My grandmother, Ruth Sitton, with her dog, Pebbles.
On Monday, October 31, 2016, my grandmother, Ruth Sitton, died of natural causes at the age of 94. She was my last living grandparent.
A large portion of my childhood was spent at Grandma’s house in Arcola, Indiana, growing up. She and Grandpa Max were my first babysitters. Mom and Dad took me and my siblings there almost every Sunday after church. Whenever a new baby arrived in our family, we went to their house. If any of us wanted a little getaway, we went to their house. Every Halloween we went to Arcola for trick-or-treating. When Christmas Day rolled around, the family always gathered at their house for gifts, food, and fun. When I started college, Grandma, now a widow, gracious let me live in her house and commute to school for the first three semesters I was there.
Ruth, like a typical grandmother, always spoiled her grandkids, especially us, it seemed. We were never allowed to be hungry at her house. She always made sure we ate our meals and was generous with snacks throughout the day (she had an endless supply of Skittles). It was at her house I discovered the joys of video games, cable TV, and the internet, much of which I didn’t have at home. I have fond memories of her driving me into video stores in Fort Wayne, which I would explore looking for new video games and movies to experience.
But it wasn’t just media that made visiting Grandma (and Grandpa) great. She lived by a hill, which was great for sledding. She and Grandpa took me on a special trip to the Oshkosh air show. We went on bike rides throughout Arcola (although that was more of a Grandpa Max thing). She usually had some eccentric animal—whether it was her cats Fluff or Theodore or her Yorkshire Terrier, Pebbles—to keep us entertained.
Grandma Ruth has always been there. Even when she moved to the nursing homes, I had the comfort of knowing she was around. Now, for the first time in my life, I have no grandparents. I’d hoped that, whether in person or not, she’d be around to see me get married. I guess that was always a fool’s hope.
Thank you, Grandma Ruth, for all your generosity, kindness, and hospitality! I miss you so very much, but I know you’re happy in the house you dreamt Grandpa Max built for the two of you in heaven.
For this new Digression, I decided to recite the classic poem “The Raven” by Edger Allan Poe, the grandmaster of horror literature. So, curl up to the fireplace, light some candles, and enjoy this creepy classic.
“Ankle Pickers”
Hosted by Nathan Marchand, Sergio Garza, and Bill Miller
Yes, I’m starting *another* YouTube show. This one will features three outspoken fans talking about fighting games. In this case, it’s me and my buddies Sergio and Bill.
In this somewhat scatterbrained episode, we talk about the nostalgia we have for fighting games and arcades. You’ll hear about some weird, obscure games you may have not heard of.
The beauty of WordPress is I can schedule a blog to be automatically posted, which is what I did with this one. I actually wrote it a few days ago. Why did I do this? Because I’m in the middle of the “fortnight from Hell” at my day job. (Long story).
Anyway, I grew up in a Christian home, so I’m well-versed in the Christian subculture. Honestly, the older I’ve gotten, the more annoyed I am with it. Not so much that I’ve rejected my faith (I think Christian faith and Christian culture are two completely different things and may as well be mutually exclusive), but enough to see how they usually don’t match up.
I’m going to focus only on one particular facet today: the idea that “Christian” is a genre.
This idea was initially sparked a year or so ago when I was talking with a friend on the phone who said she didn’t want to read my books because they weren’t “Christian enough.” As in, they wouldn’t fit into the Christian “genre” as defined by booksellers.
Christians, despite being commanded to go into the world and make disciples (Matt. 28:16-20), have for many years seemed intent on isolating themselves from the rest of the world and creating their own little culture complete with its own brand of entertainment. It goes all the way back to 1970s with the advent of “contemporary Christian music” thanks to the Jesus Movement. This has since expanded in other forms of media. Most recently, “faith-based films” such as God’s Not Deadhave been popular the last few years.
