And so begins...

The long dark of July. Well, at least tomorrow.

This month I need a new place to live, to pack, to get the law firm started, to finish at least one writing gig, set up new bank accounts, deal with some student loan short term refinancing to help keep costs low for the next few months, and I should probably eat or sleep sometime too.

Moving in particular is going to be a royal pain. I hope to find a place before the end of the month so I can start moving stuff early. I also hope to find something with a decent amount of space and at least a few luxuries to keep housework a bit easier when I'm not working (dishwasher, washer/dryer, and so on). Probably need to contact some sort of apartment hunting service to help with that.

So yeah...gonna be busy. Whoopee.

So With the New Version of D&D out...

For those who don't know the new version of ye olde roleplaying game Dungeons and Dragons is out. It's pretty cool, but for me fits firmly in the "would gladly play but probably wouldn't run" category.

Still, it's neat and has some cool stuff and heck, maybe I would run a game sometime.

But with the hot new rpg out on the market and a flurry of commentary and comments around the net about it I am reminded of my least favorite thing about gaming.

Gamers.

Not my friends. They are awesome gamers...at least those who game (which if we count video games is all of them). Not that guy looking at the new D&D Player's Handbook in the local B&N...he's probably okay.

No, I'm talking about the gamer equivalent of the mouthy drunken sports fan. They ones who just can't let everyone else enjoy the game and has to do running commentary on everything while making socially maladjusted asses of themselves. The ones that make a lot of people avoid mentioning they are gamers lest they be associated with such folks.

And it's not like there are more of these folks right now really, they are just talking more. They've been given more to yak about and boy are they yakking.

Which is amazing to me because really, where to do folks find the time? Between freelance writing, working on my novel, starting up a new firm, packing, and everything else I barely have time to read a book or play a game much less go on and on about how much those things suck or how much people who don't like those things suck or whatever.

Seriously, Can I borrow time from these folks somehow? Can someone invent a machine that does this? Please?

Unpleasant Dreams...

This actually isn't about dreams but more about...well, unsettling occurrences. I have been doing, or so I surmised, fairly well recently despite everything. Not happy, but I'm dealing. Then just now for no discernible reason I was reading over these recent posts about personal stuff and I just got really upset. Upset, sad, and emotional. More so than I have felt in weeks.

And that just drives me crazy not because of the emotion, which is understandable, but by the total suddenness and intensity of it. I mean, how do you deal when you can sum up your mental state as:

"fine, fine, fine, a bit down but okay, fine, fine, almost ready to break down and cry for no discernible reason...wait, back up, what?"

I guess as with so much lately I take comfort or at least feel a bit of kinship in the words of others. In this case Kriss Kristofferson:

On a Sunday morning sidewalk,
I'm wishing, Lord, that I was stoned.
'Cause there's something in a Sunday
That makes a body feel alone.
And there's nothing short a' dying
That's half as lonesome as the sound
Of the sleeping city sidewalk
And Sunday morning coming down.

As I mentioned earlier...

I am working on a novel. It's currently slow going due to me working on some paying gigs but it's going and I'm fairly happy with it thusfar.

Last post I gave some background info and some folks seemed to like it so I thought I'd throw in some more. Again this is background...it enables the story I'm telling but isn't the story I'm telling, if that makes sense.

First, the thing that starts it all. With a nod to Wildcards and Rising Stars I have an "event" that makes superhumanly powered individuals show up. Note this is a bit different from DC and Marvel which have multiple source origins for their heroes.

The Tunguska Event

On June 30^th, 1908 at around 7:14 a.m. near the Tunguska River the sky exploded. The energy released was unlikely anything seen my man before that day. Trees at ground zero of the explosion strangely stood upright, their barked stripped clean. Further out the forest lay leveled and scorched for miles. It was an event unlike any seen by the scientists of the day.

And that was only the beginning.

The energies of the Tunguska Event crossed the globe in ripples and waves, invisible and unfelt by the populace. However, these energies left a mark of its passing- the genetic makeup of humanity was irrevocably changed.

But this too, was just the beginning.

A bit clunky and dramatic that. Like a movie trailer or poster blurb, but that was all I was going for.

Next we have some more background on things. Dr. Fine is a character in the novel. His name is a reference to two comic greats: Alex Raymond and Lou Fine. The Footnote included is from the historical document.

One in a Million

Starting with the children born after Tunguska, a new phenomena was observed. While most children were born normal, a very small percentage began to exhibit a variety of exceptional and in some cases truly superhuman abilities. At first these abilities were noteworthy but not earth shattering- child geniuses, exceptionally strong young men and women, and youths able to mastering a variety of skills with apparent ease. Most of these abilities began to exhibit in a child’s teens, though some children exhibited enhanced abilities as young as four or five.

