Content Doesn’t Always Have to be Instant

I wrote this post yesterday in my notebook, but I didn’t want to post it online for at least a day just to make a point to myself. It seems as though my point is still valid. Well played, Me. Well played.

One of the things I struggle with when it comes to writing a blog (or 3) is the need to be as current and timely as possible while still having a thought-out position on a subject.

The internet is all about what’s going on right-now right now. It’s like the commercial on TV about phone network speed where people’s announcements are met with “That was so 30 seconds ago.” What was trending yesterday is old news today. While content on the internet is archived and timeless, it’s also re-invented every day. That’s one of the great and fascinating thing about teh interwebz, it can be a new experience every time you check. It’s hard to ignore the feeling that I’m behind the curve whenever I post online.

See, I’m not very good at just throwing my opinion out there for the world to see without some research and after thought. I am very aware that what goes on the internet has a good chance of staying, and spreading across, the internet. Especially if it’s something dumb.

I need to balance my need for review and research with the right-now-ness of the internet. Truthfully, it’s ok to write about a subject a day, a week, or even a month after it happens. I don’t get paid to blog. I don’t have a legion of followers expecting a blog post everyday (Although thank you to you who do follow). I will just have to be content with writing about the topics I feel like writing about, when I feel like writing about them.

Hard Work, Passion, Knowledge and Time

Two years ago, I started my own home-based business. I offer home inventory services. I will go into a home and document information on all property by recording descriptions, model numbers and serial numbers. I also take photos of each item.

Everyone I tell about the business says, “That’s a great idea!” The only problem is that very few people have said “That’s a great idea! I’d like to set up an appointment.” and I’ve been unable to get that second sentence out of people. In 2 years I’ve made $300 in sales. I won’t tell you what I’ve spent on the business, just that it’s more than $300.

Running a failing business has encouraged me to try more creative things. You’d think that it would have the opposite effect. Any alternate income idea I’ve had has been stopped with one thought, “I’ll have to work on it too long before it pays off.” However, if my business were to take off tomorrow, I’d consider it a success.

It takes hard work, passion, knowledge and time to become a success at anything. I have done the hard work and gained the knowledge I need to start my business. However, the passion I had 2 years ago isn’t there anymore and the time (and timing) has not been on my side. I’m still searching for the thing I love to do. I’m still looking for the thing that I can be passionate about, that makes the hard work easy, makes learning fun and makes time fly by.

Creating Characters Like Stan Lee

It’s not often I get to be topical and current with my blog posts, so I’m kinda excited for this one. Last week I went to the library to look for books about writing that focus more on stories and characters than grammar and planning. I checked out two books, one of which is How to Write Comics by the ultimate character creator, Stan Lee.

I chose this book, not because I want to write comics, but because Lee has created some of the most the most captivating stories and characters of the 20th century. That and half the book is covered in pictures, so I think I can get through it pretty quickly.

There’s a slim chance you’ve never heard of him, but I would bet that you’ve heard of at least one of his characters. He is the imagination behind The Avengers (Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America), the X-Men, Spiderman and a crazy amount of other comic book characters!

Some of the tips on creating a good protagonist from How to Write Comics are…

• Start with a vague description – Describe your character in 1-2 words.
• Create a supporting cast that contrasts your main character. They should vary by race, gender, age, temperament, experience and point of view. Use personalities you know to create these characters.
• Add some motivation – Why does your character act the way they do? Use real life scenarios and kick it up a notch.
• Give you character some..well character – What choices are they likely to make? Make those choices further the plot.
• Add some personality – Once again, use people you know and model their behaviors.
• For EVERY character you create, find out…
  • What does the character want? What is the best thing that could happen?
  • What is in their way of their goal? What is the worst that could happen?
  • Use these questions to articulate goals and find opportunities for conflict.
• Show, don’t tell, your character’s traits – Instead of your character saying “I like comic books.” write about their collection or show them arguing super hero traits with a friend.
• Don’t blatantly give your characters goals and fears in dialogue. “I need to get the sacred artifact and I’m scared silly of snakes.” was never a line by Indiana Jones.
• Make sure to motivate your antagonist. Bad guys have feelings too.

I think I’m going to use these tips to start on my own character creation template. I hope they are some help to you as well!

Writer’s Digest Prompt: Backstage Passes Lead to Adventure

 In my new-found search to get into writing, I found WritersDigest.com which seems like an excellent place to start. They put out a weekly creative writing prompt. The response has to be less than 500 words which is harder than I thought.

