Trailer #2

Trailer Two: Test Subject 3, Sao Okyamo

October: Month of Trailers!

It is October! And this month is going to be slightly different: instead of two posts, this is going to be the only one. HOWEVER, keep checking back, because every Sunday I'm going to post a new video.

These videos have been a project of mine last summer, and now I'm ready to unveil them. They are book trailers, if you will, for a book that does not technically exist yet: MY book. These are trailers for Stormlock. The first four videos will showcase each main character / test subject, and the fifth will be a little different…

Enjoy! And don't forget to share this.

Trailer One: Test Subject 4, Alicia Fodorney

Something Got Published!

Hello everyone! Yes, I am slightly early, but I do have a bit of news: "Cognito, Ergo Sum" has finally been published by Daily Science Fiction!

Well, it was published yesterday, but my wi-fi was having its own miniature robot uprising at the time, so this update got delayed. If you go to DSF now, my work will not be there to greet you.

I have the next best thing, though--a direct link to the archived story itself on DSF! So if you click here or on the link on my "Published Works" page on this blog, you can read it for yourself. I hope you enjoy it! (It has gotten some pretty good ratings, not that I'm bragging.)

(Fine, I'm bragging. Only a little.)

CELEBRATIONAL PREVIEW OF OCTOBER:

It's going to be a little bit different next month. Instead of two posts, one in the beginning and one in the middle, every Sunday I am going to be posting a book trailer of my own design! The subject? Stormlock.

This is all way better than it sounds. See you then!

A Few Letters On Personality

“There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. His parents called him Eustace Clarence and masters called him Scrubb. I can't tell you how his friends spoke to him, for he had none.” (C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader Ch. I)

I hope you don’t mind if I’m uncharacteristically serious for a moment.

I’m a person who’s quite interested in personality types. To me, the number and seeming accuracy of personalities and temperaments is fascinating as I look at myself and my friends as sort of case studies. Whenever I hear that data from another person, I’m either surprised (“I wouldn’t have guessed that about you!”) or rather pleased (“That does sound right!”). It’s also fun to look at the characters you’ve written and figure out their types. Me, as far as my own personality goes, I’m a proud INTJ. You can see it on my short bio. I like to study my own type in order to better understand myself and how I work. And I’m sure there are many more people out there (maybe even you) who also like to engage in this exercise of self-discovery.

However, with a little bit of self-reflection, I have come across a danger that comes when one identifies and studies his temperament. Allow me to demonstrate using my two examples: Eustace Scrubb in C.S. Lewis’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and myself.

“But just as he reached the edge of the pool two things happened. First of all it came over him like a thunder-clap that he had been running on all fours—and why on earth had he been doing that? And secondly, as he bent towards the water, he thought for a second that yet another dragon was staring up at him out of the pool. But in an instant he realised the truth. That dragon face in the pool was his own reflection. There was no doubt of it. It moved as he moved: it opened and shut its mouth as he opened and shut his.

He had turned into a dragon while he was asleep. Sleeping on a dragon's hoard with greedy, dragonish thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon himself.” (Dawn Treader Ch. VI)

Short of directly looking into a mirror, an honestly taken personality exam is the most accurate of self-portraits that you can observe. I’ve taken the test at 16Personalities.com, confirming that I am an INTJ. Upon getting this result, I felt not unlike Eustace looking into the pool at his transformation. (Well, Eustace had the bigger shock—I’d known my type for a while. Just double-checking.)

“In spite of the pain, his first feeling was one of relief. There was nothing to be afraid of any more. He was a terror himself now and nothing in the world but a knight (and not all of those) would dare to attack him. He could get even with Caspian and Edmund now…” (Dawn Treader Ch. VI)

Reading over the INTJ Profile on 16Personalities, I was pleased. It felt accurate. It felt interesting. But best of all, it felt cool. Only 0.8% of the population are in my class, and we seem a highly capable bunch. For me, being told that my kind is “one of the rarest and most strategically capable personality types” feels pretty good. According to the strengths department, INTJs are quick, imaginative, strategic, self-confident, independent, decisive, hard-working, open-minded, and quite capable. Huh! Am I just not paying attention to what I’m doing (or what I could be doing)?

“But the moment he thought this he realised that he didn't want to. He wanted to be friends. He wanted to get back among humans and talk and laugh and share things. He realised that he was a monster cut off from the whole human race. An appalling loneliness came over him. He began to see that the others had not really been fiends at all. He began to wonder if he himself had been such a nice person as he had always supposed. He longed for their voices. He would have been grateful for a kind word even from Reepicheep.” (Dawn Treader Ch. VI)

Things get worse after reading all the way through the strengths list, since the next section pertained to INTJ weaknesses. Again, it was pretty accurate. My personality type comes with…let me see…me being arrogant, judgmental, too analytical, anti-structured-environments, and romantically clueless. In summary, we’re socially stunted. We may have the mind of Sherlock Holmes, but the sociopath comes standard too.

