JLA the Movie! FOR REAL!

I saw this on Raving Toy Maniac!

I'm so excited!

Here it is, as posted by fellow Utahn, LilMissVixen.

----

Justice prevails for Warner Bros.
Studio eyeing DC superhero team feature
By PAMELA MCCLINTOCK
DC Comics super-team Justice League is heading for the bigscreen.


Michele and Kieran Mulroney

Batman may meet up with Superman on the bigscreen after all -- along with Wonder Woman, Aquaman, the Flash and all the rest of DC Comics' biggest names.
Warner Bros., with its major appetite for fresh franchises, is looking to make a feature based on super team the Justice League of America, hiring writing duo Kiernan and Michele Mulroney to pen the script.

It's the first major action the studio has taken on the project.

Feature film is bound to include some combination of DC's most iconic superheroes, although the studio wouldn't confirm which ones they might be. It's unlikely that the studio and DC Comics, a division of Warner, would opt to feature second-tier characters.

Since its inception in 1960, JLA has featured almost every major hero in the DC Comics universe, although the core team has largely remained the same: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter.

The heroes typically band together to fight alien menaces or groups of supervillains.

"The Justice League of America has been a perennial favorite for generations of fans, and we believe their appeal to film audiences will be as strong and diverse as the characters themselves," Warner prexy of production Jeff Robinov said in announcing the hiring of the Mulroneys.

In taking on the ambitious project, Warner faces several conundrums.

Now that the Batman and Superman film franchises have been revived, does the studio go after Christian Bale ("Batman Begins") and Brandon Routh ("Superman Returns") to star in a Justice League pic? Studio is also trying hard to bring Wonder Woman to the bigscreen.

To a large degree, casting will depend upon the story arc for the JLA feature and at what point in the superheroes' lives the plot takes place.

Warner also must deal with myriad producers working on the Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman franchises.

Studio dropped its efforts to make "Batman vs. Superman" in order to focus on relaunching "Batman" and "Superman" as individual properties, which it has done.

Filmmakers Chris Nolan ("Batman Begins") and Bryan Singer ("Superman Returns") are each on board to helm the next installments in the two respective franchises. Nolan's "The Dark Knight" is eyeing a 2008 release and the next "Superman," 2009.

The potential payoff of bringing JLA to theaters can't be ignored by Warner, which turns out more tentpoles than any other studio.

Comicbook fans have long clamored for a movie version of JLA, and word of the Warner project is certain to be a hot topic at New York Comic Con, which unspools today in Gotham.

JLA has spawned several cartoon TV series, including 1960s and '70s show "Super Friends" and current Cartoon Network skein "Justice League Unlimited" from Warner Bros. Animation.

The Mulroneys -- Kieran is the brother of thesp Dermot Mulroney -- caught the attention of studios around town with their rewrite of "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" for Fox.

Other screenplay projects include "On the Nature of Human Romantic Interaction," "Paper Man" and "Worst Case."

Kieran and Michele Mulroney are repped by Creative Artists Agency and Management 360.

(Ben Fritz contributed to this report.)

Locked out!

RASSEN FRASSEN!

The stupid dead bolt on my front door is a bit loose. Sometimes it locks on it's own.
This morn' after returning from dropping off the kids at school, I went inside, dropped my keys on a night stand type piece of furniture, set the dogs free from their kennels and promptly closed the door to keep the cats inside while the dogs went pee outside.
After the dogs were done I discovered that I was locked out. Oh I had made sure that the main lock was unlocked, but forgot to grab my keys in case the dead bolt tricked.
Outside in a coat, pajamas and tennis shoes, I walked around trying windows. My in laws don't have a key to that lock (they will!) and my cell was inside.
I had to try a window that needs fixing and it broke. I got in and then let the dogs in through the front door.
I made copies of the dead bolt key and called the window guy to come estimate the window.
So much for two hours of novel fixing.
Ah well.

Chad Vader # 6!

Here's the newest from Blame Society Films and YouTube.

Funny look at job hunting.

Thoughts

We went to church today! YYAAAY!
See, I've got a rep for being this staunch Mormon guy, but the truth is we are inactive due only to laziness. Heck, I want another Saturday.
Well, we went today. I took the kids because I promised my wife I would while she was in Cali with my parents.
It worked out OK. I need to do that more often.

Meanwhile, she's doing great with them. I haven't heard from her much today, but she's happy because she can breathe better there. I hope she gets the job and we can move.

Got my MS (manuscript) back! Not much editing left to do! I'm excited! I'm planning on working on it this week to polish it up. After that I can resubmit to Rachael Vater and a few others.

Tonight the kids get to have a slumber party with me. We'll be watching Abbot and Costello movies until we fall asleep. No school tomorrow.

More on my life tomorrow for the two people reading this blog. ;)

The Wilhelm Scream Compilation

This sound effect scream was used in a lot of movies. I'm surprised at some of them.

Here it is, by way of Youtube.

My wife left me!

HA!
Made you look!
We just dropped her off at the airport.
We made a decision to try to move to California. This was decided last month. My wife is tired of working at home and would like to try the office life. I'm tired of the office life and would love to try the home dad thing.
So she started looking for work while I remained at my last job. We realized that we both should try, because the cost of living there is more expensive, so I put my resume on Monster.com.

Turns out Northern Utah is desperate for drafters. I wound up getting an interview for an SL architectural company and got the job. I start on the 26th.
Unless my sweetie gets her job.

See, I miss my family very much. They all live in central California while my wife's family live here in northern Utah. I've lived here since '83 but for the last 19 years I've lives far from my family.
Meanwhile, we live 30 miles away from a Charter school and the entire Utah school system sucks. They pass my learning disabled children by instead of teaching them on their level. If we remain, my kids will be left behind in their education.
My wife might still be able to progress but she's fighting a bad rep that her family have caused.
These are all reasons why we feel it's time to move.

She got three options in central California. One's with a Charter school, doing accounting. Two others are with the city of Merced. One as a County clerk assistant and the other is an accounting job. She is set to appear in Merced, California on Tuesday at 10 am for a job interview. If she gets one of those jobs, we're moving.

So we just bid her goodbye and now we get a week without her while she spends time with my parents and goes to the interviews.

*Crosses fingers*

Note to self...

Reminder:
Must make blog entrees about wife's California job interview and our new car.
Also must make entree about kid's responses to my questioners.

Busy me.

NECA's Harry Potter figures

I said "Only collect the Justice League and Avengers" but these Potter figures are tempting me!
When I heard of thier plans to make sets and include pack in figures like Ginny, I started to go nuts.


Here’s figures.com's pics of the NECA Toyfare display.

One of these days I need to check out thier web page to see if I can get these.

Toy Fare o7

It seems pretty small this year. DC Direct showed a lot of stuff that we've already seen. For me the coolest thing from them was the Marvel Family. I can't wait to get them.

I also saw a special sneak peek at the upcoming Marvel Legends Black Knight. This head shot pic is so rare I had to get it by email.

There are a lot of figures I'm looking forward to this year.

Speaking to the class

It was so strange.
I didn’t know what to expect. I was nervous but I pushed the nerves back and just went into the school. As I approached Jeff’s class (I’d been there before, after school) a young boy started calling out my name.
“Mr. Bryan! Mr. Bryan!”
I guess he was my escort. I’m not used to being called Mr. Bryan but it made sense. It was kind of funny.
So I entered the class and Jeff was up front. All these 6th graders smiled with excitement. Holy spit! They’re all excited to hear from me. Plain ol’ me!
Jeff had told me ahead of time that they had questions. Once I was there, at the front of the class I just figured I’d open it up for questions, then after I’d tell them about the changes to the book and how a writer tries to get an agent and publisher.
During the questions I was able to tell them those things too. When I said that I heard they had questions over half the class shot their hands up! I was so happy that so many kids enjoyed Ann and her brother. Man what a rush!
There were questions on how did I come up with many of the characters. People wanted to know the name of the second book and how many books there would be. They wanted to know if I was going to write other books after Ann’s tales were done. They wondered what my vision of the covers for books 1 and 2 are and when I told them what I wanted for cover 1 they smiled. When I told them that I didn’t have cover 2 planned they had ideas! They laughed and shot even more hands out as I explained things. They seemed to understand as I told them of Ann and Roland’s aging problems and hoped that I would be published.

