The Ides of March (#IWSG March 2017)

It's IWSG time again. Remember last month when I said there was some life-upheaval stuff going on? I think we've got it sorted out, but it did have a major hit on my writing productivity for the month. Which is really too bad, because I had just started a new project that I was really excited about, and then I only wrote a couple thousand words for the entire month.

Anyway, thank you for the IWSG discussion questions, because at least it give me something to talk about!

(As for the image, in case anyone is wondering the Battlestar Galactica app game is what has been eating up the rest of my free time the last couple of weeks. It's terrible and I can't stop playing it.)

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March IWSG Question: 

Have you ever pulled out a really old story and reworked it? Did it work out?

Actually, yeah I have, and I plan to keep doing it.

Long time readers know about The Closet (from the title of my blog). This is both a literal and metaphorical place that I pull my stories from. Metaphorically it represents the place in my head where I get my ideas from. It's literal because I've been writing for a long time, and I have a bunch of old manuscripts stuffed in boxes in the closet under the stairs in my basement.

My first published work, Ten Thousand Days, sat in the Closet for about 7 years before I pulled it out and released it into the wild.  It was one of my favourite stories, and despite maybe needing a bit more work, it was a good test to get my footing in the self-publishing world.

(Side note: After 7 years, it still wasn't ready, and there maaaaay be another, very heavily modified version of that one coming out. Very soon.)

You can check this book out on Amazon, but if I were you I would probably wait a couple of weeks. Just in case...

I still have at least seven more full novels (not to mention dozens of short stories) tucked away in there that I've been thinking about digging out and working with. Six of those books would need major revisions as they were just first drafts, but one of them was fairly polished. I submitted it to a number of publishers about ten years ago but received no interest. I'm thinking about going back and doing something with it, but I'm afraid that it's probably not very good. There was a reason those publishers rejected it, after all.

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The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Writers post their thoughts on their blogs, talking about their doubts and the fears they have conquered. It's a chance for writers to commiserate and offer a word of encouragement to each other. Check out the group here.

IWSG December: Downswing

The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Writers post their thoughts on their blogs, talking about their doubts and the fears they have conquered. It's a chance for writers to commiserate and offer a word of encouragement to each other. Check out the group here.

Due to some personal stuff, the bottom completely fell out of my productivity in November.

Sometimes that just happens, I guess. Writing isn't my job, technically it's a (passionate) hobby. It's not the number one priority, so sometimes it needs to be put aside. It sucks, but that's what it has to be. The trick, I suppose, is not to get too hung up on it. It would be very easy to get caught up in the stagnant inertia and just give up for while. I've seen it happen to others. It's happened to me. I know this is a down time, and will accept that, and move on. I'll keep writing what I can, when I can, and eventually I will get to a place where I have something I'm ready to share again.

It's a cycle. All of this has happened before. And all of this will happen again.

This guy is waiting for me when I don't meet my word counts.

I'm not going to worry about it today. November was a write-off. December won't be a hugely productive month either I'm sure, but that's okay. We've got bigger things to worry about at the moment.

Let's go decorate a fucking tree.

10 Favourite Screen Characters

Celine over at Down the Rabbit Hole tagged me for a fun challenge: to make a list of my ten favourite screen characters. I was thankful for an idea and an excuse for a blog post, so I jumped all over it.

At first I had trouble thinking of enough, but as I went the list snowballed until I had dozens (especially when I realized that I could include characters from the TV screen!) and had to cut myself off. So basically I just picked ten at random from near the top of the list and here they are in no particular order:

Kikuchiyo (Toshiro Mifune)
Seven Samurai (1954)

When I first saw Seven Samurai as a teenager, I hated the Kikuchiyo character. I wanted a serious, bad ass samurai movie with cold, expert killers. Mifune was an over the top buffoon. But as the story progressed, and he became such an integral part of the plot and such a sympathetic character, you can't help but root for him. And then when I saw Mifune in other movies (he's brilliant in Yojimbo), I came to appreciate the actor and the character even more. As far as I'm concerned now, Kikuchiyo was the main character in Seven Samurai, and he has one of my favourite lines in any movie. It sounds silly in context, but if you've seen the movie it's perfect.

(At just before the final battle he starts pulling out bags and bags of swords)

Shichiroji: Kikuchiyo, what on earth are you doing?

Kikuchiyo: I can't kill a lot with one sword!

Top Dollar (Michael Wincott)
The Crow (1994)

Really, I could pick any of the villains from The Crow (one of my favourite movies from my teenage years), but Top Dollar stood above them. With Wincott's voice and Top's slick evilness, he was the epitome of a cool bad guy for me. He even used a samurai sword! He was also the stereotype of every vampire in every story I wrote or role-playing game I played for years to come. He's probably still my favourite vampire character from any film, despite not actually being a vampire. He just has the right level of vileness while at the same time keeping a slight sense of humour. It's awesome.

