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This is the music that plays on the insanely hard Battletoads bike level.  If you’ve never played this game, let me offer a taste of how ridiculously impossible it was.

The widget would count the words of all articles tagged with the category in question and then display that for readers.  “B. Mac has written 12,500 words on ‘Characterization.’”  “B. Mac has written 30,000 words on ‘The Superhero Nation Novel.’”  If you want to get really fancy (or sadistic, depending on how much you procrastinate), you could add a feature where the word-counter breaks down results by month.  “B. Mac has written 0 words on ‘The Superhero Nation Novel’ in September 2008.”

Currently, at Amazon, Spore has been ranked at one star by over 90% of its 2000+ reviewers.

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Some editors can rewrite an absolutely mediocre story into a masterpiece, but please give yours more to work with than this…

From the New York Times: “Few want a handout, but fewer want government to abandon them. A simmering hurt suffuses their words, a sense that neither hard work nor their unions could save them.”

It’s hard to tell which part of this passage was the worst, but it probably wasn’t “a simmering hurt suffuses their words.” I found “fewer want government to abandon them” more painful. The author really struggled to create a parallel structure with the previous clause. I would recommend rephrasing that sentence as “When polled, residents were uneasy about government handouts but enthusiastic about vocational education programs,” or another form of government assistance that came up frequently.

Andrew Burt, one of the leaders of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, is offering a survey on reading habits.  Please do writers a favor and give us 5-10 minutes of your time.  Thanks!

“In New York City, criminals chase the dragon. In Surf City, the dragon chases back.”

For an explanation of the Jimmy Carter killer rabbit attack, please see here.

If you would like this bumper-sticker on your car, you can look at it here. We’re selling it for $4, of which $.45 goes to the “Save the Starving English-Major Fund.” No pressure! Five will buy us a McDonald’s fish sandwich, 15 will buy us a Chipotle burrito, and 25 will buy us a panini sandwich and a glass of orgo-soy milk. [B. Mac adds: anyone that spends $3 on a glass of milk, let alone FAKE milk, deserves to starve].

Perhaps you’ve heard the proverb that teaching a man to fish goes farther than giving him a fish sandwich. That’s true. “So how can I teach a starving English-major to feed himself, Cadet Davis?” Well… if you’re feeling especially generous and have a large vehicle (like a hummer or an aircraft carrier), I’d estimate that I’m 250,000 249,998 bumper-stickers south of an English degree. At that point, I still won’t be able to pay for my own food, but at least I’ll know how to write grant proposals.

[B. Mac adds: hey, don’t forget the Starving Political-Scientist Fund! These bumper-stickers don’t write themselves, you know. *winks*]

Hey! I’ve revised and updated Agent Orange’s quotes. (You can see the old one here, but it’s harder to read and the quotes are worse). Enjoy.

Earlier today, I added a I DEMAND COMEDY button to the sidebar (under New Here?)  That will make it easier for the comically minded to find what they crave, rather than be bogged down with articles on writing or Campaign 2008.

1. I’m also trying to identify which of my articles are the most popular and highest quality.  I’m moving these articles to categories marked Reader Favorites.  For example, Reader Favorites:  Comedy is a collection of my top comic work.  So far I think I’ve listed 5 of those.  In a day or two, I’ll have sifted through my ~600 posts for the best 15-30.
2. I’m also working on a Reader Favorites: Writing Advice.  I haven’t started this yet.  That’s clearly less of a priority because most of my writing articles are relatively easy to find on the sidebar.
3. I may add another category or two.
4. You can see all of the Reader Favorites at the aptly named Reader Favorites:  All Categories.  That won’t make much of a difference until I start adding entries to Reader Favorites:  Writing Advice.
5. I’m trying to clean up my category headers to be more precise.  Postings that are listed as Comedy are now only those that are primarily meant to be funny and not, say, writing articles that occasionally are funny.

