tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88884584189054312542024-02-07T13:06:13.230-08:00Creativity or Insanity? Straddling the Line...Kalen O'Donnellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02131133469192904315noreply@blogger.comBlogger53125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8888458418905431254.post-3728658503283513922012-10-24T16:46:00.002-07:002012-10-24T17:23:53.072-07:00Zombie Kalen Will Eat Your BrainsHopefully brains taste like sushi or something yum. Whatevs.<br />
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Fair warning: To make up for an overly extended absence, this blog post will be the lengthiest blog post in the history of blog posts EVER. (Partly due to the unnecessary repetition of 'blog post'. Just roll with it).<br />
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ANYWAY. Let's get this out of the way, Kalen's been a bad bad blogger, since he hasn't touched this thing since last January and forgot his own password. I was busy yo! With stuff! <br />
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Oh. You want details?<br />
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FINE! Okay, so not this WriteOnCon, but last one, so like a whole YEAR ago, some drama and shizz went down. Which was really unfortunate because I'd had a bunch of agents request material that I inadvertently left hanging, and plus, you know, drama. I ended up moving cities for a year, family in crisis, blah blah blah ohmygawdWHATEVER I'm so bored. Point is, by the time things settled down last spring and I was able to start focusing on my writing and career again, I'd had a lot of time to think and reflect and decide what I want and how I want to get there.<br />
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'Oh Kalen', those of you who know me well are saying as you shake your heads pityingly. 'That never ends well.'<br />
<br />
No. No it does not.<br />
<br />
Self-deprecating wit aside, this is a Very Important Question that every writer needs to ask themselves at some point, the sooner the better. What do you WANT? For your book, for your career, for yourself? What are your priorities? Would you rather your book be commercially successful or award-winning and praised for its literary merit? Is your dream to see it in hard cover on the shelf in a Barnes and Noble, or just to get it to as many people as possible wherever you find them? To find a niche, build a brand, and revisit the same world and characters as often as a publisher will let you, or branch out and write in multiple genres for multiple demographics?<br />
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So I sat down (well, remained sitting, more like. I was already sitting down) and asked myself these questions. And asked my friends to weigh in. And then went to the nearest McDonalds and asked the cashier what he thought, just to be sure I'd been thorough. I started to develop a sneaking suspicion that my plans were going to have to involve self-publishing.<br />
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Those of you who've read my blog from the start aren't surprised by this, I'm sure. I've always been curious about that road, not from any dissatisfaction with trade publishers, but because I like flexibility, and adaptability, and above all I love the chance to be experimental. My mother calls it Special Snowflake Syndrome. And people wonder where my flavor of wit comes from.<br />
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Most of all though - wait, I already save above all, I can't do most of all on top of that. WHATEVER. Point is, I like options. The more, the better. I have certain worlds in my head that I want to know once I publish them, I'll be able to revisit them with readers whenever I want, rather than have to depend on sales to justify further sequels. I have a book I came up with a specific way to market, that I don't want to have to go through a publisher's marketing department for approval. I have another book where I just don't want to leave a paper trail of the illegal subliminal messages I insert in order to recruit the youth of America into vandalizing property with the graffiti tag: THIS BUILDING IS PROPERTY OF KALEN. ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US.<br />
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And so on and so forth.<br />
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Now, this doesn't mean I'm 'giving up' on trade publishing! Far from it! I'm sitting on a MG fantasy about a boy who's part of a secret society of thieves who steal magic from all corners of time and space. I fully intend to query, submit, and shop it to agents and publishers at some point with completely unreasonable expectations on my part. But that's exactly what I'm talking about. Every book, every author has their own path in the big, wide world of publishing. My path, I've come to believe, involves walking down both the self and trade publishing roads simultaneously....either in accordance with or in defiance of the whole Schrodinger's Cat thing. (I can never figure out which. I'm an author, not a physicist, damn it.) Being able to decide with each book whether publishing it myself or finding a publisher is best for it.<br />
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I'll admit, when I first realized that I was seriously considering self-publishing, there was a lot of neurotic backlash. There was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, and my friends are saints for just tuning out the BUT BUT BUT WHAT ABOUT THE PRETTY HARDCOVERS AND EVERYONE'S GOING TO THINK I JUST WASN'T GOOD ENOUGH AND OMGAWD WHAT IF NOBODY BUT YOU GUYS EVER READS IT EVER AND AND I JUST WANT A MILLION DOLLARS AND A FILM DEAL WHAT IF I NEVER GET A FILM DEAL YOU GUYYYYYYYYYYS.<br />
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Yeah. It wasn't pretty. Snot. Was. EVERYWHERE.<br />
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But then, I started thinking. So my road to publication wasn't going to look like everyone else's. Wait, what DID everyone else's road to publication look like? And then I started looking up people I knew from QueryTracker and AbsoluteWrite and AgentQuery, in the year and a half since I first started building a query list for my first novel. <br />
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And it occurred to me, another question I think every author needs to ask themselves: Just what exactly did I expect my road to publication to look like?<br />
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Should it look my critique partner <a href="http://genniferalbin.com/">Gennifer Albin</a>, who got seven agent offers the first week she queried, sold her trilogy in a major deal, and whose book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Crewel-World-Gennifer-Albin/dp/0374316414/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1351111964&sr=1-1&keywords=Crewel">CREWEL</a> just released last week?<br />
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Or how about my dear friend A.G. Howard, who was on submission for months before selling her debut <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Splintered-A-G-Howard/dp/1419704281/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1351111899&sr=8-1&keywords=Splintered">Splintered</a> at auction, and has gone on to receive gushing praise from book reviewers and bestselling authors like Melissa Marr?<br />
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Or my friend of almost ten years, Corinne Duyvis, who got an agent, went on sub, shelved her novel, sold a short story, attracted the attention of her future editor Maggie Lerhman with said short story, submitted her novel to Maggie, got a new agent (the incomparable Ammi-Joan Paquette), and sold a completely DIFFERENT novel to Maggie, the amazing LGBT fantasy novel <a href="http://www.corinneduyvis.net/novels/otherbound/">Otherbound</a>?<br />
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Or Lydia Kang, who sold her sci-fi <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13390122-control">CONTROL</a> to Penguin/Dial just TWO weeks after she signed with her agent. I KNOW! Holy shizznizz, right?<br />
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I could compare myself to Karen Akins, I guess, since she got requests for her sci-fi novel <a href="http://motherwrite.blogspot.com/2012/06/agent-author-chat-victoria-marini-and.html">LOOP</a> at the same WriteOnCon I did over a year ago...and then went on to sign with Victoria Marini thanks to MSFV's Baker's Dozen auction...an agent who had already rejected her original query months before, and now landed her a two book deal at St. Martin's!<br />
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Or there's Emily Murdoch, who parted ways with her agent and later signed with the amazing Mandy Hubbard, who sold <a href="http://www.amazon.com/If-You-Find-Emily-Murdoch/dp/1250021529/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1351112466&sr=1-1&keywords=Emily+Murdoch">If You Find Me</a> also to St. Martin's.<br />
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And then there's Natalie Parker, who signed with Sarah Davies and almost a full year later announced her six figure two book deal for <a href="http://nataliesee.livejournal.com/tag/announcements">BEWARE THE WILD</a>.<br />
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Josin L. McQuein, who we hate btw, sold <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Arclight-Josin-L-McQuein/dp/0062130145/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1351112849&sr=1-2&keywords=Arclight">ARCLIGHT</a> in a major deal the DAY it went on submission. Then she sold <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13446537-premeditated">PREMEDITATED</a> a few short months later. If she sells another book or announces a film deal or something, I will probably have to shank her, because she's just freaky, okay? (J/k, I adore Josin. She's awesomesauce.)<br />
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Bethany Hagen sold <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13479780-landry-park">LANDRY PARK</a> in a major deal three days after she signed with Mollie Glick. Jessica Khoury signed with her agent last fall, sold <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Jessica-Khoury/dp/1595145958/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1351113071&sr=1-1&keywords=ORIGIN">ORIGIN</a> not long after, and it's already out in stores and has a film deal. Her agent sibling Anna Banks had a similarly fast publishing timeline, selling <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Poseidon-Anna-Banks/dp/1250003326/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1351113138&sr=1-1&keywords=of+poseidon">OF POSEIDON</a> a few weeks after signing, releasing her book a little over a year later, and just announcing this morning that her publisher has requested a third book in her series. Ryan Graudin sold <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12711662-all-that-glows">ALL THAT GLOWS</a> after a relatively short submission period, at least compared to the months my good, amazing and fantabulous friend Bethany Crandell spent on sub before landing <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12711662-all-that-glows">SUMMER ON THE SHORT BUS</a> at Running Press. <a href="http://www.mindeearnett.com/">Mindee Arnett</a> has sold TWO series before her first novel's even debuted. So did <a href="http://www.meaganspooner.com/">Meagan Spooner</a> if you count the BEA Buzz Book SKYLARK she wrote on her own, and <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13138635-these-broken-stars">THESE BROKEN STARS</a>, the space age version of Titanic she wrote with <a href="http://amiekaufman.com/">Amie Kaufman</a> and sold in a significant deal to Hyperion. And you should also check out <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13140790-starglass">STARGLASS</a> by Phoebe North, <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13597755-the-witch-hunter-s-bible">THE WITCH HUNTER'S BIBLE</a> by Michelle Krys, and <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13576132-the-murder-complex">THE MURDER COMPLEX</a> by Lindsay Cummings. Kate Karyus Quinn sold <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12665819-another-little-piece">ANOTHER LITTLE PIECE</a> two weeks after signing with Alexandra Machinist, Stefan Bachmann landed a home for his BEA Buzz Book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Peculiar-Stefan-Bachmann/dp/0062195182/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1351117491&sr=1-1&keywords=the+peculiar+stefan+bachmann">THE PECULIAR</a> two weeks after signing with Sara Megibow, and Mindy McGinnis was on submission for awhile before selling her dystopian <a href="http://writerwriterpantsonfire.blogspot.com/p/not-drop-to-drink.html">NOT A DROP TO DRINK</a>. Mindy likes to stay busy though, so while on submission she started a popular blog about the in's and out's of various writers' query and submission trials....check out her interview with RC Lewis, who landed her agent and book deal for <a href="http://writerwriterpantsonfire.blogspot.com/2012/10/an-overdue-sat-with-my-keeper-rc-lewis.html?showComment=1350403714981">STITCHING SNOW</a> in a most unusual way.<br />
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So you see....even this block-headed numbskull, when confronted with facts like that, eventually realized that even if I did want my road to publication to be just like everyone else's....how would that even be possible? Each and every one of the above authors was unagented when I first started pursuing writing as a career a little under two years ago. Each and everyone of them has become successful in their own way, and no two of those ways look even remotely alike. And these are just their debuts....who can imagine the varied shapes the rest of their careers will take? When I realized I couldn't even pick out one specific author's road to publication to wish for mine to imitate, it became very freeing in a way. Welcome, I realized at last, to an industry where normal means being different from everyone else!<br />
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I'd now like to bring this back around to making it all about me. Stop groaning, it was inevitable. I use the word ego in my blog address, you were forewarned. <br />
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So in the spirit of charting my own path, I decided at last that my debut novel will be self-published, and it will be completely unlike any of the above. The Special Snowflake Syndrome has no cure. I've made my peace with that. I chose self-publishing for this particular novel for a number of reasons. No agent or editor has ever seen the manuscript for this; I never queried or submitted it to publishers. It's a superhero novel, or more accurately, a novel about the daughter of a supervillain. It will be categorized under YA on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and the other online retailers, but technically its more a 'New Adult', since the main character is out of high school and on her own, for thematic purposes and reasons pertaining to story. But most importantly, it's serialized.<br />
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I've been a lifelong comic book fan, not just for the brightly colored and spandex clad superheroes, but because I'm a fan of the medium. The different ways it plays with storytelling. Leave aside the pairing of art and story, modern superhero comics are structured in an interesting way, frequently having 'story arcs' made up of five or six issues released either monthly or biweekly that go together to form an overall storyline. Each issue has its own rising and falling action, some issues end on cliffhangers, some don't, but at the end of the story arc you're left with a complete resolution. It's a format that is well suited to superhero adventures, and its that model I've chosen to imitate here. And so 'FENCE: Sins of the Daughter' consists of five 'issues' or installments of 15-20K apiece. Each with their own relatively self-contained piece of the overall story, a novel of approximately 90K. I'll be unveiling my website at the start of next week, along with the first chapter as a free sample and news on other projects as well. The first installment of FENCE will be available on all major online retailers the following week. Each issue of FENCE will be $1.49, and new issues will be released every two weeks, with a complete volume releasing once the last issue is out. The complete volume will be priced at $6.99, so if you wait to read the whole thing then you'll save fifty cents. But, you know, screw waiting guys. Instant gratification is so much more rewarding, yanno?<br />
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ANYWAY. So that's the scoop, the buzz, the poop. Be a gaggle of darlings and spread the news, mark it in your dayplanners, confer with friends. Or you know, don't do any of that and disregard as Not Your Cuppa Tea. I WILL LOVE YOU EITHER WAY! *smothers you all with lurv and adoration*<br />
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Kalen out!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvU84sT7sppZ9RnUPUay9HfehNLsFEsn0DtI24VwBgvzrYWICV8tPU512hnQ_OnX2X0WBRhUHInKg_q8CR4OdUK4trqaORa96x0DKJXiIbR3i-xx_MT4na_rEob3c0aHvPCATQZ7kFRLA/s1600/FENCEcover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvU84sT7sppZ9RnUPUay9HfehNLsFEsn0DtI24VwBgvzrYWICV8tPU512hnQ_OnX2X0WBRhUHInKg_q8CR4OdUK4trqaORa96x0DKJXiIbR3i-xx_MT4na_rEob3c0aHvPCATQZ7kFRLA/s320/FENCEcover.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<b>FENCE: SINS OF THE DAUGHTER</b></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, arial, verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 22px;">fence</span></div>
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<span class="main-fl" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><em style="color: #717274; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold;">noun</em>,</span><span class="usg" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><em style="color: #717274; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold;">often attributive</em></span><span class="pr" style="color: #717274; display: inline; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-left: 10px;">\<span class="unicode" style="background-image: none; font-family: 'lucida sans unicode'; font-size: 0.9em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">ˈ</span>fen(t)s\</span></div>
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<span class="pr" style="color: #717274; display: inline; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-left: 10px;"><span class="ssens" style="background-color: white; color: black; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;"><em class="sn" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: bold;">a</em> <strong>:</strong> a receiver of stolen goods</span></span></div>
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<em class="sn" style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px;">b</em><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;"> </span><strong style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;">:</strong><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;">a place where stolen goods are bought</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Two years ago,
the villainous Dr. Moreau plummeted to his death from 20,000 feet in the air.
It was agreed a superhero had to be responsible; it was also agreed
nobody was terribly concerned with figuring out which one.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Nobody except Cassidy Moreau.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Unimpressed with justice's selective blindness,
Cassidy adopted her own ridiculous cloaked persona and set out on a revenge
spree that would make her father proud. As the Fence, she's perfected her
dad's technology and uses it to strip heroes of their abilities....which she
then sells to the highest bidder. So far, it hasn't gotten her any closer
to unmasking her father's killer, but at least it keeps her credit cards paid
off.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">It's strictly business when she targets Manhattan's literal
golden boy, the teen heart throb formerly known as Kid Midas. Problem is, Midas turns out to be more than just a set of washboard abs when he uncovers
Cassidy's secret identity. His brief spurt of brain activity is mitigated
by his belief he can get his powers back by appealing to her better nature, but
whatever. Cassidy's got bigger problems. The guy she sold his
abilities to is a crazed nihilist intending to use them to destroy the city.
