Setting the Bar Low

When the first Iron Man movie came out, I spent the preceding week watching exclusively made for SyFy movies so as to lower my expectations for entertainment.  Iron Man was my favorite comic growing up and I needed the movie to be awesome.  Thankfully my preparation wasn't needed because the movie was awesome all on its own.  Right now I am trying that same plan for the final chapters.  I think I've mentioned before that fight sequences don't really come that easily to me.  I don't know how I've done with them so far because it is tough to read your own stuff with a critical eye.  I haven't been blown away by them, but I'm also usually pretty hard on myself anyways so I can't really tell.  Soon it'll start being read by other people and they'll let me know.

Introducing NinChick

No superhero book would be complete without a ass kicking chick with a bad attitude!  In this book that character is NinChick.  Picture the cute emo girl that sat in front of you in math class drawing anime versions of her killing the popular kids in school, but with super speed and fighting skills.  NinChick dresses like a Hello Kitty model and is very cute, but she hates just about everybody.  She's a master of martial arts and in seemingly every type of melee weapon.  Her babies are her set of sai, but she is never far from her katana either and will gladly smack a bitch around with her nunchucks.  NinChick was not friends with either Gamer of Powerful Dude before her change, she was recruited by Gamer who had found her stopping minor crimes through his monitoring of YouTube.  A chick in a miniskirt and pigtails beating the crap out of a mugger gets a lot of views!

Inspiration v Motivation

Good day all.  I'm taking a break from the character intros today to just talk about where I'm at with this endeavor.  Basically it's just me talking about it because this gives me a forum to do that.
So I'm pretty happy with what I've been writing.  I am biased, so I doubt I'm the best person to grade myself and I was once told by an English professor that I have a "unique writing style" but couldn't elaborate on what that meant or even if it was good or bad.  I know that people at work usually don't like that I'm pretty wordy in my emails, but what can I say, I'm a fan of language and I like words.  I've always been fascinated by how the arrangement of words in a sentence or the use of certain words can vastly change the perception of some text.  Using the word "Moist" instead of using "damp" will always result in a funnier sentence.  There are much better examples, but I'm not going to give you all my tricks.

Introducing Powerful Dude

Powerful, Dude!!!

Once your standard run of the mill definition slacker, Powerful Dude is now he has the strength of 20 men, can fly and is almost invulnerable to any sort of trauma.  He would be a real Super superhero if it weren't for his constant need for attention, his act first, think much later attitude and his constant case of the munchies.  He is undoubtedly the strongest of The Slackers, but without Gamer's direction and NinChick's restraint he would have found a way to hurt himself.

Powerful Dude loves to strike a superhero pose and yell his catch phrase "Powerful, Dude!".  He'll always be mugging for the cameras or responding to positive Tweets and blocking the haters.  He spends a great deal of his down time using his powers to create his own YouTube videos of him skateboarding into things, getting hit by cars and any sort of unique way to be kicked in the balls he can think of.

Please Comment

Hello to those that have found this and/or just followed the links I posted on my Facebook wall.  It appears that there are some of you who have come from another source and so I'm asking how you stumbled upon this and what do you think so far.  In all the articles I have read about self-publishing they say you have to have a blog, but I'm not exactly sure why.  Once I have an actual product I'll link it here and do some sort of advertising to draw people here to view it.  The link will be on the Amazon page and I'll start a FB page and prolly advertise and FB and try to figure out someway to use Twitter.  I dunno.
Tell me what you'd like to read.  For those of you who know me, don't just say 'do something funny', please.  I'll get to that when I've done enough book crap.  Please comment and let me know what you like or what you would like and I'll see what I can do.  I get stats for page views and sources and browsers and all that stuff and I really like stats.  Just let me know who you are and how you got here and if there is any part of this venture you would like me to talk about.  I'm happy to do it.
So Say We All...
Pauldo

Introducing Gamer

Meet Todd Kalinski, a slightly more than slightly overweight 20 something who wears ironic tee shirts and LOVES video games.  When S.O.E. hit Todd he was given the ability to use his laptop to  bring video games to life.  The better and more real the game, the better his real life version of it is.  He bestowed upon himself the superhero name Gamer, and he started The Slackers, joined by NinChick and Powerful Dude.  He not only is the founder, but he is the heart and soul of the team.  When The Quad broke up, Mitosis came and became the leader of The Slackers.  Gamer really never understood why Mitosis choose them, but he was glad that he did.  Gamer isn't a leader and when he tries to be he gets uncomfortable and self-conscious.  He has a heart that is always covered by his custom made Laptop chest piece that allows him to flip the computer up into his chest, but he can flip it down to quickly code a horde of zombies or a battalion of Roman centurions.

Pop Culture

I've heard several times and read countless more times that an author shouldn't scatter pop culture references in their writing because it gives your work the same shelf life of those references.  I'm not fooling myself into thinking I am writing the next "Catcher in the Rye" but I also doubt the J.D. Salinger thought he was writing something that would be an anthem for teenagers for years to come.  I like to look at works like "Ready Player One" that didn't even use current pop culture references, but ones from over 20 years earlier.  btw, if you haven't ready "Ready Player One" by Earnest Cline you totally should.
My characters are based off of a lot of the stuff in pop culture right now.  Heck, the fact that I am writing a superhero book could be considered me whoring out pop culture, except that I was born and raised with them and was a fan way before the current trend started.  So I sprinkle my story telling with internet memes and movie quotes, so sue me!