Flies Non-Update

 

Well, after the "I got this" talk of Thursday night, it turned out I didn't 'got this' on Friday. 

Instead of resubmitting Flies to another possible publisher, I chose to do other things, like clean up my tool room (which had been on the list for a long time) and finish my rough editing of Karmageddon. 

It's amazing how much I want to change after leaving it alone for 2 (?) years. Does it naturally get worse or is that just me? Anyways, I finished tagging all the things I want to change and have been spending this morning (Saturday) doing that instead of, again, resubmitting Flies. 

I also went to the liquor store yesterday, to get a little something to deal with the fact I am turning 50 and was immediately drawn to this:                                                                                                                                                                                       Now for some reason I can't get Blogger to text-wrap around these pictures I'm getting frustrated and having spent 2 hours on this computer, avoiding submitting Flies, I will once again return to my state of self-loathing and find more shit to throw away, at least making my day somewhat complete.                                                                                                                             So here I am, one less day until 50 with on publishing contract. Not like there's any rush anymore. 

Flies; the first submission.

Attempt #1

Okay, so I know enough about the submitting process to know I don't know enough and never will. 

I'm going to detail my attempts at finding a publisher for Flies so that way either I A) have someone to blame, B) have a semi-interesting journal for people interested in a similar journal and C) therapy.

I'm just going to hop on C) here. I submitted Flies three days ago, via Submittable to the 'Featured Publisher' of my local chapter of the Canadian Publisher's Alliance - that's not the name but it was the first one that came up on a Google search.

They have a caveat; saying they publish about 20 books a year with around 1000 submissions annually. So, chances are pretty slim. 

Now, previous experience/homework suggested there's a long turn-around time when a manuscript is dropped into a 'slush pile'; like months and months. So I sure wasn't expecting an answer anytime soon. 

But I did. Running that high I started reading/editing Karmageddon again and SHIT there's a lot of notes I've made for the next edit. How do manuscripts get worse the longer you're away from them? 

Then something unexpected. A reply from the publisher. Could it be? 

Three days and form letter rejection. 

I found that out about 7pm tonight. That put me in a funk so hard I laid down on the couch and power napped for about 15 minutes before being woken by the kid. Then I spent about 30 minutes looking at other possible publishers, depressed and miserable, self-loathing, questioning my validity of writing talents, etc. I put that on pause, deciding I will look deeper into it tomorrow. Maybe submit again before the acceptance settles in which obviously already did.

Another hour or so of that feeling sucky before going to bed. 

It was while laying there that I had this epiphany that Flies was never going to be an easy sell - I mean, it's a story about killing children that nobody cares about. I need to work on selling it; how I'm going to do that, I don't know. I need to have a cheerleader in my life, someone who will say 'no problem, you got this, you can do it'. And I realize I don't so it's all up to me. 

It's always been all up to me. 

I got this. I will find a publisher for Flies. 

In the meantime, I'll journal my struggles on my blog (does anyone read blogs anymore?) for posterity. 

In this day and age of bells and whistles and 'everything lives forever on the Internet', which by the way is not true judging from all the embedded video clips that have been removed from this blog, I figure this will make for a decent memory for the day when I do get Flies published and maybe, just maybe, find an agent to make my life a little easier and my confidence a little stronger. 

I got this. 

Be your own cheerleader. 

 

Summer 2021

 

Here we are, still alive, still trying to figure out what this last 16 months has meant. A lot of people have died, current update is 4, 167,500 deaths, 26,000 in Canada. 

A lot of questions; vaccinations, yay or nay, lot of media propaganda which after nearly a 20 year bad rap (harkening back to Bush/Cheney) of being puppets to government spins. Nobody trusts anyone anymore, forest fires burning like 2017, masks no longer mandatory, US states 'opening' and dying again, the Delta variant, the Jan 6th capital attack, Branson and Bezos going into space, with the argument of what actually defines 'space' last week, no rain in the last 4 months, with a 44 degree heat spell and the town of Lytton incinerating. 

And somewhere in the last 5 months I completed Flies, and if I say so myself, it's pretty damn good. My 3 beta readers have loved it with one yet to check in. I am working on one last re-edit before doing the real work of pushing it off into some publishing houses to attempt to get that elusive traditional deal done; I'm old-school all the way because I hate the work of self-promo. 

So that is my quick update for the summer. I've not done much outside and the family has gone off for the weekend but I have to keep my eyes on the goal(s) and it's easier said than done. Still so much to do, both inside, outside and 75 pages still to edit. 

It's starting to feel a lot like...something.

 

It's been awhile. 

I've been busy. Busy being a father, a dad, a renovator, a learn-as-you-goer, teacher's assistant, dog-walker, home-maker, etc etc. with little time for writing. I'm only here because I am on a sick day from work with it's own weird little backstory behind that which I won't get into. 

