I’ve recently become a contributor to GeeklyInc, home of the popular Game of Thrones podcasts Cast of Thrones and the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition real play podcast Drunks and Dragons.
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writing
Take Not A Slice, But The Whole Dish of Meredith Gran’s Octopus Pie.
I’ve been reading the webcomic Octopus Pie from about a year into its start. Before its tenth anniversary in May of next year, the comic will be coming to an end. Part of what makes reading a webcomic (or any comic) fun and interesting from its beginning to its end is watching the changes that occur. Not just the characters, but the change in writing and the art style. Especially with webcomics who often have one creator for both.
From when I started my blogger site, to when I created this site, and to the present day I’ve had a draft on both blogs trying to write about my love for Meredith Gran’s Octopus Pie but I’ve never been able to put my finger on what it is about it that I love besides the fact it makes me smile and laugh like no other webcomic does consistently while making me care deeply for its characters.
There’s a part of it that you, the new reader, will appreciate it in a way it took a reread for me to take in. Gran’s art style and writing evolved with the changing lives of her characters. It’s not so much that the creator finds her voice as the comic goes on, but her voice changes and with it the voices of her characters. From the beginning, I felt Gran had the voice of her characters down pat, even if that may not necessarily be true.
Eve and Hanna.
“The stories accommodate the characters, and the characters reflect the changes in my own life.The stories accommodate the characters, and the characters reflect the changes in my own life.” – Meredith Gran, Paste Magazine
Octopus Pie is the story of Eve (Everest) Ning and Hanna Thompson living in Brooklyn in their twenties. In the second volume of the comic, “Music at Home with Octopus Pie” Gran writes about living in a commuter town on Long Island before the storyline “Exile on Jericho Turnpike.” If you’re also a New Yorker, the settings will resonate with you differently than others, but that’s how it is with a piece of fiction we admire taking place in the fictionalized version of the real area we live in and visit. Everyone thinks of New York City as their city, whether you’re from Long Island like I am, from Upstate New York or if you actually live in the city. See, we refer to it as the city. We see Eve and Hanna in their apartment, on the subway, in the bar, in the coffee shop, in Chinatown, or in Central Park and our ability to relate and to empathize shoots up. Brooklyn is alive in every panel of Octopus Pie even when it doesn’t speak.
I want to tell you how great the art is, the way she nails facial expressions and body language that is silly one minute and deep into that drama the next. I want to tell you about the humor. All the quippy lines, observational humor, visual gags, situational comedy, and smart ass comments from her characters. What is best about Meredith Gran’s sense of comedy is that she isn’t afraid of the joke. What I mean by that, and this is part of what makes her storytelling so well done, is that every kind of joke I just mentioned come naturally to her characters. I’m not talking about to the story, but to her characters, who laugh with the reader at other characters being funny like they’re people and not part of a narrative. You don’t see being done well often. Either the artists doesn’t show their characters laughing or when they do it looks like the end of a Scooby Doo episode.
You put the crisp dialogue, the humor, the setting, the stories, and the art into a pie dish and you’ll still be missing the main filler that makes Octopus Pie such a delight to read. That filling is the characters. Gran writes her characters for a comic like great novels do. They all come with a history that is delved in small spoonfuls over time, often without all the details. This missing history makes her characters read like real people because there is some baggage you don’t get to learn about a person, that they don’t want to share, and that they’ve moved past it but it still remains part of this life.
When Eve visits her family, she returns to her role as the “Big Sister.”
“With each passing year away from home, the plight of loved one seems more urgent. Giving up on family feel reckless, persisting can seem cruel and futile.” – Meredith Grand, Listen At Home with Octopus Pie
The cast all has a family and their own unique relationship with them but those relationships are part of the background, not the main plot. It doesn’t end there, but my point is that the characters have former jobs, former dreams, former loves, and former friends that shaped who they are in the ongoing story. Like a new friend, your first impression of the characters doesn’t reveal everything about them. You get to know them, flaws and all, as you continue through the comic. Eve seems the straight-and-narrow, cynical, and sarcastic type in the beginning, struggling to deal with Hanna’s smoke-filled, carefree, non-conformist personality. Underneath, you get the feeling that Eve is lost, struggling not so much to define who she is but where her life is going like many twenty-year-olds. Her past, like the break up with first love and the divorce of her parents, is a weight she carries more than any other character. Meanwhile, Hanna, though often well intentioned, is manipulative to her friends and is constantly seeking control over herself and those around her. Her struggle comes with the loss and lack of control we often face in our twenties.
