And Now, For Something Completely Different

I'm not a political person, and this is not a political blog. I like to keep the focus on writing, but I also like to educate and enlighten in this space, and I do occasionally shed some light on other aspects of my writer's journey that are not as obviously connected to me being a writer, but are still important to me.

I come from a nice middle class family. My mom worked as a producer for television while I was growing up, and my dad worked as an announcer for radio and television. (And while my mom has since given up working in the entertainment industry, you've probably heard my dad's voice recently if you listen to the radio or watch TV at all.) My dad's initial foray into creating his own business failed spectacularly, resulting in my family filing for bankruptcy and going through a divorce while I was finishing high school. When I graduated, I went straight into the work force because there was no money for me to go to college and my mom needed my help to make ends meet. I wasn't always the best at helping out on that end, and for many years, I carried with me an entitlement that I gained from having my every financial need met while I was in school. When I moved out, however, I had a job at a bookstore, and for a time I had a second job as a courier to make ends meet. Since then, I've worked hard to cover my own bills, to support myself, to get by as best I could on my meager earnings. It hasn't always worked. I've sometimes needed my parents to bail me out when things got especially bad, but I never stopped trying to make it happen on my own. I've worked at a law office, a doctor's office, and an information technology company. Considering I have no college degree and all of my adult education has been on-the-job training, I've done pretty well for myself.

Then the economy went to hell.

Then the government cut back on funding to companies like the one I worked for.

Then I got laid off from my job.

Now, 15 years after graduating from high school, I'm still struggling to make ends meet. It's harder now. People aren't as willing to hire as they were before, preferring to saddle current employees with the work of three people instead of bringing on additional help. I take temp work as often as I can and submit my resume for everything I'm even remotely qualified for, but I have no steady paycheck and I constantly worry about where money is going to come from so I can eat this week. Meanwhile, my bank continues to gouge me for money I don't have to pay hidden fees so their executives can continue to live the high life, forcing me to borrow money just so I can keep my head above water for five seconds.

I don't believe this is how the world should work, and I'm not the only one who thinks that way.

While I can't always get out to the Occupy encampment near me because I need to make money to pay bills, I nevertheless stand with them against the 1%. I believe real change needs to happen, in our government and our businesses, before things get out of hand. I believe our representatives need to listen to the people crying out for help, not the corporations buying their attention. I believe that the system is broken, and that our elected officials have a responsibility to fix it.

I know that this change won't happen overnight. I also know that it WILL happen, sooner or later. Until then, I stand with the rest of the Occupy Wall Street movement, because I am the 99%.

I share every piece of news about Occupy Wall Street that I can on Facebook, Tumblr, Google+ and Twitter, but there's so much more that slips under my radar. Please, I implore you, read up on this movement and understand what it's really about, not what the traditional media wants you to think it's about.

Edit: And as a sort of OWS primer, here are a few links to get you started.

New York Times: Protestors Against Wall Street

Huffington Post: Capturing Occupy Wall Street movement Demands

Portsmouth Patch: Roemer Fully Behind Occupy Movement

NaNoWriMo: The Halfway Point

Today is Nov. 16th, roughly halfway through National Novel Writing Month. Time for a pep talk!



For those of you still participating in this event, way to go! You're already a cut above the rest by sticking with it this long, regardless of what your word count is right now. Those of you who started strong but gave up due to [insert excuse here], it's not too late! Put the boots on and launch back into that word count with renewed ferocity. And to the rest of you who never crossed the start line, it's not too late for you, either! You'll have twice the work ahead of you than most NaNoWriMo-ers, but it's not unheard of to make that 50,000 word goal in half the time.

The halfway point was hard for me. Sure, I had kept with the daily word count goals I had set for myself, but I was still only halfway there. Real life was already doing its best to derail my progress and the last half of the month would bring with it the additional complication of the Thanksgiving holiday. An already uphill battle for a guy who had previously only done 3-page short stories was going to be even more difficult.

