Mike Salsbury’s Blog

At Origins and Gen Con 2009, I had the opportunity to attend seminars on writing provided by New York Times bestselling author Michael A. Stackpole. Mr. Stackpole appeared at Origins 2010 as well, and once more I had the opportunity to learn from him. As always, his seminars were very informative and professionally delivered.

Due to (in my opinion) a poorly publicized seminar schedule at Origins, Mr. Stackpole’s seminars were poorly attended this year. I only found out about them when I saw him in the Exhibit Hall signing autographs. Had I not seen him there, I would have had no idea he was even at Origins. His seminars weren’t listed on the site where other seminars and events were listed.

For Mr. Stackpole’s “Serial Fiction” seminar, I was the only attendee for the first half or so. Ever the professional, he gave the seminar anyway and I eagerly listened. Later, others showed up. Here’s what I took away from that seminar:

• In a typical series of stories, 70% of the material is “case work” – or material that is there as part of the current story only. It isn’t used or referred to again in the series. The other 30% is “soap opera” material, or material that shows the growth of the main character(s) over the series and provides a “pay off” for series readers who stick with it.
• Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe mysteries are a good example of series fiction
• Case characters grow much faster in serial fiction than the “mythos” (main) character
• You need to plan out ahead how many stories/books you’re going to have. You also want to have some vague idea what’s in them, so you can plant clues in the earlier books to use later.
• When planting details in the early books, try to avoid too many concrete details. Say “I came from a big family” rather than “I have 2 sisters and 4 brothers” because you may find when you get to the book where you plan to use that fact, it might make more sense to have 3 sisters or 3 brothers instead.
• Keep track of your world details in a file, even for background characters. That way you’ll know what you’ve established already as you go along, and you won’t have to go back to find out those details later.
• It’s not necessary in serial fiction to “dot every i” or “cross every t” as far as sub-plots go. It’s OK to leave the reader wondering what happened to a minor character or plot line.
• “Soap opera” material should appear in the middle of your main story
• In a 10-part story, the breakdown should be something like this:
  Parts 1-2: Case material
  Part 3: A storyline
  Part 4: More case material
  Part 5: B storyline is resolved
  Part 6: More case material
  Part 7: A storyline
  Parts 8-9: Case material
  Part 10: resolve the case and the A storyline
• Remember that every story in your series is the “first story” to some reader. Make sure that you plant enough information in each story that a reader can pick it up and get up to speed with just that story.
• You may be tempted to do a 100% mythos story, where you explore a “what if” scenario for your main character or resolve some issue from their past. This generally isn’t a good idea. It tends to result in too much change for the character to keep them viable or too little story to keep readers interested. Fan fiction is a possible exception.
• Something Mr. Stackpole has done is publish a serial fiction line in ten 1,000 word sections on his web site. This collection of ten stories is approximately “novel-size” and is bundled together and published as a single book or collection. If you start selling the collection before you publish the last stories in the series, some readers will buy the collection to read those last stores (even if you give them away on your web site).
• Burn Notice on USA Network is a good example of series writing, because about 70% of each episode is case material and about 30% of it is “mythos” material. Each season has an “up or down” feel to it.

In his seminar on “21 ways to kill a novel”, Mr. Stackpole provided plenty of useful advice:

• Writing to a fad is a bad idea. By the time you recognize a fad, the market is usually saturated.
• Look for “evergreen” areas like Tolkien-style fantasy, “pet fantasy” (kid with a psychic link to an animal), or time travel stories.
• Don’t write things you don’t enjoy reading. Readers will sense it.
• Make sure you do market research in the field you’re choosing to write in. Read the current leaders in that field. See how they tell stories, what they include in the stories, and from this develop a picture of what the audience expects from your story.
• Have a long-term career plan. Know what you’re writing next.
• Make sure your characterization is good. Having no (or poor) characterization is the number one way to kill a novel. Write at least two sentences about each character that describes them one way, and one that goes against that. (Example: “Dave was an expert sailor and navigator. Unfortunately, he was unable to swim.”)
• Give readers enough time to connect with your characters, or you will distance the reader from them. You want the reader to feel like they can see inside the character’s head, especially if they’ll be a viewpoint character. Introduce them early on.
• In every book, you need at least one “normal” character, or someone who is relatively normal. If you don’t, readers will have difficulty gauging how “crazy” the other characters really are.
• Don’t bounce the point of view around. This disorients the reader.
• No “tin” dialogue. Dialogue has to be appropriate to the character, the setting of the novel, and the situation. Listen to how real people talk in a similar situation. Don’t repeat things in the dialogue that you say in the narrative.
• Let the characters decide what’s going to happen, not the author. If the story in your novel appears to die out, go back about 7,000 words. Somewhere around there you’ll probably find that you made the character do something he or she would never have done. Once you fix that, you’ll be able to move ahead.
• Characters have to take responsibility for their actions and there must be consequences to the choices they make.
• Characters should grow, not just change. Growth is an attempt to alter behavior based on external factors, and the change made through growth is permanent. It may be some type of experimentation. It may even be a decision not to change something if that change would take the character away from who they are.
• “Nobody cries over change.” but they might cry during growth.
• Make sure the story has an emotional “heart”. Show the characters reacting to the good and bad things that happen, and how the events affected them.
• Predictability = Boredom
• Your story must have a plot. Even if people don’t like your characters, they must be able to latch onto your plot. If they can’t, they’ll walk away from the story.
• If your research activities are stopping you from writing, you’re doing too much research.
• Don’t “file the serial numbers off someone else’s novel”. Don’t just re-tell a Shakespeare story. You want the reader to say “I didn’t expect THAT to happen!” or “I’ve never seen THAT before!”
• Make sure you examine the consequences of things in your stories. If you have a device in your story that replicates physical objects easily and cheaply, there’s a definite impact on the economy in that world.
• Things in the story, like character and place names, should fit together and flow well.
• Think about how you choose to name things. The word “pope” has a particular meaning to Catholics, but not to other religions. The word “elder” means something to Mormons. The word “league” in reference to measurement has a specific meaning.
• Make sure the cultures and subcultures in your world get along.
• Sticking to your original outline can kill your novel. Make sure you give it a chance to grow naturally.
• Make sure you have an appropriate head-heart-hand mix. The “head” is the puzzle part of the story. The “heart” is the emotional core. The “hand” is the action.
• Try to have sentences of 12 words or less.
• “Show” as much action as possible and “tell” very little.
• Be careful with math and units of measure.
• Make sure the mechanics in the story are right. Don’t have characters putting tinfoil in the microwave or talk about the “hammer” on a pistol that uses clips.
• Don’t give an editor the opportunity to say “no” to your novel.
• Don’t revise as you go. Wait until you have the draft finished.

