Tag Archives: blogging

This week in my brain turning to gelatin

Posted on by under This Week in Misadventures

William Shakespeare provided a quote that accurately summarizes how I feel after this past week. It’s one of great wisdom and power, and it channels every fiber of my spirit in its present state.

“O, I am slain.” – Polonius (Hamlet).

That, coincidentally, is also my favorite quote from Shakespeare…which says a lot about my capacity to enjoy his works, I fear.

My week in misadventures was a busy one, and my brain has been rendered into a slimy, disappointing blob of gelatin. I write this in the haze of post-nap dreariness, knowing I need to get to bed soon because I open at work tomorrow.

That’s not important, though. It is, however, my justification for any verbal missteps. Moving on. Continue reading →

Why misadventures in fiction?

Posted on by under Misadventures in Fiction, Misadventures in Non-Fiction

Once upon a time, not particularly long ago in the bigger scheme of things, I started a WordPress blog named Phil’s Misadventures in Fiction. It happened because I had an idea for a story, which would eventually (still very tentatively) end up named Joshua’s Nightmares. In moments of pride, I would insist on calling it my web site and not my blog. I would post frequently, and then I would drop off of the planet because of other obligations. And then I would do absurd things like force myself to keep active while binge-writing a novel in under three months. I even shelled out some money so my WordPress could be listed as misadventuresinfiction.com (a fact that will never fail to make me smile for some reason).

Why misadventures, though? Why not adventures? Quests? Journeys, even? This is something I failed to consider, largely choosing misadventures because it felt right. It had that little bit of silly humor to it, and Misadventures in Fiction just sort of rolls off the tongue (or, perhaps, it awkwardly clunks off of the tongue). The title happened, it stuck, and I grew to love it as time marched along, as any creator often does (while spending much time in self-loathing for other things). Continue reading →

This Week in Misadventures

Posted on by under This Week in Misadventures

Or “This week in not really accomplishing a whole lot.”

I’ve got plenty of inner turmoil going on right now in regards to writing (I almost put “write now” by complete accident, and the self-loathing I feel is incredible). Joshua’s Nightmares, book one, is still hanging out on my laptop. It’s just kind of sitting there presently, a nearly three hundred page blob of potential that’s got nowhere to go just yet, and it’s a little vexing. Maybe a lot vexing. A lottle vexing? If I ever use that word again, someone please call me out on it in the comments because that’s just awful.

My conundrum is now the mix of “I have no idea how publishing works and how do I reach out to publishers to try getting this published” versus “Is self-publishing really so bad in this case or is it really just lazy, quick self-gratification”. Both of those thoughts have effectively prevented me from actually accomplishing much (we’ll get to what I did accomplish this week, which is a whole lot of nothing, shortly). If nothing else, I’ve reached a point where I would just like to make this story available for other people to enjoy (or hate, to be fair, because even if someone hates it they still ended up having to read a bit of it, and that’s okay with me). However, I also know that self-publishing is still sort of looked down upon these days, and I’d rather not be burned as a heretic or whatever actual, legitimate authors do to self-published sorts. Continue reading →

Go check out this blog.

Posted on by under Shameless Shilling

I couldn’t think of anything particularly witty to put for a title, and I’m not sorry.

Tonight, while meandering around the internet like I always do (because I am the most productive person alive, of course), I happened upon a new-ish WordPress blog simply titled frozenpeasblog. It wasn’t the title that caught my eye, however, so much as the little post snippet that was available. There are only two posts so far, both of which personal essays, and they left me wanting more. There’s a very David Sedaris quality to the humor, which should be a strong enough selling point to at least merit checking out the link above (which, by the way, is http://frozenpeasblog.wordpress.com/ in case any of you are too lazy to go back a couple sentences).

Also, the blog references Edinboro and so I’m obligated, by that alone, to share this link.

Go share some WordPress love, give frozenpeasblog a follow, and enjoy some high quality writing. Share it with your friends, because it’s great stuff and deserves to be seen. Or, if you’re the sort who likes to live life on the contrary side, don’t you dare click that link and enjoy the essays posted therein.

 

This Week in Misadventures

Posted on by under This Week in Misadventures

Or “My adventures outside of work, which include proofreading, some writing, and a small touch of drinking. Also: Watch_Dogs, in which I remember how I am terrible at driving and stealth, but great at blowing things up.”

Happy Sunday, people! Or sad Sunday, because I don’t know a single person who thinks, “Crap, I can’t wait for it to be Monday so I can wake up early and get to work”. If you are one such lucky person, I hold no hard feelings in the sense that I want to hit you. With a car covered in barbed wire and stabbing implements.

Maybe that was a little excessive.

