A Furniture Monarch Has Feelings

Sofa King happy, Sofa King sad.
Sofa King greatful, Sofa King mad.
Sofa King sleepy or Sofa King wired,
Sofa King glad just to be admired.
Sofa King gloomy, Sofa King bright
Sofa King heavy, Sofa King light.
Sofa King bad or Sofa King good,
Sofa King acting best as he could.
Sofa King time to say nighty-night
Hush hit the bed, sleepy-bye, nighty-night

I don't write #SciFi… or do I?

For some reason lately I have been thinking a lot about the NaNoWriMo story I wrote in 2011.  When I was done I hated it.  It was supposed to be a sexy, funny space adventure full of quirky characters with a little bit of political and societal commentary.  It was none of the above.  I just seemed to dredge on and on without hitting the marks.  My characters were indeed quirky but never lived up to their potential and even though I created a whole universe and laws and so forth ─The Complete Idiots Guide To The Universe (And Beyond)─ I just couldn't do it.  Maybe it's because I wasn't a fan of SciFi as a kid.  I am now but not with the same love as someone who was a fan all their lives.

Another issue is that writing comedy is hard.  I think I'm a pretty funny guy (feel free to disagree with me) but keeping that up through a whole novel is really hard.  I have read very few books that were truly funny, James Herriot comes to mind as does this gem by Christopher David Petersen called What The Hell's Up With Heaven?

It was so taxing writing this and I was so disappointed with the end result that I took a break from writing for a month (which turned into a whole year).  During this time I lost most of my writing in an unfortunate series of events including a crashed laptop which I used to back everything up (this was ironic as I don't store anything on my writing laptop because I'm always afraid it is going to implode and never does) as well as a flash drive that decided it was going to take all my files and translate them into gibberish.  I wasn't to sad about losing my NaNo story.  Now I am.  Maybe it's that absence makes the heart grow fonder (or is it absinthe makes the smart go wronger anyway…).

What I really should be doing now if focusing on my current WIP and just letting this one ferment but I can't help it so I am going to take a moment here to introduce you to that SciFi story I was working on and maybe later I will come back here and look at this and it will kick-start a new story.

James Styne Goes To Space (working title)

Synopsis:

James Styne is a career soldier in the Earth Navy Mars division and in his vary last year of being eligible to be the commander of his own ship.  His career had been halted by an unfortunate incident with a Generals daughter during his training and has plagued him ever since.  Running out of excuses his superiors finally assign him a ship and crew but do so with the full intention of failing.  The ship is a relic from the Americas and his crew are a bunch of misfits that the Navy has been hiding because they don't know what else to do with them.

The Good Guys

Characters:

Name: James Styne

Rank: Captain - Probationairy

Race: Human

Home Planet: Earth

A womanizing smart ass who questions authority.  He is the greatⁿ grandson of Allan Bartholomew Ian Styne, the greatest mind in history and the man that actually uncovered the truth of the universe.  He wrote The Complete Idiots Guide To The Universe (And Beyond).

Name: Reggie Cross

Rank: 1st Mate

Race: Human

Home Planet: Mars

Best friend of James since military school who rose through the ranks and joined the training program.  He joins James' crew to save James from himself taking a rank reduction in the process.

Name: Crissy Blane

Rank: Civilian - Empath

Race: Unknown Humanoid

Home Planet: Unknown Found on Mars

Crissy Blane is an empath but with severe limitations.  She can read minds but only if she is connected to the person sexually and them to her.  She can see the future however when she has a vision she goes into a convulsive orgasm and is unable to communicate until after the event has happened.

Name: Howard LaMonde

Rank: Private - Mechanic

Race: Formerly Human

Home Planet: Earth

Jake Howard is a ghost that has been attached to the ship, ENM Washington D.C. since he died in an unfortunate accident over a hundred years before.  No one including him knows why he didn't cross over to the beyond.  The army had no protocols for what to do with a trapped spirit and were unable to release him from service involuntarily so they were forced to keep him.  He is more useful than you would think as he can travel throughout circuitry.  He is able to use and move objects even though he is completely transparent.

