You Decide Your Own Level of Involvement

Some writing groups are just awful.  Here are a few tips on how to loose people in your writing group. If you have members who look young, don't assume a mentor-ship role.  Remember you don't know this person, you don't know what kind of behavior would offend them.  Kiddo, you remind me of my son/daughter, champ, tiger. (It's condescending, ridiculous and absolutely takes the focus off the most important thing: the work.) Poor communication.  If you send four, five or six e-mails to one place and you do not get a response chances are you have the wrong e-mail address.  Have the wherewithal to figure that out. People Work.  Some writers actually work.  The reason why they joined a writing group is because they can't live off of their work.  Allow for the person to have some time before writing nasty e-mails about how unprofessional they are because they didn't answer by the deadline that was created.  It's selfish to believe that everyone is just waitin

One of my favorites movies is Fight Club hence the name of the blog.  It comes from a line in the movie. Anway, there are a few things going on that people either know about it, but don't know what to do about it or don't know about it. In the movie, it describes a bunch of late 20 year olds to early 30 year olds about how their life has no purpose.  It's a rebellious film.  Which is probably why I like it so much but that is not my point. Even though Fight Club wasn't about Millenials, the whole idea still applies. We are a generation without definition.  We don't have anything to stand for, we can't decide what to be involved with so that future generations can look back and say what great men and women we were.  Instead we're coddled and hand held and just wandering. We can't be defined by our jobs because we're overeducated individuals who answer phones for a living.  We are a generation of people who were told that we were special and

My last post was in September so it just goes to show how busy I've been.  But I'm pretty annoyed or happy about a few things.  So I thought I'd share. I recently got two credit cards, one for JC Penny and one for the Limited.  Because my Bloomingdales card is maxed out.  No...just kidding.  I've had this new job for almost a year; I've paid off some bills so I figure I am financially secure enough to get these cards. Besides I work in a corporate office and people are starting to notice the holes in my sweaters.  Again, I'm kidding. At any rate, both compaines require you to call to activate the card.  But it's all a russe to get you to call to agree to some bogus fee you don't need. Pay Protection Insurance, Credit Card Protection Plan, like the devil it assumes many names.  And like they devil to sweeten the pot they throw in something that you are programmed to think you need.  A 40% gift card.  But with the money they'll be charging you

Do you know why I named this blog, You Decide Your Own Level of Involvement? Because it's one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite movies.  In Fight Club Tyler Durden tells Edward Norton that he decides his own level of involvement. And I feel as though this is true for life. There is very little that I can control in life, but I do know that I can control my actions.  And with the magic of the internet I am able to do things that I've wanted to do.  Like write science fiction! Right now, my writing isn't enough to live off of which is why it's taken some time to get the novel out but the fact is, it's out. The Quest to Save Xanar is a science fiction novel about a Deltorian Princess who discovers that she has warriors. In this novel she learns why her warriors were gone for so long that they had become legends but mostly myths. Princess Arianna doesn't have time to complete her history lesson as the warriors bear bad news. Some one ha

My heart sank when I received the news that L.A Banks had passed away.  It sank because when my father and I found out that she was sick, we had hoped that she would get better.  And even though we knew she wasn't well, I still felt like I would see her again. Especially since she was a bright star, she had presence whenever she was in the room, I call women who look like her glamazons because when you see her, he see the glam and at the same time, she was so tall like an Amazon woman. I've been pretty sad about it mostly because I know she understood, from one black female Philadelphian to another.  I've seen her speak a few times and I felt like she was speaking to me. She was an awesome, friendly force that after you heard her speak you felt like you could do anything. I'm not in the photo but I took it. I really feel like I just saw her because her words of encouragement meant so much to me.  I finished my first novel, The Quest to Save Xanar, after the last ti

Out of all the book promotions and regular work I've been doing (because I count this as extraordinary work) I've finally created my own novella trailer for The Visions of Koto-Ryin. Check it out! Also on this rainy Sunday morning is the twitter Roswell Movie Awareness Day! Roswell is one of the major influences in my writing as stated in my other blog post so log on to twitter type in your favorite quote and hashtag #roswell or #roswellmovie

