Comic-Con Day 2: Torgo, I just met a fellow named Torgo (updated post)

Feeling a tinge under the weather today (nothing serious, long story) so after a brief bit o' shopping (scored two Harlan Ellison books (Alone Against Tomorrow and Approaching Oblivion) and a great poster of muppet Sam The Eagle saying "You are all weirdos") I returned to the hotel and went out to the pool. 

It's probably damaging my nerd cred to admit that I spent part of the day not in the throng of the con but at the pool, but I haven't had a chance to lounge by a pool in years. Twas very relaxing. I settled in with a ginger ale and shrimp cocktail and soaked up some rays. Also, part of the beauty of lounging poolside during Comic-Con is that there  is always someone flabbier and more ghastly pale than you are. Plus, where else can you lounge poolside and see three fellows walking by who are all dressed up as Boba Fett -- and not give it a thought?

Met up with my buddies and we all went over to the Convention Center for the live RiffTrax panel. (RiffTrax being a spinoff of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 show). The boys did a fine, live riff of a hilariously gruesome 1970s-era industrial safety short called "Shake Hands With Danger" and then took audience suggestions for a future movie to snark on. The winner appears to be Dragon Wars, which strangely enough I have not seen.

Fangirl alert! Saw Ted Raimi in the crowds as we were leaving the RiffTrax panel.

And as you can see, there was a fellow there dressed as Torgo from Manos: The Hands of 

Fate. He kindly agreed to grope at my hair.

Comic-Con Day 1: A Horrible evening (post updated)

Day 1 of Comic-Con got off to an extremely nerdy start. 

While we were having breakfast we spotted Stan Lee in the restaurant - he was eating Cheerios. Then it was off to the convention center where we did a lot of looking around, a bit o' shopping, and I attended a panel on crime fiction which was fun (panel featured Max Allan Collins, Alexander Irvine, Gregg Hurwitz, and Kat Richardson among others).

Tried to get into the Terry Gilliam Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus panel but never even got close. (Will I ever get into Hall H? It is a mystery.) So after a bit more lollygagging we dropped Gerry at the hotel and then Erik and I went to the Dr. Horrible sing-along, introduced by Felicia Day, put on by the California Browncoats.

The Browncoats presented both the Dr. Horrible show and Commentary! The Musical. They provided lyric sheets (and Rocky Horror-esque callbacks), cardboard Dr. Horrible glasses, and a poster I can hang up in my cube to puzzle my coworkers. After the show several of the creators - Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen, and Zack Whedon - showed up to thank us ("It's a year later and you still like us!").

Not too much I'm interested in for Friday so probably will do a bit of shopping, take a swim in the pool, and catch the live Rifftrax and perhaps the Creepy comic panel.

Comic-Con Day 0: Welcome to Nerdville, population me!

Caught the train from Anaheim to San Diego with buddies Erik and Gerry. Upon arriving we couldn't get a cab because of traffic around the convention center, so we took two of those bicycle cabs to the center. An unusual and quite fun experience, helped by the fact that the weather is delightfully cool in San Diego as opposed to disgustingly hot Pasadena.

Got checked into the Marriott Hotel and Marina - gorgeous place with a pool I can't wait to jump into, and right next door to the convention center. Then we registered and got our badges at the Con. After that a nice dinner in the hotel, unpacking in our room, and I think we're all going to crash early in anticipation of what the next day will bring. Looking forward to it!

On the way to Comic-Con

Heading out the door to meet up with my friends - this afternoon we'll be taking the train down to San Diego where we'll join the rest of Nerd Nation for Comic-Con. This will be my second year attending and I can't wait!

I'll be taking Boswell the Laptop with me and hopefully will be able to update from the hotel. If not, expect a full report when I get back in town.

Wheeeeee!

Books into Celluloid: A Boy and His Dog

My book vs. movie comparison column this time takes on a short story vs. movie: Harlan Ellison's story A Boy and His Dog, adapted into a film by director L. Q. Jones.

Watch this now: trailers galore!

IFC.com has chosen the 50 greatest trailers of all time. 

I like the fact that they didn't shy away from genre or exploitation films, and that they recognized that a trailer can be fantastic even if the movie is... less-than-fantastic. (I love Stephen King but Maximum Overdrive is a pretty awful movie. Righteous trailer, though, as evidenced by its inclusion on this list.) 

Those trailers for The Shining and Alien are real head-benders, aren't they? The trailer for Corruption looks delightfully insane, I wish the movie was on DVD.

Review: Macbeth

My review of Roman Polanski's adaptation of Macbeth is up at Horrorview. 

Random notes

Interesting news on several fronts.

- Independence Day BBQ a smashing success. 13 guests, three of whom were small children, and including three dogs. Everyone got along, no meltdowns, and the food was good (grilled chicken with root beer BBQ sauce, spinach salad with candied pecans, corn on the cob, cornbread (made in those cute cast-iron corn stick pans), summer berry pie).

- One of my BBQ guests is writing a cookbook, and invited me to be one of his "test kitchen" chefs for the recipes. This is one of the coolest things I've ever been asked to do. Can't wait!

- Took a gift card and coupon to the Barnes and Noble in Burbank and came home with: The Quick Red Fox (John D. MacDonald), The Killer Inside Me (Jim Thompson), World War Z (Max Brooks), The Widows of Eastwick (John Updike), and Something Borrowed (Emily Giffin). 

- My sister (and Constant Reader) Meg reported in with a positive review of my mystery Undertow. Now I feel all warm 'n' fuzzy.

Hope the holiday weekend was good for everyone out there. 

