Dry Run: Update 16

Alright, this will be my second-to-last post.

I wish I could say this was it, that I've typed it all up, and we're ready to move on to the next challenge, but . . . look at the word count thingie:

Yeah, even after bumping the total to 35,000, I've exceeded that, with around ten more pages to type up beyond that.  So, I could reset the goal to 40,000, which looks something like this:

But it doesn't change the fact that my traditional way of writing (notebook first, then maybe typed up) is not efficient, is not working.  Since "Into the Furnace," I've written two more stories ("Beggar's Canyon" and "True Ghost Experience"), and one was half-notebook/half-laptop, and the other was 90% laptop.  I've written nothing in the notebook since then, and have taken the laptop to work with me, or occasionally to eat.  It makes things better.

I might actually be finished by now if I'd been a little smarter.  I got to the point in the notebook where that writer's block hit, and for two pages, I just outlined the next couple of scenes, what would have to happen in them, and a few lines of dialogue.  So, when it came time to transcribe, I got to that part, and fleshed those two pages out to full scenes, writing it up over an hour or so.

Then I wen to the next page in the notebook . . . and discovered that I'd done the same thing there, writing out the scenes and dialogue.  No big deal, I know, but then I had to waste another stretch of time trying to combine the two, decide which lines I liked better, and as usual, try to shove as much of the work from both attempts into the second draft.

I also added a new scene in between them, and discovered that it sort of throws off the timeline of the rest of the story, and that's no fun either.

But boo hoo.  It's better than actually working for a living, getting blisters on my fingers, sore feet I have to soak at night, and a rash on my taint.

One more post to go. 

Rish

Dry Run: Update 15

Alright, I'm back.  That writer's block I spoke about in the last post (which was a month or so back) did not last long.  It was just a psychological hurdle I had to jump over.

Once I did, there were no problems.  Smooth sailing, all the way to the end.  Which came quickly.

Mostly, I just had to put in the work.  I had to go somewhere and focus solely on writing, with as few distractions as possible.  So I went to the park a couple of times, I went to Taco Bell and wrote, I wrote on my lunch breaks (finally taking the laptop to work so I wouldn't have to type it later), and wrote a time or three in the backyard, putting in the hours until I finally reached those blessed two words.

Ever since I started using the laptop in that way, I've been phasing out my notebook, doing less and less work in it.  Strange, since I was/am only about ten pages from the end of it.  I even bought two more like it when I saw I would soon reach the end (this was in April or so, before I even had a new laptop, or was in need of one).  It makes both writing and the word count much, much simpler, and as Big said, I do sort of wish I had been using a laptop all along.  But ah well.

So, somebody somewhere--and it honestly might even have been the guy who did the "Write a Novel in 90 Days" presentation--said that, hey, your first novel is probably going to suck.  But the second one will be better, and the third one even better.  And you'll never get to any of the good ones if you don't write that first sucky novel.

Deep words from a dude with a garish Hawaiian shirt on.

The idea that all that work amounting to something that sucks is more than a little depressing.  But ah well.  Maybe "Into the Furnace" isn't so great.  Maybe it has too many meandering plot threads that go nowhere.  Maybe it's too predictable in where it does go.  Maybe the bad guy is as all over the place as Ultron was in AVENGERS 2 (though if I can be compared to Joss Whedon, I'll take that criticism anyday).  Maybe there's no color to it.  Maybe it's too long and should have stayed the short story it was originally intended to be.

But as I near the end of the tale (typing it up, anyway), I have to think that it is worth the effort to finish it, that it was worth the effort to write in the first place.  That between seven and nine people will someday read it and enjoy it.

Too late to turn back now.

Rish Outfield, Dry Runner

So, here's the word count symbol thing today:

That's only eighty percent finished.  And I've really no excuse for that.  I sat down tonight and started typing and told myself I couldn't stop until I reached 27,777 words.  Once I got there, I did just a little bit more.  But I should be finished by now.  It's sad how much I'm dragging my feet on this.

I promise, there will be only one more post here.  One or two, no more than seventeen total updates.  Let's see if I can't grit my teeth and push through till I get there.

Dry Run: Update 14 (The Stall)

I can't remember who it was, but a famous writer said that "writer's block doesn't exist.  Laziness exists."  It stuck with me because when I heard that I had experienced writer's block a number of times, and I often abandoned projects in the middle, despite wasting many hours getting there.  Now I'm a decade or two older, at least six months wiser, and I still don't know if I agree or not (about the laziness thing).  A lot of my projects that fall by the wayside happen because I'm distracted by something else, or because I start to worry that it's not very good (which happens a lot--including during this one), and also, because it's easier to not work on something than it is to actually work.

