Fleming had a good war but fought it all from behind his desk in Whitehall.

Peter Smithers, a colleague in naval intelligence, said: “Ian constantly longed to be personally engaged in the excitement. He was of an essentially aggressive nature. It was the repression of all these desires by authority, quite rightly, which in my opinion fired the imagination engaged in his books.”

After the war Fleming became a journalist again and then a writer, dashing off “Casino Royale” in 1952 and 11 further Bond novels before his death in 1964, at the age of 56.

Pretty stupid to want to be personally engaged in the excitement of war. Because the punchline to all that excitement is invariably death. But you can pretty clearly see how he acted out a latent fantasy with the character of Bond.

So what about me? Well, it’s frighteningly simple. On many occasions I’ve given people advice as a consultant and they didn’t listen. Many, many people have these experiences. Waiters, IT professionals, tour guides, car salesmen, managers, really just about everybody. And it’s tremendously frustrating.

It would be an oversimplification to say that Edwin is how only I took out my frustration. There’s a bunch of satire working in How to Succeed in Evil. And, I hope, a critique of the ways people take themselves too seriously. But if you were to look a link between Edwin and I (or Edwin and any reader) it would be that frustration with people you are trying to help who insist on doing stupid things.

Yes, there will be a few spoilers. But really, who cares? Spoilers only ruin the most venial kind of storytelling. Take, for example, good old William Shakespeare. He had a habit of giving away the whole story in the first minute of the play.

1 Two households, both alike in dignity,
2 In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
3 From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
4 Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
5 From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
6 A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
7 Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
8 Do with their death bury their parents’ strife,
9 The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love,
10 And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
11 Which, but their children’s end, nought could remove,
12 Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
13 The which if you with patient ears attend,
14 What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

Sometimes it’s tricky to see things clearly through the Elizabethan English. Two families hate each other. Their kids fall in love and then commit suicide. That’s the whole story. But Swounds Man! It doesn’t take one whit away from the play. Because the question of all great imaginative fiction is not how or what but why? Crappy Sci-Fi cares about how the teleporter works. Great Sci-Fi cares about why, when the teleporter can only save your wife or your son, you choose who you do. In fact, that’s all of great writing.

As another example, here’s a bit of scene where Topper convinces Edwin to sue Excelsior (basically Superman). That completely spoils the piece, but, even knowing that, I’ll wager you enjoy it thoroughly.

“You really think we can sue him?”, asked Edwin

“I know we can. It’s called the law. And if anybody can twist it to work in your favor, it’s me. But more importantly than that, we’ll have public opinion on our side. It will be fun, easy and profitable. And I know how you like profit.”

“But he’s a costumed hero. Beloved by the masses he protects.”

“Beloved? No, he’s famous. He famous because he can fly and bullets bounce off his chest. He’s not famous because he’s a talented guy. He’s not famous because he’s a nice guy. People like the show, the don’t give a shit about the person. In fact, they secretly dislike him.”

“You mean you secretly dislike him.”

“You’re goddamned right I dislike him. I actually have a secret grudge against everybody who’s taller than I am. Excepting you big fella. You’re so freakishly tall, it wraps around, I actually feel a little kinship. The world wasn’t made to fit either of us. Anyway,” Topper shook off this line of thinking like a dog shaking off water, “my point is, how do you like a guy who constantly reminds you that you’re inferior? You might kiss his ass in case you need him. You might put him on the Christmas card list for getting little fluffy out of that Elm tree,”

Now that Topper was all revved up, Edwin couldn’t resist, “Elm?”

“Maple, pine, spruce, it can be a friggin Juniper bush for all I care. Point is, he’s arrogant. Prideful. And what does pride goeth before?” The pause became so long it was no longer rhetorical.

Reluctantly Edwin said, “A fall?”

“Not anymore my lanky friend. These days, pride goeth before settling out of court for a big fat wad of sweaty cash.”

“Would that be the proverbial wad of sweaty cash?”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever you like. Let’s just get this asshole.”

“Is this personal for you?”

“Yeah it’s personal. It’s always personal with me. That’s why I’m so good. come on Ed, this is a guy, you tell him to take a flying fuck at a rolling donut, he can actually take a flying fuck at a rolling donut? Who likes that guy? Wait, don’t answer that. I’m your laywer I’ll answer for you. Nobody. Nobody likes that guy.”

Hey, lookie there, there goes page 100. Halfway there.

Some of the chapters are little more than an outline — a description, or a key bit of dialog. But all the pieces are there. Rough and incomplete as it may be, I have written a novel. I know that the first draft of everything sucks. (Quite intimately) But it is a first draft. Huzzah.

