Author Archives: Eric

Written Work

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Programming note: Writing is still hard.

I’ve seen a ton of posts about all the time that some people have on their hands these days. I’ve seen posts, some joking, some serious about how much some people accomplished in the past when under quarantine rules. I’ve seen numerous posts about how one should feel about all this time, your personal level of anxiety and how much work you should get done.

A friend of mine posted an update on how much had been written during this time of not leaving the house… and questioned its value.

Writing is still hard.

Extra time at the keyboard doesn’t change that. Some people might not even get extra time at the keyboard. Some people might not be able to take it. I am extremely lucky to still be working. I am on the same hours / schedule I was before the modern plague hit the world. I still can’t sit here in front of the machine for 12 or more hours at a time. I reserve a great deal of time for work here on my computer – the day job kind.

That is not to say that other projects are still lagging. Quite the contrary actually. I’ve been chipping away at things little by little. The biggest boon to me is the reduction in travel times along with the reduction in number of meetings. There are no places I have to go, no drive time involved in going there. Very few people clamoring for my attention. that has made a certain amount of focus easier for me, so I’m getting more writing done than I have in a while.

That is not to say that it’s good writing. There is a lot of anxiety floating out there and as I have stated in other posts, the panic can and will rub off. I’m hoping that as we adjust to the way things are right now that the new schedule will allow for even more work to get done.

In the end – writing is still hard. IF you’re creative and you’re struggling – that’s OK. If you’ve got scads of free time and you can make a go of it – then you go! Get cracking and make something awesome. If you’re not a maker, be a consumer when you can. Authors, freelancers, small businesses are all going to undergo changes in the coming months. IF you’ve got the time, dig up a new author or a small press and see if you can find something you like.

Hopefully I’ll be able to pull my bits and pieces together and keep forging ahead.

Parallel

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Parallel Worlds: The Heroes Within

Parallel Worlds: The Heroes Within by L.J. Hachmeister

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I have to say up front – I bought this book because I knew there was a Jim Butcher story in there and I wanted to read that. I don’t know if I would have found this anthology if not for him.

The collection is a total of 19 stories. As with any anthology, this one was up and down for me. I did not read the story from the Dresden verse first. I tried just plowing through stories front to back. Then I got impatient and read Mr. Butcher’s story. I was missing something – and it prompted me to go back and start re-reading the Dresden Files.

That’s a significant part of why it took so very long to finish all the stories in this book. I did in fact read them all. I think that matters for an anthology – you can find new authors you really like that way.

Of the other 18 stories there were a few that stood out. I was surprised and delighted to be reminded of the Myth series with Aahz & Company in “Myth Deeds”. It’s been forever since I’ve read any of those. “Prisoner 141” was interesting, but it seemed to me more the kind of story that needs discussion when done. “Valentine Blues” was a fun take on an old story. “Tragedy of John Metcalf” was the most true to the parallel worlds theme and it was well done. I really liked the world building of “Demons of Arae” and will probably look up more of that.

There were other good stories in there and a couple that didn’t work for me. I know how tough anthologies can be – I would suggest grabbing this one and giving it a shot. You never know what you might find that appeals to you.



View all my reviews

Welcome to the Real

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There are still other people in the world. I know that sounds silly, but I also know that if you’ve been quarantined at home for a couple of weeks you might lose track of that simple fact.

It’s easy to consider others when you’re reaching out across a computer connection. People still exist in the real world too. This is not some bizarre Martrix variation. I am putting this out there because of a small incident from early this morning.

I am fortunate to be among those who are still working. There are a lot of folks out there that aren’t and that’s causing people to make some difficult choices. Because I am still working, I am still on my regular old schedule. On that schedule I am up relatively early ~ and generally out the door for a brisk walk of a mile or more every morning around 5:30 am.

For a community on “lock-down” and under a government mandated stay at home order there were a LOT of people out there, including the local share-a-ride bus. Again, at the risk of sounding silly a couple of dozen cars out and moving that early is a lot. I am very aware of my surroundings while I’m out like that. It’s early, it’s dark most days and I have no desire to be accidentally run over by somebody that hasn’t made it to the local coffee shop to “wake up” yet (that’s an entirely different discussion for a later date).