And though laziness has also been my nemesis over the years (so bad I nearly said it was my STAR TREK: NEMESIS, the worst of the Trek movies), there have been times when I set aside time to write, forcing myself to do it, and couldn't manage to come up with anything.  My mind was just empty of ideas, of any drive to create something, and in those cases I tend to ruminate on or list abandoned projects until the writing time runs out.  That happens probably five or six times a year, but the next time I mow the lawn or go on a drive or awaken suddenly in the night, I'll have another idea I want to pursue, and everything is alright.

I say all this because, for the first time, we hit a stall during "Into the Furnace."  We, I say, for some reason, when it's really just me.  The last important character, the sheriff's friend from childhood, showed up*, and now the whole idea I had originally written down on that piece of paper in January was complete.  And I froze.

Ostensibly, I should only have a few pages left.  They get together, go after the bad guy, take him down, and the story ends.  Except I still don't know how to pull that off.  Especially since this little tale, which I envisioned as a short story, has ballooned into what it is now.  There needs to be at least one failed run, my gut tells me, before they succeed, because if they win too easily, then it's just lame.  I dunno, you remember IRON MAN 2, where they've built Vanko up as this more-powerful version of Iron Man, too tough for even Tony and the new Rhodey to defeat?  And they have their confrontation, and my guess is, it's thirty seconds at most they do battle before Vanko is killed.**

The problem is, if they attempt to kill the villain and fail, how do they survive that?  The bad guy is just too powerful.  There should be no second chances, and at least the town would pay the penalty, if not every person in it.  I . . .

Okay, I think I got it figured.  Maybe.  It could be stupid, if I set something up in an earlier scene and then have our heroes do something else, won't readers know it's not the end, that the thing I set up still needs to be paid off?  We'll see, but it feels righter than what I had in mind.

But I was talking about stalling out in my progress.  I had a lot of time to write yesterday, in the morning, during lunch, my break at work, but I didn't know where to go.  If I'd had my laptop, I'd have spent that time doing this blogpost, worrying about writer's block.  Instead, I summarized three scenes that still have to happen before the story can end, and then a fourth.  So the tale is not yet told, dang it.  I have to keep on truckin'.

Luckily, nobody but me cares about this stuff, about deadlines passed and focusing my attention on this not that.  I think I can still finish, though it may be July by the time I start on my novel (my other novel, I suppose).  But I do really enjoy writing these blog updates, and though I try to make them interesting, I don't know if they're enjoyable to read.

Either way, there are more on the way.

Rish Outfield

P.S. Here's where we are in the word count:

Yeah, I passed my goal, so I bumped the total count to 30000 (which is also too short), just so there was still something to work toward.  We'll see how long it gets me to type stuff up.

*And I have no idea why he had to be a friend instead of a stranger.  I needed a big game hunter character, and when I was sketching out the book, it seemed better if they already had a history together.  So I figured that they were childhood friends in St. Louis, and had gone their separate ways for these last fifteen to twenty years.  It made for a couple of jokes between them and some familiarity--and most importantly, there was already trust between the two--but it doesn't change the story any having them know one another.  Just makes it longer, I guess.

**I could have brought up the final confrontation with Bane in THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, except I actually like that Catwoman killed him so quickly.  She's not an honorable character, and so she just shoots him with that big gun (something Batman--at least the Batman we know from the comics and cartoons--would not do), not entirely unlike Indy dispatching the Cairo Swordsman.  However, I never liked that Nolan didn't spell it out for us in that moment that Bane was dead, since I expected him to pop up again before the end, but in seeing the movie a second time, it was fine.

SDCC 2015 Post

So, I went to San Diego Comic-Con again this year.  And after trotting out my camera for the first day, I discovered that one can take as many pictures with their phone as with a camera, plus it's smaller and more handy than a camera, so I took roughly two hundred pics during the time I was down there.  I couldn't help but delete bad ones as I took them, but then I remembered the tradition of putting up my worst photos on my blog and having absolutely nobody try to guess who they were.  So, I'll see if I have some stinkers that I can stick on here too. 