Will calls Hanna out on her controlling nature.
Will comforts Eve overs a fallout between friends.
The strip isn’t simply about Eve and Hanna’s relationship but relationships as a whole. The empathy Gran has for all her characters comes out in every arc, on every page. She rotates the cast of characters in Eve and Hanna’s life just as relationships seem to change so rapidly in our lives during our twenties. People move, quit jobs, get new jobs, get new interests, and forge new relationships. Marek, Will, and Marigold round out the main cast of the strip each with their own arcs and lives that exist alongside Eve and Hanna, not rotating around them. Marigold and Will start out as friends of Hanna but gain larger roles and story arcs later on. Both struggle with who they are and want they want in life with different paths and approaches to how they find what they are looking for.
My absolute favorite panel from Octopus Pie.
Almost like a role reciprocal to Hanna, Marigold constantly feels like she has no control over her life. When we meet her, she believes there is no satisfaction to be found within the system she is in, namely her job. The structure is controlling her, in her mind, not giving her a stable environment in which to find control. She sees Hanna, who has an independent business, as the friend who has both freedom and control, two things she feels she has neither of. Meanwhile, Will is looking for simplicity and structure in his complicated life. He forces a half-assed structure to his lifestyle without ever committing to what he truly wants, something Hanna points out Eve tends to do the same.
Hanna knows Will very well.
Will is afraid of change.
Marek knows exactly who he is, or believes he does. His inner conflict is hidden behind a curtain of desperately trying to get through college. When we see him stressed early in the comic it’s because of deadlines. We often see Marek, if not with Hanna, through Eve’s eyes. From there he seems to be the wise one among them with the most insight but Marek is not without his own problems that may not appear onscreen. The reason for this is Marek, as opposed to a lot of the other characters, knows what he wants, knows what he believes, and knows where he wants to go in life. This leads to future conflict with Hanna because they don’t necessarily want the same thing.
Wise words from Marek.
No one has it all figured out.
Change is the great conflict for the characters of Octopus Pie. Their individual lives are changing, their jobs are changing, the people around them are changing, and their relationships are changing. With change comes great joy and great pain, all the while laughter will come in between. Meredith Gran quickly found her tone and interweaves it well. She knows when her readers need a break from the conflicts with her brand of smart observational humor and silliness that can only be pulled off in comic form.
Eve dealing with her inner demons and catcalling on a regular basis.
Eve dealing with life.
This is what compels me to read it, and why you should read it as well. The changes come quick, and you’ll ask yourself but why does it have to change? You’ll move past the empathetic pain you feel for Eve, Hanna, Eve, Will, or Marigold and you’ll ask what happens next?
I do have my own Nintendo and very creative thoughts.
The Author: Meredith Gran.
Meredith Gran makes comics and teaches at the School of Visual Arts. She lives in Brooklyn and has tried every vegan cheese, even the good ones.
All images are property of Meredith Gran. Read more Octopus Pie online at: Octopuspie.com
The current volumes of Octopus Pie are released by Image Comics. Find them in your local comic book store, book store, or online retailer.
You can find Octopus Pie merchandise at Topataco
One Word After Another: Wonder Woman, Fantasy, D&D, Game of Thrones S6.
My draft section on this blog has become mighty daunting. The problem isn’t that I don’t have anything to say, but it never felt like enough to fill how long I expect a post to be. So I decided to title this amalgamation of posts into posts called “One Word After Another” named after this Neil Gaiman quote:
“The process of writing can be magical. There are times when you step out of a upper floor window and you just walk across thin air and it’s absolute nutter happiness. Mostly it’s a process of putting one word after another. The process of writing can be magical. There are times when you step out of a upper floor window and you just walk across thin air and it’s absolute nutter happiness. Mostly it’s a process of putting one word after another.” – Neil Gaiman, Nerdist Podcast.
