Personal Status Updates! (Page 6 of 13)

Well, I have been forced to abandon my Nexus S. Don't get me wrong, it was a nice phone back in 2010 when I was using it for phone calls and texting via SMS, Hangouts and Facebook and for E-mail. But. It can't run Google Maps properly. The app freezes or crashes. The budget priced Moto E 2nd Gen I got my mother can run Google Maps easily on 1GB of RAM and a cheap processor, but the single-core Nexus S and its 500MB of RAM just can't make it work. I'll keep it on hand as a backup phone, but I've come to depend on Google Maps for navigation in the car so it wouldn't be a long-term backup.

I've just started wearing sunglasses when I'm using my computer. The screen became a bit much for my eyes. I've tried that sort of screen filter thing that adjusts the coloring, but I found that when I wanted to watch movie trailers or look at pictures, I didn't want to have to turn it off. I really should keep using it.

I'm used to just shutting my laptop when I want to go to bed at night. It used to put it into hibernate, but I've made some changes an now it just sleeps the computer. The problem is that sometimes it will turn on in the middle of the night for no reason and the fan will wake me up. It's really annoying, so now I just shut down completely. Fortunately, I installed a SSD a while back, so it doesn't take several minutes to get everything up and running anymore.

Well. That is tough. But I will have your notes for you tomorrow on your novel.

I'm afraid, due to an incomplete backup before running the latest Android update, I lost all my notes (and two weeks worth of text messages). So, this is more a stream of consciousness based on what I remember marking up rather than the actual notes.

The only grammatical issues I would draw your attention to: in one section, you wrote "junkie" as "junky," so I'd do a find and replace for that. In various places, you neglect to use the second conditional form for describing hypothetical situations. You use "was" when you should use "were" -- there's a pretty simple summary at http://writingexplained.org/was-vs-were-difference -- and you can probably find every instance in your manuscript by running a search for "was." I would try this out for you, but my phone is still rebooting.

I think there were a few typos, but I have lost my bookmarks, so... tough.

In terms of the story, I think it's well written and a riveting, compelling, emotional adventure. Your political issues and the painfully fascistic environment comes through well and I really felt Collin's outrage and despair. Collin's enlightened yet helpless state of mind contrasts nicely with Libby's deluded belief that the authorities are all trustworthy and one can do right simply by surrendering to anyone in power.  The entire sequence where Libby goes to Sim and agrees to turn herself in to clear her name only to discover this is nothing but a comforting fiction for the gullible -- it's masterfully written and it really gives a full and stirring portrait of what it's like both inside and outside this societal prison.

Collin's defiant surrender with a statement at the end -- if you were going for the character purposefully doing something practically pointless but personally meaningful, then I guess it's fine. However, the prose seemed to present it as a critical step in the narrative as well as Collin's own journey and -- I'm not sure there was enough there to really sell why Collin's letter is going to make a difference.

I would say the story, such as it is, suffers from being the opening act of a larger story and within this individual episode, there isn't a full or complete arc. I don't feel the Libby and Collin have come to a point where I'm satisfied to step back from the story for now and wait for the next installment; I don't feel like I've hit a jumping point for the next book -- I feel like I've read a fraction of a novel and there's the sense of the story just cutting off as opposed to creating a cliffhanger or a transition point. The vague indications of something malicious in the body just isn't enough to hang onto.

I don't know if it's helpful to refer to other novels in this dystopian genre, but the first HUNGER GAMES left us with Katniss having discovered her own strengths and weaknesses even if the villains remained all-powerful; the first DIVERGENT book ended with Tris willfully leaving behind the society she'd known. The characters had achieved something, albeit something small and personal. With FREEDOM/HATE, Libby and Collin have made a few tentative steps towards something or other --it's not clear. Libby still instinctively trusts in the authorities despite their pursuit of her; Collin has gone from being a low-ranking rebel to being a low-ranking rebel with a would-be manifesto.

I don't know if this is something you could address or would even want to at this point, but I didn't feel very satisfied with this one episode even though the writing was strong.

If I weren't familiar with your writing to begin with, I don't know if I would feel sufficiently invested to keep an eye out for the sequel. I feel confident that you're going somewhere interesting based on having read your previous work and you've earned my trust that your setups will lead to worthy payoffs -- but FREEDOM/HATE, within its pages, doesn't give me anything to reinforce that confidence.  It's well-worded, gripping prose, but it doesn't overcome the weakness that it's not a complete story, just a portion of one. The end of FREEDOM/HATE's first volume hasn't provided anything concrete to serve as temporary ending.

