Sending Ripples Downstream (A Virtual Tour Blog-Hop)

Have you ever been tagged in a blog-hop? Did it make you start wondering where the cascading ripples of tagging originally came from?

I have, and it did.  And if you allow me a few minutes of your time, I'll tell you about it.

First...  The blog-hop itself:

The Creative-Artist Virtual Tour

Last week, Dianne Salerni tagged me to take part in a blog "virtual tour" of creative bloggers who write, paint, draw, make music, and do other creative things.  I'm very flattered that Dianne thought of me. I also enjoyed reading Dianne's post about her current work and her approach to her writing.

Here's Diane's bio:  

DIANNE K. SALERNI is the author of The Eighth Day MG fantasy series (HarperCollins) and YA historical novels, The Caged Graves (Clarion/HMH) and We Hear the Dead (Sourcebooks). Dianne was a public school teacher for 25 years before leaving the profession to spend more time hanging around creepy cemeteries and climbing 2000 year-old pyramids in the name of book research.
Visit Dianne at DianneSalerni.com


So according to the blog-hop "rules," I now have to give my responses to the same questions Dianne posted:

1. What am I currently working on?

Well, besides this blog-hop post, I have several short stories in various stages of getting-ready-ness. I also have a new mystery novel I'm in the outlining and researching stage on. Musically, I'm not getting as much time to visit wikiloops to jam lately, but I do have a new piece in my "Forgotten Voices" series that I've recently started and am working on.  I'm also spending time playing bass or guitar a couple of weekends a month on the worship team at church.

2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

For one thing, it was written (and/or performed) by me. Another thing is that my work tends to be hard to even fit in a single genre. I like adding diverse elements and creating interest by the juxtaposition of things that wouldn't normally be brought together.

3. Why do I write/create what I do?

To rework a flippant response once given by George Mallory: "Because it's not there."  I write and make music because of a desire to create something unique and interesting; to bring to life something that's not yet there.  Plus -- highfalutin artistic pontification aside -- it's kinda fun to do.

4. How does your writing/creating process work?

Sporadically, erratically, and frustratingly haphazardly. A big part of that is I have a very hard time blocking out time to do it, and when I do, it's sometimes even harder to enforce that, "you WILL be creative on this one particular thing right NOW!" nose-to-the-grindstone method of creativity.

OK.  Those are my answers. Now the blog-hop says I have to choose three other creative bloggers to tag. I can think of many, many bloggers who do amazing, creative work, but here are three that you might not be aware of:

David List

David is a writer working on his soon-to-be-released debut fantasy novel "A Sawmill's Hope," set in the land of Silexare.  He led a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund the editing, illustration, and self-publishing costs for the book.  I'm eagerly waiting it's release. He blogs at Regarding Silexare about his writing and more.  But in addition to being a writer, David is also a talented and accomplished musician -- he has a SoundCloud page filled with wonderful music that he has composed and performed, all of it captivating, catchy, and enjoyable.

Suze 

Suze is a writer with magical powers of transformation. She can deftly weave a spell of words that turns the ordinary into the sublime, the mundane into the mystical, and the familiar into the fantastic. I don't interact in the blogosphere as often as I would like, but Suze's blog Subliminal Coffee is a place that is always worth the visit.  Whether she's blogging about her writing craft, sharing stories about herself or her family, or reviewing books, music, and movies, Suze is always entertaining and a joy to read.

Susan Swiderski

When I want to smile, I visit Susan's blog I Think; Therefore I Yam. Susan is a very creative writer with a wonderful sense of humor.  She has written the highly-rated novel "Hot Flashes and Lemonade" and uses her blog for fabulous posts about everything from writing, book reviews, and travel to personal stories and pun-filled humor.  She has a warm, ever-optimistic, and always welcoming outlook, and -- like David's and Suze's -- I highly recommend her blog.

The blog "rules" now say that these people I've tagged need to post next week with their own answers to the questions, and to tag others.  But truthfully-- I don't care if they do.  They can if they want, of course -- but I'm not tagging them because I want them to feel obligated.  I just want to recognize them for the enjoyment their blogs have given me, and perhaps point a few more readers their way.

Exploring the Ripples

Okay. so now the "rules" of the blog-hop have been followed, and I've done my part to appease the blogosphere gods.  At this point, most bloggers would consider this post done and move on.

But I didn't.  Because, like I said at the top of this post -- my curiosity was piqued. I appreciate Dianne for thinking of me for this blog-hop, but who tagged her?  Where do these blog-hops come from? Who started this one?  Was it even possible to find out?

So I decided to become a virtual Henry Schoolcraft and, if possible, explore the river of links and see if I could trace the blog-hop back to its head-waters.

It took quite a while, a whole lot of clicking, and at some points a bit of internet detective work (thanks, Google!) to get the tagging source of a few people who didn't explicitly say or give a link on their blog.  But I found the Lake Itasca of this blog-hop.

