I lump a lot of things together in my life. For some reason, everything that happened when I was growing up happened when I was either eight or twelve, or the years surrounding those years, I mix them up sometimes. For me eight years old is the kind of age when you are full of wonder, and play. It's when you don't even have any troubles to put aside. It's when you can just be like God intended, free of worry or anything else.

When I walk through the gates at the Magic Kingdom, I'm eight. When I watch Star Wars (In any way shape or form, and yes even Episode I) I'm eight. When I see TRON, or any other Disney movies from around the same time, (The Black Hole?) I'm eight.

When I went to see TRON: Legacy, I was eight again. I thought it might just be a movie, a cheesy kind of a throwback to the kind of fun that I had with TRON as a kid (And who didn't want to own Flynn's Arcade right??) I liked that some of the original characters were involved, that it was a continuation (much like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) where the sequel comes years later, but they allow for the passage of time and allow the actors to get older rather than replace them and try to explain why their nose looks different (or worse ignoring it) and I really liked the ways they paid homage to the original film. I was thinking about all of that, about ways it might fit with the original story, and then it started, and I was eight. The film critic in me was silenced by reckless gnomes made of evil jelly pudding that captured it and stuffed it into a mayonnaise jar until I could successfully see and enjoy the movie, and have time to go to the bathroom afterwards. (Man those drinks got big at the movies!)

Now I can kind of pick it apart and see where I would have done something different, or ask why they might include this or that, and then there they are again, the gnomes arrive and beat my inner critic into submission, because as I think, and daydream about the environment in the film, and the story, regardless of how old I've gotten, or how old Jeff Bridges is now, suddenly I'm eight again, and everything is forgotten.

Thank you Disney, for Tron Legacy.

Now it's time to blow out the Tomorrowland Speedway at Magic Kingdom and put in some light cycles!

It's an interesting concept to fathom isn't it? Think about it. It's especially prevalent in the story of Doctor Who, a time traveler who is inextricably linked to London, and England as a sort-of massive hero who shows up from time to time. In London, Doctor Who is a phenomenon that exists as a television show that started in 1963, that still airs today. Although it's gone into hiatus on occasion, to be brought back better than ever each time, it's a story and a character who has saved the British countryside from attack after attack, then bops off into the future or the past, and does it all over again. Here's the thing. It's a cultural experience that has been with Britain, and the world for decades. It's a piece of pop-culture. There it's bigger than star trek, and possibly bigger than Star Wars. Everybody has a plastic sonic screwdriver, with it's little black light on the end, and yet on the show, no one knows about Doctor Who. He's a big secret. In the world of the show, the television story does not exist. Since it happens in real time, now, we can't even pretend that, like Star Trek, it's all way in the future.

So, we have to come up with a reason why no one in England knows about this story. What else does that mean, not just in the world of science fiction, but even if you keep it tied to British science fiction, you have a real problem. In the Doctor Who special Christmas Invasion, the doctor mentions the character Arthur Dent, from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a series that was widely popular in Britain and in the world. He says that something is "very Arthur Dent", and calls him a nice chap. Does this, clearly a nod to Douglas Adams, and the influence that Douglas had on not only British science fiction, but Doctor Who itself as a writer and script editor in it's earlier years, turn into an acknowledgement of Arthur Dent as a good character in British science fiction that the Doctor enjoys, and he's chuckling about it, or is he acknowledging that the entire world of Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide series exists within the world of Doctor Who? Complicated sentence right? I think I've got my message across.

In a world where the Battlestar Galactica shows up on Earth in the seventies, finally having made it, and finds us unaware of the existence of ships that can travel in space that our brothers from across the stars seem to have created, what does that leave us with? I remember watching the original version of Battlestar Glactica on television, and there, when they arrive on Earth, the arrive to an Earth that hasn't just watched them on air, and to make a point that I think everyone agrees on, without the shape of Darth Vader's helmet, I don't think the Silons can exist. And at that point... in a strange sort of logic, does it mean that somewhere in the world of the original Battlestar Galactica, the world of Star Wars exists somewhere a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away to inspire the other?