I recount what happened in Iowa and how the betting odds have shifted. Good news: most of my predictions were correct. Bad news: Iowa has resoundingly rejected me in favor of people with “experience.”

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I recently added a category, Writing About Superheroes. So far, I have some articles devoted to character design (like the Superhero Questionnaire and Superpower List). Additionally, novelists and other writers that are trying to adapt somewhat niche material to a mainstream audience might appreciate Making Your Story Less “Weird” and More Novel and the Transformation/Nonhuman Questionnaire.

1. Write a review about what we can learn from “The Dragon and the George.”
2. Re-upload the Writing Concisely article.  It appears to have been garbled badly somehow.
3. Write a review about what we can learn from “His Majesty’s Dragon.”
4. Introduce Catastrophe.
5. Begin doing character pages?
6. Agent Orange’s comprehensive survey of international football (Gators and Haters)
7. How to write dialogue?
8. How to write sensory imagery?
9. Update the story board

I don’t have anything substantive to add, but my father met Ms. Bhutto during their time at Oxford.

These are Marvel’s upcoming films, according to Alex Billington at First Showing. He offers his own outlook, but let me offer mine. SELL MARVEL.

1. Iron Man - Director: Jon Favreau - Writer: Matt Holloway, Arthur Marcum, Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby - May 2, 2008 Release - Full Iron Man Debriefing from Comic-Con
2. The Incredible Hulk - Director: Louis Leterrier - Writer: Edward Norton, Zak Penn - June 13, 2008 Release - Incredible Hulk Updates from Comic-Con: Ed Norton Speaks
3. Punisher 2 (Lionsgate) - Director: Lexi Alexander - Writer: Matt Holloway, Arthur Marcum - Likely 2008 Release - Ray Stevenson Cast as The Punisher!
4. Wolverine (Fox) - Director: Gavin Hood - Writer: David Benioff - Likely 2008 Release - Hugh Jackman Praises Wolverine Screenwriter David Benioff

In the distant future, we’re looking at:

1. Thor - Director: Matthew Vaughn - Writer: Mark Protosevich - Likely 2009 Release - Matthew Vaughn to Direct Thor Movie
2. Ant-Man - Director: Edgar Wright - Writer: Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish - Unknown Release
3. Captain America - Writer: David Self - Captain America Movie Next From Marvel After Hulk!
4. Nick Fury - Writer: Andrew Marlowe - Sam Jackson as Nick Fury to Appear in Iron Man?!
5. The Avengers - Writer: Zak Penn - Marvel Avengers Movie with Iron Man and Hulk Coming Eventually

Of these, I expect that Wolverine will perform well. Not as well as X-Men, or even Fantastic Four or Superman.

I hope that Marvel is not counting on Thor, Ant-Man (!?!), Nick Fury, the Punisher (particularly after his last outing), or the Avengers to fill up theatres. So I will assume– for argument’s sake– that Marvel will bet most heavily on the remaining films in roughly this order: Iron-Man, Wolverine, Captain America, Hulk.

I believe that these films are likely to set off a Wall Street panic on Marvel (NYSE: MVL). I think investors are already jittery because of rumors that there won’t be a Spiderman 4 that looks anything like the first three films and the X-Men franchise is not enough to build a company on. It could be the case that these upcoming films are drastically better than Ghost Rider, Electra, the Punisher, Daredevil, the Hulk, the last Nick Fury movie (David Hasselhoff!) But I’m not hopeful.

I just updated my guide to writing immersive and effective scenes.

This is based on what a friend in the Peace Corps claims is a true story.  

The presidents of two African countries—let’s say Togo and Nigeria—meet in Nigeria.  The Tongan is surprised by how nice the Nigerian’s house is. 

“Nigeria is so poor,” the Tongan said.  “How can you afford this estate?”

The Nigerian points out the window to a bridge spanning a river. 

“See that bridge?  The World Bank give us a huge amount of aid to build it, but not all of the money was spent on the bridge.” 