Name: Gork

Rank: Private - Gunner

Race: Gork

Home Planet: Unknown

Gork is a seven foot tall three hundred and fifty pound hairy beast with short horns and an extremely limited vocabulary (I had actually created a gork/english dictionairy).  No one is quite sure where he came from or even how he ended up in the Navy.  His job as a gunner is to man the turret guns which are housed in a pod designed for a small human but for some reason Gork loves it in there even though he can barely move.  He even sleeps in his turret.

Name: Brian

Rank: 1st Officer - Helmsman

Race: Zygod

Home Planet: Unpronounceable (The actual official name the Milky Way Alliance gives it, only Zygods are able to say the actual name)

The Zygod's planet is just on the outside of the territory of the Milky Way Alliance (MWA) and are enemys.  Brian's father was a prisoner but what they didn't know was that, A) Male Zygods carry the children and B)Brian's father was pregnant.  He is very humanized with an affinity for 20th century Earth culture including 1970s rock and roll and pot.

Name: Sippertawn "Zippy" Ironthorpe

Rank: 1st Officer - Navigator

Race: Ironeze

Home Planet: Carbondale

Zippy's planet was destroyed by an asteroid but some of it's inhabitants were saved by the MWA.  At first the carbon-based refugees, Carbonics were believed to be the true inhabitants and the Ironeze thought to be robots as they were metal and filled with wires and ran on electricity.  The Carbonics were actually built by the Ironeze with artificial intelligence who had seen a chance at their survival by easily convincing their rescuers that they were in fact the true natives of the planet.  Many Ironeze were either not rescued or destroyed before the ruse was uncovered.  Zippy is one of only fifty Ironeze that exist.  His home planet had electricity in the air like Earth has air and must recharge himself regularly to survive.

Name: Theresa Godall

Rank: Private - Communications Officer

Race: Human

Home Planet: Mars

Former lover and current caretaker of Crissy Blane.  She is the only one who can detect with even mild certainty what Crissy's prognostications mean.  She is also a former one-night stand of Reggie's.

The Bad Guys

Name: General Maxwell Gregg

Rank: General, three stars

Race: Human

Home Planet: Earth

James had had a sexual encounter with his daughter resulting in a pregnancy which James never knew about. General Gregg has done everything in his power to try to court marshall or dishonorbly discharge James including plans which had resulted in his own inability to obtain his fourth star and be able to relocate back to his beloved Earth.

Name: Super-General Octavid

Rank: Super-General (Octopus Revolutionairy Army)

Race: Octopus

Home Planet: Earth

Within fifty years of social experiments on the highly intelligent octopuses they have formed a society which unbeknown to humans is attempting to take over the world.  Super-General Octavid is the leader of this movement.  His ability to not give in to his sexual compulsions has granted him a very long life (male octopuses die after ejaculation).  He has been pretending to be an ally to the MWA but only so that he can place spies throughout the organization.  He has had little success until he befriends General Gregg and convinces him to allow an ambassador to join the crew of the Washington D.C.  Octopuses can communicate with each other over infinite distances using telepathy.

The Ship

The ENM Washington D.C. was formerly the USS Washington.  It was in service before the Earth became one central government.  It is outfitted with similarly speced propulsion systems of modern ships however no one with the exception of Howard LaMonde knows how to repair them and as it was made in a secret factory on Mars which was destroyed during the American uprising no parts are available.  All of the systems are in an antiquated measuring system called the US customary units which cause great confusion.

Writing all of this has got me thinking again, dammit!  "FOCUS ON YOUR CURRENT WIP"

Anyway…

I'm sure we all have lost projects that keep popping into our heads, what is yours?

Thanks for Reading

NaNoWriMovember



Writin', with a Stylin' Stache!