I know what you're thinking out there. Where's my suspension of disbelief?

It's wondering why Queen Elizabeth II, who I've heard takes the series DVDs of the new Doctor Who show with her on vacation, is suddenly running through Buckingham Palace, escaping with the Corgis after the Doctor calls her to warn her he's about to hit the palace with the Starship Titanic (another reference, a kiss back to Douglas Adams). In the show, though you never see her face, just her rushing feet, and a shot behind her as she waves the savior of Britain on, she's someone, a Queen Elizabeth that does not know about the television show, but instead knows the Doctor himself!

It's... A conundrum. 

I have always liked the way that the comic book series Watchmen handled their own existence in conjunction with other comic books. New York is the home of a large number of super heroes (Spider-Man included) who fight crime there. In the world that the Watchmen inhabit, comic books are all centered on pirates. It becomes a splinter, or a separate world, a parallel.

So does this mean that in a parallel universe Doctor Who actually exists? I don't know, but what I do know is that science fiction, as much as I love it, leaves this question open. Maybe there's something to be said for omitting the earth all together. Star Wars is the only one that seems to co-habit without causing a lot of trouble. Being in a galaxy far far away, there's no real continuity to break.

My father's first cousin owned a beach front motel in Daytona Beach. It has long since been leveled and the spot where it was is now occupied with another, much larger hotel. The Seashore Motel was a nice place. Nothing huge, just about ten stories arranged in two towers that slanted back ever-so-slightly from each other with elevators in the middle. There was a pool, and every room had paintings of flying fish above the beds. A week's stay was given to my mother and father as a wedding present. My father's cousin A.W. lived in the penthouse apartment with his wife Ann. I used to play with their grand children.

One year, they invited the entire Saye family down to Daytona for the holidays, and it totally re-wrote my thoughts on what to expect from them. I'll never forget watching my Uncle Bob try and get into the ocean for a swim in the middle of December. The temperatures were in the sixties, but the ocean was a whole lot colder. We took a smaller table-top Christmas tree and the number and size of presents was much less than usual, but none of that mattered. I was at the beach in December for the Holidays. Who did that? To me the novelty and the memories of that trip were worth more than anything else that happened.

I have come to understand just how much of an effort it must have been to keep that ritual the same for so long. It seems like year-to-year the entire family plan seems to change. These days, anything goes. Where could I be next Christmas? Next year we'll have a three and a half year old, ready to jump into the middle of the wrapping paper, and a nine month old that's just starting to pull up on stuff. Life changes so often and in so many ways each year, that there's no telling how or where I'll celebrate the holidays.

Ever go to the beach for the holidays? True, not the most exotic local ever, but it was that first break from the norm for me growing up. Do you go to the mountains, or the mid-west? Where have you gone for the Holidays that might seem like an unlikely spot?

Murdock, he got to be the comic relief, and could fly the helicopter. (How did they ever afford the fuel?) Face, he was the pretty boy (Though I frequently imagined that he was really Starbuck in disguise, living on earth...) who was actually a master of disguise on the show. There was Hannibal, who always loved it when a plan came together, and B.A. (Mr. T.) who was the muscle. Together they would usually take the case of some hot guest star, and off they'd go being all noble and clever, like little vigilantes.

Then, between the commercial break that split the last two acts, they would build a Frankenstein monster of a tank out of some poor sedan or Jeep, and be ready to take it into battle against the enemy. I could almost count on it.

I have Infocom to thank for this wonderful game, a game that I enjoyed to the last joke, even if I did eventually need to get the hint book to understand the massively strange and complicated story that it told. I'd love to write one of these one day, and maybe I will. Inform is a pretty good product.

Infocom had such a wonderful idea. To package props and key game elements as physical objects with their games made them that much more engaging even without graphics. You might have creepy letters and a guide book for a castle complete with murder mystery (Moonmist) to a glow-in-the-dark rock for Wishbringer, to complicated coding wheels in A mind Forever Voyaging. Many of them were fantastic methods of copy protection as well in a time when all their games could fit on a single floppy disc.