Now it’s time to read it through and see if I can make anything good out of this gangly pile of words.

> Within a few days I had managed to find time for something I had previously no interest in and had listened to the lot.

It is exactly the kind of thing that keeps me going. It means I have something worth working into a longer form. As I have thought about it with my Edwin hat on (amazing how a character gets under your skin) the real cost of a book or movie is not the amount that one pays for it. It’s the amount you pay plus the cost of your time to ingest it. And time is pretty damn scarce. There’s a thousand, million, billion other things that someone could do with their time other than get involved with my little story. So I really appreciate it.

>I loved every podcast except for Edwin 2.0 which I felt lacked everything about Edwin that I liked and instead replaced him with a bad >stereotype that could be found in any crappy novel/film/podcast. So I was glad when I listened to Edwin 2.0 Part 2 that you had killed the >character off after listening to your fans feedback.

Yeah. Sometimes you just have to try something to see if it works or not. It’s kind of an awkward blot in the feed, but I also think it’s kind of cool that I got to try something like that with a pretty large group of people. I think it’s a uniquely web/decentralized media experience.

>My only other complaint with How to Succeed in Being Evil is the lack of quantity. The quality is fantastic and I’m sure it’s hard to keep >up that good work. However you are obviously a talented writer and story teller so all I can beg of you is keep it coming. I know I will lap i> t up and I’m sure many others will too.

The reason the output has slowed to a glacial pace is because I’m writing the novel. I’m at 62,000 words. With a little luck (and a good tailwind) I should have the draft finished by the end of the month.

The real dilemma with Edna is about changing her name. Edna and Edwin are oddly close. Disconcertingly close, one might say. And it wasn’t a choice I made consciously. Perhaps I was just E-happy that day. But I’m loathe to change it. But what’s in a name. By any other name, Edna would still be an awesome character.

Edwin had spent the entire morning trying to explain to Lifto the magnificent why he shouldn’t rob banks.

“But that’s where the money is!”, Lifto protested, bursting into laughter as if he had said one of the most original things in the long-winded history of saying things. Lifto was disappointed when, instead of joining in the hearty guffaw, Edwin searched for a non-existent speck of dirt underneath his perfectly manicured fingernails.

Lifto did not know quite how to react to this. It was not the kind of response he was used to getting. In fact, this whole morning had been strange. Windsor had come highly recommended, but Lifto felt that something was a little odd. If he had the time, or the inclination, to think about anything other than himself, he might have begun to suspect that he was not wanted. And this suspicion would have been given birth by the woman in the lobby.

Lifto had entered the office and announced himself loudly. “Lifto is here!”

Edna said nothing. In fact, her face did not move at all. After a moment’s consideration, she gave a small sniff. As sniffs, go, it was the third most contemptuous sniff of all time.

You see, Lifto the Magnificent was not, in any conventional sense of the word, magnificent. He was squat, hairy and insisted on wearing a purple unitard everywhere he went. When he became excited (which he did often) his complexion grew a shade of deep red that can only be described as purple’s mortal enemy. He was a hideous creature, prone to fits of absurd melodrama.

When it was cold, like this particular morning, he would wrap himself in a fake leopard skin. But that was all pyrotechnics as far as Edna was concerned. She noticed two things. The slavic accent. And the lack of pants.

She quickly assumed that he was a savage.

“If you messed with my head like that, you be lucky if I didn’t dress up in a Tooth Fairy costume and pipe bomb your house.”

What about this one.

“What are you talking about. Sure, the devil may be the patron saint of all defense lawyers, but God loves me. I’m meek.” He leaned out the window to scream at a minivan. “Outta the way urinal puck! We’re not getting any younger!” When he pulled his head back in the car he continued as if nothing had happened. “That’s why I’m going to inherit the earth.”

Every single time I write him, he tries to take over the story.

I’ve never written a novel before. I was always afraid of it. I though that writing a screenplay was easier. And I can not emphasize how WRONG I WAS. Screenplays are difficult. One might be misled into thinking they might be easier because there are fewer words on a page. One might also be misled by thinking, just because you can write dialog that, screenplays (or perhaps television) are likewise easy. These things are simply not the case.

But I guess it all depends on what you’re wired for. And, evidently, I’m wired for novels. Because it’s going pretty well. Sure, sure, the first draft of everything is shit. And to be certain those 44k words are a big, brawling mess. But it’s a big mess on it’s way someplace. And that’s very exciting.

