Yesterday, I stumbled onto my “About” page and found out that one of our own, thoughtofvg, gifted me the Liebster Blog Award.

The award gets passed on to excelled bloggers with fewer than 200 followers to recognize their efforts  to a larger audience.

Like ‘thoghtofvg’ I too love the German language (as chanonyx might tell you) so to earn an award that originated in Germany tickles my proverbial Wernicke’s area.

That sounded dirty. What I meant was, the language center of my brain is grateful.

The rules:

1. Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog [check]
2. Link back to the blogger who awarded you (for blends of thought and poetry, check out thoughtofvg) [checker check]
3. Copy and paste the award on your blog [triple check]
4. Present Liebster to 5 blogs of 200 followers or less who you feel deserve notoriety (see below) [quadruple check]
5. Let ‘em know they have been chosen by leaving a comment at their blog [quintuple check]

I follow lots of blogs, but here are five underblogs I support first with my readership, and now with the Liebster Award:

Ellie Ann Soderstrom - This girl is what I imagine my fraternal twin sister would have been like. She’s smart, fun, writes for a younger audience than I, used to be in a digital writer’s group with me, not to mention that three of her sisters and her brother-in-law have also been in writers groups with me. She enjoys random nerd crap and we get on each others nerves if we spend too much time talking about the same thing. First you have your best friend who likes all the things you like for all the same reasons in all the same ways. Then you have your next best friend who likes all the things you like, but comes at it from COMPLETELY different angles than you do. You might even call them the wrong angles, but then again, your next best friend would probably say the same thing about you. Ellie’s like that, like a great sister. And she’s probably the most cheerful, supportive lady in my life outside of my bride, my biological sister, my mother and my grandmother. I support her as much or more than any other writer friend of mine and will call out a hit on anyone who gives her crap. I know a guy. His name’s Leon.

Mark Neunschwander – When I need photos, I call this dude. We braved the trenches of Whiskerino together. I’m actually typing this from inside his studio creepily staring at him while he rearranges things on the counter so that when he reads this later, he’ll be freaked out that he didn’t notice. He’s the go-to guy for Joplin big-city photography, one of the highlights of the growing Downtown Joplin scene and a dear friend. We’re also working on a photo book for what Mark affectionately refers to as “The ‘Nader’” (a.k.a The EF5 Tornado).

Chris Travis – Met this guy randomly at a wedding in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. He’s a church planter in Manhattan and understands a little of the tension I feel between the writer and the pastor. Unlike many shady religious writers, Chris joined an already existing writers group in New York. There he discovered the works of Patrick Rothfuss and, to my knowledge, has never turned back.

Yor Ryeter – Yor took on a rather ambitious undertaking: 10,000 pieces of writing. As I’m doing something similar, I sympathize with the struggle (I’m at 1,904 hours out of 10,000).

Lauren Schaubert – This is my biological sister, so of course I’m gonna brag on her. All those nice things I said about Ellie being my sister I say from the experience of having a PHENOMENAL little sister. Lauren’s writing very well, painting even better and thinking deeply for being a mere sophomore in high school. I’m proud to give this award finally to her newest blog Truly Naked.

Congrats everyone.

Chuh-huh… yeah! That’s why today’s fantastic point of ignorance goes out to all of you wordsmiths, literators, storyweavers and spelling bee champions out there. I asked for free stuff this Christmas, things like carols and cider and snow cones and oral stories involving hearts five sizes too small but my Grandma’s a gift giver like most of my family. She bought me a copy of The Thinker’s Thesaurus.

Touché, granny. Touché.

Here’s the thing, I’m a recovering academic. I root out ivory tower talk when it rears it’s out-of-touch head. I also doubt I’ll be publishing a story, a non-fiction feature or even a poem in the New Yorker any time soon. Though I’m an avid reader, they’d scoff at my work if it ever managed (against all odds) to land a manuscript on their desks. Because of these disqualifications, I find little practical use for such a book as The Thinker’s Thesaurus.

Don’t even care.

