Opportunity Cost and Unwinding

I saw a good number of movies recently such as Sicario: Day of the Soldado and Skyscraper. However, the anime movie, Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms easily stood out the most. By the end of the movie, we saw the full journeys of many characters with gorgeous animation and a solid, original plot. I really cannot recommend it enough, and it helps that I came into the movie not knowing anything about it except for the synopsis, so I had no expectations going in. It’s becoming increasingly more difficult just to find good stories these days with so many remakes, reboots, money grabs, etc. 

With watching so many movies, I have a tough time finding the time to make my movie reviews for them in my Chris’s Storytelling Corner podcast. Finding time though has always been an issue with me especially having a full-time job and other extracurricular activities. There really is opportunity cost as one gets older, and doing things like writing, editing, podcasting and whatnot takes away from doing something else.

One thing that I lost sight of was dedicating time to just relax on my weekdays. I would go to work, go home, nap, do Brazilian Jiu Jitsu or go to church, eat dinner, write/edit, then go to sleep with no time dedicated to just unwind. I think that it is important to do that and healthy both physically and mentally as well.
 

Perspective and Bouncing Back

I saw two movies this week. One of them was an anime movie called Fireworks, and the other was Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp. Fireworks was interesting in that it looked into the idea of “perspective” and had a middle school love story going on. Ant-Man and the Wasp was a fun movie, but it was not as good as the first Ant-Man movie. It still contained the humor and absurdity that I expect from the Ant-Man franchise.

I am pretty much in full swing of re-editing The Wilderness, which is the story of Cain from the time he was exiled by God into the wilderness to when he meets his sister, who becomes his wife. It is a bit more challenging as there is not that much dialogue, and I am trying to make it a more thought-provoking and descriptive work. One thing that I have been doing though is removing a lot from it, as certain things get said twice but just in different ways, or there are just things that ultimately do not need to be there.

I am slowly but surely bouncing back from the constant rejection that I was facing just a couple weeks ago. The only thing I could do is continue to grind and press forward. I have to accept that in trying to reach certain goals, I am going to run into rejection quite a bit. 
 

Bad Weeks and The Bible

I watched Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom recently, and I did not think that it was very good. There were these cliched villains of evil businessmen motivated by money and characters who simply made poor not-thought-out choices throughout the movie. Many movies have some sort of social commentary, and I am fine with it, but for some reason, I just could not overlook it with this movie. There was a strong animal/dinosaur rights motif throughout the movie, and I just felt that it was beating me over the head with it. 

I have to say that besides not being too fond of the movie, I just wasn’t too fond of this week in general. I faced a good amount of rejection from literary agents and from women as well, along with the first time that I caused a car crash. Everything that went wrong this week in some form negatively affects my three goals: getting a literary agent, getting a girlfriend, and buying my own place. It is very difficult and my motivation is not exactly high right now, but I know that I must continue trudging forward despite this so that I can reach these goals.

One positive of the week is that I finished the Old Testament of The Bible. Here is what I observed from reading it:
1. If I were to sum up what The Bible is so far, I’d say that it’s a story about the human condition. Reading through The Bible, people seemingly made the same mistakes over and over again. It seemed that the natural inclination of man was to sin, starting with Genesis and continuing onwards. 
2. Liberty was not a natural value or instinct for mankind. There was always a sense of bondage that could either be physical captivity or some sort of personal mental imprisonment. 
3. People had a natural predisposition to worship, whether it be the one true God, or other gods. One king seemingly made a golden calf and started to worship it simply because he could, for example. 
4. This was not a particularly nice or kind book in regards to humanity. I think that many people get it wrong thinking it’s all about miracles, supernatural things and do’s and don’ts.
 

Incredibles 2 and Reevaluating

I watched Incredibles 2, and it was a lot of fun. Fourteen years is a long time for a sequel to come out, but it was worth the wait. I like character-driven stories, and Incredibles 2, in my opinion, was more character-driven than plot-driven. The plot is pretty standard superhero fare, but the characters make the movie memorable. Hopefully, if there is a third one, and I’m sure there will be one as Incredibles 2 made a lot of money, it will not take fourteen years for it to be released.

I am starting to think about my future moves as far as being an author is concerned. I have to accept that I was sending query letters for The Mustard Prince in the Condiment Kingdom to literary agents far too early before the story was a finished product. I have submitted to many literary agents who represent fantasy-adventure novels, and while there were those rare times that I got positive feedback, I have never been asked by any literary agent for further material for The Mustard Prince in the Condiment Kingdom. The way that sending query letters work is that these agents generally ask for a query letter and the first ten pages or so of the work, and if they are interested, they will ask for more of the work. No literary agent has asked for more, and it’s getting more difficult to find literary agents that represent middle grade, fantasy, action-adventure.

