Clearing the Cobwebs

We're reaching fall, a time for change, and we realized how much junk we have. It's time to clear out some of the dead leaves... but we started with pages:

After ripping through all our book shelves we piled up the books to donate to the BPL. We brought them down to the library yesterday.

Slacker Summer

We've been a bit busy for the last 2 months. With JJMIV up at NY Stage & Film again and me producing the upcoming web series Skip Trace there's been little time for blogging & what-not.

To make up for it, here are some silly pictures from this weekend. We each got new cameras; Nikon COOLPIX, mine plum and JJMIV's black. While I was off taking pictures of parties JJMIV was helping Hanners build a computer and snapping pics of her new toy... I'll leave it to him to share them if he sees fit.

One of our close friends here in NYC is moving away - so in her honor, here's two silly pics of B:

We're gana miss her.

What's Past and What's Future?

An unfortunately reality of our move to NYC is that every time I sit down to blog my first inclination is to apologize for the long absences between posts. I'll do what I can to resist the urge.

I'm heading up to SmAlbany on the God Ole Amtrak this morning, and this is relevant for two reasons:

First, a dear, sweet member of our family passed away this week. A man who was a shining example one of my core beliefs in life: that family is not about biology but the people who love and care for you. My step-father Jak's dad Duke died on Tuesday; a month ago he was complaining of a sore throat which turned out to be advanced esophageal cancer. He was diagnosed March 25th, about 2.5 weeks ago. Just a strong reminder to love those around you while you can and let those who try to love you do so.

Duke will be sorely missed.

The second reason my travel state is relevant: Amtrak doesn't have wifi available... I'm using my phone as a router!

If you are of sufficiently questionable intelligence to follow me on Twitter than you know JJMIV & I got Droid phones about two weeks ago. Using the PDANet Free app I have USB tethered my phone to my laptop so I can use that connection as a router. It's going well, the connections only slightly slower than my home; though I will say the phone in my lap is running a bit hot.

There's been a lot of chatter lately about how awesome it is to live in the future. That all the cool gidgets from futuristic sci-fi are now in our hot-little-hands. Yes, JJMIV's got the Tricorder App and has been taking base scans of our apartment and comparing the magnetic fields to when he's riding the subway. I've been using it for more practical nerd-applications: such as using Hoccer to throw inappropriate pictures across the dinner table to my best friend (who, strangely, got a Droid the same day...).

But I have found annoying down sides to all this access; and they're nothing new to those who've had smartphones forever: I'm more impatient, annoyed when I don't get an instant response, and find myself unintentionally IMing before I've even gotten up to go pee in the morning. Those are all things I expected, and that I also believe will diminish as the 'newness' of my toy wears off.

What I didn't expect was how much relief I would feel when removed from that high level of connection. I had anticipated it so much that it never occurred to me that the hour I spend on the subway would be a respite from the green blinking light that tells me I have a notification. That the 5 days we spent off the grid on our vacation would force me to meditate and connect with and think about myself.

As awful and selfish as that sounds, we're becoming disconnected from self-connection. I think our level of connection via technology is making us completely reactive; and we're coming to expect that from those around us. To text, and reply, and IM, and confirm, and send, and send, and send. And so, slipping underground on the N train home in the evening, I feel the cord temporarily cut. Though I am surrounded by noise and annoyance, at least I'm living in a moment around me instead of reacting to a virtual moment.

This has been a week of reaction; to illness, to IMs, to texts and loss. To crying and drinking and trying to sooth a weary family as much as can be done. Ironically; having the connection via my phone has allowed me the opportunity to write this. To connect with myself for a moment, and through my writing with you. Maybe this 'Living in the Future' thing isn't so bad after all.

~DMcC

Purple is Dar's Fav Color

I'm clumsy.

I'm clumsy like a baby figuring out how to walk... except my bones aren't made of rubber. So when I was shooting a short film on Friday where my 'good cop' character chases a bad guy over a roof and I caught my ankle on a big bump, it didn't just fix itself.

And that's right, you guessed it: I kept shooting. For another 2 hours. And then refused to take a cab home because I'm more-than-kind-of a jerk!

We're still not 100% sure what's wrong; all we know is there are no fractures (thank you Mr. X Ray). It's likely a bad sprain or a few small ligament tares. I thought these pics were both disgusting and interesting - so be sure to enjoy both of those key features.

These first 2 are about three hours after the injury after having walked on it much longer than I should've. Friday afternoon, approx 4pm:




I went to the ER Saturday morning when I woke up and couldn't walk, hence the X-ray. This is Saturday night approx. 8pm. Swelling is way down, but that lovely purple is blossoming nicely.

The ER docs were kind enough to give me a sexy splint & some crutches, which are helping quite a bit. This is Sunday around 4. The bruising's getting pretty nasty, even after 2 days of doing nothing but laying around. Ugh.