Although I think Adventure was the initial ground breaker here, Zork will always be the #1 for me. The one that started it all.

It is dark. You are about to be eaten by a Grue.

• http://www.douglasadams.com/creations/infocomjava.html
• http://www.douglasadams.com/creations/infocom.php
• http://infocom.elsewhere.org/gallery/hhgttg/hhgttg.html

Wing Commander II was my introduction to the space flight simulator genre. I'd tried the Microsoft flight simulator and other real-world style games like it, and never cared for them. Later there would come others, the X-Wing and Tie-Fighter franchises, but Wing Commander, with it's grumpy Admiral, and the giant cat people, were where it started for me. After Wing Commander II, I actually went back in time to play Wing Commander before Heart of the Tiger came out, with Mark Hamill in it.

Wing Commander gave me an interesting perspective on the mystery in space, what happens between the missions is almost as important as what happens during the missions. I've always thought it would be an interesting story to tell where the lead characters were all space pilots of some kind, and actually give them something, a war or some set of mysteries to get through on their way through a book series. You see that kind of thing in the confines of a game like this, or a book series like Rogue Squadron, but even stories like Battlestar Galactica seem to lose this element after a while. I thought that when Wing Commander became a movie that they'd make sure this wasn't lost, but I think they totally lost their minds on that one. There wasn't nearly enough space-style dog-fighting in there for me.

It's worth it sometimes, to take it easy and keep it in mind, the original draws of action in a series.

I've always liked the idea of a series that followed the exploits of a company of star fighters around, one mission at a time, with all of the drama that happens between missions, maybe occasionally having an episode from the point of view of the villains, or maybe taking a two-parter or something here and there and have the hero go off on a secret mission or something similar. Maybe I'll write one of those one day. Maybe it's a series of short stories. Time will tell

These words are so innocuous, that they are totally ignored by search engines. Looking up the term "and the" on Amazon, even restricting it to the Books section in the drop down returned to me a bunch of Samsung phones. Yahoo returned Beauty and the Beast, but not much more than that. It's such an integral part of so many titles that are important to us, but it's almost impossible to find a reference to the numbers and kinds of books and stories that employ the usage. Alvin and the Chipmunks?

I think that "and the" is the glue that holds stories to the characters that inhabit them. I think that every story title, even the clever ones, can be boiled down to one of these. Luke Skywalker and the Empire Strikes Back? Maybe Buttercup and the Dread Pirate Roberts? What about Arthur Dent and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? I know, way too long, even for a title that though I love it, is already way too long. The thing I'm getting at is that since every story is really about a person in a place with a problem, can't all stories be boiled down this way?

I'm not even sure that's my point.

What I am sure about is that it's an interesting way to stitch stories together.

One time, several years ago, I was working for CNN.com’s Community team. This was well before the AOL Merger, and we were starting to get noticed for our chat rooms and message boards. One of the executives had decided to do an internal internet chat with the employees in the building, and my friend Kristen and I had been sent over to the other tower to run it. I don’t know what I was expecting to find up there. It was a much more formal part of the building, and the elevators were old, and deadly slow. We were already nervous about going up there, then there was the quiet ding, the doors slid open and there he was. It was the first of just a couple of times that I ever saw him. Ted Turner was waiting to get on the elevator.

In a heartbeat, everyone in the elevator gasped and held their breath, our mouths hung open, and we just stood there in this kind of surreal paralyzed horror. There were employees in the company in the elevator from every level of employment, from the bottom to the top. It was only an instant, but it seemed like half an hour.

The next thing I know, my mind cleared and Ted was waving his arms and yelling at us all to “Get off the Elevator! Get off the elevator!” In my mind I imagined him as Charlton Heston’s Moses, parting the red sea. We scrambled out in a pack, and scurried off to do whatever it was we were there to do, but the moment has stuck with me.

