Category Archives: Screen Rant

August 14, 2020 · 4:30 pm

Brooding and counter-brooding

So my flash fiction Rabbits Indignateonem came back Saturday with a “Excellent piece, we enjoyed reading it but …” response. Which is nice, because compliments are always better than “that had massive flaws in it” (I get those sometimes) or a No without comments (got that on Death Is Like a Box of Chocolates midweek). But it’s not a sale. And always leaves me worried I’m good, but not quite good enough. That I can’t sell to better markets or more frequently or that I’ve just run out of steam; the last new story I sold was 2018 (two reprints from earlier sold this year). Thoughts of this nature make me broody.

But then again, part of that may be that I haven’t had that many new stories. 2015-16 I was working on Now and Then We Time Travel in addition to my Leaf work; 2017-18 I was doing Screen Rant and those eventually consumed much more time than when I started (hence no longer doing ’em). The past year I’ve put in a lot of time on Undead Sexist Cliches. And of course I was finishing up Southern Discomfort somewhere in the middle of that too.

If I had more stories out circulating, the odds one of them would find a publisher who likes one of them would go up (at least I hope so). I wouldn’t say that’s the only factor in play — I’m definitely not at the level of NK Jemisin or Robert Bloch — but it is a factor.

Once I finish Undead Sexist Cliches my slate will be a lot clearer for fiction. Still doing Leaf, and I have my upcoming Alien Visitors book for McFarland, but that won’t be as demanding as Now and Then .. was (much less ambitious). So, who knows? Perhaps I can elevate myself to at least selling semi-regularly again.

Fingers crossed.

Now, as to this week, it was moderately productive. Did my Leaf articles, and I got close to the end of Chapter Four of Undead Sexist Cliches, which has proven the toughest to organize. Unfortunately the temptation to do just a little more on that book kept me from working on either Questionable Minds or Alien Visitors (formerly titled Space Invaders). Next week I’ll start with them to make sure I put some time in. TYG’s work is going to be crazy for a while which will probably lead to extra dog care, but I’ve had practice working around that.

And unfortunately my cover artist for Questionable Minds, whom I was looking forward to working with, seems to have been sidelined by pandemic stress. No blame attached, this is a rough time for all of us (I’m obviously not finishing the book as fast as expected), but I am disappointed.

Oh, and I posted on Atomic Junkshop about Cast a Deadly Spell as a hardboiled PI movie (matching with my post here about the movie as urban fantasy).

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Filed under Now and Then We Time Travel, Personal, Screen Rant, Short Stories, Time management and goals, Undead Sexist Cliches: The Book, Writing

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December 31, 2018 · 5:03 am

2018 was not the year I anticipated

So out of 103 goals of varying complexity and importance, I accomplished 53 percent of them. That’s consistent with my performance for 2016 and 2017. As I don’t give myself any rewards for achieving them, I’m satisfied with the percentage. I set my list high, after all (rewards make a good incentive, but it’s hard to find something I wouldn’t do for myself or buy for myself anyway).

The bad news is that my creative output really fell way short of my aspirations. My top goal was to finish Southern Discomfort and submit it; didn’t happen. I wanted to finish four short stories; I didn’t manage any. I only occasionally pitched nonfiction pieces to any markets. I didn’t finish the Undead Sexist Cliches book.

The main reason was that my steady freelance gigs got in the way. Which is not a bad thing—I made well above my writing income goals for the year—but working on Leaf articles and Screen Rant took a lot of time. Particularly as the minimum Screen Rant listicle got longer and some of the topics got further away from my areas of expertise (like finding 17 secrets about the Nick TV show Victorious). Even though Screen Rants are fun and they gave me a chance to play with my writing style, I gave up the gig in the summer; it was just consuming too much of my writing week and Leaf, while duller, paid better.

I have learned from this. It’s the main reason I haven’t started submitting one nonfiction proposal in my files to publishers yet: I think it would just consume too much time and I’d like to do a lot more fiction in 2019.

I did self-publish the paperback edition of Atlas Shagged and Atoms for Peace, though, and I’m quite pleased with them. And I stuck to my goal of only checking email three times a day during work. And I finally got around to putting a PayPal donation link in the sidebar. Oh, and it occurs to me I don’t even bother setting any goals about staying as a full-time writer: barring disaster (which can’t be eliminated of course) it seems like I’m secure in that path.

In nonwriting goals, I kept the bird feeder filled, used sunscreen regularly when walking the dogs or bicycling and bicycled almost once every week (even discounting the weeks the weather didn’t permit it, I didn’t make the cut, but I’m doing better than last year). I called my elected officials off and on, and wrote them a couple of times, though I doubt it did much good (nor blogging about their pathetic performance). I traveled outside Durham several times, mostly with TYG (Mystacon was a solo act, on the other hand) and I got to see my brother and niece in October at my dad’s 90th birthday shindig.

