Campaign season is the worst thing ever

Brutha, there is no more awful time of the year than campaign season.

As many of you know, in my day job I'm a newspaper guy. I do the kind of things newspaper guys do. Right now, that means managing the coverage of two fierce mayoral elections.

And let me tell you, my hatred for campaign season is the kind of hatred usually reserved for famine, pestilence, genocide, and Barbra Streisand. Not in that order.

I'd go into details, but not in a public forum. Suffice to say that after 11 years of covering local politics, I'm more than a little jaded at the process and the people and all the little insanities that go into it. I aim to do a good job because I owe it to the people who read my papers and because, frankly, my name is on them, but Barbra Streisand in a blender do I ever look forward to Election Day so I can move past this nonsense and get back to a semi-sane working life.

One of these days I will start an anonymous blog where I'll yap about all the things that happen behind the scenes at a small newspaper, in local politics, covering news, how politicians REALLY act, the letters to the editor people DON'T see, and all sorts of craziness. One of these days...

The Hitchcock podcast returns!

Hey, remember a little something called the Year of Hitchcock Podcast? Well, it's back. Technical difficulties and life issues forced a break, but it's back and ready to roll. We'll be airing roughly every other week for the time being -- if there are blips in the schedule, there are blips in the schedule -- and will at the very least clear out the shows we already have recorded (14 in all). From there? We'll see.

So for now go subscribe, fire it up on iTunes, tell some friends, spread the word, yada yada yada.

Or don't. I don't care either way. No skin off mine.

Whoooaaa, we're halfway there

A little more than halfway, actually. Stuff Every Husband Should Know is chugging along nicely. We are past the halfway mark. The last few evenings have seen chapters such as How to Grocery Shop in Less Than 30 Minutes and How to Make Family Time (Even If You Work A Lot) submitted to my editor. He has yet to curse my name and call me a fool, so I guess it's going okay.

To give you a sense of what this book will be like, check out Stuff Every Man Should Know (see at left), also by Quirk Books. Husband will be part of the same pocket books series, in roughly the same format. As you can see, it's fun and awesome -- two things I hope to increase in my own foray into the world of Stuff Every (blank) Should Know -- and would make a great gift. Tentative release date is Spring 2011. Just in time for Father's Day!

Tacky plug of the day is over.

I am a terrible singer...

... but will soon be doing it anyway. I mentioned previously that when my PC died my music ground to a halt with it. I kind of need to do music, though. It's a creative outlet I can't do without, especially since writing is as much work as it is fun.

New PC is now up and running ... and that means a new X-Sweet album is coming at some point in the near future.

This time, though, I'm taking my time. I have a habit of rushing through this stuff, settling for good enough, and tossing it out the door before it's ready. Too impatient; lack any drive to be a perfectionist with this stuff. This time I hope to sit on these tunes, get them right, and to be willing to ditch songs that just aren't working. (I should have done that with several songs on the last two.)

My goal is to merge the sonic experiments of my m2 project with the traditional songs of X-Sweet. Big outer space sounds wrapped around songs that can be strummed and sung on an acoustic guitar, which is how these songs were written before I began to butcher them with noise. We'll see if I succeed.

The singing will still suck, though. That's an X-Sweet tradition.

One-third down on "Stuff Every Husband..."

So, Stuff Every Husband Should Know. As I write this, I have dropped 25 chapters/sections/entries/whatever into my editor's inbox. Our target is roughly 75, which puts us about 1/3 of the way to the finish line. So that's good.

Of course, we're still developing ideas and topics, so a big challenge remains before us. Maybe I'll put out the call for suggestions tomorrow.

Staying Focused, Keeping Busy

Someone recently asked me how I stay focused. It seems like I'm constantly juggling projects, working on new things, producing new material ... but how do you keep your nose in your work (especially when also dealing with a full-time job and family)?

Aside from the fact that my focus is an illusion -- the truth is I'm a lazy, not-very-driven person by nature and always have been -- the secret is, there is no secret. It's damn hard. It's never easy. And that's all there is to it.

For the person not yet making his or her living solely on writing, for the person wedging that impossible dream into a life already crammed with work, family, and life in general, staying focused on writing is THE obstacle. The biggest one of all. It's Everest. Conquer it and you're well on your way.

There is no one answer on how to stay focused. It will differ from person to person. You've got to know yourself. You've got to know how to work within and around your limitations. Knowing those limitations and being willing to acknowledge them is HUGE. So know yourself and know what you have to work around.

For me, it's a combination of guilt tripping myself, maintaining momentum, a small dab of desire, and an irrepressible need to make stuff.

The latter part comes easy. Writing, making music, painting, creating board games ... I can't stop creating stuff. It's how I fill my time. Have done so since I was a kid. Desire is simply knowing what I want and realizing that if I just sit and daydream about it, well, I'll be yet another in a long line of people who talk about writing rather than, you know, writing. I don't want to be that guy. Momentum I've talked about (see link above).

And guilt? Guilt is easy.

I feel that if I don't sit down and write on a regular basis, I'm doing myself and my long-term goals a great disservice. So I write. There are times when I want to toss my laptop into the ocean and veg out in front of video games. There are times when I'd rather set aside the projects I have to do so I can pound away at the projects I want to do. There are times when I just need a goddamn break and don't want to think about writing for a few months.

But I can't live with the idea that I've shorted myself of an opportunity to succeed at writing.

And if you want to write, neither should you.

Diving into Cerebus for Comic Book Galaxy

When the fine folks at Trouble With Comics asked me to take part in their guest reviewers month, I wasn't going to say no. I've followed parent site Comic Book Galaxy for a lot of years and have always enjoyed the work of Alan David Doane and his collaborators, even when I disagreed with them. So yeah, I was happy to take part.

I decided to tackle Cerebus: The Last Day, the final volume in independent creator Dave Sim's legendary and controversial, 300-issue epic, because it would give me a chance to do commentary I'd be interested in writing. You can read my thoughts here (second item down as of the date of this posting).

If you're unfamiliar with Cerebus, this review isn't going to make you eager to jump on board ... but I urge you to, anyway, because it is one of the great creative achievements in comics. The stretch from volume 2 to volume 5 especially -- High Society, Church and State I & II, and Jaka's Story -- are examples of the best the medium has to offer. Smart, funny, insightful, thought-provoking, and just plain entertaining as hell.

If you're interested in my thoughts on other comics/graphic novels, you can check out my infrequently-updated Taft is Reading blog. It's pretty informal in nature, but whatever. In the meantime, you can support my work and the good folks at Trouble With Comics by sending some clicks their way. Cheers!