Facial Hair Epiphany

So, I shaved my beard this morning. It was something long coming as chewing on my own scraggle had become an unconscious pastime of mine. You know those extra long hairs at the side of the mouth? They're just nice to gnaw on now and again... but no longer. No more will I see whiskery goodness when I jut out my chin. Instead, if I'm lucky, I can see my bottom lip and often my tongue. But neither of them are well known for their hairy goodness.

     I must say that I already miss it. I feel like a kid without it, and - sure enough - several people have commented on how much younger I look. Normally this would be a swell thing as I am nearing the ripe age of thirty, but the age they usually place me at sans-scruff is closer to twelve. It's like stepping back in time. Were it not for the extra thirty pounds hanging from my bones, a picture taken today might be confused for one taken in high school... except that my t-shirts were much bigger back then and were usually tucked in to highwater jeans. Even so, I can't help but feel that my razor has given me some control over the ravages of time. Perhaps even the ability to command it entirely.

     If, in fact, this is the case, I may actually find all the time I need to accomplish my dreams instead of having to prioritize them. My novel is currently in its third revision, and I'm really starting to feel good about the direction it's heading. However, I just started work on a new independent film script, pitched it to my writing group this weekend, and we've given it the green light to produce this summer. Now, I've failed miserably at independent film production before. And this time might be even harder as I plan to keep it as second fiddle to the completion of my manuscript. But now I have something I didn't have before: a magic razor. With it, I will be able to shave away great swatches of time from... oh, I don't know... when I would normally sit and stare at my blog just in case somebody comments, or all those showers I take - do I really need to wash below my knees? It takes longer and I almost fall every time and no one ever smells down there anyway unless I'm kicking them in the face and who cares what that smells like - or I could just stop snacking as much. Have you ever noticed how hard it is to write and have a good snack at the same time? Crappy snacks, sure... I'll just steal a quick nibblet every now and again and keep working. But something good, like popcorn or those Mickey Mouse head ice cream bars from Disney World, always get your hands dirty so you can't really type until you're done.

     When next you see me, I may be completely bald and have completed five novels and a non-fiction cryptozoological study on the mating habits of elves. Not the Tolkien kind, the Keebler kind. I have a hunch they go at it like bunnies. That's why you never see the girls. They're always holed up somewhere pregnant while the youngins bring them cheeseburgers and pickles and astronaut ice cream to appease their pregnancy appetites.

Apparently It's Called a Judas Cradle

I've been reading a lot of writing blogs lately that harp on wannabe writers. Most of these are written by established professionals who ply their trade for a respectable living. It's incredible to me how often they try to discourage others from following in their shoes. And frankly, it makes me want to smack them.

     There are basically two types of these publication guardians. One group seeks to protect the aspiring author from the hardship they will undoubtedly face. Their anecdotes and warnings are not relayed so much to actually keep the newbies from joining their ranks, but to give them an accurate picture of just how difficult the game really is. To these, I say, "Look buddy, I appreciate the concern, but I've been zipping up my own pants for two years now. Now if you have some legitimate advice for me other than 'Beware of Papercuts and Hate-Mongering Publishers,' then I'm all ears." To me, this group almost feels like they regret their choice to become an author. "Don't make the same mistakes I did, young whipper-snapper. Save yourself while there's still time... I hear Home Depot is hiring."

     The second group is full of people I really want to punch in the throat. They're the ones that not only talk about how much work is involved with writing, but also drone on and on about how if you don't write at least ten hours a day and hate every minute of it, then you'll never be successful. They keep telling me that because I have a "real" job, that writing is obviously beyond me; otherwise I would be doing it full time. This group often is peopled with the same... um... people that think self-publishing is for 2nd Grade short stories that my mom really liked. In fact, there was a comment from a published author on one of the blogs I read regularly that said something to the effect of "just because you self-publish doesn't mean anyone will care... good luck getting anyone to read it." Wow buddy, you really get your jollies from killing dreams, don't you? To this group, I say, "Go sit on one of those nasty torture pyramid things they made people sit on in the Middle Ages."

     So I have a 8-5 work-a-day job... So I'm a wicked-awesome father and pretty much the best husband my wife has ever had... So I'm still a few months away from publishing my first novel... So what? Go crap on your own dreams. I just got home from work, played with my baby girl until it was time for her to go to sleep, and now I've got some writing to do.

How Much XP Do I Need to Become an Expert?

