The Opposite Of Blank

I was talking to Big Anklevich today and found out he's firing on all cylinders (or proceeding on all thrusters, I don't know sports talk) with his new story, already up to six thousand words.  When he asked me how mine was going, I had to return my head to its primary position: hanging in shame.  I had an idea, but no words written, no character names, no ending, no twists, no feelings of creativity, etc..  But he urged me to go for a walk (or run) and think about the story, and maybe I'd come up with something.

I heard once (or thrice) that "A blank page is God's way of showing you how hard it is to be God."*  I've always thought it an idiotic quote, because, what?  God walks around with writer's block?  The whole idea of omnipotence kind of precludes feeling dumb or uninspired, doesn't it?  But ah well, whatever gets you out of bed and on your way to work.

So, cut to tonight, when I went on my run.  Instead of listening to YouTube videos, movie trivia, politics, or talk show comedians, I turned on music (one of those ninety minute compilations that's supposed to make it so you don't have to keep selecting new titles . . . but still has commercials every three minutes).  And that has helped me thinking in the past, so I pushed Play, stretched for forty seconds, and went.

And the ideas just started to flow.  I already knew how I was going to start it, but that solidified as I came up with a character I could get behind (yeah, he's me, as usual, only much, much more successful in life, which puts him at the end of his rope).  I came up with a second character who would be important, and how that would lead to the inciting incident.  thought of a fun twist for the middle of the story, and stopped running long enough to laugh about it.  Of course, I didn't know where the story was going, or how I was going to end it, but I still had half a mile left in my run . . . and right before I reached my street, I knew how I'd end it.  

And though it's not going to win the contest, it's a tale unlike most I have written (except, ironically, the last time I entered this kind of contest), and seems like something I could be proud of.  So, in just a twenty minute run, I felt like I was staring at the opposite of a blank page, and like divine inspiration, the pieces seemed to simply fall into place.

Now all I have to do is write it.  As easy as that sounds. 

*It's a Sidney Sheldon quote that goes, "A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it is to be God." 

Novel Progress (Or Lack Thereof)

My big goal for August was to get my audio production of my novel "Balms & Sears" to sixty percent.  Unfortunately, I'm not going to make it.  

I did record two chapters last week, though, which isn't nothing*, and maybe I'll do one more tonight.  Still, at this point of the month (written back in August), I'm at nineteen percent, with no signs of getting more done.  I did go to the library and formatted the next couple of chapters (they have MS Word there you can use for free), but whoa, I discovered a chapter that was supposed to have gone earlier, and instead of simply snipping it and pasting it early in the narrative, I simply changed a couple of details so it works where it appears.  That sort of thing--it will come as no surprise to you--eats up a lot of writing time.  Sigh.

And since I'm here, I'll go ahead and post my Exercise Goal progress, instead of making it two posts (I originally wrote this all before, a week ago, but the laptop restarted as I drove back from the cabin and I lost it all (as usual).

So, at least as far as exercise goes, I'm way ahead of the pack.

*Though my "chapters" tend to be so small, they should hardly qualify as such.  I know the rules aren't set in stone, but I probably ought to do that thing where there are only ten or twelve chapters, and each one has several "segments" or sections of the story in them.  But it's too late for me now, son.  Maybe I'll implement that on the next one.

Rish Outcast 285: Olivia Rewinds

Rish presents his time travel(ish) story "Olivia Rewinds." Our gal Olivia and her boyfriend break up, but then she can whatever she wishes . . . just like you.

Note: This is NOT the Valentine's Day episode. 

To download the episode, Right-Click HERE.

To support me on Patreon, click HERE.

Logo by Gino "Be Kind Rewind" Moretto.

Marshal & Rish Pull Out The Big Guns (of Navarone)

Marshal and I finally got around to watching 1961's THE GUNS OF NAVARONE, starring Gregory Peck and David Niven.  And then we talked.

Check it out HERE.

To Save Me From Tears...

If you listened to my last Patreon address*, you may remember that something I vowed to do in July was to put out a story where I didn't wonder if it was at all good in the author's note.  And the tale I chose to achieve that goal was a 2022 holiday tale called "But the Very Next Day..."

It's a story that was intended to be humorous and light, about an office that participates in Wham!ageddon (that contest where people see who can go the longest without hearing Last Christmas by Wham!) and start taking it way too seriously.  But along the way--probably when the first person who failed in the challenge died of a freak accident--I decided to move it away from an amusing story to something heavier and more Suspense/Horror-centric.

Does it work?  Would it have been better with a lighter tone?  Do I write about the same office experience I had in L.A a little (or a lot) too much?  Next year, should I give it to someone better?

Find out HERE.  

And for my Limey brothers, click HERE.

*And if you didn't listen, you're streets ahead.

Star Wars Cantina Patron Wishlist

 I'm back, by unpopular demand!

On this one, I give my five most-desired Cantina-related characters to be made into action figures.

Podcast That Dares 51: The Mezzotint

Rish presents M.R. James's 1904 story "The Mezzotint."

A shame there's no figures in that painting--someone could do a series of videos talking about figures.

