He did a fine job, to be honest. His draft came to nearly 10K words and was pretty clean. “Pretty clean” in this case means that, while there were a lot of corrections on each page, they were the same errors over and over. I think that, by the time he reaches page 50 on these edits, he’ll have punctuation around quotation marks down pat.

The title of the story is “The Twin Swords of Zordain” and it’s a comic fantasy. The current plan is that he will do the revisions and I will publish it here, on this blog. For this, he’ll receive a penny a word.

I foresee many Pokemon cards in our future.

Anyway, last week we were walking together to the bus, and we started talking about the edit letter. He was feeling a little anxious about it, because of course he wanted it to be finished for him two or three days after he gave me his manuscript.

And he wanted his money. “See, Dad, I had the money for the booster box I just bought, but I won’t have any new money until you finish my book. So, if you could get that back to me, that would be great.”

So I gave him a hug and welcomed him to my world.

Anyway, the envelope is still sitting on the table waiting for him. We’ll see how long it takes him to notice.

In other news, the book I started at the same time through the same process is going through some pretty heavy revisions. Work work work.

It took a few weeks (we don’t watch a lot of TV or partake of other media), but he identified them. Two came straight out of episodes of BN, basically “punch like a girl” type stuff.

But the third one makes me a little sad. There’s a game I really like called Sentinels of the Multiverse; the boy and I play it a couple of times a month. In the course of supporting and following their Kickstarter, I discovered they have fun downloads on their site, one of which is a group of story challenges.

It’s a cool idea: You give yourself points based on in-game challenges they set: Defeat Baron Blade while playing as Legacy. Defeat a villain using only two heroes. Deal 20 or more damage in a single attack. Let the enraged T-Rex defeat the villain for you. Each is worth a certain number of points, and you get to count them up.

The problem comes from this challenge: “Catfight: Win a four-hero game against Citizen Dawn while using only female heroes.” Citizen Dawn is sort of a Magneto-style villain, the leader of a large number of low-powered villains and she’s pretty tough. However, as I explained to my son, if you have to come up with a special word for it when women do it…

Anyway, it’s still a great game and I still enjoy playing it. I really like trying to work out the best ways to pick heroes whose powers complement each other, especially against a specific villain. When the second edition comes out, I plan to push it to you guys (or you can still get it from Kickstarter.) But, you know, I wish I hadn’t had to explain this thing to my son.

Lesson over. I hope it sticks.

Predictably, this brought on hoots of derision from people already doing that.

Look, let’s just skip over the fact that it’s the writer of the article, not the best-selling author featured in it, who uses the word “brutal” to describe a two-thousand-word-a-day pace. Still, I have genuine sympathy for anyone trying to increase their productivity, whatever the reason. I’ve been trying to write more and finish more, by any measurement, for my whole life.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth of things: some writers are prolific, some are plodding, some could write faster with a little more focus, some would benefit greatly by taking more time with their books.

But in response to an article like this we get an interplay of a lot of unpleasant things: the pervasive lack of sympathy for the creative class, the faux-populist, faux-blue collar attitude many writers use to mark themselves as anti-elitists, the idea many people have that the ereaders they got for Christmas have Changed Everything, and the nasty effects of living in the “age of the social artist.”

And sadly, most of the nasty comments were coming from other writers.

Here’s the thing: I’m one of those slow writers. Circle of Enemies took me a year to write. Sure, some people think it’s formula popcorn crapola; if they knew how much I pulled my hair out over it, they would pity me. Still, it was a complicated book and getting it right required time.

So when people talk about writers as though they’re begging sympathy, I get honestly pissed off. You shouldn’t measure a writer’s work by the number of pages they do a day. It’s not an assembly line. It’s not piece work. If you think it is, you’re doing it wrong.

Yeah, there are authors out there putting out interesting original books every few months. There are others who need years. Who’s going to tell Pat Rothfuss he ought to write two books a year?

(Yeah, I know: A lot of people would say that. They’re wrong.)

Even worse are the people who claim that authors should never complain, ever, because they’re writers, aren’t they? Isn’t that privilege enough?

Hey, we live in the age of the social artist, where people are supposed to share their authentic lives, but the one thing they can never do is complain, or feel dissatisfied, or show their unhappiness, because they get to be writers. They’re not scraping up roadkill, or caring for dementia patients, or busting their asses on a construction site in the heat of summer. They get to make up stories for a living.

Never mind that construction work was the best-paying, easiest work I’ve ever done. Not physically easy, but not too physically challenging, either. It’s not nearly as draining as writing. Maybe other people see writing as a care-free playtime, but it’s never been that way for me.

I’m not a writer because it’s easy; screw those who think it is. I’m not a writer because I want to live some sort of privileged life, or because I want to be rich, or even because it’s the only thing I can do.

I’m a writer because it’s challenging and I’m good at it. I’m a writer because I want to make things, as Doris Egan has said.

