Calm before the storm

Unlike a normal job, running your own business has the most inconsistent hours. You might end up working over 80 hours a week, like the folks at the Fat Sandwich Company. Or you might have nothing to do. That's my current status. We might have a name, but we're waiting for our lawyer to approve it before we buy the domain, set up the LLC, design a logo, make business cards, manage the finances, find a PR intern, and all those other fun things. We're finishing up interviews with potential developers, so we can't start on the website itself until we know what the developer will need.

It might be for the best, though. I have one more week of work at StudyBlue. My frisbee team has at least one more game left, and those take up an entire evening. When I don't have a game, my friends are celebrating birthdays, the end of summer classes, or moving away. And this Sunday, I'm moving most of my stuff back to Milwaukee.

So I'm a little glad that when I finally have to do all that work, it'll be somewhere with fewer distractions. Granted, I still have a lot of friends still in the Milwaukee area, but I think my life will be a little more managable.

Funny link for the week: Three Sheets is a show I discovered that documents the various drinking customs of the world. In other words, it's about a guy who gets drunk in various countries.

What I've been up to

In my last update, I mentioned that I had seven more credits of college. As I discovered over the past seven weeks, there is a reason most people don't take summer classes. In my French class, we (hypothetically) covered the same amount of content as a semester-long college class that meets four times a week for an hour, or a year-long high school class that meets for about 50 minutes five days a week. Anyone who has taken college language courses can attest to how much homework and studying is required every week. Compress that into a daily requirement, then add a part-time job and twice-weekly Ultimate Frisbee games.

Now that my classes are over, I hope I'll have some more free time, but it's not likely. In addition to finishing up my StudyBlue internship with thirty hours a week until the end of August, I'll be starting up my own business. I have been refining an idea for a website over the past month, and now that my classes are over, I can dedicate more time and attention to making it happen. I will be using this blog to document the process of starting the business and its progress.

Most of what I have done so far is discuss my idea. I have the advantage of working at an Internet start-up, so I have plenty of relevant experience. I also have an opportunity to consult with my co-workers, who have all been very helpful and supportive. In particular, I am very grateful to our CEO, Becky Splitt, for helping me develop my idea, explaining what my first steps should be, and providing me with other resources.

The only other thing I have done so far is finding a graphic designer. I met her on the bus from Milwaukee, and I was impressed by her ideas, excitement, and talent. During the next week or so, I need to find a law firm for legal advice (if you are a lawyer with experience in helping start-ups, let me know) and a developer (if you know JavaScript/GWT, PHP/Java, and MySQL, let me know).

Funny link for the week: I'm sure most of you have seen this, but if you haven't, watch David After Dentist. This is what happens when you give a 7-year-old drugs.

Graduation

Today, I graduated from college. Well, kinda. I still need seven credits, so this summer I'll be taking Mass Media & Human Behavior and first semester French. But since UW doesn't have a commencement ceremony in August, I walked at the spring ceremony. As a result, I really don't feel like I'm done or that I've accomplished anything.

I had this same problem four years ago. My high school graduation ceremony also felt empty and meaningless. I only realized the reason months later. The summer after high school, I still saw all my friends, lived with my parents, and did all the same things I did throughout high school. As a result, that summer felt just like every other summer. It wasn't until I moved into my dorm room at the end of August that I really "finished" high school.

And the same is true now. I'm going to hang out with my college friends all summer (and high school friends when I go home). The lease for my current apartment doesn't end until August. The majority of my time (for the first two months, at least) will be split between classes, StudyBlue, and games of Ultimate frisbee. If I was graduating, my diploma would be mailed to me twelve weeks later anyway. So even though I walked across the stage today, I am still a college student at heart.

Funny link for the week: We all know newspapers are seeing hard times right now. Well, newspaper comics are suffering a torturous death, and this blogger can tell you why. Even if you disagree with his assessment, his creative insults makes this a hilarious read.

Romarian Chronicles I

Excerpt from "Origins" by the elven scribe Ylathian, 3743 New Yamir Count. Currently in the Aethis Library of Silver Bay.

In the beginning, there were only the savages, who prayed to the pagan Eldreth. The world was in chaos, as there was no civilization, no justice, no knowledge. Frailith saw this and was displeased, so she asked Teis the Joyous, Lothar the Rich, Maphai the Quarrelous, Aethis the Wise, Döllno the Just, and Cailith the Dark to help her bring the gift of society to the mortal races. And the Seven, in their altruism, gave agriculture to the humans, elves, gnomes, and dwarves.

