I can't believe it's Friday, which means tomorrow is the weekend. Where did this week go, anyway?

A few things I wanted to mention before I get busy:

1. If you'd told me a year ago that I'd be going to bed between 9 and 10 every night, then waking up entirely on my own between 6 and 7 the next morning, I would have called you a name ... but it's what I've been doing the last six weeks, because I'd rather wake up on my own, than be woken up by the fucking construction next door.

2. Scott Kurtz' PvP is always wonderful, but The Incident just killed me. Start with part one and work your way forward - it only lasts a minute, though, so don't rush it.

3. I don't know how I lived without click2flash until this morning, but since I installed it, my Mac is easily 5000% faster.

3+1. My friend Amber pointed out that today (1120) = (1 × 2 × 3 × 4 × 5 × 6 × 7 × 8) / (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8). I love that, and it makes me wish I was better at math.

5. Speaking of wanting to be better at math, I have this idea for a class at a community college. It's for people like me who are in their 30s and have realized that they've forgotten a lot of the things they learned in high school, things like rules of grammar, algebra, chemistry, and civics. The truth is, unless you use those things every day, the reality of adult responsibilities pushes them out of your head. I mean, I'm a pretty smart guy, and there are times when I have to write down a math problem that I used to be able to do in my head, and some of the spelling and grammar errors I make are just embarrassing – and I'm a writer! So my idea is for an 8 week class that meets once or twice a week for a couple hours, that would be a mental tune up for guys like me. We don't need to relearn everything from the beginning, we just need to stimulate that part of our memory where algebra and geometry are stored so we can remember the things we used to take for granted. Someone do that, and do it at PCC so I can walk there, okay?

6. Speaking of college: I'm going to CalTech today to do an awesome thing for NASA. I'll be on campus for a few hours, and I had an idea that could be fun: I'm pretty sure a non-zero number of people at CalTech read my blog or follow me on Twitter (or are a few degrees from someone who does), so the first person to find me there today and say "Qapla'!" gets a signed copy of Uchu, one of the Star Trek mangas I wrote. (NB: If I'm working with you today, you're ineligible*. Sorry.) 

7. Is it just me, or has the last week brought a significant uptick in people being dicks on Twitter? I'm blocking a lot more people than usual. It has a Long September feeling to it, but I realize my user experience isn't the same as a normal person's.

√64. I've been asked if I'll be at ConCon (the Leverage convention) next year in Portland. I'm not sure they're interested in bringing in guest stars (and, honestly, if you had to choose between me and Mark Sheppard, I'm obviously staying home) but if they are, yeah, I'd love to be part of it.

9. People ask me all the time if I'll come to their city for a show. I haven't been willing to travel very far, because it's too risky to invest in travel and shipping merchandise only to have 40 people show up. But Paul F. Tomkins wrote a post for his blog about how he's letting people build an audience that makes it worth his time and money to travel to their town and do a show, and it makes a lot of sense to me. I think it's a model I could duplicate (or at least attempt to duplicate) so if you're at all interested in seeing me perform live in a town near you (read: not Los Angeles) then please read his post. I'll expand on it next week. (Related to this: let's say I could do a live show that was streamed online. I would perform some stories for about an hour or so, and then take questions from The Internet. It would probably cost about $5 or $10. Does that sound like something you'd be interested in doing with me?)

X. Looking for something to do this weekend? GET EXCITED AND MAKE THINGS! There's a ton of inspiration from your fellow creators in the comments on this post.

*Sigh. I had to look up the proper spelling of "ineligible." Please, someone, get to work on that class, okay? I feel stupid.

My friend Ariana works with Warren Ellis to make all kinds of really cool things. Lately, they've been experimenting with print on demand technology to take creative risks that simple economics would have rendered impossible as recently as five years ago.

For example, three weeks ago, they started putting out a T-shirt of the Week at CafePress. It's a great idea: they put up a design on Sunday, it's available for a week, and then it goes off to the land of wind and ghosts to make room for something new. If you like the design, you grab it (possibly enjoying that you're part of a limited edition), and if you don't like the design, you just wait a week and try again.