Here are the series of taggings that rippled down through the rivers of the blogosphere to me:

Me < Dianne K. Salerni < April Lindner < Anna M. Evans < Bruce W. Niedt < Janet Rice Carnahan < Sharon E. Ingraham < Pearl Ketover Prilik < Walt Wojtanik < Laurie Kolp < Susie Clevenger < Kathryn Dyche Dechairo < Kim Stevens < Cathy Sly < Michelle Gyauch Dzema < Lisa Hofmann < Latisha Guthrie < Sara Galactica < Jory Mickelson < S J Sindu < JS Kuiken < Bran Mydwynter < Elinor Gray < Katie Young <  Laertes < Sylvia Petter < Shirley Golden < Laura Wilkinson < Jenny Kane < Jane Jackson < Anne Stenhouse < Jane Riddell < Beth Elliot < Penny Grubb < Linda Acaster < Lindsay Townsend < Adam Haviaras < Luciana Cavallaro < Jay Scott < Erin Albert < Brad Johnson < Debbie Nance < Sandra Warren < Joan Edwards < Eyvonna Rains < Meira Pentermann < Anna Del C. Dye < Stephanie Fowers < Stacy Lynn Carroll < Mikey Brooks < Cordelia Dinsmore < Lisa Cole Orchard < Jodi Desautels < Virginia Wright < Diana Jenkins < Peggy Archer < Cynthia Reeg < Cheryl Malandrinos < Mary Cunningham

...and after 58 links, that's where the blogging river dries up.

Mary posted on June 17th, 2013 and said she was tagged by Cheryl; Cheryl posted on June 18th, 2013 and said she was tagged by Mary.

Huh.  I suspect collusion and a clear intent to defraud unsuspecting blog readers.  :)

But -- all joking aside -- even if they weren't entirely upfront about it, it appears that Mary and/or Cheryl started this particular blog-hop in June of last year.  I can find no reference of either of them getting "tagged" by anyone else before that timeframe on their blogs or though Google searches.

So, 13 months and almost 60 blogs later, the ripples that Mary and Cheryl started reached me.

Back then, at its headwaters, the "wandering tour of blogs by artists -- writers, painters, photographers, and more" (to quote Dianne's blog) was a "blog hop interview" entirely geared towards writers of children's books. In between, in the space of just over a year, it rippled its way through writers and poets, photographers and painters. It covered a wide range of locations across the United States, Canada, and the UK to get to me, and evolved from people who created children's books to travel through artists of many other genres, including a few whose work is clearly NOT intended for children (and borderline NSFW).

And this was just one of the many possible cascading paths the blog-hop may have taken.  Each person tagged typically named two or three other bloggers to take part, in an ever-expanding chain-reaction of connections.

So let's figure it out:

Even if each blogger only named two others to take part, and we assume all of them actually did, and that each multiplying chain has taken the same number of steps, it would mean that 2 ^ 58th power of blogs are now feeling the ripples of the stone that Mary or Cheryl originally kicked into the rivers of the blogosphere.  That would be 288,230,376,151,711,744 blogs which are now involved.

Well, clearly those assumptions are incorrect -- that's many, many times more blogs than there are people on Earth!

This blog-hop ripple has behaved like a real river -- only certain currents have found their way downstream. Others led to dead-end eddies or arid flatlands that dried up any forward progress. Not every path allows the water to keep flowing. 

Not every person tagged in a blog-hop takes part.

But I have.

And so the ripples keep flowing downstream...

Songs of Summer

Warren Dunes State Park (image from Michigan Science & Nature blog)

Lately, I must admit that I haven't been very social on the blogosphere. Because I haven't had much time to devote to it, this blog has been mainly a one-way street where I've made an occasional post and then disappeared, rarely getting out to visit other bloggers. 

But I've decided that in spite of my limited time, I do need to improve my on-line presence and interaction.  Taking part in a fun blog-hop is one way to do that, and so this is my entry in the Songs of Summer blog-hop sponsored by the bloggers The Armchair Squid, Cygnus, and Suze from the wonderful Subliminal Coffee.

The point of the blog hop is to create a five-song personal summer soundtrack, and so I've put together the songs below.  I will admit that my list is entirely subjective and personal -- rather than just being "about" summer, most of these songs bring back memories I associate with summer, like my fond memories of the time I spent at Warren Dunes on Lake Michigan (see pic above) during my summers as a teen.

