Next Year I’ll…

This is the time of year when every gym in the country has a sign-up special. Be it 30 days for 90 bucks or whatever, gyms know now is the time that people decide they’re going to get in shape. Crunches, weights, running, cycling, burpees, you name it, it’s gonna get done and it’s gonna get done better than ever. They’re going to hit it hard, get swoll, get the body of their dreams and finally put Jason Momoa’s pecs to shame.

Ladies, you’re welcome.

Then, in about two weeks, if they haven’t pulled every muscle in their back or broken something important, the soreness kicks in and gyms across the country turn back into all the regulars quietly working out. Because the fact of the matter is getting back into shape is hard and staying there is even harder. It takes a certain mental toughness to go ride in 25F degree weather or drag your ass to the gym when the house is nice and warm and it’s way easier to make excuses than toss on some clothes and beat the snot out of the heavy bag for a while.

But those excuses won’t get you where you want to be.

Earlier in the year, some of us were shooting the shit after Kenpo class and the subject of winning the lottery came up. That’s the ultimate in easy living: Someone hands you a check for eleventy million dollars and you’re on easy street for the rest of your life. You can roll up to work in a gold-plate Lambo, flip off your boss, and tear off into the sunset without a care in the world. Anyway, our instructor was listening and he said something to the effect of “If you want to do something, go do it.”

I told him I wanted to buy a senator and that took a lot of cash. Actually, apparently it doesn’t, but the sentiment stuck with me. The chances of winning the lottery – let alone buying a Senator – are infinitesimal. But the chances of trying to do so something and succeeding at it are much higher. And that, more than anything, is why I’m not doing New Year’s Resolutions anymore.

The problem with New Year’s Resolutions is they’re an effective way of putting things off. I’m going to get in shape…next year. I’m going to write a book…next year. I’m going to become rich and famous…next year. I’m going to take over the world and enslave the planet…next year.

Why wait? It’s not going to be any easier next year than it is right now. The weights will still be as heavy, the road will still be as long as cold, your ass ain’t gonna look any better in cycling tights, and that blank page is still going to be staring at you with its cold, dead eyes. But the sooner you start it and the more you do it, the less the weights will feel, the more the road will become your friend, and the more words you’re gonna see on that page. If you’re anything like me, your ass ain’t gonna look good in cycling tights, but so what? You can still enjoy the process.

If you want to do something, go do it. Don’t wait, don’t put it off, don’t wait for the perfect time, just go do it. You don’t need to wait until January 1 to make things happen. And if throughout the year you find yourself slipping, don’t fret it. Take some downtime and get back into like a boss. If it’s important enough, keep making it happen.

There will never be a perfect time to write. There will never be a perfect time to get into shape. There will never be a perfect time for anything. There’s only regular time, so take advantage of it because all this stuff takes time to do. And, if you just got your gym membership or started your book, please, keep going. It’s easy to get burned out and decide to quit, but the rewards for continuing are worth it. Trust me, you can do it. And you won’t even have to wait for next year to start it.

Feel like motivating someone? Comment it. I love comments.

Merry Christmas

Not much to say, just no matter how you celebrate the holidays, have a great holiday season. Enjoy a selection of bizarre Christmas-y images and then go spend some time doing something you love.

How Twitter Became a Haven For Writers

Everyone knows Twitter, that bastion of toxic bullshit that’s driven people off its platform in droves. We’ve all heard the stories about gangs of roving assholes that attack anything they don’t like and relentlessly gnaw at it like a burlap hood filled with hungry rats. Or how it gave a voice to extremists and white nationalists and idiots of all stripes.

While all of those stories are true to some extent or another, there is another side to the platform that Dorsey and crew would be wise to publicize: It’s become a haven for writers to share snippets of their work and interact in a world that’s not actively spying on them like, say, Facebook. Or, at least if it is, it’s not as overt as the clowns running Facebook.

When the Internet first started gaining ground, there were all sorts of wild rumors floating around about how terrible it was going to be for everyone from children to moral adults and everyone in between. There was porn! There was violence! It was a haven for all kinds of bad behavior and you couldn’t turn it on with getting hit in the face with titties! What people failed to realize was while all those things were there – except for getting hit in the face with titties, that’s hard to do over a monitor – they were things you had to seek out. You didn’t just turn on the Internet (whatever that meant) and see naked chicks doing thing that would make the Marquis DeSade blush.

In the early days, the Internet was a lot of Geocities pages about The Simpsons and pilfered Star Wars scripts. It was cheap ani-gifs, dial-up 14.4kbs access, cybersquatting, and chat rooms. Yes, there was porn and stupid shit, but it didn’t bring down the Republic and turn us all into Satanists. If you didn’t look for it – and searching was a dicey affair back in the late 90s – you wouldn’t find it. It wasn’t like you just opened Netscape Navigator and bam! titties in your face.

Twitter’s a lot like that. What you see is largely dependent on who you follow. Somewhere along the line, artists, writers, and other miscreants started flocking to the platform and creating little communities. This is the kind of thing that needs to be shouted about. Fuck the Nazis, screw the incels, take all those worthless hatemongers and toss ’em in the trash heap of history where they belong; this is our time now.

Sure, there’s a bunch of crap out there, but there’s also an amazingly supportive community of writers and artists and an opportunity to branch out and see what other people are up to. There are daily writing games that let you explore and expand your own skills. There are people you can bounce ideas off of and get honest responses.

If you want to start out, start with Steven Viner. He’s the guy that’s pushing the #writerscommunity. Meet people, follow people, retweet people. Explore and expand. It’s that simple.

