Media Review 2011: Top Motion Pictures.

While my book-reading didn't have much of a spiritual component this year, my movie-watching sure did. I don't know if this was intentional on the parts of the filmmakers or if I just imported a lot of my faith into the theatre with me, but many of this year's film's spoke to me in a deeply spiritual way. That said, while I had a deep admiration for many of 2011's offerings, I only loved three of them to the degree where I couldn't stop thinking about them for days afterward. The fourth and fifth slots of this year's top five could well have been filled by many of the movies that wound up as "Honorable Mentions." Which, by the way, are:

HONORABLE MENTIONS
The Adventures of TinTin
Captain America: The First Avenger
Contagion
Drive
The Ides of March
Midnight in Paris
Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol
Moneyball
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
X-Men: First Class

TOP FIVE
5) The Artist AND Hugo [Both of these movies are so steeped in nostalgia that I watched them with a big, dumb grin on my face. I have a feeling that Hugo will wind up standing the test of time better than The Artist, but either of them is worth the throwback factor. Oh, and both of these films broke the unbreakable rule: if a film has a cutaway of a dog putting its paw over its eyes in shame, then that film is a giant hunk of not-worth-it. Way to buck the system, movies!]
4) Super 8 [The first coming-of-age film I've seen that takes place roughly during the time period when I came of age. I'm officially old enough that my nostalgia is also becoming the nation's nostalgia. I was so very, very on board with this movie the whole time I was watching it. Just completely top-notch.]
3) Source Code [Basically, this film hit all my buttons. You know when you're scratching your dog's tummy and you find that spot where they kick their leg, wag their tail, rub their back against the carpet, and loll out their tongue at the same time? That's me watching this movie.]
2) Cave of Forgotten Dreams [A documentary on prehistoric cave paintings. Sounds scintillating, right? It actually is! Werner Herzog never makes a boring film, and he uses the conceit of these paintings to ask all sorts of questions about humanity, artistry, spirituality, and where all these things come from. Plan lots of time afterward for contemplation and/or discussion.]
1) The Tree of Life [It will have to be a strong, strong contender to knock this one from the top spot when I compile my "Best of the Decade" list in 2020. I cannot adequately describe how I feel this movie, so I'll quote film critic Walter Chaw instead: "...It's true in a way that has nothing to do with what happens in it and everything to do with what happens in me while I watch it." Exactly.]

NOTABLY MISSED
A Separation
Coriolanus
War Horse
The Mill and the Cross

NO THANKS
The Help
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Albert Nobbs

WORST
Cars 2 [Man, was this thing disappointing. I doubt Pixar had any real creative reason to dip back into the Cars well, and it showed in a film that tried to preach that same worn-out message of "Be yourself" and wound up adding the parenthetical, "Even if you're a pretentious jerk with no cultural sensitivity." The upside is that it led to a great post-film conversation with my kids about how we all need to grow and learn and put aside our more coarse impulses.]

Transformers: Dark of the Moon [I can trash this all I want and I still won't be able to top the masterful review from (again) Walter Chaw. Go read it (warning: swears).]

Tomorrow: nothing! The media review is over!

Media Review 2011: Top Television.

I'm oh-so-gradually starting to recognize that television may have more to offer me than I've allowed in the past. This year I started watching two new sitcoms, both of which have some critical acclaim and both of which made my top five. A definite step up, since I didn't even bother with this part of the media review last year.

TOP FIVE
5) Phineas & Ferb [I marvel at how this Disney cartoon manages to be so consistently fresh and funny. I wish I was one-tenth this inventive.]
4) 30 Rock [Part of me hopes this is the last season, because this show is treading water and losing steam. Still, when the rapport is on between Jack and Liz, it is on. Alec Baldwin may be a failure as a human being, but darn it all if he's super-great on this show.]
3) Modern Family [I'm new to this show, so I don't know yet if it will hold up (it seems like the dynamics haven't changed or developed much since I started watching), and it still hews pretty closely to a lot of sitcom conventions, but on the whole it tends to deliver at least a couple of good laughs every episode. And the character of Phil Dunphy is pretty genius.]
2) The Daily Show/The Colbert Report [I'm really looking forward to the 2012 election with these guys.]
1) Community [GOOD GRAVY BOATS IN HEAVEN THIS SHOW IS AMAZING! Completely blew my mind the first time I watched this. Finally, at long last, I found a show to fill that big Arrested Development-shaped hole in my heart, and then NBC goes and "benches" it. If you weren't watching it already, do yourself a favor and find it whenever NBC puts it back on the air.]

DESERVING OF SPECIAL RECOGNITION
Phineas & Ferb: Across the Second Dimension [A made-for-TV movie that my kids forced me to watch when they earned it as a reward--and I wound up loving it. It actually made me look forward to the inevitable theatrical Phineas & Ferb movie (coming in 2013).]

BEST FROM A PREVIOUS YEAR
The Cosby Show [I actually watched this as a kid, but now that I'm a parent of five, it is funny on a completely new level. I always identified with Theo back in the day (and harbored a secret crush on the much-older Denise), but now I'm all about Cliff and how he relates to his kids while treating Claire with true love and respect. You've set a high bar, Mr. Cosby. A high bar indeed.]

WORST
Whitney [I wish I could use Are You There, Chelsea?, but since that debuted in January of this year, it's off the table until next time. I could only stomach about the first 10 minutes of Whitney's completely humor-free pilot before I turned it off, disgusted that it's staying on the schedule while Community languishes on "the bench."]

Tomorrow: the media review concludes with my favorite category--top motion pictures!

Media Review 2011: Top Music.

