Category: Writingthoughts

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Unseen Who: Journey To The Center of The Tardis

I wrote a bunch of recaps/reviews/something-in-between of this past season of Doctor Who for Wired that ended up not running, so I decided to run them here, instead. Here’s the one for S7 E10, “Journey To The Center of The Tardis”:

After what could, at best, be described charitably as an uneven season so far, this weekend’s Doctor Who plunged deep into the heart of fan service, its own mythology and the Doctor’s favored mode of transportation as we went on a “Journey to the Centre of the Tardis.”

For better or worse, the Tardis has become increasingly personified over the past few years; in the show’s earliest incarnations, it was “simply” a time machine that had some quirky additions to the norm (It could change its shape – Well, once upon a time, even if that was before the show started – and it could and did travel through space as well as time, hence the acronym that translates into Time And Relative Dimensions In Space), but now it’s a “she,” an anthropomorphized vehicle that even temporarily became a woman in last season’s “The Doctor’s Wife.” The title referred, of course, to the Tardis herself.

“Journey to the Centre of the Tardis” took a very deliberate step back from that direction; yes, we had more of the “The Tardis doesn’t like Clara” subplot that has been threaded through the various episodes since that character’s introduction, but that was as much “personality” as the Tardis had this week; otherwise, what we saw was a machine at work, trying to protect and repair itself even as the various characters investigated its “infinite” interior.

Actually, the seemingly infinite architecture of the Tardis was addressed in this episode, as we discovered that it housed a “machine that made machines” that rebuilds and reshapes the ship to reflect its inhabitants and their emotional state; it’s a (plot) device that explains away the various looks that the set has had over the years, and also offers a possible explanation for those who can’t quite get over the whole “It’s bigger on the inside” thing: What if the interior of the Tardis just seems infinite, because the ship is constantly rebuilding itself around the people inside, like some kind of physical version of Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s Holodeck (or this real world prototype)?

Within the constantly-rebuilt Tardis, however, there are some seeming constants: A sun perpetually about to implode which acts as the ship’s power source, the oft-mentioned (and now, finally, glimpsed) swimming pool, the console room… and a library where Clara just-so-happened to discover the Doctor’s real name – a plot thread that’s been left to dangle since the end of the sixth season, and looks set to be finally addressed soon. Another dangling plot thread seemingly tied up: Clara is apparently unaware of her constant rebirths and reappearances through time, or at least, the Doctor believes so.

Both of these revelations were theoretically wiped out by the (literal) reboot button at the episode’s end – It was subtle, but I liked the reveal that we were actually watching the third version of the events unfold; third time lucky, after all – but as the post-reboot peek onboard the salvage vessel showed, certain things were remembered despite time repairing itself. Who’s to say that Clara’s “I don’t want to forget everything” didn’t have more import than it first seemed?

“Journey” returned the show to a mix of pulp, meta-story, self-referential mythology and “timey-wimey” playfulness that we’ve been sadly lacking for some time, and pushed the season upwards as a result. If this is a sign of what we have to look forward to in the three remaining episodes this season, things are looking up.

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“Some Critics Think These Aren’t Serious Questions”

The idea, I told her, was that the critic’s great calling — beyond reviewing movies and putting them in a wider context — was to stir the reader’s interest in learning more, and in so doing, deepen the relationship between the medium and its audience.

When you read Roger, you wanted to learn more. More about that director. More about that actor or screenwriter. More about the genre that the film exemplified. More about the nation whose culture birthed the people who made the film. More, more, more.

“How did Roger do that?” she asked. These kids with their reasonable follow-up questions.

I told her that while Roger could hold his own in a discussion with film academics and theorists, and had been known to spend several days breaking down particular films scene by scene before an audience, he never wrote his reviews in a way that made it seem as though the main point was to prove how smart he was, or to position himself in relation to other critics.

He built the core of his reviews around values or emotions, often both. His writing rarely failed to ask, What does this movie say about its subject, and about life? How did it make me feel, and how did it make me feel that way?

Some critics think these aren’t serious questions. Roger knew otherwise.

From here, by Matt Zoller Seitz as he takes over as editor of RogerEbert.com. Things I should always endeavor to remember.

