Blast From The Past Post #2

I Have An Idea Mr. Writer
(Original post date August 20, 2012)

I've heard of writers bugging people about stories they should write, but I never thought I'd be one of them. I think the first was when my brother said I was a writer, and a woman started talking to him about me writing a biography of her.

Since then I've had a couple of people either offer me their ideas, or tell me a more general idea that I should write.

Really, it's like seeing a guy in a straitjacket, in a padded cell, beating his head against the wall and you say to someone, "Hey, that guy doesn't have enough crazy, I think I'll offer him some crazy."

I'M A WRITER!

If a writer was short in ideas, they wouldn't be a writer now, would they?

I have so many ideas in my head that they're competing for attention. I can't get 20 pages into a new idea before something else jumps into my head and starts rearranging the mental furniture. I eat and I work and I lay in bed, all the while these ideas are becoming more and more detailed, which really only makes them worse.

As of this very moment I am working on two separate manuscripts, and a massive collaborative-writing project going with at least twelve other people, and I have four other ideas in my head vying for attention. I don't just mean vague ideas either. When I say ideas I mean worlds, characters, plots, scenes, beginnings, endings, dialogue, rules. All of these, for all seven ideas total, are going at the same time.

I don't have room in my head for your ideas.

Hey that idea sounds like a pretty goo-

Even if I did, though, I wouldn't ask for your story.

Don't take it the wrong way, though. I'm not saying because I hate it, quite the contrary, I love hearing about other people's stories, I wouldn't ever ask for it for several reasons. Probably one of the biggest is because I would never make it right. It's your story, you should be the one writing it. You know all the ins and outs of the world and characters and plot. I'm in the dark, stumbling around.


That actually makes for a good comparison. Asking someone to write a story for them is like putting them in a dark room in your house that they've never been in before. The light is turned off and you're trying to direct them to the other side of the room because you know it so well. You can't touch them, steer them, or give them a flashlight. All you can do is talk to them. Guess who's going to the hospital?

"A blog made us do it!"

A writer, no matter how good, can never tell your story for you.

Second, how do writers get started? We certainly don't think to ourselves, "Oh hey, I have this awesome idea, I should tell Benny to write it!" We decide we are going to write it, and we do, and then we all cash it in and jump into our giant swimming pools of money and dance on our solid gold toilets.


You knew I was going to use this picture again.

This all doesn't even take into account money, really. What happens if you do take someone's idea, write it, and it becomes a bestseller? How would that split?

"I wrote it."
"But I came up with it!"
"But I wrote it!"
"But I had the idea for everything!"
"BUT I WROTE IT!"

I honestly don't know how cowriters even get along without strangling each other.

So maybe, instead of asking your writing friend to consider writing this brilliant idea of yours, try it yourself. There's nothing quite like it, and you may find yourself in a straitjacket while people are telling you their ideas before long, too.

Blast From The Past Post #1

Hey! While I'm busy this summer I have found myself lagging behind on my writing. Since I'm so busy I thought I'd dust off some old blog posts, fix the picture arrangement a bit, and reuse them. For the next month enjoy some oldies but goodies!

Growing Up on a Farm
(Original post date August 8th, 2012)

No two farms are alike. No matter how many farms you go to, things are going to be done differently.

I was about 10, when we went from a small town to the countryside. For the first couple of years we had nothing but our little dog and cats (as well as cats that came with the house. You always have cats come with a house.)

I can't remember anything exactly, but eventually we got a couple of cows. They were bottle fed. If you've never bottle-fed an animal you're really missing out on something. Your hands get all sticky, and you're not sure if it's drool, milk, or a gross combination of the two.


Eventually, we got some pigs. Luckily, they were weaned, so we didn't have to deal with feeding them. Everything a pig sees, it wants to eat: birds, grass, roots, slop. I've seen them dig up and eat pieces of coal, I've seen feathers leftover from a bird snacking on their pellets and was too slow to get away. Pigs are kind of scary, really. The only thing that outweighs their scariness is their deliciousness.

We named him Kevin.

We've raised a couple batches of pigs and cows, as well as sheep, but what are the most prominent in my life are goats and chickens.

There isn't a lot to chickens except that every time you think they've set the bar for stupidity, they not only raise that bar higher, they get stuck on it, hang upside down for a hot summer day until their head turns purple, and then when you try to rescue them they beat you across the face with their wings and scream at you until everyone else is in an uproar. I've seen chickens die in ways that would make the creators of the Darwin Awards sputter. But they're delicious.

Stupidly delicious.

We keep most of them for their eggs, and let them free range most of the year. They'll kill anything green they have extended access to. The chicken run looks like a miniature setting for a Mad Max movie. Oh, and they poop. They poop like crazy. Anything they can get themselves over they'll poop on. The area right outside the barn and chicken coop is like a minefield. Except there's so much poop all you can do is avoid the extra liquidy bombs. Even my cats step in it once in a while and scream "Eeeeeew! What the #%&^% is wrong with you!?" (my cats swear a lot).

