I Continue to Write

   I continue to work on the new (hopefully shippable) draft of Persistence of Memory. I always got held up very early on on revising Cailin's previous draft, because the first scene is more or less what it needs to be, so I focused just on revising the prose. Yesterday, however, I realized that the scene was still terrible, no matter how many sentences I rewrote. It was the substance that was flawed, not the style. The characterization was too flat to take the audience through the first few pages, for example. And the exposition was terrible. It was basically an infodump. In fact, it was an infodump.

   Exposition to a science fiction universe is hard enough. Exposition on a science fiction story that happens to be a mystery is even harder. The exposition of a science fiction mystery that has what equates to be an amnesiac as the main character?

   At least he knows just as much if not less about the universe than the audience.

   And, at least in our case, he knows what the mystery is. Right there. And he explains it to us. Right there. In all drafts of the story, the primary exposition takes place in the form of a letter, or something of a journal entry, that Rem's writing. The letter explains the mystery. Looking at this now, I realize how terrifically infodumpy this is. That's got to go.

   We're keeping the letter format, since it because a pretty major plot point later on, but I'm switching its location now to the beginning, so that it becomes the first thing the audience reads. Which was how I envisioned it originally, but isn't how it got written for some reason. Having it be in the middle of the scene, as Cailin had it, is basically looking over Rem's shoulder as he writes; it's an actual part of the scene. Since it's a letter, there's really no subtle way of doing this, so here it feels like exposition. Infodump. At the beginning of the chapter, however, it becomes a question set up for the audience, to be answered later. Hopefully. Either way, it's better this way, quite imaginably.

   I feel like we should be ready to push it onto publishers with this draft. For real this time. We sent out the earlier infodumpy draft, which was summarily rejected, two years ago. It hasn't been that long, comparatively speaking, since we came up with the universe, characters, and story, but I already feel like I'm a much better writer now than then. Maybe that's just because I was going through a really pretentious stage in Sophomore year high school. Dag, how long ago was that. Four years? It's a whole fifth of my life. That's almost a quarter. Wow. No wonder I was able to improve so much.

 

On Jams

   Today I played guitar for a senior citizen's hootenany. Since I haven't been able to find my glasses for several weeks, I could only just vaguely squint at the chord charts for the songs. I was late to the punch a lot, and to be honest it didn't sound very good. Except for the songs that had very simple chord prgression, I eventually just decided to forget it, wing it, and improvise backing on the bass strings. That sounded much better. This proved to me two things:

1. Cailin's job is really easy, and
2. Jamming is easier than it looks.

   Jamming, right? Jam sessions. All playing together but improvising at the instrumentation. Right. Why is he discovering this just now, you ask yourself. Wouldn't he know how to jam already? Ahh, but no, see. Comrade Helicopter are not a jam band. We just construct the ssoundscape very carefully to give it that feeling. With only three members but a lot of instrumentation, we have no choice but to overdub.

   With jamming, though, I realized something: you all know what key you're in. See, I always wondered why those didn't sound horrible. I guess there's still the chance you get too close to someone else's pitch to- well, I don't have spellcheck right now, so I really can't spell it, and I don't have time to look up the proper spelling, but you know what I was going to say. The rest of the band pulls the sound away from that, though, so it's overshadowed by the actually good playing. Barring that, even, you know that you sound bad, so you kind of correct yourself. Counterpoints make it sound deliberate. And everyone knows that that's nothing new.

(Filler Post- In Transit)

   I'm in-- an airport, today, in transit to-- Wal Mart? Let's go with that-- so here's a prescheduled filler post with links to episodes of Writing Excuses that deal directly with things I've blogged, as I kind of hinted that I might give you, even though I said "tomorrow" when I meant "when I'm done with the stuff I did not blog Sunday." Since I'm done with that stuff (I think I also had an idea on a post that had to do with the tropes that deal with teacups? Though that doesn't really make sense, unless you're counting Greek puns somehow tied to Disneyland rides), I'm giving you these today. There are plenty of other favorite episodes of mine, but these are the ones most most relevant to you, my readers. So you're welcome.

   The following are some episodes I've linked, preceded by links to my posts that makes these relevant.

