My Two Minutes of Fame.

Check out this link. The very first comment in the blog was written by yours truly. I don't know that my writing career will ever surpass this.

Sadly, I'm not joking.

JIMMER!!!!

JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(This was me at the BYU-SDSU game every time Jimmer did something amazing).

Scanning Memory Lane

I spend a good portion of my day off scanning old family photos, and it was really quite the worthwhile experience. Here are a few pictures that make me smile and/or laugh.

This was Janessa's first birthday/Easter celebration in 1987. Though I was but three years old, the love of sports was already growing inside me, even if it was misguidedly directed towards baseball.

That's me on the far left, rocking the awesome red outfit and knee-length socks at the Dinosaur Gardens in Vernal. Also, note my brother Michael's awesome short shorts.

Preschool graduation day with my buddy/little sister, Janessa.

This picture forces me to ask myself, "Where has my hard edge gone?"

This picture was taken at a kindergarten program. I don't remember what the program was about or what I was saying, but I am a fan of my threads and my firm two-handed grip of the mic.

Seeing this picture made me very happy. To be honest, I didn't even remember it, though I'm sure I have seen it many times in the family photo albums. The reason I was so happy to see it is that I believe it is the earliest picture, at least in my family's possession, of me (far right) and Justin Betts (center). A lot of the photos I scanned were taken at birthday parties with friends that I have lost contact with over the years, but to find a picture from way back with the friend that has most helped me to understand the true value of friendship was a definite highlight of my day/week/year so far.

Where is it, boy?

It's eight days into December, and you may be asking yourself, "Where is the novel you said you were going to write in November?" The answer to that: [crickets chirping].

So National Novel Writing Month has come and gone, and I did not write the novel I said I was going to write. I failed for a number of reasons. Here is my defense:

• I had a very important, very large, and very complicated project dropped on me at work, without advanced notice. This project required a lot of work and took its toll on me mentally. Writing in that state would have been extremely difficult.
• I decided to write a novel before I even had an idea for a story. I think it should probably be the other way around. My first idea to write a robot's autobiography didn't take off, and then my second idea was to take my idea for a TV series and turn it into a novel. I did a lot of conceptualization and made good progress with plot points, but never actually got any real writing done.
• A non-literary creative idea (short film) got in the way. My company announced a Film Festival/contest, encouraging employees to make a 60 second video to be played at the company Christmas party. My team and I came up with a good idea (an Antoine Dodson parody, complete with actual autotuning), and we put it together. We ended up taking third place and winning $250 dollars ($25 for each person). It hasn’t been announced yet, but we feel pretty certain we won the People’s Choice award. We definitely got the best and most cheers when our video was played in front of everyone.
  

Those are the biggest reasons why I wasn't able to write a novel in November. I really wish I had succeeded, believe me, but I'm not too torn up about it. I was lying in bed early last week, and, as I frequently do, I was thinking about the stories I wanted to tell. I started thinking about my unfinished novel --- December 17th will mark eight years since I started it --- and I wondered why I've felt so powerless to complete it.

Back when I thought I was going to finish my novel before graduating college, I liked to describe it as conveying the "essence of my adolescence," and I figured I wouldn't be that far removed from adolescence when I finished it. My goal was to finish my novel before graduating from college.

As they always do, things got in the way of my plans. It turned out to be pretty hard to find time to write when I was a full-time student at BYU and working 20 hours a week. Life disregarded my goal, and I never could get back into a good writing routine. I successfully co-wrote a weekly newsletter thing (the old Access: Denied) for some twenty-five consecutive weeks, but I never made much progress on my novel. Then school got really tough --- who knew double majoring would require a lot of work? --- and I basically gave up on my goal.

Years passed and I felt so removed from the 19 year-old kid I was when I started writing my book that I didn’t think I’d ever manage to resume writing it. At least until last week.

There I was, waiting for the sweet oblivion of sleep, and I started thinking about the novel I didn’t write in November. It didn’t take long for my thoughts to turn to the novel I started but didn’t finish. Eventually I asked myself, “Why can’t I start working on this novel again? What has been holding me back?” I could not think of a valid reason why I couldn’t resume work immediately. The old hang-up, of my book being about my adolescence and my no longer being an adolescent, no longer held water. I realized that yes, I would have to do a lot of revising, but I already knew that, even when I was just twenty-one and not much of an adult. I realized that my work’s autobiographical nature shouldn’t restrict me from working on it even though I’m no longer the person I was when I started writing it. I’ve changed, but the beauty of my novel being mostly unwritten is that I don’t have to revise that much. I was just struck that night, for whatever reason, by the realization that not only could I complete my novel, but that I wanted to complete it.