Where the good books of 2011 were generally a thin group, the good music is bursting with multiple candidates for the top spots. I could easily fill out a top 20 if such a thing were wanted. But the rules for this game are a top five, and so it goes...

HONORABLE MENTIONS
Destroyed, Moby
Holy Ghost!, Holy Ghost!
Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, M83
Join Us, They Might Be Giants
The King Is Dead, The Decemberists
The Long Surrender, Over the Rhine
Metals, Feist
Nothing Is Wrong, Dawes
Safari Disco Club, Yelle
TRON: Legacy Reconfigured, Daft Punk & others
Zonoscope, Cut Copy

TOP FIVE
5) Biophilia, Bjork [Bjork's last couple of albums have felt like a hodge-podge of song ideas; this one is practically a full-blown symphony, well-thought-out and arranged, allowing each track to be distinctive while still building on the whole. This one's a triumph of artistry, but you have to be down with Bjork in the first place to enjoy it.]
4) Wasting Light, Foo Fighters [Don't give me any of that Black Keys nonsense--this is still the best straight-ahead rock-and-roll band on the planet. Only one subpar track, which I simply unchecked in my iTunes so I never have to listen to it.]
3) Tamer Animals, Other Lives [Their arrangements almost seem counter-intuitive, but man do they make it work. Another album that appears to be carefully thought-through, which makes it all the more impressive. Makes for great listening while you're reading The Sisters Brothers, by the way.]
2) Build a Rocket Boys!, Elbow [The missing comma in that album title aside, this was the most musically satisfying album of 2011, starting strong and only getting stronger as it goes. "I'll miss your stupid face," indeed.]
1) The Harrow & The Harvest, Gillian Welch [Emotionally enriching and sonically devastating, the sparse arrangements, careful songwriting, and heartbreaking performances on this one demand attention. I can't do anything else when this album is on--it forces me to listen to it. God's honest truth: the first time I heard this, I was at work and I just sat there, stared at my computer, and wept for 45 minutes. Oh, and "Hard Times" was my theme song for the year.]

CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED BUT NOT REALLY DOIN' IT FOR ME
21, Adele
Barton Hollow, The Civil Wars
Bon Iver, Bon Iver

PRETTY GOOD ALBUM FROM THE BEST-NAMED BAND
It's a Corporate World, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.

WISH I'D HEARD OF IT BEFORE YESTERDAY
Drive, Tycho

BEST FROM A PREVIOUS YEAR
Loveless, My Bloody Valentine (1991) [How did I never get around to listening to this album until 20 years after its release? How?! (Oh, and I don't wish to alarm anyone, but The Joshua Tree turns 25 in 2012.)]

WORST
Showroom of Compassion, Cake [I know the slacker ethic is kind of Cake's thing, but if they aren't going to put any effort into their albums, then why would I bother to listen to them?]

Tomorrow: I chime in with a category I didn't even bother with last year--top television programs. Things are getting better on the small screen!

Media Review 2011: Top Books.

Well, it's been a long time coming, but I just had so many films I wanted to see and books I wanted to read before I finished up my annual media review. There are still some out there (especially in the book world), but I can delay no longer. So with that, here's my list of:

MEDIA FROM 2011 THAT MADE ME LIKE IT FOR SOME REASON OR ANOTHER

Let's start with the printed word. Not a whole lot to say about the books of 2011, other than very few of them really moved me in a memorable way. I read a lot of supposedly humorous stuff this year, and I'd just about give up entirely on humor as a viable genre of book were it not for Tina Fey and John Hodgman. Also, an astonishing low number of Jesus books passed in front of my eyeballs this year, which was not intentional. Just not a whole lot tickled my fancy. Anyway, here goes.

HONORABLE MENTIONS
All Is Grace, Brennan Manning
Believing Is Seeing (Observations on the Mysteries of Photography), Errol Morris
Bossypants, Tina Fey
The Four Holy Gospels, Makoto Fujimura [You owe it to yourself to at least check this link out and watch the video about its creation. Stunningly gorgeous]
Life Itself: A Memoir, Roger Ebert
One Thousand Gifts, Ann Voskamp
That Is All, John Hodgman

TOP FIVE
5) Wonderstruck, Brian Selznick [The follow-up half-art/half-prose book from the author of The Invention of Hugo Cabret (which a certain ten-time Oscar-nominated film was based on). This one builds on his storytelling style, but instead of combining stark, detailed chiaroscuro drawings and writing to tell one story, Selznick tells two (eventually) intersecting stories, one with pictures and the other with words. Captivating and creative.]
4) Unfamiliar Fishes, Sarah Vowell [I had no idea the history of Hawaii could be this interesting, especially when told by perennially white-skinned and nasal cityfolk like Vowell. I will forever be indebted to her for writing this sentence: "For Americans, Acts 16:9 is the high-fructose corn syrup of Bible verses--an all-purpose ingredient we'll stir into everything from the ink on the Marshall Plan to canisters of Agent Orange."]
3) Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, Rob Bell [I really don't like Bell's writing style, nor his whole "ain't-I-a-stinker?" approach to marketing himself, but kudos to him for getting the nation talking about this very important topic. Also, this book holds a special place in my heart, because I was reading it when I found out Osama Bin Laden had been assassinated.]
2) The Sisters Brothers, Patrick DeWitt [Imagine if the Coen Brothers wrote an original Western novel with a slight sci-fi twist. Now stop imagining, because it exists! It just was written by Patrick DeWitt instead of the Coens.]
1) A History of the World in 100 Objects, Neil MacGregor [This guy is the director of the British Museum in London. He took 100 different objects from the museum and used them to draw the line of human history from our beginnings to now. This one never stops being fascinating, covering parts of history I've never even heard of before. It's a little daunting, but I had no problem finishing it before it was due at the library. Oh, and the pictures are nifty, too.]

