Graph Analysis. I promise it's fun!

From Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal by Zach Weiner:

Now, why would this even be true?  Why do nerds have more fun when they're older?

Well, when you are younger it's hard to be into something that is misunderstood, but you get a good close group of friends that way.  Over time, you get used to having your own fun without having to depend on the mainstream ideas of what's ideal.  Do you know what you want?  Do you know what you think?  Do you care if anyone else validates it?  No?  Then you're more likely to be happy than the guy who needs to be reaffirmed about his life choices.

Over time, doubts occur in life because the unexpected happens.  You can do you best to plan out everything the way you've been taught it's "supposed" to be, but it never really turns out that way.  And I think nerds, or people that our more independent of thought in general, know that.  Knowing that makes it easier to take the punches and move on.

Also, nerds are better making their own fun.  My mother taught me that one and she's right!

Story Inspired by Random Comic Panel

I am a big fan of Something Positive, a web comic by R.K. Milholland.  The comic is hilarous, and the couple of times I've met him in person (and played a Bunnies and Burrows game he ran) he's a cool guy with a dark sense of humor.  I follow him on twitter, and occasionally he'll put up a random picture, including this one:

Artwork by (duh) R.K. Milholland

He puts up the picture with the caption "I doubt sincerely anything will be done with this panel."  And me, being the writer that I am, take that up as a challenge.

So below is the short piece I thought up in my head just from the picture above.  Enjoy.

Oh, and for the story below:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
_____________

At age 26 DeWitt was still a duckling.  He wasn't ugly.  He wasn't dumb.  He had "bloomed", whatever that term meant.  He was actually, to be honest, a success story.
He had two great parents.  His father had succeeded in being a prominent figure of Public Health policy, raising the bar on extra-planetary imports.  His mother was a a fantastic salesperson who ran a branch of a successful real estate company.  He was the oldest of three sons, all of which went to the best private schools that money could buy.  He'd had decent enough grades, but his soccer career is what made him shine before he went off to college.  He ended up falling in love with economics, and excelled due to his dedication to his studies.  He had finally finished his Masters, getting into an elite program despite all the obstacles.  In between the studies he had settled down with a beautiful older woman, a biologist who was up and coming in academic circles.  He was a success in every way a man could be.
But his papers did not add up.  The Director of Human Resources at the Department of Labor had let DeWitt sit down in his office during the interview, but the pile of reports on the desk was unsettling.  DeWitt had quickly recognized some of them as his own.  He took a seat in the wood chair, something that stood out in a building mostly composed of metal and concrete.  The hum of the florescents put him on edge.  Across from him, the Director picked up a thin piece of official cello-paper, with the seal of the colony.  It was DeWitt's birth certificate.
"Mr. DeWitt, I scheduled this interview before I had taken a close work at all of the paperwork the state has allowed me access to, understand?  And this piece of paper has me concerned.  I don't see why you even applied here."
"Excuse me, Sir?"
"We have standards that I have to uphold, understand?  I have to make sure you can keep up with what we do here, and to be frank, Mr. DeWitt, you can't.  And I just hate it when people waste my time, understand?"
"Sir, I don't what you're refer--"
The Director laid the birth certificate in front of him.  "Read the CP line."
DeWitt picked it up and read the Conception Procedure line.  "Basic."
"Understand?"
"Sir, if you're problem is that I was conceived naturally--"
"Precisely the issue.  I'm glad you see it.  If you had been genetically calibrated before you had latched yourself into your mother's womb, this wouldn't be a problem, understand?"
"Sir, with all due respect can we keep my mother's organs out of this discussion?"
"Don't bother with the respect.  You can see I can't hire you."
DeWitt cleared his throat.  "Actually I can't."
"It should be crystal clear!  If you have been modified at conception, when most Titanian's are, you'd be fine.  They would've automatically made sure that your neural networks, or whatever they call them, would be fast enough to process at a regular Titanian speed.  But you're basic conception, so I can't admit you here with you slowing down the teams calculations."
"I'm applying for a job that involves policy making, Sir."
"You still have to calculate formulas to predict the labor situation, understand?"
DeWitt picked up one of the old essays.  "You obviously printed out all my work, you can see I can calculate a simulation like the back of my hand, even make new ones modified to unique situations!"
"Mr. DeWitt, none of your work is exemplary.  None of it.  I can assure you half the people who applied for this job have done work at least at your level, if not better."
"So you're telling me you didn't even read it then.  I've been published in industry journals!"
"Mr. DeWitt, I am sorry you have wasted my time here, but there's nothing I can do for you, understand?"