While I have issues with the often poor artistic merits of many of these media (that’s a blog for another day), my biggest gripes with the so-called “Christian genre” are the mindsets it creates. First, it makes Christian culture very insular. I’ve known many fellow believers who refused to consume any media that wasn’t obviously Christian. In other words, listening to Carman was fine, but not Run-D.M.C. If it wasn’t didactic about faith, it was “too secular.” Some of it was even erroneously seen as satanic. These were things to be shielded against, especially when it came to kids (it’s always about the children, isn’t it?). So, new media was created by Christians for Christians. Considering the aforementioned often poor quality of their substitutes, it’s no wonder many Christians in the last 30-40 years grew up with bad senses of what makes good art. (Not to mention Christian creators were making obvious rip-offs of “secular” entertainment long before the Asylum. Anyone else remember the Spine Chillers Mysteries books?). It created an “us vs. them” mentality. It was about being “safe” and avoiding risky ideas that might challenge one’s faith.
Second, as I’ve already hinted at, it made “Christian” into a genre. Demon Hunter wasn’t just a metal band; they were a “Christian” metal band. (For the record, Demon Hunter is a genuinely great band). Like any genre, this automatically establishes the intended audience and the content (which, as I’ve noted, was often didactic and subpar). The problem is that “Christian” shouldn’t be a genre. It should be a philosophy, a worldview. Do atheists and other religions turn their beliefs into genres for the sake of marketing? For the most part, no. (Although some may do so in response to “Christian” stuff or as satire). In the history of literature, Christian authors didn’t concern themselves with whether their stories fit nicely into a “Christian genre”; they just told their stories. Think about how classics like Moby-Dick by Herman Melville or Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky or The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (did you really think I’d get through this without mentioning my all-time favorite book?) if they were published in today’s environment in Christian publishing. I have a feeling they’d either be rejected by Christian publishers or watered down in the editing process.
“Christian,” as I’ve said, is a worldview, not a genre. It’s something that, when done correctly, flows naturally into a creator’s work because it’s a part of him. Art is an expression of its creator, so it’s impossible for him to not imbue it with how he sees the world. But, as I’ve said for years, story must be king. The moment someone starts sermonizing in his story, whether it’s about religion or environmentalism or whatever, it brings the story down. The storyteller will lose his audience. Heck, even kids will see through that.
Readers and critics will discuss themes and ideas when dissecting a story, but they usually don’t do something like label Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game “Mormon fiction.” Those elements are part of that book because they’re part of Card. To tell his story honestly, he had to write it that way. He wasn’t trying to proselytize anyone. I know that to my fellow Christian creators that might sound crazy, even sacrilegious, but I believe your witness can be helped by not being didactic with your stories.
I’ve been listening to U2’s Greatest Hits albums while writing this blog. U2 is a Christian band (specifically, they’re Irish Catholic). Even a casual listen to their music makes that obvious. They don’t hide or flaunt that. They make their music and let it impact people. Jesus said you can know someone by their fruit (Matt. 7:15-20). That fruit doesn’t need to have “Apple” written on it for people to know what it is.
Anyway, my annual Gen-Con video is an actual, episode of my regular show. I interviewed many of the authors who contributed to the “Missing Pieces” anthology, which is a collection of short stories by authors who sell books at Authors Avenue at Gen-Con.
You can buy the anthology at www.DragonRoots.net or on Amazon.
The cover that CreateSpace kept refusing to approve.
You read that right—the title of my new book is the same as my website. (I guess I’m just that pretentious. :P)
The familiarity doesn’t end there, though. This book is a collection of “unpublished” short stories spanning my entire career. I put quotation marks on “unpublished” (I did it again!) because many of these stories have already been posted here on my website. I learned at a Gen-Con writing seminar that stories posted on an author’s website are considered published. I may have tom rethink how often I post stories on here, then.
Regardless, I wanted to have this book finished in time for Gen-Con last week, but CreateSpace, the website I use for my self-published stuff, kept being nitpicky about the cover. It took me too long to make it happy. (I still had great sales at Gen-Con, though).
What’s the theme of this collection? I’ll let the back cover copy explain:
From the mind that brought you
Pandora’s Box & Ninjas and Talking Trees
comes…a little bit of everything.