From that moment on, for whatever reason, I have lost all fear of interaction with celebrities. When I’m faced with one, I no longer feel nervous, upset, or self-conscious. Figure that one out.

When has something like this happened to you?

The Illustrated Man, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Princess Bride, as examples, all too often the "The" is moved to the end of the title and appended with a comma, which never made much sense to me except that it would make the T section in the book store much too far out of proportion with the rest of the world of literature. I suppose there's also cause to think about the use of the phrase "and the" to attach a title to a character's name, but that's another thought for another day.

Something that I've often wondered when naming my own works, was should I leave "The" out of the picture? Should I avoid all the confusion that arises from where to place the word in question, to ignore it and categorize it with everything else, to include it only to see it dropped off at some point and attached with a comma to the end?

Is it worth even worrying about as an author?

It's a conundrum.

I still like the idea of titling something with just the word "The" at some point. What would that story be like?

Yep. I admit it. I had the 45. I downloaded it on iTunes. I had the song. I followed The Greatest American hero, one of the best mid-season replacements of all time (followed by Buffy maybe?) from time slot to time slot as it made it's reckless flight week to week. The adventures of a super hero with a super suit, given to him by aliens, and partnered with an FBI agent, a great method I think, of giving Ralph's crime fighting a sense of credibility and purpose, this lone teacher is suddenly thrust into a world of unique powers and adventures each week. Despite the lead character's never mentioned name change from one season to the next since he shared the name of the man who shot Ronald Regan, the Greatest American Hero gives us something that we all need very much, and it does it in a way that's entertaining week to week.

Entrusted with the suit, which gives him miraculous powers, Ralph is able to fly, turn invisible, run really fast, magnetize himself, pretty much anything that the story calls for. He does it all, just not very well. He's learning, and sometimes when he's flying he lands in a heap, like a great albatross, or sometimes like a sack of potatos. He does get better, and eventually he learns that he has much more to offer. He finds out that there's a lot more inside him, that he's capable of, he just doesn't know it. He's capable of so much, yet his inexperience and unfamiliarity with the suit makes him clumsy, and we can see him stumble, recover, and eventually they catch the bad guy. How is this possible? Simple, he's lost the manual.

The aliens who dropped off the suit, ostensibly for someone else in the first place, left a manual that would teach the user how to do everything the suit was capable of. On his way from the site of the alien ship, Ralph loses the manual, and is forced to learn on his own how to progress and win through life. He has been imbued, as we all have with great power, creativity, and gifts, he just doesn't know what they all are or how to use them.

We've all lost that manual that came with being born. The Greatest American Hero is about how we all go through life unsure of ourselves, and without the full knowledge of what we can become. If we could just tap that gap in our cosmic consciousness and come up with the answers to why we are here, and what is our purpose in life, and what will we be good at and enjoy, life wouldn't be the real mystery that it is. We are all living without that knowledge, learning about what it means to us day by day, and how that interpretation changes.

Ralph is eventually offered a second manual, as I remember it, but this one is quickly lost as well. All this cut and dried stuff is for the birds anyway. Part of life is learning these things for yourself, stumbling, and learning how to fall on your face and come back to nail a problem the second time around.

Be happy we lost the instructions. Believe it or not, I am.

Everybody wants to travel through time. Even if you're not into science fiction, everybody thinks about traveling though time. At the very least it would be great for going back in time in order to complete homework or other assignments and still be able to enjoy the weekend. Usually, I think it comes down to one of three things, though saving the universe does tend to apply.  I think when you're talking about time travel, you're talking about escape, regret, and curiosity, and I wonder sometimes if what it all really boils down to is regret, but that's another story. When you travel to the future or the past, strictly speaking from the earth-bound side of time travel, it seems to be about what you can prevent from happening. There are those who would cheat the system, making sure bets, or stealing the coveted wife of another, and who can stop that from happening, and there's the side of - if you go back in the past and change something, or make it better - will that change the present for that particular person. Will their father turn out to be a successful Author instead of a sniveling idiot, as happens in Back to the Future? There's also a more humorous side, of visiting important people throughout history as happens in Bill and Ted's Excellent adventure. (Excellent!) Of course if this kind of time travel is true then there should be lots of living folks out there who've had the equivalent of Bill and Ted's phone booth or the Doctor's TARDIS land in front of them.

