Zombies. Comedy. Gelatin. Machine guns. Large cats.

This resolution lasted until 10:32 a.m. when I logged on to Twitter.

In real life I don’t act like the movie Airplane on crack. I am contemplative and somber.

…

Yeah, stop laughing. It’s true. I swear. 

Alas for the need for writers to run amok online and say things, a bad habit mercilessly encouraged by Web 2.0. I conveniently blame my asshat-wearing-ways upon the Internet. I’m not an expert on anything interesting, there are plenty of better and far more experienced writers out there handing out writing advice, and ranting about budget deficits and infrastructure decay is depressing, boring, and gets old after roughly 32.5 words.

So I keep the important things I wish to explore and examine for the characters and the stories. (Never mind that some of those stories read like the Airplane movies on crack.) And then I run amok on the Internet sounding deranged, stupid, overly excited by giant robots, swords, the Red Sox, fire, the Oregon Ducks, gelatin, ferrets, zombies (and not in that order) while sporting all the sophistication of a 13-year-old male.

Evil has never looked so adorable.

I’m considering posting some new writing from my 37,000 ongoing series on the blog, but the thought of posting unedited material makes me twitchy.

Anyway, I’d give a general status update on writing progress, but I’m still working on the third Nightfall Syndicate book, and after that I plan to write the sequel to The Zero Dog War. There may or may not be a Zero Dog novella in the meantime (I have one at about 30,000 words, with another 20,000 needed to finish the story). We’ll see. 2011 was not my favorite year. Not by a long shot. Too fast and chaotic. I’m hoping 2012 is far better. Unless the world ends, which will suck.

Happy New Year to everyone. I wish you the best for the coming year.

As for me, I’ll be back to writing…

…and acting like an idiot on the Internet.

For now I will leave off from my regular string of enthusiastic ranting about the wobbling abomination of gelatin desserts and the imminent Telekinetic Alien Zombie Apocalypse (TAZA for short)…and how the two might actually fit together in a horrible coupling of evil. Instead I will reveal how a seemingly harmless holiday cartoon may be at the center of American decline (and not, as was previously suspected, things such political gridlock, the growing power of special interests, overspending, wars, the ever-expanding military industrial complex, unregulated banking excess and greed, the repeal/modification of the Glass Steagall Act, obscene university tuitions, debt, decaying infrastructure, the death of the American Dream, and an orgy of irresponsible investing in vapid celebrity memoirs).

Join me as we cut to the black heart of this shocking discovery with a tediously in-depth expose of Frosty the Snowman!

The cartoon in question opens with the narrator Jimmy Durante wandering around in a blizzard, frantically assuring the audience that a Christmas snow is magikal and not, in fact, a source of dread as thousands of people flood the street driving too fast in slippery conditions simply because they own SUVs (commonly confused with tanks by the general public).

I'm the narrator. Trust me. Everything in this cartoon REALLY HAPPENED!

This snow is claimed to be magic, and the cartoon presents the following visual evidence:

Mailmen and dogs no longer continue their age-old war for supremacy.

This dog only hates the UPS guy.

Old men cackle and click their heels together in defiance of gravity and do not fall on their asses due to icy conditions.

A lawsuit waiting to happen...

A touching family scene is shown of a father coming home to his joyous kids. This is perhaps one of the cartoon’s most nefarious—and yet insidiously subtle—scenes, inserted to trick the audience into believing this cartoon contains 100% USDA certified Family Values (when the children are really just trying to get their greedy-grubby little mittens on the presents he’s holding—you know, instead of working in a factory somewhere pulling themselves up by their bootstraps as children did when I was young, except we didn’t have boots, just duct tape for the soles of our feet, and instead of snow we had coal-dust-falls instead of snowfalls but I’m rambling…).

The narrator then asserts this snow is even further charged with special properties because it has fallen on the day before Christmas. We cut to the scene of a schoolhouse slowly being buried by snowdrifts. Apparently children are still in school on Christmas Eve, despite budget cuts. It even appears as if they have central heating and aren’t relying on burning peat moss or braziers (no, not brassieres).

Brazier

Brassiere

It is within the schoolroom we are introduced to the magician Professor Hinkel. He may only be completely inept…or he might be a Satanist. One might disregard this claim at first blush, but it cannot be denied that A) he is the villain B) he is trying to work magic (classic, perhaps clichéd, Satanist shenanigans) C) he hates rabbits.