But here's my list -- see if I hit any ones that you might have on your own soundtrack:

• Hot Fun in the Summertime (Sly and the Family Stone):  OK -- this first one IS indeed "about summer."  But as a kid, I remember hearing this a lot in the summer, and it brings back many happy memories of the times at my friend's grandmother's pool, listening to music on a small transistor radio.  It's a fun mix of mellow and funky, with some incredibly infectious bass, and it holds up surprisingly well for a song recorded in 1969 -- 45 years ago.  It's a song that just feels like summer. Here's a recording of it where the old original mono has been redone into stereo (yes, they were still recording in mono in 1969):

 

• Stranglehold (Ted Nugent):  Ted Nugent's first, self-titled 1975 solo album after leaving the Amboy Dukes was a record that I played a LOT during the summer of '76, and this track was the main reason.  As a 15-year-old struggling, wanna-be guitar-player, I loved the power and vibe of the long, extended solo. The vocals and all-around bravado also appealed to my immature masculinity, despite my overwhelming introverted shyness and awkwardness. But man-oh-man, that in-your-face, screamin' guitar just called to me (and now I have the tinnitus to prove it how loud and how often it did, LOL!).  Here's the original studio recording:

• Blue Sky (The Allman Brothers): This was recorded in 1972, but I didn't really discover the Allman Brothers until the late '70s in my later teens.  This song was on Eat a Peach, the album the band was working on in 1971 when Duane Allman died in a motorcycle accident at the age of 24. The song was written (and sung) by Dickey Betts and has some of my most-favorite guitar playing of all time -- Duane's first solo, Dickey's second, and their harmonies are simply exquisite.  This song just oozes joy and warmth, and is such a perfect song for a lazy, sunny summer day.  Still a staple of the band's live shows, here's the original version from Eat a Peach:

• Are You Going With Me? (Pat Metheny) -- Nine minutes of haunting, ethereal, and (eventually) intense playing over a simple, catchy groove, this is from my favorite Pat Metheny album, Offramp. Released, in 1982, right when I was really starting to get into his music, I completely associate it with summer because of one special night: July 12, 1983.  That's when I saw the Pat Metheny Group live at Meadowbrook  It was a warm, clear summer night at a gorgeous outdoor, wooded amphitheater on the campus of Oakland University in Auburn Hills, MI. The band's playing that night completely blew me away -- it was a magic event and still stays in my memory as one of the best concerts I've ever seen.  No "big production" -- just incredible musicians making amazing music in a beautiful setting. This concert had most of the pieces from Offramp, including the jaw-dropping Ornette Coleman inspired title track, the beautiful James, the groovin' Eighteen, and the moody Au Lait among them. Below is a live version of Are You Going With Me -- I still smile and get goosebumps when I hear it.  It's mostly keyboardist Lyle Mays in the beginning, with Pat coming in on his guitar-synth just before the 4:00 mark:

• There are also several movies I associate strongly with summer, so it's natural for me to think of their theme songs as part of my "summer soundtrack."   The soundtrack from Caddyshack (summer of 1980 -- love the version of "I'm Alright" as used in the film's openings) and the soundtrack from Ghostbusters (summer of 1984 -- note the '80's synth drums and the low-budget cheesy early MTV video) are especially relevant here.  But after thinking about it, there is one soundtrack that stands out as having particular significance. So, from the summer of 1975: The Theme from Jaws, by John Williams.  No summer at the beach was ever the same after this movie.  For  years, even small ponds in Iowa had kids chanting this "duh-duh... DUH-DUH..." Jaws theme music when they went anywhere near the water:

So there you have it -- my personal five-song "Summer Soundtrack."  But I supposed I could also add a write-in sixth song of my own. How about my wikiloops jam, Summertime Smile? I think it's the most summer-y of anything I've done so far (click on the image to go to the jam):

So that makes my "Summer Soundtrack (+1)" -- what do you think?

Thank you very much for stopping by! I encourage you to visit all the blogs in this blog hop. You can see the linky-list at The Armchair Squid's blog:  HERE

A Blogging Update -- Time for a Change...

Hi, there.

Well, it seems that in my on-again, off-again blogging, I have been very much in the off-again mode this past month.

First, let me apologize for any concern that my unplanned and sudden absence may have caused -- I can assure you that really, all is well.  I went through a battle with the flu and some other things, and in spite of my good intentions, my short blogging lull stretched from a few days into several weeks.  But on the overall scale of "things-that-could-go-wrong," I'm thankful that my absence was mainly caused by things that are actually pretty low on the list.

However, it's become clear to me that at this stage in my life, blogging has had to take a bit of a back seat.  It's not that I don't like it, and -- thankfully -- it's not because I don't have anything to blog about.  This is supposed to be an outlet for "the creative output of StratPlayer" and I'm glad that I'm still managing to squeeze in at least a little time to do the creative things that I want to blog about.  So that's a plus.  It's much better to create and not blog, than to blog about what I'm not creating, right?

But still, I think it's time to make some changes to this blog.  I obviously need to step aside from any scheduled blogging activity.  I enjoy them, but I can't seem to make them a consistent, long-term commitment that I can honor.  So I'm stepping aside from the Battle of the Bands, and also from the Insecure Writers Support Group.  I enjoyed both and have nothing but respect for the founders of both, but I think it's wrong to take part in something unless I can consistently do so.

I may still post a "Newsday 200" kind of story from time to time, but the scheduled "Tuesday" part of it will stop. 

