No two ways about it, the past two weeks have sucked. I think I left the apartment only once the entire time, my days and nights have gotten completely reversed, and each day I’m looking more and more like a mugshot of Ted Kaczynski.

The key difference, of course, being that he managed to get some writing done. I did finally finish a first draft, but I can’t remember when I’ve had such a hard time getting something, anything, written. This wasn’t the typical NaNoWriMo-style procrastination and distraction; this was full-on Barton Fink level staring at a big blank sheet of white and not being able to think of a single thing.

Complicating things is the fact that I can’t do all-nighters like I used to. It may be just because I’m old, but I think the resolutions had something to do with it. I mentioned I swore off caffeine a while back, and I’ve also finally weened myself off of sodas in general. I’d estimate in the past month I’ve had three (and that just because I was at Disneyland, and it was force of habit), when in the old days three in one day would’ve been a “healthy” day for me. And I have to think that no longer having a steady flow of sugar is a big part of what makes me drift into unconsciousness right when I most need to be awake.

In the past, I’ve thought of the hours between midnight and three AM as some kind of “magic time,” the time when I feel like every line of code I write is brilliantly and elegantly crafted, and every joke I write is the pinnacle of western humor. That’s almost never the case, of course, but the “magic” is that it feels like it’s true.

Lately, though, it’s been like a constant flat-line, with an occasional blip where I get an idea and then forget it or lose interest less than five minutes later. And I haven’t been able to push things an hour later over the course of a couple weeks to gradually get off-kilter. Instead, I’d be at the computer around 4:30 AM and then suddenly find myself in bed with all the lights turned off at 4:45, without remembering exactly how I’d gotten there. Which is going to make it even more difficult to switch around to sleeping on the same schedule as normal humans. I’d always assumed that Coke was my master, but apparently it’s been Sleep all this time.

I’ve got to spend most of this week down in LA for meetings with my other job. I’m actually looking forward to it — not being in LA, but finally leaving my apartment and talking to other people.

One minorly interesting thing tonight: on the way back from class, I saw two things I’d never seen before in San Francisco — lightning and hail. There was a cold, very light rain as I was walking back to my car. When I pulled out of the garage, the rain had picked up a little bit, but still wasn’t very severe. All of a sudden, there was a bright flash of lightning, and the thunder sounded as if the strike were very close. Then a downpour of hail, so much and so hard that I thought it was actually going to do damage to my car, landed directly on top of me and on the street all around. By the time the traffic light changed, it was all over. This place has the weirdest weather.

Still buried under work at the moment, but for the sake of updating:

I’d heard about TV cook Nigella Lawson, and how her schtick was basically food as barely-disguised metaphor for sex, but I had no idea how intense it was until I saw this clip of her making Chocolate Hot Pots:

By the time she says, “It’s warm, but I know I have pleasure ahead, so I’m willing to bear the pain now and dive right in,” I’m at her mercy, as if she were some Chocolate Pot-bearing Mata Hari. I’d be willing to divulge state secrets. I suspect if she made curry rice, I’d be willing to shoot one of my countrymen. Even when she talks about a “carapace with all this goo underneath,” it still somehow sounds unspeakably sexy.

The bit at the beginning says it’s rated “TV G”. I think not!

I’ve been sequestered in my apartment for the last week, and I think I can finally say what the project is. I’ve been helping out with Telltale’s Sam & Max adventure games. The first episode I worked on, “Abe Lincoln Must Die!” is coming out on Gametap this Thursday, and then on Telltale’s site March 8.

This is very cool for me for two reasons: first, because I’ve wanted to work on a Sam & Max game for at least fifteen years now, ever since I first read the comics in the LucasArts Adventurer magazine. And this one’s actually going to get released! I did get a chance to work with Steve Purcell (translation: I got to listen while Steve came up with some great ideas) on a game a few years ago, but the pitch never got a publisher. On this series, Dave Grossman and Brendan Ferguson, two of the designers at Telltale, come up with the game design, puzzles, and situations, and I just came in for the last three episodes to write dialogue.

The second reason is because I haven’t played it yet. I always liked how on talk shows, an actor could come on and say that he hadn’t seen the movie he just worked on; there was always something admirably phony and pretentious and too-cool-for-school about it. I’ve only seen one scene from episode 4, a musical number that I have to say worked out a lot better than I’d expected it to. And I have played episode 1, and since I had nothing to do with it, can objectively and honestly say that it’s pretty hilarious.

