​The old adage is that writers write. I'm a writer, I have two books you can buy right now. Haven't written much in three months.
 
I'm not going to say I have writer block. It may be, but I'm not convinced. I think it's more akin to extreme procrastination. I am avoiding writing. I don't know why but I am. Once I sit down and start doing it I'm fine, it's the getting started part that I am struggling with.
 
Part of the problem is distraction. Unlimited data is not my friend. Netflix and Hulu must think I'm bed ridden. Ray Bradbury has strong opinions about TV and he is not someone I would lightly dismiss.
 
In addition, for the last two years I have been obsessing over various fandoms. (Looking at you RvB and Star Wars.) Other fans are a source of great delight to me but it is a deep hole that can be hard to get away from, especially if I am facing a hard scene.
 
Lastly, people. There is a lot of demand on my time. I strongly believe that investing in the right relationships is important but it has come at a cost and that price has been my dedicated writing time. I have to schedule that time and I have to defend it, vehemently, or it will never happen.
 
I am not saying any of these activities are bad. All I am saying is that for me they are not helping me advance in my writing. If it doesn't contribute to my current goal of finishing book three it has to be set aside.
 
So. This is what I am resorting to. My goal, once a day, just write one sentence. That's it. Five to fifteen little words in the context of my story.
 
But you see it’s trick. Once I write one sentence the next one comes pretty easily. In no time I have a bona fide paragraph. And then I am on my way. As a precaution I have made myself accountable to someone. I text them that I have done my sentence. If they don’t hear from me they ask about it. Somedays I only have enough energy for the one sentence, but it’s still progress, I am still moving forward.
 
This is nothing new, it's Anne Lamont's bird by bird story. Start with one word, then do another. Don't think about the big picture. Focus on that one thing. Because all I need right now is my shitty first draft and the only way to get that is laying down sentences one word at a time.

In the past I have posted pictures of what some of my characters would wear. Since I am working a lot with the four, Brendan, Kristy, Matt, and Derek, in book three I wanted to expand that a little bit. So here you go.

At the San Francisco Comic Convention I got lots of compliments on my cosplay guns so I thought I would post my how to so you can make your own. For something like this it more about time over skill. If you can paint by numbers you can do this.

STEP 1: Sand. You will most like need a couple different grades of sand paper. The main point it to get off any shiny parts. It's good to start with a rougher grade and then and use a finer grade to smooth the surface.  

This can create a lot of dust so if you are sensitive you will want to wear a protective face mask.

STEP 2: Modify. Make any major cosmetic changes now. Since this was a water gun it's most glaring flaw was the water spout coming out of the top of the water chamber. I used a hack saw for this one. It was a soft plastic so it wasn't too bad. If it had been the hard kind, like what the handle is made of, I don't know if a hack saw would have done the job. 

After all the sanding and sawing you will get all the dust off with a wet cloth or just go ahead and run it under some water.

STEP 3: Patch. I had to cover up all the holes. Not only the giant one that was now on the top but also all the little ones where all the screws are (see above). For the big holes I got some wall patches from the hardware store. For the little one I used puddy. I have also use Gorilla glue. It expands as it dries so you do not want to fill it to the top. It can be sanded down later if needed. I just stuffed all the little holes with puddy and let them dry

STEP 4: Prime. You will want to coat everything with some spray paint primer. Let it dry completely.

Note that I taped over the part of the gun that is the hand grip. I did not paint it at all because I didn't want to chance the paint coming off on people's hands as  well as not wanting to agitate skin allergies or anything like that.

Step 5: Paint. I choose to spray paint everything silver as base layer so that if any of the blue came off there would still be a color that. This took 3 or 4 stages since I had to paint one angle, let it dry, and then do another angle. You don't want to spray too heavily or you will get drip marks.

​Using the silver as a base had an unexpected result. I used the sponges to apply the blue paint. With the first stroke my royal blue mixed with the silver and to get the light blue panels you see. I actually liked how it looked so I just went with it. But if you want to make sure that doesn't happen then use the masking tape to cover up the sections to want to be different colors. If the tape takes any paint off you can touch up later.

In order to get the darker color I had to dab the paint on rather than dragging the sponge across the silver. This took 2-3 layers. 

Make sure to let each layer dry completely.

Having learned my lesson from the rifles I did make sure to cover up all the parts I wanted blue for the hand guns. It took more time but I did get the results I was hoping to achieve. For the ones below I also got silver and blue Sharpie Paint pens to help with the more detailed work on these. The work good but the paint does come off so you don't want to use the Sharpie paint pens for any part that would get touched a lot. Or you can just touch it up often to.

And that is how I turned water guns into lazer rifles. If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment or contact me using the "Contact Me" page. Have fun!