If you want to download this episode, Right-Click HERE. 

To support Rish on Patreon, click HERE. 

Logo by Gino "The Mezzobint" Moretto.  Sorry, I was under the impression "bint" was a more offensive word than it is.

Even When It's Bad...It's Still Pretty Good

I suppose it's time for me to start doing this again--promoting something that I wrote that you can choose to buy, if only you know it's out there.  Big once challenged me to write a story about my time working at Little Caesar's Pizza, and wrote one of his own, the excellently-named "Little Caesar's Ghost."  So, much, much later, here is mine.

It took me a while to come up with a title for this post.  I wanted to do a play on the word "pizza" or "triangles" or some reference to three-ways, even though the story isn't about that.  I didn't come up with anything great, but it'll do.

This was my original attempt at a cover, before I decided to let a machine handle it.

"Pizza Triangle" was one of the few non-genre stories I've written, trying to stretch myself as a writer.  There aren't any supernatural elements, and barely anything major or explosive goes on in its pages.

And that's a big part of why it took me over a decade to write it.  I had this idea of two best friends working at Little Caesar's Pizza, and how, when a pretty girl is hired, their friendship falls apart.  And that's soooooooooooooooooort of what "Pizza Triangle" is about.   

You can check it out HERE.

Santa Knows If You've Been Bad

I was at my buddy Jeff's house, and his daughter was visiting, and she mentioned that she wanted to watch SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT, which Jeff had picked up from the library.* He'd recently given her a copy of Grady Hendrix's "The Final Girl Support Group," which is a fun book about a group of women who each overcame a specific and familiar attack by a serial killer, and the main one survived a massacre by a crazy man dressed as Santa.

His daughter (with a father like Jeff) was familiar with SCREAM, FRIDAY THE 13TH, TEXAS CHAINSAW, HALLOWEEN, and NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, but had never seen 1984's SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT.  Well, I'd seen it twice (once as a kid, and once in my twenties for our Horror Film Compendium), and I told her not to bother, that the movie was bad, and explained how it got famous due to the Streisand Effect.  

But Jeff had already rented the movie, and was bummed that he was going to have to watch it alone.  When he said that, I told him I would go ahead and watch the movie with him, even though I remembered it being pretty awful.**

So, we watched it, and I was impressed by the opening scenes, which were both fun and effective.  As the movie went on, I admired the Utah locations, leered lasciviously at the vintage Star Wars toys, and took in the gratuitous nudity with homey sentimentality.

By the time we got to the end, I was surprised not only by how much I enjoyed the movie, but by how well made it was, compared to the schlock of today (my nephew was watching SHARKNADO 4 the other day, and a bunch of cows got sucked up by it, and one of the characters looked at the camera and shouted, "It's a COWnado!!!" proving for one and all that Friedrich Nietzsche was right about God being dead).  

Jeff also thought it was good, and looked up our reviews from twenty-five years ago . . . and we thought it was good then too.

Weird. 

Anyway, one thing I admired, then and now, was the ghastly Christmas song that is repeated multiple times in the movie, that goes "Santa's watching, Santa's creeping..."  It is cheery and fairly trite-sounding, but includes ominious lyrics like
Can you hear him in the night?
Close your door, turn out the light!

and it ends with the delightfully fatalistic

Did you do your best this year? 
Too late now, 'cause Santa's here."

Good times.

*Yes, it's that good of a library. Or bad, you decide.

**Here's the thing: bad horror movies made in the Eighties are better than bad horror movies made today, simply because of my nostalgia for that period, its music, its fashions, and the kinds of movies they were making then.  Heck, a bad horror movie from the Eighties might be better than a so-so movie from the 2010s.

A Novel Goal For August

So, one of my goals for July was to start work on publishing one of my completed novels ("When You Need It Most," "Balms & Sears," or "A Sidekick To Miracles"), and I picked Balms--the story about the boy in high school with the power to heal.  I started on it, and got about five chapters recorded.

For August, I set the goal of getting the book 60% finished (which means, getting sixty percent of the book recorded, since I revise and fix typos and do clarifications as I'm narrating--and ostensibly, by the time I read "the end" or the author's note, it should be ready to publish that very day) by the end of the month.  But to figure out where I am, I either need to number all the chapters and find out what sixty percent of that is, or do a page count and determine how many I've gotten through.  Easy, no?

I just sat down and recorded another chapter (and there were good bits in both).  So, right now, the manuscript is 192 pages (it'll expand, believe you me), and after three recording sessions, I'm on page 27.  By my math, that's 14% finished.  Not great, but I originally divided 192 by 27 and got 7 percent, which is worse.

I can do this.

Rish Outcast 284: Study Group

Rish talks about defying the expectations of TOP GUN 2 and A THOUSAND WORDS (warning: spoilers).

Then he presents his sketch "Study Group," with help from Big Anklevich, Marshal Latham, some British guy, and Tena Kolakowski.

If you want to download the episode, Right-Click HERE.

If you want to support me on Patreon, click HERE.

If you want to be where the people are, go HERE.

Logo by Gino "Studly Group" Moretto.