Be sure to check out my latest poetry at skerd22.deviantart.com!

things I’m cookin’

Actually, I can’t cook. Mac & cheese is my speciality.

I’ve had an on-again/off-again relationship with a few of my self-imposed poetic endeavors. (And endeavors of other sorts, but that’s not important.)

For instance: I never finished retelling the storyline of Devil May Cry 3 in poem form. Go ahead and laugh. I’ve got thick skin.

I also planned another set of poems for each special zombie type in Left 4 Dead. The first set was fun to write, and it felt like the natural thing to do was write more. But I haven’t.

So what am I cookin’ now?

Well, technically I’ve half-prepared it. It’s a story told in poems. It’s a skerdified (skerd certified) original, and entirely open-ended. I don’t even know what’s going to happen from poem to poem.

Confused yet? Lemme explain you.

Let’s start with the title: The Words Build. Not overly catchy, but it serves its purpose. What purpose? It may have to do with the wording of the poems, and it definitely has to do with the way the poems are written.

That was confusing again. Okay, I’ll try to speak better now thx.

Each chapter of the story is determined by a theme. This theme is not chosen by myself. In fact, it’s often chosen by someone who has never read any of my poetry.

There is a community project on deviantART called Wordspill. It goes something like this:

1. get a theme
2. open up a word processor of some sort
3. make the text invisible
4. type for ten minutes

And that’s all there is to it. No seeing what you’re doing, just writing your little fingers off. The next theme is randomly chosen by a participant from the previous round.

I’ve done a few, and they are pretty interesting. Lack of self-editing makes for wildly different pieces. Certainly a good writing exercise.

So at some point this spring(?) I decided that I wanted to follow in the footsteps of the greats (Casey Crescenzo and Jessy Ribordy, basically) and write some sort of intriguing epic story. But I needed a gimmick, something to distinguish myself from the oh-so-honorable pack.

Then it hit me: I would let the story be created for me. Not the details or anything specific of course, that would be cheating. But the direction. The themes point the way.

I suppose it’s the programmer in me that makes me excited about generative content. So long as the Wordspill club doesn’t fall off the earth and so long as I don’t get crazy and kill all the characters (actually, that could happen…) there are infinite possibilities for the story.

I like messing with structure. This is the perfect application my oddness. With the restrictions of theme and previous story I have enough challenges to keep my crazy head interested. You can check them out in my deviantART gallery under The Words Build.

ANYWAY

To drum up audience interest in the story, I’ve got a few thangs on the back burners.

Firstly, I’ve sketched and planned several possible “cover art” images that I can use to tout the project. Yes, there are skulls. Yes, it looks cool. Yes, I’m workin’ on it. Gig ‘em.

Secondly, said images could end up on t-shirts woo!

Thirdly, I think it’d be cool to host a contest.  The story isn’t cut-and-dry; I take my fair share of crytic-spooky-artistic liberty with the chapters. I’m sure most of the ideas can be gathered, but it’d be really interesting to me to hear what other people saw happening. I like to see how other people think, so this contest idea gets me all excited. Also prizes!

Fourthly, y’all must get sick of my rambling. I mean dang, I turned a simple explanation into a longwinded crazyfest. Silly words.

 

So what’ve you got cookin’? Feel free to share/link/tout/pimp/whatev. Free publicity ahoy!

 

Keep arting,

-C

PS3: Now within reach!

DUDES.

It’s official. Starting today, the official price for a new PS3 is only $299. That’s a 100 smackeroni price cut, for those of you keeping track.

I am totally in favor of pre-holiday-blitz consumer catering. Now instead of walking around all day saying “i can haz ps3?” I can wander around all day saying “i CAN haz ps3!”

Borderlands, here I come.

-C

so I guess I’m a casual perfectionist?

To begin: I am a graphic designer.

I’ll bet the large majority of you are picking your jaws up from the floor, but it’s true. I have a degree to match my claim, from a respectable university.

Now you’re probably wondering why you’ve never seen any of my designs. Well, dear reader, just keep on reading.

First and foremost, I was (am) a doodler.

Not a single spiral notebook was safe from my graphite madness. I sketched everything I saw and imagined everything I didn’t. School was easy for me, for some reason. I suppose I’m an auditory learner with a semiphotographic memory. (Example: In college, I was guaranteed to correctly answer ANY question previously provided to us. If said question was on a study guide or a practice quiz, I knew the answer.)

This “gift” (if I may be so vain) afforded me a lot of free time in class, hence the doodling. I didn’t really have to study or even try to get good grades. Yes, I was that kid. I can’t explain it. C’est la vie.

Now as many of you on the verge of college understand, “doodling” is not a major. It’s not even a minor, for cryin’ out loud. To determine my proposed major, I added my doodling to my inherent math skills (that have long since past; if you don’t use it, you sure as heck lose it) and came up with architecture.

