Wrestling: an Alternate Fighting Style

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May Not Be What You Think

All I could find royalty-free was teenagers in amateur wrestling, but this image is for professional wrestling.
Photo by Chris Chow on Unsplash

Before you brand me a fool. hear me out! I’m not saying this is real. I’ve been watching it for nearly 40 years and always knew it was orchestrated. It’s like stuntmen in movies, except matches sometimes go for longer.

No matter, wrestlers can show you a lot about developing a character (a man was always seen as a Russin was revealed when he died as French Canadian), getting others to care about an upcoming match, and even some basic storytelling (yes, a good match tells a story). There’s much to learn.

Origin of This in my Novel

When I created Rigger, Mortiz, and Shivver decades ago, puns were a huge part of the name choices.

When I created Alex Rigger, I thought of him as a former wrestler, ‘Oil Rigger’. 

I’m what folks call a ‘smark’ (a smart mark. Smart enough to know what’s happening, but still a mark for my favorite performers). 

Why a Wrestler?

Some people I know would wonder why I’m writing another wrestler (I’ve created a few). Thing is there is a saturation of former boxers and martial artist characters. I’m trying something different. 

Style

The fighting style is different. Some of the moves are flashy, but couldn’t be used in the real world. They would cause fatalities if they were. 

A lot of real fights would be punches and kicks, with some basic slams thrown in, dropkicks and clotheslines too. 

Another interesting thing about fights using wrestling: as with many Kung Fu fights, many wrestlers have a different style. Some of the bigger guys don’t do aerial moves… some of them do, but it’s considered unusual in the US and just looks strange in Japan. In writing, we just strive for uniqueness. 

In the hand of a good writer (hope I am), this could be interesting. 

I’m going to try to post here more often. I’ll wait until I’ve done a few more to state a schedule, so I don’t let readers down. 

Updating This Site

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For the last two days, I’ve been updating things on this blog. Don’t be surprised if there are some glitches in it because of this. I’ll fix them soon:

Email List

I’ve been using MailChimp for a long time, and I won’t rag on it.

They made many small changes in their service lately, making it less appealing to me.

ConvertKit isn’t in my budget, but MailerLite is.

I’m slowly changing all pointers to the new list. I also have to back up my archive of previous newsletters and bulletins.

Social Stuff

I used to use a different sharing plugin. Now, I’m using Social Pug.

I haven’t figured out how to use it properly yet. Advice would get major props from me.

I seem to have figured it out.

Write Like a Pulp Writer

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Not Purple Prose, But…


Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash

I’ve read several books about this:

These aren’t affiliate links.

How to Write Pulp Fiction


Pulp Era Writing Tips

You shouldn’t try to write the style of pulp. It’s purple prose, bad writing for readers today.

However, as these books say, parts of their methods we could learn from:


Speed


Pulp writers produced much content as fast as they could to pay their bills. Costs were lower than today, but the funds were too. If one story was rejected, others were ready to try their luck at the same time.

Another aspect of speed:


Quantity, Not Quality


We do this for NaNoWriMo. When you crank out so much material in a short time, you don’t wait for only your best work. If it’s readable, it goes out. The more you do, the better it gets.

Jump Straight to the Action

In their speed, pulp writers also don’t use prologues or character introspection. Those are, in their view, for literary works. Instead, these writers usually start with action. If it has to be explained, that comes later in the tale.

The action gets you in first.

Maybe we should all be like them.


I’m a commercial writer, not an author. Margaret Mitchell was an author. She wrote one book. 


Mickey Spillane
from Goodreads

Originally appeared on The Writers Guild on Medium

Making Snow-Mageddon Useful

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I was shut-in today (Feb. 13, 2019) due to the record snowfall outside (for my American readers it was more than 1 foot of it.

It’s 2 days later when I finish this post, Feb. 15. Belated Happy Valen Day.

Valen on Babylon 5.

Rather than do nothing on my time off, I was as productive:

Continued Ninja Writing

I spoke of that in my last post.

