Snap that band

The world is full of characters dealing with sexual or romantic tension.  It seems to be more prevalent in TV; and TV like a taint, like the best taints, touches everything.  It influences the young minds who become writers.  There are too many bad habits that one can pick up from TV to list here.  So I will focus on this one for now.  The extending of sexual tension to impossible lengths.  It stems from a inherent flaw in TV series. 

A series in order to be a series need to keep the story going indefinitely.  They do this by treading water, the same water, over and over.  Once they stumble on a combination that works, one that strikes a cord with the viewing audience, they keep recycling the same formula.

 One such formula is the pair that just can't make it into relationship status.  One or the other is already dating, married, mourning, or there's some other more elaborate reason why the two can't be together.  And this sexual tension builds and builds between them.  If the show lasts long enough the tension is maintained so long that I no longer care if the two get the hook up or not.  Or if they do it feels like they are betraying the characters somehow.

Now it is not the use of sexual or romantic tension that I dislike, it's the misuse of it.  As mentioned it seems to show up the most in television, or maybe it's just that much more noticeable in that medium.  But I've seen it in books too.

Sexual, or romantic tension is like an elastic band.  The longer it stays taut the more strength it loses.  But including it in a story is a way to keep people interested in your characters and keep vibrancy in your plot.  The trick is to keep the right balance, it is a delicate tight rope dance.  Too much and a reader will be strained waiting for the charters to get the hook up but never getting that release which they (and we the readers) oh so desperately want and need.

Come on, snap it.  You know you want to.

The Distinction

I prefer to write Fantasy but I enjoy Sci Fi as well.  Now Sci Fi is not the same thing as Fantasy.  The distinction is small, and in some stories it's blurred but it's there.

The best and most succinct explanation of the difference that I've ever heard is this:

"Sci Fi is what could be but isn't.  
Fantasy is what can't be but is."

I believe it was Orson Scott Card who said this but I can't prove it.  If anyone knows if it was indeed Mr. Card, or if you know who did say it, please let me know.  If I happen to be lucky enough to have made it up without realizing it then I claim it as mine, but I doubt I did.

The difference is Sci Fi uses science to explain its impossibilities and Fantasy uses magic. The two genres have more in common then not.  And yet I've heard of infighting amongst the geeks and nerd ranks.  Contention rages about the validity of Sci Fi over Fantasy or vice versa.  Arguments that one is better than the other abound.

Brothers and sisters (assuming there are any girl geeks out there, I've yet to find any) please put this bad blood which runs between our two great genres aside.  They are both capable of greatness and culpable of ... ungreatness.  But there are those who would deride us all of our place in the world.  Those who view both genres as dross.  The enemy is out there, let us not do their work for them.  Besides if Sci Fi and Fantasy really were to clash one with the other I think we all know who would win.

Huh... I didn't expect that.  Although it may look bad now, this knight is totally gonna kick this space ranger's butt.  Trust me,  because in Fantasy we got the magic.

Look what I'm writing!

I am taking part in a shared story.

You can check it out here.  I am currently responsible for part two.

Time Vampires

There are lots of little things that eat the day away. On their own they don't seem like that much, but put them all together and a picture forms of a ravenous creature intent on sapping every second of every day. They are Time Vampires and here are some of mine:


Work: Now yes work is necessary to pay the bills, and as far as jobs go I don't have the worst. But a full time job is nice chunk of time out of one's day. I just think about all that time I'm being productive for someone else when I could be writing. It's frustrating.



TV: Because I just can't miss... well actually there is no good reason or excuse for this vampire. Most of the so called "must watch TV" I consider "must avoid TV." There are scant few shows I actually go out of my way to watch, and even those I normally watch on Hulu. Ah, blessed Hulu. The great thing about it is the liberation to watch just about any show at any time with with a grand total of four or six commercials. That's commercials total, not six commercial breaks with thirty commercials each. Do the math. Ah cursed math.

(And this is how math makes me feel.(Warning animated cartoon stick man violence, very graphic. I am not kidding. Click at your own risk.))

Friends: They'll be there for me. Even when I might be better off without them, working on my story. I know this sounds ungrateful, rude, and a bit anti-social, but friends do distract me from what I should be doing. I can't count the number of times my friends have pulled me into a fountain and forced me to dance the night away (like I'm was always stuck in second gear.)


Laziness: I was gonna write something here, but....



I so tired.



Gaming: I start up a game and I'm having a good time when suddenly... I look up at the clock and it's midnight. The game just Rip Van Winkled me. I hate to say anything bad about gaming on account of it giving so much good to me. But it does take time and money, and time is money, so it takes money squared. And dang it I've started talking math again. You can never be too careful with math.







You can never be too careful with math.

Getting back on track

The Holidays have gotten me a little off track. But fear not I am slowing making my way back to where I want to be.

This means writing, and a lot of it. Hopefully some of that so called writing will splash over onto this blog. Boy it sure is easier to break habits than make them. But this year is gonna be my year. I can feel it.

...Although I have felt that way before. In particular I felt really good about 2007. That turned out to be a train wreck. But onward and upward.

And whew. I was really running out of things to say. you see I had to keep writing because I included this neat picture of a train. As I did I thought to myself: "Self, you ought put that picture in the left hand corner instead of front and center." So I did but if I didn't have words to wrap around the bottom it would just look silly. So here we are.

Merry Christmas

Looks like Santa's reindeer have been upgraded this year.

No updates this week due to Christmas spirit.

An Unfulfilled Promise

I am way behind schedule. Back when I was a kid I thought that by the time I was as old as I am now I'd be a published author. Oh how I've let the little guy down.

This trip down memory lane makes me ponder the reason of why I actually write.

The year was 1993 and I was in elementary school. To say that I did not enjoy school would be an understatement. I wanted out, and I was desperate to find some way, any way, to quit school. Little me hatched what he thought was an ingenious scheme. For whenever he balked about going to school and asked the grown ups why they almost inevitably responded that I would need school to get a job.
"Why do I need a job?" I would ask.
"To make money."
Money, I found out at an early age, was the be all and end all of life. If I had it I could do anything, without it I had to play by the world's rules.

My dad had told me about this kid who collected stamps. He got so good at buying and selling them that left school. He was rich and got driven around by a chauffeur all day, he never even got his licence.

So my brilliant plan was to find something that I could do that would make me money. Just like the stamp kid. Little did I know (oh how ominous those words are) the path that this plan would set me upon.

How was I a mere grade school kid supposed to make money. I wasn't even old enough for a paper route. The answer came to me rather quickly. I would write. It was something that I already liked to do so I figured I could use it to get out of school. It all seemed so simple. But I had to make sure that my parents would let me quit school once I made my millions. Parents can be obnoxious about things like this. "Sorry son we don't care if you can afford to buy yourself a small island your still going to attend school."

And so I made them sign this:

They signed it. A sort of promissory note. Oh I had them now.

Or so I thought.

It was my promise that never got fulfilled. A promise I made to myself to get out of school.

Sometimes I wonder if I write because I really want to or if I have just hardwired it into myself because of my desperate need to escape school. Even now that I'm out of school that need to write is still there. I can't help but wonder if it's genuine.

But then I remember that I did indeed write a book. Way back before the promissory note. Back before I knew how to write. It was an illustrated story about a presidential election between Fire and Water. I still have it somewhere, I'll have to dig it up one day. Remembering it makes me think that maybe I really am a born storyteller. I mean if I was telling stories before I knew words that should count for something right?

At any rate both these events get to the heart of the question of why I write. They aren't the whole answer. I don't know if I can put the whole answer into words. It is something that is felt and thought and spoken. But this is part of it.