This backpack of mine has seen a lot of conventions.  And I've seen enough to know that, except for a paperback book or something similar, there's not gonna be room in there when the free swag gets entered in.  Hence, I only dared take my big heavy metal laptop in there once, on Saturday (is it normal for a laptop to be made out of metal?  Are they all plastic nowadays?  I wonder if that makes mine special, and/or if it would take a bullet for me.   Hmmm).  

And my back seen a lot of conventions too, and understood that it would be expected to cart around a great deal of weight in posters, buttons, toys, and the giant offerings people fight over to purchase from Hasbro.  So I made the mile-plus trip out to my car on multiple occasions, filling my arms (and back) with as much as it could possibly carry, then trudging down the road to put it in my car, then returning for more.  It'll be sad to look back on five years from now when I'm at the end of my life, but for now, it's just another part of Comic-Con.

Oh, and one more tiny detail along those lines.  Parking for this thing has never not been a bitch. Oh, there's pre-dawn Saturday when I can find a parking spot less than a mile from the convention center, but the rest of the time, it's always circling, doubling back, searching for a spot, or hoping someone will pull out just as I happen to drive by.  It's probably the second-worst thing about the con, traditionally.  And this year, on Thursday, I noticed a trio of cars that just parked right on the road (Harbor Boulevard, I believe) in no parking spaces, just on the soft shoulder of the road itself, and after parking in the lot of a grocery store (where I parked most of SDCC 2013, and only got a ticket once), I told myself, "If those cars are still there and ticket free when I come back here to move my car (mine was a 2 Hour Parking lot), I'm going to join them."

Well, not only were those cars unmolested, but they had been joined by between fifteen and twenty other cars, obviously thinking the same thing I did.  I parked at the back of the line (in just that stretch of time, the "lot" of Harbor Blvd. was almost full), and went my way, worrying for the rest of the day that my car would indeed have a ticket on it, or worse, be towed, almost-literally screwing me for the rest of my trip.  I worried, I ran it over and over in my mind, I kept thinking I should go back and check, and then finally, I came to an epiphany: "Either my car is fine or it isn't.  Either way, it is out of my control.  Worrying about it is not going to make my car okay or not okay."

It's something you obviously realized years ago, but in this case, it did make the convention more enjoyable, and every time I hiked back to the car, it was still there, and neither it nor the other many cars in that makeshift lot were bothered.  I do expect, however, to find No Parking signs in that area next July.

So, on Thursday, I was pleasantly surprised to walk into Hall H with no line and find myself in the "Doctor Who" panel.  I haven't really been following the show lately, but I know it's insanely popular, so to not have to waste hours in line, or even wait, was a nice change.

There was also an enormously entertaining panel for "Con Men," the crowd-funded passion project of Alan Tudyk's.  Nathan Fillion was his usual charming self, but the real joy came from Chris Hardwick's relentless mockery of Will Wheaton, who had been his roommate back in college.*

So, it was a more unpleasant surprise the next day when I sat in line for more than three hours to get into the "Star Wars" panel, only to be turned away when there were only forty or so folks ahead of me.  I suppose, if I had it to do over again, I'd have sacrificed even more of my day to see Luke, Han, and Leia again as senior citizens.  Or maybe I'd have just taken an AK-47 to the place.

Not that I'm complaining.  I just thought that would be nice (to see the "Star Wars" panel, not to murder strangers with an assault weapon).

In the two years since I last stood in the Hall H line, they've instituted a wristband policy, wherein they hand out wristbands to the first, say, thousand people in line, so those folks are guaranteed to get in.  They are even allowed to leave the line to go defecate, or if they dare, to go shower, eat, or sleep.  They just have to come back to the line and they'll be allowed in before the folks without wristbands.

I think that works well.  Of course, if I had a friend in the world, that might work well too.  You end up spending so much time in line with strangers that, occasionally, you'll befriend the people around you.  In the past, I've been happy to hold their spot in line as they go get coffee, go use the toilet, or go make the beast with two backs.  It would work both ways if I physically had to urinate anymore, but my body has discovered a way to simply convert it to fat, so that's pretty nice.

7/11/15

I'm in Hall H again, at the end of the night, and I could have typed a little on this thing earlier, but I didn't.  I did a good deal of reading, which I don't regret, and I finished up another story, which I TOTALLY don't regret.

I was glad to come here this year, after having missed it last year.  And even though it was work getting here, cost a lot (nay, a ton) of money, and I haven't managed to see everything I wanted to, or buy everything I wanted to, I'm in a good mood.  One day, I'll not be able to come here at all, because I'll be too poor, or too unable to get here, or most likely, too fat.  But for now . . .