Rabbit hate makes for a sad and ugly picture...

He also uses spell languages culled from the Satanic Bible (though they might be from the Satanist’s Cookbook or Satanism For Dummies—I wouldn’t know, as I’m not a Satanist) similar to other various Latin-esque incantations such as the diabolical “Expelliarmus,” “Incendio,” “Accio,” “Confundo,” and of course “Avada Kedavra”—a little known evil spell which allows a politician to accrue corporate campaign contributions without listing the donors.

Levitation is a sin

The magician, disgusted with his inability to summon demons for the amusement of the children, tosses his top hat. A white rabbit emerges, checks his watch and runs off yelling about being late, various slapstick incidents occur, the children turn into a raging mob, eager to be free of the classroom and text each other while driving and/or join a rave.

The children manage to escape outside where they set about erecting idols to false gods in the shape of snowmen. They also build the best snowman I’ve ever seen, complete with articulated arms and well-defined legs. My snowmen always turned out to be vaguely rounded blob-like sections with rocks for eyes and gaping snow cavern mouths (and those bastards never talked, no matter what type of hat I shoved on their heads…but I digress).

Also known as Black Friday at Walmart

Perhaps the best damn snowman ever built with opposable thumbs.

The cartoon then displays some back and forth between the kids about what to name the snowman. This is filler, lacking suspense, since we all know from the title the snowman will be christened Frosty. The next image is one of the most disturbing to evade censors—Frosty’s pipe.

Pipe: For tobacco--as American as apple pie? Or for nefarious reefer smokage--as Un-American as French people? YOU DECIDE!

Clearly this is a subtle attempt to desensitize our society to the rampaging scourge of smoking pot. Frosty the snowman has a pipe, more commonly known among the hip, the counterculture, and the drug savvy as a “bong”. Sure it may not look like a bong, but to the subconscious mind, everything inserted into the mouth resembles a bong if one ponders long enough. Freud said that (and Freud was also possibly a socialist menace and mercilessly slandered Oedipus, a Fish Out of Water story about a guy and his Mom, soon to be a full length animated feature).

Aside: Having read this far, don’t ask me what I’ve been smoking. I’m preaching truth, brother. I need no mind-altering substances to uncover these shocking discoveries and share them with the world.

Moving on with the cartoon drama. Creepy children singing, holding hands, and worshipping their malevolent soon-to-be socialist snowman idol. Have they not heard of the golden calf? Heathens.

"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn"

Gee, Moses! This is all just one big misunderstanding!

The magician chases his hat out the door. The little girl steals it and slams it down on Frosty. “There must have been some magic in that old silk hat they found”… some hoodoo, perhaps the magician slaughtered chickens inside, or it was the dreaded Necronomi-hat…because Frosty comes to life in a swirl of sparkles and (apparently coming pre-programmed with language skills of the English variety) bellows “Happy Birthday!” This is the first revelation of his socialist-communist-socio-fascist nature, as Frosty clearly wants people to start giving him things, such as presents which he does not deserve and has not earned. Classic socialist-entitlement behavior.

The little girl instantly deduces “That hat brought Frosty to life!” because hats are found doing that kind of thing all the time.

God created Adam with a magic hat.

The shrewd magician suddenly wants the hat back, because he can see the investment opportunities available to a man with a hat with the power to bestow life. Either that, or he desires to bring to life a Hellish army of once-inanimate coat racks and mannequins and take over the world in the name of Satan. It could go either way.

There’s a brief squabble about property rights, with the girl claiming the magician has given up ownership of his magic hat (although, as the court will see, the magician clearly chased said hat into the snow, indicating a continuing desire to maintain possession of aforesaid article of headgear). A kid tries to make the case that because the hat brought the snowman to life, the snowman’s potential existence trumps the magician’s property rights, yet another in-your-face slap against this country’s long cherished ideals. The magician only wants to use his hat to realize the American Dream—become a millionaire and then Escape From Newark forever (and no, I did not mean to reference the cult classic Escape From New York. I meant Newark, New Jersey. Hint: If you’re trapped there, flee!)

Never leave the airport! Newark is waiting to destroy your soul!

The magician tries to use logic with the children, denying the effects of his Satanic Hat and dismissing their eyewitness accounts—though he probably wouldn’t get away with such twisted rhetoric during the good old days of the Inquisition.