Can you destroy your life by going back in time and killing your grandfather? Can you, in fact change time at all, I mean to say, will your character, assuming that they can travel in time at all, be prevented from making any changes that make an impact on their future? For some reason I've never liked, this kind of flat prevention or frustration routine. The characters should be able to do anything that they need to in order to make the story work. Going to the trouble of allowing them to travel in time, and then not letting them make a difference hardly seems worth the time to write. Want to be darring? Why not write a story in which the lead character actually has go back in time to kill their grandfather in order to save the world? Maybe I ought to write that one. Would your character do it? Would yours make that leap into a quantum parallel universe where he may or may not exist once the mission is complete?

Time travel is some sticky stuff. Still makes me want a DeLorean though.

Aren't we all travelers through time though? It's all moving by as we stand here in the ever-changing present. For me it's been an incredible journey, and continues to be so.

When Ghostbusters first came out, I wasn't allowed to see it. I wanted to. My friends were all going to see it, but I wasn't allowed. It's not something that bothers me. At the age I was, I probably wouldn't have cared for it as much as I do now, and having really discovered it on cable later, it was probably the best way anyway. All the sexual innuendo, yeah, it probably would have gone over my head at the time, but maybe not. I mean, how blatant can you get when you have gods from another world who call themselves the gatekeeper and the keymaster. Captain Obvious's presence is just not needed here.

Over the years though, what I've really come to love the most about the story is the side of how they come together to start a business, be it an awfully strange one, as entrepreneurs in a time when a lot of people were losing their jobs. It's a part of why I think there seems to be such a strange surge in the rumor mills of science fiction entertainment news that a Ghostbusters III is on the way. I personally refuse to believe that's coming until I see a trailer, and watch interviews with the guys, but it's an interesting thought. A lot of people are losing their jobs right now, and many of them are falling off the unemployment radar after their benefits run out. How many of them will get together and start making their own work rather than waiting for someone to hire them? Pieces of the story that fascinate me the most are about all the corners they have to cut in order to get what they need, they have unlicensed, possibly dangerous equipment they've all invented together, and the fact that they have to bluff their way into their first job catching the green Slimer. They don't even know if their own stuff works, and how could they? It's not like they've had anything to practice on.

Another thing I wonder, all these guys making ghost hunter shows on television, people who run ghost tours, and the like. Were they inspired by this movie? Is there something here, about taking that leap, and everyone in the group pushing their credit to the max to start the business something that has helped to inspire these folks to take the chance and go a little unorthodox for their means of livelihood? Very interesting.

Ever taken that leap in an unexpected direction? Were you successful, or did you fail? Did you feel good about it one way or the other?

For me that was the moment that I made it back out of the Grand Canyon. I was there with fellow classmates on a big three-week trip out west, an adventure. It was the longest period of time I’d ever been away from home.  We studied archaeology with folks in a place near Cortez, Colorado called Crow Canyon, climbed Mesa Verde to see the cliff dwellings, visited the bats at Carlsbad Caverns, danced on the spot where the four corners of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah all come together, and ended the trip with a three night stay at the Grand Canyon, lots of hiking, and camping all the way. I’d climbed Table Rock Mountain the year before, but at the Grand Canyon, walking one of the mule tour trails, the climb in was one of the most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen. Cool and shady on the way down, the winding track ended with a large plateau about an hour down the trail with a fantastic view. The climb back out though was no picnic. It was sweltering, and it just seemed steeper and harder than it should be. The park guides had warned us to bring water, and take it easy, but it seemed like the further I climbed; the further away seemed the ridge.

