skepticlysm

Don't you believe it.

recent posts

about

  • Journal Entry: Why Write At All?

    That’s what my brain throws at me most days.

    Why write? You like the idea of being a writer more than you like writing. You’re not that good at it anyway. You’re just going to not finish whatever it is you start. And it’s going to suck. You don’t even have an idea of what you want to write. I need a big chunk of uninterrupted time. But I have so much to do at work on the computer, and then when I get home, the last thing I want to do is stare at a computer screen (as I pull out my smartphone and literally waste hours of my life checking updates, statues and random pics that enrich my life in no way because it’s so much easier to do nothing than something that might be fulfilling or of value). blah, blah, bladeefuckingdah.

    That shit. That shit right there. That’s my brain. Every minute of every day. Doesn’t necessarily have to be about writing, mind you. Pretty much everything in my life gets fed to my mental woodchipper the same way.

    I know, after nearly two years of ACT therapy, that the bullshit in your head is your worst enemy. And my life is fundamentally better by several orders of magnitude than it was when I started.

    And still I struggle. I’m using writing as a means of discussing this because on a level of importance to me, it’s way up there at the top along with my relationships with my beautiful wife and daughter.

    But I’m coming around to the idea that most obstacles in life are there because we put them there ourselves. Fill in the blank with whatever you want. Working out. Painting. Helping others. Anything you know you should be doing but aren’t.

    Mine’s writing, which is as simple as typing with passable subject/verb agreement. I mean, what’s so hard about it, right? Just fucking write. At a basic level, it’s that easy. Open a blank doc, get out a clean sheet of paper, unwrap a new Moleskine (they’re my favorite), and open the thought spigot.

    Only it also isn’t. Not when you have a head full of bullshit (and a lot of us d0). The underlying reason is some sort of fear, and the voice of fear is so loud in your head you can’t even hear it anymore, don’t recognize what it is. It’s machine code. It’s mental autopilot.

    And it’s bullshit. It isn’t real. Nothing in your head is real. It’s just thoughts. They have no substance. You can’t interact with them physically. How does something with no form, no gravity, no actual presence control you so totally?

    Because you’re not paying attention. You’re not here. You’re not now. You’re not dealing with what is.

    I started typing this because I read a column by a sports blogger I follow about how he lost his unborn daughter at week 36 of the pregnancy. Stillborn. Real. It happened.

    And there he was blogging about it. Moving forward. Dealing with his life head-on.

    My gut reaction was to cry, because the situation could’ve happened to my wife and I when our daughter was born at week 36 of the pregnancy, weighing just over four pounds. Gut punch number one.

    But then I recognized the strength of that guy, to hold it together, do what he needed to do, and even have perspective on it while it was happening.

    If he can do that, I can make myself throw some words on a blog. And then maybe I can pound out some more in the form of a short story. And maybe I can then learn to quit beating myself up for being afraid to fail, and let myself try and learn. Maybe I can let me off the hook just a bit.

    Because beating yourself up for your failings isn’t productive. It does no good.

    There’s only now. There’s only forward.

     

  • Clean Reader? WTF Does That Mean?

    You guys heard of this Clean Reader thing? I hadn’t, but the mere idea of it pisses me off. I’ll quote Chuck Wendig on it, however. I think he expresses everything I would’ve said:

    There exists a new app called Clean Reader.

    The function of Clean Reader is to scrub the profanity from e-books.

    Their tagline: “Read books. Not profanity.”

    You can dial in how much of the profanity you want gone from the books.

    Author Joanne Harris has roundly (and to my mind, correctly) condemned the app, and I would recommend you read about her and condemnation. I would further suggest you go on and read the email she received from the Clean Reader people and, more importantly, her response to that email. (Oh, also: check her tweets, too: @JoanneChocolat.)

    I am an author where much of my work utilizes profanity. Because fuck yeah, profanity. Profanity is a circus of language. It’s a drunken trapeze act. It’s clowns on fire. And let’s be clear up front: profanity is not separate from language. It is not lazy language. It is language. Just another part of it. Vulgarity has merit. It is expressive. It is emotive. It is metaphor.

    So, as someone with a whole pig wagon full of fucks at stake, let be be clear:

    Fuck you, Clean Reader.

    *cups hand to mouth*

    Fuuuuuuck. Yoooooooou.

    I get that I have not yet published books. That’s a mere technicality that I will inevitably take care of. But the thought that something else is going to censor my work because someone else takes offense to my prolific use of the word fuck … fuck that. And fuck them. And fuck it.

    I’d be happy to debate people about profanity. I’m in the “pro” camp. I usually am only offended by those worthless fucks who say things to the effect of “those who resort to profanity are weak minded or lacking in vocabulary.” I am neither of those things, and people who treat profanity as such are, well, let’s call it what it is, they’re insecure and looking for a way to make themselves feel superior to others. That’s what most judging is. You take potshots at others because you’re not as secure as you’d like to be about something, and belittling other people makes you feel better, however temporarily, about yourself.