I have another completed work called The Wilderness that is unedited that I haven’t submitted to literary agents. I also have some novels in the works that have the first thirty-to-fifty pages completed that I can work on as well. It is disheartening to put The Mustard Prince in the backburner for the time being, but I have to be realistic. I’m hopeful that it will get published eventually, but right now, I have to present another one of my works to get my proverbial foot in the door. 
 

Rejection and Comfort

I have been receiving a good amount of rejection as of late, from two literary agents and even a woman. While it is not ideal for me, it tells me that I need to improve. I’ve been sending query letters for years, but one constant is that I’ve been improving my craft along the way, and also improving my discipline as well where I have made writing and editing a daily routine. I actually wish that I didn’t send those early query letters because my books were quite honestly written badly. 

I never thought about it, but I read some stuff online. It said that you do not want a literary agent that does not have a taste for your writing, but also, you do not want a literary agent who already represents so many authors that the agent would have little-to-no time for you. I have always just wanted representation but did not really think about what specifically fits me, or what I would want. 

There is something about this journey in reaching this goal of becoming an author that works in opposite of what is comfortable. It is as if one needs to suffer a bit in order to progress. One needs to go against what is natural and what is comfortable, in a way, as for example, one seemingly needs to get used to rejecting. That alone is not enough though, as one also needs to predicate that rejection with a want and willingness to improve and reflect. 
 

Confidence, Insanity and Russian Ballet

I watched Russian ballet for the first time, particularly the Bolshoi Ballet: Coppelia, and I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. It was comical, artistic, and well-crafted. I think that the eye has an ability to recognize difficult movements, so it was not hard to see that what they were performing was of a very high level. The story was fun and more light-hearted, and even though there are no words, the actions speak quite loudly.

I sent another query letter, and I did something that I haven’t done in a while. I changed the query letter to appeal more to the particular literary agent instead of sending the generic one that I send to all the literary agents. I’m regretting not doing that before, and I’ll admit to having gotten lazy in the whole process. There is also a newfound confidence in my writing where I can put a little more ‘oomph’ into these query letters. I’ve been rejected so much that I’m kind of feeling that I have nothing to lose. There is that saying where insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, and I kind of fell into that due to complacence.

I started reading Tale of the Genji, which is the first novel ever created, and it is a beast of a novel clocking in over one-thousand pages. It is very well-written, and I’m looking forward to reading more. Seeing different and sophisticated writing helps my own writing, after all. 
 

Reading and Moving Forward

I finished reading A Hero Born: Legend of the Condor Heroes, which is the first volume in a three-volume story. The second volume is said to be coming out in January 2019, so it’s going to be quite the wait for the next book. The first book ended in pretty much an impasse, so that was a bit disappointing. Overall though, I really enjoyed it. In the meantime, I am waiting for my copy of the Tale of the Genji, which is the first know novel ever made. I also have Tintin in the New World to read as well. 

I honestly forgot how fun it is to read actual fiction books. I know that sounds crazy, but the only books that I’ve read recently are non-fiction, autobiographies and my own works that I am editing. Also, I read a lot of manga. There is a certain aesthetic and ambiance from holding a book in your hand and turning the pages. I can see why readers still prefer traditional books even though something like a Kindle is more convenient, and the books tend to be cheaper on it.

I got another rejection from a literary agent recently, and it’s unfortunate. This agent’s interests seemingly coincided with mine, so I thought that he’d show interest in the work that I submitted. It is disheartening, but I suppose that it’s on to the next one. 

Speaking of on to the next one, I am now re-editing a short story that I created in college called The Frog of the Crown, which is based on the Frog Prince fable. I finished editing my horror short story, Shattered Glass, so it’s on to the next one. It’s a fable with a lot of comedy, so I hope to make it funnier with this edit. 
 

Horror Stories, Star Wars and Inspiration

I’ve been working on re-editing a short story that I made a while ago called Shattered Glass. Now that I’m entering Short Story Competitions again, I’ve been focusing on re-editing short stories that I created previously. It’s been a good process, but sometimes I will get stuck too long on wanting to touch up a sentence and kill a lot of time doing so. Re-reading Shattered Glass is interesting because it’s one of a few horror stories that I’ve written, but I tend to lean more towards a Gothic horror than traditional horror.