   Capers and tropes! (Tropic Capers!)

http://www.writingexcuses.com/2012/06/17/writing-excuses-7-25-writing-capers/

   Nonlinearity!

http://www.writingexcuses.com/2009/06/08/writing-excuses-season-3-episode-4-non-linear-story-telling/

   Tips on collaboration, which I'm doing with Cailin on PoM - I had written out a chart of the mixture of forms of collaboration we're taking on it, but it's too complex for you to care. Suffice to say, it's not the kind that hides weaknesses in writing, since it's sort of us brainstorming and then we both-- never mind, see, I'm getting into it again. I think it's worth it, though, to... Never mind. I'll post about this later.

http://www.writingexcuses.com/2010/01/03/writing-excuses-season-3-episode-32-collaboration/

   Mary Robinette Kowal's first episode on the 'cast, before she was a series regular, where she gives tips for puppeteering that double as metaphors for writing tips (awesome!):

http://www.writingexcuses.com/2009/08/30/writing-excuses-season-3-episode-14-the-four-principles-of-puppetry-with-mary-robinette-kowal/

   Nancy Fulda, the woman who inspired me to do a new short story a month (and apparently Howard Tayler's sister-in-law!) doing a guest spot from her position as the slush pile reader for Jim Baen's Universe, on what amateurish mistakes slush pile readers avoid. This kind of thing is exactly why this month's short story is called, "Jimmy, the Genius Supermodel Slush Puppy, Who's, Like, Ten Times Cooler than Shaft." (Not really.)

http://www.writingexcuses.com/2009/03/29/writing-excuses-season-2-episode-25-the-seven-deadly-sins-of-slush-stories/

   How carefully Christopher and Jonah Nolan craft Batman:

http://www.writingexcuses.com/2008/09/29/writing-excuses-episode-34-what-the-dark-knight-did-right/

Stuff I Did Not Blog Sunday, Part III: To Mess with Chess Novicess

   As I continue to work on writing projects, here's something that has nothing to do with writing. If you're playing chess with someone, preferably a novice, someone who doesn't know the rules that well. Or at least someone who is not an absolute expert on chess, and would assume that you're technically in the right playing these moves. Because the following tricks deal exclusively with messing with the rules. Pawn promotion is weird. Exploit the loopholes. (En passant is actually pretty airtight. Sorry.) Some of these are better ideas than others, but there are uses for all of these.

1. Famous chess teacher George Koltanowski tells the story of a student of his who promoted a pawn into a second king because Koltanowski did not specifically state this to be against the rules. Unless you're playing against an absolute moron who does not understand the most basic rules of promotion (in which case shame on you for being so mean to the mentally feeble,) I do not think that this will work against your opponent.
2. You can also try to promote your pawn to another pawn, though I'm not sure why you'd want to do this. I suppose you could use it to clog up your opponent's home rank? I don't know. There's not much use with this one, or any use at all. Unless messing with your opponent's head is a good use. That would actually probably work. Go try it out.
3. Promote a pawn to a rook along the e-file. Providing that you haven't moved your king, you can now castle vertically with it and the never-before-moved rook.
4. Promote your pawn to a piece of your opponent's color. This is useful for, say, pinning their king. A pawn would be useful here! Bonus points if you tell your opponent that they're not allowed to move forward two spaces on that pawn's initial move because it's not starting out on the second row (though they totally would, since the rules say that the pawn is allowed to move forward two when it has not yet moved, and, judging by the logic of the unmoved rook castling thing...)
5. This one is actually technically legal, but it involves your opponent promoting their pawn, but you totally blowing through it. In 1993, Garry Kasparov promoted his pawn against Anatoli Karpov, but there was no queen to be found. In trouble for time, Kasparov punched his clock to allow Karpov to make his move, even though the piece there at the end rank was still a pawn. Karpov proceeded to make a move that would have put his king in check, had the pawn there been an actual queen. It was Kasparov who was penalized for his illegal move. Although there is precedent for this, then, it'd be unlikely to happen in an untimed match, which is the scenario most likely with a casual game, with someone over whose eyes you can pull wool, like the other examples.

   On the subject of pawn promotion, there's a chess variant out there called upside-down chess, in which your board is upside-down so that your pawns are only one step away from promotion. But that's legal, since it's the exact premise of the variant, so I'm not sure why I bring it up here. Besides the fact that it's pretty neat.

