Summer Update…

Well, The Meep Sheep has been out for a couple months now, and This Beautiful Darkness has been out for a year so it’s time for an update me thinks.

Basically, so far so good. The Summer has been good so far. The first shows I did – Flint Comix Con, and Motorcity Nighteres were duds for me as far as moving books and art but they were fun events and were first runs for TBD on the circuit. I am still figuring how to best set up and display my art and books and then have to get past my innate shyness to try to sell the darn stuff, something not so easy at all for me. The shows were fun but just not anything I made money on.

Motorcity Comic Con was similarly successful but I seem to get stuck near people that are SELLERS and who are very aggressive so it either pushes people away or draws them only to those people. It’s weird. And frankly, the comic con has become all about the celebs and the ‘stuff’ that is for sale. Not sure I will do another one until/unless I have spare cash to risk the investment or have gotten the word out about the books more.

Man though, the smaller art shows and Flint signings I have done have been really successful. Sold a bunch of books, sold some art, and have gotten really good responses to everything. It’s been pretty great.

Sales are great and all but what is important is whether people are liking the books and so far so good. People are really getting behind The Meep Sheep (my folks even liked it!) and are getting what I was trying to do with it, which is fantastic. And so far the response to TBD has been great as well. And that is what matters – for people to like the books. For YOU to like them. Now, I need to sell them if I want to keep having time to write, to promote, to get the word out and hopefully some day have some neat PR stuff for The Meep Sheep but all that will come in time, hopefully. I have done pretty well locally, and have a big festival coming at the end of August that will be a big bellwether as to how the books and my new art will do outside of this area. I did really well there last year so I have high hopes. But really, more than anything, this is all about the break through point, which is where I am. I have played my cards locally and need to start getting sales via the web and to get some sort of groundswell of word of mouth. Which is where you come in – have you read any of my books? Wanna do me a favor and tell people if you dug them. Or write a review. I need all the help I can get and if you liked my work, then let the world know!

Pretty please?

Like I said though, it’ s been a pretty good Summer. I have been painting, have written three side stories that go with the Meep book and which can be found here and I have been writing other stuff off and on, which is good as well. Just need some focused time, really to get back to writing more regularly.

Hope your Summer is going well, kids, and hope to catch some of you out and about while I lug the books here and there over the next month or so.

c

Of Avatars and Saving the World

    As both a writer and a movie nerd the idea of writing an epic story has always been attractive. It’s the scale of the thing, the scope of it that is so appealing. That you can create not a place but a world, and you can populate that world in whatever manner you like and from there it’s up to you what it becomes. Most epics are stories of conflict – good versus evil for most times – but there are some that are personal journeys and those can be the most interesting. Me, I have written an epic (unless you want to consider The Meep Sheep an epic, which I would take as a compliment) and that is the unpublished novel I have sitting around, and it’s sort of a a mix of both types, the story being about a man needing to find himself during a pretty big war. The epic story though is something that you cannot help but be drawn to as a fan of storytelling so it was a wonderful to discover, though a little late Avatar – the Last Airbender a show that has already run its course on Nickelodeon but which is one of the strongest works I have seen come from television.

    Avatar is an animated television show that tells its story in three seasons, following a through-path all the way to the end in a way that so few shows seem to manage anymore. The story is of a young boy who awakes after one hundred years spent in ice after having run away from a duty he dreaded. The boy, Aang , is the Avatar, a chosen vessel that serves as a beacon of hope, wisdom, and unity in a world comprised of four nations (Fire, Water, Earth, and Air). In running away from his calling Aang left just before his people were killed during a search for him by the Fire Nation, who have dominated the world with an iron fist for the hundred years of his absence. Now more than ever the world needs Aang and the Avatar to bring peace and balance and to end the rule of the tyrannical Fire Nation but he cannot do this alone and must make friends and allies along the way and must face his fears and doubts to embrace what he is.

    The beauty of the show is that it is that simple to sum up but that doesn’t even touch the depth of the series. What is essentially a show marketed for children has an appeal to all ages and embraces wonderful morals and teaching moments. There is adventure, treachery, deceit, redemption, the whole gamut and every main character goes on a journey of their own and evolves in a natural way. It was so fun to see a show that remembers and references its history and mythology. I think why I love the show so much is that it reminded me of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in that it takes its character, an average kid with extraordinary powers, and takes you on a transformative journey where everything that happens matters. Everything counts. And with both series you get moments of humor and silliness to break up the growing tension and sense of doom. It’s a brilliant balancing act that works far more times than not.

    It’s hard not to admire any creator with the foresight and will to set a start and end goal for a project, especially when it becomes a popular and valuable one. It’s a rare ability that creative people need more of, to be sure. There are far too many ‘continuing series’ books out there that just go on and on, and the same is with television and movies. Sometimes you need to let the story end. And better is that Avatar gives you a satisfying ending that leaves enough ends untied to be fair to the story but finishes the story as well as you could ask.