If you found any of this useful, you’ll undoubtedly like the various writing tips and guides Mr. Stackpole sells through his web store. I’ve purchased a few of these in the past and found them very useful. They generally include a bit more information than is communicated in the seminar, and are distributed in PDF format – which makes them easy to adapt to electronic readers like the iPhone, iPod, iPad, Kindle, and others.

admin Books Michael A. Stackpole, Origins, Origins 2010, writing

While at the Origins 2010 game fair, I had the opportunity to attend some writing seminars by New York Times bestselling author Aaron Allston. Mr. Allston has published many novels, including a variety of novels for the Star Wars and Terminator franchises, as well as his own “Doc Sidhe” series. On Mr. Allston’s home page, he posts information about projects he’s working on and includes a link to an online store where his writing can be published in eBook formats.

Here are some of the bits of advice Mr. Allston shared during his “Style and Mood” seminar:

• Write all the way through a novel or story from beginning to end without stopping or editing any more than absolutely necessary. This will keep you from walking away from the work or getting bored with it before it’s finished.
• Do not set out to create “art”, especially in the beginning. Set out to tell the story you want to tell. As you perfect your craft, you’ll get better and your work will begin to approach what others (and you) will see as “art”. If you set out to create “art” you’ll never achieve it, always comparing the work you’re doing to some lofty goal.
• A genre is a way of deliberately limiting your writing to appeal to a specific subset of people. This is why some literature teachers don’t see science-fiction as art, as it isn’t designed to appeal to “everyone” but just to fans of that kind of work.
• Mr. Allston recommends watching the show Dexter as an example about someone who is trying to be “human” and isn’t.
• Avoid writing “the shocking truth”. He gave an example from a news story about a woman who had been attacked with an ice pick and didn’t realize it until she got home, when she discovered “the shocking truth” that there was an ice pick stuck in her back. This kind of phrasing is trying to tell the reader (or viewer) how to react to the story, rather than sharing the facts and letting the reader react based on that.
• Avoid the use of adverbs and adjectives like “the pain was excruciating”. That’s not a very clear image. What is “excruciating” exactly? Better to use a description like “it was like having someone scrape off part of a vertbrae with a file”. We may not have a good mental image of “excruciating” but we can probably envision that “scraping” example very clearly.
• Similarly, if someone is described as wearing “red shoes” it may be accurate, but if there isn’t more to the selection of the color than that, it’s a useless detail. Why did the person choose red shoes? What do those red shoes make the people around the wearer think of them? Is the wearer tasteless? Is the wearer trying to attract attention?
• When you’re reviewing and editing your work, look at every adverb and adjective. Consider replacing it with an expansion like the “scraping” example above. Don’t do too many of those, however. Maybe 1-2 per chapter of a novel is enough.
• Mr. Allston feels that Robert Heinlein was a master of brevity in dialogue and description.
• Manage dialogue without any euphemisms for “said”, such as shouted, uttered, murmured, or “ejaculated”. Find other ways to let the reader know who is speaking, such as the characters’ word choice, sentence structure, or dialect.
• If you have written a scene and there is unwanted emotion in it (e.g., the bad guy looks more sympathetic than the hero), use the “Perry Mason” technique. In that show, the victim of a murder is always depicted as a bad person, so that the audience and the other characters in the story don’t get too upset about them dying. By making the victim appear to be “awful” you can remove the emotional reaction to their death. Similarly, you can downplay any emotional reaction by offsetting it with other feelings.
• Humor is anything that tends to make people laugh. Comedy is a genre, where there tends to be a setup and a punchline. People in a comedy say and do things just to set up the joke, things that a normal person in that situation might not do.
• During action sequences, sentence and paragraph length should be shorter. Descriptions should be the minimum necessary to depict what is going on.
• If you use time dilation (making something appear to happen in slow motion), don’t overdo it. A paragraph or two at the most should accomplish what you need. Even if the hypothetical time dilation continues on for quite a while, it’s not advisable to continue it in the text.
• There shouldn’t be large blocks of dialogue during action scenes.
• In an action scene, if a character is doing something unexpected or unusual, provide only the minimum amount of exposition necessary to explain the action. For example, if a pacifist picks up a gun, show them hesitating to do it but realizing it’s necessary to protect a loved one, then move on to pulling the trigger.