Moving forward, this blog will become more of an unscheduled, solo journal -- no "gotta post on a given day" kinds of posts.  More like just a place to post and share any writing and music that I create.  That's really my core intention for this blog, anyway.

But I'm afraid this will not be much of a social blog.  No blog-hops, no blogging events, no blogathons, no "sign-up-in-the-linky-list" activities.

I know there are a LOT of wonderful bloggers out there that I've come to know and admire and enjoy over the years, and I do regret that I don't have the time to interact with them much for the foreseeable future.  I also know that my blog will likely suffer in terms of readership -- there will unfortunately be very little, "I'll read and comment on yours if you read and comment on mine" exchanges for a while. I don't want this to sound selfish -- as I said, I REALLY do enjoy all the other bloggers I've interacted with, and I will still try to visit their blogs as I can. 

But for at least the short-term future, my blog will pretty much shift to being just an journal of my own stuff and not as much of a home base for any interactive, social blogging activity.

Of course, I still welcome you to visit and read and listen and hopefully enjoy what I post here.  But that posting may be on an erratic schedule, and I will not be able to do much in the way of return-blogging and commenting reciprocity.  Please don't take it personally -- if you have a blog of your own and don't see much from me, it's absolutely NOT that I'm avoiding you or that I don't enjoy your blog. 

I'm just that when it comes to blogging, I'm afraid I'm kind of stuck in a "post-and-run" time-crunch these days.

Pray, Pay, Display, Play, and Sunday

Today's post is meant to touch on a variety of things -- I want to give you a head's up on some blogging and writing events taking place, share an update on some writing I'd submitted, offer another snippet of music, and invite you to stop back for a another blog series I'm going to be joining.  Let me break it down for ya:

Pray

A Blogging Head's Up:   On December 24th -- Christmas Eve! -- Mark Koopmans is hosting the  Fifty States of Pray blog event.  Mark says the idea behind it came to him as, "Why not set aside a moment to reflect on the year that was and share some hopes for the next year?" Well, why not? Mark hopes to get a blogging representative from every state in the U.S., and as many international bloggers as possible.

I think it's a great idea, and I will be posting as a representative from Indiana.  However, I have to say that my post will almost certainly be scheduled in advance -- Christmas Eve is a big family time for me, and I may not have much time to surf the blogosphere.  Still, if you get a chance over the holidays, I would welcome your visit, and I'll also invite you to use the link to also visit some of Mark's other participants. The link to the sign-up list for the blogging participants is HERE.

Pay

A Writing Head's Up:  David List is using KickStarter to try and fund the artwork, editing, and publishing for his upcoming fantasy novel, "A Sawmill's Hope."  I know David from WRiTE Club at DL Hammons' blog and I think his book has tremendous potential.  I would encourage you to check out the thought, time, and effort David has put into this project, and to make an offering to support it.  Pay whatever you can spare. David's KickStarter project is HERE.

Display

A Writing Update:  A while ago, I posted that I'd submitted two entries to "The Prehistoric Week" at Tim Sevenhuysen's 50-Word Stories.  Well, if you were paying attention, you probably noticed that the week came and went and that my stories were never published.

There's a possibility that Tim may still use one or both of them at some point in the future, but I thought I'd go ahead and post them here.  They're not more Og and Oona stories -- these two instead visit some dinosaur dilemmas. I'll display one here today, and save the second one for next week.  Today's is something I call "Emily's Extinct Fan".  I hope you enjoy it!

=====

Emily's Extinct Fan

The meeting of the dinosaur book club degenerated into raging argument.

"'Wuthering Heights' is the greatest novel ever written," Dino screamed at Barney. "You're an idiot if you can't see it!"

Rex tried to intervene. "Settle down, Dino. We can have differing opinions. Don't be such a Bronte sore ass."

=====

Play


A Musical Offering:  I haven't posted a musical selection in a long time, so I think I need to get another one out.  I have a couple of new things I'm working on at the moment (normal hectic Christmas schedule notwithstanding), that I'll share with you once they're done.  But for now, I'll offer another piece I added some guitar to on the Jam site Wikiloops.  This is an electronic piece started by wikiloops user Dogbass originally called "Electrohive".  User tron12 added some bass, then I added two guitar tracks, and called it "Zonin' in the Hive,"  because it was kind of some trancy, zoning playing against this 'hive' track.

Unfortunately, I mistyped the name when I uploaded it and it's displayed as "Zonin' in the Hie."  I didn't realize it until it was already all uploaded.  Then I thought about it. "Hie" is an old word meaning to go fast or 'hasten' and I said, 'what the Heck?' The track is kind of fast and so it sort of fits.

My playing on this is not what I'd consider my best, but it was done as a 'jam' with two "as-close-to-live-as-possible" tracks, recorded in one sitting and then given some psycho fading.  One guitar is some spacy background (zonin') and the other one's an edgier up-front guitar (hie?). All in all, I think it worked out OK, and it at least shows another side of my musical experimentation.

