LA Daily: A Gamer’s Arcade Memories

Posted on By Wil

This Week's LA Daily was knocked out of my brain by 8 bits of sound this weekend:

My son is home from college, visiting briefly before he goes back
for his summer session, so I've been making a concerted effort to cram
as much writing as I can into limited working hours each day, so my
evenings are free to spend with him and the rest of our family. This
weekend, my wife and I took him out to dinner, where I found myself in
front of a Centipede arcade machine, drawn there by the unmistakable
sound of the player earning an extra guy.

Something caught in the mental driftnet, and I began to reel it in.
"I have to play this," I said, doing my best not to be as manic as
Richard Dreyfuss behind a pile of mashed potatoes.

They looked at each other, warily. "Okay…" my wife said.

I dropped a quarter into the slot, felt the trackball fit
comfortably beneath my right hand, and began to play. By the time the
first flea dropped, I'd retrieved a childhood memory from the early
'80s.

You can read the whole thing at the LA Weekly.

great flash fiction from escape pod

Posted on By Wil

I loved this story at Escape Pod:

“Hey, tell me, this look like Jesus to you?”

I come to Tito’s Tacos for a lot of reasons. The freeway overpass
ambience, the way the old men in the kitchen wrap the burritos tighter
than Cuban cigars, the shiny Kennedy 50-cent pieces you always get as
part of your change. A lot of reasons. But conversation isn’t among
them. Nonetheless, I dutifully look up from my lunch to see what the
guy at the next table over is talking about.

It's flash fiction, so it's just three minutes long. If you can find three minutes today and spend them listening to this story, I think you'll be glad you did.

ETA: I didn't know this when I posted earlier (the joys of quickly posting while I'm on a deadline) but I should point out that Taco was written by Greg van Eekhout, who has a recently-released novel called Norse Code that's getting some nice reviews. Greg says, "You can find some preview chapters online: chapter 1 at Tor.com, chapter 2 at Suvudu, and chapter 3 at Suvudu"

serve the servants

Posted on By Wil

My friend Otis wrote, "I’m in one of those stupid cycles where nothing is quite interesting
enough for a blog post. I’m not getting out much for obvious reasons
and home life is fairly rote (except for the parts that aren’t)."

I sure am glad he wrote that, because I've been feeling this weird, uninspired malaise for weeks, and I haven't quite been able to identify exactly why until just now: I've been so busy finishing Memories of the Future, I haven't been getting out and doing anything that's interesting enough to warrant more than a passing mention on Twitter. Boy, am I relieved to know that it's not me, it's just my life that's boring at the moment. (Or, um, something like that. That sounded funnier in my head. Anyway, moving on…)

Otis and I are alike in a lot of ways, and often say that I'm the West Coast version of him, and he's the East Coast version of me. The obvious reasons he referred to are all related to the recent birth of his second child, and while my reasons are similar, they are also profoundly different: the child I've been caring for is a bunch of words in a manuscript, not an actual human being in a crib. It's a comparison that probably seems presumptuous and wildly inappropriate to normal people, but if you've ever done work that's creatively demanding, I think you'll be able to understand the parallel.

Speaking of creatively demanding work: Around the middle of the day on Friday, I finally finished all the major rewriting and editing on Memories of the Future, and sent it off to Andrew for judicious application of his Red Pen of Doom. I still need to write the introduction and the acknowledgments, but I think I'm going to put that off for a day or two, because I seriously need to recharge if I want that stuff to be written from a point of view that's enthusiastic and celebratory, not worn down and exhausted.

Before I save this, I wanted to share something I came across this morning that's incredibly valuable for writers. From Ken Levine's blog: What do you do when you get stuck?

This happens often as you write your script or novel. You come to a
point where you think you’ve written yourself into a corner. A plot
point requires something and you just can’t get there. Wait
a minute, he can’t swim to safety; he’s in a wheelchair. Exactly how is
she going to get to the Pope to sell him Girl Scout cookies?

This is one of the benefits of a being in a partnership – sometimes he can solve it.

But when working alone, here are four handy tips…

And now, I'm off to write this week's column for the LA Daily. I'm looking forward to that, because there's an arcade machine involved.

“this is magical”

Posted on By Wil

I didn't know where my friend Ryan was, but it sure sounded like he was having a lot of fun. Each Twitter update he sent was more entertaining than the last, but he never managed to top this one:

Mel Gibson is
drunk, smoking a cigar, and wearing a viking helmet… all while on a
live horse. I'm not kidding. This is magical.

I read that, giggled, and decided that he was full of shit. There is no way that actually happened.

Turns out that he was not full of shit. It was real, and it was spectacular.

if you have five bucks, and you want to play poker with me …

Posted on By Wil

I've been reading my friend Pauly's blog and following him on Twitter while he's at the World Series of Poker, and even though I don't play nearly as much as I once did, it's making me wish I was there with him and a lot of my other friends, not just to play, but to write about it, as well.

Though I can't be there (yet) I thought it would be fun to bring back The Wheetie poker tournament I used to host every week on PokerStars, even if it's only a one-off.

So, here's the deal, if you feel like joining me for a silly $5 no-limit hold'em tournament on a Sunday morning:

What: The Wil Wheaton Invitational
When: Sunday, May 31. 11am PDT
Where: PokerStars.com
Tourney Number: 168008111
Buy-in: $5.50
Password: Monkey

Back in the glory days, we'd get about 100 players per tourney. On such short notice, I think we'll be lucky to get two tables … but it should still be a lot of fun. I hope you'll come out and play with us.