I was scheduled for 30 minutes and it took 45. Jeff finally had to cut it to those who still had their arms up. No more questions were allowed after them. The last question was if a kid could have my autograph. Soon I was signing a bunch with my real name (cause they knew it) and my pen name. I guess that pen name idea is redundant now, but I’ll still proceed with it.

After I left, my head had swollen very big. Don’t worry. I’ve had strong beta reads and a bunch of rejections. I wont believe any dilutions of grandeur.
Still, it was an amazing experience. They all wanted it published. This was the earlier version, too. The one that needed lots of work.
I can only hope that the next version will entrance adult agents like it entranced the main age group it’s meant for.

Yes! Finally got my Destroyer!

Toy Biz made quite a few figures during their time as Marvel's chief action figure maker. One line was called Marvel Legends and it featured many of the comic company's characters. Even some of the most obscure characters made it on the shelves.

The toy making rights have passed onto Hasbro, but last year before the switch, Toy Biz released Marvel Legends 15. I needed each character for my collection with the exception of one. The Thor Buster Ironman was useless to me. Problem was, each figure had a piece of the villain Modok (that's him on the far left in the chair thing).
As luck would have it they created variant versions of most of the line. I needed most of those to fill in certain gaps in my collection too. The variant Ironman was a Thor baddie called the Destroyer. He's an unstoppable suit of Asgardian armor that can be activated and sent out to kill Thor. A rare character and a truly dangerous bad guy. He's on the far right.
New problem. I never saw any of the variants here in Utah. So I waited until the time came to finally buy Destroyer on eBay.
$40 bucks! Sheesh.
He arrived today and I couldn't be happier. :)

Stuff #2 The class

Tomorrow is the day I get to speak to a classroom of 6th graders!
GAAAAHHH!

I'm scared, because I've never done this before.
I'm excited, because I get to talk about my book!
Yes, I know. Writers are pretty self absorbed about their stuff.

Thing is, I'm no longer the green little writer who stepped off the finished novel bus, waiting for the first passerby to get swept up in my masterpiece.

See, I don't have a masterpiece. I don't have junk either. I've got a story several people like and enjoyed, but still needs work. Now that the 3rd edits are done and it's in the hands of a friend who is checking that the "I"s are dotted and the "T"s are crossed, so to speak, I'll be able to take her mark ups, change it and (maybe) it'll be ready.

Another online friend (who happens to be a teacher) gave the first two chaps to her class with a questionnaire. I got five responses back.
This was for the 2nd/3rd draft. It still had the Parker first hook chapter and a second chapter choking in description, POV swapping and over stating stuff. Tell, tell, tell.
A lot of what those kids said were problems Aprilynne and "Moth" pointed out. Stuff that Willard, Dani, Jeff and Mike saw and I had thought I fixed. Well after two major read troughs and some heavy fixing, I think those things are not only fixed, but some more things that Adam and Chris saw were changed as well. I had to cut some of Ian's ideas though. They wound up hurting Chapter two.

The version Jeff read to his class is just as out of date as the two chapters "Night Author" gave to her class. I wish this version was the one all those kids saw.

Now the book shows children vampires becoming teen vampires. What happens to your body (it's clean guys, I'm NOT that kind of author)? How do you feel when your body changed out of control? How does it throw off your vampire abilities? What does this mean to a girl who is over obsessed with being in control and always learning first? Now she's way out of control.
The Advancement is what happens to children vampires. It allows for their children bodies to catch up to their ages. It's supposed to happen a couple times, allowing the vampires to grow up. It occurs over day while they are asleep. For Ann, it's at age 14 and for Roland, at age 16.

Preteens and teens are facing growing up into strange out of control bodies. They can relate. If only the class could see THIS version!
But, at any rate I'll be talking to them about it.

I'm hoping to get a questionnaire to them. I reworked the one "Night Author" gave to her kids. Here is my version.

1. On a scale of 1 - 10, this is a ______.
2. Would you like it if Annabelle was 14 and Roland 16? _________
3. Should they age? ________________________________________________________________
4. The part I liked best was_________ because___________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
5. This story would be better or more interesting if __________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
6. I liked this book. Yes No Why? ___________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
7. Which character was most interesting and why? _______________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________

So tomorrow's the day!

Again... ahem... GAHHHHHH!!!!!

UPDATE!
Jeff has the questionnaires. He's going to give them out so I'll have them to work with after tomorrows class apearance. He said his kids really loved the book! That's the earlier revision, too! That gets me excited that the newer version will rock even more!

Stuff #1: Jobs

Things are clicking.
Yesterday I went to that job interview. I scored well on the time test and even did a little extra. I could tell they were impressed with me during the interview. I could be starting in three weeks.

I took the rest of the week off on vacation. Can you tell I'm not very serious about my current job? Hey, I'd rather be elsewhere than getting exposed to chlorine gas and acid drips. Let the EPA keep sorting them out.


If I do get this new job, it may potentially be for a short time. the reason?

My second news.

My lovely wife has passed the first level and is scheduled to go in for an interview for her job as Assistant county clerk of a particular Central California town. It's an hour from my parents and two hours from my sister. I think it's four from my brother.
We live in Northern Utah, far away from my family,surrounded by her family and getting sick of it every year. Don't get me wrong, I love Utah, too. But I miss my California and my family.
Things could work out for the bad school situation for my kids as well. There is a possibility of them going to a Charter school out there because we'd be closer to it there than we are here.

So she's scheduled to go in for that interview ion the 20th. Either she's going by herself or we're all going.

Wait and see!

Cool Heroes behind the scenes thing

They have set up a web page for Primatech Paper. That's the fake paper company seen in the show.

This site explains how you can get into the "secret files" through the Primatech Paper site.

Keep checking that page. It might update every time there is a new episode.

Job thoughts

What to do? What to do?

Recently, my wife and I decided to move to Central California. There are some job opportunities there for us, a better schooling system for the children and for the first time in almost 20 years, I would be near my family.
I can't really take time from my current job to look, though.

There are a few negatives about this job and only a couple positives.
The positives;

1. It's slow and there is time to do my own thing.
2. The work hours are 7-3:30 (which is really 3:15)
3. Transportation. I pay for a seat on a van to get out here, saves on gas and I can sleep on the way in.

The negatives

1. Hazardous environment. I do sit at my desk all day, but any given time I'll need to go into the plant for measurements. This means the possibility of exposure to chlorine gas, acid or chemical drips, and walking on very rusty scaffolding. They are in deep trouble with the EPA.

2. Personal Time Off is called UNEXCUSED Absence. Last year I used 10 when we're only allowed 4 a year. I'm on probation because of that and so I can't have any family emergencies unless I want to use vacation for it. I was told by the HR person that "It's hard but you can do it". Yeah, right. My wife has bouts of sickness, Three of my children are special needs and I can do it? Shyeeah.

3.No communication. No cell phone coverage out here and the work phone is loud.

4. No tardies allowed. It doesn't matter if the highway i shut down for extreme weather, or the weather makes it too hard to get to work on time or even if your car breaks down on the way out here. It's a tardy and therefor an absence and not tolerated.

