Category: WWdN in Exile

Oh man, what a great day!

Firefly panel: HAWESOME.
G4 booth babes: HAWESOME
Talking with Brent: HAWESOME.
Reading and Q&A: HAWESOME.

I’m just too damn tired to get into the details now, but I have lots of great notes, and I recorded my entire talk for a future RFB.

I’m going to fall into bed, now.

Update: Actually, there is one thing really worth adding right now, while the memory of it is still more visceral than intellectual.

The last question I took during my Q&A (the first I’ve done in several years) was about Michael Piller. A woman asked me if I could comment on Michael, and what it was like to work with him. All my comments are recorded, but they can be distilled down to this: Michael was brilliant, and he made The Next Generation great. When I was done, and sadly after I’d switched off my recorded, Harry Kloor, a friend of mine who is an accomplished writer and producer, walked up to the stage, and he said, "I wrote for Michael. He was like a father to all of us."

I turned the microphone back on, and told the crowd, "There’s something I think you should hear, that’s important."

I gave the mic to Harry, and he said, "I just told Wil that Michael was like a father to all of his writers. He could be stern, he could be tough, he could be nurturing, and he could be supportive. And he made all of us want to be — no, he made us better writers."

I thought it was a wonderful tribute to Michael’s memory and his legacy: he didn’t just leave us with amazing television like Star Trek and The Dead Zone; Michael also helped a lot of writers discover and achieve their potential. He cast a stone into a pond, and the ripples (like Battlestar Galactica, for one) are just beginning to show.
 

"The mind spends most of the time lost in fantasies and illusions, reliving pleasant or unpleasant experiences and anticipating the future with eagerness or fear. While lost in such cravings or aversions, we are unaware of what is happening now, what we are doing now. Yet surely this moment, now, is the most important for us. We cannot live in the past; it is gone. Nor can we live in the future; it is forever beyond our grasp. We can live only in the present. If we are unaware of our present actions, we are condemned to repeating the mistakes of the past and can never succeed in attaining our dreams for the future. But if we can develop the ability to be aware of the present moment, we can use the past as a guide for ordering our actions in the future, so that we may attain our goal". –S.N. Goenka, The Art of Living

Thank you, Michael, for the above quote.

The convention was pretty fun today, even though it was freezing cold in the room where I was set up. It’s Friday, so the crowds were very light (probably 600 people total in the whole place today) which gave me time to visit with old friends, and spend lots of time with the few fans who stopped by my table to chat.

Two long-time WWdN readers stopped by, and shared some incredibly supportive and kind thoughts after reading my blog the last few days. That was really, really thoughtful and cool. Thank you.

I sold about 10% of the limited edition chapbooks — which, I must say, turned out to be really fantastic. I am so glad I had a printer do them for me, rather than trying to assemble them on my own.

The coolest thing happened: about half of the people who bought the chapbook returned within thirty minutes or so to tell me how much they liked it. One woman told me she loved it, and couldn’t wait to hear me perform material from it tomorrow. That made me feel really good, and validated the work I put into the stories, and putting the book together.

There was a camera crew there today, from a well-known late night talk show, and they wanted to talk to me and Chase Masterson. I told them no, because it was clear that they were only there to make Star Trek fans look like assholes, and I wasn’t going to be part of that. For fuck’s sake, you guys: these people are here because they love Star Trek, or Lost, or Firefly, or whatever. They’re thrilled to be around like-minded people where it’s totally cool to dress up and challenge each other to quote-offs. They’re not here so you can laugh at them, you jerks.

Because the crowds were so light, I got to wander the dealer’s room, and really take in all the cool stuff that I used to get so excited about back in the old days; things like FASA Star Trek RPG sourcebooks, classic Star Wars toys  . . .

[cheesy fade effect, and some appropriate music, please.]