More important than excessive, hypothetical violence, however: Happy June! May was, as far as I’m concerned, a rather impressive piece of crap. There’s been plenty of good to it, too, so there’s that, but this isn’t My Misadventures in Personal Existential Angst. I’ll try to not hear the impressive whoosh generated by the collective sighs of relief at that. Continue reading →

A little laziness never killed anyone important

Posted on by under General Bloggity Stuff

Or “I’m trying to justify my brief span of not really accomplishing much, and only sort of succeeding.”

I’ve not really done a lot of writing lately, and I’m actually kind of okay with that. I’d be better with it if I weren’t so very good at guilt-tripping myself, but that’s nothing new. Side-note, before I continue: my mouse is being extra finicky as I write this, so I can already tell that’s going to be an ordeal in itself.

Moving along.

Generally speaking, as evidenced by a plethora of blog posts on the subject (or, at the least, mentioning as much), I’ve been trying to do a little writing every day. Up through the past month, I’d succeeded. My actual, paying job, as well as my fondness of taking naps, slowly but surely ended up interfering, as work has become a bit tumultuous lately.

However, this isn’t all about bad news and me being a slacker. On the contrary: I’ve picked up not one, but two, contributing writer credits. I’ve written, and am eagerly awaiting, my first post for Screen Robot, and I’m actually really excited to announce I’ll be contributing to The Useless Critic (a pop culture web site run by a fellow Edinboro alum, featuring writing by other fellow Edinboro alumni, which can be viewed here). I say I’m really excited because, quite frankly, all of the people who contribute to The Useless Critic are substantially better writers than I am. It’s like being welcomed into a Pantheon of creative gods (note: if any UC writers read this, please know the comparison may contain some hyperbole) I previously believed I had no business being a part of. Like I said: really exciting.

If anyone has any suggestions for where I could find some motivation to actually finish a short story these days, it’d be appreciated. I’ve checked all the usual places (ranging from behind the fridge to lodged between my teeth, where popcorn bits usually lurk), but have had no such luck.

Progress report on Joshua’s Nightmares

Posted on by under General Bloggity Stuff, Joshua's Nightmare Updates

Or “I’m pretty damn excited because I’ve been writing all weekend, and this is the most I’ve enjoyed working on a project in a long, long time.”

Tonight, mere moments ago, Joshua’s Nightmares broke the 30,000 words mark. It’s on it’s forty-sixth page, and still has a ways to go before it’s completed. Most importantly, I’m loving every second of it.

I’d also like to extend my thanks to all of my followers. WordPress tells me I hit one hundred followers, and that’s also pretty amazing news. Thank you to everyone who has stuck around and kept reading. You’re all fantastic.

This post feels a bit naked without my standard, rambling prose, and so I’ll end it with this beautiful piece of music from the game Puppeteer (a game truly worth purchasing for its compelling narrative, beautiful art style, and amazing music).

New Year’s Resurrections

Posted on by under General Bloggity Stuff, General Writing-Related Posts

Happy New Year, everyone.  If you’re still feeling the after-effects of your New Year’s celebration, you should contact a doctor.  And Guinness World Records, because that’s one truly impressive hangover in terms of endurance.

I’m subscribing to the no-New-Year’s-resolution-here school of thought this year, because my New Year’s resolutions never really stuck in that they didn’t exist a lot of years.  Honestly, I can’t remember half of them.  Okay.  More than half of them.  I don’t remember most of my resolutions.  Moving along.  The short version is I’m going to take 2014 and give it a chance to not be 2013, because that guy was a real asshat.  I’m going to make sure, one way or another, I have a kickass year in 2014.  2014 knows I’m willing to resort to outrageous, cartoonish physical violence to keep it in line (that calender will never know what hit it).

More writing must happen!  My notebook featuring the Joshua’s Nightmares notes keeps reminding me I’ve been a lazy little shit.  Motivation would elude me here.  Sleepiness would creep up on me there.  Did I mention laziness?  The point is I’m going to work harder on being a self-motivated, strong writer who actually writes.  My wealth of notebooks need the appropriate level of love, and I’ve got enough tea to accompany about a thousand years worth of writing.  I wish that were an exaggeration.  I’ve got tea knocking the tea off of my cabinets because its being displaced by other tea.  And whiskey.

Naturally, I work bright and early tomorrow, but I promise more regular updates, some short stories here and there, and better efforts at getting things published because I need to actually make those efforts if I ever hope to accomplish anything as a writer.

Once again, I wish you all a happy, healthy, and, yes, belated New Year.  I only feel a little guilty for it being this late because it’s already crossed the social threshold from “what a thoughtful sentiment” to “well-wishes from someone who clearly spent the start of the year hiding out in some Doomsday-proof bunker”.