Who knew changing things to gold involved moving atoms around, right?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">As the city counts down towards doomsday, its fate rests in whether or not one hero can convince Cassidy to give a damn - preferably before she takes the nearest bus out of town.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Don't hold your breath, Manhattan. </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>Kalen O'Donnellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02131133469192904315noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8888458418905431254.post-87241931143767254172012-01-04T19:26:00.001-08:002012-01-04T21:34:48.368-08:00The Sound and the Fury (of Internet Flame Wars)So for anyone who's been on twitter in the past couple of days, I'm sure the news that there's been yet another kerfluffle in the epic YA Reviewers Vs YA Authors war comes as no surprise. Let's call this one Round Fifty Bajillion, shall we?<br />
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Being as I have no connection to anyone in the Goodreads thread, am not yet an author, and am too lazy to actually review books, I read said thread with the kind of morbid fascination I normally reserve for viewing Joel Schumacher movies. This isn't to say that it was a new or unfamiliar phenomenom to me - I am a hardened veteran of internet wars in other arenas and have conducted myself embarrassingly on more than one occasion. Hell, there are certain parts of the internet where my name is used as a verb - but don't ask. It's a long story, and I don't look pretty in it, so I'll only lie anyway.<br />
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My point is, this shit happens. We get worked up, we say things we shouldn't, and as we have ostentatiously large vocabularies with which to arm our insults, things get ugly real quick. We are all imperfectly evolved monkeys after all - the urge to occasionally fling our own poo at each other is hard-wired into our DNA. (Or something like that. I dunno. Biology wasn't my best subject.)<br />
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Problem is, we're all so busy pointing fingers in the aftermath that we rarely bother to take a good hard look at ourselves. But it takes two to tango, as much as we try to pretend otherwise, and there were some gross misassumptions being thrown around on BOTH sides of this most recent argument which all but guarantee that it will happen again in some form or another. And as I'm hoping the next big internet kerfluffle is about something a little more interesting, like say, Zombie Dinosaurs Were Responsible for Ending the Vietnam War: True or False, I thought I'd point out some of those misassumptions here in a blogpost I shall inevitably regret when I sober up in the morning. Please know that not everything I say in this post is directed at the Tempest review thread that....its simply the most recent brouhaha in a long line of YA review brouhahas and it (and even moreso, the responses to it all around the 'net) have gotten me thinking.<br />
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First off, there's a LOT of talk going around about readers and reviewers railing against authors for weighing in on their reviews, and how this is like censorship and etc, etc, etc ad nauseam. The thing is....no. It's really not. And the more people say that, the more people who don't know any better will start to really believe it, and the more I will bang my head against my desk when my doctor has told me any more concussions and I'll start randomly speaking in tongues like Klingon and High Elvish, which has the potential to be mad embarrassing, yo.<br />
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See the thing about free speech: contrary to popular assumption, it does NOT equal freedom from the SOCIAL consequences of your speech.<br />
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You get to say whatever you want on the internet, this is true. About the books you read, the authors who write them, whatever. You get to say it however you want to, as well. You can be angry, sarcastic, passive aggressive or even speak in rhyme.<br />
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What you can NOT do however, is dictate how people respond to you. Nor can you dictate who composes those responses.<br />
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Look, however you try and spin it, the review that sparked this most recent argument was antagonistic in tone. I don't say this as a condemnation, just as a point of fact. It was about a hot button issue for the reviewer, and lord knows I have hot button issues of my own - queef me a smoke signal about bisexuals being misrepresented and I'm likely to show up two seconds later with nuclear warheads armed and at the ready.<br />
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All I'm saying is if you're going to put something like that out there you need to hold yourself responsible for putting it out there in the manner you chose. You can't start the party off with some righteous hellfire and brimstone and then get pissed that when dissidents eventually show up, they're not wearing their Calm and Rational Discourse party hats. You're the one that set the tone, and as like begets like, people respond accordingly. This is basic schoolyard politics. We learned this stuff in grade school. You can run up behind little Sammy Stickuphisass on the playground and push him over if you feel like it, but its disingenuous to then run to the teacher and play the victim when Sammy turns around and pushes you back. Take whatever tone you want on the internet and vent accordingly - just don't expect to be disagreed with in a kind and thoughtful tone.<br />
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But, you might say, I have a right to say what I want about this book I purchased without having to worry about the author looking over my shoulder and weighing in on what I say about it.<br />
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No. Wrong. You absolutely do not have that RIGHT. The fact that MOST authors do not do this has absolutely nothing to do with you and everything to do with them and their personal desire to conduct themselves professionally - with the provision that there is no single standard for professional behavior and they all have to make their own decisions on what constitutes behaving professionally.<br />
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But make no mistake, the generally accepted standard of behavior in no way gives you some right to say whatever you want about an author's book and expect that they know better than to engage you on it. I'm not saying this is a good idea for authors - in fact, I think its a freaking godawful idea for authors. I'm just saying, authors or friends of authors who DO take umbrage in regards to a review aren't breaking some law. You don't actually get to go round up in the internet in defense of yourself if you crossed the lines of good taste because you were operating under the assumption the author 'knew better' than to return fire. (And please note, I'm not actually talking about the Tempest review when I say this - I think the initial review was antagonistic but not overly so, and did not actually cross any lines into attacking the author personally - but let's not play the 'I've never seen a review that went too far' game, mmkay?)<br />
<br />
My point here is simply that I've seen too many reviewers getting dangerously close to that line-of-good-taste simply because they know the author is going to come off looking bad if they speak up about it. If this is or ever has been you, let's be real - you're taking advantage of social economics, not waging the war of the underdog against the big bad asshole author. There is no actual unwritten law that protects you from authors getting pissed at you...and there sure as hell is no unwritten moral law that excuses you from behaving like a mature adult just because you dropped eight bucks on a paperback.<br />
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I'm not even going to get into the comments I've seen from people who justify their attitude towards authors in reviews and comment threads by saying 'oh they bucketloads of money from their publishing deal so they should just suck it up and deal'. Umm yeah...that's not actually justification. It's just you being a dick, and the less said about that the better.<br />
<br />
But now for the flip side of the equation, the authors.<br />
<br />
Again, look, I get it. If you've never actually tried writing a whole book and getting it out there for public consumption - that shit will wear you down, kids. True fact. It's not actually an extreme exaggeration to say that by the time of publication most authors view their stories as something akin to a beloved child. And much like sending a beloved child off to school for the first time, the temptation to 'tag along' and just see how they fare out in the big wide world by you know, secretly stalking them from behind bushes and trashcans - it can be overwhelming. But what authors have to realize is if you give in to that temptation, sooner or later you're going to see some punk bullying your precious baby and taking his lunch money, and while running up to the bullying little shit and kicking him in his pre-pubescent balls will sure FEEL satisfying....its absolutely not going to end well for you. Hands down, guaranteed. And this goes for friends and colleagues of the author as well....the general public isn't likely to look any more kindly on you for castrating that smart-mouthed little asshat because you're just the doting aunt or uncle rather than the mouth-frothingly over-protective Mother Bear herself. <br />
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Secondly, this is the internet, and Rule One of Internet Warfare is He Who Shouts the Loudest is most likely to win. And authors on the internet have Big Voices. The mere act of getting a blurb about your book posted in Publisher's Marketplace is usually enough to net an author an easy hundred more twitter followers than your average reviewer. When an author says something on the internet, they say it to more people. When an author points something out, more people look where they're pointing. When an author says 'I'm right about this', more people respond with 'you absolutely are!' The internet is at times an anarchistic wasteland, my friends. We make Mad Max look like an upstanding citizen of a genteel civilization at times. Screw the rules of common courtesy, mob rule holds sway more often than not, and just by virtue of being able to say 'I have a book', internet-math ups your chances of having at least a few sycophants at your beck and call. It's just the way things are.<br />
<br />
So yeah, let's not kid ourselves - you don't have to fight your own battles when you're an author. You just have to point towards them with heavy-handed implication and you can expect friends and fans to do the fighting for you. Just like when reviewers start things off explosively and then cry foul when it backfires, its disingenuous when an author just points a negative opinion out on twitter and then stands back with a 'oh, but I'm not going to get involved.' Yeah, but no. To go back to my Oh So Intellectual playground analogy from earlier, its the equivalent of showing up to a fight behind the bleachers with all your friends from the football team standing behind you. And if you've never seen how that one ends, you've never slept with the quarterback's super hot cheerleader girlfriend, thinking they were on a break. (I do not recommend, btw. Not that I'm uh, speaking from experience or anything.) But yeah. Nobody's going to lock you up in Internet Jail if you bring your posse to each and every one of these little soirees....its just, ya know, super hella tacky if you do.<br />
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Again, just to reiterate, because pedantic is how I roll, I get it dudes. I still hope to be published someday myself, and I can tell you right now, I'm gonna absolutely SUCK at the whole behaving professionally thing. I mean, real talk. I'm a writer AND an actor. I come with a double dose of built in insecure neuroses. If I'm ever lucky enough to land a big bucks publishing deal, the first thing I'm investing in is a tattooed, physically intimidating club bouncer to hover behind me everytime I go online and punch me in the throat if it even looks like I'm about to hit reply to a negative review or comment. But you know....do what you have to in order to take the higher road. It's seriously worth it. Get up and go take a walk everytime someone pisses you off. Head down to the nearest ATM, withdraw a hundred bucks in singles from your bank account and bring it home, toss it on the bed and roll around in it to make yourself feel better if that's what you absolutely have to do.<br />
<br />
....Just don't tell anyone that's how you handle criticism if you do. That's not gonna go over well either. Just saying.<br />
<br />
So yeah, in conclusion to this epic rambling-ness.....at the end of the day, the writer's obligation to their reader begins and ends with writing the book readers purchase. The reader's obligation to the writer begins and ends with plopping down however much money their book cost to purchase. It's THAT simple. Anything and everything outside of that simple transaction comes with absolutely zero guarantees.<br />
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Writers and readers are inevitably going to come into conflict at times. But when that happens, guess what? Both sides bear the onus of behaving like mature adults equally. Neither side is inherently more responsible for catering to the needs or wishes of the other - not the authors, because the reader spent their hard-earned money on them, and not the readers, because the author wrote that story they liked. Honestly, people need to stop worrying about what other people SHOULD be doing or how they SHOULD handle themselves and just worry about the only thing they can control - how they conduct themselves personally. And yes, I'm perfectly aware that this entire blogpost is about telling other people how they should behave and I'm absolutely a hypocrite, but like, whatever and stuff. I'm an imperfectly evolved monkey, remember? <br />
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Act like adults, or don't. It's totally up to you. But if you choose not to, accept that you played your own part in whatever follows, and don't run off crying foul to the rest of the internet because so and so hurt your feelings.<br />
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Some of us are busy playing Skyrim, thank you very much.Kalen O'Donnellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02131133469192904315noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8888458418905431254.post-72417971362082677402011-11-25T14:00:00.000-08:002011-11-25T14:29:10.645-08:00Five Days Left in NaNo....So how's everybody doing with that? I'm just checking in, because well.....remember that Critique Partner Auction Blogfest thingie I tried to do last year? Didn't really work out and I said I'd try again after NaNo....<br />
<br />
Yeah, so...I'm not gonna do that. Got an epic workload in December and that's just asking for trouble. What I AM going to do however is host a Critique Partner Blogfest for everyone who wants another set of eyes to sign up. On the day/week of the Blogfest just post a logline and first 250 words of your MS and then click through other blogs in the blogfest in search of new Critique Partners to swap with. Easy peasy. So what I'm just curious about is when you think would be the best time for this? Is December 1st too soon? I know that even if people finished 50K in November that doesn't mean they'll be done with their book yet. So would people be interested in going ahead and starting with a Blogfest like this first week of December or would you guys prefer to wait a week or two and give people a little more time to finish their whole books first?<br />
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Feel free to chime in with thoughts, comments and suggestions and I'll post next week with an actual date and sign up sheet for the Blogfest once people have had time to weigh in.<br />
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Happy Thanksgiving weekend all and good luck on the last few days of NaNo!Kalen O'Donnellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02131133469192904315noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8888458418905431254.post-49108652473185658942011-11-15T13:47:00.000-08:002011-11-15T13:47:01.842-08:00Tough Topic Tuesday: Where's the Responsibility?Hello, lovely peoples! It is a beauteous Tuesday here in Southern California, and I have been PONDERING.<br />
<br />
Also, whichever one of you got me hooked on alliteration (points up at post title), I suggest you start running, for I am mightily vexed. You don't even want to know what my manuscripts look like these days. It's like Old English Poetry decided to just take a dump all over them.<br />
<br />
ANYWAYS.<br />
<br />
So I've been thinking a lot lately about the responsibility of an author, especially a YA author, in regards to difficult or morally gray subject matter. A lot of YA (particularly contemporaries) tackle some pretty heavy stuff these days. I mean, we all remember the Wall Street Journal kerfluffle, right? But it's not subject matter that's got me thinking, but how we approach those subject matters.<br />
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Sometimes you have the Voice of Moral Authority, that heavy-handed author who ordains from her writing desk that CERTAIN THINGS ARE BAD AND YOU SHOULD NEVER DO THEM. 'Mary Ellen caved to peer pressure and smoked a joint one day and it ruined her life and broke up her family and she flunked out of school and never went to college and worked at a gas station the rest of her life and died miserable and alone, DO YOU WANT TO BE LIKE MARY ELLEN?'<br />
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Fortunately, most of us keep our Voices of Moral Authority tucked far, far away from our writing desks.<br />
<br />
But then we have Buddy-Buddy/I'm Just Like You Kids Syndrome, that lackadaisical approach wherein we're all just good friends and its just a story anyways and kids'll make the right choice on their own. 'Mary Ellen got high every single day and it was totally awesome and she never had to be sober once all through high school and yet she still graduated with honors and had a totally cool boyfriend and they both went to law school and had two point five kids, a golden retriever and a house with a white picket fence and lived happily ever after while still occasionally getting high with their now teenage kids, DON'T YOU WISH YOU WERE JUST LIKE MARY ELLEN?'<br />
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Fortunately, this particular syndrome is rare amongst capable writers as well.<br />
<br />
Obviously, these are two very extreme ends of the spectrum, and most of us, and most published works, fall somewhere in the middle. The question is, where do you fall in this spectrum? What do you see as your responsibility to teen readers?<br />
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I think most of us would like to be as true to life as possible and let readers draw their own conclusions, and decide for themselves. But drugs are a fairly easy example. There's not a lot of gray area when it comes to strictly illegal substances and breaking the law, so you don't HAVE to be heavy-handed as an author to still feel comfortable that kids aren't going to put down your book and immediately go in search of a crack pipe, no matter what tack you take with it. It takes some of the pressure off.<br />
<br />
But what about something where there isn't as clear a right or wrong? A lot of YA deals with complex social issues like eating disorders, abusive relationships, etc....so let's extrapolate from one of those.<br />
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This is a purely hypothetical writing exercise, not based on a real book:<br />
<br />
Say you're writing a story that involves a boy with a history of being abusive to his girlfriend - but he's not with her anymore, he's done his best to make amends, he's been through therapy, he's doing his best to be a different person, a better person...and he meets a new girl. What does this new girl in your story and in his life do? Does she trust herself with him, even knowing he has a violent past, believing in second chances and that he's a different person now?<br />
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What message would you, the author writing that narrative, want teenage girls to take away from reading that book? And how much, and in what ways, would your writing of that book be shaped by the choice you'd hope your readers would make if they found themselves in that situation?<br />
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Discuss.Kalen O'Donnellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02131133469192904315noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8888458418905431254.post-4588766360818468952011-11-10T17:23:00.000-08:002011-11-10T17:31:52.030-08:00Tales from the SetSo I have officially beaten NaNo with the completion of SUNSET SONATA at 85K....and I'm off and running again with my next novel GHOST FOX GIRLS (sample and synopsis are up on the nanowrimo.org site under my KalenO profile - feel free to add me to your buddy list if you haven't already).<br />
