Author: Wil

You know about the Blue Car Syndrome, right? It says that when you buy a blue car, you suddenly start seeing blue cars everywhere. It doesn't mean that there are actually more blue cars than before, it just means that you're more aware of them.

About a month ago, I read something about The Lizard Brain. It suggested that humans have this part of our psyche that is so risk-averse, so focused on survival, it will actively work to prevent you from doing something you think is risky – even something you really want to do, like starting a business or writing a novel or doing something creative.

Since I read that, I've seen lots of authors and bloggers talking about The Lizard Brain, and I've become keenly aware of my own Lizard Brain as I work on the keynote for PAX East. It really needs to be done in about 21 days (at least 5 of which are going to be unavailable to me because I'm working on Big Bang Theory) and it isn't nearly as close to completion as I want. As you can imagine, panic and deadline pressure are rising like mental floodwaters, and that's not the most productive mental state for writing an interesting and entertaining speech. Well, played, Lizard Brain. I see what you did there.

The bad part of this is that I keep getting stalled and frustrated while I attempt to find the spine upon which I need to attach and connect the various parts of my keynote address. The good part of this is that my brain keeps blocking me from writing the keynote by coughing up some of the most interesting short story ideas I've had in months. In an effort to take the good with the bad and walk away with a net positive (awesome keynote and some cool short stories), I've been working on the keynote during the day, and then unwinding by working on the shorts. Working on the shorts has become my daily reward, in other words; it's really good motivation.

This is where I'd quote a little bit of the short I've been working on, but I've learned that doing that before it's finished, even if it's only a dozen words, completely aborts the writing process. I like this story too much to even risk not finishing it, so in place of a quote, I'll draw an ASCII dong: 8=====D

This is where I wrap this up with a concluding paragraph that hopefully elevates this post from mildly-interesting reading to something useful: When you're working on something that terrifies the Lizard Brain into action, don't panic! Acknowledge what it's trying to do, accept that it's part of the hardware, and write a software patch to work around it. It doesn't have to be a bug; it can be a feature.

Edited to add: I couldn't recall all the places I read about The Lizard Brain, but in the comments here, Nathaniel S. reminded me:

Seth Godin has just released a book entitled Linchpin that explores ways to both soothe and overcome the lizard brain. There's a fantastic interview/conversation between him and Merlin Mann on the subject over at 43 Folders. It's a tad long, but very worth it.

http://www.43folders.com/2010/01/26/godin-linchpin

It also includes a video of Godin talking about the lizard brain and "the resistance" and how innovative and creative people can break through it to get stuff done, or "ship" as he puts it. 

I'm not surprised at all that this came to me via Seth Godin, because I read his blog every day. His book Purple Cow
is the foundation of my marketing and business philosophy, and Merlin Mann's … well, everything, is inspiring to me. To be clear: I wasn't making an effort to not credit Seth; I just forgot where my recent Lizard Brain thoughts originated.

I don't like to work on the weekends if I can help it, but I'm doing Big Bang Theory all next week, and this keynote isn't going to write itself while I'm off being Evil Wil Wheaton, so here I am.

When I write something, especially something this important, I spend most of my time letting ideas incubate and grow (which to an outside observer looks an awful lot like I'm goofing off) broken up by intense periods of writing a few hundred words at a time, staying as many steps ahead of the "this sucks" demon as I can. I also have to take breaks fairly regularly to keep my mind from going all HAL-9000 on me, and a silly post like this one is perfect for accomplishing that particular goal at this very moment.

So … check out this nifty image:

This came from one of those spam blogs that just keyword scrapes the tubes for everything it can find on a topic and then automatically generates posts that sound like a possessed child when read aloud. 

I'm guessing that Parsons' phot car was some kind of magic device that traveled around the Midwest in the early 20th century, selling snake oil and little photo cards. This particular picture was snapped right before the subject bought eighteen ounces of liquid heroin tonic ("GUARANTEED TO CALM EVEN THE MOST NERVOUS OF WOMEN OR YOUR MONEY BACK!")  for the princely sum of five cents. It looks like it was taken in Danville, Illinois, which is about 200 miles away from Wheaton, Illinois, and I suspect that the 'bot what powers this particular blog put "Wheaton" (as in me) and "Parsons" (as in Jim Parsons) together when the Big Bang news hit the wires, and somehow it landed on this picture. Or maybe it wasn't anything like this, and the whole thing is a coded message I left in the future for my current self to find, which makes me want to ask Future Me why I couldn't have just sent myself a nice letter that was easy to understand … unless …. OMG FUTURE ME IS IN ROBOT PRISON IN DANVILLE AND ONLY BE FREED IF ME AND JIM PARSONS DRESS UP LIKE DANDY BOYS FROM THE 1900s AND MOUNT A RESCUE!

Okay, Future Me. I hear you, and I'm coming to save you … just as soon as I race over to Jim's house, pick him up, convince him to come with me, and then build a time machine, you idiot. Way to send the message to the wrong version of us in the past, stupid. JEEZE!

Um. Right. So…

The page where I found this image had a bunch of stuff related to my name, so it tripped my google alert yesterday. When I looked at the site, I was quite amused to see this picture, which was titled “Evil Wil Wheaton Bible”. Because, really, who doesn't want an evil bible named after them and represented by a picture that isn't apparently evil or biblical? I was equally amused to see several anti-spam software advertisements surrounding the scraped content.

Okay, I think I've amused myself just enough to recover the mana I needed to cast Keep Writing Keynote, so I'm going to get back to it before They're All Going To Laugh At You has its next turn.

Well, it's official. Evil Wil Wheaton is going back to The Big Bang Theory! 

From TV Guide Magazine:

Geeks everywhere will be happy hear that Star Trek star Wil Wheaton will be returning to hang out with TV’s hippest nerds on The Big Bang Theory.

“We were very excited when Wil Wheaton appeared as Sheldon’s nemesis, and right now we’re looking to see if he can come back to give Sheldon an opportunity to settle the score,” Executive Producer and Co Creator Bill Prady announced to TV Guide Magazine when the Academy of Televisions Arts and Sciences hosted an Evening With the Big Bang Theory on February 18th. "Fingers crossed that we can do that, I think an arch enemy is someone who appears from time to time."

Even though my personal motto is Don't Be A Dick, I've wanted to play an arch enemy for pretty much my entire career, and I love that Bill described me that way, because I was kind of hoping I'd earn that position in the Big Bang canon.

I've known this was a possibility for just over a week, (coincidentally, I found out the day after I did my Big Bang Theory Q&A post) but didn't get the official offer until this morning. 

After my manager called casting back and confirmed, I called Bill to thank him for bringing me back. He sort of chuckled, and asked me if I wanted to know what their plan for the episode was before I accepted the offer to come back. I told him, "You could have me do nothing more than eat Chapstick the entire episode, and I'd come work for you again, because I had so much fun last time."

He then told me what the episode is about. I'm not revealing any details, but it's safe to say that it's a lot more awesome than just eating Chapstick.

I start work on the 24th, and we tape on the 2nd, if you wanted to try to get tickets to the show.

I'm going to go do the Snoopy dance until I fall down, now.