I’m Baaaack February 11, 2009
Posted by Shawn in musings.Tags: ebooks, movies, Netflix, passion, work
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I’ve been gone for a good long while, but the vacation is over. After moving in back in September, I took some time to catch up on “me” projects and to spend some time visiting friends and relatives. I even took on a very part time job at the same place I worked during high school.
While living off of my saving for six months was fun, I realized a couple of things that are propelling me back into freelancing. 1) Money doesn’t magically regenerate in my bank account. 2) I can’t stand not working.
#1 isn’t a big problem. Living in a small town, I really don’t have all that much overhead to worry about, so my bank account isn’t depleting itself very quickly. Plus, I’m don’t have a big-spender lifestyle.
#2 is a bigger problem. As a younger lad, I had no problem watching movies and reading and playing games all day. I still do all those things, but now I’m always spinning ideas out of them that I’m convinced will begin to strangle my brain in retaliation if I don’t put them to good use.
For instance, I watch a lot of movies. A lot of movies. I have the 6 DVD Netflix plan and still usually run out of things to watch after one day. (Though now that Netflix has streaming video and I have a Roku, that is a thing of the past.)
I now have the complete inability to just watch movies anymore. I start thinking about what I can do with all the knowledge that I’m gaining from the movie’s dialog, structure, lighting, the DVD special features and commentaries. I think about my reviews on Netflix. Then I get the idea–why not start a website about movie reviews.
In thinking more about the website, I narrow it to reviewing only movies that I watch on Netflix. While I watch more movies, I start thinking about possible structure of the site, themes to use, widgets that will help viewers to navigate the site.
Eventually it all came to a head. I reached a point where I couldn’t resist putting it together anymore. Thus the site was born. It’s not online yet–I’m still writing reviews for the bank, but it’ll be up by the end of the month.
I’m also writing an ebook, the first one I’ve ever written for myself. That seems a strange kind of thing for a professional ebook write to have never written an ebook he hasn’t been paid to write, but that’s the way the cookie crumbled.
In writing this ebook, I’ve found something that I’ve been lacking for a while: passion. That’s why I stopped writing ebooks, I just didn’t have the interest in it anymore.
For the first couple years of writing ebooks, each one was interesting and challenging. How best to present the information? What to include and what to leave out? The perfect images, the perfect design, the perfect layout. After a while, I just started writing on autopilot, slogging through the words, thinking “Great, yet another ebook on real estate marketing.”
So I quit. I honestly didn’t think that I would ever go back to it. Didn’t think that I would ever be able to look at another ebook project without screaming. But only six months later, I’m taking on clients again.
Maintining communication with my long-term clients and politely declining new projects leaves my reputation intact, but six months away has definitely hurt my business. That’s okay though, because not taking time off to recharge myself and find my passion for the work again would have destroyed my business and, more importantly, my reputation.
I’m back, baby, and better than ever.
Regulators, pt 4 (Potty Mouth Warning) July 2, 2008
Posted by Shawn in fiction.2 comments
Thor moved. “What’d that bitch hit me with, a sledgehammer?” He groaned and sat up. He looked around at the guys. “Well, I guess we’d better go get her.” Smooth cocked his pistol. “Pony up.”
The remaining Regulators jumped out of the truck. They didn’t bother with concealing their weapons. This was all business.
Eros tossed the keys to the Suburban to the unfazed valet. “Keep the truck here. Start the engine in twenty minutes.”
Nobody looked twice as the team marched through the entrance hall, weapons at the ready.
“Which way did she go, doc?” Thor asked the desk manager.
The clerk pointed at the restaurant. “Through the kitchen.” Thor led his men through the restaurant and into the kitchen. The cooks were cowered against the wall. A line of bullet-craters pocked the ceiling.
“Where?” asked Thor. One of the cooks shakily pointed toward a service elevator.
“She’s going for the heli-pad,” said God.
“All right. Eros, Smooth, go out the back and come around. Let me know when you’re in position. God, you’re with me.”
