drink beer, insert coin

Posted on By Wil

Friday night, I took my wife out for beers and video games. It seemed like a perfect way to end a not-so-perfect week.

We started with Ms. Pac-Man. I love Ms. Pac-Man, because the very first time I played it, I got to the pretzel level. About ten years ago, I played the hyper-speed version of it at a campground in San Diego, where I’d gone on vacation with my family and a few friends. Though I was 25 — wait. I can’t possibly have been 25, because I didn’t know Anne, yet.  That means that this actually happened over ten years ago, maybe when I was 22. This thought is simultaneously awesome (I’ve known my wife for over a decade) and tragic (goddamn am I getting old.)

So I was 22, and we were playing a "winner stays, loser pays" as-hoc tourney. I took down every single opponent — child or adult — who challenged me. The only serious competition I got was from a 14 or 15 year-old girl, who was quite skilled at a game that was older than her than I was. I recall edging her out by a few thousand points, mostly because I got lucky and nailed a pear on my last man.

My most recent game, however, was a disaster for me. I didn’t even break 3000 points, while Anne cleared the first three boards on her first man, on her way to a 17000 point score. It turns out that Guinness, while certainly delicious and filled with the cure for what ails you, slows down your reaction time.

After Ms. Pac-Man, we moved over to Centipede, which is one of my all-time favorite games. If I compiled a top ten list, it would be on the first cut, though I’m not sure if it would make the final one. I resist making this list because it’s like trying to choose which child you love the most.

I destroyed Anne on Centipede, which throws into question my earlier statement that Guinness slows down reaction times. Centipede is significantly faster and more harried than Ms. Pac-Man, but I fell into a zone the moment the game started, and my wife just couldn’t catch up. I may have distracted her while she played, though, by telling her the story of the time I was 10 or 11 and a couple in their mid-20s let me finish out their game on the cocktail machine at Shakeys, because their pizza and mojos were ready before they were done. I loved that Shakeys in the early 80s, because in addition to Centipede, it had Vanguard, Asteroids, Battlezone, a submarine game whose name I can’t recall, Mr. Do! and usually one good pinball machine.

Our last game was Donkey Kong Junior. I played it like crazy at my Aunt Val’s house when it first came out, because my cousin had a Nintendo machine and a few ROM sets he could swap out, for most of the first generation Nintendo games. We played them all, but Donkey Kong Junior was my favorite. Popeye had a great story but was way too hard, Mario Brothers was really only fun with two players, and Punch Out!! required some sort of feat I never purchased when I was a low-level Human Geekling. This leaves Donkey Kong, of course, which I’ll forever associate with the bowling alley where I first played it. It was fun, to be sure, but even today I can rarely make it to the cement factory level.

Donkey Kong Junior, though, had fantastic sound, beautiful graphics, and the added fun of turning the tables on the protagonist we all knew and loved when he went by the nom-de-jeu "Jumpman." The sound of the little monkey’s feet when he walked, the music, and the colors all came together in a perfect storm of awesome, and though I’ve been playing that game for a quarter of a century, it still fills me with joy to drop in a quarter and see if I can rescue my papa.

My wife, though? Not so much. For reasons she refuses to divulge, she never played it, and has no desire to learn from the likes of me. So I played Donkey Kong Junior, alone, while she watched and pretended to be impressed. Hey, I waited 25 years to impress a girl with my DKJ skills, so I’ll take it, even if she was faking it.

There’s a lesson there, ladies: we don’t care if you’re faking it or not, even when we’re playing video games.

good news, great news, bad news

Posted on By Wil

The good news is the hard covers were just dropped off.

The great news is that they look beautiful, feel great, and are exactly the way I wanted them to be.

The bad news is that I can’t sell them, because PayPal still hasn’t been able to hep me solve the item number problem when I try to ship multiple orders.

I feel helpless and frustrated, at a time when I should be celebrating.

Hopefully, I’ll find a way to resolve this before the end of the weekend.

happiest days stuff (one in a continuing series)

Posted on By Wil

I spent all day today doing publishing stuff. I processed all the orders up until about 2p.m. today, and as soon as my new envelopes arrive tomorrow, I’ll stuff them and ship them, so if you got a confirmation e-mail from me yesterday or today, your book should arrive before the end of next week.

