Stream

Off the top of my head, without any editing, a stream a consciousness:
Man, I really want to write, but I am just out of ideas. It’s not that I’m “blocked,” or anything, I just can’t think of anything to write about.
So I’ll just make myself write, and maybe something interesting will come out.
Maybe it’s because there’s not too much going on in my life right now: no auditions, nothing really exciting at home . . . I’ve just been working on rewrites of Just A Geek, and collecting some other weblog entries that I really like, (but couldn’t put in JAG) for their own smaller book.
Just A Geek came in at over 350 pages today, and “Dancing Barefoot” comes in at about 90. I’m applying for ISBNs tomorrow.
I did some heavy rewriting of SpongeBob Vega$ Pants, to clean it up and make it flow better, and while I did that, I relived those five days. Jesus, what a great time that was. What a great con.
Jesus, I really hate Puddle of Mudd, and POD, and all those shitty bands that sound like them.
I’ve been trading calls with Adam from Creation about the Grand Slam show, and it sounds like he’s excited to have me there. I’ve been thinking about conventions a lot lately, because I talk about them a great deal in JAG, and realized something: I have ALWAYS had more in common with the fans than the franchise, and attending conventions, as a speaker or a paying fan, is something I’ll always love to do. Now that I have stories to read, a website to talk about, and comedy shows to do, I don’t feel any angst about doing the shows. I can’t tell you enough how great that feels.
As I get closer to finishing JAG, and it’s younger brother (which requires far less work) I’ve been looking for printers . . . and actually got some quotes today for the first printing. It’s very exciting, and also terrifying.
If anyone reading this has experience with a printer, and you’d like to share comments about that printer (good or bad) I’d really like to hear them.
I mowed my lawn tonight, and my shoes are grass stained and smelling like a summer morning.
When I mow the lawn, I like to listen to Jimmy Eat World on my car radio. “A Praise Chorus” is one of the greatest songs I’ve ever heard. This afternoon, I didn’t listen to the radio, but I did sing “Dogs” from Pink Floyd to myself as I mowed in a circle, rather than the diagonal lines I usually make.
My cool neighbor moved away on Friday. He’s like 80, and Anne and I both felt like he’s moving away to die. He’d lived in his house since 1951. That made me really sad. Now his house is empty, and will remain that way for a long time, according to neighborhood gossip.
Ferris wants to go outside.
Nolan is watching WWE. I remember when I was a kid, and I’d get up each Saturday morning to watch WWF when it was on KCOP here in Los Angeles. I loved it, once I figured out it was fake.
Anyone remember M.U.S.C.L.E. figures? The Dark Tower game from Milton Bradley? I bought a new GURPS 3E last week, to replace my old and falling apart copy. Boy do I love RPGs.
This was more fun than I thought it would be, but I can guarantee you that I’ll read this in a few days and want to take it down. Well, I feel pretty satisfied now. Maybe I am blocked.
Does everybody really love Raymond? Because I really don’t.
Anne just walked in, and Ferris doesn’t want to go outside any more. Now she just wants to run around with Anne.
I really love Anne a lot. She is TRULY my “other half.”
I have Red Hat 8.0, and I want to install KDE 3.1. Has anyone else done this? Is it going to bork my machine like it did when I tried to upgrade on Mandrake 8.2? Why can’t I get CUPS to work?
I have to go make dinner: Falafel, tabouleh, and hummus. How Greek^H^H^H^H^H Lebanese of us.

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264 thoughts on “Stream”

  1. Hey. RPG playing guy. Come play in our Saturday night game in Santa Monica. We have a regular group that plays all sorts of things, from GURPS to SaS to D&D3e to White Wolf stuff to Legend of the Five Rings.
    We also happen to have two professional designers in the group, which is nice, because we like to think that we know what we’re doing. 😉
    Drop me an email, and come on down some night.

  2. Wil,
    You may want to check with Meisha Merlin for publication – they picked up a couple of my favorite authors and are publishing their new stuff and keeping their older stuff published (and on the shelf at my local B&N).
    The site: http://www.meishamerlin.com

  3. Hey, Wil–
    I’d checked the Creation site recently and found out you and your improv cohorts would be performing–am very much looking forward to it, as I was unable to get to the show in January.
    Also looking forward to both JAG and Dancing Barefoot (even though it’s the first time I’ve heard of the latter). I enjoy your site very much, and it’s generally the first thing I check when I get online. Your insight and honesty and humor and willingness to take a position continue to impress me.
    And don’t knock streams of consciousness–follow them long enough and you may come to wisdom…
    Best regards to you, Anne, the boys and the critters!
    Syd

  5. Wil, I’m working on my first book and so know the feeling of not knowing what to write. Separate and apart from being blocked, there just doesn’t seem to be anything to say sometimes. I do have to say though, your stream of consciousness writing just now… it has some spirit to it. It made me smile. I felt I was dealing with a real man who has beauty in his everyday life.

