Writing and Stuff by Anthony Chatfield

I have wanted to be a writer for a while now. Not “since I was a little kid” while, but a good long time nonetheless. Of course, when I had these visions of literary wonder, I was going to be sitting around a massive house with a few hundred words a day to write for a major magazine, newspaper, or novel. Of course, it’s not the same thing as what I’m actually doing – that is being a pen for hire, the guy who does all the dirty work for websites across the globe. 

I’m not complaining about my job of course – being a freelance writer is probably the best job I’ve ever had or will ever have and I don’t plan on stopping any time soon. That said, there ends up being a huge difference between writing because you love it and writing because you have to do it to pay your rent and keep the Simpsons DVDs up to date. 

When I wrote in college, I wrote because I loved it. That’s about all you get out of it when you’re paying thousands of dollars for someone to “teach” you how to produce a short story. Right now, I write because it pays the bills – all sorts of bills by the way; more than I ever thought would be possible. This isn’t a new realization by any means. I have seen the effects of work in action many times before. When I was a kid, there was nothing I wanted more than to ride the lawnmower around the yard – I’ll bet you can guess how that turned out. 

And in the last two years or so, I’ve had plenty of jobs that I thought would be a lot of fun, but the longer I worked on them, the less fun they became. Writing guides for video games? That should be awesome right? Turns out that when you start looking at everything in a game as a sequence in a technical manual, it’s pretty dull. Eating out and writing reviews? Well, it could be fun if A) the food was good everytime or B) you didn’t have to think of new and exciting ways to describe the word “spicy”. 

Again, I’m not complaining. My job is great and if you’re getting into freelance writing, I can guarantee that you’ll be happy with your new lifestyle. But, if you’re getting into it for the love of writing, you’re going to be pretty crestfallen pretty quickly. 

My advice – get a really relaxing, mindless hobby. It helps to balance out how much you use your brain when writing all day and allows you to clear the slate so you can work on private projects – things like short stories or that great american novel. I like to read cheesy fantasy novels and play guitar hero. My brain gets to shut down for an hour or two and I don’t feel like writing more is only another chore when it is really something I dream about doing most every day. 

You’re going to have enough trouble already separating your personal life from your work if you start working freelance – create barriers and good ways to wind down and you can avoid feeling like the writing you do for the love of writing is the same as all that other stuff you scribble out to pay your gas bill.

Freelance Lifestyle freelance writing, Freelancing, make money online, writing career, writing for money

This last year, I stumbled across something at my local Target that immediately caught my attention. I’d never even thought that it could exist, and yet there it was right before me, illuminating all the facets of my childlike curiosity. It was the release of the Disney Afternoon classics Duck Tales and Chip n Dale’s Rescue Rangers. It’d been more than a decade since the last time I saw any of those shows and I was mildly excited by the prospect of reliving parts of my childhood. A few months later, I saw in the same Target (a store I avoid like the plague, so this was fate) Darkwing Duck and Tailspin, two shows that I somehow enjoyed more than the first two. That first Disney Afternoon block, the one I saw when I came home from 3rd grade every day was there within my grasp.

Suffice it to say, I own all but Ducktales of those four and find myself popping them in at the most random of times, usually that one moment when it makes the most sense to zone out to meaningless television fluff – when the power’s out, when I’ve drank too much, when I haven’t slept in two days. These are the best times to enjoy that flashback to adolescent nostalgia because if I were to watch any of these shows when I’m completely awake, sober, and at full attention, I’d find that they’re nothing like I remember, shadows of the shows I fell in love with so many years ago. I am much older, so it makes sense, but those depressing moments of clarity and self-realization are best left for another time….any other time.

I’m overstepping the point though. The point is that these shows are awesome. Even if I were to watch them and find the purity of my nostalgia shattered, they’re damn good – a step and a half above any children’s shows on the air today. The quality was always top notch, coming out of Disney’s hand drawn studios (RIP) and the full orchestra backing up the pratfalls and kids’ jokes is always good for lightening my mood. There are a ton of not so subtle jokes that might be lost on a child, adultish humor that slides through in typical Disney fashion, but it’s all targeted towards the kids and that makes it just plain fun to watch.

That’s really all I wanted to say, I love those shows. I was sitting and staring off into space, flipping past Nickelodeon or some such crappy schlock they feed to the kids these days and then looked at my DVD rack and saw Darkwing Duck sitting there, reminding me of when those shows were the best reason to hurry home after school every day.

