Fairly certain my hand was covering the mike for some of this...or the volume was simply annihilating the tiny camera. But the 'Letters have better videos coming, and this at least captured the vibe.

It had been a couple decades since I'd been to the Woodlands Inn, but I definitely picked the right night. March 29, 2014, I was at the Dead Letters Reunion Concert, and I'm still trying to figure out how I was able to dance that much and not drop dead. Has to have something to do with tapping into the energy of the event, but I haven't figured out the mechanism yet.

Everything really came together; saw a lot of old friends and the music was perfect. It really was like time traveling back to the late nineties. I'm still not sure there wasn't some violation of the space-time continuum in making this concert happen. Even the girl who always danced right in front of the speakers back in the day came down from New England to attend, and everyone was thrilled to see her. We really did party like it was 1999.

And of course, at some point things got weird, which somehow made the night that much better.

This story requires a bit of set up: in the next ballroom over from where the 'Letters were playing some sorority was having a dance. I think it may have been the “Daddy Issues” ball, or the “No one is going to tell me how to dress” cotillion. Hey, I appreciate scantly clad women as much as the next guy. But in my humble opinion if you have to pull your dress down over your buns with every step just to keep from being arrested for indecent exposure then you're trying too hard.

Case in point, our waitress was technically almost naked in a bikini and short-shorts, but didn't have to keep readjusting. She had this down, while the other girls clearly had not thought everything out.

So about three quarters of the way through the second set my wife Donna proceeded to the ladies room, and as a dutiful husband I hung around outside to make sure she wasn't abducted by ruffians. This is a superfluous gesture as she studies an integrated martial arts system that's heavy on the Jujitsu, but I didn't not get this far in life by abandoning chivalry.

On the couch between the restroom entrances was a friend of ours named Steve, who was taking a break from the festivities, and we struck up a conversation destined to be rudely interrupted.

A group of five or six kids from the Sorority Ball walked by, and one of guys, resplendent in a disheveled tuxedo that was proof he'd never seen a James Bond film, suddenly turned to my buddy and yelled “Dude!!!” and held out his hand for a high five. Steve looked at the hand as if it were holding a three day old fish that had recently been pulled from a walrus rectum.

Sensing that this was a moment that required some deescalation—Steve is a big guy and this kid was well over six-four himself if I estimated right—I gave him a high five from the side. He turned to me, staggered backwards and pointed at me, speaking the following words:

“Peter Griffin!!!!”

I'm not a regular viewer of “The Family Guy.” I've seen more clips of the show online than on the tube. But I've seen it enough to know where he was going with this. For the record, I don't think I look like Peter Griffin, though after a dozen shots of Jaegermeister I probably would be hard pressed to tell the difference. Prior to this I've had sober people tell me I look like Jack Black, Michael Moore, and Bruce Vilanch. I wasn't too shaken by having Peter Griffin added to the list.

So again, trying to make sure this didn't turn into something that involve badges and paperwork, I snapped into my best Peter Griffin impression and said something to the effect of: “Hey, how you kids doin'? Stayin' out of trouble I hope?” The dude lost it laughing, and called out to his friends to introduce them to someone that he may have truly believed was Peter Griffin. I gave them another line (“Hey you kids have a good time tonight but be careful” or something) and they all waved and walked away happy.

Turning back to Steve, I made a mental note to grant him the award for “most perplexed look not involving government paperwork.” He proceeded to ask why I didn't beat the crap out of the guy. “You could have taken all of them!” This was as much a complement as it was an estimation that the best way to dodge their punches would have been to not move. Alcohol is not generally speaking a performance enhancing drug.

“For what?” I asked. “He's just trying to get laid. If that impressed his girl, so be it.” I am well passed the point in my life where I care if a random stranger soaked in more booze than grandma's fruitcake thinks I'm Peter Griffin. I know who I am. I'm cool with who I am. Best of all I can laugh at me from time to time.

It makes for much better stories, and a lot less stress.

For some more photos from the event, click here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.572398926200677.1073741845.269149496525623&type=3

It is with great annoyance that I am going to miss this year’s Liberty States Fiction Writers Conference. Forgive me Caridad, but circumstances are keeping me home this year. Even so, it’s acting as a catalyst for my writing. Somehow the combined energy of all those creative people gathering in one place is reaching me, getting me moving again.

It’s been a particularly turbulent year for my writing. At the last #LSFW I was introduced to a wonderful agent who was willing to give me feedback on my work. (I will let this person stay anonymous for now, lest said wonderful agent be pelted with similar requests.) Every bit of it was on mark and helpful, but one particular comment put me in a bind.

She said I was writing in third person omniscient, which while it is a legitimate writing style, it’s considered archaic. I would engage the reader more effectively if I shifted to first person or third person deep.

Now I can’t just open a menu box and check a different radio button. This meant a complete rewrite. Worse, it meant I had to change my writing style, which apparently leans to third person omniscient.

Remember that scene in The Empire Strikes Back when Luke is all smug because Leah kisses him in front of Han? Imagine if someone leaned in at that moment and said, “Oh by the way, that’s your sister.” That’s about the feeling I was running with here.