I believe in my archives I titled posts of random links the same, but this is not the same.
Since my last post, Wonder Woman has premiered in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Wonder Woman Rebirth began with Greg Rucka back on writing duties, the trailer for Wonder Woman’s solo movie came out, a trailer of Justice League Action premiered at San Diego Comic-Con, and I read The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore.
I believe, thanks to my love of fantasy and my continuing adventuring playing and DMing Dungeons and Dragons, Wonder Woman has risen to #1 status as my favorite member of DC Comics’ Trinity. Don’t get me wrong, Green Lanter and the Flash can always count on me to have their back, and have no love loss for Bats and Supey but the ways of Wonder Woman have swayed me. A complex female character taking on Greek gods and monsters balanced by her stranger in a strange land story is very appealing to me. In my head, she balances a lot of the qualities that I’ve always loved about Superman and Batman while also bringing new ideas to the table. Ideas of that delve into whether can be both the peacemaker and the warrior.
The Secret History of Wonder Woman‘s title, by Jill Lepore, should come with a caveat or written beneath in small letters it could say “‘s Creator,” since this book is barely about Wonder Woman but mostly about William Moulton Marston. The question one is left after reading this book is what to think of her creator. Is he a con artist, by manipulating his students , his mistress, and his colleagues to boost his respect / standing in the academic community? I mean, at one point there is no denying he is a fraud with what he tries to pull with Gillette Razors and his Lie Detector test. Is he a feminist, an advocate for the women’s movement or is he a hypocrite for his lifestyle of a patriarchal figure to two women fathering children with both Olivia Byrne and Zadie Holloway plus a third woman involved.
The author does an excellent job balancing Marston’s good traits with his bad subjectively, not by offering her own opinion on the creator of Wonder Woman. At some points, Marston sounds like a strong advocate for women’s rights, and at others, he sounds like he’d prefer a harem of women if he were allowed. Question: How many women must there be to be considered a harem? Is three enough? In general, it isn’t a good sign when Joye Hummel is introduced as his co-writer for Diana and I wondered whether she was going to be Marston’s next mistress. However, the author made me admire Marston’s strong will to defend Wonder Woman’s agency, the agency of women in general, and the kink community that in his day-and-age was seen as a perversion. That be said, when I really thought about W.H. Marston I believe if I knew the man in real life his arrogance mixed with denial would make me want to punch him in the face.
Dungeons & Dragons have made me appreciate writers with a deadline and improvisers. Every week I’m left trying to write what’ll happen next in the campaign on a framework of a story that does not have enough time for a second draft. There are no second drafts of a campaign when you write while you’re playing each week nor if you did would it necessarily work. A common saying I hear from Dungeon Masters is “any preparation you make is destroyed upon contact with players.” It would be so easy for me to railroad my player characters but I want them to choose and sometimes that leads me down a road of making it up on the spot. Sometimes adding information to the canon of my world that I’m furiously writing down less I forget. It’s not easy, and I learned from reading The Introvert Advantage by Marti Olsen Laney that this disconnect I feel between my thoughts and the words I speak versus the words I write is normal but sometimes it gets in the way when I am telling my story.