I can't grow a mustache to save my life, and coincidentally if I tried to grow one my life would need saving… from my wife.  She hates facial hair, well, my facial hair.  She says it's like little razor blades, she won't hardly kiss me if I'm not clean shaven which is a bit of an issue as my stubble grows in quickly (to make matters worse, it grows in quick but patchy, I skip over the rugged look right to the homeless bum in about 12 hours).

For the last two years I have made an attempt at Movember with pitiful results I must say, and all joking aside my wife was supportive of my efforts but come December 1st I was expecting her to tie me up and shave me… actually that sounds kinda hot, I may have to try that next year.

Anyways…

So as the whole Movember thing is a complete loss to me I decided instead to just make the above photo combining the two together.  Now I thought the whole NaNoWriMovember thing was a unique concept that I alone came up with, as usual my original ideas have previously been copyrighted, trademarked, patented, forged, reversed engineered, knocked off and… well, you get the picture.  It does however make for some rather witty banter on twitter, here are a few gems I pulled out of the #NaNoWriMovember hashtag:

option8: This month, my mustache will be writing a novel.#NaNoWriMovember
cavaticat: What I'm saying is I don't do #NaNoWriMo, but if I did I would rarely eat or pee & never shave. My beard would be glorious. #nanowrimovember
kprobbins: #NaNoWriMo and #Movember go hand in hand. Maybe I'll sit on my #prostate and write a #novel this month. #NaNoWriMovember
himupnorth: This month I am going to write a novel about a man who grows a moustache #NaNoWriMovember I might call it Taches to Taches... or maybe Bristle Down the Wind

Well I hope everyone's lip is tingling with growth and fingers on fire with words!

Happy NaNoWriMovember!

Oh…
Don't forget about #3ForThursday tomorrow at 9:00am Eastern.  There may be a mustache related prompt!

Thanks for Reading

D. Ryan Leask

This Complete Idiot's Guide to the Galaxy (and Beyond)

I am working on putting my theory of the universe that has been rattling around in my head and brewing up since I was a teenager (which wasn't that long ago, in relation to the age of the Universe).  This is how the Synopsis may read:

Anyone can have a theory. Many express their views in print, but never before has it been done like this, at least not in this small corner of the galaxy. It's a theory of the universe from the eyes of a complete idiot who knows nothing about science and even less about good science. Using popular science and pop culture, this essay delves into this very deep subject with social commentary, a bit of logic and a few potty jokes thrown in for good-measure.
The universe has never been twisted such.

Here is an excerpt:

It’s A Trap!
In the movie In the Mouth of Madness, the main character, John Trent, finds himself unable to escape from Hobb’s End, a sleepy east coast village. No matter which way he drives out of town he always ends up back there. In the end he keeps his sanity while everyone else loses theirs, which makes him insane in relation. This is what will happen to you if you attempt to question my theories. Anyways, I digress.
We could look at the universe as Hobb’s End. No matter which way we travel we will always end up back where we start. You will never know when you’ve hit the “wall” of the universe because to pass through it, which you really don’t, you are on the other side of the universe. This is a bastardization of my theory but for exampletive purposes it will do. In the same way that Everything exists inside the universe, Nothing can get out. There’s no trap door, secret tunnel or passage ways that appear when you say the magic words, “Open Sesame!.” The wall might as well be impregnable, mostly because you don’t know where it is when you get to it, and because even if you did know where it is “breaking through it” would just start you on a path back to the beginning. I call this D. Ryan Leask’s Law of You’re Trapped Mother F**ker! or simply YTMF!.

Of course now you find yourself asking “What if you could?”
To which I reply firmly “You can’t.”
“But just let’s pretend you can.” You retort.
“There’s no place for ‘pretending’ in science!” I exclaim.
“But you said…”
To which I reply, “Shit, you got me.”