Aside: We would also like to mention that Frosty sports eyes of coal, clearing supporting the coal industry to Keep America Strong!

Coal: It's what's for dinner! Or stockings. YOU DECIDE!

The narrator takes a deal of time to assure the audience that the hat suddenly belongs to Frosty and the children, even though they cannot produce any bill of sale or record of transfer of ownership, suggesting a kind of communal ownership that should’ve set off a series of red flags with censors and senator Joseph McCarthy, but was curiously missed due to a conspiracy.

Again illustrating the prevalence of theft, the rabbit now steals the hat (likely claiming squatter’s rights) and returns it to the children, who once more place it on the snowman’s head. Frosty reanimates—much like a zombie popsicle strangely obsessed with happy birthdays instead of brains.

Frosty the Abomination is now alive and babbling as he ponders the mystery of life. He tries to count to ten and fails, thus subtly alluding to the failure of the public education system.

"I lost two fingers throwing that hand grenade in basic training."

The kids go frantic with apoplectic joy (or they’re all on ecstasy, honestly it’s never clear which) and cue creepy children singing. Frosty begins to melt, not because of mythical global warming, but because of residual heat from his Satanic Hat.

Handy visual temperature references

Frosty ponders the crushing inevitability of his own death. There is much pathos…and then a commercial break.

The horror... the horror...

Frosty and the kids decide to head to the North Pole so the snowman will never melt, a far easier solution than cutting him up and evenly depositing dismembered sections of him in each child’s freezer. Everyone lines up for a spontaneous parade to head to the train tracks and ride the rails as hobos. Notice that parades are classic old-style Soviet propaganda. Or the group could mean to march on Wall Street, in which case they might be labeled new-style anti-capitalist hippies masquerading as cartoon children.

"In step, damn you! In step!"

Much slapstick takes place during the parade scene—i.e. people’s reaction to the acid-trip sight of a Frankenstein-esque snowman leading an army of children through town, much like the Pied Piper only melty-er. Then Frosty meets a traffic cop (symbol of authority). Frosty ignores traffic lights (symbols of authority). When the officer confronts him for his law breaking anarchy, the snowman pleads ignorance, and yet we all know ignorance of the law is not a defense.

Frosty proceeds to mock the officer, begging for a ticket, obviously hoping to be doused with pepper spray or tazered, hoping to make the news in a story of police brutality and then sue the city for millions of dollars.

"Don't make me taze you in the snowballs."

The little girl, a defense attorney in the making, manages to get Frosty out of trouble on some technicalities, such as the fact that he’s just come to life. They parade blissfully onward, and the cop, freaking out about the threat of Satanically Reanimated Snow Forged into a Golem of Doom, accidentally swallows his whistle.

As a child this scene disturbed me most. The cop swallows his whistle and apparently can do nothing but choke out frantic squeaks. Everybody marches on without administrating any first aid, leaving the cop to an unknown fate. As a kid I always wondered—was he all right? Did he ever get the whistle out of his throat? Was he condemned to a life of incoherent, shrill whistling in a desperate attempt to communicate with the people around him?

No one cares that this man can now only communicate via shrill blasts of sound.

Those questions haunt me to this very day.

And on that happy note, we end Part One of our expose of the War on Christmas from the Socialist Snowman with Undercurrents of Satanism front.

Stay tuned for Part Two (pending administration of chlorpromazine hydrochloride aka Thorazine).

**We don’t mean to insult the French. **Relevant images copyright to Cla*ssic*Me*dia, used only in parody/satire/Fair Use/and with nostalgic love for the original cartoon.**

Check it out:

http://moirarogers.com/blog/archives/4605

You can win a $10 gift certificate for Amazon by leaving a comment.

Also, I murder a Robert Frost poem by inserting zombies.

Just because I can.

http://www.bookloversinc.com/2011/10/bermuda-triangle-love-and-libraries-by.html

The giveaway is open until October 22nd. All you have to do is leave a comment. So very easy. ^_^

The Clearing at the Center of the Forest: Speed and the Process of Writing

On rare occasions I pause and wonder how fast I should be writing. This generally happens when an author friend produces far more word count volume in a shorter amount of time than I do, or I’m lapped in book releases by peers, or everybody (including me) forgets what the hell happened in the previous book of the series to which I’m writing a sequel. The voices in my head attempt to make me feel guilty, or lazy, or self-indulgently slow.