Eros and Smooth went back out into the restaurant. God and Thor rode the service elevator down a floor and headed out a back exit. Ahead of them, they could see Rosie almost to the heli-pad, dragging the mark along with her. An A-Star helicopter circled overhead, waiting to land.
“Stop,” Rosie told the mark. With the butt of the MP-9 between his shoulder blades, he didn’t put up much of a fight. With her free hand, she switched her lapel mic to the helicopter’s frequency. “Bring her on down,” she told the chopper pilot.
“Wheels down in three minutes,” said the pilot.
Rosie stepped in front of the mark, her gun pointed at his chest. “Here’s how it’s gonna work. You print the money and I provide security. Deal?” The mark nodded and Rosie lowered her gun. She took the mark’s pistol from the waist of her skirt and handed it back to him with her finger wedged behind the trigger. Before she let go of the gun, she stared into the mark’s soul. “Don’t make me regret this.”
The helicopter touched down on the pad.
Eros and Smooth ran out the back of the hotel. They crossed the crowded resort area, pushing through the crowds and stepping over the occasional unconscious body. Smooth grabbed an unattended drink from a side bar they passed and downed it on the run.
Around the edge of the hotel, they took cover behind an ugly statue of two people sitting on a bench. Rosie and the mark were at the heli-pad and an A-Star was just about to touch down.
“Can you get a shot from here?” Smooth asked Eros.
“I left my .45 in the car.” Smooth sighed and pulled a six-shooter from his thigh holster. He passed Eros the gun.
“Were you dropped on your head as a small child?”
Thor and God raced for the heli-pad, with Eros and Smooth coming from the flank. Rosie spotted them. “Get in. Now!” she screamed at the mark and pushed him toward the A-Star.
God stopped running and dropped into a crouch. He raised his rifle to his shoulder and fired. The right stiletto heel of Rosie’s fuck-me-boots exploded. She fell. God squeezed the trigger to fire again, but Thor ran into his line of sight before the trigger reached the break point.
“Don’t kill her,” yelled Thor over his shoulder without breaking stride. God shrugged.
Rosie scrambled up from the ground and into the helicopter. She grabbed the mark and yelled, “Where are the presses?”
“I’ll tell the pilot to go once we’re safe. Now get us out of here,” he yelled back.
“He only takes orders from me. Don’t make me push your ass out, partner.” The mark looked out the door of the A-Star. Thor was only thirty yards away from him and coming fast.
“Fifteen miles northeast of here. A farmhouse.”
“Take us up,” Rosie told the pilot. He pulled back on the joystick and the A-Star lifted off. “Thanks,” Rosie told the mark and kicked the mark in the side, pushing him out of the helicopter. The mark fell six feet to the pad. His shoulder popped and bulged as the joint dislocated.
The A-Star flew away over the Alexandria, quickly lost in the night sky.
Thor reached the pad a second after the mark landed. Eros and Smooth arrived a moment later. The mark was moaning on the ground, holding his shoulder.
“You two take this shithead back to the truck before the shock wears off and he starts screaming,” said Thor. “Leave the shoulder out of place.” Eros and Smooth pulled the mark off the ground, not paying attention to his injury. They marched him back toward the hotel, Thor following tiredly.
“Nice work,” God told Thor when Thor passed him.
“Shut up.”
The valet had followed Eros’ instructions. The Suburban was waiting in front of the hotel entrance, engine running.
“Eros, Smooth, take the truck. God, you go with them. I’ll clean up this mess. You know what to do with our new friend here.” They got into the truck and drove off.
Ten minutes after the Suburban drove out of sight, a blue convertible pulled up in front of Thor. The leggy blonde was driving, her Stinger RPG and Rosie in the back seat.
Thor walked around the car and stared down at Rosie. “Did you get the location?”
“A farmhouse northeast of here,” said Rosie.
“Nice.” Thor hopped into the passenger’s seat. “Let’s go meet the boys, Daphne. We’ve got money to make.”
That’s all of Regulators, folks. Maybe for now, maybe for good. I haven’t decided yet.