Stuff I Did Not Blog Sunday, Part II: Because I'm Writing a Book

   What, me? No, no. I've just been getting in the writing mood by listening to the wonderful Writing Excuses podcast. If this is your first time hearing of it, if you're a genre writer, then this is your new best friend/lover. Fifteen minutes long, because you're in a hurry, and we're not that smart. Though usually they run a few minutes longer than fifteen minutes, you'll want to takes your time out for this, and its hosts are some of the most brilliant artists on the scene: it's hosted by Mistborn author Brandon Sanderson, I am Not a Serial Killer author Dan Wells, Schlock Mercenary creator Howard Tayler, and Shades of Milk and Honey authoress (and professional puppeteer!) Mary Robinette Kowal. If you did not just bleed a little from your eye sockets or from the nose at all just there, just from the sheer force of how awesome that is giving you an explosive aneurysm (or something), then you're a terrible person and Santa probably hates you.

   I'd put up some samples for you to listen to right here, but they're all so good. If I have nothing to post tomorrow, I've got a few in mind that deal directly with stuff I've blogged.

Is This Real Life? (Is This Just Fantasy?)

   I did some research on daydreaming, which concept I stated before I don't understand. I still don't quite understand it, as definitions vary, but all of them seem to have in common a detachment from reality while remaining conscious. No mention is made how closely this relates to plain old imagination, but from what I can understand, daydreaming actually represents some form of altered state of consciousness. The daydreamer actually believes the events are coming to pass, to varying degrees.

   What the heck? So, daydreaming is basically a hallucination? I've stayed awake for 72 hours before just so that could happen to me without taking any dangerous and/or illegal drugs, and you're telling me that most people do it so often than they don't even know when it's happening? Asperger's buh-lows.

   I don't think this could actually be right. But it might be. That's what my sources are telling me. Why is there not more research into this? People regularly drop off into hallucinations or other forms of dissociation from reality, while remaining fully conscious? I'm not sure if I'm reading the data wrong, is the thing. Maybe it just describes spacing out. But the reality-blurring aspects would seem to say otherwise. Do people have such a shaky grasp on what is and is not fiction?

   I think I'm able to comprehend it now, but it's like Frank Jackson's thought experiment of the fully colorblind person in the perfectly black and white room, who learns all there is to know about color and then cured of colorblindness. Do they know anything more now that they know what color actually looks like rather than just how it works?*

   Looking at the Imaginal Processes Inventory, which was developed to quantify daydreams, I'm somewhat disturbed. It's really quite surreal to me, like touching down on an alien landscape. Maybe it's like that to other people, too, and only a very special class of people would answer "my thoughts seem as real as actual events in my life" to the affirmative. But of course I specifically target this question. But some of the others, especially those on emotional and visceral responses to daydreams, and the exact degree of visual and auditory sensation to the daydream...

   So, from what I can tell, there's a spectrum there, depending on exactly how the mind of the subject in question functions. Makes sense. I still don't understand how people would be able to confuse their own fantasies with reality while conscious (but then again, my last post was on expecting real-life manifestations of fictional tropic examples (It had been with me for a while, and I still knew that it was about a work of fiction, though.))

Because Even if There Is No Such Thing as Notability, There Is Such Thing as Notability

   I've been working mostly on Persistence of Memory-type stuff, so I really don't have much of anything for you today. Well, I've got loads of stuff, but none of it is really connected in a very well-defined way, and all of them could be expanded into their own posts, so I think I'll do that. I'll start with this one, since it may or may not be what is causing me to work mostly on Nepenthe today rather than put up a real post for you:


   It sure is disarming when you're browsing TV Tropes with an idea in mind, and (rather than getting carried away in wiki surfing like you're probably expecting) find the exact trope page you want, (maybe even staying on it, whatever, that's not my point,) but realize that the example you have of the trope that you clearly expect to be there on the trope page and would relish in seeing there isn't there and in fact doesn't exist because it's still fictional, that is, from a project you haven't completed yet and is still just in your head. It really spurs you to get going on said project.

Aaand Sunglasses, Quip to Theme

   This leftover piece of lasagna...

...kind of looks like a fox.

   YEEAAAAAHHHHH!

