Seven Deadly Sins applied to writing – Pride

Posted on March 19, 2013 by fictionalpenguin under General Bloggity Stuff, General Writing-Related Posts

First and foremost, I’d like to indicate the shiny new linkage at the top of my page. I’ve finally made a page for “Joshua’s Nightmares”, which is a little ridiculous if you think about it since that’s the reason I made this blog in the first place. To follow my progress, or total lack of real progress so far, on writing that novel. Yikes.

On the plus side, I made a good deal of progress in terms of world-building today (while at work, no less), and will be doing a ton of writing for the actual novel tomorrow…so I thought I’d get this written now. I found myself thinking, “Self, there’s probably some way you could apply the Seven Deadly Sins to writing.” In line with my last post, I Googled that and was completely unsurprised to find a trillion billion similar results. Honestly, though, you could Google “Seven Deadly Sins of Making a Seven Deadly Sins of List” and there’s probably results. If not, someone should get on that! Moving on.

The first post–this post, of course–will focus on Pride. This is a bit of an odd one, as pride and writers go together about as well as peanut butter and gasoline do in a smoothie (Protip: Premium gasoline and peanut butter probably do make a great smoothie, though I take no responsibility for anyone who actually ingests a premium gasoline and peanut butter smoothie). On one hand, most writers suffer from so much crippling self-doubt that Pride (capital p for this post because of reasons) doesn’t pose much of an issue.

However, when Pride does rear is ugly head it often has to do with an unwillingness to make changes to a piece of writing (and, in some cases, accept that a story you wrote may actually just be a stinking heap of needs-sent-to-the-trash-bin-now). Maybe you sent it to some friends for critiquing, knowing they’d love a particular witty one-liner or character, and you were completely taken aback when that particular gem was highlighted with critical comments. On one hand, you could let Pride rule your pen and say screw it to those suggestions. Not everyone will understand your overwhelming genius, right? Or, more realistically, you could see what fixing that “gem” could use.

What I typically notice, and experience, is the absence of Pride with writers. It’s not even humility so much as this weird blend of doubt and self-loathing, with a splash of cheap bourbon. I’ll write, and write, and write some more, and then I’ll look at the finished product and think about how everything could have been done better, or had been done somewhere else already, and how the story itself wouldn’t be worthy, in print, of being used as toilet tissue. And then editing happens and I might hate the story a little less, or a little more, or just the same.

Ultimately, it’s a weird balancing act with being proud of the works you create, but understanding that everything could use a little tweaking. Unless you’re infallible, in which case I politely must insist you are actually full of shit.

Creeping back from a little slacking

Posted on March 17, 2013 by fictionalpenguin under General Bloggity Stuff

I’ve been brainstorming a whole lot lately, which is awesome, but I’ve also been doing that thing where I realize I have way too much junk and throwing it out. I’m pretty sure my back thinks it’s about thirty years older than it actually is right now, which sucks.

In light of that, enjoy some Of Monsters and Men. I only recently heard them/of them, because I’m often the last person to learn of new things, and I fell absolutely in love with this song. And the video for it’s pretty awesome, even if I don’t entirely know what the hell’s going on. It has a very video game/cinematic quality to it. Pretty sure I’ve listened to it at least twenty times today.

Enjoy, and more writing soon. I promise.

Some Earl Grey for warmth, and to ease weary bones

Posted on March 13, 2013 by fictionalpenguin under General Bloggity Stuff

…Much like my currently weary bones, as I’ve spent the entire day cleaning and getting rid of things. Yeesh.

Okay. So maybe some more shameless shilling. I know lots of people are familiar with Squishables (I have a mini Squishable Cthulu I bought/won at a charity auction)…However, I didn’t know this gem existed. How adorable.

I will admit, however, my greatest fear would be getting drunk enough I try drinking this poor little guy.

Wheel…of…Tax Season!