I aint’ gonna read this book ta learn ta write good or ta sound savvy. I’mo read it fer kicks and giggles. It’s a blast, and helpful for finding the names of things. Here sit one dozen jewels I found in the bottom of my prospector pan after sifting through her loquacious pages:

• To freeze on an epic scale is to glaciate.
• On the other hand, were you Frosty the Snowman, you could melt or deliquesce.
• A bullfight could be called a corrida.
• The bigwigs in Washington responsible for bailouts are also nabobs.
• If the tornado siren was alarming, then it might as well be aposematic.
• A hoax involving false stories we call a canard.
• Praise is approbation given by an encomiast.
• Hobson’s choice struggles to eliminate two of these three: predicament, zugzwang or conjuncture.
• Everyone who predicts misfortune and is ignored takes the name Cassandra because Apollo gave Cassandra the gift of prophecy. She scorned him and he cursed her to know everything terrible that would happen but could stop none of it.
• Call any woman who’s pregnant for the first time a primipara, but describe her as enceinte or gravid.
• A sound is a sonority, but if it repeats like drums, guns or hooves, we call it a rataplan.
• Dub a pretty woman houri, a working gal grisette, scheming ladies jezebel and slender women sylphs. Viragos know strength and courage, fishwives can be crass, maenads rage in screaming frenzy, but the last word will not pass this meter’s mustard: gynecomorphous men look more like well… women.

Enjoy the intelligent alternatives.

I waited right around seven years to do this – ever since I stepped onto the college scene and my newfound friends began badgering me to watch the show. I borrowed the series from a friend, sat down on my Saturday at 7:45am and watched the series straight until 9pm. Yes, I was that hooked. This show’s amazing, and I completely understand why Firefly fans beg so often, so long and so convincingly  about making a second season.

It’s like all of you told me all these years that there was gold in them there hills, but I blew you off because, let’s face it, there’s always gold in them there hills. But seven years later I walk over the tops of them there hills on the first open Saturday it crosses my mind and find out what you meant was “there’s gold on them there hills.” Lying around. In hunks and nuggets and bars. What you meant was “take a walk over this hill and pick up all the friggin’ gold you want, dummy.” That was Firefly for me, walking around and finding gold everywhere. That’s why I imbibed all of it in a single day: gold rush. Three things stood out to me: a lesson, an interpretation and a longing.

The Lesson

I listened to the commentary on the first episode as well. Didn’t have time to get farther as the work week began… well… today. However inside it, I learned two very neat things from Mr. Whedon (who will never read this, so I’m allowed to talk frankly). The first is naming. I’ve always approached the names of things and characters from a purely etymological angle. I want to know what a name means and where it comes from. I search for meaning and derivatives and then come up with a name. For Joss, they wanted something with power and poise, something with strength and subtlety. He went for the feel of the name. What has more power than fire? More grace than the ability to fly? As it turns out, there’s a creature that combines both and so the name stuck.

In addition, this man knows story. I listened to his and Nathan’s commentary Saturday. Only on Tuesday, I read the Ocean’s Eleven screenplay while listening to the commentary. That contrast could not have felt more stark. Soderbergh and Griffin sounded like rich playboys who cared little for the story and characters because the budget and stars overshadowed everything. Now I’m sure they’re great people, but they felt like jerks. Whedon, however, sounded  authentic, open, even vulnerable as he talked about his baby. I learned several concepts about story that I haven’t read elsewhere from Joss and Nathan’s comments. I will return to the Whedonverse to learn similar lessons.

The Interpretation

In that commentary track, Whedon talks about how he always saw the crew as living bits of the life Malcolm cannot have. He only developed Kaylee, but here’s some of the others:

1. Kaylee lives out Mal’s joy and pleasure for the simple things in life.
2. Shepherd exposes the spirituality the Captain might have had.
3. Inara enjoys a sex life that Malcolm cannot enjoy in his broken state.
4. Simon thinks deeper and fuller than Mal can post-war.
5. River symbolizes Malcolm’s struggle to keep innocence and childhood in a world that insists on breaking everything.
6. Jayne flexes muscles that might work for the alternate version of Malcolm, had the war ended differently.

I can’t place Zoe and Wash. Any thoughts?

The Longing

River never busted a move on Reavers we never met. Mal and Inara never got together. Simon never performed a crazy surgery and Kaylee never hooked up with Simon. Shepherd never revealed his past and therefore had no chance for redemption from it.

Yeah, I get why fans hate that there’s no more. However, after what Whedon about the effect the show had on his marriage, and what his sister said:

Guys, no one in the Whedonverse is in support of helpnathanbuyfirefly.com. Please save your money!

