Accountability

I have too many places on which to post things. To some extent I compartmentalize -- Twitter tends to get writing stuff, Tumblr gets fan stuff, Facebook gets stuff about the kids, and G+ is where I keep my collected screenshots of superheroes tied up in ropes and tentacles. This blog used to be mainly about cooking, but while I do still cook, it's nowhere near what it used to be in my life. I don't remember when I last used some quiet moments to leaf through a cookbook. Maybe it's just that disconnected quiet moments are all I get, most days, or maybe it's a failure of discipline.

I will have to get on the stick about that, so I'm posting my schedule here, and also so I don't lose the damn thing. The working title for the book is Prometheus, because I have to call it something other than "that thing I'm doing with Byron in it."

• May/June - Research. I have several books on Byron to read, and a new copy of The Death of Arthur.
• June/July - Finish first draft (abandoned at 45k last year)
• July-October - Second draft
• November - NaNoWriMo (It's how I fill my queue; I skipped last year, but I already have an idea to use this time around)
• December - Polish and solicit critiques

Those normally take a couple of months to come back, during which I can do research for the next novel (a sort of urban fantasy set in New England just after the Civil War). And so on. 

State of the Marvel Universe: 1965

Background: Last summer I watched The Avengers. Then I went and watched the rest of the Marvel Phase 1 movies, and then I watched The Avengers again. It struck me that with not just this movie but most comic movies, we were getting characters and stories that are literally fifty years old. I got curious about this longevity, and decided to look in the comics to see what they might tell me about how these characters started, how they evolved, and maybe why they've lasted so long. So I've been reading along, and as I get to the end of every issue year I write a "state of" summary. It occurred to me that some people might find them amusing (or not).

The books I read for this year are: Amazing Spider-Man, whatever books the Hulk appeared in, Journey Into Mystery, Tales of Suspense, Avengers, Fantastic Four, and Uncanny X-Men. 

So, 1965. One of the things that sticks out to a reader is how tiny the shop was back then. Stan, Jack, Ditko, Heck, a couple more who show up near the end of '65, a handful of colorists, and I think three letterers. That was Marvel.

In terms of the stories, all of the pieces were in place that we recognize today: the heroes, the major villains (and a host of forgotten ones), and their supporting casts. I knew the universe was pretty static, but I wasn't expecting this extent.

In 1965, Marvel characters still barely qualify as such. Labels substitute for backgrounds: doctor, scientist, disgruntled circus performer, Communist. Motives begin and end with "because heroes", "I would like to be rich", and "I just like being evil okay." Thor has a signature formality to his speech, Cap a certain stolid patriotism, but everyone else sounds like Stan Lee. Fine details of appearance were restricted by the available printing technology. Character backgrounds are sparse and mostly occupied by dead relatives.

It occurred to me that this might not be a deficiency if what you're really after is reader self-insertion. It's not "good writing," but it gets a particular job done. Maybe if you're an adult writing adult characters for an audience composed (or thought to be composed) largely of pre-teens, maybe they assumed that any depth or significant time spent on character problems out of costume would have been wasted.

I'm not even going to start on the state of their writing WRT women at this point, or else I'll be here all day. I suppose I should be glad that they had any women characters at all, and that they were allowed to do something other than be taken hostage. I swant someone to track down Stan Lee and find out why he stringently avoided the word "woman" in favor of "female." Efforts to set stories outside the US are cringe-inducing.

For all the crowds that showed up for Reed and Sue's wedding, the universe feels thin; there isn't much of a supporting cast in any of the books. We see the teams being domestic among themselves, fighting among themselves, and fighting villains, but seldom interacting with anyone else on an ongoing basis. Spider-Man does a better job of this than the rest of them, because he spends so much time out of costume. Most of the supporting cast for other solo books are dedicated to love interest/triangles. So for Journey Into Mystery, Thor's got Jane and he's got his family in Asgard, but a big chunk of the family scenes revolve around the Jane Problem. Iron Man's supporting cast is just Pepper and Happy. The Hulk doesn't have one at all. Captain America has Bucky in past-set stories, and Rick in present-day stories, and that's it. Secondary characters shouldn't just be there to be kidnapped, rescued, and mind-wiped; they add depth to a setting and round out the main characters by letting us see them in a variety of circumstances. That's missing.

Plots were rudimentary; for the most part, they didn't draw out longer than two issues. Kind of funny to me that despite the serial format--which has been used to produce some long-ass novels--they didn't trust either their medium or their audience to support actual long-term stories. Bad guy appears (or breaks out of jail, or gets hired by some other villain), attempts some crime. There's a fight. After a more or less protracted exchange of blows/fire, a defeat and retrenchment, the hero wins the fight. Almost everyone has a romantic interest or two, and Peter and Tony have recurring job woes, but it's more furniture than plot, because nothing significant happens as a result of these features (other than the creation of the Scorpion, I suppose). The Hulk, oddly, got some of the most intricate and extended sequences, but his characterization was all over the place. It took forever to find a place for Captain America as anything beyond a Nazi-puncher.

I'm told that I should be judging these books against what had gone before, and against their DC contemporaries, which would make it clear where Marvel was breaking ground in art and story, but there are limits to how much time I'm willing to put into this project. I see flashes of promise, and I quite like some of the art, but in terms of story-telling I'm calling this bad to mediocre.

So that was 1965.