I worked on the next draft of my novel every day. I’m a few days closer to finishing as a result. I also found new things to add to it that I didn’t before. That’s the beauty of rewrites.

Updating This Blog

Although it wasn’t at the speed that I’d like I did this post. Even though the post and the amount of time it took don’t line up, all that matters is it’s here.

Reading More

I fell behind on reading magazines I’m subscribed to, so I’m doubling my daily reading.

So, the heavy snow kept me from travel, but I still did a lot else.

Why Ninja Writing Will Change Your Life

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Ninja Writers logo

Your writing life anyway. It changed mine.

Before Ninja Writing

I began a novel in 2013. I finished the first draft in early 2014, and didn’t touch it again until November 2018.

As I’ve mentioned many times, I’ve been in the Montreal chapter of NaNoWriMo since 2012 and won it four years in a row. All the times I’ve done it filled me with confidence to go to the step of going forward to a finished novel.

One problem:

It’s 2019. I Still Haven’t Finished It

In 2009 I won a Prix Boreal/Aurora for a newsletter I write called The Original Universe. Because of medical and other reasons I stopped. I want to relaunch it. As a result, I started to write it ages ago. There’s a problem with that, however…

Logo for the Prix Boreal/Aurora Award
Logo for the Prix Boreal/ Aurora Award

It Sat on My HD Forever

Ninja Writing to the rescue! Fist, so that you don’t feel that I’m inventing a term:

What Ninja Writing Is

There are a few different methods named this term. The one I use was created by Shaunta Grimes. She was inspired by the prolific writer Ray Bradbury.



“Ray Bradbury” by Alan Light is licensed under CC BY 2.0

During his life he wrote a lot of short stories, collected into books like The Martian Chronicles, Dandelion Wine, Something Wicked This Way Comes… many short stories I’ve read in many publications.

He was a big proponent of the notion of writing and reading daily:

Based on his words, we write for 10 minutes every day, and read for another 10.

Why 10? Many potential writers get intimidated and overwhelmed by the idea of writing for longer.

If you write 10 minutes per day it’s easier to do it than to ignore it. With a time commitment like that, you may find you get a lot done. You can then work on other things.

Thanks to this:

My novel is now into editing. I’ve started Act Two.

My newsletter is now mostly written.

Give this method a try. The results may surprise you. Your writing, because you’re doing it regularly, will also improve.

Welcome, 2019!

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I’m becoming an old man: I fell asleep, missing the ball drop, and woke after 3 AM… in the new year.

Many folks will make resolutions for the year. I’m not one of them.

Folks Always Fail Them

Instead, I do things differently, and get a lot of stuff done as a result:

I Make Goals

This year will be no different. Some goals are obvious. some not as much:


Photo by Jazmin Quaynor on Unsplash
  • Update this blog more. I’ve written a lot on Medium in 2018, but not a lot on this blog. I need to fix that in 2019.
  • More movement on my novel. I finished my first draft in early 2014. I have been using Ninja Writing to write revisions (more on that in another post). I’m into Act Two now.
  • Justify my award. In 2009 I won an Aurora Award for a newsletter. I stopped in 2012. I’ve been writing my next issue for a long time. I hope to publish it soon.

I’ll stop my list there. We’ll see how well I do by 2020.

Changing Views

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Over time my views on different facets of writing have changed, in some ways contradicting other, previous posts on this blog:

Reading While Writing

Here’s my past view on this. Things changed from a quote by Stephen King. I don’t like King as a person thanks to a meeting years ago, but I still think he was right about this:


“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. …”

Stephen King

I modify this a bit: I write –and read — fiction and non.

Each one uses different ‘muscles’, different genres. different styles.

So: I read both now, each with their respective style.

Work For Free

I posted two differing views on this here and here.

Well, I don’t write anything for free like Wil, with exceptions: I still write for the newsletter at work, this blog, and Medium… but when I join their Partner Program,  I have a chance to earn on it. 