HI #WRITERSCOMMUNITY! @kathyzak99 & I'd like to get all writers 1,000 writer followers! To participate #1 Be a good person & writer #2 like & retweet this post & we'll group tag you in the comments #3 You HAVE to follow back 95% of writers who follow you. NO exceptions! Who's in? pic.twitter.com/22xQLseFhw

— Steven Viner (@StevenViner1) December 9, 2018

From there, start checking out the daily games like #musemon, #martialmonday, #btr2sday, #tuestell, #1linewed, #talesnoir, #thurds, #thurspeak, #fictfri, #satsplat, #slapdashsat, #saidsun, #sunwip, #seducemesunday, and the ever popular #vss365. Don’t expect immediate fame and glory, that’s not what this is about, but it is a great opportunity to meet some cool people from the comfort of your couch.

And now, since I’ve been talking about titties in your face, I’d be remiss if I didn’t put up a pic of a nice pair of tits.

By the way, you can follow me on Twitter here.

Got any other good places or people to follow? Drop ’em in the comments.

No One Writes Plays About People Brushing Their Teeth

My play writing teacher back in college used to regularly tell us, “No one writes plays about people brushing their teeth.” At the time, my first thought was, “Oh, yeah? Just wait.” Of course, she was right and no one gives a rat’s ass about people brushing their teeth. People turning into rhinoceroses or people standing around waiting for some mysterious thing or person to show up are still perfectly acceptable, even if they are so mired in dense allegory that most folks never get past the rhinos or just who the fuck Godot was.

Hint: Godot was all the stupid shit we spend our time waiting for. At least according to Samuel Beckett, but what does he know?

But here’s a funny thing: Everyone brushes their teeth. And, just like there’s no one right way to eat a peanut butter cup, everyone does it a little differently. For some people, it’s a ritual: Present the toothbrush, bow, and move to each tooth with military precision. Others, slap some toothpaste on the brush and go to town while humming Bliss N Eso songs and drooling toothpaste on themselves. I’ll leave it up to you to determine which one I am.

How we approach things tells people a lot about us. Are we the kind of people who want a neat, tidy meal where the burger wrapper is folded exactly so and there’s a distinct place on the wrapper for the burger, the fries, and the ketchup and they DO NOT TOUCH? Or are we the kind of people who can eat the whole meal straight out of the bag and toss it in the back seat for the next owner of our car to deal with?

Little things that seem trivial when we’re doing them can cast long shadows on our psyches. They’re the kinds of things that add richness and detail to characters, too. Little quirks like collecting Pop Swatches or having an affinity for Teen Beat magazine might not be important to the character’s arc, but they can help explain why a character is doing something without, you know, explicitly explaining it.

Think about this way. How interesting is reading about a character when the author comes straight out and says, “She was anal-retentive”? Boring. What about describing how she opened her burger, pushed it gently to the side of the wrapper, poured the fries neatly on the other side, and put the ketchup perfectly in the middle. Or a character that eats burritos with a knife and fork? Or describing a room so organized that the books on the bookshelf were all exactly the same height and organized in perfect alphabetical order? Those little keys add up to saying someone’s a neat freak without resorting to actually saying it.

While it’s doubtful anyone will write a play about someone brushing their teeth, it’s entirely likely that describing the way someone brushes their teeth can create a more complete picture of the character.

When You’re Going Through Hell, Keep Going

My first book was easy. That may or may not be the case for everyone and doubtless Henchmen could use some rework. Maybe at some point in the future I’ll go through the whole series and do some big ol’ honkin’ revisions. The bones of the books are good and some of the flesh is even tantalizing, but there are things that need work.

That said, I’ve learned a lot over the past five years or so; enough to make me realize I wasn’t the mad genius I thought I was. Five years from now, I’ll probably be saying the exact same thing along with words like “dumbass” “egotistical brat” and “no-talent ass-clown”. Such is the nature of the growth and change.

The more you work on something, the better you’re gonna get at it, especially if you pay attention to the feedback you’re getting. Yes, even the stuff that says you suck and should go back to giving handjobs for meth or the ones that say you should have your tongue cut out because you curse too much. Okay, I haven’t had anyone tell me the first one (yet), but the second definitely happened.

I tend to take valid criticism to heart. If there’s something actionable (get an editor) and enough people say it, it’s worth listening to. If there’s just that lone nut griping about something, it’s probably okay to pass it by. After all, you can’t please everyone.

Anyway, I stumbled across this image that I thought summed up the artistic pursuits nicely.

All too often we assume we can’t do something just because someone else is already doing it better. When I first started Kenpo, the white belts stood in the back of the class and our instructor told us – first day – the only thing that separated us from him was time and practice. That’s the kind of thing that sticks with you and it’s the kind of life lesson that only sinks in after a while. What do you mean I’ve got to wait? I want it now.

Sorry. Can’t have it now.

Neil Gaiman has also said the first million words or so that come out of a writer are shit, but they’ve got to come out so you can to the good ones. It’s like a pipe stuffed full of bad ideas, anxious alliteration, and trite jokes. Push all that crap out and get to the good stuff. Hell, there’ll probably be some real gems floating around in the first million words or so, too, so polish them up and save them.

Now, I’m not saying your book sucks. I’m saying it’s not as good as it could have been if it was your fifth instead of your first. But guess what? You have to write the first through the fourth to get to the fifth.

Like anything else, writing takes time to come to grips with, time to find your voice, and time to get good at it. It can be a hellish journey, but that the end you’ll be able to experience the absolute terror of trying to explain to someone what your book is about without sounding like a babbling lunatic.

If you’re writing – keep writing.

If you’re feeling down about your writing – keep writing.

If your sales suck – keep writing.

Do it until your soul bleeds and you never want to see another word again. Then write some more.

But above all – keep writing.