After Ragnarok (Spoilers for Thor: Ragnarok)

Hela awoke in pain.

The right side of her body was in agony, every nerve and muscle screaming in torment. She gritted her teeth and forced herself to sit up. That simple movement nearly caused her to lose consciousness, but she was Hela, and her will was strong.

She looked down, and a hiss escaped her teeth at what she saw. The half of her had been burned to the bone, and what was left of her flesh and muscle looked like cooked meat. She raised her right arm, forcing near-skeletal fingers to flex and form a closed fist. Satisfied, she called a sword and used it to prop herself up onto her feet.

She looked around for the first time, taking stock of her surroundings. The landscape was blasted and filled with a sulfurous reek. A poor showing for Asgard, she thought.

She remembered Surtur driving his blade down, the last attempt to dodge the enormous flaming sword as it bit home. Obviously less than successful, but that was of no consequence. She lived, and she was Hela, and she stood on Asgardian soil. That would be enough.

Hela closed her eyes and drew upon Asgard's power, willing herself whole again.

Her eyes flew open when nothing happened.

This was not Asgard!

She sought around herself, and now the landscape became clearer. A blasted wasteland, yes, and a very familiar one.

She was back. Back in the hell that Allfather Odin had banished her to, so many millennia ago.

She reached out instinctively, her senses questing for the weak point that she had found, that had granted her her freedom, her kingdom, her empire, everything that was rightfully hers... and found nothing.

Was she too weak? Or was that door simply gone, as if it had never been? Impossible to tell.

Hela raged. She screamed, cursing all the gods, her family most of all. She struck the ground, splintered sword after sword. And when she had nothing left she fell to her knees.

All of her rage was futile. Nothing she did had the slightest effect.

Of course not.

She was Hela, but she did not live.

And this was no Valhalla.

For the first time in her long existence, Hela suffered a single tear to fall from her eye.

Behind her, something chuffed.

Hela turned her head and felt a hot breath on her healthy skin as Fenris Wolf licked her face. She reached up and stroked the great wolf's muzzle, joy and astonishment lightening the weight of her despair. It looked at her with its old eyes, the glint of the Eternal Flame no longer present.

She rose to her feet again, and looked behind Fenris. Ranks of soldiers stood there, soldiers she recognized. The Einharjar of her youth, the warriors who had pledged to her above all others and followed her in defiance of the Allfather. They were dead, as she was dead, but their swords were sharp and their armor was strong.

As one, they put their fists to their breasts, and bowed to her.

Hela stood in the reeking waste and she smiled.

This was no Valhalla.

But perhaps it could be better.

Five Writing Lessons From Suicide Squad

The wife and I went and saw Suicide Squad over the weekend. We didn't expect it to be a good movie, but we laughed all the way through Batman vs. Superman, so why not? And coming out of the theater we agreed that Suicide Squad was probably better in the sense that we weren't immediately mocking everything about it, so that's something. And it's a good movie if you enjoy looking at Cara Delevingne. Because holy shit, there's a lot of Cara Delevingne to look at in this movie. I mean distracting amounts of Cara Delevingne. Did anyone tell her Enchantress wears a literal robe and wizard hat in the comics?

She wears WHAT?!

But never mind all that! Some things could have been done better, and my writer's mind has seized them in its rusty vice. And some things about the movie, actually did get done remarkable well. So let's have a look, shall we?

1. You Really Need To Watch Your Tone

Not swearing - go ahead and fucking swear if you want, you fuck. I'm talking about the overall feel of your work, or your voice if you like. It's important for a single book to have a consistent tone throughout, or to have a tone that evolves in a natural progression from beginning to end. What you don't want is to ping-pong between like four different tones.

Suicide Squad ping-pongs between like four different tones. It opens in Gauntanamo Bay, Louisiana, then jumps to a bunch of flashbacks that go tense-political/standard-supervillainics/politics-again/WTF-Harley/more-politics/horror-movie/back-to-politics, and that's just like the first ten minutes! The soundtrack doesn't help because none of the songs stay on for any length of time - I'm not sure there even was a score, it was so lost in the rest.

If the movie had maintained a consistent tone (preferably not the darkest one), it could have been a hell of a lot better. So take a look at what you're writing/creating and make sure you're not bouncing around like Harley on a surprise meth injection.

