Category Archives: Workbook

The end of June flowed nicely into a holiday weekend, so with that now out of the way, I can take a quick moment to reflect on the previous month’s productivity. Spoiler alert: not a whole lot accomplished.

The main takeaway from June is right now I am, again, all about crime (and suspense) fiction. I suppose I’ve always been about suspense since I first started writing more than two decades ago, inspired by the suspense (and horror) novels I’d borrowed from my mother as a young man. Usually with suspense fiction a criminal element is often present. In the mid-to-late 90s as a neophyte writer still fairly new to reading prose fiction regularly, I started to seek out straight crime fiction. That meant the stuff that wasn’t considered mystery fiction (they try to trick you, understand). Of course a mystery element is natural in crime and suspense fiction, even horor, but I quickly came to realize the stuff that was overtly mystery fiction simply did not scratch the itch I had for the seedier aspects of crime.

Enter the literary criminal works of Frank Miller, Mickey Spillane and Elmore Leonard, not to mention films like Scarface, Colors, New Jack City, GoodFellas, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Donnie Brasco, just to name a few from my A-list and you see it’s easy to stay inspired. A couple of recent trips to the local library has me stocking up on crime-leaning entertainment.

I’m not quite sure what the allure of seedier types of fiction like crime is for me. I do know one thing that I really like in dramatic storytelling is the situation of good people having almost no choice (and in some cases no choice at all) in having to do bad things to right a wrong, or to restore a sense of order amid the chaos.White merging with black to blur into gray. Tests of character and all that, I suppose. Coming out of it somehow unscathed, yet changed in some way, hopefully for the better (but not always). No better place to find that than in crime fiction.

Also, as a writer of hopefully successful, serious fiction with dramatic intent, you absolutely must put your protagonist through hell. After all, if genre fiction is about ordinary people put in extraordinary circumstances, then it’s gotta work that way.

At any rate, I’ve rambled enough. Here’s a brief work report.

Comics

Codename – Project: Crime Time – is actually a series of crime comics projects I’m doing with my best friend and collaborating artist Joshua S. Hooten. Back in May it looked like we were going to do something in the supernatural realm of things, be it crime-related or straight up horror. By June we came to realize that what we’re really itching to hit first – and what’s probably best for a first endeavor at this – would be a straight up crime story. This weekend we’re going to have a little creative summit where we’ll hammer out the finer details of the characters and the plot, probably over plates of food and multiple glasses of any given beverage.

So with that graphic novel project underway in development, a number of other comics projects previously mentioned are naturally on the backburner. The aforementioned codenames for them are: Project: Mr. Macabre and Project: Unsettled. And add to that a previously not mentioned one, let’s call it Project: RK, is also a story to be told graphically with Hooten (or another artist) later down the road.

Prose

On the prose side of things, progress is still a slow crawl. I am contemplating a breezy crime novel, which like the first comics project, should probably be the truly first novel completed. Project: Blood-Borne (novel series) could probably write itself if I’d simply trust myself to pull it off, but it would also require zero distractions and that’s just not possible at this point. Project: Micro-Mondays (writing exercise) is still a desire, but likely wouldn’t be able to commence until Fall/Winter, would be my guess.

Journalism/Commentary/Blogging

Sporadic like always, and as usual a lot of my daily scribing goes into my Facebook groups. So Comic Book Fetish (comics commentary blog) suffers the most from that. The all-new Ruckerpedia (personal fiction archive), who knows when I’ll launch that damn thing. You’d think since I purchased the premium theme that I’d have more incentive. However, I’ve once again reconfigured and renamed this blog (the one you’re reading now). If I know me, I can’t say with any certainty that Ruckology will stick permanently, but with the former name Ruckerpedia affixed elsewhere, I like its chances. I’m going to try to post here at the very least on a weekly basis along with these monthly working updates. May try to squeeze in an additional post during the week, and maybe share stuff from other folks’ output in the spirit of community, advocacy and support.

Music

Neglect the Alarm activity has been nonexistent in June, so nothing to report there. If in a month there’s still nothing to report then I fear there may never again be anything to report. We’ll see. On a solo musical front, I am seriously thinking about remixing some songs from the demo album I released in the Fall of 2009, as well as finishing some of the many unfinished acoustic songs that are meant to be part of a follow up album. Recording/studio equipment must be replaced first. More details on this should come in a separate post in the future. Because the details of that endeavor and the process is a rather complex thing.

Okay, time to close this out as I’ve rambled long enough. The next update will probably come on August 1^st. Until then, make sure you keep at it so you’re not a slacker like me.

Ahhh . . . May! Probably my favorite month of the year for a few reasons: one, the residue of Winter isfully shaken off and Spring finally in full swing; two, usually great weather (tho we didn’t get it until later in the month this time), and the NBA Playoffs enter the more competitive second and third rounds. You can usually count on the temperatures not being too extreme either way with lots of sun and blue in the sky, sometimes with those big fluffy pillow-y clouds. Regular readers here know the weather plays a bigger role on my general disposition than I’d like, ideally. Last month’s Workbook made that painfully clear. As I write this monthly update on this fine Memorial Day morning, we’re in our second straight day of mostly blue sky and 80+ degree temperature. I foresee a cookout on my horizon (this is posting after said cookout).