Warren says: "TOTW is basically a joke that Ariana and I pull each week in our joint guise as the International Electrophonic Unit. Basically, we take some of the stupider things I’ve said on Twitter and elsewhere, often in a state of extreme alcoholic refreshment or severe sleep deprivation, and put them on a t-shirt. Ariana set up a Cafe Press store (because this is a joke and engaging with a serious maker of t-shirts would be less funny to us), and… well, once a week, here we are."

As a creator and as a consumer, I think this is awesome. The only thing Warren and Ariana are actually investing - that is, the only risk they're taking - is the time it takes to create the design, and if you're a creative person who, uh, enjoys creating, that's not really a risk as much as it's a chance to play with your toys and possibly make a little money while you do it.

This is incredibly inspiring to me, and I hope that it's just as inspiring to indie artists everywhere. Why not take a creative risk and see if it works out? Unlike the old days, when we had to purchase a lot of stock ahead of time and hope we could sell it, we can just Get Excited and Make Things, knowing that the very worst that can happen is that nobody likes that thing we made as much as we thought they would.

In the old days, creators had to hope that:

1. A store would carry their Thing.

2. Once in the store, their Thing would be in a place where people could see it.

3. People would buy their Thing.

4. People would buy enough of their Thing to get the cycle to start over at step 1.

Oh, and to have any hope of being successful, they have to do this in different stores all over the place, competing for space and attention with huge companies that have massive advertising budgets. It was, to say the very least, daunting.

But look at how much things have changed! Creative people can get excited, make something, and get it to their customers without ever having to go through any of those steps. The financial risk has been almost entirely taken away, so now we can take chances on our really crazy ideas, just because we're excited about them.

For example, when my episode of Criminal Minds was going to air, I got excited and made an audio version of the production diary from Sunken Treasure. The time elapsed from the moment I got excited until the moment I had an actual thing was about five hours. Now, it's hasn't exactly sold like crazy - only 242 total sales - and if I'd invested in actual product instead of doing it POD, I would have lost money on it for sure ... but I spent half a day making something that has gotten great feedback from the people who listened to it, and I earned about nine hundred dollars for my trouble. Clearly, it's not a sustainable full-time business model, but it was certainly as successful as I could hope one of my Crazy Ideas would be.

If this sounds even remotely interesting or inspiring to you, I encourage you to read three posts Ariana has recently written on her blog about her experiences with POD:

TOTW: Three Weeks On

Will tomorrow’s design be niftier?  Who knows?  I’m taking the opportunity that a weekly project affords to try and up my game each time… but whether you like the next (or the next, or the next) better is, well, it’s all a bit like Let’s Make A Deal,isn’t it? Only instead of fabulous prizes and curtains named Door #4, it’s fabulous bits of silly on whatever clothing options we’ve decided to offer this week.  But the basic premise stands: Either you decide this week’s is the design you want… or its gone and that’s that.

[...]

with POD, there’s really no “…while supplies last!” either.  That’s brilliant, too, of course — a huge part of putting Shivering Sands on Lulu is just that: it can stay there as long as Lulu does, still pulling in a sale or two in ten years.

But, although I’m not advocating a fake or forced sense of urgency — because that’s a bit cheap, and more than a bit insulting to folks’ intelligence — there is something to be said about exploring how some online and POD systems do lend themselves to Being An Event.

It was Warren that first brought my attention to the concept of Event Internet (although he calls it “Appointment,” but I don’t love those so I’ve renamed for comfort), so I’m riffing off his playbook, here.  But he’s certainly not the only person playing with the idea.  There’s the well-documented Twitter-Flash-Mobbery that Amanda Palmer’s been pushing for a while, or Eliza Gauger’s Sweatshops, for instance.  Hell, just a few minutes ago, Wil sent me a link to this, saying: “It redraws random fractals every few seconds. You can’t save them, so you just appreciate them and then wait for the new one to show up.”  Which isn’t precisely an “event,” I suppose, but it sums up the idea rather nicely: You can’t save everything — although you can often record the live event to watch later — but sometimes, some things, even online, are about this moment.  And when they’re gone, you missed it.