2. Don't Spare The Knife

Task Force X, the titular Suicide Squad, is a gang of criminals that get picked to do dirty jobs for the U.S. Government in return for reduced prison sentences. That's it. It's the Dirty Dozen with supervillains, something even the director acknowledges. And one of the traditions for that particular trope is that a fair portion of the people picked for the "Suicide Squad" are going to, um, die.

Unfortunately, probably because of sequel concerns, only one member of the Suicide Squad actually dies in the film. (Well, two if you count Enchantress, but she's the main villain and that's a whole different problem with superhero movies.)* It's a pretty decent death, done well, but it's kind of ridiculous how low the body count ends up being given the threat the Squad is facing. A few more Z-list villains getting offed might have made the threat more credible. (How do you get time for more villains? See point 3.)

*Yes, three if you count Slipknot. But who cares about Slipknot?

You have to be willing to kill your characters when the situation is so bad that nobody dying is absurd. Also...

3. Kill Your Grinning Evil Darlings

For all the hype Jared Leto's Joker got he doesn't actually do a hell of a lot in the film. His only real contribution is to abduct Harley Quinn from the Squad briefly, but she ends up right back with the damn team anyway after his chopper gets shot down! Basically the Joker moves Harley from roof level to ground level. That's it.

Joker could have been left as a flashback character to tease an appearance in a later Batman film. Hell, let him have the stinger too. The rest of the time he used up would have been much better used to flesh out the Squad, patch a few plot holes, or just introduce a couple more warm supervillain bodies to off in creative ways. Instead we got Jared Leto being vaguely creepy, and a few thousand horror stories about working with him that will dog his career for the next decade.

Don't leave a character or a scene in the story that isn't necessary. Cut cut cut!

4. Shoot The Damn Guard

You've heard that a gun placed on the mantel in Act One needs to go off by the end of Act Three, right? Well Suicide Squad loves putting guns on mantels, but it doesn't actually fire too many of them off by the end of the movie. The excepion is the neck bomb implants, which get fired off almost immediately. (Because nobody cares about Slipknot.)

A prime example is the abusive asshole Guantanamo guard early in the movie. Deadshot tells him flat out he's going to kill him. The rest of the Squad has reason to hate him. And then the Joker turns up and makes this guard his new best friend to try and spring Harley Quinn. (After killing the last guy who was his new best friend.) Yet somehow the movie forgets about this guard for the second and third act, and he remains alive by film's end. What the actual hell? Did Mindy Kaling pull some strings? (I did not recognize Ike Barinholtz from the Mindy Project but the guard is totally him.)

Do not set up a character to be obviously killed off and then fail to do it. Pick your guns off the mantel and pull the trigger.

5. Don't Let Your Heroes Let Your Villains Win

In a lot of ways Suicide Squad is a disjointed mess of a plot, but I will give the movie credit in how it treats Enchantress, the main villainess. She's being forced to work for Amanda Waller under threat of death, but manages to escape briefly by playing on her minder Rick Flagg's emotions. She can't reclaim her captive heart, but she frees her brother, who immediately begins a killing spree. Waller sends Flagg and Enchantress in to deal with it, but Enchantress bails and gets her brother to protect her from Waller. She then immediately starts working a plan to end the entire planet.

At no point in all this do the villains, er "heroes", get an obvious chance to stop her that they screw up. Even Rick Flagg only knows she's done something, not what, and it goes bad so fast that there's no time to figure it out. Enchantress pretty much executes her plan perfectly from start to finish, and it's only because she doesn't know what the Squad's capable of that she loses in the end.

I've seen a lot of plots where the heroes screw up to advance the bad guy's plot. It's refreshing when the villain actually is just competent enough to be a major threat.

Anyway. Hope some of that was helpful, and now I'm going to tuck in. Sweet dreams...

Five Writing Lessons From Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice

Batman! Superman! Wonder Woman who gets the shit-tier billing even though she steals the big fight of the movie!

I went, I saw, I took some lessons from it. Thoroughly entertaining, but note none of these lessons qualify as "positives". Spoilers lie ahead, all ye of faint heart.

1. Show, Don't Tell

Batman vs Superman starts 18 months after Man of Steel, and early on in the movie there's a lot of beats that feel like a laundry list of Zack Snyder addressing complaints about the first movie. Superman and Clark Kent are established in Metropolis, Superman is a beloved hero, he and Lois Lane are in a solid relationship.