I remembered something I had learned in one of my film classes. There are two questions to ask when attempting to define a character in the most basic and essential terms: what does the character want? And what does the character need? Most central conflicts arise from discrepancies between the wants and needs of a character. My novel wasn’t really about me or the life I had as an adolescent. Yes, that life and my experiences informed a lot of the novel’s plot, but they did not define my protagonist. What did define my protagonist were his wants and his needs. And those wants and needs had not changed even though I have changed quite a bit in the eight years since I started the work. More than that, I think that I now have a deeper and more complete understanding of the protagonist’s wants and needs. Eight years ago I thought I knew what was driving my protagonist, but I see now that my understanding was pretty superficial. Life has prepared me to understand him better, and if delaying my novel has been worthwhile in any way, it will be in the lessons I learned during those eight long years.

A Certain Kind of Weird is not dead. Let’s think of it like it’s waking up from its hibernation, or returning from an unfortunate but necessary exile. I’m not going to pretend that it’s going to be easy to finish. There really is a lot of work to do, but rather than crank out a 50,000 word novel in a month, I’d rather try and put the 61,000 words I already wrote to good use.

Yesterday I read a lot of the notes and outlines I created years ago (which really was quite extensive), and it got me excited to return to these characters and their silly story. Though the amount of work to be done is staggering, I am not discouraged. I have to basically do a full revision of everything I’ve already written (especially the first chapter) before I can push the story out into new territories. I’m looking forward to the challenge of reconciling the tone and voice of my writing from eight years ago with my current tone and voice. Really, that’s the biggest challenge facing me. I know there will be some cringing as I read my work again, but I think I’m ready to deal with it. Most of all, I’m ready to reacquaint myself with my characters.

Maybe I’m finally prepared as a writer to complete my work.

My Newest Nephew!

On Saturday, 04 December 2010 at 12:05 p.m., my sister Janessa gave birth to her firstborn, Carter David George. He weighed 8 lbs. 14 oz. and was 21 inches long. Today they both went home.

Congrats to Janessa and Brett! I plan on spoiling this kid rotten.

Here are a couple pics:

Late Autumn Mix

I finally got around to putting together a Late Autumn mix. Even though it's already gotten cold and we've received snow, I think a Late Autumn mix is still appropriate. It's not unofficially winter until after Thanksgiving in my book. Anyway, I am pretty pleased with this mix. I managed to keep it under 80 minutes, which is not the easiest thing for me to do --- no two-part mix this time. I think the tone remains quite consistent, with just enough variation to keep things interesting. I made the mix available in two formats: a .zip file containing the individual tracks and a single, long-playing mp3 with all of the tracks and transitions.

Here's a track-by-track run through of my Late Autumn mix:

• "My Life" - jj. This song is a cover of "My Life" by The Game, but you'd never guess that if you had only listened to the Swedish duo's take. This song is the perfect lead-off to the mix. Just piano and vocals.
• "Cherry Tree" - The National. As I was thinking about which songs to include in this mix, I decided early on that I wanted to avoid the songs that would come to mind easily. That meant that I'd have to dismiss certain bands or songs that always come to mind when I'm putting together mixes. The National is a band that definitely comes to mind when I'm thinking about autumn. I've tried to share this amazing band with others as much as possible so I definitely wanted to include a more obscure selection in this mix. "Cherry Tree", released on the Cherry Tree EP is a song that I think some of you National fans may have never heard. It's quite stunning.
• "November" - Azure Ray. This is the only song I've heard from the group, and, as you would guess from the title, the song is a perfect inclusion for this mix. Again, this somber song is quite simple: an acoustic guitar, cello, and beautiful female vocals.
• "Flume" - Bon Iver. No autumn mix would be complete without Bon Iver. Some artists just capture a season's essence, and Bon Iver and fall are almost inseparable in my mind. I could have picked just about any track from the amazing For Emma. If you've still yet to check the album out, do it now.
• "H in New England" - Max Richter. I first heard this song featured on an NPR music program, and it blew me away. It's a short piano piece, and it is sublime. It's the first of two instrumental tracks on this mix.
• "Love is Stronger" - Sebadoh. This is the first track on the mix with a distorted guitar. It's full of melancholy in the lyrics and the music. It also has one of my favorite guitar solos, nothing amazing in terms of technicality, just incredibly emotive.
• "Your Protector" - Fleet Foxes. This band's music has always made me want to drive through the mountains with the windows down and the volume up. Their music works as both spring and fall music. I decided to go with one of the songs that gives me a more distinct fall vibe.
• "How to Disappear Completely" - Radiohead. It hit me while looking through Radiohead's discography how many of their songs I could classify as fall music. They've never recorded the sunniest music, and there's just something about their music that makes me think of this time of year. (On a side note, Radiohead is definitely night music --- there's an interesting correlation between night music and fall music). This is my favorite track from Kid A, and it features one of my Top 5 Radiohead moments near the end of the track.
• "Shame" - Low. Low is a band that I've always read great things about, but I'd never gotten around to listening to their music. I finally found an album of theirs and give it a go. I've been really impressed. Very simple but beautiful music. I need to listen to more of their music to prepare for their mid-December show in SLC.
• "Enchanting Ghost" - Sufjan Stevens. Sufjan is an incredible musician. This song comes from a great EP he released a few months ago. This is simply a great song.
• "Foreground" - Grizzly Bear. Grizzly Bear is a band that kills it live. They're so great live that I struggle to really get into their albums. Nonetheless, they always have a handful of songs on their albums that blow me away. This song is part of that handful from their most recent album, Veckatimest. Again, a very simple song that's mostly piano and vocals.
• "For Real" - Okkervil River. This is probably my favorite Okkervil River song. It may have been their first song I ever heard. I chose to include it because I felt the mix could use a song that hits a little harder. The song makes me think of the way the days grow darker and darker as winter looms over the world.
• "Sorry" - The Wind-Up Bird. This is the second instrumental track on the mix. It comes from a very interesting album, Whips, in which the titles of the eight tracks come from a heart-wrenching voicemail, "Sorry that I've become this monster -- I love you a lot." I first heard a different track from the album in which the actual message is played over and over, little by little being deconstructed and transformed into a collage of white noise. It's an astounding and punishing track, a little too much for this mix. This track, however, the album's opener, fits right in.
• "Protection" - Liars. It took awhile for me to notice this song. I finally did, sitting on a plane on my way to visit my sister in Arizona back in March. Since then, I've listened to it many, many times. It's an atypical song for the Liars, which may be why it finally hit me as forcefully as it did.
• "Scientist Studies" - Death Cab for Cutie. I haven't really followed Death Cab's rise to indie stardom, but I still love their first two albums a lot. There wasn't a whole lot of thought put into this selection, other than thinking to myself, "Hey, I really, really like this song." So that's why it's here.
• "Kettering" - The Antlers. If you want an album to tear you apart emotionally, really dig in and listen to Hospice by The Antlers. From Wikipedia: "Hospice tells the story of an emotionally abusive relationship, explained through the analogy of a hospice worker and a terminally-ill patient." The frontman/songwriter hasn't shared just how autobiographical the album is, but it doesn't matter. Even if the songs were completely fictitious, the story they tell is heartbreaking. If any portion of the lyrics are autobiographical, they become that more devastating. "Kettering" is my favorite song from the album. Its power continues to amaze me.
• "In the Backseat" - The Arcade Fire. This is another instance in which I wasn't necessarily drawn to a seasonal connection but to a tonal and thematic connection. This song just felt right as the final track for this mix.

Well, that's that.

Click here for the .zip with the individual tracks.

Click here for the long mp3.

National Novel Writing Month

For whatever reason, November was designated as National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo in its shortened form. A quick look into the history of NaNoWriMo shows that July 1999 was the first occurrence, but it was moved to November to better utilize that month's miserable weather. What it is is this: during the month of November people are encouraged to write their own 50,000 word novel by 11:59 p.m. of November 30th. There are no rules other than the work be something that could be considered a novel (roughly anything fictional), it must be started from scratch (no old material), it must have one author (no collaboration), and it must be 50,000 words long (that's a lot). A comparison for those who have had the privilege/misfortune to read it, my unfinished novel A Certain Kind of Weird is 61,000 words long. It's quantity, not quality NaNoWriMo is after.

For the past few years I've seen Facebook status updates from people participating in NaNoWriMo, but I've never really considered participating before now. In part, I think that November frequently snuck up on me, and it was too late to start. This year, however, I am aware of November's impending arrival, and I am feeling the itch to write. Though the project I most want to work on is not actually a novel, I think I could find something else to write for a month, possibly even something related to my other project.

So what do you people - if anyone actually still reads this blog - think? Should I go for it? Will this be just another ill-fated attempt to get some more writing down? Or will this actually help motivate and inspire me to write something substantial? Anyone else interested in doing this? Let me know what you think.

If you're curious and want to learn more, go to http://www.nanowrimo.org/.

Hey, what do you know, I'm literate.