You’ve been given the opportunity to see any band (dead or alive) at a live concert in your hometown. At the end of the show, you bump into an old high school friend who is working security and offers you (and the friend you brought to the concert) backstage passes. What happens next is an adventure you’ll never forget.

Image courtesy of www.rarebeatles.com

Anthony and Steven stood there in awe. The hot, dry, summer Colorado air was still electric with excitement. The girls were still packed at the front of the amphitheater, screaming for an encore that would never come. Their screams bounced off the monolithic red rock formations on either side of the amphitheater that gave Red Rocks Park it’s name.

“I can’t believe we just saw the fucking Beatles, man!”, Steven shouted.

“I know!”, Anthony shouted back, “Did they even play ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’? Those chicks are still going ape! I could barely hear the songs!”

“Yeah, man! That was outta sight!”, Steven yelled, “Let’s beat feet! These chicks are giving me a headache!”

Anthony’s ears were still ringing. As they made their way down the wide, stone stairs leading toward the stage, he did everything he could to savor the moment. The stage looked so empty now, but for a brief 30 minutes it was the center of rock and roll. Anthony almost knocked Steven over when Steven stopped at the bottom of the stairs.

“Tommy? I never figured you for a pig! What are you doing here?” Anthony was shocked that Steven would talk to a cop like that.

“Hey Stevie! Yeah, it was either this or joining the Army and after seeing what’s going on in Vietnam lately, I think I made the right choice. Speaking of which, how’s your brother?”, Tommy replied.

“He’s doing alright. We’re pretty sure he’s getting shipped out next month though.”, Steven’s concern for his older brother was reflected in his voice. He turned to Anthony, “Tommy, this is my little cousin from back east. Anthony, this is my brother’s best friend from high school.”

“Right on. Nice to meet ya. Hey, you guys wanna come backstage?” Tommy said. Anthony’s eyes widened and he couldn’t bring himself to speak as Tommy ushered them past the large rock that frame the back of the stage.

Backstage turned out to be more like understage. Tommy led them down stone steps into what seemed like a cave. When they reached the bottom of the stairs they were met with the professional chaos of a rock show.

“This is backstage?”, Anthony asked skeptically.

“You bet your sweet ass it is.” replied a familiar voice with a British accent.

Anthony turned and found himself face to face with John Lennon himself. His dark mop top hair was disheveled, his white button up shirt wasn’t buttoned all the way and his tie was no where to be found. The polished celebrity musician Anthony saw singing onstage now looked more like just some guy from England holding a guitar.

“That’s a Rickenbacker 325.”, Anthony blurted out. He loved guitars.

Lennon chuckled, “You know somethin’ about guitars, do you? These things don’t stay tuned by magic, you know. Wanna come help me out?”

Lennon may not have thought those guitars weren’t tuned by magic, but to Anthony that night was nothing but magic. It was a night he would never forget.

Everything is Not Perfect and Unique

I am entertained by the things that keep me from creating. I have a penchant for expecting perfection from myself and I have a debilitating requirement to be unique. I know they exist, so shouldn’t I be able to go around or remove these obstacles? They are pretty big obstacles and this blog is my way of working around them.

Perfection
As a kid I was told “Do it right or don’t do it at all” which is meant to inspire hard work and pride. It almost worked. When I create something with that hard work and determination, I am very proud of my creation. However, my standard for hard work is very high and if I don’t feel like I’m working to that high standard then I don’t want to finish the work.

This attitude killed my grades in school. I turned in very little homework because it wasn’t my best, so instead of getting a C on an assignment, I got a big fat F. It took me a long time to realize that my schoolwork doesn’t need to be the best all the time. Going to college to become a computer programmer didn’t help me either. Computer code has to be EXACT to work. Even a rough draft of a program needs to have everything in its proper place.

I almost didn’t post my Not Enough Practice and Focus and Too Much Pride post because I had set out to write about perfection, but went on that tangent instead. My new rule is that if I write it, I post it even if it’s not the best.

Uniqueness
I always want to do things unique. It bothers me when I work on something only to find out halfway through that someone else already did the same thing. When I create something I want people to think, “That’s really cool. I never would of thought of doing it that way.”

This is not a good attitude to have when learning new things. There are standards and guides for anything I want to create and it’s important to follow those standards and guides. When I get comfortable enough to try something off-the-wall, those standards will still help me. I tend to reject concepts like templates even if they would help me. I can’t continue to do that.

Every idea can’t be unique and perfect. If punk bands thought, “But there’s already a song with 3 chords about teenage life.” then there wouldn’t be a punk rock genre. I can’t paralyze creativity worrying about having the most unique idea with perfect delivery.