And that's all great, but we never got to see any of it happen. It's easy to overlook that with the Lois/Clark relationship - that trend was established in the first movie - but we've never actually seen Superman do anything heroic at this point! The stuff he did in Man of Steel is explicitly treated as reasons not to trust Superman, and all we ever get is a montage of "saves" where Superman looks miserable as he rescues people we have no investment in.

The first Superman scene in the movie would have been a great place for Superman to actually save people we care about. I was completely expecting it, but it didn't happen because, for plot reasons, everyone there had to die to frame Superman for murder. (With guns.) It wouldn't have been hard to fix this scene to let Superman save everyone, and then have the evil mercenaries come in and wipe the camp out after he was gone. That way we could see Superman being super and gotten on board with him a whole lot faster. Alas.

Point being: don't just tell your reader things about a character and expect them to care. They need to see it!

2. Suggest, Don't Show

Two examples of this, the first being Wonder Woman. Gal Gadot does an excellent job and Wonder Woman is a highlight of the movie, for the record. But part of her arc is that she's trying to get back a blackmail photo Lex Luthor has on her. Batman ends up finding a photo of her standing next to Chris Pine's cheekbones in 1918, looking just as young as she is in 2016 (or whenever).

All that's fine. The problem is that Diana is in full Wonder Woman garb in the photo, and it completely ruins her big entrance in the final fight scene! It would have been fantastic if that had been the first time we saw her in costume. And that would have been so easy, because there's no reason for her to be in costume in the photo - the scene works just fine if it's just Diana in a period dress, or a uniform.

You don't have to spell everything out for the audience immediately. Let them put some thought into things. They'll feel smart and the story will be better for it.

(Oh, right, second example. *ahem* MARRR-THAAAAAAA)

3. OOC Needs To Be OOC

I'm referencing a trope known as Out of Context (OOC) is Serious Business, which means a character starts acting... differently when things get serious. The pacifist starts kicking ass, the jokester gets deadly serious, the klutz becomes scary competent. It's a fine trope, I recommend it.

In Batman vs Superman, there's a flash-forward/dream sequence/vision of Batman in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, apparently ruled by a crazy evil Superman. (Actually ruled by another guy who's blindingly obvious if you read DC comics. Foreshadowing!) In this sequence Batman, who famously abhors guns, pulls a machine gun and just shoots the hell out of enemy soldiers.

The point, I think, is to demonstrate how bad things are by showing Batman shooting people. But he's also shooting people in the present! Hell, he runs over people, stabs people, he burns a guy alive in front of a middle-aged kidnapping victim... Who cares if he's shooting people in the Bad Future if he's already shooting people?

If you want to shock people by having a character go off his usual script, he actually has to be acting out of character. If there isn't a significant change in behavior, it won't work.

4. Talking Is A Valid Action

Now, there are some circumstances where two people will get into a fight immediately without trying to talk things out first. Maybe it's a protagonist and a gang of disposable mooks. Maybe it's two soldiers on opposite sides of a battlefield. Maybe one guy is drunk. Stuff happens.

But, if you have two protagonists getting into a fight. And both are known for having codes against killing. And one of them is being blackmailed by the villain under threat of his mother being killed within thirty minutes. And the other one just had a good friend murdered by the same villain, and has spent years saving innocent people's lives. In that circumstance, you need to have a really good reason for the two protagonists not to at least try to talk things over for a minute before they try to murder each other.

There's a tradition in comic books for heroes to fight at the drop of a hat, but make sure they've got a good reason, and try to make sure that reason can't be resolved by four words, i.e. "Luthor has my mother".

5. Make Your Villain's Schemes Internally Consistent

Crazy villains are great. Joker? A blast. Green Goblin? Superb. But even the most lunatic villains tend to at least make sense to themselves.

In Batman vs Superman, Lex Luthor hates Superman because he's a superpowered alien threat to the planet. And for the most part his solution (Batman + kryptonite) is appropriate to his mindset. But then for some reason, he decides he needs a backup plan and creates Doomsday: a superpowered alien  threat to the planet.

Now, there's a fine tradition of villains hypocritically creating bigger threats in order to deal with the hero's perceived threat. J. Jonah Jameson sponsored the Scorpion to get rid of Spider-man, Movie General Ross helped create the Abomination to take out the Hulk.  But in most of these cases, the bigger threat was intended to be something controllable that ends up getting completely out of hand and requires the hero to stop. In Batman vs Superman, Lex just flat out creates Doomsday without any restraints or controls, apparently believing a sample of his blood would be enough for him to control the creature. Nope! And even when Superman has to save him from getting splattered into meaty chunks, we never get a reaction from Lex to show that he realizes he screwed up. Yes he's crazy, but he's not stupid.