DeWitt walked from the interview in the dark.  The colony was always dark outside, but the indoor lights had been calibrated to imitate the solar cycle back at Earth.  He followed the neon street signs to his wife's office.  Her building was a grey monolith, next to many other grey monoliths.  There was barely any indication that the building housed test subjects, or viles of microorganisms.  It did hint that there was something sterile inside.
DeWitt was let in by the receptionist to his wife's office.  He looked at the degrees on her wall, the pictures of her graduation, of their wedding and their families.  It was a good life she had.  So was his, in spite of his origins.
She walked in, her goggles and gloves still on.  "I came in as soon as I could.  I want to know how it went."
He responded as softly as he could, but he he couldn't hide all his anger.  "No you don't."
She sank right next to him, on the arm of his chair.  "Oh no, my starlight."  She never liked the words honey, or babe, or darling, so she used starlight.  It was still corny.
"He immediately went to the CP line on my birth certificate.  Explained it like I thought he would.  Kept on saying 'Understand?', as if I spoke some other language."
"You should've responded 'Que?' or something like that."
"Doesn't matter.  If the government won't hire me, I doubt any company will. "
"Don't say that, starlight."  She embraced him and gave him a kiss on the cheek.  "It's only been a couple months.  Not time to give up yet."
"You and I both know that in this boom phase I should have a job.  I mean, I studied this stuff.  I know I should have a job now.  Titania is just not going to let me, with this genetic caste system."
"It's not like that."
"It is that!"
She let go of him, and slowly took her seat at the desk.  DeWitt knew he shouldn't have said that.  She was always guilty that she had been calibrated and he hadn't.
"I'm sorry.  Look, earlier today, I figured I wouldn't get the job.  I'll... start looking somewhere else."
She smiled.  "That's the spirit.  I'm sure there are plenty of other jobs for someone with your skills.  Or you could just got straight to a Ph.D."
"I can't, remember?  CP basic."
"Oh.  Well, there has to be another job, even if it's not something you studied the last eight years."
DeWitt started to laugh.  "So you're telling me I wasted eight years?"
She frowned.  "You know I'm trying to encourage you."
"Hey, I was thinking.  I'm wondering if... well, Titania is the only planet that has the genetic qualifications.  If we thought about moving to somewhere else, another colony is bound to hire me.  Maybe Walter's Gate or Man's Progress."
Her face was sad.  "Starlight, my research is only happening here.  This is the only place that's looking at microbiotics at this level, not to add with the right tools.  I can't be anywhere else."
"So what, I'm stuck here with a Masters unemployed the rest of my life?"
"You're not going to be unemployed the rest of your life."
"I'm not taking a job selling fast food to people out the drive thru, so I'm afraid I am."
"You don't have to get like this.  No reason to be this angry."
"Of course you're the reasonable one, part of your breeding, right?"
She stood up.  "If you came her to upset me, you have to leave.  I still have work to do today and I can't--"
"You get to work and I get to stay home after all I went through?"
She rushed out the office.  "I'll see you at home.  You'll have cooled by then I hope."  She slammed the door.
DeWitt just stayed there, looking at all the pictures.  He stared at the happy couple they were on their wedding day.
"Had I known then I was to be your duckling, that I was to follow you single file wherever you went, I would've reconsidered my options, love."

Mary-Sues? In my web comic?!?!

I have just stumbled upon a hilarious comic called Ensign Sue Must Die by Clare Moseley and Kevin Bolk.  It makes fun of the prolific use of Mary Sues in fanfiction on the internet.  Don't know what a Mary Sue is?  Well first look at the wiki article, and then go to fanfiction.net and read a fair number of tales based on super popular franchises.  Mary Sue is a term first coined from a satirical Star Trek story, but they are ridiculously prevalent in a number of fandoms.  When I was in high school, the one was Pirates of the Caribbean.  I'm sure right now Avatar and the new Star Trek movie are being mercilessly ravaged with self-insertions of perfect characters who solve anything.

Oh don't think I'm being too judgmental.  I did it too.  I did it with the original series of Star Trek.  Her name was Amelia, she was McCoy's niece, Chekov's love interest, and a 17 year old Starfleet nurse who was raised on a ship by her captain father.  I at least had the forethought to not make her save the day all the time.  No, instead she was the reason the ship got in trouble.  In fact, if she did have a flaw it was that she ALWAYS was the reason things went to hell.  She should've been kicked off the Enterprise because she was a walking flight risk.

I feel ill just thinking about this horrible writing.

Anyway, this webcomic reminds me of the days when me and my friends would write self-insertions and pass them around and get all giddy about the cutesy parts.  Here's a sample of the hilarity.

Enjoy!  It's got a cute story arch and everything!  And it's now in a book.  Support making fun of Mary Sues everywhere and buy it!

I will when my new job gets sorted out.  That's right!  I have a new job!  *dances*

Test and Webcomic update

I got a recording device for my other blog when I conduct more interviews, but I used it as an opportunity to talk about the webcomic I'm working on. Let me know how this works...

zSHARE - webcomic update1.mp3

If anyone knows of a way to upload an audio file without having you all download it, let me know.  I'll be tinkering with this post for a while I think.

UPDATE: I hope this will work!

Magic in a Story: A Balancing Act

I have just finished the first "chapter" of the web comic my friend Proptart and I are going to be doing, and I'm told I can still write.  As long as I can write better than I did in high school, I'm all good with that.  But soon after the next chapter, magic is going to be a big item in the story, and if you want magic to be good, you need to make it logical.