<br />
But I thought I'd take a break from all that for a second and revive a short-lived series from earlier in the year....my weekly Tales from the Set...in which I give a nitty gritty view of some of the shenanigans that take place on the sets of some of the most popular TV shows and movies.<br />
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Be forewarned. This week's installment is SCANDALOUS. <br />
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Now, aside from being SCANDALOUS, this week's tale is also from my early days as an extra, and takes place on the set of a popular medical drama...but do not bother speculating as to which show precisely it is, as I CAN NEITHER CONFIRM NOR DENY!<br />
<br />
Unless you bribe me with books, of course. I'm the literary equivalent of a cheap date.<br />
<br />
ANYWAYS. So there we were, on location at a real, actual hospital for filming. This show had its set on one of the major lots of course, but it also used big, sweeping shots of the outside of a hospital, people going in and out of the entrance and scenes that took actors down long, hospital hallways that simply couldn't be replicated on a small soundstage. So for shots like those, they used a VA hospital that allowed them free reign of one wing of it after 4 pm one day a week.<br />
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Now, most of the extras on this show were regulars...they liked to establish us as background doctors, nurses and orderlies so there was a familiar feel to the hospital rather than the sense that it was a Magic Hospital that contained thousands more doctors, nurses and orderlies than the Rules of Physics would seem to allow.<br />
<br />
So we were all friendly, we knew each other well, joked around all the time, knew the cast, the crew....in fact, to the new, virginal extras who came on the show every week to be patients and visitors and never return, we seemed an impenetrable clique.<br />
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As such, in accordance with the Laws of Cool Kids Everywhere, we didn't really associate with the new extras much. And for that, I blame society and accept no responsibility.<br />
<br />
ANYWAYS. So on the day in question, we were pretty much being left to our own devices while the cast and crew shot scenes on the far end of the hospital wing opposite where we were positioned. There was a grand, Very Dramatic scene wherein a mob of doctors swept through the halls of the hospital following the lead of one doctor, and we were all positioned in that last hallway they were to walk through so they'd have people to Dramatically Sweep Aside as they passed.<br />
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However, they were taking a very long time with the scenes at the other end of the hospital, and they hadn't gotten to us for hours. Needless to say, we were very bored.<br />
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So a group of us 'regulars' were sitting on the floor in the hallway we were supposed to be waiting in. Playing on our phones, chatting, being silly, and rolling a tennis ball back and forth to each other. Oh yeah. Hollywood, baby. You know you're jealous.<br />
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All of a sudden, one of the new extras came running up to us. She'd been stationed in a small alcove further down the hall, and I guess due to our Unapproachable Cliquey-ness had remained there rather than come closer and join us in our highly fulfilling game of 'Roll the Tennis Ball'. So imagine our surprise when this petite little blonde girl in nurse scrubs comes running up to us, all wide-eyed and out of breath.<br />
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"What is it, Lassie? Did Timmy fall down the well again?" One of us (possibly me, I admit to nothing) inquired somewhat asininely.<br />
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"So I was waiting in that alcove like they told me," she huffed, still out of breath. We nodded along, hoping this was going somewhere good. As I said, we were very bored. "And I had to sneeze, but I didn't want to make any noise, you know, cuz they're filming over there!"<br />
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We nodded somewhat less enthusiastically, no longer convinced the punch line was going to be worth our attention. She clearly had no idea how to get to the point. It was very different from how I tell a story like this, for instance.<br />
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"So I opened the door behind me and stuck my head in to cough - " Here she paused dramatically, so I will do the same....<br />
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"And there were two people in there HAVING SEX!"<br />
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"Just to clarify, when you say having sex, you mean..." <br />
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I received a few dirty looks at my effort to seek clarification, and shrugged. "What? We don't know what she considers to be having sex. I feel its a valid question. She could be Amish and referring to heavy petting, for all we know!"<br />
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"Well, there was a guy laying on a bed and a woman on top of him and she had no shirt on and when they saw me the woman said 'Can I help you, sweetie?'"<br />
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"Yup, that counts," I said. I was mostly ignored.<br />
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Instead everyone exchanged wide-eyed looks and started down the hallway. This was by far the most exciting thing that had happened since lunch, and we were all a bunch of pervs anyways. It wasn't like we were going to look in the room or anything. It was just that it was after 4 pm, so the only people still in this part of the hospital were members of the production like us and we were very, very curious to see who would come out of that room.<br />
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Now, since we were regulars and had been to this part of this hospital many times before, we were familiar with the layout. And like veritable Nancy Drews we staked out all exits to the Room Behind the Alcove...and sure enough, we spied with our little eyes, Let's Call Her Helen (one of the make-up artists) and Let's Call Him Drew (one of the key grips) sneaking out of the room not long after. Looking miiiiiiightily disheveled.<br />
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This would have been pure titillation, were it not for one thing.<br />
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Being 'regulars' on the show, we were familiar with most of the members of the crew. Including Let's Call Him Drew.<br />
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And Let's Call Him Drew's wife. A very lovely, very sweet woman.<br />
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Who was definitely NOT Let's Call Her Helen.<br />
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In that empty, echo-ey hallway, you could actually hear the sound of a dozen eyes narrowing militantly.<br />
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Now, here's the thing about Hollywood.<br />
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Gossip is kind of its lifeblood. Doesn't matter how much you moan about it, or whether or not you abstain from partaking personally. Everyone knows everything about everyone....or in the absence of actual knowledge, makes stuff up to fill in any gaps.<br />
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Even sequestered away from the rest of production in our little hallway at the end of the hospital, somehow, within ten minutes, every other member of cast and crew knew what was going on. Except for the first AD who was growing increasingly frustrated at his inability to locate Let's Call Her Helen anywhere (she was hiding in one of the trailers)...and the smirks he was getting whenever he asked.<br />
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And for the record, there's nothing quite like watching an A-list actress and major star of a show royally ream out one of the grips for being 'a dick-weaseled ass monkey', to paraphrase loosely.<br />
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Now, the moral of today's tale is you never know who might be watching - or just sticking their head in to sneeze, so be careful what you do and say and where you do it and with whom. That shit'll always come back to bite you in the ass. ESPECIALLY if you're doing something interesting and observed by people who are bored.<br />
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And further for the record, that describes 99% of the internet. Just something to keep in mind when social networking.<br />
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Oh, and just don't do the dirty at work. It's never worth it, kids.<br />
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Unless you're getting paid for it.<br />
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(Which incidentally ties into next week's tale.....but that's a story for another time.)Kalen O'Donnellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02131133469192904315noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8888458418905431254.post-66158934267631299372011-11-03T15:07:00.000-07:002011-11-03T15:09:59.050-07:00Productivity: Magic or Timing?So a gchat with one of my best buds and a twitter conversation with some of my favorite tweety birds has me thinking....<br />
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I know, I know, that's never a good thing. You can all stop groaning now.<br />
<br />
But real talk, peeps. So we were talking about productivity and writing speeds, and how I can be a little cray cray at times. And my good gal-pal Linsey who has known me nigh for a decade now, allllll the way back when we were wee Roswell fanfic writers (gasp, I know, I wrote FANFIC!) was testimony to the fact that like, yo.....I used to be completely incapable of finishing a single project. True story. Oh, I've always written fast, I can pound out a few thousand words in a sitting, but we all know that's only half of writing. It doesn't matter how quickly you can type, because if the words ain't coming, they ain't coming. And that was my problem. I'd launch into these big, sweeping epics, get 15K or so into them in just a couple days....and then I'd flounder and flounce off to a new shiny. I'd come back to the initial project after awhile (or after I'd floundered midway through others) and add more....another massive update or two of 15-20K in a matter of days....but it might be weeks or even months between those updates.<br />
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My writing was a study in evolutionary leaps. Stories would crawl through the mud aimlessly, and every few thousand years a sudden LEAP to give them legs....and then it'd be another few thousand years before I came back to teach that little story fire, and like, give it a plot or something.<br />
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Yeah, not the best analogy, I know. This is my brain on NaNo, remember kids? I warned you it wasn't going to be pretty.<br />
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But basically, I had a lot of fish in the sea, but all of them were deformed little mutant tadpoles who were never gonna grow up to be Adult Bullfrog Stories or whatever. (Man I am just BEATING this metaphor to death.)<br />
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And to this day, most of them remain floundering around in the back of my brain, malnourished and unloved. This is why I don't have pets.<br />
<br />
But overtime, once I moved on to being a 'real writer' - which means you have to legitimately write THE END on a project without using the 'rocks fall, people die' shortcut - I got better at the whole finishing thing. But it took time.<br />
<br />
My first novel, ROANOKE, took nine months to finish. And I wrote for it every day. But I wrote a couple hundred words a day at times, completely uninspired. It was like pulling teeth, but I did it. But what I wound up with wasn't very good.<br />
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My second novel, SHADES OF ADRIAN GRAY, took two years to finish, technically speaking. But in reality the break down went: Wrote the first chapter in a day....it sat for seven months....wrote the next six chapters in six days, one a day....then it sat for a year and a half....then wrote the last fourteen chapters in three days.<br />
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Later books were somewhere in between. ESCAPE ART took around five months, with long periods of not writing at all, GEMINI took three and I managed to be fairly consistent, but with low daily word counts.<br />
<br />
But then, with more recent books, my stats jumped again. DUST TO DUST was finished in three weeks. MOST LIKELY TO SURVIVE took a month. And I'm 25K into my NaNo novel, SUNSET SONATA, with another 50K projected until the end. And my first drafts weren't...aren't terrible. They're not just words on a page. Oh, they're first drafts, with desperate need of revision, but they're still workable first drafts.<br />
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So Linsey and I were talking, and I attributed my speed with SUNSET SONATA to the book just coming to me easily, the story well within reach. I picked the right story to write, I said. And she laughed, and was like, oh yeah, because this was one of your contenders all along. As of October 31st...four days ago, I was still debating which of three story ideas I was going to write this month. SUNSET SONATA was not on the list. The basic grain of the story idea was one I had over a year ago, for a short story I was going to write, an adult sci-fi short, but I hadn't even thought of it in months. It was nowhere in the reckoning at all. Then several hours before NaNo started, I got up from my computer, started pacing, annoyed with all three of my story ideas and my inability to choose between them....and I randomly thought of that short story idea again. It grew and grew, I hopped on gchat and threw it out there as a possible story idea to Genn, weighed pro's and con's, the story growing all the while, and after an hour of chatting I decided, this was going to be my NaNo. It was around 10 pm on October 31st, and I was still brainstorming titles, trying to make a cover to inspire me....<br />
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And then midnight hit, it was the start of NaNoWriMo, I tossed the words SUNSET SONATA on the top of my first page and started to write. Three days later, I'm a third of the way done with the book at 25K.<br />
<br />
So no, this story wasn't one of my contenders long before NaNo started. It wasn't even a speck in my brain. But I was still right, in what I told Linsey. I'd picked the right story, that's why it's coming so quickly and easily. It doesn't matter when I came up with it, or how much thought I'd put into it beforehand....I had other story possibilities, all of them viable, most that I'll still likely write at some point....it just happened to be the right time for THIS story.<br />
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And that, I think, is my personal secret to my productivity. I've always written quickly. But in terms of writing full novels quickly....it just boils down to this....somewhere along the line, I got better at picking what story to write at what time. That's it. Call it luck, call it instinct, but I firmly believe that FOR ME at least, and my personal writing process, knowing full well it's different for everyone....I can write any story at any time. But the difference between it being a long and arduous process and a lightning fast sprint is finding that magical sweet spot where I'm writing the RIGHT story at the RIGHT time. If I had gone with ALL HIS LITTLE MONSTERS instead of this one, would I be 25K into it? Probably not. Hell in fact, I can guarantee it. Oh, I'd probably have 8K or so, still completely respectable, but it would be a struggle. I wouldn't still be as inspired when I got up from writing as I was when I sat down. I'd be exhausted at the end of an eight hour block of solid writing rather than exhilarated. <br />
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But when its the right story, when its the right time....10K a sitting doesn't wear me down. Doesn't burn me out. Not til all's said and done, anyways, and I put THE END after that final period. <br />
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I guess what I'm saying is....writing's kinda my crack, yo, and I'm a hopeless addict.<br />
<br />
Somebody pass me a lighter, willya?<br />
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And just so its not all about me.....(though really, its my blog and I'll be egocentric if I want to, dagnabbit, ME ME ME, there, I feel better).... <br />
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So what about you guys? What's your average pace like, if you have one, and does it vary from project to project? If so, what, if anything, do you think was special about the projects that came to you quicker or easier?Kalen O'Donnellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02131133469192904315noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8888458418905431254.post-43061922079699245682011-11-02T16:48:00.000-07:002011-11-02T17:04:00.786-07:00WIP WednesdaySo its Day Two of NaNo and I am off and running and a little bit insane. Just topped off at 15K for two days....definitely time for a break, but I think I can get another couple thousand words later tonight. Not gonna aim for 5K more, as tempting as it is though. Pace yourself, self.<br />
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Anyways, a little about my NaNo project....its a YA sci-fi space opera called SUNSET SONATA. In it, there's a race of supremely powerful bodiless entities known as the patrons...they don't communicate with humanity or interact with them, save for when they can be persuaded to through art, the only thing humans create that they're at all interested or intrigued by. And so in the galactic civilization of the distant future, artists wield great power - they attend rulers and command armies, as with the backing of a patron, they can manipulate the weather, destroy cities, even confer immortality. But first they must train at the Academy, in the hopes of attracting a patron of their own....and learning, sometimes at a terrible cost, that the favors of their patrons are unpredictable and sometimes dangerous....and can vanish as quickly as they're granted.<br />
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In this excerpt, the main character Teela (a Musician) gets her first glimpse of the Academy, along with three of her future classmates, an Architect, a Painter and a Dancer.<br />
<br />
<br />
The sky-ferry rounded the cliffs and I leaned forward over the railing, eager for my first glimpse of the Academy. I failed to realize doing so would put me partially outside the comfort of the ferry’s artificial atmosphere. Chill winter winds tore at my face, chapping my lips and numbing my cheeks. I gasped and shivered and most likely caught pneumonia, but then the towering spires of the Academy loomed up ahead of us and I forgot how to be anything but awed. <br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It crowned the red rocks of the mountaintop like a glittering, multi-faceted jewel, walls curving and climbing at dizzying angles that defied everything I thought I knew about geometry. Buildings shimmered like pearls beneath the haze of the Academy’s perpetual twilight, the grounds blanketed by lush, sprawling gardens said to bloom year round in an eternal spring. A spinning crystal orb balanced atop the tallest tower. Riotous displays of color boiled and shifted within it and splashed across the sky above, rainbow auroras crashing against banks of clouds like waves upon a shore.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“The Painter’s Moon,” Alars said. He leaned forward besides me, eyes following the same path as mine. His fingers twitched against the railing. “Imagine painting with the sky itself as your canvas.” </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I was no painter, but I understood the hunger in his voice all the same. Then the temperature jumped in a span of seconds as we crossed whatever border kept the Academy in its own space and time, untouched by the outside world. The sky-ferry picked up speed and we skimmed along the sides of the mountain. We darted past hanging tropical gardens, the air thick and heavy with their perfumes. Winds from our passage set delicate trees to swaying and howled through gaps in the rocks, somehow turning into haunting melodies that I recognized: Ardakoff’s Requiem at Midnight, the Dosvai Dirges, Mariroja’s Pasionada ad Infinatum….great.<br />
<br />
