www.andrewmackay.net:

Over caffeinated? Need something to pour that energy into? Here’s some random links to give you food for thought today:

Pete Peterson is a contributor to the Rabbit Room. He is also in the process of publishing his first book, The Fiddler’s Gun. He’s doing some fun stuff over at his website for the book, creating a world that you can definitely be drawn into.

Perhaps only of interest to me because of my day job, they finally sentenced Bernard Madoff yesterday for the theft of somewhere in the realm of 50 billion dollars. His lawyers had requested a sentence of 12 years. I think what the judge did was more appropriate. Really brings home the ol’ “if it sounds to good to be true it probably is” rule. It even applies in investment decisions.

Oh the funny things you can do with a little scraper and a sign that had good intentions.

Finally, last but never least, there seems to be some strange goings-on over at the Maple Mountain Story Club. Could just be a little ADD on Sam’s part, but you never know. Keep your eyes peeled.

So, I’ve been keeping quite occupied with some freelance work of late. I’ve spent long hours in front of the computer doing essentially non-creative tasks (typesetting is 10 percent creativity, all up front, and 90 percent consistency and asking “How did I do this the first time?”). So, I finally concluded that I should use the time wisely.

I surfed on over to Librivox. If you haven’t been there before, go now. Librivox is a huge collection of audiobooks (all public domain) read by volunteers. For the most part, it’s incredibly well done. Every once in a while, you may hit a chapter or two where the reading is less than perfect, but otherwise, it’s good stuff. It’s free. Did I say that yet? Free.

Anyway, I got there and I searched for fantasy works because, well, that’s my preferred genre. One of the first results was volume one of Le Morte d’Arthur. I realized that I hadn’t ever read more than an excerpt here and there, so I thought, here goes!

I’m enjoying it. I’m not very far in (twenty or so very short chapters), but my word is there intrigue! It’s fun to start to pick up on some of the Arthurian legends that I’ve seen allusions to in my more modern reading. I’ll keep you posted on what I think as I get further up and further in. So far, my one complaint is that everyone is constantly “wroth” with each other. Just get angry. Or mad. Or frustrated. Any of it… just don’t be wroth this time.

Oh, there it is, they’re wroth again.

I know, I know, I know… Saturdays are silly times. Times to post funny links or talk about stuff that is irrelevant. I say in reply, (in my manly Christian Bale Batman growl) “Not Today.”

I read this article by John Piper about television. It stirred my heart. It made me think. And it put some things into words that I’ve never quite been able to put into words succinctly before.

I think that much exposure to sensuality, banality, and God-absent entertainment does more to deaden our capacities for joy in Jesus than it does to make us spiritually powerful in the lives of the living dead. Sources of spiritual power—which are what we desperately need—are not in the cinema. You will not want your biographer to write: Prick him and he bleeds movies.

This is a scary paragraph for me, because… well, prick me and I nearly bleed movies. I can quote lines from Notting Hill, That Thing You Do, School of Rock, and many others until the cows come home. Remarkably, I have very little aptitude for memorizing important things.

This is a good reminder that what you set as priorities are the things you end up spending time on. Not the things you act like you’ve set as priorities, but the things you actually treat as priorities. A good reminder, but a scary reminder.

Phoning it in: Perform an act in a perfunctory, uncommitted fashion, as if it didn’t matter. (From the Urban Dictionary).

I’m only sort of phoning it in. Literally, I got this idea from a phone call with my friend, brother-in-law, and sometime partner-in-crime, Sam.

Alexander Field recently posted a list of the top ten marks of a bad query letter. It’s brilliant. I think my favorite is probably #7:

7. Astounding (dare I say it, ridiculous) claims about your book. “My book will become a bestseller.” “This story will leave you breathless.” Let the work speak for itself.

Seriously, my blog will absolutely blow you away. You will be unable to comprehend the obvious awesomeness borne in my ability to compose sentences. Really.

Really seriously, Alexander has some good tips in that list. It was so encouraging to see that the best way to get an editor on your side is to write well. Encouraging but intimidating. It’s not just the sales pitch, it’s the work.

My wife wasn’t feeling so great today. When we don’t feel good in the Mackay household, we tend to trend toward romantic comedy movies. So, when I was out today getting ingredients for dinner, I saw a new romantic comedy in the little, scary DVD dispenser in the foyer at Walmart. (Aside: I was recently informed that you only pronounce foyer as foyay if you’re uppity. I was unaware.) Naturally, I rented it.

Some people I read play coy with their movie reviews. Not me… I’m going to go for it. I will name names. The movie we watched was “He’s Just Not That Into You.”

It was terrible. It was everything about north America that is a problem. It masqueraded lust and emotionalism as love. It did a good enough job that I can almost imagine falling for it. But it was dangerously false. As my wife and I watched it (and even empathized with some of the characters), we started to see the depressing truth: that what this movie called love was close to the real thing–just close enough to be dangerous. But, the twist it put to it made it dangerous untruth.

I found myself wondering how exactly will I help my child through the minefield that is the popular view of love? How will I help him to understand that there is, or ought to be, a difference between marriage and “being together.”

Maybe if we hadn’t let marriage be so cheapened the minefield wouldn’t exist the way it does. But exist it does.

