A part of me feels bad that I went to the effort of revamping the site only to post one book review (albeit a review of the best book I’ve read in a long LONG time) and then disappear again. I actually do have more to write; I have much more I want to say, and get out, and write through…but I’ve been a bit busy. I know, I know, we all say “I’ve been busy” and it is a kind of lame excuse, and I recognize that it is just an excuse, but as these things go I do have something to back up my continuing tardiness:
WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!!!
We’re right in the middle of moving seventy-five miles out to Monroe Georgia…but it’s worth it. This is the last move I’ll ever make. I’ve spent the last week working my ass off and NOT getting the packing done. This weekend, the office, the storage room, the kitchen and the dining room will be packed. OS has busted out our bedroom and the kids rooms already, and she’s well on her way to having the tack consolidated and the living room ready.
If I can get my stuff “done” then I get to sit on my vacationing ass and write and play Skyrim. There’s a LOT of incentive to get done before the Moving truck gets here Wednesday morning.
If I don’t post again before the big move (and let’s be honest, I won’t), then I’ll just say “Happy Thanksgiving” and “see you all online from Monroe!”
Congratulations!
Thanks!
WOOOOOOOOOOOOT!
As we all know, the first step to surviving the zombie apocalypse is to have a good base to work from. Now that that’s out of the way I will start to stockpile the arsenal. I promise I’ll call you and Bill for guidance if I have any questions!
Wait. What is this “and” word I see? Play Skyrim AND write? Don’t you mean “or” ? You know once you start playing you won’t be able to put it down for writing.
I’m sure I’ll figure out how to type with one hand and slay dragons with the controller in the other.
I’m just jealous that you have Skyrim. It seems like such a great game for Joe and I to play together. I love piddling around doing things like fighting small monsters incessantly to increase HP and Magic and all that, and gathering BUSHELS of items. Joe likes to go take on big monsters. We can totally take turns.
A family that magically battles ogres together, stays together, right?
I’m down with that. Skyrim is great because there are so many elements and play-styles that can co-exist. Want to become the worlds greatest jewelry crafter? Go for it. Want to be a silent assassin? Grab a dagger and go to it. Want to be the arch-mage running the most influential college of magic for a thousand leagues? Step right up. Want to don more armor than a sherman tank and bludgeon orcs with an enchanted mace? Over that hill is an endless horde to challenge you.
But what’s really great is that none of that is mutually exclusive. Assassin Arch Mage, Orc-slaying Jweler, it’s all there for you to do.
At its heart though is the simple fact that every fantasy painting ever made that features a brave warrior battling a dragon is now fully possible in 1080p HD graphics as part of a story that is both epic and engrossing. It’s like playing a fantasy novel on your TV. This is what every gaming nerd has waited their entire life for…the thrill of killing a dragon and changing the world.
Congratulations!!! (And happy Thanksgiving to you too!)
Thank you for your congratulations, and an extra double THANK YOU to you and Abby for the lovely ornament that will be displayed prominently on our tree!
Know how we knew this was our house? It looks like it belongs out West, not in the South. That just makes me infinitely happy! But what the inside looks like just makes me giggle with delight!
I’m glad for that, because the loading and unloading of our possessions is something I NEVER plan to do again.
Woo hoo! I’ll probably live in and rent an apartment / condo until I die but look at you! Time for a celebration! Where’s the chocolate?
Thank you! We’ll be busting out the chocolate all season long. Stop in anytime you’re in Georgia, we’ll hook you up with something decadent and delicious in equal measure.
FYI, when not working, he is just sitting on his butt playing Skyrim and not writing. Becky, you had it correct. But perhaps I can cajole him into writing a bit more soon. Or hide the Xbox controller. One or the other.
Hey now, I EARNED that time on my butt! I’m tired, moving is hard, whaaa, whaaa, whaaa, etc…
Yeah, yeah…I’ll write more.
Blog Owner’s Note: I had to read this about ten times before I approved it. I couldn’t tell if this was a joke, or serious, or a friend messing with me. Having no “proof” one way or another I’ll treat it as serious and answer accordingly. That said, this struck a nerve and I’m not really sure why.
So I followed you (bookgoblin) here from your profile on tor.com and I’ve read you start to finish, then I realized that you were the same guy who used to comment on some of the blogs I read (HIHIHI DeadCharming) and read that blog start to finish as well, and then I discussed you at length with some friends.
I noticed that someone from a major metropolitan city ran through the totality of my stuff in the last week. I comment very rarely on TOR (though I read it almost daily), and nothing recent when you started your read-through. I’m curious which comment brought you to my doorstep? Beyond that, I’ll choose to be honored to be the subject of conversation though I hardly think I merit the effort.