I had every reason in the world to stop. My friends wanted to hang out with me again. Family wanted to spend time with me around the holiday. Work drained my energy during the day, leaving me running on fumes at night. And then there was that ever-present noise in my head, telling me that I wasn't good enough, I'm not a real writer, I should stop trying so hard and give up now.

You know what I did? I kept writing anyway.

My friends understood that I had a passion and needed to stoke that fire in me. Family had to sleep, and there was always that time late at night or early in the morning when they weren't awake yet and I could lay down some more words. At work, I would write on my lunch break and during my commute to and from the office. I stole every possible moment I could from the day to meet my daily goals, and I'll be damned if I was going to let the world keep me from crossing the finish line.

As for the noise in my head? It was always there, and always will be there. Self-doubt is nothing new to writers. Even the seasoned vets still hear that voice drilling doubt into their brain. The trick is to hear it without giving in to it. Recognize that voice, smile and nod at it, then go ahead and write anyway. If you have to, say aloud, "I will make it to 50,000 words." Make it your mantra. Don't worry about sounding crazy, everyone assumes writers are weird anyway.

You can do it. I know you can, and deep down, you know you can, too. Stick with it, you'll be glad you did.

See you at the finish line!

My Awkward Adventure at Comikaze Expo

So, I covered my first comic book convention this past weekend, Comikaze Expo. It wasn't the first convention I've ever been to, not by far. That honor goes to San Diego Comic Con 2002, which instilled in me a love for conventions when I got to meet Peter "Chewbacca" Mayhew in person and ended up sitting at the booth with him talking about Star Wars. That was before SDCC turned into the absolute clusterfrak of pop culture that it is today.

Comikaze was almost perfectly situated in my life, too: I got sick before the convention, not during, and my beloved broke up with me right after it. The timing of these two events meant that I was able to enjoy the convention well enough without coughing or sneezing all over the people I was meeting, or in such a heartbroken funk that people would avoid me on sight. Timing, as they say, is everything.



It was a great event, though, even with so much going on. I spent most of the time that weekend in the company of my friends Eric and Jessica, then met up with my friend Jesse, and even spent some time with my mother (pictured above with me and Marina Sirtis) and her boyfriend. I met a lot of new people, made some new friends, and ended up with one of the best convention experiences I've had since 2002.

You can read all about My Awkward Adventure at Comikaze Expo, Day One and Day Two at Comic Booked!

My Secret Origin

On Monday, I posted about my geeky life and how awesome it is. But how did I get to that point? To answer that, I'll turn to the age-old comic book tradition of the superhero secret origin. Every hero, after all, has a great secret origin that gives meaning to their Hero's Journey. As a firm believer that we're all heroes in the midst of our own journey, it should come as no surprise that I also think we each have our own "secret origin" that gives it meaning. This is mine:

Looking back on my early life in New Orleans, it was no surprise that I turned out to be a geek. After all, my earliest memories were filled with programming my own video games, playing with my friend's Transformers, and watching Star Wars with my mom. Ghostbusters triggered my love of the supernatural, and Back to the Future led to my fascination with time travel. Sharing those interests with others was never easy for me to do as a kid, though. I was lucky in that I found a small group of kids like me in elementary school who were into Super Mario Bros. Super Show and playing "Let's Pretend" with Jedi and Sith instead of cops and robbers, but there weren't many of us. I'd wear my Ghostbusters belt to school and get made fun of for my interests. It was hard dealing with that as a kid, but at least I had my friends to geek out with after school.

Then I moved away from home to live with my mom and stepdad, leaving my geeky support group behind.

I took the loss well enough, but moving around to three different states in middle school made it hard for me to build a new circle of geek friends again. I never found friends I could geek out with in Florida, and just as I was making some good geeky friends in Indiana, we moved again to California. I understand why we moved so much, but man, it made life hard for me to start high school without knowing anyone. It's not like I was a social butterfly to begin with, and each move made it harder for me to open up to potential friends.