Rereading A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin I am blown away by this book even more than I was the first time. It has been since 2012 since I read it, before season 2 of the show ever came out, and boy, it makes the show look bad in comparison. It isn’t the show’s fault, though, I have come to realize again, but the fault of the basic principals and foundation of creating a television show. There is all these little details missing from the show that makes it seem like the Sparknotes version of the books but that is because there are very real limitations. The show can only be so long, they can only spend so much money, they can only include so many characters, they can only hire so many actors, they only have so much time to fill it. The other problem is, the little changes in the show that seem idiotic, is due to this prevailing nature in films and television that pisses me off to no end. This idea that television and movie audiences are stupid, every little thing has to be explained (especially when it comes to magic), and nothing can be confusing for any single member of the audience in order to read a wider audience. That’s why Tyrion’s wife was cut from the show, it’s why Hodor’s real name isn’t Walder but Willis, and why Asha is now Yara because that’s too close to Osha. There is subtly to the books the show lacks, and it loses some of its sparkles because of that. After watching season six of the show I am even more excited to get my hands on The Winds of Winter because they built a pyre around subtly and burned it to the ground. All this being said, what kind of idiot reads A Dance with Dragons and goes “Hey, you know what part would be really cool to add to our show? The horrific rape scene! *Writer’s room cheering:* YEAH!” Real bad, fellas.
In two weeks time, I’ll be done proofreading my novel, having finished editing the story back in April. So far, the beta readers I’ve sent it out to have sent some very kind things. I’ll have to remember them when the rejection letter begins coming in when I send it out to literary agents.
You Should Read: A Crown of Cold Silver by Alex Marshall, Blood Song by Anthony Ryan, The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore.
You Should Listen To: The British History Podcast, The Adventure Zone, Drunks and Dragons Podcast, My Brother, My Brother, & Me Podcast.
Writing A Novel Vs. Writing A D&D Campaign.
I’ve set a deadline for myself. By the time I turn 31 on April 23rd my novel will be finished. I am talking final draft, not the first draft, as I only have five chapters to finish editing.
At the same time, I’ve become the Dungeon Master for my D&D group. Writing and developing a D&D campaign, at least, I thought would be simple compared to writing a novel. I thought since worldbuilding is so much fun, that it would be a walk in a park. Oh ho, no. It is a very different beast entirely. I wouldn’t say it is more difficult but it is difficult because it is different.
Unless you plan a whole campaign before you start there are no second drafts i D&D. You write what you need and move on. Most of it is improvised anyway especially minor NPC (Non-Player Character) names like the merchant or regular at the tavern your players decide to get into a fight with.
With the characters in your novel, you have complete control over their actions, personalities, and decisions. In D&D, the players are the characters and you have little to no control over them unless you want to make a boring campaign. On the other hand, it takes a lot more pressure off you to write good protagonists. That’s up to the players.
The world of a novel, especially fantasy, can be more organic. The rules are looser. With D&D, there are so many rules. You have to keep track of them for your players, your NPC’s, and the monsters they fight.On the other hand, D&D is supposed to be fun. It doesn’t have to be this deep exploration of human nature. There are no inner
On the other hand, D&D is supposed to be fun. It doesn’t have to be this deep exploration of human nature. There are no inner monologues to worry about. A D&D campaign, in fact, can be a lot more vague since the Dungeon Master isn’t the sole storyteller. The players can and will change the story. This can be both frustrating and freeing.
With a novel, though, unless you are a published author, it’s all on you. You have to sit down and write your story first draft then second draft then third draft then final draft. A D&D campaign is vaguer. You have to take into account how long a session takes, everyone’s plans for the week, what level the characters are at, and where they may want to go.
If the main villain of your novel is in a certain building of course your protagonist is going to wind up confronting him. Not necessarily so in D&D. The players might decide to burn that building down, as we decided to do in my friend’s campaign, instead of confronting the main baddie of that particular storyline who had story beats for us to follow.
It’s much easier, at least for me, to communicate through writing then it is through speaking. Therefore, theater of the mind is much more difficult to work with. I don’t need extensive maps for my novel because I can convey a scene with as many words as I need but with D&D, if they’re going into a dungeon I am definitely going to need a map because there is a lot to remember.On the subject of dungeons, if my protagonist in a novel is in one I can glaze over
On the subject of dungeons, if my protagonist in a novel is in one I can glaze over certain room if they’re not important to the story. Not so with D&D. My player may end up exploring every room of a castle and I need some kind of description, however short, for all of them.