I know some people are like, leave that silly tv show alone.  First of all, don't call it silly, it is epic even before epic became popular, remember Meet the Dupes Vilandra says "Totally epic dad."  See?  It's always been cool. And btw, in a universe when we were able to get a theatrically released Spongebob Squarepants movie...it's not unreasonable to ask for a Roswell movie.  I know it'll beat the heck out of any remake. I got really happy when I saw someone's fan video and they did such a good job. I'm ready to go to the movies now.  I want to do one.    But it takes up a lot of space (to do a proper one) and I don't have the special editor's I'd like to have but Window's Movie Maker has been getting me through for years.  I'd have to do a lot of converting to .avi and such. I actually have that font on my old computer.  The Roswell font.  You can only type in caps there's no lowercase. Well here are the usual

I stopped watching Doctor Who.  I missed David Tennant, there's this strange man on my show and I just didn't know what to do with him.  Then they had Daleks that matched the color scheme of the Power Rangers and then they talked a man out of exploding. Yes, that's right.  They talked to him and through the power of speech he could no longer detonate.  Sure.  Okay. That was last year.  Before I moved.  So over a year.  No Doctor Who. I really enjoyed Torchwood's Children of Earth but that's going to be a different blog post. Then I tried to watch it again, but by then there was Amy and her boyfriend and the doctor and that love triagnle thing, I turned it off again. But I saw the previews for tonight and with a lot of encouragement from people I know. I may watch it tonight.

My sister called about two Saturday's ago and was all, "I don't get it how's Klaus in the teacher's body?"  It was after work and then I was confused.  Because surely she wasn't asking me how a vampire got a witch to take over a person's body because that's like asking how the flux capcacitor works. We sorted out her question and kept talking that's when I said to her, which she does not remember, I bet the sun and moon curse isn't even real.  She was all, "What do you mean?"  I resisted the urge to say, what do you mean?  What do I mean?  So the ep with Bonnie's fake death happened and then the episode I was waiting for happened.  Elijah is back! He's cool.  It's not even one of those oh gosh he's so dreamy type things...not like I try not to think of Jensen Ackles since he's taken now.  But he's cool in that I know I'm awesome but I'll try to be normal type cool. Anyway, Jena is not taking ANY

Usually I don't post on one subject to death.  But it's for a good cause.  For all three of you who follow my blog there are a few things that you should know that put me in a good mood while I'm embarking on the journey call life. Majandra Delfino signed the petition...she's great. She introduced me to the Sassy Gay Friend...what? what? what are you doing? Maybe Sassy Gay Friend can do a video about Roswell?  Huh?  It would be funny even though he makes fun of whatever he's doing but it would be funny. But in other news....Will Sadler is on twitter.  I didn't know he was on twitter.  When did that happen?  I would have been following him all along. @Wm_Sadler Not only is he on twitter but he signed the petition.  This Petition  just sign it...we're all out of Tobasco Sauce I'm always going on about what I would do or what I would change....but here are some things about Roswell that I love. 1.  Conspiracies...I'm there. The fact that h

I wouldn't do a Roswell movie.  No, I wouldn't. I'd do SEVERAL Roswell movies. It could work.  I've still been following the actors and they've taken good care of themselves, they can still play young.  So...we can pick up where we left off at.  Heck maybe those books will go back into production...the last two books were split and half and I was NEVER able to read the last book.  Sure I could read it now...for $100 since it's selling on e-bay. But I digress. They should do a Roswell movie and film in here in WV.  While that past part is a pipe dream, people love Twilight.  Now if you're one of the two people who follow my blog you'd know all the similarities that I've pointed out between Roswell and Twilight.  Except Max isn't creepy. Can we go to Antar?  Nah.  I don't think that would work. But we can have more people come from Antar.  Let's not forget Michael has a brother. There's so much we can do.  Three movies.  Holl

What is my writing style? Easy. There are things that I wish I could do in real life - but can't. I know there's some smart alek out there because I have characters who fall in love - ha...ha - that's not what I mean! 1) Teleport - I have characters who teleport, because I've been in love with the concept of teleporting since the Tomorrow People.  I don't mean teleport across the room...that's...kinda cool, but stupid. I mean teleport to another country.  I read the first Jumper but I had already written my story before I knew about that series. 2) Jump off of cliffs - I have a story where two characters jump off of a cliff.  It's not a power - I just think it's cool.  The mechanics of the story is what enables them to live or else they'd be splat dead. 3) I don't have anyone slapping anyone...I gotta write that story.  I've always wanted to slap someone.  It's very dramatic.  But I do have an alien who kicks another alien in

