Time to Take a Stand

As a writer, I have to let my voice be heard. I will not just sit idly by on the sidelines. I know this will make some people upset, but I can't in good conscience not address some of the most pressing issues of our times.

1 - It is morally wrong to have Skittles in trail mix. When I'm grabbing for a handful of a not-very-good-for-me snack, I'm expecting a certain constancy. When I see small, round colored candies, I'm expecting either an M&M or, if I'm blessed, a Reece's Pieces. Those go well with the salty pretzels, goldfish, and Chex cereal (or its generic knockoff). They all have the same crunchy makeup and can be gobbled in a hurry. But a Skittle? Suddenly I've got something chewy in that mix, and it makes grabbing that second handful a problem, because I'm still not done with the first. Now I have to chew, and that makes me lose my trail mix momentum.

2 - We deserve a public apology for X-men 3. I was, and still am, a huge fan of the first two X-men films. I also thought that First Class was a fantastic return to form and a prequel done right. I'm still bitter about X3 and I will never purchase that DVD nor will I even deign to watch it on television. X3 ruined a very good thing. The first two movies were great setup, and it had all of us expecting some payoff Return of the Jedi style. Instead, all we got were Ewoks. It was just a sloppy, terrible, betrayal of the storylines that had been set up in the first two films. We got an apology for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Why not X3?

I would like to think that the fact that First Class is part of that apology. The continuity in First Class contradicts a lot of what happened in X3, almost as if the studio is disavowing that film, and I am totally on board for that. I already believe that there was no sequel to Ghostbusters, there were only 3 Die Hard and Indiana Jones movies, and that the Shrek series stopped at 2. So if we can throw X3 down the memory hole, that would be great. (Or at least make another movie that involves time travel that undoes everything that happened in X3).

3 - More Cowbell. There are too many fevers around the world, and we in America have the cure and need to share it with others. It's the right thing to do.

The first of many

This is the day I published my book.

Don't get excited. You aren't? Really? You know, a little excitement wouldn't kill you.

Today I officially uploaded my book, Guardians of Suncast Dale, to Amazon.com to be sold online. This is a day that I've been waiting on for a long time. I've worked well and hard for this day, and this day marks the beginning of a whole new life for me, the life of a professional writer.

Why am I not so excited?

Because this is the day I also made the first of many publishing mistakes. In this case, I screwed up the formatting for Kindle so the final copy is going to look funny until I can get it corrected, and that's going to take a few days. So I can't really tell anyone about this because I don't want to send anyone to a copy that looks weird. I wrote the page on Microsoft Word, and the pages for Word are very different than those on Kindle, and that's something I really should have looked at before confirming the submission.

I'm going to correct it, the real, final version will get out, and this will become a funny story. The first of many, because if you think that this is going to be the last screw-up, you are mistaken. This is before I even address the typos that might be in there, especially that one typo that completely changes the meaning.

My wife and I still laugh at an earlier draft in which my hero is fighting someone and "licks his head" instead of "kicks his head."

There is a takeaway. Mistakes happen, and sometimes you won't see them until after it's too late. There's no shame in it, and with Amazon, I'm going to get it corrected very easily. As a writer, you have to learn to expect mistakes. They are inevitable. Don't fear them, just learn from them for next time. That's what I'm going to do.

This is also the day I registered charlesbfrench.com and moved into the world of official domain owner.

Why do Lost clones fail?

The title sums up my thesis. Since Lost, television networks have been trying to duplicate the show's success, and most (if not all) of these clones fail. Shows like Threshold, The Nine, Flashforward, The Event, and my personal favorite Tower Prep all didn't survive past the first season. They all started out strong, and each show had viewers who were deeply disappointed that the story will not be finished. And why is it that none of these shows lasted? The answer, as I see it, is simple: Lost.

That's right, I posit that Lost not only inspired all these clones, but also is the reason they don't succeed.