That means secondly, I’m an architect.

Yes, I have designed a house. Yes, I have built the wonderfully time-consuming models everyone loves to gawk at. Yes, I have sliced myself with an X-acto blade. Yes, I’m glad I didn’t stick with architecture.

Don’t get me wrong, some wonderful things happen as a result of architecture. But there’s a lot of monotony hidden behind the superstar-architect façade. No thanks to the bigshot megabucks designers, everyone assumes that architects are all glitz and creativity and win. I assure you, there is nothing glitz about concrete. Concrete is as interesting as mud, both of which architects study.

I understand that every profession is going to have its surface appeal and iceberg details. However, I remain completely satisfied with my decision to avoid Titanicing my entire college career. So what did I opt into? 3D design.

So thirdly, I’m a 3D modeler.

Polygons, animations, physics simulations, etc. All that jargon. I created intangible objects. I made them move. And so on.

The kicker is, this is where I figured my career story ended. I was pretty much set on powering through programs I had just met and landing that coveted sweet deal at Pixar.

It was at this point that the class of 2009 was slapped in the face. During an upper level end-of-the-year review, we witnessed our less-polished work go up against the (relatively speaking) prodigy work the juniors had created. For me at least, it shook me to my core to realize that I was not what I considered “qualified” when compared against the younger generation. (In our class’ defense, we had a much later start than our comrades.)

I figured I was locked in at this point, skills or not. Then I took a graphic design class.

Graphic designer.

Finally, a field I can get behind. It’s not that it’s an easy way out. In fact, it’s anything but an easy way out. Architects can (for better or worse) fall into the comfort of basic residential design. 3D modeling is booming these days, so a tech savant can at least end up doing gruntwork. I may have grossly oversimplified those two fields, but it’s my blog and I can do whatever I want, nyah nyah.

With graphic design, you start at zero and can potentially stay there forever. A floundering architect can still draw straight lines and work AutoCAD. An uninspired modeler can tweak vertices or glitchcheck. But as far as I can see, there is no “bottom level” for graphic design. You make designs, and if they’re subjectively judged negatively, you’re gonzo. If your vectors are flawed and your ’shopping is fail-worthy, you can look forward to the glorious title of “mail boy.”

(Anyone out there with actual experience in the field, let me know how accurate that portrayal is. I’m quite interested to find out.)

(Don’t you love the fact that I still haven’t addressed the title of this post yet?)

Somewhere on the side of all this, I’m a poet. Thankfully, the two cross over more than one might initially think.

So I’m working on my portfolio and building up works that I consider presentable. Here’s where the “casual perfectionist” bit comes into play.

I am laid back. I watch people get worked up over all sorts of things. (I could list examples, but then people would respond by getting worked up.) I don’t take very many things seriously. I like to think that I can consider multiple points of view without sacrificing my own.

That being said, I am ultra-stressing over my portfolio. I want it to be flawless, even though I realize that a fresh-outta-college portfolio isn’t necessarily expected to be exceptional. For whatever reason, I am holding myself to a very high standard. I suppose it has to do with the depth of design. In other words, design is a very personal thing. It’s a lot like poetry or any other art. People pour themselves into these works, and are gracious enough to jut them into the public eye.

(side note – I am way laid-back when it comes to my poetry. I don’t spend days rewriting and revising. [le gasp!] Usually the first draft is the final draft. And I’m not really caught up in how people react to my writing. It’s very much a “me” thing, and if other people enjoy it then that’s cool too.)

My self-critical nature (in this respect) is proving one of my greatest obstacles. I feel like I’m one teensy sigh-of-relief away from feeling comfortable with graphic design.

I’m working on that. On the plus side, I knew what I want to do.

I want to design.

-C

(P.S. I’m setting up to start getting my designs out there with t-shirts. More on that later, but I have full t-shirt lines in this head of mine just waiting to be properly explored. I even have the means for distributing said t-shirts. Several of the designs are typographic, using my poetry for material. And hogawsh I’m so excited about them and I hope to work them out soon!)

wp.me

For those of you who haven’t read the update, go here: http://wp.me/sf2B5-shorten.

Yes, that is a WordPress official shortened link.

Another example is the shortlink for this post: http://wp.me/pAnlo-1n .

If you’re a Twitterer, this is pretty scnazzy stuff. I was all aflutter over is.gd, but the trick with third-party shorteners is that people don’t trust them. They are cryptic and unknown. They could be viruses, semicleverly hidden.

WordPress official shortened links remove the ambiguity. You know that the site linked to is a guaranteed WordPress blog, and that said blog is checked regularly for spam/maliciousness. WordPress has your virtual back.

This is a very smart move, methinks. So spread the news (in case you haven’t already).

 

-C

 

P.S. Who else thinks that WordPress should just take over the whole blogosphere?

