Ranty Time
//start rant//
How many people do you know who’ve said at some point “I’m going to write a book someday,” like they’re qualified to do so because they can almost, sometimes, spell difficult words like “the” and “and?”
You know a lot of those people. Because they’re everywhere. And a whole great horde of them actually compile those books. I’d say write, but that hurts my soul.
And you know what? It irks me. Because that’s my job. I take it seriously. I’ve worked hard at it, studied it, practiced it, failed horribly at at and discovered new things about it. I don’t pretend that it’s easy to do well.
But, apparently, because everyone learns how to “write” in school, anyone can do it, right?
Right?
So here’s what I’m thinking. I can cut a steak with a knife. That means I could totally be a surgeon, right? How different can it be? I’ve peeled the skin off a chicken breast. And I can count–mostly, but hey, that’s what calculators are for, right?–so I’m also going to someday be a banker–maybe on Wall Street! I’ve seen Fox News–all those guys do is buy Jaguars and make eleventy bajillion dollars a second.
Oh! My phone takes pictures. I’m totally going to be a professional photographer.
I can drive my car on the interstate, too–so I have a sterling future in NASCAR! I can learn to speak Tennesee, I’m sure, so I’ll fit right in. Y’all.
I have painted the wall of my house before–so I can be an ARTIST, too! This just gets better and better.
Fuck.
Here’s all I ask: I’m a firm believer than anyone can try to do anything, so long as they’re willing to work hard, learn, and accept that they might fail. But not everyone *can* do everything. I will never be an astronaut. I’ll probably never be a pilot, and I’ll for certain never play professional sports. I don’t pretend that I will, despite the fact that I write science fiction, have flown in a plane and understand the science, and have, in the past, played Horse with a basketball.
Don’t pretend you’re good at something you’re not. I can pick dandelions out of my yard and put them in a cup and set that cup on the table, but I don’t pretend I’m a florist. Knowing the motions does not make you a professional.
//end rant//
FY 2012
So. I have resolutions and shit…
(I know–you’re saying “… and shit? Really, Jason?” And it’s okay. Because really. And. Shit.)
I have simple New Years resolutions for 2012.
- I will exercise for one hour every day (60 minutes–maybe, hopefully even, 60 all at once). Cardio, weights, whatever. 1 hours. Every day. In this way habits are formed.
- I will, in addition the already-staggering amount of work-for-hire I’m contracted for, write at least 1,000 words of original material for eventual publication. Pages of a novel; pages of an ePub project; it doesn’t matter. It will be content not intended for any of the several work-for-hire universes I currently work in.
- I will hug Nora as often as I can.
Okay, that last one? I do that anyway. But it looks all pretty, there on the list.
Dropbox of DOOOOOOOOOM! (not)
I’m going to begin by saying that when I woke up this morning there was an email from Dropbox telling me they’d updated their terms of service (TOS) again. I have not checked to see if the wording that insp
ired the Saturday-afternoon ohmigodtheskyisfalling Internet shitstorm has been modified. It won’t matter, honestly. At this point they (Dropbox) have already incensed the Web-mounted legions of the batshit insane, and stupid childish concepts like reality and intent won’t dissuade the insane from ranting and screaming and the odd crucifixion.
The short version: Dropbox updated their TOS to say, essentially, ” we own and can do whatever the fuck we want with anything you put in our servers, whether you owned it or not to start with.”
And the Intarwebs, to say the least, went fucking batshit insane. In my abnormal corner of it, I saw the writers-and-publisher side of it.
And it made me laugh.
Writers were evil-Tweeting and blog-posting about how Dropbox had betrayed them, how they were pulling their content and writing sternly-worded letters of condemnation, and how the world was out to steal their shit. Many of the small-press publishers and periodicals I follow or get updates on were saying the same thing, because they couldn’t have their content–their stories, their billing invoices, their cached secret gay donkey porn–being owned by a file cabinet.
