Feeling my age

This is how it should fit.

I suppose I could post this on my fitness blog, but since that is nearly defunct, I figure I will mention it here as a way of keeping myself in check.

I recently bought a custom t-shirt from Zazzle to wear to a gaming convention, and it arrived yesterday. I eagerly ripped open the package and tried it on right there in the kitchen. But, my excitement quickly turned to disappointment when I realized that a Large is not big enough for me. Specifically, in the region of my gut. It's snug across the chest and arms, which is fine, as that's how a t-shirt should fit. Especially one with the word "BARBARIAN" emblazoned across the front. But that gut sticking out just kills the whole motif.

So, after about five minutes of depression, I took a deep breath, and put it all in perspective. I know that my fitness and over all health has been declining in the past few months. I attribute some of it to the stress of all that has gone on recently, but a lot of it is just me being lazy. My blood sugars have gotten worse again, as well, which is also a huge factor. Once I admitted this to myself, I actually felt better. This t-shirt served as a sort of wake-up call.

Our new apartment complex has a nice gym that is open early, and stays open late. I am going to make it a point to hit that equipment at least three times a week. Also, I want to increase the amount of cardio I do. The lunchtime walks around the capitol are nice, but it's really only "maintenance" exercise. If I want to lose the 25 or so pounds I really need to, I need to step it up.

In light of that, I am going to concentrate on healthier eating (mainly smaller portions, but also cutting back on some foods), and increasing my activity. I'm not going to become a fitness fanatic, because that's just not me. I don't want to hate fitness, and I don't want to burn out on it (again). I just want to feel more healthy.

And to lose this gut.

The t-shirt will go on a hanger and be hung on my wall next to my bed. It will serve as a constant reminder of "Get up and move, fat ass!"

Comic Book Movies

So, unless you live under a rock, you no doubt know that they have cast Ben Affleck as Batman for the Man of Steel sequel. Suffice to say, I’m not all that happy about this. I feel that, while Ben is a competent actor, he has no heroic screen presence, in my eyes. And every time he has tried to do “intense” it comes across as fake and just silly. To me, this precludes him from being a passable Batman, arguably the most intense mainstream comic book character this side of Frank Castle.

I would have much preferred Scott Adkins. As the founder of the Facebook group supporting his bid for the role pointed out, who better to play the DC world’s most competent martial artist than someone who is one of real the world’s most competent martial artists? Had Scott been cast, he would be the first martial artist to play Batman. And if you have ever watched any of his movies, he is a very good actor. At least as good as Ben, if not better.

But, what’s done is done. As I have not watched Man of Steel yet, I can no doubt wait for the sequel to hit NetFlix as well.

I have to say, the DC live-action movies have all been somewhat disappointing in presentation, after the original Batman and Batman Returns (1989, 1992) and Superman I & II (1978, 1980). Even Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, which were both good, had serious problems.

They are formulaic at their core. You get your origin story, then you get the standard villains; Lex for Supes, and Joker for Bats. And when they try to deviate from them, the films start to suck. This gives the studio execs (who are obviously certifiable morons) the false sense that for a Batman movie to work, it has to have the Joker, and for a Superman movie to work, it has to have Lex Luthor.

Both characters have such large rogues galleries, can’t they mine them for other villains? And can’t we start working on other DC characters? Where’s my Wonder Woman movie? Martian Manhunter? Hell, I’d even take a well-done Aquaman movie.

Meh, all of that being said, I’m still a Marvel guy. And in that arena, I am very happy. But, sometimes I feel sorry for my DC cousins. They can’t seem to get a fair shake in the live-action arena.

Lacking focus

Lately I have lacked focus, especially in the area of my writing. This is due to a lot of factors. First and foremost was the move. Our apartment still looks like a warehouse, but day by day, a little bit gets cleared. This past weekend, I set up the bookshelves and emptied all of my book boxes. The next step there is to bring the boxes I have in storage, as well as my wife's (smaller) collection, and our copious amounts of RPG books for shelving. These are prominently displayed in our living room. We wear our geek on our sleeves. Anyways, once we get the stuff separated out to be put in storage, the rest of the organization should go relatively quickly.

The other thing that has distracted me is my RPG habit. I talk about it a lot over at my other blog, but basically I seem to be consistently more motivated to write RPGs and RPG-related material, than actual fiction. I really need to work on that. RPG's aren't big unless the writers are. I self-published my first product at RPGNow this past weekend. It probably won't sell like hotcakes (it's nothing revolutionary), but I'm hoping it will generate enough funds so I can afford some pro artwork for another project. And then there's the OTHER other project, a space mercenary game called Stars of Fortune...

One thing about the RPG stuff, though, is that a lot of it either inspires or is inspired by my fiction writing. So, I guess in a way I'm still a bit foucsed on fiction, as I could consider the RPG stuff sort of "research and background" work.

Of course, school is an ever-present distraction. Last Friday I spent most of the day (while my boss was out of the office) writing a research proposal for my History and Popular Culture class. I'm doing a paper on on the history of the fitness industry, from its mid-19th century origins, through the bodybuilding sub-culture of today. Should be fun! Unfortunately, the proposal was 2 weeks late, as the afore-mentioned move caused me to overlook the due-date.