The antagonists has to be one of the most difficult parts. Well, really, anything that involves balancing the game versus telling a good story is what is so difficult. A villain can’t be so overpowered that it is an obvious party kill but he can’t be so underpowered that any threat he makes, plot-wise, goes unappreciated or unconcerned. Same goes for just about any encounter or plot element of your campaign.
However, a D&D is more accepting of aspects you try to eliminate from your writing when it comes to a novel. Your players are inhabiting archetypes, so giving their characters typical archetypal stories is fine. Tropes, cliches, and parody is welcomed rather then eliminated in later drafts.
Plus, though novels don’t have to do this either, a D&D campaign can be silly and less serious. If you tell a good story in your campaign, you get validation every session by the joy your players are having A novel takes much longer to get that validation.
A friend, fellow writer, and former Dungeon Master himself tells me being a DM will likely make me a better writer. I can see where that stems from but what I get out of it now is combining my love for storytelling and worldbuilding with friends who I love to be around.
Author Sam Sykes Tweets About Writing, Characters, and Emotions (Plus My Two Cents).
You guys want to talk about emotions and writing for a bit?
— Sam Sykes (@SamSykesSwears) December 4, 2015
I often tell people to sneer at YA at their own peril. It’s a monstrously popular genre. But only recently am I discovering why it’s popular
— Sam Sykes (@SamSykesSwears) December 4, 2015
YA, above all else, is the genre of Emotional Logic.
— Sam Sykes (@SamSykesSwears) December 4, 2015
That might sound like a paradox, but it’s not. Rationale and emotion–experience, trauma, desire–are interconnected and inform each other.
— Sam Sykes (@SamSykesSwears) December 4, 2015
It makes me sigh when someone decries a character for not being logical. It’s not that people aren’t logical, but they have their own logic.
— Sam Sykes (@SamSykesSwears) December 4, 2015
I figured this out when I was talking to my mom about blocking and choreography, how action rings true when its informed by emotion.
— Sam Sykes (@SamSykesSwears) December 4, 2015
It’s the difference between a character being there because he wants to be there and being there just to move the plot along.
— Sam Sykes (@SamSykesSwears) December 4, 2015
YA has this down to a science. The unapologetic emotions of the characters informs their logic so thoroughly that it resonates with us.
— Sam Sykes (@SamSykesSwears) December 4, 2015
I like messy characters, characters who don’t make sense, characters who get stupid sometimes.
— Sam Sykes (@SamSykesSwears) December 4, 2015
I like Locke Lamora’s compulsion to be dishonest. I like Eli Monpress’ need to be a thief. I like Falcio’s need to be better.
— Sam Sykes (@SamSykesSwears) December 4, 2015
@SamSykesSwears I love, despite how smart Kvothe is, he can make bad decisions because of his pride / anger / arrogance / other emotions.
— Joshua MacDougall (@FourofFiveWits) December 4, 2015
Weirdly, a guy who does this really well and doesn’t get credit for it is Abercrombie. His characters are driven by emotional logic.
— Sam Sykes (@SamSykesSwears) December 4, 2015
@SamSykesSwears Logen is so conflicted emotionally. He’s realistic but he’s hopeful. He’s wise but he’s brutal. He wants to change but can’t
— Joshua MacDougall (@FourofFiveWits) December 4, 2015
Too many people focus on the “can’t” part of Abercrombie’s characters and ignore the “wants to” part. https://t.co/1SvoxBKAz2
— Sam Sykes (@SamSykesSwears) December 4, 2015
Which is weird. We think of him as grimdark and grimdark as cynical and practical, but his books are actually pretty optimistic.
— Sam Sykes (@SamSykesSwears) December 4, 2015
Anyway, something to keep in mind while writing. Emotional logic is what resonates with a reader, makes them jump off a cliff with you.
— Sam Sykes (@SamSykesSwears) December 4, 2015
Readers want to be hurt, want to laugh, want to cry, even if they don’t know/admit it. Emotional logic convinces them to do that.
— Sam Sykes (@SamSykesSwears) December 4, 2015
So, keep that in mind when writing: is the emotion informing the action? Or is the action informing the emotion?