At one point, I walked past a booth that had lots of classic Star Wars toys in it. I glanced in, and my eyes fell on an original Darth Vader’s TIE Fighter. I had that toy when I was a kid, and just looking at it was like those car commercials where the guy touches the car, and he gets this rapid-fire burst of images until he takes his hand off of it. I saw that toy, and was assaulted by this rapid-fire burst of images of riding in the car to KMart with my parents, hoping to buy a new Star Wars toy, playing with the toys on the gold shag carpeting in front of the brick fireplace in the house in Sunland, running around the back yard in the fading evening light in the dummer of 1980, me piloting the TIE fighter, chasing my brother who piloted a snow speeder. (We weren’t afraid to combine Star Wars and He*Man, so why not combine Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back?)

[cheesy fade effect, and some appropriate music, please.]

I know I only stood there and looked at it for a few seconds, but it felt like several minutes. I like it when things like that happen.

I also got lots of audio to use in a future podcast, and some of it is really cool. I’ll have a Grand Slam podcast next week, probably.

Tomorrow is going to be a great day. The crowds are expected to hit near 2000, and the several cast members from Firefly and Lost will be giving talks. I’m pretty sure I’ll leave my table during the Firefly talks, and I’m going to try to get Morena Baccarin to tell me that she loves me. Failing that, I’ll see if I can get Adam Baldwin to do the same.

And on that incredibly uncomfortable note, I’m going to open a Newcastle, and go watch some TV with my wife.

"We’ve all had our ups and downs

It’s been mostly down around here

Now this whole damn mess is becoming quite clear"
-Uncle Tupelo, Life Worth Living

Thank you for all your feedback on the podcast and the blog. Many more people responded than I expected, and virtually all of you wondered if I actually read what you wrote. I don’t have time to respond to each e-mail directly, which feels shitty and disrespectful to me (you took the time, so why can’t I?) but I think I can put here, for everyone, what I’d put into lots of different e-mails. I took it all to heart, and I am deeply grateful to everyone who saw my signal flare, and sent back one of their own.

So. Two things I suspected were confirmed. The first: I can’t please everyone, so I’m just going to please myself. That sounds dirty. Let me try a different way: For every person who said they didn’t like the "sacchrine stories about my family" someone said they loved the "heartwarming stories about family life." For every person who said "I wish you’d write more about politics" someone said, "I’m glad you don’t write about politics very much." Everyone liked the narrative-style poker stories, and nobody likes the dry, technical poker posts. I agree. That’s why I moved most of my poker content to CardSquad. I haven’t had many stories to tell, but when I have a story that’s more like Odessa than a dry retelling of the flop, turn and river, I’ll publish it again.

Lots of you came here for different reasons: Star Trek, movies, gaming, technology, politics, family stories. I noticed that most writers wanted to hear more of whatever brought them here in the first place and less of everything else. I’ve said before that attempting to please everybody results in pleasing nobody, so I’ll just have to write about all of those things when they strike me, and hopefully when I’m interested I’ll be interesting and worth both of our time.

Thing the second: the general theme, from people who I know in real life to people who have read me for years, to people who have just been reading for a few months: my blog, once interesting, has become average and lacks passion.

My blog, which is a reflection of my life, has become average because I’ve allowed it to happen. I’m not entirely sure how it happened, but at least I’m aware of it, and I can begin the long and painful process of ripping myself out of my average rut, and moving to where I want to be.

I’ve been reading a lot of Seth Godin’s blog, and his book The Purple Cow. In Purple Cow, Seth says that the first few cows you see are really interesting, but they eventually blur together and you forget about them. Then you see a purple cow, and it’s extraordinary, and you take notice, and you can’t believe you were ever impressed by a regular old cow. He uses it as a metaphor for marketers, but it applies to anyone who produces some sort of media or entertainment; it certainly applies to me.

Years ago, my Purple Cow was obvious: I was one of the first well-known actors to openly write about the experience. And there was that whole Wesley Crusher thing. Nobody else was doing what I did, so it was extraordinary. Over the years, I’ve fallen onto the other side of the bell curve, and now I find myself squarely in "average" land.

What do I do to paint my cow again? I’m not sure. Obviously, getting work as an actor again would be nice, and fire up my passions; working on some real fiction would also do that.

The excerpt I published yesterday is part of a very short story (it’s only about 2000 words) but it’s a start. I’m doing some work on it (changing from first to third person, for one) and I’m looking forward to publishing it next week. Maybe that will kick off something new for me that makes it worth your while to drop by my blog.

