The Works of Ed Michaels

I’ll begin this post assuming that you’ve at least heard of the Casey Anthony case. However, for the sake of completeness, let’s make sure everyone has the full story surrounding the trial and investigation. So that you know how it went down. I’ll try to keep it brief.

Woman’s child goes missing—Casey Anthony’s two-year-old daughter, Caylee Anthony. She spends a month lying and making up stories, one after the other, covering up the fact that she “isn’t sure where her daughter is.”

Said woman’s parents receive a notice saying her car has been towed, when they go to retrieve it they claim it “smells like… [there had been] a dead body in the… car.” They pin down said woman and it is revealed that her daughter has been missing for quite some time. A search begins.

Human remains, that of a child, are found not far from the said woman’s parents’ house. They’re confirmed to be the daughter’s. Surprise.

Logical conclusion: for reason X, said woman killed her daughter. Of course, one could argue that if she really committed the crime she wouldn’t leave the remains in such a conspicuous place and would’ve done a better job hiding them.

But Anthony doesn’t strike me as a particularly bright person, considering her erratic and flaky testimony, to begin with, so it seems more likely that she’s just that stupid.

In any case, a number of circumstantial pieces of evidence arise—a diary referring to a “choice” Anthony made which she hopes will free her of responsibility (although it never explicitly states what that was), computer search history of “making chloroform” (suspected method of killing Anthony’s daughter) which her mother claims she accidentally searched.

In the end, Anthony was found innocent, or rather, “not guilty.” Looking at the faces of the jurors as they exited the court house/answered interviews later on, you can tell that even they weren’t happy with the resolution, although it was ultimately a uniform decision. The rest of America—no, you could even say the rest of the world—makes an uproar, saying that the American law system is corrupt and basically full of shit.

News stations? Casey Anthony. Tabloids? Casey Anthony. Feverish water cooler discussion at the office? Casey Anthony. As one said, she’s become “the most hated woman in America,” and even though this was reported in a tabloid, it’s not far from the mark. Everyone’s picking up their torches and pitchforks, and to be perfectly frank it wouldn’t surprise me if they find Casey Anthony in some dumpster somewhere with her face torn off, or her throat cut open or in some other grisly state as an act of vigilante justice.

Even jurors are receiving threats.

See something wrong with this?

Even if you believe Anthony was guilty (I sure as hell do), can you really blame the nature of the jury’s verdict? The majority of the evidence was circumstantial, although each bit came very close to nailing Anthony’ coffin shut.

But not quite.

Another thing you have to consider is that court cases often (ie: always) are referred to in future cases, so that the courts don’t look like their verdicts teeter-totter every other year, and Anthony was being prosecuted to be put on death row. Not ten years, not life in prison, death row. Were Anthony found guilty, it would forever be imprinted in the minds of the jurors: “we sent this woman to death because of completely circumstantial evidence.” It seems obvious, yes, but there’s just not enough blatant evidence. Some jurors have basically said as much.

One line I keep hearing is “It was obvious that she did it.” Most definitely, and I think she did, but if you send such a woman to death because she’s incredibly suspicious, what happens to people who have criminal records and just get caught between a rock and a hard place who get accused of crimes? What happens when the trashy, unreliable office worker who’s late for work says “these three guys gang-raped me and I couldn’t get to work on time” just to throw the blame on three suspicious-looking guys? Do we lock them up for life or send them to death, too? Because it’s “obvious”?

That rape accusation case actually happened, by the way. I’ll link it at the end of the blog entry.

It’s okay to feel frustrated. It’s okay to feel the sadness of the tragedy that is the Casey Anthony trial. However, it’s not okay to become one massive angry mob and scream and shout “It’s obvious, it’s obvious, send her to death.” Doing that will make Casey Anthony miserable, sure. But it won’t bring Caylee back.

Or will it really make her miserable? Recent offers have proposed thousands of dollars for a single interview with her. If Anthony is smart (which I doubt) she can actually profit.

Ultimately, no one “wins” in this case. A young girl passes away in a tragic state, and due to a lack of explicit evidence, the mother goes unpunished by the courts. If someone leaves Anthony’s corpse for the rest of the world to see, will that make the world a better place?

You tell me.

Casey Anthony Case in a Nutshell (Wikipedia)

“I was Late Because I Got Gangbanged by Three Guys Last Night”

So like, I’ve been inactive for a while—as far as the people who subscribe to my blog are concerned, anyway. While I haven’t been spending every winking moment writing like I’d love to do while not filling this blog with random nothings, I have been working on a number of stuff when not being held up with those irritating day-to-day responsibilities. And reading, of course. To summarize, I’ve been doing a lot of free fiction work—which I’m not getting paid for—and it’s taking up a lot of time.