During his seminar on plot analysis, Mr. Allston provided information including the following:

• The “point” of your story should be something you can express in a very short sentence, like “Family pride leads to murder.”
• The “themes” of your story are ideas that you explore or express during the course of the story. These can generally be summed up in a single word, and there should be from 1 to 5 in a story.
• “Arcs” (usually character arcs) are the personal progression of a character, from the beginning to the end of the story. These should not be an external change, like a new job, but a deeper and more profound internal change (like Scrooge going from a grouchy old miser to a decent, generous guy).
• “Scenes” or “Events” are things that happen in a story in a confined space and time with specific characters involved. If you change the location, it’s a new scene. Change the time period, it’s a new scene.
• If a scene in the story isn’t accomplishing something to move the story along, it should go.
• Scenes in a story generally do one or more of the following:
• • Establish characters: Their conflicts, names, descriptions, etc.
  • Establish facts: Any back-story, history, off-screen events that happen, or time-critical information getting to characters
  • Reiterate or Re-establish facts that were already established, such as showing a subtle fact seen earlier more clearly, or allowing characters who weren’t present earlier to learn of a fact and react to it
  • Point to the future: foreshadowing and scenes that set up a situation now for a pay-off later (e.g., picks up some papers and later finds a winning lottery ticket in them)
  • Complicate matters: Add obstacles the slow things down, or a “quest” that the character must finish to get something needed to resolve the main conflict. These can also include “reversals” where we learn that something isn’t what we thought it was (e.g., drug dealer is really an undercover cop).
  • Move things along, facilitating progress in the main story: This can (and where appropriate should) include the character looking at the options to solve his or her problem and choosing one, with the possible repercussions of the choice spelled out.
  • Reposition characters: Move them physically or emotionally where you need them. For example, getting them on a bus so they’re across town at the right time, or having them get bad news that makes them sad at a critical time.
  • Address one of the themes: For example, if “loyalty” is a theme, test a character’s loyalty in some way.
  • Address the point of the story: For example, show the good guy becoming corrupted.
  • Address a character arc: A spineless character has to make a choice that helps him grow, or chooses the wimpy option and sets himself up for failure later. Characters should, by the way, fail in at least some scenes. If they always win, it becomes melodramatic.
  • Wrap things up: resolve a sub-plot, resolve the main plot, or reveal something like a character realizing he no longer wants the thing he’s been pining for the entire novel. Deliver a pay-off from an earlier scene. Give emotional closure.
• Having multiple purposes to a scene can misdirect the reader. You can introduce something seemingly minor (e.g., an unplugged clock radio) that comes into play later (e.g., character is unsure of the time something happened).
• During your review of the story, analyze each scene. Does it accomplish something? Can you hide additional things in the scene for a pay-off later? Should there be more action or a theme expressed? Does the scene accomplish “enough” to move the story along?
• Good examples of plotting include: The Godfather 1 and 2, It’s a Wonderful Life, and “A Man of Prosperity”
• An example of how a scene can serve multiple purposes… Imagine that you’ve established that Kate and Jack are a married couple. Jack lost his job and is forced to work a crummy part-time job that he hates. Kate is the major breadwinner. Each night, she comes home from work, takes a nap, wakes up, fixes them dinner, they talk for a bit, and go to bed. One day, Kate wakes up to find her alarm clock didn’t go off. It’s not completely unplugged but it’s unplugged enough to be “off”. It’s dark, and she hasn’t fixed Jack’s dinner yet. She comes out and finds him watching his favorite show. She apologizes to him. He blows up. He follows her around berating her. At one point, he grabs an old clock off the wall, shoves it in her face, and asks her if she sees what time it is. Tells her he’s been waiting around for her. Smashes the clock over her head. In fear, she runs to the bedroom and locks herself in.
  
  What did this scene accomplish for the story? It depicts Jack’s chauvenism, his tendency toward violence, and the couple’s rocky relationship. It showed a fight between the couple. It also establishes something more subtle: the time that the fight took place. Jack showed her the clock before smashing it, so Kate saw the time. Imagine now that Jack’s boss, whom he hates, shows up later in the story as murdered on that day and time. Kate believes she knows where he was. But does she? Her alarm clock was unplugged. Jack could have set any time he wanted on the smashed clock before she saw it. The show he was watching could have been on his DVR or VCR. The scene also therefore establishes reasonable suspicion in Kate’s mind that her husband might be the killer. The reader will likely focus on the argument and violence, not thinking about the time on the smashed clock or the unplugged alarm clock until much later.

I thought Mr. Allston did a great job explaining his points and providing concrete examples of what he meant by each point.

I look forward to learning more from him at a future seminar.

admin Books Aaron Allston, Origins, Origins 2010, writing

Frequently in my work as a Windows system administrator, I am asked to troubleshoot unusual application problems that our first and second-level support staff have been unable to fix. Although I troubleshoot these kinds of problems on a fairly regular basis, I find that I don’t always do so consistently. I might overlook something that I shouldn’t have, or I might forget something I’ve seen before that helped me solve a similar problem.

To help myself and my co-workers jog our memories when presented with an application problem that doesn’t respond to the troubleshooting steps we’ve tried so far, I developed the following (lengthy) series of questions to ask myself when I run into a problem that seems to be resisting my efforts to solve it. Since this list might be of value to others who are trying to solve problems with Windows (or even Mac or Linux applications, though this guide is aimed specifically at Windows), I thought I would publish it here so that others could benefit from it.

admin Windows Administration, Windows Support application, diagnosing, error, failure, fixing, problem, program, Troubleshooting

It’s November 29, 2009, and I’ve just completed over 50,000 words toward a fantasy novel I’ve tentatively titled “Rogue Mage”. Having reached 50,000 words before the end of November, I’m now a 2009 NaNoWriMo Winner!