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“Sometimes People Say Yes”

Putting this here for myself and later thoughts, as much as anything, but here’s David Brothers writing about freelancing and not owning your work:

But, and I say this with no animosity or judgment whatsoever, I do realize that the pay wasn’t great and signing over my rights wasn’t wise. I became aware of it a couple years back, and if I was writing something that was too personal or important to me, I kept it for 4thletter! instead of donating it to AOL. I didn’t hold back on my AOL work, but the things I loved beyond belief or wanted to keep control of, like my Black History posts or the various Frank Miller explorations, I kept to myself.

I was surprised when I went to a mainstream outlet, The Atlantic, and they said their going rate was $100 per piece, plus you retain your rights after a certain amount of time has passed. I was paid well at CA, well enough to be happy with what I was doing. I’ve written for a few other non-comics outlets recently and been paid on a similar scale.

I don’t think I was not-smart when I first started getting paid to write about comics, but I am definitely smarter now. I didn’t have the experience then that I do now, but there still aren’t many — any? — resources for new writers-about-comics to check out to see what their peers in other fields are being paid. There’s also the rookie conundrum. Can I get away with asking to change a contract or will that sour the deal? Back then, my thought was “I need this job more than I need ownership.” From here on out, I know to ask the question first. Sometimes people say yes.

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A Nice Failure

Every artist who ever lived is correct about critics: they are barren nursemaids, never-weres deficient in the slightest authority to dictate the placement of a comma. They are shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, and comics critics are among the very worst, lacking in even the brazen, flatulent delusion that marks the livelier movie types. Yours is a *nice* failure, Tucker, a sweetheart’s sigh of continued, contented disappointment, sauntering dignified into worthwhile irrelevancy, beyond which none will remember, nor care, nor will any demerit solemnify the ignorance of anyone who might be moved, through any impossible intercession, to somehow remember.

That’s from an email apparently sent by an unidentified body to critic Tucker Stone, and… Well. It’s kind of amazing, right? It feels like a joke – I actually hope that is a joke on Stone’s part, to be honest, because otherwise it’s been written by the most insecure person ever, desperate to pre-emptively respond to any negative criticism by yelling NO YOU’RE A BIG MEANIE WHO NO-ONE CARES ABOUT ANYWAY at the top of their voice. The mix of over-written insult (“never-weres deficient in the slightest authority to dictate the placement of a comma,” indeed), childish offense (“They are shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit”) and comedic patronizing (“Yours is a *nice* failure, Tucker”) marks someone so oddly desperate to convince that they really don’t care despite their visual upset and no these aren’t tears it’s allergies and why are you even looking at him anyway, jeez.

(It’s clearly a him; it’s comics, after all.)

As a critic of sorts – even a comic book critic, at times – I read this and instead of feeling suitably chastised at all of the clearly bad life choices that led to my failure as a human being, I get both ridiculously amused and very curious: Who could be that thin-skinned and childish to lash out like that? How can they survive in the real world without coming face to face with far harsher truths and criticism than anything a comic critic could share? And do they spend their spare time writing impassioned screeds in their journal that are just as wonderfully reminiscent of a smart, socially awkward 15 year old railing against the world?

(This reminds me of a story that’s not actually mine to tell, about a comic book creator who once spent an hour at the start of an interview telling the interviewer about all of the bad career choices that they had made. By “they,” I mean that the creator spent an hour criticizing the interviewer’s choices, getting more and more personal. I was once threatened with violence by a comic book professional on the floor of a comic convention. Things are weird, in the comics world.)

I can understand the urge to not want to read criticism of your work, but in that case, don’t read the criticism. It’s actually kind of easy not to, really. To instead try and shout down critics, tell them that they’re worthless and should give up, is just kind of pathetic, all told.

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The Freewheeling

So, at the end of last week, I met comic writer Ales Kot for the first time, and we ended up talking for a couple of hours about… Well, a lot of things, really, from gossip-y comic industry stuff to the importance of fearlessness in both creativity and everyday life (and also what “fearlessness” actually means as a concept to both of us). It was a great, really enjoyable conversation that happened at just the right time; earlier that week, I’d been thinking about an idea I’d had a year or so earlier and completely abandoned, only for it to pop back up for a couple of reasons last week – An interview podcast or radio show with no agenda whatsoever; just two people (Me and a guest) talking about whatever comes to mind during the conversation. Not aiming to stay on any particular topic or plug any particular project or whatever, just… a conversation that’s almost purposefully all over the place.