I know here's another negative but it's escaping my mind.
Anyway, I'm set up with Monsterjobs so that I can look into California. Well, about four local employment agencies all told me the job market is great. They want me to leave this place and interview for them.
I'm set up for an interview tomorrow. I've been taking lots of vacation time and the boss just eyes me when I do come in. Two weeks ago I took Thurs and Fri. Last week it was Wed and Fri. This week it will be yesterday (Mon), tomorrow (Wed) and Fri (that's the day I finally speak to the class. YAY!).

I don't think they're going to fire me so I might need to just give my two weeks. I've lost any desire for this place. It's not horrible like my previous job, but it's not great either.

So it's decision time.

Holy Heck! Heroes Shocker

I really love this show. The writing is fresh and the show keeps up a good pace.

I want to mention that even though I suspected that SPOILER was Clarie's dad, it was still a shock to see it happen. I would say the name but I don't want to spoil it.

Fun show.

1st ever Speaking Engagement

Next Friday I speak in front of Jeff's 5th grade class. He's been reading them my novel ever since October of last year. They've been enjoying it and that's very encouraging to me.

So Jeff and I set up next Friday as the day for me to come in and speak to the class.

I'm scared and excited all at the same time!

Harry Potter Book 7 comes out July 21st!

It was announced!




Read here.


And here.

I week after Movie 5!

What a month that will be. :)

Doctor Who Curse of Fatal Death Pt 1 & 2

Check these out! Both Willard and Ian told me these existed. Here they are thanks to Youtube!

Parodyverse Moments #1, There Came A Composite, Part 1

The Parodyverse...



...is really hoping lately. Several people are posting stories, some of our old friends (Lisa!!!!! and Messenger!) have returned with new stories and we have a couple newbies writing too.

So, since my novel writing duties have shrunk a bit, I've written a story for the board.

Come see!

Done!

I just finished reading the manuscript to my girls. They loved it. I found more sentences that read wrong and fixed them.

I kept my goal! Now it's all finished and ready for a couple of people to read through it. Once they're done, and I make any corrections from that, then it will be submission time!

Today I improved my query letter as well. Now I need to make a special letter for Rachael Vater, and another for those agents who requested pages. The edits were extensive enough that any of these agents might be interested again (at least I hope so).

So the mood is happy tonight. :)

What's happening?

Almost finished... again.

One more chapter to silently read through. I'll be done with that this afternoon. Three more chapters to read to the kids. That should be it, then.

Now, I do realise it will need more work. I can guarantee there must be some telling still and a couple punctuation problems too.

Then there is the evil demon in my head. A previous beta reader who told me it wont sell because it should either be all little children bat stuff or all teen romance. That voice keeps echoing in my head: "You can't have it both ways. I thought I was the exception, too but I was wrong."
I don't know. I made a very big change and lots of little ones. I show Ann and Roland as they are at the end, then the book shows them growing into that. Becoming that.

I'm full of self doubt. Beta voices echo but no agents have actually SEEN the new version. I'm afraid to show them.

Doctor Who season 2 outakes!

Enjoy!

Frustrated.

Rant to follow.

Beware.

GGGAAAAHHHH!

I've put two chapters on AW for review. There is always crap I've got to fix. Yeah, I know. That's how it works. But every time I fix something and repost, there's not much change. I thought I got rid of all the tell and focused on the show, but there is painful info dumps.

Crap. It was hard to read to the kids tonight. All I saw in Chapter 29 was crap but they loved it. What the hell do they know, right? They're just kids. Everyone who's read it and liked it? Morons. Because only morons would like this tripe.

Can I say "tripe"? Has it been invented yet?

Aprilynne said I could just write stories for my family and friends, but to sell it I have to make changes.

I'm really trying to. But after a month of straight reading (twice) and fixing, I'm losing steam.

Maybe all these changes are worthless? Who the Hell are these people? But 25 rejections says somethings wrong.

I'm just so tired. Will I EVER get published?

Oh wait, I shouldn't capitalise too many words. I shouldn't use too many exclamation points either.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There. Still want to read this?
Actually, no one's reading this stupid blog so who cares?

Too much telling, info dumps, words that don't belong in that period. What the heck was I thinking?

AAAHH! Zombies are real! Zombie Orville Redenbacher is going to use our brains for popcorn!

Trimble in fear!

Wrote a new couple of scenes...

As I got to the halfway point in the novel, tightening the POV and showing more, I finally reached the changes I recently did with Annabelle.
At the beginning of Chapter 20 (the Hawke chapter) I wrote two new scenes where we experience Annabelle's awkward advancement from a 10 year old body to a 14 year old body. Then I wrote a couple of telling paragraphs on Roland's age advancement.

Well, once I reached that chapter in my personal read through, I discovered just how much it suffers from the telling of Roland's advancement.
So last night I broke the whole age change scenes into their own chapter. A new chapter 20 where I show Ann's change, the consequences and Roland's change, with some brief consequences. Roland has to be brief (all show, no tell, don't worry) because one of my rules is it's a birthday event and so that means it leads right into the Hawke chapter.
It worked out great because the chapter ends with Roland getting shot by Hawke. Cliffhanger!
I can't wait to read it to the kids in a couple of days.

"Justice" was fun!

I enjoyed last night's Smallville.
This is a rare thing for me. See, while I'm a big super hero 'geek' I normally can't stand the show. I do watch it, because I want to see how this dying show limps itself into a corner.

But last night was very enjoyable for me. Yes, I know it was corny, with all the tips of the hat to the Justice League comic, but that was what made it fun for me.
Sure, hard core DC fans would argue that Cyborg should never be the same age as Clark (I said that during the Cyborg episode)but that didn't bother me this time.
I suppose I was just swept up in the entire Justice League tribute.
And Bart got the name he should have! And a costume!
Aquaman didn't do a whole lot but that's always a problem with the character.
They made Cyborg closer to his comic self. Jet Jackson did a great job with him, again.
This was a wonderful way to send off Green Arrow.
I hope we see these guys again.

Still busy

Still busy working on the Manuscript. I'm ahead of schedule. I'm finding all of the POV problems and other things that need changing and fixing them.
At night I read it out loud to the kids. I'm catching sentences that don't read as well as they should and I'm fixing them.

So that's where I've been. Sorry for the dry blog spell.
Be back soon.

Still going strong

Despite sickness, and trying to get a handle on a new project at work, I'm still editing my novel.

That's why I haven't posted much. I'll be back to regular posting once this novel is ready!

update

After some stress brought on by a friend's opinion, and then some advise from another friend (plus some other help in general) I've decided on some more changes to the manuscript.

In some ways it's frustrating to be back at the writing/editing stage, but I still feel very good about this and I have a good plan of action.

All I can do is have faith ion myself and the future.

Guess we'll see.

Back to editing...

more editing

... still editing the manuscript... having fun but busy, busy, busy!

All out Space Show battle

Wow this was cool looking! Congrads to Johan Alm for a fun bit!

writing

...busy fixing novel. Be back later...

A solution!

I know what to do!

In my world vampires CAN age! Well, up to a certain point (20 maybe), but they can age.

The beginning of the book will be child vampires (Ann 10 and Roland 12).

The middle on up they will age just a bit (Ann 14 and Roland 16).
I'm going to work it out into the book.

It's frustrating being back i the edit stage, but now that I know why it gets rejected I can do something about it!

Thrown for a loop

With all these rejections on my query, I tried another couple beta readers. A beta reader is someone who reads your novel first, to tell you where you screwed up.
She was brutally honest and I'm very grateful for that.

I'm depressed. She pointed out that while I sell it in the query as a Young Adult (12 up) story, the first few chapters read like a middle reader story. I'm not quite sure what that is but this means it's not what it advertises itself to be. Also, it later becomes that. So I can't quite focus on an audience.

Meanwhile, Ann cant ever have love because the whole love feelings between her and Tom cant work with her being a 10 year old. The visual is quite disturbing. To take the high ground, she could never have love and that is not what readers would want.

She suggested Ann be 14 instead of 10. Then I could go for the love/ infatuation and it works.