The Lovers, the Dreamers and Me

I watched The Muppets movie a couple of weeks ago with Ashlynn and Corrine. It was almost everything you expect from the Muppets. There weren’t nearly as many cameos as we thought there would be, but this isn’t a movie review.

The movie made me realize how much courage it takes to be optimistic. It’s easy to bitch and moan and complain. Complain about anything and you’ll have others readily join in. Show optimism and you risk ridicule. Only the stupid and naive can be optimistic, right? Well there’s a fine line between bravery and stupidity.

I guess you can call me a closet optimist. Despite the fact that a lot of my time at work is spent dealing with the worst people and situations imaginable, I still believe in people. The movie made me want to stand up to the pessimists I know. It made me want to question all the over-the-top complaining. I don’t know if I’m brave enough to do that yet.

Why are there so many songs about rainbows
And what’s on the other side?
Rainbows are visions, but only illusions,
And rainbows have nothing to hide.
So we’ve been told and some choose to believe it
I know they’re wrong, wait and see.
Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection,
The lovers, the dreamers and me.

Who said that every wish would be heard and answered
when wished on the morning star?
Somebody thought of that
and someone believed it,
and look what it’s done so far.
What’s so amazing that keeps us stargazing?
And what do we think we might see?
Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection,
the lovers, the dreamers and me.

All of us under its spell,
we know that it’s probably magic….

Have you been half asleep
and have you heard voices?
I’ve heard them calling my name.
Is this the sweet sound that calls the young sailors?
The voice might be one and the same.
I’ve heard it too many times to ignore it.
It’s something that I’m supposed to be.
Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection,
the lovers, the dreamers and me.
La, la la, La, la la la, La Laa, la la, La, La la laaaaaaa

Not Enough Practice and Focus and Too Much Pride

I am, believe it or not, not perfect at anything. I’m not even perfect at being less-than-perfect because sometimes I can do awesome things.

As a kid, I learned things quickly. Give me a book on a subject I like and some free time and I would have things figured out in no time. Now that I’m in my early 30′s I’m finding out that things are harder to learn. I blame not enough practice and focus and too much pride.

Learning takes practice. When I was a kid I was constantly learning. This does not translate to “always studying”. I spent most of my teenage years learning about new music, new games, new technology, girls and new ways to get into, and stay out of, trouble. The last two subjects usually went hand-in-hand. I always had to learn new things. Today it’s much different. I have been married for 3 years. I have a much lower appetite for trouble-making. I don’t know the names of popular bands. I’m perfectly happy with my Wii that I bought 6 years ago. I’ve been in the same job for over 6 years. I still use Windows XP. I am on my way to being set in my ways, if I’m not there already. My learning muscles are out of practice.

As a kid there were 3 categories of To-Do’s in my head. There were the things I wanted to do, things my parents wanted me to do and things my school wanted me to do.  I was really good at focusing on the things I wanted to do. When I focused, I could lose myself for hours. I miss having that. Even now, as I type this I have lots of To-Do’s running through my head. It’s hard to focus when I am always trying to be a good person, father, husband, cat-owner, homeowner, etc. There is always something to do. I was much better at focusing as a kid. I need to find a way to get some of that focus back.

The older I get the less inclined I am to let people know that I don’t know what I’m doing. This does not fit well when I go out to learn new things. I can secretly practice and learn from non-judgmental books and non-interactive websites, but if I really want to learn I am going to eventually have to show someone that I don’t know what hell I’m doing. Swallowing pride and asking for help is not something I do well.

I want to be the best at what I do. I want to learn the most efficient ways to do new things. When I find out that I’m not doing it the best way I get easily discouraged. I do not want to spend my time re-learning something. I want to get it right the first time. This is all ridiculous because learning requires failure and inefficiency. The things I do correctly and quickly are not things that I am learning. If I want to continue to learn new things I need to be better at accepting failure and inefficiency.

It’s Time to Create

Lately I’ve been craving escape. It seems as if I have become too responsible, too pragmatic, too informed. In my car, I’ve been listening to KOA, Colorado Public Radio or hockey podcasts. All talk, no music. My three most visited websites are CNN.com, TheDenverChannel.com and Facebook.com. My blog subscriptions are all about hockey and politics. Let’s not even start in on the e-mail newsletters. I am constantly inundated with other peoples’ news and opinions and, frankly, I’m starting to get tired of it.

