Hello folks, and welcome to the first edition of Weekend Wrap Up. It’s…basically what it sounds like: I write a wrap up of the things I’ve done throughout the week. I used to do something very similar to this once upon a time, but I fell out of doing it for various reasons.

Something I’m trying to do in the new year is double down on my writing. I mentioned in a recent blog post that I’m approaching 30, and looking back on the past 10 years, I don’t think I’ve been as serious as I should have been, and I’d like to try and change that. Does this count as writing? Not the kind I mean, but I’m trying to chronicle my journey along the way and hold myself accountable.

Let’s get to it, shall we?

What I’ve Been Writing

I’m currently working on a short story for an online short fiction site. One of my goals for 2019 is to write at least one short story a month and submit it. I’m trying to do a few things here:

1. Get used to having a deadline and writing to meet it.
2. Get better about submitting new work instead of revisiting and revising the same things over and over.
3. Grow thicker skin by exposing myself to more rejections and critiques.
4. Build up writing muscles that atrophied in 2018 by practicing the basics of writing again.

Short stories are a particular type of magic – you have to get in and out very fast, the frame of the story generally has to be more narrow and focused, your prose has to be fierce and lean. My aim is to practice the basics of writing again: tone, pacing, characterization, dialog.

As for this story specifically, since it’s the first piece of writing I’ve worked on since November of 2017, I’m having some real trouble getting back into the swing of things. I’ve started this story 4 times so far, and almost did it a 5th but forced myself to keep going with the draft I’m working on now.

It’s not just that my writing feels clunky to me. It’s a genre and tone I don’t typically write much in. I’m going for a slightly different type of story than I have in the past, and I’m not sure I can do justice to the ideas in my head. But I’m trying to remind myself, this is me experimenting, trying new things, and learning. The POINT is to get rejections. That’s not to say intentionally fail, but rather to understand this is practice and skills take time to improve.

What I’ve Been Reading

I read virtually nothing besides some comics last year, so one of my goals is to catch up on fiction that I saw, thought, “Oh, I should get around to reading that,” but didn’t actually read.

First, I’m reading Chuck Wendig’s Zeroes, which is a sci-fi thriller about a group of hackers of various stripes being drafted by the government to work toward some ultimate purpose of which they’re not aware beyond the specific tasks they’re given. I started with Chuck because his is a career I very much want to emulate. Not to say that I want to copy his path and try to cheat my way into the industry or anything doofy like that. That’s impossible and stupid. But he writes the types of books that I want to write: usually contemporary set sci-fi/fantasy/horror thrillers. I like an alt-world fantasy or a space opera, but it’s not where my heart lies.

In particular, I’m studying how he handles pacing and plot – how he creates scenarios and plays them out, how he introduces twists, when and how the characters drive the plot. Plus, it’s just been a fun read. I work in tech, so it’s been interesting when he mentions what the characters are doing vs. when he sort of hand waves the technical stuff away. (That’s not a criticism fyi – he’s writing a book, not a technical manual.)

I’ve also been reading Slash of the Titans: The Road to Freddy vs. Jason. It’s a non-fiction book about the long and strange road that led to the 2003’s Freddy vs. Jason. There were plans for the two franchises to overlap since the 80s, but it took decades and at least 10 scripts before the studio(s) could find an approach they were willing to go with. The author obtained copies of the real scripts in their various iterations and examines each draft: where they embrace or depart from the lore of the two series, which series is more foundational to the plot, and where some drafts were influenced by previous drafts. Book ending each script rundown is an interview with the writer of the draft.

It’s been a fascinating read so far. I’m reading on Kindle right now, but I really think I want to pick this up in print at some point just to keep it around as a historical record.

What I’ve Been Watching

Mostly, in the evenings to unwind, my wife and I have been watching Brooklyn 99, which I hadn’t watched until this month. Andy Samberg was one of those actors I liked in small doses, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to watch an entire series carried by him. But wow B99 is something else. Smart, funny, kind, optimistic, but also appropriately critical of the police’s role in society. Seriously, if you haven’t checked it out, absolutely do.

Beyond that, I have an AMC A-List membership, so most weekends we do get out to the theater to see a few movies, which leads me to the Keanu Reeves sci-fi thriller Replicas and Glass, the sequel to Unbreakable.