I seriously doubt they’ll ever go back. Sad day, but happy day all the same. I watched The Professional and Maggie Smith in the season finale this weekend too. It was an emotional weekend, film-wise.

Thanks for pushing me to it, everyone.

Fantasy writers perfect cartography. We have Tolkien to think for that, for he coined the phrase “cartographic writing” – writing from the map. You create the world, the mythology of the world and then you write with a character inside that world. Unfortunately, many fantasy writers focus so long on the what and the where that they neglect the who and the why questions. Good answers to these questions create great stories. Today, we turn to the fantasy writers to teach us about trade, authority, ceremony, and ethics.

Trade

What can your characters do to make a living? Awhile back on Twitter, I asked people to list out medieval professions. Piper, Karl, Matt and I came up with the following list:

• Tinker. Tailor. Tanner. Fletcher. Cooper.
• Miller. Mayor. Archer. Chester. Cobbler.
• Smith. Butcher. Smelter. Sailor. Fisher.
• Baker. Hunter. Harper. Valet. Butler.
• Footman. Pikeman. Barker. Geoffrey. Trouper.
• Foreman. Friar. Blacker. Herald. Gardener.

And that’s just for the medieval world. Every world sifts people into categories of professions. Where can your characters work? How can they make a living? Do they scratch a living off of rocks? Do they steal Incan matrimonial headmasks? Did they inherit the money and plan on working the gentry for the rest of their lives? Do they sing for supper?

Obviously the possibilities right around the restaurant at the end of the universe, especially when you begin creating professions out of thin air. Here’s a few of my character’s professions: ridger, ambient and steamstress. Whatever you create, whatever genre you choose, picking a job for your characters will illumine their upbringing and, most importantly, LIMIT your creativity toward great choices. Choose their craft, and you qualify them to achieve certain goals and fail miserably at others.

Authority

Who wears the pants?

We could ask: who makes things happen? Or: who moves the chips and brokers the power? Jesus thought that the greatest people, the most powerful are the servants of all. Malcolm X thought they should take power back from the white man. Feminists give power to women, creating matriarchal societies. Chauvinists give power to men, creating patriarchal societies. Patricide puts the kids in charge and parricide eliminates an annoying relative. Suicide lets the world win and genocide leaves one man standing – Hitler, for instance.

Whatever your values, and whatever the values of your theme, someone will hold the most influence, carry out their goals for society and affect more change for good or for bad.

The Turks held the power in LAWRENCE OF ARABIA until Lawrence served the Arabs and gave control back to them. At the end of the day, because of his service, Lawrence held the most power.

In The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor is the dad, but holds no influence other than money. Dimitri’s holds the strength of the body – any fistfight and he wins. Ivan holds the corner on the mind market – any argument and he wins, even if he’s wrong. But Alyosha binds their souls and wills together. He’s meek, mild, even holy. He turns his cheek. In the story, Alyosha holds the power but wants none of it.

Someone or something or some group will always struggle to keep power while another struggles to take power back. They will try to change society with or against one another. However this plays out in your world will limit your choices even more.

Ceremony

Arrow of Light. Diploma. Baptism. Signed contracted for your first paying gig. Wedding ring.

Symbols ignite our ceremonies, rites, sacraments and customs. Every major group holds ceremony whether they be The Daughters of the American Revolution or The Illuminati, Boy Scouts of America or The Red Hat Club. When we gather, we start to find familiarities in our groups. Those familiarities rise to the surface as our traditions and through them we create habits, then customs and eventually culture.

Give your world Ceremony. Bring out the pomp or the vows, the code of honor among thieves or Victorian niceties. Bring out the bone china or bring out ‘cha dead. Bilbo hosted an eleventy-first birthday and we learned about Hobbiton through it. How will you limit your choices? However you do it, it will expose practices and prejudices that we all possess.

Ethics

Though the world agrees on certain evils like mass murder, the laws and ethics permitted in a given culture highlight virtues and vices as seen by others. The world of 1984 endorses historical gerrymandering but we, in a different culture, shout along with Winston, “Down with Big Brother!” Danny Ocean’s world approves of thievery as long as it’s executed with class. “You shook Sinatra’s hand,” they say, “you should have known better.”

