Jibber Jabbah!

Not a lot going on here lately. For all intents and purposes, Skinner #5 is done. I'm waiting for the first round of official edits for Skinners 6 to come back to me. In the meantime, I'm ghost writing a few westerns and working on some new proposals for other series. Of course that doesn't mean I'm moving away from Skinners. It's just that, unless you're one of the 0.8% of writers who get to do one thing and sit back to rake it in, you gotta hustle. I'm pretty sure only about 5% of professional writers JUST write for a living, and most of them ain't rich.

I was talking earlier about how much I love Steampunk, so I'm putting together some stuff for that. Shaping up to be VERY cool. Also have lines in the water in the science fiction and mystery genres. Yes, mystery! I know! I wouldn't imagine me doing this either, but I came up with an idea that I would LOVE to do so I'm giving it a shot. Maybe I have some sort of attention....something where my attention doesn't focus. Focus? It's something where I....I don't know. What was I talking about? Anyway, my mind comes up with a lot of stuff and I want to write it all. Hopefully some of it sells.

Been catching up on my DVR backlog of Fringe and Stargate Universe episodes. Yes, SG-U isn't the best, but it's grown on me. Someone out there said the ship has a stargate on it because it can't LAND. Huh. Just sounds silly when you put it that way. Oh well. Also catching up on some gaming and movies. Finally got around to seeing The Other Guys with Will Ferrell. "Gator needs his gat!!" Awesome.

Back to work for me.

Taking a quick peek at the rest of the world

Funny thing about DVRs. Although it's great to have shows to watch whenever you want with the ability to skip commercials, I find myself both in sync and behind everyone else. I hear about a new show like Bob's Burgers and can find it, tape it and watch it right away. Wow! Then there are shows that slip through the cracks for a while and I watch months later to be thrown off by stale ads. Wait a second! New Hell's Kitchen ALREADY?? SWEET!!! Oh, that's an ad from last season. Doh.



I swore I wouldn't watch American Idol after...I don't know...sometime a few years ago. To be honest, I can't even tell you who won the last few seasons I did watch. That useless knowledge gets instantly purged after it passes my eyes. You know...like the emergency number to the police or what my allergies are. Idol has a new season and new judges. Mainly I wanted to see how Steven Tyler would do. Personally, I was a big fan of Simon and loved watching him rip apart people who couldn't sing and have "always been dreaming about this moment". Seriously? ALWAYS? When you were a child, you stayed awake at night daring to dream about standing in line at a hotel and screeching in front of celebrities? Diff'rent strokes. My fear with the new judge lineup was that (since they are performers) they would be extra lenient in letting people get through. From what little I saw (meaning the first episode) I may be right. They really do fall for the sob stories. I'll tell ya, those don't usually work. I've been rejected plenty of times by editors who didn't give a rat's ass about my history. I'm just waiting for the intro to Hollywood Week when Ryan Seacrest says, "Of the 13,000 people who tried out, only 11,437 remain. WHO will be the NEXT American Idol?"





Eh, whatever. I recommend Bob's Burgers and Archer for you animation fans. I still love Fringe with all of my heart. Hawaii Five-O is cool. And then there's The Cape....sigh. Don't get me started on The Cape.

Give Scrooge a break

I know Christmas is over and it'll be at least three or four weeks before we start seeing decorations on store shelves again, but I was recently having a conversation with a friend of mine about ghosts. Specifically, the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and (my personal favorite) Future from A Christmas Carol. Basically, I asked the question as to whether these supernatural entities are ghosts or something closer to demons.

Now I guess you could define "demon" as intrinsically evil, but I think a ghost is the essence of a human who is either stuck in our world / plane of existence or lingering there for their own reasons. If those reasons happen to be mean-spirited or "evil", does that make them a demon? No. When I think of a demon, I think more along the lines of an entity that has unearthly power (something cooler than floating or glowing) and is not of our world. There's more to it than that, but that's the Cliff Notes version. You see a shadow figure or hear disembodied voices? Could be a ghost. Is your dog possessed or are you being thrown onto the ceiling when you're trying to sleep? Sounds like a demon. Is that stuff evil? Depends on if you or the dog had it comin'.

Which brings me around to Scrooge. Sure, this old man was a crotchety jerk. Maybe he worked too hard and expected his employees to also give 110% when they're behind their desk. Hey, back then coal really WAS kind of expensive! But these things that visit him aren't just ghosts! They're time travellers. They create hallucinogenic food. (Ok you tell me how GoCPresent pulled that off!). But they weren't evil. Or...were they? Take GoCFuture. Ok, you teleport Scrooge into the days to come and show him (spoiler alert!!) he dies sad and alone. Point made. You reduced an old man to tears. Happy? He gets it. How about shoving his nose against his own tombstone. He'll buy the damn goose, all right!! Jeez!! Well, he was being difficult and needed some tough love. How about shoving the old guy into his OWN OPEN GRAVE!!! Yowza!! Even I think that's kind of harsh and I'm a horror writer!!

So, you decide. Possessed dog and getting knocked around into some walls or taken into the future to see your own horrific demise and then booted into hell via the ground where your own worm-infested corpse is laying. Makes that thing in Paranormal Activity seem kind of tame, doesn't it?

And there was much rejoicing

First of all, I'll lead with the cool news. I got some copies of the new cover in the mail today. Woo HOOOO!! Check it out...

In the original version I was given, the gargoyle's eyes were glowing red. That was cool, but I'm definitely not complaining. I love it. Also, I do kind of miss the hot, butt-shot of Paige from the last one. That's just me. Heh. Let me know what you think. This one hits shelves on May 31.

Recently, I've finished with my largest round of editing for Book 6. Now is the time where I can sit back and relax because the book feels like a book and it feels truly finished. Of course, there are some more edits to do, but no more stress by feeling like my newest baby is laying on the floor in pieces. Whew. Time to sit back and play some video games for a day or two. Then it's back to work.

Blog neglect

Wow. It's been a while since my last post. Sorry about that or, depending on what you think of my rambling, you're welcome.

Part of my excuse was visiting my dad for Christmas. Sure, I could have updated in that time, but I just didn't. Oh well. We went to see Tron Legacy in a theater in 3D!! First of all, let me point out that I don't get to theaters very often at all anymore. I bring this up because I noticed some innovations other than the 3D. For example...flavored popcorn dust. For a buck fifty, you can buy cheese flavored stuff to dash onto your popcorn. It was awesome!! There was even vanilla stuff to put into your coke. Apart from the fact that they somehow came up with a way to make snacks MORE expensive than purchasing the DVD of the movie you're watching, it was very cool.

Speaking of the movie, I liked the new Tron. I liked the first Tron too, so this isn't a big surprise. I haven't heard a lot of nice things about this movie from just about anyone, but I think this is a case of Nostalgic Build-Up Syndrome. 27 years ago (THAT long???) I was a kid who loved video games, explosions and shiny stuff. Therefore, no matter how much the critics and adult movie goers panned Tron (which they did...EXTENSIVELY), I loved it. The first Tron isn't really a great movie if we take out the wide-eyed, geeky joy that we feel when we mention it. When I went to Tron Legacy, all I wanted was more lightcycles and video game stuff. Well, this time it was in 3D! Was it the best movie ever? No. Was it horrible because I was expecting a finely tuned plot? No. It had lightcycles, explosions, and shiny stuff. Me= happy. Add in the 3D, nacho cheese flavored popcorn and vanilla coke and it was freaking awesome!!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to Walmart to buy a toy lightcycle for my desk.