Nethermore

Today the Deseret Morning News ran an article about Brandon Sanderson and his books. I was mentioned as well, along with some of the artwork I’ve done for the Mistborn series. It was very kind of Brandon to invite me to be interviewed along with him for the article. Fun stuff, and a good read.

Yesterday I was the victim of a pernicious trick. I went upstairs to correlate with another coworker, when my next-door coworkers decided to change the wallpaper on my computer monitors.

There, tiled across two monitors in all its glory, were twenty posters of Turner and Hooch. Pretty funny joke. And not in bad taste. At least it was Turner and Hooch and not something like

But then we got to talking. Turner and Hooch is the prototype plot for everything written in Hollywood.

I mean, let’s examine the plot.

Man meets dog. Man hates dog. Dog saves man’s life. Man loves dog.

Every popular actor in the Eighties did a movie like that. Even James Belushi did K-9.

“Didn’t Mel Gibson do one too?” asked one coworker.

Yeah, he did Lethal Weapon.

Cop meets new partner. Cop hates new partner. New partner saves cop’s life. Cop loves new partner.

Not to mention that Schwarzenegger starred in Kindergarten Cop and Last Action Hero. Same plots, just substitute the word “kid” for “man” or “dog.”

This is also the plot of most Hollywood love stories. Take While You Were Sleeping, for example.

Girl meets boy. Girl hates boy. Boy saves girls life (figuratively). Girl loves boy.

No wonder Hollywood has gone downhill lately. Why am I not applying these secrets to Nethermore? I’d better get started.

(Have you noticed that the progress bar is moving lately? I’m writing again!)

My brother Phil has posted pictures of an actual copy of Stinky Hobo Stories. Go over there, take a look at the pictures, browse his other posts, and enjoy yourselves. This is one of the best–and funniest– blogs that I’ve seen.

Nigel put together this little masterpiece, complete with Red Panda, the official mascot of Ctrl Zed. Just a little taste of what’s to come with Ctrl Zed as we’re looking forward to the release of Food! and coming up with titles for a potential album next year. That is, if our lawyers can hammer out acceptable contracts.

I’ve got to have the coolest brothers in the world. One of them actually has a blog. If you’re familiar with Stinky Hobo and the humor employed in those posts, then I think you’re really going to dig the new blog.

Probably my favorite post so far is called Power Supply in a Popcan where Phil takes a computer’s power supply, tears it apart, and fits it in a popcan. Check it out. This is a great blog and has had me smiling all day.

That’s it. I’ve had it with quick-to-cook Asian meals. Last week I blogged about “A Taste of Thai,” whose Red Curry Noodles I couldn’t even recommend to starving Boy Scouts.

This week it’s something different . . . yet the same. You think I would’ve learned by now. This crappy cuisine is called “Simply Asian: Szechuan Noodles Something-or-other” and while it’s better than “A Taste of Thai,” I’d still prefer ten-cent ramen over either of them.

Looks like I’ll be going back to frozen dinners here soon. Luckily, my stash of experimental asian quick-to-cook food is all used up.

Occassionally I go with Brandon to booksignings in order to sign the Mistborn maps and just generally help out by cornering readers and asking them if they like fantasy books. I have a great time each time I go. I used to work in a book store, and I loved recommending books to people, so the signings both feed my desire to share cool books with people and also motivate me in my own writing. After all, someday I’d like to be signing Nethermore for people.

Brandon posted this picture to his blog yesterday, so I thought I’d pass it on by posting it here. This was the Mistborn booksigning in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Three television stations dropped by to interview us, and we just had a lot of fun in general, especially when people I knew from home dropped by to say hi and get their books signed.

I just have to say, Brandon’s a stellar guy to let me tag along at these things.

I want to save you all the trauma of buying “A Taste of Thai” Red Curry Noodles in the easy-to-cook, microwaveable variety.

Last night, after writing group, I was extremely hungry–as I normally am after writing group. Stopped by my house to pick up something to eat before traveling on to movie night at a friend’s house. Picked up “A Taste of Thai,” cooked it up, and started to devour it.

All I can say is that I really didn’t like this stuff. I don’t know if the “Taste of Thai” flavors other than Red Curry Noodles are any good, but this one is to be avoided. Save your money for ramen noodles!

In other news, I received my quarterfinalist notification from the Writers of the Future Contest on my story “Sky Father.” This is the best I’ve gotten in the contest so far. The way it works is that there are normal rejections, followed by quarterfinalists (top ten percent), semifinalists (who get critiques on their work), and finalists (from which 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place recipients are picked).

So, “Sky Father” will soon be on it’s way to another market. In the meantime, I’m brushing up “Robes of the Gods” to send to WotF this quarter.

I was going to blog about how cool Evanescence’s new album is (I managed to find a few songs in advance of the release date; I pre-ordered the full album yesterday!)–however, I just received an email that I won a free copy of Infoquake by David Louis Edelman.

Now, here’s the cool thing about winning a signed copy of Infoquake. I heard a lot about this book at WorldCon this year–Lou Anders really talked it up too–and I promised myself I’d get myself a copy. I just didn’t have the room to buy all the books I wanted to buy at the Con.

Later, Spike the Surfdog comes over at work and says, “David Edelman’s got a contest going on over at his blog for copies of his book. We’ve got to enter it!” So I sat down, wrote a few things (Hugh Jackman was Spike’s idea) and sent it off.

Spike gets to read the book first since he showed me the contest. Anyway, as the Stinky Hobo would say, “What a good day!”

I placed honorable mention in the limerick contest–so I’m mentioned twice on the page there. Take a look at the limerick AND the letter I wrote to win a copy.

I wonder if my luck will carry over to the Writers of the Future contest, whose results are starting to trickle in. I’ve given up hope on being a finalist (word is that they’ve called them all)–but I’m still crossing my fingers for a quarterfinalist or maybe even a semifinalist. Unfortunately my story “Robes of the Gods” isn’t ready yet to send into Q4 of the contest.

My new favorite website is Dave Devries’ “The Monster Engine.”

This artist has taken monster pictures drawn by children and then rendered them in a more-illustrative style. In most cases, he’s kept intact the original proportions of the children’s drawings.

Take a look at the pictures! You’ll laugh at them and you’ll love them because maybe you’ll remember having drawn similar things as a child.