It’s monstrous. Personally, I do not socialize easily. A bar is dull. A club would be painful to enter. I have frequently been in crowded areas—of people I know, too—and have not engaged in the conversation. The net result: it often gets friggin’ LONELY up here. I’m not exactly approachable, either. Being 6’2” and ugly has its advantages, but PR is not one of them.

“‘Then the lion said—but I don't know if it spoke—You will have to let me undress you. I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it. The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know—if you've ever picked the scab of a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away. […] Then he caught hold of me—I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on—and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again. You'd think me simply phoney if I told you how I felt about my own arms. I know they've no muscle and are pretty mouldy compared with Caspian's, but I was so glad to see them. ’" (Dawn Treader Ch. VII)

The danger that I risk in the personality exams is simply this: I can start thinking that my traits are fixed. Eustace could have just succumbed to the reality that he was a monster. But that’s not how people work.

Lord knows we all hate a static character. If there’s no growth in the MC as the tale progresses, what’s the point? The best stories have the person/creature/thing/whatever develop and change, becoming better than they could have realized. Reynard Muldoon became a leader. Megamind became a hero, and so did Deadpool, in his own fashion. Eustace became a less irritating boy.

Look, if there’s one thing that I want you to take away from my semi-coherent introspection here, it’s that the best characters improve—including yours. Strengths need to be built on. Weaknesses? Those need to be worked on, repaired if possible. I’ll start, if that’s what it takes. It may hurt a bit, but in the end I might make some progress towards becoming more human. I’ll go out and walk around, maybe even talk to people. Get out of the ol’ comfort zone.

Oh wait…I’m currently studying abroad. I’ll need to learn a new language first.

This should get interesting.

At Least I Can Admit It

Okey-doke. So, due to travels toward my semester abroad, funky wifi, and a general lack of immediate inspiration, my post for the beginning of this month will be merely an admission of guilt. My apologies. I should have a handle on things by mid-September though, so don't go doing anything you'll regret later.
But as long as we're here, I might as well provide a teaser for a project that I'm planning on posting soon...



Ten bonus points if you can guess what its theme is. See ya.

Dystopian Teen Novel Review Checklist

Alright, that’s it. It’s about time that someone made a checklist-style book review so I can stop suffering through all these popular dystopian teen books.

This summer I decided to let my pop-culture embarrassment catch up to me. As much as it pains me to say it…I had not read any of the Hunger Games books up until recently. So finally I acquired a library copy and read the first installment. My official book review is thus: not bad. I found it entertaining, even if it was a bit of a downer eighty-five percent of the time. If I’d bought the book, I would have kept it.

Unfortunately, this venture made me want to look deeper into this area of contemporary culture. Not the Divergent series, though—I’ve heard enough from that sector, and judging by the movie reviews I hear, the whole assembly is in its death throes. I did remember that another popular book had hit the theater screen recently, though. That’s what led me to pick up 5^th Wave by Rick Yancey. The reviews were so positive it was intimidating. I was nearly breathless with anticipation when I turned the dust jacket aside.

Surely my whole family remembers that week. Certainly my well-read older sister does. That was the week I would not stop complaining. My most spoken sentence? “Oh, COME ON!” I could predict the outcomes of entire chapters. I can predict the whole rest of the bloody series if I feel like it. Like FUN it was a new take on alien invasions. The writing itself claimed to be not your standard alien invasion, but it was. It was the PEOPLE who changed. Rick Yancey made every character—I hit upon the right word this morning—witless in the devastation’s wake. Yes, I know an alien invasion of that level has catastrophic effects and world-shaking implications. But it seemed the sole duty of every character (90% are teens) to b**** about it on every page. There were no buck-up people who weren’t evil somehow. There was chronic mournfulness around every corner. Call me a sadist or unsympathetic (I won’t contradict you), but all I could think about while I was reading was a quote by Rocket Raccoon: “Oh boo hoo, my wife and family are dead…you think you’re the only one who’s lost something??”

Finally, the main character’s name was Cassie. That’s right. We’ve got Katniss, followed by Tris, and now Cassie. There’s also Cia, a girl main character from another series called—not kidding—The Testing, by Joelle Charbonneau. I read it about a year ago just to make sure it didn’t beat my own book series to the punch. It didn’t. Once again, typical teen deathmatch dystopia.

Katniss, Tris, Cassie, Cia.

Am I being harsh? I kinda hope so. And don’t think you’re slipping by without a mention, Maze Runner. I’ve got my eye on you.