So,

I may seem wishy-washy, but I have a method.

GOR: The good, the bad, and the Ugly

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I haven’t posted here in a long while. Medium with it’s bigger audience lured me away. I’m trying to fix that…

The art for The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly; a Western movie by Sergio Leonne.
I don’t have the artist’s name. Please, enlighten me so I can give proper credit.

Cue the Ennio Morricone music…

The Gor novels are mostly forgotten nowadays (although Politically Incorrect Games [P.I.G.] have released a Gor game; l have to find the email). I’m not surprised. The series began well, got bad very fast, and became worse after.


The Good

Gor is also called Counter-Earth. It’s in the same orbit as Earth, just equidistant on the opposite side of the sun, so we’ll never see it. The planet has a lower gravity than Earth.

The civilizations are a mixture of Roman, Greek, Native American and Viking, other cultures too, transplanted by spaceship from our Earth by an insectoid race that they call the Priest Kings. They are allowed to advance in architectural, agricultural and medical skills (including life extension), but are forced to remain primitive in the fields of transportation, communication and weaponry (at approximately the level of Classical Mediterranean civilization) due to restrictions on technology imposed by the Priest-Kings. This limitation is imposed to ensure the safety of both the Priest-Kings, as well as the other indigenous and transplanted beings on Gor who would otherwise possibly come to harm due to humans’ belligerent tendencies.

This was the first novel. Written by John Norman — the pseudonym of Dr. John Lange, a professor of philosophy and a classical scholar — it drew a lot from the Barsoom novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs (although poorly marketed, the movie John Carter was based on the series.

John Norman’s main character here, Tarl Cabot, was loosely inspired by John Carter (I may be wrong about that).

This was the Good. Then it went bad, and quickly.

The Bad

“I’m not for censorship but I am for strategies which marginalize stuff that works to objectify women and suggests women enjoy being beaten.-


Michael Moorcock


Around the fourth book, it got its own style. Unfortunately, not a good one: women were often slaves, often beaten until they were docile and submissive (often by the hero of the novel) and fell in love with the men who beat them.

This may make them popular among the alt-right, but for those of us more enlightened, it’s disgusting.

I stopped reading the series then, but from what I’ve read on Wikipedia, it gets worse.

and The Ugly

Science fiction/fantasy author Michael Moorcock has suggested that the Gor novels should be placed on the top shelves of bookstores
Later books became (I’m quoting Wikipedia here) “sadomasochistic pornography”. The author claimed to draw inspiration from philosophy, Earth history, Homer, Freud and Nietzsche… then came in with… this.

Surprisingly, this series not only got reprinted in several languages, and is a strong seller in Ebooks… but before I did research for this article, I’d mostly forgotten.

Like What You Read? Get More!      

A Long Time Coming Indeed (The Documentary of a Legend)

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Courage (for Hugh MacLennan)

Courage (for Hugh MacLennan) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)G

(First posted on Medium.)

Gord Downey, the singer-frontman of the band The Tragically Hip, lost his battle with brain cancer last week. He was 53.

Last night, CTV here in Canada aired the documentary about his farewell tour across Canada, ending in his hometown Kingston, Ontario.

Many Americans don’t know the band because they are more a Canadian phenomenon.

The Tragically Hip – Wikipedia

Full disclosure here: in the past, I wasn’t a huge fan of the band — but as I listened to all of their hits, I realized that I WAS.

Before anybody else points it out: writing songs is hard. I can be poetic in my writings, but I’m not good at poetry… and songwriting is even more difficult. I tried to write some in the past, but I wasn’t very good.

Gord Downey wrote songs for over 30 years — for 14 albums and more EPs and singles.

Even more admirable: his body was failing more and more every day; he still performed a concert tour across Canada — plus he performed 90 songs, where most people sing 45 songs at most.

He was one of the hardest working men in the music industry, and one who used his celebrity to bring more notice to the mistreatment of our First Nations brethren.

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