I have collected below all the posts I've made regarding the DPA. I try to make the worlds of my stories bigger than the books. Enjoy.

Bonus Material:
http://www.elbiefree.com/rants-n-raves/origin-story-elbie
http://www.elbiefree.com/rants-n-raves/character-spotlight-agent-ian-reynolds
http://www.elbiefree.com/rants-n-raves/character-spotlight-esbenedward-drake
http://www.elbiefree.com/rants-n-raves/character-spotlight-lheilh
http://www.elbiefree.com/rants-n-raves/origin-story-the-kids (Spoilers)
http://www.elbiefree.com/rants-n-raves/origin-story-the-dpa
 
Behind the Scenes:
http://www.elbiefree.com/rants-n-raves/hidden-treasure
http://www.elbiefree.com/rants-n-raves/random-thoughts-from-characters (Spoilers)
http://www.elbiefree.com/rants-n-raves/found-things3
http://www.elbiefree.com/rants-n-raves/the-secret-history-of-gifted1
 
The Movie:
http://www.elbiefree.com/rants-n-raves/trespassing-the-movie
http://www.elbiefree.com/rants-n-raves/trespassing-the-movie-part-2
http://www.elbiefree.com/rants-n-raves/trespassing-the-movie-part-3

I've mentioned it before here, but I want to say it again. I plant Easter Eggs in my stories. So if you're reading something from me and wonder, did that come from INSERT NAME? It's a good possibility, especially if it's from a movie. For example, I am working on Book 3. I just used the number 117 for something. 117 is an intentional reference to Halo, Master Chief's school designation, John-117.

Below are the lists for the first 2 books. No spoilers.

Book 1 - Trespassing:
Chapter 1, section 3 we get a quick background on Walter Fielding, a newly retained host. As mentioned above, The Money Pit is the source for Walter’s name, wife’s name, location and vocation.

-Top of Chapter 2. “How not to be seen” is a reference to a Monty Python sketch.

-In Chapter 3 the IT room they are in is “room 101”. Room 101 is from George Orwell’s book, 1984 and is a place of personal nightmares. By using this reference I am attempting a subconscious connection to how the characters think about this space.

-Chapter 6, section 5 I had Korben Dallas from The Fifth Element in mind when it came down to making one person question if the safety on the gun is on or off. 

-End of Chapter 10 my villain borrows a line from Darth Vader in Empire Strikes Back. When Vader and Boba Fett are discussing the condition of carbon freezing Han Solo. You’ll know when you read it.

 -Chapter 12, Lysandra is trapped inside a mini-theater. This setting was inspired by a recent visit to Castro Theater here in San Francisco. 

The amazing thing about this, is that the theater is in her own head. Not two days after I wrote the scene I was reading a book about human consciousness and was introduced to the concept of the Cartesian Theater. Check it out, it’s a trip.

-At the end of Chapter 16 I let Lysandra quote Princess Leia from Return of Jedi.

Book 2 - Linchpin:
In order of appearance, I think.

​-Conference Room is Room 101 from 1984
-"Face of doom" is a Dane Cook reference from his routine about how to cut in line.
-The Creme fraiche ice cream dessert from the Ice Cream Bar. (If you ever get the chance to go, do.)
-Ho Eriksson, "Ho" is a greeting used in Ender's Game.
-"Comfortable? Cozy?"  Captain Hook from the movie Hook
-"Get used to disappointment." The Princess Bride, of course
-"It's a legitimate question." Ender's Game the movie (not the book.)
-Never do business with people who scare you comes from Firefly
-"Protest, formal protest" is Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory
-A character drops an object as a ploy for something else. This was inspired by Everafter.
-"Allies against a common foe" Galvatron to Hot Rod in the only acknowledged Transformers movie (1986)
-Room A3 is a shout out to Alpha Trion, also a Transformers reference.
-"I am vexed with them" Inspired by Commodus from Gladiator
-"I like him too." Alexandra from The Fall by Tarsem Singh. (Link is to the trailer on You Tube.)
-"It's where I keep all my stuff." From The Tick about why Earth can't be eaten.

There will be a whole new batch with book 3, looking at you Red vs. Blue fans. If you find any not on these lists please let me know.

While looking for something completely different I found this nifty fictional fact sheet. I still marvel at being able to forget the things I've created. If you have no idea what this is talking about then you need to read my books. Ha! #ShamelessPromotion, but you are the one on my website so I think it's okay.

I love going to the movies, always have since I was little. As a fan of movies as medium for telling stories and as a writer I have a keen interest in books with movie counterparts. I personally prefer to read the book first before seeing the movie if at all possible, but that’s just me.

