Living Outside Your Comfort Zone…

Several years ago, Amy and I came up with a plan. I would go back to work while she attended college to get a degree in Nursing. People are not going to quit getting sick and nurses are always in demand. Now, even further back, Amy went to work at the Tulsa County DA’s Office while I became a full time dad. So when she wanted to make the change, I had to go back to work. I was five years out of the employment business and my skills amounted to experience in the grocery industry and the video store industry – you know real titans of financial independence. But we figured we would live a little light, struggle for a little while, and come out better in the end. (There is a joke in there about coming better in the end but I am not going to make it. I am way too classy for that vulgar humor.) So I went back to work at the grocery store that gave me a job when I was 17.
So now, the day is here. Amy is working for a nursing agency. The pro to this is that she makes more than twice what I make an hour. The con is that shifts may be few and far between. If you are making $100 an hour, it doesn’t do any good if you only work half an hour a week. But, as I predicted long ago, Amy is doing well in her nursing.
Staff is requesting her help. “We want Amy to work over here!” At one point, an established pro could not believe that this was not only her first job but also only her second shift. So now, she is doing well. There is still that lingering fear that the agency is going to quit calling but after doing this for a few weeks, I think that fear is becoming unfounded…
So, I have cut back to part time work at the grocery store. We have Fourth of July coming up. For a grocery store on the lake, it is the busiest week of the year. So, here is the thing. I hate my job but I love the people I work with. I hate that I make nightmarish amounts of money for a company that pays me peanuts. My comic book assignments are what really make me happy. Yet, I fear letting go of this job, regardless of how crappy it is. Perhaps it is all this economic uncertainty looming around everyone like a specter of doom.
I have cut back to part time and there is an option after the holiday to possibly just cut back to two days a week. I may love the place if I am only there two days a week. So, in theory, I work at the 9-to-5 two days a week and write the other five days out of the week. That would not be too bad a situation. Get me out of the house, keep me active, let me have conversations with real adults… and yet, I despise the upper levels of management (the suits). The money is not fantastic. The insurance sucks. Maybe I should just quit all together… But I love my boss. Most of the co-workers are all pretty cool. I make some side money here and there. I wouldn’t have to go to Amy for cash to buy my action figures…Needless to say, it is a question that I am having difficulty answering and this is an aspect that has been consuming my life – which means it makes it into the blog. Anyone have any advice? I’ll keep you posted…

Flexing Your Muscles as an Artist… and I am RIPPED!

As mentioned in my last entry, my first book STOLEN HEARTS: THE LOVE OF EROS & PSYCHE has been published through Campfire, which opens the door for me to talk about what I have been doing behind the scenes for the last year or so.

You can find the book at the following link:
http://www.campfire.co.in/Books.aspx?catid=3