In many ways, I feel like I’ve run really hard, and really fast, and ended up right back where I started.

I know I’m a good actor, and I know that I can connect with an audience and do extraordinary work. That’s not enough to close the gap between me sitting in an audition, and me getting hired. So I’m right back where I was five years ago.

Anne’s ex isn’t supporting his kids, putting the burden on me and Anne, and getting away with it. I’m right back where I was five years ago.

I’m struggling, creatively unfulfilled, filled with self-doubt and more than a little bit of self lothing. I’m right back where I was five years ago.

And you know what? I’m really sad that I’ve failed as an actor. I’m
really sad that, even though I tried so hard my whole life to develop
this skill, and even though I know I’m extremely good at it, I have
failed to have any lasting success with it. It’s not my fault, I don’t
think, — well, other than the reasons I detail in Just A Geek
(which makes a lovely gift) — that the entertainment industry lost
interest in me and what I bring to the party, but when I’m not acting in some capacity, I feel like a big part of my soul is dead. Writing helps, a little bit, but it’s like methadone to acting’s heroin. I’d love to find a play to do around town, or do another sketch comedy show, or do some improv, but the unavoidable, brutal truth is that I can’t afford to. I don’t have the time to devote to it, but I have to somehow find it, and walk a dangerous, delicate, precarious and fine line between providing for my family, spending time with (and enjoying) my family, and hitting the acting needle as frequently and as hard as I can without becoming a gutter burnout.

It’s tough to write anything from the inside of my heart lately, because I feel like I’m just a big stupid crybaby. In my brains, I know that things could be a lot, lot worse (I know that, really I do, and because I know that I’m reluctant to even publish any of these thoughts) but in my heart and soul, I feel defeated.

Just completely defeated. And I don’t have enough time. And. And. And.

I know that I have the tools and the power to turn this feeling of defeat into something better, and I know that I’m indulging a whole lot of self-pity . . . but at least I’ll admit it, and own that feeling.

This is part of the journey, I guess. Maybe being where I was five years ago isn’t so bad. Five years ago, I had a lot of really great stuff to write about, and a very Purple Cow to share.

Anne just told me this:

"Last night, I walked down the hallway, past Nolan’s room. I looked in, and saw that he was in his bed, with the light off, snuggled up next to Riley [who sleeps on his bed — all 47 pounds of her.]

"I said, ‘Hey, pookie, are you going to sleep?’

"He looked up at me, and said, ‘No, mom, I’m just layin’ here.’ He paused for a second and added,  ‘Here’s your sign.’"

I’m still laughing.

I finished work on the chapbook last night, and as soon as I get an illustration from Ben (who did all the art for Dancing Barefoot), it’s going to a local print shop. I doubt I’ll have it on Friday, but I will have it at the convention on Saturday and Sunday. Oh, and I gave it a title. It’s called "More Than This."

I spent the first half of today working on Games of our Lives, then had an epiphany (to be discussed on today’s RFB) that lead me to write a fictional short story called Language Barrier.

It’s with my editor, but I have a little excerpt which I can share now:

I became aware of voices behind me. Two women. They spoke with heavy Russian accents.

"Martina," one of them said, "you don’t understand. He пребывания вне поздно, никогда не выбирают вверх после себя, and doesn’t even know me!" 

"Sophia, вы возбужены –" She was older than the first.

"I am not excited, and don’t talk to me like I am a child. Будете вы моим другом или не?"

"Of course I’m your friend. And of course I want you to be happy –"

"So why won’t you support me?"

An Escalade pulled up in front of the restaurant, bass thumping, temporarily turning the window into a mirror. I caught a glimpse of their reflection: Martina, the older one, faced away from me. Her hair was huge and processed. She wore a light colored top. Sophia, younger, had black hair and pale skin. The Escalade drove away and I squinted my eyes against the midday sun. I looked down at the tan line on my left hand. Two months and it still hadn’t gone away. Two months and I still felt bitter, when I didn’t feel numb. Two months and I was alone in a restaurant, fantasizing about fucking a girl I hadn’t even seen, based on her sexy Russian accent.

More to come . . .