ME: "Did you listen to the Communitary?"

MATT: "It's just Dan Harmon being a self-destructive tool."

ME: "What did he say that was self destructive?"

MATT: "Just talking about how shitty the episode was, how he knew it was going to be shitty, and when he was pleasantly surprised at it not being shitty, he was still annoyed that it was so shitty."

ME: "So you'll consider my super critical REBORN commentary to be self destructive?"

MATT: "I will if you repeat yourself as hating your creations with EVERY piece of SLIDERS material you EVER generate."

ME: " ... "

**

On the four page teaser that opens SLIDERS REBORN: "So, this four page teaser where Rembrandt comes out of the vortex to find Quinn, Wade and Arturo waiting for him -- it's totally stolen from the conclusion of THE WOLVERINE. Not an original bone in this body, boys."

On the opening scene of "Reunion": "Here, we have Laurel Hills in Quinn's basement. Matt read this scene in the outline and told me off because I failed to include any explanation for why Laurel was in the basement in the first place. I noticed this too when writing the script and decided, on the spot, to give Laurel a drinking problem. Master planner here! I just the story had to start where the Pilot started. Just sentimental, really."

On the third script, "Revelation": "So, this script as outlined was just a series of incoherent action set pieces. Matt read it and had Words for me. Words that induced me to fire him off this project, shortly after he quit. I threw out all the ideas he rubbished and did something else.

"All this stuff with poisoned water and the sliders hiding in a World War II bunker and the doomsday prophecies on the second Earth and the world hit by global dimming in the third -- I love it so much. It's so relevant and meaningful and well-considered and imaginative. Such a skillful hand in world-building. I paid Nigel Mitchell eighty bucks to come up with all this."

On the prequel novella: "So, this novella -- it was originally Part 2 instead of Part 4. The first draft was Quinn spilling his story to his mom who didn't remember him. Matt said it was one of the most unfathomable things he'd ever read because no woman would listen to this deranged story from a crazy person.

"So I decided to set it in a mental asylum with a psychiatrist as the listener so that he'd be getting paid to listen to a deranged story from a crazy person. At one point, Matt remarked, 'the sliders have to try to find Rembrandt for REASONS,' noting I failed to explain WHY the sliders needed Rembrandt to fix the multiverse. Then Matt said, 'No, I get it -- they need Rembrandt because he's the only one who lived out both timelines, right?' I had actually failed to come up with a reason for why they needed Rembrandt other than to get the cast back together, so I used Matt's reason."

**

MATT: "The Dan Harmon Communitary you linked me to -- it's not tongue in cheek. It's not self-deprecating or in praise of others. It's just straight up, 'This is the first time I have seen this episode and I am positive it is going to be shitacular.'"

ME: "I can't come up with a story to feature Jerry's Quinn and Robert Floyd's Mallory. I want to so badly -- to pay tribute to Rob and his contribution. But it's impossible. And that's WITH my flexible standards of quality."

MATT: "Why can't you come up with a story?"

ME: "I was thinking was that Quinn runs afoul of a psychic who destroys Quinn's mind only for Quinn, who should be a vegetable, to casually stand up. Turns out Mallory's memories are still in there as a backup personality, the startup-repair for Quinn's brain."

MATT: "That is ludicrous. Go back and read what you just wrote."

ME: "Eventually, Quinn is in control of the body but seeing Mallory and the two combine their knowledge to save the day. What's the ludicrous part?"

MATT: "A crazed telepath attacking Quinn - only for him to learn Quinn anticipated this and built a back up partition-friendly alter ego into his own brain?! I think you're writing these now so you can put my reactions on the BBoard."

ME: "Don't be silly. And I think you've missed the REAL problem with this story, Matt."

MATT: "Do tell."

ME: "What possible situation is there where Quinn could only be saved by a ghostly Mallory offering advice? The idea that Mallory is 'street-smart' where Quinn is 'science-smart' operates on the bizarre misunderstanding that Quinn was only book-smart and couldn't function in situations of risk and danger. If you get both actors onscreen, one becomes redundant -- and it sure as heck isn't going to be Jerry, so it just ends up disrespectful to Rob."

Um. But I have now come up with an idea. Actually, come up is too strong a term. I was watching the series finale of HOUSE where House is in a burning building, depressed and resigned to dying in the flames. He begins to hallucinate visions of by guest-characters who left the show in previous seasons. He flashes back to the events of the day, debating and discussing with the guest-stars (his subconscious mind) what led to this suicidal state of despair.