Make sure your villain has a reason for everything he does, even if that reason is only sane to him.

It All Makes Sense

Fact: Batman doesn't kill.

Fact: Gotham's super criminals kill their own henchmen all the time.

So how do guys like Joker keep getting employees? And how is any criminal in Gotham still scared of the Batman?

Simple: the henchmen are blaming Batman for all the other dead henchmen. Because you can't go telling your buddies that your boss is killing off your coworkers, or he might decide to kill you for being mouthy. And nobody's going to question that the crazy guy in the bat costume is also a murderer. Sure the cops swear Batman's never killed anybody, but they would, wouldn't they...

Anyway, sorry for the lack of updates. I've been busy with life (and death), but I should be reaching a new equilibrium soon and getting back to my... complete lack of a schedule.

On Female Superheroes and Wonder Woman

I went on a lengthy stream of consciousness rant last night on female superheroes and Wonder Woman. I'm not sure what the hell I was thinking. I'm not solving anything. But there is some stuff I'd like to see in there, a few insights that might be worth something if they were developed, and what I think is a valid point about the way Diana Prince has been handled for the past few decades.

So, enjoy! Or not. As you will.

Image courtesy of paintmarvels.deviantart.com

Invincible Moment of Clarity

Invincible, if you don't know, is a superhero comic published by Image and written by Robert Kirkman. Invincible is Mark Grayson, the son of the world's greatest superhero, who inherits his dad's powers and sets out to fight crime. I've been reading the entire run and now, at 110 issues in, I'm seriously considering whether I want to keep reading.

When Mark first put on the tights the tone of the book was optimistic, practically Silver Age. Over time, bad things happened to people, and people did bad things, but the book did maintain a sense of humor and a joy in superheroics that made it fun to read. But then things just kept getting darker and darker, and the fun moments grew further and further apart.

Issue 110 is pretty devastating for the main character on multiple levels, which I'm not going to discuss because A. SPOILERS and B. the details aren't important to my point. Suffice to say it crosses a pretty big line the series hasn't crossed before, which is saying something in a book where this happened:

Our hero headbutts a man to death.

Which did not give me a lot of pause, strangely enough. But I finished reading 110 this evening, and when I put it down I thought to myself: "Do I really want to keep reading this series?"

Technically there's nothing wrong with the writing, let me make that clear right now. Kirkman's treating superheroes honestly and the dialogue is always spot on. Kudos to the man.

What bothers me is twofold: one, the book has gotten so dark that I have trouble enjoying maybe half the issues I read, and two, the central conflict of the series has gotten so muddied that I can't see an end in sight. Mark's spent most of the series preparing the fight the alien Viltrumite Empire, and

SPOILER ALERT FOR THE LAST TWO YEARS OR SO OF INVINCIBLE

at this point he's basically won. The Viltrumites are vanquished and under new management, Earth is as safe as it ever gets and who cares if everything goes to shit in a thousand years? The only central conflict left seems to be whether Mark himself will go bad, and well FACEPLANT! I don't mind dark moments if they're escalating towards a resolution, but a bloody slog to nowhere in particular is not something I enjoy.

I should note that Kirkman is also the author of The Walking Dead, which has been running for about as long as Invincible and catches similar accusations of getting unreadably bleak. But The Walking Dead is a damn zombie series, it's supposed to go that way. I jumped onto Invincible and read it this long because it showed the happy fun side of being a superhero. Now it leans more towards the Happy Fun Ball side of being a superhero.

I'll probably read at least the next issue, because - like I said! - Kirkman's got me wanting to know what happens next. But I can't help wondering why.

Top Cow Talent Hunt 2013

So I blow off NaNoWriMo, rededicate myself to my novel, and then Top Cow decides to hold a writing contest.

Really? Now?

Yes, I'm putting a script submission together. I've got a fun Irish Witchblade idea that should hold up for 22 pages and nothing much to lose.

No, I'm not stopping work on the novel. I've just finished putting my notes together for easy access and I'll be drafting a new outline soon.