Because that’s what Dropbox is–a file cabinet you can check from anywhere. That’s why it’s awesome. And that’s why I don’t care. Let me spell it out:
- Even assuming, for the sake of argument, that a company can unilaterally assume ownership rights of intellectual content merely by saying so in their terms of service–which is stupid, because that’d be like me saying “Okay, you can ride in my car to lunch–but that means I get to go through your wallet and purse and all the ringtones on your phone are mine now”–the only company large enough that I might worry about them actually doing anything with my stored content is Amazon.
- If I’m a writer, and suddenly Dropbox claims they own all the drafts of my short story saved on their server, what am I afraid of. Is there an executive at the Dropbox World Headquarters (which is obviously like, Trump Towers or that new huge building in Abu Dhabi, right?) sitting there with a memo thinking “You know, I’ve always wanted to write a paranormal historical slash story, about Sherlock Holmes having light-night trysts with the the ghost of Marilyn Manson–let’s just grab all those fiddly bits in our file cabinet. I’ll sort through the literally billions of files that must be there, which I’m sure are clearly named and organized so anyone can decipher my folder hierarchy, so I can just take the one I want and make it a book and a movie and have all those millions of dollars for me!”
- Seriously–what the hell is a file cabinet company going to do with your manuscript?
“But Jason,” you might be saying, “I’m not taking the chance–even if it probably won’t happen, it could happen.” Yes. It could. You could also win the lottery. Or get abducted by aliens. Or abducted by Albanians. Or hit by a car. Or fall in love. Or be struck on the head by a meteor. Develop cancer. Have sex. The odds are all pretty much in the general area of not fucking likely.
I’ve also heard this one: “But Jason,” you might be saying, “if Dropbox has claimed first-exclusive rights to my story, no editor will buy it.” Of course not–because I’m 100% certain Gordon van Gelder is going to accept your story for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction but then retract that acceptance. “Oh, I’m sorry–you stored this on Dropbox. They own it. I’ll have to send the contract and the check to them.” You’re right. That’s totally going to happen.
Relax, Internet. Take two moments, rub some neurons together, and realize what they almost certainly meant: that you’re granting them the right to distribute your uploaded materials as you dictate–publicly to public files, privately to password files, etc.–and they’re making sure you understand that allowing a professional company the right to distribute your material is probably, in some states at least, a method of publishing and they have to protect themselves against lawsuits. There aren’t two guys at the Dropbox building who have “Department of Stealing and Exploiting People’s Shit,” written on their door. They’re not secretly sending your novels out to Hollywood to get the movie rights. You won’t see the new Dropbox SF imprint publishing your novel.
Oh, and if you read this far? Go ahead and zip up the contents of your hard drive and email it to me at ha-ha-you-fell-for-it@suckitbitches.com. Because I’ve recently upgraded this blog’s TOS to say that I now own the complete life’s work of anyone who reads this post. You totally believe me, don’t you? Of course you do–this is the Internet. It must be real.
ps–if there really is a ha-ha-you-fell-for-it@suckitbitches.com, I apologize for all the large spam you’re about to get.
To Super 8 or Not Super 8
So here’s the deal: I think I’m going to see Super 8 tonight, because I need a break from copyediting and it’s getting fairly decent reviews.
The pros:
- It’s JJ Abrams.
- I’m one of those freaks who enjoys all the lens flares, because it adds to the spectacle and I like my cinema to be pretty. No, I don’t think it washes things out too much–I think it adds a level of realism or grittiness that 3D tries to add, but fails to because of the gimmick.
- It’s getting good reviews, it’s a monster movie, and at least one of the trailers is full of guns, monsters and explosions. I am male; therefore, I am drawn to that.
The cons:
- It’s produced by Spielberg. That’s not a bad thing, unless children are involved. Children and aliens? Together? I’m getting a really really bad “oh, look an updated ET where the adults don’t understand the aliens and only the innocent hope of children can save us” vibe.
- Bugger that shit for a lark.