Posted on March 11, 2013 by fictionalpenguin under Posts of a Rant-like Nature

For most people I know, with myself included in that figure so as to artificially inflate it a teensy bit, it’s getting to be tax season. This largely means digging up any and every piece of paper that might, oh please dear god, add a little bit more to that oh-so-very-lovely tax return (or, in my case from last year, reminding the government I somehow won $1,000 on a scratch-off lottery ticket, which is so going to bite me in the ass).

Fair Warning brand Disclaimer: this post will get a little on the rantier side of things, as it is well-known by those who are familiar with me that money-related stress is my least favorite kind of stress. Waking up to an obvious, straight-from-90’s-era-horror-movies standing in my bedroom is a pretty close second. The point is there are many, many other web sites on the internet, and if you’re not a fan of money-related things, or rants, you may want to go elsewhere. Then come back here for the other posts, obviously.

So anyway, I’m a huge fan of bitching about money. It’s something most people want more of, nobody ever seems to have enough of, and not very many people are willing to part with unless they’re damn sure it’s going to something good (read as “it’s got to be for personal gain through material possessions, mostly”). There’s also a whole lot of people who are very good, apparently, at saying how everyone else should use their money for whatever reason (like, say, I don’t know…politicians, for an example). I’m not an expert with money, either, nor am I an expert with math, numbers, or people. I am pretty good at opinions, however, since I’ve been giving mine freely since as long as I can remember. As an important aside before I continue, however, I would like to point out to any eccentric billionaires who happen to find themselves perusing my blog that I am always willing to accept large donations to the Phil Likes Large Sums of Untaxed Cash Even Though He’ll Never, Ever Get Such Things fund.

Here’s what we do: set up a Hunger Games-style selecting process by which so many people are selected to participate in a game show for their tax returns. I’m going to pause for a moment to note most of the people who know me even a little bit probably expected me to suggest we start killing people, but that’s totally not where I was going with this and if you thought that you should feel bad (but accept I’d probably have gone there under other circumstances, so you were essentially right). Each player goes individually, which means television networks get to benefit from it lasting a good while and advertising agencies can give viewers ALL the commercials, and completes some sort of task or another (I never said it was a complete idea, and I’m really loving parenthetical asides in this post so I’m sort of sorry for that but not really).

Now for the important bits, though. The bits that will really bring in viewers. Each contestant is given a choice at the end of their run on the show. They can either accept their tax return, as is, no questions asked, or they can pick from one of three mystery prizes behind a door. The prizes would range anywhere from various denominations of cash to amazing vacation getaways. What? That’s boring, you say? Because the flip-side to that is there would also be rather unfortunate mystery prizes. Is it a brand new Ford Mustang behind curtain number three? Nope. Sorry, Timmy or Tammy Everyperson, it looks like you just forfeited your tax return for a big old bag of beef jerky. The money players would have gotten in these situations could go to, say, charities of their choice. Or the national deficit, I guess. Whatever. And, because I’m not an entirely horrible person all of the time, everyone would still get to leave with a little bit of money because, let’s face it, nobody really ever wants to live solely off of ramen noodles boiled in their bitter tears (even if it’s a necessary evil sometimes*).

Ultimately, anything that makes money less horrifying and misery-inducing would be pretty cool by my standards, but I really just thinking about the chance to watch, say, a high-paid politician or some crazy-as-all-hell oil baron risk big and end up with something like a boxful of deep-fried cow hearts or something.

*Spicy Pork cooked in vintage Self-Loathing-filled English Major Tears are a personal favorite of mine, as it was one-stop shopping.

Vidya games are the devil

Posted on March 8, 2013 by fictionalpenguin under Posts of a Rant-like Nature

There’s a number of things that will instantly, undoubtedly, and always piss me off. People who chew loudly, with their mouths open? You bet. Children running amok while their parents maintain a state of blissful ignorance? Check. And then there are people who, no matter the type or specific subset mentioned, consistently rail against video games. There’s always some connection made between video games and deviant behavior, like it’s some completely unnatural form of entertainment that should be evicted from the planet just as violently as some people seem to believe these games play out. Why, though?