You can listen to it HERE.  And, of course, you can always check out all of musical offerings under the "My Music" tab at the top of the page above.  Thanks for listening!

Sunday

Joining Another Blog Series:  This Sunday is the fifteenth and I will be posting my first entry in the blog series, "The Battle of the Bands".  This is a series started by Stephen T. McCarthy and FarAwayEyes in August of this year, and now has several other bloggers who take part, including Arlee Bird and Robin (even Ninja Captain Alex Cavanaugh takes part occasionally).

The blog event occurs on the first and the fifteenth of each month and features posts with two (and sometimes more) recorded versions of the same song.  The blog readers then get to vote to decide which performer did a better version of the song. 

I think it's a lot of fun and have decided to take part, so Sunday will be my first offering.  Since it is the Christmas season, I am going to feature a couple of versions of one of my absolute favorite Christmas songs.

I hope you will come visit and vote for your favorite!

Well, that's it for this hodge-podge of a post.  Thank you very much for reading!  Feel free to offer whatever thoughts you might have on the above because, after the Pray, Pay, Display, Play, and Sunday, it's now time for your Say!

OK?  ;)

IWSG -- Am I Writing Enough?

Today is the first Wednesday of the last month of the latest year of my life. So of course that means it's time for another Insecure Writer's Support Group (ISWG) post!

For this edition, how about some thoughts on writing goals and the concern that I might not be writing "enough:"

When I first dabbled with "becoming a writer" I was very focused on output.  I think that in a lot of ways, that can be a good thing.  A writer writes, and just making it through the process of getting words onto the page is much of the battle. But, of course, being the geeky engineering type, I naturally created a spreadsheet to track my output in words per day.

I'd read many places that the goal for many "professional" writers is 1,000 words a day.  But I've also got the day-job and a house and a family and other commitments and while those blessed few who could support themselves with their writing might be able to crank that out in a day, I knew I was too pressed for time to try and live up to that daily 4-digit dream level of production. So I settled on 250 as a goal, preloaded several months worth of my tracking spreadsheet with that daily amount, and set to writing and tracking my actual output versus the goal.

At first, for quite a long while, I was doing well.  Even with an erratic schedule and days where I accomplished no writing at all, I was still averaging closer to 350-400 words per day.  Then life interrupted, my schedule got disrupted, more and more days slipped by with little or no writing, and my actual-versus-goal cumulative total slid into the negative and kept going that way.  

It was excruciating to watch that artificial goal I had set for myself slip further and further away from my grasp. Soon it became overwhelming.  I'd reached a point where even if I spent days writing at thousands of words a day, it would take seemingly forever to catch back up to where I'd decided I was "supposed" to be.

So I quit.

The fact that I hadn't been "successful" in getting anything published also added to me throwing up my hands and walking away from it, but that oppressive thought that I wasn't even writing "enough" to be a "real writer" was a key factor.

My writing stopped and my blogging stopped -- why blog about something you weren't doing?  I mean, if any of my blog readers could see that huge deficit of my actual writing output versus my target, they'd realize I was really a big phoney. What the heck kind of writer was I???

But slowly, thankfully, without an artificial and arbitrary target anymore, and away from the blogosphere, I came to my senses.  With the "goal" long surrendered, I eventually started writing again.  Simply because I like it and felt like it.  250 words or 2 words -- it didn't matter. I just like to write.

And that's kind of where I still am.  I'm writing, but I really couldn't tell you "how much" off the top of my head.  The spreadsheet's been retired.  And I think I'm better for it.

But I sometimes still feel those nagging thoughts start to creep in -- am I really writing "enough?"  Maybe I should set a goal and start tracking it again.

Or not...

So what do you think? Do you set a writing goal?  How rigid is it? If it's flexible and likely not to be met, is it really a "goal?"  How much do you beat yourself up if you fall short of your goal?

How do you set a goal and use it as positive motivation without it becoming a burden and a oppressive drag? 

My First IWSG Post -- Sorry If It's Not Good Enough

 

I've been blogging for a while. In my blogging life, there have been many fits and starts, stops and gaps, endings and beginnings, and even a reboot of my whole dang blog.  So I've been around the blogosphere long enough to have seen many, many Insecure Writer's Support Group (IWSG) posts. On the first Wednesday of every month, hundreds of writing blogs bloom with the above badge as writers post about their insecurities, commune with other IWSG bloggers, share commiseration and support, and generally saturate the writing corners of cyberspace with a mix of artistic angst and altruistic allegiance.

The brainchild of blogging phenomenon Alex J. Cavanaugh -- talented writer of the excellent "Cassa" series of science-fiction novels (CassaFire, CassaStar, and CassaStorm); ninja captain to an ever-growing band of blogging brethren; omnipresent commenter on an endless sea of blogs; and all-around great guy -- IWSG has evolved from a small support group of a select few writers to a blogroll of 350 members.  It has even outgrown Alex's blog and now has its own web site.