  6. I always wanted to be a writer too, Wil. When I was a kid, around about 8 or 9, I had these blueprints for the Enterprise from TOS. I used to spread these things out on the floor (there were 14 sheets I think) and sit in the middle of them, attempting to write my own TOS episode in a spiral notebook. I had no idea at the time that TOS was produced back in the ’60s. I was such a naive child LOL
    I still remember the plotline to my episode. It had something to do with some sort of plague that would make the crew go insane. In my story Checkov was the first to fall victim to this plague and I had him take over the ship from the Battle Bridge. Yep, Kirk’s Enterprise had one of those too. it was in the secondary hull, somewhere around deck 17 or 18 or something…not really sure. It was somewhere behind the Main Deflector Dish…
    Obviously I never made it into the writing business ;}

  7. > I mowed my lawn tonight, and my shoes are grass stained and smelling like a summer morning.
    Must be nice to be able to see your grass. I just removed 18 inches of snow off my driveway and it is still coming down. The last 10 inches came down in 2.5 hours!
    Can’t wait for JAG to come out. Until then, I guess I’ll just have to read your blogs. Keep writing!

  8. I can second Meisha Merlin for publishing. They’re good for small press, and they’re good guys, too — I worked with ’em at White Wolf for a while.
    Reminds me, why don’t you call van Citters at Paramount/Viacom and ask him to put you in touch with the guys who do all the Star Trek novels? Maybe they’ll give you a favorable publishing deal.
    (I’d offer to help, but my company just publishes RPGs and card games, not novels.)

  9. Dunno if it’s still available, but there is a rather nice tome on KDE called “Practical KDE” via Que. Very well written with many details of operation and installation.

  10. Hey Wil
    1st. Send some dinner my way, i can use some celeb cooking.
    2nd. The hp psc 2110 is the greatest printer of all time. I strongly reccomend it.
    3rd. If your lucky a meth lab, or a brothell will move next door to Uncle Willy’s house
    4th. When are you going to watch my kitty.

  11. Okay, so I’m having ‘puter troubles and didn’t even get the last part of what I wanted to post in up there in my last post…ARGH!
    Anyway what I was going to say was that if you were bored at some point and wanted to read a bunch of useless rants from a real opinionated asshole, you could drop by http://encryptedmind.blogspot.com/
    Hell you never know, there might be something in there that might spark a thought for you LOL

  13. GURPS Indeed! Everyone knows that the HERO System is far better. Not that I am anti-GURPS but….nah, I am anti-GURPS. Not to mention Call of Cthulhu. I am just pleased as punch that you revel in your geekdom.

  14. When I tried to use Konstruct, it died with the following errors. Anyone know what this means?
    make[5]: Leaving directory `/home/wil/konstruct/libs/qt-x11-free/work/qt-x11-free-3.1.1′
    make[4]: *** [build-work/qt-x11-free-3.1.1/Makefile] Error 2
    make[4]: Leaving directory `/home/wil/konstruct/libs/qt-x11-free’
    make[3]: *** [dep-../../libs/qt-x11-free] Error 2
    make[3]: Leaving directory `/home/wil/konstruct/libs/arts’
    make[2]: *** [dep-../../libs/arts] Error 2
    make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/wil/konstruct/kde/kdelibs’
    make[1]: *** [dep-../../kde/kdelibs] Error 2
    make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/wil/konstruct/kde/kdebase’
    make: *** [dep-../../kde/kdebase] Error 2

  15. Dark Tower by Milton Bradley rocks! My best friend’s brother had the game… and he never let us play it. We would wait until he was down the street at his buddies house, throw down our Barbies (The Dating Game was the only thing we’d play with Barbie’s… we’d put up a screen so the other player couldn’t see if her Barbie was picking the Ken, Luke Skywalker, or Shawn Cassidy doll. The goal was to make them pick Shawn Cassidy with his goofy hair.) and run into his room to play Dark Tower. We always seemed to misplace the Citadel piece. What a great game!
    I saw it at an antique shop for $100 today- and I think it costs that much on Ebay for a working tower and board with most of the pieces.
    Why don’t they make cool board games like that anymore???