When I was walking up to one of the intersections a car from the neighborhood down that street rolled up almost to the corner and stopped abruptly. I normally take the crosswalk and keep chugging along, but I hesitated and slowed down. The driver of this car – a young lady that I’m certain was on the way to some kind of work deemed life sustaining – while still in gear, opened the driver side door. I thought perhaps she was going to ask something or was in need of assistance. I stopped and waited. While I was watching from the sidewalk on the passenger side of her car she proceeded to search around insider her car as if she’d lost something. Ducking down below window level, craning back over toward the back seat… generally looking scattered.

Here was my thought process: IF you’re looking for something, take your car out of gear and put it into park. IF you can’t figure out how to turn the dome light on in your car without opening the door, perhaps you should pay more attention to how to operate this machine you’re in charge of… IF this young lady couldn’t manage to handle those two basic things there was NO WAY I was going to walk in front of her car to cross the street. Not happening, no matter how much reflective stuff I have on.

Here’s the part that prompted this post. As I went around the back of her car to continue my walk something reflective must have caught her eye since I was walking through the light of her brake lights. She looked shocked and shaken that somebody else existed in the world. I had my headphones in, but I think there might have been a squeak that came out of her car that had nothing to do with car parts needing oil. She proceeded to stare at me as I walked away for a really long time. I almost wanted to go back and ask her if she was OK – but when I was probably 20 or 30 yards away and looked back I heard the car door slam shut and she pulled around the corner.

I know that stay at home orders are challenging. Please don’t forget that eventually you will need to go out and deal with real people in the actual, physical world again. You’re going to need to be extra vigilant to avoid people that forget there are other people in the world…

See how far the rabbit hole goes?

Time and Space

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It has been a year. Today isn’t a specific anniversary date, but it has been a year since the company that ran a number of conventions including ReGenerationWho imploded. I wrote about my feelings in Death of a Convention last year, but now I’ve had significantly more time to reflect.

That time to reflect has both helped and hurt.

Time away from the chaos, rushing and stress has given me the chance to really enjoy all the fun we had and the amazing things we accomplished over the years. I have so many new friends because of the things we did. We were part of something amazing and wonderful. It has helped me to see just how cool the fandom community really is.

Time away has hurt too. I don’t get to see many of those folks on a regular basis. We’re connected via social media, but sometimes an in person get together is needed. It has also hurt to see folks that did not handle any of this well. I will not name people here, but I have generated a deep and abiding anger toward some parts of the collapsing mess that was. It hasn’t gone away. I don’t think it will any time soon.

I think that’s the key to it all. Keeping the memories and the feelings we all made together. There will be other conventions in the future (not this year of course – 2020 the plague year) and there will be more chances to make that magic.

Keep doing amazing things, even when they hurt a little too. It’s part of what makes us who we are.

Such Magic!
Sharing a Hug

Flash Prompts

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Sometimes I need a little push to get going. Writing is not an easy, flowing thing all the time. A friend of mine has a secret group on Failbook called “Flash Prompt”.

One picture, each day with no discussion – just writing. Hit the “like” button all you want, but don’t comment on other people’s work. It’s meant to get writing stuff moving for people – give some little bit of inspiration. It’s meant to be “flash sized” so short and to the point.

I’ve done a couple of things on there and I thought I might share some with you. I don’t do every one. Some of the pictures don’t inspire me, sometimes I miss a day or twelve and the mood doesn’t move me. It’s hard to tell. The curator is super good about providing a link to the artist who created the picture – and I will try to do the same. Artists need to get paid.

This is the first one I participated in.

Rocky Coast

On sunny days it was great fun to climb on the rocks near my aunt’s house exploring tide pools and finding shells. She loved it there. I loved it there. The breeze off the water, the sound of the surf.

When the storms came the could be endured. The rage was part of the beauty. The danger part of the allure.

When the storm sent sea water down the chimney she decided that endurance had limits and even the best relationships can turn sour. She moved far enough inland that the sea could not reach her.

I miss the rocky coast.

The New Normal

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And there it went. The first full week of the “new normal” is in the books.

Covid-19 is rampaging across the world and killing thousands. Everyone is getting a little crazy about the whole thing – with some justification. Something like this has not occurred in our memory. There was the Spanish Flu back in the 1920s, but there are no people alive who can relate to us how society was at that time. We can read about it, but that’s all we’ve got.

We’ve also got a dramatically different method of communication at our disposal. We know more about what’s going on in the world around us at a faster speed than ever before. Hopefully this will allow us to get ahead of this virus and stop things from reaching Spanish Flu levels. Right now thousands are dying and that’s bad. The other one? Yeah, that killed somewhere between 20 and 50 MILLION people.