I’m finishing up Shattered Glass, and I think that the story has improved quite a bit after the re-edit. I’m looking forward to re-editing more of these short stories and hoping that I’ll place in some of these competitions as well.

I also watched Solo: A Star Wars Story, and it was fun. It wasn’t particularly epic in scope like one would expect from Star Wars movies (no one’s trying to save the galaxy in this one), as it really did focus on the singular story of Han Solo. Ironically, my friends and I then watched some Akira Kurosawa films, Yojimbo and The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail, just a couple hours after watching Solo. If anyone knows Akira Kurosawa’s relationship with Star Wars, they’d know that a good amount of Star Wars is strongly inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s Hidden Fortress. 

As cliched as this sounds, but I really do feel that at this point, everything and everyone is inspiration for my stories. I’ll take a little from anime, Shakespeare, Dickens, movies, fairy tales, The Bible, Star Wars, Kurosawa, etc. Everyone has a different idea of how to go about things, or how to create a character or narrative. 
 

Distractions and Silliness

I made one little change to my writing/editing process, and that is that I put my phone away where I’d have to get up from my chair to get it. It may not sound like much, but distractions like that really do add up and take time away from writing/editing. I can see why it’d be better, for example, to have a clean work area to work at as the messiness can be something of a distraction. There is something to be said about aesthetics and ambiance in your work environment.

Speaking of distractions, I watched Deadpool 2, and it was a really fun movie. I personally liked the first one better, as there was one main, definite villain instead of having somewhere around four. However, one thing I like about Deadpool is that no matter how crazy he gets and the situations that he finds himself in, there is still a humanistic side to him. He’s also just very self-deprecating as well.

The Mustard Prince has a little bit of that as well as far as silliness, but also in the self-deprecating humor. There is something to be said about not taking yourself to seriously, and I think that Marvel has that down. They understand the world that their characters live in and the outrageous situations that they find themselves in and satirize it when appropriate. It works for them, and it works for The Mustard Prince as well.
 

Risks and the Legends of the Condor Heroes

I started reading the translated version of the first book of The Legends of the Condor Heroes by Jin Yong (pen name of Louis Cha), and it’s said to be a Chinese Lord of the Rings. It’s good in that it is based on historical events and figures, has a high focus on martial arts and takes place over multiple generations. However, certain things about it surprised me, and maybe it’s because I’m more attuned to certain things about writing and grammar. For one thing, I just notice all the grammatical errors in the book, especially with commas. Also, when it comes to the writing, I can see when there is too much explaining when things could have been shown. Some of it, as far as the writing is concerned, could come down to the translation.

That’s not to say that I’m this particularly good author or flawless in my own writing. I’m just starting to find out what “voice” is, and I have my own style of writing. It’s just that I’m starting to see things that I haven’t before when reading due to the fact that I write and edit on a daily basis. The book, nonetheless, has managed to capture my interest.

It makes me think if my books will be able to capture the interest of a wide audience. I don’t think that there’s a particular formula as to why a certain book will click, and some just won’t. I’m always thinking about that though, in that I could get published, and my book ends up quickly in the bargain bin. Or, maybe it becomes extremely popular like The Legends of the Condor Heroes. I guess finding that out is worth the risk.
 

Challenges and Short Stories

I changed something up this week as far as my writing goes, and it has been good. I haven’t been competing in short story competitions lately, and I wanted to get back into them considering that I have twenty-plus just sitting on my computer. I decided that one day of the week, Tuesdays (which I just choose arbitrarily), will be the day that I look for various short story contests. I am also working on re-editing my short stories implementing “voice.”

Changing it up has helped with breaking the monotony of what I was doing. Re-editing The Mustard Prince is great, but working on other things has been helpful to me as well as it provides variety and a new challenge. Right now, I’m working on re-editing my short story, The Next Level, where a nerdy guy gets roped into going to a homecoming dance with a nerdy girl, and it parallels the online RPG that they both play. It was already quite comical, but I feel that I’m making it funnier now that I’m editing it with “voice.”

When I submitted short stories to competitions, I got third place once, and that’s it out of many competitions that I’ve participated in. I look back and see that I really didn’t put my best foot forward, and if I can recognize problems now with my short stories, then I’d imagine that judges can spot these problems as well. I’m actually looking forward to submitting my short stories out there after they’ve been re-edited. I don’t expect to place in all of these contests or anything, but at least I’ll know that I put out my best effort.
 