Don’t listen to the voices.

I didn’t release a book in 2010. The lack of a release was entirely my fault. I stopped seventy-five percent of the way through Ghost Soldiers to chase an idea that had just crashed home with all the subtlety of a tractor-trailer race on an icy mountain road—an idea that ended up being the core of the humor urban fantasy novel The Zero Dog War. Then I rewrote much of Ghost Soldiers to better integrate the two separate character plot lines. I read and rewrote and read again, tweaking the language, the placement of the scenes, etc. That, more than anything, is the wind drag on my little red writing racecar. The tweaking. The layering. The stripping away of excess words, or the adding of details and depth where lean prose has crossed a line into emaciated. It is simply a function of how I write. Some writers can get it right, or very nearly so, during the first couple of drafts. I envy them in the same way I envy golfers who can tee off without slicing, but I understand I do things differently, and that works for me.

Just like slicing into the pond.

Every single damn time.

First off, I don’t recommend following the writing pattern I use. It is a jumbled, haphazard approach that will never win any awards for efficiency. However, I’ve tried to change and can’t seem to pull it off, so I run with what I have. The path to finishing a piece of writing is unique to each writer. We stand in front of a dark forest. We each cut an individual trail into the shadows beneath the trees. No two writers will arrive at the clearing in the center of the forest by means of an identical path. Take comfort from that. You must forge your own trail, and this can be both tremendously exciting and wildly terrifying.

I tend to write fast, burning through a rough draft of a scene. Then I go back at some point and layer in the detail, adjust the words and rhythm of the prose. This, for me, is the greatest time sink. I may go back and add details/layering/tweaks several times after the “rough completion” of a scene—and this is before edits. The most obnoxious personal record I remember setting was when I did this nine or ten times in one book, layering in plot/character points, adjusting, fine tuning, as the novel developed and I gained a better grasp of the characters and motivations. Other times, as I wrote my way further along the path, I came up with an idea I liked better or was more efficient or created more tension/conflict and had to start back at the front of the book and layer it through the whole text.

There are plenty of writers who believe this tweaking and rewriting is akin to spinning one’s wheels in the mud. Get it out and get it on, they like to say. I certainly appreciate where they are coming from, but I’ve never considered this wasted time. I know the tendency for a writer, especially a writer under deadlines either external or internal, might be to see this as inefficient or wasteful. However, if you write slowly—or even erratically—I urge you not to feel guilt or find fault with your process if it works for you. If it doesn’t work or you grow dissatisfied, by all means, change things up. If you are pleased with the end result, don’t feel pressured to change to conform to any other writer’s opinion on how things should be done.

What matters is the finished product.

If you are a writer who creates strong first drafts and great finished product in short amounts of time then never feel ashamed by your speed. I’ve heard just as many snide comments about writers who write fast as I have about writers who take forever to cross the finish line. Ignore such blather. Somebody is always bitching about somebody else. Death. Taxes. Somebody bitching about something. Universals all.

Write in the way that works best for you, as an individual. The path you follow is your own, unique, and while it might pass close to the trail of other writers, have faith that each step, each word nested in each sentence has been walked by none before in exactly the same way. Run the path or leisurely stroll the trail, whichever you prefer, because the clearing at the center of the forest is where we present our writing to the reader.

A well-written book speaks for itself, whether pounded out in a feverish week of hyperactivity or slowly built over the course of years. At times I wish there were a magical shiny Chutes and Ladders rainbow slide one could take to zip from I Just Wrote The First Chapter! to I Just Crushed That Ending With a Six Ton Elephant of Awesome, but such slides do not exist.

And if they do exist, somebody have mercy and please point me in the right direction.

Although I did not release a book in 2010, I will likely have four releases in 2011. The Zero Dog War and Ghost Soldiers are both out now. 9mm Blues should release shortly. My current project, A Thousand Ravens Dark, might even score a December 2011 release date. I’m walking that path, albeit slowly, but I get there.

My only rambling advice is this: in the final tally, it doesn’t matter how long it takes to finish, doesn’t matter how many days or months or years are needed to push through the last line of trees out into the sunlit meadow.

Sit down and write.