— Sam Sykes (@SamSykesSwears) December 4, 2015
If the former, the reader is holding your hand as you jump off a cliff. If the latter they’re just watching you hit the ground when you land
— Sam Sykes (@SamSykesSwears) December 4, 2015
The fun part of this all is that you can’t really explain or dissect the emotions. It just doesn’t work so well.
— Sam Sykes (@SamSykesSwears) December 4, 2015
It’s not a matter of dissection, just of instantaneous reaction. You either believe the character or you do not.
— Sam Sykes (@SamSykesSwears) December 4, 2015
Well, that was a good talk, gang. If you need me again, you know where to find me. *digs hole* *gets in* *buries self alive*
— Sam Sykes (@SamSykesSwears) December 4, 2015
You should read Sam Sykes’ The City Stained Red, Patrick Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Chronicles Series, and Joe Abercrombie’s The First Law trilogy.
If You Want To Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions Start Them Now.
People don’t like seeing Christmas decorations when Halloween hasn’t arrived. We all hate hearing about Black Friday before Thanksgiving has even arrived especially when stores try to convince us to shop the night of Thanksgiving. Christmas ends and suddenly we’re thinking about our New Year’s Eve plans and how we can make it less disappointing than the year before. It’ll always be disappointing because it’ll never be as magical as it is in your brain.
Everyone makes New Year’s resolutions, including the people who say there New Year’s resolution is to not have one. The problem is the majority of us don’t keep them. For most of us, January is cold, we’re still broke from Christmas, and goddammit, every treadmill at the gym is taken up again. We decided on that one special night when we countdown to the new year that the next will be different but different can be difficult.
So instead, let’s just start our New Year’s resolution now that way when January 1st hit we’ll already be on track during the regular days of our lives instead of making promises we can’t keep on the tail end of the Holiday season. Here are some of mine.
But wait, I’m not going to do this alone. So for all of mine I’m going to make some suggestions of resolutions some people who I’ve encountered should make for themselves.
- I’ll either figure out how to “fake it until I make it” or just give up on faking it entirely and dedicate endless amounts of time researching on how just to make it.
- Drivers, when making a turn, you will go completely in your lane rather than staying halfway in mine blocking me from going forward.
- I’ll keep the words in mind “You can only control yourself” whenever my life feels out of control.
- When you see someone reading a book you won’t ask them “What are you reading?” or strike up a conversation especially if you don’t know them. If you’ve read the book, you’re permitted to say “great book,” and continue walking when they don’t engage.
- I’ll completely shut off once a week. Desktop, laptop, tablet, television, and smart phone completely turned off. I’ll write in notebooks and read on the floor if I have to keep my devices out of view.
- You will stop playing videos and music out loud in public places with no regard for the people around you.
- I’ll take a walk once a week and not to work out or lose weight but just to be outside.
- Fall and Spring in New York, you will have those moderate temperatures you’re known for instead of flip flopping between being too hot or too cold all the time.
- I’ll say yes just as often as I say no and vice versa.
- You will take no for an answer.
- I will go to BookCon, NY Special Edition, New York Tolkien Conference, and New York Comic Con.
- Con-goers, you will shower, wash, and put on deodorant before a convention. It’s already hot enough.
- I will find, pitch, attempt, or whatever I have to do to find some freelance writing work. It’s something I have to try to do.
- You will stop asking English Majors “But what are you going to do with that?”
- I will go to Madison Square Garden. I will go to a stand-up comedy show. Not just some random night at Carolines but for a comedian who is touring that I love.
- Stand-up comedians living on West Coast, you will come to New York.
- When I go to BookCon, NY Special Edition, New York Tolkien Conference, and New York Comic Con I will say hello and talk to new people.
- New York Comic Con, you will have more authors coming to your con.
- I will think better of myself.
- You will also think better of yourself.
- I will only buy one book after I’ve read three I’ve never previously read.
- Favorite authors, you will release the next books in your series in 2016.
- I will write every day. Five of those days will be for four hours each day.
- Everything else, you will stop distracting me from writing.
- I’ll give up coffee for one month, maybe two, and deal with the caffeine headache.
