Monthly Archives: March 2004

for immediate release!

If you just felt a huge disturbance in The Force, that was me checking my e-mail and sending out an Akira-like Neo-Tokyo-destroying mental explosion of joy.
This is really happening!

For Immediate Release
For more information, a review copy, cover art, or an interview with
the author, contact:
Kathryn Barrett (707) 827-7094 or [email protected]

Geek + Blogger + Actor = Author Wil Wheaton
O’Reilly Releases “Dancing Barefoot”
Sebastopol, CA–Not all geeks are into sci-fi, and not all sci-fi fans are geeks, but there’s enough of a crossover to explain the appeal of Wil Wheaton — self-proclaimed geek, blogger, and former ensign Wesley Crusher on “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” Even non-sci-fi fans have been drawn to the candid, highly personal, and occasionally opinionated account of his life that Wheaton offers on his blog at www.wilwheaton.net. The reason? While it’s true that in the grand scheme of things, the reflections and musings of the typical blogger-geek-actor-turned-book-author are not expected to be momentous, Wheaton writes with an honesty and disarming humanity that resonates with geeks and non-geeks alike.
In his book “Dancing Barefoot” (O’Reilly, US $14.95), Wheaton offers a collection of five short but true stories about life in the so-called space age. Based on pieces first published in his blog, the stories in “Dancing Barefoot” chronicle a teen TV star’s journey to maturity and self-acceptance. Far from the usual celebrity tell-all, the book is a vivid account of one man’s version of that universal story–the search for self. If you’ve ever fallen in love, wondered what goes on behind the scenes at a Star Trek convention, or thought hard about the meaning of life, you’ll find a kindred soul in the pages of “Dancing Barefoot.” In the process of uncovering his true geek self, Wil Wheaton speaks to the inner geek in all of us.
Like many authors, Wheaton hadn’t considered writing a book until the idea was suggested to him, and even then he resisted. As he explains, “I sort of know Dan Perkins, who draws ‘This Modern World.’ I linked to one of his brilliant comics on my web site, and he emailed me about it. We exchanged several notes over a few months, and one day he said, ‘You ought to write a book about your experiences.’
“I never considered myself a writer, and told him that. Dan pointed out that I’d been writing for my weblog almost daily. This fact sat in my brain for a long time, and I did everything I could to ignore it.” In spite of his intentions, many visitors to his site encouraged Wheaton to write a book, and the suggestion became harder to disregard. He finally decided to collect a year’s worth of blog entries from WWdN (Wil Wheaton dot Net) and publish it. “I figured I’d sell ten, maybe even fifteen of them at a Star Trek convention or something,” says Wheaton.
“I cut and pasted the web site for a few days, and then wrote some behind the scenes stuff to tie all the weblog ideas together, narrative-style,” Wheaton recalls. “In my head, I heard some strange voice — it was like Danny Stern’s ‘Wonder Years’ VO meets the ‘Behind the Music’ guy.
“I worked on that for about a week, and I had about 50,000 words. I realized that there was sort of a character arc in there, where ‘Wil’ went on this quest to cast off Wesley Crusher and find out exactly who he was. A few weeks later, I had several hundred thousand words, and it was looking like a freakin’ phone book. My friend Andrew said, ‘Don’t put all your best work in your first book.’ It was very good advice, and I cut out a bunch of stories that I liked, but weren’t central to the story. Those stories became ‘Dancing Barefoot.'”
The five stories in “Dancing Barefoot” are:
Houses in Motion–Memories fill the emptiness left within a childhood
home, and saying goodbye brings them to life.
Ready Or Not Here I Come–A game of hide-n-seek with the kids works as a
time machine, taking Wil on a tour of the hiding and seeking of years gone by.
Inferno–Two fifteen-year-olds pass in the night leaving behind pleasant
memories and a perfumed Car Wars Deluxe Edition Box Set.
We Close Our Eyes–A few beautiful moments spent dancing in the rain.
The Saga of SpongeBob VegasPants–A story of love, hate, laughter, and the
acceptance of all things Trek.
First self-published by Wheaton in May 2003, available only on the Internet and in select independent bookstores, “Dancing Barefoot” quickly sold out of its first run of 3,000. Wheaton’s next, longer work, “Just a Geek” will be released in early summer 2004.
Praise for “Dancing Barefoot”:
“I just put down Dancing Barefoot. Simply put, it was terrific. If you are a fan of Wil’s Weblog, WWdN, then you will love this book. It’s only 117 pages from cover to cover, but it is definitely worth getting…I really want to talk about the stories a lot more, but I think it would be cruel to take away anyone’s chance to read it for themselves. I give the weblog 4 spuds out of 4. Enjoy!”
–Mitch Malone, BananasOnToast.org, December 2003
http://www.bananasontoast.org/archives/000124.html
Further reviews can be found at:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/barefoot/reviews.html
Additional Resources:
For more information about the book, including table of contents, index,
author bio, and samples, see:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/barefoot/
For a cover graphic in JPEG format, go to:
ftp://ftp.ora.com/pub/graphics/book_covers/hi-res/0596006748.jpg
Dancing Barefoot
Wil Wheaton
ISBN 0-596-00674-8, 115 pages, $14.95 US, $21.95 CA
[email protected]
1-800-998-9938
1-707-827-7000
http://www.oreilly.com
About O’Reilly
O’Reilly & Associates is the premier information source for leading-edge computer technologies. The company’s books, conferences, and web sites bring to light the knowledge of technology innovators. O’Reilly books, known for the animals on their covers, occupy a treasured place on the shelves of the developers building the next generation of software. O’Reilly conferences and summits bring alpha geeks and forward-thinking business leaders together to shape the revolutionary ideas that spark new industries. From the Internet to XML, open source, .NET, Java, and web services, O’Reilly puts technologies on the map. For more information:
http://www.oreilly.com
# # #
O’Reilly is a registered trademark of O’Reilly Media, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