So what the hell could that possibly have to do with Print On Demand which, as I just said, is so great because it just stays there forever?  Well, it’s all about looking at the tools in your kit and thinking about new ways to use them. 

In response to the inevitable cries of "but this only works for people like Warren Ellis because he's Warren Ellis" she wrote POD: If you're not Warren Ellis, which I can't really excerpt here, because it needs to be read in context. To sum up: before he was Warren Ellis, not even Warren Ellis was Warren Ellis. Stop crying about how you're not Warren Ellis, be who you are, and take that energy you're pouring into feeling sorry for yourself into getting excited and making something.

Finally, she wrote POD: Let's back up a bit here, which I think is the most inspiring of the three. You need to read the whole thing, but I'll pull a bit for you:

Here’s what you need to do, right now, tonight.  No, NOT tomorrow morning, or this weekend, or once your work rush has let off a little, or after the holidays, or sometime in the New Year: Right. Fucking. Now. 

Decide what you want to make.

And I’m talking about the single most complicated and ridiculous creation you can think of…

NO STOP IT I DIDN’T SAY HOW or WHY or WHEN, I only said WHAT.

[...]

I SAID STOP THINKING ABOUT THE HOW OR THE LOGISTICS OR THE MONEY OR THE TIME.  STOP IT.

This moment, right now, this THING that you’re deciding to make, this thing exists independently of the fiddly bits for now.  This, what you’re doing here, is something that back in the olden days, before the slagosphere wasted all your time telling you how not to do things they called a goal.  It’s a beautiful and magical thing that doesn’t need money or time or effort to believe in.  It’s only different from a dream in that you made it yourself, instead of letting your subconscious do all the work while you sleep.

Now, okay, here’s the little-bit harder step, are you ready?

Look at that THING you just said you wanted to make.  Really look at it.  Now, right now, tonight, NOT tomorrow morning, or this weekend, or once your work rush has let off a little, or after the holidays, or sometime in the New Year: Right. Fucking. Now.

DECIDE WHETHER YOU’RE GOING TO DO IT, OR NOT.

Period.  This is it.  You’ve been putting it off, or you’ve been planning to get around to it, or you know that once you get a little spare time it’s at the top of the list… for HOW long now?  I’m looking at you.  I know you’re already taking a breath to rattle off the list of all the things standing in your way.  and what’s more, I know you know they’re just excuses.

And it needs to end, now.  Your life is never going to GET less stressful.  It’s honestly not.  That’s not how life works.  When we put off the things we want to do, the stress of that adds into the stress of life.  You’re not going to GET more hours in the day.  You’re never going to have enough money to put aside spare time.  You’re not going to suddenly have That Moment where it all gels and you suddenly break out and start doing what you want to be doing… unless you MAKE that moment, right here, right now.

I'm not suggesting your quit your job and napalm the bridge behind you as you drive out of the parking lot, because not everyone is going to be able to do this and make a living from it ... but that's not really the point, here. The point is to encourage those of you (us) who have been unable or unwilling to take the chance and just create something, already, to get out there and do it.

I once saw a poster or a paperweight or something that said, "What would you do if you knew you could not fail?" Think about that for a second. What thing do you want to make? What story do you want to tell? What song do you want to sing?

We can take these great creative risks now, because we really can't fail, not in the traditional monetary sense. Sure, we could be out a lot of time, but even that time isn't entirely wasted, as I hope to illustrate with two examples of my own: 

1. I spent days putting together a little book that I thought would be awesome, only to discover that there was absolutely no way to make it affordable for me or you. I was disappointed that I spent all that time, but it was incredibly fun while I did it, and maybe I have a script for a show now, instead of a book.