WANTED TO READ IT BUT COULDN'T FIND IT
Write More Good, The Fake AP Stylebook
Newspaper Blackout, Austin Kleon

BEST FROM A PREVIOUS YEAR
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [I'd read at the Holmes series several times in my life, but this was the first year I read one of the books from cover to cover. Thoroughly engaging material, even though it's been copied and re-copied by just about every mystery author since.]

WORST
Zombie Mommy, M.T. Anderson [Mediocre things don't generally wind up in the "worst" category for me--it's usually media that is hugely popular for a reason that eludes me (see Transformers: Dark of the Moon) or media from an author whose work I admire but who has begun to tread the water of mediocrity. This is a case of the latter. M.T. Anderson's Pals in Peril! series is a magnificent invention of supreme cleverness and insightful hilarity, but this latest entry is neither clever nor even very funny. It's just aggressively boring, and that makes it the worst.]

Tomorrow: Top Music!

Space Available: Post-Mortem.

So, the year 2011 has come and gone, and my experiment with writing a complete novel on Twitter--a book called Space Available, FYI--is now finished. Here's what I learned:

The level of difficulty was way harder than I anticipated.
I had no idea how hard it would be to tell a rich, layered story in 140-character bursts. I think I went into this whole experiment a little naively, because I've told stories before--lots of them--so I just assumed it would be a matter of adapting my storytelling process to the Twitter format.

What I wasn't counting on was the complete interruption of the flow of thinking that comes from having to mind your character count and click "Tweet" every few words. I found it to be much more disruptive than I'd originally figured on. Twitter works very well as a medium for sharing interesting links, or for expressing an opinion in a succinct way (this is why so many comedians have latched on to it--Twitter is the perfect one-liner delivery system).

But hashtag-free thoughts that run the length of more than a few tweets get bogged down easily in the type-count-tweet/type-count-tweet mechanism that is Twitter. In retrospect, I wish I'd made it more of a performance-art kind of thing, Cloverfield-style, like I was live-tweeting the story as opposed to writing my novel down on Twitter. Maybe that would've been just as difficult, but it would have fit the medium better.

I am an enthusiastic dreamer... until life gets in the way.
I started this project like I start all my projects: with a zest and passion for it, knowing that I am going to knock it out of the park. This is mostly the anticipation part, leading up to it. I announced it last December and was ready to hit the ground with my engines revving.

I started out with a darn fine first sentence, and that was all I wrote on day one. Then I had a good burst for a couple of weeks until my daughter was born, and then I took a couple of days off, and then I started back, and then I had other writing projects due, and then I was finding it difficult to work on the book, and then I got a corporate job, and then my family was the victim of a home invasion, and then I got let go from that corporate job, and then...

You see what I'm saying. The writing process was so difficult that any old excuse for not writing would do, and 2011 provided me with plenty of them--most of them not so fun.

Feedback helps.
I found a surprising amount of desire to push through the difficulties of writing anytime someone gave me feedback on it. Even something as simple as a mention at a social function that they were "enjoying" the story was enough to make me think, "Okay, time to do some more work on it."

And I do have to say, there is an unmitigated champion in this regard, and his name is Andrew Joyce, and I knew I could count on a tweet or two in my direction from @authorandrew, almost every time complimentary. There were many times where I felt like I was writing just to this guy. Seriously: a champ.

I do some of my best writing late at night.
There were many, many occasions where I'd think, "Oh, yes! I know exactly what to do next! I will go do that right now!" or, failing that, I would just have an urge to work on the book, and then I would look and see that it was midnight, or past midnight, or 5:00 in the morning.

But then I would realize that, of the 157 people following me, many of them who do so (or at least those who tell me they enjoy reading it) are doing it on their phone. If I send out a tweet, their phone buzzes to let them know it's there. And I don't want to disrupt any sort of sleeping that they might be doing, and so I, being a fairly nice person, would hold off on cranking out my awesome idea for a decent hour of the day.

And then I would forget to do it.

Cliffhangers are crazy-fun.
That said, one really fun development I did not anticipate was the rhythm of my writing output lending itself to an almost serialized feel to the story. I wound up feeling like a day of writing shouldn't be finished until I'd built to some sort of cliffhanger that I could pay off next time.

This was where I started finding the real pleasure in telling this particular story, and I really started to sympathize with the writers for the television show "LOST," because ending a story beat with a cliffhanger is really fun (and kind of easy), but paying it off later on is hard. That show loved it's cliffhanger-y endings ("We gotta go back, Kate! We gotta go back!" remains an all-time favorite television moment for me), and for the most part managed to address those cliffhangers later on (though they never wound up putting together that stupid army in season two).

It's okay to succeed only halfway.
This is the biggest lesson I learned, and it was also the hardest one. With about four or five months left in the year, I started to realize that, unless I really kicked on the afterburners, I was not going to finish strong. And that's when the whole project began to feel like a giant weight on my shoulders. I was already battling depression (it's a thing I deal with), and the added stress of feeling like a massive failure was almost debilitating.

Fortunately, with about six weeks left in the year, I had a good chat with Jeff Gerke, the publisher at Marcher Lord Press about the state of the book and where it could be. I also had a good chat with my wife, who helped me to realize something that I have a hard time owning up to:

Admitting my limitations is not the same thing as admitting defeat.

And one other thing:

Admitting defeat is okay, too.