    Yes, I’m calling you an asshole. I’m one, too. What I’m not is a hypocrite.

    But words. Words compose profanity. A word has no malice. It only is. How words are used is the thing. I can hurt someone with a “normal” word just as easily as with one profane. Further, I can choose my reaction to words. I can choose to see it as another word, or see the intent with which it was plied. This is not to say there are not words that are horrible all on their own, but those are words where context has been baked in (anything racist), and again, that was because of the user’s intent. The word was used, over and over, to hurt someone.

    To be offended because you think a word is profane, that it’s beneath you … I don’t see it. Frankly, you should have better things to think about, better things to be offended by than how many times I would use the word fuck in a blog post.

    As a writer, however, it’s even simpler. Hypothetically, let’s say I have a book or short story you can purchase, but you’re waffling because you’re aware I’m a known, public champion of Profanity. Pro-tip: Don’t buy my fucking book. I’d rather not have you as a reader than to have you censor my words.

    Annnnnnnd now I need to get off my ass and get a book finished so that this soapbox has any sort of validity.

    Thanks for stopping by.

    C

  • OMG I HATED IT SO MUCH

    That was what I’d call a “sensationalist” headline.

    I’m about, I think, to write my first movie review in about five years. I’m not sure I remember how. I mean, if you ask my adoring fans from my Urban Tulsa Weekly days, I never actually knew how to review movies in the first place.

    Ahem.

    Back when I was a film critic, I’d regularly go to the movies by myself. It was usually a movie I didn’t expect to be any good, and also one Steph had no desire to see. She’d send me into the maw alone. Of course, back then, I had to watch a lot of shitty movies. It was part of the gig.

    In 11 years, I think I only walked out of three or four. I thought about walking out of Jupiter Ascending Sunday night. And I don’t know that it was awful, it’s just that I have so much less patience for these things than I used to.

    Why see it at all? Allegedly, Insurgent is awful, too, and I wasn’t in the mood for an Oscar flick. Already saw The Kingsmen (which was awesome) and Focus (which was actually kinda fun). And Steph had told me to get out of the house, go see a movie or something.

    Jupiter Ascending it was. I wanted to see it. Despite all the bad reviews. Despite all the bad movies the Wachowskis have made since 1999’s The Matrix. I have a soft spot in my heart for them. I keep hoping they can recapture the magic. (See, I do have some small amount of optimism.) Yeah, not going to happen.

    What next? Ooooh, right. Plot Synopsis. See, this is what I hated about traditional movie reviews, and why I always opened a column with an anecdote of some kind. You’ve seen the trailers already! You know what the spoiler-free synopsis is! THE MARKETING PEOPLE HAVE ALREADY FORCE FED IT TO YOU!

    Sorry.

    Let’s try to do this in as few words as possible. Jupiter Jones (really?) (Mila Kunis) is human, but not actually human, but human. She’s the reincarnation of one of the queens of one of the royal families out in the universe, which basically makes her the same person. I guess. They have the exact same genes, so she inherits the kingdom.

    Word gets out in the royal house that Jupiter exists, so her scions/aunts/uncles/genefamily/whateverthehelltheyare seek to control her. One of them sends a Hunter (Channing Tatum) — a genetic splice of a wolf and human called a Lycantant (sounds like a dog accountant) — to bring her in.

    EVERYONE WANTS THE NAIVE EARTH GIRL!

    They fall in forbidden love. He has to rescue her as she blunders from one Machiavellian plot to another. Happy Hollywood ending. In the middle, there’s some pretty spectacular special effects scenes and a lot of really, really bad acting.

    Don’t get me wrong; I loved the look of the film. I liked some of the tech, though a lot of the ships and whatnot seemed to be borrowed right from video games and anime (which you’d expect from the Wachowskis).

    But it was kinda boring. The characters were paper thin, more caricatures and stereotypes than anything. And (incoming D&D reference), what the hell was up with the Draconians?

    What they wanted, it seems, was to make their version of Dune, which might’ve been the first problem. There’s never been a successful attempt to bring Dune to life. The SyFy mini-series was okay. The David Lynch movie … yeah, there’s that.

    I hate, hate, hate the whole “Damsel in distress” storyline these days. Women don’t need rescuing. They are heroes in their own right, and their stories are just as compelling and captivating as any with a male protagonist. The movie isn’t about Jupiter Jones. It just sort of happens to her. As such, the film is fucking lame. Mila has charisma. She can carry a flick. Give her something to do other than stand around and say, “I can’t believe this is real.”

    Fuck this movie. It has no soul. Visually, it’s beautiful, but at points in the film, that was just so much noise. Yeah, yeah, he has to battle the whole armada in his glowy mech spaceship to save the girl. (This happens TWICE for fuck’s sake). Lazy writing.

    Sigh. You’ve already skipped it, but I don’t think it’d be a good rental either. Go watch Edge of Tomorrow if you want some actual fun sci-fi action. And once you have, ask yourself this question: Did they really get the happily ever after, or did they just get reset even eariler?

    Thanks for reading.

    Cory