Category: WWdN in Exile

the brass was phasing tunes i couldn’t place

Posted on By Wil

Anne and I went up to Oregon this weekend to visit her grandmother. We try to make this trip at least 4 times a year, and the Autumn trip is always our favorite. The changing leaves, and cool weather restore a lot of our hit points, and this year getting away from the chows in the house gave us an extra 2d4 that we didn’t even realize we needed until we had them.

We always stay in Ashland, and every time we visit, we don’t want to come back to Los Angeles. I think we have officially made it our dream to eventually retire there.

While we were there, I took this picture, which you can embiggen at flickr via the magic of clicking:

ashland calaveras

“Anne’s a hairdresser and I’m a writer, so when we saw these calaveras right next to each other in an Ashland storefront this weekend, I had to stop and take a picture.

Unfortunately, I had to choose between having a slight reflection on the glass, or only having one of them in focus, so I opted to share this one. Trust me, it’s better than the alternative.”

I’ll upload some of the other pictures I took, mostly of changing leaves and shockingly tame deer when I get some of this actual work that piled up while I was gone done.

more fun with twitter

Posted on By Wil

Earlier today, I went into Target to get some storage bins. While I was there, I paid a visit to the Halloween section. Because what I need is more Halloween decorations. Really. I do. Shut up. I do. After looking at the various decorations (mostly meh, but a few cool things) I rounded a corner and looked at the costumes. I saw something that, speaking as a geek and Halloween aficionado, horrified me. I told Twitter:

In the Halloween section, Target tries to pass off what is CLEARLY an Orc Barbarian sword as a “Giant Ninja” sword. I weep for the children.

I mean, seriously. This sort of thing pushes me one step closer to the breaking point.

Anyway, tonight, as the debate ended, I had a related thought:

McCain’s the kinda guy who would sell you an Orc Barbarian sword, and tell you it’s a Giant Ninja sword, my friends.

Please let me share some of the @responses I got, because they made me laugh out loud:

JoeyMcAllister: @wilw Well, he’s a maverorck.

Gygaxis: @wilw McCain is the kind of guy who will finish up your lobster even if you did want the rest.

Rhinehold: @wilw Obama is the kinda guy who would require that all xp was split evenly, even to henchmen, no matter who did what

dallasthegreat: @wilw look, we need to get away from the divisive orc vs. Ninja talking points and tackle the pirate problem.

Lobsticles: @wilw Sarah Palin once saw a sword, so she’s sort of an expert on Giant Ninja Swords.

Spaceman: @wilw yes. Why yes he is. He should be talking about mario plumber.

gamoid: @wilw IT’S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE TAKE THIS

There were tons of hilarious responses in addition to these, but I saved the absolute best for last:

seanmc74: @wilw An old man dispensing swords is no basis for a system of government.

Bravo, seanmc74. I believe you just won yourself an Internets, sir.

egad, a base tone denotes a bad age

Posted on By Wil

WWdN reader Katie D. was inspired by yesterday’s audiobook post, and sent me this incredibly awesome piece of art:

Several readers sent me this story from the Mail Tribune about some of Stand By Me’s locations. If you are up in Southern Oregon, and you want to see some of the train tracks and locations we walked along in Stand By Me, now you know how to find them.

I heard from WWdN reader Mike Massee that the trestle we ran across, which is located in Northern California, is being torn down. He was recently there, and took some beautiful pictures of it.

If you want to get your very own 8-bit clown sweater T-shirt, you can still do that.

Speaking of T-shirts, I haven’t pointed to the Wil Says Don’t Be A Dick T-shirt in a long time. I think I’ll do that right now. POINT! POINT! POINT!

I wrote the introduction to John Scalzi’s Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded. The book has shipped, and at least one reader liked it. Yay!

My dad and I went to the Dodger game last night. It was a hell of a game, right up until Torre decided to manage his bullpen like an 8 year-old playing MLB ’06 on the PS2.

I learned two things while I was at the game last night. First, the quality of an over-priced shitty cheese pizza is improved one million percent by the judicious application of jalapeños. You will pay for it 18 hours later, but pair it with an equally over-priced, shitty beer and it’s almost worth it. Second, a baseball game with your dad is great, but a playoff game with your dad – especially the first one you’ve ever attended together – is awesome. The last time the Dodgers were in the NLCS, I was 16, firmly in the grip of teenage angst, and I didn’t care about baseball precisely because it was important to my dad. Even though the Dodgers gave us a heartbreaking loss last night, it was a victory for me in the only way that really mattered.