There’s climbing a mountain with your classmates, knowing that if you can’t make it, you can always rest, and join them on their way back to the bus, but when you’re climbing to the ridge at the Grand Canyon, It’s just you, your canteen and the sun until you make it out, and after a while I was starting to slow down, and fall behind. A little longer still, I was baking, and could no longer see any of my classmates ahead of me on the trail.

When I arrived at the top, I was broken, and drenched, and last, but in the faces of my classmates, where I was expecting to find annoyance, or disgust with my falling behind, I only found friendship, well rested friends and applause for finally making it to the top. Sarcasm or no, I didn't care. I'd made it, and that was all that mattered.

I knew at that moment, that anything life sent my way, I’d be able to handle it.

So, what’s that moment for you, when you looked around, and despite the task, ordeal or situation, you realized that whatever life sent your way, you really could make it on your own?

When was that moment for you?

There are times in life when you have to deal with your name. Everybody's got a hang up. Some people don't like their middle name, others think they'd rather have a different first name, but I've always liked mine. The only thing about mine, is that it's an easy target. With a name like Saye, it's never been a challenge to make fun of, and I've heard them all. It's gotten to the point over the last several years that I now react with a calm "Oooo, that's a new one," when someone gives me a fresh jibe over my name that I haven't actually heard before. Sometimes I even laugh at them. I decided that I would come to terms with my name (besides the fact, that doesn't Saye sound like a great name for a writer?) when Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney came out with their song "Say Say Say." I can't tell you how many times I've had people come up to me and try to sing it at me.

I don't know whether they think I'll take offense, or if it's supposed to upset me, but mostly, it just annoys, and if you stand there long enough and just listen, the singer will eventually look foolish and just stop. Here's the thing though, after all these years, and having that song sung to me like I'm some kind of immaculate karaoke judge, It's gotten into my brain. In many ways it's sort of become my theme song. I've never owned a copy of the song. Never had the single, never downloaded it on iTunes, or bought it in any other way. I think I may have had a copy of the song on tape at some point copied off the radio, but most of those were short-lived attempts to keep music. I realized recently that I didn't need to have a copy.

When it's been ground into your brain by people all around you, you don't need to have a copy of your own. You have one with you all the time. It frequently plays through my mind, while I'm on the train, or sitting in traffic. No headphones required. It's always there for me. It's like a constant companion. No matter how old Paul is getting, or all the tragedy Michael went through before he died, this song will always be a part of me, which brings me to another point.

Something I've thought about for a while now. I believe that certain books, movies, songs or other media, maybe even favorite recipes that you cherish from your childhood or sort-of fast-track through heavy repetition later in live may actually become a part of your soul. For me, it's mostly movies, and old television shows that stick in there, but get me talking about the difference between the soundtracks from The Little Shop of Horrors's Broadway album and the one from the movie, and you'll know which one of those is a part of my soul. Which brings me back to writing what you know. What do I know? Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica (both the old and the new...), Indiana Jones, all the way up to today, and shows like Warehouse 13. Talking books, it's everything from H.G. Wells, Ray Bradbury and Douglas Adams, to Simon Green and Stephen King, with a goodly sprinkle of Terry Pratchet. These stories, movies and songs have become a part of my soul. (Dungeons & Dragons anyone?)

I used to wonder how to write what you know (and still be interesting) when what I knew was all school, and work, and whatnot, keeping it from a totally personal and real world knowledge, then I started to think about what it was I was really thinking about. What do I know?

Space Opera, and swashbuckling. May as well give into it right?

They say to write what you know. That's a hard thing for me to accept sometimes. There's always this balance between two extremes for me. I've always wanted to write science fiction, and to a certain extent, that's the only thing I've ever been really interested in. Of course I tend to lump this all into fantasy vs. science fiction, which is really a different post all together, but this is the crux of the matter in my mind. You see, I figured out recently that what I know is science fiction.

I used to think that writing what you know meant that I was supposed to write about things that I actually knew about, school, going to work, office politics, what it's like to be a father, the trials and tribulations of everyday life. The kind of thing that when incorporated into a screenplay, you could shoot it without a single special effect. All that's nice, but I don't think they make a compelling story all by themselves. I just love space too much. Space and pirates. Har!