  16. I sure do remember M.US.C.L.E figures… I thought that they were weird and wasn’t a fan. BUT they’re back!!
    I work at Toys ‘R’ Us, and I found them to be hangin in a nice stripe in one of the action figures aisle on Saturday.
    They’re still weird.
    I think that they should bring back Battle Beasts. There’s a toy to remember.
    I dont’ know how anyone could like Raymond.

  18. Comparing Puddle of Mudd to POD are not alike. POD are wannabe rappers and I still haven’t decided on what Puddle of Mudd is. I don’t care for either 🙂

  22. Hey, Wil.
    Not sure if you’ll read this, but I see you wanted advice on a printer.
    I am a self-published author and I got a LOT of good tips in a book called “The Self-Publishing Manual” by Dan Poynter.
    As for a good printer, I used McNaughton & Gunn in Saline, MI. Why? Because I did all my reseach and finally I called Dan Poynters office and found out who he used.
    Hope that helps you.

  24. I have to add my vote to the pile of those that like the stream of Wil’s consciousness. Very cool post. I have a tendancy to think like that too, so it made it easy for me to keep up when it switched from thread to thread.
    Have a great day!

  25. Last time I published a book we went with the company that printed Tony Levin’s “Beyond the Bass Clef”. I can’t find the name of the outfit right now, but if you’d like I can track it down or shoot Tony an email.

  26. GURPS? Bah! When you’re really hardcore you’ll spend a few months trying to finish off your Villains & Vigilantes collection, like I’ve been doing.
    Once that’s done, time for some random superheroes, baby!

  28. We do not love Raymond!!!!
    So Australia gets a shitload of American TV. Raymond comes on a couple times a week… and invariably one of us shouts out “i do NOT love raymond!”
    To add insult to injury… we also get Becker…
    The good bit it we get lots of Simpsons and South Park (free, no less).
    But, to re-iterate, veryone does not love Raymond… we HATE Raymond!!!
    *ok calm down….*
    Tank

  30. Hi Wil,
    Really liked your post – I enjoy “random thought” blogs.
    On the Linux issue, I have to agree with the advice to wait for Red Hat 8.1, or even go for the beta.
    Funny thing about Everybody Loves Raymond – when I first heard about it, the first thing I thought was that a title like that just begged people to say ‘Fuck you, Raymond!’. I didn’t think the show would last; I don’t understand why it is still around.
    Another thing I don’t like about Raymond is the way they use the kids; I hate shows where the kids only show up to be cute, to be rude, or because the story somehow specifically REQUIRES them. Too many shows use TV kids like TV pets, and I think that sucks. So I guess I have to say it – fuck you, Raymond.
    Good luck with the books.
    See ya,
    Another Wil

  31. Raymond?!!
    *URGE…TO ..KILL……RISING!!!*
    Had a flight to the US last month where all they played was friggin ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’over and over again!
    Now I know what true hell looks like….Its cramped seats with tiny TV’s for all enternity with %^%&% Raymond!
    *pant pant*
    Ok…..I’m better now…..

  32. For those of you who don’t speak German, I decided to try out my rusty skills on NYC’s post there:
    “Wil is the Fuehrer and his decisions are final. He is not to be questioned, or you will be interdicted (squashed, made taboo, whatever). That is true freedom! (This next bit is rather more free-hand) And it’s just what the organizers of the “peace” protests in Los Angeles want from you, because they are Communists. Stalin would be proud! All hail Wil, the new Fuehrer.”
    Some notes: Fuehrer (the extra “e” signifies the dots over the “u”) literally means “leader”, but in post-WWII German it’s *never* used except to reference Hitler. Similarly with the “all hail” bit… That has cultural baggage galore.
    NYC: OK, you don’t agree with Wil, and you seem to think war with Iraq is a good thing. Heck, *I* don’t really agree with Wil on this point. But, well, 1)if you think he’s talking crap, then don’t read posts about the war. It’s Wil’s site, not yours; 2)if you’re going to spout inflammatory shit, then at least have the courage of your conviction (or, hell, just the balls!) to do it openly — and since this is a site run by a native English speaker, that means *in English*.

  34. Loved the light-hearted post. Shucks Wil, I laugh my head-off at Raymond. I think I have pent-up frustration at my mother-in-law…
    Enjoy your day!