Comments from the wife, version 3.3

Note from Wil: You can read Anne’s Previous Entries here and here.
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been on an emotional and physical roller coaster. Several times I have wanted to write about how Kris is doing, but there just hasn’t been time. The day after my last post I went to see Kris at City of Hope to check on her after her stem cell transplant and meet a friend to donate platelets together.
I walked into Kris’s room just minutes after she received her transplant. I had no idea how it was done. But it’s just like receiving a blood transfusion. And for some reason, it smells like garlic through your skin. So I walked into a room that smelled like she just enjoyed Chinese food for lunch. Although I like the smell of Chinese food, I’d been fighting off a huge headache all day so it was a little unsettling.
The stem cells they harvested from Kris had been frozen until she finished her chemo and radiation and was ready to receive the transfusion. Then they do a “flash defrost” and donate them back to her. They were able to get two bags of cells from her so that’s what they gave back. They were still a little cold and lowered her body temperature one degree and gave her a huge headache, along with a big wave of nausea. But she made it through. Next was the anticipated sickness and pain she was told she would experience because of all the chemo and radiation she got. It was all done so fast that her body wouldn’t catch up to it for a few days. Well, it definitely did.
She spent the past two weeks dealing with major stomach and intestinal issues. Her mouth, throat, stomach and intestines were full of open sores. Her tongue looked like it had been badly burned; almost like parts of it were missing. She could barely open her mouth to talk. She was losing the hair she had been growing back. It was terrible to see her going through all this. But she remained optimistic. Always asking me how our training was going. How the donations were. Making plans to come to San Diego to see us cross the finish line.
While Kris was dealing with all this, I wanted to continue to do everything I could to help. I went in to donate platelets to her the day of her transfusion. Unfortunately, my huge headache stood in the way of them wanting to do it. They told me that if I already didn’t feel that well, I’d only feel worse afterwards, so I should just reschedule. I was really disappointed, but I was feeling a bit nauseaus because of my headache, so that was probably the best decision. I rescheduled for that Wednesday.
I was very excited to show up for my appointment. My headache was gone and I was feeling great. They took blood from my left arm to make sure my iron level was alright, then hooked me up on my right arm. If you’ve never done this before, (that would be me) the needle is attached to a tube that’s split in half. The blood comes out in one tube, goes through a machine to separate the platelets, then goes back into you in the other tube. It’s amazing to me that they’ve figured out how to do this. Kris said this is the same way they got her stem cells. I asked the nurse why they can’t just do the same thing to separate the cancer out of the blood. She said it really is amazing how far they’ve come in research, but at the same time be so limited. I told her we were doing this marathon to raise money for research. She thought it was a great idea and that stem cell research really needed more attention. I agreed.
I got started donating platelets, even asking the nurse to take my picture for the website. But about 15 minutes into it, my vein wasn’t too happy with the pressure of the blood coming back in. It was causing a big lump and the needle had to be removed. They would try on my left arm. They had commented after my blood test that I was a great candidate for donating platelets (average count is 150 to 350, mine was 358). Unfortuately, those great platelets were making it impossible for them to go back into my left arm vein for anything. So again, I had to reschedule. But it had to be at least five days away because I would have big time bruising (boy were they right about that!). My next try would have me hooked up with both arms. One side to take the blood, the other side to receive it back. I was bummed, but determined to help Kris, so I came back five days later.
