precious and fragile things

I'm sitting in my apartment in Vancouver, finishing my coffee and oatmeal. My iPod is shuffling through a massive 80s alternative playlist I made before I came up here, so I've been accompanied by Elvis Costello, The Smiths, Souxie, Depeche Mode, The Jam, and Bauhaus while I start my day. I'm not going to the set until at least 4:30 today, so I stayed up late last night after work playing Civ V, while Chilean miners were pulled to safety on BBC in the background. Seriously, guys, the engineers who made that possible are some of the most amazing people on planet earth. I hope they get the credit they deserve for saving all those lives and reuniting all those families.

I got tired of Queen Elizabeth fucking with me (I may be militarily inferior now, Mum, but you just wait until my science gets going, and then you'll be sorry! Muwahahaha!!) so I went to bed around 1230, and slept until I woke up 11 hours later — I guess my body was completely wiped out after a loooooong day on the set. I've been in slow motion today, catching up on feeds and trying to motivate myself to write, without a lot of success.

Once, not very long ago, I wrote in my blog every day, no matter what. Since I started working full time on Eureka, though, I haven't had a lot of extra creative energy when I'm done filming. The list of stories I want to write is growing, and my notebook is filling up with one line ideas that I hope to tackle in November and beyond, but my immediate motivation just isn't there; I need time to recharge, I guess.

There's a lot of really cool stuff happening on the set every day, but we can't talk about any of it, because it's all spoilers for episodes that aren't even going to air until something like January at the earliest. Normally, I'd get home from work and fire off a quick 500 words about something awesome that happened on the set that day, but if I did that now, it would look something like this:

Today, I shot a scene in [REDACTED] with [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] where we [REDACTED]! Oh man, [REDACTED] was so awesome because [REDACTED]. Tomorrow, we're going to shoot [REDACTED], so we rehearsed that between [REDACTED] and [REDACTED], and I just can't wait for it.

So, as you can see, it's just not that interesting. I suppose I could write those posts and publish them in a few months, but that doesn't really appeal to me. It feels even more like writing into a black hole than usual.

Hey, speaking of publishing into a black hole, did you know I did a new Radio Free Burrito? Episode 29 features a performance of my story in Clash of the Geeks.

Speaking of Clash of the Geeks, writing that story, even though it was just under 3000 words and is very silly, was a pretty major milestone in my life as a writer. See, I've written lots and lots of fiction, but I haven't felt like a lot of it is worthy of being published. (Note to writers: this fear — because that's what it is — doesn't serve any useful purpose other than pushing you to write better … unless you keep setting the bar higher and higher so you don't risk rejection or embarrassment. I'm Wil, and I'm the Voice of Experience.) I knew that I had to publish The Last Unicorn (Pegasus Kitten) no matter what, so I decided to just write it, have as much fun as I could, and not judge every goddamn word that my brain spit out. I decided that it was okay to be lurid, it was okay to have fun with it, and I only stopped once to think about the reality of my story appearing alongside actual, professional, award-winning authors. The result of that was an experience I enjoyed, start to finish, and a story that I'm actually quite proud of. Those of you who have read it can probably pick out the one line of dialog that made me squee with joy when I saw it coming, a line I would probably not have given myself permission to write under normal circumstances.

So far, the feedback I've gotten from readers and writers has been enthusiastic and positive, so I've been able to stack that on top of the unadulterated joy I felt while writing it to almost get me over the wall of doubt that my internal critic has constructed between me and the next story.

tl;dr: You don't have to be perfect when you write stories. Just have fun and give yourself permission to enjoy the process. Also, release your frakking work, even if you don't think it's the best thing ever. I'm Wil, The Voice of Experience.

Huh. Look at that. I found something to write about today, after all. Not too shabby, since this initially started out as the dreaded blog about not blogging.

