writing

Thank God it’s Friday.

No, it hasn’t been a really long week or anything. I haven’t had a series of bad days. I just don’t really like having to get up every morning to go to work. I’m beginning to believe I was duped into this career field. When they told me cleaning and emptying portable toilet systems would be fun and exciting, I believed them. I’m beginning to think differently though. Maybe I need a career change.

We’re going camping this weekend. And by camping, I mean setting up tents and sitting outside getting sweaty and drunk. And by we’re I mean a whole big group of us. Should be fun. I’m bringing my electric grindcoil and Stout is bringing the baby mouse livers. As long as the girls bring their marble guns, we should be all set for a helluva time!

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  • Post category:diary
  • Reading time:2 mins read

Faults Advertising

You know how you keep hearing that stupid commercial on the radio from a car salesman saying some shit like, “If you can find a better deal anywhere in Texas, we’ll just give it to ya!”? The very first time I heard it, I caught onto their sly antics. Obviously they’re not going to give you the car. It’s actually scary how wildly proper their grammar is in that sentence. It’s just that America is so dumbed down by now that no one gets it. The subject of that sentence is the word ‘deal’. So when they use the pronoun ‘it’ in the predicate, it refers back to the subject, just like it should. If you can find a better deal anywhere in Texas, they’re just going to give you that deal.

And speaking of grammar, of which I know you’re all so fond… Look at how we write things like Texas’ Best Hot Dogs! And Dallas’ Hottest Titty Bar! It’s not technically improper to put an apostrophe without an additional s at the end of a possessive. But in formal writing, it is highly recommended. Ever hear of Strunk and White? Yeah. They say “Always put an s at the end.” So it should be Texas’s Hottest, or Dallas’s Biggest. And my point in telling you this is that people have for so long been omitting that additional s at the end, that we’ve begun to pronounce it the way it’s written. So when you hear these commercials on the air, it sounds phonetically like this: Come check out Dallas finest set of tits! And yeah, I do have a problem with that.

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  • Post category:science
  • Reading time:4 mins read

And a Happy New Year…

Looks like we made it into another century. I don’t even know what that means. I heard a sports commentator the other night during the football game talking about Testeverde, and how if he played for one more year, he would have played in four centuries. Centuries? Really? Last I checked, that still meant one hundred years. Right? I guess he meant decades. But if Vinnie’s thrown a ball in the 70s, 80s, 90s and these here the oughts, he’s already made that mark. Either way, it cracked me up quite a bit.

We celebrated last night by going over to a buddy’s house and drinking, listening to music and throwing the Frisbee. In the garage. Seriously. While we stood out in the garage with beers and cigarettes in our hands, we started tossing around the Frisbee. It was actually quite entertaining. We made up rules as we went along. “Now you can only use your left hand.” “Now you can only throw over-hand.” Stuff like that. Then we got bored with the Frisbee and nailed up a piece of plywood and began throwing knives at it to see if we could get them to stick. Our parties.

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  • Post category:event
  • Reading time:3 mins read

Meeting another hero.

Remember way back in 2002 when I met Michael Crichton? Well, about two months ago, when I started reading The Plan by Stephen Cannell, I checked out his website and saw he had a book signing coming up, close to home. So I marked it on the calendar. Tonight was that night.

So I rolled up there with Stout and checked out his discussion session about the new book. About twenty people were there in the seats listening as he talked about how he made it in the business. Need credentials? He’s written more shows than I can count. Basically, he’s the fucing man. Anyway, after the discussion, he took one question (the guy asked a question that required a long ass answer, and Stephen warned us it would take a long time, and was real cool about it, then told it…) he started signing books. So I got my book signed, and I asked him, “Is there any way I can send you a book?” He asked what genre it was and whatnot, and said he typically only reads within his genre, and he reads slowly because of his condition (he’s dyslexic) but said yeah, send it on. He loves to read, and said he’ll get to it when he can.

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  • Reading time:3 mins read

What, no San Diego Chronicles?