She's right, of course, but that means letting go of the little children vampires and such. She says teens wont want to read about children vamps. She says that the teens she asked turned their noses at it.

So child vampires that play or teen vampires that grow and love?

My friend Mike pointed out that I could start out as kids and allow them to age a bit. This would mean that they start out as cute vamp children and become teen vamps in love later.

Of course, this is my story and not theirs, but I've received 24 rejections. Some of those came from people who either read part or all of the story. Rachael Vater said their were a lot of editing problems I needed to work on first.

I feel good about the age idea, but would that sell?
So confused.

Chad Vader #5 is up!

Those guys are so funny over at Blame Society Productions.

My new query

I fixed my query letter! I also picked three agents to send partials to (these three automatically desire partials with queries) and prepared separate queries for them.

Now to ship them out tomorrow.


For those of you who might be interested, here is my new, improved query letter. I renamed the file to become this one. Never destroy an original! You never know when you might need it again!

---

Attn. XXXX:
Annabelle loves life. Her brother, Roland, loves adventure. What happens when you take two happy, optimistic children, and turn them into vampires? An evil vampire destroys their family and leaves the children to die. His estranged, gentle wife rescues the children the only way she knows how, by making them into what she is and teaching them how to become children of the night instead of night monsters. The children discover how to turn into bats and learn to control their cravings while facing a ruthless vampire hunter, witches, werewolves and finally the evil master vampire that killed their parents.

ANNABELLE & ROLAND, THE NIGHT CHILDREN is an 89,000-word young adult fantasy novel. It begins the ongoing adventures of these two children as they are thrust into the strange, hidden world of vampires, werewolves and other mysteries in the last years of the 1600’s. This book covers their first seven years of discovery as they learn to be vampires. It is a self-contained story that has the potential for more adventures afterward.

For eight years, I have honed my skills by writing various short stories for some of my friends and close associates. While this is my first try at professional writing, I feel extremely confident about this novel.

Thank you for this opportunity. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Sleepy

Man I'm tired. I dragged myself out of bed this morn, did all my pre-work stuff (shower, walk dogs, etc) and drove to the van stop. It was all I could do to stay awake.
At work it was hard to get through without nodding off.

Maybe it was those stupid cats, fighting all night? We so need to fix energetic, crazy Monster so he wont pic fights with tired, lazy Rascal.

Christmas '06 Pic is UPDATED!

Christmas '06 Pic from my Caption the Pic site has been updated with captions.

Page 28 of my Caption site


WATCH THIS SPACE! Tonight I'll be putting up a new caption on the regular sites.

Updated Query

Well, I've taken the wonderful advice to heart and altered the query. I've also fixed the hook and removed the mention of 13 books in the series.

I've got it up on Absolute Write for review. I'm going to send three queries out this weekend with the new query/hook. Wish me luck!

I'm on the crapometer!

Well, it’s on there and it made it ok. I mean, she didn’t say "It sucks!" or anything.

Here it is…



HH Com 490


Vampire children, excited to learn what they can do, while at the same time scared at the new world of danger all around them. Annabelle loves life. Her brother, Roland, loves adventure. What happens when you take two happy, optimistic children, and turn them into vampires? This question is answered in this 89,000-word young adult fantasy novel when an evil vampire destroys their family and his gentle wife rescues the children the only way she knows how, by making them into what she is and teaching them how to become children of the night instead of night monsters.

ANNABELLE & ROLAND, THE NIGHT CHILDREN, begins the ongoing adventures of these two children as they are thrust into the strange, hidden world of vampires, werewolves and other mysteries in the last years of the 1600’s. This first book covers their first seven years of discovery as they learn to be vampires. The children discover how to turn into bats and learn to control their cravings while facing a ruthless vampire hunter, witches, werewolves and finally the evil master vampire that killed their parents. This is book one of a thirteen book series. The following twelve books will chronicle their many adventures, covering three hundred years of world history from the perspective of these vampire children.

And her comments…



Ditch everything in red (green for my blog).
Focus on ONE book. You'll make my blood run cold to hear it's a 12 book series this early in the game.

Tell us this story. Use the Hook Me Up starting point for your mis en place.

…

Hmm. Not bad. I was afraid of far worse. I could easily ditch the stuff in red, but then there would be no word count, no title, how would potential agents know that info? I heard you have to include it in the query.

Also, I heard that you should let the agent know up front that it’s a series. Should I keep mum about that until later? I could. That’s no big deal.



What did she mean by "Use the Hook Me Up starting point for your mis en place"?



Thoughts guys?

Post Christmas

I had a good Christmas. The kids got us up around 6 am. Everyone was happy about their presents. There were a few things that didn't fit but it all worked itself out.
All in all we rested a lot and had a good time.

I'm sick today. My stomach has been threatening me all day. I'll just keep plugging along. Work can't stop for sickness. I wish it could, but it cant.

Christmas Eve night

It's so peaceful. A part of me wants to stand out in the cold, feeling the spirit of the season as the snow sparkles, the stars twinkle and a quiet feeling of love and peace fills the air.

My sweeties are in bed. Some truly are asleep, others are trying hard. ;)
Neen and I are roughly half way done with preparations for tomorrow's Christmas dinner and stuff.

I love this part of life. I love this whole thing. I hope when the kids are moved away, before the grandchildren are born, that this spirit will continue to fill me.
I'm pretty sure I will. ;)

Mysterious lurkers, friends and whomever else, may you have the best in holidays.

The Greatest Action Story Ever Told, Mad TV

I remember seeing this back when it first aired. I couldn't help but laugh. The last line is the best.

What a send off! Doctor Who Spoilers

WOW!

Very good send off for Rose!
My friends, Ian and Willard, did such a great job keeping it secret. When Mickey stayed in that alternate universe and there was a Rose dad who had lost his Jackie, it was a perfect set up, but my friends told me that was it for Mickey. Or they led me to believe that was it.

It was a perfect full circle. They set up Jackie's loneliness and her love for her husband since the very beginning and resolved it as she says "What have I done for my life." Now she and her lost husband are together.

I liked Rose but to be honest, there have been times when I wanted to shout at the screen "Look at Micky! He's trying! You're so head over heals on the Doctor you can't see that you're ignoring where you need to be!" She didn't have Lana-winer-itis but she was central minded. She needed the heart break. Only through heart break can we move onto the next, greater part of our life.

That black actress who became the first Cybermen victim did a nice enough job to empress the creators to sign her on as the new companion. Should be interesting to see how that works out. I know the runaway bride at the end wasn't the new companion. Ian and Kirk gave that away. That's OK though.

I loved how the Doctor imitated Bill Murray in Ghost Busters. He even got the voice slur that Murray does as Doctor Peter Vicman (I know, the spelling is off and I could go to IMDB and fix it, but I'm short on time right now).

I realized fairly early that the ghosts were coming from an alternate universe. I've seen too many alternate universe stories (and I love them all) to not pass up the signs. Once I realized that and the Doctor started to talk in ways that tipped it off, I started thinking of how stiff the "ghosts" were and then it was just another step to realize they were Cybermen and that Micky was coming back. I took Willard's advice and stayed far away from Sci Fi Channel because they were giving it all away in their previews. I managed to stay spoiler free! When the Doctor was describing the sphere I was certain it was the Beast/Satan/Devil inside. The Dylacs took me by surprise. I HAD to call back Willard and share my excitement.
It was fun watching the robots argue and insult each other. I LOVED IT! And then they tossed their catch phrases at each other. "Exterminate!" "Delete!" It made me wish Star Wars Episode 1 droids and Star Trek Borg were there to add "Roger, Roger" "You will be assimilated" to the chorus of robotic villains.

Ahhh. A fine meal. That's what that two-parter was. My only regret is that I have to wait till next year to see the season (3) that is just beginning in good ol' Londontown.