We have come to a consensus, and that consensus is that we don’t think you are real. Which is to say, I don’t think you are really like you present yourself.
I didn’t laugh at first, but after reflection, I find the humor in this. Unintentional or not, this is really quite funny. I am probably not like I present myself. At least, not all the time. I’m a pretty typical guy. I work too much, too hard, and too long. I don’t appreciate the things I have and spend too much time working for and worrying about the bills and the debts and the obligations. Blog posts capture me in that moment as best I can write them down. They might capture some of my essence, by I would hardly consider them inclusive of the entire spectrum of things that makes up “the real me.”
So my question then, “is all this part of some kind of publicity thing?”
You have no idea how much I wish it was. That would imply that I was in a position to need that level of PR effort for something I wrote. My current PR effort is effectively “hey, four friends, read this and tell me if it sucks.” I don’t need to create an alternate persona for that.
I assume you’re the alt-persona of some professional writer who’s building up some kind of backstory thing. Which is a bit weird, but I’ve seen weirder.
I’ve probably seen weirder too, so I’m going to let that one pass. As I said, I wish I was a full-time professional writer. I wish I had the focus and free time necessary to write something that could be published and give me the opportunity to be a full-time professional writer. I wish I had the time and willpower just to blog more.
One thing I will say, this blog doesn’t get updated NEARLY often enough to be a PR stunt. PR stunts post more than ten things a year.
Assuming that’s the case, you need to scale it back a few notches. For example:
– The number of guys who work in a stable industry like taxes that can also discuss the heart-wrenching nature of their first sexual encounter is so impossibly low as to be inexpressible in rational numbers. Guys with that depth of emotion are either barkeepers, struggling writers, or fill some niche in advertising or sales.
I can’t really say anything to this specifically. I don’t know any other guys in tax that write. I do know a woman who works in my industry and writes with a touch and grace that I aspire to every time I type on a keyboard. It makes me doubt that profession and capacity for expression are necessarily tied together. At least, not in the real world that I live in.
I didn’t start out with a love of tax. I started out in the technology industry and followed a chain of opportunities. Lots of great writers also work (or worked) in tech. I’ll use Charlie Stross as one example, I’m sure that a short search would net more.
I did want to add that I love the turn of phrase “so impossibly low as to be inexpressible in rational numbers” so much I will steal it and use it repeatedly with glee. That is a great line.
– You don’t get to be both an NPR loving politics and non-fiction aficionado and a raging geek/nerd who loves video games and fantasy novels. While I don’t know every man on earth, I assure you such a combination doesn’t occur in nature.
I’m going to call this either a regional thing, or just weird personal experience on your part. I tend to find geeks and nerds to be left leaning by nature, and NPR is one of the information outlets of choice for people who lean left. This is like saying you can’t be a geek and like the Atlantic Monthly. Or, you can’t be a nerd and like Bill Maher. It’s just fundamentally incorrect. The number of examples to the contrary is pretty much Legion.
– The writing here is unrealistic. Not all of it, just the juxtaposition of completely excellent stuff and the mundane (and the honestly pretty crappy). The writers I know, and I know many, would never leave up some of your mopey/whiny stuff alongside such outstanding things like the childhood love and the death of a child; they’re just too anal retentive about their presentation.
Ok, so we get to the one that hurt. All protestations-to-the-contrary aside, I honestly struggle with this. Reading back through my archives can sometimes kill my inspiration to write. I focus so much on the stuff I don’t like and am not happy with that I lose the spark to write something that might be good. I don’t like leaving the crappy ones up, but I said when I started writing this that I was effectively writing an autobiography in small chunks. The story of a life is made up of a lot of elements, a lot of moments, and a lot of bumps and dips and valleys. It would be dishonest to myself if I excised those parts just because I didn’t express them well when I parsed through them. There’s stuff here I don’t like. There’s posts I haven’t posted (or haven’t written) because it covers things about myself I don’t like and that makes me suspect I won’t like the end result. That’s also intellectually dishonest, but at least it’s something I can remedy over time.
Am I happy with the overall presentation? No. Does it hit me right in that anal-retentive spot that also drives me to edit other people’s emails for spelling and style before I forward them or reply? Oh HELL yes.
Do I struggle with that? Yes, see “barely posts anymore” above.