Media Reviews, Observations and Thoughts

Stephen Colbert and John Stewart are not just for the slacker, stoner crowd among us. They’re pushing the literature these days too. The New York Times Online published a story about the power of the late night comedy news hour on the publishing industry of late.
Apparently it’s more desirable to find yourself on The Daily Show or The Colbert Report these days than on Charlie Rose or other Cable news hours when promoting your book. The sales boost one of these appearances can have is immense. I’ll keep that in mind for all those future bestsellers I’ll be writing.

If nothing else, it makes me happy to know that the power of the Comedy Central demographic is being respected as such, and that when Bill O’Reilly and his pompous stable of jackass friends like Hannity and Cavuto call Jon Stewart’s audience a bunch of stoner slackers, they’re completely missing the fact that those stoner slackers are buying books on microeconomics by Nobel Peace Prize winners….a lot of books.

Cool Stuff, Observations and Thoughts, Writers and Authors

I found this site over at another of my fave blogs and thought it was incredibly awesome. There are a bunch more over at austinkleon.com  A genius idea if nothing else:

Cool Stuff

As a Seattle native and lifetime devotee and fan of the Seattle Mariners, I’ve been through a lot of ups and downs with the team. When I was a child, Ken Griffey Jr. was just starting his tenure with the team. It was an exciting time, because for the first time since the team was founded 12 years earlier, the Seattle Mariners finally had a bonafide superstar on the roster, someone to excite the fans and sell jerseys. I was there for the games and I owned a jersey. As a young child whose baseball team was always at the bottom of the heap, I was still excited every year that they could do something special.

In 1995, the Seattle Mariners actually did do something special. They came back from 13 games down in the American League West and won the division, making it to the American League Championship Series. From then on, baseball was golden in Seattle. The Mariners were gods and they were actually good too. The team went into a golden time for a few years, a time in which they had better attendance, and even better fans than any other city in baseball. We got them a new stadium, a new look, and worldwide attention. The Mariners peaked the whole thing with a 116 game winning record breaking season in 2001. But, the Mariners choked that year and every year since have choked a little more. After five years of losing ways now they’ve fallen into the duldrums of fan attendance again and Seattle’s baseball apathy is spreading. It makes me more than a little sad to think about my mighty Mariners so horrible each and every year.

So, what about 2007? What about this year for the Seattle Mariners? Do they stand a chance in the crowded field of teams that actually go and find good pitching and dependable players? Will Ichiro Suzuki stay around after his contract is up with a team that can’t seem to win? Will Bill Bavasi and Mike Hargrove keep their jobs with a franchise that they’ve run into the ground? (Well, Bavasi ran it into the ground, Hargrove just hasn’t been able to pull it back up again). This season is the win or die season for a lot of Seattle Mariners players and staff, the kind of year that they have to win in order to stay afloat, or next year we may be looking at an entirely different team.

Over the off season, the Seattle Mariners made a lot of moves that some would qualify as ineffective. They were pricey. They filled holes in the lineup. They brought in new bats, but they were mostly ineffective. Let’s take a look at why the 2007 Mariner’s lineup is not the lineup Bavasi should have built if he’s trying to keep his job.

First off, he went and got us a new designated hitter. The result, Jose Vidro, a long time national league slugger with a slew of injury problems is yet another hit or miss acquisition for the team. For a Mariners franchise that’s gone through Scott Spiezios, Adrian Beltres, and Carl Everetts like spent chewing gum, picking up another over the hill player with injury problems for the amount of money they spent on him is not a good move.

That wasn’t all though. They went and did the same thing for their right fielder. After moving Ichiro to center field at the end of last season, they went and picked up Jose Guillen in the offseason this year, another player from Washington with a bad season last year due to injury. This will be his sixth team in 7 years, and returning after elbow surgery. The Mariners cannot keep affording to take chances on has been players with injury problems, waiting for the magic “comeback player of the year” candidate to fall into their laps.

But, it’s in the starting rotation that they truly dropped the ball. The mariners have had a weak pitching rotation for a few years now. It’s been at the top of every fan’s list of things to change for a while, but it still hasn’t been fixed. Seattle was excited when Felix Hernandez appeared. But, last year he played mediocre at best and showed no signs that he deserves to be our number starter this year. But, unfortunately, the three pitchers Bavasi signed are all career number five starters, leaving us with a rotation full of mediocre arms. Jeff Weaver, Miguel Batista, and Horatio Ramirez were all thrown a large sum of money to pitch for us this year, after finally unloading “never do wells” like Joel Pineiro and Gil Meche, but on paper none of these pitchers are any better than the pitchers they are replacing. Not only pitcher in our starting lineup had an ERA last year under 4.40. I’d say we need at least one halfway decent pitcher out there, for at least one decent chance of winning every week. And the only truly good pitcher we had on the staff, Rafael Soriano, they traded for one of these jokers.