. . . fuckin’ Dodgers.

why i won’t ever infect anything you buy from me with drm

Posted on By Wil

Last week, I finished recording the audio version of The Happiest Days of Our Lives. I’m not sure what our release date is, but it’s in the near future. Like the audio version of Just A Geek, it’s a superannuated super-annotated version, with lots of asides and commentary. I think you’re going to like it.

It was a lot of work to do both of my audiobooks, but I think I’ve been able to create two experiences that are unique and special. They’re vastly different from just listening to me read the text; David Lawrence (my friend and producer) and I ended up having extended discussions during the recording of both books, and I broke away from the text frequently to add what we called “audio footnotes” to the experience.

This is a very time-consuming process – recording Just A Geek took seven weeks, for example – but I think it’s worth the effort. If I’ve done it right, the listener should end up feeling like we’re sitting in a room together, where I’m reading the book, and occasionally putting it down to relate some story or tangent that isn’t in the text. Also, I’m smoking a pipe, wearing an ascot, and petting a cat.

People frequently ask me if I’ll put my audiobooks on Audible, or sell them through the iTunes Music Store (I think that’s the same thing, but these are the questions I get. Don’t shoot the messenger!) I haven’t made them available there partially because Audible wants to take an enormous cut of the sales price, but mostly because Audible infects and cripples all of their files with DRM, even if the publisher and rights holder doesn’t want them to.

Let’s talk about DRM for a moment. It’s no secret that I hate it, and I believe that treating your customers like they’re thieves is no way to run a business. “But what about piracy?” You ask, “and where can I get a stylish ascot like yours?”

I’m not that worried about piracy, to be completely honest with you. I agree with Cory Doctorow that obscurity is a greater threat to an artist than piracy, but I also trust my customers more than the average publisher, because I believe I have a different relationship with them (you) than the average publisher has with, say, me. Maybe this is a little naive, but hear me out.

I’m in a unique position among creators. I feel like we (meaning me and you who are reading this) share a relationship that most creators don’t get to share with their audience. I mean, I can read a Stephen King book and enjoy it, but I have no real expectation (reasonable, anyway) of ever meeting him or exchanging ideas with him. I can watch How I Met Your Mother every week, but it’s incredibly unlikely I’ll ever get to talk with Neil Patrick Harris about how awesome Barney is. Because I feel a more personal relationship with all of you who’ve supported me by buying my books and watching my work on television, I don’t worry that much about piracy. I don’t believe that anyone who reads my blog and is interested in hearing me perform my work would deliberately steal from me any more than they’d walk into a friend’s house and take money out of their wallet. (Awkward note: this doesn’t mean we’re friends, but you get that, right?)

David and I check the usual places from time to time, and we’re willing to aggressively have stuff taken down if we need to, but here’s the remarkable thing: we’ve never found anything. That means that we’re very bad detectives, it’s just not worth pirating, or the people who have bought my audiobooks have honored my request to share them with friends, but don’t share them with the whole Internet.

Anyway, this is on my mind today because of today’s xkcd:


I’m not getting rich off of my books and my audiobooks, but it’s a very big and significant part of how I support my family. I’m incredibly lucky to make a living being an artist and a creator, and I couldn’t do it if you all chose to steal my stuff instead of buying it. It’s getting harder and harder to make a living these days, and I know that money is tight for everyone, so thank you for not being dicks.

If I have anything to say about it, you’ll never have to pirate from me to have a collection of my work that you can count on. I’m never going to infect anything I create and publish myself with DRM. I don’t believe in it, I hate it as a consumer, and so far, my fundamental belief in the goodness and honesty of people has been affirmed (cue someone finding it all over some tracker in 3 . . . 2 . . .)

Oh, and my stylish ascot? It doesn’t really exist. It’s a glamour. Don’t tell anyone, though, okay?

and i thought that i had a weird day . . .

Posted on By Wil

Neil Gaiman:

Got to Cornwall about 4:30 am (I slept for an hour or so in the car, then read a script). Dropped off by car and driver at hotel. Glad to see someone up and about to check me in. Take my bags to front desk, tip driver handsomely. Driver drives away. Night-porter slowly establishes that I’m not actually staying in that hotel, but another several miles away, and that driver was a bit overenthusiastic in dropping me off at hotel. Also that you can’t get a taxi in rural Cornwall at five in the morning so I am stuck there. I sit in the lobby and write Batman. Somehow, in my jet-lagged state, this all seems quite normal.

There’s something magical in the air. It’s just over the horizon, so I don’t know exactly what it is, but I can feel it coming on the wind.