Monday, April 30, 2012

Manuscript Monday

Sure, it's 329 pages.

Sure, it sucked the downstairs printer dry faster than a dehydrated* vampire.

Sure, it took approximately two days of non-stop printing to achieve.

But


I have a manuscript.

Tomorrow begins the arduous "Red Pencil Edit" as it has so been dubbed. No computers, no games, no spell check.

May God have mercy on my novel.

*dehemodrated?

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Arroz Con Asshole

Did I tell you I'm like, a cooking genius now? (read: can fry rice)

The missus and I purchased, several weeks ago, a big fuck-off bag of rice. While she's claimed sole dominion over the actual cooking of the rice, some abtruse thaumaturgy involving boiled water and the roast eyes of newts, I've been painstakingly instructed, a la Luke Skywalker on Dagobah, in the delicate art of frying said rice.

But, exactly like Skywalker, I've run off to Bespin or some such place before I've finished my training.

Subsequently, my rice takes sorta like balls. Ball-ish, if you will.

I suspect Ben Kenobi's ghost. Insubstantial fucker.

Friday, April 27, 2012

High Gear

Remember how productive I said I was several posts ago?

That was chump change. These days, I'm real productive.

This week I've been writing twenty pages of comedy screenplay each morning, editing three chapters of HULL DAMAGE every afternoon and writing several hundred words of GALACTIC MENACE each night.

After this week, I start my the dreaded Red Pencil Edit, in which I print the whole motherfucking manuscript off and go through her word by word. The last push, if you will.

Shit's coming to a head, my bonny chums.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Dreadache

No sleep, coupled with all day spent staring at computer screens, coupled with the combined stress of the IndieGoGo campaign concluding, a breakneck screenwriting commission due Sunday and HULL DAMAGE'S continued editing strains, have conspired to brew me one humdinger of a headache.

I'm going to sleepland. No blog for you.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

My Alibi

I'm not about to go smash the ever-loving beejesus out of this trigger-happy car alarm blaring outside my window with an battleaxe, Big Lebowski-style.

Honest.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

You'd Think I'm Like, A Professional Writer Or Something

Whoof did I totally forget to blog tonight. Excuse me while I cheat the post's time stamp something awful. Remind me at some point to blog about being nocturnal.

In an odd bout of productivity, today I edited three chapters of HULL DAMAGE, I wrote a thousand words of GALACTIC MENACE, picked up another potentially paying screenwriter gig and even learned a new word!

amanuensis; which pretty perfectly describes the very kind missus today.

Tomorrow, I expect to lapse in lethargic atrophy.

Monday, April 23, 2012

RLW

What I'm Reading: Ganymede by Cherie Priest. Why? 'cause I'm probably an idiot. I wasn't really a huge fan of Boneshaker – unremarkable characters, a largely unremarkable plot and enough bad writing conventions to go sour in my mouth. Then, for some reason, I picked up one of its several sequels. It's apparently about the only minorly interesting character in Boneshaker, but thus far, it's been mostly wasting time with exactly those few characters in Boneshaker I didn't much care for. So, yeah. Unless somebody air-pirates a motherfucking dirigible in the next two chapters, Priest is on thin fucking ice with yours truly.

What I'm Listening To: Young Man In America by Anais Mitchell. It took some getting used to, but I really like this album. It's certainly different and it's certainly pretty similar to itself, but it's insidiously infectious. I find myself humming it at odd moments, with little or no inspiration.

What I'm Watching: The Walking Dead. Why? 'cause I'm probably an idiot. A commissioned script job ($500 for a first draft! I'm a screenwriter at last!) has put me on the zombie trail again and it looks like, as soon as HULL DAMAGE is actually finished and ready for print, I'll be finally trying my hand at STALL. So, much as I might loathe it, zombie research. Or, that is, as much zombie research as I can conceivably stomach. I'm told that, since I don't enjoy horror movies, I'll probably write a good one. I can only hope that, when it's made, people enjoy watching it. I certainly won't enjoy writing it.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Shiny New Content

Hey, it's technically Monday!*

You know what that means? That means there's new content (in this case an excerpt) posted to www.whoisnemo.com! Wanna go check it out?

Who am I kidding of course you do everybody does.

*I'm obviously gonna cheat and change the time stamp, to continue the illusion that I blogged everyday.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Free Press

It's a few days late, but if you haven't, check out this sweet interview Nostalgic Books & Comics ran about HULL DAMAGE!