I was also watching the episode of TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES where Sarah Connor, injured and paranoid, is urged by a hallucination of her dead lover to trust a compassionate doctor whom Sarah assumes can only be an enemy.

And then I was watching a rare Season 5 episode of THE DEAD ZONE -- rare in that it was actually good. Psychic Johnny Smith is engaged to assist the police in hunting for a kidnapped child while overwhelmed with strange visions of reuniting with a long-lost lover. Eventually, Johnny realizes he is being strangled by the kidnapper; the entire episode to this point has been a series of psychic visions to remind him that in his pocket is a pocketknife which he uses to slash the kidnapper and escape.

So, I've decided to totally rip off all of the above to put Mallory and Quinn in the same story together for a short script. No originality here, fellas.

You have fun conversations with people.

I could never get the hang of using a voice recorder. I usually hate the sound of my own voice, so that makes it hard to get into it.

Usually, my notes are mental. So writing ideas down is how I shift my perspective a bit before writing.

The Freedom/Hate release day is here! It seem like it's taken forever to get to this point. I'm experimenting with running ads in a couple of places this time, so we'll see how that turns out.

I now have a about three months to get book 2 ready! This is going to be a long process

I'm sorry to hear that. It's a shame there's no way to aggregate the reviews in full. Should I read the released version or would it be much the same as the preview copy you sent me?

I also really like the cover. It's a sharp piece of work. I've been struggling with graphics on my SLIDERS project. I have modern day photos of all the actors and I was able to create 125 x 125 pixel images of them in the same frame, but when Matt boosted the image sizes to 800 x 300 pixels, the images were no longer convincing. I eventually gave up and created a banner where four silhouettes representing the sliders stand before San Francisco. I searched stock image sites until I found silhouettes that resembled the original four.

I also made a version of a 1995 promo shot of Jerry where his 1995 face is now his 2015 face but with the same hair. Matt called it creepily disturbing and insisted it was mismatched and the head was too big, but I polled random people in the street and nobody complained. Well, they complained about being accosted by a stranger, but they couldn't find anything wrong with the photo.

It was also really tough to find a modern photo of Robert Floyd with the right expression for the Mallory script I'm writing. I eventually found this YouTube interview where he's cheerfully talking about making cocktails and I found just the right frame where he's about to smile, but paused right where his face when frozen looks impassioned and desperate.

I have developed an unholy addiction to my Windows 10 tablet. I don't know what the hell is wrong with me. I keep trying to use it as a touch browser / comic book reader / e-reader / instant messenger every few months. It's always a disaster. The only decent e-reader app that doesn't crash and freeze on Windows 10 is Kobo and half the time, it won't boot if there's no wifi connection. The touchscreen keyboard is an abomination with no swipe typing and a layout that constantly sees the backslash take the place of a space. The comic book reader frequently presents a black screen as the next page, the thing randomly stops responding to touch input and every single time I use it as a tablet, I have to reinstall at least one driver (the accelerometer or the suddenly lost network protocols).

I'm using the Asus T100 Chi, but my friend Henrietta has the Surface Pro 3 and it has exactly the same issues. I need to stop wasting time trying to use this thing something it's not when I already have an iPad mini. I just feel compelled to TRY every now and then and it is always, always, always a mistake. Maybe I should sell it and get a non-touchscreen / no-detachment laptop instead.

I would install Android on the T100 Chi if I could get it to dual-boot. It works fine as a mini-laptop. The truth is that despite my increase use of my phone for RSS feeds, social media, E-mail, instant messaging, ebooks, etc., there are times when you just need a laptop. I can plug this laptop into the HDMI ports of TVs, use the memory card slot and USB ports to help friends do data transfers, sort files, convert documents, have documents open side by side, etc.. A PC may not be the speediest route for some tasks, but it's always going to be the more versatile machine when facing off against a phone or tablet.

If it weren't for comic books, I would have probably sold the tablet by now, although it is my preferred web browser until I want to type something. The only quirk this laptop has that I haven't entirely solved -- the Bluetooth touchpad used to go haywire and lose all sensitivity, seeing the cursor move around either sluggishly or randomly. Eventually, I found that disabling touchpad scrolling and gestures fixed it, so I think the driver was badly programmed. It kind of sucks to have a touchpad where you can't scroll -- or it would if you didn't have a touchscreen.