An amnesiac cybernetic vigilante confronting the man he once called “comrade”—after he was murdered by him.
A pro-wrestler accosted in the ring by a mysterious hooded figure the night before his brother takes him to court.
A living gargoyle who protects a young wayward woman from her persecutors—and a demon.
Santa Claus’ race with a flying saucer on Christmas Eve.
A young man flying a hang glider through a ruined city to save his stranded twin siblings from a giant monster believed to be an angry god.
You’ll find these and other fantastical things in this, the first short story collection from Nathan Marchand. This anthology spans the vast breadth of the universe and genre. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and then you’ll do both again. Herein you’ll find adventure, drama, tragedy, and…ninjas (because they make everything better).
Prepare to enter…
The Worlds of Nathan Marchand
That pretty much says it all.
Barring any more unforeseen hiccups, the book will be available on Amazon within the next few days. The eBook should follow soon afterward.
Here’s my first proper blog in two weeks. If you’ve been following my Facebook page, I said that my website was shut down by my host because it was hacked. It affected not only me, but Nick Hayden’s website, the Derailed Trains of Thought podcast website, and the Children of the Wells website. To make matters worse, this happened when Nick went on vacation and when he went to a youth conference with his church and when all of our domain names came up for renewal! In other words, I was out a lot of money getting all this crap sorted out—and right before Gen-Con to boot. (Speaking of which, I’m writing this blog from the Hyatt Regency, where I’m staying for Gen-Con).
Thankfully, as you can see, my website is up and running again. We’re all still working out some bugs, but everything seems to be fine. We’re considering moving to a new website host, but no decision has been made yet.
This is the latest in a series of setbacks I’ve been having with my writing career of late. GigaGeek Magazinedoesn’t update much anymore, Exaimer.com shut down (all of my content there is gone), and I’ve been inactive so long at IPFW (where I want to get a teaching assistanceship to pay for M.A. in English) that I have to re-apply. Even then, there’s no guarantee I’ll get a T.A. position, and I refuse to take out more student loans. The former will require me to find more clients to freelance for. Honestly, I worked with Giga as a means of building my resume and creating something from the ground up; I wasn’t paid for my content. From now on, I’m not doing that. As a wise (and mad) man once said,
These sorts of things are depressing. I knew the writer’s life would be hard—I was warned of that in college—but I still expected I’d be doing better than this. This will require that I reassess what I’m doing and how I do it. I started the year feeling like God was giving me a positive vision for 2016. Stuff like this has made me question that. But the year is not over. While last year’s Gen-Con was so good, I’m unsure this year’s show will live up to it, I’ve still had decent sales today (the first day). Once I recover from this harrowing but exuberating weekend, I’m going to make new strategies for how to go about my writing. Don’t worry: I’ll still keep publishing books (I have a few forthcoming). However, if there’s one thing I can say for sure will happen before 2017, it’ll be change. That’s been the common theme I’ve gotten from most of my friends when I talk to them about this stuff. I think God is trying to tell me something. Perhaps He ripping the “training wheels” off, so to speak, so I can progress to a new level in my life and career.
I’m confident I can get more work as a writer. After all…
(This is my first post in weeks. My host site was hacked, in case you didn’t know. I’ll blog about it more later this week…assuming I find the time at Gen-Con 2016. wOOt!)
“But I Digress…”
Hosted by Nathan Marchand
In the longest episode I’ve produced so far, my friend Sergio Garza and I review the “controversial” new Ghostbusters movie. Well, the bulk of this video is our review. We start off by talking briefly about the original Ghostbusters and then try some Ghostbusters Twinkies. But when we start the review…oh, man! I’ve rarely seen Sergio rage this much. This could’ve been a NERD RAGE! episode.
What’d you think of the new Ghostbusters? Agree or disagree?
I’ve written often on time management for writers and my own struggles with making time for writing. I certainly have the desire to tell my stories, but oftentimes life simply gets in the way. It sucks, but it’s true.
Except when it isn’t.
