Agent of Change

The Associated Press: US balks at backing condemnation of anti-gay laws

noreply@blogger.com (Cory!!) — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 15:51:00 +0000

The Associated Press: US balks at backing condemnation of anti-gay laws

I don't know if I can actually say anything here that can convey how irritated and disgusted I am by this news. I mean, I KNOW that there are a lot of bigots in our country, most of whom use a book of myths and legends to justify their hatred, but for our government's representative to actually say "Hmmm...I think making homosexually legal is just a bit too controversial for us"?

Baffling.

Disgusting.

And probably makes all of the troglodytes happy.

Today's political observation

noreply@blogger.com (Cory!!) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:35:00 +0000

I see that Rachel Maddow was making fun of the IL governor's legal issues and was slamming him VERY hard last night. Can you imagine FOX doing that to any Right Wing Republican getting arrested?

Of course not. FOX labels Republican politicians who get arrested as Democrats.

You know what burns my ass?

noreply@blogger.com (Cory!!) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:09:00 +0000

A flame about three feet high.

I keep hearing the right wing media calling this “The Obama Recession”.

Now, I could take the tack that this is just the Heritage Foundation’s way of manipulating the language so that the right wing doesn’t get any blame (or the bill) for the trough feeding frenzy that crony capitalism has had over the last 10 years of so. Instead, I think it shows the main difference between right wing world and the rest of the world.

Obama isn’t even in power yet, and already he is so amazingly powerful that he was able to destroy the economy a year before taking office. He was able to REACH BACK IN TIME and shatter big financial institutions, destabilize the dollar and cause a huge speculation bubble in oil and homes. Damn, that makes Superman and Thor seem like pikers.

Another group of people being blamed for it are the poor who had the temerity to think that some of the INCREDIBLE WEALTH being shoved in their face on a daily basis would trickle down to them. It’s not like they were lied to, pressured into anything, or given loans so complex that they needed a lawyer (that they couldn’t afford) to understand. Maybe I’m not that bright, but when I went in to buy a car a year and a half ago, three different car dealers offered me “low monthly payments”, and when I asked for the actual interest rate, or final payments, I got a lot of hemming, hawing, double talk and the like, and when I left and checked with my friend who was a car salesman, he explained to me how they were screwing me over.

Home loans make car loans look like working with those Duplo Lego blocks.

At the root of it all was the right wing myth that everyone is going to be rich. They have pitched this idea as a way of getting poor people to agree with giving rich people incredible tax breaks. In the waning days of the campaign, John McCain would say in every speech “I want everyone to be rich!” TV, music, movies, etc… now all push the idea that everyone is rich, and if you aren’t, you are not just to be laughed at, but there is something seriously wrong with you. Thrift is a joke, spending money is the only way to show that you aren’t a loser, a redneck, or a worthless human being.

We’re undergoing a historic correction, and I’m not just talking about the stock market, housing costs or the like. The years of spending endlessly for shit you don’t need are coming to a screeching halt…and the world is going to be a vastly different place in ten years.

How we deal with it depends on who we listen to. The voices of the Heritage Foundation, Limbaugh, etc… will tell us that we need to fear. Fear the unions, fear the poor, fear the line workers, fear everything that isn’t just like them.

But there are other voices. Voices that say it IS time to change, to live more simply. To help each other and quit thinking that we need a new car every three years, a bigger house, a 70 inch TV and instead make sure than instead of “I want everyone to be rich”, saying “I want everyone to live a decent life free from fear and need.”

That’s what change is.

The greed of the last 30 years brought us here. Now it’s time to wake up.

2008 Election Predictions

noreply@blogger.com (Cory!!) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 19:51:00 +0000

First, the big one – Obama will pull between 350 and 360 electoral votes. He’ll pick up the states Kerry won as well as CO, FL, IA, MO, NV, NM, NC, OH, and VA. Republicans will allege all sorts of fraud and shenanigans just like they are doing with Olberman’s ratings and the new “people meter” radio ratings showing Limbaugh isn’t nearly as popular as we all thought he was.

Second, the Senate will not change enough for a filibuster proof majority, but it will be the end of any “Northern Moderate” Republicans.

Last, and here’s where I put on my Pundit hat:

The Republican Party under Bush has returned to a Regional Party, as it was through most of the 20th Century. However, it’s not going to be a New England/Western party this time, but a Southern/Western party. Why?

Under Bush, “conservative” has changed to a term defining far right Christianist views, a weird form of bailout crony capitalism, interventionalism, the biggest government welfare program of all time, sheer incompetence and lockstep adherence to denying facts. Fox may be the number one news network, but it is the mouthpiece for this group of people who never want their views challenged by facts. They have developed an insular media to the point where they have their own version of Wikipedia so they don’t have to let the world intrude upon their vision of How Things Are. An entire generation has been turned off by the blatant lying of the members of this media, Bush’s failures and their insistence on holding on to values that just don’t work for these people. They use gays are a fear tactic, while most people under 30 look at anti-homosexuality the same way us Gen Xers look at racism.

