Bleeding Neon

Choose Your Own (Bleeding Neon) Adventure Week continues, as I tackle another reader-submitted topic. To be honest, I’m not sure if this came in response to my call for topics or if it was just tossed out on Twitter much as other random questions are usually thrown my way, but because it’s something I get asked about often, I figured I’d address it. So Keith O’Neil of New Hampshire asks “any certain authors influence your writing style?”

Well, Keith, here’s the thing: Writers are hacks. They get paid — most just barely, some over-extravagantly — to make themselves appear smarter, more informed or more clever than you. That’s not cool. I mean, sure, they might be all creative or investigative or enlightened and stuff, but why do they have to go and throw it in our faces? Even worse, they expect us to buy their stupid books and magazines and comics and…

Just kidding. But seriously, I can’t pinpoint any specific writers as “influences.” I think we are all sum reflections of that which came before us, that to which we’ve been exposed our entire lives. In both my journalistic and creative writing efforts, my writing is surely as much informed by the last episode of The West Wing I watched as it is by a Fantastic Four comic I read when I was 9.

I don’t tend to be a follower of a particular writer in any genre, I don’t read books, and I have limited patience for lengthy magazine articles and prefer my news read to me while driving. So … that about sums it up.

Check back soon tomorrow as we wrap up Choose Your Own (Bleeding Neon) Adventure Week, and if you have a topic you’re just dying for me to cover in this here blog, drop me a comment, tweet or e-mail. If I have enough overflow suggestions, I may just do this again. If you choose.

As I’ve lamented here previously, I no longer blog with the frequency I did back in my LiveJournal days. Not even close. Depending on your appetite for my nonsense, that could be a good or bad thing.

In general, I simply don’t just write for the sake of writing anymore either. When I was a young lad, I’d sit at a coffee shop every night for hours on end with nothing but a pack of cigarettes, a bottomless cup of sludgy coffee and a binder full of ruled, loose-leaf paper awaiting the inevitable scribbles from my tightly held pen. Back then, I wrote because I had to. Because something inside of me (likely hormonal rage or teen angst or something) had to be forced out, and for me, writing was the best outlet (so was music, but that’s a different subject altogether, though they are obviously connected).

What started as mostly poetry and short stories led to more journalistic-style work. I started a ‘zine, for which I wrote most of the content. Once the internet became widely used (but before it overtook our lives), I moved away from the creative writing altogether (save for the stray play or song) and expanded the reporting to the web. That self-made experience writing and editing articles eventually turned into freelance writing gigs, and combined with the web experience (and finally, a formal college education), a professional career alternately editing and writing for a variety of publications and websites.

Sounds like the ideal path, right? I mean, I started out doing something I was just good at, and it turned into a lucrative (mostly) career. So what’s the problem? Now when I write, I do it because I have to. Because an editor assigns a story. Because a paycheck is on its way. Because a client’s needs must be fulfilled. So at the end of the day, the last thing I want to do is … write. Oh, Catch-22, you devil’s plaything, you.

See, when I had to write, when it was my “out,” my escape from whatever shitty job I was working or emotionally crippling personal experience I was enduring, the words came easily. And they were a joy. I delighted in assembling nouns, verbs, modifiers and punctuation into a perfect storm of mostly cohesive thoughts and concepts. Now? Now I fret over word counts, deadlines, maintaining appearances, networking, publicizing …

And so here we are. You and me. Writer to reader. Only, I haven’t been giving you much to read. And I haven’t been giving myself much to write. And I’ve been immensely restrictive with what I post here, when in truth, I should be more transparent, more spontaneous, more direct. I’ve become so concerned with professional appearances and image that I’ve painted myself into a corner in which creative expression is so regimented and polished it becomes nearly void of life.

And brother, that ain’t no way of living.

So yes, you’ll still see me pimping my various endeavors here — the band, the comics, the articles and the appearances — but you’re also going to start getting behind the curtain, inside the process and, for better or worse, beyond the surface. And I’m going to try, like mad, to update this here blog/site/whatever daily. Yes, daily. Because otherwise, what’s the point?

I hope you stick around.

It’s not exactly an Emmy, Pulitzer or Eisner, but as someone not used to winning anything, I figured I had to share this with you fine people: Yesterday, The Write Blog announced the winners of the Write On! Online/Write Environment Query Contest. And who won first place in the Teleplay category?

Me, bitches.

Will it get that pitch anywhere? Who knows. Part of taking first place is having the query read by David Boxerbaum, a senior literary agent at APA talent agency. So, maybe. Or not. If nothing else, it got that TV series pitch out of the growing pit known as my Google Docs account and in front of someone’s eyes.

In the meantime, I’m on deadline for two stories at two different publications, trying to get caught up with The Utopian before San Diego Comic-Con sneaks up on me (in two weeks!), working with my band to find a producer with whom to record and closing on a house. Oh, and apparently, failing to get paid by What’s On magazine.

Speaking of Comic-Con, if you’re going to be there, I have semi-complete details on how to hook up with me there posted over at the Pop! Goes the Icon website.

A preview from this week's "The Utopian"

Harrah’s Rock Band competitions and As Yet Unbroken shows aside, I’ve been somewhat of a recluse lately, as between the regular freelance journalism gigs, I’ve been spending just about every waking minute working on writing of a different kind: Comic books. In addition to wrapping up a series pitch about which I’ve only mentioned in hushed tones publicly, you should be vaguely aware of the weekly digital comic series I launched last week at the all-new Pop! Goes the Icon, The Utopian. The newest installment is live and ready for your enjoyment (or disappointment).

In addition, I penned a blog post over at PGTI pulling back the curtain to reveal the process that goes into the making of even the seemingly simplest webcomic. Because, you know, why not?

Allegedly, I have a review in the current issue of What’s On Las Vegas, though I haven’t seen it yet. The magazine, I mean.

What’s my point? Oh. Yeah, so I’ve been busy doing all this other nonsense, and in the meantime, I have about a half-dozen saved drafts of blog posts with titles such as “L.A. Story” and “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood” sitting on the back end of this site, just waiting for my completion, as well as a spreadsheet full of upcoming art-related events needing attention for my Las Vegas Fine Arts Examiner gig.

I’m flying off to the Midwest for five days, which means none of these things will get much attention, because I could really use a mental break. But I will have a notebook and sketchbook with me, so hopefully all that time either cooped up in airplanes or surrounded by lakes and trees will shake out some junk trapped up in this noggin of mine. When I return, well, I’ll be hard at work but that’ll just give you kids something more to look at. So there.

So in the midst of everything else I have going on, I decided to add just one more little thing to my plate, and if you either a) like art, b) live in Las Vegas or c) even better, both “a” and “b,” then this news is for you: I’ve recently joined Examiner.com as the Las Vegas Fine Arts Examiner. What does that mean?

Not sure, actually. But I think it means I’m writing about art in Vegas.

So far, I’ve written three stories in the last three days, and haven’t even done my pre-First Friday round-up yet, so for anyone who STILL thinks there is a dearth of arts culture in Sin City, I have only this to say: THPPPPT.

If you want to keep up on what’s new and upcoming in the world of fine (and, let’s be honest, not so fine) art in this unholy desert outpost we call home, please subscribe to my Examiner.com RSS feed. Or you can go old school and bookmark that nonsense.