Goals aside, it was a good year (not counting the frequent train wrecks emanating from President Shit-Gibbon). I snuggled with dogs and TYG, spent more social time than last year with friends, read a bunch of books and watched a lot of movies. I hung out more with the neighbors on our cul-de-sac and kept my weight to a reasonable level (not so much this past week, but that’s normal). I turned sixty and threw myself a birthday party (usually it’s just me and TYG). I enjoyed seeing my family (it’s not like they’re just a checkmark on a list) and catching up with my niece for the first time since she became an adult.

Next year I intend to keep having fun. But with more fiction. Details tomorrow.

Happy new year everyone.

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Filed under Atlas Shagged, Atoms for Peace, Personal, Screen Rant, Short Stories, Southern Discomfort, Time management and goals

June 29, 2018 · 4:30 pm

This week seemed to have such promise

I was really optimistic about this week. Next round of Leaf articles hasn’t started yet, Screen Rant is done, I had time to focus on my personal projects.

But TYG was doing a lot of stuff this week that required concentration. And Plush Dog, for whatever reason, was needy. Actively needy, constantly trying to climb on her computer or barking for attention. So I wound up running interference, plus putting in a lot of extra dog walking. The time added up. Plus I was freaking out over some of the political news. It can’t be helped at times, but it’s not productive. I wound up several hours behind my quota for the week.

So what did I get done?

I finished a second draft of Only the Lonely Can Slay. Relocating the action to my old home town really sharpened the setting, and the dramatic arc improved some. However that’s a long way from saying it has a good arc. It’s trickier because I don’t want my protagonist to know exactly what she’s involved in, even when it’s all over. So we’ll see.

I thought a little about the rewrite of No One Can Slay Her but didn’t actually put any words to paper. I did make more progress on the final draft of Southern Discomfort. I’ve gone over four out of the 12 stories in the draft paperback of Atoms for Peace and edited them, though I haven’t made the corrections in the manuscript on my computer. That matters because some of the notes are just “sentence doesn’t work, fix it” when the correction is more than just a word or something concise.

I did not come anywhere near close my 1,000 words a day goal. Come July with no Screen Rant deadlines to make, it should be doable. And I will make it a priority.

I did draft a query for Space Invaders for McFarland but held off submitting it. There’s a couple of markets I’d like to look at first. Next month, one way or the other, it goes out.

Oh, and as noted this morning, I started making some upgrades to this blog. Hopefully that will prove worthwhile. It may be telling that I think of this as a blog first — but when I visit other author’s websites, I usually go to the blog first. After all, it’s the only part that’s likely to provide anything new.

And I also posted an in-depth review of The 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse on Atomic Junkshop.

Subject to a couple of personal goals I hope to accomplish tomorrow, I got a little over 50 percent of my June goals go (the crazy schedule this week put paid to a couple of routine things I normally accomplish in the morning).

On the food front, we ate the first of the tomatoes TYG has been growing in the back, along with the herbs. Unfortunately the local squirrels pulled about twice that number off the plants — they don’t eat them, they just bite into them and leave them. Pure spite.

And we took the dogs to get groomed Wednesday. Plushie’s tail was so matted they had to shave it completely, leaving what looks like a little pig’s tail. Packs quite a wallop when he beats it on us.

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June 26, 2018 · 3:55 pm

20 Things About the Winter Soldier That Make No Sense

Bucky Barnes was there on Captain America’s first cover.

Then he died.

Then he became the Winter Soldier.

My new Screen Rant on the Winter Soldier looks at Buck’s whole career. Why did nobody notice that Bucky Barnes had the same name as Bucky the sidekick? Why didn’t the Russians dispose of Bucky as soon as they found his body? What about his brainwashed relationship with the Black Widow? Don’t get me wrong, I think Brubaker created an awesome character, but his stories have a few logic gaps.

#SFWApro. Cover by Jack Kirby (top) and Steve Epting (bottom), all rights remain with current holders.

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June 22, 2018 · 4:30 pm

The light at the end of the tunnel was not an oncoming train

It’s what happens when some of the viscous jelly in your eye gets hard and crusty and breaks off.

I noticed flashes in the corner of my eye last weekend, and soon figured out they weren’t reflections of my glasses. Then I got some big floaters drifting across my vision. A quick check online established this is an unremarkable phenomenon, probably due to age, and not a serious issue. Unless, of course, I had an actual torn retina in which case it was an emergency. It didn’t seem extreme enough (I was referencing an eye doctor website so I was confident it was accurate) so I called my doctor Monday and went in for an eye appt. on Tuesday. Happily I was right, nothing serious, though the floaters are distracting (the flashes have faded away).

