Kevin Marshall vs. The Internet
twitter.com/KevinMarshall:
Tonight! Tonight! Tonight!
Holy shit SNL got a picture of Kanye smiling! Did someone run up and tickle him or something?
I wish. Unfortunately, I just walked around with broken glasses and was like “these glasses are SO broken.”
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What’d you do for the rest of the dream? Pray tell it was something coincidental like go to your job at Lenscrafters.
Had a dream last night where an old High School friend came to visit New York. We were walking down the street when he suddenly, and without warning, snatched my glasses off my face, crushed one side of them with his bare hands, then stormed off.
Suddenly I was back at my apartment calling him. “Why’d you break my glasses, man?!”
I heard him sobbing and breathing heavy. “I don’t know!”
We both cried and yelled at each other. Then his brother got on the phone and said “listen, what do I have to do to make this right? He’s really torn up.” I thought for a second.
“Nothing will ever be right again. My glasses are broken.”
And for the rest of the dream, I walked around wearing broken glasses.
I take anti-anxiety medication. Not a huge dosage, but enough to keep me from being all like “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”.
At the same time, I’m trying to ween myself off caffeine.
Because what the fuck, right?
I haven’t felt right in a while. Like in about eight or nine months. I’m not as physically active as I used to be, which I can’t decide is a contributing factor or another symptom. I’ve definitely put on weight, either way.
But I’m eating right again. I’ve cut down drastically on caffeine, going from like two mega-large coffees a day to two small ones (one when I get to work and another around or after lunch).
I thought about cutting down or eliminating my medication, because I also have felt like I’m just not as good a writer as I used to be. Lately when I’m writing I feel myself lacking focus, repeating myself, developing bad habits, not being as pleased with my work as I used to be, and repeating myself. I feel like I used to be able to just sit down and bang stuff out with no problem, but now it comes so much harder to me.
Is that true, though? Did I really have this amazing ability to put out stream of consciousness missives and essays without requiring I rewrite a sentence I’d just typed? Was I really able to get through a thousand words perfectly without having to walk away and/or do a rewrite?
I don’t know. I mean, if you’re to ask me, I’ll swear to God that I have. But I have enough self-awareness and experience with other like-minded people that tells me I’m deluded in that thinking. It was never that easy, and I was never that good.
Besides, I did some cursory research and found that none of the side-effects of the medication I’m on include a lack of focus and/or becoming a total fucking hack.
Soooo really I just need to get on a treadmill or elliptical every morning for a month, start doing fifty to a hundred push-ups a day, and write more.
BUT THAT’S HARRRRRRRD CAN’T I JUST NOT TAKE PILLS AND STOP DRINKING SOMETHING?*
* C’mon, recovering alchy, you know it ain’t that easy.
Mark Millar’s Marvel 1985 was originally announced as a fumetti photo comic
#FatHulk
(Source: alexhchung)
Anonymous asked you:What’s wrong with prophecies in a fantasy novel? Specially with the Chosen One. I have it by accident, but it’s kind of different. I think if it’s justified and well done it can work, what do you think? Any advice on writing it and being original? P.S.: I CAN’T delete it, it is really important. Thank you so much!Taken from TVTropes.org on the archetype “The Chosen One”:
“The ultimate victim (or beneficiary) of Because Destiny Says So. The oldest and most common Super Hero Origin. The easiest way to turn an Ordinary High School Student into the only thing preventing The End of the World as We Know It. Take it for granted that they are the Only One.”
The examples listed above are all tropes in The Chosen One archetype that have been done so many times that their classic definition is a widely recognized cliché. That’s what you want to avoid when it comes to using The Chosen One as a plot device.
When people say not to use the “prophecy” in a fantasy novel, it’s usually because it’s been done to death, and also because it’s used as an unquestionable catalyst to put the story in motion. Oftentimes, instead of components coming together synergistically to create the story, The Prophecy can be used as a cop-out, a “greater power” that cannot be questioned, which propels the story just because.
So, if the answer to the big question of, “Why this character?” is simply, “Because,” that can frustrate readers.
However, this doesn’t mean you need to avoid The Prophecy and The Chosen One at all costs. Classic tropes can be used, there’s nothing wrong with that. Even the dystopia subgenre, only a fairly recently recognized subgenre (although it’s existed for much longer), already has its common set of tropes and clichés.
The trick is to take the trope and do something other than the cliché. If you’ve read widely enough, you know how authors tend to utilize the aforementioned, and you can discern what worked for the story and what didn’t. Take what you know and apply it to your story, do something that you haven’t read yet with The Chosen One, something that hasn’t been done.
Make it fresh, original, twist it, do something different and unexpected.