Also, I'm currently in negotiation with a graphic artist to potentially pencil a HULL DAMAGE one-shot comic! Nothing's set in stone yet, the details are very much dependent on how well the IndieGoGo (whichisstillrighthereifyouwannadonate) goes, but finally! With a few hundred more dollars, I'd feel much more comfortable paying the good artist for her time.

Anyway. Back to Champloo.

Friday, April 20, 2012

In So Many Words

A diverting question.

Anybody know any good science fiction-related euphemisms for masturbation?  
Examples:
  • "Waxing the jetbooster" 
  • "Pumping the throttle"

It's for work. I swear.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

In Memoriam

Here lies Timothy J. Meyer, found deceased early this morning, lying face-down in a pool of cream soda, vomit and adverbs. 

May Darwin have mercy on his soul.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Dyin' Day

I swear to Darwin, I'm finishing the fourth draft of HULL DAMAGE tonight.

I have three chapters left to jointly edit with the missus. I've already done two this afternoon and it'll take easily until 1 or 2 am to finish, but fuck it, I do not care.

By this time tomorrow, I'll be a freshly-minted corpse, with fourth draft of HULL DAMAGE clutched in hand and surrounded by the armada of cream soda cans what killed me.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

The Legend of Korra

On the surface, I should prefer The Legend of Korra to The Last Airbender. More adult, less heterogenized, more complicated, more urban, more intrigue. Unfortunately, I probably won't like The Legend of Korra nearly as much as I did The Last Airbender. I do respect it so much more.

It's rare seeing that much guts in what's ostensibly a spin-off. Not only does Korra have a set number of seasons, rather than following the typical American tradition of milking the cash cow as long as they fucking can, but they've got the fucking gonads to kill off (with one exception) every single character they lovingly developed over the three years of the series, radically adjust their expansive worldbuilding to the point of more or less starting from scratch, ramping up the emotional maturity to a point five years past the age of their original audience, plugging an improved art style on the thing and hoping for the best.

Korra is fundamental different, on pretty much every level, from Last Airbender and that's maybe what's coolest about it.

Unfortunately, from the two episodes I've seen, it does fall into a small handful of necessary flaws, things I wouldn't notice had I not the original series to compare to. In an effort to distance her from Aang, who was so non-standard for epic protagonists (fun-loving and carefree rather than angsty or headstrong), Korra ends up fulfilling the typical fantasy trope of 16-year-old destiny girl a little too well. On the same token, the Fire Ferret brothers feel a little like Diet Zuko and Sokka Zero, potentially competent characters down the line, but possessing less flavor and less drive than their previous-series counterparts.

I anticipate Korra will be great on the whole. It only suffers from the illusion of inferiority because of the excellence of its predecessor.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Paid For By Carl's Junior

Lemme introduce you to a friend of mine; The Teriyaki Burger, from Carl's Jr, featuring a grilled pineapple slice and the eponymous teriyaki sauce.

That's one dyloosus harr doo'stee right there. Don't believe me?

See? I was right.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Gotta Give Me Thinkbox Time To Percolate And Such

Was treated to a double feature of Lockout and The Cabin in the Woods. The first was stupid action movie fun, worth one watch and one watch only, but the second was confusingly thought-provoking.

I won't elaborate at the moment. Expect a post in the near future. Bradley Whitford's pretty bomb in it, though.

New content added at midnight. Come back and check it out? It was very nostalgic for me, I'll admit. Meet here or visit www.whoisnemo.com on your own speed.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Conan the Barbarian

Netflixed the most recent E. Howard adaptation, the 2011 Conan starring Jason "Doubledogs" Momoa and directed by Marcus "Stegasaurus" Nispel.

You know, when I slid that movie into my DVD slot, I was fully expecting a festival of over-saturated crap the likes of which no mortal eyes have seen. Boy, was it over-saturated. Boy, was it crap. But, all things considered, I very much enjoyed myself.

The plot is balls. The villains have WAY too much screen-time. Baby Conan has WAY too much screen-time. Anybody who isn't adult Conan or his badass pirate buddy (played by Nonso "Jackhammer" Anozie) has WAY too much screen-time. But, for a decent portion of the movie, Conan drinks, pirates, arm-wrestles, slays and don't take crap off no ass. Sure, there's a pasty revenge "you-burnt-down-my-village" plot sloppily inserted from the Schwarzenegger original. (Canonically, Conan came into your village at night and burnt it down. Canonically, he was your favored enemy.) Momoa, despite being kinda a tool, plays an excellent Conan.