The humans built their kingdoms of the plains, the elves grew their principalities in the forests, the gnomes settled in the hills, and the dwarves dug their great mountain smithies. The humans and elves discovered magic, and civilization prospered. But Yamir, the human empire grew too large. And men became arrogant, and reached too far. They angered the Glaithans, who crossed the Belt Sea, and besieged Romaria. For five bloody years, Romaria burned. Civilization collapsed, science was lost, and knowledge of the millenia before the War of Terrors was forgotten forever.

But the Seven took mercy, and helped the Romarians drive the invaders from our lands. So the humans, the elves, the dwarves, and gnomes, and the half-orcs rebuilt their cities and reclaimed their culture. Here follows a complete history of Romaria, begining with the crowning of King Revon the First or New Yamir, in the first year of the New Yamir Count...

********

Romarian Chronicles is a project for me to practice serialized storytelling and inventing a mythology. Feedback is always welcome.

Multi-Sensory Perception

As writers, our job is to convey a message through words. If we're telling a story, we have the challenge of managing a plot while utilizing as many of the five senses as possible. If we're providing information, we condense hours, days, or a lifetime of research and knowledge into a 400-word article, 3-paragraph blog entry, or a 5-page paper. If we're introducing a new idea, we take something that barely makes sense in our heads and lay it out in a way others might understand.

Spoken word artists have an easier job. They can use voices, body language, the space around them, and even the audience to share sensory information. Not that spoken word is easier. Even if you are comfortable speaking in front of a crowd, it takes considerable skill to keep that crowd entertained. And you have to avoid the rookie mistake giving your audience too much credit. Just because the audience can see and hear you doesn't mean you can skip sensory information.

Speaking of creative writing, I want to try something new. One of my dreams is to write comic books. To practice serialized storytelling, I'm going to start a new project. Once a month, I'm going to tell a story from a fictional mythology. I'll probably start on this next week.

Funny link for the week: This week's link is awesome rather than funny, but still needs to be shared. Two of my interests are the Blade movies and salsa dancing. This video combines both of them.

Media in Star Wars

The Star Wars movies are unrealistic. I'm not talking about the aliens, futuristic technology, or the Force. Nor am I talking about George Lucas' inability to write realistic dialog or direct actors. I'm talking about the presence of media in the movies.

We never see a character reading the space newspaper, listening to the space radio, or watching some space news. The only time we see any indication of mass media is in Attack of the Clones when there are some screens showing sporting events in a cantina. Nor do we see the presence of the press. There's no embedded reporters in Stormtrooper squads. There's no press corp hounding the senators or Jedi or democratically-elected royalty.

This raises a number of questions. Does the general public have any idea about what's going on? Do they know that their senators gave complete power to an evil-looking guy? How do they know that there's a rebellion going on? How well are the main characters of the movie known?

Funny link for the week: I wish all press conferences went like this.

Greek Tragedies: Origin of the Shared Universe

Over two and a half millenia ago, the Greeks would go into the woods every spring to honor Dionysus. The festival consisted of drunken revelry and ended with a sacrifice. Over the centuries, the Greeks decided that instead of sacrificing valuable livestock, they could just tell a story that ended in death. These stories avoided the problems of sacrifices while entertaining the audience. Thus, theater was born.

But these plays, called tragedies, also planted the seeds for another form of storytelling: superhero comics. Each playwright would take an event in Greek mythology and tell their version of it. Each author had his own perspective about the characters and events. Euripides wrote Agamemnon as an honorable leader trying to protect his people, while Aeschylus portrayed him as a cruel and selfish tyrant.

Today, each comic book publisher has a shared universe filled with characters, just like Greek mythology. Every writer picks a character or a group and uses them to spread his/her own message. Or that writer might retell a past story with a new interpretation. And like the Greek playwrights, each comic book writer might portray a popular character from any possible perspective.

Funny link for the week: Google Trends is a nifty feature that lets you see the popularity of search terms over time. The SomethingAwful forum members find the best use for it. There's some naughty words, so you might not want to read this at work. Of course, why are you reading my blog at work?