I like being with people who feel the way I do about things.  It's like sports, really, a group of strangers cheering for their favorite team.  Except maybe it's not like sports, I don't know.  I don't know much.

Kevin Smith talked about lost opportunities in his Q&A, talked about regret, and did his "Why not?" speech again.  He said, "Everybody has a story that's uniquely theirs.  You need to get out there and tell your story."  I tried to take it to heart as best I could, and I'm really going to try, in the next few weeks, to do the things I obligated myself to do, and maybe do more.

If I were truly serious about my art, I would quit my job and focus 100% on writing, podcasting, publishing, and doing audiobooks.  I could make a go of it, I know I could.  But who knows if I will or not?  One thing at a time, right?

I think I'll go home tonight and see if I can't type some more of "Into the Furnace" and do a post update.  I know that novel needs a lot of work, but right now I am feeling positive enough I could just publish it, and say, "There you are.  Enjoy it if you can," then go on to the next project.  That doesn't sound foolish to me.

I should exercise more.  I should get out of my comfort zone a time or three.  I should work harder at putting out my art, see if I can't get the fifty items for sale that Dean Wesley Smith said you need out there to really make money from it.

And I will.  Maybe not at once, but if I can just keep this attitude in mind, I will do it.

Except for the exercise part.  Sorry, doctor.

Rish Outfield

*Remind me to tell you about my favorite part of the panel, if I haven't already.

"Look at me, Damien!"

I'm at my annual trip to San Diego Comic-Con (missed it last year), and as I'm sure I've mentioned, every year, a group of loud Born Again-type Christians protests the con with big yellow signs and microphones.  They are on the sidewalk, shouting as the attendees (and their children) walk by, about sin, Jesus, and hellfire, and waving signs with scripture in an attempt to either sway us from pursuing these godless endeavors, or to draw publicity toward themselves.  It's always been a little bit irritating, though I suppose they're free to think (and do) as they please, just as I'm free to think they're a bunch of bloodthirsty, attention-seeking human garbage.  

However, a couple of years ago, fan anti-protesters showing up around the protesters with homemade pro-Comic-Con signs such as "Galactus Is Coming!" and "Thor Loves You!" and "Hokey religions and ancient religions are no match for a good blaster at your side!"* and "Kneel Before Zod!"  That people would do that always amused me, since it was fairly light-hearted, harmless, and pretty clearly hate-free.

So, I was of two minds today, when Fox** had a bunch of volunteers (or just as likely, paid actors) do a counter-protest promoting their upcoming series "Damien," which yes, Virginia, was a follow-up to the classic movie THE OMEN.  "Damien is the one true path!" a zealot shouted, right alongside the Jesus-criers.  

"All shall worship Damien!" another one called out, looking between us and the protesters. "It's all for you!" the signs they carried read, along with the trademarked 666.  Now, I don't really have a dog in this fight (though you can probably guess my views), but it struck me as more than a little incendiary, crass, and obviously sacrilegious, though I can't say if what they were doing was genuinely offensive.

I would be curious to know what the protesters thought.  But part of me is pretty glad I don't know.

Rish Outfield, Been From One Side This Galaxy

*Okay, I made that one up.  But it'd make for a darn good anti-protest sign.

**The show was, if you can effing believe it, originally intended for the Lifetime channel, but will now be airing on A&E.  But it's still Fox, guys.  Don't be misled.

Dry Run: Update 13

Okay, we're well into June now.*  I have gotten all my characters into place in "Into the Furnace," having finally introduced Samuelito Quinto, who, as of this writing, serves absolutely no purpose in the story.  But I'm closing in on the end.  I think.

Did I mention that this one could also be a novel?

Something I know that I have written is how much easier this blog is to write than my book is.  I think it's still that mental crossing guard I've got up there, the one who thinks its job is to protect me from any and all risk.  If I get too close to making an arse of myself, it's there to say, "Uh, you probably shouldn't snort that, especially if it's trying to get away."  But it is too good at its job, and is often there saying, "No, no, you shouldn't try that.  You might not like it.  What will others think?  How will you live with yourself if it doesn't work out?  Think of how comfortable you are doing nothing.  Yes, that's where you belong.  Get fatter.  Get more complacent.  You are exactly where you are safe and toasty-warm."