A study of these children conducted begun by geneticist Raymond Fine in 1915 identified several of these children and monitored their abilities. Over three years of study, Fine tested, interviewed, and retested thousands of children who had exhibited a number of extraordinary talents. Some were determined to be merely gifted within the normal human range. However, a smaller percentage exhibited talents and abilities matching or exceeding peak human adult levels. These paranormal or near paranormal talents were usually limited to one or two areas of expertise, though a few individuals displayed mastery over a number of academic disciplines and physical pursuits.

Fine also determined that the percentage of these exceptional children to the rest of the populace was around 0.0001%. This meant that for roughly every million humans there was one of these exceptional children. Fine’s study was generally accepted as an accurate representation of these wunderkind[1] and their abilities, though Fine’s claims that the children’s abilities were tied to an unidentified energy that had mutated human genetics were largely disregarded.

Fine’s study was published in 1918, where it was embraced by a hope starved post War world as proof that a new golden age was dawning. Fine’s few detractors were quickly dismissed when five children from Fine’s study appeared with the doctor during the presentation of his work before the academic community and displayed a number of fascinating abilities.

---

[1] This term was applied to paranormal children in a 1918 New York Times article on Fine and various children from his research. Within a few months, it had become the default term to refer to paranormally gifted children. The term fell out of favor during WWII due to its association with the Nazi party’s various paranormal youth programs.

Again, none of this writing will show up in the novel itself. It's for me to keep things straight and it keeps changing in little ways. The identity of "Fine's Five", the paranormal children who the Dr. recruits are in flux at the moment and the good doctor himself has already become a psychiatrist and medical doctor instead of a geneticist (though I the stuff I posted hasn't been changed to reflect that and might not be, since that introduction of Fine is written and I don't need to be reminded who he is anymore).

As things continue some of the more powerful characters are going to show up. Note that with one pretty important exception Fine's subjects are not intended to be these characters.

One thing the book does have so far is a name. It's called Titan, which is also the name of one of the characters.

And Now For Something Completely Different...

Which also has nothing to do with Monty Python.

Started a novel recently. I've written a novel's worth of contracted work for the year so far so I figured hey, why not?

What I'm realizing:

1) This will not be just one novel. At least 3. I hope three...because more than three or so seems excessive in a lot of ways.
2) Despite what I originally suspected I think it's better as a novel and not a comic
3) The multi-character perspective novel is a crazy beast. It keeps growing as I add characters who I like or hate.
4) and this is probably the biggest revelation that sometimes I write things that I have no idea what they are, except I know they are important.

For example, when writing up some background for the setting which may or may not appear in some appendix or something I was writing the following:

War in the Shadows

In reality, while the press and public was deluged with scores of masked heroes and mystery men by the1930s organized crime had beat the forces of law and order to the punch by several years. Not at all squeamish about employing children with bizarre talents in a variety of criminal enterprises, various syndicates and gangs built powerful criminal empires before adult wunderkind and their non-powered allies rose to challenge them. Criminals like the Face, Headsman, and the Little Dutch Boy were working making the streets safe for crime, corruption, and graft for years before the forces of law and order had any notable superhuman allies. By the 30s, many of these now adult criminals were running their own gangs or were infamous freelancers charging a small fortune to work as assassins, enforcers, and muscles for various outfits.

Note the bolded names. I have NO IDEA who these guys are. None. Especially the Little Dutch Boy. But as I was writing he demanded to be put in my work. I'm still not sure of his real name, or his physical appearance or what crazy abilities he has which has earned him that nickname. I know he's a gangster of Dutch/German origin...but that's it. Note that this whole section doesn't even really relate to any of the main characters as far as I can tell right now. It's just background stuff about some crazy pulp mystery men things going on in the setting. But while writing it a character created itself out of the crazy stuff in my head and demanded to be included in the book, at least in some form. The Face? He might not make it. He seems less concrete and sometimes is replaced in my mental rewriting with some fuzzy names and concepts that haven't quite taken solid form.

Another example from a footnote in my setting stuff:

The bulletproof Robert Baker a.k.a. the Untouchable was recruited in 1927 by J. Edgar Hoover. Within a year, Baker was leading a team of four other costumed adventurers the press dubbed “the Gangbusters.” The other four members were Damien Price, Leonard O’Malley, Vincent Stone, and Frank Nestor.

I have no idea what any of these guys can do but here they are. But I knew their names right away (still not sure if they have aliases). Except for Damien might change. Maybe to Darren or something. I also know at least two of these guys die messy bloody deaths...but I don't know how.

So it's a funny process and a funny thing...sometimes what you write isn't really under your conscious control. And again, this isn't even the character or story I'm telling. These guys are mostly in the background, but they screaming at me from the bleachers to make them cooler and in some cases make them at all.

Funny old world.