Quantum Storytelling

Fixing some problems in my novel. Haven’t felt very talkative…

A few thoughts:

• The Godfather game for 360 is super violent, and lots of fun. Inventive use of original voice recording from the movies, in addition to some re-recording done with the original cast.
• The Bourne Ultimatum was awesome. Thematically felt a lot closer to the first movie. I wasn’t a huge fan of the second movie. The third ties up a lot of stuff from all the movies, but mainly, there’s not a dull moment in it. Every scene in Ultimatum has a purpose, and almost every scene has high tension. What the third movie does most of all though, is make the trilogy feel very cohesive — like a single story.

More later…

I have returned from Minnesota. Time away from ordinary life always has a huge impact on me. This time was no different. After spending a week in Minnesota I’ve come to a single, absolute conclusion; Vacations are important. I know I’ve blogged about this kind of thing before, but I can’t state it enough.

We all need time away from our work and our lives. Without it, we will never gain any new perspectives. Distance from life and work mentally detaches you from it, lets your mind focus on and enjoy other things, and when you return to your life and work you will see opportunities that you did not see before.

To think if you hadn’t taken the break, you’d not have seen those opportunities to do and experience more in the same old life you were living before, or on the same story.

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Today is July 2nd, 2007. I turn thirty today. By all definitions I am officially no longer a kid. Some might say I’m no longer young, eye of the beholder and all that.

Most of my thoughts on turning thirty surround a post John Scalzi made which was an update to an older post, one of the primary thrusts of which was young people need to know their writing sucks.

From my personal experience, I have to agree. I’m a pretty late bloomer as a writer. For me Scalzi’s advice comes as good news. I wrote a few short stories in high school, and always enjoyed the idea of being a writer but never gave the notion any serious thought until a few years ago. I’m a little bit glad I didn’t waste my time. I honestly don’t think I had very much that was meaningful or entertaining to say when I was younger. I was too busy head butting reality and being a dumb hippie.

What I didn’t realize until I read the Scalzi piece is that I wasn’t fit to do much writing when I was younger for a wide variety of reasons, but the main one being lack of perspective. I used to be very naive. Even though I was an angsty, rebellious, cynical teenager, looking back I was still every bit as naive in contrast to my adult understanding of the world.

For example, one of the things I didn’t grasp when I was younger was the idea that people can perform good deeds with sneaky or even ulterior motives. Celebrities can donate or perform charity events because their publicists and agents tell them it would be good for their image. Maybe even your favorite rock star does this.

Politicians hire people to make movies for them on an impassioned topic like global warming, even though the power bill for their mansion might be, oh, $13,000 a month. No, not everything everyone does is out of the goodness of their hearts, even when it’s a good cause. Even ‘good people’ may have motives and hidden agendas which would shock or frighten you. And almost everyone is a hypocrite.

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