– You’re too nice. You come across as a moderately well-adjusted individual who loves his daughter and genuinely wants to be a decent guy. That doesn’t mesh with the scope of things you’ve said about your recent past. DeadCharming was much more “angsty” and believable. This guy is has his mopey moments, but your perspective seems too “with it” for the emotional minefield you’ve described. You sound like the end result of a psychoanalysis sales pitch: “With only six years of weekly sessions YOU TOO can be a normal person who doesn’t hide in a bottle or cloud of weed!”
This is funny because OS and I have this running joke where I will do or say something and she will say “You’re so mean!” and I’ll reply by sarcastically saying that “I’m the nicest person you know.” Believe me, it is sarcasm.
If I am moderately well-adjusted, and I’d like to think that I am, then I think the path of that is already up for everyone to see. Dead Charming was a panic reaction to a divorce I didn’t want and a new marriage that happened very quickly and that I wasn’t ready to deal with. A lot of what’s there is me working through a lot of internal issues. Bad Pants is a much more introspective process that’s not about my relationships but about what makes me tick. Often my past relationships come into play, as they have been fundamental in shaping who I am, but I’m not using this space to process my current relationships. Been there, done that, bought the tee-shirt and the episodes on blu-ray for retail price.
While I think therapy and psychological healthcare are important and valid tools, I’m not really the product of that specific system. I’m more of a “work through it with words” that I spill on wordpress instead of a couch. The feedback and analysis might not be as insightful, but it’s cheaper and so far it seems to be working ok.
All of this makes me curious WHO you are and what kind of person paints this picture to the world. Do you have the courage to tell us?
Actually, I’m pretty open about who I am. I’ve named myself specifically on Dead Charming. Pretty much every regular reader/commenter is also a “Facebook Friend” and I IM or email with several of them on a regular basis. People who comment here have sent me Christmas Cards (and even a beautiful ornament for our tree) and letters, visited for dinner and a glass of wine, and met me for lunch when circumstances allowed.
I’m real. I’m pretty much who I say I am in a way that would be (and assumably is) recognizable in the day-to-day world. I’ve made real friends in the real world from people who read and comment here. I’m not sure how to convince someone of this in a practical way. My gmail and gchat address is mybadpants and I have a history of answering honestly and sometimes chatting too much.
—
As a bit of a postlude, I thought I would say that a lot of effort was put into trying to figure out how someone could read Dead Charming and My Bad Pants and come to the conclusion that it was anything other than a real guy writing intermittently about whatever popped into his brain to write about. Something in this comment makes me suspect that you work in some facet of the publishing industry and have had bad experiences with writers. I’m just speculating because honestly, I don’t know who YOU are and I have far less to go on.
Abbigale… what the HELL???? He IS a nice guy who can actually TALK about real things, deep things, sometimes troubling things. Also, REAL writers are by turn mundane and excellent, depending on the topic, the mood, the muse. He shares multiple sides of himself – are YOU single-faceted??? This is his ONLINE JOURNAL, and proof of his reality is that he DOESN’T CARE about the “presentation” you speak of.
Thanks Tiffany. I spent about an hour and several hundred words trying to say that, but you said it better and faster.
Also, he does too get to love NPR, politics, and non-fiction AND be a geeky video game loving, fantasy novel reading person. I AM ONE TOO. And I know a half dozen similar folks LIVE AND IN PERSON just off the top of my head.
Yeah, I just didn’t get that part. That made no sense to me.
I’m not one bit curious about the kind of person YOU are. Leaving a comment like this isn’t courageous at all.
Bad Pants, don’t listen to this garbage. WE know who you are. Fucking trolls.
Congrats on the house! Hopefully I will be back in town in a year or two and see it!! PS thanks again you guys are great!
It was so much fun to have you over! We aren’t any closer to downtown, but the view is better and we have a guest room waiting for you. Next time I promise not to get lost in downtown Atlanta driving back from your hotel.
Wait! You’re not real? I wonder how your mother is going to take that news? And, I guess I better cancel my plans for “accidentally” pushing you into a gator infested lake, since if you’re not real, our marriage is a sham, and there’d be no insurance pay out.
Please note, the “gator infested lake” is exactly the kind of stuff we talk about. The primary threat in this house isn’t “you’ll sleep on the couch” it’s “they’ll never find the body.”
Seriously though, Abbigale, if you paid attention to everything you read, you would already know BP’s real name. You also know his mother’s name. He is real. That I can promise you. All you have to do is a little research and a little digging. Here, I’ll make it easy for you! Our wedding was on March 22, 2007, in Salem, OR. Since you already have BP’s name, and marriages are a matter of public record, that should suffice to prove that yes, Bad Pants IS a real boy!
