The collector surveyed the first room, their eyes scanning the towers with their shelves that slide toward the explorer that fill it. They walk through the stacks and see the content labels: Adventure, Crisis, Fear. The second room is almost as large, also containing esoteric ephemera like posters and postcards from various ages, framed and displayed atop the stacks and facing every direction.

By the time they reach the third room, there are rare maquettes on view. This is where the caretaker drones are at their work dusting the little statues. They stop at a particular shelf and pull it out. One of the three bins is of particular interest and they select one of the sleeves, admiring the colors, the energy of the composition. They imagine how it must have appeared in public the first time. 

They consider withdrawing the periodical from the sleeve to actually read it for the first time. But — no. That would ruin the fantasy.

Hi, I’m Jason and I write stories that you might like. Thanks for stopping by.

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Systems UpdateAs Alive As You Need Me To Be

Finishing a draft is a big deal. First, you FINISHED and that’s absolutely worth celebrating. Second, now you get to focus on the finer points of the story. Third, you FINISHED it, man! Way to go!

So. I’ve finished the seventh draft of Masque, Second of All the Devils Are Here and I’m really proud of the quality of the story. Drafts one through three were all finished and they were okay, but when I started looking at what I’d written I saw that there was a lot of character background and worldbuilidng that actually should have been pre-writing. And I was bogged down in establishing all that within the story. 

The next revelation was that I’d started the story way too early. I’d tried, in each draft, to start the story in different places, later and later in the timeline and when I finally found the right place, everything came together. I was able to rewrite key sections from other drafts and expand ideas, lose a character here and there and expand others. All the writing I’d done to that point informed everything that was coming out of me into this draft.

Seven drafts… that seems like a lot, doesn’t it? It is, but the important bit to remember is that at every stage of the development of this story, I’ve been able to come up with new moments that make the story if not better, at least MORE. That means that my engagement with it, through every draft, has been constant. 

Each chapter has been summarized and after some time away from it, I reread the summaries.This revealed some issues with the plot and some missing details of character. At that level, I found it easier to fix and see how it ripples across the rest of the plot. With that done, I have my re-write strategy and have begun a pass that has me even more engaged with the story. I’m always looking for ways to improve on the translation from head to hand to page and enjoying the process. 

I think you’re going to like it. It’s some of my favorite of my writing.

Thinking Out LoudPlanet Telex

Speaking of ‘favorite’… One of the truly, deeply annoying aspects of social media is the judgment of what is ‘best’ by people who are, 99 times out of 100, wholly unqualified to assess things. Best and worst are assessments.

We have, as a society, fallen into a trap of thinking that every opinion is valid. (Feel free to discount this one, but if you read all the way through you may end up agreeing.) Critiquing art is much more than just saying “It’s great!” or “It sucks!” and requires a certain amount of training to do effectively. Most folks on social media (and in what passes for journalism on the Internet now as a result of social media) aren’t qualified to critique anything and never offer an opinion as a starting point. Instead they offer absolutes (best or worst) and don’t have the valid experience or other critiques to offer in support of something being ‘best’ or ‘worst’. 

I include myself in this group. I have boosted things as ‘the best!’ and decried some popular media as ‘the worst!’ much to my chagrin. So, I am as unqualified as 99% of the Internet to determine the goodness or greatness or awfulness of just about any popular media. However…

But I do know what I like. And I can usually tell you why I like it. You don’t have to agree, it’s my opinion. And going forward, I will talk about just about everything as a ‘favorite’ or ‘something I really like’ instead of judging it best or worst. If I say something is ‘best’ you can safely assume that it’s a subjective judgment on my part.  Give it a try yourself unless you love arguing with people on the Internet. But – aren’t there better things to do with your time?

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I’ve been trying to update here about once a month or so. If you drop your email address in the box below, you can get these things delivered right to you when they happen without waiting for me to put a link up on social media. There are things coming as we get nearer the release of Masque that you may want to know about, so… whaddaya say?

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Things I LikeOn the Wings of Maybe

While we’re on the subject of judging things, Becoming Led Zeppelin was — interesting. If you’re not at all familiar (or maybe passingly familiar) with the band except for the music, this documentary is for you. The nicest part about it is hearing from John Bonham via recorded interviews and that’s something I’ve been missing from the histories of the band since his death. I’m fairly well acquainted with the lore and understand Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, and John Paul Jones only wanting to talk about the good stuff, but it’s disappointing to not hear from them directly about their ‘songwriting’ process that involved lifting (sometimes extensively) from others without crediting them. 

I found it to be a well done documentary that’s heavy on extended excerpts of songs as well as live footage that’s previously or long unseen and pretty light on substantive information. It covers their formation, the first album development, the tour and recording of Led Zeppelin II and a bit after its release.

I’ve recently completed a rewatch of Stranger Things in preparation for the new season around the holidays and I’ll tell you if this isn’t one of the best ‘how Jean Grey Becomes Phoenix’ -type stories, I don’t know what is. I don’t know how it’s going to end but if Eleven/Jane/El doesn’t end up alone and super-powerful I will be pleasantly surprised.

The Rushworth Family Plot, book 4 of Miss Tilney & Mr. Darcy

I’m now into season 4 of The Bear and I’m reading Claudia Gray’s latest Miss Tilney and Mr. Darcy mystery and enjoying the heck out of both. (Any of the streamers that turns these books into a series will have me as a subscriber, by the way.) And how about that new NIN song that was just released from the Tron: Ares soundtrack that comes out this fall? It’s nice to have Trent Reznor and the NIN energy back like this.

I stream music to listen to entire albums while I’m working or writing. Mixes and lists are good sometimes, but I like albums. In my youth I’d sit next to the stereo with my headphones on looking at the 12”x12” album art and studying the liner notes and lyrics. Sometimes I miss that. But, have you ever lost track of a band you loved years ago? Happens to me all the time and I’ve recently revisited Big Wreck’s first album, In Loving Memory Of…, since finding out they have a new album coming in October. 

At Capacity

It’s pretty grim in America right now. Ugly. Cruel. I wish I had words that would be of some comfort. I wish our leaders had the capacity to understand that words of comfort matter. I wish my fellow citizens had the vision and the will to have avoided this. 

But when you wish in one hand and shit in the other, which fills up first?

Each of us is dealing with this in our own way and it takes its toll. Me? I went back to the theater to see James Gunn’s Superman and boy did I enjoy that one. I enjoyed it a lot. Just like everyone else. It was a terrific escape from – all of this.

All we can do is hang on tight to the ones we love and do what we can to weather the storm. So hang in there, be good to yourself as often as necessary, and I will see you when I see you.