Fortunately, I found a good group of people to run with in high school, and I could be comfortably geeky again. I got into collectible card games and tabletop roleplaying games around this time, in addition to opening my wardrobe choices back up to geek attire. It was as though I had found myself again, and I made a vow to myself that I would never suppress who I am and what I like again. Granted, saying that's what you're going to do and actually doing it are two different things, but nothing worthwhile is ever easy.

It's been a long, long road to being comfortable in my geeky skin, but it's been a good one. I'm proud of who I am and what I like, and no one is going to convince me that my passion is wrong just because it's not mainstream.

Then again, looking at today's pop culture, it seems that geek is becoming the new mainstream more and more. I'm glad I've got a front row seat for the new geek order!

I Speak Out With My Geek Out!

I'm freestyling this one instead of writing it up in Word first, because it's late but I still wanted to get something up for Speak Out With Your Geek Out. My apologies if this is not as polished as some of my other posts here, but I hope you'll bear with me.

I won't retread any geeky ground as I revisit my path to geekdom here. I've already done my fair share of, well, sharing little peeks into that world of video games, comics and roleplaying games here, here, here, here and here. I try to keep from going geek overload on this blog, instead using my Tumblr for the kind of stuff that doesn't quite fit into a blog about writing. Still, this event focuses on writing about being a geek, and since I'm a geek who writes, I should take the time to address that huge part of my life.

As I write this, I'm surrounded by pieces of my geek life. Cloud and Tifa stand atop my computer, guarding it with a wild-eyed dragon, though my name tag from the DigitalLA panel on digital comics infiltrated one side. When I pause to take a drink and consider my words, it's from a travel mug adorned with J!NX stickers. Behind my monitor, Cap's shield peeks from behind like a rising sun, a souvenir from my coverage of a comic book store event for Comic Booked. To the left of me are boxes of comic books and my World of Warcraft hoodie. To the right, a bookcase that is patrolled vigilantly by Optimus Prime, Spike, and a trio of characters from Kingdom Hearts. Behind me lies another bookcase full of role-playing books, predominantly from White Wolf Publishing, and mostly Mage books.

My life is filled to the brim with geekiness. On Tuesday nights, my friends and I get together around a conference room table and roll dice for Game Night. On Wednesday night, I'll get together with other friends and tear it up on either Xbox or Wii. I drive to work with fuzzy d20 dice hanging from my rear-view mirror, and my rear bumper is decorated with the blood elf emblem. On my wrist is a bracelet that says GEEK. I may be dressed in a button-down shirt, but my undershirt says "U.S. Department of Gaming Affairs" on it... and I may or may not be wearing Transformers boxers. And that's only my work attire. Once I'm out of the office, I fly my geek flag proudly with a legion of geeky t-shirts that declare my dragonslaying prowess, or my love of 8-bit games, or that my d10 does indeed go up to 11.

I love my geeky life. I love that I write about comics and pop culture for Comic Booked. I love that both Star Wars and Star Trek are part of my lexicon thanks to my mom. I love that I can quote Ghostbusters or The Princess Bride and my friends will follow it up with the next line of dialogue. I love that I have friends who draw comics and create shows for the web and sing about Buffy the Vampire Slayer villains. And I love that the world is full of people just like me who live geeky lives and aren't ashamed to admit it.

I also love that my gorgeous partner Loki brought over The Crow tonight... both the graphic novel and the movie. I'll cut this short, but expect more geekiness later in the week!

Location, Location, Location

Whew, survived another holiday season! This time of year, to me, typically means more travel than usual, at least out of town if not out of state. I’m fortunate that my mother doesn’t live too far from my Los Angeles sanctum, but it’s still a sizable drive. The rest of my family is scattered to the four corners, which means braving airport security just so I can enjoy a nice plane ride filled with writing.

