The Inevitable New Year’s Post

So here it is, New Year’s Eve, and once again, for the fourth straight year in a row, I am NOT writing out a hateful, spite-filled mass e-mail that insults all my friends and indulges in my once a year explosion of venom and envy over the fact that they are happy and I am not.

Having been with the Wife now for four years (although this was the first as a married couple) I can safely say that the jealousy I experienced over the happiness my friends had being with someone is long dead and gone.

So this is about something else entirely. I already got a chance to write the GameAxis editorial page, the first and last time I will likely to do that, and it’s simply because it was my chance to say goodbye to magazine and its readers in my capacity as the main staff writer. But one of the things that I mentioned in the editorial is that this particular New Years that is being rung in (at least, in this time zone, obviously Canada has yet to experience it) is that I’m very much living the typical cliche for this time of year; that being out with the old and in with the new.

2006 is my last year in Singapore. After just over 10 years, the island that I more or less landed on by whim and accident is finally being left behind with one Wife, two cats, many, many books, comics, CDs, DVDs, games and one plastic guitar. 2007 becomes my first year in Canada after all this time. It kind of floors me to think that I have never, ever set foot in my own home country since the new millennium dawned on us. When I left, the internet barely existed, DVDs didn’t at all and there was no such thing as an online transaction or free communication via online cams, headsets or instant messaging systems. Blogs didn’t exist. iPod didn’t exist and people still had carry around either a portable CD or tape player if they wanted to listen to their music collections. Global Positioning Systems weren’t available to the mass market and Starbucks, Wal-Mart and other big American conglomerates had yet to set foot on Canadian turf (at least, in Edmonton, where I lived).

Now, in this new year, not only do I have a different part of the country, a different city to adjust to, but a different kind of lifestyle entirely. I left Canada as a university graduate and come back to it as a writer who’s done just about everything you can with the English language for money. I come back to a country far more technologically advanced than it was when I left it, and I come back with some pets and, most importantly, a Wife.

So while the New Year is certainly filled with a lot of unknowns, there’s a lot of excitement and promise, even in the midst of the uncertainty. And, as schlocky and disgusting as it sounds, I’m not at all scared or massively worried about what the future will hold, because after being away from Canada for so long, and being in a country where free speech, other political parties or even pornography simply don’t exist… I have a lot more appreciation for what Canada has to offer. Especially to people in the creative industries. In Canada, you don’t have to worry that what you say will get you arrested, you only have to worry about whether it’s good or not. Trust me, that doesn’t seem like a big thing, but after having had to butt heads with the Singapore government in one form or another over the last couple of years, believe me, it really DOES color your point of view about what to say or not say when you know that you may pay for it in a very Official Capacity. It will be nice to know in Canada when you say something that is true, no one in the government can arrest, fine, or otherwise harrass you for it.

The other thing of course is the Wife. We have a good thing going and I really, truly love her a lot. Tons even. And everything seems bearable or even conquerable as long she’s around. And no matter whether things get very good, or very bad, or merely very complicated, all of these things are easier to live through with her beside me. And more fun too. And I’m looking foward to seeing what happens with her when we get to Toronto. For me, it is a home coming, and even though Toronto is unfamiliar, Canada with its cold, its creativity and its very, very unAmerican sanity and compassion, is not. Everything will be new to her, and I’m interested in seeing what Canada will be like through her eyes as she experiences so many firsts, like, unfortunately, snow and sub-zero temperatures.

Of course it won’t be easy, but then is any kind of positive change ever a walk in the park? There will be new things to get used to, she will have to adjust to being a very busy artist, and I still have a few projects that are brewing which I can’t yet talk about, but hopefully those will keep me very, very busy in 2007. And also extremely happy and geeky. So I dunno whether 2007 is going to be a better year than 2006, but it certainly is going to be a LOT different. And perhaps more fun.

So that’s it. My final New Year’s Eve in a place where you can actually break into an unpleasant sweat while standing around outside during the countdown because of the stifling heat and humidity.

And as for those of you not in Singapore, well, Happy New Year in advance. This’ll be the last time I beat you to it…

Again With The Shitty Kitty

Except in this case it was one of those rare occasions when I actually remember my dreams. In this case, a dream about the fact that one of our cats, Uno, had a thick pile of crap seemingly attached to her bottom like a skirt, and where ever she ran so too did this digusting fashion accessory.

The Wife also had similarly themed dream, but hers involved a gigantic piece of shit lying at the bottom of a drained canal.

I guess it’s a good sign of how close you are when you start sharing the same themes in your dreams, but man, couldn’t it have been something less… fecal?

Still. Not. Legal.