News, News, News, and Sunshine

It's been quite awhile, and for that we're both sorry. But we have good reason, I promise.

March has been a month of exciting news, and I've been a bit of a tease about everything. Not because I wanted to toy with your collective emotions; but because I didn't want to announce something awesome and then have it turn out to be made of suck. I'm glad to say that has not been the case.

And now, Good News. In the order it occurred:

* I was offered (and accepted) the lead in a feature length film! I'll be playing a spicy/strong cop in an upcoming slasher flick produced by Yellow Ape Productions. We're keeping a pretty tight lid on most of the details, for good reason, but I'll share as I'm able to.

* I was offered, accepted, and began working with CUNY's School of Professional Studies in concert with the NYC Office of Emergency Management as the Content Manager for customization and development work on Sahana Disaster Management software. To say I'm excited would be a massive understatement. I just wrapped up my first week with them and the project is engaging, the people are awesome, and the work is enough of a challenge that I wont be bored. (And you know how I feel about being bored...)

Those are the big things. The response to Venture has been incredibly positive; so fans of the book will be happy to know I started working on book 2, mostly because my brain wouldn't let me write anything else creative. We're planning to take a much longer creative process this time around; partly because the book will be longer and partly because we had to rush so much last time.

We're getting a bite of spring this week in NYC and I'm going to be out on a rooftop filming all afternoon and enjoying it. I hope you are too.

-D McC

Thrown From The Nest

Venture has been launched from the safe harbor of my laptop out into the world; and along with it I have released the notion of control. There's no pulling it back now, even if I wanted to... and I don't.

I've been doing my best to let it percolate - to allow time to pass before diving into the next volume; both for the sake of my sanity and that of Jenne & Jennifer. It's been difficult. My mind wants to continue running down the paths of folly it's now being restricted from; longing for the dappled sunlight of imagination. I've tried satiating it with writing short stories. No dice.

One tactic I've been playing with is How to Host a Dungeon, a sweet game John got a few weeks ago. I'll admit, I was skeptical at first; after all, how fun could drawing the history of a dungeon be? Well, what a fool I am! After watching John play with our pal Ben a few weeks ago I made him play it with me on Saturday - and I've played twice more since. I might have the rules memorized by Friday...

Here are some sweet dungeon maps that came out of game...

Primordial Age - I rolled a scorched earth landscape and added some extra features to start with. The game was designed to be played on a standard piece of paper, but I took the liberty of enlarging it a big.

Age of Civilization - Playing two civs made it a lot more dynamic. The Dwarves and a demonic spawn moved in. The red areas show demonic worm tunnels that punched through a number of other caverns, including the dwarven, until they hit a 'FATE' cavern where the gods took vengeance on them. Finally, the dwarves dug too deep.
At the beginning of the Age of Monsters a meteor struck and molded the landscape a bit. A number of monsters moved in and dug around massing wealth. Long story short: some human miners got really powerful and took just about everyone else out.Good times.

I'm An Author

For a long time it was a secret wish: something I didn't tell others about because it felt like an unachievable dream. I seemed silly and unrealistic (which I realize is ironic coming from an actor and musician); I didn't think I was creative enough or smart enough and that I didn't have the chops to write a book. That no one would want to read it or it wouldn't make sense and I'd be setting myself up for a catastrophic failure.

Last April, after a recharging trip to sunny LA, I was feeling an excess of creative energy but a lack of time for collaboration, so a new friend from that trip and I started an experiment. We both loved the creative writing courses we took in college, but had spent little time writing post graduation. We devised a writing exchange based on our favorite writing exercise: to trade prompts about once a week and write a short story, poem, and once even a song, based on the prompt.

Out of these exchanges came some great stories and some realizations: I'm a better writer than I thought, I have a lot to write about, and I really love doing it. If it weren't for his help, I'd never have considered taking this on. (I doubt he'll read this or that he realizes I feel this way. On the off chance he does see it: Thanks)

And what is 'this'? Why, the release of my first novel, of course.

{In kitschy announcer voice}
Ladies and Gentleman, I'm pleased to announce the release of my first novel: Venture. Available for purchase tomorrow morning!

Thanks to a Kickstarter campaign I was able to pre-sell 40 copies with some great extras for the backers and feel the wonderful support of my family and friends while I was developing the book. I started writing on Oct 14, 2009 - here we are 4 months, 8 days, and 176 pages later. I feel really good about it and the responses I've gotten from the pre-orders have been really positive.

I've also been feeling the creative energy feed itself. From the development of the first book I've begun the planning stages for two more books in a series, at least two other series beyond this one, and I've started writing a series of short stories that I hope to release as podcasts later this year. These will all take place in the same world setting, Aeowal, and all be released under a Creative Commons license to encourage fan fiction, art, expansion, and collaboration (like ya do).

I hope you'll jump on the proverbial bandwagon tomorrow and visit my Lulu Store. I'm shooting for it to be available by 9am EST.