Of More Film Making and Rice Mascots

   More On Our Own shooting today. Just reshoots, but still, good stuff. We're about 2/3-3/4 of the way through filming now, and Dave says he'll be finished editing by about October, which gives us enough time to submit the film to some of the film festivals, which generally take place around that time, doncha know. There's three festivals we're looking at right now, to which we'll probably be accepted based off of judge and audience reaction to the original film.

   Still haven't figured a way to foreshadow the economic collapse more. I had the idea, which we discussed briefly, of showing signs of a police state, with soldiers stationed around everywhere or something. That'd be cool. But I don't know.

   I also had the fleeting idea that the villain should be one of these, a schizophrenic pedophile Marine or SEAL or Green Beret played by Jon Heder who's targeted the brothers and is chasing them across the desert. This is the first time I've shared this idea with anyone, because face it it's kind of stupid, but who would not want to see that movie? I thought not.

   After shooting was done, ("shooting" in more ways than one, as we went out onto the range afterwards, but seriously I wouldn't have even mentioned that had there not been a pun there,) we got some General Tso's chicken at Wal Mart, and this is important. I would have gone home to eat instead, but that was exactly the kind of thing I was in the mood for, right there, I mean like right THERE, while it would have been a toss-up with what was for dinner at home (apparently hot dogs) (although really I was specifically in the mood for teriyaki beef or something as I had never had General Tso's before.)

   Ironically, perhaps, the only reason I ate with them was because we got General Tso's chicken instead of pizza or something, and the only reason we got General Tso's chicken instead of pizza or something was because there was supposed to be rice with which to eat the General Tso's chicken, but the rice maker wouldn't work. Meaning I did not get any delicious Hinode brand rice, which I have never had before and still have not had (but it's still probably delicious,) even though I did get some chicken of a kind I've never had before. I guess that's still good.

   So, food. Seriously, like 90% of this film's budget is catering. Anyway, these things were not before I had already drawn this, which I guess is Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs's Flint Lockwood as the Hinode Rice Man (they seriously look almost exactly the same, so you really can't tell the difference that much, the most noticeable one being this guy's neck is longer, plus he's just taller. And he's got that weird spiked hair, but you can't see it very well with the straw (?) headgear):

Of Film Making and Rice Mascots

   I spent much of the day on the set of On Our Own. Not really much to report there. The director says that thanks to my helping frame some shots and whatnot, I'm going to be credited as Second Unit Assistant Director. Well, that's how I think my credit should read. Since there's only one real unit, he actually says I'm going to be credited as the Assistant Director of Photography. A slightly loftier position than I feel I deserve, but I'm not complaining. Good news, I guess.

   On actual matters of making the movie, I don't think there's enough in the budget to purchase any stock footage, but I still think the movie is missing something without having any economic foreshadowing at the beginning. We've shot some stuff with the teacher at the beginning, but continuity hassles prevented us from continuing on that path, and I'm not sure how we can work around the fact that we only got half of the classroom scene shot. Also, I still feel it's lacking in some other department: a villain? Or some other way of having a bigger narrative arc than just leaving home and learning how to respect your brother in life-threatening circumstances? They meet too many new friends along the way for it to be a real survival story, so...

   Nevertheless! None of these things are really why I'm posting on that today. The real reason is some set pieces we had. Survival stuff, you know. Stuff to make it look like they had a food storage pantry going on. Anyway, two of the items there were these rather large bags of rice. I just fell in love with the mascot immediately. I'm not sure if he's got an official name, but the Hinode Rice Man is now officially my favorite mascot. Incredible that a human could climb the ranks so quickly, but how could you not love a face like that?: 

"I sure am mighty pleased to have this phat bowl of steaming hot long-grain enriched white rice. Delicious!"

   He's just so happy with his rice! Isn't he adorable? Maybe tomorrow I'll post up some fan art.

More IQ Stuff

   In the film Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Caesar the chimpanzee (played, of course, by the incomparable Andy Serkis) is a hyperintellegent chimpanzee. Like, hyperintellegent. By age two, so narrates Will Rodman (James Franco's character), Caesar was completing puzzles and models designed for children eight years and up. He shows "cognitive skills that far exceed his human counterpart." Far exceed. In terms of IQ, let's lowball that and say that's 120, or the first decile of intelligence (top 10%).  It's probably quite higher, since 40% better than average isn't that "far." Remember, this is human intelligence here, what with the exceeding of the human counterpart. In other words: IQ so high, it's scary. That's at age two.

