Pet Cobra

Manifestos

There was almond butter with flaxseeds, and a container of blueberries, and some whole grain bagels. What I did was, I split the bagel in half and toasted it just so, enough for it to have a bit of a sandpaper finish, spread too much of the almond butter over both halves, added a drizzle of agave sweetener, embedded a few blueberries into the nutty cement. Voila. A perfectly sensible breakfast. Healthy, even. Outside the marine layer sprawled over inland Carlsbad like a chubby gray cat on a frat house sofa. I thought about going for a run but the kids were awake and I needed to get some work started. "Finished" was probably too much to hope for. A quick scan of the Internet: an article I'd written had yet to appear, a draft I'd started was languishing in the queue, a few email inquiries I'd met were as yet unanswered. I looked at my usual morning coffee websites. There was a post on one about a taser shotgun: it fires five tasers at once, with a range of up to 100 feet. I made a note of that; there was something in the first draft of the novel that wasn't sitting with me, and it was that bit with the tasers, and how could they do that as I'd written? They couldn't; these could. Research, research, research. Sometimes doing it yields up nothing but then the facts you need, they find you. From downstairs came the sounds of the house really waking; the muffled arguments of children, the sharp staccato reply of their mother getting them straight, triggering that response like a barrage of sonar pings against my hull; me putting on my stern face and starting to rise up out of my seat to engage...then the quiet of a poured bowl of cereal. Honey Nut Cheerios, I guessed, based on how quickly that silence descended. I read some blog posts. I thought about making some sort of declaration, some Statement of Intent, as those seem to always want to manifest themselves on days when the sky's muddled and you can't see two miles past your backyard. But such proclamations burn off when the clouds do. I just go with it.

The Story Behind The Story

It was the backpack that did it. Inside: a Nikon D60, a handheld Kodak video camera, a notebook, and an iPad. I wore that thing around Comic-Con for three days. It reminded me that I was there to work, which served to sharpen my irritation over the whole experience, which made it un-fun, which it turn made it fun. 

I'm not making any sense. Try this: I went to Comic-Con this year because a few months back, I asked my editors at MoTH if they could try to get me a Press Pass. Selfish reasons, of course: I'd always wanted to go, and there was no fucking way I could afford the ticket myself, assuming of course that I could even get a ticket, as they go fast. And there was a professional reason: I wanted to do a feature-length story, something a bit more than the usual tossed-off blog posts I've been doing for the past six years. And so I found myself at the Con, not as a participant, but as an observer. I took notes, pictures, made voice recordings, listened to people, talked to them. Mostly, though, I just observed. True, I am an unabashed Geek - though, I quickly learned, my Geekiness paled in comparison to the vast majority of attendees. But that didn't get in the way of the story. Which, by the way, did not write itself - going in, I had a clear idea of what I thought the story would be about, but just like a battle plan, it didn't survive the first five minutes of contact. When it was all over, after the words were put to screen and then saved and sent off to my editors, I was frigging exhausted. Three long days at the Con, yes, but pushing my brain to come up with something interesting and different...that's what did it, and it was the same kind of tired I feel after a long day on the water. Beat down and happy.

Here's the thing: I'm losing interest in the dad-blog-o-sphere. I suspect that many of the guys in my bracket are as well; we've been at it for years now, our kids are getting older, we're comfortable in our Dad Skins, and frankly there's very little out there that we find compelling. If you think that's harsh, or snobbish, or dickish, that's fine; it's me being honest, and I'm not alone in wondering where the genre of dad writing is heading. The chorus of voices is all starting to sound the same, and in many cases that chorus sounds like a recycled self-help book, or worse, an infomercial. The debate still goes on: what is a dad blog, what isn't, what should be, what shouldn't. I've got my opinions, and I'll probably continue to share them, but ultimately, I've reached the point where I no longer care. I'll keep doing my thing (and hopefull doing it well), but I'm cognisant of the fact that DadCentric has a lifespan, and it's much closer to the end than the beginning. And you know what? I'm cool with that. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross would probably tell me that I've reached the Acceptance Stage. Happy about it, even. Because wearing that loaded-down backpack was pretty awesome. I should do it some more.

 

 

 

Wordy Wednesday: Geek Summer

I'll preface this by saying that I hate hate hate writing about writing, because coming from me it either sounds douchy and pretentious or whiny and self-serving. Plus, I read something like this and I realize that there are lots of other people who really CAN write about writing. 

But. You all know that I've talked about doing a novel on occasion. Over the past five years I've come up with a couple of ideas that I thought would take me someplace, started in on them, and then tossed them in the virtual circular file. It's not that they weren't good ideas - they were. I realized that right now I'm too close to the subject matter. See, starting to sound like a douche.

A few months ago I did, however, come up with a nifty idea - there's no other word for it than "nifty" - that was completely outside of anything I'd thought of doing. I probably have some Serious Work in me, but my daily writing - what I do online, for money - has become a job. A job I love, but a job nonetheless. I've told a few folks that I'm not satisfied just writing about the dad life. And there's this: at some point, I'll be done with DadCentric. My kids are growing up, after all, and I need to start thinking about what's next. I'm seeing the beginning of the next phase in my non-fiction writing life, and that's been immensely satisfying. More than that, I need something more, and I need it to be new, exciting, challenging, and about all else fun. 

My nifty idea sprang from what I've been reading. I've spent the better part of the past year diving into what I like to call "literary genre fiction" - guys like Justin Cronin, Lev and Austin Grossman, Michael Chabon, Nick Hardaway, George R.R. Martin, who've taken the stuff I read and watch (and write about) for pure pleasure and elevated it. And thus my nifty idea was born. I did some outlining and a bunch of research, started the actual writing...and then, to my dismay, a work of fiction was released that was fairly similar to what I was doing. So I shelved it. I won't say what that work was, because I'm keeping my idea close to the vest - and, as it turned out, that particular thing was a dud. It went nowhere. And my idea was back in play: it occurred to me that I could do something different, cool, unique. So far I've powered out several pages and they keep coming. I listen to my guts when I write, and they're telling me to go go go.

So that's where I'm at. If I seem a bit distant, or not as chatty on the Twitter, it's because I'm hunched down over the laptop, creating. It's hard, draining, exhilarating. I'm geeking out over it.