So recently I sat down and listed out all the fantastic science fiction that I've ever loved, from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the Illustrated Man to Star Wars and Harry Potter. What I know is all science fiction and fantasy. So, I may as well write that. I kept the list, and maybe I'll talk about them all, everything from the first time I deconstructed a story into it's component parts to learning to write notes in the dark for Film School (I can still do it pretty well) but again, those are all another post.

Take the movie Dreamscape for instance, a fairly low budget thriller about psychics that train to enter people's dreams in a big secret government project, when it turns out that they are being trained to become killers, keying in on the idea that if you die in your dream, you die in life. I know this not to be true from personal experience, having died many times in my dreams, but that's not the point, it's still an interesting story that keeps coming back over and over again for me. Sometimes I think I'm the only one I know who cares for the film, but that didn't stop me from using it as inspiration for a screenplay I wrote during College for a screenwriting course.

Dream delving. It's a powerful concept isn't it? The idea of entering someone else's dream, or even just taking control of your own. I've done that sometimes, when I woke up just enough to realize it's a dream, and you have a moment there of lucidity, and you're suddenly in control. Who wouldn't want to do that on a massive scale? I mean what if the dream world is the real world and this one is just an illusion we use to keep us from flipping out at just how wild, crazy and creative the world around us really is?

Drop a dream in your story and see what happens.

I have to admit, that many years ago, when the mustache crawled across the Tick's face and started typing a note to him in Spanish, that I've been thinking about growing my own. It took many years, (I wonder why sometimes) but I've finally done it, beard and all. Though I think about shaving it off every single day, I can't help but be thankful that I did it. I had always wondered, and this may sound odd, what God intended my face to look like. So, while on vacation to Disney World what seems like a lifetime ago now, I decided to toss the razors and see how long I could take it.

I'm happy to say that I kind of like the look. It hides a lot of my neck, and it's not nearly as uncomfortable as I thought it might be in the Georgia heat.I think everyone should try one eventually. The truth is I don't think I thought would actually like it. I figured in three months or six months that I would shave it off and be done with it, but the truth is that nearly two years later I still have it. prior to this I had fooled around with growing a beard, but every time the at the week's end I couldn't stand it and I would shave it off. There was one time when I was working at a local seminary where I let it go for a week and gave it a good look in the mirror and really thought about keeping it because I liked the way it looked. In the end it took a Disney trip and seriously working through an itchy stage before I got it finished. Interestingly there's a patch on the left side of my face about the size of a thumb print that doesn't really grow at all. That should keep me debating cutting the sides off and going for more of a goatee instead of the full beard for a while.

It's of course there's a lot of writers out there who are famous for their beards, Stephen King being one of them who have always admired I consider George Lucas a great storyteller, also with a good beard and who could forget the practically iconic Alan Moore, responsible for some of the best Swamp Thing has to offer as well as Watchmen and the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, please the comic book and not the movie. I don't know whether I am modeling myself after these people, justifying a beard based on some of my personal heroes or just considering it an amusing story. Either way it seems the beard is here to stay, at least for a while.

When I think about all the stories that have influenced me in the past, I tend to keep coming back to Alice in Wonderland. It's not really something that I plan to do, it's not really something that I actively do, it's just something that happens. Mostly it has to do with Disney's version of Alice in Wonderland, cartoon, but I do have a great love for the book, and it seems like whenever something comes up about Alice in Wonderland, people tend to ask me like I'm supposed to know something about it. So I may as well list it among the things that are bouncing around in my head that inspire me all the time.

The Cheshire cat for instance, always one of my favorite parts of either the book or the movie, the Cheshire cat sets the tone of surrealism that I've rarely seen achieved elsewhere and it's something that I would love to aspire to. I think about the Cheshire cat and I think here's a character totally designed to make you crazy, something that is in there just to test Alice's nerve. He can say one thing, and then say something totally different, and I believe he actually believes what he says each time. To him the two different realities that he describes are both absolutely valid to him in the moment he says them. In his mind the Cheshire cat can see all possible future and relate them to variant of pasts and it all makes sense to him, unless he's just stirring the pot again, trying to see how far he can push you.