  35. Hope you leave the entry up. Random thoughts are fun to read.
    Pardon me as I go rescue my husband’s mouse from our toddler before he deletes something important…

  36. Wil, sweetie … WHY are you going the self-publishing route? Do you know what a disadvantage that puts you at in terms of distribution? Don’t buy into the stupid “New York Publishing Mafia” myth–try the big houses first. If that prospect doesn’t thrill you, try the small press. Meisha Merlin’s a good one, and you might also want to try Wildside, which is outgrowing the “small press” label. Their URL is http://www.wildsidepress.com/. Don’t spend your hard-earned money when you can get someone else to front the costs.

  38. Wil,
    No direct experience with publishers/printers, but some of the companies used by web comics folks might be an idea – talk to the comics folks and see if they have any horror stories/good tips.
    Off the top of my head Plan9 (http://www.plan9.org/) does Sluggy Freelance (which rules) and User Friendly, and also do non-cartoon books. I don’t know who Christopher Baldwin (http://www.brunostrip.com/bruno.html) uses, but his books look fantastic.
    Good luck, wish I had the talent & gumption to get writing. Nearly did a Doctor Who book once. Okay, perhaps I should keep my “talent” under wraps…

  39. If living in California is like that everyday, I SO want to move there… Been at -20 degrees Celcius and below all month here in Ottawa. And thats not even mentioning the windchill factor. I’m tired of this. I can’t wait for Spring… I want to mow the lawn in February too!!!!

  40. Wil,
    As I predicted you are a hypocrite. As soon as you noticed the volume of opposing voices to your anti-American anti-war sentiments you censor those thoughts by removing the comments section. I bet you are the first to FIGHT for free speech…unless of course it is speech that is in direct opposition to your own beliefs.

  41. Wil – I got the exact same error. I tried a ‘make clean’ just in case, and it still did the same thing.
    Next, I’m going to try to *shudder* reboot, and try again. I haven’t had to reboot since installing my NVidia drivers for X about three weeks ago; which, incedentally, was the same day I finally made the switch from Windows. Yay!

  42. man…i also enjoyed todays post…
    kinda quiet, easy going…slice of life type thing..
    wow…and to read that you dig pink floyd and were singing ‘dogs’?
    shit man…i thought you were cool before, but now you’ve achieved ‘SERIOUSLY freakin cool’ status…
    man..i love that album…been a big floyd fan for years….
    do i love raymond…
    uh….not raymond so much, tho he does have his moments..and he is a pretty solid comedian…
    but that cast is great..
    brad garret as his brother robert has an amazing sense of timing, and his wicked deadpan delivery kills me..
    and peter boyle is a legend..
    loved him ever since i first saw him in taxi driver….
    that being said, tho…
    the gist of everybody loves raymond was done better when Ray ramano was just doing his voice over on Dr. Katz as one of the patients
    it was the same stuff, and obviously still all about his family…but wwwwaaaaaayyyy funnier…and the squiggly cartooning was perfect…
    anyhow…
    cheers on the book wil….man…i am SOOO looking forward to this…
    and by the sounds of it, you’re publishing it yourself?…i mean…you’re looking for a printer?
    wow…how totally cool…
    very Ani DiFranco of you!
    smart decision…
    youre gonna sell a ton of books man…make sure you print enough…
    or atleast ask us here or let us pre-order so you don’t print to many/ or to few…
    later dude…
    tyson

  43. Not only do I not love Raymond-
    I hate Raymond and refuse to watch that half hour of television.
    I’m glad to see some folks share my views

  44. Dark Tower was cool. All I can remember of it was the bazzar and brigands, though. First RPG I played. Very, very fun and didn’t take days/game. More like a couple of hours, but it was a long time ago. Maybe it took less time.

  45. #1, I totally agree with the green, mowed lawn shoes. I don’t particularly cherish the act of mowing the lawn, but I definitely appreciate that summery/springy smell.
    #2, Anything Greek = Good. Just for the record.

  46. Wil, based on your question about publishers I would strongly encourage you to read this article:
    http://www.sfwa.org/writing/anti-scam.htm
    Celebrities a lot less interesting than you have gotten their autobiographies published by the mainstream press. Spend some more time trying for that before paying a publisher. Having a complete, polished manuscript should be a great advantage to you. Good luck!

  49. Dark Tower rocked. I can still remember some of the sound effects. It *might* still be at my parent’s house. I’ll have to check the next time I’m there.

  50. I loved Dark Tower. I think I still have it somewhere. The sound of the crypts opening would freak me out at first. I used to get so tense waiting to see if I was in for a fight or not. Oh, yeah, good times.
    Thanks for bringing that memory back!!!

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