The novel I’ve been furiously writing this month is set in a medieval fantasy world, very loosely based on medieval England. It focuses on two characters, Felicia Rothban and Aaron Blackwell.

Felicia, in her youth, was a very stunning woman. She was also somewhat shallow, and used her looks to seduce men who were handsome, powerful, and/or rich. Felicia was also quite crazy about flowers. While having a relationship with a powerful mage (wizard, magic user, etc.), Felicia’s window box full of flowers began to die. The mage, Eldren, cast a couple of spells that brought her beloved flowers back to health. He then went off to battle, and the flowers died. When he returned from battle, Felicia was mourning the death of her flowers. She begged, pleaded, and finally seduced him into teaching her enough magic to keep the flowers alive.

Eldren took quite a risk doing this. In the Realm, all magic users must belong to the Mage’s Guild. The Guild is a powerful organization chartered by the king, to recruit, train, and police magic users. They do not tolerate people outside the Guild practicing any sort of magic. The punishment for teaching magic to a non-Guild-member is death. The punishment for knowing magic outside the Guild is death. Eldren makes Felicia well aware of the risk they are both taking. Apart from the spells he knows for keeping plants healthy, the only magic Eldren shares with Felicia is a spell to heal injury to human beings. This he taught her to help keep her alive.

Felicia later left Eldren for someone more wealthy and powerful, a Lord Clemmons. Clemmons was a married man, but promised to marry Felicia when he ended the relationship with his wife. He bought Felicia a small cottage in a remote farming village and asked her to wait there for his return. Years passed with no word from Clemmons. Felicia was destitute and had no way back to Capitol City, where she’d spent most of her life. She had no skills, and her beauty was beginning to fade. All she had was the magic she’d been taught. She made the best of her situation in the small farming village she’d been left in. She told the farmers she could heal their sick crops, but was a bit vague on how. They accepted her help, because she got good results and helped increase their yields. They believed she was probably a mage but she had never admitted this.

Aaron Blackwell was a young man who had grown up in this small farming village named Agrinnia. He was a smart boy, but not very coordinated or muscular. This put him at a marked disadvantage for farm work, and he was frequently bullied and ridiculed because of his physical weakness. However, Aaron’s father got him a job at the scrivener’s where he worked. Aaron spent his days copying books, contracts, and other documents for the scrivener’s customers. One day, on his way to lunch, two farm boys carry the struggling Aaron into an alley and rob him, beating him severely in the process. He stumbles into the nearby inn and collapses at a table.

Felicia walks in and sees Aaron’s state. She takes pity on him and casts a spell to heal him. When he sees her pull a scroll from a case she carries, he recognizes it as looking a lot like something he had been copying at work. He realizes the woman is a mage and the book he is currently copying must be a spellbook. He then finds a way to get a spell out of the heavily-protected shop where he works – by memorizing it. He writes it down outside the shop and starts to study it. It’s written in a language he can’t understand and uses symbols that mean nothing to him. While he’s looking over the paper, Felicia comes into the inn. She comes over to ask how he’s feeling, and sees the spell. She turns white and tells him he must hide it immediately. He asks why. She explains that if he’s seen in possession of this paper by a Guild mage, they will most likely kill him.

Later, Felicia realizes that the best way for her to get out of town is to learn more magic. Aaron has access to a lot of it, and it’s clear he’s been getting bullied on a fairly regular basis his whole life. In exchange for the spells he can provide, she agrees to teach him how to use them. Unfortunately, because Felicia received only the most minimal training herself, they aren’t able to understand many of the spells they collect. They have to try them out and see what they do in order to determine their value. In time, they become friends and lovers.

One day, Felicia is asked by a local farm boy to help with a sick crop. She follows the boy to their farm. While walking through a barn, the boy turns and attacks her, attempting to force himself on her. She fights back, but he is too strong for her. She remembers a fear spell Aaron stole for them, and casts it on the boy. He runs out of the barn, across a field. He trips and hits his head on the stone wall around a well. She kicks him out of anger, after verifying that he’s still alive. She leaves. The boy later dies and his parents believe Felicia has murdered him. The national police force, known as the Realm Patrol, investigates. They determine the boy’s death was indeed an accident but bruises on his body match the shoes worn by Felicia. They charge her with assault and imprison her.

In prison, Felicia is visited by Eldren, the mage who taught her to cast spells. She tells him her story, including the use of the fear spell. He asks where she learned that, since he didn’t teach her. She tells him she sometimes buys spells from people who find them in a dead mage’s belongings. He doesn’t tell her, but he’s not satisfied with that explanation. He happens to be the mage who invented the fear spell and only a few others (whom he taught personally) know it. He sends an apprentice to investigate, under the guise of having a spellbook copied. Aaron copies an interesting-looking spell from this book and gives it to Felicia. She tries it out, and ends up causing a giant, brightly glowing ball of energy to appear over the forest near her home. The apprentice now knows there is a problem and returns to his master.

Eldren and three other mages return to Agrinnia. They pull Aaron from the scrivener’s shop and take him to Felicia’s home. They confront her with evidence they’ve collected. She tells them she’s been trading spells to Aaron in exchange for romantic favors, and that he knows nothing of what he’s been copying for her apart from recognizing the general look of written spells. She also points out that it was Eldren who taught her magic. The mages kill Eldren first, for violating Guild law, then kill Felicia. Aaron is allowed to live after they try to determine if he knows any magic. He finds out they got him fired. He now has no source of income and no Felicia. However, he has inherited her home. He sells it, and decides to go to Capitol City to join the Mage’s Guild, hoping to destroy it from within.