****

And now on alternate character interpretations in a long-running series:

So, I've been catching up on WITCHBLADE comics lately. Sara Pezzini is a New York homicide detective who finds a mystical bracelet that can form body armour, fire bursts of energy, form weapons and equipment and appears to have had a long line of female wielders who used it to fight evil. The first 79 issues were mostly crap until visionary writer Ron Marz came aboard the book and changed it from a bad girl in a metal bikini series to the eerily supernatural police procedural with feminist overtones that it probably should have always been. Marz was caustic in interviews towards the previous incarnation of the comic -- but he was super-respectful in his actual scripting, maintaining the previous mythology and making sure not to contradict his predecessors -- except in one case.

The original WITCHBLADE writers had an unhealthy fixation on one of the lead antagonists, Ian Nottingham, an assassin in the pay of a wealthy industrialist. In the first issue, Ian murders Detective Sara Pezzini's partner. In the following issues, Nottingham is portrayed as a mysterious, deadly, romantic figure who approaches Sara and attempts to save her from monsters. Sara is attracted to him despite the fact that he's a remorseless killer who executed her friend.

Throughout the first 79 issues of the series, Nottingham kills numerous people, most of them criminal figures and is shown to be largely in thrall to his masters but with an inexplicable attachment to Sara -- and the series presents him as an appealing, romantic, desirable man with long, flowing hair, a katana blade, rippling muscles and Sara perpetually in awe of his silent, moody, detached, aloof persona. They work together on occasion to fight monsters, Ian always disappearing afterwards before Sara can decide whether to have sex with him or arrest him.

Ron Marz took over the series and wrote a brief two issue arc with #92 - #93 where Nottingham returns, being chased by the Yakuza whom he claims are pursuing him because he helped the Japanese justice department against them. He asks for Sara's help.

Marz scripts Nottingham very differently; the mysterious, tormented, terse assassin has become chatty, condescending, flirty, and constantly flattering Sara and putting down her work as a police officer. He kills numerous Yakuza agents while insisting to Sara that he's doing his job to fight for justice. It's revealed that Nottingham is lying; he wasn't working with the police in Japan; he was killing Yakuza leaders to take their power for himself -- everything he said to Sara about justice was just manipulative rhetoric; his attraction to Sara is just an empty mind game and this time, Sara punches him out and arrests him at last.

Marz takes a formerly mysterious, detached, thoughtful, and in some ways unknowable figure and first re-characterizes him as obvious and shallow before revealing that he's a selfish man whose every spoken word is worthless crap. On one level, Marz has written a completely new character and given him the same name as an old one. On another, Marz is making the point that strip away the mystique and romance from the Ian of #1 - 79 and you get the Ian of #92 - #93: a self-serving, manipulative murderer whom Sara should have arrested ages ago.

I just wonder if there's a smoother way to handle it. I guess it's something you only need to consider if you're taking over from a previous writer.

So, I did the unthinkable -- I upgraded my iPad Mini 2 from iOS 8.1.3 to 9.3.1. I hadn't planned on it. I liked all my jailbreak tweaks. But there turned out to be a new feature that made upgrading worthwhile for me, and it didn't even come from Apple. Google released a new iOS keyboard app, Gboard, with swipe-typing, and it was only for iOS 9 and up.

Swipe-typing is so convenient and speedy -- I just couldn't see myself doing without it if it were available. I was kind of nervous because my iPad 2 went from being a capable tablet to a lagging mess after a few rounds of upgrades, but after some obsessive Googling indicated that poor iOS 9 performance on the Mini 2 was anomalous, I did the (irreversible) upgrade.

It's good. A few of the animations are a little laggy here and there, but it doesn't affect usage at all. I liked having the jailbreak feature of pattern unlock and miss it. Jailbreaking also allowed a blue light filter, but thankfully, iOS 9 has one installed. However, the occasional pause for animations makes me think that upgrading any further would be pushing my luck when downgrading isn't possible.

**

This final chapter of SLIDERS REBORN keeps giving me pause for thought and I keep wondering if maybe I've gotten overattached to a certain idea. I keep saying that I see the sliders as superhero characters and that the final installment is SLIDERS doing a superhero movie. But -- well, there are certain aspects of superhero films that wouldn't suit the characters at all (like costumes). The main thing I wanted to do -- I didn't want Quinn to ever throw a single punch and to present a version of Quinn Mallory who has become so powerful through his mastery of sliding that he never has to use violence.  But it is *really* difficult to work out situations of physical threat and danger in this fashion and I don't know if I can maintain it. On some level, it is again an instance of personal bias. There was a poster awhile back on this Bboard who kept insisting that Quinn's maturity was best represented through Quinn beating people up and shooting them on a regular basis which made me feel compelled to write a script around rejecting that viewpoint entirely. However, this has put me in a situation where Quinn's pacifism might have become an authorial decision rather than a character decision.