Million.

I would never attempt to diminish the loss of a person, or collection of persons, but as a question of scale we’re doing… as well as can be expected. Honestly, probably better than can be expected. Yes, the virus has forced us to change the way we conduct ourselves. No, we don’t know how long this is going to last. Yes, after two solid weeks of news, media and home grown “experts” yelling at us about coronavirus it seems like it’s been here forever, but it hasn’t been that long. How long will it be? No idea. Nobody knows. Lots of people are making predictions, but until we get there we won’t have any idea.

I am fortunate to still be able to work, at least right now. I have shifted to working from home and connecting to everyone via my internet connection. My lovely wife has been given the same opportunity and has a similar computer station set up next to this one. We’ve been in the same house along with the kiddo for a full week + and haven’t gone completely insane. In fact, we all seem to quite like it. We’re much more relaxed. Work has a lot of the same kind of stupid, but it’s muted by the overwhelming noise of change. I’ve heard there are people out there not handling the social isolation very well. I hope those folks take advantage of the technology we have access to and stay as connected as they can without actual physical presence.

So – big changes. Things we were told would never be a thing have come to pass (particularly the sudden ‘realization’ that certain jobs CAN in fact be done remotely). Life will be forever changed by this event. My daughter will have this as a marked point in her life that she will remember long into her adulthood much the same way I remember events like the shuttle disaster that happened when I was in high school. No where close to the same level of impact – but a bright and clear memory of that time for me.

Forging ahead. I’ve gotten a bunch of things done around the house. That’s the thing – when you can’t leave, you have to make it a point to actually create and stick to a schedule that works for your household. What am I trying to say? Well, just this: I’ve been working essentially the same schedule as before. Sure the commute is a hell of a lot better and the dress code is pretty lax, but I’m still on schedule. It means that I’m spending all that work time here on my home computer. So when I “get home from work” I have even less desire to jump on here and keep working than before.

I’m hoping to pick up some creativity soon – but given the circumstances of the world, I’m not sure I’ll get there. Maybe I’ll start cranking out the words. Dunno. Hopefully you’ll keep coming back here to see.

Stormy

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I started my own re-read of all the published works in the Dresden Files series in anticipation of the new book being released this summer. Part of the re-read was also looking at them from a new perspective. I have heard from some people that the works are misogynistic. I have never felt that way about them. In fact, I empathize with the main character more than I do with many other works. It’s part of my attraction to the series. That’s the part that worried me ~ I never want to be that guy.

I read the short story at the start of it all and the comic book that is supposed to land in the timeline before Storm Front, even though Storm Front was the first published.

Time to move on to case book one.

I read the whole thing in a morning. It’s a fast moving book. I had forgotten how short the time frame of the book itself is. It feels longer in my mind just based on how long I’ve been reading the series. The actual timeline in the book is less than a whole week – it’s only a few days total (like Thursday to Monday). I didn’t remember that.

I also didn’t remember just how many of the fantastic lines / quotes from the series came from this first book. Many I remembered and many that I didn’t.

I also came to realize just how much that dismal television show has crept into my mind. I am a visual person by nature and things like television and media tend to stick and stay with me. When I read about Bob the skull, I pictured Terrence Mann. Bob never takes on a form anything like that in the book, but that picture has stayed with me. The picture of Joanne Kelly as Bianca stuck with me as well. The problem is other details stuck too – and they’re flat out wrong. The TV series messed with so much of this work that it has become difficult to pry the two apart.

I’m glad I read the book again. I’m really glad I went back and could recognize the changes in details based on the words, not on my shaky memory.

As to the thought that the book is misogynistic? I have a really hard time calling it that. I think that’s using a club when a scalpel is called for. I try to temper my words and say things as accurately and succinctly as possible. I try to say what I mean. I think that I understand what those people are saying, even if they’re using very charged and inelegant methods to make their point. They would call my attempt to defend it a lot of inelegant things I’m sure. So – to that point:

The book is not written or intended to be hateful or hurtful to women and that is the definition of misogynistic. I do however see that people could view the main character as a sexist and somebody that works within a system that has always favored men. He has good intentions and clearly states that he understands there are women that don’t like it on page 11. Right up front.