I’m not going to lie. I had my moments of looking at my authors of inspiration, and noting that they wrote some of their stuff in third person omniscient. In Sci-Fi it’s particularly useful for world building. Can you imagine The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy from only Arthur’s point of view? None of it would make sense. Arthur doesn’t get a handle on things until the fourth book or so.

But I had to admit one fact to myself: most of those inspiring me were dead. My strongest influence was probably Asimov’s Foundation. But many would consider it an acquired taste.

If, as a hobby, I want to try to write like Asimov there’s nothing wrong with that. (Notice the word “try.” I’ve not earned the right to make claims like that.) But if I want to be published in a modern era I’ve got to write in a way that my readers will accept.

Attempting to do that proved problematic. I just didn’t have the creative energy to start over. I was wasting my time trying to patch what I had.

Eventually things started to come together. Slowly I started to see all the patches. I had patched it several times before this, with ideas inspired by feedback from readers and from conferences and courses. And as I tried to rework it again, I kept finding more and more areas I needed to smooth out.

Luckily, a bunch of other projects came up that forced me to work on something else for a while. This allowed me to think of it once again as a long term project as opposed to a short term goal. I had to realize that I'm not limited to patching problems. I can re-cut it from new cloth.

I still have the luxury of taking my time and perfecting this.

Plus it is the Tales of the Black Knight. If you don’t feel like the Black Knight is telling it, then haven’t I missed the point?

If I’m a writer, should I really mind writing? Yes it’s a lot to go over, but it’s not wasted effort. Now I know the story I want to tell in detail. I just need to tell it the right way.

It’s going to take some time to develop. I've got as much reading to do as writing. You may notice me using to blog to experiment with styles from time to time. But that’s a good thing. A writer has to write, even if it seems daunting.

John Wayne said courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.

Scared? Never. Daunted for a while? Perhaps. It matters naught.

I’m back in the saddle.

Today I find myself as a guest of the Tunkhannock Writer's Group, at the Fatima Retreat Center in Dalton, PA. I'm here for a writer's retreat that offers a good number of very comfortable rooms in which to work (one of which is a library) breakfast, lunch and dinner, and the option of overnight accommodations.

Most importantly, it offers the chance to be around other writers. If you need to get into the mood for writing, the fastest method is to walk into a room with people who want to write. I'll let sociologists worry about why this is effective. I can tell you from personal experience it works.

My last such experience was the Philadelphia Writer's Conference held last June. You would think that charged up by such an event, I would be able to knock out a blog entry about it before the end of July. Those creative juices were spent working on my book—as was the first two hours here I might add—so I'm just getting around to writing about my experiences in Philly.

So with the first and last chapters of Tales of the Black Knight: The Orphan's Search freshly re-written, I can take a break and ponder June's event.

The seminars at the Philadelphia event have yet to disappoint. They've all been delivered by successful authors who not only know what they're doing, but can share the craft with you in a way that isn't like eating saltines with no butter. We're talking dynamic personalities with great knowledge and experience to share.

The Workshop on Novel: Plot by Lauren B. Davis inspired much of my current re-writing efforts. I realized I needed to build the plot more tightly around the main character, and re-wrote the opening chapters as a result. I got to speak with her after class, and she advised me to give more closure to the ending of the book. Even if I hope to do more books, the reader should feel that they've gotten a complete story from the first one.

Interestingly, this had a huge impact on what happens to the characters going forward, and actually gave me better footing should the opportunity for a sequel arise.

Solomon Jones took us through the Novel: Character workshop with riveting examples from own work, while challenging us with exercises throughout. By the end of the course you could tell the room got it. We knew what was needed to develop a character and bring him or her to life.

For both the Novel workshops, I submitted samples of my work for critique. I still can't believe that such an opportunity exists, but through the Philly workshops, you can have authors like Lauren and Solomon critique your work. If I don't get published soon, the acknowledgment pages will double the size of the book. In the meantime, to Lauren and Solomon, thank you so much for your efforts. They are greatly appreciated.

I'd also like to extend thanks to Jonathan Maberry, Cardiad Pinero, and Merry Jones for their critiques at last year's event. (Google all these people, then buy their books.)

Speaking of Mr. Maberry, he presented two classes this year, both related to the business aspects of writing. This is the kind of stuff that baffles most people when they try to get into writing. His class on Query Letters armed me with exactly the information I needed, and in true Maberry fashion, was full of humor and candid detail about the business. It was a hell of a lot of fun. His other class was on "Acting Like a Writer." I just deleted the first draft of this paragraph, because I started retelling the whole class. It was that much fun and that much insightful. I will give you two insights to what it was he described. First, I discovered that developing the Shuta Multimedia Vlog was a great primer for any future I have as a writer. I developed a genuine delivery that is 100% me while still meeting the needs of my audience. Second, if you want an even better hint at how to be a writer, walk up to Mr. Maberry any time you see him. Make notes about the encounter. Heck if people responded that way to every encounter we'd have a much more peaceful and happy society.

Keith Strunk delivered my selected Master Class on Screenwriting. From Keith I learned that as a novel writer, I will almost certainly never do the screenplay for my work. This was a shocking revelation to me, and in some ways a great relief, because before this class I knew nothing of screenplays.