This is hard to do.  First of all, nothing in known physics supports anything that human lore refers to as magic.  Therefore, it is inherently illogical in our world.

However, you can't just put in a fancy spell any time you feel like it's cool and awesome.  I find when that happens in fantasy stories, the reader just stops believing.  It's hard to get immersed when the protagonist can essentially solve every problem with a spell the reader has never heard of before but conveniently works exactly the way the protagonist needs it to.  It's also hard to believe a random collection of handy spells with no clear ties can be learned.  This is the one thing that annoyed me about Dungeons and Dragons: the magic has no real theme to tie it all together.  Sure, there were schools of magic but there was no clear theme of manipulation of something that made the magic really cohesive.  Now that didn't stop me from loving D&D as much as I do.  It was just annoying.

I like magic when there's a main theme to it.  A good game that I know of that works like this is Unknown Armies.  Your character would have a world-view so skewed that you see things most people don't, and hence you manipulate parts of the world with that magic.  There are conditions to keeping that magic but with one's world view so skewed, it's usually easy to keep to those restrictions.  Another game that has a good sense of themes or worlds of magic is World of Darkness' Mage.  Each mage is awakened to the secret ways of bending the world.  They can only affect certain aspects of the world around them, but over time master it very well and make friends that have different specialties.

I feel like this helps a world make more sense.  There has to be some system that works in the world that allows physics bending magic to happen.  Whether you're an Urbanomancer in tune to the city so well you can occasionally have hobos do your bidding, or you have figured out how to talk to the dead while you work at the morgue, a system of bending the rules is easy to get lost into when it comes to story.  So that kind of system I'm hoping to use.

Right now my idea is to use nature as a system.  Of course this would mean using the four elements: earth, wind, fire, air.  But I want to intersperse that with other parts of nature too.  Plant growth is something I think would be good to manipulate, and I have to think of some other natural forces that can be manipulated.  But all of this will be rather limited as well.  On with intense clarity and concentration can one move a substantial amount of earth.  Air is the easiest to manipulate, but it takes years of practice before someone can actually knock someone over with wind, let alone several people.  Fire is so dangerous that usually mages specialize in it and can't make much use of it until a decade of honing their skill.

One thing I think is dangerous to dabble with is the manipulation of things that have free will.  People controlling animals will probably not exist in my world at all.  Any kind of mind magic, or psionics (a dirty word to many D&D lovers) will be of very limited power.  I will say it will exist in my world, but not as a way to manipulate characters with hypnosis or mind control.

I'm hoping I've got the perfect balance of logic and fantasy going on in my magic scheme.  You won't know until I've got the web comic up and running how it's going to take shape, but I hope you readers will think my story is full of epic win.

p.s I got the picture for this blog post here.

Another writing project

I hate to say it readers, but I've been cheating on you.  Writing-wise, that is.

I have a dear friend of mine I've known since junior high who was like me not too long ago--bored and unemployed.  She's kind of like the sister I never had, especially since my mother claims her all the time as her missing daughter.  It's funny, let me tell you.  Any my dear friend and I decided we should do the awesome thing we said we would do years ago.

We should make a web comic.

Now mind you, I don't think I will ever get to some of the same fame as Penny Arcade or Something Positive.  It would be arrogant to say that this is an eventuality.  But my friend wants to practice drawing, and this is a story I've been trying to work on since high school.  In fact it was used as the setting in my D&D campaign in college.  These characters and this story have not left me in about 7 years.  For me, that's a long time.  And I'm very loyal to my stories it seems, so I have to write it sooner or later.

Now that I'm a bit more settled in my new job and I'm finally getting a good pace with this writing stuff, I'm not going to be as absent as I was previously from this blog.  But I'm hoping you all can see how this can benefit you!  You will soon have a new web comic to be entertained by.

It's not going to be a web comic that you readers will be used to.  Its a fantasy setting with political intrigue and religious prophecy.  It's not going to be all fun and games.  It's going to be a real story, with a real ending I know of too.  We'll see how that works out for us.  Also, don't expect it anytime too soon.  There is a lot that the two of us need to work out.

In the meantime, please forgive me!  I'll never cheat on you writing wise again!  I will always come back to you readers!

Also, this means some hilarious posts about my writing process.  I promise.

YARR! Talk Lik'a Pirate Day it be.

Me land lovin' self ain't talk enough lik'a pirate t'day.  Although these sea fairin' theives be the terrorists of their day, I be appreciatin' them t'day. So t'day's post be in pirate speak.  Yarr!

If ye be annoyed by this here post, walk the plank!

If ye like 'umor involving pirates, ye should be readin' Savage Chickens.  Th' artist is a pirate lover 'imself, and a great captain to his... ship on the seas of web comics!  Arr!

Here be a comic t'appreciate.

If ye seek more of pirates and savage chickens, look no further than here.

I wish ye all smooth sailin' fer the rest of yer evenin' and calm seas the rest of yer weekend.  Arr!