Don’t drink the water (and other recent events)

Posted on by under General Bloggity Stuff, General Writing-Related Posts

I’m doing that thing again where I try too hard to compel myself to write, only to become frustrated with the efforts I make.  I end up shutting down as a result.  This revelation brought to you by the on-again, off-again functionality of my left Shift key, which has seen more than its fair share of use in college writing.  Good old Satellite 5 (why yes, my computer is named in reference to something from Doctor Who).  More on the writing stuff in a couple of paragraphs.  A pair o’ paragraphs?  A herd of the written word?  I’m not sorry, but I’ll stop.  For now.

This has been a strange month, with more parts frustrating than good.  The sighs of relief were, by and large, outnumbered by the groans of frustration, and I have taken so many trips to my Happy Place (to those of you in the know: no, it does not involve a place where I go to set fire to my enemies, thank you very much) I’ve taken up dual citizenship.  My car was deemed totaled, and then through the good graces and unending kindness of my parents it was replaced (I got their car, they got a new car, and everyone but the environment won out I suppose).  There were two instances in which I was double-charged in a way that left my bank account missing at least $200.  Not many people I know are all right with that kind of money just floating about in Limbo, and I am not such a person.  Those problems were, in time, reversed.  Most importantly, or at least I’d like to think, I’ve taken the pile of good things and bad things this month has provided me with and understood that the bad things didn’t make the good ones any less good, and the good didn’t make the bad any less significant.  More Doctor Who references.

My household also welcomed a second kitten, now named Meowiarty.  He’s an extremely affectionate little kitty who moves with the speed of lightning and all the grace of someone who is about ten beers past their limit (read as: lots of magical moments featuring little M headbutting walls).  I mention his speed, specifically, because his ability to suddenly be places he hadn’t been moments before resulted in nearly getting shut in the fridge today.  He is also co-authoring this post, sporadically running across the keyboard.  That’s totally where the typos are coming from.  Not me at all.  Probably.
Speaking of authoring and co-authoring and writing and so on (I’m being lazy with transitions; just go with it, people), my good friend, all-around entertaining guy, horror movie enthusiast, and author of “Beauties in the Deep”, Zachary T. Owen, has asked me to contribute something to what I think is still a super-secret project.  I mean, in hindsight I could’ve always asked him how secret this is, but this is mostly a chance to point out how it’s close to Halloween.  There’s no better treat to give, to others or yourself, than a copy of “Beauties in the Deep”.

Unless you give it to someone who is easily frightened, in which case it’s the perfect trick to play.  Win-win situation, I think. The plan, as of now, is to at least have one short spooky story, minus the alliteration, posted as a Halloween treat.  Or, in the event I don’t deliver, I can always say it was a trick.  Joking.  Only joking.  I can think of a handful of people who wouldn’t let me live such antics down.

Funny enough: I almost forgot to include any explanation for the title, which was part of why this post is happening to begin with.  Drawing upon my half-hearted reporting skills I learned from one semester of hating my life-choices at Point Park University, I will take a moment to relay recent Hollidaysburg news.  Some asshole left what is being called a “vague threat” (note: the quotation marks are crucial, as they appear in most mentions of this “threat”), and so I’ve been advised against using tap water all weekend long.  Something about bomb threats in Hollidaysburg, too, but I feel like any explosions would have to be cleared as historically appropriate so as to not affect Hollidaysburg’s overall historical aesthetic.

It’s about time I wrapped up this collection of comments, or perhaps these meandering musings, since I’ve got to go back to what amounts to herding cats before a vet appointment.

I’m not actually dead, I promise

Posted on by under General Bloggity Stuff

I just seem to have fallen off of the face of the planet because I sort of did for a bit there, and it was mostly because I have (pause for dramatic effect) burned myself out quite thoroughly.

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to participate in Relay for Life, and it was an entirely spectacular experience.  Alternatively, I also worked a seventeen hour shift not that long ago and I am still, in fact, recovering from it.

Basically, I need to let myself slowly revive because I can’t produce anything when I have no creative drive whatsoever.  It seems like a really obvious thing there until you’re trying to ignore that problematic bit of information by, say, insisting on continuing a very work-heavy project while putting in around 50 hours a week.

The plan from here: Short Story a Week will receive a reboot at a point I’ll figure out later.  Since it’s being rebooted, it will start back at Story Number 1, which is painful to think about right now.  However, it was an amazingly fun challenge until everything suddenly went belly-up and starting stinking of failure, so I stand by my desire to make that happen.

The interview with a musician has been postponed (clearly) because of scheduling difficulties, in that I apparently retained nothing from my brief stint as a journalist..

Oh, and then there’s the whole “working on getting ready to move out on my own for the first time” thing going on in August, when I’m moving to Hollidaysburg.  Exciting stuff.

However, I have had a dreadful, awful, miserable bad day today, and so I am due for some Netflix and Animal Crossing: New Leaf therapy.