   Several montage sequences later, Caesar's IQ is said to double in a year, between ages seven and eight. Going by what we estimated his IQ to be around earlier, that would be an IQ of 240, or, in other words, 80 more points than Albert Einstein's estimated intelligence quotient.  Keep in mind, we're still dealing in human IQ here, applied to a chimpanzee. If we were to increase IQ between the ages of two and seven, which little doubt happened, the IQ would be even higher. Like, say, 300-400, IQs so high that not only would they entail eidetic memory, but also extrasensory powers and clairvoyance.

   Alright, maybe it's not that terrifying. So he's better at puzzle games than most kids. That's probably just the picture-based ape mind he's got. Most people with Asperger's can probably do the same thing. And the IQ they're talking about there? Probably ape IQ. Different from human IQ. I don't know how ape IQ is measured. It's probably a storied and fascinating field. But it's probably very likely got different earmarks from how human IQ is measured.

   Probably.

   Even then, his IQ would start out well above average for an ape, then continue rising from there. So my earlier estimate of 300-400 wouldn't be that far off. Though this time no supernatural abilities are entailed by these numbers. Still scary smart, but not scary scary smart. Well, yeah, scary scary smart, but not scary scary human smart. There'd still be plenty of humans who'd be able to outfox this ape.

   That is, until the ALZ-113 gets them. Argh.

   Oh well. It's just a movie.

Which is It, Then?

   In my last post I said this blog was for fans, but in my second post I said this blog was for friends. I was watching the A-Team at the time I posted my last post there, so you can forgive me if I contradicted myself. (That Murdoch guy, is he crazy or what?) Whatever. Maybe there was just a shift in the theme of the blog. Even though there wasn't. Maybe I was just wrong the first time. Or the second. Whichever. Anyway, here's a thought I had today:

   People have been generally growing more intelligent since they invented a way to measure intelligence, in a process known as the Flynn effect (named after, of course, Kevin Flynn, Jeff Bridge's character in Tron. Or IQ expert Professor James Robert Flynn, PhD. Whichever.) The IQ median remains fixed at 100 no matter what, meaning that they have to keep revising the tests. An averagely intelligent man of the 1930s would have an IQ of 80 today, for example, and that is scary. Let me take a moment to explain what this means. Even if the world were full of entirely geniuses, the average IQ would still be 100. One IQ point for them would just be worth a lot more than one IQ point for us. This world-of-geniuses, implausible as it may seem, with the Flynn effect would seem to be where the world is heading. If the Flynn effect isn't going to slow down or anything. Depends on the exact mechanisms of the Flynn effect, which are unknown and highly debated. But.

   If people are getting smarter, why are they getting dumber? The standard for intelligence in entertainment seems to have dropped. These kids these days, what with their not knowing that the Titanic was real, or who the veep of the United States is. How about this: it is only through modern tech that their ignorance has been revealed to the masses. Maybe people were always this uninformed? Alright, that seems a bit of a stretch. The idea really sounded much better in my head. Alternative ideas:

   Maybe the gap is just splitting wider? Not really supported by any data, though. The Flynn effect could be just because kids these days are more primed to take tests, but that wouldn't explain the gradual upward slope in the past. Better nutrition is kind of a lame one, in a way that makes sense, but it really can't answer how dramatic the effect is. A combination of factors? Perhaps. I guess I should have done more research before setting out to write this post. Okay, maybe not, as this post isn't really about the mechanics of the Flynn effect so much as, if it exists, then why our children are still so apparently uneducated.

   I really thought I was onto something, with the kids-were-always-this-dumb-but-now-we've-got-cameraphones-to-prove-it hypothesis. Meh, blame it on the educational system. Or not so much their education as their lack of motivation to become educated. Public shaming, I guess? Kind of a mean motivation. Though it really can't be a bad thing that you're publicly expected to know the capital of your own state.

What Does This Mean? As I am Yet an Amateur

   I'm posting this to follow up on my post To Be Pro, but looking over it now it seems kind of... Needy?  I don't know. It's all about how I'm as of yet still at press time an amateur, as opposed to a professional. Amateurs do it for love, professionals do it for money, but they're not necessarily mutually nonexclusive, as it's possible to have more than one motivation, isn't it. You can love your job. They say that getting paid for what you love doing only kind of mars it for you, but

   Why do you put up with me?