First and foremost, it is necessary to point out I have been fond of video games for as long as I can remember. Label me a gamer, if you will. Ever since I was but a small child with my very first Sega Genesis (which, I should add, I still own to this day), I have loved everything video games have to offer. They provided a social lubricant to an otherwise-awkward child, another fuel for my desire to come up with my own creative content to share with the world, a pick-me-up for those days that really made me feel like the universe was out to get me, and one more leisure activity. Nice and simple, with no real negative impacts.

Points I am willing to consider are as follows, but may not be limited to these items (I am notoriously forgetful at times).

Video games, like any other leisure activity, can be enjoyed to excess. Yes. But that’s not necessarily a wide-spread issue so much as an individual-to-individual one, and most people are able to step away from their games and say, “I need to go do something else”.
Video games are being used as a substitute for/are taking the place of reading. To contrast someone’s desire to read with how often, or if, they play video games seems about as meaningful, to me at any rate, as trying to contrast a person’s desire to read with how often they participate in sports. Or community outreach programs. Or breathe. Do you see what I’m getting? If a person is inclined to read, or desires to read, the consumption of digital media such as video games isn’t likely to impact that. If they’re disinclined to pick up a book or two, that’s their decision. I would like to point out I am very much in favor of people reading, but I feel like a few posts could be made entirely on that subject.
Video games lead to violent thoughts and behavior. What I would say is video games, like many aspects of mass media, lend to the further desensitization to violence, but they’re no more or less guilty than movies in this respect. I also feel like it takes a special mix of conditions to result in a person who thinks a video game with violent actions should be treated as a guide for how to go about life.

Ultimately, there just seems to be something inherently backwards, something that smacks of an older-times-were-better-ones mentality, about people who treat video games as a form of deviance.

I’ve got to excuse myself now, as I’ve just been informed my princess is in another castle.

On Friendship: Sunshine and Rainbows need not apply

Posted on March 7, 2013 by fictionalpenguin under Moleskine Musings

The various joys and stresses of adult-life, coupled with the transition from “hooray, college shenanigans” to “holy shit, I have to pay how much to how many people each month?” have brought some interesting revelations, if you will, with them. This is actually one of those things I’ve observed for a while, but couldn’t quite put to words until recently, thanks to the boredom of standing behind a desk while the whole of Pennsylvania decided they didn’t feel like buying lottery tickets one evening. Bare with me, now. Some might find this a bit cynical, and by a bit I mean so blatantly cynical it’s almost impossible to miss the name tag this commentary wears (featuring the words “Hello, my name is HORRIBLY CYNICAL OUTLOOK ON BASIC HUMAN INTERACTIONS”). Allow me to pose a question that I, at least, find interesting to consider.

Have you ever been involved in a relationship–and by relationship I mean anywhere from the most basic friendship to the most intimate relationship with another person–that lasted so long it started feeling less like you were in it for the meaningful interactions, the shared interests, and so on, and more because it was like, say, a hostage situation? A socially-constructed Stockholm syndrome of sorts, perhaps.

I feel like it’s safe to admit, at least quietly to yourself so as to not end up on the receiving end of a punch to the throat, most people have at least one person in their life who they used to share a strong connection with, but is now only kept around out of some sort of perceived obligation. Gosh, I knew so-and-so from back in middle school, and he/she was usually a pretty good friend and it would be a shame to cut them loose. Right?

Maybe this is just me thinking about how the post-college life has such a noticeable, and interesting, impact on everything. Contrary to everything watching House, M.D. has taught me, people do in fact change. At the very least, they tend to show their “true colors” (a turn of phrase I always want to take literally, usually in the form of applying a paint roller to someone’s face) once various life situations change. Careers happen. Marriage happens. Unexpected babies happen. The list is pretty exhaustive, and I could hand the writing of this post over to all of the causality and crazy possibilities the Universe has to offer, but I imagine that would leave this entry unfinished for some time as the Universe has other things to do. Like lob great, big space rocks at us. Sorry, Russia; too soon? And I digress.