The Tongan thought about his shabby home and nodded.  “That seems like a really great idea,” he said. 

The next year, the Nigerian was visiting the Tongan and was astonished to learn that Togo had an absolutely luxurious palace.  He asked the Tongan how he had improved his house so much in a year.

The Tongan pointed out the window to a barren desert, rolling as far as the eye could see.  “See that bridge?”

I’m still doing pretty well in the Google searches that I’m specifically optimizing for– queries like superhero story, superhero novel, superhero parody, superhero satire, etc.  Here are a few of the searches where I’m doing surprisingly badly.

1. #3 for “Superhero Nation.”  DAMN YOU TIME.
2. #3 for alligator superhero — I wish I were making this up.  Fortunately, the search is pretty insignificant (only two so far).  Relatedly, I’m at #4 for mammal superhero and– not surprisingly– #1 for mammals superhero*.
3. Not in the top 50 for government superhero
4. #14 for agent superhero

*If I ever get published, I’m virtually positive that Amazon will use “mammals” as one of Superhero Nation’s statistically improbable phrases.  By my count, the first half uses it six times (it’s Agent Orange’s tagline).

Despite my wild cheering, the Miami Dolphins did not beat the Patriots. Oh well. Just in case, I’ll have a custom header ready for a New York Giants victory over the Patriots. The way Eli’s been playing this year, I’m not hopeful. At least Miami was playing for a moral victory for the ages, a way to salvage what may be one of the worst professional football seasons yet recorded.

Exercises in Logic

It is universally acknowledged that the Green Bay Packers (12-3) are better than the Miami Dolphins (1-15).  The Bears beat Green Bay 35-7 but the New England Patriots beat Miami only 28-7.  Therefore, Chicago is better than New England.  (Sigh).

I’ve commented before that search queries aimed at Superhero Nation are far more likely to name Special Investigations agents rather than Social Justice Leaguers.  For example, searches like “agent orange superhero nation” are much more popular than “lash superhero nation.”  That worries me.  The story, so far, focuses on the League perspective but the OSI characters still resonate much more with my audience.  I’ve been considering drastically rewriting the story to focus on the OSI because I think my OSI characters really are more interesting.

It encouraged me that one of the search queries earlier this week was “Courtney McMaster,” Lash’s alternate identity.

Yeah.  Then today I got these two hits:  “captain carnage  flying mammal” and “agent orange rebecca gunter.”  I thought that Rebecca Gunter was a somewhat curious choice to tag on to that;  Rebecca is the artist that illustrated Agent Orange but isn’t involved with this site on a recurring basis.

Interestingly, that means that this site has received four hits so far aimed at either myself, my co-author (Jacob) or the eminently talented Rebecca.  Collectively, we have received more hits than the putative protagonist, Lash.  But we’re getting thwomped by Agent Orange.  Sadly, even Agent Black beats us!  <SPOILER> HE GETS LIKE THREE LINES BEFORE HE DIES.  GAH.  </SPOILER>

The reader response to Agent Black is really interesting.  I envisioned Black as a somewhat dystopian foil that would play a minor role developing the idealistic Agent Orange.  I needed someone to get murdered, anyway, so I used Black.  I figured I was done with him.  WRONG.  Reviews savaged me for killing him off.  Here are some typical excerpts.

1. “Bring him back!”
2. “If a black absolutely has to die first, I vote for Lash.”
3. Killing him “was retarded.  He was the story.”  (That’s news to me!)

Well, I’m going to have it both ways.  He still dies really early but he still recurs in flashback scenes like Chapter Five: The Human Resources Promise.

If you’ve read the first few chapters, I’d really like to know what you think.

1. Do you like the focus of the story so far?  Or do you think I should focus more on either the Office of Special Investigations or the Social Justice League?  (Which one?  Why?)
2. Which side do you think is better-written?  How do you think I could make the other more interesting?

Thanks for your input– I really appreciate it.