It’s not that I don’t want to care about the news, politics, hockey, or family and friends. It’s just time for me to care less about the less important things and focus more on the important things. I want less time consuming, more time creating. To create, I need to focus and Internet, you are not helping me.

It’s time for less subscriptions, favorites, likes +1s and thumbs ups. No more automatic emails and social media notifications on unimportant things. It’s time I focus on my life and the things I really care about.

It’s time to create.

Writer’s Digest Prompt: Why You Were Late for the Meeting

In my new-found search to get into writing, I found WritersDigest.com which seems like an excellent place to start. They put out a weekly creative writing prompt. The response has to be less than 500 words which is harder than I thought. Here’s my first attempt.

You’re at lunch when your smartphone buzzes with an e-mail from your boss: “Don’t forget, we have a meeting in 10 minutes.” Of course you did forget, so you rush out of the restaurant and attempt to make it before it starts. But a crazy chain of events stops you from getting back in time for the meeting.

Sitting on the patio at Cafe Paresseux with my good friend Jimmy is always one of the highlights of my day. The cafe is two blocks from our downtown office. The patio has a decorative railing and is set with eight small, round, tables.

That decorative railing is my barrier to chaos. I can always find peace on the patio of Cafe Paresseux. As Jimmy shares another story, I look at the chaos outside my barrier. There is a moving truck in front of the apartment building next door and construction workers are pouring concrete just beyond that.

“Enough about Furbeast. How is the Bennett proposal going?”, Jimmy asks.

“Don’t get me started.”, I answer. “Bill has been on my ass all week. Constantly looking over my shoulder is not helping.”

My phone buzzes. “Ha! That’s probably Bill now!”, Jimmy laughs.

It’s an email from Bill: “Don’t forget, we have a meeting in 10 minutes.”

“Aw crap!”, I jump out of my seat. “Can you take care of the check?”

Before Jimmy can answer, I’m bolting toward the patio gate. I slam the gate open. It slams back and catches me on my right thigh. I stumble from the pain. Now limping as fast as I can, I push my way through the crowd. The small woman walking the three large dogs gets especially upset. My apologies are met with angry shouts from her and deep barks from the dogs.

As I approach the front of the apartment building my phone buzzes again and I check my phone to see another email from Bill. I am just about to open the email when I hear, “Watch it!”

I collide face-first with a small cat kennel being carried by one of the movers. The kennel opens and the wide-eyed, grey cat jumps out, latching onto me. As the cat’s claws dig into my left arm I hear familiar deep barks behind me. I limp as faster.

The cat is climbing my shoulder. I’m clawing at the cat. The dogs are chasing me. The small woman is cursing and chasing the dogs. They catch me as I reach the construction site. A loud bark and two large paws propel me face-first into the wet concrete. The cat jumps off, leading the dogs and cursing woman away. I push myself up to my knees and I am covered in cement from the waist up. I pry the cement from my eyes and look down to see my phone. My 10 minutes are up and I have 2 missed calls from Bill.

Finally at my building, I am the image of defeat. Gobs of concrete in my hair, face smeared with dirt, shirt and tie stained grey, the left arm of my suit jacket is torn to shreds and my right leg really, really hurts.

Bill is there to meet me. “What happened to you?”, Bill says with amazement. “Didn’t you get my calls? Mr. Bennett’s flight got delayed. He won’t be here until tomorrow.”

Ninja Space Monkeys

I want to write every day. Right now, that seems like an easy task, but I always lose momentum with daily tasks. This morning I told my eight your old daughter my plan. I asked her what I should write about today.

She answered with, “Monkeys in space! No, wait. Ninjas in space.”

“Can they be ninja space monkeys?”, I ask hopefully.

A slow shake of her head precedes her answer, “No.”

This conversation helps me to realize two things about my writing:

1. Using an eight your old as a muse feels like cheating. If creative writing were a sport, asking kids for story ideas would be akin to a performance supplement that’s never banned, but always talked about.
2. If I’m going to write fiction, I need a system. My brain works too fast for the rest of me. When I’m given an idea, my mind goes straight into brainstorming mode. It’s like an early summer lightning storm. The brilliant flashes of lightning are replaced with quick glimpses of scenes, settings, characters, plots, etc. Just like that lightning storm, each flash is gone and replaced by another one before I have a chance to describe the first one. I need a way to capture and sort those thoughts.

Learning new things is a process. I’m not very good at it now. At least I’m not as good as I want to be. Becoming a better writer will be a long, slow process. I’m learning to enjoy the journey to my goals now, so I’m looking forward to the process.