Even the rocks at this place played them better than I did.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">We drew level with a waterfall thundering down the cliff-face. It drowned out whatever Mera was saying next to me. Spray misted our faces as the ferry rose to the Academy proper. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It was impossible to gauge just how big it was, but then, a good many things about it were impossible in general. Like the buildings that looked as though sculpted from ice and hovering above with no support whatsoever. Or the sweeping silver staircase that climbed so high in the air it seemed to end in the clouds. Or the bridge of water growing out of a fountain and supporting a handful of people as sturdily as one made from stone…but then, I supposed that’s why it was called the Impossible Academy. What do you expect from a place crafted from imagination, unfettered by physics?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Wait, hold that pose!” Ezra shouted behind me. I spun to see him viewing me through framed hands. He pursed his lips in mock concentration. “I have my first masterpiece. Open-Mouthed Peasant Feasting Upon Flies.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Ezra, move away from the railing,” Mera said with an imperious eye roll I vowed to later practice in the mirror. She held a perfectly manicured hand between them and studied it, as though gauging its effectiveness as an instrument of fratricide. “I’m feeling dangerously justified in shoving you overboard.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">He scowled and sulked off.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“How are you related to him?” I wondered out loud.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Some kind of cosmic joke, I suppose.” She sighed. “I don’t get it.” </div> Kalen O'Donnellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02131133469192904315noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8888458418905431254.post-48109600133679304002011-10-17T14:38:00.000-07:002011-10-17T14:38:59.029-07:00Can you smell the Nano in the air?It's that time again, boys and girls. Mostly girls though.<br />
<br />
Yes, November is just around the corner, and I don't think I have to tell anyone what that means. Not followers of THIS blog. You crazy kids know the drill. It's the annual writer version of a marathon, the literary equivalent of the Olympics, its time for you to strut your stuff, walk the walk, talk the talk, put pen to paper (in an entirely digital fashion), place butt in chair and WRITE THAT BOOK.<br />
<br />
Oh NaNoWriMo. That glorious one month a year, where we writerly types almost feel athletic.<br />
<br />
Have you all been stretching your creative muscles? Getting limber, doing your breathing exercises, loosening up those 'THIS MUST BE A BESTSELLER OR I WILL NEVER WRITE AGAIN RAWR' expectations and getting in touch with your innate love of writing?<br />
<br />
Because that's what NaNoWriMo is, if you think about it. It's not about a book that will get you an agent or a book deal or a house in Hawaii. It's not about the book at all. NaNoWriMo is about the WRITING. It's about letting go of all the hang-ups and expectations and self-recriminations we work ourselves into a frenzy with the other eleven months out of the year. It's about not worrying what the book will look like at the end of the month, how many drafts it'll need before its publication-ready, whether or not this is the book that'll put you on the map. NaNo is about telling the story, in whatever way you need to in order to get it out there, and worrying about the packaging later.<br />
<br />
It's a chance for us every year to stop, breathe, blank our minds and get back in touch with what makes us all writers in the first place....that inner drive to just sit in whatever environment suits us best, place our fingers on the keys and just let go, channel the story inside us and watch the words, thoughts, and ideas blossom on the screen in front of us. No obsessing about the perfect beginning or perfect ending, just each word right NOW and then the one right after it and then the one after that....until all the words are out and we can write THE END and sit back, exhale, and celebrate our accomplishment, finally putting one more of the many stories rattling around in our head to bed. <br />
<br />
And best of all, it's a chance to do it in the company of fine friends and like-minded fools....I mean fine friends. The ones who actually GET what the madness is all about, and celebrate the insanity of giving birth to a book with only a month for gestation. To urge each other on and carry each other to the finish line.<br />
<br />
So, fine followers, I ask you....are you ready for NaNo? Do you have your story idea yet? Plotters, are you plotting? Pantsers, are you loosening up that belt?<br />
<br />
I'll be doing a MG Fantasy called 'The Two Sides of Midnight', but am abstaining from plotting. We'll see how the story takes shape on its own this time. Should be fun. How about you all? What are your plans for NaNo?<br />
<br />
For anyone partaking, I'm proposing a daily check-in on twitter, starting November 1st, using the hashtag #thisismybrainonNaNo. Just a little something for everyone to use in a morning tweet with your wordcount thus far, an easy way to find others and urge each other on at the start of each day. You can end the day with another #thisismybrainonNaNo tweet with how many words you've written that day, and get a flurry of feel-goods to take with you to bed, a smile on your face. As always, you can find me on twitter at @kalenodonnell where I shall happily enable any and all of you in your drug - I mean NaNo induced frenzies.<br />
<br />
Tick-tock goes the clock, guys! Fifteen days til NaNo!Kalen O'Donnellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02131133469192904315noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8888458418905431254.post-48464098223737163292011-09-23T14:39:00.000-07:002011-09-23T14:39:04.774-07:00The Inevitable #YesgayYA Post - but its not what you think, honestNo, your eyes do not deceive you, for lo! I have returned from blogging hiatus! (We're gonna pretend that was an official 'thing' and not like, me utterly FAILING on the regular updating thing. Okay? Sound good? Thanks for playing along, guys. You're all aces in my book.)<br />
<br />
So, speaking of books - yeah, you know you liked that segue - how about that whole yesgayya hoopla from last week? Oh YA. We do love our drama. Course, you know me being me, I have A Very Important Opinion on it, so despite being a day late and a dollar short, I'm going to drop my two cents down right here.<br />
<br />
BUT instead of talking about this instance in particular, let's talk about the greater issue. And about diversity in YA in general. I'm sure most of you following this have seen all the relevant posts like Malinda Lo's charts demonstrating that less than 1% of YA books have gay characters at all. I know! Crazy, right? And I think we all remember the whole white-washing thing with the cover of Justine Larbalestier's novel 'Liar'. We've come a long way in the publishing industry, where today books like Scott Tracey's 'Witch Eyes' can wind up on shelves next to every other YA paranormal, not caring that the MC's Romeo and Juliet style romance with a witch from another family is with another boy. But the way we got to this point, and the only way to get to MORE such books on the shelves, is not by writing blog posts or arguing for better minority representation via twitter. It's simply by WRITING MORE MINORITY CHARACTERS. <br />
<br />
Eureka. Pretty self-explanatory, right? Except it's not so simple. Because no single author can make up for under representation of any given minority. When an author tries, the effort tends to stick out amidst all the other books featuring a cast of straight white teens across the board. And I can't speak for everyone, but I know when I examined my own works and my own motivations in writing this character this way and that character as a member of that demographic, I discovered a personal fear of mine. A fear of being labeled - as That Author. The One With the Agenda. <br />
<br />
I'm ashamed to admit - I have in the past made the conscious decision to straighten or whitewash my OWN characters - because I was afraid of being perceived as the author who always had gay or minority characters in his novels. That readers would perceive it as filling a quota, or pushing an agenda.<br />
<br />
But you know what? That's just silly, boys and girls. That's hogwash. And there's a lot worse things to be known for.<br />
<br />
The thing is, all writers are readers, first and foremost. And reading a book is a HELL of a lot easier than writing one. So when we writers write, we usually do it to fill a lack. We write the stories we want to read, but can't - because they're in our heads, and nobody can put them to paper but us. We write the characters we want to see in other books but don't. Doing the things we wish the hero of this book would have done, or making the choice we wish the heroine of that one had made. For me, a lot of the time that means the characters I want to write are minority characters, a bi-racial heroine, a predominantly Hispanic main cast, a gay hero having fantastical, non romantic adventures. Because these are the stories and characters I can't read elsewhere. Because they don't exist elsewhere. Because there's a lack.<br />
<br />
Writing to fill a void is not the same thing as writing to fill a quota.<br />
<br />
Intent matters. Your reasons for making this character black and that one gay matter - but the only one they have to matter to is YOU, the author. Everyone else will think what they want to think regardless. If you have a formula, and after writing a book full of straight white teens sit down and make one of them multiracial, one of them LGBT, etc...yeah, that could probably be construed as agenda. But if you're simply writing the characters as they pop into your head, who cares if every single one of them happens to be black and transgendered? <br />
<br />
I'm bisexual. My older sister's Jewish. My younger sister's Vietnamese, my little brother's Mexican. We're a weird family. It's a long story. But if a family lineup like that can come about naturally in real life, then surely you can make any assemblage of characters work in a fictional world of your own making. I grew up used to being around people who are different from me. That's my normal. So yeah, the books I write are pretty much always going to have more minority characters than most - because that's what's normal to me, and that's a part of my life and my world I don't see adequately reflected in fiction. It's silly for me to be self-conscious about it, just because it sets me apart from books with no minority characters and risks me being labeled as an author with an agenda.<br />
<br />
Yeah, I'm a minority writer and I have an agenda. My agenda? To write what's inside of me. To write and let it out.<br />
<br />
More people should try it, honestly. Saves truckloads on therapy bills.Kalen O'Donnellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02131133469192904315noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8888458418905431254.post-78534132423882154322011-09-04T10:13:00.000-07:002011-09-04T10:13:18.851-07:00An Abundance of KatherinesNo, I'm not talking about the John Green novel, though that is most definitely worth checking out. I'm talking about last week's birthday of the many incarnations of my good friend Katey....better known in these here blog parts as horror/dark fic writer <a href="http://kvtaylor.com/welcome/">KV Taylor</a> and her shiny alter ego <a href="http://www.kateyhawthorne.com/p/equilibrium.html%20">Katey Hawthorne</a>, romance writer extraordinaire.<br />
<br />
Not only was last week her birthday, it was a book birthday for her as well. Her very first book, <a href="http://www.kateyhawthorne.com/p/equilibrium.html%20">Equilibrium</a> debuted from Loose Id, and is available for digital purchase right now! It's a m/m romance, with err....no punches pulled, so since many of my blog readers are YA readers and writers I advise you to go into that with your eyes wide open, but I know superpowered boys in love should appeal to more than a few of you, hmmmMMMM? *Eyes a few of you in particular YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE*<br />
<br />
And it's SO good, Loose Id has already announced they will be publishing her second book in the Equilibrium universe....this one to be tentatively titled 'Riot Boy', I believe?<br />
<br />
But maybe superboys in love aren't your cup of tea. That's okay, she has 'Scripped' dropping from Belfire Press any day now under her KV Taylor nom de plume....a dark, twisted tale of Appalachian fae and the old adage you can't go home again....<br />
<br />
And get this! Belfire Press likes her so much, they've already announced plans to publish the next KV Taylor book....a dark and bloody vampire romance/horror, where the monsters are actually monsters....and still disturbingly hot, just the way we like them. Now, if the woman managed to sell a vampire book in THIS market, you KNOW it's gotta be good, right?<br />
<br />
And to top of Ms. Taylor's all around awesome sauce year last year, it also saw her debut as an editor at Morrigan Books AND as the creator and editor of the Red Penny Papers, a quarterly online lit magazine of things that go bump in the night, a compilation of amazing fiction, stunning art, and the revival of the serial novella with weekly installments of a new novella in between each regular issue. Get the scoop on that <a href="http://redpennypapers.com/">here</a> at the Red Penny Papers site - it's fully legit and FANCY yo....I think more than a couple of you might have some things you might want to float her way, and it's ALWAYS a good read and worth a perusal.<br />
<br />
So in conclusion, Katey is awesome. If awesome people want to read the implication that they should totally go wish her a happy birthday with a quick peek at some of her goodies (I MEANT HER FICTION NOT THOSE GOODIES YOU BUNCHA PERVERTS) and possibly snag one or two for a read, well.....that is totally your call.<br />
<br />
*Is hella subtle, yo*<br />
<br />
Happy birthday Katey!<br />
<br />
<br />
Kalen O'Donnellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02131133469192904315noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8888458418905431254.post-16626930174125314132011-08-16T08:37:00.000-07:002011-08-16T08:51:31.957-07:00Let's Hear It For the Girl....So I'm neck-deep in the amazing-ness that is Writeoncon.com at the moment (if you're not over there, you need to run over and join the fun IMMEDIATELY) but I had to come up for air real quick to give a round of applause and big shout out to your friend and mine, Ms. Anita Howard, authoress extraordinaire of the upcoming YA fantasy 'Splintered'....coming to shelves near you in the spring of 2013.<br />
<br />
<br />
That's right. the one and only Goat Posse Den Mother, fountain of boundless optimism and inspiration to the rest of us, has inspired once again! She's going to the big leagues kiddos, so run on over to her <a href="http://authoraghoward.blogspot.com/2011/08/overwhelmed-ever-grateful-blessed-and.html">blog</a> and congratulate her! You're not gonna want to miss this dark Alice in Wonderland spin off about a girl who talks to bugs! Four out of five critique partners think its the bee's knees.<br />
<br />
We no longer speak of the fifth.<br />
<br />
(I'm just kidding, there is no fifth. Everyone who's read her book loves it, I just made up an imaginary person who didn't to make Anita seem more real and less Wonder Woman-y. Seriously. Nobody's that frickin' nice unless they're secretly like, a cyborg or something unnatural like that).<br />
<br />
AND THAT WAS A TEST BY THE WAY. If you actually read that far, CLEARLY you did not follow instructions and hop on over to Anita's blog. Shoo! What are you still doing here? <br />
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Sigh. Some people...Kalen O'Donnellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02131133469192904315noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8888458418905431254.post-15982369515296773722011-07-17T01:07:00.000-07:002011-07-17T01:19:15.297-07:00Guest Post at Cory's Blog!Hey everybody! I'm guest blogging today over at the blog of the always lovely Corinne Duyvis over <a href="http://www.corinneduyvis.net/2011/07/guest-blog-by-kalen-odonnell-different-strokes/">here</a>! Cory, a totally fantabulous writer who rocks the casbah and is represented by Michael Carr of the Veritas Literary Agency, is currently away at Clarion West right now with all the other kids and asked me and a few others to fill in for her with some guest spots at her casa de la intarwebz! If you've yet to acquaint yourself with her, you should get your butts over to her blog posthaste and delve into the awesomeness that is she! And like, read my guest post, yo.Kalen O'Donnellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02131133469192904315noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8888458418905431254.post-71955768500811620262011-07-08T16:02:00.000-07:002011-07-08T16:02:03.492-07:00Hidden TreasuresSo I was cleaning out an old email account, when I came across a cover I'd made for one of my epic fantasy WIPs. I used to play around with Photoshop a lot (back when I still had it *cries*) and had a blast combining different images and elements to create mock covers for my works. (Note, I didn't create any of the specific images in this cover, I just combined them with various elements and designs to create the overall piece. Credit where credit's due, but alas, I can't remember where I found the images, which is why this is just for fun.)<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu4FrkkY2TW0ZUVg4rG148ShvgYpL-ra23_4G-3JRdTMI8XBiIYIt93h1vdmOjaX4Erq-x0MLmfjay2AT5rC0v4pUL48dyh-H_zsuN9BdV-Mttp4FQXj0A79vHDuqo8OUQ6g_UAPiBX04/s1600/Deluge-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu4FrkkY2TW0ZUVg4rG148ShvgYpL-ra23_4G-3JRdTMI8XBiIYIt93h1vdmOjaX4Erq-x0MLmfjay2AT5rC0v4pUL48dyh-H_zsuN9BdV-Mttp4FQXj0A79vHDuqo8OUQ6g_UAPiBX04/s320/Deluge-3.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br />
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And then it got me thinking about all the random creations I've lost over the years...due to computer crashes or lost spiral notebooks or a box of old printed manuscripts vanishing in a move to a new apartment. I still have my first broken laptop tucked away in my closet, and on it is all the outlining and writing I did on my original magnum opus I started years ago. There's still a fun story to be told from those notes, I'm sure, but I for the life of me can not remember how the story was supposed to go without them, and I've yet to find someone able to recover the files from that particular harddrive. I hold onto it anyways, just in case.<br />
<br />
So how about you guys? Any of you have any vanished masterpieces you've lost and been unable to recover, or that you know are still lurking around somewhere if you can just remember where you put those notes or saved those chapters? Or have you ever stumbled across something you created years ago and totally forgot about until it popped up again unexpectedly? Kalen O'Donnellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02131133469192904315noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8888458418905431254.post-63349364106755956312011-06-24T14:22:00.000-07:002011-06-24T14:22:33.279-07:00Big Things Poppin'And with that fabulous intro by rapper T.I., I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack.<br />
<br />
But just for a second. Sorry to leave you lovelies deprived of my awesomeness for the past two weeks (Hey you in the back! Don't think I don't see you rolling your eyes!) but I have had DRAMA! And excitement! Amazing happenings!<br />
<br />
...also, bronchitis.<br />
<br />
But enough about the questionable state of my lungs! I am merely popping in to say rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated! <br />
<br />
...Hmm? What's that? Nobody's been spreading such rumors? Well fine, I don't care about you either.<br />
<br />
Anyways, just wanted to say regular blogging probably won't resume until after next week - due in part to said DRAMA! Excitement! And amazing happenings! - and in part due to my being in New York next week for work. If any of y'all live in New York near the Lincoln Center (think that's where I'll be), it'd be awesome to hang or something, even if ever so briefly! <br />
<br />
But once I get back, expect NEWS. And a blogfest. And a contest. And possibly scandalous gossip about my famous co-stars, once I have weighed whether or not they are the type to SUE me for spreading slanderous half truths all across yon interwebs.<br />
<br />
So basically, business as usual.<br />
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Ta ta, peeps!Kalen O'Donnellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02131133469192904315noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8888458418905431254.post-60888809349983346532011-06-05T12:29:00.000-07:002011-06-05T12:29:05.445-07:00Dear Wall Street Journal - My YA is for your kids, not you<span lang=""> Serious talk for a second guys. I wrote this post yesterday, and have gone back and forth about a thousand times on whether or not to post it. It's not something I ever expected to talk about publicly at this stage in my (as yet) non-career. But the more I think about it, the more I burn and simmer over the casual ignorance in the Wall Street Journal review that blew up twitter yesterday, and how dangerous that ignorance and brand of thinking can be - I realize that because I am me, and because I can not just NOT respond to it, I will be talking about this publicly at some point in my career. So - why not now?<br />