Actually, that probably helps.

If you ratchet your expectations to the floor, can appreciate dumb action flicks and are a fan of the original stories, Conan the Barbarian really isn't an awful outing. A qualified yes.

Friday, April 13, 2012

A Tale of Woe

WARNING: Severe case of FWP Syndrome approaching.

Some supremely unholy shit occurred today.

Much to the chagrin of the missus and I, the hot tub today was anything but. Instead of a soothing seething, we were instead assailed by a tepid, dare I say, frigid ambush by the lukewarm waters within.

Our only salvation lie in the other hot tub, mere feet away. Heed me, O reader, when I say that weren't our hopes dashed to smithereens upon discovering that not only were its waters cloudy and unchurned, the basic mechanism required for the churning inexplicably unresponsive, but it's intestine liquids were even more glacial and numbing than the previous hot tub! What were we, two wayfarers lost wandering the road to misfortune and betrayal, to do?

Turns out we went upstairs and took a hot shower. Yep.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Picture Pages

Remember web design?

Remember how much I didn't like web design?

Guess what's worse?

Graphic design. I am infinitely worse at graphic design than web design.

I'm writing HULL DAMAGE'S book cover commission for a graphic design firm I have a connection to (I know a chick who dates a dude) and I'm second guessing myself EVERY STEP OF THE WAY. Mockup is an arty word, right? And color pallet? What about inksplot? Splatterpunk? Colorsnacks?

I'm a word writer. Not a picture drawer.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

My Ass In Gear

T-minus 50 days until HULL DAMAGE'S release.

I've been slacking off. I've been so caught up in the IndieGoGo campaign (which, by the way, has a new perk, if you'd like to check that out) that I've been neglecting my actual duties as an author. My book is in dreadful need of editing and I'm less then two months from it's projected release date.

Thusly, it's time to Darkwing Duck this shit and get dangerous.

I made a goddamn schedule 'cause fuck man, I'm an adult and I can organize stuff and shit. I'd re-post that schedule here for you to read, but all the responsibilities up in that bitch would probably blind you or heal your leprosy some crazy shit I don't know. Tonight I'm editing two whole chapters and guess what I'm doing tomorrow and the next day and the next day? Editing two hole chapters, motherfucker. Get out my way or I gonna run you down with the speed and might of my own red pencil, yo.

...I apologize. I don't know what came over me.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Vital Information For Your Everyday Life

(With Danny Tambereli)

Drinking Ralph's $0.88 brand pineapple soda is akin to drinking the fermented semen of a dehydrated camel.

Monday, April 9, 2012

All Your Money Are Belong To Us

Here.

Over the course of 7 days, we raised $1,105 which, if I may say, is pretty impressive.

Sure, I'll allow that my parents plugged in nearly half, but still - over a thousand dollars in one week. Seriously cool, supporters.

Now would be a terrible time to vanish in a puff of smoke, cackling maniacally, yes?

In all seriousness, this is badass. It's fucking space pirate time. It's time to publish a fucking space pirate book.

Stay tuned for more free content, updates about the book and maybe some cackling.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

The Moment You've All Been Waiting For

Your hearts are in your throats, I know.

You've been wringing your hands, pacing your rooms, counting the seconds.

Well, it's finally time.

Tonight at midnight, check out www.whoisnemo.com to read the first available excerpt from HULL DAMAGE. It's a cutting from the first chapter and I've spent the past few days tweaking and editing it, so I hope it meets with everyone's expectations.

If you like the excerpt, hop on over to the IndieGoGo campaign and make a contribution. Thanks, as always, for your interest.

Meet back here at midnight? Deal.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Cowboy vs. Gunslinger

Trigun vs. Cowboy Bebop. Hmm.

Comparing the shows is deceptively difficult. They appear similar enough to make choosing a favorite a simple matter, but in practice, it's their similarity that makes it difficult to pick. They're both bursting to the brim with badassery and they both suffer from the same manner of pitfalls. My ruling, in my humble opinion, is that they're equal and inverse sides of the anime space western coin. I like them more or less the same.

As far as the movies go, I drastically prefer Badlands Rumble to Knockin' on Heaven's Door.

