However, I did have the urge to blog since it's been a bit since the last one. I don't really have too much to talk about, so here's some random thoughts.
I like the idea that mean people mellow with time. Not all of them end up losing that meanness, but most just turn "surly", which is at least a bit more bearable than mean.
I'm normally super excited about my birthday but this year I'm just not feeling it yet. It could have something to do with leaving behind the twenties and entering into the thirties, a fact that I find to be horrifying and awful in a lot of ways. Seriously, who wants to be thirty? It's awful sounding. So for now I'm just pretending like my birthday isn't fast approaching, and we'll see what happens from there.
A new videogame came out that I want to buy, but I just can't rationalize buying a game for full price anymore. $59.99 plus 8.65% sales tax = $65.18, and spending $65.18 on any game just seems like such a wasteful thing to do. Maybe it's a sign that I really am approaching the dreadful 3-0's, but I just hate the idea of spending THAT much money on a game. I could by 10 books for that much, or 8 gallons of gas (ZING!, take that economy!), or pay my car insurance bill for the month. The thing that stinks is that it takes so darn long for games to come down in price, and by the time the game gets cheaper I'll have forgotten all about it. Oh well! I've got stuff to write anyways, and I've never been particularly good at balancing how much time I spend playing videogames.
The level of quality we're finding in some of the novel proposals at Hall Brothers is unbelievable. We've got one book contract signed that will be releasing later this year and it's so good. It's a fantasy/western genre mash-up and the story is just a blast. It's like the best kind of summer blockbuster movies, with some great character moments, a brilliant setting, awesome action, just so good. Then we've got a book contract in place with a writer who brought us a brilliant proposal for a novel. I don't want to reveal much about that one since it's not releasing until next year, but the concept is so great and this is a book that we really think can be a big seller. We have a book contract offer out right now on another manuscript that I fell in love with. It's such a triumph of storytelling and I really hope that when the author gets back to civilization (he's travelling across Europe, currently) he'll respond affirmatively to our contract offer. It's been really humbling and inspiring for me to read the works of these people, just to see the quality of stories they're entrusting to me and my brother. I take being a publisher to be something as a sacred duty, and I really want to do everything I can to get these works in front of readers and share the brilliance of these writers with the world. I'm excited about it, as you maybe can tell.
I wrote a pretty weird story for Memorial Day. It'll be up at Hallbrosentertainment.com next week. Some really big issues made their way into it, stuff like life after death, and the physical properties of heaven and the horrors of war. Sometimes, right after I finish a story I'll rush around the house and find my roommate and proclaim that my story is super brilliant, but other times I'll sort of slowly amble around the house and find my roommate and shuffle my feet and proclaim that my story is weird and I'm not quite sure if it's any good. This was definitely the second option, and even after editing it today I'm still not sure about it. I usually make my final judgement after my brother reads the story and tells me what he thinks, so I'm hoping he does that before he goes to bed tonight. I'm curious to know if it's weirdgood or just weird.
Even though I know cool people aren't supposed to feel this way, I really don't like Radiohead. Maybe I'm not as cool as I think I am, but I just can't get into their music. Some great songs for sure, but overall their catalog inspires a big fat "eh" outta me.
Alright well, back to editing for me. I hope the week is going spectacular for everyone!
