Post-Traumatic Tech Disorder

Every now and then, I like to read through the section of my journal I call my “thought bucket.” The thought bucket is where I write up story ideas I come up with. I usually start out the day jotting down a story idea or two… as kind of a cleansing ritual to clear those thoughts out of my mind and allow me to focus on the projects I’m currently working on. I’ve been doing this for nearly three years now, and I realized I had over 200 story ideas in there (that I’m not currently working on). Even if I crank out four novels/screenplays/graphic novels a year, it would take me over 50 years to get through the current list (and if I keep jotting down ideas, I’d have another 3000 story ideas collected in that time).

So, I thought I’d share some of my crazy ideas every now-and-then… kind of a look into my brain (it’s a scary place… I know ’cause I peeked one time). So, let’s look at an idea I had a couple years ago (actually came up with the idea on my way home from work and wrote it down the next morning). I tentatively titled this concept, “Taco Assassins.”

Various costumed food mascots, waving the crowds into restaurants around the world, turn out to be a secret society of trained killers.

Taco by day, one man deals with the onslaught of the fast food experience–impatient customers, bratty children, and steaming inside his costume as the sun beats down on him all day long. It’s almost enough to make a man feel like killing someone. And now, he gets his chance. While filling in at another store, our hero gets pulled into this secret society of fast food garbed assassins when they mistake him for the regular employee of this store. He could just walk away now, but there are two important things making him take a shot at this whole assassin thing… he’s afraid of pissing off a group of assassins, and the money is good. Now, he must kill or be killed… and get back to work before the lunchtime rush ends.

George Lucas. Yep, the racecar driver hopeful turned filmmaker was born May 14th, 1944 in Modesto, California. Interesting tidbits gleaned from IMDB about Lucas: he was an executive producer on the film Labrynth, and he was also an executive producer on the international version of the Akira Kurosawa film, Kagemusha.

Manga on the go.

Gotta wonder if any other comic companies will do this as well. This looks like it would be a nice option for companies to put together a collection of 5-page previews of all their books available for pre-order each month (or even small press/independents giving away downloads for a first issue to hook readers). Imagine how much easier things could spread by word of mouth. “Dude, check out the artwork on this book from Comic Company X. Got it right here on my PSP.”

Saw this mentioned over at Mark Evanier’s blog… earlier this month, the book Foul Play was released. It’s a book that profiles (bio, sample art, and sample stories) a bunch of the artists from EC Comics. Will Elder, Al Feldstein, Graham Ingels, Jack Kamen, Harvey Kurtzman, Bernie Krigstein, Joe Orlando, John Severin, Al Williamson, Wally Wood, and more.

For those lovers of fantasy, horror, and sci-fi, there’s a new blog wandering the ether called, Dark, But Shining.

Going out for lunch today, I heard a song on the radio that snapped me back to my younger days. I was in the eighth grade and the ol’ hormone soup was hitting a rapid boil. I had a crush on a girl… she had eyes you could lose yourself in and the cutest smile. I saw the smile quite a bit when I looked her way. In retrospect, she was probably just quietly laughing about me to her friends. Ya see, I was a shy youngster. The short, skinny kid with the brains that spent afternoons in the library reading and was the guy people turned to for help with their homework. And I wasn’t what you’d refer to as “socially capable.”

But those feelings inside… they’re great motivators. I was determined to win her over, but I didn’t have any clue how to do that. I started out slowly (loosely translated…I attempted a few awkward, mumbled conversations with her whenever I could catch her without any of her friends around). I didn’t really feel like I was getting through to her, and it wasn’t very often she was by herself. I started to lose a little hope. Then a friend convinced me to go to a school dance one night. I went and there she was. She looked stunning… even in the dim lighting at the dance. I could feel my heart beating faster than the dance music pumping through the school gymnasium. So, I did something desperate.

I took out a piece of paper and scribbled down some hasty words. I snuck over to the DJ’s booth, and when I was sure no one was looking, I left the note where the DJ could find it. And with my desperate plan in motion, I moved into position… nearby her but just out of sight. And then I waited. When I heard the DJ announce the next song was dedicated to her from a secret admirer, I took a step toward her.

This was my big moment.

The music began to play, and I was gathering up more courage than I ever thought possible at the time.

And then… she bolted. Turned red as anything from embarassment and rushed out of the gym as fast as she could while whispered murmurs and laughs rolled through the crowd. That’s when I realized my mistake. Even though I thought the lyrics of the song might reflect some of my feelings for her… she probably never got past the title of the song.

The year was 1985… the song…

Easy Lover by Phil Collins and Philip Bailey.

Ahh… the power of the title. An important lesson I learned… titles can make or break a first impression, and it can express a lot in a very small amount of space. It’s easy to forget that sometimes… luckily, I have a mnemonic that helps me remember.

No one ever found out who requested the song, and even though I tried to recover, that fumble really put a pounding on my already weak confidence. It would be years before I saw that amount of courage again because I was petrified of failing.

Besides the lesson about the power of titles, I did get one other benefit out of it. A few days later, I wrote about the situation in my notebook. I wrote about how things could have been if I had only done this… or if I’d done that… or if I’d just said something to her earlier. I played out a bunch of the different scenarios, and I took what I knew of her personality and did my best to realistically bring it to life. It’s an exercise I stil do to this very day (in my journal). I like to play what if. What if I’d said this instead? What if I’d taken this reaction to that person’s rudeness? What if I hadn’t helped out that person at the store? And I also use the technique to get into the heads of my characters? What if it was this character in that same situation… what would he/she do?

This technique was what helped me eventually overcome my shyness and fears of speaking with others. I ran through so many different scenarios in my thoughts that eventually, they started to become more natural to me. I went from shy kid to part-time class clown. And I started to look at situations that I mess up as a learning experience rather than failure. Do I still mess things up? You bet, but at least, I’m not afraid to speak up or try new things.

National Geographic ran a story on Wednesday discussing the vocal mimicry talents of elephants. Elephants imitating the sounds of trucks…and lawn mowers…and frogs. Pretty soon, the word will spread, and pet elephant owners will have friends constantly coming by to teach their elephants how to cuss.

Thanks to Greg over at SciFiDaily, I saw this link to the new Fantastic Four trailer (it’s tiny, but if you’re used to staring at cell phone screens…no problem). “That’s gross.” hehe

For those people out there that have looking into screenwriting, you’ve probably heard about the Writer’s Guild…both of them. The Guild is divided West and East, and if you’ve seen those classic comedy routines where they draw a line down the middle of the room, you’ll get an idea what kind of tension there might be. Mark Evanier posted an insightful rundown of the conflict between these two guilds in his blog.

Palladium announced that it’s publishing a new version of Rifts.

What’s really scary is that this year is the 15th anniversary of Rifts… and I played this game when it first came out. Fifteen years ago… almost seems like yesterday, I was throwing down with Juicers, tangoing with Glitter Boys, and wandering the world tracking down ley line nexus points. I remember leading a fun campaign once where I made everyone play characters converted over from Heroes Unlimited. It was fun watching them try to maintain their heroic dispositions in the screwed-up Rifts world of tomorrow.

And since we’re talking ’bout Rifts, Gamespot recently posted a preview of Rifts Promise of Power for the N-Gage.