I’ve noticed how people seem to drift apart naturally, or forcibly, and it’s a weird notion to come to terms with after everybody spent all of high school scrambling to acquire as many friends as possible, as though it were a live action version of Pokemon (and comparisons like this should be rather telling about how sparsely completed my FriendDex was by senior year).

Then again, I’ve also long-since come to terms with the understanding of how people who matter most in my life tend to stick around, threatening to keep talking to me until the day one of us dies. Or both, if there are any joint-suicide pacts I’ve forgotten about over the years (fingers crossed I haven’t, because I’m not really the “let’s drink the Kool-Aid type of guy”). And then some people fade out, whether it be a slow and subtle goodbye I hadn’t expected, or like the ending of a bad sitcom that just needed to go away.

But that takes this back to those odd friendships that exist in a sort of Limbo between those two extremes. The ones that feel like they exhausted themselves, but keep on going.

Maybe this is just one of ‘those things’ I’m not supposed to fully understand, like basic algebra or what purpose the design of the Pope’s hat serves.

All the King’s Nitwits and all the King’s Clods: Prologue, or It All Had to Start Somehow

Posted on March 6, 2013 by fictionalpenguin under Short Stories

Some quick notes before the real, hopefully good, stuff: this is a project I’ve managed to keep under wraps. The following will be the first part in a multi-part series, hopefully with some reader involvement when the chances arise (think “choose your own adventure”, but with no entirely wrong choices). Without further delay, I present the beginning installment of All the King’s Nitwits and All the King’s Clods.

As far as kingdoms went, Edawean was certainly a respectable one. King Aster Kalarmey was a king of the people, just and honorable in even the most dire of times. Edawean held the distinction, out of all the fourteen Great Kingdoms of the Third Enlightened Age (the first two ages had not been so Enlightened, with the First being most noteworthy for actually being a complete descent into uncivilized chaos), being the least riddled with crime, the most free of corrupt nobility, and having streets more devoid of chamber pot spillage than any knight or filthy peasant could have imagined. The signs on each gateway of the castle-town proudly read “Plagues need not enter here,” which seemed to have been working well enough as subjects of King Aster had stopped making such a regular hobby of dropping over dead in the streets.

And yet, when it could be argued a kingdom is only as good and just as its king, and a king is only as good and just as his most loyal knights. Sir Hector Aldyr, the Exceptionally Bold. Sir Raphael Temmins, the Dispenser of Justice. Sir Gareth Marquis, the Fantastic. Sir Valamir Ysthar, the Frequently Nicknamed for the Sake of Brevity. Sir Bartemas Blainewright, the Chivalrous. There has originally been three additional knights, each one as exceptional in quality as the other five, but they had gone off to greater callings. Sir Jonah the Wise had gone on to become a great scholar of The Holy Church of Mostly Peaceful Gods. Sir Walter the Healing found his true calling as a great medicine man of the times by pioneering a new means of drilling holes in a man’s skull to remove demons from thoughts. Sir Horatio the Snide went on to stand sentry in The Great Castle Beyond when he accidentally shot himself in the back several times with several other people’s crossbows. In honor of their departed members, and because they had emblazoned the name on every piece of armor left in the kingdom, they were to forever be known as The Knights of the Octagon. Their motto, contrary to humorous jabs from roguish figures to the effect of “They’re the great and mighty stop signs of the law”, was to stop villainy at any cost. This was, in hindsight, not particularly inspiring either. However, it stuck as the King decreed it to be good and so it was.

The most vicious dragons found themselves laid to waste by the Knights of the Octagon. The most fiendish necromancers and warlocks found their magic ineffective (largely, in the case of the former, due to the lack of corpses laying about the streets). Witches proved equally ineffective, with the exception of a few embarrassing instances that somehow went without being recorded. Mischief and mayhem were at an all-time low, and as such the Kingdom of Edawean knew an unparalleled time of peace and tranquility.