(The next section is titled nothing, just so you know)

Thanks for Reading


D. Ryan Leask

Harper Collins/Penguin/Steadpress here I come! (someday, maybe)



I'm going to have to come to terms with the fact that I am terrible at self promotion.  This was my biggest downfall when I self-published through a vanity press (I just remembered what they're called, I also try not to think that I actually did this because it makes it sound like I was naïve and taken advantage of, which I may have been).  It's not that I don't enjoy promoting myself, I loved doing readings and book signings and would love to do more. I am not shy and I think I'm a born public speaker and incredibly outgoing.  The problem is that I have difficulty setting these things up.  It's difficult to explain where the problem lies.  If everything is set up for me, if I am told I need to be somewhere for a signing or a reading I will go, I will sign, I will read, smile, shake hands, greet people.  A reading is my favourite as the crowd has come specifically to hear me talk.  Signings are harder, especially if I am expected to leave my post or get people to come to me.  I am not a salesman, I am a writer, I will chat anyone up that wants to talk to me, but if they don't specifically want to, I feel like a dork (perhaps it's my lack of retail experience).
Even promoting on twitter feels wrong. I always think I am clogging up the twitterverse and my friends feeds with junkmail.  How much more advertising do I have to do there? I can't even seem to give away copies of my Novella "Counting Down the Storm" (which is available on Smashwords for FREE with the coupon code: JN54B until June 27). I find that when I try to do self promotion I do it in such a sheepish nature that I likely don't get anyone's attention or use humor which if it does lead someone to look at the story they realize that it isn't something humorous and they step away.
The other issue is time.  When I'm not doing my full time job, helping my wife raise our two very young kids, taking care of our two dogs, keeping up with repairs and renovations on an older home, attempting to keep our yard from growing an old car on blocks or writing I am sleeping.  I'm not sure where I would fit in enough time to convince people to buy my books.
It is obvious to me by the lack of response I am getting, lack of sales, lack of reviews and lack of any form of excitement, that I am doing something wrong (even if it's the writing, someone should have said by now, "shut up your book stinks").  I am not giving up on "Counting Down the Storm" (which is available on Smashwords for FREE with the coupon code: JN54B until June 27) though, I will keep doing what I am doing and hope to get at least some interest going.  I still hate to give it away though and after June 27th won't do another freebie for a while.

So, I have come to a conclusion (which will likely change by the time I hit PUBLISH POST and then three-hundred and fourteen thousand times from there until my current WIP is complete), I am going to attempt to get traditionally published next time. Writing Query letters, submitting samples, researching agencies and spending time on the wrong end of restraining orders from agents, can not be as much work as trying to get a few thousand people to read my self-published novel. I think the 15% royalty I will make will be worth it, after all that's not much better than you get at Amazon, and they give you nothing in return.


So fair warning Harper Collins/Penguin/Steadpress you shall know my name (it will be on that list of people that aren't allowed in your building)


Thanks for Reading
D. Ryan Leask

Finding my Writing Vice. A Journey to Addiction

The wine urges me on, the bewitching wine, which sets even a wise man to singing and to laughing gently and rouses him up to dance and brings forth words which were better unspoken.

---Homer

 

Write Drunk, Edit Sober

---Ernest Hemingway

 

 

I need a vice.  It always seems that the most creative people have addictions of some sort, even Robert Munsch admitted to a drug addiction (No, not the zany random Robert Munsch).  Two of my favourite literary figures, Hunter S. Thompson and Ernest Hemingway are both notoriously known for their life's excesses, it played heavily into their writing and without it they likely would not have been as successful as they were.

I doubt I can ever be taken seriously as a writer.  Who wants to read a story from someone who is happily married, never been to rehab or jail and doesn't even have a tattoo (I'm glad so few read this blog otherwise I would be so embarrassed).  For Christ's sakes the skeletons in my closet came with the house and I have the documentation to prove it!

I think the best sounding addiction for a writer is a sex addiction, the problem with that is (at least for male writers) is that an unsuccessful man does not make a very good bedfellow and being able to bed enough woman to be able to fulfill the necessary criteria for an addiction for someone who would have difficulty finding willing partners would really cut into writing time.