What would your protagonist die for? Live for? Why would he/she marry another? Think carefully before you answer that one because it’s not always “love.” In A Song of Ice and Fire, people marry for strategic political alliance (see authority above). Saresh’s wedding in the TV show Heroes highlights the need for family continuation via arranged marriage. For SHADOWLANDS, Lewis gets hitched on paper to save an American woman from hardship. I’ll ask again, why would he/she marry another? I talked in the protagonist post about how each choice defines a character. For world building, the available options define the ethical framework of the world. Those who promote virtue ethics refuse to believe in ethical dilemmas while older ethics teachers tie damsels and minorities down to separate railroad tracks and force you to chose which to save. Ethics expose our loyalties.

In short when you frame up their economy, political system, sacred moments and guiding principles you get headstart on their world.

“So Taborlin fell, but he did not despair. For he knew the name of the wind, and so the wind obeyed him. It bore him to the ground as gently as a puff of thistledown and set him on his feet as soft as a mother’s kiss.”

Wind’s fairly important in this book. I could argue that it’s even more important in WMF, but that detours us from our goal (Remember, the “continue reading” is to protect Kingkiller virgins from spoilers).

Why wind? Why mention the control of wind and even inversion of wind? What’s wind to do with alchemy?

During sublimation, a vapor escapes the mercury. The alchemist must capture that vapor and through solution and distillation turn it into water. If you looked at the Emerald Table, you’d see the fourth law: “The wind carried it in its womb, the Earth is the nurse thereof.” Maier thought this means that sulphur (the masculine) is carried inside Mercury (the feminine) as the raw goods of the work. In the middle of sublimation and distillation, we see Hermes flying through the air like wind. Here’s Zoroaster’s Cave:

Our stone in the beginning is called water; when the body is dissolved, Ayre or Wind; when it tends to consolidation, then it is named earth, and when it is perfect and fist it is called Fire.

They also called that mercurial mist the zephyr, and it often symbolizes the white stone of the albedo. The Alchemist by Ben Jonson refers to Sublet’s puffer, Face, as billowing the flames. “That’s his fire-drake,/ His lungs, his Zephyrus, he that puffes [sic] his coals [sic].”

Key points:

1. Wind comes during sublimation, when the spirit rises out of solid mass
2. Wind, as feminine, carries the sulphur/stone, as masculine
3. Wind dissolves the stone before it’s made sturdy and then perfect
4. Wind billows the flame of the work
5. Wind symbolizes the search

We’ll take each in stride. Kvothe’s spirit won’t rise until book two when he learns his lessons and finds purpose. The albedo teaches the protagonist everything he needs for the action of the rubedo. The nigreddo prepares him to learn, the albedo prepares him to act, the rubedo prompts him to act.. Give Kvothe wisdom and he rises up.

During the times when Kvothe needs the piercing, pursuing aggression of masculinity – the wind carries him. When his family’s snubbed and refused a stage by some jerk, Kvothe watches Ben blow over the officer. When Ambrose finally squares off against Kvothe at the end of book one, Kvothe calls the wind. In book two, when faced with the masculine need to refuse the feminine Felurian, Kvothe imprisons her in wind and then names her. Shortly after, when Kvothe goes to the matriarchal Adem and needs to beat the masculine “sword” tree, the feminine wind carries him safely through to touch the trunk of the tree. Add all of this to the powerful women in the series, and it baffles me why people call Rothfuss a chauvinist. The feminine carries the masculine for Rothfuss, as well as for most pregnant women.

Wind dissolves Kvothe. He chases after the wind, billowing the flame of the work. His search for the name of the wind nearly destroys him as often as his search for the Chandrian. In some ways, Kvothe alternates between the positive goal of naming the wind and the negative goal of murdering the Chandrian. Were I a gambling man, I’d put $20 down on those two goals reconciling in the climax of book three.

But then again, I don’t gamble.

Wind symbolizes the search. Elodin comes right out and tells us when he talks about students “chasing after the wind.” They actually take time off of school to find the name of the wind, seeing the world, experiencing the craziness out there. Kvothe comes back, and he’s not only got the name of the wind, he’s enshaeden.

PS> Check the disclaimer before you blow my house down.