BEHOLD Clash of the Geeks – The Wheaton / Scalzi Fan Fiction Chapbook

A long time ago, on an Internet far, far away, John Scalzi's brain unleashed the most epic and awesome and WTF image ever known in the history of all the tribes: The Unicorn Pegasus Kitten.

But a Unicorn Pegasus Kitten alone wasn't enough, and so I was placed astride it, wearing the Infamous Clown Sweater. And I, riding a Unicorn Pegasus Kitten while wearing a Clown Sweater (and short shorts), though certainly enough for some mortals, wasn't enough for us, so a Scalzorc was added. And while it would be acceptable in some worlds for a Unicorn Pegasus Kitten to be ridden by a Wheaton in an Incamous Clown Sweater while a Scalzorc looked looked askance, still more was required: a story to bring them all together, and in teh darknez, LOL them.

And, thus was born the Wheaton and Scalzi Fan Fiction contest.

Today, my dear Internets, the circle is complete. The stories have been written, the winners chosen, and the results compiled into a digital tome known for now and ever as:

CLASH OF THE GEEKS

(Please imagine thunder, lightning, and some dramatic music at this time, perhaps if Iron Maiden were to have scored an overture, for example.)

BEHOLD THE COVER IN ALL ITS TERRIBLE GLORY!

COWER, MORTALS, FOR IT LIVES!

(Now would be a good time to imagine more thunder, and maybe some howling of a far-off beast that yore glad isn't close enough to be seen.)

Now, here is why this is awesome: you can, right now, go get the entire digital chapbook, in multiple formats, for free.

BUT WAIT DON'T GO JUST YET!

We're asking that, if you do collect a copy for your very own, you make a donation to the Lupus Alliance of America, a non-profit and very important organization that is dear to many of us involved in this project, and our families.

Here's what John says, in his grown-up voice:

You’ll notice that we’re offering Clash of the Geeks as a free download. You don’t have to pay for it, or make a donation to fight against lupus. And if you don’t, that’s fine. But if you can – if you’ve got the suggested minimum payment of $5 to spare — we would really like it if you did. All of the money that comes to us for this is going back out the door again, into the coffers of the Michigan/Indiana affiliate of the Lupus Alliance of America. We paid our writers and our artist, but we did that out of our own pockets. Wil, Subterranean Press and I aren’t seeing a cent from this. That’s not what this is about.

We did this thing because we thought it would be fun and because we thought you would have fun reading these stories. But we also did it because people we know and love and care about are afflicted with lupus. Lupus, if you don’t know, is not an easy disease to live with: it attacks your immune system and does all sorts of damage, and those who live with it genuinely do struggle. We’re doing this for fun, but we’re also doing this to help those people living with lupus, some of whom are family. It’s a personal thing.

Which is why, again: If you can pay, we hope you will pay. Our $5 suggested payment is not a lot for you, especially when you consider the sheer amount of awesome this chapbook contains. But if each of you chip in (and tell your friends about it, and they chip in, too), those $5 payments will add up pretty quickly. And then we’ll be doing some real good, as well having fun. We’ve made it to easy to pay through PayPal, but for those of you who would enjoy a tax deduction, we’ve also set up a way for you to get one of those as well.

Okay, now you may go and get yourself a copy of CLASH OF THE GEEKS … and please, please, please, tell your friends, tell your Reddits, tell your Farks, and tell your Twitters. We're all immensely proud of this project.

From the Vault: there is more than one thing that makes us who we are

I'm bringing a limited-edition chapbook of gaming stories to GenCon, so Andrew and I have been digging through old entries and columns to put it together. This weekend he found and sent me the following old post, with the note: "Nothing to do with gaming, but it's REALLY short and I think we could both use the reminder from time to time"

He's right. I think we can all use the reminder from time to time.

(Imagine the sound of The Vault opening)

It drove me crazy, during the marketing and promotion of Just A Geek,
that I couldn't convince the publicity department to stop it with the
"It's a Star Trek Bio! Sci-Fi! Sci-Fi!" message and tell readers what I
wanted them to get out of the book.