I keep seeing SLIDERS resembling superhero comics where I suddenly realized that a confusing plot problem could be addressed by bringing in a guest-character who appeared in one scene of one episode and this character's presence would immediately justify all the weird contortions of the plot.

Interesting. You should get Chevy Chase for the role! ☺

I do recognize her now! How did I not see that before?

In my defense, I've been pretty distracted lately. Book 2 s coming out in July! Woohoo!

I get what you're talking about with the similar storylines. That has happened with me before. There were times when I would write a fanfic story and then see something similar happen on the show or in comics (probably Buffy, but it's been a while), and I would have to wonder if someone was reading my work. But it's more likely that you can just start to see the patterns and the way things work, so it changes how you approach stories.

I like to take the Bring It On approach to learning. Watch or read a bunch of different styles and take influence from all of them.

Another wonky REBIRTH/SLIDERS REBORN similarity jumped out at me -- REBIRTH offers an explanation for why there's a redhaired Wally West and an African American Wally West and why both have the same name (they're distant cousins named after the same grandfather). This new REBORN installment will attempt an explanation for why Robert Floyd and Jerry O'Connell play characters with the same name despite not being the same guy.

On that note, I'm happy to report that I've just completed the first draft of this short script where Quinn and Mallory will, at long last, team up! Sure hope Jerry doesn't balk at sharing the center stage with Robert Floyd for a story (he said somewhat delusionally).

The one thing I'm struggling with -- it's a little confusing to identify who is who at times. Quinn is listed in the script as QUINN and Mallory as MALLORY. However, I wrote Quinn to always address Mallory as "Quinn." ("Quinn!?" "Quinn." "Quinn!" "Quinn." "Quinn?") It can become unclear. And I'm writing a version of Maggie who still calls Quinn by his last name.

My friend Ellie asked me to drive her to a fashion show. I agreed but, due to a miscommunication, gave the impression that I would be joining her in the audience as models traipsed down the runway. I made it 20 minutes before the sheer tedium of this experience became too much to bear and I realized that I'd only agreed to drive her home at the end of this -- so I relocated to the hotel lobby and pulled out my computer and worked on polishing Quinn's dialogue and then remembered in "Luck of the Draw," Quinn gets bored at a fashion show and proceeds to walk out in favour of going to the library instead. He would be so proud of me.

I like that!
Osmosis and Regurgitation subconciously.

... so, this was meant as a tribute to the actor who played Mallory -- except I doubt he'd be able to appreciate it because the story makes absolutely no sense unless you remember the Season 2 episode, "Obsession."

Well. It's called fan fiction for a reason!!!

I keep trying to run Android apps on my Windows 10 tablet. It's stupid. Bluestacks is slow. DuOS is slow. Remix OS has no touchscreen support. Arc Welder's converted apps don't load. I really need to leave myself a note that trying to run Android on a Windows machine is an exercise in futility and that if I wanted a god-damn Android tablet, I would have bought one -- or not sold off/returned all the ones I ever had to begin with. I think it's just because Chrome apps have been so terrific at filling in the void of Windows 10 apps that I wondered if Android apps could do the same as well. It's silly.

Buffy Season 8. Many moons ago for me, but it was my biggest fanfic accomplishment. In some ways, it was my biggest writing accomplishment. Not just because it was an insane idea (to release 22 full episode scripts according to a TV show's airing schedule), but because I got a lot of amazing feedback on it. People were inspired to write because of it. People told me that they were using it as teaching tools. One person stole some of it and claimed it as their own when making a fan film... which is still not cool, but it's part of the wacky adventure.

So I know the crazy fanfic mentality. I know it well. The whole season was about taking the incoherent, poorly crafted monstrosity of season 7 and turning into something better, because I loved the show and hated how they ended it. (this is on top of the writer challenge side of it)

When it was all said and done, I had the wacky idea of binding the whole thing together really nicely in an overly elaborate book that looked like some ancient text, and handing it over to Joss Whedon at a convention. Not because I thought he'd keep it, love it, or even open it. But just because it would be a cool element to add to the story of that project for me.

These things are done out of passion for these projects. We're like geeky characters in a sort of road trip movie, learning something about ourselves on the way to some McGuffin destination.