(click on the image for a better view)

Kids will be headed off to school soon. I’m trying to finish the novel I’m working on. I still have several projects I’m juggling all at once. The third book of the Nightfall Syndicate (Blood Vice, Ghost Soldiers), a new Zero Dog novella and then the full novel sequel, and a dark epic fantasy…just because I’m insane and didn’t have enough irons in the fire already.

Back to writing…

http://www.facebook.com/keithmelton99#!/pages/Keith-Melton/199082863480486

And In Other Book News:

My new hardcase action-packed Urban Fantasy novel 9mm Blues releases on Sept 19, 2011 from Etopia Press. Thorn Knights and ghouls ripping the hell out of one another. This one is intense…and I’m very excited about it.

However, since no one is looking and I’m screwing around instead of writing, I thought I’d post a few of the silliest and/or most absurd and/or stupidest drawings I’ve created using nothing more than MS Paint and my own personal delusions.

Samurai Spider

This spider was simply an excuse to draw a katana and a samurai helm. In real life, spiders are not samurai, but more like ninjas, creeping around, crawling on you in the dark. Moving on…

Giant Squid Rocking Out

This picture had nothing to do with my fear of giant squids and more to do with challenging myself to draw a violin in MS Paint using the touchpad on my laptop. True musicians will note that the squid is holding the violin incorrectly. Best not to mention it to a giant squid, however.

Flying Robot Monkey Shark

Yes. The world needed more flying robot monkey sharks. Interestingly enough, I used this for a Twitter avatar and it was universally reviled. I immediately lost 15% of my followers. Which proves my hypothesis: people on Twitter don’t like monkeys.

Angry Cow

I also used this for an avatar for a day. Also not a big hit. People don’t connect cows and writers, even if they are both angry, and thus it was a grand marketing failure.

Dual Peg Leg Pirate Action

This image was done for a guest post. I wasn’t invited back. Perhaps they just don’t enjoy pirates. Or maybe I smell. I’m rather proud of that flintlock pistol though…

Flesh-eating Gnome Under an Unforgiving Sun

The gnomes were part of a Scribbling Ninjas interview with writer Jody Wallace. Jody’s very funny and she knows all about the terror and threat posed by common gnomes. She also owns a cat with an attitude (or is that simply redundant?).

Chainsaw Unicorn Hates You Because You're Beautiful

The classic chainsaw unicorn. I plan on putting a chainsaw unicorn in one of my Zero Dog books. I think it would be perfect. But then again I like shows about giant robots fighting one another. Also, Godzilla and the Three Stooges. (If someone could combine all three of those into one movie, I’d be in heaven.)

Oh and one more:

Chainsaw Unicorn Pwned Your Little Pony

…and he *laughed* about it. See that look on his face? What a smug bastard.

Alien Cattle Rustlers Strike In Iowa

This picture was part of a larger post done to support my tentative hypothesis linking UFOs to writer Ann Aguirre’s sudden disappearance from Twitter a while back. This was a background scene. It turns out I was wrong about the whole Close Encounters of the Third Kind/alien abduction thing, and Ann Aguirre was a good sport about my mistake. The restraining order was just her way of showing it.

Mixed Martial Arts Throwdown: Steampunk Octopus Versus Angry Bears

Part of a Scribbling Ninjas interview with writer Mari Fee.  I can’t decide which is more disturbing. A bear in a Karate Gi or that demented looking purple octopus.

Evil Robot Clown Macks on a Robot Showgirl

Robots. Enough said.

It's a zombie...and a mime!

Another Zero Dog War thing. Zombie mimes. Zombie mimes are the less prestigious cousins of zombie clowns. And you never hear them creeping up on you either because THEY NEVER MAKE A SOUND!

Steampunk Airship + Bears and Octopus. Somebody should walk the plank for this...

Another picture done for the Mari Fee interview, proving beyond  a shadow of doubt that I cannot draw good steampunk airships. Oh well. I just like that pissed off raincloud.

The Zero Dog War Collector's Edition Illustrated Version

Another drawing done for a guest post. Now you understand why publishers don’t like authors to draw their own promotional artwork… Sadly, sales decreased 223% after this picture hit the Internet.

An aside:

Fair warning. Someday when I have more time I’m going to start making moving .gifs of these things, just to annoy people on message boards. Why? Because Evil runs in my veins… right next to the coffee.

There are more drawings, but this post is long enough already and I’ve already managed to lose the respect of 82.4% of my readers. We’ll save the last 17.6% for next week when I start posting vlogs to Youtube…