Category: Books

all the world’s indeed a stage

Posted on 29 November, 201629 November, 2016 By Wil

I’ve been working on this book (a short story that turned into a novella that decided it wants to be a novel) for a few months, now. What I thought would finish up around 5000 words is on pace to end up a ten times that. I still don’t know if it all holds together, and I don’t know how much of it will survive the rewrite, but it’s been the primary creative focus of my life for a long time.

I recently hit a serious emotional beat in the story that affected me as much as it affected the characters, and I needed to get a little bit of distance from it, so I can come back to it and finish it by the end of the year. That was about a month ago, I guess. Maybe more like five or six weeks. Anyway, I had this other idea for a short, supernatural horror story on the board, so I started writing that, with the hope that I would finish it in time to be published before Halloween. That also took off and got a little longer than I had intended, but if I can focus and stay committed, I should finish the first draft by the end of this week.

I’m writing both of these things (and the other book of short stories they came out of) essentially on spec, because I don’t know if I’ll try to sell them to a publisher or self-publish them. Because of that, it feels like I don’t have a real job right now (and I know there are a lot of folks out there who will say that any kind of artist isn’t doing a real job anyway, and I’d like to invite them to fuck off).

choose-your-own-adventure-inside-ufo-54-40 There’s a fundamental rule for first drafts that I think I got from Stephen King: write it with the door closed. Don’t let anyone see it until it’s done, because it needs to be raw and broken and rough and even bad in places so that it can just get finished. Go ahead and open the door after the first rewrite. That’s solid and good advice that is one of my unbreakable rules, and it serves me well for staying motivated and giving myself the freedom to just get to work and write without judgement. But it’s also kind of lonely. It’s like performing to an empty theater.

Even though I’ve been productive and I’m making lots of stuff, I haven’t had the opportunity to interact with an audience for a long time, and I’ve missed that. So last night, I had this dumb idea to get onto my Twitch channel, read a Choose Your Own Adventure book, and ask the people who were watching to make the choices. We did Inside UFO 54-40 and The Race Forever. I think about 200 people showed up (not bad, considering the short notice), and holy hell did we have fun. It was this great community experience, and I liked it so much, I’m going to try to make it a regular thing.

So if you showed up last night, thank you. I needed the break from the fucking nightmare we’re all living in right now, and I got it. I hope you got it, too.

Books

the pretentious bullshit collection (selections)

Posted on 17 August, 201617 August, 2016 By Wil

I’ve been doing this stupid and amusing thing on my Instagram for a few months, called The Pretentious Bullshit Collection.

For example:

Pencil, with paperclips. From the Pretentious Bullshit collection.

And:

Distant tiles, close tiles, bathroom tiles. From the Pretentious Bullshit collection.

Or:

Tiempo por El Catrin. From the Pretentious Bullshit collection.

So you get the idea, right? Super pretentious, overwrought bullshit pictures of nothing, puffed up with wordy captions and declared to be art, but you probably don’t get it because it’s not for you. I guess it’s part serious art and part parody? It’s mostly parody.

I’ve been having so much fun with it, and so many people have enjoyed the sheer lunacy of the whole thing, I went ahead and made a very small, massively overpriced, hardback collection using some of my pictures. Go beyond the magical thing here to learn more about it:

(more…)

blog

orbital operations

Posted on 14 April, 2016 By Wil

My friend and mentor, Warren Ellis, is an award-winning writer, and incredible human. I am grateful and incredibly lucky to have him in my life.

Warren’s been writing and sending out this newsletter called Orbital Operations for awhile, and the most recent one had two things in it that I loved so much, I asked for and was granted permission to share them here.

(more…)

Books

The audio version of my Criminal Minds Production Diary is back.

Posted on 17 February, 2016 By Wil

Back in 2009, I was having a lot of fun with this thing I called Project Crazy Idea. This project was how I gave myself permission to try something silly or unconventional, without feeling like I was doing something stupid.

One of the things I did was an audio performance of my Criminal Minds Production Diary, which I wrote while I worked on an episode of the show called Paradise in 2008. I put it online in my Lulu store, where it happily lived for a few years until Lulu stopped doing multimedia files.

I just realized, today, that I can make it live on my Bandcamp page, so I remastered the recording and uploaded it. It’s basically pay-what-you-want, starting at $2, or you can stream it for the low, low price of free!

So here’s an SEO-friendly link to Wil Wheaton’s Criminal Minds Production Diary at Bandcamp.

Books

my good idea was so good someone already did it!

Posted on 15 February, 201615 February, 2016 By Wil

I’ve been writing this science fiction short story for a little while, now, and I think I’m about 3/4 finished with the puke draft*. I’ve been reading a lot of science fiction for fun, because that’s where my head is right now (Lightspeed Magazine and the Expanse series have been delightful companions, as was the most recent Twelve Tomorrows) but also for inspiration, because that’s where my head needs to be right now.

So when I’m not actively writing this story, or thinking about what I’m going to write next in it, my brain is kicking around lots of other ideas that I are interesting to me, like What if future humans built a ring around Earth, sort of like Ringworld but smaller, and the story was told from the point of view of the last generation to live on the planet? It turns out that this has already been done, which is both reassuring — Hey! My good idea was so good someone already did it! — and frustrating — Shit! My good idea was so good someone already did it!.

I have learned not to talk about things that are ideas, or share details of works in progress, because it’s a great way to bring the work to a screeching halt for me, but I have this idea for a short story (like, very short, just a couple thousand words) that I like so much, I have just decided right now in this very instant that I will not reveal what the idea is, and will instead write it out and make it a story.

So now this is a much shorter and less interesting post than I thought it was going to be when I started.

BORING

*The puke draft, as defined by my friend and mentor Amy Berg (who created both my role on Leverage and Eureka), is the draft you write first, where you just puke up everything onto the page, without stopping to fix stuff or redo stuff. I add to this the following: you go all the way through until the story is done, and then you can go back and start washing away the puke to leave behind the yummy undigested morsels of delicious story.