Here a while back, I got hooked in through a comic contact with a company that would eventually become known as Campfire. They are an outfit based out of India looking to break into the educational comic market.
In the first trial run with the company, I adapted a literary classic for them that is going to be published soon. It was a feeling out period for both of us. I was a relatively unknown writer with only a few credits to my name and they were a brand new company I knew nothing about. I am sure they were afraid that I was going to stink as a writer and I was uncertain if they were going to be a fly-by-night operation that might not pay me. (They are based in India and that makes legal recourse really difficult.)
So after that first book, I think the editors realized they had something special. I say this not to brag or anything but I have been screaming inside about taking the comic book industry by storm. Writing comics is what I am supposed to be doing and Campfire has provided me with the largest outlet to do that in my career so far.
And how did I know that they liked me? Because they came back saying, “What do you want to do next?” I kind of shrugged my shoulders and said, “Mythology?” I had always been fascinated with Greek mythology and thought that could be a fairly large avenue for me to conquer. So when they came back with the thumbs up, I suddenly had to scramble to start relearning everything.
Again, time schedules and artist work can be delayed for various reasons so strangely enough, STOLEN HEARTS is my third story for Campfire but it is the first one published. Don’t worry, it just means more stories are coming and my output is going to look insane.
When I first approached my editors about the story, I had just come off a real adrenaline-fueled, hack-and-slash warrior action story with sword fights and monsters. I remember several years ago, I met comic superstar artist Michael Turner at a comic book convention. (He died a while back. Huge loss. Rest well, brother.) I was a budding artist at the time. I remember how he talked about setting a scene for a book in a place with a lot of curtains and drapes because he couldn’t draw them. At the time, I thought, “Why would you intentionally draw something for publication that you can’t draw?” But I understand it now. He wanted to flex his muscles.
My writing for all my comic projects to this point had been action and swords and monsters and magic. Guy stuff. And when I went to go speak at Osage Elementary about writing comics and Greek mythology, girls outnumbered the boys.
Granted, comic books and video games are largely a male dominated field. I think as many girls read Harry Potter as boys. But one girl asked me if there were “girl comics” and that was when I knew that this story would work.
So I flexed my muscles. I wanted to grow as a writer (and as an artist). I wanted to grow as a storyteller. So I thought, why not do a romance? Luckily, Campfire was willing to take the plunge and the result is the book STOLEN HEARTS: THE LOVE OF EROS & PSYCHE… on bookshelves now! (I know it’s a cheap pop. Sue me, my last name is Foley.)
While I am nightmarishly out of shape physically, my storytelling muscles were blasted with cardio with this story and I think I came out quite well. It is a definite departure from the norm for me but I feel it is a wonderful story.
The company did a whole one-page blurb for me in the “About the Author” section. (Personally, I think they should have split the info between the artist and me because we are a team.) But in that section, they mention the forthcoming books for Heracles, Perseus and Theseus. Which pretty much means the cat is out of the bag for those titles. Hopefully I will learn more soon about their release dates.
STOLEN HEARTS is a story that I am tremendously proud of. It is not “my” story. It is a tale over 3000 years old but I feel like I have put my own unique spin on the tale. Nothing was changed from the story. There are no time-traveling cyborgs or lightsabers in it and He-Man doesn’t make an appearance… although that would have been AWESOME! But I feel that the way I have presented the story is very unique. As strange as it sounds, this one is for all the fourteen-year-old girls out there but I certainly hope that everyone enjoys it and comes back for more.
All value-degrading autographs on the book are always complimentary.

Coming Back to Reclaim the Throne of Internet Geek King

Fooos. Fooosh. That sound you hear is me blowing the dust off my blog. I know. It is has been a little while and all my fans (both of you) are probably wondering what has become of their master of all things geektastic. Admittedly, I have been away far too long. The MySpace page has suffered from even worse lack of attention. Let me break down the most important (and time consuming) events that have kept me away.

SCRIPT COMPLETED! My editors commissioned me for the largest script so far with a whopping total of 150-pages. Your average comic book is 22 pages, so this is almost like doing a seven-issue mini-series. (Technically it would be a 6.81 issue mini-series but who is counting? I know, me.) Also, keep in mind that at this time, I was also working full time and trying to survive the Memorial Day holiday at work. (This is the second busiest holiday of the year.)

BOOK PUBLISHED! Because of the nature of the beast, I complete written scripts much faster than an artist can draw one. I say this not to brag because I am just the monkey sitting at the keyboard. The artists are the ones with the real talent. What they have to do is hard work. So, it takes a bit longer for the art and coloring and lettering and such to come along. However, Campfire has officially released my first book called Stolen Hearts. Don’t worry; a momentous event like this is going to get its own entry…

MY LITTLE PRETTY NURSE: Back in May, Amy completed her school and passed the certification exam to gain her LPN license. She is currently searching for a job. She has done a few shifts for agencies but the work is not steady enough yet. Granted, she pulled a double shift yesterday (from 10 p.m. to 2 p.m.) and made more money that I make in a 5-day workweek at my 9-to-5. But if you only get one shift a week, it makes paying the bills tough. So she has interviews with two places for slightly less money but steady work with an actual schedule. And this bonus money has set us up to completely pay off one credit card.

