Speechless Tuesday

This Present Darkness

Now that Vault of Story is rolling along, I find it to be a good outlet. Composing short pieces has provided a nice break from the seemingly perpetual slog of editing the novel. It has given me unexpected pause, too.

The other day, poring over the handful of DVDs I own, my gal said something interesting. She commented that most of the movies were dark and heavy. This was not a quality I'd noticed, but I couldn't disagree: they tend toward the dark end of the spectrum. Grosse Point Blank might be there (best romantic comedy ever), but most of what you'll find are zombies and post-apocalypses.

Things that make you go "Hmm..."

How does this connect to my writing blog, you may well ask? Reviewing the content on Vault of Story thus far, I wonder if it isn't dissimilar from my DVDs, dark and morbid. Writing, so they say, is a process of discovery. Folks would not describe me as a morbid character. I'm gregarious to a fault, a goofy raconteur. Who's this creep oozing out of the ink?

Hmm, hmm, and double-hmm.

When I was younger, my creative output was mostly silly comic books. Maybe I got depressed and swung the other way, like an axe swing. Either that or I'm about to become very depressed now, seeing as I'm such a one-note wonder. Time will tell.

Felines and Digital Ego, Mixtapes and Mom

An influential friend got me hooked on the idea of digital ego some years back. I've been fascinated since with the idea of online identity and how it departs/depends from who we are in the "real" world. Lately I put this into practice when creating an avatar for my novel blog.

Digital ego suits my philosophy that it is better not to know what an author looks like. I prefer to let books create imagery in my head and when I see the writer's mug, it negatively impacts the experience. In this spirit, I crafted an avatar that looks nothing like me. The author has to look like something, right? For now, or until an agent tells me otherwise, I'm content to have the world think "James MacAdam" (pictured above) is a slightly creepy-looking guy who loves winged horses.

This got me thinking. Do I want to be totally separate from my digital ego? So far, I've limited my personal output (that is, what I choose to post about on zeitheist) to scattershot subjects, ranging from apocalypses to the occasional political rant. While true enough, the posts come from me, it's also true they present only a shallow portrait. Reflecting on this got me thinking about things I love.

Not to be morbid, but I thought about beloved subjects that are no longer in my life. Three particular things come up, incited more than a little by some of the great blogs I read daily: cats, music and Mom.


Cats were a big part of my life growing up. Though allergies at my house prevent us having any around, I love cats dearly. My last was a tabby named Karma. Sweet runt of the litter, Karma had the canniest expression I've ever seen, human or otherwise. Cats in general seem to be onto something. Out of all the madness in the world, they make more sense than just about anything.


Mixtapes. Making mixtapes used to the end-all, be-all of my existence. So much so, in fact, that one wall of my office is dedicated to something I call my autosonicograpy, essentially two decades' worth of my favorite music mixed with soundbites, captured sounds and conversations, and other ephemera. If you are one of those folks who thinks about the first thing you would grab in a fire, this is mine.


Seeing how many smart and funny mothers there are blogging these days, I often wonder what my own would have thought of the phenomenon. She was a woman who loved to laugh, and I don't wonder that she would get a kick out of the opportunities for expression that exist today. I can only imagine that she would have posted about her favorite things, namely purses, music and cats. Of course, knowing how much she adored being outdoors and taking long walks, the idea of Mom blogging makes me think she would laugh and call me a silly goose for even suggesting the idea.

Anyhow, these are but a few items distinct from my digital ego. Schizo as it might sound, they seem part of a different person than the one presented online. Do you experience this kind of separation, or does it seem that your offline self is reflected more completely in the digital realm?

Got Avatar?

Nope, not the movie, but I got you to look, didn't I? I'm asking if you have an avatar, like all the kids are doing these days. I do, but the thing is, it isn't me. Let me explain...

She whom you see pictured to your right is not a real person. Sally Parker is the main character in my novel, Narchitect, about which you can read much more at the brand spanking new blog I set up to market it. In preparing introduce the world to Sally, it struck me that I wanted an image to accompany her bio. Since the technology doesn't exist (yet) to snap images of characters out of novels, I had to come up with an alternate way to show what she looks like. That's when it occurred to me to create an avatar for her, and I have to say, the result is a pretty decent approximation.

Cool thing is -or eerie, depending on how you look at it -Sally resides now as a 3-D character on my desktop. She hangs out down by the toolbar with her polygon hair waving in a digital breeze. If Narchitect were a kitchen sink drama or Regency England Romance, it wouldn't make any sense to craft her appearance this way. Since it is a novel set in the 23rd century, where everybody has analog lives in a game realm, this was the logical way to go. Kind of fun, too.

There are many other characters in the book, and I enjoyed creating an avatar for Sally so much that I imagine I'll give them the same treatment. This will give me an excuse to research myriad social sites online, where 3-D avatars are de rigeur. Stop in at the Narchitect blog to see the results!

Which reminds me...

The final installment of my first serial over at Vault of Story is now up and you can read the complete tale of Danny Bates as he deals with the consequences of being late to school. Not everything is as it seems in Danny's world....

It was fun transfering the short story to the blog in sections, transcribing it from my scrawl on college-lined pages and editing on the fly. The end result needs some work, I think, and it will be a while until I commit to another lengthy tale. After all, I should be devoting all my writing time to the manuscript, not short stories! They are such a nice break, even so, that I will not neglect to continue posting regularly. Already I've a slew of miniature, "flash" fictions to offer, which you'll be able to view presently.

Word to Entrecarders: Vault of Story is now droppable!

Stop by and check it out, everybody's welcome.

Novel Profile

Folks have been asking what just what the heck this book I'm writing is about. Here's the prospectus included with publisher submissions:

NARCHITECT BY JAMES MACADAM

A secret team of military talents goes to Luna on a seemingly routine survey mission, but what they encounter under the moon’s surface nearly destroys them. Friends and family against them, the survivors embark on a journey that takes them from the depths of a woman’s memory into a game arena encompassing every battlefield humanity has known, from the Earth homeland to distant settlements on Jupiter and Saturn.

Yumiko Rumi comes from the stars. Member of a cosmic cult, unless her deadly secret is discovered our world is doomed.

Rob Barclay spends more time in prisons than out, problematic for a priest who preaches everyone’s salvation but his own.

Sally Parker is at odds with a world that has no place for her. Upon her shoulders rests the hope of stopping an alien infection of Earth.

Together they will confront Narchitect, a game unlike any seen before where the stakes are life as we know it.

NARCHITECT
How Do You Fight Something That Shouldn’t Exist?