McCain’s campaign is a “last gasp” of these folks, living in a world where the economy is FINE, supply side economics works, and Bush and Cheney are heroes. The word “liberal” no longer has the fear stink to it, as it’s been used to demonize so long that it has lost all meaning. Obama “the liberal” is for nuclear power, fighting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and “traditional marriage”.

Will the Republican’s rebuild? The Democrats have been rebuilding, bringing in a series of pro-military centrists and slightly right leaning politicians to build a new coalition, but it hasn’t been covered by the MSM because Republicans still yell the loudest. Starting at the local level, the Democratic party is being rebuilt, and for all the pissing and moaning about Nancy Pelosi, she has been working hard to bring in these new Democrats. I have read REPEATEDLY that Southern Democrats are told that they are to represent their constituents and not worry about party line votes. The national party under Dean has been working to get out the word about the national positions, as the polls show that the majority of Americans agree with most Democratic proposals, but the chattering class pushes the idea of the Limbaugh listener as the “average American.”

Don’t get me wrong, the Republicans still have a stranglehold on the media (except on line). They also have shown in the 80’s and early 90’s they actually do BETTER as an opposition party. They may learn from this election as they did in 1964 and 1976 and retool in such a way to regrow. However, the Palin thing has shown me that the right-wing attack machine has lost much of its power, and the explosive growth of left wing media like Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz and blogs like Talking Points Memo and Daily Kos make me think that the stronghold is breaking.

Watching the cable news over the weekend, you’d think Sarah Palin is a rock star, John McCain is surging and Obama and Biden are hiding. They don’t mention the discrepancy in crowds, and shoot the McCain and Palin rallies in such a way that they look as big as Obama’s. I saw Palin on my TV almost all weekend as the cable news just showed speeches, and they NEED to make it seem like the race is tightening to hold onto their record ratings.

It didn’t.

If anything, Obama increased his state-by-state lead.

Now, winning power and keeping it are two different things. Carter oversaw the implosion of his party post-Watergate, and Clinton had to get his ass kicked in 1994 to start being a great President. The media will be out to pounce on Obama at 5 AM tomorrow morning, and Fox is salivating at the prospect of being able to be the opposition. Limbaugh’s tanking ratings will be bolstered by him once again being able to be the stone in the President’s shoe (he lost 12 million listeners from 1998 to 2008).

At least that’s what I think.

Fire BAD!

noreply@blogger.com (Cory!!) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 16:55:00 +0000

Humans made fire 790,000 years ago.

Pretty cool for the fact that according to the Christian Churches that run things, humans have only existed for about 5,500 years. Oh, Ben Stein, does reading this story make me a Nazi?

Dear Republican Party,

noreply@blogger.com (Cory!!) — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 18:04:00 +0000

There is to be no more whining about all the money Obama has raised if you spent over $150,000 to make Sara Palin 'look good' with new clothes, makeup and the like. How can we trust you with the country's money, when you spend $150,000 and she still looks like those annoying women at the movie theater who want their soda 'Half diet coke, a fourth coke and the other fourth Mr. Pibb' while their teenage daughters are macking on the 23 year old selling tickets and pot?

What I'm thinking about today

noreply@blogger.com (Cory!!) — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 18:22:00 +0000

The Roommate has gone up north to stay with her mom for a couple of weeks to see what she wants to do with her life. One of the things she’s not doing is paying rent.

I was up on the roof last night for about three hours, putting on the coat of sticky, silvery crap that is supposed to seal the roof for winter so that it doesn’t leak. The “brush” fell apart repeatedly, the clothes I wore were ruined, the stuff probably sat at Home Depot for a few years before I bought it, and by the end my hands looked like an unmoving silver mitten. The instructions were “shake up a bit before using”, but all of the silvery stuff had become a solid mass at the bottom of the 5 gallon can, and it took over an hour to mix it to where it was supposed to be. If my roof leaks, it’s certainly not going to be due my lack of trying to fix it.

I got to spend over an hour scrubbing my hands and arms with pads meant to scrub pots in order to get the crap off of my hands. Watched TV while I was scrubbing, and didn’t get it all off, but I think I went through quite a few layers of skin.

Work is almost creepily calm. We are in the first week of annual benefits enrollment and we’re getting the only about 10% more calls we would get during a non-payroll week. I’m starting to get worried we’ll either get hammered during the last week, or the week AFTER with people wondering when they get to enroll for next years.

Haven’t heard back from Casually Dating Girl this week. Kinda typical, but this is a week I wasn’t crazy busy so I had time to go do stuff. Nice to have a few nights at home to watch Tivo and work on the coming webstrip.