Kingkiller Alchemy:

• Kingkiller Alchemy
• Felling Night
• Blue Fire
• “Stone, break!”
• Tor.com reread
• Kingkiller Forum

Also:

• Kvothe’s Sex Life #1
• Kvothe’s Sex Life #2

Nair wears short shorts.

Actually I’m talking about a complete different pair of shorts today. Some of you work with churches to communicate truth in relevant ways. To help you out, Derek Hammeke and I cranked out a couple of illustrations on Sermon Spice. Find our profile under Flying Treasure. If these two videos do well on the site, we hope to increase the length and production quality of our future films.

Both of these humanize a typewriter that interacts with the audience. Tell me what you think…

They Have Punch

This short mirrors the message of the series I wrote for CIY. We compare God’s words to typewriter keys that instantly produce words.

Here’s two screenshots:

Over-Connected

This video speaks to the over-connectedness we all feel from USB cords, networking and email but few of us address.

Two more shots:

Hope that you can enjoy both (regardless of whether or not you agree with the concepts) and that some of you can find them useful. Consider this yet another impulsive pastime.

Unfortunately sometimes, just like then, I get bored or need attention or need to feel heard or ache for respect and honor. When I was a kid, I’d give my little brother a wedgie or hide a bag full of his year-old Halloween candy and call it good. Mom’s response?

Quit antagonizing your brother!

She meant, “Quit escalating things, Lance. Quit stirring crap up. Quit harassing him – especially since the tone of our household was peaceful/fun/creative/controlled/kind a moment ago. Antagonism escalates things at home, in interpersonal conversation, in the world and basically everywhere else. But what antagonism achieves is integrity. I’m using “integrity” broader than normal. Normally I mean  integrated, whole, uncompromising, good. For the characters in your novel I mean consistent. The framework. Integrity, for our purposes here, means what lies at the core. Want to see consistently what kind of man I am? Look at what I chose to do when my brother or best friend or wife or father or school antagonized me and opposed what I wanted most. That’s the measure of my integrity – my choices when faced with antagonism.

Your protagonist is only as good as your antagonist.

If your protagonist turns into a lifeless exoskeleton hanging there like jello inside saran wrap, it’s probably not her fault. She’s got nothing to fight against. Charles Xavier (and his “precious” X-Men) suck without Magneto. We need that MLK verses Malcolm X/Hitler contrast. Charles Promotes love and restoration of enemies including Magneto, while Magneto pushes for superiority via violent takeover. Charles’ mindset means nothing without Eric’s. Alyosha only feels pure against the backdrop of his father, Fyodor. Followers of Jesus could not call Christ pure without the temptations in the desert, the friendship he extended to Judas and the chance he offered to Pilate. Harry’s no good without Voldemort. “The time is coming,” says Dumbledore, “when you will have to chose between what is right and what is easy.” Since the choice between two equally good (or bad) options forms a character’s integrity, that character’s only as good as the dilemma. The dilemmas are only as good as the forces of antagonism that initiate them. Where’s Tom without Jerry? Thomas Crowne without Catherine? Captain Geech without the Shrimp Shack Shooters? Bud Fox without forces of greed? Mr. Smith without Washington? Dr. Strangelove without THE BOMB? (If you’ll forgive me) Stone Cold Steve Austin without The Undertaker?

So my antagonist sucks. Now what?

Start thinking antagonism. That’s why this post has a verb for a title: antagonize. Maybe it’s one person: FREDDY VS. JASON, but maybe it’s a whole system THE SKULLS. Antagonize in layers. (And here’s where I’ll borrow a concept from McKee and King).

Let’s say you want to write a story about a girl who succumbs to the pressures of dieting over time and wastes away. Girl VS comfort food is okay, but you’ve only really got enough material for a one-act there – enough to show simple lapses in her diet. Girl VS comfort food sounds like a short film, much like girl verses creepy small town motel. What about girl VS gluttony? That’s interesting, but it’s still not complete. We’ve got enough for a decent novella or an anemic novel. A screenplay like this might drag, but how can we get any worse than gluttony?

To form good antagonism think in three categories temptation, vice, and false virtue. Those three apply whether your character is just or unjust, kind or cruel, happy or sad. Kittens may tempt a bad man as much as good men feel tempted by cougars (the ones that hang out in dive bars). Temptation. Vice. False Virtue. For our dieting girl, her virtue is “to diet and lose weight.”