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For those of you unaware of what all the fuss about, the article at the Wall Street Journal is <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303657404576357622592697038.html">HERE</a>. There are a lot of things wrong with this article - my anger first started to rear its ugly head when the writer talked about the rape, prostitution and suicide in GO ASK ALICE - and then a paragraph later says stuff like that pales in comparison to the YA of today, and describes a book where the EXACT SAME STUFF HAPPENS, except its a male character, who's ALMOST raped by another man.....dear writer, please be careful, I think your prejudices are showing.<br />
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As I said, there are too many things wrong with this article to respond to them on a point by point basis. But the gist of the ignorance here stems from the reviewer overlooking one very crucial thing in YA:<br />
<br />
Context.<br />
<br />
As adults, we have a wealth of life experiences and education to guide us past certain elements of 'darkness'. It's our responsibility to try and share those experiences and education with teenagers, to protect and guide them in turn - but too many adults forget its not as simple as do this or don't do that. Mandates are meaningless. You can shout certain warnings until you're blue in the face, and teens will go right ahead and do them, because vague ominous declarations of Here There Be Dragons sometimes only intrigue, rather than forewarn. There are certain things in life that can not be avoided, that you can not protect kids from. Things they have to experience and learn to avoid on their own. <br />
<br />
No matter how many times you tell a baby not to touch the pan on the stove because it's hot and it will burn, given the opportunity, curiosity will still drive that baby to touch and find out for itself - because it has no context for pain, no frame of reference to understand that it is something to be avoided. Until it experiences it firsthand.<br />
<br />
This is what YA does. This is what YA is. It's context. It's a frame of reference for things beyond kids' immediate circle of understanding. It's a support system when your real life, person to person support system fails. Books connect us to places and people and experiences we will never encounter in our real lives. They put us inside the minds of people both less and more fortunate than us, and let us see for ourselves if the grass is truly greener on the other side. Books - whether books about the darkness around us or about the light - teach us empathy, and what it is like to walk in another person's shoes, in ways that no teacher, no parent, can ever impart.<br />
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Drugs are bad, we say. But without the personal anecdotes, without the actual experiences, fictional or otherwise, without the perspective of one who has been there and made those choices and experienced them firsthand, we might as well say fire hot. Don't touch.<br />
<br />
And so, because I am pissed off, and because I often do things I might regret when I'm pissed off, I want to provide some context that the writer of this article overlooked. I'm going to talk about two books in particular, and my reasons for writing them - one the first novel I wrote, and one I haven't written yet.<br />
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'Shades of Adrian Gray' is the story of two closeted high school teenagers who develop a hidden relationship - and of the one of them left behind to cope and deal with his grief on his own when his boyfriend is killed in a car accident. It's about coming of age and coming to terms with one's sexuality, sure, but more than that, its about being isolated from the friends and family around you, of feeling you HAVE to be isolated to protect yourself. It's about convincing yourself you have no one to turn to, and no one who can understand, and how secrets eat away at you and wear you down and make you do stupid, stupid things you'll regret.<br />
<br />
It's based on elements of real life. I grew up in a very conservative, old money part of San Diego. I was only in high school a little over a decade ago, but being out - whether as gay or bi - was not an option. To this day, I don't know of a single other out person from my high school. I'm sure there are a couple, but I'm not aware of them personally. <br />
<br />
And yes, its also based on my losing someone very close to me when I was in college, because we were both young and stupid and thought we could be careless with each other's lives and feelings and hearts because we were still learning and working things out, and we thought we'd have time to fix all the mistakes we made along the way. We didn't know that the universe has its own timetable, and what we want or assume isn't a factor in its calculations.<br />
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And it has cursing in it and sex and violence and depression and all the things that happen when you take a teenager who's convinced the world won't accept him if he's not straight and macho and full of anger and repressed emotions - and cut him off from everyone who wants to help him, but just doesn't know how.<br />
<br />
I was that teenage boy. I was that angry at the world in general. And I made stupid, stupid mistakes because of it. <br />
<br />
What that reviewer overlooks, and what the woman she speaks of in the bookstore at the opening of her article is blithely blind to - is that teenage boy could also be their sons or daughters. Standing facing a wall of books you consider too dark for your child, you fail to realize - its not about what you want for them. They're making their own choices, living their own lives. You can only guide them so far, but eventually, they're going to start down roads you can't help them traverse - BECAUSE YOU'VE NEVER BEEN THERE YOURSELF.<br />
<br />
When I was younger, due to circumstances and mistakes all around, I had very big issues with my parents - but let me be clear. It was not because they are horrible people. But the best parents in the world can not provide directions back from places on the map that they've never ventured themselves. And as teenagers, we know the difference between meaningless platitudes and advice based on what is proper or normal or right - and advice that comes from relatibility, from having been in the same boat. And we are very picky about what advice we choose to accept.<br />
<br />
YA books are not the darkness, they're the light in the darkness that says here, follow me, let me show you what it's like, what the road ahead looks like, and you can see how to pick your path and place your feet a little more carefully.<br />
<br />
I wrote 'Shades of Adrian Gray' because there was nothing like it for me to read when I was growing up, and because having a book like it could have changed EVERYTHING. Because knowing that someone else is out there who's felt the same way, who's faced the same decisions - sometimes that's enough.<br />
<br />
As for the book I haven't written yet:<br />
<br />
That's why, despite countless times of sitting down at the computer and trying to write it, only to get up, nauseated and tell myself that I don't need to write THIS story, that someone else can do it for me, I know now - after reading this article, and the reactions to it, and the #YAsaves hashtag, that someday, when I'm brave enough, I will write 'Confessions of a Craigslist Hooker.'<br />
<br />
Or perhaps 'Hustle'. I go back and forth on what the title should be.<br />
<br />
I will write it - no matter how much tearing the bandage I've plastered over that part of my life hurts, no matter how sick it makes me to remember how stupid and careless and self-destructive I was - because there was nothing like it when I needed it. Because thousands of kids just like me do the same things, convincing themselves they have no other options and nobody could possibly understand. Because even now, I go on craigslist sometimes just to look, and I see smug, self-righteous entitled assholes posting comments and ads about lazy hookers and telling them to go get a job or go to school or a thousand careless, oblivious dagger-shaped words and I just want to SCREAM its not that simple. That you can have a job and be in school and still be desperate.<br />
<br />
I will write it because I didn't understand how one small, seemingly insignificant decision in the face of overwhelming desperation can snowball. How easily one isolated event turns into another. And because society told me that there are some things too dark and too shameful to ever confess to another person. That there are sins that can't be forgiven and not everyone deserves redemption. I will write it because there was no person and no book I could find to tell me that THESE THINGS ARE NOT TRUE.<br />
<br />
I will write it because its not actually what people think it is, not what you see on TV. Because nothing can prepare you for how addicting it is - after years of being overlooked and lost in the crowd, to have people falling all over themselves telling you how gorgeous you are and buying you expensive presents and flying you to Vegas for the weekend. How you get hooked, even as you tell yourself at least you're too smart to get hooked on drugs. <br />
<br />
I will write it because there are kids out there, who even right now, at this very moment - their parents are standing in bookstores, trying to find the least offensive title for their son, completely oblivious to what he really wants or needs and a year from now, two years from now, he'll be walking the same road I was. Without anyone to warn him to at least look out for the young, good looking guys - they're the worst ones, because they're the ones who only pay because they enjoy your desperation. Because someone needs to prepare him for the look on the sweet old man's face as he tries to convince you to let him be your Richard Gere and save you from it all, when you're still too proud or too stupid to know you need saving. To tell him about the stuff you can't wash off in the shower, and how you'll just stand there, soaking, thinking about the guy who asked you point blank, why are you doing this - and the fact that you couldn't find an answer. And that all the 'friends' you make, the kindred spirits, the other loud, bravado-shouting boys with their swagger and dreams and secret hopes and fears confessed to each other while the john who paid you both to come over is in the bathroom - they'll all be dead in a few years. That being one of the lucky ones, the ones who get out disease free and all body parts intact, just means that all your scars are on the inside. <br />
<br />
And it won't be enough. It'll never be enough. But it'll be something.<br />
<br />
It will make me want to yell and break things, I can tell you now. It'll hurt to write, and it'll hurt every step of the way as I fight to get it published, and it won't be easy. Because it will have violence and sex and swearing and drugs. And it will not be pretty, because you can't make it pretty. And some people will praise it for being edgy and racy and controversial and I'll want to hit them. And other people will fight their hardest to keep it from the ones who need it most and I'll want to hit them too. And still others will label it heavy handed and preachy and that's okay, because I can assure you there is no way in hell I can write this book without pouring DO NOT DO THESE THINGS into the words with every fiber of my being.<br />
<br />
Because what the Wall Street Journal really failed to grasp, at the end of the day, is that YA is about paying it forward. That it's not even about the kids who read it. It's about the kids who write it - or at least, the adults they grew up to be. When I write it, I will not write it for the faceless teens in San Diego and Chicago and Tinytown, Idaho. I will write it for me, and will simultaneously pray to the universe for a warp in the space/time continuum that lets nineteen year old me find it on a shelf in the bookstore while I'm waiting for my 'date'. So that I know, that even when things are at their worst, that it can get better. That I will be happy again. And that I deserve it, no matter what choices I've made to bring me that far.<br />
<br />
I'm not quite ready to write this book. I've tried, and I've even come close a time or two, but it still hurts too much. Someday I'll be able to power through it though, and when I do, because I am a vindictive fuck the dedication will read:<br />
<br />
To Ms. Megan Cox Gurdon of the Wall Street Journal - <br />
<br />
This one is not for you</span>Kalen O'Donnellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02131133469192904315noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8888458418905431254.post-65003517926471078602011-06-03T16:13:00.000-07:002011-06-03T16:13:24.760-07:00In Which an Awesome Person is AwesomeNot what I intended to blog about today, but there's no way I could not pass this on -<br />
<br />
If you guys don't know her already, you need to go familiarize yourself with the amazing Gen Albin! I first met her on QueryTracker, and after a whirlwind journey of beginning the query process to signing with an agent and landing a book deal all within six weeks, you can read the official announcement about her book deal for CREWEL at her blog <a href="http://blog.genniferalbin.com/2011/06/friday-five-book-deal-style.html">here</a>!<br />
<br />
And just remember folks, in a year and a half when everyone's talking about the hottest new series since the most recent (failed) apocalypse, you heard about it here first!<br />
<br />
Congrats Gen! So freaking happy for you! Kalen O'Donnellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02131133469192904315noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8888458418905431254.post-13357078230912905232011-05-31T17:03:00.000-07:002011-05-31T17:03:52.029-07:00Tuesday's Tales from the SetHello all, and welcome to the second installment of Tuesday's<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><b>Tales from the Set</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>In Which Kalen Becomes a Stunt Driver</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">or alternatively titled:</div><div style="text-align: center;"><i> </i><b> </b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>In Which Our Hero is Asian For a Day, and a Bad Driver, But its Totally Not Racist</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">So there I was - roasting in my car on a hot Sunday afternoon, foot firmly on the brake pedal and surrounded by a sea of equally stalled cars on the Pasadena freeway. Was there an accident? Was the president in town? Had the zombie apocalypse finally come and we were all fleeing the ravenous undead hordes?!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">No. We were extras, working on a Sunday, and instructed to sit in our cars on the cordoned off section of the freeway and keep the ignition on and our feet on the brakes so they could shoot from behind and see our brake lights lit up.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Three months into my work as an extra at the bottom rungs of the entertainment industry ladder, and Hollywood continued to bring the glamour.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">We'd started work at five am that morning. Hours of just sitting, alone in our cars with our thoughts and our books and our Ipods and laptops - but never getting too comfortable, lest our feet slip off the brake pedals...which they started to do as one hour stretched into two and then three and four and five. It's terribly fulfilling, knowing that your work can be performed with equal competence by an actual rock. At one point I did leave my car and hunt around for something to hold down my brakes so I could take a nap in my backseat. Alas, I came up empty handed. Or else all the other extras beat me to it...</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">But that's the thing about a Hollywood set! Just when you start to feel the chill of slow and painful death by boredom set into your bones....out of nowhere! Excitement! Happenings! Egads!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">A PA in an ominous black truck zoomed up alongside me and rolled down his window. I snapped to attention and shouted 'I'm not sleeping!' before remembering oh wait, nobody cares. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Much like my high school girlfriend, they just wanted me for my car.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">The PA briefly looked me up and down.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"You'll do," he said, and told me to shut off my engine and get in his truck. Flattered beyond measure, but having heard stories about boys like him, I hesitated.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"But what about my car?"</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"Just leave it there," he said. "It'll be fine."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"It won't mess up the shot?"</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"Nobody can even see it back here," he assured me. My last several hours of work thus validated, I shut off my engine and climbed into the strange man's car. We drove in awkward silence (he wasn't a big talker) the ten minutes back to where base camp was set up and he dropped me off in front of the wardrobe trailer.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"Tell wardrobe that the director wants you to photo double for Matt King," he said.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"Okay," I started to say, ever agreeable. Then something occurred to me, even as he drove off. "Wait. Isn't Matt King Asian?"</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">But alas, he was already dust in the wind, and thus armed with my dubious instructions I prepared to face The Wardrobe Department.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Mercurial in their favors, The Wardrobe Department is one of the mightiest of the departments - they hold the power of Good Clothes in their hands. Their whims may be tempered by the Will of the Director, but they and they alone know what clothes can make you look your best and what can make you look your worst - AND THEY CAN MAKE YOU WEAR THEM.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Bad things happen to those who piss off Wardrobe. Incidentally, that may or may not be part of the reason I can be glimpsed in an episode of Melrose Place wearing a lavender suit and matching pink fedora.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">But that is neither here nor there.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">I approached the wardrobe trailer with all the timidity of the lone extra separated from the safety of the herd and very aware that he is out of his element. The three wardrobers paused in their discussion of Sekrit things and eyed me balefully over their diet sodas. They knew my coming heralded a Return to Work.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"What?" One barked.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div>"Umm, they need me to photo double for Matt King." I stood tall. Or at least made an attempt at height.<br />
<br />
The Lead Wardrober narrowed beady eyes, trying to decide if I was pulling her leg or not. "Matt King is Asian."<br />
<br />
