Gone to Oregon.

Be back soon!

Cheat Week #4

No, I haven't forgotten the blog exists, we've just been so wrapped up in... well... wrapping up our time in California that there's hardly been any time for anything else. I know I promised to update at least three times a month but I figure under the circumstances my loyal readers (all four of you) (hi, Mom) will forgive me a bit of lag.

Okay, enough groveling, I've got something for you!

BLOG!!!

Patrick Rothfuss is the writer of a novel called The Name of the Wind. It is a fantasy novel, which will make some people balk, but those people are poo-eaters, because it is one of the best stories I have ever read. Ever. The dude is a natural storyteller and his book is packed with humanity, humor, mystery, suspense, joy, sadness, and a realism that should easily help anyone overlook the fact that it takes place in a fictional world.

Seriously, go read it.

Also, read his blog.

He updates once weekly and always writes with humor and honesty. He is an unabashed geek, and he loves talking about the art of storytelling and how bizarre it is to be "All Of A Sudden" a well-respected writer (TNOTW was his first book). Dude is as interesting as the stories he tells. Give 'im a looksee.

Cheat Week #3

Another week closer to the move and we're starting to pull our hair out a little, but that's okay. A little stress is all part of the adventure, right?

In the meantime...

AUDIO DRAMA!!!

The Leviathan Chronicles is, simply put, the coolest fuckin' audio drama you're ever gonna hear. Which isn't to say that there aren't many equally worthy audio dramas out there for your listening enjoyment -- if there weren't, my Cheat Week grab bag would be drastically shortened. It's just that, of all the series out there, this one isn't just the most ambitious, it's the most ambitious and successfully executed.

Part audio book, part radio drama, The Leviathan Chronicles is an epic science fiction adventure, at times comparable to the best of Tom Clancy, James Bond, Nelson DeMille, The X-Files and The X-Men. It tells the story of a research scientist who discovers a secret family legacy that places her between two powerful factions of super-powered beings and the government agency sworn to bring them all down. Created and written by first time author Christoff Laputka, listening to this series is like experiencing a serialized big budget action adventure film of Michael Bay proportions (but much more intelligently written), all without needing to open your eyes.

I first discovered the series last year during my sophomore obsession with audio drama podcasts (a person needs SOMETHING to listen to during those boring work days). I was hesitant at first because I don't typically like audio dramas that tell their story through narration. I'd only heard it done right once, in the legendary Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy radio show, and no one since had managed to do it even close to that well. Leviathan surprised me, though. Its "production values" were impressive -- a full cast of professional actors, professionally mixed, and a damn good soundtrack -- and the story and characters were intriguing. I stuck with it, and I'm glad I did. The narration only chimes in when necessary, and adds valuable detail and atmosphere to every scene.

Listen to Episode 1 here!

(though they're also available on iTunes if you'd like to go that route)

The full 25 episode first season just recently wrapped up, and they've got a pretty ambitious interim season planned out while they record the rest. Of course, ambition is pretty much the name of the game with these people, so it's no surprise. I would suggest giving it at least two episodes, as it's obvious they were still finding their feet and figuring out what works and what doesn't in the first episode. After that, I'm sure you'll find yourself as enraptured as I did.

Hope you enjoy!

Cheat Week #2

So, Cheat Weeks are going to be a little more frequent in the coming months as RC and I prepare for our grand exodus from sunny SoCal in August. I had hoped to have more full entries stored up before then, but dem's the breaks of a life in progress; it is rarely, if ever, predictable.

Luckily, I have no shortage of other people's work to sling at you while we throw our lives into upheaval. Speaking of which...

TV SHOW!

Thief was a six-episode mini-series that aired on the FX network back in 2006. It starred Andre Braugher (of Homicide: Life on the Street fame) as a career thief and family man whose double-life is thrown out of balance when struck by a personal tragedy. It featured a talented cast, beautiful cinematography, sharp writing, wonderful music, and it won Braugher his second Emmy award... so, naturally, it vanished from the face of the Earth after its initial airing. Neither hide nor hair was seen of it on store shelves or the web until last year, when it was brought to that beautiful bastion of internet entertainment, Hulu.