And when it came to Space Available, I felt defeated. I had gone into it with such high hopes, and it wasn't turning out at all like I'd thought it would. It was way too short, it was scattershot, it was far afield thematically from what I'd set out to do, and it generally felt like a big, giant misfire.

But I was learning to be okay with that. These things happen (even the usually smart Apple released the Mac Cube). I was willing to admit that Space Available had, in a lot of ways, become a misfire, but that was okay. And even if it wasn't where I'd originally wanted it to be, I could give it the ending it deserved, bring some closure, and even leave the door open for a sequel, should the desire arise (though not written through Twitter). In the end, my novel turned into a novella that will be published as an e-book, and I learned a good lesson about biting off more than I could chew and that sometimes cutting bait was preferable to fishing when you're in over your head (and perhaps I could've learned more lessons about mixing metaphors).

All in all, I've come away from the experience a wiser writer and a better person, and that's really all I could hope for. We'll see what the future holds.

Space Available: The Press Deluge Continues.

This time it's an interview with Where The Map Ends, the totally awesome and ultra-rad website that specializes in Christian speculative fiction (should we abbreviate that "Xspecfic"?), and which happens to be run by my friend and the publisher of Marcher Lord Press, Jeff Gerke, and which also happens to be featured in the current run-on sentence you just happen to be reading.

Thanks for reading!

Space Available: The Press Deluge Begins.

So I get an "at" tweet from this cat @authorandrew from a website called Into The Book asking for an interview. I check the site and it is super-cool and so I look him up and we make the interview happen. You can read it here.

Space Available: Paralysis And Promises.

Boy, I was not counting on this. I mean, I thought I'd have a little difficulty to push through, but I was certainly not prepared for the mental struggle I'd be going through right about now.

Writing your first draft in front of people is very, very hard.

And, to be honest, it's keeping me away. I sit down to read my Twitter feed and have now visually tuned out that big white box at the top that says "What's happening?" above it. It's just too painful to look at, the constant reminder that I need to write something for Space Available but am just unsure about what to write. I've navigated the story to a point where I know something major's going to happen; I just don't know exactly how it's going to happen.

Ordinarily I could just write whatever I want and see if it works, and if so, great; if not, no harm done. But now I'm transmitting this thing as it happens, writing without a net. Which is part of the exhilaration of it--if I uncork a good one-liner (which, there've been a couple), I get the satisfaction of immediate feedback on it (usually from one or two close friends).

But I'm so terrified I'm going to screw the thing up that it keeps me from writing it. And that's starting to happen more often. I've now had at least three, maybe four entire weeks where I didn't write at all, partially motivated by work and other things, but very often just out of sheer paralysis. A hope that tomorrow I'll know beyond a shadow of a doubt what I'm supposed to write, as if there is a "correct" thing to put in that white box.

Am I starting to feel overwhelmed by the challenge? Yeah, a little. But I'm also overwhelmed by my story at the moment. I know where I'm going (at least I have that much figured out), but I have little to no idea how to get there, and I'm afraid that I'm going to take it down a path that will block me from my original intent. So that makes me overthink it, and that leads to the aforementioned paralysis, which leads to the full week of not-writing.

So! From here on out, I make this solemn vow to you, the dear reader of Space Available: I will not tweet every day, but I will tweet every week. There will not be a week go by until the end of 2011 that I have not written a portion of this book. It's the only way to break me out of this funk--to commit to writing on it regardless, and then to make that commitment public.

Oh, and I also hope to write more blog updates. That's important, too.

See you on Mondays!

Media Review 2010: Top Motion Pictures.

[The media review rolls on into its final installment as I break down my favorite films of the year.]

HONORABLE MENTIONS:
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Green Zone
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1
How to Train Your Dragon
The King's Speech
Secretariat
The Social Network
The Town

THE TOP FIVE:
5) Inception [Yes to the ideas. Yes to the characters. Yes to the imaginative visuals. Overwhelming yes to the masterful way Christopher Nolan worked in exposition without killing the momentum. Super-duper yes to the ambiguous ending. No, no, no to the bland directorial style and the James-Bond-villain-via-Hoth climactic battle setting. You fold up Paris for practice but when it comes time for the real thing, you just shoot a bunch of guns? Yawn.]
4) Exit Through the Gift Shop [While Inception is very good at provoking thought about the plot of Inception, this documentary is good at provoking thought about larger questions, like where should one draw the line between art and commerce, and how do free market principles play into that, and how awesome, exactly, is street artist Banksy? The first must-see documentary in a long time.]
3) Scott Pilgrim vs. the World [Not only is it outrageously funny, inventive, and smart--it is also far more perceptive about love in the real world than your average romantic comedy. Odd that a movie this off-the-wall has so much to say about the realities of relationships.]
2) True Grit [Pretty much perfect, and would've been my number one were it not for...]
1) Toy Story 3 [Based on the trailer, I was certain this was going to be Pixar's first grand misstep, a cynical cash-grab that just regurgitated the first two. So imagine my surprise when it turned out not only to be a wholly original story, but the story that the first two installments led up to. It's like they had this in mind all along. Storytelling at its best.]

