Year of an Indie Writer: Week 14

The To Do just keeps getting longer and longer

New Quarter. New Writing Cycle Begins

Monday marked the start of a new month as well as a new quarter. The entire quarter consists of ninety-two days. If you wrote 1,000 words a day for the entire quarter, you'd have 92,000 of new fiction. Imagine what you could do with that amount of new words. I wrote about it earlier this week, but here's a hint: you can do a lot. And you'd have anywhere from one to, say, eighteen items you can then offer to readers. It's an exciting time to be a writer.

To Do List Grows

I wrote what I needed to accomplish in the month of April. The more I thought about it, the more things landed on the list. Prepare AZTEC SWORD, the third Calvin Carter novel, for publication on 1 May, both the paperback and the ebook. Upload the ebook with enough lead time to land it on the first day of May. Layout both AZTEC SWORD and HELL DRAGON in paperback. Finish the novella I'm currently writing. And then keep writing.

Not complaining, but when you're a company of one, you do everything, and you have to plan it all.

Getting to a Schedule

I work for an oil and gas company, and we're gearing up for the Offshore Technology Conference here in Houston. It always is set for the first full week of May. As you can imagine, there are lots of things to do to prepare all the marketing efforts my company does. Lots of things.

I still take my lunch break and I still write. Mostly, I'm pretty good at blocking out the day job stuff for a hour so I can do some writing. However, this week, I discovered my brain didn't 100% turn off from the day job during the lunch hour.

Irritating.

But, as the week progressed, I think I might've found a solution. These blogs I have started writing every day don't always take a lot of time and I can write them without too much thought. As much as I would love to have both my 4:30-am writing sessions and my lunch-hour writing sessions both be devoted to my fiction, I'm thinking I'll let the lunch hour be the blog writing time. That'll leave the morning sessions for fiction. I'm fresh at that time, with the cares of the day not yet invading my thoughts.

So, starting Monday, that'll be the schedule I try. Hopefully, it'll work well.

Two Very Different Books

I reviewed a couple of books this week. CRASHING HEAT by Richard Castle and HAN SOLO AT STARS' END by Brian Daley. Enjoyed them both to different degrees.

The Matrix at 20

Last Sunday, The Matrix turned twenty. Yeah, really. I watched the movie again and wrote a few thoughts.

The Author Newsletter and a Surprise

I try and send out too many newsletters to the good people who have subscribed to my mailing list. I don't always get too many responses, but this week, I did. They were nice and encouraging.

What surprised me was the initial response to Chapter 1 of "Amber Alert." It's a different type of story for me. I wasn't sure how folks would respond. Judging by some of the comments, the old adage of a writer not being the best judge of his own work seems to be true.

I encountered a few issues this past week, but "Amber Alert" will be out this week.

Shazam Soars!

I saw Shazam last night. I'll write a full review tomorrow but here's what I wrote on Facebook:

There is so much happiness, charm, and heart in SHAZAM! Hilariously funny with a real whiz-bang vibe about it. But there is one moment that brought me—and others in the audience who applauded—so much joy it actually got me emotional. Didn’t think I’d ever see it it. And I did. SHAZAM knocks it out of the park!


That's about it for me. How was your week?

The Matrix at 20

Today marks the 20th anniversary of one of those films that changed everything.

To commemorate the day, the family sat down on Friday night and brought out the DVD. I can’t remember the last time I saw The Matrix, but it was likely ahead of the 2003 sequel. Assuming that, it had been sixteen years since I last saw this movie.

It holds up really well.

You all know the story of Thomas Anderson, computer hacker, who hunts the internet for the mysterious Morpheus and his connection to the Matrix. Turns out, Morpheus is seeking Anderson as well. It is Morpheus’s contention Mr. Anderson—or, to use his hacker name, Neo—is the one who can defeat the evil machines behind the Matrix.

What’s interesting about watching this movie in 2019 is to be reminded of how dozens of internet memes started. I lost count of how many things have now become standard, but were once revolutionary and new with the actual Matrix movie. The red pill and the blue pill. The stop-motion in a pivotal action scene and allowing the camera to swing around to a different angle. The bullets whizzing by in slow motion. The wire work during the action scenes. (Yes, I know it was done in Hong Kong films, but many people had never seen that stuff before.)

Plus, I love how quaint it appears now that the people in the Matrix had to locate a landline. What would this movie be like today?

After years of writing my own stories, one thing jumped out at me: the overly formulaic hero’s journey story. I probably saw it back in the day, but I really saw it now. Neo’s choice. The “Obi-Wan” figure telling him what to do. Other characters doubting him. Neo doubting himself. Neo no longer doubting himself as he becomes the hero. Don’t get me wrong: it’s a good story and it’s done well. But I just happened to see it now. The beauty and curse of a storyteller.

And Joe Pantoliano as Cypher. He is basically the Judas. How many hero’s journey movies and stories have a traitor? Lando in Empire Strikes Back comes to mind. I don’t recall Harry Potter having one. Fellowship of the Rings had Sean Bean’s Boromir. Paul Reiser’s Burke in Aliens. What are some others?

Then there is Keanu Reeves. He doesn’t have a lot of range, but what he does, he does pretty darn well, especially in this film. I enjoyed seeing him again. And, as someone who has not seen any of the John Wick movies—yet wanted to—I am even more enthused about seeing the Wick movies.

The Matrix is one of those films where there was a distinct before and after. It was that influential.

Oh, and the irony of the film’s debut in 1999? It came out about two months before Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. As 1999 started and knowing these two movies were on the horizon, who would have thought the non-Star Wars movie would hold a higher place of honor?

What are your memories of The Matrix?