If you're trying to get a vegan friend to eat meat, get them a chicken. By the time that thing is ready to dress out and cook, you'll have to fight your friend off to keep them from eating the chicken's raw heart out of spite.

That's not to say chickens are all bad, they're quite a source of entertainment. They like to make a racket when they run, which causes a ripple effect and sets the rest of them off cackling. Seeing their interactions with the cats is like seeing a small, furry and feathered adorable war going on.

I've got a Buff Orpington in my sights, repeat, a Buff Orpington.

Goats could almost be an entire thing of their own. Let me start by saying they test everything: your fences, your patience, your sanity, your car's hood. Our first goat managed to jump out of the bed of a pickup truck and run around, avoiding three people, for an entire day, while its front and back feet were hobbled together. After that we've had goats press through spaces smaller than you'd expect a goat to be, squeeze through every little imperfection in your fence, and be sneaky enough that sometimes you're not even sure if they're getting out or not. I remember one conversation in particular:

"Uhm, is Garrett supposed to be in with the girls?"
"What? Noooooo!"

Goats are magic, and I don't mean the good kind of magic either. They're warlocks, and they know it. They're incredibly smart, too, and twice as stubborn. I've seen goats save up their poop so they can drop their smelly little marbles for you to watch them roll off the milking stand, just because you put her up there, or they try to poop in the milk you're collecting. They'll put their foot right on the edge of a milk bucket and tip that thing right over, otherwise. I've had goats step on my feet, and it took me a couple of years to finally realize they were doing it on purpose.

They're kind of jerks.

Goats are a ton of fun though. Slash is our oldest goat, and she adores people. She'll rub her face on your leg, like a cat, or bring her hoof up to touch you with it to get your attention. There's something of a rivalry between us and her, where she slowly tries to escape from the pasture. The moment she know she's been seen, though, she usually heads back in.

What is good-magic about goats, is when they have kids.

Usually it's late February to early March when they give birth on our farm. There's still snow on the ground, and the cold has a kind of silencing effect with the world, so it's just you and a goat in labor. Unless they're a new mom they usually do fine, and it's almost like Christmas to see how many she will have and what they will look like. We've had some real anomalies for fur color thrown at us sometimes, we've also had moms that we didn't think were pregnant, then had a couple of kids, somehow. Doesn't matter what happens, there's always a "wow" moment every year.

Sometimes, you have losses. Idaho winters are pretty harsh and cold, and sometimes we don't get to the kids in time. But we have had some kids you'd think were brought back from the dead. I've seen kid goats, their bodies stiff and cold, be revived and grow up completely normal and healthy. Our method to warm them up involves floating them in a warm sink full of water.

You ever have one of those moments where you just sort of wonder "What in the world am I doing?" but it's in a weird, good way? Yeah. Goats float. So you're trying to keep their body in the water and their head above it. There is a tiny goat, floating like a pool toy, in your kitchen sink.

You're never bored on a farm, nor are you really rushed. It's slow and peaceful in a lot of ways. Sometimes I can just pull up a chair and watch the animals as the sun sets, and it's pretty zen.

Until I see Slash eating the lilacs.

Something I Wrote Ten Years Ago

I don't even remember writing this. Anyway, enjoy!

The world is my videogame.

            Every morning I wake up and put on my Clothes of Cold Resistance +2, this is followed by the loading of the level known as Bathroom. After I have completed that level I go through a couple of other pointless levels, they’re mostly for extra powerups but I don’t need them right now. I stumble into level 5, Kitchen, and acquire item Cereal, this isn’t in my inventory long since I combine it with another item I find called milk, together these create a single, but powerful, item known as Breakfast. Thanks to Breakfast my Strength and Constitution have both gone up a point.

            After an hour it is time to make coffee for Player One and Player Two before they wake up, this gives them +2 Speed and makes them immune to sleep effects. Due to the experience of making the coffee I level up. I learn new feats called Resist Boredom and Pour Liquid.

            Player Three, known as my brother Rob, comes back from the world map and informs me that the goats have gotten out! I rush outside there they are! I wait for things to get all blurry, indicating battle mode, but it never comes so I unsheathe my Battlestick and wait for my time bar to rise so that it will be my turn.

            It never comes, and my legs are getting tired from holding myself in a dynamic pose, so I run up and grab one of the goats, taking it back to its pasture. The loading time was horrible.

            I gain experience but then realize I forgot to put on my Coat of Freeze Resistance, I’ve been taking Ice damage this whole time! I look down to try and see how many hitpoints I have left but I can’t see them, up, down, left, right, there doesn’t seem to be a display. Well, I figure perhaps you can’t see them in the world map; I already tried opening the menu anyway.

            The day goes on, some days we travel in a car to town, why we don’t just take the airship is beyond me, other days we just sit around and do nothing. Good thing I learned my Resist Boredom, I use the feat and find a book to read.

            It’s ten minutes to bedtime and I use item Toothbrush, I have gained Resistance to Plaque for twelve hours! I walk up to my bed and wait for the “Sleep?” text to come up but it never does, what kind of video game is this? I climb into bed and fall sleep expecting a little piano tune to play.

            Tomorrow is another day, another set of levels in the video game of life.