Ultimately, I didn't give it to Joss. I didn't go to the convention with the book in hand, and hand it over. Not because it wouldn't have been cool, but because in the end, I didn't need to. I was disillusioned by Joss by some point and while I think the Joss of 1998 would have gotten the point of the whole thing, I don't think that the Joss of 2003-Present would have. In the end, what I learned about myself through that project, and the amazing feedback that I got from it turned out to be the end of my road trip movie. There was even an exciting chase in the end, as I took down the person who stole my work and a ton of people around the internet stood behind me.

For you, giving Rob that script was the end of the road trip movie. You're visiting the obscure destination that not many people know about and you're leaving your mark. You're showing respect to someone who influenced you by sharing your work with them. Rob does deserve to get some of the weird fan art that scifi people get all the time. He's a part of this adventure and whether he read it or not, I'm sure that he felt good, knowing that whatever fans think of the show while he was on it, his work was still appreciated.

I once sent a copy of my Christmas novella to a few people, because I think that it's cool to share your work with people whose work you appreciate. I never expected anything from it. But a while later, Dean Koontz replied with a lovely letter, a signed book, and a subscription to his newsletter. I don't know if he ever read the book, but he got it. He appreciated it. And yes, he might have thought that I was a ten year old or something (because in my mind, nobody can take me seriously or think of me as an adult... Youngest child syndrome) but it was cool to have an exchange like that with someone whose name has been on bookshelves around me since I was a little kid.

So no. I don't think it's weird or wrong. I think that a creative exchange and expression of appreciation is cool.

And while I haven't read as much of your work as I'd like (my life has been off the rails crazy lately), I did enjoy what I've read. Not only is it good work, but it's obvious that it comes from a love of the show.

I did have a similar issue of wanting to use characters in season 8 that I shouldn't have been able to use, just because I liked them and wanted to honor that. First, Anya. She was dead and I didn't want to ruin it by bringing her back in some half-assed way. So I put in a quiet moment where Xander is looking through his high school yearbook and discovers that Anya had taped a picture of herself in there. It was a bittersweet moment.

And then Cordelia. I hated what they'd done to her on Angel. I always thought she worked better on Buffy. I wanted to send her out properly. So I had this episode where she came into town and interacted with the group in different ways, for different reasons. In the end, it was revealed that she was a ghost, coming to say goodbye to her friends before she moved on.
Imagine how surprised I was when a while after I put the script online (a longer while after I wrote it), Angel's 100th episode aired. Cordelia came out of her coma to interact with friends, only to have it be revealed that she was a ghost, coming back to say her goodbyes before she moved on.

So, something ridiculous has happened.

Back in 2007 - 2009, I was really into LONELYGIRL15, a fictional young-adult series told through a teenaged girl, Bree, vlogging in her bedroom, relating her life.

Bree vlogged about her friendship with a boy named Daniel, struggles with adolescence, troubles at school, her religion (called the Hymn of One), her parents' oddly controlling and inconsistent behaviour, the strange tests her parents and the Elders of her religion put her through, the peculiar injections, the preparations for a mysterious occult ritual called the Ceremony, the murder of her father, the desperate escape that sent Daniel and Bree into homelessness before they encountered a wealthy orphan named Jonas, and their eventual realization that the Hymn of One, the Order, had was a corporate entity of unmatched wealth and power that had infiltrated every level of American society and wanted to drain Bree of all her blood for some twisted death rite.

It was a very strong series for the first two seasons and it took some big risks. The series was dependent on the original writer, Mesh Flinders, putting his personal problems into Bree, his avatar. The producer, Miles Beckett, helped Mesh turn his scripts into vlogs in bedrooms -- and later, vlogs by teen fugitives delving deeper into the concept of the Order, this mysterious and powerful cult.

This became a major problem when Mesh Flinders lost interest in the teen fugitive format and how very, very distant the show had become from slice of life stories from a teen girl in her bedroom. The show also lost the actress who played Bree and the character was killed off.

While the supporting cast was strong enough to carry the show, the remaining writers began focusing stories exclusively on the Order -- a ridiculously overpowered supervillain organization that the writers and producers didn't have the creativity or budget to render onscreen or with any consistent means or goals. In the background as a plot device to create insane situations, the Order was great. Foregrounded, it was stupid. The videos became riddled with confusing plots, massive continuity errors, anti-climactic arcs and LONELYGIRL15 became more convoluted than THE X-FILES. It was largely abandoned by its fans, unable to find continued advertising sponsorship, and it ended on a cliffhanger.

