Monday* Madness with Questionable Content

 

Hello again blogosphere!

In case anyone was wondering, the holidays that had been sneaking up on me finally pounced.  I've been away from internet for days now, and when I got back home the internet was down.  Well it's back up just now.

Questionable Content is dear to my heart, as webcomics go (you can't let them get too close or the pixels will poke a valve).

The first time I read it, I read it front to back in one sitting.  This was when it was already past 500 comics.  It's meant to be read start to finish, as the stories and jokes continue and build.   The art of creator Jeph Jacques (sweet name huh?)  has changed a lot since QC started.  It can be great fun to watch the art improve over time, if you like that sort of thing.  I do!

Here is the comic that introduces the main character, Marten Reed:

More questionable content (literally) coming from me soon.  I've got a few stories in the works, as well as some random writing-related things to share too!

*I'll get back to actual Mondays soon, I promise!

Monday Madness with The Oatmeal!

Still feels like Monday to me!

The Oatmeal makes me laugh until I cry, literally.  It also has informative topics, such as how to correctly use words like "literally".

Sample topics include:

The Oatmeal creator Matthew Inman describes his ability to write consistently hilarious material as using what everyone is thinking about but not articulating.

And it works for him too - The Oatmeal generates millions of pageviews each month.

Published!

Am I dreaming?  

I've worked at being published for the last six years, writing and writing.  I thought perhaps it would happen in the next 5 years, or even after.  I thought I would collect hundreds of rejection letters before this...

Midwest Literary Magazine just published my short story, Morning Glory!! 

You might remember reading it earlier on this blog as Blossom Archer, where I was looking for feedback on how to put finishing touches on it.  Well, they took it without much editing, and I am in shock.  It's available in MLM's November online collection, as well as their November print magazine, and in a new collection titled Bearing North:

 

When I got the email, I just sat there staring at the screen for many minutes, and then I ran around shouting and dancing.

Life Goal #1 complete!

I'm looking at it as the start to writing salable fiction.  I think I'm lucky they took it, and that I can now set my sights on trying to write more and better.

It's a huge relief though, to have confirmation that I'm doing the right thing at least some of the time.

What's possibly even crazier:  This blog was the safe testing-ground for that story.  I would never have written it if I didn't feel like I had a good outlet for my work.  This blog has sparked a lot of good ideas for me, and now it's making my dreams come true.  It just takes some time, hard work, patience, finding the right outlets, and heaps of luck.

Onward!

Friday Update: Fitting new song for Fat Friday on Everything Else - Enjoy!

A (mine)crafty post.

Wednesday Update

I've got a new post up on Everything Else, and I will be posting some good news soon! 

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One of my life goals is to build a castle with my own hands.

Like this

I have books on Masonry, stone building architecture, and even one on the type of castle I want to build; a Scottish L-Plan Castle.  It's basically just a big house made of stone that you call a castle.  It is feasible if you have a little bit of land and access to field-stones.  It takes a few years of hard work.

I've had the whole thing planned out for a while in my mind.

ENTER MINECRAFT

If you don't know what Minecraft is, there are many, many blog and internet articles about it.  Here is an article that covers most things and links to everything else.  Basically you can use stone and dirt blocks of many types to construct...ANYTHING.  It's totally up to you.  Like being a kid with infinite blocks that stack just right and won't fall over.  Oh Yeah!

 

I can design and redesign my dreeeeeam-castle until it is exactly the way I want it to look:

Neat! Inspiring! Time Consuming! Why am I so hungry and tired?! What happened to the last four days??!?!

It is cool, but dangerous.

I've spent the last week playing Minecraft while Listening to Spunkshine and/or Your Uncle's Lap.

What is Your Uncle's Lap? Why, it's an awkward yet safe place to be.  It's three guys in Austin, TX, who record the best show in the land!

They are professional yet unpretentious, funny without trying, and always relevant in some way.  It's smart and dirty humor for us internet folk.  If you're feeling down or a little short on laughs, just fire up their show, sit back, play some minecraft (or whatever else you do with your time) and soak up the entertainment.  Guys can relate to their humor better, of course, but girls like it too, because it allows them a peek inside the mind of a twenty-something guy.  (Oh btw this podcast is not suggested for children or the faint of heart).

I suggest starting with Episode 1 or 42...or any of them really.

I can't say enough good things about this podcast, and I've got a feeling they're rising stars of internet comedy (as long as they keep making the podcasts!) 

They even have their own YUL Minecraft land!

This post was all over the place, I know.  It's just me saying "sorry, no writing at the moment."  I've been keeping up writing, but due to these distractions I have nothing coherent enough to post yet.  Soon though - I'm working on super-short fiction so that people don't get depressed just looking at the length of my posts.  Postcard and Flash fiction.  Oh nuts this was a long post too! 

Double Sorry!

Angel of the Odd

I like to read one short story per day.  Usually I'll pull one from some of the pioneers or titans of short fiction.  Poe, Chekhov, James, that sort of thing.  I have their collections bookmarked so if you want to read some you can click on their names.

(from left) Poe, Chekhov, and James out for a jaunt on the beach

Most of us were introduced to these writers in middle or high school.  For me that meant I developed an aversion to them pretty quickly.  Schools generally pound these big names into our heads with as much effect as physically throwing a book at your face.  It takes some years to get over that, but revisiting these gifted fellows is well worth it.  You'll get to do what you want with them: Add their fantastic ideas to your own subconscious, so you can sift it out for later use whenever you need it. 

Take Poe's story The Angel of the Odd for instance.  It's funny and weird because Poe is funny and weird.  He isn't some grave guy who had one story about a bird - he's a quirky alcoholic who had an extremely expansive mind and a wit that could split atoms.