Best quote (after shooting the crow):

Top Dollar: Quick impression for you: Caw! Caw! Bang! Fuck, I'm dead!

Kurgan (Clancy Brown)
Highlander (1986)

The Kurgan was the immortal villain in the first (and only good) Highlander movie. While Top Dollar was slick and cool, Kurgan was a brute: mean, nasty, a bully. He kills the main's character's mentor and rapes his wife. He's despicable, but Clancy Brown just chews the scenery so masterfully and his voice is so frigging awesome, he steals the scene every time he's on screen. Plus he's so physically imposing and made up to look like a such a whack-job, he really does look like a dangerous monster.

Kurgan has lots of great lines (it helps they're delivered in Brown's voice) so here's one at random:

Priest: This is a house of God. People are trying to pray. You're disturbing them.
Kurgan: He cares about these helpless mortals?
Priest: Of course He cares. He died for our sins.
Kurgan: That shall be his undoing.

Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving)
The Matrix (1999)

Hey look, another bad guy! They're not all villains, I swear.

Agent Smith is the quintessential, creepy emotionless bad guy. The fact that he actually ends up becoming obsessive and crazy, despite the fact that he is supposed to be a logical machine, only makes him all the more terrifying and awesome. Right from the beginning you want to punch this guy in the face, yet he's so obviously dangerous and deranged that you don't dare go near him ("If you meet an Agent, run" remember?) Perfect bad guy.

Best quote is obvious:

Agent Smith: I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure.

Han Solo (Harrison Ford)
Star Wars (1977)

When I was a kid I was a Luke fan. The wide-eyed, simple kid who grows up to be a hero, that's the character we're supposed to identify with, right? But when we get older we all realize that Han was the cool hero. The nonchalant badass.

Except I realized recently why I probably wasn't a huge Solo fan as I kid. The argument for years has been "Han shot first" right? That the Special Edition, where they add Greedo shooting is some kind of terrible affront to storytelling? Well someone pointed out to me, after watching the original "unspecialized" edition with their 8 year old, that watching the supposed "hero" murder a random dude in cold blood with barely a provocation is HORRIFYING. When you're a teenager and older, you're like, "Yeah, that's bad-ass!" but when you're a kid who thinks good guys are supposed to be, well, good, you're like "Daddy, why did he shoot that man? He was just talking to him!"

Yeah, but I'm 35 now so I'm allowed to think Han is cool.

Best quote comes immediately after the above-mentioned scene:

Han Solo: Sorry about the mess.

Detective Ward (Colm Feore) / Detective Bouchard (Patrick Huard)
Bon Cop / Bad Cop (2006)

Yeah, these are two character, but they're such perfect sides of the same coin and play off each other so well you can't talk about one without the other.

Bon Cop/Bad Cop is a Canadian movie about a mismatched pair of detectives trying to solve the murder of a body that's found literally on the Ontario (English) and Quebec (French) border (The body actually gets ripped in half while they're fighting over it, to tell you what kind of movie it is). Ward is the no-nonsense, by the book straight man while Bouchard is the wild, dirty loose cannon, and they're brilliant together. The movie is hilarious and I recommend everyone check it out. You may not get all the Canadian humour (there's a lot of hockey references) but I think you'll still appreciate it.

[while discussing the aforementioned murder victim]:

Martin Ward: His heart is in Québec.

David Bouchard: But his ass belongs to you.

Gaius Baltar (James Callis)
Battlestar Galactica (2004)

Gaius almost singlehandedly wiped out the entire human race by thinking with his dick. Seriously - the whole premise of the series is that BILLIONS of people died because he couldn't keep it in his pants. He is a sniveling, self-serving coward, who - despite being a genius and charismatic leader - spends the entire run of the series trying to find ways to save his own neck instead of doing anything to help others.

Yet, despite being this terrible, terrible person, he survives through years of hardship that destroys and kills far braver and stronger people. In fact, he even strives at points. There are even points where you feel sorry for him (or at least I did, maybe I'm a bad person). Callis plays it to the hilt, making Baltar skeevy and haunted but also charming and kinda hilarious.

Doctor Gaius Baltar: So the fate... of the entire human race depends upon my wild guess.

Johnny Fever (Howard Hesseman)
WKRP in Cincinnati (1978)

I was a bit young for WKRP, but my parents watched it so my little brain was molded and warped by watching along with the misadventures of Johnny, Mr Carlson, Andy, Venus, Jennifer, Les and Herb during syndicated re-runs when I was about 5. I didn't get most of the jokes, but I laughed when my parents laughed and learned to love it.

Watching it again years later I really appreciated how well made and hilarious it was. It's probably my favourite sitcom ever, and Johnny Fever is probably my favourite character. Hesseman was genius here as the washed up, stoner disc jockey. Every line was gold, flipping back and forth between hapless self-pity and biting snideness (especially toward Les).

