Nothing to see here. Just an everyday glowing rock.

Since I haven’t had a television for almost two years now, my ritual has been to watch Community on Hulu the next day when I get home from work. This week was extra bountiful, as they had aired the final three episodes back-to-back the night before. Even better, the show had gotten a 13 episode commitment for a season 4. Not ideal, mind you, but it was something. And the season finale triptych did not disappoint. Plots progressed, story-lines tied up, characters evolved. It was funny, geeky, and touching–everything I watch the show for.

It was only afterwards I found out that Dan Harmon, the creator and show runner had been unceremoniously been shown the door.

Here’s his blog post telling his side of it. And here’s The Hollywood Reporter’s coverage of it.

My first reaction is, of course, a few moments of incoherent nerd-rage as I track down whatever info I can. Sure, I could just let it go. Then again, Dan Harmon is the only reason season two’s amazing “Advanced Dungeons & Dragons” episode was ever made. True story! He had to fight for it. Brutally.

But then again, Dan was no stranger for being hands-on and fighting for his show. He had a very strong vision of what Community was supposed to be. He’s the reason it has been such a smart, layered show. He’s the reason it’s like nothing else on television. And some might argue (namely the suits who made this decision) that his intractable desire to have things his way is what made the show a critical darling and commercial disappointment.

At the end of the day, television is a business. I used to have this argument with my friend Ed around the time Firefly was cancelled. He took umbrage that the networks kept cancelling shows that were good. And while that’s true, network television as an entity has never been about producing programming simply because it’s good. The goal is, has been, and always will be to get enough eyes on the screen to maximize how much they can charge for commercial space and make money. It’s great if they can do that with quality programming, shows that the critics love and that win awards. But if they could get the top rated show on any given night by showing two puppets blowing a kangaroo, there isn’t a network in business that wouldn’t be in Australia with a sack trying to get their next TV “star.”

Let me say that again in case any of you missed it. Television doesn’t have to be good. It just has to be “good enough.”

Do you think a season of The Bachelor is going to end up in the fucking Smithsonian? I don’t think so. But it’s going to be renewed sure as shit as long as a few million people think watching it is an acceptable way of spending an hour of their week.

There are a ton of great reasons why firing Dan Harmon (and doing it in a particularly shitty way, might I add) are a bad idea. None of them, ultimately, have to do with business. He was a trouble maker. And I say that with love, because I’ve always loved the trouble makers. I’ve always been a trouble maker. But no one is irreplaceable.

The fans spoke out when Community was put on hiatus. The internets rose up with a mighty yawp and screamed from the hilltops to keep the show alive. But something had to happen. Something had to change if the studio was wiling to gamble on another season. And the studio knew from working with him for three previous seasons that forcing any kind of changes past Dan was going to be difficult, at best. So they looked at an under-performing show and they removed the one thing that they could identify as the greatest irritant. That just happened to Dan Harmon.

It’s not unlike a surgeon opening up the body of an injured alien and wondering what to fix, and seeing one organ that they can’t identify. It’s angry, red, possibly the cause of all the problems. Maybe it’s infected. They don’t know. So they cut it out, put something else in its place, then stitch it closed hoping it wasn’t a vital organ.

We have 13 episodes next season to see if they’re wrong or not.

Because it’s not like I’m going to quit watching Community. For three years it has been the best half hour on television. It will still have the same cast and three years of story to build off of. I’m not sure how many of the writers will remain, but from what I hear, there were mass defections of the writing staff last season anyway, so maybe some will come back. And the two guys who got put in charge of running the show aren’t hacks. In fact David Guarascio and Moses Port have some solid shows under their belt. I used to love Just Shoot Me, and I loved Aliens in America, though it never really found the audience it deserved. I even enjoyed Happy Endings despite myself. I honestly can’t imagine a better pair of dudes to take over. Their comic sensibilities and style are a good fit. I can only hope they come to the show with the same fire and passion that Dan Harmon did. And that they are willing to fight for the best possible story.

Because I’m still holding out for “six seasons and a movie.”

2010, Lakeview Drive-in, Lake Chelan

I’ve warned y’all that for me, 2012 is largely going to be the year of the novel edits. I figure it’s about time to give the curious a bit of an update on that process. Does this mean I’ve hit a milestone?

You’re goddamned right.

A little over a year ago, I put the finishing touches on the first draft of Ink Calls to Ink. To say that I love this book would not be an understatement. I don’t even think it’s a stretch to say that it’s the best, and most accessible, novel that I’ve ever written. So when the year of the novel edits got underway, it was hands-down my highest priority.

I finished my last pass of edits and rewrites on Saturday.

There were certain scenes that I remembered hitting me hard when I wrote them. Coming across them as a reader/editor devastated me all over again. It was so difficult saying good-bye to these characters. While their story is done as of this novel, I’ve been inspired with the idea for a sequel set in the same world. There will be a few minor characters flowing between the books, but the protagonists/antagonists will brand new. I don’t want to give too much away about the book, save that I look forward to outlining it sometime later this year.