He’s admitted to the Guild and assigned to a master mage named Elric. Elric begins teaching Aaron magic, and takes him on a mission into a neighboring country. There, they need to find a way to neutralize the magic used by the local population, to pave the way for their king to invade the country.

As my 50,000th word hit, they were in the other country, posing as businessmen who hoped to make money there. They realized they would need enough month to be able to pass as wealthy businessmen, which neither had. Aaron had spent his inheritance getting to Capitol City, bribing his way into the Guild, and reaching Elric. Elric had a bit of money, but not enough to pass for a businessman. He tells Aaron the answer is to rob a secure bank in the village they’re passing through…

That’s where the story stands as of the moment… I expect to finish it some time in December, then clean it up a bit. When I think it’s at least “tolerable” to read, I’m planning to publish it as a PDF and make it available here for people to download and read. Right now, it’s incredibly rough. NaNoWriMo focuses on writing speed rather than writing quality, so my novel contains a lot of wrong turns and foreshadowing for things that I intended to write into the story and never did. If you were to read it in its current form, you’d most likely come to the conclusion that I absolutely stink as a writer… and I wouldn’t blame you. All I really have here is a very rough draft for a part of a novel, not an entire novel and certainly not a good, polished one.

In any case, NaNoWriMo was a fun experience and I look forward to participating in it again in 2010.

admin Life creative writing, fiction, NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, novel writing

I first heard of the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) last year, but never bothered to investigate it or learn much about it because I figured there was no chance I’d be able to write a novel that would be worth anyone judging for a contest.

As it turns out NaNoWriMo isn’t exactly a “judged” contest. It works something like this… Starting on November 1, you begin writing a 50,000 word novel. If you complete and submit that novel by November 31, you’re considered a “winner”. You receive a “web badge” and downloadable certificate you can print out. Not exactly the greatest prizes, but there are some corporate sponsors offering nice prizes. The makers of the Macintosh writing software “Scrivener” are offering a substantial discount to the winners on December 2, 2009. An on-demand publisher will print a free “proof” copy of your book and bind it for you. They’ll also optionally help you sell it via Amazon.com and other outlets.

If you’re curious and want to check in on how I’m doing and what I’m writing, here’s my profile on the NaNoWriMo site. As of this writing, I’m way behind the goal. On the other hand, I only really started this effort on November 4, so I’m about 3-4 days behind most other participants.

admin Books NaNoWriMo, novel writing, writing

As I mentioned recently, I was fortunate enough to be able to meet Erik and Jaret of the band Bowling for Soup. One of the songs they sang that evening came from their new album. Jaret said that parents shouldn’t let their children see the video produced for that song, because it took his sweet little love song “My Wena” and turned it into something disgusting and perverted. When you read the lyrics for that song below, I’m sure you’ll wonder how hard the record company had to work to get something disgusting out of it…

“My Wena”
by Bowling for Soup

Her name is Wena.
Hey, have you seen-a?
Everyone says she’s amazing.
She gets so jealous,
She sticks her head up
When I’m checkin’ out the ladies.
And she needs so much attention
She’s always hangin’ around.

My Wena is lonely tonight.
[My Wena]
She cries when I turn out the light
[My Wena]
She’s only happy when I’m holdin’ her tight
Oh, My Wena.
Take a look at my Wena.

My little Wena,
Queen of the scene
And all the girls wanna be around her
Her skin is so soft,
I can’t keep my hands off
Ever since the day I found her.
And she’ll make your heart beat faster
With the wink of an eye.

My Wena is lonely tonight.
[My Wena]
She cries when I turn out the light
[My Wena]
She’s only happy when I’m holdin’ her tight
Oh, My Wena.
Have you seen my Wena?
Get a load o’ my…

Sometimes she can’t sleep at night
And I wake up and she’s just a-lookin’ at me
And she snuggles up tight when it’s cold outside
She likes to show off when we’re walkin’ the beach
And she’s always up for goin’ extra innings
She’s a sucker for a happy ending.
And we may not always agree,
But she’s always here with me.

My Wena is lonely tonight.
She cries when I turn out the light
She’s only happy when I’m holdin’ her tight
My Wena.
[Take a look at my Wena.]

My Wena is lonely tonight.
[My wonderful Wena.]
She cries when I turn out the light
[She wants to get between ya.]
She’s only happy when I’m holdin’ her tight
Oh, My Wena.
My wonderful Wena.

Here’s a video of Bowling for Soup playing the song live at the Garage Bar in Columbus on July 8, 2009.

admin music bowling for soup, Lyrics, My Wena

I’ve been a fan of the band Bowling for Soup since the first time I heard the song “1985″. As someone who was a teenager during the 1980s, it’s easy to identify with many of the things it mentions, to say nothing of getting older. “My Hometown” reminds me of my own hometown in southern Ohio, even though it’s written about the band’s hometown in Texas. Many of their songs, like “Almost”, aren’t just about familiar themes but are also just good fun to listen to. They are, without a doubt, one of my favorite bands.

Local radio station WNCI 97.9 has been featuring Bowling for Soup this week. Today, the guys joked(?) that WNCI had forgotten to budget for their meals and they were going to have to start eating with their fans. This ended up becoming an informal call-in contest where listeners offered to provide the band with dinner that night. The wife of someone at my office won that contest. Her husband asked one of his co-workers (a friend of mine) if he was familiar with Bowling for Soup. My friend was invited to the party and told he could bring a couple of friends with him. Knowing I was a big fan, he was kind enough to invite me. I jumped at the chance. I’d wanted to see Bowling for Soup play live for a long time, and it was amazing to think I’d be seeing them in such an informal setting.