   I'm just an amateur. I'm unproven. But I still post tips and stuff onto the internet. Eh, I guess it's an elective thing, you reading this blog. But still as of now I'm just another voice in the blogosphere. Who would listen to a nonpro? I post nonetheless.

   The hope is that when I am pro, then my fans (or whatever) can look back in the blog archives or something. My eventual professionalism is after all more or less assured. I mean, I'm down that career path, and with modern technology, I could be a professional right now if I wanted to. (I am after all already blogging.) So this really isn't for me right now. It's for future me. Or my future fans. And I know that if I'm wrong, that's going to seem like ego, thinking I'd ever have fans, but if I'm right... I'll be right.


   Okay, that still sounds like ego. I just want to get paid for what I love doing, though, man. A pretty noble goal, if you ask me. At the heart of it is some kind of egocentricity or something, if that's what you call wanting what you want. But we all need to connect. Or most of us do. It's just in my case I think life would be meaningless without it. Without people to share my ideas with. Which is why I want to spread my ideas to as many people as possible. And look good competent doing it. What I mean is, I'm on the internet and stuff, but I still seek pro-dom. If that doesn't happen, this is all for nothing. Well, not nothing, but I'd just be another voice. From the outside, I mean. I don't want to be just an amateur.


   We recognize talent in professionals, but it's always a toss-up with amateurs. (Sometimes it's a toss-up with professionals, too, but that's only sometimes and not always.) To be recognized as so good (or, in the case of many an incompetent professional, so lucky) as to be worthy of receiving payment for something done is exulting. But anyone can be amateur. Even the talented ones. Since I can draw more than stick figures, I hope you'll pardon me if I include myself on that list. But there'd be no point in keeping this up if all I'll amount to is a talented amateur. I do keep it up. I post and I write and I art.

   But I am a fledgler. That is, I am fledgling.

  That's the core of it, isn't it? I'm better than most, but I'm still at the start of all of this. We will see what the future holds in thatwise. Let's hope that it's to a place where what I say is actually worth anything.

A Rare Sentence

   So, anyway. I had to pre-schedule yesterday's post yesterday because I went to help out with an eleven-year-old scout day camp thing that morning and to a baseball game last night. I wouldn't ordinarily tell you this, as this is not a tell-you-about-my-life blog, but I'm telling you about what happened to me this time because what happened there (at the baseball game) was so unusual:

   Going to get a better view of one of the electronic billboards while trying to look like I was doing something other than ogling technology, the blue-eyed ghost of Dennis Hopper asked me if I was lost or something.

   Mmm.

To Be Pro

   Sorry about the short last minute post yesterday. It is I think a very good question nonetheless. I'm doing a bunch of stuff like I told you earlier, and there's stuff going on today, so I am forced to pre- schedule this one. On 9:05, because it's the sixteenth of June. It's another essay on professionalism I guess. How I want to be pro.

   I use pro here to mean professional, rather than expert. As expert as you may be, you are not pro unless you get paid to do it.

   There is no such thing as talent the way it seems to be perceived. Anyone can be good- anyone can learn good technique. Talent is not technique. True talent lies not in what you know how to do, but how to apply what you know how to do. Anyone can learn technique, but you have to learn also how to use it. There is a difference between talent and skill. You improve on your talents.

   You have got to set yourself apart. Why do people seek both the spotlight and to fit in? They are as far as I can tell mutually nonexclusive.

   And I've got to go now, so see you later.

A Fair Question

   Why do we give superpowers to the most accident-prone?

   That is all.

Songs I Can't Get Out of My Head (In a Good Way, I Guess?)

   Sometimes the sidebar advertises things at you, and sometimes those advertisements are for things worth advertising. That's always a nice surprise. Things being shared are shared, because that's what you'd want to happen if you were in that position. So, since I posted a video for an upcoming film project yesterday, I feel like I should do the same thing again today. What could possibly go wrong? The worst thing you could be is right. No, really. Who wants to carry around that burden? Anyway.