John McCain is against "spreading the wealth around", yet his medical plan, mortgage plan and business tax plan will take money from MY pocket (and I'm middle class) and give it to people who make a LOT more money in the form of new tax breaks. So, in other words, he's against spreading the wealth of the wealthy but has no problem spreading the non-wealth of 95% of working people.

I have Sunday completely off. I’ll be honest, it looks to be a day where I go to the gym in the morning, make a huge pot of soup for the week and lay on the futon with a big stack of comics and a crime novel. In other words, Best Day Without A Redhead In A Corset, Fishnets And Gin Gimlets EVER.

Bob Dole can't seem to remember much.

noreply@blogger.com (Cory!!) — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 01:57:00 +0000

In a letter written about on Politico.com, Dole scolds Limbaugh telling him to get behind the Republican nominee. Limbaugh has been touting that he won't support the Republican nominee if it is McCain or Huckabee.

Dear Bob Dole,

Don't you remember that Limbaugh didn't support you when you ran against Clinton? I doubt he'll listen to you now that you don't have any power.

Bye Bye Mitt-bot 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Cory!!) — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 19:13:00 +0000

The AP is reporting that Mitt-bot 2008 isn't buying any TV ads for Super Tuesday. In other words, he woke up, looked in the mirror, asked his biggest contributor for a donation was turned down cold.

Looks like the Republicans have decided.

And with the news coming out about Bill Clinton's foundation, and my dislike fo the Clinton haterz, I've pretty much decided as well.

However, all I care about in my dark, evil little heart is that Rush, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity and Hugh Hewitt are going to have to shill for a man they hate. How long until they start backtrackign and justifying their "change of heart" about McCain?

Why Five: Favorite Albums

noreply@blogger.com (Cory!!) — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:32:00 +0000

Top Five Albums.
Wow. This is much harder for me than I thought it would be:

1) Beatles – Abbey Road. Some people swear by Sgt. Pepper’s, other people like the early pop albums, but me, this is the culmination of all of the work they did their entire career, the relentless pop work of the early stuff, the experimentation of everything from Revolver onwards. I love every song on this album.

2) Killing Joke - Extremities, Dirt & Various Repressed Emotions. No other song has hit me in the gut quite as hard as “Money Is Not Our God”, and they follow it up with “Age of Greed” and “The Beautiful Dead rapid fire afterwards. I like their early work, but this album made me a lfietime fan on the band and Jaz’s unique view of the world.

3) The Ramones - Hey Ho! Let's Go: The Anthology – Yeah, it’s a greatest hits collection, but the Ramones were a singles based band, not an album band, and this is a huge collection of their stuff showing that they were the band we needed. I have all of their albums, but when I want to listen to them, I pull this out and it works just as well as Rocket To Russia.

4) U2 – The Joshua Tree – Yeah, it was their big commercial hit, but it stands up to repeated listenings better than their other work, and each song still has impact. It took their punk roots and fused it with blues, country and gospel in a way that just makes the sound explode out fo the speakers.

5) Reverend Horton Heat - The Full Custom Gospel Sounds of the Reverend Horton Heat – Like most people sick to death of hair metal and pop, I was a customer of Sub Pop records in the early 90’s. I heard this band on a sampler, and it awakened my inner rockabilly fan. I quickly devoured all of their work, and I am still a huge fan, all because of this album. I can not listen to this album without getting a huge smile on my face.

Oddly enough, my favorite band, Rush, isn’t on the list. I was introduced to them through watching their concerts and mix tapes made by my college g/f, so I can’t really point to any album and say “That’s it. That’s my favorite.” I don’t think I can put a mix tape on as a favorite album, can I?

Dammit, I'm a punk

noreply@blogger.com (Cory!!) — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 19:42:00 +0000

At lunch today, I went with a guy in his mid 20’s and another guy who is in his early 40’s, like me and we were talking about music. When we got to talking about punk, it was VERY hard for me to describe punk to them because they knew next to nothing about it, and I had trouble describing it.

Why?

Punk wasn’t just the music. Sure, there were punk bands (and if you bring up the Sex Pistols, I’ll beat you to death with my Doc Martins…they were no more a punk band than the Backstreet Boys were a grunge band), but there was so much more to it. It was about stripping rock music down to its bare essentials, getting rid of the whole idea of being “rock stars” and getting the consumerism out of rock music. It was about working class attitudes, individualized thinking and a healthy disdain and sarcasm about mainstream culture. A punk is happy to rub people's noses in realities they don't wish to acknowledge. It’s the music and attitude of the outcast, and while it is realistic, it’s also amazingly idealistic. Appearances, however, are diverse, not uniform: clothes do not make a Punk.

The Ramones are the most influential band, not because of their musical talent, but because they reminded people that ANYONE can pick up a guitar or a drum set and make music. You didn’t need the London Philharmonic Orchestra, know how to write an opera, charge $75 for a concert, or have a stage show that rivals a Broadway production. The Ramones reminded us songs could simply be about what we want to do and what we don’t want to do.