Around 7:15, I arrived at the house. On the door was a sign indicating that Bowling for Soup was here, so I knew I was at the right place. Inside I caught up with the friend who had invited me, as well as the co-worker whose home it was. My friend and I spent quite a while chatting with bass player and vocalist Erik Chandler. He talked about the rigors of being on the road, missing his girlfriend, and how it can take a while to settle in when you get back home. Erik’s a good guy and I very much enjoyed meeting him.

A while after that, the guitars were brought in and the guys played several acoustic versions of their songs. I can’t remember the entire set list, but it included at least the following:

• 1985
• Ohio (Come Back to Texas)
• Girl All the Bad Guys Want
• High School Never Ends
• When We Die
• My Wena
• Hit Me Baby One More Time (Britney Spears cover)
• Two-Seater
• Hooray for Beer

Not wanting to be an irritating fan, I did not take my digital camera with me. (I regret that now, since several people did.) I did take my cell phone, however. The good news is that I took a couple of pictures and a short bit of video. The bad news is that in the low light, my cell phone took two blurry pictures and the video is at least as bad. I’ve put the pictures below because they’re all I have, not because they’re especially great or that it’s obvious who they are. I may post the video on YouTube at some point just to share something of the experience.

At the end of the evening, many people posed for pictures with the guys. My stupid cellphone battery was dead at that point, so I wasn’t able to have my picture taken with them… which was a bummer. I did, however, get to shake Jaret’s hand and talk to him briefly, explaining that I’ve been a big fan for several years now and that I am looking forward to their latest (upcoming) album. He said they expect it to be out in September and think it’s probably the best they’ve ever done. I’m looking forward to picking it up as soon as it’s available.

I heard several people comment afterward how talented and fun the guys were (and they were right). Even though it was something of an impromptu, casual event, they gave a great performance. Erik and Jaret were every bit as cool and down-to-earth as you’d expect them to be, given the content of their music. It was an excellent, once-in-a-lifetime experience and I thank my co-workers for being kind and thoughtful enough to allow me to take part.

Erik and Jaret of Bowling for Soup (Live Acoustic)

Erik and Jaret Live Acoustic Show - July 7, 2009

admin music bowling for soup, Erik Chandler, Jaret Reddick

Michael A. Stackpole is a fairly prolific author, having penned a large number of fantasy-themed books, Star Wars novels, Battletech novels, and other works of fiction. He’s had a long and successful career. In other words, the man knows a bit about writing. He runs a web site, stormwolf.com, where he shares (and sells) what he knows and writes. He hosted a seminar at Origins 2009 entitled “The Rules of Writing”, in which he shared his top 5 tips to help aspiring fiction writers improve their craft.

I signed up for one of his sessions. After attending, I wished I had signed up for the others. Stackpole not only understands what beginning fiction writers (and experienced ones) struggle with, he also knows how to communicate solutions to those problems effectively. I think I learned more in the 1-hour session with him than I’ve learned in all the other creative writing education I’ve had. To give you an idea what to expect, I’m going to share some of what I learned from Stackpole during his Origins 2009 session. Out of respect for the author and a desire not to infringe on his copyrights (he sells a document with his 20 rules of writing) or affect his attendance at seminars, I’m only sharing part of the information here. If you want to learn more, and get more detail, I would encourage you to visit his stormwolf.com site or attend one of his seminars.

Stackpole’s first “Rule of Writing” is “Show, Don’t Tell”. This is something you hear in many creative writing classes, but Stackpole did a great job of illustrating the impact of doing it right. For example, a beginning writer will “tell” you what is going on, such as “Tom was mad.” That definitely tells you what’s going on, but you don’t have to actually think about the words. It’s better to “show” your audience how mad Tom is, by saying something like “Tom’s face turned red. He gritted his teeth and slammed his fist on the counter.” In the second example, you have to visualize what’s going on. Not only do you get the point (”Tom is mad”), you can also picture just how mad Tom is.

Stackpole also tells writers to use “Continuity Bolts” in their work to hold the story together and make it seem real. For example, if the main character in your story visits a local bar and has a conversation with the bartender while waiting on a friend to show up, use that conversation and the bartender character elsewhere in the story. Perhaps your main character needs to go to the post office to pick up a package. While he’s waiting in line, he might see the bartender buying stamps. This makes your fictional world seem more real. Similarly, if a television in the bar talks about some news story, the main character might hear people talking about that same story in line at the post office. These elements of continuity make your fictional world seem more complete and consistent, and reward readers for paying attention.

The rule that stuck with me the most was “He said, she said”. This refers to something I’ve always struggled with when I write fiction. I knew it sounded horribly awkward, but I just couldn’t see a way around it. In about two minutes, Stackpole pushed me right past that block and helped me understand what I should do instead. Lots of beginning writers construct dialogue in their stories like this:

“I don’t like it,” Tom said. “You spend too much time at that night club.”

“Don’t be jealous,” Jane told him. “I’m only dancing and hanging out with my girlfriends.”

Tom asked, “Then why did Fred tell me he saw you sitting with that guy from Accounting?”

All that “said”, “told”, and “asked” stuff gets repetitive and irritating after a while. But how do you make it obvious who’s doing the talking? Stackpole explained that one way you can do that effectively is to give your characters a unique style of speaking. Perhaps one character never uses contractions. Maybe one uses a lot of big words, while another chooses smaller, one-syllable ones. The above example might be rewritten as:

“Ticks me off, you goin’ clubbin’ like that every night.”

“That’s silly! I only go to dance and hang out with the girls.”

