Separating Inspiration and Story

This blog post is going to be a little more focused on writing and comes from a story I recently received some critiques on and I can see a problem is that I was so wrapped up in the inspiration from where the story came from that I couldn't see that the story would do better without the beginning that inspired it and focusing on what came from that story.

This is something I can see in my other writing as well. Largely this comes from the fact that I do my writing as a discovery writer so I only have a vague idea of what I want to write and let things flow from there. A lot of my stories just start from one idea and can move in ways that move quite far from there and result in what I started writing being irrelevant to what develops.

The problem comes from my inability to realize that the inspiration may not be as important to the story as what I've created from that idea. I wrote a dystopic story which stemmed from some commentator on ESPN calling MMA modern day gladiator fights. Which I disagree with, but I took the idea of a society that brings back gladiator battles and used that to create a story. In the end the gladiator fights don't really matter, but they are in the story. Thanks to the feedback on my more recent story it's shed light on the fact that I could lose the gladiator fights, even though I use it as a set piece.

It becomes a case of killing your darlings and in a less obvious way to me. Something about losing the inspiration for a story seems more painful and less obvious than conversations that are amusing, but don't move the story anywhere, which are much more obvious story killers for me to notice than anything else. So hopefully I'll be able to keep this in mind in the future and if you're reading this you'll pay attention to that idea as well.

Goals

For the majority of my life I've never understood the need people always place on setting goals and accomplishing them, but really that's because school set my goals for me. Since I've graduated college I don't have do well in class and graduate as goals and actually need to set something concrete to accomplish or I'm content to play video games and keep the job I don't like. So this year I'm going to get shit done and set goals to accomplish so I actually do them.

1. Write a short story a month.
I'm not talking really short stories, but something in the area of 20k words or so. That will become tougher as I start revising stories while writing new ones, but as I get into the habit of writing it should be easier for me to sit down and write and pump out words.

2. Start self-publishing on Amazon.
Along with getting into the habit of pumping out short stories I want to publish those with Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) although I'm actually just guessing what those letters stand for, but short stories of the longer length I want to write don't have a real target way to get published so this seems like a good way to sell them at least to me. Plus it will force me to revise things I write instead of just writing them and leaving them sitting around.

3. Get published.
I will write short stories that can qualify for publication and I want to work on that and actually get something published. Plus once I get published as an author I can start calling myself a professional writer which would be cool.

4. Complete NaNoWriMo.
I've tried it the past two years and failed. Partially because of poor planning, and partially because the new Call of Duty game always comes out that month. This year I want to have a plan and build the world I'm going to write in before I get into it and have a plan and execute it.

All my goals are writing related and while I would prefer a new job than the one I have currently and to improve other things. Concentrating on my writing is something I really feel the need to do and give writing a chance to be my profession and the way I make money for a living. Thankfully the job I have right now is one where it's easy to leave work at work and do some writing when I'm off. And I have enough free time to play video games, watch tv/movies, and still get writing in every day. So this is the year I become a writer and see where it can take me.

My Hometown

As an aspiring writer I often find myself wishing I lived in a big city where stuff happened and there were a lot of different kind of people around and experiences to be had. But when I really think about the town I live in I realize that's largely a case of the grass is always greener on the other side and I don't realize what's in the town I've lived in for most of my life.

I live in Petoskey in Northern Michigan which doesn't have much in the way of population or entertainment options if you're not a skier or golfer.  But I then remember that this is the same place Ernest Hemingway's family owned a summer house. In fact that house was on Walloon Lake which is the same place I grew up as a kid. I've been to bars that boast of him having been there and book stores have sections dedicated to his books, and books about him. His daughter had a house on the same road I lived on and was a member at the golf course down the road from my house. Hemingway has had many experiences that I haven't, but it's cool to think that there are similar ones between us. My Father spent time with me in the woods, and taught me to hunt as well, although I don't do it that often, and presumably that would be in the same woods that Hemingway learned as well, although it is much changed from then.

Not every town is going to be connected to a famous author, but they all have their stories and the past of families are interesting as well. It's important to remember that any place can seem boring if you overlook parts of it, and see a different place as exciting. Remember that there are people living in those places who think their town is boring and want to go somewhere as well.