Myself, every so often, I need to get back to my inner punk, which is one of my goals this year, but my punk comes through writing. How about you?

Saturday Night Live, the first five years

noreply@blogger.com (Cory!!) — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 20:27:00 +0000

Saturday Night Live, the first five years

I have started a new blog...no, not here on Agent of Change, but on my own website (as part of its restart). I will be watching the Original Five Yeas of Saturday Night Live and blogging about it, listing the bits and my opinions of them.

It just got it's first post where I go over the first episode of the series, and will get a new review every week. Come on over and give it a look:

http://www.solitairerose.com/snlblog.html

What I'm thinking about today

noreply@blogger.com (Cory!!) — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 16:19:00 +0000

-The car is making a noise I don't like. I'm hoping it is because ti is 20 below and not because the brakes need work.

-I may actually get one of the big projects at work done today. Then the editing of it starts.

-So far this year I have put together a low budget movie pitch, been invited to write a TV pilot, have two web comic ideas that may see print by the summer and have a friend pushing me to start a podcast.

-I'm a typical American in that I don't believe I will ever get out of debt.

-I was a much bigger fan of the Psychadelic Furs than I thought.

-Am I the only one who thinks that Bill Clinton is giddy that he's back on the campaign trail? People have forgot that he was SUCH a fighter and they are shocked he's an attack dog...just like Edwards's wife.

-BTW, if Obama thinks he's getting attacked now and it's a bad thing, just wait until the right wing slime machine puts them in his sites.

-I should run for President if it can nab you a wife like Dennis Kuscinich's.

-All things considered, things are going decently. A few big setbacks in the last week, but not half as bad as last year.

Hydrox

noreply@blogger.com (Cory!!) — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 16:02:00 +0000

Hydrox cookies were quietly discontinued a while ago. They were renamed "Droxies" a while back, but that didn't help falling sales, and the cookie is now gone. When I first encountered them, I thought they were a cheap, generic knockoff of Oreos, but they were the original and Oreos were the cheap knockoff.

Just goes to show, you can be the first with an idea, and still get your ass handed to you by someone stealing that idea.

Election Predictions

noreply@blogger.com (Cory!!) — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 16:09:00 +0000

So…it’s finally time. After a seemingly endless campaign, we get the Iowa caucus. Having been to a caucus, to declare a “winner” is just damn silly. People don’t vote, no delegates are chosen, and the process is amazingly complex. But, they will declare winners tonight, so here are my predictions:

Democrats:

Clinton wins, Obama comes in 3rd and Edwards gets second and becomes the “big winner” in that the media hasn’t been paying attention to him for the last few months, and he’ll be interviewed everywhere. One of the lower polling candidates (Dodd, Biden, Richardson) will drop out of the race in the next three days.

Republicans

Huckabee wins and all everyone talks about is how Romney collapsed. Ron Paul gets a smaller number than expected and his followers claim the process is rigged. McCain comes in second, and Romney has his Howard Dean moment, limps along for a while and is gone in a few weeks, never to show up on the national stage again. Rudy is ignored by everyone, Thompson drops out within the next three to five days.

Last prediction? We know who the nominees are by the first week of February and everyone loses interest for the next six months.

NaNoWriMo Progress for Solitaire Rose

noreply@blogger.com (Cory!!) — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 23:51:00 +0000

Last weekend is done.

I wrote Friday night, and then yesterday, I spent the day either relaxing or writing. I watched a couple of movies, caught up on some TV, and then wrote. And wrote and wrote and wrote. The story flowed for some of the time, and other times it wasn't easy. I finally got to the end of the Second Act last night, broke 38,000 words, and although I had planned to hit 40k by the end of the day, in the end, I was too tired, too drained and completely out of story.

I went to bed and tried to work out the problems I had set up for myself, and thought about how I had spent a Saturday night at my keyboard, pounding away. Today, I woke up, had breakfast, watched a little more TV and, around noon, started writing again.

My current word count is 43,050. I got my 5K for today, and I only have to write 7,000 words to meet the NaNoWriMo deadline. For the first time since the beginning of the month, I am ahead. Of course, I didn't get anything eaten, don't have anything made for lunch, and have two big loads of laundry to do, but I Am Ahead.

Story-wise, I have hit the Really Bad Scene, and it was where I had to stop. In previous zombie novels, characters have died. A lot of them. When I started working on editing the first one, I was surprised at who died...characters who had a lot of story left in them, but then, that's how life is. In this novel, there has been a grand total of one death, and because of that, I think it is all the more horrific. It MEANS more. I used the exact words I had in my head when I first imagined the scene a couple of years ago.

I have no idea how my characters are going to get out of the situation I have put them in. There are a few seeds planted, but I have no idea if any of them will work. I have 7000 words to go in order to meet the NaNo deadline, but the books will end up being longer. I have three “flashbacks” that I decided not to write because they will need a research I don't have time for. I have a couple of sequences I will go back and add because I know there are a few scenes that were in my head, I was sure I wrote them, but they never made it onto the page.