First, I want to talk about Glass. I really liked it. When it first came out, most of the film journalists I follow were at best lukewarm on it, if not outright cold. The most positive review I saw for a while was MovieBob’s, and it wasn’t exactly a full-throated recommendation. I’m wondering if maybe some of the cold reception was a combination of unreasonable expectations? By that I mean, I know many folks consider Unbreakable M. Night Shyamalan’s best movie. I watched it once or twice growing up, but it wasn’t something I watched religiously, so I wonder if that helped my enjoyment? Maybe not, it’s just something I was thinking about.

Anyway, From my own perspective, I thought Glass was really fun and a solid sequel to both Unbreakable and Split. We rewatched the two former movies the night before going to see the latter, and I’m glad I did. I mentioned to my wife that Unbreakable felt like the first 20 or 30 minutes of a Spider-Man movie spread out over two hours–which wasn’t a criticism.

Unbreakable is a thoughtful meditation on not necessarily the “superhero origin story” as we’ve come to know it, but more narrowly the discovery of superpowers and what that can mean for the individual and how they interact with the world.

Glass feels like the other 60 minutes of the Spider-Man film. Now that the hero is aware of their powers, and are maybe even exploring them, they’ve also drawn the attention of someone who is threatened by or inspired by the hero, and decides to change the world in light of this new information.

I’d like to do a more full write up somewhere down the line, but something that struck me is how all three films are about trauma and how surviving that trauma changes you. That seems to get lost in trying to decide if the world has moved on from deconstructions of superheroes in our modern superhero blockbuster age, and that’s a shame.

As for Replicas…I’m glad Keanu Reeves keeps getting work between John Wick movies.

Reeves plays a scientist working on mapping and transferring the human mind to a computerized simulation of the brain. When his entire family dies in a car accident, Reeves enlists a colleague to clone their bodies so he can map his family’s minds to these new hosts. While everything seems hunky dory at first, complications around the procedure arise and he soon has to deal with the repercussions of his decisions.

I really wanted to like this movie, and although it was blatantly cribbing from about 5 other better movies, I was hoping for a least a fun, low-budget romp, and it’s always nice to see Keanu. Instead, it was astoundingly cheap, featuring CGI effects from genre TV shows in the 90s, and poor, stilted acting, particularly the actress playing Reeve’s wife. Half the time, I couldn’t tell if she was being awkward and sinister because of plot reasons or bad direction.

What I’ve Been Doing

I haven’t been doing much beyond trying to get this story completed. That said, there are a handful of other things I’ve started doing to try to reach some of my goals in 2019:

I’m trying to exercise more. I fell out of the habit, unfortunately, and I’m trying to get back into it. I’ve been walking after work when I’m able on a trail I found near my house, but it’s been so cold lately that it’s hard to get out there. The other day I went for a walk and came back with my face feeling like a rubber mask.

I’m also trying to eat healthier, specifically by counting calories. I know I overeat, and it’s helped me in the past to know when to stop. It’s easier to tell myself, “Okay, I have 40 calories left today, so I better skip that slice of cake” than it is to say, “Well…I really want that cake. It’s probably okay to have just ONE piece, right?”

And lastly, I’m trying to be more sociable. I’m already very introverted and closed off, and this past year, I have been especially so, both online and off. I’ve been content to just passively watch other people interact, and it’s put me in a place where I feel very isolated and lonely. I’m trying to change that, to put myself out there and talk to folks. Even if I don’t feel confident. Even if it’s scary. Even if I’m afraid of coming across weird. And it has been hard. I’ve sent messages to folks on Facebook or Twitter, and when they didn’t respond or at least acknowledge they got it, I’ve had to fight through a torrent of doubts and self-loathing. But, I think it’s worth trying.

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And that’s the wrap up for this week. Next week’s entry will be interesting because we’ll have the zero session for my next D&D game, but in the meantime, I’ll just keep plugging away at this story.

One final note: something I’ve read online is that it’s easier to meet goals if you treat it like a group activity. If you’re interested in writing and would be interested in becoming critique partners – especially if you like horror, although I’m open to basically any genre fiction – hit me up. We can trade excerpts or short stories, or even just holding each other accountable for weekly word count goals and commiserate.

Anyway, that’s all from me. See y’all next week.