In other news, I just managed to blow a deadline for the latest Writer's Digest short story competition, but I was planning to expand an existing short story for it and I'm not sure that would have been allowed anyway, so oh well. I've also got a few thoughts toward a new blog series on using a wiki to write (after futzing around with various implementations for waaay too long), so watch this space...

Notes From Kelly Sue DeConnick's Writing Workshop

This past weekend I attended a writing workshop at Third Eye Comics, my local badass comic shop. Kelly Sue DeConnick, current writer for Marvel's Captain Marvel series among other things and creator of the new Pretty Deadly Image book, ran a two hour lecture-with-participation on how to write for comics. For the record, she's aces at it. All of her advice was on point and helpful to anyone looking to break into comics, so if you get a chance to catch her doing this sort of thing again I heartily recommend you attend.

What follows are the notes I took that are applicable to any sort of writing, not just comic books. I'm not going to reproduce my entire note pool because A. it would get unwieldy for one blog post, B. I don't write comic books for a living, C. a good chunk of it is exercises that won't translate well, and D. Kelly Sue does write comics and if anyone's going to dispense her specialized wisdom in that area, it's her. But I'll gladly steal (well, post with permission - thanks Kelly Sue!) the more general tidbits, because they're fucking worth knowing.

Disclaimer: Anything in quotes is a direct quote. Anything outside of the quotes is subject to the stupidity of the stenographer. Now, in no particular order:

1. Ideas in your head are always going to seem more perfect than words on the page. Deal with it. You need to put the words on the page. The shitty first draft is better than perfect words in your head.*

2. Variant: "Ideas are shit. I have six a day!" Sitting down and getting the story done is the hard part. Nobody's going to pay you for your ideas. You are welcome to make people pay you to write their ideas down.

3. A good part of your job is sitting like this, listening to the voices in your head. Kelly Sue's method involves writing down conversations she hears in her imagination, but you might see freeze-framed scenes. Whatever works.

4. An exercise for the crazy: Get a favorite comic book's script (or a favorite book) and copy it out in longhand. This will help you focus and read critically. (I have tried this and it works, though it is a time commitment.)

5. Warren Ellis's advice for fight scenes is to call your shots, meaning if somebody is going to be hit with a club in one panel, the club should be visible in the previous panel. In a book, this means foreshadowing: if an object or plot device is going to be crucial to a scene or the whole book, try to make sure you've at least mentioned it before you use it.

6. “What is the Get?” Once you have a first draft, go through and ask yourself with every scene: Does it tell us something about characters, or push the plot forward? If not, cut it. Kill the darlings, basically. But create a Morgue file on your desktop to set your darlings aside, and one day, when you're at loose ends, go through it and look for new story ideas.

7. If you're having a rough time of it, just think "I need to get through today, tomorrow I'm quitting." Remind yourself of that until you're done for the day. Then, tomorrow, think: "Okay, just one more day, but then TOMORROW..."

8. Kelly Sue recommends the South Park writing method, which is making sure your scenes are connected by "but" or "so", not "and" or "meanwhile". (She also admits to a bit too much "meanwhile".) You can watch Trey Parker and Matt Stone describe their method here.

9. Some "don't"s: Don't fall in love with your words. Don't add captions that tell us something we can already see (in prose, consider this to refer to adverbs). Don't be a petty child (or at least try). And finally don't give your stuff (manuscript, self-published work) to editors at conventions. 75% of the things editors get at conventions will go in the trash before they get on a plane. Instead, get the editor's contact information and their permission to send them your stuff.

10. Feminism 101: First, when writing someone of the opposite gender, pretend they're people! Kelly Sue also recommends the Bechdel Test, and introduced the Sexy Lamp Test, to wit: Can you replace a female character with a sexy lamp and not change anything else in your plot? If so, fuck you. This means you've written a female character who is nothing more than something to rescue or avenge, or a reward or decoration. To fix this problem, simply ask yourself what the sexy lamp wants; then, give it agency, meaning the ability to go out and try to get what it wants. Note the "try": a character doesn't need to be successful to have agency.

11. In the same vein, let's have a 5 year moratorium on rape in comics. It's a lazy choice. So is killing children or dogs. Kelly Sue still feels bad about killing a dog in one issue just to get to an ending she wanted. And I'll note that my wife will stop reading or watching anything that kills a dog immediately. Which is why I still haven't seen House of Cards. Thank you Kevin Spacey.