I'm not quite sure what the point of this is beyond remembering that every place has its own quirks and to enjoy those and remember that there is always something interesting to be found. I think about this occasionally and walking around downtown they have plaques up that talk about the past of the city and I always stop and read them. I find that history interesting and every place should be remembered for its history and what it does that no other place offers.

Mixed Martial Arts

Saturday I went to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch UFC 140 and I've finally recovered enough to type about it. Okay, Sunday was the only day I was completely out of it, but Monday had a lot of napping after work to help compensate for a rough day of drinking as well. I also worked ten hours on Sunday and that doesn't facilitate a hangover recovery, but back to the point of watching UFC 140.

It was awesome. I don't think I'd agree if I just bought the PPV and watched it at home, but going to a bar and watching it with wings, beer, and other people helped a lot. I don't want to diminish the fights, but the show is only two hours, because of quick fights which were good, but short. As a fan of professional wrestling for most of my life I expect PPVs to give me more for my money, while I know that UFC isn't preplanned and anything can happen the shows bear a similar price and structure so it draws that comparison. However the show had a lot of awesome stuff happening.

I'll start with the first fight of the night which was over in seven seconds. Chang Sung Jung avoided a haymaker from Mark Hominich then rocked him with a punch and followed up as he fell for a decisive win, and while some people get down on these quick fights I think they are awesome occasionally. This is one thing that MMA has the advantage over wrestling in that a match can be this short and still be good because Jung looks like a beast and it's impressive that someone can legitimately KO somebody this quickly in a match.

The next match went to a decision and was boring to me so I don't want to talk about it. My disinterest was enabled by the fact that I didn't have a great angle to the tv and haven't been following UFC closely enough to know the fighters.

Antonio Rogerio Nogueira vs. Tito Ortiz was next and all is well with the world because Nog won as I do know that I find Tito to be annoying and the best part was the fight being finished by TKO with body shots. I like that Ortiz got beaten while he's laying on the ground covering his head letting Nog punch and elbow the fuck out of his ribs. It was brutal and satisfying.

Next up was Frank Mir beating Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira by breaking his fucking arm with a Kimura. Antonio was controlling this match early with his strikes and nearly KOd Mir, but instead of continuing to punch he went in for a submission and Mir put him into a Kimura they did some rolls that looked awesome, then Antonio refused to tap out and his arm snapped. I didn't realize it at first, but the replays made it obvious and the people at the bar reacted so well to the moment, as did I. The fight was all action and the ending was brutal, but exciting.

The main event was Lyoto Machida vs. Light Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones and this was a good fight that went a distance into the second round before Jones busted Machida open with an elbow and then choked him out with a great guillotine. At first it looked like they were just in a clinch to me. The ref tapped Jones to release and Machida dropped to the mat like a rock, it was an impressive win for Jones, and kind of disappointing to me because I like Machida, but I am always happy to watch a good fight.

They were mostly good fights and exciting to watch, but I'm even more excited for UFC 141 on December 30 that pits Allistar Overeem against Brock Lesnar, because watching those two behemoths fight each other is going to be awesome.

No Time for Love Doctor Jones

I caught most of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark today on SyFy before going to work and it got me thinking about the series and how people love some of the movies and hate the others. For the rest of this post I'm going to shorten the names of the movies as follows
Raiders of the Lost Ark: Ark
Temple of Doom: Doom
The Last Crusade: Crusade
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: Skull

Ark and Crusade are the ones that generally seem to be the most liked while Skull and Doom are disliked. Right off the bat the thing I notice is that people like the movies about Christian or Jewish relics while they dislike the movies about Indian religion and mysticism. There are probably other factors, but that complaint seems especially relevant to Skull from the complaints I've heard of the movie.

The addition of Shia Lebouf wasn't something a lot of people liked either, but in general people don't like change and I could overlook that personally, and was more of an attempt to be able to continue the franchise since Harrison Ford isn't really in shape to be making action movies anymore. The bigger complaint seems to be how unbelievable the story is. The first stop is always Indy in the fridge surviving the nuclear blast like that makes any less sense then him somehow surviving an underwater trip hanging onto the conning tower of a Nazi submarine in Ark. That's the kind of ridiculous goofy think I expect from a series like this, and this factor seems to be people enjoying the originals as kids and then growing up and expecting different things while the movies are still aimed at a younger demographic which is akin to Star Wars and something to save for a different post. I don't take Indiana Jones seriously and if he wants to get in a lead lined fridge and survive a nuclear explosion I'll believe he can do it.