"Yes, he is." It's always best to agree with Wardrobe.<br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"You're not Asian."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"That had occurred to me as well," I said politely.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"God I hate this set," she sighed and waved me up to the trucker. "Come on. Let's see what we can do with you."</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"> Half an hour later and garbed in his character's requisite SWAT gear, I was shocked to find that I did in fact, look vaguely Asian. I still looked nothing like Matt King of course. The powers of Wardrobe are vast and many, but even they can only do so much. Still, it was something. And if you squinted with one eye, gouged the other one out with a stick, and the lighting was poor, our resemblance was absolutely uncanny.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"You'll do," Lead Wardrober ultimately grunted in eerie similarity to the first PA. And thus armed, another PA was summoned and I was driven back to set, along side another extra photo doubling for the other lead actor.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">At set, we were escorted to the first AD, who was standing next to a very large, very expensive SUV. I started to get a Very Bad Feeling.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"You're Matt's photo double?" She asked me. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">I nodded. My fear was a great and terrible thing.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"Good. You'll be driving."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"I will?"</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"Yup. You'll need this."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">She handed a walkie talkie to the other photo double, but my attention was on the SUV, which bore a passing resemblance to an eighteen wheeler and probably cost more than my entire apartment building.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"You'll follow that PA to the other side of the freeway and wait there. We'll radio you instructions from there. Got it? Great! Don't crash!"</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">I wasn't really sure what to say to that, and by the time I mustered the nerve to propose a version of the scene where Matt King WASN'T driving the car, she was already out of ear shot. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"> Me and my Very Bad Feeling climbed into the car.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Initially, I tried to drive at about 5 miles an hour, figuring any damage I did at that speed would be negligible enough that I MIGHT be able to pay it off at some point in my lifetime. My ingenuity was thwarted by two things: the speed of the PA we were following, and the swift revelation that my companion had no idea how to work a walkie talkie.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"You're useless," I informed him. I was not in the best of moods.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">He didn't disagree.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Soon enough we found ourselves parked on the shoulder on the other side of the freeway, about half a mile out of sight of where the crew and cameras were set up. Unlike the side of the freeway we had been working on, this side was not in any way cordoned off, and cars whizzed past us at breakneck speeds.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Were it Christmas, you might say my Very Bad Feeling grew three sizes.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"You guys ready?" Squawked a voice from the walkie talkie. Which I was now operating.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"Umm, yes?" I can be forgiven, I think, for lacking confidence in my answer. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"Great! When I say 'action' I'm going to need you to merge over to the far lane, the one closest to our cameras and just keep accelerating until I say you're good. We won't be able to see you until you round the curve at those bridge supports, so we're only going to get one shot at this. But relax, its just a simple drive by shot. Got it?"</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">As I looked at the cars whizzing by where we were parked at a standstill, I tried to calculate the time it'd take to match traffic speed and merge across four lanes successfully. I then gauged the distance from me to the curve she'd designated as the edge of camera frame. My silence was not an assent so much as an inability to form words due to sudden lack of saliva.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"Aaaaaaaaaaand action!"</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">I dropped the walkie into my lap, threw the gear shift into drive and slammed down the accelerator. The Terrifyingly Big SUV responded accordingly and we zoomed down the shoulder, gaining speed at a ridiculous rate. We approached the curve in the freeway and were rapidly running out of shoulder. I prepared to merge into the first lane of traffic.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">It was only at this point that I realized the car had no rear view mirror.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">It had been a relatively easy drive to our parking spot and I hadn't needed it and so had failed to notice its absence until that point. Of course the car had a rear view mirror - just not the traditional kind. Rather than hang from the ceiling of the car, there was a camera that looked out the back of the car and relayed a video feed to a display set in the dashboard.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Dear readers, in case you have never found yourself zooming down a (soon ending) freeway shoulder at eighty miles an hour with an incompetent passenger screaming at you to merge merge merge in one ear while a director squawks 'Where are you? Why can't we see you yet? Go faster!' into another.....let me assure you.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">It does not occur to you to look for a rear view mirror in the dashboard. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Craning my neck as far as my neck would crane and praying that this car did not come with blindspots, I threw the car across all four lanes of traffic at somewhere upwards of ninety miles an hour and we blew around the corner and past the cameras.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"Great job! Now turn around and come back to set!" Came over the walkie.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"Turn where?" I yelled, still somewhat adrenaline crazed.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Somewhat, in this instance, being code for: Completely.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"That break in the divider, right ahead of you."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"The one ten feet ahead of me?"</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"That's the one!"</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">I whipped the car to the left in a nearly 90 degree turn in a gap in the divider roughly twice as long as the car was wide. The car squeaked through, my passenger squeaked a scream, and I oddly enough, was praying to Krishna.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Really couldn't say why. The sum of my Hindu knowledge is having read <b>Lord of Light </b>by Roger Zelazny a couple times.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"Awesome work guys!" The first AD, upon our return to set, was far too bubbly in my opinion for someone who had just tried to have us killed. I would have said something to that effect, but I was busy kissing the ground and swearing off all forms of vehicular travel in the near future.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"You didn't crash, hurt the car, or die!" She continued in what I can only assume was her attempt at levity. I would have informed her that her confirmation those HAD indeed been possibilities in no way helped my state of mind, but my lips were still making love to asphalt.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"Be sure to see me before you guys wrap for the day. We've got a week left of shooting to do, and I might bring you both back as stand ins."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Well that part sounded nice, and so I didn't utter mystic curses at her back as she walked away. I did however, have negative emotions that needed venting in abundance, so I turned once more to my companion.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"You're useless."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">He didn't disagree.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div> Kalen O'Donnellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02131133469192904315noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8888458418905431254.post-72016494813474297282011-05-27T10:52:00.000-07:002011-05-27T10:52:45.714-07:00Writing is NOT Like a Box of Chocolates MemeI have been TAGGED, y'all, by the nefarious Party Pony, one <a href="http://thepartypony.blogspot.com/">Miss Jenny Phresh</a>! And in turn, I tag <a href="http://lorimlee.blogspot.com/">Lori</a>, <a href="http://www.blog.ljboldyrev.com/">L.J. Boldyrev</a><a href="http://www.blog.ljboldyrev.com/"></a>, and <a href="http://robinlucasmyth.blogspot.com/">Robyn Lucas</a>.<br />
<br />
The assignment, should I choose to accept it (under threat of violence if I do not, I might add) was to take the phrase “Writing is like . . .” and finish it. Post it on my blog. Tag three others to do the same. That is all. The end, finito.<br />
<br />
Oh, but apparently you can't say writing is like a box of chocolates.<br />
<br />
Now, my second thought upon receiving this assignment was to say:<br />
<br />
Writing is like Cormac McCarthy's <b>The Road - </b>wild and fraught with peril, beginning at the end of a world and ending at the beginning of one, and occasionally along comes a Viggo Mortensen to star in the movie version and that makes everything better because he takes his shirt off a lot. <br />
<br />
HOWEVER. That way threatened to lead me to deep and profound thoughts, and that scared me! So we're going with my first thoughts upon receiving this assignment.<br />
<br />
Which, because I am a contrary little bitch, was to say, but wait! Writing IS like a box of chocolates!<br />
<br />
Let's examine this for a minute, shall we?<br />
<br />
You receive two packages, unasked for, unexpected. One a shiny red box of chocolates, another a shiny new book idea.<br />
<br />
They lie there, tempting, inviting, but still unopened - because both are oh so bad for you. Both will lead to intense highs of sugar and excitement and adrenaline - and plummeting lows of exhaustion, regret and self-flagellation. Sleepless nights are soon to follow, filled with neurotic fears as to the maximizing of your glutius and the preponderance of your adverbs. This is not the time to be opening such Pandora's boxes. You have that new dress to squeeze into, or That Other Thing soon to demand all your time and attention, with no room for the distractions of a novel. <br />
<br />
But you are weak, or the boxes powers' of temptation are too strong.<br />
<br />
And you open them.<br />
<br />
And reach inside.<br />
<br />
You start with something familiar, the devil you know. Just one piece of milk chocolate, just a little paranormal fantasy, enough to take the edge off, but still easy, not dangerous.<br />
<br />
But absorbed in savoring that little piece of chocolatey goodness, that 'short fiction' piece of paranormal fluff, you blindly reach for another. You're not quite sated yet, and surely one more can't hurt, right? <br />
<br />
You grab without looking and pop it in your mouth - and ooh, its coconut! A hint of sci fi! How unexpected! But not unwelcome - it complements the previous flavors quite nicely, you find, even though you never would have thought to add that in on your own.<br />
<br />
Now curious to see what else this magical box of surprises can offer you, you reach for another piece. It's indefinable, an explosion of flavors you can't easily identify, but they're all enjoyable enough so you shrug and don't complain. Maybe opening this box wasn't such a bad idea after all! THIS time will be different from all those OTHER times before!<br />
<br />
One more piece leads to three more after that, and you're starting to feel quite full but you can't stop now! There are wonders yet to be discovered! You bite down into something with a crunch, and its pecan and ooh, how did that get in there! But it fits! It works! Baby, you're on a roll!<br />
<br />
And then you find that weird piece. The one you just don't know what they were thinking when they came up with it in the lab, and its gross, and nasty, and doesn't belong at all. But its too late, you've bitten into the witch's poisoned apple and that taste isn't going away any time soon. That odd bit of horror that has no place in your paranormal fantasy has wormed its way deep into the heart of the plot. A simple mouth rinse isn't going to wash it free.<br />
<br />
Frantically, you grab a handful of the flavors you know and love, no longer worried about any other possible consequences in your desperation to rid yourself of that awful taste. You'll drown it out! Bury it beneath an avalanche of chocolatey genre goodness! You cram characters and plot twists and genre tropes in with reckless abandon! Come one, come all! There's room for everyone!<br />
<br />
But then bloating sets in. And cramps. You start to feel quite queasy. Clearly, this wasn't a good idea at all but you've come too far. You've got to ride the sick feeling out. You suck it up and grab some water, a cleansing, healthy distraction. Spend some time with the hubby and kids. Welcome back to civilization. It missed you. <br />
<br />
But the boxes still lie half open on your desk. Unfinished. More tastes left to savor. You know better. You really, truly do. But you can't find it in yourself to just walk away, just discard them in the trash. Think of all those starving children in third world countries or those poor would-be writers that would love to write a book but can never seem to come up with an idea. How can you just reject these treasures that have been offered to you free of charge? How can you turn them away when others would kill for just a taste from that box you're so casually thinking of discarding? What kind of ungrateful louse are you?<br />
<br />
Once more, reluctantly this time, out of obligation rather than desire, you reach into the boxes. You're going to finish what you started, dammit. Even if your ass will never be the same. The queasy feelings have abated somewhat, and you can do this. You've learned your lesson, you'll take it slow. One piece at a time. Pace it out. Don't get too caught up, less is more.<br />
<br />
There are still bitter pieces to swallow, but you power through them, determined to let nothing go to waste. There's not a lot of the good pieces left, you plowed through most of them early on in your initial binge - you kick yourself for your lack of foresight, NEXT time you vow you'll start with the bad flavors first and save the best for last. But wait - next time? What are you saying!?! There's not going to BE a next time, you know better than to ever accept such a 'gift' again!<br />
<br />
But even as you say it, you know its a lie.Kalen O'Donnellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02131133469192904315noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8888458418905431254.post-88566209600774420372011-05-24T17:47:00.000-07:002011-05-24T17:57:31.912-07:00Tuesday's Tales from the Set<div style="text-align: left;">Hey guys! Sorry about being MIA, just been crazy busy y'all, but more on that soon enough. Instead, allow me to present the first installment in my new regular Tuesday feature:<br />
<br />
<b> </b></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Tales from the Set</b></div><br />
In which I get REAL, y'all, on the nitty gritty of what work, life and love looks like behind the scenes of a Hollywood set. And I'm not just being alliterative with the love part, just so you know. Twice now, I have come across cast or crew members having sex somewhere on set (I KNOW I WAS SHOCKED TOO *STABS EYES WITH FORKS AND PEEKS SLIGHTLY BECAUSE ONE OF THEM WAS REALLY HOT*). No, but seriously. Thank God that whole Rapture thing didn't pan out, because I'm telling you, the televangelists are right about us. When the End comes, us Hollywood types are totally getting Sodom and Gomorrah'd.<br />
<br />
Now, I'm sure most of you have at some point or another said to yourselves: "Self? I wonder how my good buddy Kalen metamorphosized from a naive little Hollywood wannabe to a full-fledged Hollywood Butterfly whohasneverthelessstillnotmanagedtogetanoticeablerole."<br />
<br />
And if you haven't asked yourself that question YOU ARE NO LONGER INVITED TO MY BIRTHDAY PARTY. You know. Next year. When I turn twenty five again.<br />
<br />
But I'm just going to assume you all are coming, and tell you a story about Little Pupa Kalen the Actor's first steps on the road to being a full-fledged Hollywood Butterfly whohasneverthelessstillnotmanagedtogetanoticeablerole.<br />
<br />
It's called "Kalen's First Day On Set."<br />
<br />
It's otherwise known as: "How Kalen Almost Cost Production Tens of Thousands of Dollars His First Day On Set." <br />
<br />
Ahem.<br />
<br />
Sips water.<br />
<br />
Adjusts tie.<br />
<br />
Once upon a time, an ambitious, well-intentioned and utterly clueless aspiring actor named Kalen arrived in HOLLYWOOD. Capital of the entertainment industry, city of glamour, fame and fortune, the place where dreams come true. He strode down the star-studded Hollywood Boulevard, gazing around him, wide-eyed at the wonder of it all, until a passing car splashed muddy rain water all over his Clearly Not Designer Clothes and he realized catching pneumonia your first day in town does not make for the most auspicious career beginning.<br />
<br />
So he moved on to hovering around Starbuck's in the areas Big Fancy Agent Types were said to frequent, waiting for someone to recognize his Obvious Brilliance and Pending Fame and Fortune.<br />
<br />
This continued for a couple of weeks.<br />
<br />
Our intrepid hero was a real go-getter however, so soon enough ascended from Street Corners to the next rung of the Hollywood Ladder.<br />
<br />
Craigslist.<br />
<br />
It was there, after several false starts involving Large Overweight Hollywood Stereotypes Who Seemed to Think This Was A Date, that our hero came across the secret entrance way to the Actor's Inner Circle and Pending Fame and Fortune.<br />
<br />
A magical place, known only as....<br />
<br />
Central Casting.<br />
<br />
*Your narrator pauses to allow his audience time to make the appropriate oohs and ahhs of wonder*<br />
<br />
Central Casting, he learned, was the largest casting agency for extras in Hollywood. They supplied ninety percent of all the movies and TV shows filming in LA with extras or 'background artists'...those people you see in the background of your favorite shows and movies, just doing random every day things to make a scene feel real and large as life. It was the perfect place for a Famous Actor In Training! They could get him on every set in Hollywood where you could see first hand how things worked behind the scenes. He'd learn the difference between a director, a director of photography, and assistant directors. He'd learn magical words and phrases like 'Check the gate', 'martini's up' and 'first team flying in!' It was the best way to earn his union eligibility, and there existed the slim, fragile hope that he might even be DISCOVERED.<br />
<br />
Standing in line at Central Casting, waiting for his photo to be taken, he heard all the stories. About how Charlize Theron was an extra when the director picked her out of a line-up and gave her a role. About how Brad Pitt was actually fired from Central Casting for sneaking off set to go to an audition - and two weeks later booked his first movie. So many stories! So many possibilities!<br />
<br />
So when our hero called the Casting hotline that night and right away booked a job as an extra on a major primetime crime procedural show for the very next day - oh the excitement! He was on his way! He would show up on set, bright and early, and his Obvious Brilliance and Pending Fame and Fortune would take it from there!<br />
<br />
Fate however, had other plans.<br />
<br />
His call time the next day was five am, and as he drove through fog-shrouded streets on his way to another mystical land known as CBS Radford studios, it occurred to him that bright was perhaps not the best descriptor - though early fit it well enough. It also occurred to him, as he circled the studio five times, that there were an awful lot of entrances to CBS Radford, and he had absolutely no idea which to enter or where to go upon entering.<br />
<br />
This was, to say the least, unforeseen.<br />
<br />
So after trying ALL THE GATES and only discovering the right one on his last attempt, it was five after five when he finally parked his car and ran quick-like-a-bunny to the bungalow the Less Than Helpful Security Guard had directed him to. His heart beat like a jackhammer as he struggled with the three changes of wardrobe he'd been instructed to bring for Various Unfathomable and Possibly Occult Reasons. Clearly this was the first of his Trials to test his worthiness for Pending Fame and Fortune. He could not fail! And so when he arrived at the bungalow just in time to see a Production Assistant leading a herd of extras down the street, instructing them all to grab a chair and follow him, our hero did the only reasonable thing. He grabbed a chair and followed the pack, hoping his tardiness had gone unnoticed.<br />
<br />
Luck was with him! For when they stopped at the 'holding area', he was one of the first ten to be picked out by the PA and instructed to go to set! Eureka! Not only had his near-gaff been completely overlooked, he was one of the CHOSEN ONES. Surely this meant great things! Lots could be read into this! His future Bel-Air mansion awaited him!<br />
<br />
However, after the first four hours of standing around a cramped Hollywood setting cleverly gimmicked to look like a New York night club, he couldn't help but notice that all the tales of Hollywood glamour had left out some very key details about Being An Actor.<br />
<br />
The first was the temperature. Surrounded on all sides by huge whopping lights that could only be characterized as miniature suns, our hero quickly learned that being on set was synonymous with BEING HOT AS FUCK THE ENTIRE FREAKING DAY AND OMG HOW COULD IT POSSIBLY BE THIS HOT WITHOUT DEFYING THE LAWS OF PHYSICS. As sweat drenched his shirt, he prayed for deliverance from the hellish heat - and then the director called cut, the lights were switched off, and the sound stage's AC kicked in, blasting the set with sub zero temperatures.<br />
<br />
That was the day our hero grew to hate the phrase: "Be careful what you wish for."<br />
<br />
The second detail the tales of Hollywood glamour had left out was that Hollywood does not like noise. It frowns upon it, in fact. Or in most cases, yells. Apparently - shocking as it may seem - sound stages are in part named for well...sound. As in, it carries. And so it turned out that acting involved a lot of standing around being completely silent for several hours at a time, because on a sound stage, hearing any sound OTHER than what his actors are saying in scene is the kind of thing that makes a director Very Very ANGRY.<br />
<br />
That was the day our hero learned he doesn't like when directors are angry.<br />
<br />