12. On creating characters: Use the old improv trick of "yes, and" when you're coming up with a character. Ask yourself what your character wants. Another old actor's trick: keep a journal for a character you're trying to develop. Take notes as you see themes cropping up.

13. Characters again: Ask yourself, "What is their [your character's] wound?" Try to tie that in with your character's gift. (For example Superman has all his powers, but he's the last of his kind.)

14. Once more on characters: Ask yourself, what part of the body does your character lead with? As an example Kelly Sue noted that Captain Marvel leads with her heart and her chin: she sees a problem and her response is to march in and hit it. Her best friend Spider-Woman on the other hand leads with her hips: her first response to a problem is to get up and walk away, she has to try very hard to be a hero. (Yes this last question will make you sound like a crazy person.)

15. Put your characters through hell. You are allowed to feel bad about this afterward.

16. Further reading recommendations: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield and Shawn Coyne, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, Writing for Comics and Graphic Novels by Peter David. Also Chris Claremont's run on X-Men, and pay attention to the way he throws out random details that end up paying off into great stories down the line.

* Originally this ended with "And the second draft is going to be a hell of a lot harder than the first." Then I got a note from Kelly Sue: "I probably did say this, but it’s not quite true. The hardest part - the actual hardest part - is getting the first draft down. After that, it’s grunt work. You get stuck, you get upset when you see things that don’t work, sure - but having a manuscript to work with is infinitely better than NOT having a manuscript to work with." I believe I lumped two statements made over the evening together, and somewhat mangled the context.

I do disagree with her, though. I find getting the first draft down painful, but doable. The second draft, where I have to fill in roughly a thousand plot holes, flesh out my cardboard cutout characters, and get the hideous goddamn creature that is my novel breathing, is infinitely harder for me.

That might be because I'm working on a NaNoNovel and huffed raw nitrous oxide during the first draft; it might be that I failed at Proper Preparation and Planning the first time through; or it might be that novels are a different beast than comics and short stories, because with short stories I've found the first draft absolutely is harder than the second. And Kelly Sue has vastly more experience, so take my opinion for what it's worth.

Final Report 2012

Still not dead!

So, okay. I did succeed at NaNoWriMo this year. I haven't mentioned anything about it since n'yeah because I'm still not done with the book yet, which is how it should be. I'm currently at 70,000 words, give or take, and steaming on to the big final battle.

I'm going to keep writing through 2013, of course. I want to finish and then revise the NaNoNovel, and then I think I'm going to work on my short story game. I would like to submit a few complete stories this year, whether or not they get published.

I had a very lovely Christmas holiday which consisted of visiting family and talking and generally being happy. I go back to work tomorrow, then I'm off again for New Year's Day, then I'm back to work for real. My resolution for the year at the office is to manage my timekeeping properly and to avoid any psychotic episodes.

What else did I do this year? Oh that's right, I bought a house and moved into it, which still leaves me feeling bewildered every once in a while. I am proud to report that my home feels like home, and now that I'm settled in I don't think I'd trade it for any other house in the world, rickety fence and all. Next year will  bring more surprises, and if they're as nice as this one has been I'll look forward to them.

I paid attention to politics more than ever this year, and now my heart is full of hate. 'Nuff said. But I'm glad Obama won.

And now because I wasn't really planning a recap of my year when I sat down I'll do some easy product shilling.

I read some great books, I read some good books, I read some okay books. I don't think I've read any truly bad books this year, which is not a terrible thing. No Know Fear was a spectacular highlight for the generally fantastic Horus Heresy series, while Betrayer left me feeling completely frazzled (in a good way). Let's Pretend This Never Happened made me laugh, and I got some warm fuzzies rereading classics like Heir to the Empire and The Hobbit.

I'm planning to read through The Silmarillion this year. All of it. I might write more about that later, but I suspect there's nothing more terrifying a man can do when he's trying to write his own epic (or any) fantasy book. I also might write more about Ravenwing, which was a very well-written book that still had me loathing most of the cast well before the halfway point.

I have fallen in love with Two Best Friends Play!, and maintained my adoration for The Mike O'Meara Show and The Big O and Dukes. The one upside to an hour-long commute is that I can keep up with my favorite podcasts without too much trouble. I would also recommend Nerd Poker to anyone who wants to listen to a filthy Dungeons & Dragons podcast from professional comedian Brian Posehn.