MIGHT'VE MADE THE LIST IF I'D SEEN 'EM:
127 Hours
Four Lions
Inside Job
Lebanon
Rabbit Hole

THOSE OSCAR-BAIT MOVIES THAT COME OUT EVERY YEAR BUT THAT I'M NOT INTERESTED IN:
Black Swan
The Kids Are All Right
The Fighter
Blue Valentine

CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED BUT ACTUALLY KIND OF TERRIBLE:
The Ghost Writer
Greenberg
Shutter Island
Winter's Bone

BEST FROM A PREVIOUS YEAR:
The General (1926) [I introduced my kids to the big three silent comedians on New Year's Eve, and we had a wonderful year experiencing some of these still-hilarious classic films. My favorite of all of them has to be this one, featuring Buster Keaton, a runaway train, and some of the most clever, seat-of-your-pants comic gags I've ever seen. The man really was a genius, and I can tell because his films still get belly laughs today, even from my children.]

WORST:
Clash of the Titans [Not nearly Transformers-level awful, but still loveably terrible, especially in its dartboard approach to mythology, Jamba-Juice-blender approach to editing, and who-cares approach to accents. Add in the casting of current interchangeable, mix-and-match lunkhead Sam Worthington as the lead, and it's just bland enough to be boring where it should be exciting.]

Media Review 2010: Top Music.

[So much good music this year! I couldn't narrow it down to only five, so I cheated and made two top five lists: one for American bands, one for bands from places other than the United States.]

HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Broken Bells, Broken Bells
A Chorus of Storytellers, The Album Leaf
I Learned the Hard Way, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings
Love and Its Opposite, Tracey Thorn
Magic Chairs, Efterklang

TOP FIVE (AMERICAN):
5) Leave Your Sleep, Natalie Merchant [Miss Merchant wanted to teach her daughter a few poems, so, she did what any loving parent would do--she set them to music, then recorded them so the rest of us can enjoy. It's like brand-new Americana.]
4) Beautiful Things, Gungor [At first, I was unimpressed. It felt like a checklist of tracks from all of Michael Gungor's favorite bands (here's the Muse song! and now here's the Regina Spektor song! and now here's the Switchfoot song! Sufjan, anyone? etc.), but the more I listened to it, the more it grew on me. Really good worship songwriting, and hardly a Jesus-is-my-girlfriend number on it.]
3) My Room in the Trees, The Innocence Mission [They coasted a bit with their last album (2007's We Walked in Song), so I set the bar a little lower than usual when I heard this one--and then had to raise it right back up, and they still cleared it. They have their thing, but they do what they do so unbelievably well that it never gets old. Fun fact: "God Is Love," the third song on this album, is the unofficial theme song of my newly born baby daughter.]
2) Provenance, Maya Beiser [There are very, very many musicians who are technically proficient on their instruments but who always sound like they're playing a bunch of notes by the rulebook. Maya Beiser is a cellist who uses her instrument for Art, who speaks through it, who lives through it, who breathes through it. Oh, and she covers Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir." What's not to like?]
1) Interpol, Interpol and High Violet, The National [I wound up getting these albums days apart from each other, and as a result, began listening to them back-to-back, so much so that they became a sort of double album. Now they are inseparable in my mind. And as far as I'm concerned, their drummers contribute most of the awesomeness.]

TOP FIVE (INTERNATIONAL):
5) Miike Snow, Miike Snow [The Official Adam Palmer Album of the Summer of 2010. Creative electronic music that goes far beyond the standard and mixes in some artistic flair. Perfect for barbecues, cleaning the house, or for bumping in your car, with the windows down, as you drive to go view the mushroom cloud that wipes us all out. Yes, it's that epic.]
4) Black Swan, Athlete [Not to be confused with the Darren Aronofsky film of the same name, this is Britpop at its finest. Break out the cigarette lighter and rest your arms well, because you're going to want to raise it up for every single song. An entire album's worth of anthems.]
3) Go, Jonsi [Exactly the sound you would expect from a pop album by the lead singer of Sigur Ros and produced by Nico Muhly.]
2) ...And They Escaped the Weight of Darkness, Olafur Arnalds [Breathtakingly beautiful minimalistic orchestration, again from Iceland. Holds a special place in my heart because, while I already had it at my #2 spot, it was playing while my daughter was born a few weeks ago. Great music to have your kid be born to.]
1) Sigh No More, Mumford & Sons [The nexus of great music, insightful lyrics, and at a time in my life when I needed both. Unless something crazy happens, this will be on my decade-best list in 2019.]

BEST FROM A PREVIOUS YEAR (TIE):
The Fountain Soundtrack (2006), Clint Mansell [I'm already a huge fan of the movie, but I never realized the degree to which Clint Mansell's score adds to the overall experience. This is some fantastic writing music.]
Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space (1997), Spiritualized [This is the same year that Radiohead released OK Computer and The Verve released Urban Hymns, and this album just may be better than both of them. Layer upon layer upon layer of musical genius that speaks to the futility of trying to numb pain through drug use, though it does have some unfortunate swearing.]

WORST:
Plastic Beach, Gorillaz [What a letdown, especially after the pleasant time I had with their previous album. Sounds like, instead of writing actual songs with something to say, they invited a bunch of celebrity rappers into the studio to smoke weed and spout the first things that come to mind. Total harvest? One decent song ("Stylo," if you must know).]

Media Review 2010: Top Books.

[Time once more for me to reveal my picks for the best in media for the previous year. Today's entry: the best books of 2010.]

HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Eating Animals, Jonathan Safran Foer
From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time, Sean Carroll
How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming, Mike Brown
The Lexicographer's Dilemma: The Evolution of 'Proper' English from Shakespeare to South Park, Jack Lynch
Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, David Sedaris

TOP FIVE:
5) Sonic Boom: A Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the New Economy, Gregg Easterbrook [Very interesting thoughts on the immediate future of our world as we experience a "sonic boom." The publisher positioned it as a "business book," but it isn't, really. It's just interesting, if you're into that sort of thing.]
4) The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, Michael Lewis [Still feel like you don't completely understand what happened with the credit crisis in the fall of '08? Still befuddled about what exactly is a "credit default swap"? Want to learn about the handful of people who made a bundle while the rest of us were losing our collective house? This is the book for you.]
3) Agent Q, or the Smell of Danger!, M.T. Anderson [There's a series of books called "Pals in Peril!" This is the fourth one. They are very, very funny, especially if you spent your childhood reading series books.]
2) Mere Churchianity: Finding Your Way Back to Jesus-Shaped Spirituality, Michael Spencer [Michael Spencer used to write gospel-centric rants about wrongheaded ways we do church and theology in 21st century America. He wrote them on the internet. Then he got a book deal and wrote this. Then he died. His was a clear-headed way of thinking about Jesus that sidesteps the pointless blather and speaks directly to the heart of the matter. Oh, and full disclosure--I am an infrequent contributor to his website, InternetMonk.com.]
1) After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters, N.T. Wright [This is the natural progression from my #6 book of the decade last year, Surprised by Hope. Sometimes it gets a little egghead-y, but it's still entirely worth the read.]

BEST FROM A PREVIOUS YEAR:
The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (2006), Francis S. Collins [Dr. Collins led the Human Genome Project, the conglomeration of scientists that unraveled the mystery of our DNA and figured out what every bit of it does. This book is a history of the project itself as well as Collins's firsthand account of the way he found Jesus in the midst of it. Awfully darn good.]

BOOK THAT SHOULD BE ON EVERYONE ELSE'S LIST:
The Soul of Spider-Man, Adam Palmer & Jeff Dunn [This one wasn't supposed to be released until next year, but then Regal brought it out anyway! My streak remains alive!]

WORST (TIE):
Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins [I was introduced to the very good book The Hunger Games this year, which I devoured with relish. Then I found out it was a trilogy and did a little dance of joy. I got the second book, Catching Fire, and thought it was so-so, but it picked up toward the end. So then it was time for Mockingjay, the final book in the trilogy, and I was cautiously optimistic--surely she would end on a good note? Nope. Collins makes bad decision after bad decision, forgetting what made the first book so great. Such a disappointment.]

Earth (The Book): A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race, Jon Stewart et al [It's no secret: I really like The Daily Show a lot, and I think Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert both serve a wonderful purpose by poking holes in the public discourse. Colbert's book, I Am America (And So Can You!) is smart, incisive, and seriously funny. This book, by Jon Stewart and the writers of The Daily Show, is stupid, crass, and juvenile, with jokes that land as gracefully as the whale in The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy. Stick to television, fellas. Full disclosure: It was so bad I didn't even make it ten pages in. Maybe it gets awesome on page eleven. I don't care.]

Fan Mail.

Got this little note last week, through an "at" tweet from my friend Zach. Thought I'd share:

Adam - thought this "novel on twitter" idea was stupid when I first heard it. I was wrong. It's Awesome. I'm hooked.

So, with that in mind, today is a great day for you to catch up on Space Available, seeing that it's Monday, meaning that I've compiled all of last week's tweets, combined them with the previous weeks' tweets, and sent the whole thing over to Marcher Lord Press.

Taking A Few Days' Worth of Break.

I've taken four days off from working on Space Available, but it's not because I'm being a slacker (for once). I actually have a good reason!

Visit my family's website to find out why.

I'll resume either today or tomorrow. Until then!

Space Available: First Impressions.

I'm just over a week into Space Available and already it's a blast. Easily the most low-pressure writing I've ever done. Instead of putting my head down and cranking out content to meet a high daily word count or a publisher-mandated deadline, I am really enjoying taking my time and thinking through each tweet I send. I have an entire year to get this thing done, so instead of writing 2000 words a day, I can take it easy and write a measly thousand words per week.

I say it's low-pressure, though that first sentence was a doozy. I mentally crafted and rejected probably twenty first sentences over the final week of December. As New Year's Eve hit, I had one ready to go, but when the morning of January 1 rolled around, it just felt wrong. I opened up Twitter and meant to type it in, but I just couldn't do it yet. I waited and waited and waited (and quietly panicked) until finally, sometime that afternoon, something else entirely popped into my head and I knew it was my first sentence. Yes, the beginning of the novel sprang, fully formed, into my consciousness as I made macaroni and cheese for my kids.

I'm curious to see how this project feels as I get into the routine of writing and as the story develops. Obviously, I'm still introducing things and am not yet beholden to pay off much of it yet. The real work will be to make the ending live up to any promises I've made in the beginning, especially since I'm making those promises so early.

Thanks to all who are following and (shockingly) retweeting as it comes along. If anyone is interested in joining the journey now, you can head over to the official Marcher Lord Press Space Available page and catch up. It is updated every Monday, so that should make it semi-easy.

I said in an earlier post that anyone with questions can send them through email or Facebook, but I realized you can also tweet questions/comments/encouragement to me through Twitter at @AdamAuthor and I can then answer them here on Dregs.

Space Available: Parameters.

I figure it would behoove me, as I set on the creation of Space Available, to lay some ground rules, some parameters as I embark on this experiment. Just a little something to make the challenge more challenging and to make sure I stick to my vision. It's always a good idea, when writing, to place some accountability out there, to let others know what you're doing, how you plan on doing it, and when you plan on having it done. Trust me, writers: this is to your advantage. It's far too easy just to waste time when you sit down to write, deceiving yourself into thinking you're using your time well ("I really SHOULD check my Facebook homepage again, even though I just checked it two minutes ago; what if someone made a status update I can use in my book?!"). Having some accountability keeps you honest.