I did a promotion that went pretty well this time last year, so I decided to do it again. The Visions of Koto-Ryin - Science Fiction Novella http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/9611 Promotional price: $3.49 Coupon Code: CE66Z The Visions of Koto-Ryin, is a collection of short stories that takes place after Return 2 Earth, when the assistant of an Elder, Koto-Ryin receives visions of her Deltorian ancestors from more than a hundred years ago. The five short stories are about the Deltorian Warriors, also known as the Delta Four who must protect Queen Lora and the citizens from Deltor from any harm. Want to read the first chapter of my almost finished work in progress  : The Quest to Save Xanar? Princess Arianna of Deltor is in danger but she does not know it a dying Deltorian sends her a disturbing message while initating the return of the fabled Deltorian Warriors.  Two of the four warriors Lovo and Trystan believe that by staying close to the Princess they'll discover who&

It should be ILLEGAL to take a great cast and just piss me off like that.  You took a cast with some of my favorite actors, like not my favorite cute actors, but my favorite actors in general, because I don't dream about dinners with me and Idris, but I'll watch him, he's a really good actor.  So you had Michael, Paul, Idiris, Hayden and Jay jay Hernandez who I do dream about having dinners with and just messed it all up. Absolutely criminal.  If you didn't see the movie STOP HERE. There were cool fight scenes, cool robbery scene, the cool "we're going to go hang out because we're bad and we're rich" scene.  Okay, I just can reconcile with this ending.  I've never liked movies where the good guy is just going to go out and die for no reason and take his little brother with him.  What waas that?  No really?  What was that?  I know he shot a cop and blah, blah, blah.  Did he have to shoot the cop?  Did he have to die?  No...it's a fre

So...I'm back on Twilight again.  I wasn't after I saw Eclipse and I turned away for a few months because my favorite line was taken out of the movie. ''The clouds I can handle, but I can't fight an eclipse'' -Jacob I don't see why that couldn't be in the movie, unless it's in a deleted scene, but I have the digital vod version, but I digress.  It's one of the best lines in the book and they didn't use it.  Shame on you Melissa.  I'm half kidding. I haven't made my way to the eclipse soundtrack because the music in this movie didn't grab me as much as the first two but here's some of my Twilight insights. 1. I still think Twilight is Roswell with Vampires 2. They should have kept in Jacob's line 3. Not looking forward to this one year apart two parter.  I want to try to wait until both movies are out but unless something happens to me in my life (say my own massive book deal) I'll probably end up watchi

This is a post for people who just didn't have the time that I had to read all of this stuff and to look it up. First let me start off by saying I thought Egypt was fine.  I know people who've been there, you don't hear about it in the news a lot, but I'm quickly learning that, that doesn't mean anything. But I didn't know about Tunisia.  Which I still don't know how to pronounce, it wasn't really covered in history class.  Maybe it was in one of those AP courses. I don't understand how there's an AP History, which is probably why I was never in AP History, but I digress.  This whole rioting thing did not start out in Egypt, it started in Tunisia.  Apparently it sucks over there, it sucks so bad that a 26 year old man  Mohamed Bouazizi  in the city of Sidi Bouzid, had to take out the equivalent of US $200 loan to buy a cart so he can sell produce on the street to provide for his family.  Some jerk, a police woman comes along and basically

Spend the money to buy the Twilight and New Moon Rifftrax because it's hilarious.  Now if you take Twilight seriously and can't take the jokes then don't buy it but it's freakin funny.  I brought the Eclipse Rifftrax and it was funny but not AS funny as the first two.  I just can't even get into the jokes because you have to see it, but lines like "Jeez you drive like a vampire," lol! 

Don't work double shifts on a daily basis...it makes you miss tv. My dvr is all screwed up, I went from Suddenlink...don't get it, the dvr process is confusing and it sucks to Dish.  Which the dvr is great but the On Demand sucks, they want you to pay for movies that have been out since I was born.  But anyway I switched and forgot to schedule TVD but I forgot that I forgot to switch.  So the next TVD ep I turn Stefan is in the tomb.  WTF?  What's he doing there?! My mom's all, well Jeremy...NO!  Don't tell me.  I'll watch it later.  sheesh But I did watch the following two episodes anyway...because I felt like it.  But Damon...oh boy do you need help.  I wonder if the Lost producers wish they would have kept him on the show because that due can act.  That whole scene at the end when he tells that women his 'secret' - awesome. I think Fain and Craft said, "Look, Angel season 4...WE KNOW just shut up about it and watch this!"  And now