“I LOVE IT WHEN A PLAN COMES TOGETHER”: All these factors come together to create one big plan. Allow me to explain. I make considerably more money writing comics than I do working at my 9-to-5 but the money was unreliable. Car companies don’t really like hearing, “Hey, I’ll pay you when I get paid.” They would rather have their money on the set pay date.
But once Amy starts getting her weekly paycheck, the plan is for me to quit my 9-to-5 (or possibly scale back to a minimal part time – two days a week at the most) and begin writing comics full time. Amy uses her paycheck to pay the bills and I use my income for massive projects like paying off credit cards and maybe the cars if there is enough work throughout the year.
Then, once we go debt free, we start saving to build a house. And the plan is to live as we have been living – modestly – and save up to put down a massive down payment. Suddenly, that plan seems within grasp…

Keys To A Happy Life And A Romantic Relationship… From A Comic Geek.

Yesterday, Amy and I celebrated our twelfth anniversary. A dozen years is a pretty big accomplishment in my book. I wish I could say that I showered her with lavish gifts but I can only summon so much romantic ideas in a single given time period and I pretty much expended all my romantic creativity on Valentine’s Day this year.
Of course, you already know this because you read every blog entry meticulously, right? If not, where have you been?
I know it is cliché to talk about things like this but I honestly feel like I love Amy more today than I did when we were first married. I tend to talk about love and relationships a lot on this blog. Maybe more than I anticipated. But it is a pretty big part of my life. Regardless, I am by no means a relationship expert. I do not want to be one. I do not profess to be one. Still, with twelve years behind us, happy after all these years, and raising three wonderful kids in a healthy environment… I would have to say that we are doing something right.
So for all those out there looking for love (clearly a comic geek/action figure collector’s blog is the first place to come), please take this two cents worth of advice. And really this can apply to all relationships.
COMMUNICATE!
I always say that 90% of all problems come from either miscommunication or a lack of communication. Just simply talking it out can solve so many problems. Explain your point of view. Most of the time, you can find common ground. Or if opinions cannot be changed, at least the other person understands your point of view.
Now, note I said 90%. I can talk with some people until I am blue in the face and I am not going to bring them around to my POV. (In the comic script world, POV is shorthand for “Point of View”.)
My father-in-law is not going to like Barack Obama. My sister is not going to support homosexuality. And you are not going to convince me that the prequel episodes of Star Wars “suck compared to the first movies.” It is just not going to happen. On this, pick your battles and move on. There is never sense in fighting a pointless fight – unless you are part of the brave 300 and, in that case, fight on, my brothers. Fight on.
And if you think that military analogy is too far fetched, look around. Ask people. Marriage is a WAR. And it is important that you are both fighting on the same side. Because life is hard enough to fight alone. Life is a tough enough opponent on its own and you don’t want to fight a war on two fronts by having to fight with life and your spouse. You need a teammate by your side.
And as you fight together as a team, suddenly you find yourself fighting a little harder. I push myself to get more comic book pages done, to clean the house, to do the dishes (even when I don’t want to) to make sure that she is happy. I do it because I don’t want to let her down.
And that’s how I know I have found my true love. It is because I care more about her happiness than I do my own. That is not saying that I am forsaking my own happiness. As Katt Williams once said, “You have to look out for your star mother-!@#ing player.” And that star player is the person you see in the mirror. It has to be a two way street.
There are times where she lets me have my happiness over her own. I know she doesn’t want my living room desk covered in action figures. I know she doesn’t want me to build a shrine to Lara Croft (to be covered on my next blog entry). But she knows that it makes me happy.
So a recap from a person coming from twelve years of wedded bliss. Talk. Communicate with one another. Put their needs ahead of your own but not forsaking yourself in the process. If you can do that, trust me, true love will emerge.
And letting him touch your naughty parts a little more frequently helps too. Word to ya mutha. (C’mon, I was getting a little too philosophical there. I can’t be all gushy and Dr. Phil here…)