That took a chunk out of my week, Screen Rant took a bite more. The one I started on last week proved undoable for various reasons, but I spent about three hours on it before giving up. Tuesday I picked up a new one, 20 Things About Winter Soldier That Make No Sense (Jack Kirby’s cover gives us a look back when he was just Bucky, of course). As yet, it’s not up, though I submitted it this afternoon. It took more time than I wanted — upping the minimum from 15 to 20 adds quite a bit more work, both in searching for entries and writing. It may be more than I have the time to keep doing — it’s fun, but this might have to be my last. I’ll give it some thought.

While Bucky Barnes took up a chunk of time, I did continue work on Southern Discomfort and the Undead Sexist Cliches book. I’ve made my wordage on both for the month, but I’ll put in more time on SD next week. I started work revising No One Can Slay Her, though I didn’t get far. I’ll put in time on that next week, plus (hopefully) rewriting Only the Lonely Can Slay.

Oh, and I got a Createspace copy of Atoms for Peace and began proofing. Cover by zakarianada on Fiverr, rights to it are now mine. Going to take more work than I thought, but that just proves I made a good call getting the copy.

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June 17, 2018 · 6:17 pm

My Dr. Strange Screen Rant is out

20 Weird Facts About Dr. Strange’s Body. Like the eye in the middle of his forehead.

Or whether he was Asian in his first appearance.

and the guy who found his body’s greatest weakness is … a bullet!

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June 15, 2018 · 4:12 pm

Ten years ago, less one month, I met her

And seven years ago last Monday I married her. And I’m so glad I did.

We had dinner last weekend at Sage, a local vegetarian (mostly vegan) restaurant that’s our go-to for special celebrations (Monday would have been rough on our schedules). We also traded gifts as we didn’t want to wait. I got TYG a good ice cream scoop and a charger for her phone; now she no longer has to carry the charger back and forth from bedroom to living room My gift was season tickets for both of us to Playmakers, one of the local theaters. Very good choice! Neither one fit the theme (wool, copper) but we don’t care.

Then Sunday Plushie had his back spasm and we were very stressed. That flowed into the work week. Plus I didn’t make out my schedule Sunday with my usual care, which left me feeling oddly off-balance this week. Though I didn’t let that stop me working. I also wasted a lot of time on a Screen Rant listicle I simply could not find enough items for. Eventually I gave it up, someone else took it and did fine and I found one that worked for me (not out yet) — 20 Weird Facts About Dr. Strange’s Body. For example, it’s actually older than the Earth, due to Earth being destroyed in the Bronze Age, then recreated.

As I’m a Dr. Strange fan, that was a lot of fun, though it took more time than I’d planned. SR Listicles now have more items with shorter text. I think the added time for research undoes the gains of less writing.

I didn’t come anywhere near making my 1,000 words a day of fiction. I did get some more work done on Southern Discomfort so I think I’m revising on schedule. No short story work.

I submitted Atoms for Peace to Draft2Digital, but the cover I commissioned seems to have a technical problem. So do my chapter headings —a lot of headings for scene changes (giving the time or location) are showing up as chapters. If I’m understanding the site’s advice correctly, the latter should be an easy fix. And I probably know enough computer nerds who can figure out the PDF problem.

I also submitted the PDF to CreateSpace. This time I’m going to order a draft copy of the paperback before I release the ebook. I’ll see the mistakes much better that way.

Oh, and Thursday I had coffee with my friend Heather Fredericks, author of the delightful Timber Howligan, Secret Agent.  She’s working on a sequel; I’ve read the rough draft so this was a feedback/critique session. She said it was very helpful. I’m pleased.

Next week, with my SR already picked and no Leaf, I anticipate a lot more fiction writing. Fingers crossed.

#SFWApro. Art by Gene Colan (top) and Steve Ditko. All rights remain with current holders.

 

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June 8, 2018 · 4:30 pm

Star Trek transported my week away!

More specifically, my new Screen Rant on embarrassing roles of Star Trek actors. Like William Shatner (above) as an alcoholic priest in The Horror at 37,000 Feet.

The embarrassment isn’t necessarily that they did a dreadful job. Although Brent Spiner (above) did not cover himself with glory in Rent Control. To say nothing of his mustache. It’s simply that the production as a whole was dreadful. Roxann Dawson didn’t make a memorable impression in the nursing drama Nightingales but it’s not like that show gave her much to work with (or anyone else).