I've always admired the thought behind the IWSG and greatly respect Alex for starting it. Over the time I've been blogging, I've grown to really appreciate it, and like reading the many monthly posts. I think it is wonderful to learn that writers everywhere share the same basic fears and insecurities; to know that many have actually overcome those fears to achieve success; and to see the kindness and support they share with the new wanna-be's who are dipping their first toes into the turbulent waters of writing. 

But I've never taken part.

Until now.

I'm not sure why it's taken me so long. Maybe it's because I wanted to avoid the pressure of HAVING to blog a certain thing at a certain time.  Maye it's my general distaste for me-too-ism -- I usually try to avoid the herd, and I certainly never want to be one of the last ones signing up for the next-big-thing.

Well, maybe...

But it could also be that perhaps I've thought that I might not have much to say compared to all the great IWSG posts I've read over the many months of its existence. Or that I could never say it as well as so many others already have.  Or that no-one would even be interested in whatever inadequate, fumbling thoughts I might try to post on my small, unheralded backwater of the blogosphere.

Uhhh... Wait a minute...

Has the dreaded "it's not good enough!" monster made me too insecure to even sign up for the insecure writers support group!?!?

Oh, the irony!

Well, no more.  

When it comes to my writing -- or any creative thing I try to make -- I may never be able to completely eliminate that nagging inner voice of self-doubt, that annoying tummy-flutter of insecurity, that heart-stopping vision of being either ignored or berated as being not-good-enough!!!  

But I can damn well not let it stop me from writing and creating anyway. 

And I can absolutely not let it stop me from letting me from taking part in a support group meant to combat it, fer cryin' out loud.

So here I am.  Joining the IWSG, adding my voice to the community of writerly support, and making my own very first IWSG post.

...sorry if it's not good enough.

You Rang?

This is sort of a musical topic, but I should probably warn you that it's also one with A MESSAGE.  No, nothing too heavy or preachy, but do I ask that you'll indulge me for a little bit, and if you enjoy music, I hope that might even consider some advice.

If you're of a certain age, or you like reruns of old back-and-white TV comedies, you might associate the title of this post with the image I posted.  That's Lurch (played by Ted Cassidy), the butler from the Addams Family, and he uttered his famous "you rang?" line after Gomez or Morticia summoned Lurch by pulling the cord and ringing the gong.

That's some classic schlock TV, complete with a omnipresent canned laugh track, and while I intentionally used that line to evoke a smile, I do have another reason for mentioning a reference to ringing.

Because I have tinnitus --  a constant ringing in my left ear.  To me it sounds like an ever-present high B-flat, with a pulse that matches my own heartbeat.

I've had a complete check-out by an audiologist and an otolaryngologist -- that's the fancy term for the common "Ear, Nose, and Throat" (ENT) physician that specializes in ear issues.  And so I know that it's "nothing serious", and just a sign of a significant loss of the ability to hear higher frequencies in that ear.  The doctor called tinnitus "the auditory equivalent of phantom limb syndrome," where my brain wants to fill in those missing frequencies with something and so it generates the sensation of hearing a ringing in those frequencies.

It's a relatively common condition, especially for people who have had frequent or long-term exposure to loud noises. My exposure?  Well, I bet you can guess...

I play electric guitar.  There were lots of times I used to play it LOUD, especially during my teen years. With my left ear facing the amp so the guitar pickups would be facing away to minimize feedback.  In my old teen garage bands, what we lacked in talent we usually tried to make up for in volume. 

Plus as a teenager I went to many concerts and usually tried to get as close to the stage as possible -- this was the days of open-floor "festival" seating.  I saw this in concert four or five times before the age of twenty, from very near the amps:

And Ted played very, VERY, VERY, VERY LOUD!

I used to joke at school that my ears rang all day long the day after the concert.  Now I think that maybe it wasn't so funny after all.

In my twenties, I came to my senses and started wearing ear protection when I played, and trying to get everyone to turn down during practice, and sitting much further back at concerts.

But the damage had already been done -- I just didn't realize it until my late 40's. And now in my 50's the ringing is there all the time.

It's just something I have to live with -- there's really no cure.  And most times I do OK.  I've gotten to where I don't notice it most of the time, but then other times it's maddening.  

Plus, even without the ringing, I know that I'm missing high frequencies.  There's a gap in what I hear, particularly in my left ear. I try not to over-compensate and crank the treble, especially on anything I record.  

But my ears are forever damaged, and no matter how long it keeps ringing, Lurch is never going to come in and ask if, "I rang?"  Because it's not a joke.  It's serious and it sucks.

<MESSAGE>  Please don't let it happen to you. Protect your hearing. </MESSAGE>

A Writer Again Am I

First off, sorry for the length of time since my last post -- I'm hoping to do a couple of posts a week and it's been eight days since my last one.  That's a little longer than I would prefer.

But the good news is that it wasn't because I've lost interest in the blog, or don't think I have anything worthwhile to write, or have nothing to update you on -- it was simply a lag in posting caused by a very busy schedule.  I spent most of last week scrambling to get things done because my wife and I were going away for several days, and then -- you guessed it -- my wife and I were away for several days.