So if I’ve been a little lax on the podcasting front, it’s because I’ve been writing. And, before that, busting my ass to save the money to get some time to write.

I’ll be posting excerpts and updates along the way. And I’ll have to record some parts to share. Honestly, Topper doesn’t lose too much on the printed page, by every time I write his dialog I want to read it. (good sign).

So thank to everybody for bearing with. It means a lot.

But this comment from Stephen helped me put a few things into perspective.

Chill out. My RSS reader is patient. What works is lots of ideas. Ideas take time. Even Newton complained about how long it took to get a new idea to make sense. Remember Newton? First with the reflecting telescope (the Newtonian), white light is made up of colors, calculus, orbital calculations, and on and on ad nauseum? And both Rawlings and Tolkien are known to have rewritten a chapter from scratch to fix some flaw in it. But in the end, it’s worth it.

He’s right. It takes time. An especially because I’m trying to crack a very unusual kind of story. How do you write a guy that’s smarter than you? How do you give Edwin obstacles? Either he gets pounded flat ’cause he’s got no powers, or he’s so smart nobody can overcome him. It’s a very narrow middle ground.

One of the things I’ve been doing is analyzing how novels are constructed to suck the readers in and make them care about the characters. I’m really trying to clear a lot of story bullshit from my head by going back to books that worked on me and trying to figure out why. Harry Potter does it instantly. Ender’s Game, the same. Sympathy, jeopardy and suspense. Throw in a little comedy, and that’s probably all there is.

So on my quest to revisit books that sucked me out of my life and into their world, I picked up the first book in the Wheel of Time Series. Strange that as I start his book, I learn that Robert Jordan has just passed away. Condolences. Here’s a quote from him that I find oddly appropriate right now

“If you must mount the gallows, give a jest to the crowd, a coin to the hangman, and make the drop with a smile on your lips”

Anyway, at the beginning of the book he takes a group of ordinary villiagers and thrusts them into an extraordinary situation. One could make the case that it’s Hobbits and the Shire covered over with a fresh coat of paint — but, honestly, if you want to play that game, every character who faces adversity with his friends is a frigging Hobbit. And how would it be possible to write fantasy without echoing Tolkien? Or Mythology?

But I don’t care about that. But what I notice is that, because he’s put an ordinary person in an extraordinary circumstance, we’re already on board. Harry Potter is the same thing. Basically he wakes up one day and after a life of misery and pain, he discovers he has magical powers. After that, it’s details. But the central question is, how does he come to grips with who he finds himself to be.

I’m having some success working it out with Edwin, but it’s difficult. And all the podcasts and writing so far are basically notes. I’m testing out ideas, playing with the characters.

And thank all of you for bearing with me. I promise the ride is only going to get more interesting from here.

There is a lot of interest in ‘Evil. Sure people think it should be comic. But some folks think it would make a nice TV show. Still others think it would be a great movie. And who am I to disagree with any of them?

Ed Wood on Line One
So all these people call. Or I should say they call my agent. (Yes, I have an agent for the film and television rights) And it’s very exciting. It’s also very nothing. Until a contract is signed and money changes hands, it’s nothing. For a couple of months there, this roller coaster of expectation drove me crazy. Everybody loves it. (I think everybody loves everything in Hollywood.) But more importantly, everybody seems to agree it has potential.

But I’m trying to stop worrying about it. Sure I take the calls. And I try not to talk more than I should, but recently, something changed. My mind.

What I CAN do
Instead of worrying about what I could do or what might happen, I’ve decided to focus on the things I can do. Which is get up in the morning and write. I’m working on the novel. I’d call it the first novel, but that level of hubris is beyond me. See I’ve felt pushed by everybody. (Write it this way, write it that way! Quick, get out another podcast!)

So these days I’m trying not to let anything make me crazy. I’m getting up at 6 in the morning and writing. Somedays two hours. Somedays just one. But writing all I can. Because that’s the thing I can do. And do well.

Upcoming
The next episode of El Justiador will be out by the end of the week. Then a final one next month. And then, I promise, the main story line will continue.

Technorati Tags: How to Succeed in Evil, Patrick E. McLean, TagCloud

and this was it.

The file was lost in the hard drive crash that inspired the “Scary Story” pirate episode. And I don’t really play piano so I don’t remember what it was. It was in F minorish.

And somewhere along the way I discovered a piece of music called Ether by the Flavor Foundation. It has an inexorable sense to it. Downtempo but moving forward. And that’s what I’ve been using for the title music. You can find it on iTunes. Highly recommend the whole CD.