I should clarify: sometimes I don’t make time to write not because of circumstances beyond my control, but because I choose not to write. How’s that?
Besides being a seemingly rare extroverted writer, I’m a self-described “story junkie.” As in I go out of my way to enjoy as many stories as I can. Most of my hobbies—reading, gaming, movie watching, photography, among others—revolve around storytelling (or at least creativity). I eat that stuff up. You might even say I’m a borderline addict. I tend to go through phases. Right now I’m trying to read the pile of comic books next to my bed. Other times I’ll play story-driven video games or read a lot of books. Whatever phase I’m in, I usually inject something else amidst all that (like a trip to the movies to see the latest blockbuster).
The trouble is I get so caught up with other stories that I neglect my own. Consumption is easier than creation. An old adage (erroneously attributed to Dorothy Parker, apparently) says, “Writers don’t like writing—they like having written.” In other words, writing is hard work. Authors may enjoy it, but they much prefer finishing a project than being in the middle of one. Sometimes it’s a chore to grind out 1,000 words or figure out what your heroine will/should say next. I say all that to say that it’s a common trap for writers to procrastinate because they would rather go enjoy someone else’s completed story (or at least an analysis of a story) than work on their own. “Write another scene for my Great American Novel? Maybe after I binge watch a few episodes of Clone Warson Netflix.”
This is a trap I often fall into. I’m so desperate to get my fix of story, I procrastinate on whatever project I’m working on. Sometimes I even the excuse that whatever story I’m consuming will somehow help with whatever project I’m writing (how a Godzilla movie relates to Children of the Wells, I don’t know. 😛 ). In reality, though, it’s just me making an excuse to not to the hard work of writing. This is why I’ve had to train myself to use my “story fixes” as rewards for accomplishing writing goals. Then I can use those stories as inspiration.
It’s not always easy, trust me. After a long day at my day job (a part-time job that’s been giving me full-time hours lately, making time management even harder), I don’t always want to write. I’ll just want to relax with a good book or a new video game. But as Jack London famously said,
“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”
Are you a “story junkie”? Does it distract you from your work? How do you deal with it?
I’ve added another signing to my itinerary, True Believers. In fact, I just bought the table a few minutes ago as I write this. For the first time, I will be attending a local convention as a vendor. In this case, it’s Fantasticon 2016 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, at the Grand Wayne Center October 29-30.
I won’t be the only noteworthy person there, though. My friend and fellow Children of the Wells creator Nick Hayden will be joining me at the same table. We’ll be selling and signing our individual books and, obviously, some CotW collections. However, my brother Jarod, who has done some great illustrations for my short stories and YouTube show, will be at the table next door selling his artwork. The icing on the cake is if Brian Scherschel and I can get our Godzilla podcast going by then, he may also join us for part of the con to promote that.
Fantasticon is a mid-size show created for true comic book and pop culture collectors and fans. The fans that come to our shows are true collectors that are looking for those rare items for their personal collections. Most leave very satisfied as we pride ourselves on having great dealers and artists at our shows. If you collect it, you will find it at a Fantasticon Show.
Fantasticon is proud to have a presence in multiple cities throughout the mid-west. Currently we are in four different cities in Michigan and Ohio, and expect to expand into Indiana in the near future. We also, are very proud of the fact that our admission price is the lowest of any other comparable shows. And the cost for being an exhibitor or artist at the Fantasticon is far less than any comparable comic cons out there.
In other words, this is a smaller traveling convention. If you’ve never been to a con before, this would be a great one to start with. It’s smaller and more manageable. Don’t be crazy like me and start with something huge like Gen-Con (although I did attend a tiny Star Trek convention in high school in Warsaw, Indiana).
I don’t know who the special guests will be, but at its previous stops the con has featured the likes of Billy Dee Williams (aka Lando Calrissian) and Michael Dorn (aka Worf) as well as some comic artists and writers, among others. In other words, I’ll probably be in good company.
Be there or be square, because it’s gonna be…
A Man from Another Time Exploring Another Universe