The third detail the tales of Hollywood glamour had left out was that acting is hard freaking work. This too, was unforeseen. But as hours of performing the same actions over and over in EXACT repetition set in, along with the effort it apparently took to manifest the same amount of energy in the same facial expressions every time the camera swung his way - all so the director could have multiple takes and then match the same actions from different angles when the cameras were moved to capture the turnaround shots - it started to sink in that the ease of this career had perhaps been somewhat exaggerated. Especially when our hero considered how much more difficult it probably was for the ACTUAL actors, the ones reciting the same lines over and over and conveying ACTUAL emotion and having the cameras on them FOR EVERY FREAKING SECOND OF THOSE HOURS AND HOURS.<br />
<br />
That was the day our hero first contemplated a career change.<br />
<br />
And then, disaster struck.<br />
<br />
During the lunch break about half way through the day, he checked his voice mail to see if anyone had called him in the eight hours since he'd started working.<br />
<br />
It turned out Central Casting had called him about twenty times, asking in increasingly angry tones where he was and why wasn't he on set and this was EXTREMELY unprofessional and his standing with them was in serious jeopardy.<br />
<br />
Our hero was understandably alarmed, and experienced a momentary existential crisis. He had THOUGHT he was right there, on set, but apparently that was somewhat in question. He hurriedly called Central Casting and insisted upon both his existence AND his presence on set.<br />
<br />
Then the casting director asked if he'd checked in.<br />
<br />
....Checked in with whom, our hero asked?<br />
<br />
There was an audible sigh, and the casting director asked whom he'd gotten his voucher from.<br />
<br />
Our hero was forced to admit that he did not in fact HAVE a voucher, and wasn't exactly sure what one was.<br />
<br />
There was a definite groan then, and after telling him to stay put, the casting director hung up the phone.<br />
<br />
A mere thirty seconds later, the PA angrily strode into the holding area waving a small white voucher and demanding to know who this Kalen O'Donnell person was.<br />
<br />
With increasing foreboding, our hero reluctantly admitted that was most likely him though he wasn't one hundred percent certain. Due of course to his current existential crisis and the fact that he suspected from the PA's expression that it perhaps wasn't in his best interests to BE Kalen O'Donnell at that particular moment.<br />
<br />
Then he learned that a voucher is the small piece of white paper that tells the production both that you are in fact, there and accounted for, and how much you are owed for the day. It's a very helpful piece of paper, and its VERY VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU HAVE IT IN HAND FROM THE SECOND YOU STEP ON SET.<br />
<br />
In explaining why he had not actually checked in or received the all important voucher, our hero was forced to admit that there was a slim, small, slight possibility that he had been five minutes late. When asked if he had ever been approved by wardrobe then, he was again forced to concede that there was an equally slim, small, slight possibility that he had not - and in fact had no idea what the phrase 'approved by wardrobe' referred to.<br />
<br />
There was a moment then when it seemed that the PA might do bodily harm to our brave but stupid - oh so stupid - intrepid hero.<br />
<br />
One flurry of activity later, a trio of the most bizarrely dressed women he had EVER seen swooped over and clucked in dismay over his attire. Although he had THOUGHT he was wearing appropriate apparel for a New York night club scene, he was outvoted and apparently it was not at all what they would have put him in, had they seen him. NOT AT ALL.<br />
<br />
And then, there was a small, stifled sound from one, almost like choking on a scream. She clutched at her heart, and horrified, pointed to his chest. He was wearing a logo!<br />
<br />
That was the day our hero learned this was a VERY BAD THING.<br />
<br />
For in our era of product placement and multi-million dollar endorsement deals, ANY visible sign or indication of a brand name must be carefully vetted and approved by production, as they can not risk lawsuits from the makers of products they aren't approved to use, promote or endorse on their shows. Nor can they risk angering the makers of rival products who HAVE paid to have their product used, promoted or endorsed on their show or in their advertisements or commercial spots.<br />
<br />
And yet, blindly, stupidly, our hero had been cavalierly promoting an un-endorsed shirt IN EVERY SINGLE SHOT.<br />
<br />
For a moment, it seemed all was lost.<br />
<br />
Would they have to reshoot?<br />
<br />
In a panic, production quickly reviewed their footage, and to their vast relief, discovered that our hero was not actually visible in any of the final footage, despite his many hours of doing all the same work and showing all the same effort as every other, ultimately visible, extra. Crisis averted, he was swiftly changed into more fitting attire, and production proceeded. By the end of the day, nobody even remembered what he'd done.<br />
<br />
And that was the day, dear readers, that our hero realized that he was in for a LOT of hard work, with absolutely no guarantee of reward. And the very high likelihood that most, if not all, of his work might ultimately go largely unnoticed.<br />
<br />
It was a sobering day.<br />
<br />
But, it was merely the first day. The first of many, and of many lessons to be learned, and many times of screwing up and almost costing production thousands of dollars.<br />
<br />
Because, as our aspiring young actor soon came to realize and will share with you in weeks to come, Screwing Up and Costing Production A Metric Shit Ton of Money is something that happens every single day. And despite the frequency of it happening, it is Never a Good Thing and to be avoided at All Possible Costs and that these are just two of the reasons why most actors are stressed, neurotic, raving lunatics.<br />
<br />
Welcome to Tinseltown, Kalen O'Donnell.<br />
<br />
We hope you survive your stay.<br />
<b> </b>Kalen O'Donnellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02131133469192904315noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8888458418905431254.post-37096099652234245442011-05-11T20:59:00.000-07:002011-05-13T13:37:40.408-07:00Thanks Again and Sample First Chapter of Dust to DustGuys, I just want to say thanks again for all your kind words, thoughts and encouragement! And since I don't have time for a real post today, I'm totally cheating and just linking you all to my still in development website - specifically the <a href="http://www.kalenodonnell.com/?page_id=27">first chapter </a>of <strong>Dust to Dust, </strong>available for sampling. Enjoy!Kalen O'Donnellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02131133469192904315noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8888458418905431254.post-70950600212019694722011-05-10T08:56:00.000-07:002011-05-10T08:56:29.144-07:00Thank You!Just wanted to take a second to shout out a quick thank you to everyone who helped me with my <b>Dust to Dust </b>pitch last week! Apparently, it got the job done, as Sara Megibow selected it as one of the three winners in Sisters in Scribe's twitter pitch contest, and I'll be sending her my first 30 pages for critique! You all are rockstars!<br />
<br />
But then, you knew that.Kalen O'Donnellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02131133469192904315noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8888458418905431254.post-65801819999680506492011-05-09T16:53:00.000-07:002011-05-09T16:59:29.503-07:00Eye of the Beholder and All that NonsenseSo I keep having to postpone giving my own flashy awards. SOME people who shall not be named but who I am currently looking at POINTEDLY, are taking foreeeeeeeever to announce big exciting news that needs to be bragged about to ALL the interwebs, and until they announce it, I can't brag about it!<br />
<br />
So, you know. Hurry that up. And if you think I'm talking about you, I probably am. There's like, five of you. What's the point of having massively talented world-conquering friends if you can't use their accomplishments to shock, awe and amaze people as though they were your own? You're all fired, you hear me?<br />
<br />
FIRED! <br />
<br />
So since none of you will let me brag about you yet, I guess I'll just have to brag about myself and sound like a total egotistical tool, so THANKS A LOT GUYS. JEEZ. So anyways, one of those fancy callbacks I was talking about a couple weeks ago resulted in me getting a part in a movie shooting in New York. So June 30th, they're flying me out to New York for three days to shoot my part. Anyone going to be in New York then? We can hang out in my trailer!<br />
<br />
I'm just kidding. I'm not getting a trailer. They're spending all their money on just flying me out there. I'll be sleeping in Central Park or the subways, like all the other actors who live in New York.<br />
<br />
Hah! ZING!<br />
<br />
Excuse me. I've had too much sugar today. Aaaaaanyways, I'm super stoked, because I love to travel. One of the things I've always wanted most from an acting career is being able to travel due to it, and this is the first time I've ever been paid to fly somewhere or stay somewhere else during a shoot. Unless you count that pilot I did where they put us all up in hotels down in Irvine for the shoot, but I don't. It was Irvine. Who counts Irvine for anything? So yeah. New York, baby! Just don't ask me what the movie's about. Or who else is in it. Or like, what the name is. They don't tell me that stuff.<br />
<br />
Seriously. They haven't even sent me the script yet. Oh Hollywood.<br />
<br />
Now that THAT unpleasantness is over and done with, on to more important things. Our topic of the day!<br />
<br />
So I used to suffer from serious clinical depression right? Yeah, I know, way to bring down the mood, huh? But no, is okay. Was long time ago. But it was like hereditary and due to having....an interesting young adult life and it was all very much too much and made me want to curl into a ball all the time except for when I was being self destructive and never get out of bed and mostly eat lots of ice cream and go waaaaaaaah why does the universe hate me?!<br />
<br />
It was all very dramatic. It's almost like I'm an actor or something.<br />
<br />
But anyways, drugs didn't work cuz apparently I'm a freak of nature. Who knew, right? So the only way to kick the habit of you know, sucking at life, was to alter my outlook. It was all very Zen. But it worked! I revel in an overabundance of pep these days! All totally natural! No artificial flavors or preservatives whatsoever! And you can too! Just drink the Kool-Aid, my children!<br />
<br />
Ahem. Sorry. Wrong speech. ANYWAYS. One of the most fundamental contributors of depression, and easiest parts to beat, is that we start looking at all the PILES and LOADS of obstacles, difficulties and handicaps weighing us down. We make mountains out of molehills and stare up at them with wide, panicked eyes and go, how am I supposed to get over that?! It's too big! And so we don't even try.<br />
<br />
THIS IS FAIL. NO ES BUENO. BZZT! WRONG!<br />
<br />
And it applies to day to day life too, not just giant chemical misfires in your brain. How many of you have ever stopped somewhere around 20K into your new manuscript and thought to yourself, omg, this is impossible! I have SO MUCH MORE to write! I'm never going to finish! Oh sure, you put it away for a time and you come back to it later and start again, cuz you're a determined little sucker, but it takes it out of you, doesn't it? Saps some of your strength, a little of your drive?<br />
<br />
But what if you look at it just a little differently? Don't think of your manuscript as one giant mega-beast of 90,000 words, but instead see it as a collection of scenes and subplots and character moments, each as important as the last. Like dozens of little short stories, or windows into your characters' lives, all strung together to make up one greater whole. Suddenly, its not quite so unmanageable. Bang out a thousand words one day, and you didn't just write 1/90th of a novel, with 89 more days like that to go. You wrote a short story, banged out a whole complete THING that you don't have to worry about anymore until your novel is done. And everyday is just another short story finished, or more you've learned about your character, and you're not even thinking about it like a race with a distant finish line anymore. Each day is its own little race, and you win every time. And then before you know it, you add up all those little stories and moments and look at them together in a big picture window, and voila! You finished your novel without even realizing it!<br />
<br />
You have TRICKED yourself! Isn't it great? Outsmarting yourself and your own writer craziness is fun! Everyone try!<br />
<br />
Another useful mind game to play on yourself when you think you're not being productive enough, or as productive as you'd like, is to write down everything you do during the day, as you do it. Everything, from the little to the big. Write it down, and cross it off, like writing a To Do list as you do things instead of ahead of time. Work out in the morning or go for a run? Write it down. Cross it off. Take a shower? Counts. Feed the kids? Totally productive. Write 1,000 words of your manuscript? Hell yeah you did.<br />
<br />
You can break it down into the little things too. Instead of just writing 'worked on book', get specific. Write 'explored Character X's backstory' and cross it off. 'Outlined action sequence for next chapter.' On the list, with a giant X through it. 'Kiss scene', 'kill scene', 'everybody dance now' scene....list 'em individually and check, check, check.<br />
<br />
Doesn't even have to just be physical things either. Mental or emotional goals you succeed at during the day can go on the list as well. 'Didn't drink soday today' is an accomplishment, as is 'refrained from having my mother-in-law shipped off to the loony bin just to get her out of my house.' Write 'em down, cross them off!<br />
<br />
Then at the end of the day, just before you go to bed, look at everything you did. Don't even read the list, just look at ALL THE THINGS YOU DID and crossed off. Pretty awesome. And the best part? Cross your items off really well so you can't really read them too well and then leave them out for your roommates, friends or significant others to find and feel intimidated by your amazing-fantabulousness.<br />
<br />
"Honey? What's this?"<br />
<br />
"Oh, just my To Do list for today."<br />
<br />
"Your To Do list? Just for today? You really did all this today?"<br />
<br />
"Mm-hmm. Why? What'd you do?"<br />
<br />
Be warned. Obnoxious smugness IS an occasional side effect of using this technique. Just remember. It's for the greater good.Kalen O'Donnellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02131133469192904315noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8888458418905431254.post-30403755625280797272011-05-02T12:39:00.000-07:002011-05-05T13:57:48.527-07:00Twitter Pitch Round Robin Workshop!So this is not the post I intended to post today, but I'm still finishing up moving and getting home internet sorted out, so that will have to wait. INSTEAD! Feast your eyes on a couple of cool things!<br />
<br />
Like Anita posting a plethora of awards on her blog <a href="http://authoraghoward.blogspot.com/">here</a>! And much more awesome than the awards themselves (though as the recipient of one, I find them quite awesome all on their lonesome) is how easy it makes it to find a veritable cornucopia of wonderful blogs and bloggers to enjoy! I shall be making my way down that list a little later, but first, on to the next order of business!<br />
<a href="http://authoraghoward.blogspot.com/"><br />
</a><br />
Contests! Yay!<br />
<br />
First, check out this one <a href="http://www.thenextbigauthor.com/Competition-Rules.aspx">here</a>! The Next Big Author Contest, apparently it's kinda a big deal. Who knew? But it entails posting the first chapter of your Work In Progress and has the potential for great feedback and networking, so hooray, all you authors who don't have a complete MS yet and have had to sit out on many of these contests. This one's for you!<br />
<br />
And then back to form with a contest that DOES require a completed manuscript, but oh is it worth it: a <a href="http://www.sistersinscribe.com/2011/05/agent-contest-of-epic-awesome.html">twitter pitch contest</a> which opens this Friday with a deadline for midnight on Saturday! Enter your logline of 140 characters (NO ABBREVIATIONS) and possibly win a critique of the first 30 pages of your manuscript from the amazing Sara Megibow, of the Nelson Literary Agency! For those not in the know, Ms. Megibow has been on a hot streak lately, signing three new clients in the past couple weeks when she only signed a handful all last year. Apparently, she's hungry for great concepts and awesome books at the moment, so strike now while the iron's hot and get your pitch 'pitch perfect!'<br />
<br />
And so to that end, I'm hosting a Twitter Pitch Round Robin workshop! It starts now and will extend until the deadline of the Twitter Pitch contest, at 11:59 pm, Saturday May 7th!<br />
<br />
The rules are simple! There's a character limit of 4,000 characters in the comments of my blog. We have to get your pitches down to 140 characters. So how it works is you start out by posting WHATEVER YOU WANT about your story in a comment on this post. Whatever you think is integral to your story, whatever you ideally would want to include in your pitch. But to post, you have to edit the comment ahead of yours, and your pitch and your edit of the pitch ahead of you both have to fit into your comment. <br />
<br />
Get your pitch ready, then before you post it, refresh the blog to find the most recent comment. Read the pitch ahead of yours, and cut out a line or two, whatever strikes you as unnecessary to get to the heart of their pitch. There's no character limit on how much you have to cut, just make a reasonable contribution to that person's edit, and make sure it fits in your comment along with your own pitch. Then the person to comment after you will cut something from your pitch.<br />
<br />
You can post your revised pitch multiple times, as in fact that's the whole point. The more people who join in, the more often you comment and edit other people's pitches, the closer everybody's pitches will get to that fabled 140 character limit. Just don't post several times in a row. After your pitch has been edited, give a couple other people a chance to edit and pitch before you throw your revised pitch back into the mix. I'm not setting a rule on how many comments need to be between yours, but use your best judgment. Don't be afraid to post multiple times, but don't hog the critiques either.<br />
<br />
This workshop is open to anyone, not just people entering the Twitter Pitch contest. You can post your revised pitch multiple times to get it cut down further, or post pitches for multiple projects. Just be willing to cut from other people's pitches and have a pitch you want shortened in turn, and that's all you need!<br />
<br />
Don't worry if two people post at the same time and accidentally edit the same pitch - just worry about the comment directly ahead of yours, and I'll be jumping in to 'pinch hit/edit' any comments that get missed or overlooked. Anyone else who wants to pinch edit can jump in as well. I think it'll all work itself out on its own.<br />
<br />
Here's my pitch for <b>Dust to Dust</b> to get things started off. So again, first person to comment just needs to cut some stuff they consider unnecessary from mine and post their own pitch. The person to comment after them then cuts from the first commenter and then posts their pitch, and so on and so on, going down the line. Once you've commented and been critiqued, wait a few comments and then feel free to jump back in with your revised comment. Once Saturday rolls around and we wrap it up, I'll be critiquing the last comment to bring things full circle. <br />
<br />
Now enough jibber jabber! Off we go!<br />
<br />
Pitch for Dust to Dust:<br />
<br />
Sixteen year old Micah is the youngest of nine children gifted with magic and cursed to kill each other on sight. When his siblings tell him the curse was put on them by another magic family, they must fight both the curse and years of distrust to stand united against their enemies.<br />
<br />
Who's next?Kalen O'Donnellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02131133469192904315noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8888458418905431254.post-50719173458924185322011-04-29T16:31:00.000-07:002011-04-29T16:58:57.980-07:00Dream the ImprobableAnd now, for a little variation from the norm, something wholly new and unusual for me: a completely serious post. <br />
<br />
After my last post, Anita asked me where I find the time and energy to do all the things I do. It's a valid question. I know to most people my schedule looks, well, insane.<br />
<br />
Probably because it is, but that's neither here nor there.<br />
<br />