2. I worked really hard to write a story that ultimately wasn't really finished, as much as it was let go. I spent a lot of time after I was supposed to be done with it, trying to figure out how I could fix it so I could publish it, before reaching the very upsetting conclusion that it just can't be fixed. I talked about this with some friends who are writers, and told them how I felt like the whole thing was a waste of time and that all I got out of the experience was the knowledge that I need to do a whole lot of grinding before I level up as a writer. One of my friends, an incredibly talented and accomplished writer, told me, "Every project you finish levels you up as a writer." While I was (and am) still disappointed at what I believe was a failed project, I can't disagree with my friend. I gained Writer XP, even if I didn't gain a great story that I can feel good about publishing and selling.

So what are you waiting for? Do or do not. There is no Try. Whether it's an Etsy store, or a book with Lulu, or a T-shirt or a mug or a clock or a fucking teddy bear in a sweater from CafePresssingle  ... hell, if it's a photograph you put on Flickr or a podcast you host on Archive.org, or a story that you write for Ficly or your own blog, just do it! Go get excited and make things, and when you're done, come back here and link us to what you did.

When I was working on Leverage this summer, I spent quite a bit of quality time in Powell's world of books. On one of my trips into the store, I saw a little book with a fantastic cover that I knew I would be buying before I even laid a hand on it. That book was called ... Shatnerquake.

I sent a picture to Twitter and said "How can I *not* buy a book called Shatnerquake?" It was, of course, a rhetorical question that I couldn't (and can't) summon the appropriate double-not-negatives to answer. What's important is that I bought it, took it back to my hotel, and read it the very next day.

Here's the review I posted to Goodreads:

It's like Lloyd Kaufman and Sam Rami's mutant offspring wrote a book. It's very funny, and doesn't try to be anything other than what it is: The William Shatner locked in surreal and hyperreal mortal combat with every character he's ever played, from the Priceline guy to Kirk.

I would have rated it higher, but it desperately needed to go to a copy editor, especially for the last two chapters.

With a little bit of clean up, though, this could become an underground sensation.

Today, Shatnerquake's author, Jeff Burk, is offering Shatnerquake as a free download. He says:

Thank you for devoting some of your precious internet tubing to the downloading of my first book, Shatnerquake.

You may be wondering why I am offering my book for free.  It is because I am an avid downloader as well.  I believe that information, art, and entertainment wants to be free.

The internet has allowed us all so many opportunities to share with each other.  To resist this is to resist the future.  Others may attempt to block this forward progression with lawsuits and file protection.  I, instead, want to do what I can to contribute to this wonderful digital community.

All he asks in return is that you write a review at Amazon or Goodreads. He reminds us that little actions like that really do help out independent artists, who rely on word of mouth from our readers to help our audience grow. 

I think this is an exceedingly fair trade, though I would hope that if you enjoy Shatnerquake (and if you don't, please see your doctor right away) you'll find a way to support the author in a more direct, giving-him-money-so-he-can-pay-his-bills-or-maybe-buy-a-pony kind of way.

I'm excited to dig into the second half of the season, mostly because the Memories of the Futurecasts have been so much fun, and have been so well-received by so many people, that I feel inspired and energized. I'm not going to lie to you, Marge, some of the episodes in Volume One were a real slog and not much fun at all, and I think that unfortunately comes through in those chapters. Now that I know how much at least a few thousand people (and hopefully more) want to read Volume Two, I can't wait to see what I can come up with.

Okay, some business that needs attention before I get to work:

Have you caught a typo or formatting error in Memories of the Future, Volume One? If you have, would you please leave the page and paragraph number in a comment on this entry? I'm going to do an ePub version (Lulu now supports that, in addition to PDF) ... so I'd like to repair any mistakes before I do the conversion.

Would you be interested in a limited edition, signed and numbered hardback, similar to what I did with Happiest Days of Our Lives? I ask because it's going to cost me a not-insignificant amount of money to make them, and I kind of need to know that it's even something people are interested in. It would be $50 like the other one.

