship, to my experience, is starting one, then keeping one. I look forward to the challenge of writing Apogee and Blackjack's growing relationship without skirting a single difficult moment. The interesting part is to write it, while not making it too long or boring.
Also, how well do they know each other? They've shared some interesting experiences, and maybe there's the gist something, but there's a lot of stuff to work through. Fortunately, I've set things up so we can show them getting to know each other, and have some good action in the meantime.
Blackjack's coming back from injuries that would have killed anyone else, unwelcome to the roster of remaining heroes, and facing a new threat that makes his fights with Epic and Lord Mighty look pale in comparison. And remember, Zundergrub opened up the gates to Utopia (copycatting bastard David Goyer!), ruining the tenuous balance between good and evil. Things are getting worse with all those villains running around. Heroes are hanging up their capes, taking long vacations, anything to avoid facing uneven numbers.
Blackjack needs to get good in mind and body. It's time to man up.
Damn, I'm looking forward to writing this book!
Blackjack had a hard time in Book 2, not the least of which was getting a majority of his bone structure pulverized by the man-god Lord Mighty. In most stories, we'd get a shot of him in the hospital, as we had at the end of Book 2, then the next time we see him, he's got a band aid on his cheek, and one hand on a sling as he bitterly says goodbye to his dead mom/dad/girlfriend/wife at the cemetery (in heavy rain).
Part of what I want to do is show the growth of this poor guy, and I think we learn a lot about ourselves when we're laid up and have to recover. Especially after the experiences of Book 2.
The other thing I don't want to do is to skip the relationship between him and Apogee. Most books have the almost-die-kiss-I-love-you stuff, then the next episode/movie/book they're already living together, fighting...that's kind of a cop out. The hardest part of a relationship, to my experience, is starting one, then keeping one. I look forward to the challenge of writing Apogee and Blackjack's growing relationship without skirting a single difficult moment. The interesting part is to write it, while not making it too long or boring.
Also, how well do they know each other? They've shared some interesting experiences, and maybe there's the gist something, but there's a lot of stuff to work through. Fortunately, I've set things up so we can show them getting to know each other, and have some good action in the meantime.
Blackjack's coming back from injuries that would have killed anyone else, unwelcome to the roster of remaining heroes, and facing a new threat that makes his fights with Epic and Lord Mighty look pale in comparison. And remember, Zundergrub opened up the gates to Utopia (copycatting bastard David Goyer!), ruining the tenuous balance between good and evil. Things are getting worse with all those villains running around. Heroes are hanging up their capes, taking long vacations, anything to avoid facing uneven numbers.
Blackjack needs to get good in mind and body. It's time to man up.
Damn, I'm looking forward to writing this book!
Thursday, May 9, 2013
WAYWARD IS AN AMAZON #1
In several select categories, like cat books (long hair), how-to guides (bad writing), and literature (unspecified). Next stop, the New York Times Best-seller list.
Actually, it was number one for all comic books (beating the Iron Man 3 tie-in comic, and this month's issue of Batman), and in the category of Literature-drama. I couldn't find "sci-fi" in the drop down menu, so those will have to do.
Still, it's number one.
Thanks to you guys.
Actually, it was number one for all comic books (beating the Iron Man 3 tie-in comic, and this month's issue of Batman), and in the category of Literature-drama. I couldn't find "sci-fi" in the drop down menu, so those will have to do.
Still, it's number one.
Thanks to you guys.
Friday, April 26, 2013
Blackjack Wayward is available now on Amazon
I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I did writing it:
http://www.amazon.com/Blackjack-Wayward-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B00CJL1OQC/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1367031887&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/Blackjack-Wayward-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B00CJL1OQC/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1367031887&sr=1-1
Thursday, April 25, 2013
UPDATE!
My editor's done, and the finalized manuscript is in my hands. Over the next day or so, I'll prepare the final formatted file (thanks Adobe) and make it available on Amazon as soon as I can. I don't plan on sleeping until it's up.
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