So I have finally gotten around to reading “All You Need is Kill.” This is a book by a Japanese author, Hiroshi Sakurazaka, that the movie “Edge of Tomorrow” is based on. It’s short, a quick read. A little over the top in some places and it does not pull any punches when it comes to war in its purest brutality.
​
I had a particular interest in this story because I wanted to see how the author wrote the time jumps and repeats. Turns out, it’s actually pretty simple. Deftly done in way that it doesn’t actually repeat the same tuff over and over verbatim. Sakurazaka switches it up to keep you reading and the pace never slows (the movie handles the looping in a similar way, unlike Groundhog Day.) As a writer, it is worth looking at the technique he used.

The weirdest thing about the book versus the movie is that the plot of the movie is significantly more complicated. Usually you have to strip a novel to just its main action for the sake of time (i.e. Ender’s Game) but not here. Except for a few flashbacks, we pretty much never leave the army base that the main character, Keiji, wakes up in every time he dies.

There is no scientist that worked with Rita when she was stuck in the time loop. And all training is on the day of battle, during the same battle over and over (implied.) No training room montage with cheeky banter. Though seeing Tom Cruise get beat up by robot arms is pretty gratifying.

The movie slows way down when Cage, Tom Cruise’s character, tries to break the repetition of days by running away. This happens in the book too, but only once and it’s a much shorter scene and ends in an unexpected way.

The biggest point of divergence is of course the end. I will not give anything away but I have read other science fiction novels by non-Americans and it’s pretty easy to tell American writers from others, at least with the books I have read. I find writers from other countries are okay with having wide open endings with no sequel in mind. Unsettled endings and unanswered questions, not an issue. Leaving the reader in a destination they had no idea they were going to and have no way of getting back from doesn’t bother them one bit. As a child of the 80s and the American sitcom this is not how I like to walk away from a book.

But anyways, the ending of the book took me by surprise from the moment it started and I liked that. And when I think about how the movie went about solving the problem of the time loop and its creators I just think, why mess with what the author had intended? It was so much better. Why add complication where none is needed?

I’m sure it was a decision made by the powers that be at the movie studio but to me it’s an insult. Either they didn’t trust the actors to pull off that kind of complexity or they didn’t trust the audience to be able to feel something without having to have loud music and contrived conflict. See what I mean? Insulting.
​
One point of cool for the book in particular. The author has included an alternate chapter sequence (below.) It ends on the same chapter but huge chunks are moved around. I intend to re-read this book with this order in a few months. I want to forget it a little bit so I can enjoy it more and be surprised again.

If you’re so inclined and don’t mind some colorful language or violent deaths, I recommend reading this book. The movie's pretty good too.

Just finished reading another article about the the importance having a "platform" for new and established authors. I get having a presence, but this whole thing about authors HAVE TO have followers, and traffic stats to their website is a bunch of BS if you were to ask me.

First of all. I don't read blogs, so why would I write one? I know other people read blogs but I'm not one of them. I don't like spending my time on the internet, reading or writing. It takes up my time and creative energy trying to think of stuff to say so why would I use that energy on a blog and not my story. At least with a novel I can get a sense of accomplishment. Not so with this thing.

Second of all. The HAVE TO part really pisses me off. As far as I can tell there is no one way going about this whole writing thing. On one level I envy Phillip K. Dick and Issac Asimov, they didn't have to put up with this nonsense. I do recognize that I would not have the freedom to publish either my if I had been a part of that era, but they did things their way. Why can't I? There is more than one way to succeed and I doubt it will have anything to do with this blog. If the universe wants to prove me wrong, then go ahead.

Thirdly. Stephanie Meyers hasn't blogged anything since October. J.K Rowling doesn't have a blog of any kind, just updates on various HP things. Stephen King just posts stuff about his books. It's one giant advertisement. Neil Gaiman and George R.R. Martin admittedly have more interesting sites but nothing I'm gonna bookmark and check every week.

If those people don't have blogs, why should I HAVE TO? What those aforementioned writers do do is interact. On social media, in bookstores, on other people's blogs. THAT I am down for. Interaction. A conversation. Not this exercise in ego. Say something interesting so the agents will look at you. I don't want to trick people with click bait to going to my website just to get my numbers up. So dumb.

Having a website, yes. It makes sense to have a place where people can go and learn more about the writer and have the opportunity to interact with them but this list of do's and don't's is asinine. The only thing I've seen across all arenas of life, especially in art is persistence, perseverance, and long-suffering. And none of that has to do with a having a regular blog. I'm in this for the long game, it's a marathon, not a sprint. I've set my pace and I have my eyes on the target.

So having said that, I am abandoning this notion of HAVE TO. If I have something interesting to say I will will write something up. Usually if I have something interesting to say it will be on FB or Twitter but otherwise this page will now just be a digital archive of stuff I said once. 

Sayonara people.