Finding Your Place in the World

I have been working with a few comic book companies over the last few years trying to establish myself within the industry. The goal is to turn my writing into a full time profession. And I am very close to accomplishing that goal. Amy has now officially completed her schooling at the NTC Center in Pryor. All that remains now is for her to pass the certification exam which she will take on the 28th. She took a predictor where she placed 83% in the nation and has a 98% chance of passing the exam. So I am pretty stoked. I think I can actually see the end of the tunnel now.
I am planning on cutting back my hours at work so that I can still maintain my full time status (and keep my crappy insurance) but dedicate more time to writing. As of right now, I am on deadline for my next project and I have been dedicating most of my time to that project. Of course, because of my Nondisclosure Agreement, I cannot talk about the specifics of the project.
In a completely unrelated subject, for no reason whatsoever, I found this pretty cool website called Campfire. You can check it out by clicking the link.
Back to my original course with this entry, as of right now, I am working towards a self-imposed deadline. Every day that I work on this project, I may get frustrated or fatigued but I am never unhappy or tired… if that makes sense. I have found that the brain is like a sponge and you can only wring so much creativity out of it at a time. But I have been pacing myself properly to prevent the “brain puddining.” [Regular visitors of the blog know about this effect.] And while at times, my job writing is difficult I am never dissatisfied.
And that is the key, people. You’ve got to find something that you love. I get so tremendously jazzed when I come up with cool fight sequences, funny gags, and heart wrenching moments. This is just what I am destined to do.
So I am clawing my way through a pretty intense book and I am fighting with my deadline and keeping on task while working at the 9-to-5. It’s rough but the end goal is what I am focused on. Well that and getting those mother-!@#$ !@#$ $%^^* piece of !@#% credit cards paid off.
So if it seems like my blog has not been updating at a tremendous rate, it is because I am working on my deadline and working behind the scenes. But I am still here, Foley Nation. I promise.

Happy St. Patrick's Day to Ye!

These things, I warmly wish for you:

Someone to love,

Some work to do,

A bit of o’ sun

A bit o’ cheer

And a guardian angel

Always near.

_____________________________________________________________

Grant me a sense of humor, Lord,

the saving grace to see a joke,

To win some happiness from life,

And pass it on to other folks.

Role Reversals and Full Time Fathers

This morning, ABC’s Good Morning America ran a news piece about women becoming breadwinners after the economic nosedive has seen so many men laid off from their jobs. You can read about the news piece here.
In the interview, the woman said of her husband, AND I QUOTE: "It's the respect. I wish I could say something different, but I've lost so much respect for him. And I think the dynamics with a man and a woman is a woman has to respect her husband. And if she doesn't, that relationship just goes away."
I know that this blog is self-rated rated PG-13, so let me think of an appropriate and family-friendly response…
Fuck You.
Now, allow me to properly represent my anger through my side of the story. Several years ago, my wife and I were both working our little crappy jobs and we had a nice arrangement. She was working for the family business (which allowed us to avoid the high cost of daycare) and I was running a video store in Claremore. No sugar coating here (since we are all friends) but we were making peanuts. So with both of us working, she was taking care of the kids, while I took care of the majority of the housework.
Within the same week, we both became fed up with our jobs and turned to each other simultaneously and said, “I want to quit my job.” So, working as a team, we decided to switch it up. She found a new job at the Tulsa DA’s office making more money than we were both making combined. So she worked full time and I took over the house and the kids. As she was making all the money, my mindset was that she should not have to do anything around the house. It took me about a month but I began to found my system and then I took it all over. Kitchen, cleaning, cooking, laundry, chauffer for the kids back and forth to school. I did it all. And will freely admit, my role was infinitely harder. INFINITELY.
Before I was just taking care of the house and working. Suddenly, I found myself struggling with a much more difficult task of taking care of the kids and taking care of the house. With this new “job” that I had, there were no days off. Your role is often overlooked. Not by your spouse (although sometimes) but by people in general. They do not see your day-to-day chores as work because there is no paycheck involved. You are alone for a significant amount of your day.
Point blank, this is a very tough job to do.
The woman in the news piece is looking at the situation in the completely wrong context. They appeared to live in a very nice home. And while he was unfortunately muscled into his position, this guy is willing to shoulder that responsibility. And they showed him surfing on Career Builder.com, so he is doing all this while he is searching for a new job.
She should consider herself lucky and she should appreciate him, several times over. This woman better be a sexual dynamo in the sack to degrade her husband so much. Maybe she would prefer to go back to the 1950s where a woman was expected to be subservient.
If this is the biggest problem in their life, I would love to trade positions with them. Clearly, they just need a fresh perspective…