As I am wont to do, I decided to come up with a fan fiction sequel, except I used the format of LiveJournal blog entries instead of vlogs. Also, my story was not ongoing: all the entries would be completed, backdated, then released all at once -- and there would be a conclusive finale to the story. However, my writing was more along the lines of the slice of life material and I only understood the Order continuity well enough to know it couldn't be understood.

I had a method of putting the Order back in the background where it belonged and also a method to explain why this super cult with its own private army couldn't track down a bunch of teenagers who posted their location on YouTube -- but I needed someone more familiar with the intricate continuity to help me match my material to previous stories.

There was a producer on LONELYGIRL15, Jenni Powell, whom I felt would be the ideal person to help plot this project, especially since she'd helped a bunch of other fans with fanfic and done her own fanfic vlog series spoofing LG15. She was often in the LG15 chat room and I had a lot of respect for her views. She had very insightful thoughts on LG15's convoluted myth-arc and how the characters were the best aspect of the show. She understood how to present complexity in a clear, compact form. She knew how to build on top of a convoluted mythos without falling into the cracks and holes of a bad foundation. She was the best choice possible to lead LONELYGIRL15 forward (although I imagined I would do bulk of the writing and she could help me edit my plot and match the continuity).

In 2009, after the show was clearly not returning, I approached Jenni and asked for her consultation and input on my LiveJournal project to do a sequel and conclusion. Jenni replied bluntly: she didn't see any point to working on any LG15 material as the show had fallen apart and was just a miserable property best left alone, she didn't think LG15 ought to have any further time or effort or creativity and that she just didn't think it was worth the work.

Jenni went on to work on other web shows: THE GUILD, THE LIZZIE BENNET DIARIES, EMMA APPROVED, THE NEW ADVENTURES OF PETER AND WENDY as a director and executive producer. I found other collaborators. One guy helped me with my plot structure. Another lady helped me reconcile my plot to the onscreen continuity. I wrote all the LiveJournal entries with their notes in mind.

We released LONELYJOURNAL15 to the fanbase in late 2009 and got a uniformly positive response with numerous fans declaring that it was canon because it made them happy. LJ15 gave any fans who read it closure. I still get fan mail on it now and then. Jenni, despite declining involvement, was really sweet about my writing and even gave me permission to integrate her material from her previous fanfic projects in LONELYJOURNAL15.

Cut to the present: LONELYGIRL15 has been revived again as an ongoing series. The series picks up eight years after the cliffhanger ending, picking up on all the previous continuity. The actress who played the original lead character has been re-hired to reprise her role. The rights to the series were purchased by a web videocompany, Discourse Productions -- it's Jenni Powell's company. Jenni Powell is the showrunner for this revival of LONELYGIRL15.

...............................

Originally, my material was considered by fans who read it to be canonical by default in that LG15's creators had abandoned the project on a cliffhanger and for a follow-up, I was the only game in town and the response was universally positive. Now, LONELYJOURNAL15 is clearly apocryphal fan fiction. A project to be put aside in favour of the true, official, canonical LONELYGIRL15 revival -- a revival led by the very person I sought out to produce new LONELYGIRL15 material in the first place.

Well. Anyway. I just want it on record somewhere that I considered this person to be the absolute best choice to manage a new incarnation of LONELYGIRL15 long before she got the job. While I am sad to be rendered apocryphal, solemn contemplation leads me to conclude that I am happy because what I wanted has come to pass. LONELYGIRL15 has returned with Jenni writing the series.

It does speak to a certain laxness of forward motion in my own life, however, that while I went from writing fanfic for LONELYGIRL15 to writing fanfic for SLIDERS, Jenni did her own material, produced her own shows, built experience and a reputation and a network and then returned to LG15 not as a fan, but as LG15's lead creator.

Matt once remarked that he found SLIDERS REBORN both heartening and depressing in that while he understood that REBORN makes me happy, he felt I should really be writing original work. Alright. After "Regenesis," it'll be onto writing about law students and their soap opera lives and homeless teen girl detectives. You can tell I'm following market research here.

I actually think original work would be less stressful.

The absurd and ridiculous truth is that fans of LONELYGIRL15 and SLIDERS take/took my work really seriously, more seriously than any other fanbase for their own fan fiction. My fan fiction is referred to as canonical (at least until an official revival is released), my scripts get promoted in the podcasts and reviewed as actual episodes of the TV show, my readers write TV Tropes pages for my work -- it's astonishing.

It also not exactly a reflection on me. It's 90 per cent circumstance. I was/am the only game in town because both serieses ended in a way where I could step in and play what I call fantasy franchise management -- where I produce material that creates the illusion of being official.

