You know, if you search my posts for "Jonathan Coulton" you'll notice he's become my latest musical obsession. I don't apologize for that because the man is talented. But I did see him at PAX and then see him in San Francisco about a month later and I started to think. Look, there are some parallels between his career and my so-called "writing job". We're both programmers that had something something happen that caused to say "Is this it? Really? This is my career?" Difference is that Coulton made his gig work and about a year and a half later I backslid and started coding again. There's also Ze Frank. I mean just look at them. Coulton wrote a song a week for a year. Ze Frank did five videocasts a week for that same year. And I'm too busy playing Bioshock and Guitar Hero II to do any writing for weeks at a time. Well no more.
It's not just the music. Coulton was on the Merlin Show both here and here and on The Sound of Young America where he talked about how Thing a Week made him control his muse, as opposed to vice-versa. This makes a ex-Code-Monkey think. Code Monkey want write his muse, not play games all day.
So how hard can it be? (The obvious answer: it's incredibly fucking hard you damn idiot. What's wrong with you?) I'm committing to it. Every Friday, starting tomorrow, I'm going to post some fiction. This differs from Captain Arcolier in that I'm not committing to writing a new installment every week, I'm committing to a whole new story - beginning, middle and end. Every Friday. Even if I have to goddamn open the post window on Friday morning and and free-associate until something is done.
I have tomorrow's post done already and I really like it. Next week I'll probably be hating my idiot self. But screw it. I should either give up and program full-time or fucking write. I can go either way, but it's time to stop pretending. I've promised myself I'll play Thing A Week until I go insane if that's what it takes. Tomorrow's post has robot monkies, so I'm off to a fabulous start!
It's not just the music. Coulton was on the Merlin Show both here and here and on The Sound of Young America where he talked about how Thing a Week made him control his muse, as opposed to vice-versa. This makes a ex-Code-Monkey think. Code Monkey want write his muse, not play games all day.
So how hard can it be? (The obvious answer: it's incredibly fucking hard you damn idiot. What's wrong with you?) I'm committing to it. Every Friday, starting tomorrow, I'm going to post some fiction. This differs from Captain Arcolier in that I'm not committing to writing a new installment every week, I'm committing to a whole new story - beginning, middle and end. Every Friday. Even if I have to goddamn open the post window on Friday morning and and free-associate until something is done.
I have tomorrow's post done already and I really like it. Next week I'll probably be hating my idiot self. But screw it. I should either give up and program full-time or fucking write. I can go either way, but it's time to stop pretending. I've promised myself I'll play Thing A Week until I go insane if that's what it takes. Tomorrow's post has robot monkies, so I'm off to a fabulous start!
Blogged with Flock
Tags: JonathanCoulton, ThingAWeek, fiction, ZeFrank