Okay, so the rules. There aren't many, but here's what I have so far:

Writing. Writing must be done using only the Twitter interface. Writing it beforehand in Microsoft Word or any other program, and then copying and pasting it into Twitter is cheating and counter to the whole experiment. I'm not using Twitter to transmit my novel; I'm using it to create it.

Format. Since I'm writing it specifically in Twitter, I'm going to attempt to incorporate the methodology of Twitter into the story. I don't know exactly yet how this will happen, but it's a goal and something I want to let you all know about ahead of time so I don't get cold feet and bail on this particular challenge.

The Account Itself. Starting January 1, 2011, through December 31, 2011, my Twitter account of @AdamAuthor will be used exclusively and solely for writing Space Available. In other words, I will not coexist on Twitter with my book. I will not respond to "at" tweets and I will not retweet anything. If you want to communicate with me, you can do it the old-fashioned way: through Facebook or by sending an email to adampalmer 75 [at] gmail (dot) com.

Perspective. The reader must remain in the main character's head at all times. In other words, no switching around through multiple characters' points of view. I did this already in Knuckle Sandwich, and it was a conscious choice. In one respect it's limiting, in that it takes away the omniscience many authors enjoy, but on the other hand, it gives a concrete platform to work from. Also, on a completely practical level, I'm going to write it in first-person, a first for me. Why first-person? Because I have so few letters in each tweet, I don't want to waste any of them by constantly typing my main character's name over and over when I can just type "I."

Editing. For the time being, what's there is what's there. Obviously, I can't go back and edit previous tweets, but I'm also not going to go back and edit by selectively deleting any previous tweets either. For better or for worse, the book, in 2011, will be what I tweet as I tweet it. Now, when it comes time to go to press, I'm 100% certain my publisher will want to edit it (and I'm also certain it will need it), which makes it all the more important for you to follow along in 2011. The published version will differ, I'm sure, from the tweeted version. And besides, you only live once, right?

Blogging. I intend to write a semi-weekly-or-so post here on Dregs explaining some of my thoughts as I continue on with Space Available, just to keep track of my headspace throughout the year, and hopefully answer any questions you may have. You're welcome to ask those via the comments section here or by shooting me an email at adampalmer75 [at] gmail [dot] com. Hopefully these posts will be insightful as to the writing process and stuff like that. Maybe not.

Well, that's all I can think of rules-wise for now. It's going to be a grand experiment, for sure, and I'm humbled that so many of you are heading down this road with me. As I told someone else, I'm equal parts pants-wetting excited and pants-soiling frightened. And I think that's a good thing.

See you in 2011. I should probably think of a first sentence now.

Space Available: The Cover.

[Many thanks to my good friend Sean Lorenz for his most excellent cover.]

Space Available: My Expectations.

So, now that I've announced my upcoming Twitter novel, Space Available, I thought it'd be a good idea to lay down some expectations both for myself and for whomever winds up reading the thing. Just some thoughts and ideas, some of the ways I see it going and some of the ways I can foresee it changing. That sort of thing. Oh, and maybe some preemptive answers to possible questions about the writing process in general. So. Here goes.

Plot. I've written two other novels, and with both of those, I had a plot in mind before I began, but nothing really set in stone. With Mooch, I knew I wanted to write a heist caper, and I had the setup pretty firmly established (rich guy dies/ buried with fortune/ our heroes want to steal it), but I didn't really know how deviously mooch-y Jake would wind up being. And I had absolutely no intention of making it as much of a love story as it became--that just happened as I was writing it. I guess I'm just a hopeless romantic and couldn't help putting that stuff into it.

Knuckle Sandwich was a different bird altogether. Here's how I originally pitched it to NavPress:

A local Christian rock band known as Knuckle Sandwich is doing their best to make it to the big time. They work hard, rehearse three times a week, play any and every show they can, and save up their money to record a demo. Then they finally get a gig opening for a major Christian act, and everything changes.

This one’s been percolating for some time, and it would ideally be a blistering (but loving) satire of the entire Christian subculture. Topics examined/lampooned: Christian music vs. secular music, bumper-sticker-deep faith, the recent explosion of selfish and self-centered Christianity, and the galling idea of the Christian celebrity.

What the book actually became was a coming-of-age/faith story about a college kid who realized that his idea of Jesus had been too small all along. Yes, some of the Christian subculture satire is in there, but the book became much less about that and much more of an examination of a kid who'd grown up in that subculture and who therefore had only an intellectual relationship with God.

Looking back at my original pitch, I can see that there wasn't a lot of plot to begin with--it was really just a kernel of an idea that lent itself well to becoming a character study, which it did. As I got deeper into the writing, I began to realize more and more the trajectory my characters were headed on, and I started to see some plot machinations I wanted to throw at them to see how they'd handle it. I didn't have a plot outline, but I did create a sort of timeline to keep track of the two years or so that the novel encompasses.

As far as this pertains to Space Available, I've decided it would be a good idea to outline as much of a plot as I can, while still allowing breathing room. My other novels I wrote in a month--they consumed all my time for thirty straight days. This time around, I'm writing it in small bursts over the course of an entire year, and that's a recipe for an extremely wandering and unfocused plot. So I'm mitigating that as much as possible by creating an overarching outline.

I've actually started to think of this almost episodically, not unlike my favorite television show of the past few years, "LOST." Once they got to season three and negotiated an end date with ABC, the creators outlined the entire arc of the rest of the series, episode by episode, to make sure they doled out the necessary information in a smart and satisfying way, and to make sure they treated all their characters fairly. I'm thinking along those same lines.