Characters and Marvel

I watched Avengers: Infinity War, and I thought that it was amazing. I won’t spoil the movie, but they did a great job of making the audience care about the characters and the world that they all live in. They also built up to this event in a pretty intricate way using previous MCU movies to build up to this. I find that to be good, long-term storytelling. It surprises me that the DCEU cannot emulate similar results as they have so many iconic characters to work with and years of source material.

It makes me think of The Mustard Prince series, and how to go about it. I’m also going with the idea of building towards something by the end of the series, but I only have an idea of what that is right now. I always cared more about the characters, and it’s the characters that guide the plot for me, not the other way around. For me, personally, I tend to remember the characters more in a story than the plot, which may be why I am such a fan of the MCU.

I’m getting to the point where I really am believing that I’m getting good enough at writing stories that would entertain a wide audience. In that sense, it’s making me impatient to get published professionally. Maybe it’s like Avengers: Infinity War, in that the payoff will eventually happen as long as I build up to it.
 

Timing and Branding

I went to a smaller comic convention called the San Diego Comic Fest this week, and it was a lot of fun. There was a much more intimate setting where I got to talk with the vendors, artists and attendees a lot more. I wanted to show my support for some of these artists, so I bought some of their works. I can understand the hustle and appreciate it, so I like to show my support.

It did get me to thinking about me and what I want to do to get my name, or brand, out there. These artists and creators are really going out there to these conventions and whatnot to put their name out there. The most that I do is utilizing my podcast, Chris’s Storytelling Corner, to get my name out there, but I don’t feel that comparatively, I’m putting in the work like these other creators and artists. I’m submitting query letters to literary agents so that I can get professionally published, but I’d still need to put my brand out there somehow.

Timing makes this very difficult. Working a nine-to-five on weekdays and just unwinding and catching up on the podcast, writing, and whatnot on the weekends makes it where my time is very valuable. I should definitely get back to submitting short stories to various contests and think about collaborating with others to get my name out there.
 

The Future and Regret

I didn’t think that I’d actually enjoy the editing process. I’ve been re-editing The Mustard Prince in the Condiment Kingdom, and I set a time limit to how long I’m editing on the stopwatch on my phone. I have caught myself wanting to edit a little more even after the allotted time was over. Part of it is that I edit by paragraph, so it feels incomplete when I’m in the middle of editing a paragraph, and I don’t edit the whole paragraph that I’m working on. Another part is that I’m just “in the groove” as I’m editing, and this does apply to writing as well.

I’ve been sending query letters to literary agents for The Mustard Prince in the Condiment Kingdom for years now. I would send them sporadically, but I do look back at my approach with a level of regret. I really didn’t put my best foot forward by not knowing certain things like “voice” in my earlier submissions and received rejection. It has cost me as that becomes one less person to submit my work to in an already small group of literary agents. 

Thankfully, I do have other project in the works as I am making The Land of the Wooden Statues into a full-length novel, and re-editing The Wilderness, which needs a lot of work but is at least finished. I can only hope that The Mustard Prince in the Condiment Kingdom will be my first professionally published work, and I am still working towards that goal. However, I do have other projects waiting in the wings to also help me reach that goal as well.
 

Inpatience and Your Best Foot Forward

Last weekend, I sent two different query letters to two different literary agents. One wanted the first ten pages of a given work, while the other wanted the first twenty pages. Now, I’ve sent many query letters in the past, and still plan to, but this time, it’s with The Mustard Prince in the Condiment Kingdom being re-edited by me once again with a deeper understanding of “voice.” I really don’t have plans to edit it yet again, as I have other projects to work on.

This taught me something though, and that’s that I really didn’t put my best foot forward in sending out my works. Part of it was just a lack of knowledge and experience, but part of it was just impatience. This really is a long and arduous process with the goal being very difficult to obtain. I did myself no favors though in wanting to essentially rush the process and send my works out before they were ready.

I’ve noticed that I’ve somewhat enjoyed the process a bit more having some level of experience writing. I can identify better what to look out for and what to insert as well. For example, I feel that I have made The Mustard Prince in the Condiment Kingdom funnier after this last re-edit. I’m just hoping that a literary agent will resonate with the work, and that eventually, it can be read by many different people.
 

Tediousness and the Finished Product

I watched Ready Player One in 3D last week, and I thought that it was really good. For someone like me who has a channel talking about things like anime, manga, movies, etc, and was/is a gamer, this movie resonated with me quite a bit. In what movie could I see Mecha Godzilla fight against The Iron Giant (from the movie, not Final Fantasy) and a Gundam? That type of creativity and nostalgia is why I really like “story” in general.

