JMS

There are few people in this world famous and stylish enough to pull off the three letter acronym. NPH is one of the few examples I can think of. The only other example I can think of is not nearly as stylish or high profile as NPH, but he's definitely made a follower out of me this past Comic-Con. I went into a momentary frenzy over him actually. I'm trying to watch that whole frenzy thing, but it spills out every now and again. Glory be to the great JMS!

J. Michael Straczynski is AMAZING! I had actually read something of his before seeing him speak at comic con. It was fairly good, but nothing too special. It was a final goodbye to the Silver Surfer, a woefully whiny superhero. JMS handled it quite well and made even this annoying fellow palatable and marginally interesting. So after hearing him speak, I read one of his Spiderman comics. It turns out that when he starts with a character who is not fatally annoying, he can create magic. I've never been a hard core follower of Spiderman, though I know some small amount of the mythology. I know enough to pick out a few of the major villains and maybe give a one liner on them. What I do know, I've found pretty interesting. Spiderman has some fun villains and I like that Peter Parker is a total science nerd. So basically, I'm saying that I respected the series, though I wasn't (and still am not) familiar with its nuances.

So I picked up the JMS book that Steven bought for himself because it was cheap and was pretty surprised to find myself riveted from the first few pages. I had seen some of this from Spiderman's cameos in Astonishing X-Men, but Spiderman is really pretty funny. He's lighthearted and he jokes around a lot. He's go a whole mocking his enemies thing going on too. Well that's not too out of the ordinary, but he's actually funny. I found myself with full on belly laughs while reading this comic book. JMS is hilarious! Pair him with a character who isn't totally gloomy and you get some comedic gold! I was chuckling throughout, and I rarely laugh out loud when faced with written text. I can be amused and smile and appreciate the humor, but it's rare for me to give an all out guffaw. The book was an all around, amusing good time.

But when I wasn't laughing, I was dying to know what happened next in the plot. His story ideas are genius. It was a serious challenge just to put that thing down. I couldn't tear my eyes away. He completely reinvented Spiderman- turned him on his ear without changing any of the underlying mythology. It's akin to Alan Moore's treatment of Swamp Thing, except that he started with a well loved character with an invested fan following instead of a boring character who had been laid to rest without much mourning or remorse. In some senses, it is harder to revive a dull character and make them interesting (even JMS had to work pretty hard with Silver Surfer), but there are ways in which it can be harder to write about a beloved character with a fanatical fan following. I cannot speak as a fanatical fan of Spiderman, but speaking as someone who knew the vague history, I have to say even die hard fans would probably have been pleased with this reimagining. It stays true to everything that had happened before while taking an entirely different stance on it and making it fresh. It made even familiar old foes interesting and new by painting them in an entirely different light. And it sure gave Spiderman on hell of a headache, and really, who doesn't love hassling a protagonist now and again? I mean, that's what they're there for, right?

JMS can do comic books and he can do them well, but he's done a lot of other things as well that have had very critical acclaim. He was the driving force behind Babylon 5. Aside from creating the whole idea behind the show, he wrote 2/3 of the episodes. To put it in perspective, Joss Whedon is credited as the creative mind behind Buffy and Angel, but he didn't even come close to writing 2/3 of those episodes. I couldn't give an exact number, but I suspect it would be between 10 and 20 percent. JMS had enormous contributions to Babylon 5, which is a highly thought of Sci Fi series. It's won Emmys for best makeup and costuming, which is television's way of crediting good science fiction shows. For whatever reason, science fiction isn't considered compatible with good storylines or drama. Sci fi never wins those awards, even though they have some amazing ideas and social commentary (commentary that is often off limits to realistic shows- I remember hearing some of the writers for the original start trek talk about how lucky they felt to be able to put in commentary about the Vietnam War when other shows were being censored. Sure it had to actually be about aliens, but the anti-war messages were clear nonetheless. Let's see some CSI bullshit do something more meaningful or poignant). And at the risk of sounding like a fanatic who's lost touch with reality, I even think the acting on sci fi is fine. That's right. I said it. I can't tell the difference between the acting on Star Trek and the acting on some more trendy show that wins awards. Ok, so the actors generally can't do other things other than the characters they play, I'll admit to that. Patrick Stewart has never done a character who wasn't, in essence, Jean Luc Picard. But he does Picard so damn well! He deserves an Oscar! I know it's not a film and thus not eligible for that award! It doesn't matter! He deserves it!

There goes that frenzy again. I'll try to tone that down.