That inner crossing guard is a bit of a taint.  And I wonder if it is eager to provide me with distractions so that I don't have to write my novel and find out that it's not good, that I'm not a great writer, that all that work was for . . . well, not very much.  Or it could just know me so well, that it's sure I'll give up halfway through, and so it doesn't want me to even try, since it's worse to get a drink thrown in your face than it is to dance alone.

I brought this up in a previous post**, but the other day, I really made it a point to focus on writing.  I knew this thing was overdue, and each day not working on my Novel in 90 Days was going to make the NIND all the harder to accomplish, so I spent nearly my entire day off typing away on my laptop.  I took it to the park with me (until the battery died), then brought it home and plugged it in again, and as soon as it had juice in it, I went in the backyard and wrote some more.  Then, I took my notebook with me to my nephew's baseball game, and wrote another page or two there.

Today, I didn't have nearly the free time (and even some of that I squandered), but I took the laptop to the park and did it again.  I am closing in on the end of this thing, and I feel like I can have it all finished with one more trip to the park or backyard.  In fact, tonight, right before I started typing this, I went outside, even though it's past one am, and fired up the laptop to write.  It then said it had to install a bunch of updates before it could proceed, so I came in here and did this instead.  But I assure you that, by this time next week, I will be done with my story.

Which means that, by the time you read these words, I will have been done with "Into the Furnace" for a while now.  With the writing, anyway.  The typing (and inevitable rewriting) will be much longer in coming.

As far as the word count goes, nothing has changed:

But that is due to me being distracted and not even once typing up my scribblings, despite having the notebook open and ready to go.

Since then, I have started on a new audiobook project, finished another Rish Outcast, and written another short story.  I actually took my laptop to work, as Big suggested I do, and managed to be a little more efficient with my writing, since it's typed rather than pen-written, and those words can be instantly counted.  On my actual novel--which as of this writing I would rather eat nightcrawlers than have to work on--I will try to do the laptop thing as much as possible.

Rish Outfield, Running In Place

*Sadly, being published into July.  I need to learn to stick with things.

**But it was a tiny addition at the bottom of the screen when I was making excuses for not increasing my word count, so scream, Blacula, scream.

Rish Outcast 25: Chalupa Dale - Next Exit

Somewhere on the way to meet somebody, Rish came up with another Outcast episode.  In this one, he presents an awful short story "Chalupa Dale- Next Exit," and he talks.  A lot.

If you feel like downloading the episode directly, right-click HERE and save this thing.

Dry Run: Update 12

I just came to a realization: I enjoy doing these little blogged writing updates more than I enjoy writing the book.

Is that weird?  Is that yet another sign that I am pathological?*

At this point, I just want to be done with my book.  And whoa, I'm no longer calling it a story, short or otherwise.  Creepy.

But I just want to be finished with it.  Maybe all lengthy tasks are that way.  I certainly feel it when I'm recording (and especially editing) an audiobook.  Heck, I feel that way when I'm listening to an audiobook and I feel the narrative has gone on too long.  I just want the thing to be over with, and if it isn't immediately so . . . it starts to feel like a drudgery.  Like a chore to be completed, instead of a pleasurable passtime.

Anyway, I wrote these words a while ago, and just wrote Dry Run Update 13, then came on here to see what I'd written in number 12.  Turns out I wrote the same thing in both, just on different days.  Whoops.

So instead, what I'll talk about here today is Rish Outfield's final rewrite.  Should that be capitalized?  Anyhow, back when I was an extra in L.A., I carried my backpack around (both the one that was stolen when I went to see JURASSIC PARK 3, and the later one) with a notebook in it to write in, and with a print-out of an older story.  I would usually write my stories in longhand, eventually type up what I had written, and then print it out.  I'd wait anywhere from a month to a year, then grab that printout and read through it, making notes and changes as I saw fit.  I'd incorporate those changes, and that would be my final draft.

You see, being an extra, besides paying so little it almost comes close to how little I make at my job in 2015, is all about sitting around, or standing around, or riding a shuttle, or waiting for a shuttle, or waiting to change into your wardrobe, or waiting for Makeup or Hair, or waiting for a vacant trailer to change out of your wardrobe in, or waiting to get signed in, or waiting to eat, or waiting to see if you're even needed that day, or waiting to get signed out.  In other words, it's hardly any downtime at all.