I wrote a New Parodyverse Story!

Christmas Special ‘06

Come check out the adventures of the Son of Santa!

Excited

Wow, here I sit at the beginning of Friday afternoon.

Tonight we're going to see a movie and that's always fun. This one is Night at the Museum. I've been waiting to see that one. It's looks filled with all the things I like in a movie; comedy and special effects! And as if that wasn't good enough, the premier for Fantastic Four II airs before the movie!

Then tomorrow will be a nice Saturday where well catch up on cleaning, baking and wrapping (and if I'm lucky, buying Marvel Legends!).

Then we have Christmas Eve, where we'll go light looking and family stuff, and finish Christmas dinner preparations.

THEN CHRISTMAS! I don't think I need to say more about that!

Then another day off with nothing to do except maybe write. ;)

So I'm VERY excited right now!

First pic of ther Silver Surfer!

Click me!

I can't wait!

And we're going to Night at the Museum tonight so I'll get to see the preview!

Full

Whew. I'm tired today. We had a pot luck lunch at work today and I ate too much.
Now that the work shift is done I'm ready for a nap!

Title to the next Harry Potter book

Well now we know.

It's called...

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I guess this is the beginning of the end for the Potterverse. Of course no one knows what the title means, but we do know that we're on the home stretch now. Soon she'll be done writing it and I'll read it and then no more new Potter.

So in some ways the news has me excited an in other ways it has me sad.

Joseph Barbera, Rest in Peace

Cartoon legend Barbera dies at 95


As a child, Hanna & Barbera were my favorite cartoons. I watched as many as I could. The best was Laugh A Lympics, at least in my opinion.

I wanted to grow up and work for them. I had these characters and I would always play my own cartoons.

Nowadays there is a channel on the Satellite. It's a spin off of Cartoon Network. It's called Boomerang and every Saturday and Sunday morning they play tons of those classic H&B cartoons. It's the only that my Davie wants to watch at that time of day.

You will be missed.

Another submission

Well, I just submitted to another agency. I'll keep at it till someone represents me. There are plenty of fish in the sea!

Oh, and 6 more days till Christmas!

Positives and negatives

Well, the negative is that I received another rejection. This time from Shadow Mountain. That's a small imprint of the local Deseret Book. It's not bad in and of itself, because I really did not want to go with that small publisher, but this means another rejection.

Doesn't ANYONE want this book?

The positive is that I got some action figures in the mail. I'm excited to see them, but it's kind of tarnished because of the continual rejections.

1 week!

1 week before Christmas!

YAAAYY!

Little better

Sorry for my depressed attitude earlier, oh faceless lurkers. See? Sometimes I can get down too.

I don't know what the future will bring. I long for someone to give me a chance. Who knows.

But this is Christmas week and there is a lot I'm looking forward to so I'm swinging back to being happy and excited.

Kinda depressed

On the blog belonging to Lit Agent Jenny Rappaport, a question was raised...



Dear Jenny,

What is more marketable these days for fantasy and science fiction - series or trilogies?

Kimberley in Alaska

"Personally, I think trilogies are more marketable in general, but only because I can do the following. Say you've written me a great book about elves. I love your book. The editor I send it to loves your book. The publishing house wants to buy your book. Everything looks rosy! Then the editor we're doing the deal with calls me up one day and says, "Jenny, we love Kim's book. Does she have more? I'm thinking we'll make it a three-book deal." At which point, I call Kim, we have a little chat about making that book about elves into a trilogy, and voila, she whips up some material for me to e-mail off to the editor. The editor loves it, the publishing house loves it, and there we go, a contract for three books. (This is an idealized picture, by the way.)

The reasons why three is often the magic number in terms of series' are many and varied. From the pure publishing perspective, NO ONE is going to offer a new author a book deal for anything more than three books. It may occasionally happen, but it's really a statistical anomaly. You're an unknown quantity, even if your book is great, and when they make you an offer, they have to put their money where their mouth is. Simply put, more than three books is too great a financial risk to take. Many new authors don't get three-book deals on their first go; most will probably be given a two-book deal, if the agent is persuasive enough, and they love your writing enough. Some will only be given a one-book deal (with an option clause, of course).

This is something that you should be aware of, if you've planned out the next Harry Potter or GRRM saga. Structurally, it's better to make your masterpiece into a trilogy or a duology, since you're not going to get the book contract for more than that. Also, be aware of the fact that if you have an eight book series planned, and your first two books sell badly, they're not going to give you a publishing contract for the next six books. I have an online writing friend whose first two books sold decently, but didn't have spectacular sales numbers behind them. Her editor decided not to pick up her option book, which is the last one in her trilogy, based on the sales numbers. So it's not going to get published--at least not for the forseeable future. That sucks, and really, you'd like to avoid that happening. And trust me, it happens all the time."




Ouch. I've got a thirteen book series in my head and I just queried her. I responded with this...



Thank you for this information Jenny.

It’s kind of scary for me because my over all story arch is a thirteen book saga.
It shows three hundred years of world history through the eyes of vampire children so it would be hard to cram that all in to three books.
I suppose I shouldn't’t concern myself though. The first one is a stand-alone story and all the others are planned to be. All thirteen would hook together into a bigger story but each one would have it’s own proper conclusion.
I’ll just keep hoping I get the first one published. If people like it, then each book will have to stand on it’s own.





OK, some guy replied to me...



annabelle's scribe:

A single title is a one night stand. A series is like a marriage: the publisher has to know you can deliver on time, on spec, no b.s., no excuses. Do you have proof that you can do 13 books? More to the point, can you do 13 books?

A trilogy can be just one long book -- like LOTR. But if you extend out beyond that you start running into the structural differences that define a series. Series have their own issues -- back story that starts accumulating like barnacles, the fact that characters can't have much of an arc, the out-of-control proliferation of characters and subplots (see George R.R. Martin).

Series come naturally to some people, but it's easy to see why publishers are dubious.



Double ouch. I know he has a point. I believe I can do 13 books, but how will I ever prove that?
Maybe I shouldn't have joined Miss Snark's Crapometer. After this, and another rejection I got in the mail yesterday, how will I take it when she obviously is going to tear me up?

I'm fooling myself.

Miss Snark's Crapometer

Well I did it. I emailed 215 words of my query letter to Miss Snark. See, she's having this "Crapometer" contest. If she likes your hook, she'll request pages. Even if she doesn't want pages, she'll still post the hook on her blog with a critique as to where I can improve it.
She could rip it to shreds, so I need to toughen up and prepare for the worst.

Had to try though.


Here's the link.

Wish me luck!

Oh Rose Tyler, you had to go and say it. Doctor Who spoilers

You had to say that the bad guys will never break you two apart. Didn't you? Well, I'm told in two episodes she's gone.
Sigh. End of an era.
But this show rocks and change only helps it so I'm looking forward to it.

"Fear Her" was a nice episode. A lot of great pathos. Excellent concept. I was worried about what the dad would look like. Glad he wasn't deformed or something.
The Doctor and Rose have reached a common spot in their lives. I can see why it's changing. Things always need to be mixed up.

Last week's episode was cute. "Love and Monsters" was a great look at an everyman in the background of the strange and unusual. I don't understand, however, why the Doctor just didn't take Elton's gal to the future and get some skin samples from her cheek, then get her cloned a new body. At any rate, Moaning Myrtle did a fabulous job and it was a blast seeing her there.

So two more episodes and the season is over. :(
Man it's hard, waiting for my Doctor fix!

Scan day, nice emails and normal stuff

Nothing to report today. It was scan day so I was on my feet all day. I'm currently updating my files a bit.

Just normal stuff.
Time to spend time with the wife.

Bye for now.

I actually wrote a Parodyverse story!

SHOCK!

I've got some more ideas for the board so I'll write them as well. I need to get some more novel work done, then it's back to the PV.