- Coffee mugs, you will stop tempting me with your bad puns and pop culture references.
- I will write and submit a short story, even though I hate short stories.
- Words, you will stop before my short story turns into another novel.
- I will follow and comment on someone’s WordPress blog including someone who follows this one.
- Pizza, you will stay exactly as you are. Maybe be fewer calories.
- I will fill at least four notebooks front to back.
- Pens, you will stop running out of ink just as writing is going so well.
- I will allow only ten minutes to take it personally when friends and family criticize my book or just plain don’t like it.
- Game of Thrones season six, you will be better than season five.
- I will talk less about writing than actually writing because “talking about the thing isn’t the thing. The doing of the thing is the thing.”
- Time, you will stop passing by so quickly.
- I will break out of more comfort zones.
- Comic book readers, you will stop being so afraid of change.
- I will spend less money on things and spend more on experiences.
- Experiences, you will stop being so expensive.
- I will draw a map of the world from my book whether I can do it well or not.
- Knicks, you will at least have a 27 win record this season.
- I will communicate better with friends and family.
- You will keep asking me when my book is going to be finished, it reminds that I need to get my ass in gear.
- I will start my second book.
- New Year’s Resolutions, you will stop making people feel guilty when you become unrealistic goals that no one can keep. Instead, you will become goals that people work towards all year to better ourselves.
Steel Is The Answer for Abercrombie’s Last Shattered Sea Novel.
Joe Abercrombie goes in swords and axes swinging in his third volume of the Shattered Sea series of Young Adult novels. War looms over Father Yarvi, Thorn Bathu, and Gettland through the eyes of three new point-of-view characters for a novel that is closest in tone to The First Law trilogy. Only detraction is the non-stop action and abrupt ending leaves Half A War with less room for moments of character development but otherwise satisfying conclusion. Read more for spoilers.
How Green Lantern Rebirth Changed My Twenties
Back in 2004, freshman year of Suffolk County Community College, I was in a hip-hop group with my three closest friends. Then in November of that year, they kicked me out and would not hang out with me anymore.
It was deeply upsetting at the time, and pretty traumatizing. In hindsight, if it had continued I probably would have quit eventually. I didn’t enjoy the recording process nor did I have any focus for editing or making beats. The part I enjoyed the most was the writing. I had notebooks full of songs that I never recorded or performed but still continued to write new ones. The other part I loved was performing, it was thrilling. The amount of adrenaline you get from performing on a stage even though they were in high school talent show and a music showcase of all the school’s bands the adrenaline you get from it was crazy.
So my bridges burned with my former friends making music, writing music (and writing in general), and listening to the same music I had before left a bad taste in my mouth. I asked myself who was I before music? Well, before I discovered music at fourteen I was deep into video games. I started playing my GameCube heavily. Then I retreated further back remember this little comic book shop my mom used to take me to where I bought Spider-Man, Green Lantern, and The Simpsons comics.
The comics I read as a kid, as far as superheroes were concerned, were weird. Superman had a weird mullet, Spider-Man was a clone and Green Lantern had gone insane and replaced by another Green Lantern. When I walked into that same comic book store I had as a kid not knowing what I’d find what I found was the second issue of a comic called Green Lantern Rebirth by Geoff Johns. I held up and asked the guy behind the counter what this it was.
“Oh, they’re bringing back Hal Jordan from the dead and making him Green Lantern again,” he said. He offered me a deal for the first and second issue together and told me comic books came out on Wednesdays. I would buy comics there regularly for the next six years.
I became entrenched in comic books and video games to fill the void listening to hip-hop and writing it had left. Comic books though reignited my love for reading that would spread to novels when my girlfriend at the time brought me to a Barnes & Noble. Before this I had only been to Border’s Book, and not in years. Last time I had been there it was not in good condition. This was two stories of book paradise, one with a graphic novel section that was lacking. Instead I picked up this beautiful leather bound copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams I had seen at one of her friends house and The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger by Stephen King.