So let’s stop the faux blue collar anti-elitism, and let’s stop talking about the number of words a writer creates a day as some sort of measure of how hard they work.

Since then I’ve gotten below 270 through calorie counting and walking but progress has been stymied for several reasons. Here’s one of them:

As mentioned, that’s cholinergic urticaria. What is it? Well, I get itchy hives whenever my body heat gets elevated. Like with exercise.

Seriously, my body is now fighting my extremely mild exercise program by making me break out in itches all over my body when I go for a walk.

But it’s not just exercise! A warm room, a hot shower, a sunny day, and even the excess body heat from a stressful situation can trigger this shit. And let me tell you, that picture is actually a mild version of the outbreak. When it gets going, I look like I have chicken pox. Every try writing in a Starbucks when you’re itching like crazy and completely self-conscious?

Anyway, it started in January while I was working in my father-in-law’s house, Last week I found the diagnosis online (by googling “I am allergic to my own sweat”) and I just confirmed it with my doctor today. Can I point out how bullshit this is? Not just because this makes it harder to get my physical activity in (I can mostly control the itching with OTC certirizine, if not the red welts) but because I am already ugly. Seriously, I’m overweight, losing my hair in unfortunate ways, and now I have to walk around like an invalid or I start looking like a leper.

There’s no cure. I manage the symptoms and eventually it will go away, where eventually means anything from a few months to three decades. Stupid body. The only upside is that I’ve also heard the best way to manage it is by depleting the body’s histamine levels with twenty minutes of sweaty exercise a day. I’ll try that, too.

In short, it’s yet another way I get to be ugly, yet another hurdle in my weight loss plans, and yet another distraction when I try to write. But I’ll get past it.

Obviously, I’ve been working pretty hard on this new book, and epic fantasy it tough right now. So is urban fantasy. And what makes it even harder? Well, this is the era of the social artist.

That link gives the background to the latest overnight Kickstarter success story, which of course wasn’t overnight at all. We live in an era when artists of every kind are deeply engaged with their audiences–in fact, where artists are supposed to cultivate a fanbase by giving of their personal life and their privacy, and where the fans get to be right up in close to the artistic process and really feel part of things.

But I’m not doing that.

I have nothing against Palmer: I think she’s talented as hell, I like her music, and I admire what she’s done with her career. Unfortunately for me, I’m not her and I could never be like her. Nevermind that she’s making music and I’m writing books; I don’t want to share that much with you. Seriously. I have my private life and I like it that way. She can say that The ivory tower of the mysterious artist has crumbled she’s welcome to, but I’m not interested in the alternative.

On the days I write, I will often not talk to any living person outside my family except to order a coffee (although the local librarians have learned my name so we will exchange pleasantries occasionally). That’s fine. I like that. It gives me focus and it saves my energy. But I can’t be on Twitter several hours a day, and I long ago gave up the idea that this blog would be a nexus of activity.

But apparently this is what people expect now. I sometimes get emails from people who claim I make it hard to contact me. Yes, my email is on my website, but it’s a little buried. Yeah, comments are off. But I still have LJ, Facebook, and Twitter. Anyone who wants to can contact me there. Or they could turn up my email address. I do respond to everyone, even though that is not enough for some people, apparently. Once you get enough blog posts and Salon articles about the Way Things Are Done Now, everyone starts to expect it. I get readers telling me online, in their most patient tone, what’s expected of me as an author.

But I can’t be everyone’s friend. I’m just not made for it. Yes, I went to a convention once, as a member, and hung around for a few hours. No, I’ve never done a reading. No, I don’t have some kind of crippling anxiety that makes me a gibbering wreck in public. The truth is that I’m not that glib, not that clever, and I don’t back and forth with strangers very well.

And when you compare that to this article in the Guardian which dropped this little bombshell:

Because what fans want above all else – what in fact defines the very essence of fandom – is ownership of that which we adore.

Well, fuck that.

Here’s the thing: I don’t much like the idea of fans taking ownership of the things they like, not in the way that article states it. I’ll talk about this in the future maybe, but my ivory tower comes with a pleasant little desk and I like to sit at it and think about characters and sentences. When I go on Twitter I’m not planting bamboo, I’m hoping that someone posts something that will make me laugh. And when they do, I feel no obligation to run out and buy whatever stuff they made.

Yeah, sometimes I feel invisible. Sometimes I think my reticence is the reason the Twenty Palaces books got cancelled. Maybe that’s true (people have certainly tried to convince me so) but I seriously doubt it. I shake that kind of thinking off, because the only actions I do that really matter are the words I put on the page.

So here’s the deal with me, okay? I will write books. Sometimes they will not be very pleasant or happy, but they will always be the best I can manage. You, if you want, will read them. We can share funny stuff on Twitter, or you can drop me a note about whether you liked it on Facebook, or we can discuss whatever on LiveJournal. That’s all cool.