This is an excellent thing for the huddled, filth-encrusted masses, but it made for knights with little knightly activity to partake in.

King Aster sighed, sitting down at the OcTable. He had endured day after day of chivalrous tales and feasts of honor, and his patience was running low.

“And then,” Sir Valamir said, “I raised my mighty blade Ryskrdlrkadir.” The King Aster rolled his eyes, unnoticed by the others who were in a haze of shared heroic bonding.

“And thusly smote the lesser dragon Krawg,” Sir Valamir and King Aster said together.

“Right good show, that,” Sir Bartemas said, clapping a gauntlet-clad hand against Sir Valamir’s back. “Val deserves a feast for such an exceptional tale of bravery! A feast, I say.”

“No. No more feasts,” King Aster said in protest, standing up from his seat. “Surely there must be something other than boasting and feasting for you lot to be doing.” The knights laughed.

“Such humor,” Sir Hector said, “is only right of a proper king.” King Aster opened his mouth to protest, but a quick assessment of the knights and an even quicker burst of calculated thinking forced him to come to terms with the impending feast–the fifth such feast, as it turned out–in honor of Sir Valamir’s not-so-recent victory.

“Three cheers for Sir ‘Myr!” said Sir Raphael.

“Huzzah!” the knights chorused, masking a quiet knock at the chamber door.

“Huzzah!” Princess Teresia entered the room, her footfalls almost completely silent.

“My apologies,” Teresia said. “I do hope I’m not interrupting anything too terribly important.” There was an almost-audible click as the wheels in King Aster’s head began turning.

“Not at all, my darling daughter,” King Aster said. “In fact, I was about to announce something very important to the future of the kingdom. Very important indeed.” The knights all perked up, leaning in though the king was speaking loudly enough so as to be heard in the neighboring chambers of the castle.

“Whosoever among you goes forth,” King Aster said, gesturing dramatically toward a window across the room from him, “and commits the most heroic deed of you all will win the greatest gift I have to offer. My daughter’s hand in marriage, and, with it, the throne as future king!”

And so, much against many unprincesslike, highly vulgar, protests from Princess Teresia, the knights each embarked on their individual journeys in hopes to achieve the greatest glory.

Which begs the question…whose (mis)adventure should be first?

An excerpt from my trusty Moleskine notebook

Posted on March 4, 2013 by fictionalpenguin under Moleskine Musings

I miss visiting the ocean. Perhaps, it could be said, I am experiencing a sort of help-me-I’m-trapped-in-the-Hell-of-retail cabin fever. I’d like to argue I miss stepping out onto the deck, or walking down to the beach, and seeing so many stars. I mean, if you think about it, there’s something so humbling about how we’re all on a gigantic rock going around a star that’s hurtling through space with billions and gazillions of similar rocks and stars

And let me clarify here: I miss the beach. I miss throwing down a towel after trying, several times, to lay it down on the sand just right only to watch it flip up and get a light dusting of sand (read as “a small island worth of sand deposited inconveniently”). The creative rush of building a sandcastle I invariably have to protect from the waves, which inevitably win out.

For all the love I have of the ocean, and its variety of critters, I am not overly fond of wading out into it for a good swim. That’s what the heavily-chlorinated pool most beach houses have is for, right? I’m not like this because of sharks, or the threat of getting swept out to sea, or anything quite so sinister (I mean, come on; I’m talking about the beaches of the Carolinas. Not Australia, where everything can kill you). This is largely because I have a lingering, and perhaps irrational, fear of jellyfish. Several family vacations to beaches after some bad weather or another meant spending time tip-toeing beaches covered with stranded jellies. There’s something about a brainless alien-looking blob equipped with poison-tipped knives that’s inherently difficult to trust.

I just want a chance to squish the sand between my toes and relax. With some mightier-than-molten steel high SPF sunblock, because that’s the only way I could not end up looking like a very Irish lobster after a long stretch in a restaurant’s kitchen.

Phil's Misadventures In Fiction

My ongoing misadventures, both in writing and life in general