The first thing I’ve been working on, which actually began way back in late 2009, is a galge* called “Shoujo No Dandelion,” or “Dandy Girl.” Late in 2009 I heard about a project being concocted by a bunch of (for the most part) anonymous contributors which revolved around a short story called “The Dandelion Girl” by Robert F. Young. I read the story over, and was pleasantly surprised. The idea of it being turned into a short galge seemed really interesting, so I kept an eye on things. The programming was okay. The music was decent. The artwork was really cute. But the writing… was awful. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t read the script. Hoping to contribute and make it better, I submitted my own revised edition, and in the end they asked me to do the entire script.

Or something like that.

Anyway, the game didn’t get a lot of attention, although it did gain enough notoriety here and there to earn it a spot on VNDB.org, which was nice. Of all the ratings it ranked at about 7, which was “good.” I received a lot of positive and negative emails with feedback, and over the course of a year things quieted down and people forgot all about the game.

Until earlier this year, when I was called out to create a rewrite/expansion in the form of a fan-disc. That’s right, I’m returning to do an extension of the previous game, which will have (among a lot of other neat things):

• Choices (it’s not a 100% linear story, now)
• Multiple endings
• More scenes
• Routes for both “heroines” (Anne and Julie)
• New artwork

It’s flattering to know people are looking forward to it. Really.

She deserves her own route… right?

Also, to respond to one inquiry someone sent me in an email, yes, the main route HAS been rewritten significantly. Not just the events that go down, but the style of writing in general is different. While the last game was more of a romance story with sci-fi vibes, it’s now more of a mystery/suspense story with romance vibes and a hint of sci-fi. As to whether or not this will make people like it more or less, we’ve yet to see, but it’s a hell of a lot easier to write.

Overall the fan-disc is going to be pretty big compared to the original, and I’m considering selling some hard copies of the game for people who want to donate. All funds gathered from selling these will be distributed among the various artists I work with and will go toward future projects I do with the Lycheesoft group.

Now that was a mouthful.

Having said that, another project I’ve been working on is “Daughter x Daughter.” Some time ago I did a bunch of short comedy/romance short stories about two daughters who try to get along, one the daughter of a wealthy estate guy and the other the daughter of a farmer. When I wrote them I didn’t really have any plans for them—I just did them to relax—but upon distributing them to some other people I know I found that a lot of people liked them.

And someone was kind enough to illustrate one as a 4-panel comic strip (4koma).

Regardless of who the “official” artist will be, a good number of people liked the stories, so I’m hoping the comics will gain some notoriety. I’d like to think I could bind a bunch of them and sell them at NYCAF this Winter but I’m not sure where my finances will land me just yet. I guess time will tell.

Umineko Chiru Episode 8: Twilight of the Golden Witch should be translated fairly soon. I wonder if it’s really the unfullfilling anticlimactic clusterfuck everyone says it is.
*Galge/Visual Novel/Bishoujo/Eroge:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galge

A letter from the “Dusk” canon written by detective Josef Briggs. It takes place between the first and second novel.

http://lycheesoft.wordpress.com/2011/03/15/a-letter-from-josef/

They don’t have Keggs and Eggs in the country. Or what I consider to be the country. This little town where we have some farms here and there, cows grazing/idling around/etc., some fresh fruit stands where people sell the things they grew on their own, and so on. Tiny. Having said that, I am (or was) naive to the whole Keggs and Eggs thing.

This past year is the second time I’ve heard anything about the pre-Saint Patrick’s Day tradition , and last year Ualbany was mentioned in the same sentence, too. It wasn’t as pleasant. Things went beyond “partying hard” in Albany and left more than a few people (the primary culprits all students) with felonies on their records. Not misdemeanors, felonies. Cards vandalized, windows destroyed, furniture thrown out of windows, assaults, you name it. Stuff that’s going to stay on their records.

It’s okay, dude. I see them do this kind of stuff on Jersey Shore all the time.

A number of police officers were injured in trying to break up the riot—not party, riot—as well, and there are some weapon possessions charges mixed in there. Like Dan Nester says in his own blog entry about the subject, “not small things.” Investigations are underway to pinpoint exactly who was involved with the riots, and it’s likely that some suspensions and expulsions are going to go down.

Some are shrugging off the whole ordeal like it’s a bad dream. Did I mention how much the cleanup is costing? Twelve grand.

There’s anything wrong with having a good time—but when officers are getting injured trying to break things up, cars are being overturned and their windows smashed, furniture tossed out windows, etc. I think things have gone a little too far.

But hey, maybe it’s just because I’m a country boy. What do you think?