It was a challenge to me as a writer, too, to pursue truth through art. This movie sold the absolute mess that the way we handle love results in as a great thing. As though, somehow, a woman really “finding herself” after a messy divorce with her cheating husband is a good thing. Let me tell you, that’s not character arch, that’s tragedy. Certainly not something to aspire to.

And it just occurred to me, reading Sam’s review that I linked to above, that everything he says could apply to this movie. Could be… I guess we’ll never know.

So, here I go on another writing help that sounds helpful. Let me offer this disclaimer: I am the kind of person that works best under pressure. What can I say, I produce when the pressure is on. I complain… a lot… hopefully mostly internally… but then, because of the pressure, I get stuff done. If you’re not that kind of person, this tip is useless. How’s that for a disclaimer? <End Disclaimer.>

Want to get somewhere when it comes to your writing goal? Get together with someone (if you happen to have a wife or husband, she or he will work quite well). Set a deadline. Say to the person helping you, “I will turn in X number of pages in three weeks.” Replace the Xs with a number of pages. Why three weeks? Simple… I listen to the Manager Tools podcast. They say that when you’re starting something new, you aim for three weeks out because you’re busy next week and maybe even two weeks out, but chances are you’re not booked three weeks from now.

How is this going to help? It gives you something to shoot for. If you can count on that person to actually follow up with you, read your pages, and give you feedback, you’ll not only produce, your writing will get sharper, too. Also, if my wife is reading this (I feel like Bob Saget at the end of the old America’s Funniest Home Videos… or Red Green at the end of the Red Green Show), we need to set a deadline.

I never have a hard time breaking good habits. I can make those disappear with a day or two of simply not trying.

The bad, time wasting ones creep in just as easily, but eradicating them can be much tougher. I’m not going to even endeavour to help you discern which habits are perhaps not the best, but I will tell you some things that seem to be helping me to beat the one I’m fighting.  My current target personally is distraction.

1. Change your environment. If you know that sitting in your recliner is an environment in which you will either slack off or fall asleep, don’t sit there while you’re trying to do something serious and be surprised when you slack off or fall asleep.

2. Don’t succumb to distractions. Chances are that Wikipedia page will be just as interesting in an hour as it would be right now.

3. Play music that will help, not distract. For me, this means music I’m familiar with. You can bet 40 Acres by Caedmon’s Call and The Morning by Andrew Osenga will be in heavy rotation while I’m trying to be productive.

4. Allow yourself a break after 45 minutes. There’s a reason your high school periods were about that long. Walk it off. Drink some coffee. Stand up. Move. Then come back and hit it again.

These are some ways that are currently working for me. Hope they’re helpful.

I love new beginnings. Whether a blank piece of paper, a new day, a new year, or just a new attitude, I appreciate the opportunity to start fresh — even if you can’t forgo what has gone before. One of my favorite songs ever talks about just that… Andrew Osenga performs “New Beginning” on his album, The Morning. A favorite passage of mine:

He said, “I’m done with trying to reach the top
The richest dead man’s still just dead
So let’s call in sick and take a walk
I want to fall in love with you again
I know we can’t undo what’s done
So let’s open our hands to forgiveness
Unlock the secrets we’ve become
And leave them all in search of
A new beginning”

So, this morning, it’s a new beginning. Another week. Another opportunity to live the way I mean to.

Wow… Hockey season is over. My brilliant plan to use random hockey facts and anomalies to distract you from the fact that I have nothing substantive to say on Saturdays has failed… for now.

So, we continue into the world of being totally off topic and to the point, since if I’m not on topic, why on earth would you keep reading? Except of course when you can see the bottom of the page. Why stop then?

So, video games — I’m a nerd, right… last week, I had the chance to read through an experiment that a gamer is running in “The Sims.” If you’re unfamiliar, The Sims takes the premise of SimCity (where you built a city and it operated the way you built it and then you messed it up) to an absurdly focused micromanagement level. You create characters and help them operate their lives and you mess them up.

Anyway, this gamer has created two homeless “Sims” and set them loose. I think my interest in it was as much in her ability to write what went on from the point of an independent observer as it was in the experiment itself. Well worth five or so minutes to read a little bit of it. It’s an interesting way to raise the homelessness issue, for sure.

I’ll be back Monday, and I’ll be somewhat on topic.

Chances are that the last couple of days, you’ve heard or read something about the recent election in Iran. Allegations of stuffed ballot boxes and fraud are everywhere. From everything that we in the west have ever seen from Ahmadinejad, we don’t really have any reason to doubt the allegations. People are passionate about it, too.

I don’t want to rob the situation of its gravity, but I do think there’s a lesson for writers (and readers) there. There is a natural human trait that loves to hate tyrants. This is especially true in America, probably because American history truly began with the overthrow of a tyrant. But, you can see this same reaction in Russia, China, France, even in the muted passions of my homeland, Canada. When people feel oppressed by tyrants, they will respond in some way. They may still get beaten down, but they’ll respond, and they’ll have support from around the world.

You can see this in great sci-fi and fantasy, too. The Foundation trilogy by Isaac Asimov explores ideas of subtle tyranny versus outright tyranny and left me wondering which was worse. So too did the Shadow series set in the Ender-verse by Orson Scott Card. These are themes that readers will connect with naturally (in varying degrees, of course). Realizing this is really helping me with my previous question about how to write bad guys. Sometimes it doesn’t need to be one bad guy. Instead, it can by a tyrannical system. Of course, usually you do find one bad guy at the head of that system.