In terms of pure writing VOLUME, I'm pretty amazed. Over 12,000 words over the last three days. I am 86.1% done. It wasn't easy. It never is. Anyone who says writing is easy, isn't really pulling it from a place inside themselves, and the last three days, I have been pulling this story from my darkest fears.

Now, when I go back and want to know what I was going through as I wrote this novel, I have a record.

When I hit 50k, I'll set up a place on my website so people can see the rough draft. I'll probably take a break before finishing the novel, but I want to finish it up by the end of the year. Right now, though, it's all about those last 6950 words and wherte they are going to come from.

I missed Tuesday Night's entry

noreply@blogger.com (Cory!!) — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 02:33:00 +0000

So, we'll go back in time:

I broke 30K tonight. 30136.

Not bad considering that my computer crashed tonight when I was about an hour into my nightly writing, and I lost around 1500 words. I had set Open Office to AutoSave, but after the crash, Open Office assured me that it didn't have any document called "today" to recover, and I spent a good half hour looking for ways to try to coax those missing words from my machine.

And it won.

I remembered the plot points I had written: Helen had a panic attack and tries to convince our main group to go back for the missing people, but the leader of the group shoots her down, pretty brutally. A lot of character interaction, and what I feel is a good look at what goes on inside the head of someone having a panic attack.

Then, a quiet character steps forward to take the blame for their situation and gives her backstory, explaining WHY these people would leave a safe environment to go into danger.

Why?

Because they didn't know how bad things were. Now, they are on the run, trying to get back home. That's the overall thrust of this novel (and the next few if I continue it). There is a term in writing called "The McGuffin". That's the thing that starts the plot, even though it's not the POINT of the plot. In Casablanca, the McGuffin is the letters of transit, but the plot is the relationship between Rick and Ilsa.

Ray and Will, our two missing characters, are going to be out of the story for a while, to build suspense. The last we saw them, they were trying to get away from The Others, had been found and were under gunfire. All our other characters know is that they heard a few bursts of gunfire while they were getting away, and have no idea what it means.

Things I still need to do:

-Get a couple of good ideas of stories to tell about what happened while civilization was falling, or hidden backstory to one of the main characters as between chapter interludes
-Decide if the characters even GET to the Army base in this book, or if that's for the next one.
-Sort out what happened to Ray and Will. Things don't look good for them

As much as losing those words upset me, I think this version of the this passage is stronger, probably because I'd worked it through in my head, and tonight's 3000 words count as a second draft.

Still, I have 9 days for 20,000 words. Not insurmountable, especially with a holiday and two weekend days before the 30th. Last year, I plowed through 10,000 words on one quiet Sunday at the coffee house when an Ex Girl Friend showed up with her new boyfriend. It was a case where I channeled all of my negative emotion into the writing rather than deal with it. Hopefully, this year, I can get the same word count without the emotional upset.

Then again, every character is still alive. I don't know as any of the zombies novels has had THAT happen.

I see that this thread is getting a lot of views, so I thank you for your attention, time and interest. I hope that next year, we can get some of you readers to become WRITERS.

NaNoWriMo Progress for Solitaire Rose

noreply@blogger.com (Cory!!) — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 02:31:00 +0000

NaNoWriMo Progress for Solitaire Rose

35,178

That means that while I am still behind, I only need to write 15,000 words in the next seven days.

I got very little writing done on Thursday, and none on Wednesday. Wednesday I visit with friends for Role Playing Games...the one social constant in my lif e for the past four years or so. The guy who runs the game is someone I met through NaNoWriMo, and even though he doesn't do it any more, it's still the thing that brought us together, oddly enough.

Yesterday, my son and I were invited to his house, and we had our meal with his family and friends, and it was a lot of fun. For the last 15 years, I worked on holidays, and now having them off leaves me a bit confused. I'm used to thinking of holidays are these horrible things I have to guide the residents through, because their issues explode around the holidays. Now, it's a day off of work, and I need to start creating some traditions.

It was a bit easier for me to write about a world with a tiny number of human beings because work was almost empty. Out of about 40 people, there were seven, and because my work computer hasn't been set up yet (we moved everyone on Tuesday, and I'm still waiting for a working computer), I was in an office far away from the people who were working with me.

I had to drive in today, since the buses don't go as far as they do on normal business days, and mine would have dropped me off about 5 miles from work. I drove in, and when I got done, I decided that I'd stop at my favorite coffee house and write. I drink Earl Gray tea, which is $2.75 a cup...and you get a free refill, so with my generous tip, I can stay here for about three hours and write for $5. It's social, as I can watch people to get ideas, and I dont' feel as isolated as I do at home (or at work today).