Okay, so it looks like my Employment Pass has NOT been approved after all. This is a bit annoying. After getting the letter saying the EP was approved, I headed on down to my all time favorite place in the world, the Ministry of Manpower, aka, MOM, to once again get some of that sweet, sweet tender loving care that only MOM can provide. As usual, the bureaucracy threw a spanner in the works.

After asking me to produce some documents saying that I had what was called a Banker’s Guarantee, which more or less means that a certain amount of money has been set aside in a bank account of sorts and will sit there for the duration of my employment. On the off chance that I do something criminal or inexplicably vanish, the money goes to the government. I provided the document and they looked at it and promptly said, “We’re not giving you your EP.”

The reason is, apparently, that the guarantee expires on March 31st. This, I thought, was not a problem, because it also gets renewed on April 3rd, but according to them, that three day gap might allow me to do all kinds of untold havoc on the island for which I would not be covered.

Of course, this is all kind of pointless since I’m leaving on January 11th, and we’d simply renewed the EP–or tried to–a few months back, so I wouldn’t have to keep going in to get my passport stamped over and over again, something that has happened ANYWAY, thanks to the wonderful bureaucracy of MOM. However, there is hope.

All I have to do is quit.

Once I say “Okay, I’m unemployed,” they’ll stamp my passport for two weeks and expect me to be out of the country by then. Since I am now only going to be here for… oh, two more or weeks or less, it looks like this will suit me just fine.

I hate how complicated, slow and contradictary this simple, fast and intuitive system of theirs is. Someone is seriously racking up some bad karma for having successfully marketed that to the public…

Getting Stuff Back

Now that the move is something like two weeks away, people are slowly either receiving things from us that we are trying to get rid of, or giving things back we had borrowed. Case in point, Battlestar Galactica DVDs. I first saw the new BSG when a friend over here loaned me his Australian version of the mini-series. I held onto it waaaaay longer than I should have, even after getting the season 1 and 2 collections for myself, so I returned that today. I also got back my season 1 collection from someone who’d borrowed it for a few months, and then loaned to the same person season 2 so that he could try and watch it over the weekend and return it to me by Monday.

Also, even though it took far longer than it should have, I have been contacted by the Ministry of Manpower and told that my Employment Pass has been approved and I can once again get a green card to remain legal in Singapore. Unfortunately, of course, this means that as soon as I get said Employment Pass, I’ll have to turn right around and cancel it. I was kind’a hoping that they would have given it to me a couple months earlier when I actually tried to renew it, but bureaucracy being what it is, they are now issuing it to me only now. It’s unfortunate, because the temporary visa they stamped me with in the meantime actually expires on January 9th. If they’d just stamped it for two more days, I wouldn’t need to get the Employment Pass and could have told them to just cancel it right there. However, bureaucracy being what it is, there are rules and this is one I’ll just have to laboriously navigate through. Fun, fun, fun…

We Interrupt Your Daily Blog

Because, well… an earthquake has ripped through Taiwan and thus knocked out the main fiberoptic cable that made it possible for people in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore to surf North American sights within a sane period of time.

So yes, Internet access is extremely limited for those of us still stuck on the other side of the Pacific ocean, which, at the moment, I still am.

Nowhere Is Still Going Somewhere

Just veeeeeeery sloooooowly. The sketchy artwork to the left (clickable as usual for enlargement) is a rendering of Fen, one of the main characters of the story. Yes, he is an Elf with a katana. No I am not going to explain why, not here. There’s a fairly lengthy story behind that, and it will have to wait for the comic to be told.

Speaking of which, yes, the comic. It is still sitting on a pile over at Slave Labor Graphics, a smaller, indie style publisher, and we have been told that the Chief Guy Who Picks Comics, Dan Vado, has indeed seen the submission sitting on said pile. He just hasn’t looked at it yet. Having had much experience with the speed with which book publishers work, this comes to me as no surprise whatsoever. When you actually have a buzillion other things to do–like making sure your existing titles come out on time, for example–finding some time to look at new stuff and consider it can take a while. Still, at least that’s not a “no.”

At least not yet. Oh well back to tweaking some scripts…

The New Digs

The Wife, for whatever reason, got it into her head to make my blog more “proper,” as in something that looked like it was owned and about a genuine, interesting human being. As opposed to a giant geek. This is the end result. It is quite snazzy looking, I think, in a subversive, 60′s, self-help book sort of way until you actually start taking a closer look and realize that things may be slightly… off. Anyway, I’m quite pleased with it, although there are still a few kinks that need to be worked out, and doubtless some typos that need to be fixed. But in the event that novels should get published, comics should get approved, or other projects should get the green light… This new website will be here to proclaim to newcomers, “Please buy into the idea that I do not suck.”

And also, because I am completely stupid, I have gone to the trouble of actually manually tagging every single entry for easier searching and categorization. Yes. All 700+ of them. I am that boring, stubborn and stupid.