I did Nanowrimo, which is a writing challenge held in November in which you try to type 50,000 words. I cut out an hour a day and my family let me with little to no distractions. I used that to edit a 1st draft I have let simmer for many months. It's a murder mystery thing; someone's killing pedophiles and it's done in three different points of views; a step away from my preferred Karmageddon world building. 

It's a challenge in itself and I'm only like... 1/2 way done, even with Nanowrimo. And CoVid. 

According to Worldometer.info, here are the latest stats worldwide; . 1,665, 000 deaths (about 3% of those who officially contracted it). In Canada there were 13, 865 deaths. They don't give out an age breakdown but that can be found with a little digging; last I checked, 96% were people over 80. 

Yep, CoVid is still the thing. There are too many conspiracy theories to count and, depending on who you ask, faith in our leadership is plummeting. We have small owner-operated restaurants forced to close while McDonald's has their best sales ever. You can't have a wedding with more than 20 people (depending on where you are) yet Home Depot and Walmart are fine. You can't work out at a gym or have dinner with more than 4-6-10 family members but you can go into any store that is open as long as you wear a mask. 

Masks are mostly mandatory the world over yet nobody mentions the mask-makers as part of any conspiracy. That's left to Big Pharma, two of whom have announced vaccines immediately after the US election win of Joe Biden over Donald Trump. And socialists; that one is fun. While the stock markets show huge gains (keeping the rich richer), somehow this is all a conspiracty for a great economic reset where everyone will get a (gasp) basic universal income. 

As back when this first started, nobody really rich or famous has died. Tom Hanks was one of the first to get it and that would have been a game changer. But he was fine. As was Justin Trudeau's wife, Boris Johnson (UK premier), P!nk, Trump ('cured' over a weekend), a ton of other White House high-ups in his cabinet, Prince Charles. 

I had my own theory at one time (writer brain kicking in) that this was a War of The Worlds/Invasion of the Body Snatchers thing where those who die are pod people, advance forces for alien overlords. It's not sensitive to those who have lost someone but we all have to try and make sense of all this in our own ways. If that involves me coming up with a Killer Alien Virus theory to explain why I can't watch my daughter play ringette, so be it. 

Mostly, those who died have been old and with weakened immune systems. I went for a walk awhile ago and had this minor epipheny of how this is a Boomer reaction to the approaching of Death, as futile as it may be to fight it, they're going to try. It's backfired a little, such as so many have had to die alone, their families unable to hold their hands one last time, in fear of infection. When we, as a society, placed our elders in care homes, paid other people to care for them then get angry that they are dieing in these places we have put them, who really is to blame?   

So we have people shouting online to wear your masks and other people shouting it makes no difference. In my province, nearly all the deaths were in long-term care homes (which are like bus stations for funeral homes). We have a 50 person cap on a hockey arena that sits 3000 and a 2 person cap in public restrooms. 

We have this 'front-line workers are the real heroe' memes going around yet many of those are the cashiers who are keeping the economy running. There has been no mention of Big Banks or credit cards doing anything other than lip service to everyone falling deeper in debt. I don't know how that will play out but in the meantime, we try to keep as normal as possible. 

Yet on my end, things are actually quite stable. We both kept our jobs; I caught up on a lot of side-projects such as building a front walkway, building a fence, bartering my labour from that to a 14ft aluminum boat and a utility trailer (which I then rebuilt). We resided our house, finally losing the avocado green aluminum siding and replaced 8 windows. Then to top it off, we have a new(er) truck, one that can actually tow the utility trailer! So yeah, sorry society is in the crapper and our alien overlords are about to run the show but I'm doing pretty darn good.

 

Now if I can only get a book deal. 

 

The Best Decade in Movies; the 80s (in progress, likely not going to finish)

The Best Decade in Movies; the Eighties

The Greatest Decade Movies; the 80′s.

The eighties. Most of you probably weren’t even born yet. Those that were old enough to remember the eighties may also remember the world-wide controversy that broke out during this seminal decade. No, I’m not talking about AIDS. No, not talking about David Lee Roth being kicked out of Van Halen. I’m talking about the technological controversy of the century; Beta or VHS?

Most of you should know the answer to this if you ever looked in your grandparents’ entertainment cabinet. VHS won the battle but ultimately not the war as VHS tapes multiplied like tribbles throughout the 80′s and 90′s before slowly finding themselves being herded into the 8-track section of your local pawn shop or yard sale cardboard box.

Yet the eighties could arguably be considered pop culture cinema’s greatest decade. From the teen angst of John Hughes’ works to the high gore, multiple entries of the Freddy and Jason slasher flicks to the pumped-up action figures of Sly Stallone and Arnie Schwarznegger the eighties had it all. It was so cool that Robert Downey Jr. was in it, that’s how cool it was.

But for cinephiles and the point of this article, I present Must See 25 great and influential movies of the 80′s.