But I've wandered away from the glorious (bad frenzy! bad!) JMS again. I should stop lauding his accomplishments that I haven't even fully read or watched yet and say a few words about his talk that first piqued my interest and sowed the seeds of my fanaticism. It was a talk on how to write. There are a lot of how to panels at comic con that I have to admit I'm pretty interested in. I like to know how things are done and what some of the steps are to pursue certain job paths I'm unfamiliar with, but I have to admit that I also nurse secret hopes of somehow being involved in the creation of beautifully nerdy things. Last year, I went to panel on how to get started in voice acting. I found the panel to be interesting and informative. Besides, I've always nursed a small budding desire to voice pokemon. Just yelling the same word over and over again with various intonations... it may not sound like fun to everyone, but everyone so often when I'm thinking about it, I make bulbasaur sounds. Maybe a squirtle or two. Not pikachu. That prima donna's overdone.

The voice acting panel from last year was very informative, but it also convinced me that my pokemon dream really was just a pipe dream after all. The competition is rugged. If I wanted to voice act, it's not all about making delightfully cute pokemon sounds, but rather it's a full time job with irregular work and large demands on your creativity. With enough persistence you might be able to break in, but it would be a real serious commitment, not a matter of driving up to a studio, convincing an exec of my talent with a few touching renditions of "bulbasaur," recording a few soundbytes, and then being on my way.

Where the voice acting panel doused my dreams, JMS's writing how-to panel set them aflame. I've always liked to write (clearly), and a little part of me has always wanted to write something that might one day get published and actually read. It's not a strong enough desire for me to invest the time to sit down and write something. Also, I don't feel like I have something quite compelling to write about just yet. But after listening to JMS, I felt like that didn't matter so much and I just wanted to start writing and get something down. Hence this blog about him. Everything he said made me feel hopeful about writing and not constrained at all. One of the things he said was that when he was first starting out as a writer, he knew how to mimic incredibly well. He could write in the styles of many different writers. He thought that was what writing was. But then he realized that writing is about imparting your unique viewpoint and telling your stories the way you want to. When he started doing that, he was far more successful and the writing flowed much better.

*Hopeful thought number one: I'm clearly good at writing for myself. I know next to no one reads this and the paltry readership that I do have does not particularly affect what I write. Sorry fellas- I don't pander. But hey, if that was a problem, I don't think you'd have gotten this far, so no worries there.

Someone asked him what tricks he had to deal with writer's block, and he apologized and said that's he's never had it. Sure it sounds like a totally dick thing to say, but it sounded like he really hadn't had writer's block. He spoke a little bit about some of the more common reasons for writer's block, and they made a lot of sense. He said that sometimes writers have an idea of where they want their characters to go or where they want them to end up, but there's just no plausible way of getting the characters to do that. The characters won't let the writer bully them around. Once you've got an idea for a character, it's hard to get them to act out of character, and sometimes your overarching goals as a writer just don't mesh with who your character is. When that happens, you either have to rewrite the whole character (very daunting to change your whole conception or to go back changing what you had before) or change where you expected the story to go (which means coming up with a new, equally compelling direction - also not easy). You think your ideas have dried up, but really it's just that you've presented yourself with an unsolvable puzzle and the thought of changing the parameters is overwhelming. He suggested that a problem in the third act can usually be addressed in the second. A problem in the second act can usually be addressed in the first. And so on.

*Hopeful thought number 2: With this demystification of common writing problems, it really felt like I might be able to address problems I came across without getting too bogged down or worried.

Straczynski also said a lot about trying and not worrying about failure. He was saying that no piece of writing is ever wasted. Whatever I do, I can be learning from it. He encouraged different genres of writing to learn about different styles. He encouraged sending your work everywhere and trying to get published (there's a certain boost and validation that comes from seeing your name in print). He encouraged being exploratory and testing your own boundaries rather than focusing on rules or how thing "ought" to be. He was overall very encouraging. He was friendly, funny, and downright amazing. The whole talk was littered with jokes and interesting anecdotes. For example, he talked about one professor he had in college who had a real problem with women. They could never do anything right in his class. This one time the professor was really tearing in to this one girl, criticizing her loudly in front of the whole class. She was crying and he wasn't stopping when someone from the back yelled "Leave her to fuck alone!" JMS commented that he was as surprised as anyone when he realized he was the one who said it. Overnight he went from an A to a C student in the class. The professor was really vindictive about it too. He tried to get JMS suspended or even kicked out, but his aversion to women was too well known for the other faculty to side with him. He told JMS he'd never have a career in writing and he would never be able to have it as a career. After JMS had graduated, he sent his old professor a copy of everything he ever published. He said he did it for years. Then, after enough time, the professor passed away. JMS took one last publication, wrapped it around a pencil and shoved it in his grave. that last part I'm pretty sure was a joke, but I do think he sent that jerk a copy of all his novels, screenplays, and comics.

He's saucy, funny, and kind. I really liked him and all the encouragement he gave this room full of aspiring writers (me included!). He was a nice, interesting guy with practical advice that made my little dream of being published more tangible and possible. He's a real positive guy who seems to have a good grasp on the way things work. I find myself really looking forward to reading more of his works and getting to know his better as a writer. If I ever do publish something, I just might send a copy to him.