“Fred saw you sittin’ with a jerk from Accountin’. Why?”

In that example, Tom tends not to say the “g” at the end of words. He also likes to use shorter, more gutteral sounding sentences. Jane uses more complete sentences and a more formal speech pattern.

Another way to identify speakers is to have them name one another, as in “Oh Tom, you’re always saying things like that.”

You can also illustrate who is speaking indirectly, by showing actions they take while they’re speaking, such as “Tom picked at his fingernails.” right before he says something.

You can also hide clues in the context of the characters’ speech, such as “Being the chief of police has its advantages, eh?” If three characters are speaking and only one is the chief of police, you know who they’re talking to. It’s also likely that the next person to speak will be that “chief of police” character. These little clues help the reader figure out who is talking, who’s listening, etc., without having to explicitly use the words “he said”, “she uttered”, “she asked”, etc.

For example, another way you might rewrite the original scene:

He gritted his teeth. “Ticks me off, you goin’ clubbin’ every night, Jane.”

“Oh, Tommy! I only go to dance and hang out with my girlfriends.”

“Fred saw you sittin’ with a jerk from Accountin’. Why?”

In the first line, we know the speaker is male, and he is talking to Jane, even if we don’t know who that speaker is. In the next line, Jane tells us it’s Tom. Now that we’ve established that Tom and Jane are talking, the third and subsequent lines can just deliver dialog until someone new enters the conversation or an existing speaker leaves.

(My examples above aren’t intended to be great writing, just quick illustrations to get the point across.)

Stackpole also shared suggestions for making scenes and dialog do “double duty” and explained the importance of researching the topics you write about. During the seminar, he recommended authors whose work provides good examples of different areas of fiction writing, such as dialogue, plotting, characterization, and

At his seminars, Stackpole sells CD-ROMs which contain PDF (Adobe Reader) files. I purchased the disc for this particular seminar. The PDF contains the 5 rules Stackpole discussed in the seminar, along with another 15. The disc also contains a copy of a back issue of his “The Secrets” newsletter that covers “timely and classic” writing issues. For example, his June 19, 2009, issue (122) discussed how to prepare documents for the Amazon Kindle device

I’m looking forward to attending Stackpole’s seminars at Gen Con Indy 2009 in August and wish him continued success in his career.

admin Books fiction writing, Michael A. Stackpole, Rules of Writing, writing tips

If you’ve never heard of comedian Rodney Carrington, that’s unfortunate. Carrington had a sitcom on television for a couple of years. Before and since then, he’s done a lot of stand-up comedy and other work. Carrington’s comedy is very “blue collar” like that of more well-known comedians like Jeff Foxworthy and Bill Engvall, though more “off color” than Foxworthy or Engvall. His act is part traditional stand-up comedy and part country music. I’ve been a fan of Carrington’s since the first time I heard him perform on The Bob and Tom Show several years ago. His latest comedy album “El Nino Loco” was just released this week.

(If you don’t enjoy off-color humor you may want to stop reading at this point.)

The album starts with the title track (”El Nino Loco”) about a man who’s normally mild and reserved at home, but who gets drunk acts crazy while on a vacation in Mexico (this earning the nickname “El Nino Loco” from the natives). The track is a country song infused with Mexican instruments and backing vocals. The musical style is reminiscent of country singer Marty Robbins. It’s a pleasant song to listen to, but not Rodney’s funniest work by far.

In “Drink More Beer”, Carrington suggests that you can relieve life’s stress by drinking more beer. A typical line from the song: “When your truck keeps overheatin’ cause your radiator’s leakin’, grab the brown bag at your feet ‘n’ drink more beer.” It’s an exaggerated parody of more traditional country songs about drinking, making the ridiculous point that “Bud makes you wiser, Bud Light makes you lighter” and wine coolers make you less likely to be straight.

“If I’m the Only One” tells the story of a loving, dedicated husband troubled by his wife’s “wilder” past and current exploits. Musically, it sounds like a traditional country song. Carrington’s vocal performance is excellent, and makes for a very enjoyable listen if you have any appreciation of country music. Carrington’s stand-up humor slips into this song better than the first two, with lines like “If I’m the only one you ever loved, whose underwear are these? If I’m the only one you ever loved, how come you got so many Mardi Gras beads?” and “I came by your office with some cookies I baked. I walked in and I saw him and his hands were in your hair. Both your feet were pointed in the air. If I’m the only one you ever loved, how come your boss is all over you? If I’m the only one you ever loved, how come his pants are down around his shoes? I’m just askin’ questions, I don’t mean to pry. You got all the answers, so baby just tell me why…” The video for this track was a free iTunes download recently. The video ends with all the scenes of cheating being just a bad dream Rodney had after eating a “Pita Pocket” before going to bed, and his many children (none of whom look like him) being the result of adoption (and of course his wife being faithful after all). It’s definitely the stand-out track on the album.

The next track, “Wish She Would Have Left Quicker” tells how a man’s wife has left him unexpectedly, but “Now I’m just wishin’ that someday she’ll listen ’cause I know just what I would say… I wish she would have left quicker, I would have had lots more fun. There could’ve been shots of tequila, with Sherry and Sheila, bikinis with bottoms – no tops, and one happy man… with no ring on my hand.”

“White Shirts & Rain” discusses how women in wet white T-shirts are more attractive.