Whenever the Cheshire cat shows up, Alice has to be on her guard even more than normal for such a mad world because when the Cheshire cats around he knows how to push all the buttons of all of the characters who surround him and he can do it all at the same time. We have to watch out for character like that into the protagonists because they can ruin your life very very fast, or they are too else in Wonderland can save the day at the last minute you just never know with them. It's an interesting thought when you start to consider supporting characters, because the best supporting characters seem to me to be a little bit antagonist and a little bit protagonists all of the same time a good supporting character should steal all the scenes there in and make you root for them when you know they're wrong.

When you're building a next story, heck maybe when I'm building my next story, make sure to think about the motivations of your supporting characters. If you  backstab your main character; see how far you can twist the knife. And if they're there for support what they die for the hero? Somebody's got to win the best supporting actor Oscar, may as well be a character you came up with right?

There are things in my life that have great meaning, and the idea of playing music is one of those things. It's also the thing that has made me think a lot about what I'm doing and what I want out of life, and it's also been one of the hardest things I've ever taken on, but occasionally over the years I've had this bug to learn to play music.

I decided a few months ago to start to learn to play an instrument. I have never played one before save for about a three week stint in my teens when I decided that the guitar wasn't for me, and after nearly twenty years later I still had the bug. I can paint, I can write, and I can sing, and though the site of me dancing is an experience all of its own, I still want to learn to play an instrument.

So, I laid them all out. What should I learn to play? Should I learn to play the piano? I don't really want to learn anything that big, and I don't count electric keyboards in the mix. Aside from the fun to be had by Ferris Bueler, I've really never seen the attraction, so without the room for a baby grand or an upright, I really didn't want something that I couldn't carry around. So, with that thought, out go the xylophones and drums as well.

I thought about brass instruments, and woodwinds. Would they be a possibility? Every time I ask someone what kind of instrument I should learn, I hear "Learn the saxophone." and I have to admit that I considered it. I considered it for so long that nearly ten years went by, and I still wasn't learning how to play an instrument! The problem with woodwinds and brass is, that you have to use your mouth, and I like to talk. I like to talk and tell stories, and use any instrument like I'm some kind of bard or wandering minstrel. I like to think of myself sometimes as one of those long lost fire side story tellers, complete with a goat skull cap, with the wild beard and the magician's staff, the keeper of a vast tradition of oral teachings or entertainments. So they were out. If you can't talk while you play then I'm just not interested in it.

That left me with strings. I wasn't really interested in getting on the wagon again with the guitar. Holding the neck was painful, and awkward for me, so I had to find something else. I still saw myself as one of these wandering storytellers though, so I wanted to make sure that It would fit that for me. Something that I could take with me when telling a story. Veering away from the guitars, I was led more to bluegrass instruments. While not generally my thing, they have potential, and I like the way they sound.

When I really got serious, and started getting into it, I landed on the Mandolin. Or maybe it landed on me, I'm not sure. I'm still no good with it, and maybe I never will be, but I expect that if I stick with it long enough, I'll get good enough to satisfy myself. I bought it before I lost my nerve, after much debate and gnashing of teeth. It wasn't so much the cost of the Mandolin. I had decided to get a student quality one, but the lessons, and that's not even about the money, but the time involved. They say it takes about two years to get good at an instrument. I'm two months down now, and I still haven't propperly introduced my left hand to my right yet. Ah well. I'll get there.

I'm looking forward to it though, wherever it leads me. One thing is for sure. I like being someone who has bought an instrument and is struggling with it, a lot better than being someone who hasn't taken the leap yet.

An important note: The video clip on this entry is not me. I only aspire to this. One day I'll get there. Right now, it makes my hand cramp just to watch this.

Have you taken your leap yet? No? Get on with it!