Diet

• The occasional munchies or comfort food (temptation)
• Gluttony or all-out indulgence by throwing away the diet (vice)
• Binge-eating and purging (false virtue)

With this in mind, our protag starts out in the bathroom getting off the toilet and onto a bathroom scale. It’s time. She starts dieting and sneaks food here and again. By Act Two, she’s completely abandoned the diet and gained eighty pounds in a depressed mound of womanhood, but here at the turn of Act Three (what Nolan might call “The Prestige”), she wants to “go on a diet” again. On the outside, she looks like a dieting pro! She’s lost a hundred pounds or more in weeks. She looks like Barbie and Rosemary Clooney put together, but the last glimpse we have of her is at a party, scarfing down carloads of appetizers. “How do you do it?” someone asks.

“Hard work and creativity,” she responds.

The last shot shows her purging it all back into the toilet from the first shot.

This makes it easy to broadcast theme (we lose our souls when we concern ourselves only with looks) and displays the consistent choices – the integrity – of our character. You’ll notice there isn’t a single antagonist in this, but multiple. People offer her swiss cake rolls or a night on the town at the start – she deserves it.  Maybe her husband buys her a lazy boy or she gets a stay-at-home job in Act Two. By the end, we’ll need some major catalyst to get her re-motivated in the wrong direction - maybe her long-lost father says something terrible to her about her body.

Now you don’t have to end your story as a downer, as I pointed out with emotional structure, but you do need to move from temptation to vice to false virtue. Instead of listing out a thousand examples, come up with some of your own in the comments.

List a virtue, then show how you could antagonize
that virtue with temptation, vice and false virtue.

But Taborlin knew the names of all things, and so all things were his to command. He said to the stone ‘Break!’ and the stone broke. The wall tore like a piece of paper, and through that hole Taborlin could see the sky and breath the sweet spring air.

In alchemy “stone” as a singular entity refers to the philosopher’s stone the vessel or protagonist transforming from common to holy or lead to gold. A “stone” is a prima materia that has gained the Midas touch and provides the aqua de vida.

But we’re not talking about a stone but stone as an element. Taborlin knew the name of the element “stone” and could control it… as in the title The Name of the Wind. For Lindy’s advice on the matter, we need his “rock” entry. Rock stores the prima materia - the philosopher’s stone. Robert Fludd named the stone “a spirituall [sic] rock of pure transparent saphir [sic].“

Translation: the rock holds the good stuff.

Think of the movie “The Rock.” Once you get over you’re the man now, dog lines and Nick Cage’s acting, that movie hands out double-entendre – The ROCK (Alcatraz) and the rock (weapon). No, I don’t think the movie’s alchemical unless you want to turn your brain to mush. However it shows a rough exterior broken by an ex-con. The rock (biological weapon) inside the rock (prison), the goods inside the protective exterior. The “tumulus of rock” was the Alchemist’s name for the vessel just like the grave or the sepulcher, where alchemical lovers (quicksilver and brimstone) unite in the opus alchemicum to make the philosophical “child” or “stone” – the product of the work.

Judging by the title of the series, we’re looking to transmute a barkeep into a Kingkiller.

Elodin step, step, slides; step, step, slides through that rocky prison affectionately called “Haven.” There he show’s Kvothe the cells (or tombs) that hold failed Arcanists. He takes Kvothe into his former cell and we feel oppression. Since I’m studying the Gilded Age for my book, I think of Sing-Sing prison whose name means “stone upon stone.” In this cell, Elodin yells CYBAERSALIEN and smooth stone crumbles into a thousand pieces revealing that copper mesh beneath. We could go into copper as the metal of Venus, copper as a restrictive force in the series, copper as a sign that the work of this novel is reaching climax but I’ll abstain.

What’s important in the Taborlin story and in Elodin’s case is inversion. Inversion sums up any cross between Alchemy and the elements: Make the stone ethereal and invisible, make the wind solid, make the fire cold and secret, make the water burn. In the next book, Kvothe fashions a prison out of wind. That tells us something. When Elodin and Taborlin crumble stone, we learn something.

Mind you, Name of the Wind could be called “the Book of Stone.” Taborlin names stone. Elodin names stone. We pull up a barstool in the Waystone. Kvothe and Denna camp out on a giant stone. There’s the lodestone, the gem stones and Kvothe sky-diving off of Haven to crash into the earth. All of these stones set up a black background for the stark inversion of stone. Again, there’s a hard exterior hiding the good stuff. Something needs shattered.

