An inspiration becomes a dream

"Carl Macek was a man of immense writing talent, skill, style, class and intelligence." - Rebecca Forstadt Olkowski, Voice actress (Lynn Minmei in Robotech)

On April 17, 2010, one of the original producers of Robotech passed away from a heart attack.


Robotech has been - and continues to be - a huge inspiration to me as a writer, as a storyteller and as a person.  What Carl Macek wrote was an amazing drama that is still relevant today, and appeals to adolescents and adults, males and females.

What makes Robotech an even more amazing work is that the animation is taken entirely from a Japanese anime series, Macross.  For as much as the two series have in common, they are also completely different.  The characters are new, the dialogue is new, and the story has a fresh twist to it.

As Robotech character Roy Fokker once commented, "Once you get this Robotech stuff in your blood, it's there to stay."

So, since I cannot attend his memorial service in California on Saturday, May 1, my tribute to the late, great Carl Macek and the spectacular series he fathered will have to come in the form of hosting a Robotech marathon on the same day.

In closing, as Grig (The Last Starfighter) said, "Death is a primitive concept; I prefer to think of them as battling evil in another dimension!"  Another dimension, that is, where the United Earth Government is in possession of a Super Dimensional Fortress.


You can read the original news article (as well as continuing coverage) at Robotech.com by clicking this link.

Handwritten vs. Typed

I've always been a good typist. On average I do about 88 wpm (words per minute) with 0-1% error. Ever since I graduated from SUNY Fredonia, I almost exclusively write using a computer. It's easier and faster (and more coherent) for me to get my thoughts out before I lose them. It also makes the editing process approximately eight gigabillion times easier.

However, every once in a great while I'm in a situation where I don't have a computer handy. Let's say if I'm in a meeting or in a class or out at a bar. Napkins or a notepad will do just fine in those instances. Heck, it's what I used to use almost exclusively during high school and a good chunk of college.

I got to my class last night with close to two hours to spare before the professor got there to get things started. I'd come up with a great idea while parking the car, and jotted down the summary of the story in my notebook while waiting for a grande hot chocolate (that's right - Starbucks).

What started as a four sentence summary turned into a 300+ word short story (it really doesn't take that long, but yes, I had enough spare time to count each word by hand). Because of my mood and the tone of the story (mainly depressed/overwhelmed/troubled), I don't think using a computer would have permitted me to fully embrace my inspiration. There's something soothing, yet gritty, about writing by hand - especially when it's a hard boiled detective story.

UPDATE (04/19/2010)
 Since transcribing that story into a Word document, the word count has more than doubled because I've been able to fill in some gaps, produce better transitions, reduce confusing plot points, and generally improve the story.  There's still more to do, of course, but, as is stated by Egg Shen in Big Trouble In Little China, "See? That was nothing. But that's how it always begins. Very small."