Speaking of The Happiest Days of Our Lives: everyone who pre-ordered from Subterranean Press and is getting antsy because they've waited so long deserves a big apology from me. A couple of things happened while we were putting the book together which were not my fault (OpenOffice and MSOffice not playing nicely was a significant setback for the timetable) but the latest delay is squarely on my shoulders. I've been working my way through just over 2000 signature sheets for several weeks. I've only had time to work on a 100 or so a day until last week, because I just didn't have any other time in my schedule. This has worked out pretty well for the final product, because my signature starts to break down after about 200 pages, but it's increased the wait quite a bit. The good news is that I have about 400 left, and I'm doing them in two sessions today. They'll be sent off to Subterranean Press tomorrow, so the book can go to press and get into your hands real quick. Oh, did I mention that this wait has allowed me to secure a pretty awesome Afterword from my son Ryan? I couldn't be happier about that.

Finally, if you've written or seen a review of Memories of the Future, Volume One, would you leave a link in the comments here? I'd like to collect them all together and share them in a post later this week.

Okay, that's it. If you haven't heard this week's Futurecast, you should be able to get it in the usual way, or you can go to MemoriesoftheFuturecast.com and pick it up directly.

I'm way late to the party on this, but I just started reading Spook Country this week. Unlike most Gibson books I've read, it doesn't ramp up slowly, and instead hits the ground running (that's not a bad thing). I'm only 30 pages in (it's been a busy week without a lot of time to read) but I'm pretty sure I'm going to like it; I can easily connect to the tone, the characters, the setting, and the storytelling style he uses.

When I logged into Goodreads this morning to put it on my bookshelf, I saw that people had Memories of the Future on their lists, and a few readers had reviewed it (overall, they seem to like it, which pleases me.) One of the readers mentioned that my book was recommended to her by a blog called Stacked. I took at look, and here's what I found:

Christina [Stacked's editor] is watching the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation for the first time ever and reviewing episodes in conjunction with Wil Wheaton's book Memories of the Future.

Christina calls the project Amnesia of the Future, which I just love because it's clever, and I enjoy clever things, as you may already know. I've just read the posts she's done so far (she's up to Code of Honor), and I really enjoyed them. Allow me to share some highlights:

Farpoint

Episode: If someone were to tell me that in a few hundred years humans will regularly be traveling vast swaths of space and encountering other intelligent life forms, I would not at all be surprised to find giant. space. jellyfish included amongst the aliens. Actually, I think it’s kind of cool and in my next life would like to come back as one.

MotF: Post entertaining recap of the episodes, was the “Behind the Scenes Memory” which brings a rather cool dimension to the show. Despite the faults Wil Wheaton points out about the two part episode, they were obviously doing something right. I didn’t notice the repetition of background actors during the mall scene and, even after having it pointed out, re-watched the episode and still missed them despite telling myself “Hey, self, look out for the repeat actors!”

The Naked Now

Episode: ...the assistant engineer is acting like a five-year-old attempting to master Jenga and Wesley Crusher is speaking way to coherently for a drunken fourteen-year-old. In fact, he doesn’t seem much different from the previous episode’s overly-exuberant puppynerd self. Shouldn’t a normal drunk teenager be slurring and trying to get laid? 

Dear Wesley, I hope you enjoy being a virgin for the rest of your life. You might want to start stocking up on pocket protectors now.

MotF: I’m so smart! Wil Wheaton also feels that this episode came too soon.  I definitely think that moving it back to a later spot in the season would have been a wise move and an opportunity to play with the repressed desires of the characters that would be bound to come out when intoxicated.

Code of Honor

Episode: Ultimately, the episode was just as hokey for me as The Naked Now. I appreciate the analogy and moral questions raised and the set-up for what happens rolls out very nicely. But where is the Jell-O? If you’re going to have juvenile boy-thoughts about a girl fight, shouldn’t they be in bikinis and Jell-O?  Give them such “advanced” weaponry and have them fight on the set of Flashdance, but Tasha gets to remain in her uniform with her communicator on?  At least Yarinna got to wear a pink lamé bodysuit and come out like the reigning champion.