I used to smoke pot occasionally as a youth but, with the side effect of getting a good nights sleep and it's inability to be a gateway drug for me, it was almost the anti-drug.  At one time I could drink a 26 of rye (that's 26 oz of Canadian Whiskey for those that may not know) but that was before I owned a computer.  Have you ever tried using a typewriter drunk?  On a side note, they're a bitch to clean up when you puke on them!  That level of alcohol use was completely impractical when you lived at home and by the time I could afford, both time wise and dollar wise, to maintain a 26oz a day drinking habit my body couldn't handle it.  When it comes to hangovers I am a big baby and it's incredibly hard to find sympathy for hangovers (apparently it can be found in the dictionary between shit and syphilis but I've never bothered looking).

I found that I am way too much of a cheap bastard to be able to afford the "good drugs."  If I was making enough money to buy coke or heroine that would likely mean that I was already successful, see the loop?  I couldn't really imagine snorting cocaine off a designer coffee table with a $100 bill, first of all that coffee table could likely buy me a Macbook and the $100 bill would go a long ways to some really awesome writing software never mind the cost of the blow.

I used to have cigarettes.  God bless cigarettes, just bad ass enough for some legitimacy but not overly interfering with your day to day life, or so I always thought.  It turns out that when you have kids and a wife, who doesn't smoke, it's quite frowned upon.  It's not that enjoyable to stand outside at -30° shivering with your wife standing at the door giving you a dirty look and trying to keep the kids from seeing you for fear that they may start the same dirty habit.  It turned from a love of smoking (I really did love to smoke despite the known health risks) to smoking a butt in 3 minutes to keep me from freaking out.  I decided it was time to quit.  It's been four months. UPDATE: Apparently I am not a quitter… good for somethings, this, not so much

Image by Bortwein

What does that leave me with coffee?  Coffee? Who ever heard of a great artist dying from a coffee overdose.

D. Ryan Leask, celebrated author known for his excessive lifestyle and gritty real novels died today of an apparent coffee overdose, he was 36.  He had struggled with addiction his entire life and had recently been released from the Juan Valdez Clinic in Bogota, where he had been seeking treatment for caffeine over the last three months.  He is survived by his Three Ex-Wives, Elizabeth, Brittany and Kiki as well as numerous children.

I do have a coffee addiction but that is about as shocking as discovering dogs have a propensity for ballsack licking.  As far as vices go coffee is a weak one (but if you take my coffee away I swear to the almighty that I will rip out your gullet and shove it up a lion's ass!)

So in an effort to legitimize my future writing career and with much research and consultation with my family, my physician and numerous other people in my life I have decided to pursue an addiction, although not as lethal as Meth or as satisfying as Tequila but:

 

My god I love Shoestring licorice!

Thanks for Reading

D. Ryan Leask

Writing in Loops & Short Stories vs Novels

The Endless Loop

1. In order to write a book you must first have time
2. In order to have time you must avoid having a "real" job
3. To avoid having a "real" job you must have passive income
4. To have passive income you must have either:
1. A Spouse
2. In order to have a spouse you must have time to spend with/finding said spouse and any offspring that comes with this union
3. Plan Abort
5. or
1. Royalties
2. In order to have royalties you must be:
1. Published
2. To be published you should have an agent
3. To have an agent you need to have a book
4. Plan Abort
3. or
1. Self Published
2. To self publish you need money to publish your book and time to promote it as well as an excellent editor
3. Plan Abort

To avoid this endless loop there are two options

1. Plug away for years writing five minutes at a time in a dark corner somewhere when your wife/boss/child/prison guard isn't looking and hope that you complete your epic journey before you die then hope that someone discovers your work post mortem and they like it.
2. Go to university majoring in English or something and plan a career being a writer and having a job that caters to your dreams
1. Having missed opportunity #2 building a time machine and travelling back to 1994 and altering your course(s) then figuring out how to have all the people in your life you have now.

I think I am just going to suck it up and go with option #1.