(Those who listen to the Wait, What? podcasts that I do almost-weekly with Jeff Lester will recognize this as, essentially, what the two of us do every episode. And that was the inspiration, as well as listening to the Nerdist Writers Panel and, perhaps less obviously, BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs.)

What crystalized this as an idea for me way back when was the name that I came up for it. I wanted to call the series The Freewheeling with each episode being named after that particular guest. So, if I was talking to Ales, it’d be The Freewheeling Ales Kot, and the next episode I’d talk to, say, Jeff Parker and that episode would be called The Freewheeling Jeff Parker and so on and so on. Obviously, ripping off this, but the obviousness of the reference was intentional and part of the appeal.

I’d still like to do this; I kind of dropped the idea when David Brothers was publicly wondering about something that felt very similar (although, looking at what he was writing back then, maybe not as similar as I thought at the time — especially because I was thinking longer conversations and not just with comic people), but I’ve circled back to it recently in light of being on NPR and also just becoming more interested in… freeform conversation, perhaps? Or wanting to play with something less structured, in light of a workload that feels increasingly restrictive in terms of format? (There’s another element that I’m not really discussing, for reasons along the lines of (a) it may not be real and (b) if it is real, I don’t want to jinx it; rest assured that either way, I’ll spill those beans sooner or later.)

But, yeah. The Freewheeling. It could be fun, right? And maybe interesting, and maybe do-able. One of those things that you throw out into the world, just in case.

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Ahead of Schedule/Thinking of Scheduling

An odd day. Yesterday, I wrote a bunch; today, I wrote a lot of emails to set up things for later writing (A lot of invoicing, too; it is the last day of the month, after all). It’s probably a healthier thing to do, essentially take an admin day to map things out for the future (Interviews have been set up for tomorrow, potentially Thurs or Fri depending, and Monday, and plans made for things beyond that, too).

I’m still trying to settle into a new rhythm with the various things I’m doing now. I’m still writing for publication daily, with Newsarama and Digital Trends, but I’m also writing for future publication a lot more, with Time, Wired and – end of May release, and the first time I’ve said this publicly, I think? – Playboy magazine, and that part, the “I am writing longer things that aren’t immediate and short, but need research and interviews and reflection and everything” makes me nervous, still.

I mean, I’m still working and juggling and all, but there’s definitely a part of me that has a “You mean only two websites have content from me today? That’s lazy!” thing going on in my brain. I’m sick that way, I worry.

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Patience Is A Difficult Thing Indeed

I’m sure that I’ve written before about my frustration and dislike for waiting for phone calls that I know are coming. Now, it turns out, it might just be waiting for communications of any sort; I submitted my first piece of work for a new-to-me (print) outlet via email yesterday, and have spent the past couple of days just avidly watching my email inbox for some kind of confirmation of receipt, and – in my fantasy world – a “It’s great!” or “it needs these minor edits” (Basically, anything that isn’t “We’re killing it outright, here’s our kill fee”).

I am finding myself supernaturally distracted by the waiting, and the lack of email. Despite the fact that I was surprisingly productive today even when I shouldn’t have been, I’m thinking less about the work and more about the email that just hasn’t arrived yet.

And I want to send a second email to say “I know I’m being paranoid, but did you get it? Because I sent it, and I’d even be okay with you saying that you hated it instead of thinking that I didn’t send it and screwed the deadline,” but I also don’t want to send that email, because then I’m crazy paranoid guy who can’t wait three days for Busy Editor for A National (International, jeez) Publication to check his email, have a chance to read the story and then write back to me.

So, instead, I write this as some kind of message out to the ether and the potential coincidence and magic therein. May whatever potential coincidences may be at play out there lead that email to have been received, to be opened and appreciated and responded to. Pretty, pretty please with sugar on top.

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Unfinished and Unclear

The following is an abandoned (because I didn’t really believe in it, and especially not where it was going) piece for Time. Yes, it stops mid-sentence; that’s how clear it was that this was getting away from me.

Listening to the new David Bowie album the other day, my thoughts wandered to another recent comeback of a legitimate Pop Culture Icon, Prince. For those who are unaware, Prince has formed a new band, recorded new songs and will be touring both later this year. Like Bowie, Prince is one of those artists whose earlier work defined generations and changed pop music as we knew it. And, like the new Bowie album, the new Prince material really doesn’t hold a candle to the old stuff. It got me thinking: Wouldn’t it be great if there was a mandatory retirement age for pop icons?