The more I read novels, the more I could see the weaknesses in comic book stories. Reading more novels led to more interest in literature. This led to me majoring in English which forced writing upon me. When I briefly dropped out in 2011 and into a deep depression it was writing that got me out of it and brought the love back I had for it back to the forefront of my brain.
All because I picked up Green Lantern Rebirth.
My Perfect Writing Room.
I don’t know what the future really holds for me, with any career or a career in writing but if I own a home, a rather large apartment or am a success in anyway I have an image in my head for my writing room.
I’m terrible with dimensions but it would be fairly large, maybe the size of a master bedroom. Against a wall, really almost two walls would be a large L shaped desk. The corner would be where my desktop would go with a fairly large monitor on the second shelf and a custom PC built only for holding all things writing. Beneath it on the desk itself would be a standard mouse but a Das Keyboard brand mechanical keyboard. Directly to the right of it on the desk would be my laptop, the monitor would have a setting to switch from my desktop to my USB cord plugged in laptop. Above the laptop on the second shelf would be a scanner used for scanning documents such as my handwritten notes and research. In the small part of the L would be where I keep my notebooks on the second shelf and on the desk would be a cup full of my fountain pens. It basically be my handwritten writing section away from my computer.
The rest of the large desk would have open thesauruses, books on writing and generally research that I could turn to when I needed it. On the very end though would be a placemat stained with ink. This would be where I kept my inkwells and disposable gloves for refilling the ink in my fountain pens.
This part of the room would have a wooden floor beneath it for my chair to roll around on without hindrance. The chair would be the most costly part of the room, as it must be, in my perfect writing room, the most comfortable chair I’ve ever sat on. It would have a high back and a thick cushion and when my back was sore and tired the chair would heat up like a heating pad to soothe my aches and pains.
There would be a brown leather couch for reading and napping. Next to it would be a nightstand piled high with books, knowing me, as well as a bluetooth speaker connected to a device that has my music. It would have to not be my phone otherwise I would be distracted real easily. Next to the bluetooth speaker would be a pair of headphones with a long cord and big cushions for my ear, it would be soundproof.
In the corner on the other side would be a coffee pot, a coffee grinder and a water cooler and a set of coasters, mugs and cups for me to use. Underneath would be a draw full of bags of coffee either ground or beans.
There’d be an air conditioner of course, because I hate the heat. Whether it was in a window or not I honestly don’t care as long as it keeps the room cold.
Underneath the refreshment table would be a mat for easy vacuuming because the rest of the room would have a soft carpet for laying on to think. I imagine there’d be a drawing table, especially if I’m doing fantasy for sketching out concepts, maps and rooms. I want to say I would have one of those hand vacs just in case but I know I use cleaning to sometimes procrastinate writing so that would be right out.
A bookcase of course, full of books on writing, history, and anything I would use for research besides thesauruses and notebooks which I would keep on the desk.
Would I need a file cabinet? Would I want to keep the business end of writing separate from the writing process itself? It might be a good idea, it might not.
If we’re getting ridiculous there would also be a punching bag with a set of gloves hanging off of it. Sometimes exercises jogs inspiration, or at least get the brain stimulated for thinking about a problem with writing and punching a bag has always been something I enjoyed as far as exercise goes.
The door would have a lock both on the inside and the outsidee and only I and maybe my spouse would have access to the room. There’d be a large overhead light, the kind that simulated sunlights for keeping me awake but there would also be a yellow lamp on the desk and near the couch for generating a certain mood when writing.
Next to the light switch would be a switch for one of those red lightbulbs outside of the room letting people know I was hard at work and not to be disturbed. Maybe my spouse and I would have walkie talkies for if she needed me for dinner or to help with something but otherwise there’d be no access to call me to talk to me.
That would be my perfect writing room but this is like putting the horse before the water. That’s the expression right? More important than having a perfect writing room is to write. So off to write I go.
The Warrior’s Life
“It is one thing to study war and another to live the warrior’s life.” – Telamon of Arcadia, mercenary of the fifth century B.C.
Fantasy Books and Fantasy Booking 