Pretty Bird : AG’s CrazySugarFreakWedding! Story

Go ahead! Click and read! You know you want to.

RIP Peter Boyle

'Raymond' Star Peter Boyle Dead at 71

He will always be my Frankenstien's Monster.

Rest in peace to a very good actor and a great man.

..................

Probation

Yesterday I was put on work probation for too many absences.
I have missed nine times in the last year.
Why? Because there was nine different situations (including last week's three days helping my wife who was in the hospital and then home after surgery.
They tell me that I cant miss for my family, for sickness or for anything for a period of twelve months.

Yesterday I was upset about this. I'm not now.
I feel that everything will be fine. I wont even be there during the whole twelve months.

*COUGH*

I'm sick. Step back a bit. Got a cold. I'm still going to work though (no more time off).

*COUGH*
Ooops. Sorry. You should wash that.

Hail Hydra!

No, this post is not about the Marvel spy organization. I was never a fan of them.
Their slogan, however, applies a little bit to me today.

"HAIL HYDRA! Cut off one head and two more shall take its place!"
Blah blah blah. Captain America beats them up every time. Wimps.

Anyway, I received a rejection Saturday. This one left me flat footed. I should have known not to expect much, even if the agent sounded excited and wanted the whole thing quickly.

Today, despite my recent rejections, I sent out two more electronic ones, one snail mail one and set up eight more snail mail ones for Friday (pay day). Cut off two heads and eleven take their place.

I'll find that agent. She/he is somewhere out there.
Now please don't start singing "Somewhere Out There". OK?

Dang. It's stuck in my head.

Chad Vader

Ever heard of Chad Vader? They are made from Blame Society Films and they are hilariuos! You can find them at Youtube.

Part 1




Part 2




Part 3



Part 4



Still waiting on part 5.

These guys are great.

Expensive Rejection

About a month ago an agent requested the entire novel before the coming weekend. She was very excited.
We spent $100 to get the whole thing (450 pages) over nighted across the country so she could have what others called a "weekend read".

A month later I just got the form letter rejection.
Why did she want it so quickly, costing me money I did not have, to just reject it like everyone else?

This isn't the first rejection and I'm sure it won't be the last. I'm feeling depressed today.
So many people get to create and share their creations with the world. Why am I blocked from doing the same?
I'm feeling a lot of self doubt today.

Just the other day I got a rejection where a different agent took her time and wrote me a note of encouragement. It still means a lot. I just feel very deflated from this other one.
Am I going to be a sub-par drafter with false aspirations of grandeur all my life?
What if everyone rejects it? What if I'm no good?

Weird Al - Behind the Scenes of "White and Nerdy"

I really like Weird Al's White And Nerdy video.

Here is a behind the Scenes look from You Tube...



My favorite parts of the original video would be Donny Osmand and Seth Green. Donny is in this making video.


Here is the actual video, in case you haven't seen it or want to see it again.





As you can see, I discovered how to link Youtube videos!

Plastic Patronus

Harry Potter figures at Action-Figure.com?

Hmm. Tempting.

Peanuts, Marvel Style!

Here is a great site where the artist mixes Marvel characters with Peanuts.

They're so cute!


Peanuts Meets Marvel @ StatueForum

Check it out!

Art by jdh.goodgrief

Home

It's nice to be home, taking care of my honey. I'm glad to be in control of the situation instead of at work.
She's sleeping and that's how it should be.

I've got a lot to do on the computer. There are lots of new PV stories to read, I need to update CTP and I'd like to write some of my WIP today.

Now lets see what I can get to.

Good Day Part 1: Sweetie's Return

My sweetheart is home!

She has a cyst on one of her ovaries. It ruptured and that's why the pain.
I was able to get today and tomorrow off. I wont be on probation. Company policy says I'll get written up, but no probation.
So I was able to be with her all day and help her.
WHEW! What a good feeling, being there for her!
She came home today and now she's sleeping in her own bed.

Thank you Lord!

I'm SO relieved.

See? I told you this blog would get a better outlook this week.

Good Day Part 2: Agent's positive rejection

I received a return in the mail today. I sent several partials to many agents and some are just getting back to me.

See, agents are swamped with emails and snail mailed partials. They have full manuscripts to read, authors to help get published and all sorts of other things.

If you're trying to get published or you're just writing your book now, you're familiar with literary agents and you've probably seen their blogs.

One such agent is very famous for her blog. She's a big name and everyone who's trying to get published or are published know her.

She was the one who sent back my partial with the standard form letter. No biggie. She's not the right one for Annabelle, apparently.

But here's the thing. She's very busy, but she found the time to hand write on my query that she really liked the whole idea. She has good reasons why she cant represent it right now, but she told me to please keep submitting to agents.

She likes it! A big name in agents, whom all of you out there whom are agent blogging know, likes it! She took the time to give a personal, positive message!

It's coming. I'm telling you right now, it's coming. My friends and all you mysterious lurkers, you need to understand, Annabelle WILL be published. You're going to know her.
I've know since day one that she is supposed to be out there, in book stores, schools, libraries. Annabelle and her brother Roland grab everyone who reads. Not all readers may like vampires, but everyone can't stop reading. They get sucked into Ann's world, follow her for 450 pages and then want more. As the author, the ideas flow at an incredible rate.
Ann will overcome all opposition and she WILL be out there. She has a goal. When Harry retires, she will step in. Watch it. Expect it.

Half my heart, half my soul

Do you know what it’s like?
I drift through life, unknowing. You’re there beside me like always. A comforting companion in life’s journey. I continue on, assuming the longevity.

Then I’m here. Trapped. I stare through these bars, reaching for your hand. Where is my companion? Where is she who has always been there?

But my hands grasp at that cursed empty air. My heart pulls away, bit by bit. It’s reaching across the miles for you. Where is my heart? Where is my mind? Where is my soul?

Half of everything I dream. Half of everything I think. Half of everything I laugh about. Half of everything I long for. Half of my heart. Half of my soul.

That’s what you are. After fifteen years of marriage, two years of dating, total seventeen years of life, I am defined by you. I can’t exist in this dark world without you. I can’t perform the simplest functions if half of my everything is missing.

I’m incomplete. I sit here at this temporary, foolish, small little existence. I sit here at work, but my soul reaches outward. I sit as if I’m behind iron bars. I DO NOT BELONG HERE! My soul is elsewhere. My soul is beside you. Guarding you. Protecting you. Why am I here? If my essence is with you in that hospital room, what is left here in this ‘cell’?

I know this stupid remaining hour of ‘prison’ will soon be lifted. Then I shall fly to your side. If I could pull this sickness out, wrestle with it and throw it far from you, I would. If I could open my chest and command the infection to jump into my body and free you, I WOULD!

You suffer too much. You deserve better. You don’t belong in that hospital. You belong with me. I might be selfish to think so because without you I am scraps of a man, but then again I cant have you suffering. It’s my job to block those monsters.

I love you. Three words but truthfulness is in each one. A defining statement that tries to best explain my heart. How else can I exclaim that you are my reason?

I love you, my half of heart. I love you my support. I love you my companion in all things. I love you my soul.

I love you.

Wife in hospital

My wife woke up in even more pain. She threw up and needed to go to the hospital. Since I've missed 7 days in the last 7 months, if I miss I'd be on probation.
So I drove down, woke her parents and begged them to help. They did. Her dad took her to the hospital while her mom will watch the kids.

The kids might miss school, again because my wife will be stressed that one one will be there to pick them up.

So now I go off to a stupid job where I DON'T want to be, working on things I DON'T want to work on, while she suffers what looks like an appendicitis.

I belong with her! It's not fair! What will I do tomorrow, when she's home and needs me?

My work wont tolerate it. Some of my bills are over due.