- It’s starring kids. Which means it’s going to have a “ooh, dangerous but not really because it’d be an R-rated movie if they killed the kids, so I won’t really fear for them” feel. Also, I’m going to have to by the usual tropes of “oh, my parents don’t understand how cool/much smarter/more world-aware I am than they are.” There will be those wry “Look, Short-Round is a real person” moments that ruined Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
- I will watch it thinking “oh that’s from Goonies and that’s from ET and there’s the little kid from Schindler’s List all grown up with a testosterone problem” or something…
Obviously, there are more cons. And more profanity in the cons, but that’s just editing, not content. I expect this will be a solid, well-made, technically beautiful movie with probably better-than-average acting and those Profound Moments ™ of slow-motion and hero music. Which in many movies works for me…
But I have this nagging suspicion I’m not going to like Super 8.
Nuts.
I hate it when I have that suspicion. There are times when being a cinema-freak is a disadvantage.
Blatant Sexual Discrimination
Seriously.
I’ll clean. I’ll do laundry. Shit, I’ve been single for a good long while now. I do all that already. In fact, I do it more now than when I was in a relationship, since I like my house to be nearly-sterile.
I say I like it, but since I have an 8-yr-old, that’s just not possible. I clean a lot.
I shouldn’t post this. Gender roles get me in trouble. But you know what? Why can’t I get pissed that my roles in life seem to be opening jars and killing spiders?
You know what? I fucking hate spiders. And jars are hard.
I’m also sick to death of carrying heavy things, of mowing, of being expected to know what the fucking weird-ass sound is coming out of your car. I’m a writer, for fuck’s sake. My psychotic brain says there’s a goddamn zombie in your carburetor or else it’s the first sign of the Rapture.
Or it could be the sparkplug. Do you see grease on my fingers?
In which our hero looks inside…
… and finds his soul a seething cauldron of contradictions.
Somwhere, right now, a psychologist is reading this post and rubbing his hands together with Scrooge McDuck dollar signs in his eyes. I know it. You know it. Accept it.
Ah, shit. I had a long list of shit typed out. Never mind. I’m messed up. Doc, someday when I have excess cash we’ll sit down and hash it out. I promise.
What the…
I’m sorry–I’m a little confused. Why the fuck are we negotiating with pirates? I mean, are these the “listen, I promise after you give us our citizen back, we’ll just shoot you in the head, rather than take you to Bagram and pull your fingernails and teeth out with pliers” kind of negotiations?
I guess it’s only in the movies that we don’t negotiation with terrorists–or pirates. Because here in the real world, we fly the fucking FBI across the world to deal with four guys with rifles.
What. The Fuck!?
I mean, I like my rum and Captain Jack as much as the next guy, but some shit you just don’t tolerate. I understood when the Navy couldn’t go after pirate who hijacked, oh, Russian and Indian ships. Those countries have their own navies. But this is an American ship, with (I’m almost certain) an American citizen as captain, who is being held hostage. We have a big shiny Navy, and since a cruise missile is a bit of overkill we have these dedicated guys called SEALs, who swim really fast with sharp knives and shit.
In there honestly someone in America who would be upset if tomorrow Obama was on the news saying “Listen, they kidnapped our people. So we killed them. Now, I’m getting back to the economy.” Because the economy, that’s a complex situation that requires finesse. Piracy? Four guys with guns? That’s a simple problem, with a simple solution. It’s hardly news.
*shakes head*
If you haven’t guessed…
… I think I’m beginning my fourth or fifth mental reorganization in the last two years. I fucking hate this–I hate that I keep falling into patterns of behavior that I despise enough to want to completely reset myself.
And I hate resetting, every time I do it.
I think there was an hour or so when I was 26–maybe–when I was content.
Here’s the broad tacks:
- no more video games. At all.
- exercise. Every day.
- diet (tried it, it worked, except this time we’ll skip the binge-eating celebration, dipshit)
- write. a fucking lot. because you’re under deadline, asshat.
- play more with Nora
- stop blending in
- be more honest
- I mean it–fucktard–stop being a hypocrite
Tomorrow? Lists. Checklists. Instructions. Pictures. Goals.
a glass tinted…
I begin to wonder if people call other people assholes because they are, in fact, comparable to the rectum or because those people doing the name-calling are secretly envious because they can’t bring themselves to be honest out of fear.
Fear exists, in every day and every situation. I have been a victim of it nearly every day of my life, I’m sure. As have you. As has the person next to you. Honesty is brutal–or else it is not, in fact, honesty. Truth is, or it is not–you cannot delineate different degrees of it.