MotF: Really Wil Wheaton? Pillow fight was as good as you could come up with? Were you afraid of trademark issue in mentioning Jell-O? Because Jell-O fight trumps pillow fight any day. At least you had the Beavis and Butthead running joke. I found that to be infantile and pointless at first, but you pulled it off nicely.

Now I kind of can't wait for her next bout of amnesia (cue the All My Circuits theme) because it's interesting and entertaining to read the first-time impressions of a new TNG viewer 22 years after we made the show, especially when that viewer is reviewing my book in tandem with the episodes. It's just so delightfully meta, I couldn't not link to it. I'll be interested to see if she gets the same facepalm fatigue I started to get, and when it arrives if she does.

Speaking of Memories of the Future, I thought some of you may like to know that work has begun on Volume Two; Angel One is ready to go beneath Andrew's Red Pen of Doom.

This cover of Poker Face by Molly Lewis is one of those things.

Molly Lewis, you are a national treasure. It is an honor to occasionally share the stage with you.

I guess I could just say, "Hey, I'm playing Magic on Xbox Live this weekend, so check out the details here," but it's more fun to tell a story, first.

In 1993, while killing time between appointments, I wandered into a game shop in the valley. I looked around the aisles, thumbed through the RPG books, talked myself into and then out of buying a ton of unpainted lead figures, and eventually found myself in conversation with the owner.

He picked up a deck of cards, and asked me if I'd heard about this new game called Magic. I was a serious wargamer, with numerous Chaos and Space Marine armies, as well as a folder that was bulging with maps and vehicles for Car Wars. Card games were so beneath me, I don't think I even tried to hide my geeksnort.

He had obviously spent time dealing with annoying nerds (being a game shop owner and all) and he patiently deflected my contempt as he opened the box and showed me the cards inside. Over the next ten or fifteen minutes, he showed me how this wasn't just a card game, but was actually a beautifully-illustrated representation of two powerful wizards using primal and astral energies to duel each other. By the end of his demo, I was sufficiently intrigued, and I bought two decks.

I played the game a few times, but it didn't capture my imagination like the board games and RPGs I loved. The mechanics were interesting, but I had a hard time wrapping my head around advanced concepts, like "tapping" and the mysterious "upkeep." (Perhaps I was not the high-level gamer I thought I was.) I went back to that shop a few weeks later (it must have been near a casting office) and ended up talking to the owner about playing Magic. "It's okay," I said, "but I'm just not that into it."

He reached behind the counter and pulled out a long box. "Maybe you'd like the game better if you had access to all the cards."

"That box has one of every card in the whole game?"

"Yes. It's eighty dollars."

"Sorry, dude, there is no way I'm spending eighty dollars on that."

Yes, for those of you wondering, this particular box had a Black Lotus in it, among other things. Le sigh.

Flash forward about a year. I'm on a Star Trek cruise, and there's a dealer's room on board. One of the dealers sells Magic cards. I'm looking at them, wondering if this game ever caught on, or if this was old stock he was just burning through. A fellow geek sees me looking at the cards, and tells me that he ran Magic games every week. He asks me if I would be interested in playing with him. $20, one starter deck and a couple of boosters later, we duel.

Flash forward a few hours later: It turned out that playing with someone who really knew what Magic was and how the game worked made it a lot of fun to play. It turned out that there was a lot more to the game than just dueling, too: there was deck-building and its attendant strategies! I bought everything that dealer had on the ship, and spent more time playing Magic with this guy and his wife than I did looking at the beautiful Alaskan coastline. (Don't worry, I've since been back to Alaska, and I was able to appreciate its beauty and unobstructed views of Russia.) I don't remember that guy's name, but I can thank and blame him for making me fall in love with Magic: The Gathering.