I first sought the series out as a fan of Braugher's work on Homicide, but I quickly fell in love with its style and story. This is not like the shiny, gimmicky crime dramas of network television. It's harsh, visceral, honest, and engaging television. One of the best shows to air in the last ten years. And now you can watch it for free! Gotta love Hulu.

Watch it here!

And when you're done, join me in clicking my heels and clapping my hands until the people at FX are finally smart enough to release it on DVD.

(The show was rated TVMA for language, violence, and sexual situations.)

Geeks of Doom Article: A Game of Thrones vs. The Walking Dead

The article I wrote for Geeks of Doom about the upcoming A Game Of Thrones and The Walking Dead, from HBO and AMC respectively, just went up!

Geek shows have gotten more recognition in recent years than they ever did in the past. Once upon a time the height of genre television was the Star Trek franchise, which, while always intelligent and ambitious, was still shunted by society into that niche of fandom reserved for the obsessive and the dateless. Thankfully, with the success of shows like Lost, Battlestar Galactica, and True Blood (and we’ll just ignore the unjust deaths of shows like Firefly, Dollhouse, and The Sarah Connor Chronicles for the moment), genre television seems to have entered into a new golden age, much like comic book movies did ten years ago.

Two of the most recent — and, it could be argued, most anticipated — such shows share a unique mission statement, despite their vastly differing subject matter. Both are adaptations of decidedly adult material, from mediums often given the short shrift in live-action television. Both will attempt to subvert genres that come heavily burdened with the preconceived notions of the common audience. And both feature a surprising pedigree of creators who are dedicated to their success. Those two upcoming shows are AMC’s The Walking Dead and HBO’s A Game Of Thrones.

Read the full article HERE!

Post-Modern American Cooking Quickie: The Blossamwich

Sometimes, a baller on the go has no time for long, drawn out recipes with their lists of ingredients and cooking times and attention to detail. For those times, you need something quick, satisfying, and most of all, utterly absurd.

For those times, you need The Blossamwich.

Observe.

First, you toast two slices of any bread of your choosing (I usually prefer wheat bread because it helps me fool myself into thinking I’m eating healthy).



Then comes the cold cuts. My meat of choice is Boar’s Head’s new low sodium lemon pepper chicken breast, which is DAMN tasty, and, again, low sodium! We’re eatin’ right.

Take a decent helping of the meat (say four or five slices) and lay it on one side of the toasted bread.




Next, you bust out some 2% milk swiss cheese...

Say whaaat? Healthy like a muthafuck!

...and lay that on top of the chicken. (Depending on where you got the swiss, the slices may be long enough that you can tear them in two and overlap them; otherwise, you’ll want two slices.)




So you’ve got your toasted wheat bread, your low sodium chicken breast, and your low fat swiss cheese.


Next comes the Onion Blossom.

It's... looking at me, Ray...

This is where my delusion shatters like a piñata, spilling deep-fried cholesterol bliss over all the happy children.

Yeah, that’s right, I said Onion Blossom. You know… like the ones you get at Outback? The ‘Bloomin’ Onion’? Mmmm, they’re so delicious, aren't they? If ever a gift was sent down from the heavens just for the onion lovers of the world, it’s this. And the sauce it comes with? Holy god, it’s like a zesty orange dollup of unadulterated nirvana! Onion blossoms are amazing.

But they’re also big. Sure, a whole table of people could wipe one out in mere minutes… but at a table for two? You’re not halfway through the thing before your stomach is packing its bags and grousing about how it should have listened to Mother. Onion blossoms are not a two-person appetizer. And usually, when you’ve had your fill (and then some) you just throw the rest away, right? Such a waste.

Well, not anymore.

You take that sucker home -- not forgetting to ask for a small container of extra orange blossomsauce...

(rhymes with Awesomesauce)

...and you keep it in the fridge until the day you are ready for The Blossamwich.

Today is that day.




Slap down a layer of leftover onion strips on top of the cheese and pop that bitch in the microwave, open faced, for one minute on high.

This will melt the cheese and heat up the onions -- and somehow, the bread stays dry and crispy!

Miracles...

Final step: Pour on as much of the blossomsauce as you want (I would suggest a generous helping; too little and the flavor will be drowned out by everything else).

