No writing so far today; I had a late evening podcast scheduled, and podcasting requires a surprising amount of mental energy. Recording and editing are labor intensive, even more so when they come at the tail end of a gray and dreary day.

I needed time to coagulate, anyway. I realized last evening that one of my recent drafts is going to take me to a very dark place, and I need to fortify myself in order to stay true to the material. I don’t know how much of myself I’m going to leave bleeding on the page, and that prospect legitimately frightened me at first.

Accomplished Today (So far): Two pages on the electric typewriter. I wrote about Ygor, a middle-aged henchman, looking for work after his Master is slain by an angry mob. I’m noticing a running theme of unemployment and people being bad at their jobs in my writing. Coincidence?

Writing Relevant Article: I’m a self-publishing failure, by John Winters. I know he’s playing it up for the sake of humor, but I do feel his expectations don’t exactly map to reality. Also, it appears he fell into the trap of springing for the Amazon KDP royalties deal that offers a higher percentage per sale with the added stinger of deducting various microscopic costs with each transaction. I publish using the straight 35% royalty method, and I don’t have to worry about losing money when I offer my work as a free promotion.

Just a quick update today. I spent most of my brain-power fixing the RSS feed entries for The Greatest Movie EVER! Podcast, so have an interview I conducted with Barbra Dillon of Fanboy Comics, regarding my contribution to the upcoming Skin Crawling Comics anthology.

Accomplished Today (So Far): Two pages, manual typewriter. Two pages, electric. Two pages, transcription to PC. I wrote about goblins and gnomes and witch hunters and a fairy who’s having a poor time trying to pass her exams at Fairy University and a gaggle of hungry ghosts.

I checked Monster and Craig’s List for jobs related to writing in my local area. Things look pretty dire in that respect. The less said about that, the better.

Someone continues to attempt to leave trollish comments on The Greatest Movie EVER! Podcast. I wonder why they bother. I always send them directly to the garbage bin, and it’s easy to spot them because the poster in question always uses a made-up e-mail address. Doesn’t strike me as worth the effort, even if the only effort involved is hitting a few keys and pressing a few buttons.

Accomplished Today (So Far): Two pages, longhand, print. I took a notebook along and did some writing at the local McDonald’s. I continued at the local movie theater while waiting to see G.I. Joe: Retaliation. I was on a tear. It annoyed me when the house lights faded and I couldn’t keep filling the pages with ink. Inspiration strikes in the strangest places.

I wrote about Mary Sue, an unassuming comic book super heroine in a story I’m developing. In earlier writings about her exploits, I alluded to how Mary Sue met her current police liaison, Detective Sergeant Roy Thomas, during a previous crisis when a super villain held the city hostage. I realized this morning that I needed to flesh that story out. It was essential to know how Mary Sue got to the place where she is when the later story begins. Everything important about her character – her nasty break-up with her super hero ex-boyfriend, him using his influence to get her thrown off their crime-fighting team, the exposure of her secret identity – everything that makes Mary Sue who she is in the present happens during the stand-off with Lord Stray Cat. And it all started with a throwaway line.

Weird. I can never guess which seemingly trivial details will be so important that they lead to a more interesting story than the one that spawned them.

I accomplished almost nothing today, other than working on a podcast related to a cartoon aimed at six year old girls. My brain is a lump of tapioca. I have the dumb.

I derailed my own plans by watching Seven Psychopaths in the middle of the day, the new-ish film by Martin McDonagh, the director of In Bruges. The movie had its moments, but despite the perfect casting and the clever dialogue and all of the little meta-textual comments on the business of filmmaking, McDonagh’s pictures have a tendency to die in the third act, and this film as no exception. Overall, it was merely an okay movie, a welcome but somewhat disappointing distraction from the daily grind.

I’d elaborate further, but I cannot brain today. I have the dumb.

Accomplished Today (So Far): One page via electric typewriter; one page via manual. I wrote more about the magical complaint department, and started another short humorous tale involving the incompetent Inquisitor, Witchfinder Malthus. I like writing about him, but he’s a bit of a one-note joke.

Thoughts: I’ve been reading spoilers related to a recent, A-list video game release, and it got me thinking about the Unreliable Narrator. I don’t know if this device has been used successfully in video games since the original Bioshock. When the developers initially present the world in which the audience controls an avatar, because of the immersive nature of modern gameplay, the audience will likely enter a state of heightened skepticism at the first whiff of an unreliable narrator. Thus the audience holds back, disengaged, waiting in anticipation for The Big Twist that they know is coming. And if the developers don’t provide any foreshadowing at all, they’ll be guilty of lying to their audience. It’s a no-win scenario.

Writing Relevant Article: “Wait, that’s not what happened”: A discussion on games and the unreliable narrator, by Eric Schwarz.

Accomplished Today (So Far): One page on the electric typewriter; one page on the manual. I wrote about a paranormal detective and the complaint department of a magical bureacracy. I hope to get some transcription done as well, although a lot of that depends on whether I decide to watch Predator 2 tonight or not. I also edited a podcast for later publication, and I’ve met all of my deadlines. So far, so good.

Mood: Optimistic. I dropped off a bag of donations at the public library. Hopefully someone will get some use out of those spare copies of Deathstalker and Gamera: Guardian of Universe.

Reading Assignment: I’ve finished re-reading Beowulf, so now I think I should read something a little more in the vein of science fiction. Perhaps I’ll take a crack at Downbelow Station, by C.J. Cherryh.

I haven’t done much in the way of writing today. Instead, I spent some time cleaning up my workspace, pictured above.

This is the desk in my bedroom, newly rearranged for optimum writing / reading efficiency. On the left is my Royal Safari with the bent carriage return that causes it to skip spaces intermittently; in the middle is my brand new Brother ML-100 Electric; on the right is the Hermes Rocket my aunt Mary sent me.

Not pictured are the two bookshelves that flank the desk, overflowing with anime DVDs, Japanese monster movies, role-playing game supplements, and books of all sorts. Also not pictured are the stacks of ring binders, composition books, legal pads, and loose leaf papers on which I inflict the majority of my penmanship.

Also, also not pictured are the mountains of books, DVDs, and papers thrown all over my bed to make room for this nice, efficient workspace.

My organizational method could best be described as ‘chaos’.