I was never especially good at the game, but for a brief time, Magic ruled my life. I bought boxes of starters and boosters from my friendly local game shop the minute they went on sale. I had black and blue decks, green and red decks, blue and white decks, and I even had a vicious black and red deck that had just 51 cards in it, thanks to abuse of Dark Ritual.

Right around the Ice Age expansion, though, I stopped having fun playing Magic in tournaments, because it had become an arms race: whoever had the most money and time to seek out the most powerful cards would usually win the game. Unless I was willing to keep buying new cards every few months, I saw a future where the decks I had now would be obsolete, and I wouldn't be able to play competitively with anyone. Because I was never very good at the game anyway, it didn't make sense to me to commit to that kind of investment, so I put my cards into storage, and didn't play again until...

Flash forward to about 2005. Nolan came home from school one day and asked me if I'd ever heard of this game called Magic that some of his friends were playing.

"Sure," I said. "I used to play the hel– er, I used to play it all the time. I still have my cards, if you'd like to see them."

I went into the garage and took my Big Box of Games off the shelf. Inside, in a plastic box with tape around the edges to seal it, were hundreds of Magic cards.

"Wow, that's a lot of cards," Nolan said.

"Yeah. I had a lot of disposable income when I was younger."

"What's that?"

"Something we don't have now."

I took the box into the house and opened it. Most of the cards were organized by type, but a few decks were still intact. Nolan looked over the cards. "This kind of looks like Pokemon," he said.

"Yeah, it's sort of like that, I guess, but not lame," I said. I pulled out two decks and showed him how to play.

Nolan caught Magic fever like a stowaway on a plague ship. I was thrilled to have something to do together, so I naturally encouraged his madness. He started taking my cards with him to school, and using them to successfully wipe the floor with his peers, who apparently didn't know how to defend against the old ways.

Then, one day, he came home very upset. "These idiots at school just print out cards online - fake cards that they get from websites - and put them in sleeves to play with them!"

"That's complete bullshit," I said. Then, "don't tell your mom I said 'bullshit.'"

"I'm not playing with them any more," he said.

"I totally understand that. I'll still play with you, though, and you could always go play at the game shop."

"The game shop smells," he said. Ah, out of the mouths of 14 year-old babes.

"Okay. Well, if you ever change your mind, I'd be happy to take you there.

We played almost daily for a few weeks, but Nolan eventually got distracted by something new and different that didn't involve spending lots of time with his lame stepdad. Le sigh.

Flash forward to 2007. Nolan found interest in Magic again, though he enjoyed deck-building more than actually playing. One day he asked me to take him to the game shop to play, and he came home with a rather amusing story:

"So I went to play with this guy, and when he saw my cards, he got real upset that they weren't in sleeves because they're so old and apparently valuable. He asked me where I got them, and I told them that they were my stepdad's cards."

Nolan didn't ever put his cards into sleeves, as a matter of pride, as a way of showing his opponents that he was using actual cards, not printouts like those douchey kids at his school.

"He actually refused to keep playing with me until I put the cards in sleeves." He did his version of the Comic Book Guy's voice: "These cards are far too valuable! I will not engage in a contest with you until they are protected."

I laughed.

"So he actually gave me some sleeves! I put your cards in them so we could play."

Nolan started going to the game shop three or four times a week, spending his allowance on cards, and building up several formidable decks, including a Sliver deck and a Zombie deck that, while apparently not tournament legal, were feared and loathed by the regulars at the game shop.

Around this time, I started looking at Magic again, and I rebuilt a few of my old decks from memory. I still wasn't very good at the game, and in the arms race portion of the game, Nolan had nukes and I had boards with nails in them, but it was still a lot of fun to play.

Flash forward to about a year ago: I got my hands on a box of Timespiral tournament decks. Nolan and I began playing 2 out of 3 matches using sealed decks (or randomly-drawn decks from the box) and just like that, Magic was fun again.