More:

http://blog.timesunion.com/asp/1822/kegs-eggs-results-in-rioting-arrests/

http://blog.timesunion.com/danielnester/here-are-the-mugshots-of-the-kegs-and-eggs-six/1760/

It’s frustrating when I encounter a new writer who doesn’t take the time to read. Anything. I’m not saying you have to sit down and burn through a Bronte (notice the irony of this sentence) novel in a week, just… you know, reading something consistently. The newspaper? Yahoo News? Something! You’d be surprised how many writers I know who haven’t read a book/article/etc. in months.

It’s an interesting question–do you have to be deeply immersed in your medium to be able to write it well? I think so, but it’s debatable. Thus why I’ve posed this as a question.

I’ve given up on how-to write books. As Stephen King says in his On Writing memoir (ironically, a “how to write” book of its own) most are “mostly bullshit.” Still, if there’s one thing they all seem to agree on, and which I concur with, it’s this–you should understand your field. Fiction or nonfiction alike. Do you need to read to write well? Maybe. Will you find writers who are constantly reading to be more competent than those who don’t?
Well, what do you think?

You can now download “Fleurir” from the “Fiction” section of the website. Note that it is in PDF format, not DOC, so you’ll need some type of PDF-viewer to read it. Foxit is a good free one, if you don’t already have something similar.

*Note: Illustrations for Fleurir will be added at a later time.*

Today one of my beloved pet rats, Coco, passed away. He was a real troublemaker and he wasn’t the most sociable rodent–a lot of the time he’d rather do his own thing and not get petted. He ran away once when I was staying on campus and got me in a whole mess of trouble, and really made a couple of my neighbors angry at me. But even so, he was my pet, and I loved him.

He’d gradually been getting weaker, and had stopped eating. This morning we were taking care of him, knowing he didn’t have too much longer to go, and my mother was holding him in her arms with a warm bean-bag and listening to the song “Here Comes the Sun” when the life faded out of him. I was upset that I wasn’t there to see him as he drew his last breath, but it was reassuring knowing that he wasn’t suffering, that he was warm and comfortable and could just let go. I could’ve not noticed, and he might have died alone in his cage. It’s so ironic that that song was playing.

As all pet-owners do, I have regrets. I wonder if I could’ve taken better care of him. I’m sure I could have. I wonder what I’ll do now, now that his brother and cage-mate (Momo) is all alone. I guess I’ll have to stand back up, get another rat to keep him company and love them twice as much as I ever could have loved Coco.

I’ll miss you Coco, and I’ll never forget you. When I wrote those stories and poems about rats, I was probably thinking of you. This is goodbye.

R.I.P. Coco.

Unfortunately, “Grebes” was lost in the system crash. Instead of digging through piles of research notes I decided to scrap the story and start a new one, which is almost finished. It takes place in Paris, France, and features the daughter (Sophie) of a famous french gardener.

There may be illustrations. Maybe.

Let’s face it—getting people to read your blog is hard. To find them, even. Blogger, WordPress, you name it. Traffic doesn’t just appear out of nowhere.

Sure, there are dozens of people out there looking for reading material. But how do you get them to read your blogs, come back frequently and (God forbid) comment? Sure, the answer is simple: “interest them.” But how? If you’re a freelance writer like me, content-writing is nothing new. In fact, the process may be easier.

(Not that I consider my content great—if anything, I think my writing is “average.” Do you think it’s amazing? Sweet. Don’t tell me, or my ego will start inflating.)

Nonetheless, let’s start with how to find these interested readers.

When you’re just starting out, it’s always the same. You have to go out and find people to read what you’ve got to say. With no followers, no credentials, etc. you think people are just going to stroll along to your blog, find it fascinating and start spamming it everywhere?

Well, they might, but that’s a completely separate topic. For now, let’s focus on helping you to find people who will be faithful readers. First, the “search engine method.”

• Do an “advanced search” on any search engine. Generally, these let you limit your results to certain website domains. For WordPress, you’ll want to search under the domain “wordpress.com.” When you do, enter the topic you believe is most relevant to your blog (mine would probably be writing, business or psychology, since I’ve got a lot of variety here) and hint enter! You’ll find all relevant blogs on the WordPress website. Of course, you can do the same for other blog-hosting sites.
• Follow/subscribe to the blogs of the people you find, and make sure to comment. Frequently. There’s nothing more motivating than a reader who makes sure to read your work every time—and comment on it, at that. While it might not generate much interest at first, think about it: Wouldn’t you eventually grow curious about the people so faithfully following you?
• Look at the people following them. Chances are you’ll find much the same, probably many more people in your topic of interest, in your niche (more on that in a future entry), who will give you ideas and traffic. Remember to be kind, polite, and so on, while still remaining honest and true to yourself.

This is just one method. There are, of course, many others, and none of them are “right” or “wrong.” One may work for one person, it may not for another. However, generally speaking, doing this helps you to find followers. True, it might not generate millions of hits and generate lots of moolah, but hey, it’s better than nothing, right?