There is something about living in a large house with just two other individuals that fosters a good environment for reading. I've lived in the house for just over two weeks now, and I am already incredibly accustomed to the absolute silence at night. Coming from an ever-noisy student apartment complex in a college town to a suburban residential neighborhood, I wasn't prepared for just how quite it would get at night. None of us living here are students or have occupations that require anything of us at night, so after about 9 p.m. we begin winding down. We may watch some television (praise DVR!) or play some video games or something like that, but eventually the TV gets turned off and people start heading to their rooms for the night. For me, this provides a perfect opportunity to read, something I haven't done much of in the past two years since graduation. Living with five other guys in a small student apartment didn't really foster the right environment for reading. But all that has changed.

I've recently finished two books about music. Not serious music criticism or anything, really just a series of essays/chapters about specific songs and either how those songs tie into the authors' lives or some ruminations on life generated by the songs. The first book, Love is a Mixtape by Rob Sheffield, takes a look at specific mixtapes Sheffield made throughout his life and how they became a part of his life and relationship to his deceased wife. The second book, Songbook by Nick Hornby, isn't built upon such a tragic loss, but it is full of genuine emotion and wit, something Hornby has always successfully incorporated into his writing. I read Songbook once back in 2005, very shortly after I returned from my mission. Hornby had written a line that has stuck in my mind, a credo, as it were, for how I've tried to approach music. It's found in a chapter in which Hornby explains how he's begun listening to music that, at earlier stages in his life, he would never have loved or been able to truly appreciate. He's come to understand how foolish it is to worry about anything other than the actual music. Too often we worry about an artist's genre or being too cool for certain kinds of music, and Hornby realizes just how limiting such thought is. He concludes with this awesome statement: "You're either for music or you're against it, and being for it means embracing anyone who's any good." Amen.

I'm not going to go any deeper into my ideas about musical appreciation or anything. I just wanted to share this awesome quote with the hope that it will ring true for fellow music lovers (and I know there are some of you out there reading this). That's all.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Attention all who read this blog, if there be such a person or persons:

You should contribute some of your hard-earned money (or some of your not-so-hard-earned money, if you're that sort) to the major motion picture Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. If you really want to be awesome, buy the six-volume comic from which the movie was adapted, read it as quickly as possible, and then go see the movie.

I must add as a disclaimer that if you did not grow up in the video game era, you may not enjoy the film so much. I hate to put a generational limitation on the film, but a lot of the film's awesomeness comes from the way it incorporates video game references and elements into the story and visual approach of the film. Nonetheless, anyone with an open mind and fun sense of humor should find plenty to enjoy in the film.

I decided on a whim one day in July to buy the first two volumes of the comic. I completed the first volume in less than an hour and then proceeded to read the next five as quickly as circumstances would allow. I was hooked and could not wait for the film. As is my tendency when I love something, I began recommending the comic to those I thought would enjoy it. My roommate Jared was the first to read the books after me. Then three others, Mr. and Mrs. Jones and fellow Sparksian Andrew Pass, read the entire series during our road trip to and from Portland to see the final two performances of Joanna Newsom's most recent U.S. tour. They were all hooked, just in time for maximum anticipation of the film's release.

I'm not going to go into too much detail about the film other than to say it was a very good adaptation of the comic, despite the limitations of adapting a six-volume comic into a two-hour film. There were some story omissions that I wish hadn't been omitted, a few character back stories that couldn't be told, and a few favorite punchlines that didn't make the screen, but overall I was pleased with the film. Edgar Wright, unsurprisingly, did a great job directing and continues to impress with his eye for impressive visuals. I don't know that the film is quite as good as Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz, but it is definitely one of the better films of the year. Not as affecting as Toy Story 3 or as mindbendingly (new adverb alert!) awesome as Inception, but Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was definitely as entertaining as any film released thus far this year.

Oh yeah, the character of Ramona, played by the talented and beautiful Mary Elizabeth Winstead, reminds me of Kate Winslet's incredibly memorable portrayal of Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Any film that reminds me of Eternal Sunshine is automatically cooler in my book.

So in summation, contribute your money to a deserving film and do your part to encourage Hollywood to keep financing interesting and unique projects, allowing talented directors like Edgar Wright to make the films they want to make.

FIN

Highlight of the Night

Girl Talk was pretty fantastic and the whole night was a lot of fun, but the highlight of the day was Paige calling Jared "Goat-Boy." At first, there was confusion as to why she was calling him that, but eventually she explained that it was because of his goatee. There was much laughter.

After the concert we started talking about how we should make a movie about a guy whose friends start calling him "Goat-Boy" and eventually he becomes an actual goat.

It was a lot funnier than it sounds. You kind of had to be there.