I’ve seen the word “expert” tossed around a lot lately. It seems to be one of the biggest deals pretty much since ever to have an “expert” visit your blog (something I still don’t understand fully) and write a guest entry. From what I can tell, this person sends you a load of tripe, you post it on your blog, then tell everyone that you are being visited by the online ghost of some corporate guru, marketing maestro, or writing deva. This term keeps popping up on Twitter as people try to get me to follow their links to read what other people have to say about whatever their blog is about. Why they don’t just link to that “expert’s” blog and save us all a step, I’ll never know.

I’m already getting off topic, though. Right now I’m trying to figure out how one becomes an expert. To me, the term calls to mind Highlander in a can-be-only-one sense and I think it should always be accompanied by the as in “the expert on” whatever… bathtub flatulence or something. I don’t think this is the rule, though, because there seem to be a crap-ton of experts on viral marketing your book or the promoting your self-published foot-photo coffee table topper. Most of these people, I’ve noticed, don’t really even have that great of a resume to support their elite status. A lot of them just have their own blog. Personally, I think it should be a bit harder to earn the title of expert on something and it should probably involve a point system where you save your score using a 3 digit name. You’ll be tempted just to use your initials, but it’s cooler if you make it into an abbreviated curse word or scatological term.

There are very few areas that I would even consider myself to be close in… actually… I can’t really think of any. I’m a go-to guy for Star Wars, Pokemon, myth, and Marvel Comics trivia, but I wouldn’t dare give myself the title of expert. The closest I’ve ever come to holding the position was when I was 13 and it was on dinosaurs.

However, I think it’s my new goal – become an expert, that is. The best path I can figure right now is that of the Doctoral Degree… so here goes. I’ve been meeting with program advisors to plot the course for the next 6 years of my life as I seek my PhuD (as it is colloquially known in some parts of Arkansas). So now my task is to spend the summer proposing to an unknown collective of suits a research/creative topic that will one day be my expertise. I'm more than a little intimidated by this mostly because I really want it to be something awesome. That way, when I do write a guest blog, it will be as THE expert on... um... teaching children how to gain super powers through self-induced microwave radiation treatments. Yeah, that sounds good.

Grammar Gets Better with Wine

A few years ago when I was a simple post-Baccalaureate student trying to scrape together enough English credits to enter the Graduate program, I won a contest in my English Cornerstone class. It was a very prestigious contest and only two people, that is my partner and I, were able to secure the prize that day. I know that many hearts were broken as we accepted our award in front of the entire University of Central Oklahoma's Liberal Arts Building's Room 115's Class of mostly Freshmen and Sophomores for correctly looking up the page numbers of specific grammar rules and totaling them before anyone else. Okay, so maybe it wasn't that big of a deal, but the prize was. The Little Brown Handbook: Instructor's Annotated Edition.

                Or at least I assume it was an awesome prize, I've never really read through it all that closely... but the rest of the class seemed pretty jealous and the teacher told me that if I didn't appreciate it, I should give it to someone else. Well, I assured her that I did, and boy did I ever have... have I ever... I use that thing like twice at a time.

                Good grammar is like an elusive wind goddess: one of those sexy ones that flits around seductively, but when you mistreat her, her face gets all dark and gaunt like some blood-drained hag. There's some conspiracy, I think, within the writing community that revolves around memorizing books like the LBH and perfecting the use of commas, semi-colons, colons, and even Oxford commas like that last one. This conspiracy isn't about sharing the beauty of good grammar with the world. No sir! It's about becoming grammar's pimp. Then we get to decide who gets to see her as this sweet, flowing, word-nymph and who gets stuck with ten-inch pumps, eyeliner that would make an Egyptian princess blush, muffin-top spilling out of child-sized g-string, bra-barely-hides-the-chest-hair, grandma grammar. Yet somehow, we - as writers - have this as our goal. Do you know how many times I've heard someone rattle on about how once you know the rules of writing well, then you can break them? Twenty-seven times. And that's just since I started counting! It's like we have this goal of someday being allowed to write like we did in fifth grade. Granted, all of our best poetry was probably written in middle school, but should that really be our goal?

                I say thee nay! I think somewhere down the line someone wrote a book, it became really popular, and then a reader was all like, "hey, why didn't you break up this sentence when it's clearly a run-on?" Well, the writer had to save face, because it was a book reading and signing event at the Barnes and Noble across from the Acropolis, so he just says, "Oh, young fool. I wrote that particular jewel as a run-on to symbolize the endless struggle of life." From then on, we've revered anyone who sells us a book and hammers in a healthy dose of "creative" grammar choices. Maybe I'm just not there yet, but I can't do it. I've got enough grammar problems as it is... heck, I just stopped spelling it with an "er" at the end.

GEEKHAVEN #5