I think the biggest problem is that we don’t know what’s inside these books until we open the covers or see them on the big screen. Sure, every teen book promises on its hands and knees that you’ve never read anything like this before. But now I want a faster, more effective type of review that will analytically demonstrate whether or not this new series is just the same old thing. I egotistically, pretentiously, and cynically present to you:

My Own Ratings On New Stories

From a Pretentious Egotistical Writer

Motto: “We hope they don’t notice those acronyms.”

Place check marks in all that apply. Each check is worth one point.

Main Character:

-          Is she white?

-          Female?

·         If so, is there some form of love triangle around her?

·         If so, is one of them an unapproachable dude she’s known from childhood, while the other one is less hunky yet slightly deeper model that she unwillingly (yet quickly) falls for?

·         And again, if so, will half of the series’ plotline be dedicated to the main character’s indecision about which hunk she should date?

-          Does he/she have not a scrap of positivity?

-          If there some sort of testing that is happening?

-          Is the main character being completely manipulated?

-          When the main character seems to be driving the plot, is he/she still being manipulated?

-          Do the character’s quirks not play into his/her overall actions or personality at all?

-          Is the main character complaining? A lot, perhaps?

Setting:

-          Is it dystopian? (I hope so, otherwise it could get boring.)

-          Are there loads of poor, downtrodden masses? (Again, that can be OK.)

-          Is there some powerful militant/elitist class that has risen up to rule?

·         If so, do they claim to “protect” the populace?

·         Are they clearly evil? Let’s say, oh, do they promote senseless teen brutality?

·         Did they clearly have a thesaurus handy when they were naming things?

-          Are there some incarnation of zombies or vampires? (If so, this check mark is worth eighty thousand points. Take that, Maze Runner movies.)

Plot:

-          Is the entire plot of the series basically as follows:

·         Badness happens.

·         Evil entity does bad things to benefit themselves.

·         Main character is somehow special.

·         He/she figures out the apparent evilness.

·         …Then forms a love triangle to hamper any rapid progress.

·         Main character and a small rebellious force escape evil entity’s clutches.

·         …Then finally they come back to defeat evil in an unsatisfying manner

o   (note: denouement of love triangle should be just as unsatisfying).

Scoring my own potential book series…it got about ten. Okay, about eighty thousand and ten if I’m extra honest—I’ll admit that drone mobs are somewhat zombie-ish. See? I can complain about myself too. I’m such a teenage main character like that.

And Now, The Voices In My Head

            I’m pretty sure it’s the late summer heat. At any rate, for this blog post, I decided to take a stab at the collection of voices that no doubt influence my writing process. It wasn’t easy. Most of them just hunkered down in my subconscious and phoned in their displeasure, but I finally brought up a small list of mental culprits for your consideration.

            (I also recommend trying something like this as a short personal writing challenge.)

Idea Man: Hiro, Big Hero 6 movie

            “No! Ideas! Stupid—empty—head!”

Plot Developer: Yzma, The Emperor’s New Groove movie

            “How shall I do it? Ohh, I know…I’ll turn him into a flea! A harmless little flea. And then I’ll put that flea in a box, then I’ll put that box inside of another box, then I’ll mail that box to myself! And when it arrives, AH HA HA I’ll SMASH it with a HAMMER!”

Plot Editor: Still Yzma

            “Or, to save on postage, I’ll just poison him with this!”

Plot Complications: Puddleglum, The Silver Chair book

            “It stands to reason we’re not likely to get very far on a journey to the North, not at this time of year, with the winter coming on soon and all. And an early winter too, by the look of things. But you mustn’t let that make you downhearted. Very likely, what with enemies, and mountains, and rivers to cross, and losing our way, and next to nothing to eat, and sore feet, we’ll hardly notice the weather. And if we don’t get far enough to do any good, we may get far enough not to get back in a hurry.”

Dialogue Writers: Megamind and Minion, Megamind movie

            “Well, good luck on your date!”

            “I will!”

            “That doesn’t even make any sense!”

            “I know!”

Stunt Director: The General, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator book

            “Let's blow them up first, crash bang wallop bang-bang-bang-bang. [...] Come on, Mr P., [...] Let's have some really super-duper explosions!”

Romance Director: Han Solo, Star Wars VII movie

            “Escape now. Hug later.”

Self-Biographer: Garfield, from his own comic strip

            “As the handsome cat gazed on the folly of life about him, he threw back his head in laughter, ha! ha! ha!

            “And then he fell right off his chair.”

Feedback Reviewer: Cave Johnson, Portal 2 video game

            “The lab boys are telling me that I should not have mentioned the control group. They say I oughta stop making these prerecorded messages. That gave me an idea—Make more prerecorded messages! I pay the bills here, I can talk about the control group all damn day!”

Motivational Voice: Ishmael, Moby-Dick book

             “For my part, I abominate all honourable respectable toils, trials, and tribulations of every kind whatsoever."