It was fun to do, but because there are so many actors and so many potential entries, I ran it up to 25 items. That’s a lot of writing, and it took up way more time than usual. So basically my accomplishments this week were that piece, my usual array of Leaf articles, and a couple of thousand words of Southern Discomfort.

But that said, it was fun, and I think I did a great job. So go check it out.

And the Leaf project I’ve been working on apparently wraps up this week (something new may be coming down the pike in July or August) — there’s no more articles in the queue. I knew that was coming, but I figured it would be a couple more weeks. That’s an extra 10 hours a week the rest of the month to do my own writing stuff, whoot! I shall put it to good use.

So not much else to say. On the personal front, a foundation-repair job (nothing critical, just shoring up some potential weaknesses) began this week, though it won’t finish until Monday (weather permitting).

Oh, and despite Verizon confirming in writing that they’d closed a fake account someone took out in my name (and didn’t pay for), I got a call today from a debt collector today. I offered to send them the Verizon email: oh, sorry, they don’t have an email address! And they can’t contact Verizon! Yeah, right. So I hung up. I’ll deal with them if they call back. I’m not entirely surprised — I’ve read plenty of accounts of people who resolved debts, but some data entered online, somewhere, kept it alive. Sometimes even within companies like Verizon. And the penalties for error are few.

A sour note to end the week on, but I’m still looking forward to next week.

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June 8, 2018 · 5:10 am

Random thoughts related to previous posts

First, a complaint. GoComics.com, which is where I read a lot of daily comic strips online recently redesigned. The way it now works, I go to the page for a given strip, and instead of seeing today’s strip, I have to click through further. It’s not a lot of time, it just annoys me.

A bigger problem is that I can’t get more than eight or nine strips read before the site cuts out. That’s very inconvenient — I’d much sooner work through my strips in one fell swoop than a bit at a time. It’s bad for them because I just settle for reading the ones I like best, then giving up.

Second, the struggle to use up all the herbs TYG is growing is not getting easier. I’m managing to find recipes, but now we have oregano coming up in addition to the sage and basil. This week, definitely some of it’s getting frozen. And I will invite one of our neighbors to take some extra — TYG has way more lettuce than she needs for salads now.

That said, here’s an illustration I didn’t use for my next Screen Rant, about embarrassing roles by Star Trek actors (Leonard Nimoy was in this one)

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June 1, 2018 · 3:43 pm

Accomplishments for the week and the month

So I was working on my next Screen Rant, about weird ways movies cover up mistakes, and I ran into a problem: I couldn’t find any. Outside of “keep it in!” when an actor screws up, there’s very little. I emailed my editor for some advice, but she was away, I didn’t ask another editor right away and the end result was I didn’t get it done. So now Rant post this week But on the plus side, more time for everything else! I got another 5,000 words of Southern Discomfort done, including fixing the scene that was giving me problems. And I think I see how to fix the problems with The Impossible Takes a Little Longer — we’ll see how it plays out in the rewrite, but I’m optimistic.

I also tried uploading a PDF of Atoms for Peace to Createspace so I can proofread a copy. Apparently a PDF created from Apple’s Pages program (not a favorite of mine) doesn’t work as well as when I make one with Draft2Digital’s system. So I shall prepare one next week, as I’ll be creating the ebook via D2D anyway.

I read No One Can Slay Her to the writers’ group Tuesday. Got lots of helpful feedback, and lots of enthusiasm for the story.

Plus I finished the usual Leaf articles on topic such as where to find book value of debt on a corporate balance sheet. On the assumption I’d be working on Screen Rant at some point, I squeezed seven of the 10 Leafs I’d scheduled into Monday, to free up time. Very tiring. But it was nice when I finished up Tuesday and had the rest of the week free. It felt awesome being able to put almost two days in on fiction, and actually get somewhere.

For the month I completed 68 percent of my goals, which felt quite satisfactory, especially as most of the ones I didn’t get done were minor or non-urgent. My biggest disappointment is that I just don’t complete short stories as fast as I’d like. Subordinating them to Southern Discomfort and to the immediate-pay gigs (Leaf and Screen Rant) makes sense, but I’d really hoped to have two done by the end of next month. I should have No One Can Slay Her done once I make use of the feedback, but I’d hoped to have Angels Hate This Man done too. Doesn’t look like it. There’s only so much time to go around.

Oh, I did put up two posts on Atomic Junkshop, one on the myth there’s a definitive version of characters (“Spider-Man achieved perfection when I read him as a teen! Clearly if I retcon away all the changes since then, it’ll be perfect again!”) and one on The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, longer than my post here.

 

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Filed under Atoms for Peace, Impossible Takes a Little Longer, Movies, Personal, Screen Rant, Short Stories, Southern Discomfort, Story Problems, Time management and goals, Writing