Flash forward to PAX this year: I was invited to a party celebrating the release of the latest incarnation of Magic, called Zendikar. The people who run Magic at WotC gave me an extremely rare spoiler card, (which prompted someone from D&D to say, "Hey! Wheaton belongs to us! Hands off!") I hadn't looked into the story behind Magic since that cruise in the mid-90s, but I found the concepts inherent to Zendikar - traps, quests, allies, and especially landfall - really interesting and unique to the Magic universe. For the first time in over a decade, I was actually excited to play a new release.

Now, let's flash back to a couple weeks ago: I was invited to play Magic: Duels of the Planeswalkers this weekend as part of Game With Fame on Xbox Live. My only memory of a Magic arcade game was something very disappointing on the PC in the 90s, so I wanted to play the Xbox version before I accepted. One download later, I settled into the couch with some green tea and began to play.

A few hours later, Anne came into the living room and wanted to know why I'd been there so long.

"I'm, uh, doing research for, um, this thing..." I trailed off while I counted life, power, toughness, to see if I could end this match - the third or fourth time I'd played this particular opponent - on this turn.

"Research? Because to the untrained eye, it would look like you'd been playing Xbox for three hours."

I finished counting. Yes, I could win this turn. I sent my minions out to do my bidding.

"Well, it's both." I told Anne about the Game with Fame event, and added, "so I need to figure out if I like this game, and if I do like it, if I have any chance of not sucking like the Dodgers when I play against people who actually know what they're doing."

The screen announced my victory. I pumped my fist. "Yeah, suck on that, fucker!"

"Um..."

"Sorry. It's, um." I said.

Anne nodded. She's sadly used to this sort of thing.

"So what's the verdict?" She asked.

"I like it enough to play it for three hours today and probably three hours every day if I'm not careful."

"Oh, isn't that wonderful for you."

"Sarcasm detected!" I set the controller down. "But don't worry, I have too much work to do to even think about playing the hell out of this until I am way into Memories volume two."

I picked up the controller again. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have unlocked a new deck and I wish to play with it."

"Well, have fun playing with your deck."

We looked at each other, playing a game of "who's going to laugh first" chicken. I lost.

I played the game some more, and even though I never did very well, I think they've managed to translate a lot of the fun of the card game into this arcade game. I'm sure I'll get my ass handed to me eleven different ways on Saturday, but I learned a long time ago that the joy I get out of gaming isn't too heavily dependent on winning (except when I'm playing Munchkin with Andrew, but that's a whole different dynamic.)

If you're in the US, and you'd like more information about the Game with Fame events, you can look here. If you'd like information about playing with me, specifically, you can check out this page at Xbox.com. If you're outside the US, I can't tell you where to look, because I get the US links, on account of I'm in the US. I bet you could start at Xbox.com and go from there, though. If you can't be bothered to jump through links, just add the gamertag "AtWilW" (get it?) and I guess that'll put you into some kind of pool or queue or something. 

If you're planning to play Magic, and you want meaningful competition, you do not want to play me, but don't worry, because there are several Magic champions and Richard Freaking Garfield just waiting to drag your corpse across every plane of existence and back.

We went to Napa for our tenth anniversary. 

For the record: being married to your best friend rules.

I've been struggling lately to turn a lot of ideas I have into actual stories. I kind of feel like my writing mojo has taken a temporary leave of absence, and the harder I look for it, the harder it is to find. It has been incredibly frustrating.

This morning, in Warren Ellis' BAD SIGNAL e-mail, he said:

At least half of all writing involves just sitting and staring into space. Letting your brain out to hunt down ideas, bringing them back all warm and bloody between its teeth.

This is something that I knew to be true, but had temporarily forgotten. As writers, it's vital that we meet our deadlines, of course, but we also have to build time into our work schedule to read books, take walks, visit doctor whisky, play with our dogs, and do the other things that may not look or feel like work, but are integral to our creative process.

Thanks for the reminder, Warren, I needed to hear that.