I should immediately clarify: I’m not suggesting that there is a set age at which musicians are forbidden from making music, or that the music industry comes up with some arbitrary number above which no musician gets to have any music released or promoted. Instead, I’m really addressing the way with which the music is received by the audience and, more importantly, the critics and media.

Consider the build-up the Bowie album was given, pre-release. The first two songs were released with little fanfare via Bowie’s VEVO account on YouTube, but the Internet quickly filled up whatever hyperbole void was left by the artist’s lack of promotion, declaring it the “perfect comeback” that put him “right back at the center of the whole shebang.”

The buzz quickly grew. “The Next Day,” the comeback album, would be his best in decades, with the presence of former collaborator Tony Visconti meaning it was a return to the sound and atmosphere of their famous 1970s work together, it was decided before anyone had heard it. When the album actually arrived, the response wasn’t exactly what everyone had been hoping for, with the result described as “an ordeal and a struggle of initial indifference,” if ultimately rewarding.

All of this is more positive than response to the new Prince material, which can best be described as… workmanlike, perhaps, or professional. Such polite terms are ways to get around saying “Kind of dull and sounding like a Prince tribute band,” which remains the worst-case scenario for any kind of musician, but especially one who was at one point as vibrant and compelling – if not exactly original, per se – as Prince.

I suspect the fault with both of these comebacks lies less with the musicians themselves than with the expectations surrounding them. It’s a failure of promotion as much as

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You’ll Never Get Rich

I was reminded of a single page in “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius”; specifically, the section where Dave Eggers breaks down his $100,000 advance on sales from his publisher. He then lists all his expenses. In the end the author banked a little less than half. It wasn’t bad money — just not the “I bet Dave Eggers totally owns a Jaguar”-type of income I expected. I mean, his name was on the cover of a book! He must be rich.

That honesty was refreshing and voyeuristic. I always said if I ever had a chance, I’d make a similar gesture. As a person learning about writing and publishing, there was something helpful about Eggers’ transparency. So here is my stab at similar honesty: the sugar bowls full of cocaine, bathtubs full of whiskey, semi-nude bookstore employees scattered throughout my bedroom tale of bestseller riches.

This is what it’s like, financially, to have the indie book publicity story of the year and be near the top of the bestseller list.

Drum roll.

$12,000.

Hi-hat crash.

From here.

Writing, people. It’s not for the faint of heart. Or those who want to make any appreciable amount of money whatsoever.

I’m reminded of this interview with writer Neal Pollack, about how little money you actually make being a critical/hipster darling, and how he’s actually trying to make writing work for him financially now:

It’s basically like I have a new publisher, and its this new model because I’m not getting these huge advances for them, but they’re publishing them very quickly. This isn’t an exact number, but imagine they give me a $20,000 advance, which is a pretty normal advance for a book from a mainstream publisher. But that’s not a lot of money when you have stretch it out for two and a half years. But for four or five months, when you’re doing other work, suddenly, it becomes more of a viable financial proposition. I recognize that not every writer is able to churn out a novel every four or five months more than once, but I am. I have journalism training and I have written a bunch of books and I have been practicing. I’m ready to roll. And my plan—my plans always seem to be thwarted—but my plan is to just pound out as many books as I can and make them as good as possible and build a library on Amazon. This a quote from A.J. Liebling that says, “I can write better than anybody who can write faster and I can write faster than anybody who can write better.” So I want to try and apply that math to my own life. Am I as good a writer as Michael Chabon or George Saunders? No. But I can get my books out there quickly, you know?

It makes me sad, to think that we’re in a world where you have to be fast and prolific in order to make a living, instead of being good. But thinking about it, that’s pretty much how I’ve built my career in writing: Just continually putting things out there as quickly as possible and as well as I can.

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Good News, Bad News

Pleasant surprise of the day: Finding out that, due to the latest reboot of io9, you can actually access my posts in a way other than Googling them individually again.

Unpleasant surprise of the day: Finding this out because, while researching a piece for something, it turns out I’d already written it years ago. I really have no new ideas, it turns out.

Still.