Again, I showed up. Excited to help, a little nervous that it wouldn’t work. But I figured it would all be fine. I filled out the wierd questionairre again (“have you had sex with a man who’s had sex with another drug using man since 1977?” What? Yea, I was in second grade in 1977. But I know they have to be cautious.). The nurses recognized me because now I was on round three. They hooked me up on my right arm to receive the blood back. Then, they hooked up my left arm to take the blood. Everything was good! Veins were looking great! Just start the machine!
Immediately, the machine beeped: “access point pressure low”.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It means the machine is having a hard time sucking the blood from your vein.” She called another nurse over to fidget with the needle and see if it would change. It beeped again. She moved the needle around again. More beeping. She decided to pull the needle part way out and re-stick my vein. Well, the first four times she did this, it was alright, but after the fifth and sixth time, it was really hurting. I didn’t want to complain. After all, what’s a little bruising compared to what Kris is going through?
“Your veins just don’t want to do this.” the nurse said. “It’s more common in women than men. You just can’t donate platelets. Sorry.” She sent me on my way with an icepack for the HUGE lump and bruise I would grow over the next hour. So again, vein failure.
Fortunately, my friend Amy, who I met through this whole marathon experience, has successfully donated platelets, and had several friends do the same. So even though it didn’t come directly from me, Kris still got her much needed platelets. Thanks Amy!
So I’ve been walking like crazy (when it’s not raining), and visiting Kris as much as possible. I talked to Kris on the phone Monday since I couldn’t get in to see her. She said they had taken her off of one of her medications, and may take her off another one on Tuesday. The thing is, Kris has been hooked up to a million tubes and bags. Actually, more like eight or so. So weaning her off all those things was a good sign. Her white cell count was going up. That meant she was able to fight off infection. She was really worried about getting pneumonia. (Her friend went through the same ordeal a year and a half ago. She even donated platelets for him. He made it through all of his treatment and his transplant. Unfortunately, he got chemical pneumonia from the radiation and died.) She made sure she got lung plates to cover her lungs during her radiation. So I’m sure that won’t be a problem for her. She said her doctor was hoping to have her home by the weekend! I was so excited for her, and very motivated. I walked fifteen miles over the past two days, constantly thinking about how great it will be for Kris to be home.
I was out running errands today when I called Kris’s cell phone. She always leaves it on, right next to her bed. It rang and rang, then the voice mail picked up.
“It’s me. I’m out running errands and I wanted to come by and visit. Just wanted to call and make sure you’re feeling ok before I come in. Call me back!”
Kris has been feeling pretty pukey, so I didn’t want to show up if that was going on. She has wanted me to call her first in case she wasn’t up for visitors.
About five minutes later, my phone rang. It was Kris.
“I didn’t answer my phone because I was talking to my doctor.” She said.
“Oh? And what does your doctor have to say?” I asked.
“He said I can go home at 4:00!”
“Today?” I yelled. “Oh my god! I can’t believe you can go home!!”
Her white count was up. She was off all her medication. No more pukey. She was ready to go home.
“Does Taylor know?” I asked. (that’s her son).
“NO! I called you as soon as the doctor left!”
She made it.
She’s going home.
I am so happy. So happy I went out and walked two more miles.
I called her at home a few minutes ago. The radiation caused blisters on her hands and feet. It hurts her feet to walk. But she’s walking in her own house.
All the great emails and mojo worked. Her positive outlook definitely got her through this much quicker than I ever thought. I can’t wait to go see her at home tomorrow.
Thank you so much for all of your support. I know it made all the difference!