I just finished re-editing the first chapter of The Mustard Prince in the Condiment Kingdom. This is the third or fourth time that I re-edited it, but now that I have a deeper understanding of “voice,” it just felt that I had to do it to put my best foot forward to potential literary agents and the reading audience in general. I have a lot more to do, but this has taught me that the finished product is not going to look like the initial product, and that we obviously don’t do everything perfectly the first time.

The process is tedious, for sure, but it can be fun too. I do feel that I made the story funnier due to these re-edits and much more descriptive too. I also feel that I have a better grasp of what to look out for as far writing more descriptively and getting into the characters and story. I suppose that it is all just a part of the learning process.
 

Creativity and Originality

This week has been more good than bad. On Tuesday morning, I caught a minor cold, so I was not bed-ridden or anything like that. However, sickness makes it difficult to get writing, editing and all that other stuff going. Despite that, the good outweighed the bad.

On Thursday night, I went to see Cirque du Soleil: Luzia, and it was amazing. The creativity that they utilize was something else, and it surprised me to see what people can do with something like a whistle, or a soccer ball, etc. Then, on Saturday, I went to WonderCon in Anaheim and cosplayed as Bruce Lee from Game of Death. Once again the creativity there was off the charts. There were a good amount of artists, and they put their own spin on a certain character, series, etc.

In a sense, that’s what I’m doing with my own stories. Everything has been done in some way or another, but everyone has their own take, and I think that’s where the originality comes into play. This week, I got to see a lot of that.
 

Process and Excellence

I watched the newest Tomb Raider movie, and I thought that it was fun enough. It would be a good rental, but not something I’d particularly recommend to watch in the theaters unless one is looking for an action flick. I was talking to a friend, and we were discussing why the movie didn’t particularly stand out. As someone who is doing a lot of editing right now, as I have finished two books so far (The Mustard Prince in the Condiment Kingdom and The Wilderness), it’s a surprise that these movies don’t seem to have a high level of editing and fixing noticeable holes.

We were quickly able to notice the flaws in the movie, so why weren’t these flaws addressed in post-production? There could have a myriad amount of reasons, to be clear, but it just seems like a certain potential wasn’t reached because of it. Granted, there are time constraints, budget, etc. Maybe, they just wanted to make money more than aspire for excellence.

I find that as I learn more about writing, that I’m constantly having to re-edit my works. It’s a slow and sometimes tedious process, but I suppose that the goal is to aspire for excellence. That’s not to say that I’m trying to re-invent the wheel but just make my works the best that I possibly can.
 

Good Memories and Bad Moods

I can’t say that I had a great week. A lot of little things hampered my week, and in turn, affected my motivation and concentration to write, edit, or work on my podcast. Mood plays a role in the writing process and overcoming bad and/or negative moods is just one more thing that I have to learn how to do. This stuff does not write or edit itself.

I watched Disney’s A Wrinkle In Time and did a movie review for it. I read it as a kid back in elementary and liked it, and I think that this version is the second, or maybe third movie adaptation for this book. That’s what I want for The Mustard Prince in that a child could read it and still have good memories of it even as an adult. It didn’t help my mood though that I thought that the movie was just okay when in fact I was looking forward to it.

Maybe that’s a lesson in itself, in that we don’t know how the audience will accept our works. I suppose that we cannot control that aspect and could only do the best that we can learning from criticism and other works. 
 

Cold Weather and Entertainment

I had a tough time getting to my routine of working on editing and the podcast this week. The cold weather here in California does not help as I just want to be wrapped in blankets. When that happens, I tend to just fall asleep instead of work on things. Aso, I’m already tired from doing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu almost right after work on Mondays and Wednesdays.

I still found time for some entertainment, as I watched the Fullmetal Alchemist live-action movie on Netflix, and I also started reading the Princess Jellyfish manga. I actually have volumes one through seven just sitting in my room, and I decided to finally read them. It is really funny, and relatable to me since I tend to be all “otaku” about anything from anime, manga, MMA, Peanuts, movies, etc. The Fullmetal Alchemist movie, I thought, was good, and it really followed the plot points of the Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood anime pretty well. I’m sure that it’ll have a few sequels as long as it’s successful.

I think that a lot of factors go into this whole writing thing. Distraction like the internet, television, movies, cell phones, etc. to the weather can all make it that much more difficult to write, and those are just outside factors. Internally, motivation comes and goes and a lack of a sense of urgency also contribute to negatively affecting the writing process. Finding your own process and structure and maintaining it is probably more difficult, for me at least, than actually writing.