She needs me and I can't be there for her. DAMMIT!

sigh

Got in another argument with my eldest. I asked her if she had picked up her dirty clothes and she told me she had. When I entered the bathroom hours later, there they were on the floor. She didn't do it AND she lied about it. After I confronted her about it she screamed and fussed about my yelling and not listening. In other words, she tried to change the problem to me instead of owning up to her responsibilities and shortcomings.

Sigh.

All this and I'm dreading work tomorrow too. Today's absence marks number 7. The next one means probation. I'm so tired of the lecture. Why cant these employers understand that some people have families who need extra help?

Sooo, sorry guys. My mood isn't the best tonight. Maybe tomorrow it will improve.

At least I hope it will.

Home today

Well, here I am. I just drove the kids to school and now I find myself trolling message boards. I need to open up my WIP and do some writing.

I'm home because my sweetie has been sick for awhile now. She threw up and her stomach has been hurting her. I scheduled an appointment to take her to the doctor later this morn.

For the moment I've got some times on my hands.

Hmm. Write or browse the net?

UPDATE: The doc said stomach flu.

The class like it!

My teacher freind, Jeff, is reading my novel to his 6th grade class. I was scheduled to talk to the class this Friday, but he's still got a ways to read (it is 450 pgs after all). We've set my appearance back to January. That's cool with me becuase I want them to read a lot of it before I show up.

Anyway, I called him yesterday to check in and find out what the kids feelings and reactions were to the story.

They love it! The boys cheered "cool" during the part where the parents died (lol) and when vampire children found out they could turn to wolves.
The kids are asking for it and want to get to the next parts.

I was at the store on the cell when he told me the kids reactions. I did a dance right there!

"She's" doing it! She's getting more people to like her.

Oh agent! Where ARE you?

Tired

I'm beat. I get this way every Monday. It's hard to focus on work and my body calls out that it wants to go back to bed.

Sigh.

Well, just a bit longer and work will be done for the day.

Full Moon

Oh glorious orb of light. Oh great glowing champion of the night.
I walk my dogs in the crisp night air, looking upward at that beauty. It draws my attention like the porch light draws the moth.
I can't get enough. As my glasses fog and the chill rubs my cheeks, I find my eyes focusing on the glorious orb.
I see the marks of it, across it's surface like some strange map. I roam is shape, bask in it glow and stand transfixed by it's wondrous power.
Oh great moon, bringer of light in the darkness, I feel your pull.
I could watch you all night.
I could sit under your light and create a story that would otherwise remain trapped in my mind, unborn.
Roam moon. Roam the sky above and inspire!

More clips on Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix

ABC Family turned up some more great clips of the next Harry Potter movie.

Follow the links to Mugglenet.com and you should find each one if you scroll down just a fraction.
Take a look! If the sound cuts out, refresh your screen.

Mugglenet's page where each preview is listed. They are under the text "Most revealing look at OOTP so far!"


Or you can click links to the separate videos below.

Behind the Story
Harry
Hermione
Ron
Umbridge
Bellatrix
Luna
David Yates
Dumbledore's Army
The Order
The Kiss
Sirius Black
Wands

I'm still very excited about this film. I'm halfway through reading the book and there are more things and characters that seem to be missing. That disturbs me.
Well, we'll have to see.

UPDATE: I just updated the links. They should work. Click them and you'll go to each page on Mugglenet where you can find the videos. I would post them here, but I do not know the code for that.

Looking at these again, I'm excited... again. :)

Scroogeistic Pessimism sucks!

So there I was, trolling through the Absolute Write web site when I found a thread about Santa Clause. Apparently this guy doesn't believe and asks people why they keep teaching about Santa.

Well, I'm not going to go into that right now, but reading so many pessimistic people's opinions on that thread just made me mad. I know, I know, they have a right to cram their depressed opinions down our throats. So this morn I was checking out Raving Toy Maniac's site and there are people dissing the movie Polar Express.
When I watch it, the movie fills me with a great uplifting feeling.

Am I gullible? Am I stupid and my simple brain filled with too much glitter? Maybe I should stumble around, mumbling about every little thing, casting good messages of hope and love for my fellow man away? Maybe I should just ignore any positive uplifting stories and ideas and instead embrace apathy or a pessimistic attitude?

So if being positive and optimistic is foolish, and being negative is logical and correct, then where do all the dreams go? Where does the creativity go? If you can no longer hope, why try? If you don't try, nothing wonderful will be created.

Why is it so popular to think in a pessimistic way? Do these sad, lonely, depressed, self loathing people even know the definition?

pessimism
pes·si·mism [ péssə mìzzəm ]
noun
Definition:
1. tendency to expect worst: a tendency to see only the negative or worst aspects of all things and to expect only bad or unpleasant things to happen.

There is more than one side to everything. You can't focus on just the negative on concepts like Christmas (commercialism, crowded stores, etc). There is good too (helping others, child like faith in people, putting differences aside and sharing a loving feeling).
There are good things in movies, art, school, work, LIFE! You have to see the good side too, even if all your peers think it's cooler to grouch about everything.

OK, rant is done.

Fantasticar!

And speaking of geeking out, we finally can see the new Fantasticar!

What is a Fantasticar you may ask?

It's only the Batmobile to the Fantastic Four!

The new movie comes out June 15th of next year. Between Spidey 3 and Harry Potter 5.


USA Today; First look: Fantasticar flows onto film

So the FF get thier main ride in the film. I can't wait to see this movie. I liked everything in the first film except Dr. Doom.

Geek Week #5!

Geek Week is a video put up by fans of comics, figures, games and shows. They're a lot like me. Or I'm a lot like them?

A couple of them post at RTM (Raving Toy Maniac) too.

Anyway, last Spring was the Comic Con International. That's where all the cool new figures for the coming year are displayed.

This Geek Week took place back then and the guys just barely updated.

Here is their You Tube broadcast.


And here is their site.

ARRRRRGH!

All day I tried to get on here and edit. All day I could not. Here at home I wanted to edit. Here at home the net did not work.

GAAAAHHHH!

Had to get it out of my system.

That is all.

NEW LAYOUT!

As you can see, I just updated my blog layout. What do you think?

Any thing a problem?

Is it hard to read?

animal cruelty vs animal friendship

Y'know, I'm sitting here on the web doing my thing and one of my cats is just lying here beside me, as calm as can be.

Back in the day (yes, I'm an old foggy, I say "Back in the day". Sheesh) I used to tease my pets like crazy. Nothing hurtful. Just putting tape on their feet, shoelaces just past their whiskers, that sort of thing.
I had my fun.
But the animals always looked at me with apprehension.

Today, I never tease these creatures. I play, I pet, I treat and I walk, but I never tease. Now these animals look at me with trust and love.

It's a good feeling.

email fun

There is something to be said for passing back fun email banter between writer friends. I just had a blast doing that. A writer friend of mine had her characters meet my characters. It was so fun!

I also was able to come up with ideas on where certain characters are "now". This will help me to project them there when the time comes.

I sure love letting the characters on my novels come out and play.

architect

The guy on the van share ride always calls me "architect". I'm not one, but I am working on architectural plans lately.

So maybe he's closer to the truth then he knows. :)

nothing new

I really have nothing special or new to type. It was a quick four day weekend. We kept the house clean, had a good Thanksgiving and talked to family.

I didn't get any writing done but I'll just try harder through out the week.

All in all, a plain ol' weekend.

Nothing new but maybe later this week. Watch this space.

(Can this blog BE any more boring?)

I hunger!

The smell of that turkey, covered in my wife's stuffing, is too much to handle.
I awoke to crave that wonderful scent, much like a young, sweet vampire child craves her first drop.

Come to me turkey! Come to me!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I'm very thankful to the Lord for ALL His blessings. He's given my so much!

I'm grateful for my wife, who is both long suffering and supportive. ;)

I'm grateful for my children. I'm so glad they're healthy and sane (even if I'm not sane).

