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Tag Archives: writing

“Commute” by Jake Christie

April 8, 2014
Things to Read, Writing

“Commute” is a piece of interactive fiction I wrote to test out the capabilities of Twine, a program for writing interactive stories. I only scratched the surface – there are some spectacular games out there, like “KING OF BEES IN FANTASY LAND” and “Depression Quest,” and many more – that tell really great stories and play with the form and capabilities of interactive fiction. I don’t think this story does anything big with the form, but I’m happy with the way it came out.

You wake up.

Maybe that’s a little charitable. Your cell phone alarm goes off, and you have that panicked moment before you open your eyes where you realize that, yes, it is Monday morning. Whatever was left of your weekend energy drains out of you, and you feel like a limp piece of meat lying on a serving board. Well, tangled on a serving board, in wonderful, warm blankets. So soft. So comfy.

You roll over and squint at your cell phone. You have just enough time to shower, make coffee, eat a bagel, and get out to your car.

Read/Play “Commute”

“The Language of Achewood” by Max Robinson, Deadshirt.net

March 14, 2014
Things to Read
Achewood by Chris Onstad. March 5, 2003.

Achewood by Chris Onstad. March 5, 2003.

Achewood is, without a doubt, one of my favorite things. Chris Onstad’s webcomic has influenced my sense of humor and my writing, as well as providing a model for truly unique self-published work that can can an audience and a rabid fan base.

In a piece on Deadshirt.net, Max Robinson examines one of the main magic draws behind the black-and-white comic – the language. Achewood slang has entered my vernacular, but it can leave the uninitiated scratching their heads.

It’s clear that Onstad puts a staggering amount of thought and effort into considering language when writing Achewood. Not only do his turns of phrase, his word choices inform the characters that make up the strip, they give the strip as a whole a flavor of it’s own; a lyrical energy that keeps us returning in spite of delays and personal hiatuses. I don’t know that you can totally explain why something’s funny but once you get past the initial language barriers of Achewood, there’s a sweet spot you enter as a reader, where the comic genius of Ray trotting out “Horse Dogg Maniac” is enhanced a hundred-fold because now you’re in on the joke.

“‘Damn. This is a thing, isn’t it?’ The Language of Achewood” at Deadshirt.net

“The Water in the Bay” an Official Selection for the 2014 Lewiston Auburn Film Festival

February 19, 2014
Things to Watch

The Water in the Bay is an official selection for the Lewiston Auburn Film Fest (named one of the “25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World” by MovieMaker Magazine), April 4-6. This will be the second-ever screening of the film, which is based on a story by myself, Jonathan Blood and Travis Curran, and a screenplay by me.

Tickets are available now on the LAFF website – a $19 Film Festival Viewing Pass will get you into any of the films.

Learn more about the festival and The Water in the Bay. 

“Jack Handey Is the Envy of Every Comedy Writer in America” by Dan Kois, The New York Times

July 16, 2013
Things to Read

Jack Handey / Photo by Jeff Minton for The New York Times

A profile of one of the greats, Jack Handey.

The archetypal Jack Handey sketch is about Frankenstein, or flying saucers, or a cat who, for some reason, can drive a car. “Little-boy stuff,” Handey explained. He often worked alone on his sketches rather than team up with other writers, and he liked to work from his and Marta’s Chelsea apartment, so he would show up each week to Wednesday read-throughs with these fully formed, immaculate sketches that would freak everyone out. Franken recalled a sketch called “Giant Businessman,” about an actual giant (played by Phil Hartman) who calls the cops on the loud party next door, then is terrified when the neighbor threatens him. At the read-through, Franken laughed so long and hard at the sketch’s final beat — in which the giant asked the F.B.I., sincerely, if he might join the witness protection program — that he had to excuse himself from the crowded room because his laughter was interrupting the next sketch.

“Jack Handey Is the Envy of Every Comedy Writer in America” by Dan Kois

“A Game Development Love Story” by Colin Campbell, Polygon

April 11, 2013
Things to Read

Driftmoon screenshot / Instant Kingdom

I haven’t played Driftmoon yet, but the RPG earned great acclaim since it was released earlier this year. Polygon has a great piece about the story behind the game – the story of married co-creators Ville and Anne Mönkkönen and how they came to work on the daunting project together:

This is a love story. It’s a tale about two people who meet, fall in love, share their lives and — through the seven-year making of a video game — find that the unique qualities which separate them as individuals are just as important as that which binds them together.