I’ve worked on a few adventure games, but I have to admit that I’m not really a fan of adventure game puzzles. I play adventure games for the dialogue exchanges and the art and the cutscenes. So I think Telltale has managed to strike a good balance of puzzles that are just interesting enough to keep you engaged, but not so much to get you stuck and frustrated while you wait for the next cutscene. In other words: you want to buy all six episodes right now!

There’s a cool trailer for episode 4 on the Telltale blog. If you’re too lazy to click, here’s a lower-quality YouTube version:

I’m currently under contract to get paid money for stuff that I write, which means that I am a professional writer.

And when you’ve been a professional writer as long as I have, you know how crucial it is to master pacing. It’s a tricky concept to explain to you amateurs, so here’s a simplified example of the craft, from my most recent work:

1. It’s 9 AM. You went to bed four hours ago. Time to wake up! There’s still a lot of work to do, and more importantly, some guy is outside using a high-pressure hose on your windows. You couldn’t sleep if you wanted to! But you don’t want to, because now it’s time to write!
2. In the shower, think of a brilliant dialogue exchange for that crucial moment in the opening scene. Your Muse can strike at any moment, so be receptive!
3. As you brush your teeth, realize that the reason that brilliant dialogue sounded familiar is because it was a snappy one-liner delivered by Natalie to Jo on “The Facts of Life”. Your Muse is Nick at Nite’s TVLand, and she is a fickle mistress. Spit.
4. Turn on the computer. Open your mail and RSS feed reader. Get dressed (optional).
5. Go outside and light a cigarette. Pace back and forth in front of the apartment, deep in thought. The casual observer must believe that you are deep in thought about your writing project, and not simply trying to remember how many girls were in the original cast of “The Facts of Life.” Writing is about guiding the perceptions of the observer, so this is important.
6. Pour a glass of orange juice. Set it down beside the computer.
7. Pace into the living room and open the window. Watch the woman jogger go from one end of the block to the other. Writing exercise: imagine her life story. Has she been jogging for years, or is there some recent incident, a health scare, that compelled her to start exercising? Extra credit: imagine her topless.
8. Pace back to the desk. Drink the orange juice. Check e-mail. Are there any non-spam messages? No? Good. That means you’re on track.
9. Open Word. This is your home, your sanctum sanctorum as a professional writer. Stare at the fresh digital page of possibilities. Consider whether it’d be easier to use a text editor.
10. Check one (1) feed’s latest posts from your RSS feed reader. Begin posting a clever reply to a comment. Lose interest and move on.
11. Pace back into the living room. While standing, read a section of the comic book that is source material for your writing project, for “inspiration.” Become dejected when you realize that you’d inadvertently stolen a joke from the source material during an earlier writing project. Hope that people will believe it’s a clever in-joke or callback.
12. Pace back to the desk. Re-read the design document. It all seems so simple. This is going to be easy.
13. In Word, write — excuse me — professionally write a character’s name, followed by a colon. Clever dialogue will go here.
14. Go outside and light another cigarette. Pace back and forth in front of the apartment. Question: can the earlier inspiration be salvaged by removing references to Mrs. Garrett?
15. Back to the computer. Type the one-line summation taken directly from the design document. It can be “fixed up” later, and made 1000 times more interesting and funny. The goal here is to get something on the page. Once you’ve got that inertia, insert a newline, then write the next character’s name, followed by a colon. This is where the craft becomes professional art.
16. Realize that the process would flow much more easily with a larger monitor. Go to the Dell website and do price comparisons on the 24″ and 30″ monitors. Use Google to search for monitor reviews. Click to add a new monitor to your shopping cart. Go into the living room and grab your wallet to get the credit card number. Have second thoughts.
17. Go outside and light another cigarette. Pace up and down the apartment steps, watching the movers hauling furniture across the street. Haven’t there already been two families moving off of this block this week? Remind yourself to check online if there have been gas leaks or violent crime on this street.
18. Back to the computer. Check up on the latest webcomics, a valuable source of inspiration. Lose interest after two.
19. Pace into the living room. Stare in the mirror. Do you actually have more gray hair than you did last night? Is that even possible, outside of stories on snopes.com?
20. Pace into the bathroom and shave. (Optional — for the ladies, shave your legs or read fashion magazines or call your girlfriends and compare ex-boyfriends’ junk sizes, or whatever the hell it is you people do).
21. Back to the computer. This is the crucial part of the writing process; once this line is done, the rest will flow in a never-ending creative torrent. Essential here is frequently looking off into space, chin in hand, keeping those synapses firing, making connections that will yield the crucial bit of inspiration.
22. Realize you missed a spot shaving. Go back into the bathroom and finish the job. Reconsider the possibilities of using “Just for Men” hair coloring, and how you could get away with it. Maybe take a two-week vacation to an island with mysterious hair-darkening properties? Claim you were part of a stem cell research project?
23. Go back outside, light another cigarette. Pace back and forth in front of the apartment. Consider whether an interesting blog post could be made from this process. Decide to write one anyway.
24. Back to the computer. Write the next line of dialogue. Then another! The process is working! This is professional writing!
25. Open the web browser again.