The Seattle Mariners are disappointing their fans each and every year they go into an offseason. It looks like it’s going to be yet another long and mediocre season, with no more than 80 wins for the ball club yet again. Unless of course every player on the team has a career year, Adrian Beltre remembers how to hit, and Richie Sexon quits striking out so damn much. I however, would expect a new manager by the end of June and Ichiro playing for a new team in 2008.

Free Time, Observations and Thoughts

I couldn’t care less about the Oscars. It’s a self-mastraboratory pageant Hollywood likes to throw every year to see who has the longest acceptance speech. I don’t care. But, this year a former (and hopefully future) Presidential Candidate (and elect) won an Oscar for his gripping crusade to warn the masses about global warming (and save those goddamn polar bears). Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth won the award for Best Documentary, which in my opinion makes the whole affair worthwhile. For at least 45 seconds of his screen time anyways. Now if only we could get congress to give him that kind of credibility and pay attention to the problem.

Cool Stuff, Observations and Thoughts

I love Law and Order. Everyone loves Law and Order. They’d have to. Otherwise, why the hell would it be on every channel for at least 6 of the 24 program hours. You cannot flip through every channel without running into Law and Order at least once. The other day, after All Star game, TNT played the show for 24 hours straight. I watched a couple of episodes, went to bed, woke up and my roommate was still watching it. I retreated to my room for a few hours to work and came back out….and he it was still on. And yet I sat and watched it each time. And by the grace of more than two dozen seasons and 500 episodes between all three shows, you’re going to stand a decent chance of catching a new one fairly often. Unless it’s Criminal Intent, in which case, I’ve seen them all already.What makes this show so compelling though.

First off, they always take stuff from the news. Almost every episode is based on something that happened in the world and thus people are automatically invested. They throw in a couple of extra murders, and now we’re gossip mongers….”ooh, what if?”

Then they throw the exact same formula for the show out every time. You might think this would kill the suspense. But no. It’s a trick. It’s really their way of getting you to think that the show is predictable, that you can tag along with the detectives and help them out. For you to yell at the stupid defense attorney, “Bail?! Your client doesn’t deserve no stinking bail!” in one of the least important but always present scenes in the show. It’s Law and Order being very orderly and yet opening itself up to break rules and surprise everyone when it does. Most of all, it makes every episode about the crime. It’s not about the detectives, or the lawyers, the writers, or the director of the show. You could train a monkey to direct an episode of Law and Order. No, it’s about the crime and the solving of that crime. And that’s it.

Which is why the two spinoff shows are so interesting. These shows actually went out of their way to create characters for their detectives. The first, SVU, is my least favorite. Here’s why: the characters are all over the top. That’s it. Yeah, they’ve been in SVU for too long. Yeah, they see terrible things done to innocent people. But, all the detectives see horrible things and these ones get a little nutty sometimes. Stabler’s an ass. He’s good at being an ass, but he’s an ass. And he keeps being an ass, and for whatever reason he still has his job. Why does he still have his job? Television Aura of Mystery on that on. And Ice-T? Are you kidding me? Who thought putting an ex-gangster-rapper in a crime drama about sexually heinous crimes would be a good idea?

Criminal Intent however is one of the best shows on television. It’s basically you’re Law and Order setup with an old school Columbo feel to it. They cut out the court rooms because that’s not why we’re watching. Bobby Gorin is so damn good, he can always get the confession out of his suspects. And he is good, frighteningly, ‘wow, is he special?’ good. The man knows Eastern African dialects, Ancient Egyptian cyphers, what color an ink stain should be through six sheets of wet paper and can read a man like a book. He’s a psychological safe cracker and when he gets in, the episode is over. The joy of the episode however is watching him get in. Vincent Donofrio is therefore one of the coolest people on television.

Law and Order is a staple of any good couch potato, TV dwelling 20-something. I’ll bet a dollar I watch at least one episode of it tonight.

Free Time

Next up on the plate of many many things I like to pretend I know about but really just have a passing knowledge of because of my own frivolous habit of hounding the local bookstores a wee bit too much: buying books.
First thing’s first. You need to be a halfway avid reader. If you never read, then there are a slew of good books out there that any decent bookseller will point out. If you read at least a book every month or so though, and have a general idea of what you are looking for, but want to try something new or better yet old, this is the way to go about it.

1. Buy a small notebook. I recommend a Moleskin notebook, because it will fit nicely in a back pocket or purse without being too bulky or in the way. You can buy one at any halfway decent bookstore. Just ask where they keep the Moleskins; they always have their own special section. I have a dozen of them.