I've kept up with big changes in the comic book industry, but I'm sad to say that next year will probably see me cut back on my comics reading considerably, if I don't drop it entirely. I can't afford the price and the storage space to keep up with every Earth Shattering Event (tm) that comes down the pipe. With that said, I'm going to try to keep up with Saga and Transformers: Regeneration One, at the very least; and I'm very curious to see what Dan Slott has planned for the Superior Spider-Man.

I still play video games when I can, though I rarely have enough time to get serious with them. I got my first Call of Duty game for Christmas, and I'm curious to see if my Battlefield skillz transfer over. And I'm bound and determined to get Sarah on board for a Lego Lord of the Rings playthrough.

I'm not deeply committed to a lot of television shows. I'll be watching Doctor Who, and Game of Thrones, and the finale of Breaking Bad. I'll also try to keep up with The Walking Dead, which is more difficult than I'd like. For movies, I'm looking forward to the Evil Dead remake and trying to stay optimistic about World War Z. I'll take the rest as they come. There were a lot of good movies out this year, so suffice to say The Avengers was my favorite.

Have I shilled enough yet? Do I get a check from Google or Amazon now? God this was disjointed...

Comics I Liked This Week

It's Wednesday, and that means another in my intermittent series of comic book reviews. I'm just focusing on what I liked this time, so if you don't see something here assume it got 3/5 stars.

Here Comes... Daredevil #2 is probably the best comic this week, and honestly I think the new series is the best Daredevil has been in years. Don't get me wrong, I'm not slandering the past couple of (much darker) runs, but I like Daredevil as a happy-go-lucky, witty, gymnastic... well, daredevil, and Mark Waid is nailing it. (And if you'll permit me a brief tangent, the same holds true for Nightcrawler. Marvel, if you bring him back, bring him back as the fuzzy swashbuckling elf we loved for so many years. Please?)

Legion of Doom #3 wraps up this Flashpoint tie-in miniseries in high style. If you don't know, Flashpoint is an alternate-reality crossover where heroes are villains, villains are worse villains, and you've seen this before. Legion of Doom follows longtime Flash villain Heat Wave as he attempts to escape from a supervillain prison (modeled after the Legion of Doom's headquarters) and take revenge on his nemesis (in this reality) Cyborg. The in-prison villainy is pretty cool, but the real standouts here are Heat Wave's crazy ass and a surprise guest star who isn't quite as heroic as he usually is. All three issues are well worth tracking down.

Journey Into Mystery #626 continues Loki's adventures behind the scenes of Fear Itself, Marvel's summer crossover. Having been reborn as a somewhat innocent child, Loki is trying to help Thor by wheeling and dealing with some of the most diabolic beings in the Marvel Universe - and somehow, so far, he's coming out on top every time. I've found Loki is much more interesting as a hero than he was as a villain, and this series shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon.

Abin Sur: The Green Lantern is another Flashpoint miniseries that wraps up with its third issue this week. For years, Abin Sur's only been the dead alien who gave Hal Jordan his ring (except when he was being manipulated into an early grave by demons under Alan Moore). In this series Abin is alive and well, and proving that he's a more than worthy predecessor to Jordan as he takes on his best friend, Sinestro, and tries to preserve life on Earth at all costs. A fine read for Green Lantern fans.

Avengers Academy #12 continues strong this week, as the kids take on two supervillains that have been turned into Asgardian demigods (Fear Itself again... I swear, tie-ins...). This book's traditional superhero action: fantastic settings, dangerous villains, and heroes trying to save the day while dealing with their own life issues, all done excellently.

Finally, Thunderbolts #162 sees the team of former supervillains start to fracture while battling an army of monsters. Baron Zemo, the original team's founder, is making his presence felt in the book again, just as half the team decides to break away and turn villain again. Whatever comes up in the next few issues should be damn interesting to read.

The Deaths of the Fantastic Four

I'll be doing some random musings on comics today, and I'm using the Fantastic Four as my example. If you haven't read the latest issue yet, consider yourself fairly warned that spoilers abound below the break.

Outlining and Comic Books

Oops! Finally missed a day. Or, alternatively, I decided that I had better slow down on the updates before I give myself an aneurysm trying to keep up. Let's shoot for three a week, shall we? Excellent.

I've taken a step back from the NaNoWriMo writing blitz to try and get a better idea about how to organize a novel. To that end, I picked up my copy of Helsreach, by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, and started thumbing through it to get an idea of how he works out pacing, balances battle action and character action, things of that ilk.