Tell the truth, whether it is hurtful or not.
Snow Day!
Today Nora and I are home, since we’re still snowed in under the foot or so of snow we got overnight yesterday. And I’m told–I refuse to check, because I like the surprise, LOL–that there’s another few inches coming. So we’ll see!
Luckily, I’ve got a not-very-small mountain of projects to get through, so I’ll be busy.
Zonka
This just in: Marissa Tomei is a goddess. Also, in sheer sex appeal, Kate Beckinsale beats pretty much everything. And yes, I’m showing my age here.
But Oh. Mah. Gawd.
Oy
I’m realizing a curious thing, and if it weren’t such a pain in the ass it’d be fascinating to watch. In fact, I suspect there’s a damn sociologist or psychologist or some -ist lurking in the bushes, taking notes and giggling gleefully. Anyway…
During and after my divorce I was pretty messed up, and I coped by adopting a number of habits that were less than healthy. One of those was overloading myself with work–keeping the mind occupied, as it were. That’s not the interesting thing. The interesting this is: now I have to wean myself off of “too much work” because I’m, not to put too fine a point on it, exhausted. And I’d kindasorta like some free time that was, you know, free. Not time spent relaxing even while some part of me tracks how far behind some project this is putting me.
*sigh*
Life must have been easier before pychoanalysis. I hate being inside my own head sometimes.
OpenOffice?
So just for kicks I’m downloading OpenOffice to play with, because I’ve been toying with the idea of taking my laptop (at least) up to Office 2007 so I don’t get too far behind the curve. The problem, of course, is that I utterly despise the new Fluent layout in Office 2007 and I’d like to avoid it (also, I think .***x files are ridiculous) but… the world moves ahead. I need to keep up.
Comments? Users, lovers, haters?
BlogSecret
Okay. Just, wow.
First, go here and read what this is. Then go a little further down the list and start reading some of them. I sat down to browse a few, because my friend Shannon (yes, Shannon of Matt and Shannon over there on the side) was doing it and it looked interesting.
Oh. My god. And I don’t even have a god.
It’s mostly women, from the context. And ladies, if I know any of you, you know where I am if you need anything. Boys, grow up and go read it. There’s a couple of you in there that just need to be put down. Ugh.
Of course, there’s the flighty nonsense secrets and the “look, women like sex just as much as men do and here’s PROOF!” secrets (again–boys, grow up.) but there’s a staggering amount of honesty (or really good fabrication) out there. And, as a professional fabricator, I tend to think it all sounds pretty real.
Wow. That was kinda cool.
Psychobabble (2)
How many times do you have to think “Damn, I wish I’d…” before you realize that it’s better to just have done it, no matter what the consequence may have been, than to spend the next howeverlong regretting it?
I should have talked to that girl. I should have seen that movie. I should have read that book. I should have bought that jacket. I should have exercised. I should have [...].
I have a lifetime’s experience with “I should have…” and trust me: a week’s experimentation has shown me that I feel remarkably better thinking either “Holy shit, that worked!” or “Well, I tried.”
Psychobabble
How often do you look inward?
I don’t mean those periodic bouts of depression and self-doubt where you stare at the bottom of the bottle or the glass and cry “Why does the world hate me!?” or anything like that. I mean, how often do you ever just sit back and think “Who am I really? What do I value? Where do I draw lines?” and then allow yourself to start honestly assessing answers to those questions?
Have you ever just made a list of what you value? What kind of people you like, what qualities in others you respect, and what those things may reflect about you? What sorts of things are important to you? How accurate is your actual manner of living to the paradigm you think it is?
For instance, I’ve recently realized that depending on who you ask I’m either an insecure introvert who’s very shy and down on himself or an arrogant extrovert who’s often an asshole. And both of those descriptions come from people whom I trust, whom I’ve known (seperately) for years. So I’ve been trying to reconcile those two. And in doing so, I’ve been forcing myself to do things like “Okay, Jason, you say [X] about yourself, but then in reality you act like [Y].”
It’s kind of creepy, crawling around inside one’s own head. I’m not sure I want to know myself this well.
Thoughts?
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