cobwebs fall on an old skipping record

Yesterday, I taped another Best Week Ever, which will air this Friday. I had a wonderful time. I made myself laugh, and I made everyone else at the taping laugh. I really hope that I get to be a more regular part of that show, because it’s so much fun.
But check out This totally cool thing that happened in the parking garage when I was waiting for the elevator:
I gave my ID to the security guard and told him I was going to tape Best Week Ever. While he signed me in, the elevator doors opened, and a really cute girl walked out. (I only mention that she was really cute because . . . let’s face it, I’m a guy, and guys notice these things.)
She looked right at me and said, “I love your website.” She said it simply, and matter-of-factly,
I felt like I’d just won a million dollars, man. I didn’t even know what to say, so I just said, “Thank you so much!”
She walked past me and the security guard, and disappeared into the garage.
I felt like I was in this bubble of joy, where the rest of the world didn’t exist. She didn’t say that she liked this movie I did twenty years ago, or this TV show that I did fifteen years ago. She didn’t even say “You know, I don’t think Python sucked that bad . . .” She said that she loved my website, this thing that I’m doing now. Like I mentioned last week, I haven’t done much in the acting world over the last few years that I’m proud of . . . but I’m very proud of my website.
Is it okay to say that? I don’t want to come off as a dick, and I’m keenly aware of the Pride coming before the Fall . . . but I really do like what I’ve been able to do here.
My whole life I wanted to write, but I never did because I thought I was supposed to be an actor. But every morning, I get up, drink way too much coffee, and spend the next three or four hours doing what I love: I work on Just A Geek, or I write something for my website, or something for ACME . . . most of the stuff I write I don’t even publish. I just do it so I write every day . . . and it rules. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s utter crap, most of the time it’s just sort of there . . . but it’s mine, and when that girl said that she loved my website, I felt like I could own the joy her comments brought me, because what you read here is really me. I’m not playing a character, or trying to make a shitty script into something worth watching . . . I’m creating images and recreating scenes from my life, without a director or a producer or a studio getting between what I want to create and what the audience gets to see.
If I stare at this much longer, I’m going to lose my nerve and not publish it, so I’ll just say: If I wasn’t writing, I’d be a nervous wreck right now, waiting for feedback from that audition, and freaking out about why they aren’t calling back . . . but I’ve got other stuff going on now.
A few days ago, I bought the 2004 Writer’s Market, because I’m going to face my fears of rejection and see if some magazines or anthologies are interested in publishing some of my stories. I never would have even dreamed about doing that last year, but you guys who read this site have given me so much support and encouragement, and O’Reilly is so excited about Dancing Barefoot, it seems like the risk is justified. I don’t want to get too excited about stuff that hasn’t happened yet, but I’m happy right now.
I guess that’s what this post is about: I’m really happy right now. It feels like some of the risks I’ve taken in the last few years are starting to pay off, and I wanted to share that with anyone who reads WWdN, because without you guys, none of this would be happening.

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