Whoo hoo for makeovers!

The Most Pathetic Christmas Eve Of All

Spent with the Wife, talking, eating pizza, being happy together, discussing future projects online, possibly watching bad, BAD movies (or dinosaurs), and doing Super-Uber-Nerd-Geek-Loser things like working on websites, writing TV scripts or, most losery of all, reorganizing a blog thanks to the new tag functions that Blogger has recently upgraded to.

Merry Christmas to all. Yes, I know we suck. We’ve made peace with that.

Game Tunes! Japanese Girls! Super Cute Violin Go Go Go!

The girl on the left, believe it or not, is an enormously talented violinist by the name of Ayako Ishikawa. But tonight all that dozens of heavy set geeks thought as they drooled over her was “Gee… I wish that super cute violinist was my girlfriend because I love all things Japanese, which she most definitely is!”

Recently I wrote an article for GameAxis that briefly covered the history of video game music and included a bit about a group that was coming down to Singapore from Australia. They’re called Eminence, and they’re a bunch of classically trained musicians who got fed up with traditional orchestral music being considered “real music” and game music being considered… not music. Super Cute Ayako was one of the more recent additions to the troupe. As a result of me writing said article, I managed to score some tickets for The Wife and I, since the organizers seemed extremely happy that someone actually wrote an article with a fair amount of confidence and knowledge of the field, and I even got a thank you on the back of the program along with the GameAxis editors.

It was a freakish experience, but very, very cool. The first thing that immediately struck me as bizzare was the fact that there wasn’t a musician on the stage over the age of 35. And the same went for the 98% of the audience. Of course, the other freaky thing was when they started to perform. This wasn’t a full orchestra, it was an ensemble of two violinists, a pianist, a drummer and guitarist, along with Yasunori Mitsuda, a notable Japanese game composer who played on a very old looking Greek, mandolin-ish type instrument.

As soon as they songs started up, it was very strange for me. I think this is the first time I’ve kind of been “touched” in a way during a concert. I’ve been to plenty of concerts with some incredibly talented musicians and the music has always been soaring and amazing and inspiring. But this is the first time I’ve heard the music and thought to myself “I know that… I grew up with that music as a kid…” and it went to some other part of my brain that traditional classical music doesn’t go and gave me a shiver. As stupid as it sounds, just hearing the themes of Chrono Cross or Xenosaga being played out immediately set off images in my head of those games, those moments and I got genuine chills from the recognition. Also, according to The Wife’s theory, the fact that two immensely talented violinists didn’t help matters, because she believes that the sound of a live violin being played goes directly to the “Emo Lobe” of the brain and pretty much makes you want to cry whether you want to or not. Something about the particular frequency it resonates at.

All I know for sure is that the performance was a LOT of fun. I hope in Toronto the Play! Video Game Symphony Orchestra will show up again (they already played there in September) and bring the full sonic assault of stuff like Final Fantasy and Halo out in force. ‘Cause I have to admit, it was very cool but very bizarre to be hearing classical music, get really excited about it, and then afterwards get the kind of applause and hooting and hollering normally associated with a rock concert. Positively surreal, man. But fun!

When It’s Not Yours

This is something that has been weighing in with less-than- heavy, but slightly-more-than-medium impact on my thoughts of late. The reason will probably be abudantly clear in a few months (ah, hindsight, how obvious you are), but for now, let’s just play in generalities.

I’m talking about Fan Fiction. That is, when a writer or aspiring writer runs into the already established playground of another person’s story/world/characters and starts mucking around with it, creating stories of their own based on that other person’s creation. Neil-O was actually asked about the issue of fan fiction a few years back, and the fan wanted to know what Neil-O himself thought of fan fiction. Neil-O’s response, somewhat abbreviated was this:

Er, no, I don’t read fanfiction.

I think that all writing is useful for honing writing skills. I think you get better as a writer by writing, and whether that means that you’re writing a singularly deep and moving novel about the pain or pleasure of modern existence or you’re writing Smeagol-Gollum slash you’re still putting one damn word after another and learning as a writer.

But I do think that, in the final analysis, all a writer really has to give is the stuff that only she or he can give the world and no-one else can. That the sooner you sound like you and tell the stories only you can tell, for good or for ill, the better. And from that point of view, I suppose I think of fan-fiction as training wheels. Sooner or later you have to take them off the bike and start wobbling down the street on your own.