Happy birthday to Ray Harryhausen

Special effects maestro Ray Harryhausen turns 89 today! So glad you're still with us, Ray.  Hope to see you at Comic-Con.

Celebrate by watching the skeleton fight scene from Jason and the Argonauts and then Kali's dance from The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. Ray's career has been a long and varied one but these scenes are perhaps my favorites of his. 

Nerd alert: if that magician making Kali dance looks familiar, he should - it's Tom Baker of Dr. Who fame.

Go ahead, judge a book by its cover

Or read an awesome blog that does just that. Judge A Book by its Cover showcases weird and awful book covers. I especially like the attention given to vintage pulp covers - can't ever get enough of those - check out the "Pop Sensation" tag for the pulps.

Review: Blood - The Last Vampire

Went to a screening recently for Blood - The Last Vampire and here's the review.

Writing-oriented gear

As part of my "sporty nerd" wardrobe I'm assembling for Comic-Con, I bought a baseball jersey that says: "My muse is a mean, mean muse".  It is too cute. Now the question - do I wear it with the black fedora or the Panama hat?

Writing craft: Building toward moments

I read a comment online recently - can't recall exactly where or what the context was:

I thought one of the primary steps in writing was knowing which moments you were going to build to.

This comment stuck with me because it's very much how I approach writing. I don't start writing when I first get an idea. I let the idea simmer in my brain and become a story (an idea is not the same as a story, but that's a topic for a later entry). I think about who the characters are and what makes them tick and what happens to them and how it's all going to end. In one case, I even knew what the very last line of the book would be before I started writing.

I don't outline, but I do have the general story arc in my head. I know how it starts, and I know how it ends. And in between the start and the end I have an idea of the milestones along the way.

The milestones are often major events in the plot. Or they can be moments when nothing much seems to happen but a character has a turning point that changes the course of his arc over the rest of the book.

But just as important as those big moments is how we get to them. In between those moments, a lot of work has to be done. The characters have to get from milestone to milestone in a believable way - and that's not just the plot but the characters' emotions and psychology. Character X can't start behaving in a way that totally contradicts everything that's been established about him just so he can make the plot go the way the writer wants it to. (I see this in books, and movies too, and call it the Character Arc Loop-De-Loop). Likewise, the book's pace and setting need to build to the moments. With some exceptions - such as a fight-for-survival thriller that takes place over one night - the book needs to breathe. It needs to give the readers an anchor, a stake in the story and the characters' fates.

A character's big life-changing event will have more impact if the reader understands about the character's life before the big event. This will make the event resonate more. What's been lost? What's been gained? Where does the character go from here? And why should anyone care?

The big moments should grab you - the builds in between the moments help ensure that the big moments do grab you.

My Simpsons avatar

It does kinda look like me...

The Great Gig on the Web

I was looking for some background music while I was writing and stumbled on 4EverFloyd, an all-Pink Floyd internet radio station. You can listen to the station via the Web or on iTunes. They even play requests!

It's not perfect - the songs are played individually and so you can get some odd little fragments (i.e., part 3 of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond") and there are no solo tracks.* But it's fun for when you want some Floyd but don't want to commit to one of their albums in its entirety.

 *I like Pink Floyd solo albums and I am not ashamed. Well, except for Fictitious Sports. No one likes that one.

Not going to be writing my own version of À la recherche du temps perdu any time soon

So the other day I ate a madeleine, but was not instantly transported down the halls of memory for seven volumes of books.  Perhaps the madeleine was inferior? Or was Proust overthinking it a bit? It is a mystery.

Review: Shark Attack 3 - Megalodon

My review of the craptastic giant shark movie Shark Attack 3: Megalodon is up at Horrorview.com. Check it out.

Readerville closes its doors

The fine book-and-reading Web forum Readerville has closed its doors. My diminished amount of free time means I hadn't spent much time there in the last year or so, but the site was invaluable for the wonderful writers it introduced me to - so many books I never would have read had it not been for that site - and wonderful people I met.

Readerville will be missed.

Books into Celluloid: Nightmare Alley

My latest Books Into Celluloid column is up at BookBalloon, taking on Nightmare Alley.

(Oddball trivia: William Lindsay Gresham, author of Nightmare Alley, was the first husband of Joy Davidman Gresham, who would later go on to marry C. S.  Lewis. Both Nightmare Alley and Lewis' Till We Have Faces are dedicated to Joy, which considering how different those books are, is a bit strange.)

Save the date: Comic-Con San Diego

Oh mais oui, next month will be that geek extravaganza Comic-Con. 

Last year I went to Comic-Con for the first time ever (as a present to myself for my 40th birthday) and had a very good time that included:

• Scoring a couple of the EC comics reprints, which my good friends Erik and Gerry then got signed by Al Feldstein, one of the last surviving creators of the EC comics
  
• Attending the Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog panel and the Mystery Science Theater 3000 reunion panel
  
• Seeing the ever-wonderful Ray Bradbury
  
• Scoring some rare lobby cards for the movie Pink Floyd: The Wall
  
• Getting autograph and photo with current top-ranked imaginary boyfriend Nathan Fillion
  
• And let's not forget the simple joy of communing with like-minded nerds
  

Of course, Comic-Con being so crowded and with so much going on, I completely missed out on runner-up imaginary boyfriend Hugh Jackman and caught only a glimpse of yet another imaginary boyfriend Bruce Campbell; missed the live Dr. Horrible performance; missed so many other things.

What will this year's Con be like? Who can say? All I know is that I'll be there - all four days - Thursday July 22 - Sunday July 26. I'll be wearing a hat (black fedora or straw panama, depending on my outfit) and most likely will have a big grin on my face.