In case you think that meant I thanked him, stood up and asked for my money back, let me continue. Keith is a professional actor as well as a writer, and his delivery is matched by his insight. Not only did I learn about screenplays, but I was given a window in the world of the actor. This had a huge influence because an actor requires a certain freedom to interpret the character. When you think about it, so does the reader. The reader needs some freedom to build the story as well, and I'm trying to work that into my own work.

Also, we had another fascinating discussion of personality traits and a reinterpretation of an approach very similar to the "Social Styles" training I received years ago at Lockheed Martin. Keith offered us suggestions for using that method for creating consistent characters, and in the process actually gave me more insights into the personality types than I received from the expert hired by L-M. Keith has a fantastic grasp of the human equation.

Oh and did I mention his class was a lot of fun too?

At the banquet, the food was excellent, as was the Speaker, George Anastasia. George only recently retired from covering Mob news for the Inquirer, and has published several books on the subject. He gave us a behind-the-scenes look into what goes into investigative reporting, including insight into one of the most dastardly murder cases on the mid-Atlantic coast. He also shared his concerns with how investigative reporting is changing. It was a gripping and at times very humorous speech, and again gave us all more insight into the publishing world.

Every year there is so much going on that you can't physically get to everything. Classes overlap, bus schedules conflict, so if something wasn't mentioned—such as Ed Rendell's opening speech—it's probably because I didn't see it.

The best advice I can give you if you're a writer of any experience level—even if you're just thinking about trying it—is to go to this event. You will get a real understanding of the world of writing and you will enjoy every minute of it.

Pardon the pun but here’s some food for thought. According to Discovery.com, researchers are currently trying to map out the brain in the hopes that eventually memories could be downloaded and uploaded at will:

http://news.discovery.com/tech/robotics/download-memories-retrieve-later-130603.htm

Interestingly enough, according to the current research memories disappear when we are not using them. They can’t figure out where the memories are actually stored. There’s no great surprise in this, as the brain is a wildly complicated device. I have no idea how you would even begin to look at the state of every neuron in the brain at once. This is the bleeding edge between science and science fiction here.

But these finding fit with a theory that I’ve had for some time. It’s just a theory, and I’m likely to be wrong about it. But I think it’s an interesting theory.

Let us for a moment imagine we could build a time machine, and use it to bring back a scientist from the days before electricity. You can pick your favorite for this exercise. We would need someone with great reasoning power and the ability to use the scientific method.

In front of this person, we place a laptop running on battery and connected to the internet via a wireless connection. We then let them surf the internet, and ask them how it works.

As they investigate, they’re going to assume all the information is inside the computer. We could show them the internet cache where the temporary files are stored, and they would continue to look for the larger cache where the rest of it is stored.

They would naturally assume it’s all in the computer on their desk.

Now we know you can’t put the whole internet on your laptop. Perhaps someday we’ll have that technology, but its way beyond us right now.

So the computer is just an interface to the internet. The computer tricks us into thinking it has everything right here, because that’s the only part of the puzzle most people see. Of course I build websites, so I get to see that other side. I get to interface with GoDaddy’s servers and make the magic happen. This makes me wonder, what if the brain is the same way.

What if the brain doesn’t store anything?

What if it’s just an interface?

Oh the subroutines that control biological functions might be localized, but what if the brain is for all intents and purposes a connector?

For this model to work of course there must be something with which the brain connects. There has to be something that contains the entirety of your personality and memory, or the model falls apart.  There needs to be some “essence of you” which the brain draws upon.

I’m pretty sure everyone knows where I’m going by now.  Yes, I’m talking about the often denied but never disproven soul.

Imagine the effects of a scientific breakthrough that determined that the true function of the brain was to join the soul to the body. If true, then transferring memories would involve only changing the soul-body interface. If perfected, your soul could be connected to a robot body—either temporarily, in the case of emergency first aid for trauma or major surgery, or permanently to stave off death entirely.

I can’t even comprehend what this will mean for the field of psychiatry. How do you approach it? Is it the soul that suffers from the illness, or is the interface damaged?

Even if the brain isn’t simply a connection to the soul, science and engineering work wonders with equivalent models. Even if the mind is self contained, approaching the mind from this angle might yield the very goals that scientists are now pursuing.

As a theory, it’s outlandish and I don’t really expect that it will ever be proven true. But it does explain why memories are only detectable in the brain when they are being used, and disappear otherwise. The model fits the data. Until new data—the discovery of where memories are stored in the brain—is found, my theory is viable.

Coming up with a viable theory—no matter how farfetched—is a lot of fun. I haven’t seen it proposed before during my limited search of the internet,  so it may or may not be an original idea.

It did seem good enough for a blog post. And as fodder for fantasy, horror and sci-fi, it’s fantastic. Imagine a zombie apocalypse brought on not by disease or chemicals, but by a strange pulse of energy that disconnects people from their souls, leaving the bodies to drift with no direction! Or what about a story of “Soul Hackers” that breach the interface and use people to commit crimes!

Again, it’s just food for thought…and where that thought happens is anyone’s guess.