I’ve been in San Diego all week, but haven’t really been inspired to write anything about it. I have been writing like crazy – don’t get me wrong… Just not about this fair city. Or its glorious sleek-bodied women with their midriffs showing and their ample bosoms bouncing as they walk, cell phones attached to their ears, ponytails streaming behind them like banners in a sex mag. I’ve been writing, instead, on my third novel. In the last four days I’ve written almost twenty pages, which – doing the quick math – translates to about twelve thousand words. Good wow.

I’m really liking where it’s going, and though I never get too much in the way of comments from my fantastic readers on my excerpts, I’ve decided to post a bit of this one. This isn’t a terribly important part of the book, it’s just the last few paragraphs I’ve written tonight. So here it is, an official excerpt from Shedding Sadness, my third novel:

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  • Reading time:4 mins read

Copperwound Chronicles Vol. 1

People ask me quite frequently “how I come up with this stuff”, referring to my writing – be it music or fiction or otherwise. And the simple answer is, “I just don’t know.” But that’s sort of a copout too. Creative energy is like a good beer. The more you have, the more you want, and the more it keeps flowing. Right through you. At least if you have a small bladder like I do.

I wanted to journal some of the ways I’ve written music though, partly for those who wonder how it happens, and partly so that when they’re nickelbacking it on the radio, I’ll remember how it all came to be.

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  • Reading time:5 mins read

Book Update

I’m halfway done with the final readthrough of Resurrecting Mars. My dad read through it and made some notes, some suggestions, and some comments. After a good long discussion, I made some pretty major plot changes that strengthen the tale and make the characters and – well, the plot – more solid.

My theory is that I should be done with the readthrough by Wednesday or so. I hope that’s not too optimistic. But hell, I had originally thought I’d be done by Saturday night with the reading, then I’d spend all day Sunday applying the changes, then Monday morning I’d submit the final copy for press.

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  • Reading time:1 mins read

Cast of Characters

Stout and I sat on the balcony overlooking my pool for one or several hours last night. I don’t know why we didn’t get in the pool. Well, probably because we were drinking pretty heavily and it was dark. We came up with some pretty good character assignments for my books, should they ever be made into movies. For those of you who’ve read Midnight’s Park, check this list out and tell me what you think.

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  • Reading time:3 mins read

Customer Freaking Service

I’ve something to say today about something that’s very near and dear to me. Well let’s not mince words here, I’m going to rant. I’m going to use very strong language. Language I never use on the site. But I’m so full of rage I can’t see straight, and I think to shave off the language would be to strip the column of its spirit. I’m madder than a mean bull in a – what are those bullfighting things called? In one of those things. This issue about which I want to write is Customer Freaking Service. And yes, those words should always be capitalized. I will attempt to outline the reasons why.

One: Because of the first word, Customer. If I’m a Customer, that means I’m either buying a service or a product from you. I’m not one who is automatically of the opinion that the Customer is always right, but I’m definitely one who believes that the service side of the counter should try to make the Customer happy.

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  • Post category:rant
  • Reading time:8 mins read

Goodbye Crater

Greetings friends and family of the Crater…

The Moon’s Crater Network has been alive and prosperous on the web for ten years now. It started as a single page on an AOL account and graduated to a tilde account at a dialup company in Abilene. Upon my discharge from the Air Force, I slid into a position at a web hosting company where I was given a dedicated Proliant 1850 Server with a RAID 5 and a meg pipe to the Internet. All for my own site. I thereby registered spacebrew.com for my humble online home. It’s gone through many changes and has seen many faces over the years. I once even turned it into a Star Wars fan site, though I’ll never publicly admit that. Many writers have come and gone, many columns have been posted and stolen and posted elsewhere. Many visitors came to visit and many memories were made here. During the Crater23 days, the site took more than 2000 unique visitor hits per week. Okay, I’m exaggerating a little bit. But not much.

The site(s) have seen many colors, have spawned many ideas, and have brought about inspiration in many other people to do the same thing. Some of these sites went on to become well known hard-hitters in the industry. Microsoft, Google, Amazon and FatXXX.com come to mind. Some of the writers here went on to pursue their own projects, never to be heard from again. For instance, none of you remember the catastrophe that was stellasite.com. I think I even paid for that domain name.

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  • Post category:diary
  • Reading time:7 mins read