But I won’t be cultivating you. I won’t be growing your numbers like flies drawn in to a trap. And in return, you’ll understand that I’m just this guy with a job he really likes, and that I keep a certain distance because I have to guard my time and energy for my family, my health, and my work. I don’t have an assistant to read my emails or search my spam filters. I don’t have an interesting life.

And that’s all. If my books alone aren’t enough to make me successful, then I don’t think it’s worth having.

2) Top 10 banned or censured rpg products.

3) Six Common Movie Arguments That Are Always Wrong.

4) Greatest. Romance novel cover. Ever.

5) How much damage did the Chitauri do to NYC?

6) Where do the Avengers eat Shawarma? (Actual location for that shoot)

7) Guy builds an RC flying, fire-breathing dragon.

The movie is bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars, and none of that goes to the people who originally created that content, many of whom are living in difficult situations. I donated as a way to show my thanks and my respect, and I hope you do, too.

Luckily, I’m utterly immune to disease of all kinds, like a paladin.

::kaff::

Which isn’t fair to my revisions, because I found a minor inconsistency that I needed to hunt down and fix, and that stupid crap takes time. I would have had to fix this at some point, right?

Still, it’s frustrating to have this dumb stuff take so much time especially since it means I can only finish bullshit.

Hey, who could argue with that? Or with a kid pretend-shooting arrows at all sorts of unlikely targets as we walked home.

Here are my thoughts on the movie: (Spoilers behind the cut)

Things I didn’t like:

I’m not sure there’s a way to do Captain America’s uniform in a way that would look good in a movie. This was maybe the best possible version of it they could do, but it still doesn’t look right for much of the film. It’s that mask. The mask just doesn’t fly.

Samuel L. Jackson is pretty disappointing as Nick Fury. There are few moments where he seems particularly tough or commanding. Jesus, can’t he put a little energy into it?

Too many villains. Tom Hiddleson is genuinely excellent as Loki, but there’s an alien warlord behind him pulling his strings (let me say that again: pulling Loki’s strings) by giving him gear and soldiers, and that warlord has another Big Bad beyond that. Worse, many of the villain scenes are so dark that I couldn’t really make out the chain of command.

But Loki as someone else’s pawn? It just doesn’t work. There should have been a plot point where Loki manipulated things so he took control of the alien army for himself, cutting out the shadowy behind the scenes villains.

Thor’s accent. I’m the last person in the world to judge an accent in a movie, but was he doing British Guy or something?

Things I liked:

Yes, a lot of people are praising Mark Ruffalo’s performance (it’s very odd and affecting–he made a lot of terrific choices as Bruce Banner) but it was Scarlett Johanssen who knocked her performance out of the park. She played her scenes with a natural realism that made the other actors (who all did a fine job) seem almost mannered.

I’m glad they bumped off Agent Coulson. Yes, he was an audience favorite, but if the villain only kills faceless extras, I’m not going to be particularly caught up in the story. His death was well set up and genuinely powerful. Thanks, Joss. Don’t listen to the haters.

Every other performance. Chris Evans looks too young to be Captain America, as far as I’m concerned, but when he’s actually playing the part I believe him. Accent aside, Chris Hemsworth brings a believable complexity to his scenes with Loki, trying to get his brother to wake the hell up and return to the family even when it’s clear to everyone else that Loki doesn’t see that as an option. And Robert Downey Jr. has the best role of all of them: snarky, clever, and when they shoot the fight scenes he just has to act with a hood pulled over his head; the cgi does all the running, punching and falling over.

And Jeremy Renner could bring back action movies.

Why it worked:

It was funny without being cloying, mean, or condescending. What’s more, it was the character interplay and dialog that carried the humor. There’s something very appealing to witty people.

The superhero characters all had personal moments with each other. Masks may be great in comics, but in a movie I want to see the actor’s face. More importantly, the scenes between the characters had weight. There was conflict and connection between them, especially between Stark and Banner. It was really nicely played.

The action sequences were genuinely fun. Seeing Captain America jump and climb around on the ruined Helicarrier at 30,000 was genuinely tense, and so was the fight between Hawkeye and Black Widow. What’s more, the fights were paced nicely, were shot with a sense of place, were not nausea-inducing with the shaky cam, and the cgi was more than passible. What’s more, the violence walked that careful line between genuinely threatening and Too Much. (That’s harder than it looks, says the Too Much Guy)

Yeah, people have been talking about these characters as corporate properties, which they are. Why worry about the fate of a hero who has sequels already in pre-production, right? But I’d like to know how that’s different from any big studio movies? Does anything think Captain Jack Sparrow is likely to take a sword in the gut and die screaming? That Marty McFly might fall out of his Delorean as a smoking skeleton? Sure, secondary characters die all the time, but the hero?

Meh.

It’s a good movie. It’s even better the second time. And I want to try shawarma, too.