   This guy, Noah Silver, really wants to do the song for the end credits of Ender's Game. Taken out ads and everything. He wants everyone who can to spread the song he's written for it around so that he is in a position to do so. Since this is the exact question that I want to know the answer to from Roberto Orci, and also hey who wouldn't want to do the end credits song for Ender's Game (people who vehemently disagree with OSC on political issues? I really don't know), I feel as though I should plug shamelessly and share the song here. It's genuinely not bad! (Though I'm not sure whether the feeling of the song will fit the film. Meh, don't say we didn't try.)(The visuals for the music video are really nothing special, supplied from the Ender's Game Marvel comics (which you should totally check out) as well as the cover of the book there at the beginning and a behind-the-scenes pic of the monitor from endersgameblog.tumblr.com there at the end. So, you really don't have to watch the thing. Just listen to it in the background or something if you want to.)

   There's probably other people who want to do the credits song for such a major motion picture with as much filkiness as this, (among them yours truly), and I'd be happy to share those as well, if you've got any. It's not like a little competition's something I'd be unwilling to put up with- er, something up with which I'd be unwilling to put. But as for now, this is the one across which I've stumbled, so this is the one for which I'm rooting:

Ambush

   The scene that I told you about filming. Or at least a rough cut of it. The director told me to share it to get some more buzz out there. Message received.

How Hard Work is Possible

   I blogged before about how hard work is something of a misnomer, since work is just work and hard work doesn't mean you work harder but rather that you work more. I've been looking a lot into the subject lately, and learned a lot more on that. I'm standing by my original assessment, of course, but I think I'll go into the specifics of that in this post.

   It's not through working more, but working in small increments over a longer period, through which practice achieves perfection. You see immediate results, meaning quality of work improves immediately, but it takes a while to get to the point where you can truly blow them out of the water. You have to look pro, instead of just talented amateur, in order for people to truly take notice.

   It's about work ethic, above all, including talent or intelligence. Work ethic is king. There's more here than just constant practice, though that's what it is, in a sense-- practice is honing of skills, or in other words, learning to control them. So it's about self mastery. Work ethic is achieved thusly:

   Work doggedly at the things that you don't feel like doing yet know must be accomplished. Improve your talents, but remember to work on the things you're not so talented at. It's the fact that you learned to work at something you weren't good at that will set you apart from the pack, not the fact that you were already naturally good at something. Everyone has talents. Even you. (Congratulations!) But you need to learn to pick up the slack on the things you don't want to do. It is through this that we become l'uomo universale.


   If that makes sense. That's just going the surefire route on learning a good work ethic. You study the pursuits that don't interest you at first, and not only do you learn a work ethic and learn to control your skills, you also become skilled at a multiplicity of things.

More on Floating Stop Signs, I Suppose

   Another thing about the post I made the day before yesterday. I guess this makes it a trilogy, since I also talked about it yesterday. I don't plan on doing any more after this one, but I feel I should say at least this at this time. A major plot (?) point of the story (?) was how in the future, you don't need poles. Alright.

   In sci-fi or any other depiction of the future, a lot of what makes your depiction of the future so convincing or not is not what's there, but what isn't there. It's the things you wouldn't notice. Challenge your unquestioned assumptions. We don't need ashtrays in mission control, for obvious reasons (you shouldn't smoke in mission control?) but try telling that to the science fiction filmmakers of the '60s and '70s (there's one particularly notorious example, but it slips my mind right now.)

   In the real future, driving down the road, there aren't going to be any bugs to spatter against your windshield, or any roadkill of any kind. None of that. You, as a teller of a story of the future, don't even have to bring it up. You just... leave that stuff out. I guess you don't have to challenge your unquestioned assumptions that much. Huh. There's some stuff that would take a greater effort on your part, though, that's not that.

    There won't be power lines, like I said, so if you're doing a visual medium like film you have to erase those digitally or something. Another thing you'll have to remember to get rid of is glare off the road. When the sun is going down or rising, nowadays, it can be hard to see where you're driving. In the future, the roads will be made of a material that absorbs the light completely. I'm not going to say that traffic fatalities will be a thing of the past, because the more safety measures in place the more likely you are to drive more recklessly (FACT!), but more people will take the train, making the point mootish.

    Like a car commercial. The future will be like a car commercial. Driving down the road, no other drivers in sight, in a clean shiny car because no bugs snuff themselves out against you, with no glare coming up off of the asphalt.

   That's just the driving, at least, as an example. There's more, if you just stop to think about it.