I am still trying to get the story to go to the third act I envisioned, but at 35,000 words, I'm going to have to FORCE a second act ending soon. The character interplay is fascinating to me, and I am really working with the idea of what it would be like to travel long distances in w world with no cars where you are simply prey.

I wrote a scene on Tuesday night that illustrated just how Helen deals with her panic attacks, and then the last 5,000 words are showing how they affect her perceptions of the people around her. She's connecting with our little band of travelers in a healthy way. Which is good for her, but...

Well, it IS a horror novel, and nothing particularly horrible has happened in a while. And they have been very lucky for the last week or so. Bad things are coming, and they are coming soon.

My plan is to write 5000 words tomorrow and 5000 Sunday. That will bring me to 45000 words with five days left. An EASY last week, especially if I get to the third act. The last past of a novel is always the easiest part. All of the pieces are in place, and all you need to do is just write what happens. As with any of the novels I have written and LIKED, I have planted all kinds of little ideas and plot seeds through the story that I start to magically pull together without really trying. It's almost organic how it all ties together.

It's the 23rd, and I love my novel again, am only 3000 words behind, and think that I am going to come out of this with a publishable novel. Just need to clean it (and the three that come before it) up and make them presentable.

But that's for December. November is writing, and November is good.

Still writing, but hating myself while doing so

noreply@blogger.com (Cory!!) — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 04:49:00 +0000

Oh, yeah, I'm still writing, and I'm still behind. I'll finish this year if I can crank out 2100 words a day for the next 10 days, and with a Holiday and two weekend days, I have time to catch up.

I dove into the writing yesterday after being blocked and only getting a few hundred words a day for most of last week. I realized why, of course, because it's the Mid Novel Blah.

About halfway through a novel, you question yourself.

I suck.

No one will want to read this.

My characters are boring.

I'm not getting these ideas across.

I should give up and read a GOOD book.

I'm stupid for trying.

It hits every novel at the half way point, especially when the novel has gone off the rails and isn't anywhere close to the plot you started with. This novel was headed to a place where Our Heroes come upon an Army base where the people inside have decided to follow orders to the letter, refusing to see that the world around them has changed, and they are doing horrible things because they were ordered to.

Instead, my character haven't been able to get away from their camp because of a group of people we know nothing about. They may be evil, or they may be just like our heroes, worried they are under attack and lashing out first.

When a novel gets its own plot, you go with it. It also is social commentary without me thinking about it...an enemy we know nothing about and fear because we don't know about them? Ring a bell with anyone?

My characters are coming into focus, doing things I didn't expect, and changing as they go on this journey, just like me.

When I get to the end, I still may not have a novel anyone wants to read, but I WILL finish it. I WILL complete this race. I may not be first, but I WILL get done.

I won't let the doubt beat me.

Solitaire Rose | National Novel Writing Month

noreply@blogger.com (Cory!!) — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 05:30:00 +0000

Solitaire Rose | National Novel Writing Month

22234.

Yes, I am a bit behind, but I broke 20K tonight. I couldn't write Monday night, as I just had nothing in me for the novel and on Tuesday I went out with a friend from work to see Star Trek in the movie theater, and got him in time to deal with Home stuff.

Tonight I wrote, finishing a back scene and then finally making back to where I SHOULD be writing instead of filling in gaps and saying, "I forgot this scene." I had a concert CD playing, but within about ten minutes I wasn't paying attention to it any more as the words flowed. It was like breaking a dam tonight, and the scenes came quickly and easily. Characters reacted, things got worse, and my characters have formed two groups who are traveling apart. I don't know what will come of it, but I like the new dynamic, as it puts all of them out of their comfort zones, and forces my two leads to confront what they fear most.

I write zombie novels because I want to write about current social and political issues without writing about them, if that makes any sense. I wanted this to be about how we have become a nation that tortures, and how we have moved from a nation that cringes in horror and accuses our enemies of it to one that does so, and mocks those who say it is wrong.

That's still going to be there, but the theme emerged as I wrote tonight.

The lead male character, Ray, was the lead in the last two novels, and has gone from being a safe, protected but unfulfilled person, to a man who is slowly losing everything. He's had people he's been in charge of die, he's lost the use of an arm, but most of all, he's compromising himself to survive, and at what point do those compromises make it so you aren't YOU any more.

The scariest scene in the book isn't zombies being thrown through the air by a tornado, zombies trying to break into a house with no way out, or a house on fire, with the exits blocked.

It's when Ray has done something horrible to another human being just because the man in involved in a slavery ring. The scene is:

[i]“I already have. Now, let's get back. That caravan is heading toward the others, and if we hurry, we'll get there before they do. They move slowly because of their slaves and if we run, we'll beat them there.”

“It's wrong,” Will said, unable to look away. Unable to move. “We aren't like that. They may be slavers, but we're better than they are.”

“No,” Ray said, “You may be, but I'm not. Not any more.”[/i]

Not any more.

If there is a worse hell, I can't think of what it would be.

