First Page Contest, Deadpool, and The Walking Dead

I don’t usually celebrate Valentine’s Day other than with a "have a happy". 

But yesterday was memorable.

My Sweet Baboo of 42 years doesn’t go to the movies much let alone enjoy the same outrageous stuff that I do. He likes Sabrina and American President type movies. Chick flicks I reckon. I like Galaxy Quest, Star Trek/Wars, and the Marvel universe. Yesterday, he manned-up and took me to see Deadpool. What a sweetie, huh. Not sure he liked it all that much but love was in his heart.

Deadpool...okay, wow. Funny, amazing special effects, and way cool script. I was laughing from the first opening credits to the end and enjoyed every minute. I want to see it again to catch what I missed. So many inside jokes that it doesn’t always connect at first. It is so different from the other characters in the Marvel franchise that it seems a whole new genre.

No spoilers here but keep in mind, this is not for kids. Don’t take your thirteen year old to see this. Absolutely not for the young’uns.

One thing, IMHO, staying for the two teasers after the credits was a waste of time. Not like Iron Man III for example. Or Thor.

And another thing: If graphic violence (of bad guys getting their comeuppance), multiple curse words, nudity, and sexual situations offend you, don’t watch. I didn’t feel any of the above was gratuitous but yanno, that is my opinion.

The Walking Dead premiered its second half of its sixth season with an on-the-edge-of-your-seat shocker. This show just gets better and better, keeps me wondering who will die without killing off too many—aka Game of Thrones—to ruin the ride. 

For writers, it highlights how to plot, divert attention from the real story, and blow up expectations.

Regarding the last, if you can guess the storyline, predict it, the surprise factor is a mound of glue. Surprise, shock keeps the reader interested. Not just via deaths but unexpected plot twists.

First Page Contest. Here is your chance to get your writing noticed, create interest, and build a platform to display your skills. Plus, you win BOOKS! 

It’s a contest over at Unicorn Bell, our critique site. Moderated by the multi-talented Charity Bradford, it gives writers a shoutout. Enter soon and win bragging rights.

Are you a Marvel Universe fan? Want to see Deadpool? Worship Walking Dead? Ready to enter a writing contest?

IWSG - Beside the Dying Fire

IWSG—Insecure Writers Support Group, coming together on the first Wednesday of every month for a virtual pat on the back. 

Intro. Just the facts. Pertinent and otherwise.

Published author of Wilder Mage and Mage Revealed and hard at work with the third and last in the series, Chimera Mage.

I color not only outside the lines but on another page entirely and worship at the altar of Fantasy. 

All kinds, all flavors. Kinda like pizza.

Beside the Dying Fire.

IWSG. If you are a Walking Dead enthusiast, you'll recognize the above title from one of the episodes. To me, it epitomizes the flame that once blazed bright for some writers and now has died to glowing embers. Or are as cold as long-dead ashes.

So many bloggers and forums that I started out with, so many have faded away, gone.

How completely depressing.

Are you wavering? Is the conflagration that once burned like a lava flow dwindling? Are you worried that you are Pretty Much Dead Already?

It is hard to hold onto the passion that gripped my senses, white-knuckled and fervent. But it is necessary to create a routine, follow it without regard to the shiny objects that distract me.

What Lies ahead for the writer who wanders? The answer is keeping the passion. Hug it close like the Wildfire it once was. 

Because it is Clear that the end you will regret those Days Gone Bye if you give in to the miasma.

Insecure Writers Support Group: The Final Frontier.

These are the continuing voyages of the Ninja Captain, AJC. His mission, to explore all new writing venues, to seek out new authors and new blogs. 

To boldly go where no blogateer has gone before.

The Walking Dead Season Five Premiere

I never saw the lure of the zombie-genre. 

Then a year and a half ago, I got into The Walking Dead. And when I say "into" I mean more than the original Star Trek. Believe me, that is saying something.

So now I say, to family and friends, for your own safety, do not call me after 8 pm Sunday, October 12th.

I mean it.

Seriously.

 I. Will. Hurt. You.

The Coming Zombie Apocalypse

…or The Walking Dead marathon begins tonight.

How did I arrive at this juncture?

I've asked myself this question frequently over my lifetime. Like how did I become the one with deer heads hanging in my yard or known as the weird person who beats their flocked Christmas tree on the sidewalk?

Now I question my slobbering enthusiasm for Walking and how this show captured me so thoroughly.

It was after the first Walking marathon in January that I first really started watching this show. I arrived late to the party. Doodling like a kid texting rather than doing their homework then finally realizing what time it was.

At first, the storyline didn’t amaze me. Sometimes the only way to get through it was to skip the irritating parts.  But somewhere along the way, I quit hitting the FF button.

I don’t watch a lot of TV but I am loyal to the few programs that I do. Vampire Diaries is my guilty pleasure and fills my eek quota. I’d walk on broken glass to watch Justified every week. That show’s writers and plotters continually surprise me with twists in their storyline. I never know what is going to happen next.

After watching these TV shows, I go about my business until Tuesday or Thursday rolls around with another episode.

But Walking Dead. Holy Cats. It keeps me up at night. I’m thinking about it the next day and STILL can’t get a certain episode out of my head (the one with the hiker).

The characters are a part of my day now. Even the ones that I initially disliked when the show first premiered. Now I realize that a bad character has only one way to go: Up. I mourn when they die. Shocking.

Again, the marathon begins tonight with the pilot at 8 ET on AMC. It will run all episodes to the season’s finale on Sunday.

What is it about this show that controls me? Seriously, WHAT IS IT?