Kvothe’s a hard case to crack, in other words, but when we grind him down with flogging, name-calling, restrictions, splitting his mind until he bleeds, poverty, patricide, ignorance, school and  teenage angst we start to get into the good stuff on the inside.

PS> Please read the disclaimer before you pick up stones to stone me.

Kingkiller Alchemy:

• Kingkiller Alchemy
• Felling Night
• Blue Fire
• Tor.com reread
• Kingkiller Forum

Also:

• Kvothe’s Sex Life #1
• Kvothe’s Sex Life #2

I bring three projects to show-and-tell today: a completed one, an in-progress one and a future one (or ones).

The Word Animation

MD Neely and Johnny Scott of CIY hired me to write narrations for four short episodes tracing the history of Scripture as they understand it. Their faith-based non-profit hosts conferences for youth trying to enrich their lives and move them to care for their communities.

I wrote the following for their Jr. High conferences that go by the name “Believe”:

Used with permission from MD Neely of Christ in Youth
per contract line with Johnny Scott: “Author retains the right
to use this material in his personal portfolio compilations.”

Short Films

Currently, I’m writing several short films in various stages of production with Key Productions. One of them requires permission from several people around the area for various shots. We just obtained permission to use a grave site here in town.

Any guesses about the style or subject of the film that will use the graves?

Resume Overhaul

I know it sounds silly, but in the midst of all of my hyper-editing (and thanks to my inner academic) I overwrote my résumé a year ago. After doing research on creative resume ideas, I came up with this little story that I hope draws future work either taking care of hurting people or writing.

Again, I know many of you come here for the impulsive pastimes and the censored opinions, so if you’ll bear us writers, professional artists and pastoral types for a brief moment:

Filed under: film, The Writing Life, video, Writing Tagged: contract line, film production, key productions, narration, resume, school conferences, script, small victories, the word ]]> http://lanceschaubert.org/2012/02/08/recent-gigs/feed/ 3 37.087687 -94.476409 37.087687 -94.476409 lanceschaubert monogram http://lanceschaubert.org/2012/02/06/ask-the-experts-gymnast/ http://lanceschaubert.org/2012/02/06/ask-the-experts-gymnast/#comments Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:13:52 +0000 lanceschaubert http://lanceschaubert.org/?p=2268 ]]> At eight I asked my father if I could bench press, but he refused. “Not till you’re thirteen. Your bones gotta develop.” But I was eight and a bony eight at that. I grew slower than my peers with little to show for my weaknesses. I’ve wondered if no form of vigorous exercise existed for children…

Similar weakness might have come for Paul Comstedt had he rejected gymnastics at age four. He grew up in Airborne Gymnastics and Dance in Colorado, a gym boasting twelve-hundred athletes and twenty-five thousand square feet. (Average gyms use nine-thousand square feet). Infused with jazz, hip-hop and ballet (technique class), Paul prepared to brave the Midwest Regional Ballet later in life. They asked him to take the lead of Swan Lake this summer.

Paul managed his first girl’s gymnastics team in high school, a gig for spotting and coaching. He yearned to work with youth and considered counseling. Gymnastics facilitated mentoring relationships distinct from other crafts, requiring deep trust and time commitment from the athlete. Many gymnastics coaches train the same athlete from age four to eighteen, and if the athletes chooses to work for that coach, their relationship crests twenty years. Add coach intentionality plus perfect full-body training to the mix, and gymnasts mature faster. There’s a reason USA Gymnastics says Begin here, go anywhere. Before he was twenty, Paul knew his path.

Meanwhile Derek Hammeke, one of Paul’s partners, volunteered in children’s ministry. Derek and Paul became fast friends after meeting before a chapel announcement. Someone was searching for two tumblers. Both guys sported the garb of two foot soldiers, flipped down the main aisle, jumped onto the stage and fought another volunteer wearing a Ninja Turtle suit.

Kip Johnson, another partner, was busy instructing kids, competing nationally and taking third in tumbling at World’s. Kip’s family-style coaching nurtured staff and athletes alike, and crafted a deep friendship with Paul. Later Paul broke his back and Kip – a licensed physical therapist at Freeman – revived him.

