Personal – Page 12 – The Designer Monologues

June 14, 2012June 14, 2012

43

Yesterday was my 43rd birthday. Five and half years beyond kicking cancer, eleven years past the first birthday where I first “felt old.” (Funny story: when I was 12-15 and playing tabletop RPGs, I’d always make my characters 32 years old. My suave spies, my superheroes, my space captains… all 32, because 32 was Adult with a Capital A. Turning 30 didn’t bother me. Turning 32 did.)

We did it low-key this year — not entirely intentionally, to be honest. I’ve been so busy recently (behind schedule on pretty much every project, traveling 5,000 miles in the space of a week from my oldest daughter’s college graduation in Massachusetts to a series of meetings in Los Angeles) that my birthday pretty much snuck up on me. So we just did a last-minute invite for folks to join us at India Palace here in Lawrence for dinner, followed by some drinks at the Red Lyon (my local pub, which I’ve been visiting since World Cup 94). A quality meal, some social time, and back home before midnight (shaddap, whippersnappers. I gotta get my REST.).

A very Far West birthday, gift-wise. The picture above features one of the gifts from my lovely wife Laura — which accompanied the complete series of Kung Fu on DVD.

Also of interest to Far West afficianados – a couple of great books.

The first, The Ultimate Guide to Martial Arts Films of the 1970s, is an encyclopedia of the chop-socky flicks of that decade, assembling data and stills from 500 films. Information on variant titles, total number and running time of training and fight sequences, cast and crew lists, points of interest, etc. I cannot rave about this one enough.

The second, Any Gun Can Play: The Essential Guide to Euro-Westerns, is a great addition to my research library — the coolest thing about it is that it focuses on all European-produced Westerns, rather than only covering the Italian work.

I also picked up some vintage paperbacks which might be of interest: a series of original novels featuring the adventures of The Man With No Name, published in the late 60s and early 70s. A Coffin Full of Dollars by Joe Millard, A Dollar to Die For by Brian Fox, and The Devil’s Dollar Sign, The Million-Dollar Bloodhunt and Blood For a Dirty Dollar by Joe Millard. I’ve read the first two so far — they’re typical pulp paperbacks of the time: short (maybe 60K in length), disposable, but undeniably fun. Not “great literature” by any means, but enjoyable — which is the purpose. Once I get some of my delayed projects out the door, I’m considering adding a regular feature to this blog, where I review various vintage paperbacks. If so, these will definitely be featured.

Speaking of delayed projects, I need to get back to work. Thanks to everyone who sent birthday wishes!

If any of you are interested in picking up the stuff I mentioned:

February 10, 2012

LATE.

Confession-is-good-for-the-soul time. My biggest professional failing is lateness. I always overestimate how quickly I can get things done, and I’m always doing more than one thing, so once a project falls behind schedule, I’m playing a constant game of catch-up… and the lateness causes a cascade into everything else I’m doing, causing them to be be delayed as well. Next thing I know, I’m left feeling like I’m simultaneously juggling five or six balls while also desperately treading water trying to avoid drowning.

(Yeah, I know — my stress-metaphors don’t fuck around.)

The side effect of the cascade is that I’m constantly working with several projects which are all behind schedule — which makes working on each one that more difficult, due to the peculiarities of how my brain works. Logically, I know that if project A is the latest, I should knock that out until it’s done, and move on to project B, which is less late, then on to C, which is barely late. Somewhere in the misfiring neurons of my stress-addled mind, however, if I try to concentrate on A, then thoughts of B & C intrude, nagging at me almost to the point of panic. “We’re late,” they cry. “You need to get this done!” And so my work on A is like crawling over broken glass (see? I wasn’t kidding about the stress-metaphors). I often end up trying to bounce between projects to shut down the nagging, which of course doesn’t really do anything but slow down the completion process.

This is one of those things where working for yourself puts you at a disadvantage. I’m pretty sure if I had somebody telling me “DO PROJECT A.” I could concentrate purely on that — and then they could point me at the next task. Adamant, however, is a one-man shop, plus freelancers, co-developers, etc. Which means that everything bottlenecks through me, and I’m the guy standing over myself, giving the orders.

The result is 7-day work weeks, filled with 12-16 hour days. I can’t allow myself to unclench, to give myself any down-time, as long as there are projects which need work… and there are always projects which need work. Lack of down-time means that my immune system is stress-weakened, which often results in my getting slammed by whatever bug is going around, which has the added joy of making me feel even worse — and making my work even slower and the projects even later.

So it’s a failure of which I am exceedingly aware.

Folks ping me all the time, though — via social media, email, forums, etc. Fans, for the most part. Enthusiastic. “When is X coming out? Is it out yet? When? How about now? I’m dying over here! Now? Come on!”

On the one hand, I know this is a positive thing. People look forward to the stuff I release. They want it. This is, of course, far better than the alternative — that they don’t care or don’t even notice.

On the other hand, though? A gut-twisting knife, every time. Seriously — actual physical discomfort. A stark reminder of my failing. Massive injections of additional pressure and stress …and I know it’s not intended to be that. It’s genuine interest from genuine fans, and I absolutely hate that my brain has managed to turn that into a negative thing.

So I end up using my lunch break to write out a blog post like this, in the hopes that putting it down in black-and-white will force my mind to stop doing that.

How about you folks? How do you keep from falling behind (or whatever your own personal failing may be)? How do you hack your own brain to stop responding in ways that are detrimental to your work?

January 22, 2012

Five Years

5 years cancer-free. Most recurrence occurs within those 5 years. I know, intellectually, that it’s not a magical switch that gets flipped, but I have to say that it kinda FEELS like it. When you spend that entire time waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop, and it doesn’t, it’s a palpable relief.

For posterity, here’s a link to the post that I wrote on my blog last year, where I gathered and quoted some old locked-journal posts that I had written while I was diagnosed and treated back in 2007. (Rather than just re-quoting them here.)

Had a great get-together last night, good friends, good food, an abundance of drink (seriously — I’m going to be on an alcohol-heavy diet for the next week or so, given the amount of stuff that was brought to the house that we didn’t manage to get to). And then, as a special gift, I found out that Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina primary, thereby ensuring the accelerated splintering of the Republican party, and most likely a landslide electoral defeat in November.

So, y’know: Good Times.

I’m actually going to do an unheard-of thing: take BOTH days off during a weekend. I think I’ve earned it.