In “The Best You’ll Do Tonight” the singer tells us how a very attractive woman in a mini-skirt spent the evening turning heads and flirting with the menu in the bar, but took too long to find the one she wanted to take home and now has to settle for those who are left. Carrington tells her “I know you had intentions of goin’ home with Mr. Right, but it’s last call for alcohol and I’m the best you’ll do tonight.” To help the woman save face, he tells her “Hey, we can leave in separate cars and no one has to know. I hope you don’t live too far from here, my gas tank’s runnin’ low. But if all goes well and I close the deal and you’re lookin’ for a date next week, you can come right back to the same old bar and I’ll be sittin’ in the same old seat.”

In a turn of phrase worthy of the best country songwriters out there, “Bowling Trophy Wife” tells the story of a man who’s found a woman to make him happy even though she “weighs a buck ninety” (190 pounds). He tells us he asked her to marry him when she belched out his name. “Yeah, other guys like trophy wives with tiny little waists, they’ll buy ‘em yachts and caviar to suit their champagne taste. Me, I like ‘em husky with an appetite for life. I thank God for givin’ me my Bowlin’ Trophy Wife.”

The next track on the album tells of the regrets of a man who had lots of women in his life but “got down in the wrong one’s pants” and is “married now, three kids and dog” but says he’d “love to have the chance to go back and do you all”.

“Don’t Tell My Wife” exaggerates on the typical country music theme of a husband away from home who does things he shouldn’t.

The final track, “Funny Man” is a relatively serious one, about how a funny man is sad when he’s away from his family. This is probably based on Carrington’s own life. After his sitcom deal ended, Carrington returned home to Bixby, Oklahoma. He told Tulsa World in August 2008 that “Two years (in Los Angeles) doing that TV show (the sitcom ‘Rodney’ aired on ABC from 2004-06), and I learned my lesson. I don’t want any more of that, and there won’t be anything like that again. Tulsa suits me fine.” He said that “It was a great experience, and I met a lot of great people, but I was actually thrilled when it ended because I got my life back. Before I started doing TV, I had a successful career, and I was making a lot more money touring and selling comedy albums. When I went to do the TV show, I not only increased by 80 hours a week my workload, but I took a pay cut. It was a bad deal all the way around.”

Musically, this a great album to listen to. Carrington’s vocals and the accompanying instrumental work is as good as you’ll find on any current country album. From a comedic standpoint, it isn’t his best work. That’s not to say it’s a “bad” album at all. It’s quite fun to listen to. I find his stand-up (spoken) comedy much funnier than his musical work, though I do enjoy both. His 1998 album “Hangin’ With Rodney” might be his best work overall, as it contains several of his signature bits like “Dancing with a Man”, his country cover of “Purple Rain” and “Kiss” by Prince, “Fred”, “Little Things”, and “Letter to My P*nis.”

admin humor, music El Nino Loco, review, Rodney Carrington

One of the readers noted that I haven’t posted an update in a while, so I thought it might be a good time to do just that.

I saw my endocrinologist earlier in the year.  They took blood samples to identify the level of thyroglobulin protein in my blood.  This test, as I understand it, is an indication of how well the surgery and radiation therapy did its job in eliminating thyroid tissue and thyroid cancer cells.  The test results indicated that my level was “undetectable” which indicates that they probably got all the cancer.  There will be annual tests from now on to monitor that protein level, the increase of which would be a likely indicator of the return of the cancer.

At one of my last visits, my thyroid hormone level was checked and was found to be a bit low.  I’m now taking the same dose I was before, but I take an extra half pill on Sundays.  They will check my level again in a few weeks to see if it’s good as it is, or if I need to take more of the Synthroid.

For the moment, the worst of the cancer and treatment are behind me.

I was asked how I’ve been feeling of late, now that we’re into a more “maintenance mode” for the cancer and thyroid hormone.  Before I answer that, it’s important to note that I suffer from some other medical issues that may or may not be impacting things.  For example, I have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, which is an illness that occurs for as-yet-unknown reasons and causes a person to feel pain in otherwise-healthy areas (usually muscles and joints).  I’ve also got high blood pressure and take medication for that.

Given the above context, I can tell you that before the thyroid cancer diagnosis, I would occasionally get muscle cramps.  This would happen maybe every other month, varying in severity from uncomfortable to “painful as all-get-out”.   Usually if I took an over-the-counter potassium supplement or ate a couple of bananas it would go away for a long time.

Since my thyroid was removed, the frequency and severity of these muscle cramps (commonly referred to as “Charlie Horses”) has increased.  It’s now almost a daily occurrence that I have a moderate-to-severe muscle cramp somewhere.  This past week, I’ve had several, some occurring during my sleep and causing enough pain to wake me out of a deep sleep.  At about 4:30am last night, I had a severe pain in my left calf and thigh, and a less-severe one in the right calf that woke me up and forced me to stand at the edge of the bed.  I was in so much pain that I couldn’t keep as quiet as I wanted to, and ended up waking my wife.  I’m still carrying that pain with me.

A low thyroid hormone level is one possible cause of muscle cramps according to what I’ve read online.  Certain blood pressure medications (specifically hydrochlorothiazide) can also cause this.  So can low potassium levels.  So can a long laundry list of other things.  I mention this because it it COULD be related to the thyroid treatments, but I have not had a chance to consult with my doctors to get their opinion.  What I can tell you is that whatever is causing these pains, they’re beginning to disrupt my life quite a bit.  It doesn’t seem to take a great strain to trigger one of these.  A gentle stretch, a bend of the arms or legs, etc., can set one off.

Apart from the muscle cramps, which are hard for me to ignore, I’m otherwise doing fine.  Once a month I refill my synthroid prescription.  If I run out, I notice that I’m more easily tired and what I assume is the fibromyalgia acts up.  I tend to stay on top of this prescription far better than I do some of my others as a result.

admin Life papillary carcinoma, thyroid cancer