So with Ink Calls to Ink behind me (in the actively working on sense–the marketing/shopping process is ongoing), it’s time to undertake the next project.

That next project is the first of a mystery series set in Tuscon. Featuring a retired grunge rocker and his two Boston Terriers, Friday and Bosco, it pokes around the seedy juncture where music and drug trafficking meet. When the son of his friend and neighbor is killed in a seemingly random act of violence, Harlan promises to look into it and make sure the death is being investigated. He quickly realizes that if he wants justice for the young victim, he’ll have to find the killer himself–and try not to get himself killed in the process.

Having grown up in the Southwest, and being a huge fan of the Tuscon music scene, this is somewhat of a dream project for me. The biggest catch, of course, is that I really need to get down to Tuscon to help fill in some of the local color details. I’m going to try and make the trip in June, knowing that it will be godawful hot. I can get a room with a pool and air conditioning and do a week’s worth of edits. But I want to get a good head-start before I do that. So work on the current draft will be starting this week.

As a bonus pro-tip: don’t forget to back up your drafts.

I had a few drafts of this novel laying about on two different computers and a memory stick. I had copies of those as email attachments when I sent it out to beta readers. I thought I was covered. Then Sunday I got to the end of the document–and was stunned to realize it wasn’t the end of the book. Somewhere along the way, I lost two-and-a-half chapters. About 6,000 words all told. By total random chance, I managed to discover them again within an hour. Apparently past-Nathan heard my cry of horror when the chapters went missing as it rippled though space and time. He wisely emailed the finished novel to future-me with the title “Emergency Backup.” Honestly, I don’t remember doing this. It isn’t generally something I do. But man did it save my bacon this time!

Consequently, I’ve since gone through and backed up all important finished drafts, and even a few less-important unfinished ones.

You never can be too safe.

Now, with the confidence of one finished novel in the can and one good working draft, I’m starting the next adventure. With a bit of determination, I should be able to start working on something new by the fall. And I can hardly wait to see what that will be!

I’ve been a bit radio-silent for a while, and for that I apologize. Just like I do every time I go radio silent, I suppose. This writing thing, I’m telling you people. It is not for the weak of heart or the lazy. It just isn’t. Between some tight writing deadlines, some pretty rigid (but self-imposed) editing deadlines, and two conventions (to say nothing of the day-jobbery), I’ve been a bit busy. The upside of all this is that I have all kinds of fun stuff to talk about. Today’s installment: what’s been going on in my world of short fiction.

In a recent flurry of submissions, I got six stories out—two which are now picked up, and four which are in the waiting period. The two that got picked up were both written in the last month, and other than that, are about as different as you could get. One was the high-octane sci-fi story “By Gods Damned and Bounty Blessed” which will be appearing in the upcoming Bulldogs! Anthology. I encourage you to go toss some money at the anthology so they can add even more amazing authors to the book before it’s too late. My story involves a tough-as-nails bounty hunter on a quest for revenge. The other story is called “Bethlehem Glen” and is atmospheric horror set in the early 80’s in the wilderness of central California. I can’t tell you where it’s going to appear—that much is a closely guarded secret for now—or too much about certain elements. But I can tell you that it features a trio of hapless bank robbers and their prisoner.

And I can also tell you that, despite no deliberate planning on my part and having them set galaxies apart, both stories found an unexpected intersection on the theme of religion.

In my sci-fi story, a bounty hunter goes to collect a conman passing himself off as a messiah in a small mining community. She quickly learns that her partner, a new recruit on the ship where she is assigned, is a priest of a small, possibly heretical sect.

In the horror, I got to play with the concept of cults and communes that seemed to be everywhere in the seventies—especially in California.

Two stories, three religious traditions, no waiting.

And it was interesting to me how that theme played out differently across the two genres.

When dealing with matters of fantasy/horror, there is a certain automatic acceptance of things of a supernatural nature. So when you bring religion/spirituality into a story of this nature, there’s a certain amount of baggage. A person of faith can either make a huge impact, or his lack of impact can be seen as a critique on how religion is a sham, or even how his faith is lacking. But to the best of my (admittedly limited memory) it’s rarely there just as a meaningless background element.

But in much sci-fi, it’s either a bit of characterization (like hair color or accent), or absent entirely. I know I’m setting myself up for a barrage of people citing exceptions. I’d actually kind of welcome that. But I still maintain that religion in sci-fi is largely a matter of individuality, or a political overlay. I can’t think of a single instance of someone calling on their Gods and actually have them listen.

Compared to fantasy novels (or horror, where the Gods are less than friendly), where something might actually happen, it’s a huge difference.

Does this mean that effective religion, with divine powers and worship that has real effects automatically kick fiction out of sci-fi territory? Is there room in sci-fi for a devout character of faith who maintains that faith despite all scientific evidence to the contrary? And does this devotion make him noble or a fool?

I’m honestly not sure of the answers to that myself. But it does make me want to explore it more.
I touch on it in “By Gods Damned and Bounty Blessed,” where one character is a priest of The Gun Saint.
I guess in the future, it’s all about who you worship that gets you the results you want.

Again, I encourage you to check out the Bulldogs! Kickstarter. The kind folks at Galileo Games have put up a short preview of my story there. It only gets more insane from there. Like, fist-fight with a God insane.

And when I can announce where the horror story is appearing, I heartily recommend you pick that up too. I can say without fear of contradiction, it’s one of the creepiest things I’ve ever committed to paper. And for me, that’s saying a lot.

Two faces of Buddha.

Can it be less than a year since I talked about faith/religion/and spirituality? What the hell kind of writing blog is this anyway?

Mine. And I have something to get off my chest.

Some of you might remember my earlier post on faith, Let’s Talk About Sects, Baby. If not, I’ve provided the link. It’s not necessary, but I’m going to reference a few of the same points here without being too repetitive. After all, that post was talking about how important it was to have faith, even though (and quite possibly because) it’s nutty. With this post, I’m going to try and provide something of a practical working guide to faith (you in the back, stop snickering).

My intention isn’t to tell you what to believe. I’d never presume to do that.

My intention isn’t even to tell you how to believe. Not exactly.

My intention is to offer tips on how to live your faith without being perceived as a sanctimonious prick and bully by those around you.

Why is this? Well, quite simply, because I keep an eye on the news. And it seems a lot of people in positions of authority could benefit from these tips. So buckle up. I’ll try to keep this short and sweet.

So let’s start with a quick primer. What is faith? Faith is, at it’s very root, a deep belief in something that guides our action, helps us determine how we live our life. Most importantly, and this is in the definition, faith is a strong personal belief in something that can’t be proven. And herein lies our first lesson. Let’s look at that description of faith because it’s important. I’ll highlight the important words for you.

Faith is, at it’s very root, a deep belief in something that guides our action, helps us determine how we live our life. Most importantly, and this is in the definition, faith is a strong personal belief in something that can’t be proven.

You see the key features there? Personal. Take for example abortion. (Like I said–I watch the news. And it is what prompted this post.) The only time faith should be a factor in the decision whether or not to have an abortion is if you’re the one having (or not having) it. You can believe with all your heart that abortion is murder, and that the mother is making a huge mistake and going to hell for her decision. It doesn’t matter. It is her decision. And quite frankly, it’s none of your business.

Because, and say it with me here, faith is personal. And the minute you start using your faith to make decisions for other people, to impose your faith on their lives, it’s no longer about faith. At that point, it’s about control.

Now, at this point the conversation tends to degenerate into quoting scriptures. One side uses quotes from their book to prove a point. The other side will either discount the book entirely as outdated and irrelevant, or summon up ridiculous and dated quotes that are also in the book.

We’re not going to do that for two reasons.

• One: the fact is that for all the lip service, a lot of people haven’t read the whole book–they just cherry pick the parts they like, or have passages quoted at them so many times they figure that’s good enough. After all, the guy they trust to interpret the book for them read it, right? He can Cliff Notes it. The book is long and confusing and difficult to read. It’s kind of like Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco in that regard. You can struggle through it and try to make sense out of it, maybe apply some of it to your life. Or you can trust someone else to tell you the important stuff. The differences being, the person telling you about Foucalt’s Pendulum isn’t using it to further some ideological agenda, the other book is hundreds of years old, and, no offense to Eco, I was able to at least finish the other book. The point of the book is to read it and interpret yourself, using it as a guide to make sense of your own personal stuff.
• Two: it’s still none of your business. At the end of the day…heck, the end of the universe…no one gets the right to tell anyone else what to believe. Anyone. Ever. Period. If someone don’t have your beliefs, if they don’t share your faith, then let it go. You can certainly talk to them about faith as long as they’re willing. But you can’t force it. And if you are, you’re being a bully.

And that’s ultimately the core thing you need to know about faith.

It’s yours. Use it. Faith is there to make your life easier. It’s there to give you comfort when you need it. It’s there to give you guidance when you’re lost. It is a warm blanket against the long, cold night of the soul.

Secondly, don’t try to hide behind faith to justify your attempts to get people to do what you want or live like you want them to. If they’re not harming you, you just don’t have the right. But taking away the right of women to make their own decisions is, at best, condescending. And using your faith to justify it cheapens both you and what you profess to believe in. It makes you seem clueless and out of touch. It makes you seem unsympathetic. It makes you seem, quite frankly, a bit of a dick. It makes you a bully.

And no one likes a bully.

I suspect there are a great number of people who are going to find that out in the next election.

Guardian Sculpture

I had a less than restful night last night. Part of this was due to not one, but two separate and very different dreams about getting lost in familiar territory.

I don’t hold to the prophetic dream school–at least not as far as my own dreams are concerned. I see dreams as the subconscious sweeping up the odds and ends from the waking world, and sometimes patterns form. At the best of times, carefully looking at dreams lets me deconstruct bits my life that could stand further examination.

With that in mind, I was able to look at the dreams under a microscope this morning. In the first, I was headed to a friend’s place in the neighborhood, but instead of getting on a  bus headed south, I went west instead, and found myself in a whole new neighborhood. In the second, I was given a ride to a party, and the driver got lost in something of an urban wasteland. Let’s break those two dreams down in more detail.

Dream One: I was going to visit friends who lives about 20 blocks south of me. My bus to work for the past six years goes right past their place. I know how to get there. Yet somehow I ended up on a bus that carried me directly west along 85th. I found myself in a stretch of a few blocks with quirky shops, cafes, etc. that I had never seen before. It reminded me of parts of Portland, like around the Baghdad. If I hadn’t been on my way somewhere, I would have lingered, poked around, made a day of it. Instead, I had to call Aarron and ask (as weird as it was) where I was–as if somehow they had moved their apartment. We determined that I just had to walk 20 blocks south and I’d be to their place (which makes no sense in a geographic sense), so I struck off, knowing that I could find this new neighborhood again.

Dream Two: I was going to a small party hosted by a friend in Ballard. In real-life, I’ve been there once, and I know there is no direct bus route. I had the address, but not directions. I was going to the party with a strange amalgam of my first and third wife who had a car and claimed to know the way. That proved to be incorrect as we ended up circling this area that was part industrial/part blasted foundations and barren lots. She pulled into a parking lot of this low, beige building with strip mall shops and these sort of scavenged apartments. She went in to ask for directions and didn’t come out. After several minutes, I went in after her and realized she’d gotten caught up in a conversation with former co-workers about how shitty their jobs were. There was no resolution, no feeling that I was ever getting to my destination. I was stuck in a wasteland with no way out.

The Interpretation: In the first dream, I made a mistake, but it was my mistake. It took me somewhere I wasn’t prepared to go, but it was somewhere new, somewhere fun. Trusting my own instincts and going off track took me somewhere I wanted to explore. Most importantly, I knew how I got there, and I knew how to get where I was going from there. Both of those are vital. In the second, I trusted someone else with control of my travels, and I ended up lost and stuck. What’s important here is I knew where I wanted to go. I had the address, but didn’t take the level of control where I printed out directions.

Now, maybe it has to do with the fact that I’ve been reading The Fountainhead recently, which is, at it’s core, about following your own path. At least that’s what I’m getting out of it. (Well, that and a fascinating read about architecture.)

But I think there is a bit of fundamental truth to be gleaned from those dreams–something I can apply to both personal and writing life.

I have two paths–trust others with my destination and risk getting stranded if they fail me, or forge ahead with the confidence that if I get lost, I got there myself and can find my way where I’m going (or at least back, having discovered something new). This isn’t an excuse to take foolish chances. No matter where I go, whether it’s as a writer or as a dude living his life, making informed decisions is always better than striking off blindly.

But maybe that’s just the dream talking.

Sci-fi Graffiti

I’ve always had a bit of a love for the underdog.  Maybe it’s because I always felt like a bit of an underdog myself. The guys at the top always had this sense of privilege that rubbed me the wrong way. So my heroes became the rebels, long before Star Wars made it cool. I’m talking old-school–Robin Hood and Zorro. For years, my favorite football team were the Green Bay Packers–AGES before they were winning games with Brett Farve. Many of my favorite bands are ones that didn’t ever make it big. And it’s been this way for as long as I can remember.

This plays out in my fiction. Very rarely do my heroes represent the status quo.  True, there are creative reasons why this is a good idea. An underdog protagonist has more to gain. The world is against him, and who doesn’t feel like that from time to time? As wish fulfillment goes, having an underdog hero the readers identify with win the day is not a bad way to go.

Imagine Star Wars: A New Hope remade from the perspective that the Empire are the protagonists. A group of rebels steal sensitive information that could lead to the destruction of a major military instillation. Vader, a disfigured hero of the ruling theocracy, is tasked with getting quashing the rebellion and keeping the empire safe. He finds out that his old teacher, who turned his back on the rule of law, has returned to aid these rebels. As the protagonist, Vader would have to be triumphant at the end, shooting down the rogue pilot who he suspects might be his own long-lost son. The Empire prevails. Order is restored.

Not quite the same impact. And I doubt it would have captured the imagination of the world in the same way if it had been made from that angle.

So, here’s the weird thing about my interest in the underdog. I love underdog cities. Seattle wasn’t my only choice for where to live when I moved out of Colorado. I also flirted with the idea of somewhere in the Rust Belt. I considered moving to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina because I loved the city so much after one short visit, and I wanted to help rebuild. I considered moving to Detroit as recently as a year ago, moved to tears by images of old movie theaters left to crumble and decay. Most recently, I’ve looked at New Jersey or Baltimore.

The heart of this, I realize, is that I refuse to deal in absolutes. There is no perfect place, no perfect city. You ask most people their impressions of Baltimore and you’re likely to hear that it’s a shit city. Corruption, crumbling infrastructure, crime rates through the roof, and other than the newly re-invigorated harbor area, just a miserable, miserable place.

I can’t accept that. I can’t accept that around 600,000 people would live in a place with no redeeming features because they can’t manage to move somewhere else. Damn near everyone wants some kind of beauty in their lives. It’s human. It nourishes the soul. Even in Baltimore.

And there’s something about seeing beauty, compassion, and community blossom under the most adverse of conditions that gives me hope that somehow we’ll see it through. It makes more sense to me to nurture these things in places that need it most.

It reminds me of a section from Cobalt City Blues where Stardust is trying to convince occultist Emil al-Aswan to return with them to their original earth, rather than stay in the evil mirror universe.

Emil closed the book and folded his hands on top of his lap. He pursed his lips and stared intently at Stardust’s visor. “First let me assure you that even if I were to be able to use any of the magic here, it is anathema to me. Secondly, let me answer you with a question of my own. Why do you seek so fervently to return home?”

“Because my wife and kids are there, my company, my whole life is in that world,” he said quickly

“And if you had no family,” Emil said. If you had no friends, no business, nothing to hold you there, you would still want to go back, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course,” Stardust said, sensing that he was walking into a trap somehow but not seeing a way out of it.

“Why? You have nothing there, no…connection. Why to go back to a world that would not miss you, would not mourn your loss?”

“Because there are still criminals there, still evil. People might not miss me personally, but I make an impact. I make the world a better place,” Stardust said. “I may not need anything in that world anymore, but they still need me.”

“There are other heroes there, are there not?” Emil said with a shrug.

“Not enough.”

“Not enough to do what, exactly?” Emil countered.

“To get rid of evil, to make the world a better place, to make it safe,” Stardust said. His voice was starting to climb. he was getting tired of going around and around with this chatty little mystery man.

“And you think that this goal is possible? Why is that?”

“Because we’re so close,” Stardust said. “I mean, there’s still crime, and people still exploit other people for money or power or whatever. But we’re making a difference. I’m making a difference. There is more good than bad in our world and if we keep trying…”

Emil cut him off with a wave of his hand, “…more good than bad. And in this world, it is more bad than good, would you not agree?”

“Without a doubt.”

“So it would be hopeless to try and eliminate crime, and hate, and evil here,” Emil said. “It would be hopeless. A fool’s crusade to make this world a better place, you would say.”

“Yes,” Stardust said.

“And that,” Emil said with a flourish of his hands, “is why I must stay. I must stay because someone has to. Because I believe there is light in the deepest dark if we only strive to find it. It is my calling; my crusade. It is why I came here.”

This tree, visible from my window, had been daring me to photograph it for days...

I’ve talked about death a few times in these pages. I’d like to say it’s an occupational hazard. I mean, I do write horror (among other things), so it’s going to come up. But more often than not, my posts about death are about real people, and how those deaths effect me and our culture as a whole.

It used to be that when someone famous died, the news hit in waves: the immediate broadcast news cycle, then newspapers the next day, then trickle-out word of mouth for anyone who missed the first two waves. When you got the news, it was generally in a somewhat impersonal reporting of the facts. Sure, it was somber, but it wasn’t personal.

The spread of social media has changed that. Now if you happen to be online when someone famous dies it spreads like a fire instead of a wave. First a few sparks here and there posting the news, then more, then suddenly it’s a trending topic. Even in our deeply cynical age where celebrities are treated as little more than product by the media, the news spreads. Partly because the Machine feeds on misery and death, but also because the loss feels personal. This was especially apparent with the high-profile death of Whitney Houston over the weekend.

Whitney touched a lot of lives in her time. Her death was tragic, and we all saw it coming down the tracks with the inevitability of an approaching train, which made it even worse. Everyone dies–at a rate of approximately 154,000 a day. No matter your beliefs on the afterlife, that’s the one thing every person on Earth has in common–no one gets off this ride alive.

Somewhere along the way, we lost sight of that. We forgot that the people in our lives–both the stars that light our way and the people who are with us daily–are not going to be there forever. Do you know what I didn’t see in the week prior to Saturday? I didn’t see a single post, comment, or briefest mention of Whitney. That’s not the case now, of course.

And I find that incredibly sad, because from the posts I’ve seen SINCE Saturday, she was important to a lot of people. It’s a shame that too often we don’t think to show our appreciation until it’s too late. After all, there’s always tomorrow, right?

Do you want to take that chance?

I don’t.

I’m not certain how it happened, but my writing group all writes speculative fiction. But within that, there’s a pretty wide range of styles. The other day, one of my friends in the group posted about an interest in writing horror. Up until that point, I knew that Nicole did sci-fi and urban fantasy. But despite her quite-practiced evil laugh, I didn’t see horror as something that held much interest for her.

Then she posted asking for advice on writing horror. (I’ve included the link to her blog for the completeists among you.) And I figured, “Hey, I write horror. I should be able to answer that.”

What I discovered, much to my surprise, is that a lot of what I do when I write horror isn’t entirely conscious. Digging that out and finding a way to articulate it became more difficult than I expected. I’m not going to duplicate that advice here–for that you’ll have to click the link and read it on Nicole’s blog. I’ll touch on it a bit here, but because I’ve taken more time to think about it, this is going to be a bigger discussion.

Horror and I kind of came of age around the same time. I was 5 when Stephen King’s first novel, Carrie, was published. He published over 25 more before I graduated high school. At the same time, horror cinema went through a golden age, starting with Halloween in 1978. While I was still too young to watch a lot of those films, I picked up Fangoria Magazine ever time I was in the bookstore and read all about the horrifying things waiting for me on video and late-night cable television. There were also several fantastic horror comics in those days, perfect for the developing weirdo–Creepy, House of Secrets, The Unexpected, The Witching Hour.

So it’s not a huge surprise that when I started writing short fiction, I wanted to write horror.

Except I wasn’t any good at it.

Oh, I tried. Every piece I turned out for about 5 years was some kind of horror story. And looking back, of course they weren’t very good. I was still learning how to write. Those were all practice. But I also know that the premise alone for most of those just didn’t work because they weren’t scary.

And I’ll be honest with you. I gave up trying to be scary. I still wrote stories with ghosts in them from time to time, but they were urban fantasy. And with the exception of one co-written screenplay, I didn’t try to write horror again until I was in my mid-thirties.

Even without working consciously on horror in that time, something about how horror works had sunk in. It didn’t hurt that I had been working on my writing in that time so the building blocks were in place. The two other keys were that I had been ingesting a lot of horror media, so I had an intuitive idea of what scared me and how, and that I had been running Role-Playing Games with horror elements in that time. (I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again now–running story-centered games was crucial for my development as a writer.)

If you made it this far, maybe you’re hoping for some kind of bullet-point list on how to write horror. Even if you were thinking nothing of the sort, here are my hints, short and sweet, for things to think about when writing horror.

• Monsters, in and of themselves, aren’t scary. What makes them scary is what they do, and what they represent.
• This is no story for heroes. Protagonists, yes. But no one is scared when a heroic figure is put in danger. Make him someone ordinary that the reader can relate to, and you’re golden.
• A slow burn is the only way to cook. Take a page from Ridley Scott’s Gothic sci-fi masterpiece Alien. If you blow your wad showing the monster on the front page, you better have something bigger and scarier on the last one. Otherwise it’s a let down.
• Curiosity is the killer. If your protagonist (and reader) have no idea what’s going on at first, imagine the horror when they figure out what’s been causing that strange sound in the closet?
• Mind your pacing. When things get tense, try for shorter sentences. It might sound goofy, but it works.
• Use your words. Don’t say something’s scary (or gory, or horrible, etc.) Get descriptive. Get into the character’s heads and understand why what they’re seeing is so frightening. Likewise for horror. If you’re going to do gore, you’re already treading in the Dark Lord’s domain. Don’t puss out. Get descriptive and creative. It’s what you’re here for.
• Start small, make it big, the bring it home. Think of a small, personal fear (like ghosts). Think of what makes them scary (not a fear of death so much as a fear that even after death you’ll still be stuck in this loop of misery and pain). Now find a way to articulate that bigger concept on a personal level that the reader and maybe even protagonist can relate to.

There we go class. Hopefully some of this was useful.
Again, check out Nicole’s page for the full discussion. There was a lot of good advice that ended up getting posted by a variety of smart writerly types.

My Seattle, the Colosseum Theater

There’s an argument made about the rise of police powers, that you only have to worry about it if you’re breaking the law. I can understand why people would want to believe that. The idea that we live in constant threat of unfair persecution from powers far beyond our control is a terrifying one. But the un-nuanced view that only the guilty are punished and the innocent have nothing to fear is, at best, naive.

To say that government doesn’t have your best interest at heart isn’t paranoid, nor is it unfair. I’d do believe that government in general has what it thinks are your best interests at heart. And they’re going to miss the mark occasionally. And, in several proven incidents throughout history, our government, which is supposed to protect us all equally, has done some really unconscionable things “for the greater good.”

So why do I fear that Stop Online Piracy Act? I’m a creative content provider, after all, right? Don’t I want to stop piracy? Sure. But I think there are much, much better ways of doing it than resorting to jack-booted thuggery.

Surely our nation can do better, right?

I mean, it’s not like we nuked our own country 210 times over the period of 17 years, then tried to cover it up. (Yes, in fact, we did. It might have been at least partially responsible for the cancer that killed John Wayne, the most American of cowboys.)

At least we never secretly conducted experiments on the effect of mind-controlling drugs on civilians. (We did that too, actually. It was called MK-ULTRA.)

So, giving drugs to people, that’s kind of bad. Thankfully we didn’t actively withhold medical treatment by way of experiment. (Holy doodle, we did that too. In Macon County, Alabama, the U.S. Government participated in a 40 year study of syphilis in a poor black community without their knowledge.)

We also imprisoned a large ethnic group for a period of time because we were at war with their native country. But the internment camps weren’t exactly secret. We just don’t like to think about them. Maybe because we don’t want to consider that it could happen again. (While this could be the height of paranoia, the REX 84 plan has been heavily researched and documented. Sure, it might never happen, but it at least looks like it’s been considered as an option.)

And let’s say nothing about the irony of our country waging a war on drugs while flooding L.A. with crack cocaine. Because using drugs to undermine threats has been a proven tactic since Britain did it to China in 1817 through Canton (starting the First Opium War), if not sooner.

So we dabbled in drugs. These things happen. It’s not like we killed or deoposed world leaders to create more favorable diplomatic conditions. (Sigh. Of course we did. The Church Commission uncovered it while looking into the Watergate mess and put together a quite damning report.)

So, the Stop Internet Piracy Act is harmless. As long as we don’t pirate anything we’re fine, right? There are safeguards in place. Not exactly. If someone else posts a link on your site (Google+, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) that infringes on copyright, your site can be shut down from afar. This doesn’t affect real pirates, because the site is taken down by domain name, not IP address, and pirates don’t give a shit about that. Even if it’s not something you’d recognize as piracy, like you singing the latest Metallica song and it gets put up on your site (or again, just linked to your site), you could have 5 comfortable years in prison for the infringement.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

In even the most optimistic reading of the bill, SOPA sucks out loud. In the more paranoid reading, we’re all one bad link away from being bent over the counter by some entertainment lawyer in a Mickey Mouse mask while the government that’s supposed to be here to protect us watches with polite golf claps.

I’m not paranoid.I love my country. I really do. It’s not perfect, but it’s damn near the best game in town. But I know my history, too. And I know better than to trust them blindly.

So my site will be going dark on Wednesday the 18th in protest. I know I don’t get enough views for anyone to care. But that doesn’t excuse me from doing nothing.

My dressing up as an alien monster days are far behind me.

If your fingers are on the pulse of the RPG circuit, you’ve probably heard that a new, 5th edition of D&D is on the way. Heck, even the New York Times is talking about it. Most of the world will only blink and take no notice. I mean, this game gets revised time to time, right? What’s the big deal?

I’ll wait for the cries of outrage to die down a bit before I continue.

My reason for the post isn’t that I’m outraged. Maybe I’m too cynical for outrage. Or maybe I’ve been involved in the hobby for long enough to be familiar with the evolution of the industry. Let’s take a very quick look at this in a historical context, shall we?

Don’t worry. This won’t be long or detailed. Grab a Mt. Dew and stay with me here.

D&D started in 1974, was revised into Advanced D&D in 1978, and then split into the mutant hydra of Basic, Advanced, Expert, Companion, Master, and Immortals over a period from 1981-86. It was a goddamned mess. That got us AD&D 2nd edition in 1989 which cleaned everything up and more-or-less became the standard for eleven years.

During those eleven years, things weren’t always milk and honey. TSR, the company that created the game, and most would argue, the hobby of Role-Playing, had been struggling. They sold the whole shebang to Wizards of the Coast in 1997, who I would suspect, got about revising the game as soon as the check cleared.

3rd edition came out in 2000, and it felt like a betrayal to a certain core of the players. After all, they had boxes of material that was now useless, and a whole new rule system to learn. I worked at a game store at the time and saw my share of “They’ll get my 2nd edition when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers!” But for every one of those, there were five people excited about the new start.

And why wouldn’t they be? The 2nd edition rules were a nightmare. It wasn’t entirely their fault, I suppose. TSR needed to make money, and they did that by selling product. And over the years they published a glut of new races, monsters, places, and yes, rules. 3rd edition was a great way for new people to jump in. Let’s put a pin in this paragraph. We’ll come back to it, because the economics of the game is important in understanding the hobby from a meta level.

And it worked. It worked so well that Wizards (now owned by Hasbro) revised the rules again, rolling out 4th edition eight years later. Where 3rd edition was divisive for revising old core mechanics, 4th edition was vilified for taking several of the sacred cows of the system and tossing them out entirely. While they tried to keep the spirit of the game the same, key play mechanics reminded people too much of video and tactical gaming. A lot of what they had come to love had changed significantly.

Personally, I was fine with the new additions. Yeah, it meant buying more books, but I was never the collector who had to have every book that came out. There was some genuinely fun stuff in 4th addition. Sure, the rules were different, but at the heart, it was still D&D.

And I’m sure that 5th edition will be much the same.

But I’ll admit I’m surprised and a bit confused over the open playtesting model that they’re doing this time around. It makes me think they’re trying for some kind of collaborative effort, seeking input from the gamers themselves over what they want in the game.

Best of luck. Try getting six people to agree on what kind of pizza they want. My people are fickle and opinionated. I was once part of a game session that fought for seven hours over whether we should turn left or right at a juncture. Now imagine getting hundreds if not thousands of gamers to have input on what is best for their hobby.

Either the input is going to be on the level of “Check these boxes” or “Rate the experience from 1-10,” or it’s going to be a nightmare. But that’s just my thoughts on it.

But why a 5th edition? Surely 4th edition couldn’t have failed so completely to justify that in such a short amount of time, right? Well, yes and no.

See, the dirty secret is, once you have the three core books (Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, and a Monster Manual), you really never have to buy another product from them again. Back in the old days, D&D wasn’t much more than going door to door in some forgotten place, killing things, and taking their stuff. A person with graph paper could put together their own map, but most people bought adventure modules. And that was the bread and butter.

Get a bunch of seasoned gamers together and ask them what their favorite modules were, I can pretty much guarantee they won’t name a single one from 3rd or 4th edition. Because the game changed more than just with rule tweaks. Dungeon crawling wasn’t enough. Players wanted a big world to stomp around in. They wanted towns and cities and intrigue. They wanted the campaign, a world that centered around them.

But for that, you’re looking at a whole other kind of product–less of an inexpensive adventure, more of a setting book. And the problem is, once you have that setting in place, the characters have an investment in that place, those people, and they aren’t as likely to move on to another. You didn’t have that with dungeon modules. Once you cleaned out the Demonweb Pits, you didn’t buy a pie shop and invest in the community–you went to another dungeon.

For the economic model to work, the publisher needs to keep people coming back buying product that, on a fundamental level, everyone recognizes that they don’t actually need to play the game.

And that’s a dangerous place to run a business from. You need to be able to provide compelling content that makes players want to come back.

And from the get-go, I think they realized that with 4th ed. Last time I checked there were three Player Handbooks, and certain player favorites weren’t available in the first one, nor in the second one. Want to play a Barbarian or Druid? Guess what, Chuckles, you have to buy the second book. But they made it worth it. They put all kinds of useful and fun play info in the books. Likewise with the books detailing powers and features for other classes (Martial Powers, Divine Powers, etc).  From that perspective, they did a great job of monetizing the game.

So, where did they go wrong, and again, why the 5th edition?

While I heard a lot of people bitch and whine about 3rd edition, they didn’t really change core game mechanics that much. Sure, they cleaned it up a lot and got rid of some anachronisms, but it was still the same game–just better presented. But 4th edition took a game that played just fine and made it, from a rules perspective, a different game. (And let us not speak of how they shut the door on 3rd party developers in the process–the genie in the bottle that 3rd edition let out.)

I know several games still running in 3rd (technically 3.5) edition. I can’t say that about 2nd edition. These are games that are doing just fine without ever having to buy another D&D product again (except dice, which Wizards doesn’t make, or minis, which they only do random blister packs for.) To add insult to injury, Paizo, one of the aforementioned  (but not spoken of) 3rd party developers who got screwed in the move to 4th edition, did their own retooling of the 3.5 rules and called it Pathfinder (though it’s essentially D&D 3.75). They’re doing pretty well for themselves.

If I had any advise for Wizards/Hasbro in their time of need, it would be this: go digital, and revitalize your fiction line.

I know you’re worried about piracy, but let’s face it–if you put out a print book, some dick with a scanner is going to make a digital version available for free to anyone with a bit of time on their hands to look for it. If you make reasonably priced digital versions available, people will buy them from you to a) support your product, and b) for convenience.

I may not need every damn book you publish, and I certainly can’t lug that library around from game to game. But if I can pick them up for $10-$15 each for my tablet as a searchable file, I would buy a whole hell of a lot more of them. Heck, sell a digital subscription service to download the books (and I’m not talking D&D Insider–that was some weak bullshit and we all know it.)

And you guys remember the Dragonlance Chronicles? My third wife wrote her college entrance essay about one of those books. Hello Notre Dame! Now, while you do still publish books (and a few damn fine ones–you need look no further than Eric Scott de Bie’s Shadowbane books and Rosemary Jones’ novels for proof of that), it’s almost an afterthought. Editorial staff turns over faster than, well, anywhere I can think of. And I understand, Hasbro, that you’re not in the business of publishing novels. But novels, well marketed and flooding the market, make people aware of the product and the world, and that in turn brings in new players. So I’d suggest you start taking it seriously because it could be money in your pockets.

And I’ll be watching the development of 5th edition. I won’t stop playing in my 3.5 game, and will continue running my 4th edition games. Because the pressure is on you, now. You have to show the gamer community that 5th edition is going to be an improvement to the game–not just an improvement in how you monetize it.