    It is so rare to find the magic of a show like Avatar that I am pretty shocked I never really got caught up in it earlier. It is only because my girlfriend is such a huge fan that I gave it a chance. It’s a shame that the film was such a disappointment to so many because it’d be interesting to see where that franchise went. I admit that the film lost a lot of the magic that made the show so special (the relationships, the little moments, and the side stories) but for an adaptation of something twenty episodes + long it did a decent job. Not perfect – some of the pacing is hard, and the name pronunciation is something Shyamalan should have nipped in the bud right away – but it’s a fun movie. Is it the show? Gosh, no. But, if you are a fan of any ‘literature’ that is being adapted you need to get over the idea that it’s going to be exact. That isn’t possible or feasible. So, is The Last Airbender perfect? Gosh no, but it’s a fun movie and not a disgrace, it just isn’t the show, which, if that’s all you want, then stick with it.

    I cannot recommend Avatar – the Last Airbender enough. It is a show for all ages and is one that will stand the test of time and which you will want to revisit over and over again. And man is it nice to see such solid storytelling on television. It’s been a while.

c

The Book Bizarre That Was…

I have been putting together and helping to put together events for a few years now and you never, ever get over the sheer shock and joy of seeing an event come together successfully. And sure, part of that is the pure ego of HA, WE DID IT but just as big is the fact that out of nothing you created something. The Book Bizarre rose out of the notion of three Flint writers that it was easier to work together to promote our books than it was to try to do it all alone. And from that alliance grew this event. Author Dangerous Lee had done what writer Glen Birdsall and myself couldn’t – and that was to book a local art gallery for a book event. After she booked it, Dangerous felt it might make more sense for the three of us to work together on an event there and make it a true event and me, always wanting to make these things bigger, figured the more the merrier and brought up the idea of adding more writers to the event, a notion they both took to immediately.

The way this all came together happened very quickly because we booked a month out so we had scant time to promote it and to get people set up for it. With a brilliant flier from friend and designer Eric Lillieberg we were able to get the word out there and slowly but surely we booked our guests. The cherry on top was a last minute television interview I did thanks to my girlfriend, miss Mandie Emery, on a local news broadcast and then came the event. As I said, it’s always pretty amazing when you work all those hours putting together, promoting, then setting up and event and when it is a success it’s a fantastic feeling. We had our hiccups – some silly hangups the venue had during our event, some authors that were there solely for themselves, and a guest we had not booked but who the venue told could just ‘come out and set up’ – all in all though, it was a pretty smooth running event. Astoundingly so. We were just flying by our butts with an idea how we were doing it but nothing set in stone so when it came together, when people came out, when people didn’t hog the mic and abuse it, when we didn’t have any outright rude guests, well those are all small miracles. And if you can walk away saying that it was a good event and that people had fun, then there’s little more you can ask for.

There is more that I can say though.

Wow, sometimes you forget how many talented writers and poets we have in the Flint area but events like the Book Bizarre really serve to remind you that they are out there. We had such strong, passionate performers and storytellers. We had such good work. It is a shame that more events like this are not happening here and it’s my hope that we can do this next year and can take what we learned and make it an even stronger event. It is always a drag when you do see the artist or writer that comes to these events, brings nothing but themselves and their stuff, and they are there solely for themselves. It sucks because events like this are all about community and building a community, and when you don’t take part in that you really are hampering yourself. It really shows too because these are the people always about self promotion and about the sale, so much so that it seems to hurt the integrity of the work. Thankfully that was a limited aspect of the show and everything was a success. I owe so many thanks to so many people, my partners in this, my friends that helped out, the performers and authors, the audience, to everyone who supported us. It was truly a night that made you happy to be a writer and happier still to be part of a community that will support them.

Lookin’ for Love, In Mostly Wrong Places

    Another couple of additions to the art. I did these early this week. One was just another monster idea that had struck me, and the other was a second idea I had concerning the CB ball here in Flint. Both done in acrylic…and love.

 

 

Requiescat In Pace

There are two things in life I don’t think are ever possible -

You can never repay the debts owed to the people who you love and who are there for you in life.

No matter how long you have, no matter how many words you use, you can never tell the people that you care about how much they mean to you.

It seems like I have said these things or variations on them a thousand times, and I will keep saying them because it’s true. I just don’t know if you can ever show someone how much of an effect they had on you with words or a simple deed. The beauty of it all is that you never need to say those things because the act of friendship and of love can transcend simple words and acts, as the spirit and memories can transcend the body. For me, it’s always nice to be thanked for the things I do but just in doing them, in doing them for someone I care about or love and knowing that it means something to that person, that is warmth enough.