Sometimes this’ll take a lot of thought and planning. Sometimes you’ll have to pull components from other stories, other genres even (crossing genres is always an awesome way to break out of the typical clichés). Combine different elements and then ask yourself if the story is weighing too much on the cliché.
A trick I use is to write up a summary that would go on the back cover (or the query), and then I can more objectively see what this story might look like to someone else so I can ask myself:
- Does this read like too many other back covers?
- What makes this story unique?
- What stands out?
- If it’s lacking pizzazz, how can I change things up?
- If there are clichés, what can I do to drop-kick some originality into them?
The most important thing in the end is that you write the story that you want to write, because that’s what will keep you writing. Don’t write what people want you to write about, and don’t let people tell you what you shouldn’t write, because plenty of writing advice tells you just that. You’re in charge of your own story, so if your story hinges on The Prophecy and The Chosen One, then work the heck out of it.Reblogging for ye gods, am I sick of “The Chosen One” narratives. I understand that there are very few ways to get Ordinary Teenager into action-adventure, but The Chosen One has got to be the laziest. Even Star Wars, the monomythiest of modern monomyths doesn’t feature a Chosen One (prequels, yes. Original, nope; Luke’s got a famous dad and some natural talent, but no prophecy). Even the first Transformers movie, which features the laziest, most contrived of all possible MacGuffins, didn’t go with The Chosen One. If you absolutely must have you some Chosen One in your protagonist, well, go for it I guess, but to me it is among the hardest not to make come across as utterly cliché.
So of course in our Cthulhu-Twilight knockoff, our Lego Brick protagonist is (you guessed it) the Chosen One of Prophecy.
Co-signed.
Some of your favorite superheroes might not be as cool as you think. Find out why!
My latest for Spike.com.
(Source: allaccessonspike)
Let’s do a line! …from “Arrested Development.” I went through the looooonnnnng line at yesterday’s Banana Stand in Columbus Circle (Manhattan) to find out everyone’s favorite line.
(Note: don’t worry, I’m not on-camera)
FOLLOW SPIKE & ALL ACCESS WEEKLY
Highlights of my interview with Terry Crews (“Everybody Hates Chris”, the NFL, the Old Spice guy) on his new role in “Arrested Development.”
(Note: don’t worry, I’m not on-camera)
FOLLOW SPIKE & ALL ACCESS WEEKLY
He said Star Trek is too “philosophical”? Screw that noise.
I don’t know when this interview happened but I AM SAD AND ANGRY NOW
The philosophies in Star Trek are kinda part of the actual setting. If you don’t get that, why are you allowed to make Star Trek movies.
Sigh. The whole point of Star Trek is that it’s philosophical. If you don’t want philosophical Science Fiction, there’s plenty of that for you to enjoy, but Star Trek is philosophical. Philosophy is part of Star Trek’s DNA, and if you’re given the captain’s chair, you’d better damn well respect that.
I actually sort of get what he’s saying. If he’s talking about the original series, I think the problem isn’t that it’s philosophical so much as ham-fisted with it. He might have meant that and was just being diplomatic. In which case, he’s absolutely right.
Some context: Abrams was born in ‘66. When he talks about being a kid, he’s talking about when they were in reruns in the late 70s. At the time of their airing, many of the original Trek episodes were daring. But even within ten years, things had changed SO MUCH that what was once a bold and incisive critique on race relations and society was now something that almost came across as being way too on the nose and just telling us what we already know. Not to say of course there wasn’t racism, I mean c’mon. It just had lost all of its edge by the time it got to Abrams.
Now if he was ripping TNG then I would yell and scream and kick, don’t get me wrong.
(Source: catbushandludicrous, via thoriumdirigible)
Post-Punk New Wave Super Friends by Butcher Billy
We’re all moved by music in some way or another, whether that be in the ass-shaking region or touched by heart-wrenching lyrics, but could the tunes spinning on your record player, walkman, or speakers move one to be a hero? Much like our fabled superheroes, recording artists wield great responsibility and can just as easily save lives. Billy’s newest series explores the relationship between real heroism and fantasy, though in real life we never got Billy Idol riding a giant seahorse so maybe comic books have the edge in that respect.
A THOUSAND GODDAMN LIKES
Kurt Braunohler: “HOW DO I LAND?! Here’s a comp of the actual letters from the Cloud Project! The actual day had a very high winds, and the letters appeared and disappeared quite quickly. But if you watched the sky for 20 minutes you could probably piece it together. BUT STILL WE DID IT!!! Thanks to everyone who contributed! Photo by Robyn Von Swank!”
We feel so privileged to have been there.