25 Airplane! (1980)

Sadly, Airplane! and it’s non-stop barrage of jokes has been dumbed down over the years, evolving into the sad, sad ‘spoof’ industry. Where Airplane! succeeded is it took a little-known airplane disaster movie (1957′s Zero Hour) and used that as the blueprint for their own movie by borrowing plot and characters (in a way). By spoofing the trend of disaster movies rather than specific movies it made a household name out of Leslie ‘don’t call me shirley’ Nielson, and a hundred other jokes. For better or worse (worse) Airplane! is what created the crapfest that is Epic Movie, Scary Movie 2-ongoing, The Farrelly Brothers, Superhero Movie, Disaster Movie, the 41 year old virgin who knocked up Sarah Marshall…etc, etc. etc.

Timeless Quote;

Strike; “Surely, you can’t be serious.”

Rumack; ‘I’m always serious. And don’t call me Shirley.’

24 Die Hard (1988)

Now at sequel #5 and counting, Die Hard revolutionized the action picture by breaking the mold of the eighties bulging biceps action heroes into the much more everyday wisecracking figure of Bruce Willis who successfully jumped out of America’s TV sets into the big screen. If you don’t know this movie, you can just go to WhatCulture’s Die Hard page and feel vast amounts of shame.

Timeless Quote; “Yippee kay yay, mother f@#%er.”

23 Princess Bride (1987)

Princess Bride made a (bigger) star out of one of the greatest wrestlers of all time, Andre the Giant. Finally able to hone his cinematic acting chops, his reputation as one of the nicest people in the world played up to his character of Fezzik. Directed by Rob Reiner (who went against typecast and created the greatest trilogy of differing genre films in Princess Bride, Misery and A Few Good Men) it promised a story about true love, pirates, sword fights and monsters and delivered. One of the best 'sick in bed' movies ever.

Timeless Quote; “My name is Indigo Montaya. you killed my father. prepare to die.”

22 Tron (1982)

Before CGI, there was Tron. It was one of the first movies to acknowledge this whole computer ‘fad’ as perhaps being more than just a bunch of kids goofing off. By using state of the day special effects during a time that depended less on CGI and more on people’s abilities to create sets and uniforms that were thought to be logically what an inside of a computer would look like.

Timeless Quote; N/A but there is this awesome invention that has since came true; the light bike.

21 Robocop (1987)

Before drones, there was Robocop. Half man, half machine, all cop.

20 Friday the 13th (1980)

Do I need even to recap this series? You know that there has been over 10 movies made with Jason right? All of them made money. ‘Nuff said.

Timeless Quote; “ch-ch-ch-ch  kill-kill-kill-kill”

19 Purple Rain (1984)

If you thought Madonna’s ego was big, (it is), Prince’s semi-autobiographical tale hit the public at the right time, unlike his other film projects. The album remains one of the top best sellers of the eighties and despite it’s unmemorable plot line… Prince sings, rides a motorbike, and talks dirty to Nikki and dry humps a speaker. There’s something in there about a rival slick band that is the basis of a little fun for Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back…so there’s that.

Timeless Quote; ’It’s Maurice Day and the Time! oh ee oh ee oh.

18 Heathers (1988)

Before Mean Girls, there was Heathers. It made stars out of Christian Slater and Winona Ryder.

17 Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Wes Craven’s break out horror flick of Freddie, the serial killer with the knife gloves that killed while you slept. Freddie went on to become one of the go-to’s of Halloween costume parties and nearly single-handedly brought back the fedora.

Timeless Quote; ”one, two Freddie’s coming for you, three/four better shut the door…”

16 Highlander (1986)

Throughout history there has been a select group of Immortals that occasionally bump into each other and engage in the ultimate elimination match to achieve…I don’t know…being the only Immortal? But it has Sean Connery and Christopher Lambert and his trademark voice that he has made a decent B movie career out of.

Timeless Quote; "Hey, is that Sean Connery?”

15 BladeRunner

Timeless Quote;

14 Big Trouble in Little China

Timeless Quote;

13 Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

Timeless Quote;

12 Terminator

Timeless Quote;

11 Karate Kid

Timeless Quote;

10 The Shining

Timeless Quote; “Here’s Johnnnnnnieee!”

9 Gremlins

Timeless Quote;

8 Goonies

Timeless Shuffle; The Chunk Shuffle

7 Ghostbusters

Timeless Quote; “Yes, it’s true. This man has no dick.”

6 ET

Timeless Quote; “ET phone home.”

5 Raiders of the Lost Ark

Timeless Quote; “Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?”

4 Red Dawn

Timeless Quote; ”WOLVERINES!”

3 Back to the Future

Timeless Quote; “Hello? McFly?”

2 Empire Strikes Back

Timeless Quote; ”Luke, I am your father.”

1 The Breakfast Club

Timeless Quote; hey hey hey hey! Don’t you….forget about me…