By now, I hope it’s clear the importance of pacing. It turns what should be a simple, easily-accomplished professionally-contracted task, into an agonizing ordeal of self-importance and self-doubt and suffering for one’s art.

Next up: the first draft. Does putting a towel under the door really work?¹

1. Hackneyed Jokes to Avoid at All Costs, Bennett Cerf et. al., 1952.

The best performance in pop music is Merry Clayton’s solo in “Gimme Shelter” by the Rolling Stones. The part where her voice cracks may be the best moment in pop music history.

And there you go. I don’t know from writing about music. You want Lester Bangs, go to a different blog.

I’m not enjoying my theme week anymore. As much as I love giving out my unsolicited opinions (and in the list form my OCD craves, no less), I’m tired of writing a novella about it every night.

So here I’m taking the Livejournal/MySpace route and just listing

My Favorite Movies

1. Miller’s Crossing
2. Star Wars
3. Raiders of the Lost Ark
4. Aliens
5. His Girl Friday
6. The Return of the King
7. Rear Window
8. Yojimbo
9. Adaptation
10. Young Frankenstein
11. Pom Poko
12. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
13. Airplane!
14. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
15. Singin’ in the Rain
16. Toy Story 2
17. X-Men 2
18. The Big Lebowski
19. Big Trouble in Little China
20. Lilo and Stitch
21. The Shining
22. Love and Death
23. Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
24. Ghostbusters
25. Wing Chun

Name your own in the comments! Or tell me where I’m wrong! (Bonus points for using words and phrases like “populist” and “popcorn summer blockbuster” and “dumb-ass”). Or just say “THANKS FOR THE ADD!!!!!”

I thought I had more to say about comic books, but once you get past the fact that I’m 35 years old and I still read them, there’s not a whole lot more left to say.

I’ve gotten several collections recently that I’ve enjoyed the hell out of, so they go into the list of

Best Comic Book Collections

1. Batman: Year One by Frank Miller & David Mazzucchelli
I don’t like any other thing that Frank Miller has ever done, but this is my favorite comic book. Go figure.

2. Hellboy: The Right Hand of Doom by Mike Mignola
There’s only so many different ways I can say that Mike Mignola is a genius. He’s such a brilliant artist, that it’s almost unfair his stories are so good. I’ll admit that 90% of the time, I can’t even figure out exactly what’s going on in a Hellboy story, and it doesn’t matter — he gets the mood, the pacing, the congolomeration of folklore and mythology, and the snatches of dialogue so dead-on perfect. B.P.R.D. is a lot better at plotting, which in a way is to its detriment — the stories just feel “smaller” somehow. The Right Hand of Doom gets my vote just because it has the story Box Full of Evil.

3. Hellblazer: Dangerous Habits by Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon
When Garth Ennis took over the book, he completely made it his own, and this is one of the best stories ever, comics or otherwise. Plus there are plenty of Pogues references. John Constantine makes a deal with the devil to cure his own lung cancer, with a genius twist at the end.

4. The Sandman: Season of Mists by Neil Gaiman, Kelley Jones, Matt Wagner, and others
What happens when Lucifer abandons Hell. This was the storyline that got me back into the series after I’d given up on it.

5. The Collected Sam and Max: Surfin’ the Highway by Steve Purcell
Steve Purcell is my hero.

6. Fables: Animal Farm by Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham, and Steve Leialoha
This series is about storybook fables (Snow White, the Big Bad Wolf, Cinderella, etc) living in exile in the “real” (they call it “mundy”) world. From what I’ve seen, it’s the best ongoing comic running. It took me a while to get into it, because the first collection is a pretty weak attempt at a mystery story set on top of an engaging premise. It takes off with the second storyline, though, and it’s completely engrossing. It’s funny, shocking, scary, violent, sad, and surprisingly fast-paced.

Willingham could’ve taken the easy way out, and just had characters like Goldilocks and Snow White having sex and shooting guns and tried to ride through on “edgy” street cred. And there is plenty of that, but it always takes it a step further, and builds a really engaging and surprising story on top of a predictable concept. Plus, Buckingham’s art is just perfect for the story. The biggest fault I have with it, and it’s kind of a nitpick, is that the characters suffer from Kevin Smith Syndrome, in which all people, no matter their age, sex, education, intelligence, history, or background, all speak like chubby white college-educated pop culture junkies in their early 30s.

7. The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck by Don Rosa
A ridiculously exhaustive tribute to Carl Barks’ Scrooge McDuck comics, this book traces the life of the character based on small, off-hand references throughout the earlier stories. And it may be sacrilege to say it, but I enjoyed it even more than Barks’ stories. (And I think Barks’ stories are fantastic, which tells you how much I liked this book). It just amazes me to see someone putting so much care and detail into something that relies so heavily on such corny jokes.

8. DC: The New Frontier by Darwyn Cooke
The story really doesn’t do all that much for me. But the art kicks so much ass, you can’t help but like it. The premise is all of DC’s Justice League heroes recast in the 50s Cold War era.

9. Mage: The Hero Discovered by Matt Wagner with Sam Kieth
An 80s “urban” retelling of the King Arthur story. It seems a little juvenile and dated now, but at the time I first read it, it was astounding.

10. Essential Fantastic Four: Volume 3 by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby
I was never a fan of Marvel, so all I knew about their comics and characters were from cartoons, and the bits that rub off just by nature of being a comic book fan. It’s always just been understood that Jack Kirby was one of the greatest comic artists there was, so I accepted that without ever really being sure why. When you look at these issues, you can totally see why. He’s got the cosmic power dots, and the 50’s-era white guys with overbites, and the chicks with swingin’ bobs, and the crazy space helmets, and the Silver Surfer and Galactus. Just like you can’t appreciate a movie just by looking at stills, you can’t appreciate Kirby drawings without seeing them in the context of the whole story. I can’t explain it; it just is. And also, as pandering, sexist, and shameless as the writing of these comics are, you can’t deny that they’re just plain fun. I feel like I understand for the first time why Fantastic Four was such a big deal.

Honorable mention goes to Why I Hate Saturn by Kyle Baker, which would’ve been forced me to drop something from 1-10, but I can get away with it because it’s a “graphic novel,” not a collection. The real number 11 would’ve gone to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Volume 2.

I didn’t include Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, on purpose. The Dark Knight Returns, I’ve never liked, at all. And Watchmen is a great comic like Citizen Kane is a great movie — sure, I can look at it and see how meticulously set-up everything is, and how it’s full of allusions and references and literary influences, and how the design of it all some perfect construct. But I don’t like reading it at all. It’s clever, but doesn’t feel at all real to me. The plot, especially the resolution, is kind of weak.

Now, the most fun comics collections I’ve read recently are DC Showcase Presents: Teen Titans and DC Showcase Presents: The Brave and the Bold Batman Team-Ups, both by Bob Haney. You’ll see lots of things describing his writing as being “wacky” or “over-the-top;” better descriptions would be “batshit crazy” and “shamelessly pandering.” And it’s all awesome. You can tell with Fantastic Four that Stan Lee was having a lot of goofy fun with comics, but Haney just takes it to the next level. When you’ve got some free time, do a blog search for Bob Haney and read about some of his master works. It’s really what the silver age of comics is all about.

“So you like ‘30 Rock’ and ‘Battlestar Galactica’ and ‘Lost’,” you might be saying. “Big deal. Join the frakking club, sheep!”

Fair enough, but would a sheep dare to post on the internets a comprehensive list of the best episodes in the history of television? The answer is yes, if he were an exceptionally nerdy sheep.

Best Episodes in the History of Television

1. Lost: “Pilot”
Say what you will about the declining quality of the series, the pilot is the best two hours of television ever produced. The numbers station, the first night on the beach, Jack’s story about counting to five, and a guy gets sucked into a jet engine. I tried watching it twice, when it first aired and when it was repeated, and had to stop because it was too intense for me. When I finally watched it on DVD, I was hooked.