I know I just changed themes, but…

this one is pretty.

-C

life after college

I just today figured out why I’m going to miss college.

Yes, dear reader, I am slow sometimes. More often than I might initially admit. This particularly slow-coming epiphany drop-kicked me today at lunch. At McDonalds.

Not just any McDonalds, mind you. An Amarillo McDonalds.

I was there “enjoying” my ultra-cooked (and ultra-thin) McChicken sandwich with a smalllarge (thanks, cashier) fries and an over-carbonated, poorly-iced Coke.

This particular McDonalds, I have realized, is terrible.

In order of occurrence:

1. No matter how much you stress that you are not ordering take-out, you are served take-out. Even if the cashier specifically asks you, “for here or to go?” you are guaranteed to receive a bag full of McDonalds wonder. The most troubling part for me was noticing that other customers occasionally do get trays in a dine-in fashion. I must always look like I’m in a hurry.
2. The Coke machine’s ice dispenser is broken. It has been every day that I’ve stopped at this particular McDonalds for lunch. Am I crazy to think that they might fix it at some point? Perhaps they are saving money on ice by not fixing it. Whatever the reasoning, I end up with three to six ice chunks. That is hardly an adequate ice-to-coke ratio.
3. I have discovered that I am a Coke snob. That fact is pertinent to this particular McDonalds rant because their Coke machine is never properly calibrated. Over-carbonation is a crime against humanity. Or, at the very least, a crime against Coke.
4. Ketchup. Ketchup is the most integral part of a McDonalds meal that includes fries. Today, the ketchup dispenser was broken(?), which made my accidental large fries that much less appealing.

Thus: terrible.

As I was considering the failure surrounding me, a large group of teenagers from the semi-nearby high school flooded in, triggering my social claustrophobia. I wondered if the rowdy teens had something to do with me never being given a tray.

In any event, nothing I have mentioned so far was my revelation.

I am going to miss college because it was the last time I will be consistently surrounded by people my own age. I don’t consider myself terribly ageist, but from here on out I’m subject to whatever community my career affords. There will likely never be another time where I am amidst my peers at all times.

Perhaps that’s what makes the prospect of life after college a tad petrifying. Regardless of my social ineptitude, life during college afforded me all sorts of comfort due to the simple truth of shared experience. We were all in it together.

Now the phrase “we’re all in it together” encompasses every person I drive past, every cashier I make a lame joke with (because I’m that guy, on occasion), and most of the rest of the world. The circle has expanded so ridiculously that it’s almost appalling. There’s nothing to connect me with my “peers” except taxes and fender-benders.

So yeah. Everyone I didn’t talk to in college: I’m gonna miss walking past you. I never knew you, but you made me feel like a part of something. Thanks for not hating me when I didn’t respond to your “Howdy!” or when I refused to take your group’s flyer. Thanks for campaigning annoyingly for student body president and thanks for always filling up those bars that I never go to. Thanks for driving (generally) like people should. Thanks for cleaning out the lint catchers (all two of you). Thanks for being.

And everyone I did talk to in college: Chances are I’m gonna miss you too. Life after college is a silly thing. It happens all over the place. I know we’re all cool with facebook or whatever, but being able to see you accidentally during the day was always a plus.

 

Keep on keeping on.

-Charles

for all the aspiring writers out there

If you’re reading this, I would like to think that you enjoy writing to some degree. (Unless you were suckerpunched by a tag or a faulty Google search.)

Well, if there’s one thing that dA is fantastic for, it’s a thriving literature community. We writers have to stick together, after all.

With this community comes an endless supply of ways to get your work looked at. As of today, this is the most recent list of events/contests/inspirations I could cobble together. Check them out and see if anything strikes your fancy. Get arting!

(In case you’re wondering, the contests do have prizes attached. Fame and fortune await!)

• World War Z: Tales of the Zombie War Contest -This is the one I entered. It’s a very interesting concept, with very little limitations. So go check it!
  • Contest ends September 9, 2009.
• Present Yourself Contest – This one’s being run by a great poet friend o’ mine. The goal is to write a poem with a visual accompaniment. Enter quick!
  • Contest ends August 30, 2009.
• Lit’s Birthday Contest - dA is celebrating its ninth birthday with a humorous literature contest. Tongue in cheek, people!
  • Contest ends August 31, 2009.
• From Scripts to Flicks Contest – Like to write scripts? Submit yours and possibly see it made into an actual film!
  • Contest ends August 31, 2009. (writing portion)
• Wish Yourself Another World Contest – If you had one wish, what would the world become?
  • Contest ends September 27, 2009.

• The Lit List – A ridiculously comprehensive list of writing resources.
• Distinct Poetry – Monthly contests and prompts to get you thinking.
• Wordspill – A blind-writing exercise that produces some masterful results. Monthlyish prompts.

Go go!