Aww, the Predator bled all over my sandwich!

Close it with the other slice of bread...




...and your masterpiece is complete.

Embrace it as a brother. Enjoy it like a lover.

Inspiration

Inspiration's a funny thing.

It can come from anywhere, but only at unexpected times. When you search for it, it's nowhere to be found. And when you need it the most, it finally arrives... for something entirely different.

I've got at least two unfinished Farther Room posts right now waiting on the fickle ministrations of inspiration... but instead I'm writing this.

Like I said... funny thing.

Take this dream I had the other night...

Wait wh-- awww, where's everybody going...?

Don't worry, I'm not going to go into detail about it. I'd much rather turn it into a story... which is sort of my point.

Every so often, my slumbering mind will spit these vivid scenes out at me. I'll see a person on the run from an army, or fighting giant robots in hidden corridors... I'll see a tender moment between two people, while a jealous third person watches from the shadows... my brain puts on little movies for me...

(this one time I dreamt Johnny Depp and Wynona Ryder were running away from a cross-dressing Meatloaf...)

(...but that's another story entirely...)

...and then I wake up wondering who those people were, what their story was, what their lives were about. And, whereas once upon a time I used to just let that creative charge dissipate into distracted nothingness, now, I grab it. I harness it. I turn on the computer, I grab a pen and paper, and write it all down.

And that's probably the most difficult part. JUST WRITING IT DOWN is something you learn. It's not the first instinct. The first instinct is to sit back and enjoy the mental movie... not cannibalize and plagiarize it for your own fictional pursuits. Turning creative thought into actual words can be the most difficult process this side of childbirth. It kind of IS childbirth, if you look at it a certain way.

I had this dream once (about that aforementioned quiet little love triangle), and the scene was so powerful to me... the feelings of fear and surprise and excitement and jealousy mixing in that moment were so potent... that I couldn't stop thinking about it for an entire weekend. I was in San Diego with RC, and I didn't have a laptop at the time, and I had no notebooks or pens. I could have bought one, but I wasn't as disciplined as I am now... and... something else... I knew that if I wrote it down, my mind would ease away from it. And I didn't want that.

It was my first time in a new place, and this dream -- this idea -- just would not leave. So, I nurtured it. Every new sight I saw added to the story. Every random musing triggered by every passing fancy became a scene, regardless of how disparate the elements. Every new setting, a place for things to happen. "Creepy parking garage... what if somebody just found a dead body right here." Boom. Somebody does, in the story. Like that.

Between the music we were listening to while driving around and the influx of new visual information, I had an entire setting, all the main characters, their back stories, their personalities, their relationships, their struggles, their arcs, their entire lives, from beginning to end. I knew what the first three issues -- oh, yeah, it's a comic -- I knew what the first three issues of their story were, and I know what the last three issues are... and I've got about ten different stories to tell about them in between.

In two days.

And when I got home, THAT's when I wrote it all down. It was a pretty unique experience that I've never quite been able to duplicate.

(I still don't have a title yet, though.)

(I suck at titles.)

Anyway, my point is... the inspiration... the muse... it's like a wild thing. It's a force of nature. It's like...

RARR! MUSE!

And the only way you're going to get any good out of it... the only way it becomes more than just a fun little show your brain puts on for you... is to harness it. Write it down. Think about it. THINK ABOUT IT. Every second. Ponder, rerun, explore, expand. Because once you get that fucker moving... it's like a snowball rolling downhill. It just builds! In ways you never would have expected.

And I swear to you... I SWEAR to you... the shit my subconscious has given me is ten times better than anything I've ever invented while awake.

Dreams are where our best ideas live. We're just too damn distracted when we're awake to come up with the really good stuff. Most of us are, anyway.

Hell, even Twilight was based on a dream Stephanie Meyer had! And look how that turned out!

(...well...)

So, that's how it is. For me, anyway. On a lucky day, that's my process. Every other day, I try my damnedest to artificially recapture that creative hotspot. Sometimes I'm successful, sometimes not so much, but I just keep plugging away. You gotta! And when the spark comes, you follow it wherever it's willing to take you.

Which is how posts like this happen.