“Maybe my values are outdated, but I come from an old school of thought. I think that men ought to treat women like something other than just shorter, weaker men with breasts. Try and convict me if I’m a bad person for thinking so. I enjoy treating a woman like a lady, opening doors for her, paying for shared meals, giving flowers–all that sort of thing. It irritates the hell out of Murphy, who had to fight and claw and play dirty with the hairiest men in Chicago to get as far as she has.”

I’m glad I’m going back through all the stories again. I’m glad I have a fresh perspective on them. I’m going to continue and see if the pattern I missed before shows up now with a new point of view…

Failure and Fan Art

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It would be easy to call entry into a contest and not winning a failure. Easy, but not true.

I created the picture below to enter into a fan art competition in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Dresden Files. I really am a big fan. I have read more of this series than I have of any other book series or author out there. Admittedly, some authors I’ve read don’t have as great an amount of work available. There are some that have comparable amounts of work available, but they have not met the standard set by the Dresden Files for me.

I didn’t share this entry before the contest winners were announced. It was not at all about a “jinx” or any other kind of superstition. It was that mean, nasty thing called ‘hope’. IF you’ve got even a little it makes you think things like, “Gee, I don’t want to put this up on my web site where it will be considered ‘published’ before the winners are announced… what if I win and then they want to do a business deal and can’t…”

Intellectually it was very easy to see that I didn’t have much of a chance. I am an amateur artist on a good day. This contest was open to all comers – and there were a lot of them I suspect.

So – I didn’t win – BUT

What I did get was a chance to make art. I like what I made. I am going to make more art. This was a fun little project and I’m very happy with the results. What do you think?

Bob The Skull

More Context

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It’s been a week since I posted “historic context” and I haven’t written a single thing in that time. I am not alone in that. This past week has seen an extraordinary amount of change because of the world wide pandemic that is COVID-19 (commonly called the coronavirus). I simply have not had the wherewithal to just sit down and write. There is a staggering amount of anxiety out there and it has leeched into us here. It is hard to NOT panic when everyone else is in panic mode. The biggest fear is the transmission rate and our lack of ability to stop it. We don’t have any kind of vaccine to counter this and people have been dying by the thousands over the past few weeks. It is true that most of the deaths are not near us here in the middle of PA, but the simple fact that within a stunningly short number of days there are hundreds of people near us that have this virus makes that panic suddenly sound more reasonable. Panic is not a reasonable response, but it is understandable to be deeply shaken by the speed this hit us with and our genuine lack of preparedness.

When this was ramping up I started to make a list of meetings and events that had been called off because of this virus. It seems almost quaint to look at that list from a week ago. What has been canceled? Everything. The Governor of the state issued an order for all non-life sustaining business to close. All of them. There’s a sudden mad scramble to change how people can work and discussions about the nature of that work (and in many cases that people can’t work now and have been laid off or fired in vain attempts to save a business). In a move that was previously declared as “never going to happen” I have started to set up the ability to work from home. This is admittedly a challenge because the very nature of my work is collaborative. We shall see how it all works out only after more time has passed.

If you’re reading this right now, I have no doubt that you know most of what I have just written. It’s not possible to avoid this news. Why am I writing it here? Historic context. I didn’t remember small parts of what happened when America was attacked on 9/11. If I had not written them down in one of my sketchbooks at work I would have forgotten. There are other parts in my book, but I posted the most relevant to what I am trying to get across.

Businesses are closed. The government has moved to bare essential personnel, schools are closed. Stores have row upon row of empty shelves (see panic above). Anxiety rides high. It has become more and more clear how unprepared we are for anything that changes how we charge ahead in our day to day lives unthinking of what can happen. Everyone is aware now. The change is here and you can’t avoid it.

I think Douglas Adams put it best:



Tomorrow I start my first full day of working from home. So does my lovely wife. She and I will be sharing office space now. My daughter will be home from school all this week at a minimum. That might extend even longer, depending on the spread of the virus and how attempts to contain it work out.

Welcome to the new normal.

As things stand right now, I am still filled with anxiety. There are massive numbers of unanswered questions. Plans as far out as May are already canceled and plans for July are being questioned. My daughter is supposed to be traveling to France in August to begin a year of study in that country – and the entire program is in doubt right now for the first time in 70 years. I can’t comprehend the scope of this right now, but I wanted to write this all down so that someday I will be able to look back at this and remember some of the smaller details. I might even print this out – just in case the electronic version is somehow unavailable. There’s that panicky edge again…

Stay safe and healthy.