And if you want more tracks I consider in the evil vibe try Massive Attack’s Unfinished Sympathy and Super Bon Bon by Soul Coughing.

Well, sure. But things are going pretty well now. New podcast episode is written and should be up within the week. (Barring attack by flying monkies or someone throwing gobs of money at me to write something else)
The big news about evil is there is interest in making it into a TV show. I like the way John Rogers put it at his blog Kung Fu Monkey. (more…)

But things are bubbling. I swear they are. For one thing, we’ve got a colorist (the Mighty Myron Macklin) and he’s awesome. And we’re almost, almost, almost, so close I can taste it, done with the color version of the book.
And of course, if you’ve caught up with the latest installment. We can expect many interesting things from Topper in what I’m going to call Season Two of How to Succeed in Evil.
Here’s a peek at the color (unlettered) (more…)

The business of building stories seems not much different from the business of building anything else.

This is the insight of Lester Dent, the pulp writer who created Doc Savage. This was a guy who would regularly churn out 90,000 to 100,000 words a month on a manual typewriter. There’s no two ways about it, he was a monster. (Carpal Tunnel? Try micro-fractures in your fingertips.) (more…)

For limited time only, and at a limited quantity, we’re offering a copy of the promotional comic (b/w, 22 pages) signed and numbered by Nic and Patrick in an archival bag with a CD that collects the first 10 audio episodes of How to Suceed in Evil. This is absolutely a collectors item. 100 will be made available and after that, you’ll have to look on e-bay.

The cost is $40. And if the idea of giving money to support a wonderful property that has been completely free then consider that these sets will only soar in value as How to Succeed in Evil takes off.

So, whether you’re altruistic or just plain ol’ avaricous, there’s no reason not to snap one of these fine bag sets.

Soon they will be in color and soon they will be for sale.

evil

n i c

(let’s try one more time to stick a landing with that sentence.)

And writers get…

Nothing. Writer get nothing. And readers and fans get no insight into the choices a writer makes when constructing a story. In his excellent book “On Writing” Stephen King showed a rough draft that he had revised - but that only tells you about diction. It’s much harder to show why your main character DIDN’T beat the other guy to death with a hockey stick in chapter 4. Or what would have happened if an essential bit of foresight was missing

Which is why I did a podcast. The podcasts are sketches for the finished product. Sure, they’re also a way to generate excitement and see if anybody else likes the idea - but what I used it for was to flesh out the characters and test ideas. To sketch a few arcs/scenes of a larger story and see if/how/why they work.

And these sketches/podcasts provided me with the information and confidence I needed to make How to Succeed in Evil actually happen and not suck.

i’d like to thank starbucks, patrick, nietzsche and the mighty wonder showzen.

hopefully i’ll see you all at a con. near you. if you see me or patrick, give us a little pat on the bottum for a job well done.

back to the grind baby

n i c

So I had an idea for a comic that I thought was very good. But I didn’t have anybody to help me with it. (In fact, I would have bet a large amount of money that there wasn’t a decent comic book artist in Charlotte.) Despair prevailed.

The Snake River Canyon Jump

Some months later, in January 2005, I launched the Seanachai. It was concieved as a podcast of original fiction. Non-fiction crept in because audio essays are cool. But the thrust of the thing was a new short story every week. It’s the Snake River Canyon Jump of writing stunts. I just wanted to see if I could do it.

A Hungry Beast

So the Seanachai consumed material as fast as I could develop it. And eventually my thoughts turned back to How to Succeed in Evil. It seemed a little weird to do a comic with no pictures - but I decided to write it as if I was trying to communicate the idea to a comic book artist. Basically to inspire someone to draw the comic.

A Losing Bet

So not only was there a good artist in Charlotte, he lived across the street from me. Here I thought that only through the magic of the internet would I connect with someone who could bring the vision to life. I mean surely, no one with talent and vision and a work ethic would loiter in the graphic arts mecca of Charlotte, NC. Discovering Nic has led me to wonder what else I’m grossly mistaken about.

The Rest

I’d like to say that the rest is history. But it’s not. The rest is now.

I’ve also found a number of interesting on-demand options. And I’m determining what kind of quanties you need to run for offset printing to make financial sense. (I’m getting a fast and furious education.)

So be patient. The book is drawn. We’re just trying to figure out how the best way to get it into people’s hands. And the best way to grow and sustain this idea for many issues to come.

The scene outside the courthouse:

Topper introduces himself:

Edwin is pleased: