Short Stories

Well, last might I decided to start work on a short story. One thing I've discovered is that for some reason I can write more easily in a notebook than on a computer. I'm not entirely sure why. For some reason, when I try to write on a computer, I write about a paragraph, then my mind goes blank, and next thing I know, I'm surfing the web.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to be completely writing it out by hand. There's no way I could sell it to any sort of publisher that way--though I'm not entirely sure that I'd be able to sell it anyway. I'm just doing the rough draft in a notebook. If I actually manage to finish the story, the second draft will come when I transfer it to the computer.

Random Rambling #1

I was having some trouble thinking of something to write about today, so I Googled "random writing prompt and found this. I hit the button, and got the following promt:


"You are the last surviving member of the human race.  What do you do?"

Wow, that's a tough one. I suppose the first thing I'd do is check to be sure I am the last survivng member of the human race. You never know, maybe I'd get lucky and stumble across a busload of models or cheerleaders or something.

After that, I would gather some supplies and head south. I love Pennsylvania, but the winters here can get too cold, so with no one else around, there would soon be no power and no heating. Naturally, I would want to head for a more temperate climate.

I would want to find  someplace with access to fresh water, like a river. I think a farmhouse of some sort would be ideal, since I would need to learn to grow my own food, and a farm should have that sort of thing.

Once I'd settled in somewhere, I would begin scavenging the surrounding area. I would want to gather together as much canned food and bottled water as possible--I would assume that human pollutants would persist in any river for at least a couple of years. I would also look for medical supplies, guns, ammunition, tools, other hardware, and books. Some sort of wood burning stove would probably be good as well.

Then I would try to learn as much as possible about farming from the books, and the Internet assuming it was still up. With any luck, the canned food would last me until I was able to be self supporting. I would also want to learn how to hunt, since I would like some meat to eat, too. Mind you, if there was livestock available, hunting might not be necessary.

With that, I would hopefully be able to live as long as possible. Since I would have plenty of books to read, I think I would still be reasonably happy.

Television

I feel like rambling about television today. I suppose I could mention how much television sucks these days compared to when I was a kid (and while I'm at it, you whippersnappers need to get off my lawn). When I was a kid I probably watched TV for two or three hours during prime time every night. I also watched syndicated cartoons every day after school and the Saturday morning cartoon lineup every Saturday.  These days, I don't like most of the cartoons anymore, anad I onbly watch TV about three nights a week. I figure I might as well go over what I watch and talk about why.

Monday Night

Monday is a good night for TV. I just love American Pickers. It's just fun watching two goofy guys digging through people's junk to find treasure, and they meet some real odd--and therefore interesting--people on their journey. Also, I just love Daniell.

On Mondays, I also watch Pawn Stars. That Chumlee is so funny, but I always wonder if he's really dumb or if it's just an act. The Old Man is also great, because he's just so grumpy. Plus they get people bringing in some really weird stuff. They even get people who are delusional enough to beliee that their junk is valuable and will argue about when they're told it isn't.

Tuesday Night

I love NCIS.  When I was younger, I used to love cop shows, but these days, this is the only one I really watch. I mostly put it down to really liking the characters in this one, especially Gibbs and Abby.

Tuesday is also when Storage Wars is currently on. Watching people bid on storage lockers might not sound like such an interesting  idea, but it's the real life characters that sell it. That Dave Hester is such an obnoxious jerk, and every show needs a good antagonist, which is a role he fills admirably. Barry Weiss is so weird that I can't help but root for him. The other bidders are OK too, but those are my favorite.

Wednesday Night

I like American Restoration. I'm not entirely clear why. I guess I just like seeing them turn somebody's junk into something cool.

Royal Pains is supposed to be returning the week. As with most of the other shows, it's the characters on this one that I really like.  Also, it has Henry Winkler, who I always loved as the Fonze.

Shows Who's Return I eagerly Await

There are also shows that I will watch when new episodes return, so I might as well talk about them. The biggest one has to be Doctor Who. That's been my favorite show since I was in elementary school. Sadly, I don't think it's coming back until summer.

I also love Burn Notice. It's got Bruce Campbell, so I really think that's reason enough to watch it, but even without Bruse, it would be a damn good show.

The only shows on SyFy I watch are Eureka and Warehouse 13, so I am eagerly awaiting their return.

I like A&E's Parking Wars. It's great watching people flip out when they get a parking ticket because they're too stupid to obey the rules and were only parked illegally for "a couple of seconds." I believe this is coming back in MArch.

Iam also awaitng the return of Adult Swim's Eagle Heart and The Venture Brothers. At least I assume they will be returning based on what I see on Wikipedia.

Obligatory ebook Pricing Whine

I got a Kindle Fire for Christmas. I have somehow managed to get about 100 or so books on it it the past few weeks. From all my Internet viewing, I know that if there's one thing all ereader owners have to do, it's whine about how expensive ebooks are. I suppose I might as well do that here instead of cluttering some thread somewhere that might otherwise be productively used for actual sensible communication.

Some ebooks are too expensive. Some of the ebooks that are too expensive are ones that I would actually like to own. Lets look at some of the works from my Amazon wishlist for examples:

A Perfect Blood is the next book in Kim Harrison's Hollows series.The ebook is $12.99, which I suppose isn't too bad for a book when the hardcover is selling for $17.81, but I ordered the book club hardcover from BOMC2 for only $9.99.

The Great Shark Hunt by Hunter S. Thompson is in ebooks for $12.99. The paperback is available for $11.73, but that's with Amazon's "let's make the publishers look like greedy bastards for their agency pricing" discount. Even so, this is a 23 year old book. There is no fucking reason for a book originally published in 1979 to be that expensive.

Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch is $7.99, which is exactly the same price as the paperback version. At that price, no sane person would bu the ebook. Why pay the exact same price for a license to read a copy of a book on my Kindle as I'd pay to actually own a copy of the book, which I could thereafter sell or loan out as often as I wish?

My opinions are exactly as good as anyone else's on the Internet, which is to say that they aren't worth the paper they're not printed on, but I might just as well go over what I think the ideal price points for me would. be.

$9.99: I can't help but think this would be the best price for ebook editions of recently released hardcovers. This was the price isn't just going to be undercut by Amazon for the paper edition and it isn't too cheap.

$4.99: This one I thinks is slightly more arbitrary to me. I mostly picked it because this is what I paid for the ebook edition of Shades by Brian Keene and Geoff Cooper. I think this is a good price for books like Shades that have only been published in expensive limited edition hardcovers. It would also be a reasonable price for me to pay for newer books available in paperback from major publishers.

$2.99: I think this is a reasonable price for older books, like Guy N. Smith's 1976 Night of The Crabs, which I bought at this price.It's also a good price for the smaller press stuff, self-pubbed authors with actual writing skills,  and novella length works. I see a lot of bizarro novels at this price, and I'll probably get at least some of them.

$0.99: Good price for short stories. Also a good price for the less talented self-pubbed authors, so I can more easily identify and ignore their works.

$0.00: Free is always great for promotion. I've downloaded quite a few freebies.

There you have it. If you agree or disagree with me, please feel free to comment, but please no flaming.

Genres

I do read a lot. Most of the stuff I read is genre stuff, and there have been several genres I've liked. When I was in elementary school I liked mysteries, though I don't read them so much any more. What I liked then was The Three Investigators series of mysteries for kids.

Later on, I started getting into fantasy by reading The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings by the time I was in 6th grade. I must admit that that is still my favorite genre in general, though I haven't read it as much lately because all of these Buffy the Vampire Slayer wannabees who date vampires while battling the forces of evil seem to have taken over a large chunk of the genre. That's not to say I don't like some of that kind of stuff; I will be picking up Kim Harrison's next Hollows novel when it comes out next month.

Around the same time I got into fantasy, I started to read science fiction. I never really read it quite so much as fantasy, but I did read it. My tastes in that area tend to be a bit odd. I like a good space opera. I like cross genre stuff, like Asimov's  SF mysteries or Adams SF humor. I enjoyed Card's Ender books, though due to his politics I've been somewhat reluctant to pick up the most recent ones. I haven't been reading much lately, though there are a few SF books on my to read pile.

I am also rather fond of horror. I probably first got into horror with my love of horror films. It's still my favorite movie genre. I began reading horror in the late 80s when I started picking up works by Stephen King and Dean Koontz. Then in the 90s the horror genre pretty much imploded, and I stopped reading it. I picked horror up again a few years ago when I picked up Brian Keene's Dead Sea and since then it's rapidly become the genre I read the most.

Most recently, I've started reading bizarro. I've always been fond of weirdness and weird stories in general, so it's a genre that fits me pretty well. It's one that I expect to be reading a lot more of in the future.

Other than those, I've read some other genre stuff. I've read a few thrillers; I love F. Paul Wilson's Repairman Jack and recently started on James Rollins' Sigma Force series. The only westerns I've read have been cross genre stuff like Joe Lansdale's horror western Dead in the West. I once read a fantasy romance because I didn't realize it was a romance, and I hated it. I have read a fair amount of YA stuff, but that's mostly YA fantasy, and I tend to mentally classify it as fantasy.

I think I'll have to do more detailed posts on specific genres later, because this is a topic I actually could probably write a lot more about.

A Day in My Life

You know, it's very hard to think about something to write about on a blog every day. At least it is when your a boring person who hardly does anything, like me.

Generally, I get up and spend an hour or so going through my RSS feeds, email, twitter, and webcomics. Then I take the dog for a walk. Then I come home and try to write something, or practice the ukulele. Then I do whichever of those I haven't done yet. Then I'll play Sims 3 for a bit. Then maybe read or watch something on Netflix. Then go to work. When I come home, I go back on the Internet for a bit, and if there were any shows on that I like, I'll watch them. Then I take a shower. Then I go to bed.

While it is a fairly relaxing life, it is not an exciting one or one that would provide a lot of inspiration on writing topics. Oh well, time to practice the uke.

Writing

So I make a resolution to write every day, and then today I forget about it until I'm at work, where I can't write. Luckily I still have time to write right now, and since It's still Sunday here, this counts. I suppose this is a good time to talk about some of the ideas I've had about stories I could write.

One idea--and if I do this one, I'll do it anonymously--is to parody/rewrite some of the works of a certain  insane, homophobic, half-witted troll, who shall remain nameless because otherwise he would harass me for the rest of my life with death threats and insane rants.The main reason I haven't is because doing so anonymously would be kind of cowardly, and even if this freak has harassed people I know, he hasn't harassed me, so picking a fight with him would be pointless.

Last year when I was trying to learn the banjo, I came up with the idea of a man who calls himself Banjo Player X and travels through a sort of post apocalyptic world or something. I have been thinking of a couple of story ideas involving him. One involves a super hero I once had an idea for called Spatula Man. The other would be "Banjo Player X Vs. the Yoyogod."

I don't mean myself as the Yoyogod, of course. Back when I was a teenager, I wrote a story called "The Yoyogod," which was published on an early Internet magazine. I didn't get paid for it, and the magazine has long since disappeared, which is good because the story sucked. It was about a scientist who was trying to stop a being who could cast magic spells by performing yo-yo tricks. Lately I've been thinking I could reuse the idea as a Banjo Player X story. I'll have to see hoe it turns out.