Every year, this exercise changes me, both as an artist, and as a person. This year is no different. Thanks you for following me as I go on this journey.

Ten days in

noreply@blogger.com (Cory!!) — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 22:47:00 +0000

Not much energy left....work was insane all week, and I got very little writing down before today. AND, all of it seems to have gone missing, so I had to rewrite everything I'd written since Tuesday (about 1500 words). I'll post more about it tomorrow, but I skipped ahead past the scene I was working on in hopes it was on my home computer, got to a nice cliffhanger and have gone back to write the missing words as well as the end of that scene.

Spend the night at my favorite coffee house and got over 4K written tonight. I'm at 17K, and will break the 20K barrier tomorrow. Still liking the novel, but I have to get the characters MOVING or they'll never make it to where the main part of the plot is. That's right, I'm at 17K, and my characters haven't physically moved.

However, a new set of antagonists have showed, and I think they will be chasing the characters, meaning the danger is rising. As I read through the novel, Karen seems utterly expendable to readers, so they will be looking for her to die. Too bad she's not going to. And knowing that, I can play with it. I can mess with reader expectations, which s always good in my mind.

Now, off to the car, then home and to bed, unless the pretty barrista starts asking me about my novel and British comedies again, in which case, I'll be awake a lot longer than I plan to be.

What kind of weekend it has been

noreply@blogger.com (Cory!!) — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 21:29:00 +0000

What kind of day it has been

I have been a poor blogger, but the writing is still moving.

Helen’s story, the first chapter, was fun to write. A nice horror chapter, with some good imagry, a deep look into how she reacted to disaster and her full background. Kind of an intro to her and why she is the way she is.

The first “interlude” was like pulling teeth, and was the hardest thing I’ve written. EVER. I started and then deleted about four or five times before I finally decided to go with the meeting in which the characters who will be traveling tell everyone else that they are leaving. It was a talking heads scene, and brings the reader up to speed on things that were in my head. It all felt like endless exposition, so in the rewrite, I’ll have to focus on getting into everyone’s head, and HOW they came to their decisions, since I always find that more important than what they have decided.

The weekend wasn’t an easy one for writing. I help my friend Tommy move all day on Saturday, and after lifting and carrying things for about 10 hours, I just wanted to lay down, not move, and I had no energy left for writing. Fine. I was ahead on my word count after Thursday and Friday, so I skipped it.

Sunday, I was feeling the aftereffects of helping someone move, and could only sit for about a half hour at a time before I’d stiffen up. Still, I got my older characters together with Helen, and have spent the last couple of days mixing the characters, figuring out the new dynamic and setting the main plot in motion. There are hidden agendas, interpersonal relationships friction and such starting to show, and I’m going to be writing the first big “action beat” today on my way home from work on the bus.

What I wasn’t counting on was Ray, the protagonist from the last two novels in is taking over this book. I’d planned to push him to the side and let Helen be the main protagonist, but Ray is putting himself center stage. He’s the kind of character I like to write: Conflicted, a leader who doesn’t want to be a leader, and in this novel he is going through a crisis of faith in himself. He’d been through a LOT of bad experiences, and he’s been pushing them to the side for the last two novels, and this is the novel when they start pushing back.

Only 11,642 words in, and I’ve lost all control of the novel. That’s a good thing, although the main plot is still moving forward.

Today, I have no idea if I’ll get to write, as we are in our busiest time of the year, and I didn’t even have time for lunch…I forgot my laptop (grabbed the wrong bag) and won’t get home until around 9 PM tonight. Still, I WANT to write, and as long as I still WANT to write, I’ll find a way.

NaNo Day One

noreply@blogger.com (Cory!!) — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 22:52:00 +0000

I’m off at a rapid pace, around 5000 or so words so far, and more to come tonight after I blog this. It’s always like that, though, since the start of a novel is something that has been kicking around in my head for a while (this one had a scene that I literally dreamed about 2 years ago involving zombies and a tornado…creepy), and I want to just blast it out of my brain as fast as possible.

The novel is so far focusing on the new “main character”, a mentally ill woman who has been “broken” by what has happened to her over the last few years. I started my writing thinking that she had a form of Borderline Personality, but as I write it, it a deeper form of trauma that (like most mental illness) doesn’t fit cleanly into a single term. Looking through her eyes is an amazing experience, and I hope other people get a strong reaction about her. I can’t say she’s going to be LIKEABLE, but she’s interesting and a great whole person. Helen is a character who means the world to me, and I have no idea where she will end up at the end of the book.

I have three other new characters who will be showing up in this sequel, and a lot of the characters from the first two novels will be falling away as the book (s?) and main characters begin a trek across the country to see what’s left. It’s a journey novel, but like all journeys, the destination isn’t what is important. That’s the theme I had in the last two novels, but this one will allow that to fade into the background.