Based on early feedback from buyers, I’m changing a couple things for future orders. First, I have stronger, more reliable bubble envelopes that will protect the books better than the ones I used in the first batch. I thought they’d be fine because we used them for Dancing Barefoot, but I guess when they changed the postal rules for Canadian shipping, they also added claws and chainsaws to the equipment. Books aren’t getting damaged, but the envelopes sure are, and that’s making people nervous. Second, I found out today that it costs about 40 to 50 cents more to ship first class mail, which arrives in three days or so, instead of media mail, which has taken over two weeks for some people. I’m really sorry about that, by the way, for those of you who (like me) thought that when the USPS said, "This takes 2-9 days to arrive" that’s what they actually meant.

I also printed out all the
Canadian orders, which will have to be processed by hand, the way we
used to do it, because thanks to the fucking bullshit new US Postal
Service rules that I guess are new for 2007, I get to fill out a
customs form for each book, and have each one go individually through
the post office, so it costs $4 per book to ship, rather than $9. I
hope you really love this book, Canada, because it’s quite an ordeal to
get it to you. It’s almost like the US government wants to make it as hard as possible for small, independent businesses like mine to do anything with the rest of the world. Er, except send jobs to India. They’re totally cool with that.

I’m desperately hoping that the fucking bullshit with PayPal not telling me what item number goes with what order will resolve itself before the hard cover books arrive. If it doesn’t, I don’t know how I’m going to be able to sell them. (Incidentally, the signed and numbered hardcover will be limited to 300. I was going to limit it to 100, but would had to have charged an outrageously high price just to break even, and that’s not cool. Regardless, I’m guessing — okay, hoping — it will sell out very quickly, so I’ll give 24 hours notice before they go on sale.)

I want this to be fun and awesome again. The last few days, it’s just been frustrating and demoralizing.

the family that frags together . . .

Posted on By Wil

It’s been painful, joyful,
scary, and wonderful that Ryan’s away at school, out of our house, and
in a place — physically and emotionally — where I can’t protect him.
I have to hope that I did my job as a parent, and when he makes
mistakes, they result in skinned knees and not broken bones. Some days are easier than others.

To say that it’s been a challenge to let go would be a massive
understatement, and I’m struggling with it even more than Anne is,
disproving once and for all the notion that biology is stronger than,
uh, not biology.

Though he’s really, really far away, and he’s got his new friends and
is taking his first uncertain steps into his adult life, it’s been
pretty easy to stay in close contact with him, thanks to instant
messaging, e-mail, and sending photos and text messages through our
cellphones.

I can add "playing Halo 3" to the list of ways we’ve been able to keep in touch with each other.

I was sitting in my new office (formerly known as Ryan’s bedroom)
finishing up some work last night, when Nolan called out from the living room,
"Hey Wil, Ryan wants to talk to you!"

I walked out, and saw that he wasn’t on the phone, but was playing a
private Halo 3 game with Ryan, who was connected from his friend’s dorm
at school. I grabbed the headset from Nolan, and talked with Ryan while
they played.

"So how is everything?" I said. It’s nobody’s business, but suffice to say he recently skinned his knees.

"Better," he said.

"I’m glad to hear it," I said.

"Oh shit!" He said, as Nolan beat him down.

I laughed. "I saw him sneaking up on you, but didn’t think it was fair to affect the outcome of the game."

"Oh," Ryan said, a smile in his voice, "I see how it is."

We talked for a few more minutes, our conversation regularly
interrupted when one of them scored a particularly awesome kill on the
other.

"Well," Ryan finally said, "I hate to say it, but Nolan is clearly better at this than me."

I relayed this confession to Nolan.

"YES!" He said.

"Okay," I said to Ryan, "I have to go back to work, so I’ll talk to you
soon. I love you, and look out because Nolan is going to kill you . . .
now."

Nolan’s rocket exploded at Ryan’s feet, launching him into a beautiful ragdoll tumble off the edge of the map.

"Dammit!" Ryan said. "Okay, I love you too and I’ll talk to you later."