“A Game Development Love Story” by Colin Campbell

“I Have Placed My Sickness Upon You” by Karin Tidbeck, Strange Horizons

March 12, 2013
Things to Read

“This Native of Randolph Center, Vermont, Quit a Job as an Auto Mechanic to Return to the Family Farm” by Jane Cooper / National Archives at College Park (via Flickr)

This great story by Karin Tidbeck in the speculative fiction magazine “Strange Horizons” introduces into the lexicon (or my personal lexicon, at least) the concept of a “Sadgoat” – a literal scapegoat for all your troubles.

Dr. Andersson was in the office already. She took a chair in what was supposed to be the cosy corner: two armchairs, a little table with a box of tissues, a vase of flowers. On the wall hung a painting of a moose cresting a hilltop. Dr. Andersson looked like she usually did. Today, her bowl haircut and shapeless green muumuu were complemented by a necklace of wooden zebras. She was holding a leash. At the end of the leash, standing beside her chair, was the goat. It was small, reaching up to my knees, and jet black with floppy ears. It was nibbling on the armrest. I sat down in the opposite chair.

“This is your new treatment,” said Dr. Andersson. “It’s the latest in experimental therapy. I thought we might let you have a try, seeing as you’re a bit hesitant about ECT.”

“I see,” I said.

Dr. Andersson adjusted her glasses. “Do you know the origins of the word ‘scapegoat’?”

“Sure,” I replied. “Old Hebrew stuff. A goat sent out into the desert for everyone’s sins.”

“Exactly.” Dr. Andersson scratched the goat behind the ears. “This is a Sadgoat.”

I looked at the goat. It looked back at me, its horizontal pupils narrowing.

“I’m confused,” I said.

“I Have Placed My Sickness Upon You” by Karin Tidbeck

“A Pickpocket’s Tale” by Adam Green, The New Yorker

January 26, 2013
Things to Read, Things to Watch

Last month, The New Yorker had a fascinating profile of a man named Apollo Robbins, who may be the world’s best pickpocket:

In magic circles, Robbins is regarded as a kind of legend, though he largely remains, as the magician Paul Harris told me, “the best-kept secret in town.” His talent, however, has started gaining notice further afield. Recently, psychiatrists, neuroscientists, and the military have studied his methods for what they reveal about the nature of human attention. Teller, a good friend of Robbins’s, believes that widespread recognition is only a matter of time. “The popularity of crime as a sort of romantic thing in America is profoundly significant, and Apollo is tapping into that,” he told me. “If you think about it, magic itself has many of the hallmarks of criminal activity: You lie, you cheat, you try not to get caught—but it’s on a stage, it has a proscenium around it. When Apollo walks onstage, there’s a sense that he might have one foot outside the proscenium. He takes a low crime and turns it into an art form.”

A Pickpocket’s Tale by Adam Green

The story really stuck with me, and this video on The New Yorker‘s blog brought it up to the forefront of my thoughts again. It’s amazing to watch Apollo at work, and just a little bit scary that we offer up so many little opportunities to be duped in the course of a conversation.

Alastair Humphreys’ Year of Microadventures

January 25, 2013
Inspiration, Things to Read, Things to Watch

Alastair Humphreys is an author, motivational speaker, and adventurer. In 2011, he made a resolution (actually, it was more of a manifesto) to spend a year seeking out “microadventures.” These were all adventures that he could find in his own backyard, without completely abandoning his life and becoming an adventuresome vagabond.

“I started to think that it was possible to have an adventure anywhere,” he told National Geographic when they recognized him as an Adventurer of the Year 2012. ” That it was really just a state of mind, committing to get off your backside. If that were true, I figured you could do this anywhere.” He continued:

I decided to do the most provocatively mundane adventure that I could think of—the M25, the highway that goes around London. It’s filled with traffic. Everybody hates the road. I walked a lap of the M25. I set off in January. It was cold. It was snowy. It was physically challenging. I saw new places. I saw some beautiful places, which I hadn’t expected to find at all. I met interesting people. That week ticked all of the boxes that my four-year bike trip around the world ticked. I came back buzzing. It was quite stupid and silly, but it had been a genuine adventure.

That M25 hike inspired Alastair to embark on his year of microadventures, which he documented on his website.

I’m lucky enough to be able to live and work in Portland, Maine, a small city on the southern Maine coast. It is still, however, the largest city in Maine, and a whole lot larger than the small rural town I grew up in. The city honestly seemed quite daunting and metropolitan to me when I arrived (what with its trash pick-up, public transportation and ferry terminal). Small as it is, Portland still isn’t the country, and it’s good to have a reminder that adventure is just a few miles away.