I used to get through a ton of book reading, and quite a bit of writing done while being a "background player," and I always dug that about the job.  But now, I have less sitting around time, and the internet is a constant attention harlot (which I realize is demeaning, but if it didn't want my attention, it wouldn't dress that way).  So my writing process in the twenty-teens is this: I write the first draft in longhand in the notebook, then I eventually (or never) get the notebook out and transcribe the story onto the computer (usually adding and changing little things there), and then comes the final draft: reading it aloud.

I find SOOOOOOOO many things wrong with my stories when I read them aloud.  And lately, I've tried to record the readings, so I'll have them for my podcast, or to put up for sale.  This process is unbelievably slow, and in my recent final draft of "Popcorn Movies," it probably resulted in, oh, about a thousand or so changes.  Only when I read it aloud do I realize I've used the same word too many times, or phrased things awkwardly, or repeated the same information in two different sections, or changed a character's name from Joanne to Glynis.  And, as I've said, beyond it helping my story suck a little less, it creates an audio file I can actually do something with.

It works for me ("Popcorn Movies," for good or ill, is a heck of a lot better after all those changes).  And that's how I'm going to play it from now on.

Until I don't.  You know me.

So, looking at my word count machine, I'm at:

My math puts that at eighty-two percent finished.  I'd say, I'll be done by about Dry Run Update 15.  Or, if I decide to REALLY work, I could be done sooner.  Except I don't want it to be a drudgery, so I won't.  Sorry.

Rish Outfield, Nearly Done

*You think that's effed-up, I actually named my pillow when I was a boy.  And talked to it.  And asked it to the prom.  It had other plans that night, though.

Rish's Story "Miss Fortune" in the Masters of the Macabre Contest

This is five years in a row I've entered the Masters of the Macabre contest over at HorrorAddicts.net.  I find it hard to believe I've been doing it that long (and that I've lost every one), but the second you win, the contest is closed to you, and this may be my year.

HORRORADDICTS.NET

This year was something a little different (although for me, not at all).  They wanted us to write an audio drama for the 2015 contest, and to have at least two different voices participating.  I have a bit of experience, when it comes to putting together audio with more than one voice in it, if not in writing audio drama, but I worked hard on it anyway.  Ultimately, I thought I was doing alright to make it to the final round of the contest, since this year, only the four stories that got the most votes would actually be played on the show, but the host/webmaster told me there were only four entries this time, so . . . *

I like this writing contest.  As I say every year, they give you certain elements you have to use in your story, so it produces a tale I would never have told without their help.

Briefly, let's look at the five entries I've done for the show.

2011.  "Friends In Paradise."  This was a fairly awful little story, due mostly to me having to fit "luau" and "hang-gliding" in the same damned story.  It didn't end up being at all scary or amusing, though I still like the part where the dad was talking about his daughter's beautiful legs.  I enlisted my niece to voice the main character, which was probably unusual for the contest judges, at least back then.

2012.  "The Scottish Scene."  This story I'm much, much happier with.  I had to write about the Curse of MacBeth, so I wrote about three teenage girls who plan to read the Three Witches scene in the play.  I got Renee Chambliss to voice all three girls, which again, elevated the story, and though she initially voiced the witch for me as well, I ended up using my own voice there, because her voice always sounds too young and lovely to pull that off.  Ironic, considering she's a Level Three Mistress of the Dark Arts.

2013.  "White House Tour."  I had to do the most research on this piece, since they wanted me to write a ghost story set in the White House.  I believe I got my niece to voice the ghost in this one, but this turned out even less scary than the first story, which is probably not what a website called "Horror Addicts" looks forward to.  This isn't a great story, but it's pretty harmless.  If there was a podcast out there that did genre stories intended for children, I'd certainly send this their way.

2014.  "Lighthouse View/Creature Feature."  Last year's story had to be about a monster and take place at a lighthouse.  It's pretty alright, I think, but also had the disadvantage of being not at all scary.  I didn't like the title, so I changed it to "Creature Feature" when the rights reverted to me.  I once again got Renee Chambliss to voice the main character, so that sounds good, at least.

2015.  "Miss Fortune."  So, this is an audio drama, which turned out to be EXTRAORDINARILY easy to write, more so than any story . . . ever?  Seriously, it took about as much effort as writing "Sleepless Afternoon" or one of the annual barbecue sketches I do on the Dunesteef.  Of course, the editing took a little longer, and I layered the hell out of this thing, with sound effects, homemade foley, music, and both Renee Chambliss' AND my niece's voices.