Tom and Cory remarked, when reviewing "Slide Effects" for SLIDERS REWATCH: "This is SLIDERS. This is what it's supposed to be." It's not true. SLIDERS should be a TV show with the actors playing their roles. My scripts being able to create that in the mind is a magic trick achieved due to the other 10 per cent -- which would be what I jokingly refer to as my talent -- a talent for creating prose and print pastiches of actors' performances.

It's a lot of weight to put on work that, to be honest, I do over lunchbreaks and on weekends. There's a lot of stress and anxiety from writing for pre-existing properties. It's no big deal if Laurie's Dean/Castiel romance novel isn't a solidly professional piece of work whereas SLIDERS REBORN not meeting a professional standard would be a really painful failure -- because if it can't create the illusion of canonicity for the duration of reading it, the project is a waste of time.

On March 20, 2015, two days before the twentieth anniversary, I needed to revise the first REBORN script but a noisy party downstairs made it impossible to work. (Work. Ha!) So I rented a hotel room and didn't come out for 18 hours and posting REBORN on March 22 was just terrifying. It was also really scary when posting LONELYJOURNAL15 because it executed a grand retcon on the mythos akin to THE X-FILES saying that there is no alien conspiracy -- and I was relieved when my debunking of the LONELYGIRL15 myth-arc was well received.

A clean slate would probably be good for me.

ME: "Hmm. The new SLIDERS DVD release would truly be complete if they would put SLIDERS REBORN on it in comic book form and hired Dennis Calero to draw it. I feel he could really sell the sequence of the breeder parasites and the dragon and the rockstar vampires descending upon the merged San Francisco that I'm currently scripting."

[NOTE: Calero drew the second half of the NARCOTICA comic.]

MATT: "Why don't YOU hire Dennis Calero to draw it?"

ME: "Because I don't want to get sued. And he doesn't want to get sued. I'd have to pay him and he'd be drawing a profit from an unlicensed project."

MATT: "You live in Canada."

ME: "I drive by the NBCUniversal Canada office every morning. And look at what happened to the Star Trek fan films. Honestly, the PDF format is best for staying prominent but without any legal entanglements. The prominence of REBORN is fundamentally absurd, of course."

MATT: "Well, a private commission? Pay him to draw the best scene from each episode. It's you creating a unique piece of art for yourself. How cool would it be to get someone to professionally draw something for you?"

ME: "To me, the *real* coolness is Tom and Cory reading out passages of my scripts in their podcast and saying stuff like, 'This is SLIDERS, this is how it's supposed to be.' The real coolness is that TV Tropes page that guy made for my fan fiction. The real coolness is you making a REBORN section on your site. Honestly, typing about it right now -- if you were here in person, I would hug you and cry for a few minutes."

MATT: "Hahaha! Well, thank you, brother. I would awkwardly push you away and hand you your teddy bear."

I think most people think of talent as something you're born with, and skill as something you learn.

But you can learn to hone your talent. I don't think that you're always going to be great with your talent without building it. Like a muscle, talent has to be worked in order to grow. Having muscle doesn't mean that it will be easy to build big, intimidating muscle mass.

Everyone has their interests, I guess. I have friends with all sorts of interests that not everyone gets. It keeps the Facebook feed interesting.

I was writing a scene in the final SLIDERS REBORN script and I wanted to have a moment where the enemy contemptuously describes the reality of SLIDERS REBORN as fan fiction -- something worthless and forgettable and not real -- in order to justify his wish to destroy and replace it. I wanted to put this in because Matt has occasionally and very correctly dismissed SLIDERS REBORN as non-canonical fanfic ("Wade is dead, god damn it" / "You're worried about becoming apocryphal? You already are.") and I wanted to address that to some degree by having a character say it.

"This reality you're fighting so hard to defend -- it's not real. It's a sham and a fraud, you must know that by now. You've seen rock star vampires and radioactive slugs, for God's sake. You weren't reborn; you're living in a diseased and dying existence and this world, your friends, your daughter, your mother, your home -- it's just the patient's last muscle spasm. The final burst of neurons firing through the synapses before the brain shuts off. The show's over and it's time you faced the truth -- everything around you is just a mediocre fanfic to make yourself feel better."

Naturally, every 3 sentences or so are interspersed with Quinn getting punched in the face. But Matt HATES lampshades! He calls them LAMEshades. (He never has, but I'm sure he does.) But what does Informant think!? :-D

So, is that doing it properly?