(Why Helsreach? Because I want to write something about Space Marines fighting in a city. And Master Dembski-Bowden managed to make random switches between first and third person perspectives work in this book, so I expect I'll have plenty to learn from tearing it apart and inspecting the gribbly bits.)

I've been outlining the book in Scrivener. Here's what it looks like so far:

Haven't even gotten into scenes yet.

So, um, yeah. I might end up burning a week on this, for uncertain gain. Still, I figure this falls under the heading of deliberate practice, and I've also got some reference books to read through before my next big writing push. And I'll be outlining my manuscript while I'm at it, so even in the worst case it won't be a week lost.

Some good comic books out this week. Darkseid is currently dead, but if you're a fan then be sure to check out Action Comics Annual #13, featuring a flashback to Lex Luthor's first encounter with the master of Apokolips. This isn't Grant Morrison's Darkseid, and it ain't the Superman-obsessed, might as well be a stock supervillain one either; this is Jack Kirby's Darkseid, complete with talking in "quotes" and a penchant for hyperbole, and it's a blast to see him back. Lex also meets Ra's al Ghul in a backup story written entirely in verse.

While I'm at it, if you're a fan of the Ryan Choi Atom then check out Secret Six #28. You're welcome.

NaNoWriMo 2010, Day 24, And Hobgoblin Nerd Rage

32051 / 50000 words. 64% done!

I'm posting this early because I have to get up early for Thanksgiving tomorrow, and also I wanted to discuss the latest Spider-man story arc. It's called Big Time, and it features a bold new direction for Spider-man, and the return of a classic villain: the Hobgoblin. And I'm already pissed off. Nerd rage (and spoilers) kick in below the fold.

NaNoWriMo 2010, Day 18 - Also Comic Books and Dogs

25088 / 50000 words. 50% done!

Woohoo, halfway point! And I'm only, oh, three days behind. Whoops, after midnight, make that four days behind.

I could cite a lot of reasons why I'm having trouble keeping up... but honestly, I've been more productive this month than I have been in the last year. And I'm pretty sure I'm writing good stuff, too, at least for a first draft. Granted, I'll have a ton of rewriting (and likely rethinking) to do once December gets here. But that's December. November is crazy-writey time.

One delay I will discuss came from New Comic Book Day, and what a day it was! The new Batman: Incorporated series looks and reads fantastic. Batman's teamed up with Catwoman in Japan, and finds himself facing off against Mighty Lord Death Man (no joke) while also trying to set up a new Batman of Japan. The art is great: Catwoman looks effortlessly sexy in every scene, and Lord Death Man actually poses like a Japanese horror villain.

Dead Avengers is a limited series featuring, well, dead Avengers, including Captain Marvel and the original Vision. The barriers between life and death have broken down, and six fallen heroes have to stop the forces of an evil god from murdering their still-living teammates. This is an excellent book for anyone who likes older Avengers stories.

Green Lantern #59 reveals a few secrets of the Indigo Tribe, as well as what happened to Black Hand after the undead nightmare of Blackest Night. Again, not a good jumping on point, but a great series to read.

The Avengers #7 sees a depowered supervillain named The Hood go on a hunt for the Infinity Gems, six jewels that can control every aspect of the universe. Honestly, I was hoping The Hood would get a rest for awhile, especially after he played such a huge role in Norman Osborn's takeover of S.H.I.E.L.D. (and how is he out of jail anyway?)... but I'm glad to finally see the Infinity Gems back in action, and Red Hulk working with the Avengers ought to be a lot of fun.

X-Men #5 is the penultimate chapter in the X-Men vs. Vampires storyline, and the action's starting to really heat up. Wolverine and Dracula both get some great bad-ass moments, and I'm looking forward to the next issue.

Finally, Brightest Day #14 delves into the history of Deadman, a ghostly superhero who has found himself alive again against his will. The guy was, frankly, a jerk in his first life, and seeing him come to terms with that was a blast. Also, the last panel will give anyone following Justice League: Generation Lost a well-deserved thrill.

And, just because it made me laugh my ass off: Dogs Don't Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving. Enjoy.

The Moon Knight/McCormick Connection

Fair warning: If you haven't watched at least the last two episodes of South Park, there be spoilers ahead, so stop reading now I'm going to try putting a jump here for good measure.