This strikes me as a fairly sensible approach to writing. Others, it would seem, took major offense to this, as Neil-O himself found out the very next day. He lists the varied and angry reactions to his statements:

Having said that, it also looked like a lot of the people telling me off hadn’t even read the whole post, or had just seen other people on other sites quoting the last paragraph, which was then extensively quoted back at me as evidence that: I don’t know what I’m talking about; do not understand that people are writing fan-fiction for pleasure, or that fan-fiction is a valid artistic purpose in itself; that I am myself nothing more than a glorified fan writer; that people writing movies and TV shows and comics and books are really writing fan-fiction; that real life is really fan-fiction; that all comics writers are writing fan fiction and what about that time I wrote (insert comics/historical/mythical characters I didn’t create here)?; that Shakespeare was writing fan fiction; and that my choice to write fiction that I do not call fan-fiction should not be seen in any way as a reflection on those who wear their fan-fiction proudly. Also if I’d just read some decent Buffy/Smallville/Legolas/Gone With the Wind fan-fiction I wouldn’t have been so rude about those who choose to write it.

This whole notion of fan fiction, and what it is, isn’t and its merits is something I’ve been mulling over in odd moments. I suppose in the strictest sense, one could say that fan fiction is the creation of one person that is interpreted by another. Although the angry critics of Neil-O above were taking it to a fairly furious extreme, on some level, one could make the argument that unless the original creator is doing it, anything else is fan fiction. This isn’t always the case however. If you want to go the legal/corporate route, then fan fiction is anything that isn’t officially “endorsed” in some capacity by the creator or the corporate/legal entity that holds rights to a particular intellectual property.

This is the more practical, every day definition that people are used to, and that is why even though a new writer will come on board for the Batman comic, the Dune series of novels or the latest James Bond film, these new works are still considered “canon” even though the original creators had no hand in it. They also have the benefit of some kind of professional transaction, ie, someone got paid to write this, as opposed to the amateur sphere in which no money (and therefore no litigation consequences) are involved.

And it’s this particular kind of “official” fan fiction that I’ve been musing about. I find myself wondering what other writers have done when they find themselves in the position of being able to officially write for a world or character that is not their own and how they handle it. How, for example, did Ron Moore take to Star Trek: The Next Generation when he came onboard the series years after the series had already been established by others before him? Particularly when there was an expectation that a strict adherence to continuity be maintained since the show was still in production, as opposed to the major revision he did when he took Battlestar Galactica by the reins. What do you do when you know that you can’t simply walk into an established “house” and start tearing out wallpaper, trashing furniture and changing it from its previous shiny art deco look to a more spare zen minimalist scheme that is more to your liking?

In the corporate world, there’s pretty much an unspoken rule that when new management comes in s/he will, like a new alpha male in the pack, start trying to obliterate all traces of the previous management’s influence in an effort to stamp their personal sense of individuality on the office. This, obviously, is completely unacceptable for someone coming into a franchise, although many have failed to see this fact. That’s why you get bizarre anomalies such as the almost complete disregard for the spirit of the original Highlander movie in its sequel, or the abrupt and random new setting and agenda for the Buck Rogers TV series in its second season.

I grant that it is inevitable for a new creator to be unable to completely emulate the tone, manner and style of an original creator when the time comes to tackle an existing series/charac
ter. In some cases, the fresh perspective is even extremely welcome, such as the paradigm-altering take of Batman that Frank Miller tackled in The Dark Knight Returns.

So I guess in my meandering sort of way, the conclusion that I am slowly trying to come to is that if you ever find yourself in the position where someone offers you a chance to work on a character or world that is not yours, and this is a property that you have a genuine affection for, the only things you can really do are these:

1) Respect the material.

2) Try to understand what it is about the original that made you a fan in the first place.

3) Understand that your own personal voice, sensibilities and peculiarities will arise when you create the work and that this, like puberty, is completey natural, with nothing to be ashamed of, and perhaps some good may come of this fresh infusion.

4) Stay true to the spirit of the work if not the exact style.

5) Inhale the material. If it’s a large body of work, take in everything. If there are appendices, supplementary materials, and other works, take the time to read and understand them. The more you know about this world you are about to step into, the better.

6) Remember that this is not yours. Remember not to try to make it yours by trying to possessively or antagonistically “clean house” so you can urinate all over the walls and claim it as your territory.

7) Conversely, do not be afraid to tread new ground. If you are religiously sticking to only what has come before, and you are contributing nothing new, you are likely not even telling a new story and are merely repeating the same stories that drew you in to begin with. While you can make an argument for people wanting only the same “feeling” with a world/character over and over again, that doesn’t necessarily mean slavishly repeating the same story with a few changes in locale and names.

You are not (insert name of original creator here). Don’t try to be. You may think you are as good as the original creator. You might even be right. But you are still NOT that person, and if you try to advertise yourself as The Second Coming of said creator, you’ll just be pissing off everyone, including the fans and the creator if s/he is still alive.

9) Have fun with it. Because if it feels like work writing it, it will feel like work reading it, and that’s not a winning formula to suck the audience in.

10) Pray you don’t screw up.

Some day, this post is going to come back and bite me in the ass. I know it.