Blackjack Beatdown, 060418 (all of it, this time)

If it’s Monday, it’s time for a new Blackjack Beatdown!

Ben here, and glad to be with you. This week we’re doing a more traditional Beatdown with the pictures and categories and all the fun stuff. Oh, and there’s also some information on what’s happening with the new Blackjack series. I’m so excited about that one that I’m letting the cat out of the bag early and letting you know what the plan is now.

But I'm still in my anti-writing funk and it's killing me. I sit down and nothing happens. Screw bookstores, seriously. You were my only hope and you let me down. I'm self-sabotaging, auto procrastinating, and ten other forms of self-flagellation resulting in my lowest 2 month word output since I started writing. 

I blame society.

Anyway, on with the Beatdown!

Where my progress on (INSERT BOOK TITLE HERE)?

Trevor - On hold for the moment. I admit I kind of hit a wall. Putting on the shelf for a few days.

Blackjack Elseworlds - Worked on it a little, including some stuff I’m including later on in the Beatdown. Got a good idea for an overarching bad guy and for his ultimate goal. Good times!

Sunset Rollins - WTF is this? Something that’s nagging at me. I’m working on an outline today. This one’s gonna be fun as hell.

Where I wish I was:

 

Talkeetna, Alaska. I wrote it as the home of our lead character in Patriots & Tyrants for a reason - to visit it at some point to do "research." It's the same logic for placing the story of Trevor Kane in San Francisco - I need to go back there for a week to do some scouting.

It's for work, right? You guys believe me...

Anyway, I'm dying to hit Alaska, to see it, to be there. To do what?

Breathe.

What I watched on TV last week?

Brooklyn 99. Yes, everyone told me. Repeatedly. But I'm an idiot. I admit it. Now it's our binge target. Forget you, Lucifer, we're hooked.

Need to finish The Expanse and Jessica Jones 2...

What's causing some of my writing problems?

 

Here she is, the main reason I'm procrastinating. I know, some of you will argue that it's the other way around - I'm procrastinating and finding reasons to sabotage my writing. If you think that's true, just look at her. Look at those eyes. 

I might write some Brigitte fan fiction - 50 Shades- style.

What I watched again yesterday?

Guardians of the Galaxy 2. Seriously great film, isn't it? If you disagree, maybe you don't have all the daddy issues I do. Get with it.

It may be my favorite MCU film so far, with the original GOTG coming in second. My rankings aren't worth shit, though. Just my personal opinions.

Favorite Quote of the Week

This is more regarding my current state of affairs (writing constipated) than any sort of political statement. I really need to get out of this funk.

“ Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it. ”

Edmund Burke

Funniest shit I've seen for days:

 

I was jonesing for...

The Beastgrip thingie for the phone. That was for the production side. I got one. It's awesome. More on that later in the week but a quick note, though:

We're delaying all talk of production. I reserve the right to change my mind 27 times before the day is through.

But, for financial reasons, and other reasons, we're putting it on hold. I'll explain more in a VLOG I'm planning.

Amazing art of the week:

This guy's art makes me want to write something. Not sure what, but something. Trevor, that's it! It makes me want to write more Trevor.

 

NANOWRIMO?

Start another one in June? I did do 2,700 words for a gap scene I needed for Blackjack. That was 6/1. Since? NOTHING. I hate the world.

But maybe let's do something less ambitious, less intrusive. Time for a new goal:

1,500 words a day. Can we do that? We'll see. It starts today with a Trevor scene I need to finish and an outline I want to start (Sunset).

Second funniest shit I've seen all week:

 

WTF is Blackjack Elseworlds going to be about?

One of the things that helps crystallize any story, when you're starting, is a one/two sentence breakdown of what the story is about. I started on that. This doesn't tell what the story's about - I'm working on it - but it gives an idea of the concept. It's also a good write up for the Amazon page.

I hope you enjoy:

Blackjack is many things; a brute, an antihero, a libertine and scoundrel, but for a short while there, he was the one thing we loved most about him, A VILLAIN. Yes, we’re going back in time, pretending that the second and third book never happened - Hell, we’re wiping the slate clean on 90% of the first book.

Why?

Does that matter?

This is Blackjack as he should have been, Blackjack unleashed.

The most fearsome supervillain of all time returns in an all-new story!

Follow your favorite supervillain in a story that asks a simple question, “What if?” What if Blackjack had never met Apogee? What if he’d never joined the Impossibles? What if he’d never made the turn to good?

WARNING: “Blackjack Elseworlds” contains nudity, gratuitous sex and violence, bad language, dismemberment and body parts used as weapons, snarky dialogue, dirty law enforcement, excessive magic, Deus ex Machina gone wrong, mind controlled orgies, partial cannibalism, organized mayhem, deplorables and disposables, guns and knives, homeless piano players, Tantric sex, various rampages, city-wide panic, and more super villains than you can shake a stick at.

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Okay, so that's the idea. A louder, more irreverent, more adult version of the same character, assuming that he went a little bit off course during the events of the first book.

Anyway, that's it for the Beatdown. I hope you guys have a great week, and I'll see you soon.

Ben