Earlier in my blog, I discussed being able to write anywhere to take advantage of odd writing moments throughout the day. In this entry, I thought I’d expand on that a little bit to discuss the traveling writer and some of the excellent opportunities to write that present themselves away from home.

Airlines are always encouraging their passengers to arrive in advance to check in, and in this day and age, it’s a good idea to show up well in advance of your flight just to make your way through the increasingly heightened airport security. As such, your writing opportunities begin before you even board the plane. Instead of counting the minutes until your flight starts boarding, try a word count to see how much you can get down before they start pre-boarding. This is actually a pretty good incentive to get to the airport on time for those who typically have “no time for writing.” What else are you going to do, browse the overpriced souvenir store?

The flight itself is the perfect opportunity to delve deep into your writing. You’re stuck in a cabin with nowhere else to go except the lavatory, there’s really no scenery to look at once you hit 30,000 feet (unless you really like cloud formations), and for the price of those airline headphones you could rent whatever in-flight movie they’re showing. They even provide you with your own mini-desk, and the flight attendants will fuel your creative juices with nearly any kind of drink you want. This is the perfect situation for a writer to be in – no one calling you on the phone, no chores that you remember you need to do, none of the usual distractions and excuses. It’s just you, your writing, and at least a good half-hour of writing time. And unlike the writer’s usual coffeehouse haunt, they’ll bring your drink to you on the plane.

Now, writing away from home can be tricky depending on where you’re staying and who you’re staying with. Family has a habit of taking priority if you’re visiting them for the holidays, and it’s considered rude to ignore your hosts if they’re letting you stay at their place. Fortunately, the same rules apply here that apply at home – you can write first thing in the morning or right before you go to bed. Time changes can help you out here, because everyone expects you to be jet-lagged after the flight, so it’s not unusual for you to wake up before everyone else if you’re going from East Coast to West Coast, or to stay up after everyone else has bedded down if you’re going from west to east. When I would visit family in Texas for the holidays, I’d still be wide awake after everyone else had succumbed to sleep, so I was able to get some nice, uninterrupted writing done without being disruptive or reclusive.

Of course, you might also get lucky and have a wonderful, understanding family like mine who supports your writing and wants to give you the opportunities you need to get in a little alone time for that story you’re working on. If this is the case, make sure to tell them at every opportunity how much you love them, because this is the greatest gift a writer could ever ask for around the holidays.

Jet lag can help you out here as well. People expect you to be tired after a long flight, so they don’t mind if you excuse yourself early to catch some “shut eye,” AKA writing time. Hey, if you can come up with excuses NOT TO write, surely you can come up with an excuse TO write. Right? Right. And if you’re visiting family that you’re not exactly keen on spending too much time with, this is a good way to get out of hearing Uncle Ned’s retelling of how he got kicked out of the Vatican for the millionth time.

As for the flight home, repeat the above section on airports and airplanes. Seriously, it’s some prime writing time, and you’d be a poor writer to pass up such an excellent opportunity dropped in your lap like that.

The traveling writer has a great deal of time to work on his craft while out and about, he just needs to seize it. (And I mean “his” in an all-encompassing sense, not to leave our lady writers out.) The trick is not to let a good opportunity pass you by, and to create those opportunities yourself if given half a chance. Trust me, your inner muse will be glad you did.

Happy Holidays!

Yes, the title is horribly PC of me. I'll try to do better next time.

In any case, my best holiday wishes go out to you all this season... which is somewhat silly, because I'll likely say the same thing next year. Are these my best wishes, or am I saving them up for the next holiday? Or am I going to trump this year's wishes with next year's? Only Santa knows, and he's too busy to dish right now.

Just like Thanksgiving, you may need to wait a little longer for the next post, but it's coming. Just because I'm out of town doesn't mean I'm not writing, and the next entry will be inspired greatly by my travel plans. All the same, my baby sister gets priority for the rest of the week, so don't hold it against me if you have to wait a few more days for the goods.

Enjoy the holidays, and drink some eggnog for me!