The biggest complain is about the skulls and the fact that Aliens made them and brought them to Earth. People seem flabbergasted that the film makers expect us to believe this is possible. A box can contain the anger of God who melts people, and there can be a cup that grants immortality, but there is no way that Aliens exist. That might be short changing the argument a bit, but that seems to be the consensus of why people are grumpy about Skull. Personally I just view the relic for what it is a Macguffin to allow a fun adventure where Indy travels around the world, gets in traps, escapes, and complains about snakes.

The complaints about Doom seem to focus on the darker tone of the movie which I don't mind. It is borrowing from Star Wars again in that it makes the second movie darker, but I like the tone it takes. Putting the action in India gives the movie a much different setting with the jungle than Ark and Crusade have with the desert, but exploring different religious beliefs is a thing it did as well. Maybe backlash against those other beliefs is what made Lucas and Spielberg go back to Christian mythology with Crusade or perhaps that was the plan all along.

I might just be defensive as I've enjoyed all the movies and always will. They all have flaws. Skull has the awful monkey scene which was an awful decision, but it's still a fun adventure romp which is all I expect from an Indiana Jones movie, and I'm willing to suspend disbelief in Indy's survivability and the fact that maybe Aliens put crystal skulls on Earth because the movie makes it seem real.

Radio Edit

I was listening to the radio the other day and Rihanna's "S&M" and was flabbergasted by the way they edited the song for the radio. It's not the first time I've noticed the bizarre editing that the radio subjects songs to, but there were a couple incidents I heard in a row that boggled my mind and made me feel the need to talk about it. Clearly "S&M" has some sexual content, the name implies as much, but the words they choose to silence have no sexual meaning, unless you already understand the concept. Here's the verse I'm referring to.

Sticks and stones may break my bones

But chains and whips excite me

On the radio 'whips' and 'chains' were bleeped out. They also bleeped out sex earlier in the chorus. I don't know what's so bad about the word sex that it can't be in a song, but the part of about whips and chains only means something to people who understand they are a facet of sadomasochism. Which of course the title of the song is a reference to, but that's another fact people who society views as too young to hear that kind of talk aren't going to know what she's referring to anyway.

I also watched the music video for Foster the People "Pumped up Kicks" on VH1 and they bleeped out 'gun' and 'bullet' for some reason. I know I can watch tv and see people use guns and bullets to kill people, but for some reason it is incorrect for people to say the words in a song. I'm sure everybody has examples of stuff like this. I remember other ones like 'knife' from a Limp Bizkit song. The one I remember the most is from Kid Rock's "Cowboy"

I'm a paint his town red, and paint his wife white, uhh

Where they bleeped out 'white' and I had no clue what the bleeped out word was for quite some time. Of course the reason I didn't know what word was missing was because I didn't have the conception of what the singer could mean at that point in time. I can handle the desire to bleep curse words, but just because a normal word is used in a provocative way doesn't mean that it needs to be bleeped out.

Blogging, because I need to write

Too often I think of writing as a job instead of a hobby and let video games take the place because it's a lot easier to do and since I have a Dazzle I can record my gameplay and do stuff with that online to publish videos that I commentate over which is productive like writing, but the writing takes more effort. I can record a commentary delete it and try over again and it will take about twenty minutes, but writing a story requires much more than that, and that just involves finishing the first draft. After that I have to revise what I've written until it's good enough for other people to read.

And even then writing the story isn't done. Once other people have read it they are going to find problems that don't occur to me. After that happens I correct those errors and probably have to do a decent amount of rewriting depending on how early in the story my plot error occurred. And it feels like a lot of work compared to other hobbies I have.

Even consider all that there is nothing that feels quite as good as writing a story. You create these characters, give them a world to exist in, and problems to solve. Exploring all those facets of the story are amazing when you can get it done right. And this is how I'm starting this blog which will force me to write words and get in the habit of writing something to make me work on the many short stories I've started and become too lazy to finish.