I gave Nolan the headset, and headed back toward my office. I paused in
the doorway, and looked back. Though they were separated by a terrible
distance, I felt the pride a parent feels when he sees his kids drop
the sibling rivalry long enough to have fun together.

I may not have a jet pack, or a flying car, but I still think this future is pretty cool.

trudging through fog

Posted on By Wil

In his blog today, Neil says:

The best thing about writing fiction is that moment where the story
catches fire and comes to life on the page, and suddenly it all makes
sense and you know what it’s about and why you’re doing it and what
these people are saying and doing, and you get to feel like both the
creator and the audience. Everything is suddenly both obvious and
surprising ("but of course that’s why he was doing that, and that means that…") and it’s magic and wonderful and strange.

I’ve felt that with the narrative non-fiction that I write, especially while I was working on Just A Geek, and it’s the reason I keep trying to (privately) write fiction, even though I get terrified and give up after a few hundred words each time I do it.

A good friend of mine recently quit his very lucrative, very safe, very reliable job to pursue his dream to be an actor. I was equally horrified and impressed when he said he had to ditch what he called his safety net so he would be hungry and devoted and dedicated to the acting journey. I’ve done that journey, and it’s one of the most difficult journeys available to the hopeful artist. My friend is outrageously talented, though, so of course he instantly booked a job in a big budget movie with an impressive cast. He may not have the safety net beneath him, but it’s looking like he’s not going to need it.

Me? I can’t afford to cut away the safety net, because if I fall to my death, I take down the three other people who rely on me to support them.

I want to be a writer with a capital W, though, and it drives me crazy that I can’t just make something up and take a reader on a journey through someone else’s life the way I do with my own. I mean, I love to read fiction, I love to improvise scenes on stage, and I had more fun writing the Star Trek manga than I thought possible . . . but I get massive stage fright when I try to completely make stuff up. The last time I tried it and foolishly published the works in progress on my blog, it was a spectacular disaster. Oh well, at least it was spectacular.

I like writing, and I like blogging. Despite what many of us who keep blogs have argued over the years, I’m starting to believe that these are two different things, requiring different disciplines and abilities. While they use the same basic skill sets, the difference between them (for me, at least) is the difference between playing third base and right field. If I were to cut away the safety net, I’d have to stop blogging, I think, and just focus full time on being a student of creative writing. Yeah, I’m about fifteen years too late for that one.

However, when I wanted to be a comedy writer and improviser, I took classes to help me take my desire and whatever raw talent I had, and shape it into something useful, so I’m doing the same thing with writing. I read a lot, and not just as an audience member, but as a student. I have a couple of books on writing technique, specifically pertaining to short stories. I’ve been working through them, and the suggestions they give for technique — structure, finding stuff that I’m passionate about and using it as inspiration for a story — all seems so obvious to me when I read it, I’m surprised and not surprised all at once that I haven’t already thought of it.

I’m getting good advice and guidance from these books and blogs I’m reading by and about capital "W" Writers, and though it’s intimidating and overwhelming just about every step of the way (The Voice of Self Doubt keeps pushing his face up against the window of my soul and making scary faces at me, knowing that I’m unable to fully draw the drapes) Neil’s affirmation has been printed out and pasted on the wall right above my computer, so I can look at it and stay on target:

You
don’t live there always when you write. Mostly it’s a long hard walk.
Sometimes it’s a trudge through fog and you’re scared you’ve lost your
way and can’t remember why you set out in the first place.

But sometimes you fly, and that pays for everything.

If Neil Fucking Gaiman can admit to feeling scared, if Neil Fucking Gaiman can admit that, even for him, it’s a long hard walk, then I can also admit that it feels like that to me every single time I sit down and try to write fiction, and remember something John Scalzi said to me during dinner last week: "Don’t be afraid to suck."

It seems so simple, doesn’t it? It’s the advice I give to actors who are going in on auditions: "Don’t be afraid to suck, and don’t be afraid to do your own thing. The important thing is to entertain yourself and forget about the result."

Why can’t I take my own advice when it comes to writing? Probably because I have less experience as a writer than I do as an actor, and because I care about writing a hell of a lot more than I care about acting.

Maybe if I spend enough time trudging through the fog, I’ll run into Neil, and he can help me find my way out.