For May there’s more actual activity than April to report. It still wasn’t as productive as advertised or desired, but in the spirit of the Indy 500, the engine is revved up and purring nicely. Since it has been a month of renewal of sorts, there’s actually a few new projects to announce.

As usual since I’m cagey with actual titles of unfinished, unpublished works, the “project” names are just place-holding codenames or working titles. Previously published items have actual titles.

Writing – Prose

All Things Considered (short story) – For the past couple of weeks I’ve been giving this one a spit-polish shining, and I’m nearing the final stretch of that. Originally written in 1998 and finally published in 2010, my intention has been to re-publish it on Smashwords, where it once was as well, but in an inferior state (incidentally the same state it was in the The Cedar Chest anthology), but I also want to feature it on the still forthcoming Ruckerpedia magazine site that I’ve been slacking on launching (more on that later). While I’ve been re-reading and refining the prose in this old story, it occurred to me that even as one of my longest ever short stories finished (it approaches 6000 words), there’s so much more story to be told that it’s begging to be expanded into something bigger, like a small novella. I’ve finally admitted to myself that as it currently exists it is a mere snapshot into the three main characters’ lives and that there’s so much in the past, present and future of the characters teased on the page already. It begs further mining, and I think that with enough focus it could pretty much write itself. Maybe I’ll make that a goal for its 20th anniversary in two years. The tricky part that remains – as is the case with working on any really old story – is the fact that it takes place in the era in which it was written, the late 90s. It’s a period piece now for crying out loud.

Project: Blood-Borne (novel series) – No comment. For now.

Project: Comeback (initiative) – this is the codename for my supposed return to short story writing and publishing, of which I took leave back in 2011-12 to focus on editing, journalism and music. It’s an initiative, really. It always gets stalled by my focusing on nurturing the older children I’ve already released into the wild. It’s like I’m that parent who knows he didn’t quite do the best job rearing his offspring prior to their going off to college and now that they’ve graduated I just want to make sure they’re the best citizens they can be, even in a society that cares very little about them. Hence, why “All Things Considered” is getting the attention it is right now. However . . .

Project: Micro Mondays (writing exercise) – I really want to get something like this going, specifically on the (still) forthcoming Ruckerpedia magazine site. If I do ever get that ball rolling I should probably stockpile enough microfictions to ensure they land every Monday. Would love to be able to do that for 52 weeks straight someday. Nanofiction Wednesday could be cool too . . . okay, I’ll stop.

Writing – Comics

Project: Mr. Macabre – Didn’t talk about this one last month, but it was recently being reconfigured to its original graphic novel form with my lifelong best friend/musical partner/artistic brother-from-another-mother Joshua Hooten. But we’ve already shelved that for something more from scratch from the both of us (I’ve been kicking around the Mr. Macabre concept for nearly 20 years — first as an original comics idea, and later as a novels idea). It’s being benched for . . .

Project: Unsettled – An old germ of a concept I’ve had for a few years, but maybe only 5-10% developed. So that it’s ripe for Joshua and I to develop it from scratch as a co-creation of our own. Unlike with Project: Mr. Macabre, I didn’t populate this idea with characters and stories that I’ve had for two decades. We’re developing this one together, even Stevens. I want Joshua to be as fully invested from the ground up as I would be, and a large part of accomplishing that for an illustrator doing the lion’s share of the work is designing the characters from whole cloth in full collaboration rather than from dictation. We’re only about a week into this and we’re both busy/working/old/family men, so naturally it will be a slow burn. More as it develops.

Other Comics Projects – Plenty in waiting, but like starting a band and needing a drummer, none of these ideas can come to fruition without a devoted illustrator.

Writing – Journalism, er, Commentary & Blogging

Comic Book Fetish – I don’t really do “traditional” comics journalism anymore, I do what I like to call rogue analysis and commentary. I’m trying to be more active over at CBF, but a lot of my energy for it gets put into the CBU group on Facebook.

RuckOgnition – Ramping up my activity here as well. As always, the blog exists to keep me writing on a semi-daily basis so that I, although that was the idea in 2009 when I started, well before I finally embraced Facebook as my daily go-to for social media. The keystrokes there should be here, but alas. Still, I’m making an effort to stay active here.

Music – Band(s)

Neglect the Alarm – The latest hiatus continues, indefinitely. In fact, I’m getting the sense that the days for this band may be numbered a bit less than anticipated. It’s complicated. But in the past couple of weeks we were offered a spot on a June 2^nd show with a band from Chicago at the same venue of our one and only previous show, and I had to turn it down because of our current state of flux. I hate letting others down just as much as I hate being let down. I do have a plan for how we can finish up our 5-song demo if things go completely south, but that will take a small monetary investment on my part. Let’s just say the situation on this band is developing and leave it at that for now.