The theme this year was . . . hmmm, I can't remember exactly.  I know we were all given a tarot card from the Major Arcana that had to be worked into the story, and we were all given a monster the story would feature/be about.  I got a double-whammy in that I know nothing about the Tarot (including "The Hermit," which was the card I got) and just as much about "The Rawhead," which was my monster.

The Rawhead can be one of two things: in British folklore, he was a kind of bogeyman, who would snatch up disobedient children if they, say, forgot to curtsy to the upper class, or made eye contact with an unmarried member of the opposite sex without a proper chaperon, or ended a sentence with a preposition.  In America (particularly the Deep South), the Raw Head and Bloody Bones, as they call it, is a legendary monster made up of pig remains that stalks the night, or perhaps vegetarian restaurants.

Of the five stories I've done for this contest, this was both the most fun to produce, and the one I'm happiest with.  Sure, it may not be up to Horror Addicts's standards, but it's up to mine.  Plus, it was only allowed to be ten minutes long, and the first draft clocked in at 10:14.  So that's pretty darn successful, in my book.

Here be yon link:
https://horroraddicts.wordpress.com/2015/06/26/wicked-women-writers-challenge-masters-of-macabre-contest-vote-now/

You can go to their website and listen to the entries, and if you like mine best, feel free to vote for it.  If not, there's always next year.  It'll be fun to see how long I can pretend my now-teenaged niece can pass for a ten year old girl (or boy, in the case of "White House Tour").

Rish Outfield, Bator of the Macabre

P.S. I didn't know what to call this year's story.  I made a list of potential titles, as I am wont to do, and some of those included "Wrong Turn," "After the Festival," "Raw Deal" and "Raw Head Festival," none of which worked.  I did try, "Raw Head and the Misfortune," which I believe is the name of the band that sings that song that goes "Don't listen to a word I say, Because the truth may vary, This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore," which was played into the ground recently, and is still heard at least once a day at my work.

"Raw Deal" is the best of those, but it was also a Schwarzenegger film, so . . . no.  Finally, I thought of a little tale Big Anklevich wrote once called "Unfortunate," and thought that would be an appropriate title for mine.  I tried, briefly, calling it "Misfortune Teller," which is maybe the worst title ever conceived, but then thought I'd split "Misfortune" into two words, and you know, I'm pleased as a pig in slop with that.  Good day, sir.


*I'm reminded of a conversation the other day at work.  One of my supervisors was talking about how many hours I was scheduled this upcoming week, and I said, "Guess I'm one of the reliable ones, huh?"  To which she said, "Well, unlike the others, you aren't able to find anything better, so . . ."

Dry Run: Update 11

Damnation, why am I not through with this yet?

One of my problems--yeah, yeah, one of many--is that I cannot focus on one single thing and exclude all else until that one task is done.  I am so easily distracted that, believe it or not, this is the second paragraph of this post and already the third time I've worked on it.*

Before this post ever sees the light of day, I will have posted a Rish Outcast called "Chasing Pavements."  It is a really good example of this, as I recorded it not too long ago, to be a quick and easy story-free episode of my solo podcast, and finished the episode, only to remember later what the whole point of the episode was supposed to be.  So, I picked up my recorder again, and recorded the second half, telling myself I would post it the next day, so it wasn't too outdated, or something.

A month and a half later, it still isn't posted.

This story--"Into the Furnace"--got interrupted by another story I got it into my head to tell, also inspired by my solo podcast.  I was recording during my Monday night drive to meet Big, and came up with--what I considered to be--a hilariously stupid idea for a story.  There was a holiday and I had to work, and since there was little to do, I sat down and started that story, thinking I could have it finished during that one shift and I could keep working on my Dry Run tale.

But I didn't finish it, and because it was so close, I spent my writing time working on that, and then, forgetting about that, went on to other projects (like That Gets My Goat episodes we recorded weeks ago).  But the whole point of that story was to run it on my podcast, so I had to sit down and record it, despite being in the middle of TWO audiobook projects, one of them closing in on a year overdue.

Now that story is recorded, and I got it in my head to self-publish it, maybe for free (which is a post all on its own, and maybe I've already posted about it), since it's done and just sitting there.  Which means I need episode art for it.  So I requested some.  But it looked like it was gonna be a while, so I made some myself.  And now THAT sits.

So, why did I interrupt "Into the Furnace" for that, if nobody ever even saw it?

Sigh.