I met Cassandra Lynn Reimer what seems like a very long time ago. It was 1999 and Back From Nothing still felt fresh and new. We had a wild, crazy, whirlwind couple of months together but made better friends than lovers and it was the friendship that stuck. And it’s crazy how much I am remembering of her now, how much was forgotten. I won’t ever forget how she told me I reminded her of ‘Ducky’ from Sixteen Candles (oops, I have been corrected that it was Pretty In Pink that featured Duckie, sorry), telling me this as we left a Dearborn pizza place on our way to the movies on our first date. I remember arguing, a lot. I remember struggling with who she was, who I was, and who we were together. I remember a lot from when we were together. What means the most to me are two moments in my life for which I was never able to repay her.

The first was that when I moved out at 27 and was moving to my first place she was one of the people who was there to help me move. She didn’t just help me move though, she helped me move, then helped me start putting the place together and bought me all of the things I needed for my first place. No one else helped me put that place together that first night, or helped me make it a home. No one but her.

The second thing was less fortunate but was a sign of pure friendship. I was having trouble with my computer and it was driving me nuts so she offered to come out to look at it and flash the hard drive and re-install everything. It’d take a while but she was game. So she came out with her friend Christy (who became my friend as well) and she set about working on the computer. Half way through, and after she had flashed my drive, she realized she had forgotten to save all of my music, my pictures, my emails, my stories – basically the files that made me who I was. It crushed her and she broke down into tears for over an hour, feeling horrible about it. And it sucked, and it was awful to lose the stuff, but to see how much it hurt HER that she had lost it was worse for me. So I let it go. And I hugged her, and told her it was no big deal. Life goes on. She stayed until the early hours of morning to get the rest of the computer fixed, even though she had work the next day, because she wanted to get it done for me.

And that was Casey.

She was always hard on me, because she expected more from me than I expected from myself.

It was an honor to know her, to have spent time with her, and to have had her as a friend. It was an honor to have been there at her wedding to see her marry the man that she loved and adored. She, who thought enough to invite me, a dopey ex, to her wedding and made sure to seat me at a table with people that would be ‘fun’.

I don’t think I could ever say enough to make you understand the part of my heart she had and took to the grave this weekend, but I can tell you that I miss her. And I will always miss her. There are so few people that you share yourself with in life, few people that get past the defenses and who you share YOU with. For me, she was one of those people.

Rest In Peace Casey.

Thank you.

Exapansion

Of late I have been having some fun on my Tumblr blog with some untold stories and histories of the Lands of Man and the Lands of the Animals that I wrote about in The Meep Sheep. The point of the new stories is to get all you good folks interested in the world of that book and interested enough to pick up the book. I mean, a guy has to eat, right, or at least tell you he has to eat so he can spend all his millions at casinos and on robots. Bwahahaha (all writers have to have an evil laugh. It’s part of  the guild rules).  Anyway, I started the blog and writing the stuff there to let people know about the book and get them interested in it. You know, that PR stuff that, while you may not have to do it yourself, you have experienced in your life. The thing is though that I am loving doing these side stories. I love The Meep Sheep and that world but more than just wanting to write in that world, these stories allow me to flesh that place out and to broaden it and fill in some shade and color. A book is like seeing one country of a world map and unless the book is part of a series that is all you will see of that world. And as a writer it is always tempting to see what lies just off the map, and what stories might be hiding there. For me, I am writing ‘prequel’ stories, which is silly to say but I imagine that’s what people would call them. What they really are is a way to explore that world without the baggage of an existing universe. It frees me to talk of a time when Man had not yet conquered that land and when it was still a very wild world. And really, the stories amuse me. I love finding ways to discover what this is, who that is, or what happened at this moment in history, and when you make it all up along the way it’s even more fun. My hope is that people who read the stories and have not read the book will want to know why these places and people are so important and will want to read more. And for those that have read the book I hope it’s like finding out how their favorite magic tricks were done while still maintaining the magic behind it all.

Now, what happens with the stories is up in the air. Time will tell, I suppose. For now though, I love writing them, and love expanding on this fun little world where magic is still very real and very active. And until that magic wears off for me, I am happy to keep visiting that place as often as I am able to explore more of its places, people, and things.

c

Three-Duh

    Every so often a trend appears within the arts or culture that just takes the world by storm. Many times it’s something to do with technology and as we have aged as a culture this has certainly become apparent. Every ‘art’ has its tech now and you have to live with it, adapt to it, and make it serve you or it becomes your master.