I hope they put out a proper DVD version of this show with the music intact some day.

Dr. Johnny Fever: Do you have enough money to feed yourself?

Les Nessman: Yes.

Dr. Johnny Fever: I don't, can you loan me some money?

Les Nessman: No.

Dr. Johnny Fever: Can you loan me some food?

Douglas Reynholm (Matt Berry)
IT Crowd (2006)

All of the characters on IT Crowd are brilliant, but the company owner Douglas stands out (the goth Richmond is a close second) for his complete perversion and disconnection from reality. He lives in his own little world and every twisted nonsequitor that comes out of his warped mind is hilarious. One of these days I should just write a post about my favourite Douglas Reynholm lines.

Douglas: God-damn these electric sex pants!

Hayley Stark (Ellen Page)
Hard Candy (2005)

If you haven't seen this brilliant film about revenge and child molesters, do yourself a favour and check it out. Just be warned that you will probably be disturbed for days afterward. It is intense and really messes you up.

Ellen Page is always wonderful, but in this one she plays a young girl who is picked up by a pervert only to turn the tables on him and begin a series of terrifying and thrilling scenes. She is probably the most sympathetic pyschopath you will ever meet because she is totally justified in her behaviour. Seriously, check this movie out. Just be ready to watch some IT Crowd and WKRP to clear your palette afterward.

Jeff Kohlver: Ah, so you and your mom are both wacked?

Hayley Stark: I dunno. There's that whole nature versus nurture question, isn't it? Was I born a cute, vindictive, little bitch or... did society make me that way? I go back and forth on that...

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So what about you? What are your favourite film or TV characters? I'm going to tag and challenge Philip Overby, Loni Townsend, Birgit Bedesky, Stephanie Farris, and Jennifer Hawes to come up with their own lists!

Characters You've Never Heard of: ANTARES

As a child, Claudio Antares was a bit of a bully.  He had a lousy home life, with parents and family who were never present.  When he did see them, they demanded strict discipline, a trait stemming from their own lifetime of military service.  Young Claudio passed that on to his peers and classmates, ordering them around and telling them what to do.  As he grew older, he became a ring leader for petty gangs, and always seemed to draw a pack of followers that he could convince to work for him.  His parents quickly shuttled him off to the Colonial Officer Training Academy before he could get into serious trouble, and where they hoped he could learn to use his leadership talents for good.

So for those who missed it, my theme for the A-to-Z Blog-a-thon is "Characters You've Never Heard Of" - characters from unpublished stories that fill up The Closet. You may not care about any of these dudes and ladies, any you many never hear of any of them again after this month, but perhaps you will find one of them interesting, and it will keep you coming back to check out my writing and ideas in the future.

So we're starting today with the nerdy stuff. Claudio Antares, call-sign "Hyperion," was my favourite role-playing character I ever created. It was in a Battlestar Galactica game, run by my good friend Jason. It was a game run via e-mail, so all of the role-playing was actually more of a writing exercise, as we wrote extensive descriptions of our characters' actions and how they interacted with the world the game master set up for us.

This particular character was so much fun to write and play because I let him be slimy and have questionable morals, which is difficult in many RPGs because you need the characters to be heroic and brave for the story to make sense. In the tense, paranoid world of Battlestar Galactica, he flourished.

Claudio was a high-ranking officer from a rich family who had gained his position through backstabbing and treachery. He had an extensive back story in which he grew up a bully protected by his powerful parents. Shortly out of military school he had an affair with his commanding officer's wife, which broke up their marriage and led to the woman's death. The husband was tried for the murder, found guilty and executed, but there were rumours of evidence that disappeared thanks to Claudio's father.

That's how Claudio operated: He kept his sterling reputation by always letting others do the dirty work for him, and slyly bullied and manipulated the other soldiers under his command. At the same time, he was going through some serious psychological crisis because things were happening around him that he couldn't explain. He began to suspect he was a Cylon (the "alien" enemy race that could disguise themselves as human), but couldn't prove it. Were his memories of his harsh upbringing just a lie implanted in his brain by the enemy? Was he bio-engineered to be a treacherous asshole? He didn't want to be a villain, but it was the only way he knew how to survive, and wondered if he was literally made that way and had no choice.

Finally, in one last desperate act he sacrificed himself to save the ship's doctor, the only good guy on board, the one who knew Antares was a dick but could never do anything about it. Antares did it not just to prove he wasn't as evil as everyone (including himself) thought he was, but to see once and for all if he really was a Cylon...

...which of course he was, which was confirmed when he awoke in a clone body on the enemy's ship a few hours later.

Damn, that was a fun story. I would love to go back to it one of these days to see where it goes (Jason, you reading this?)