Ironically, when I heard about your comment, Abbigale, our son was watching a show called, “Yes, Virginia”, as in “Yes, Virginia, there really is a Santa Clause”.
I am sorry that you have so little going on in your life that you have spent a considerable amount of time reading over BP’s posts, followed him around from site to site, with clearly nothing better to do. Worse, I feel for you because you clearly needed to lambaste someone to make yourself feel better. What a sad world you must live in!
HEY NOW! Someone can read my stuff and still have a life…that was harsh… 😛
(For anyone who didn’t get it, I was joking.)
Do yourself a favor, go spend some time on the West Coast and get to know the geek community there. Go to Seattle, Portland, Eugene, San Francisco. Meet some geeks and nerds. Get to know them. Then make an informed decision about who can or cannot work in tax, listen to NPR, love non-fiction, yet be a gaming geek of the first water and read from the sci-fi/fantasy genre. Apparently there is a wider range of people out there that you have not had the pleasure of meeting yet.
Yeah, this is absolutely the truth. Every word of it.
Oh, and HAPPY HOLIDAYS! May people around you be kinder and more considerate than your comment here this holiday season.
I received an email tonight from Abbigale, and while I won’t share the whole thing, I will say that it included an apology that I accept. I honestly believe that it wasn’t intended in the way it came across. It struck a nerve with me for reasons that I will post about in the next few days. So if nothing else, at least it prompted me to write more.
As I said in my response, Abbigale, you are welcome to continue to comment here; the other readers are genuinely nice and accepting and I don’t think they will hold one unfortunate comment against someone.
I am so happy for you, OS and the kids (you know that includes the 4 legged ones right?) Your new home will be a wonderful place
It most certainly is, although it’s been a wee tad cold of late.
When Pie & I moved to our acreage we said the same thing, no more moves! We often joke that our next move is to the old folks home or the graveyard.
Yeah, they’ll carry me out of here in a hearse. In-home healthcare for the win!
Normally I’m a lurker… and although I would have commented the above I would also like to say that I think Abbigale’s comment was unnecessary and a bit cruel. To me, it comes across as someone bitter and upset with men and/or writers.
Trust me BP, the vast majority of us do not share the sentiments she expressed.
Thank you, I really do appreciate it.
I took random samples of this blog and stuck them in an online analyzer called “I Write Like” (http://iwl.me/) and your samples came back as most like Stephen King with a sprinkling of H.P. Lovecraft. Now, really that was of the 7 samples I submitted, 6 of them came back Stephen King, and one came back H.P. Lovecraft.
I’ve only read a few Stephen King stories/novels but I’d KILL to be as consistently productive and marketable as he is. Also, I think he’s a rather good writer (even if most of his material isn’t my personal cup of tea), so I’d like to believe I write that well on a good day. H. P. Lovecraft is actually one of my pulp-era heroes. I don’t write like that, but I wish I did.
In comparison, my samples of my own blog came back Stephanie Meyer and Arthur Clarke. I am more than slightly insulted by the Stephanie Meyer comparison. After all, I actually DO my research and not write about places I’ve never been without actually researching them for accurate portrayal.
Arthur C Clarke is a huge compliment. He’s one of my favorite writers of all time, “Rendezvous with Rama” is one of the best sci-fi books ever written.
As you already know, the Stephanie Meyer thing made me laugh so hard my sides hurt. If it’s any consolation I think your writing is stylistically and comprehensively superior in pretty much every way.
THIS is what happens when you don’t write very much. I miss ALL THE FUN when I don’t check in…
Shame on you, Sir, for depriving me of the timely chuckles I deserved. SHAME ON YOU! 😉
I so wanted to make a “blame the victim” joke, but with all the hoopla going around after the Family Guy domestic abuse episode I’m just going to whistle and move along…whistle and move along…
Well done. All of it.
Thank you.
(And thank you for the ‘tax’ wink-winker [reference to ‘Gilmore Girls]!)
It was sincerely and honestly meant. It’s funny, because I can’t hear “wink-winker” without thinking about overcooked fries.
If this is what it takes to get you writing again, then consider me selfishly happy.
Well, this and some other stuff. But this might have been the catalyst, so I guess that’s a good thing.
I’m going to meet you guys someday. I can’t name the time or occasion, but I have faith it’ll happen.
Yes. Yes you are. Someday, at some point, in the not too distant future, we will all sit around and drink coffee or wine and talk about kids and pugs and books and stories from our past. It will comfortable and pleasant and feel like we’ve all known each other forever, because in some very important ways, we have.