We were here:

(Photo by Chris J. Fries, 2013)

It was a very, very fun trip -- we stayed on the American side of Niagara Falls and had a really great time. And if this were a travel-blog or a personal-diary kind of blog, I'd tell you about how awesome it was to do the Maid of the Mist, and how cool the Cave of the Winds was, and how good the food was an Wine on 3rd, and where we went on the Niagara Wine Trail, and so forth, but this is not that kind of blog.  This blog is about my creative outlet, so I'm just going to say it was an absolutely wonderful trip, spent with an incredible woman who I love with all my heart, and that I enjoyed every minute of it.

And then -- to keep with the spirit of what this blog actually is -- I'm instead going to tell you about something that I scrambled to get done before our trip; something I haven't done in a very long while:

I finished a story and submitted it for publication.

OK -- it wasn't a brand-new story written completely from scratch, but it still feels like a big accomplishment to me.   This is a science-fiction story that I'd written and had submitted to Ray Gun Revival, and had gotten some very positive feedback on, along with a request for revision and resubmission.  But then RGR stopped publishing, and this story has sat since.

I decided to revisit it and liked it.  I think it's a fun throw-back pulp sci-fi story, and so I wanted to revive it from the dead-story pile.  I tweaked it a little bit more, and have now sent all 4,150 words of it out again into the world to find a home.

So if a writer is someone who writes and submits, then a writer again am I...

=====

(From "Apologies" by Chris J. Fries):

Corvan turned back to the Ambassador. He struggled to overcome the urge to yell at the naive woman. "You never mentioned the arrival of a fleet."

She rose and walked towards him. "I'm sorry, but I did say I had a deadline. I saw no need to expand on the reasons why. But look -- if a treaty is in place when our fleet arrives, then they are merely here to solidify our new border." She stood in front of him, put her hands out, and gave a slight smile. "So a treaty must be in place."

Corvan stared at her. "It's very probable your government expects you to fail, Ambassador. They've never been known to put much effort into negotiation with the Velux. Any excuse for war might be welcome."

=====

The StratoRaptor

"The StratoRaptor" -- StratPlayer's avatar

Here's a question that I'm sure is burning in the minds of the multitude of my loyal readers:

So what's up with your avatar?

Well, before I begin, let me clarify by stating that I've never actually had a multitude of readers, let alone a loyal one.  I've been too erratic of a blogger for far too long, and now I've even completely rebooted my whole blogging presence with a brand new blog, which reset my follower count back to zero, and the much-appreciated handful of followers who've signed up on this blog is significantly less than a multitude, plus I only had 146 followers back on the previous blog, which is still several orders of magnitude less than a "multitude," I would say, and probably most of them rarely visited because I seldom posted, and then I more or less totally fell off the edge of the blogging world, letting my old blog become a stagnant, empty, and lifeless husk of forgotten posts and neglected dreams, abandoned and left to wither and die in the cold, cold depths of the unforgiving Internet aether.

...but I digress...

Where was I? Ah, yes -- the avatar.  OK, since you asked, let me explain (sorry, but it's going to be a long explanation):

My avatar is a velociraptor with a Stratocaster guitar.  I call it the "StratoRaptor." Yes, I play guitar, and I'm probably old enough that some of you might consider me a dinosaur.  But that's not why I made it. I created it last March, when I signed up as "StratPlayer" on the xkcd forum. 

For those of you who don't know, xkcd is a webcomic created by Randall Munroe, popular with techs, geeks, and nerds.  And yes, as an Electrical Engineer with a background in programming, I qualify as a member of the target audience. The xkcd comic focuses on humor related to technology, computers, the internet, and other things popular with the target audience.  It's a pretty well-known comic.  Google it to see.  Go ahead -- I'll wait...

Back now?  Great!  See?  As geeky webcomics go, it's one of the best ones, I think.

Well, I've been a silent fan of xkcd for years, but never really touched the forums until I was finally prompted to sign up.  And when I did, I wanted to create a forum avatar that highlighted my "StratPlayer" name, but also went along with the xkcd world.  And a velociraptor certainly qualifies -- it's a frequent meme in that comic.  So I GIMP'ed this avatar together.  (GIMP is a free image manipulation software package.  It's basically the cheap person's Photoshop).

So what prompted me to sign up?  At first, I just wanted to say "great job!" to Randall for a particular comic I really enjoyed.  Then, between March 28th and August 1st, I ended up making 829 posts on the forum, all in one thread -- the thread dedicated to the discussion of that comic, 1190: "Time".  Look at it now and you'll just see an image of a raft resting on a beach with some trees -- but there is so much more to this comic.