Anyway, I'm happy to post the following:

The number jumped up because I was able to incorporate the writing I did on my laptop (and meant to do so in my last post), which suddenly makes me 75% finished with my tale.  My tale of woe.

And that's pretty durn good.

Rish Outfield, Real Estate Novelist Who Never Had Time For A Wife

*I ended up cutting part of it out and making it its own post, then bumped this one to number eleven.

Dry Run: Update 10

The other day--wait, did I write about this already?  I honestly can't remember.

They hired a new second-in-command at my work not long ago, and the other day, he saw me with my notebook, and asked me what I was doing.  Luckily, I was on my break, so I didn't have to lie that I was, uh, making a list of people I needed to kill or something.  I told him it was a story, and he asked me what it was about.

Now, if you're a writer, you'll get that question from time to time, right?  And you never really know if they are actually interested, or if they are just saying that in the same way that you say, "Oh, that's good," when someone tells you they're fine, or you say, "Oh, that's too bad," when they tell you they passed a kidney stone the size of one of the Stones of Shankara in INDIANA JONES.  But this guy seems alright, and has tried to befriend his employees rather than intimidate them, and mentioned he loved Stephen King, so I told him.

"A Western, huh?" he said, shaking his head.  "That seems pretty intimidating."

I didn't get that.  Writing about a teenaged underwear model turned terminal cancer patient seems intimidating.  So I asked him why.

He said, "Well, I imagine you'd have to do a lot of research, to make sure you got everything right, you know?"

That gave me pause.  I've never been one for research*, and in "Birth of a Sidekick," the only research I believe I ever did was to look up a list of famous kid sidekicks from the 1940's.  And that was for my frickin' Author's Note.

Should I be doing research?  Should I try to come up with facts to back up my fiction?  On a story like this, I'd be hard-pressed to find anything that could make things easier rather than harder, and the one thing I did look up (a story at least thematically similar to my own) ended up being much less cool than I thought it would be.

But you know, the more I thought of it, the more I thought I didn't have to rely on research, not for a Western like this one.  You see, the Wild West as you and I (and especially my dad) know it, didn't exist.  It was created for entertainment in the early Twentieth Century, and that entertainment influenced other entertainment, and that inspired knock-offs and imitators and lazy and brilliant Western movies, and what we know in the 21st Century is pretty much what my father's generation gave us: a Old West of gunfighters, saloons, piano players, horse rustlers, dancing girls, stagecoaches, telegraphs, Autobots and Decepticons, bartenders, old prospectors, hookers with hearts of gold, sheriffs' deputies, and drunks sleeping off the night in jail.

I know filmmakers have made fairly accurate Westerns, and Larry McMurtry would often put real-life people from the period in his books, but the response is usually that of boredom or apathy when compared with the fairly light, fairly fun Hollywood version of the Untamed West.

So the pressure, in my opinion, is off.  Especially when you (if you) read my tale and discover what it is about (shoot, did the Decepticon mention give it away?).  It seems to me that writing a Western isn't that much different than writing a Slasher movie, or a Fantasy or Sci-Fi tale set in a far-off world.

Or am I wrong?

Rish Ou--

Oh, shoot, I'm supposed to include this meter thing, aren't I?  Okay, here:

Yes, this is a shameful display that shows I did absolutely no work in the several days since my last posting, but it's not accurate.  The other day, I wrote and wrote and wrote, like a real writer would write and write and write.  And today, I tried doing the same thing, taking my laptop to the park and writing until its battery died.  And before I went to work, I plugged the laptop in just long enough to email myself the document I created, knowing it would be wildly impressive when I incorporated it into my master document.

Unfortunately, when I checked my email tonight, I had nothing but spam in my inbox, and nothing from a younger version of myself.  I turned on the laptop, and there was no email in the Sent folder either.  So, I guess I have to appear to have done nothing, the way Bruce Wayne appears to be a drunken, selfish loudmouth in BATMAN BEGINS, which isn't such a bad thing to compare myself to, when I think about it.

Rish Outfield, Novel Writer

*In college, I wrote a story that I prided myself in doing the most research I ever had before, speaking to a nurse about drugs and infection and medical treatments.  But that pride faded away when somebody in my class said, "I'm pre-med, and it's obvious you didn't do any research here."  He pretty much accused me of never opening a book in my life.  I wish I had been man enough to either a) vow to never do research again on any writing project, or b) stand up and say, "I did a hell of a lot of research, actually.  On your mother."