Two of the new characters are set in my head. Will and Hope are a couple, and if the symbolism isn’t ham-fisted enough, Hope + Will = Love. They are in this novel for background, to react to the main characters and to give the reader the feeling that anyone can die at any time. I have their fears, their hopes, their backgrounds, their foibles and their failures, and if they don’t make it into this book…there’s always next time, right?

Nikki is still an enigma to me. She’s the last of the new characters, and all I know about her is that her husband was killed in the last book, so she is traveling with the rest to get away from where it happened. I’ll learn about her as I write.

This weekend will be harder writing, as I have to give all of the background from the first two novels, introduce all of the returning characters and make the reader care about them even if they haven’t read anything about them before. But, if I fail at that, I can fix it in January. November is all about the word count.

And one day in, I’m ahead.

My NaNoWriMo let me show you them

noreply@blogger.com (Cory!!) — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 03:36:00 +0000

For the last 6 years, I've participated in NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month. It's a challenge where you sign up and say you'll write a 50,000 word novel in a month. It's not about writing literature, it's about word count, but I've learned that as I write, I become a better writer. Hopefully, next year I can get some publishers or TV/Movie people to agree with me, but that's not the important thing this month. It's about writing. It's about the story. It's about sitting around a campfire and trying to tell a story that comes from your soul.

So, this year, I'm writing my third zombie novel.

I've had the plot in my head for a while. How long? Well, let's just say that in 2002 when I first did this, I wrote a novel based in a world that was 5 years after a movie like “Night of the Living Dead” or “Dawn of the Dead” because I was fascinated by the idea of the human race no longer in charge, and struggling for life. I also wanted to write the kind of satire/social commentary that Romero excels at. I also want to point out that this was at least two years before the zombie comic “The Walking Dead”.

I also wanted something easy to write for my first “Novel in a month”. I was working full-time at a group home, and while I was the director, I had to pull a lot of the overnight shifts because overnights are the hardest shifts to fill. The house didn't have cable, a DVD player or fast internet (just dial up), so I would bring in my laptop and surf about on the web, write and fight to stay awake. A horror novel with zombies would be easy to write, I could concentrate on characters instead of plot, and I had a quick plot crutch:

Anytime you don't know what to do next, zombies attack.

It was a big hit, and the people who read it, loved it. Two years later, I wrote another one, since I had thrown in a lot more characters and plot than could be covered in 50,000 words and wrote up a nice sequel. I had a nifty device where I shifted back to before the zombie attack (years before LOST was on the air, mind you) so that I could show that the fall of civilization was fast, but not TOO fast, and it was exacerbated by humanity's silly political conflicts and relentless selfishness. I had three of four subplots that I purposefully left dangling, and again, people who read it loved it and wanted more.

I wrote two different novels in the last two years, a poker based love story and a conman/crime story in a fantasy wrapper, but people wanted the zombies.

This year, I'm not at the group home any more. I'm in an all new career, an all new life and I feel like everything in my life has changed in the last 12 months. So, I'm writing a “comfort novel”. Back to the zombies. My survivors: Ray, Hunter, Jen and Amanda will be there, but the story is going to start through the eyes of another character. Characters who were seemingly dropped in the last two books will be showing up, and in a way, the first two books will feel like they all led up to this.

I decided to do this novel about two months ago after reading stories about how the military was being turned over to religious people, and people who weren't a certain KIND of Christian were finding themselves cut out of the decision-making process in the current administration. Like any good satirist, I'll be taking this to its absurd, logical extreme because the point of a good zombie story is that humans are the TRUE monster, the zombies just bring it out.

I have three of the main “story beats” in my head, but am leaving enough of the story up in the air to find it along the way. I know where it starts, where they are going, but as in the first two novels, I have no idea if the characters will get there, which ones will survive and, what will be left of them mentally.

My “hero” has been through a long series of traumatic experiences. Our new character has grown up in this world, having been only 15 when everything fell. In fact, people who were adults and starting lives in the old world are starting to become scarce, which is a significant story point along the way.

Today, on my way to work, I was writing up character backgrounds for the new people who will be in the book, and clarifying how the returning characters will react to what they've been through and a few story points became shockingly clear. A major character is going to die. It's not like I say down and said, “I need to shock the reader and let them know that no one is safe”, it's more that as I was writing about them (nope, not giving a clue) I realized how they will react and what will happen.

That's the beauty of NaNoWriMo and TRUE writing to me. I'm not in control of the story. I start it, I populate it and then the story does what it does. Every year I'm amazed at how it takes a life of its own and I can simply write what happened.

“Why did you do that?” people ask writers all the time.

More than once, the writer says “Because that's what happened.”

Believe them.

I'm going to write about my journey on this book. Think of it as your own personal DVD commentary for it. When it's done, I'll be putting the first draft on my website. I hope you take some time and read it.

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Solitaire Rose | National Novel Writing Month

Ten days in

What kind of weekend it has been

NaNo Day One

My NaNoWriMo let me show you them