Short Stories vs Novels
As I have alluded to a few times I have difficulty focusing my thoughts on just one story but I really need to so I ask you my constant reader(s) to assist me on the best course of action.

Complete a short story for submission to magazines/compolations etc.
Complete a novel to send to agencies etc.

Let's us just assume for a second that both the novel and short story are of equal quality.

A Magicless Wizard and Wise words for Flatulant Fungal Spore Creatures From Outerspace

I’d like to give the rules for the game that got me here today. I call it the
ASPIRING WRITER game. On your turn, you write a book. Then you submit. Then you
roll a 500-sided die, don’t look at it, cover it up. Wait 3 to 6 months (or
longer), then uncover the die. Is it on number 42? Nope? Well, write another
book. Submit both of your books. Roll two 500-sided die, don’t look at them,
cover them up. Wait 3-6 months (or logner), then uncover the die. Is it on
number 42? Nope? Well, repeat the above steps as often as necessary. And
remember, the game only ends when you quit.

---A. Lee Martinez

From his Blog Post: Zen of Games

Talent is like a muscle: without something to push against, it atrophies.

---Robert McKee

From Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting

(Quoted in Rachel Walsh's Blog Post: Boxing-In Your Muse)

Two completely unrelated quotes. Nothing to do with what I am going to talk about today.

My most productive imagination time is right before bed. It is the only time I have to myself that is quiet and I am able to contemplate things that do not matter in the real world. I generally lay awake for an hour moving and creating characters, figuring out how to set scenes and so on. Obviously I can't write any of this down the best I can do is try to retrieve it from my flawed memory tracks and commit it to paper. It never works as well as it did the night before. I wish someone would invent some sort of USB attachment for our brains.

That being said though I have formed and begun to write the opening sequence for my Were-squirrel story, the epic battle that led The Wizard to attempt to save lives of men by giving them "blood transfusions" (we are talking middle ages here so an extremely rudimentary attempt) using blood from Wolves and other wild animals.

It's a back story and a start to the Ware (Weir, Wiere, Were Where etc.) family, their special place in the world and their powers. The Wizard, a character whom I can not seem to give a name too that doesn't sound either incredibly stupid or too close to Merlin, is becoming very interesting and I think perhaps he needs to be in more places. I guess we'll see, it's the joy of writing.

The fun of The Wizard is that he is in fact a wizard and he also knows that magic does not exist. His magic and that of all wizards and witches is simply training, luck, observance and centuries of experiments. I sure wish I knew more about magic, not the fairy tale kind but the real behind the scenes stuff. Oh well, one of my favourite personal slogans:

Sometimes I just make shit up

Will apply well here.

As for Karma. I am going to give "Squirrel-boy" a rest and do a few lines (The Charlie Dickens kind, not the Charlie Sheen kind) and see how it goes.

"When lacking in action one must compensate with wit"

D.
P.S. I realized that up until now I have mention nothing about Flatulant Fungal Spore Creatures From Outerspace.

Blowing off the dust -Giving away 10 Free Copies of my book

Today's Entry


It's time for a little spring cleaning so it's also time to blow the dust off an old blog and maybe see if I can resurrect it as well as resurrecting my desire to become a more serious writer. I once had delusions of grandeur in believing that I could make a living at writing. Perhaps I could if I:
a: Was Single (or married to someone who made a buttload of cash)
b: Did not have a family (or was married to someone who made a buttload of cash and who hired a Nanny)
c: Was not at all concerned about where his next paycheck was coming in and did not have to rely solely on himself to get it. (or was... well you understand)

If I was a more practical man I likely would have found the wife I mentioned above, however as I am a dreamer (which is a pretty important thing for a writer to be) I choose love instead, silly yes but no regrets. (I will revisit that thought again in a few weeks when baby #2 is born).

So what is my new goal?

Just to get published somewhere, anywhere. I have numerous resources on where and what to send, now I just have to do it.

One nice thing about having self published is that I own all rights to my stories so I can sub those.