We’re at that sort of weird place with movies and 3-D right now. And by now I would wager that everyone is pretty much up to speed on the basics of this gimmick and its meager beginnings in film, its re-inventions and the failed attempts to bring it back into favor over the years. It was something like Avatar that recaptured the magic of 3-D because it used it in a way that went beyond the gimmick. The remake of My Bloody Valentine actually really showed what you could do with the technology by adding depth to the image and bringing you deeper into the film. With Avatar that effect was increased and you suddenly felt as if you were in (to varying degrees of success) that world. Now, as hit and miss as that film is, it will be remembered for ushering in a new age of 3-D that had not been captured, and isn’t really being used even now. The idea with any new tech is to advance the subject which you are grafting it to, and if you cannot do that then you want to add a new dimension or interactivity to that subject. Alas, with the 3-D movies we are getting we are getting re-vamped versions of the yo-yo on a string heading for the audience type gags and no advances, which only leads to stagnation.

    To make this more relevant to me and what I do, with writing you are as limited as your own imagination and that of your readership. If you cannot make them believe that the people, places, and things you are writing about are real, at least in the universe of your book, then you’re doomed. Sure, there are no such things are unicorns but if you create one that has depth, has character, and has a sense of magic to it then for that piece they exist. I mean, Meep Sheep are not real but if I did my job right, people will WANT them to be real when they are done with the book. They will believe they can be real. With the book markets evolving so quickly, and so drastically though, it is time for the writing world to take a step back and look at what it is doing and how it can do it better.

I mean, I can writer better stories, and hope that I do, that with every story I get better. But look beyond that. Self publishing is here, it’s a fact, so what do we do about it? Well, as a self published author I say that the ‘established’ world accepts it and stops fighting it. Stops treating us like we’re crashing a private party and start working with us, not around us. There are as many good self published people as there are published people out there – and this is more of a hit on the established world and what gets published than it is a revelation as to what is out there in the self publishing world – so let’s find a middle ground. And then it comes to distribution of the work and what to do with it, and here is where the tech really comes in.

Maybe it’s time for we writers to embrace the heart of the new 3-D with our writing but just, well, not screw it up. With the advent of e-readers and devices like the iPad we, as writers, can finally bring a broader world to our readers. We can pull them deeper down the rabbit hole, as it were. With readership falling off all down the line, and fewer and fewer seeming to take the time to sit down and read, maybe we need to make the it more of an experience. Add images, sounds, films, and side stories to the story. You never want to do too much to pull away and distract from the heart of the piece, the story (and that will happen a lot if we start trying this stuff out; it’s going to be a tightrope walk) but do things to add to that experience. Even if it is to add book or story notes where you talk about why you made the choices you did, and what inspired this or that. There are so many ways to use this new tech in ways that we were never even able to imagine, and it’s scary, sure, but more than that it is exciting. It is exciting to think how we can take storytelling beyond the word and to the experience again.

    The fear here will be the same as with the fear of self published authors – that the ‘junk’ will take away from the rest, and it will happen. And it will be award for a while as we learn how to use the tech in ways that enhance our work and doesn’t distract. And you will get people that have swell bells and whistles but nothing else but there is a way to make it work, just as there is a way to make 3-D work and make it a part of the film and not another gimmick or special effect. For writing, we are at the infancy of this type of infusion of tech, and it will be a long time until we start moving forward with anything more than baby steps but we have to start that long walk or we’ll be left behind. In the end what is important is the story, and how we tell them only the means to which we serve that end. But when we lose the audience for the stories for good, we’re all in trouble and no amount of tech will save us.

c

Knicks…and Knacks…

Here’s a link to a story that was done about the art show we were doing here last Friday. I post it because my art was featured heavily in the background shots.  – News Story

Also, I have been posting funky new stuff about the world portrayed in The Meep Sheep and if you are interested, here’s the link – Tumblr

And…basically, hello. I will post something in the next day or two to keep you occupied.

Until then…

WHOOSH!

c

Guerilla Art Show/The Art of 625

I have lived at 625 in downtown Flint for nearly five years now and I don’t know if I will ever know how deeply this place has affected me. It is here where I put together my second and third book, where I got published in Bare Bone and in Cthulhu Sex, and it is here where I began painting. To honor the creative spirit that this old building has had on its many tenants, past and present, we put together an art show/rummage sale with some of the current and former tenants. It wasn’t as all-encompassing as I would have hoped but it was a fun turn out and a fun show. It also turned out to be the last Guerilla Art Show here before an established and respected alternative art gallery makes this address their home in the Fall. I sold a few Meep books, and sold four pieces of art – even big old Pete Anders, who I had held onto for so long. Here are a few pics.

The Weather EYE-Ball

New painting I did this week. Sill as heck. It’s my homage to Flint’s beloved Citizen’s Bank Weather Ball. If you have ever been to Flint then odds are you saw the Weather Ball, a giant lighted globe that lights up in the evening to give an idea of the next day’s weather. So here is my silly, simply tribute to the ‘Ball.