Too Busy Living

I keep meaning to make this entry part of my weekend, but the days are so busy it seems I don't generally have time. Not that we actually do anything -- cleaning and errands seem to eat up as much time as I'm able to give them. Now that the weather is better, the kids are keen to go outside. So am I, to be honest. Still, even though I haven't had time to blog any recipes or anything lately, I can at least keep track of the goals and so forth.

• Got two responses to the six query letters I sent; one request for a partial, one form rejection. It typically takes at least a couple of weeks, so I am going to try to hold out for the rest of the week before I send another batch out. In the meantime, I am paddling about in the shallows of the book I started last year, getting my brain back into that space. 
• Continuing the year's comic book theme, started reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. I'm having a hard time getting into it. 
• Ran four miles (slowly) this morning, and this weekend I'm supposed to check out a local yoga class. I haven't been to one in ages. I've cut back on bagels. If the scale doesn't budge in another week, I'll have to find something else to cut back on. 

I'm thinking hard about taking a half day at the end of the month to address a bunch of little things that need doing. Haircuts and financial planning are tough to slot into an evening or a Saturday.

Getting Back on the Horse

Kind of a tired metaphor, but no worse for being a bit dusty. And I have personally fallen off a horse, unlike many other things one might fall off of and substitute into the phrase. Among other changes I'm trying to make in my life, I thought perhaps I should try to get back to blogging.

I was going to try to get back into doing the Baking with Julia project this month, but then I misread the date for the first April recipe and didn't make time for bread on the weekend I did have. The next recipe is madeleines; I don't have a pan and have never had the slightest urge to make those, so maybe I'll just go back and make one of the many things I've missed.

What I have done is send out three query letters. It's the strangest sensation, looking over my spreadsheet of agents, catching up with the names I agonized over so extensively last time around. A couple of them have moved on, have changed agencies or moved web sites. I feel... not exactly blase, but unconcerned about the effort. I'm doing what I can do to make this happen. I'll send out a few more later this week, and get back to researching the new book. There's no reason I shouldn't have a decent draft of this thing by the end of the year.

Probably related to that, my fandom activities have slacked off. I'm still reviewing comics, and I survey new fan-fic daily as part of my little side project, but I haven't written any in months now, and very little of what I see interests me enough to read it. We'll see if Iron Man 3 rekindles my enthusiasm.

March Status Report

Things continue to meander along without much sense of urgency.

• Gym attendance has been good. Back up to the point where I can do three miles, though not particularly fast. Still not losing any weight.
• Finished JS&MrN, read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Howl's Moving Castle, and a boatload of Marvel comics from 1966 (the writing was mostly crap, though the art was better).
• In anticipation of the new Iron Man movie, I've developed a side hobby of tracking fan-fiction statistics.
• Wrote a new query letter and started fixing up the synopsis.
• Visited some blogs and sites I used to read before the Great Funk of 2012 hit--I used to read a couple dozen food and writing blogs, and at some point I just stopped.

Overall, I'd say that things are moving in the right direction, slowly.

Main goal for April: Be in position to start sending out query letters. 

It's What Month Already?

That was quick.

I thought perhaps I should post an update after my depressed and depressing year round-up. I'm happy to report that the mood has passed and I've been much more like myself. I've even got A Plan for at least the first half of the year. For most of February, this involved doing critiques I owed to other people, one of which was on a deadline. Now that I'm finished with that one, I can keep going with the others at a slower pace. In a couple of months I should be able to devote more time to research for the new book.

I've been going to the gym at least three times a week, though it's showing no results so far. I'll have to grit my teeth and cut back on bagels, boo.

In my usual stop and start fashion, I've been reading. I will finish Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell this time, dammit.

And there's the comics project, which is turning into an actual project, because I can't do anything on a casual level. Basically, since we have this unlimited subscription to Marvel Digital, I'm reading "not exactly all the comics." I've picked a handful of books/characters and started reading as far back as the archive goes. I'm curious about the way the characters and the storytelling evolved over the decades, about shared worlds, about what makes a good story or a good character. If nothing else, it's making for more dinner table conversation.

So that's my life right now. This particular weekend has been spent hunkered down due a major blizzard. We were lucky; never lost power. Still, I've been in this apartment since Thursday afternoon except for shoveling, and am feeling just a wee bit claustrophobic.

2012 Goals Revisited

This has been a weird, weird year.

I went to Taos Toolbox and spent two weeks in the company of other writers. I learned a lot, I saw a lot of new things, and it was awesome.

I got a new job, which pays me more than I deserve and is an opportunity to learn new professional skills.

I wrote 45k words of a new novel, then decided that this one requires actual research, so I'm trying to do that (it takes a lot of time). I wrote 80k words of Avengers movie fan-fiction; I'm still not sure why, but it's been interesting. I've never really understood the phenomenon of fandom, and I'm not sure I do even now that I am part of it.

I've read a lot of comic books, trying to educate myself about the history of the genre.

I look at this list and get horribly depressed and feel like I have failed at life. I do recognize that this doesn't make much sense.

A lot of stuff didn't get done. My "things to do" list got completely neglected. The apartment is in a perpetual state of chaos (and maybe with three kids just can't be any other way). My commitment to other people's birthdays never seems to make it through the summer. Every time we get some financial progress, we get hit with some unplanned expense. My weight has if anything drifted upward. Cooking has been scattershot.

Blogging has, of course, entirely disappeared from my life.

I don't know what goals to set for 2013. I feel under-accomplished and over-stretched at the same time. I am looking forward to the holidays; due to the timing, I'll have a pretty long stretch of time off, and can maybe use some of that to figure out where the problem is and make some plans.