2. The X-Files: “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space“
This is the episode where Charles Nelson Reilly’s character is writing a book about Mulder & Scully, and there are guest appearances by Jesse Ventura and Alex Trebek as Men In Black. Plus the line: “You don’t play Dungeons and Dragons for as long as I have without learning a little something about courage.” All of Darrin Morgan’s episodes were brilliant, but this one realized the real potential of “The X-Files” better than any other episode. Not only did it give a better account of UFO sightings than any other episode, but it made fun of itself, the series, the FOX network (with the alien autopsy video), the producers, and its stars, without ever crossing the line of being too post-modern. And it’s funny, creepy, and philosophical in equal doses. If you had to pick one episode of any TV series to prove to people that TV is capable of intelligence, this is the one you’d show.

3. Arrested Development: “For British Eyes Only”
Michael visits Wee Britain for the first time, meets Rita, is struck by something from his childhood, and is threatened by a foul-mouthed British guy. And the Bluth family joins together in a mass chicken dance. Plus, Lupe’s reaction to Tobias’ hairplugs: “Mr Gay! He is bleeding!” The only thing that could’ve made me like this better is if this had been the one with “Mister F.”

4. Alias: “The Telling”
The one where Sidney and her roommate finally come to blows. “Alias” may have been all over the map quality-wise, but it always had the best season finales. And this was the best of the best. I was more shocked by Francie’s death a few episodes earlier, but the fight scene in this one is just epic. And the twist at the end was so good, it kind of makes you wish the series had ended there, considering how they “resolved” it.

5. Lost: “Orientation”
The only reason “Lost” is still on my list of best currently-running TV series is because, season 3 or no, it still has two of the best episodes of any TV series ever. Actually, the first episode from season 2, “Man of Science, Man of Faith,” is a contender for best episode, just because of the opening sequence and the reveal of the bunker. But overall, this is the one that turned me from a casual fan of the series into an obsessive. And just because of the orientation movie. From the film grain, to the title cards, to the soundtrack, to the missing bits of film, to the pacing of the episode up to the movie, and the fact that Locke said “we’re going to have to watch that again” right at the moment I started to hit rewind on my remote: this was the bit that convinced me that this series was trying things I’d never seen before, and that these guys really knew what they were doing. Even now, after realizing that they didn’t know what they were doing, I can’t forget that that was one of the coolest bits of TV I’ve ever seen.

6. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: “Superstar”
The nerdy kid from high school casts a spell to create an alternate reality where he’s a superhero. Lots of sci-fi shows have done alternate realities, and “Buffy” even did it a few times. This one wins because they really made it an alternate reality: they changed the opening credits, and the main plot of the episode continued from the last as if nothing had happened. The shot of Buffy walking mopily down the street, with a wall plastered with posters of Jonathan behind her, was just genius.

7. Cowboy Bebop: “Speak Like a Child”
The crew has to fly back to the ruins of Earth to find an ancient VCR to watch a mysterious tape left for Faye Valentine. The entire episode plays like a comedy until the last five minutes, which hit you like a punch to the gut.

8. Police Squad!: “Rendezvous at Big Gulch”
There wasn’t a bad episode of this series, and whoever cancelled it has reserved his own spiky chair in hell. But this is the episode that has my favorite gag: “Who are you and how did you get in here?” “I’m a locksmith, and I’m a locksmith.”

9. Doctor Who: “The Unquiet Dead”
Charles Dickens fights zombies. If that doesn’t spell awesome to you, then you’re a big dumb gay communist.

10. Mr. Show with Bob and David: “Oh, You Men”
This is the one where they film their “lost episode,” the Druggachusettes sketch, the bit with the lie detector, and the east coast/west coast ventriloquism wars. There are episodes with funnier sketches, but this one has my favorite gag in the entire series: the “who wants a banana?” line in the opening monologue, where you have to wait an hour for the payoff.

I didn’t include “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” because it’s in a league of its own; if I’d listed one, I’d have to list ten. But my favorite is “Godzilla vs Megalon,” if only for the Jet Jaguar Fight Song. But then, “Mitchell” was great too. And “Master Ninja I,” as well as “Master Ninja II”. And “Fire Maidens from Outer Space.” And “Werewolf.”

I also didn’t include “NewsRadio,” only because it’s been a while since I’ve watched any of it, and the episodes run together in my memory. “Super Karate Monkey Death Car” has the best title of any television series ever, of course, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it all the way through.

I invite, nay, encourage readers to give their own favorites in the comments.