Unnamed New Band Project #1 – Not sure this one will ever get off the ground without a drummer. Pretty much ‘nuff said there.

Unnamed New Band Project #2 – This was just conceived this past week as I approach my guitar partner from NTA about pursuing something different while NTA sorts itself out. Too early to describe, yet, but it would be heavier and more metal-leaning than NTA. Of course the initial task, like with all my other new band projects that have failed to materialize, is finding an available drummer, let alone the right one. So, it’s really too early to say more about this one yet.

Music – Solo

Singer-Songwriter Acoustic Project – Several songs still in various levels of finished/unfinished, and I truly want to get back to this project by the Fall and maybe record them as the long-not-awaited follow up Bridging the Disconnect that I self-produced and self-released in 2009. But I first must rebuild my home studio, since I sold a good portion of my gear three years ago following a layoff. And then, of course there is finding the time given all my literary goals and activities.

As always it’s an arduous balancing act of the arts for me. I should be two or three people instead of one.

New Websites

Ruckerpedia.com – Will likely finally launch in June. Unlikely for it to be June 1^st. Actually, who am I kidding, it will probably be July.

The unnamed music site is scratched from the whiteboard until further notice.

Next Month

I predict even more progress!

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Currently Reading: Drifter the stunning debut suspense novel by Nicholas Petrie. I’m on Chapter 8 and really digging it. Check it out!

Currently Listening: to a shit-ton of audiobooks, already mentioned in Daybook 5 yesterday.

Spring is in full swing and the weather has been as moody as you might expect a Midwestern Spring to be, which unfortunately does a doozy on my overall disposition, rendering me aimless. I am one of those people who simply do not do well when the weather is especially crappy – endless days of clouds, rain or overcast just tend to replicate themselves within me. I wish I was not so susceptible to these negative effects, but alas. Hell, as I write this on this lazy Saturday it’s currently gloomy outside with a gray monochrome overcast and relentless rain.

That said, this unfortunate condition does not excuse my lack of productivity. It may certainly help explain it, but I fully acknowledge it’s not an excuse. So instead of doing a rundown of things I accomplished since the March update, I can amass more words here with a rundown of what I didn’t accomplish in the month of April.

Current Project: The All-New Ruckerpedia

The new companion site intended to showcase the story author aspect of Yours Truly was supposed to be launched by now, if not in April then surely by tomorrow, May 1st. But that’s not going to happen because . . .

I did not finalize it and populate it with content. Sure, there are a handful works posted there, but it’s nowhere near at the robust level of content I want it to have before unleashing it upon an unsuspecting world (a world that may not even acknowledge its existence, but that’s a struggle for a different day).

Current Projects: (Everything Else)

So what else is languishing in a state of un-finish? Here’s a laundry list:

• Project: Comeback – Apparently I’m not coming back to anything given the way I’ve sat idly doing very little. Rebirth? Laughable. I’m the same slacker I’ve been the last nearly five years (I’ve finished and published one story since the November 2011 publication of my Local Heroes anthology).
• Project: Novel Series (Codenamed: Blood-Borne) – No progress made, despite the high I achieved after getting positive reader feedback from two different sources the past month or so.

Hey, what about . . .

Upcoming Projects?

Well, they’re still upcoming because they’ve yet to come to fruition. This includes the Music Website that will house all the music I’ve self-produced over the last eight years as well as linkage to music I’ve created with others.

Also includes Collaborative Projects – one with a fellow writer as well as a different one with an old friend who is also an artist looking to draw a particular story of mine in the form of comic book project – hopefully as a series, but barring that, then a graphic novel. Preliminary work for that is currently in play. But I’ve yet to make a scintilla of progress on the prose collaboration with my other potential collaborative partner. And serialized fiction, while very much on my mind these days, is not even on the map yet.

But what about . . .

Current Musical Projects

Hey, finally something of progress worth noting. My band Neglect the Alarm has finally emerged from a Winter hiatus with two productive practices so far. We’ve taken a song I wrote back in January and rearranged it some to make it even better. That’s the great, democratic way we operate – one guy may write a song on his own and its initial form will change for the better once it goes through the filter of the whole band and everyone gets to contribute to it, whether it’s just structural ideas or actual music. Due to our drummer’s very busy and growing schedule in the world of independent filmmaking, there are a couple more hiatuses on our schedule with no imminent concerts on the horizon. But during the downtime we hope to finally finish additional and post-production on our first batch of recorded songs. As for anything else I may do musically outside of  Neglect the Alarm it’s all TBD/TBA at best.

Next Month

Probably best I don’t embarrass myself with a list of highly potential letdowns. Let’s see if we’re all pleasantly surprised in the month of May.

Look for a Lifebook post tomorrow where I continue to psychoanalyze the current state I’m in.