Randall's done some incredible things with xkcd, a webcomic that's typically just basic stick figures.  In the past he's created many huge, incredibly detailed charts and in 1110: "Click and Drag" he made an enormous world that was viewable only in a tiny window -- you had to click and drag the lower image for hours to be able to see it all.  People spent days documenting all the amazing detail that was in that comic. Here's a zoom-able image that shows the whole thing.  You can zoom in and out a little quicker than clicking and dragging as in the original comic.  Impressive isn't it?

But as impressive as the work he's done before, "Time" was massive and epic in scope, even for Randall.  It was essentially a slow-motion movie that covered 3,099 separately drawn comics, with the image updating every hour (initially every half-hour).  But there was no indication that it was a movie -- the alt-text over the comic simply said "Wait For It."  Then slowly, it became apparent that the images were changing.  Each new frame had just a slight variation.  The updates were automatic scripted and occurred from an encrypted source -- no-one was able to hack it to see the future frames (and the xkcd audience is no slackers when it comes to decrypting).  The story went from an image of two figures on the beach, to them building a giant multi-level sand castle, to awareness of a rising sea, a protracted journey of discovery about why the sea was rising, and then an adventurous race to try and save a group of people from an impending flood.  As the story unfolded, subtle clues were given, such as a highly detailed night sky that revealed that the placement of the stars was off -- because the story was set far, far in the future, and highlighted the fact that over a geological scale, the Mediterranean Sea periodically becomes land-locked and dries up, then eventually refills again through the Straits of Gibraltar in what's known as the Zanclean Flood.

Here are some resources to view "Time" -- "Time at Your Own Pace" , Aubron's Viewer and the wiki. Yes, it has its own wiki...

The comic was incredible, and the forum dedicated to the discussion of that comic?  Absolutely mind-boggling -- I've never seen anything like it.  Essentially an entire culture erupted there, with posters from around the world, with a pseudo religion or three, in-jokes, thoughtful and yet irreverent and hilarious discussion, a glossary, a dedicated wiki, and amazingly -- not a single flame war.

And I was part of it. Big time -- it completely sucked me in.  During most of the comic's unfolding, I was a top-ten poster, and top-five during much of it.

So what does that have to do with a blog which focuses on my creative outlets?  Quite a bit, I think.

For one thing, I think the comic itself was incredibly creative, and I'm not alone in my opinion.  Google "xkcd Time" and see all the discussion about it.  So I certainly want to commend Randall Munroe for that creativity.

But in a lot of ways, Randall's creativity in making the comic was nothing compared to the creativity shown in the discussion thread itself -- the One True Thread (OTT) dedicated to the One True Comic (OTC).  Stories were told, animation and images were created and manipulated, amazing charts and data analysis was done on every pixel of every frame, lyrics were written, and songs were sung.  And avatars were hatted -- don't ask why; it seemed to make sense at the time.  Here's mine, hatted by forum member "buffygirl:"

StratPlayer xkcd avatar -- Hatted by buffygirl

Just so much more amazing creativity occurred in that thread. Here's my avatar as it reappeared in a xkcd Time forum parody retelling of the Discovery Channel song "Boom De Yada (The World is Just Awesome)" drawn by forum member "Blitz Girl".  The "It" is the It we were all waiting for, from the "Wait for it" in the comic's alt-text.

StratPlayer avatar from "Boom De Yada" by Blitzgirl

So what did I do to add my own creativity to the OTT?  I joked, punned, wrote a poem or two (haiku was particularly huge for a while), helped create the Knights Temporal, and made multiple parodies of song lyrics dedicated to the comic and thread.  The list of filks (as they're known in some circles) or OTT-ifications (as they were known on the thread) can be found here on the wiki page.  Mine are under the name "StratPlayer," as you might expect.

I also started using the recurring phrase "It's all related!" and soon came up with a way to prove it.  In many posts, I'd create a valid series of actual relationships to show that almost anything can be related to anything else.  Here's the last one I did on the thread that showed how a comic Randall did about a PC program called the Korbal Space Program can be related to the comic "Time" (click on the Spoiler to see the connections):

Fun, huh?

"Time" lasted from March 24th through the final ending panel on July 29th. The discussion thread was over 1,300 pages at that time.  I lasted a little while longer, but then eventually moved on. 

But you know what?  The thread is still going -- it's over 1,500 pages now.  They've created and programmed a PC game dedicated to the comic and continued to make numerous other drawings, art, stories, filks, and songs.  I salute their dedication and creativity, but for me, it felt a little like the audience sitting around in the lit auditorium well after the movie had ended.  Maybe I'm wrong to be so involved in something and then just fade away afterwards. Don't get me wrong -- it was fun and creative and I really, really enjoyed it while it was "live."  I will certainly remember it fondly, and I really appreciated all the other posters that made that thread such a unique, creative, and special place.

But for me, it just felt kind of weird to me to be sticking around after the fact. Still -- who knows? Maybe I'll pop in again sometime and say hello...

So that's the story behind my new StratoRaptor avatar.  Aren't you glad you asked? 

Wait -- You didn't ask? Huh...  I coulda swore someone did...