2. Look at what you’ve read in recent months. I’m sure you know what kind of books you like without looking at your collection, but sometimes you’d be surprised by what you’ll discover. You may have started reading mystery novels and not realized it because you’re a devout science fiction fan. But low and behold, all of your recent science fiction novels are mysteries. Open your mind up a little bit for different genres and you’ll find a whole new realm of interesting, new novels.

3. Go to a bookstore and observe. Peruse the aisles for a while. Give it a half hour or so. Not too long or you’re loitering. Every time you find a book or an author you’ve never heard of that catches your eye, write it down in your notebook. Don’t be afraid to venture into genre aisles. Book stores have a habit of putting some incredible reads in the often derided Fantasy section that could easily pass as literary fiction. That’s not to say that Fantasy as a genre isn’t rewarding, just that for those that look down upon it, a variety of books are being overlooked.

4. Amazon and Ebay. My two sites of choice. First, look it up. You’ve essentially just picked out a random assortment of books based on their covers. Now look up their reviews and see if you’ve picked what you thought you picked or wasted ink by even writing it down. Highlight the winners and float on over to Ebay for cheaper books (especially if they’re new and still Hardbound).

5. Used book stores. Way more fun than Ebay if you have them nearby. If you live in a bigger city, take full advantage of the half priced, previously read treasure chest of your University Districts.

In just a few short steps you can find and buy new and exciting reading opportunities without paying full price for an unknown entity. At least half of my book collection and the authors I revere most popped into my reading consciousness through this method. And as we all know, if that’s how I do it, it must be right.

Free Time, Observations and Thoughts

One of the more interesting and important literary genres I’ve come across in the last few years is that of Magical Realism. I stumbled over it in a writing class in my junior year and ended up taking my seminar from the same teacher specifically over this topic. There aren’t too my good writers in the genre, but those that are good are incredible. For those interested in dipping your toe in, here are five books that I think would perfect starters.

The Metamorphosis – Franz Kafka – Kafka was one of the movements founding fathers, a true visionary of the absurd. His tale of a man turned into a giant bug overnight is told with the straight faced allegorical wit of a true master of the new genre. To truly understand the works of Borges, Cortazar, or Marquez you must first read from Kafka.

Labyrinths – Jorge Louis Borges – Borges was a scholar of Kafka, a translator from the German into Spanish, and a student of his methods. It’s small wonder then that he become the father of the Magical Realism genre with his life’s work of short stories so blindingly brilliant in their execution that few would ever dare attempt to follow suit. His work, most poignantly represented in Labyrinths delves into the nature of reality and the nature of eternity and how one thing cannot make sense without the immediate existence of another, and vice versa. The Garden of Forking Paths, a story from this collection is considered to be his most widely read piece.

Blow up and Other Stories – Julio Cortazar – Cortazar was subsequently a student of Borges and the next generation of master in Magical Realism. His work is subtle and tells a vividly painted picture that Borges strayed from in his academically bound fiction/essays. Cortazar took the artform further and produced a novel in the genre, something Borges never did. From Blow Up, “Letter to a Young Lady in Paris” is a must read.

100 Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez – Marquez is the only author on this list to have won the Nobel Prize (though I suspect Rushdie shall some day). Always a writer of picaresque novels, this one in particular was the masterpiece of his career. It found new readership recently when Oprah chose it for her book club, and has been circulating ever since, thankfully. The book tells the 100 year story of the Buendia family through love, prosperity, war, and death.

The Satanic Verses – Salmon Rushdie – Rushdie is one of the most hyperliterate, intelligent writers alive today, making him also a pretty tough order to read, but if you do, it’s more than worth it. This masterpiece of religious thought and the questioning of faith and the defining of reality by the writers of history was so powerful and controversial that it drew upon him a Fatwah by the Shah of Iran, pushing him into hiding for more than 10 years after publishing assistants and more were threatened or harmed. The book is amazing though, and the religious tones aside, it tells an amazing, fantastic story.

Each and everyone of these authors does something special that no one else has done in writing. For that reason they are placed in a category all their one, one in which they find less readership but massive amounts of respect for what they’ve given to the literary community.

Uncategorized

Feels like it’s been a week since I last sat in front of the computer and wrote anything of value. Truthfully it was Monday, but two days of zero sleep and a full on virus body slamming will seem longer than it actually is. Ironically, this week was supposed to be a trial run of sorts, in which I did a specific amount of work to measure my productivity and money making prowess. Tuesday, I managed to power through, but yesterday, sleep deprivation caught up with me and today is catch up day on pretty much everything else – emails, side projects, etc. I’m actually awake though, and my appetite has returned, meaning strength shall return. Anyone awaiting email or comment response, it shall be on the way shortly.

Observations and Thoughts