Current Post On Trae’s Blog:
So I'm just going to come out and say it: My favorite episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation is "Conundrum." It's episode fourteen of season five, and I just deeply love it.
I don't know if it's because I literally just assumed Erich Anderson's Commander McDuff was a random Enterprise officer of the week (which we saw quite often during the show) when I watched it as a kid during the original run, so the twist actually worked on eleven year old me. I don't know if it's because I just like a good "everyone has amnesia" story. I don't even know if it's just because it's a good Ro Laren episode. I don't know if it's just because we learn that Starfleet doesn't give a crap about lasers.
I just like it. It's neat.
And I rewatched it last night, and feel that it holds up -- which is why I found it deeply weird that the folks who wrote the episode actually think it's not that good. My favorite episode of the entire seven season run of the show was a failure according to the folks who wrote it.
And maybe, as a writer and creator, I should remember that.
Like the hardest part of releasing creative works to the public is that often, after a while, I'll start to judge those things far more harshly than when I first made them. Or I'll compare it to the potential I thought an idea had in my head. And if I don't reach that potential, I'll think of it as "bad" -- when it might just be slightly different than that idea. I have one hundred percent published stories that I thought were just sort of okay and later had someone tell me how much it meant to them to read it.
*cough*I Hate November*cough*
So I should make sure I remember Conundrum. That one of my favorite things to rewatch is considered one of those failures by its creators. That the things I make might have value, just not in the way I originally thought they should.
It's just sort of how things work out.
Remember that on April 5th at 11AM Eastern/10AM Central you can join me for the Critical Thinking Witches' Collective's April Brew virtual event! Attendance is free, and you can register here!
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Run. Run now. Run fast.
Resign before you become an enabler.
Had something similar happen at a meeting. 4 hours of heated debate over an expense on some stage lights. And a newbie staffer finally pipes up: “How many of those lights do you need? I’ve got 4 of them in the truck right now that I was about to take to Goodwill.”
I’m not sure what’s wrong with them but I really hope it’s not contagious.
When I was at Marvel Comics, in the mailroom, I learned how to set type. I was then a typesetter for about 20 years before losing my last job to a takeover and liquidation. I remember at one point, the typesetter AT Marvel (the guy who taught me) talked about the time they were discussing updating from the Compuwriter IV (OLD school typesetting) to a Compugraphic CTRonic (100% digital). Someone suggested they just get RID of the typesetting department and replace it with a terminal where they would lease computer time on a mainframe. They debated this for two hours before someone crunched the numbers and discovered the the mainframe leasing would cost MORE than just updating the equipment and getting supplies!