The thing is, a lot of readers who expected that sort of book were
pissed because it wasn't what they got, (a few of them were pleasantly
surprised, but the ones who wanted a gossipy Star Trek tell-all let me know what
an asshole I was for misleading them and wasting their time) but readers who were at least marginally
familiar with my blog, who were looking for something different, grokked
a different fundamental story in the text. A few days ago, WWdN reader
Stephanie wrote me the following, which I reprint with her permision:

What
I took from your book is that you shouldn't let one thing you do in
your life define you – because we do several different things in our
lives and there is more than one thing that makes us who we are.

That's
a really big part of my story. I'm really glad you grokked it,
Stephanie, and I hope it inspired you and others to follow your dreams,
whatever they may be.

(Imagine the sound of The Vault closing)

A Little Summer Reading

Yesterday on Twitter, I joked: "Trying to read a book about Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, but whenever I look for it, it moves."

The book I was talking about it called Uncertainty: Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for the Soul of Science

It's wonderful, and I highly recommend it. It's one of those rare books about physics and science that is entirely accessible to people who aren't total math nerds (like me.)

While I'm talking about books, I thought I was recently re-reading Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things
… but it turns out that I'd confused Fragile Things with Smoke and Mirrors
in my head. I'd only read the first two stories in Fragile Things back when I bought it last year, so once I got past them, it was like I had a whole new book to read.

(BECAUSE I DID GUYS.)

It's sensational, and if you've ever wanted to find out why people like me adore Neil's writing, it's a great place to start.

anyone interested in a short fiction collection?

I have a question for everyone who reads my blog: if I put some short stories I'd written together into a little collection and sold it at Lulu, would you be interested?

I ask this because I collected a few short stories into a limited edition chapbook for last year's PAX Prime, and it's been sitting here, in my computer, just sort of staring at me accusingly and asking why I didn't release it to anyone in the world who wanted it.

It's just four short stories – well, two short stories and two stories that are slightly-longer than flash – that haven't been collected in any other place.

It will be available worldwide (anywhere Lulu ships). I'll keep the price down, and offer it in print and digital editions (probably around $7 and $5 each, if I've calculated the economics on Lulu correctly) … but here's the catch: it will only be available for one week. (I don't have a good reason for that, I just think it's cool to make something that's a limited edition. Wait, that's a perfectly good reason; a cromulent reason, even.)

Here's the introduction to the PAX edition:

The Day After and Other Stories

Every year, before the summer convention season gets underway, I pull a few excerpts from whatever I plan to release in the fall, take them to my local print shop, and make a deliberately lo-fi, limited edition chapbook to take with me on the obligatory summer convention circuit.

I’ve done previews of Dancing Barefoot, The Happiest Days of Our Lives, Memories of the Future, and in 2008, I pulled together a sampler that eventually became Sunken Treasure.

While Memories of the Future is 2009’s “big” fall release, it didn’t make sense to me to release a Memories-based chapbook this summer, because one already exists.

It looked like there wasn’t going to be a 2009 entry in the traditional Wil Wheaton Zine-like Chapbook Extravaganza, until I realized that I have several pieces of unpublished fiction sitting in my office, just waiting to be published.

“Hey,” I said to myself, “people keep asking me to write and release fiction, and I’ve been waiting until I have an actual novel to give them. But these things totally don’t suck, and I bet readers would enjoy them.”

“That is an excellent idea, me,” I said. “And have I mentioned how smart and pretty you are?”

“Oh, stop it. You’re embarrassing me,” I said.

Together, myself and I collected some of my (mostly unpublished) fiction and put it into this chapbook, for safe keeping.

Even though this is limited to just 200 copies, it represents a significant step for me in my life as a writer, because it’s the first time I’ve collected and published stories that I made up. (You know, like a writer does.) I hope you enjoy it, and thanks for your support!

Wil Wheaton

Pasadena

2009