A valid question deserved a valid response, and so I got to seriously thinking about why I am the way I am, do things the way I do, etc. There's not just one reason or explanation, I think, but I did draw some conclusions, and in a wholly typical fashion, I present my findings to you here, in another epically long winded Kalen post. Actually, this is long even for me.<br />
<br />
(Let's just consider that 'my brand.')<br />
<br />
I get up around 5 am, hit the gym for an hour and squeeze in a couple hours of writing before work. I average 1K an hour, 2K if its just dialogue. I have a flexible job that lets me leave in the middle of the day for an hour or so when I have auditions to make, and I stay at the office from 5-7 to get a couple more hours of writing in while I wait for rush hour traffic to die down. Then I go home or out with friends and relax for a few hours, and hopefully squeeze in another hour of writing before going to bed around midnight.<br />
<br />
Days when I'm on set however, all of this goes completely out the window as an average work day on set for an actor are usually at LEAST twelve hours and can be up to sixteen hours. I've worked nineteen hour days on a Pepsi commercial, and expect many more days like that in my future as well. But there's a lot of down time on set and I usually have no trouble making my word count.<br />
<br />
So yes, my average word count per day is anywhere from 5K to 8K, except on weekends when I can usually get to 10 or 12K. And I average about five hours of sleep a night.<br />
<br />
Only two things make this possible. One, I love what I do. I freaking live for it. I will never EVER see creating worlds and characters and bringing other people's characters to life on camera as work. I'm never too tired for it, resentful of having to do it, or anything other than just looking forward to doing it. My kind of schedule just wouldn't be possible if I didn't honest to god live for what I do.<br />
<br />
The other thing that makes it possible, is routine. So many people underestimate what the human mind is capable of. We grow up a certain way, we see life and work and people around us a certain way, and whatever we come to define as 'normal' becomes the bar by which we measure ourselves. And exceeding normal, going beyond the ordinary or the routine, that takes a toll. Because our minds, our bodies KNOW that its extra. It's us asking more of them than we usually do, and they begrudge us for it and makes us pay. The trick though, is in how you define normal.<br />
<br />
For me, this kind of schedule, these kinds of self-expectations are completely normal. Have been since I was a kid. My siblings and I were raised as overachievers, as competitive, expected to view extraordinary (in the literal sense of the word, beyond the ordinary or normal) as our routine. From the time I was eight until I was eighteen, I can remember getting up at five every morning so that all four of us kids had a chance to practice an hour of piano every morning (yup, we're all classically trained pianists too, my kid sister played with the San Diego Orchestra when she was sixteen, etc). We all played Varsity sports, I did an hour of karate three days a week and had a black belt by the time I was fifteen - heavy, grueling activities that challenged our bodies as much as our minds. Ridiculous, right? Living off five hours of sleep a night for most of my life, filling my days with as much physical and mental activity as I do, by most logic I should have driven myself into the ground by now.<br />
<br />
Except I get physicals, I go to the doctor, I'm very much in great shape, prime health, and expected to live a long and healthy life. I'm not actually wearing myself to the bone or taking out credit that my body will be forced to pay for later on in life. And its simply, honestly because to my body and mind, this is normal. This is routine. Forget what society dictates as standard, for as long as I can remember this has been my usual, and so I'm not asking anything of myself that I haven't been asking or expecting for most of my life.<br />
<br />
The truly interesting thing to me is, I'm not some exceptionally unique genetic freak either. In the age old nature vs nurture debate, I know and firmly believe that nature is a large factor in how we ultimately develop. But in my personal experience, the role of 'nurture' can't be denied. See, I have three siblings. My older sister and I are our dad's biological children. My younger siblings are adopted. My younger sister is Vietnamese. My younger brother is Mexican. We literally share not a single speck of genetic family lineage.<br />
<br />
And yet, all four of us are considered to be 'gifted pianists', to varying degrees. We've all won awards, competitions, etc. We all excelled at sports, making Varsity teams in our freshmen and sophomore years, though the specific sports varied. All of us were honor roll students, and while I don't put too much stock in IQs, and what having a 'genius IQ' actually means, all four of us test well into the gifted/genius IQ range. Not a single specific biological link between us (other than you know, being human), both of them adopted at birth and its not like our parents knew how to pick out the 'potential geniuses.' I firmly believe that while some people may be genetically predisposed to certain abilities or potential, that all of us are born inherently capable of the same things.<br />
<br />
I am the way I am because this is my normal. Because I was never given any reason to believe I WASN'T capable of the things that I am. While I've struggled with my own insecurities and personal demons over the years, I simultaneously took for granted routines and skills that would stymie a lot of people, with an end result of mind over matter. Because I believed I was capable of certain things, because it was simply so ingrained in me that there was no question, no doubt - I was capable of those things.<br />
<br />
Now as to the title of this post:<br />
<br />
There's a quote I THINK from <b>Sherlock Holmes</b>. I could be wrong though. Roughly paraphrased, it says 'When you eliminate the impossible as an explanation, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be true.'<br />
<br />
That always stuck with me, and over time I adapted it slightly.<br />
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'When you eliminate failure as an option, all that remains, no matter how improbable, is success.' <br />
<br />
As I mentioned, we all have our own struggles, hurdles, and neurotic quirks, insecurities and setbacks unique to us. While I know I have a lot going for me, there's a reason I'm only actively seeking an agent and trying to break into publishing NOW, when I'm 27 instead of fresh out of college. When I have several completed manuscripts under my belt rather than straight off my first one. One of my particular problems that plagued me for YEARS was that I sucked at being decisive. I always had too many things I wanted to write, and none of them ended up getting written. Or at least not finished. I'd waste so much time wondering if this was a better story than that one, or if I liked this plot better and so on and so on.<br />
<br />
Doing nothing: the greatest time waster of all. <br />
<br />
What does this have to do with my adaptation of the Holmes quote? I finally solved my problem of not knowing what story to write, of deciding which idea was better, and actually started FINISHING things by making a very simple choice. <br />
<br />
If I couldn't pick what to write, I'd simply have to write them all.<br />
<br />
And so I just picked one. And started writing it. And it didn't matter which I picked, because I'd decided that even though the sheer volume of stuff I wanted to write was ludicrous, I was going to write them all anyways. I told myself that was the only solution to my problem, and instead of wasting more time listing all the reasons that wouldn't work and wasting yet more time STILL trying to decide what to write, I'd simply write.<br />
<br />
And a funny thing happened. I started writing faster. And more, I started writing SMARTER. Where once I would rewrite a chapter ten times, now I was getting things right the first, second, third times. Oh, I still have to revise, edit, do more than one draft. Don't get me wrong. But nowhere near what I had to in the past. Because I decided I wasn't okay with any alternative. So I'd just have to get better until I could get it all done.<br />
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Incidentally, that's why I'm an actor too. I never could decide what I wanted to be when I grew up - I wanted to be too many things. Pilot, fire fighter, lawyer, doctor - I couldn't be them all, but I couldn't not be them all. So I'm an actor. I can be a little of everything.<br />
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Then people said you can't be a writer AND an actor. That's too much. It'll never work. But if I don't accept it not working, if I don't accept picking JUST actor or writer as a career, then there's no reason I CAN'T be both. Failure's unacceptable to me, so I guess I'll just have to find a way to make both work.<br />
<br />
See where I'm going with this?<br />
<br />
One thing acting and writing have in common, is that they're the two most empowering fields I know of. How does that work? Getting on TV, getting published, it depends on so many variables outside of us, right? Skill, talent, body of work, market trends, market conditions, economy, luck, casting directors, acquisition editors, etc, etc, ad nauseam.<br />
<br />
Bullshit.<br />
<br />
If you look at successful actors and successful writers, if you look at their work and read their interviews and see how they got to where they are today, there's a million different variables. No two got their start the same way, no two have the same level of talent. There are actors of all shapes, sizes, colors and degrees of attractiveness. There are writers of all genres, experience level, subject matter, and more. Some writers and actors got their agents by networking, some were scouted, some got their work in front of the right person at the right time simply by luck. Some only had to try for two months before landing their big break, some it took ten years. Some only came by it posthumously.<br />
<br />
There is only one thing all successful writers and actors have in common. One common thread that binds them and separates them from failed actors and writers.<br />
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THEY DIDN'T QUIT UNTIL THEY MADE IT.<br />
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They didn't accept failure as an option.<br />
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That's it. That's their big secret to success. Mull that over for a second. That's ALL you have to do to realize your dreams. That's all you have to do to make it.<br />
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Just. Never. Stop.<br />
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Never stop trying, never stop growing, never stop learning, evolving, thinking outside the box. Never stop dreaming. When one door closes, find another one. When one manuscript isn't good enough, learn to write a better one. Hang a sign outside your door that says NO SOLICITORS, NO DISCOURAGEMENT. Be blind to all the reasons you CAN'T do this.<br />
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If you struggle to find time to write, cut down on time wasting by ceasing to second guess yourself and whether you're good enough. If you're not sure if the story you want to write is something agents would want to see or that publishers are willing to take a chance on, write it anyways. Maybe it won't land you that agent. Maybe it won't sell. It'll still be a finished novel, you'll still learn from it, and you won't have to waste time wondering what it could have been. You'll know. You'll grow. You'll move on to your next attempt.<br />
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Don't be afraid of failure. Every failed attempt is just one step closer to success, one less thing standing between you and success as you cross it off your list as something tried, learned from and on to the next approach.<br />
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The only true failure is being less than what you're capable of.<br />
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Want to be a writer? Hell, want to be an actor?<br />
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Just be stubborn. Be fearless. Be a risk taker, an opportunity maker, a problem solver and an eternal student. Don't write something off as impossible just because its never been done before. Don't be afraid to dream big, understanding that there's a world of difference between feeling you're OWED something and feeling you're CAPABLE of something.<br />
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I'm owed nothing. I'm capable of everything.<br />
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Know this. Believe this. Smile politely when someone rips your MS to shreds as amateurish and incompetent and say 'Thank you, I KNOW my story is worth telling, so I guess this just means I have to work a little harder to tell it.'<br />
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Do everything except quit, and you're more than just a writer.<br />
<br />
You're a muthaf*ckin rockstar.Kalen O'Donnellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02131133469192904315noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8888458418905431254.post-4831258013909013292011-04-27T16:42:00.000-07:002011-04-27T16:47:31.858-07:00In Which the Sky is Falling, and I Do Not Make a Good Chicken Little*gasps and comes up for air all melodramatically*<br />
<br />
HAI GUYS! DIDJA MISS ME?<br />
<br />
Well okay, so I last posted last week so its entirely possible that nobody even noticed I was gone, since like, its all relative yo. But I felt like I was gone forever, because drama has an Einsteinian (sp? real word? whatever) effect on the time/space continuum and turns a week into <br />
<br />
OMGFOREVERIFUNIVERSEDOESNTSTOPBEINGABITCHIMCOMMITTINGSEPPUKU.<br />
<br />
Sorry. In case you haven't gathered yet, its been a long week.<br />
<br />
So I have a ton of stuff to share, some exciting, some not so exciting, some positively reeking of mundanity. So we're going to space that out. First of all, my thanks to everyone who took a chance on my little CP Auction Blogfest, and I'm really sorry it didn't work out the way we hoped. I'll have another post on that later in the week, examining what I think I could have done differently and asking for input on how to tweak things and get more people involved for next time, because I'm totally going to try again. One wise soul suggested hosting it again right after NaNoWriMo, and I think she might be one of those freaky genius type people. Because holy smokes that's a good idea.<br />
<br />
In other news, the last couple weeks have seen me absolutely swamped with auditions which I will never ever complain about. However, something to consider, and expect a writing related post on this later as well, as it applies there too - don't bite off more than you can chew. Which I umm, do a lot. So for instance, when I did four dance auditions in a span of two weeks (yeah I dance too, mostly hip hop, music videos stuff, got a little contemporary and jazz training too), its kinda me hedging my bets, because you never expect to land all of them. But when you land say, three of the four music videos and have back to back nonstop rehearsals and multi-day shoots on three music videos crammed into one week, the end result is a LOT OF PAIN. And sore muscles galore. And oh dear god, my feet, they may never work again. But they'll have to, because I also booked a major role in an indie movie shooting in two weeks and have been auditioning fairly regularly now for a producer of not one, but two major genre shows, and hoping that'll lead to something big so fingers crossed!<br />
<br />
Also have cover art to show off for Anonymous - remember the Great Grassroots Novel Experiment I spoke of awhile back? Well it's still in the works, trying to work out the best time table for it as of course part of its purpose is figuring out how to best capitalize on web presence and build buzz, but I do have pretty pictures for it, and absolutely no will power whatsoever, so I'm most likely going to be caving and sharing that soon.<br />
<br />
Now, as to the title of this post and the big reason for my absence and drama in the past week - I fear, dear friends, that I have fallen victim to the Great and Dreaded Writersbane. That which every author fears. The terror that lurks beneath every laptop.<br />
<br />
Yes. I speak of....<br />
<br />
THE COMPUTER VIRUS.<br />
<br />
I can practically feel your hearts sink for me as you read those words, because like me, you all know what that means, and instantly imagine the worst. And oh, it was bad. It was very bad. I shelled out the money for a new computer pretty quickly once they determined it'd be cheaper than salvaging mine. But that was the easy part. (Hah!) Then came the part that makes us gnash our teeth and pull our hair.<br />
<br />
Seeing what we lost.<br />
<br />
Fortunately, this isn't my first encounter with the Great and Terrible Computer Death, so I was somewhat prepared. I had a lot backed up, and much else stored via emails and on various spots on the web. But not having a single central back up location online, I have spent the past week scurrying thither and hither about the vast internets, scouring old online journals, boards and email communications for the various drafts of my completed manuscripts and my many, MANY works in progress. It's still underway, and will take some major reconstructive surgery to match the most recent versions of each MS (I have half the final draft for this MS in this email for instance, and what I'm pretty sure is the last three chapters of the final draft of it on this LJ, etc), but it'll be okay, ultimately. It's the WIPs that suffered the most. I have so many, and am so neurotic about sending people stuff when I'm not sure it'll ultimately go anywhere, that some just never made it online, and I really don't know if I'll ever be able to recover them. Sigh. Oh well. The good ones live on in my head with enough urgency that I'll get around to them eventually, and the bad ones, well, if I can't remember them well enough to recover them, perhaps they aren't the best use of my time anyways? C'est la vie.<br />
<br />
But in positive thinking mode, I did discover something about myself while wading through the nigh infinite amounts of crap I've written over the years. I'm a writer, y'all!<br />
<br />
I know, you're all like, uh, no shit, genius. <br />
<br />
But no, its like this! I'm not actually that stupid kid who writes shit thinking it'll never amount to anything and he'll never be as good as the stuff publishing in bookstores anymore. I'm REALLY neurotic about my old stuff, because frankly, I don't think its that good. Even a complete novel I queried with and think is a solid MS, polished as best I can make it, and tells a story worth telling - I hate showing that to people. Which is weird right? If I think its good enough to show an agent, I should have no problem showing it to people. But the thing is, while its the best I could write then, and the best I could polish it since then, its nothing compared to what I could write now - but short of rewriting it from scratch, that's not going to change. And even though it has agent interest as is, I might end up doing that ultimately anyways because otherwise I'll just never be happy with it. BUT I DIGRESS!<br />
<br />
Point is, that was then. I was just shaping up a chapter of my current WIP, <strong>Midnight Oil</strong> (formerly called GILT) to send off to a CP, and I realized, huh. I really like this. I think its good. I actually can't WAIT to hear what she thinks about it!<br />
<br />
....does this mean...have I GROWN?<br />
<br />
I think it is entirely possible that I have. As a person, as a writer, both....I'm very bemused by it.<br />
<br />
So some thoughts for you all, if you care to share:<br />
<br />
Have you ever had that epiphany where you realized you've actually grown as a writer, in a visible, measureable way? <br />
<br />
Or where were you when you realized hey, this might not just be a pipedream. I might actually be a writer who writes and y'know, does stuff with it.<br />
<br />
And if you want to share your own horror stories of the COMPUTER VIRUS and reassure me that ITS NOT THAT BAD and REALLY, IT GETS BETTER, I would probably be most happy to hear them. Most happy.<br />
<br />
And finally, along the lines of what I was talking about last week, before the sky fell and everything, anyone have any questions about the acting industry that they've always wondered about and would be interested in hearing me talk about? The audition process, stunt work, Are There Actually Fancy Parties Where You Schmooze with Agents and Famous People, or Tips on Making Out with a Total Stranger On Camera and Pretending This is Actually Sexy (But definitely not Porn!)....I'm actually a little curious to hear what people might be curious about, because all my friends are actors and industry people and we're distressingly jaded, so....make of that what you will.<br />
<br />
And now I think I've vomited all over your Google Readers enough for one day, so back to my regularly scheduled tweeting!<br />
<br />
OH YEAH! I TWEET NOW! FOLLOW ME AT @kalenodonnell AND I'LL TOTES FOLLOW YOU BACK.<br />
<br />
Okay. Now I'm done.Kalen O'Donnellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02131133469192904315noreply@blogger.com6