Happy Steak & BJ Day and Moving Ahead (Giggity) with Projects

See what I did? See what I did in the title there. Using the word “ahead” to tie the two headlines together? Look I did it again with “headlines.” Man, I am clever.
So I am on here today, March 14th to wish everyone a Happy Steak & BJ Day. This is the male twin holiday counterpart to Valentine’s Day. If you need to know more, click here. It's not an official holiday yet but dammit it could be!
Also, I am happy to announce that I am back on the horse regarding my latest comic book project. I am dedicating myself to three pages a day and taking Sundays off to give me a slight reprieve. If figure that working a full schedule and writing three pages is totally doable without my brain resorting to what I have affectionately called in the past “brain puddining.” It is that state that kids get when coming out of the ACTs or SATs. It is a state of mental exhaustion that occurs when you just try to wring too much information out of the sponge you call your brain.
I offset this with doing blog entries, watching a TV episode on DVD, doing housework, or having a quick go on a video game. Still this is a pretty big project and I am trying not to get burned out too fast. My theory is that the more I convert this into a full time job, the more water the sponge can hold and the more I can wring out of it at a single sitting. If I could write full time every day, much like building muscle, I am sure I will be able to devote to a larger page count. But, for now, I’m pretty satisfied with three pages a day. Not showing off, not falling behind.
Hopefully more official announcements for this very soon. Back to battle.

Showering the One You Love

I know that February is traditionally the month of love and here we are already a third of the way through March but I have been busy. Dedicating time to the blog has been few and far between. Don’t judge me! Seriously though, there was a section back in February that I really wanted to comment on but missed out on the opportunity.
Next February, if you really want to have fun, grab a folding lawn chair, a six pack of beer, and camp out in the romantic section of your local [Insert Store Name Here.] A Wal-Mart, a grocery story, drug store, or even a convenience store would work. Go somewhere where a business is displaying all the standard Valentine’s Day trappings (flowers, balloons, candies, cards, etc.) Then, the day of Valentine’s watch all the pathetic and/or desperate husbands attempting to squeeze romance out of some flimsy product after the best stock has been picked over. It is hysterical. Working at a grocery store, I was able to witness several of these encounters and suddenly had an epiphany (that is what this blog is for after all).
Now, there are two schools of thought regarding Valentines and I have seen both sides. First, like birthdays, Christmases, and anniversaries, if you purchase something for your significant other one year, they will expect it every year… and there is the inevitable pressure to top what you did the previous year. So you can either climb the pressure ladder or do nothing at all. Whichever path you take, you win… and you lose.
Dealing with this, I am reminded of the Albert Einstein quote who once said: “Women marry men hoping they will change. Men marry women hoping they will not. So each is inevitably disappointed.”
I think comedienne Aisha Tyler gave us a modern day version of the quote when she said (talking of Valentine’s Day): “Every year, people have such high hopes for it. Every year there is all this pressure to be perfect. And every year, every girl is like, ‘This is the year I get diamonds!’ And every guys is like ‘This is the year I get a blow job!’ Everybody’s disappointed.”
Now, admittedly, I do not give the whole nine yards every holiday. I try my best but it is hard. You have to mix it up and keep things fresh. This year, I had the financial wherewithal to provide my wife with a number of gifts and romantic trinkets. It was nothing dramatically over the top. It was mainly thoughtful, romantic stuff. Which translates into silky pajamas, a nice collection of roses, a thoughtful custom card, and cubic Zirconium earrings as opposed to g-strings, edible body paints and handcuffs. It was the more traditional Valentine’s Day stuff. Nice, somewhat elegant and as expensive as I could afford. (As I mentioned earlier, I am working in a grocery store right now.)
But here is the epiphany. Everything that I bought was a reflection – a symbol – of my love, if you will. A nice pair of pajamas that are silky and comfortable but not sexy dirty. Earrings I thought she would look nice wearing. Rose that say, “I love you.” Dorky stuffed animals that are cutesy and fun. I did all this to say, “On today of all days, I love you. This is a small reflection of my love for you.” Those were my exact intentions as I perused the “love aisle” at Wal-Mart. Again, money is tight this year.
And I suffered for this. As I was walking around the women’s department looking for pajamas and undergarments, you get some pretty strange looks and the ladies working said department. There is the inevitable “Can I help you find something?” Question. Which is why I was smart to have all the hearts and flowery things and stuffed animals already in my cart that I could point to and say, “Valentines Day shopping for my wife…” For all I know these people think I am some cross-dressing freak and I don’t need those glares upon me as I am in there all the time to look for action figures in the toy aisle. “Look at this one with the Spider-Man action figure.” “Yeah, I saw him last week in the ladies department shopping for bras and boy shorts.” “Ewwww…”
But the point of all this is that I went to task this holiday with the best of intentions in my heart. Sure, I was anticipating a little carnal reciprocation, but I went into this wanting to show my wife how much I love her. What I did NOT do was purchase said items saying, “Well, this ought to keep her from bitching.” Or “This should get her to shut up.” Or “This should keep me out of the doghouse.” [All of these phrases I heard from the aforementioned pathetic husbands.]
Here’s the thing, kids. Here’s the epiphany. If you are grumbling these sentiments as you are passing over your money at the cash register, chances are your whole life is in the doghouse. Why? Because you were doomed from the start. That pathetic looking rose and the half-eaten box of chocolates was not bought to be a symbol of love. You bought it so you didn’t have to hear her gripe… And, to me, that indicates problems on both ends of the relationship.
Just my two cents.
And, ladies, remember. Most of our ideas stem from things that would make us happy. Being nice and massaging your feet is a hint that we like to have our backs massaged from time to time without having to ask. If we bring you strawberries and whip cream, it’s because we like that flavor too. Men are simple creatures, ladies. If we do something elaborate for you, it means we would like to have that elaborate love reciprocated. Just some friendly advice…