In The Angel of the Odd the narrator is visited by an Angel made of booze bottles, who beats him about the head and neck.  Why?  Because the narrator (obviously Poe) has stopped believing in the odd.  He has given in to thinking that all things are mundane, causally related, and explainable.  The Angel convinces Poe that strange things are possible (Spoiler: Poe ends up dangling naked from a hot-air balloon by the end).

It's a funny and endearing way for this writer to tell us that crazy stuff happens, and that he could have lived a mundane life, but a rude and boozy angel came along and convinced him to tell the world just how odd reality can be.  That's what Poe did from then on.

Monday Madness with Dr. McNinja

 

Today I present a comic that needs (almost) no introduction.

 

So just go to the new readers page if you haven't read Dr. McNinja before, and enjoy hours of laughter and surprise (reader reaction may vary and often involves joyful weeping and/or loss of bodily control)

Oh, and if you were wondering, no webcomic from me.  You can check my other blog to learn why.

Thoreau.

Time to throw out some writers who have made a positive impact on my life and writing!  I'll present these authors in a few words, and make a suggested reading.

Today I recommend:

Thoreau's Journal

Naturalist and gifted writer/wild animal Thoreau's life, as recorded by himself.   You get to sit on his shoulder as he takes you through his life experiences.  It is like nothing else I've ever read.  He manages to express thoughts that we've all had in ways so beautiful it will make you rethink your own world.  It's available for around $15 on amazon if you follow this link.

Beyond the Cube, Part 4.

This is the final part.  You'll see by the end that I plan on writing more from this same concept world.  Let me know what you think, and thank you to those who make it through the whole thing.

Revelations of a dead man:  There are ghosts and I am one of them.  There are rules to being a ghost, and I broke one of them; never contact the living.  My first breach of this rule led me to my son, and to our Ghost Guide, a towering ancient Viking ghost I dubbed "Blondy".  My son is a ghost too, and we are a team. 

Ghosts can be Explorers, Ghost Catchers, or Guides.  Only Explorers who have lived 500 Earth-years can be Guides, and only then after serving on a Catcher Team for at least another hundred years.  Catchers can trade places and be Explorers, but only if there is an Explorer willing to take his or her place on their designated Catcher Team.  Guides run the show, and they travel distances through time and space to greet and guide the newly dead, and to direct Catchers and Explorers in their training and work. 

Blondy gave us the choice of Catcher or Explorer.   I wanted Explorer.  Ghosts-gone-wild who are hurting the living and dead sounds like a terrifying way to spend your death.  I told Blondy so, and my son just looked at me and said "No way."  I thought he was agreeing with me, and wanted to sail around some new stars, maybe find bug-eyed aliens on strange planets.   I asked Blondy if this was possible.  He said yes, but nothing changed, because Blondy knew my son meant there was no way he would leave Earth.

My son wanted a real life on Earth, any way he could take it.  He wasn't some bitter middle-aged man who wanted to hide behind nebulas, as far away from a mostly-wasted life as possible.  He was just a bright-eyed ghost kid who wanted to see the wonders of the world - especially the animals and volcanoes.  How could I say no?

We are Ghost Catcher team Four-Eighty-One.  There are five hundred teams now, but considering the billions of dead, it is a rarity to be a Catcher Team.  Most teams don't make it through their first few years, or even through training.

Midweek Update

Time sure is flying! Halloween is over and the pumpkins are turning into goo.  I plan on doing the same, as I have made 3 recent purchases that promise to keep me more chair-bound than ever.

1. Bamboo Pen by Wacom - It's a smart looking little drawing tablet with great reviews and solid features.  It is a $70 solution to my lack of a good way to draw and upload potential webcomics.  I'll be posting a short review of it after some weeks of use on Everything Else!

2 and 3. Borderlands and Fallout New Vegas.  These games are similar in being First Person Shooter Role Playing Games (or FPS RPGs).  They're also set in dusty post-apocalyptic environments, and they both involve Vaults as goals.  So far I've only played a bit of Borderlands, and I like the art, gameplay, and voice-acting.  It's an action packed thrill-ride.  The wrapper is still on Fallout, because I have a lot of other priorities right now, but I'm excited to play it.

In other personal news, I got my car checked up on.  I have an older BMW and was sure it was going to scatter into parts while simultaneously bursting into flames.  Turns out the only problem it has is a faulty rear brake sensor, so now I can drive with a little more confidence.

Part 4 of Beyond the Cube will be finished soon, and uploaded tomorrow sometime.  I've had to scrap one version of it already.  This has taught me to have my content complete before I start presenting it, from now on.  I'm sure this lesson will come in handy with the webcomic.

My Webcomic Ideas are on My Other Blog

To continue my Monday Madness webcomic theme, I have somehow managed to follow through on last Monday's challenge.  I've created 3 different webcomic ideas, and you can see them and vote on your favorite (or vote that they should be set on fire and never seen again).

Click here to see them

Dinosaur Comics!

Monday Madness is here again, with...

Dinosaur Comics!

found at www.qwantz.com

What makes Dinosaur Comics so unique and ingenious is the format.

Visionary creator Ryan North decided to use just one image for every single comic.  He changes the text in this single six-frame pixelicious comic strip every time he makes a new comic, but the image always remains the same.

This is the image, and the latest comic.  It's about sports (such as baseball).

You might imagine this would get boring after a while.   Not so!   The complexity of the characters, their personalities, and the subjects of each strip are amplified with this method.   You'll find yourself appreciating good ole' T-Rex's optimistic and misguided thoughts every time, in new ways.


As a reminder, I'll be posting my webcomic ideas and a demo of each on Everything Else! Later today.