life is great!

Live near Seattle? Want to see a movie?

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Back in 2004, I wrote a screenplay designed to be made on an ultra-low budget. In 2005, my friend Dan Moore shot it. Now, in 2010, it’s ready for release.

On May 20th, at NW Film Forum, the indie film I wrote will have its world premiere. It’s called THE DEAD FEED, and here’s a 21-second preview:

The Dead Feed Teaser from Blaine Street Productions on Vimeo.

Facebook users, that’s an embedded video. You’ll have to click through to the blog to see it. Did I mention 21 seconds?

Will the movie be awesome? I hope so! I haven’t been involved in post-production at all, and haven’t even seen a rough cut in the last couple of years. I will be there with a camera in hand to record the responses of the audience members. After, I will post them, even if their faces are full of boredom or scorn! If folks love the movie, I will bask in the accomplishment. If they hate it, I will flush with shame.

Have I mentioned that making this movie is what drove me to write novels? Seriously. I’d long planned to go into movie-making and once I realized I was going to be a Seattle resident long-term, I teamed up with Dan to take control of our careers and make our own. (Never wait!)

But I was terrible at it. Making a movie is a real pain in the ass and I discovered I didn’t have the skill set or the temperament for it. Immediately after production wrapped, I started work on Child of Fire. Novels FTW!

But Dan never walked away. He’s been struggling with that film for 5 years, and in that time he lost his job and became homeless. All sorts of rough shit happened to him, but he stuck with it and now he’s sending it off to film festivals.

The evening of May 20th. (I’ll post more details when I confirm them.) Want to join me there?

Update: Jeez, I forgot to say what the movie is about! Quick description: a group of friends begin receiving a mysterious video feed showing one of them being murdered… before it happens. (dum dum DUMMM!)

And now I abandon my child to share some news with you

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My German foreign language agent has just sold worldwide German rights to Otherworld Verlag Krug Keg. They’re an ambitious small(ish) press out of Austria, and it’s incredibly exciting.

That makes Russian, French, and German sales. So far.

:D

I solved the last scene of Man Bites World yesterday

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Revised it, cleaned up the manuscript this morning, and just now emailed it to my editor.

Phew!

Now I whip up a list of reviewers who need ARCs and try to come up with a selling title for it.

Suddenly very sick

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Heading home early.

Yay Museum of Flight!

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The layout is kinda funky, and why did the WW1 and WW2 planes have to be in such a dark environment? (My wife thinks it’s to preserve the planes, but I’m doubtful.) I had to take those photos w/out the flash on my little camera, so I apologize if I blurred the picture by moving during a long exposure.

But aside from that, it’s really a fantastic place. Truly awesome and amazing.

Here’s the Gossamer Albatross II, the human-powered plane from a few years ago.

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Here’s a V1 rocket and cruise missile

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And here’s a chart showing several different aviation maneuvers. You’ll have to click through to see it at the “large” or “original” size if you want to read it.

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And there are 70+ pics in the set over on Flickr, including some shots of the mockup of a lab in the international space station, WW1 bi-planes, the lunar rover, a couple jet engines, and so on. We almost toured the inside of Air Force One (a mockup, I’m sure) but my son had had enough before we got to it. I don’t know squat about planes, but it sure was fun being there.

See the whole set here.

Health and vision insurance

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If my rent went up by 10 percent a year, that would be a horror show.

If my electric bill went up by 8.8 percent a year, I’d be rendering oils for my lanterns before the end of the decade.

But because these increases are happening in my vision and health care insurance (respectively), I’m supposed to be grateful, because those increases have been bartered down from 17%.

Even stranger, my supervisor and co-workers keep talking about how they “don’t know how much longer I’ll be sticking with my job” because hey! writer! As soon as I become rich enough, I’ll be ditching the old day job for self-employment! Any week now, right?

I kid you not, writing full-time is something I want so badly I can taste it. But if it takes a corporation to bargain down premium increases to “only” 8.8%, how am I going to afford insurance on my own, esp over the long term?

Real reform can’t come fast enough.

In which I am annoying

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You know that annoying thing writers do when they announce that they have something awesome in the works but can’t talk about it yet? A Soopah Sekrit Project? You know how they do that thing?

Well, I’m doing that thing. It’s totally exciting and I hope I don’t fuck it up.

In other news, what happened to memes? I used to see memes cruise through my friends list all the time, but I almost never see them now (and I’m hankering to do something simple in a post). Maybe I should create one.

Dreams

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Don’t worry, I’m not going to describe my dreams to you. I am going to point out that I’ve had three days in a row of rest and rehab and paying back my sleep debt. Yesterday, for instance, I woke at my usual alarm-clock time (just before 5 am) and went into the living room with no writing work on my plate. Man Bites World is turned in and awaiting editorial notes. My proposal for Project Number Next is in the mail. I even shipped off a couple copies of Child of Fire for reviews. I could have revised an old short story I never sent out, but I didn’t feel any urgency on that front at all.

And this complete lack of any kind of deadline pressure must be why I dreamed the opening of a new short story, in text, just as I woke up.

I’m not ready to write the story because all I have is the opening lines, but it’s sitting on a back burner cooking down. In the meantime, I read the end of my current book, then took a nap on the couch. Does it count as a nap at 6:15 am, or is that technically “going back to bed”? It doesn’t matter. I read, relaxed, slept, and even played a little bit of computer game later. Nice! A day off.

It’s also nice to remember my dreams. Usually, my alarm clock drives them out of my memory.

Does anyone else dream in text? I only do it sometimes, but I’m curious.

I still get notes, of course, but…

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MBW

See you at the bookstore

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Last reminder: I’ll be at the Tukwila B&N today at one o’clock with three other fine writers. I hope to see you there.