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder…

I know I have been away. But typically, there are two reasons for a delay of almost a month per blog update. 1) Not a whole lot is going on worth reporting or 2) too much stuff is going on. Thankfully, this time around, it is the latter.
I have been very busy with comic book work that has delayed me from regular updates. Still, that is a pretty good thing, especially that I am about to work on one of the biggest profile projects of my very early and burgeoning writing career. Damn my Nondisclosure Agreements or I would be screaming from the mountaintops… if we actually had mountains in Northeaster Oklahoma.
Some good news. When you are surrounded by crap, sometimes you just don’t realize how crappy the stuff you have is… until you get new stuff. Thanks to some financial wrangling, I was able to purchase new furniture for the living room and a new computer for myself. And I didn’t realize how bad my old stuff was until I started working and relaxing with the new stuff. Huge world of difference. The air is sweeter. Food tastes better. It is a great feeling all the way around.
More good news. The finish line for Amy’s schooling is now officially in sight. I honestly cannot see any reason why she will not be taking her final exam for certification in March or the first week in April at the very latest. After this week, she moves into her preceptorship (think of it like super-clinicals), where she has to complete either eight 12-hour days or 12 8-hours days. Once these are done, it is exit exam, certification exam, and then off to find a job in the medical market. Thankfully, regardless of the state of the economy, people are not going to quit getting sick.
She is planning on doing the bridge program from LPN to RN at RSU ASAP (could I fit in more random letters into that statement?). Even if Amy works the weekend (say Friday, Saturday, Sunday), she would make more money than I would if I worked my five days. So she can work and go to school.
So what does this do for RMF Enterprises? If Amy can get a steady paycheck coming in each week, I no longer have to struggle to make ends meet with my current 9-to-5 job. I switch to a part time position (say two days a week) and begin dedicating 5 days a week to writing, which is where I am really happy. So this is the reason for the lack of updates. A lot of stuff going on behind the scenes which, hopefully, I will be able to talk about very soon…