The phenomena (and bigger anime fans than I can correct me if I'm wrong here) among these movies-from-26-episode-animes seems to be a good one; doing one-shot romps, unrelated to the main plot meant mainly to showcase the characters and the setting, rather than advance some great story or punch out tons of plot the series couldn't handle.

While both Heaven's Door and Rumble do this, I'd say Rumble is vastly more successful than Heaven's Door. Set entirely on Mars, revolving mainly around the villain and only featuring a handful of the main characters, Heaven's Door feels like the Mario Brothers 2 or Ocean's 12 of the Cowboy Bebop universe. Rumble, on the other hand, felt right at home on Gunsmoke (save a few wonky continuity questions surrounding Wolfwood).

While I won't expand on this now, I have a similar theory about Serenity. Remind me to talk Serenity at some point.

Anyway. Off to potato wedges (yeah, yeah, I know)

Friday, April 6, 2012

Hard Drinks for Hard Men

Mmmmm. Cream soda.

In preparation for releasing a HULL DAMAGE excerpt this upcoming Monday (stay tuned for that here), I edited two sections of four sections that I plan to release over the course of the next two months. Both are sparse in dialogue, lucky me, as I'm not looking forward to the comprehensive dialogue edit I know lurks beyond the horizon.

It isn't that I don't like writing dialogue; I just somehow find it more strenuous. It was my first love, as a playwright and a podcaster, so perhaps I feel some invisible pressure? I'm not certain.

Either way; editing = cream soda. So, mmmmm.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Bending the Rules

I've, as of this evening, finished showing the missus the first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

I now, armed with a bowl of markdown Ralph's-brand spaghetti-os, will attempt to survive one viewing of the allegedly terrible-ass Shymalan adaptation, entirely for the same reason one might attempt Everest or a shuttle launch; for science and mostly lols.

Opinions, certainly negative ones, will soon be shared.

EDIT: So that did not go so well. I will abandon The Last Airbender to the 31:10 mark with "Katara's" revelation that the Waterbending Scroll is "rare!" Let us never speak on these horrors again.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Anonymous

On the heels of yesterday's semi-depressing post, today, a diehard fan of the original expired podcast series made a substantial contribution to the campaign. I won't reveal their name, as they preferred to remain anonymous, but boy oh boy did it absolutely make my day.

It seems extremely appropriate that, of all the people to donate, the largest contribution thus far came from an original series fan. I don't know why I didn't expect it, but it really warmed my expectations about the campaign. There's still plenty more to raise; we're certainly not out of the woods or anything, but today was decidedly a good day for Hull Damage.

If you're reading this, you know who you are. I think you'll be surprised with a certain little cameo.

For the sake of posterity, here's the link.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Happy Hull Damage

So.

Obviously, I've been busy as of late and the posting's been a little...hm. "Sparse" is a good word to describe an entry that's barely there and only counts as blogging by the vaguest of technical definitions. Let's go with sparse.

At any rate, I imagine I owe something of an explanation. In lieu of that, let me regale you some more about this book I'm sure you've never heard of.

As I said yesterday, the book teaser is online (give 'er another view, willya, guv?) and is more or less attracting good press. Approximately 300 views in two days ain't nothing to sneeze at, I'd be the first to admit. Near 20 "likes" as well, last I checked. It goes pretty much without saying that I'm extremely proud of the work we've done and am only too thrilled at how positive the response is. I'm hoping to reach a 1,000 views within the week. Maybe a little ambitious, but still.

The IndieGoGo campaign, on the other hand, is not exactly exploding. Now, we have raised $120 over the past two days and while I'm extremely grateful to our four contributors, it hasn't quite launched with the intensity I'd hoped. Most successful crowdfunding campaigns that I've observed seem to launch with rather more velocity early on and tend to peter out as the days drag on but, in this case, I'm a little afraid of what that'll spell for HULL DAMAGE.

Still, we're at 11% funded on Day 2. I'm certainly being too hard on myself, as is my wont, but it doesn't make the waiting any easier.

Someone (either the missus or Dan) first wished me today's title before I retired to bed on the day in question. It's been tumbling around in my head ever since. As pessimistic as I tend to get, it's important, I imagine, to remember the small handful of dedicated fans out there who do care and are interested in the book's eventual release, regardless of what the IndieGoGo seems to imply.

You faithfuls keep me afloat. Happy Hull Damage, everyone.