I'm grateful for the ability to write. I'm grateful that I had help from above to finish this novel, get it beta tested from the right people and then edited, and finally to have the burning desire to bang on agents' doors with it. I'm grateful that I know the "end of the story" even if I don't yet know how I get from here to there. LOL

Anyway, I'm so grateful for my life and all the things in it. I hope that my Friends and the mysterious lurkers out there each have a good Thanksgiving Day, even if it's not Thanksgiving where you are!

Some words

314 words.
Not a lot, huh?
That's all I've been able to add to my WIP today, but HEY! It's progress!
Hopefully I'll get more down this weekend.

I did come to a realization about my famous pirate cameo. The reason it doesnt feel right is becuase it belongs in book three! I'm pretty happy about that.

Harry Potter, the Order of the Phoenix behind the scenes!!!!

OH MY FLIPPIN COW! I... they had... they're going to use...

*starts to cry*

It's so beautiful! It's the book! They're doing all the great things that are in book 5. It's going to be so perfect.


It's the HBO behind the scenes look at the 5th film. So beautiful.

*Sniff!*

I'm getting perklempt.

Talk amongst yourselves. In the film When Harry Met Sally, how come Harry didn't have a scar? Discuss.

My figure want list

As I've said before, I have a weakness for action figures. Particularly, figures of DC Comics' Justice League and Justice Society, Marvel Comics' Avengers and Fantastic Four and assorted heroes and villains from both companies.

When I get a better sculpt or better articulated version, I pass my earlier ones to the kids. DC Direct's new Powergirl figure will be arriving this week. I wont get her till Christmas and that suits me just fine. When I get her, my old one goes to my daughter "K".

This is a picture of the figures I still have to get. Some are out now, some come out soon and some wont be out until next year.

What's up with me

My friend Jay posted a question, asking all of us at the Parodyverse site to tell about how our lives are going. I replied and now I figure it would be great bog material so here it is...


Lets see,
Well, things are in a holding pattern, pretty much. I feel very strongly like this novel will hit, but until either this New York agent from PMA finishes it and wants me, or some other agent wants me, I have to carry on and try to focus on other things. That particular agent was very interested in the concept of the book. She wanted the entire thing by the weekend of the 4th. She got it and she’s reading. Agents take a while so it’s a painful wait.

I was called into my bosses’ office Friday afternoon. I got the same lecture I’ve gotten at other jobs. I’m apparently “not bringing enough to the table” in regards to my skills and knowledge. I can see where that’s true, but I also find that my brain seems to have a hard time focusing on work.

It’s not the novel or anything like that. After a few months of drafting, I just seem to have a hard time thinking things out clearly. So I need to redouble my efforts and try to focus. Try to access my memories of working this stuff for over ten years. It’s hard because in some ways Friday’s meeting hurt. It wasn’t like the painful abuse I had at Stantec, but it still hurt. I’ve lost any positive feelings for this place. I can’t go looking right now either because no one hires during the holidays and I am not allotted the time to miss.

Family is good. We’ve still got a lot of cleaning to do before Thursday. We’re going to have a lot of family over for Thanksgiving, so we need to make sure the house is ready for that. Friday in our cleaning, I ran across those cards I promised you Jay. I’ll try to get them n the mail soon.

That’s about it. I’m in a Harry Potter mood because I just saw the preview for the next movie and I’m currently reading that book so that I remember everything that’s supposed to be in the movie. I’ll move onto book 6 next because book 7 comes out next year too.

I’ve slowed down my participation at Absolute Write because if I have time to go there, I should be working on my WIP. A WIP is the Work In Progress. So that’s book two. I want to jump back in and write like a crazy man, but this work bump kind of shook me up. I need to get back at the novel.

As for TV, I’m excited for more ‘Heroes’ and ‘Dr Who’, waiting on more ‘Stargate SG1’, ‘Ghosthunters’ and ‘Eureka’, and trolling through ‘Smallville’ just to see how that disappointing mess eventually ends.

That’s everything on this end.

Kinda Busy Weekend

The weekend started out at light speed. The wife and I marshaled the kids to help us clean two rooms in preparation for Thanksgiving. We cleaned and organized the heck out of it and for the most part have kept it that way.

We also set up Christmas. I sure love the lights and decorations. It's nice that we're all set up for that season, instead of having to do it later.

We have three more rooms to clean. We'll get to them in the evenings and my sweetie will be catching them during the day as well.

Finished off the weekend with our niece's birthday party which consisted of the usual fare followed by going to Happy Feet.
The movie was OK. It was cute and got me feeling the groove. The animation was of course incredible. I think they used real people footage instead of animating the people. Our nephew Steven thinks the humans were animated too. I could research, but it's not important.

Saw my preview. What preview? THE preview. Harry Potter 5! It was great! I recognized some scenes from the book. It's great to finally have this movie coming out. There is SO MUCH they HAVE to do to make the overall series make sense. I hope they have time to do it all.

Saw Steven (our nephew) tonight. It's always fun to see him. I was hoping he was going to come out for Thanksgiving but it looks like their visit will be horribly short.

Well, the weekend is done and I need to settle down for bed. Tomorrow it's back to work. The job has lost any flavor it had because of that stupid meeting/lecture on Friday. I'm not looking forward to it.
One day I will be working here, at my home, letting the story flow like water and producing entertainment for people. It's going to happen, but for now it's back to "Can't-measure-up" Land.

At least it's not like the last firm I worked for. THAT was Hell.
Sorry. "Heck"

I should be depressed this weekend.

Well it was bound to happen. After my first seven months my boss had me in his office for a closed door meeting. I'm apparently not giving as much as my résumé says I can. I need to try harder and put more effort into it.

I know I've been greatly distracted. I know I could work harder. I will, of course.
But this has happened before. Maybe I'm not confident as a drafter. Yeah, I suppose that's it. I'm very confident as a writer, but when it comes to the day to day grind "be a grown up and don’t screw up. Ask if you have questions, but don't ask because you should be able to do it now", well I never quite measure up.

I'm so sick of this crap.

Alright, so this brings us to the title of this entry.
I should be upset and depressed, but I'm not. When those feelings of doubt and frustration, fear of the future and the deep questions about my own self worth, when those feeling start to rear their ugly heads, a calm feeling comes over me. A feeling that tells me that this is all a temporary situation. Wait for something very big and positive that's around the corner.

So I will work and schedule my time better. I'll get more done and try to think through my day job to improve. All the while I'll listen to that little voice that has been right so many times in my life and has never been wrong.

Instead of despair, I feel confidence. That's not normal for me but I know enough to trust this external prompting of hope and forge on.

*Hides under blanket* Doctor Who Spoilers

Wow! THAT was a great episode! For all intents and purposes, it looks like those guys woke up Satan. Once again, the show has me reeling. I sooo can't wait till next Friday!

He Who Shall Not Be Named

YES!

My fav Harry Potter site, Mugglenet , has revealed the first movie poster for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

It looks great!
Voldemort!

I CAN'T WAIT!

Slow of speech

Yesterday I typed a little thing that offended a very important person in my life. That shook up things and so, in trying to make things better for that important person, I wrote an email to a freind. Then, after I apolojized to the important person we were able to talk. Then I sent another email to the freind, apolojizing for how he first email might have sounded.
Turned out my freind never recieved that first email and was hurt from my second.

I screwed up, again!

In the Bible, Moses (I think it was him) called himself "slow of speach". I see that as he goofed when he spoke. How many out there do the same? Come on hidden lurkers, I KNOW you do! Yeah, you in the back, on the right! You've said or written things one way but didnt mean it in the way it was taken.
We all have.

Anyway, I messed up bad. I've apolojized again for my screw ups. All I can do is carry on and do everything I can to not make those same mistakes.

Sigh.
Life.