Characters. In both my previous novels, the characters sprang into my mind almost as I started writing. For example, with Mooch, I based Jake (loosely) on myself and Louisa (not-so-loosely) on my wife, and then added the other characters as I needed them. Jake needed a boss, so here comes Del. All good heist capers need a team of crack experts that each bring their own special skill, so here come Jeremy and Chiffon. In fact, I based Chiffon on a reality show personality who just happened to be on the television as I wrote her first scene.

Sometimes characters change the entire course of a book. The first time I thought through Knuckle Sandwich, I thought it'd be an interesting dynamic to have Matt and Jeremiah both be vying for Liz's affections. But when it came time to introduce Liz, I decided to do it at Club David, the Christian dance club they happened to be visiting, and I realized that this cool girl Liz would not be there by herself. That would be out of character for her. So I invented her friend Amanda, and adding just that one character changed not just that situation but the story itself. (And changed it for the better, I might add.)

The problem with Space Available is that I've locked myself into a certain plot structure, so what happens if I introduce a character who can make the story better in a direction I didn't foresee? I'm sure I'll have to balance out sticking to my outline and exploring more interesting avenues that crop up as I write. I anticipate this will be my most difficult challenge.

Plus, I abhor having the plot dictate the characters. That's really a backward way of writing, and a great way to write something completely boring. It's really fascinating to get to know your characters and let them take over your story. Fascinating both to you as the writer and to your eventual readers. I really hope to be able to let this happen as I create Space Available.

Again, I think of "LOST." While they had their overall plot planned out years in advance, they also built in room to adjust (or perhaps they'd say "course-correct") to the many, many different trials and challenges of producing a network television show. For example, they'd written a multi-season arc for one character, but the actor who played that character hated being in Hawaii away from his friends and family and wanted off the show. His arc was important to the mythology of the show, though, so they had to give his entire arc to a different character and find a way to make it work. That's sort of thing I'm anticipating needing to do, and I'm trying not to soil myself with anxiety thinking about it.

Medium. My previous two novels were written with the vomit-it-into-your-computer-and-clean-it-up-later method endorsed by the folks at National Novel Writing Month. I've had a blast writing like that, just pounding the coffee and then pounding the keys, letting whatever hops into my brain leak out onto the page, knowing that I'll go through with a big, fat, red pen and fix it all later on. It's freeing.

That obviously isn't going to work here. For starters, this is for keeps. Everyone is reading along, as I write it. I can't go back. There are no do-overs. Every tweet is final.

So how can I write with abandon while knowing that I can't go back and edit? I'll let you know once I do it. If I do it.

Next post: The rules of the game. What impositions and boundaries I'm setting up for myself as I write Space Available. Should be fun.

Announcing: Space Available.

It's official. The papers have been signed and countersigned and my next novel, Space Available, will be published with Marcher Lord Press.

What will it be? Perhaps this handy checklist will pique your interest:

__Science fiction.
__Funny.
__Timely.
__Insightful.
__Humorous.
__Off-the-wall.
__Bizarre.
__On Twitter.

Hopefully I can hit at least two of those.

Watch this space for more info! I'll be jotting down some thoughts and expectations as I head into bold unknown of writing a novel on Twitter.

A New Project.

So, I signed up for Twitter a couple of months ago as a means of using yet another social media platform to market my writing services. When I first started using it, I assumed it was a narcissistic way to vomit your immediate thoughts onto the internet, but as I began to navigate Twitter's waters, I began to realize: this is a marvelous construct to hone the craft of writing.

I began to "follow" (oh, how it galls me to use that word in this context) people who I knew to be good writers, mostly comedians, and began to gape in awe at their ability to fashion perfect zingers. The character limitation forces out every unnecessary word and distills the thoughts down to their powerful essence. Maybe Shakespeare was right when he wrote that "brevity is the soul of wit" (Or the Reduced Shakespeare Company when they wrote in their play The Compleat Works of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged): "brevity is... wit").

And in my mind began to form a challenge. One I would give to myself. And the more I thought about it, the more insanely fun and difficult it sounded. And so, I am proud to announce, in conjunction with Marcher Lord Press, that I am going to spend the calendar year of 2011 writing my next novel...

...using only Twitter.

Okay, I'm positive this has been done before, but not by me, and so therefore I'm also positive that it's going to be a blast. A challenging blast, but a blast nonetheless.

Keep an eye on this space in the coming days as I expand on the challenge with format announcements, self-imposed limitations, expectations, extra stuff with Marcher Lord Press (so excited about them!) and more. And as I continue on with the project, I'll be offering a running commentary here on Dregs with my thoughts about the novel as it's taking shape.

In the meantime, click here to visit my Twitter page and, if you're so inclined, follow along on this wild, wacky ride into the abyss of... I can't think of a way to finish that sentence.

Write on!

"Dogfooding," A Word I Can Get Behind.

Much thanks to the great John August, a practicing screenwriter who isn't afraid to share the nuts and bolts of storytelling. He put up a post about "Dogfooding" and its "close cousin," which he refers to as "scratching your own itch." In his words:

If you’re writing a movie you yourself wouldn’t buy a ticket to see, you’re wasting everyone’s time.

It's tempting, when writing books, just to throw stuff in there to meet a contractual word count, or to vomit into the word processor in order to produce some letters that will go in between covers. But we must always fight the temptation and instead work to produce something we ourselves would value.

August's advice goes for any story you're telling, whether it be in fiction, nonfiction, or face-to-face. Heck, even the story you're telling with your life. Make it worthwhile, or you're wasting everyone's time.

FYI: The full post can be found here.