Coaching that team landed Paul a job in his first gym. He coached two years, then moved to Joplin as Girl’s Gymnastics Director and head coach at the Flip Shop. That same journey brought him back to Colorado to work for Airborne. Between these two jobs, Paul met the inner life of gym managment and the joy of coaching multiple state champion gymnasts.

Paul never competed thanks to injuries. Like ACL surgeries for basketball junkies, gymnasts collect injuries, but rarely like Paul. Rising above the curve, he broke his back in college, broke his ankle in high school, collapsed his sternum, dislocated his hip, and buckle-fractured both arms. “I was a frustrating athlete,” Paul said. “My physical ability was high and my desire was high, but the amount of strain my body could take was… not very high. It frustrated me because I worked so hard I broke.”

During his junior year, he attended a church service:

In Chuck, he sees something and has this flash where all this information comes to him all at once. That’s what it felt like. I was sitting there not paying attention and I had this… I guess you’d call it a vision? I saw a gym and staff and kids and tons of ideas hit me all at once. Performance groups raised awareness for causes. Mentoring programs. Missions trips. All of these visions revolved around using the gym to mentor kids.

Kip drove them home as Paul sat in silence. Paul turned to Kip and said, “We should open a gym.” He gave Kip a handful of ideas and three streets later Kip said, “Yup. Let’s do it.”

Back in Colorado Paul argued with God. Paul always wanted to live overseas in China or Europe – America was “his Africa.” He begged God to move him from here, out of the Middle West. The longer he fought, the more God splintered his expectations. Every week God revealed something for the gym. Paul remembered how parents propositioned him to mentor their kids, to prod them toward maturity. Other similar memories came to mind.

“Flips for Freedom” came. Some gyms do fundraisers, but gym managers get too busy to devote chunks their time. Paul creates packets to give to other gyms, helping them do quick and easy fundraisers. When he tried this in Colorado, they raised $4,000 to combat child sex trafficking in an afternoon. It works.

Wanting to make sure he never pursued something from selfishness, Paul was shocked when God called him to an enjoyable craft. That’s the question: where does ambition intersect with the Gospel? How does that work?

Can it?

In the midst of these questions, Paul found peace. In time Kip, Paul and Derek partnered to build this gym. Derek stepped onto the Amplified scene a year and a half ago. Looking for ministry apart from video, Derek’s experience with children’s ministry dovetailed with Amplified. Coupled with his no-compromise ethical standards, Derek brings honest assessment to the team. Kip does aquatic therapy, sports medicine and outpatient therapy. Many gyms keep a physical therapist on staff, the invaluable rehab professional. That’s Kip. He loves working with kids and sponsored Young Life for years. Together these three drew up plans and started construction.

They named it Amplify Gymnastics: Gym, Dance and Cheer and bought state-of-the-art equipment to fill their space. The building was finished. The equipment was one Wednesday away. A bar set, floor bars and preschool equipment had already arrived. It was four o’clock on Sunday May 22, 2011:

At 5:17 pm, an EF5-strong tornado shattered Joplin. When it tore down East Twentieth Street, it passed 2011 Stephens Boulevard and leveled what could have been Amplify Gymnastics. As a young man starting his first business, Paul’s main concern was the equipment. Truckloads of equipment moved en route to Joplin. Unlike retail hardware, they custom-made this equipment for Amplify. Gym equipment companies seldom take returns. To make matters worse the SBA was approving a paltry 10% of tornado victims for small business loans.

But the manufacturer returned every piece of equipment. The insurance money covered their building and through collateral coverage, enabled Amplify to do their fifth-year remodel five years ahead of schedule. They doubled in square feet. The SBA normally bases approval off of the last three years of business. Amplified had zero years of business. The SBA loved Amplified’s proposal and approved a loan anyway.

With all of this and more, Amplify’s staff and facility will soon host the premier gymnastics center of the four states. They open their doors February Twenty Fifth for all young cheerleaders, fitness junkies, gymnasts and long-haired, hippie adults like me interested in parkour or free running.

It’s worth the time and trust, I suppose. The world tells us bony people we’re weak. Then the world breaks our backs, or at least tries. If we refuse to yield, it wields mother nature’s fury against us.

Despite bad breaks, there’s a great family of gymnasts waiting for us, ready to bounce back.