On a lighter note, I finally managed a date with the wife yesterday. With all that has been going on, we had neglected to just go out alone for a long time. So, my daughter took our son for the afternoon, and my wife and I had a burger before heading off to the second-run theater to see Star Trek Into Darkness. I would do a full review of it, but it's been out so long you can most likely find better reviews than what I can come up with out there. Suffice it to say, I thoroughly enjoyed it. And even though it borrowed heavily from The Wrath of Kahn, it was a really neat twist on that whole situation. There was only one groan-worthy part. "KAAAAHHHHNNN!!!" was completely misused and out of place in this version. Aside from that, I found no major flaws, personally, and enjoyed it a lot. My wife and I were both geeked at how much cooler the Klingons were in this one. And I really hope they feature prominantly in a future movie.

Creeping Sales

I check my sales numbers for Kindle and Smashwords kind of regularly. I know I probably shouldn't. It can be kind of depressing to look at (I have 1 sale on SW, from about a year and a half ago). But, after I got over my last bout of "Fuck it, I quit!", I started looking at things differently.

I have relegated the short stories I've self-published to being practice. They are there for others to enjoy, and really, that's it. They are good ways of measuring my skill as a storyteller, and if I just look at them in that light, I'm ok. Right now, I make about 1-5 sales a month. The Orc stories seem to be the most popular, with Pekra and The Orc Way being at the top (though I think Blackskull's Captive is my best work). I also sell one or two copies of Entertaining the Masses each month. So, it's all good. Interestingly, my collection With a Silken Fist has yet to sell a single copy.

Going forward, I am going to focus more on developing longer works. And in between those, I'll work on shorts here and there. I will probably continue to self-publish the Gortek and Pekra stories on Amazon. But the other shorts will be submitted to pro markets.

My current long-form work is one that I blogged about a long while back. It's a sort of sequel to L. Sprague DeCamp's Conan of the Isles. As a Robert E. Howard fan, I know that I am expected to revile DeCamp and all that he touched. But, aside from his personal traits that I find deplorable (like his treatment of Howard's personal life and character), I enjoyed his pastiches, for the most part. I also liked how he filled in gaps in Howard's Conan narrative to create a single epic storyline (don't get me wrong, the Howard originals are still much better).

Conan of the Isles sees Conan abdicating the throne to his son, Conan II, or Conn, and going off on one last voyage of adventure. The story I have in mind answers the question of "What happened in Aquilonia when Conan disappeared?" For copyright reasons I am changing the names of characters, places, etc. But at its core, my story is still pastiche. I have outlined the first part of the book, and am working through chapter two right now. When it's all said and done, it'll probably weigh in somewhere between 50-60k words in length.

What am I going to do with it then? Submit it to publishers, probably. Maybe see if I can get an agent to work with me. Or, failing all of that, I might self-pub it, but that would be a last resort. At this point, I just want to focus on getting it done. I'll worry about how to publish it when I have a finished product to present.

Moved!

Well, the move is done. We are officially out of the old and into the new. This apartment has a bigger floor plan, a better layout, and generally just feels more comfortable. The only downside is that, unlike the previous place, this one doesn't have a large storage room for us to use. Subsequently, our living room is jammed full of boxes and bins that we have been able to forget about for a couple of years now. However, we are turning that into a positive, and plan to purge our collection of old, useless junk over the next couple of weeks.

As part of that, I have set aside my three main "Geek Boxes" for review. Inside two plastic bins and one printer paper box are several items of Geek Lore. There is a large amount of D&D books from 1st and 2nd edition, as well as books and supplements for a host of other RPG's, much of which will probably end up on EBay. There is a large stack of Savage Sword of Conan issues (which will not be purged). There are numerous old computer games that will be reviewed for possible uploading (I already have a request by Isaac to upload WarCraft III when the computer is up and running). And really, Lord knows what else is in there. This should be fun!

In other, more exciting news, I received an email from Keith West this morning. Keith has had a blog up for a long time where he reviews fiction of all sorts, and he has reviewed many of my short stories there. Recently, he started reviewing for Amazing Stories (totally awesome gig, IMHO), and this morning he let me know that he had reviewed my recent collection, With a Silken Fist, over there. Some very kind words, and high praise. Once more I am indebted to him. But, more than that, it's cool to know that my efforts were successful. I'm always trying to make my writing better, so it was nice to hear that not only were my stories entertaining, but the embellishments and additions I had added to two of the stories improved their quality.

So, I am back to work getting caught up after taking three days off last week. In between that I am getting caught up on my blogs and blog-reading, some Facebooking on my iPhone, and generally other life stuff. I was fortunate not to have any homework last week in my class, but I know I will this week. And finally, I will be trying to get some writing done as I can.

And finally, on Saturday, my daughter turned 18! Very proud of her. She has grown into a pretty responsible young woman, and with just a little more guidance, she is going to be off to a great start. And we have a party planned for this coming weekend, including a bounce house. Cuz, that's how my family rolls.

All in all a very busy and productive weekend. But man, am I tired!