It's no secret that Heroes is faltering and has been faltering for some time. There are a few theories out there as to why, including a sophomore slump, convoluted storylines, bad writers, bad writing, and cleaving too much to comic book tropes. That last theory is my own.

One of the main reasons I once found Heroes so appealing was its subtle -nonchalant even- approach to its subject matter. In its first year, Heroes was a comic book trying not to be a comic book. It was almost as if creator Tim Kring sneaked that major element past NBC:

NBC suits: So, Heroes is a television show that's really a comic book, right?

Tim Kring: Comic book? Pshaw! Heroes isn't a comic book. It's a television show about ordinary people who just happen to have extraordinary abilities.

But Heroes got away from that and jumped the shark with New York being devastated by a nuclear explosion. The writers then followed that up by making everyone lose their powers, only to have them suddenly regain them. Make up your minds, writers.

Anyway, since the new season has started, I've tried to watch Heroes, but I just haven't been able to get through an entire episode. Actually, I haven't been able to watch more than ten minutes, including tonight's episode.

I won't spoil much (since I didn't watch much), but the writing was very weak tonight. There was a particular scene where Hiro, who is running a Heroes-for-Hire organization, responds to a co-worker's call for help.

The co-worker, Tadashi, has humiliated himself at a party and is preparing to leap to his death off a building because he has lost face. Hiro arrives at the top of the building and seems somewhat confused; he believes he has prevented this scenario in an alternate timeline.

Tadashi assures Hiro that humiliation was not averted, says good bye, and leaps. It's here I turn the channel. Why? Because at no time does Hiro attempt to convince Tadashi not to jump, that he has much to live for. You'd think that's why Tadashi places the call; he wants to be convinced not to take his life, he wants to be saved by a hero.

Now, while that would have been very cliched writing given the cliched situation, I think it would have made the scene at least somewhat believable. Instead, we get Tadashi as a plot device to further whatever storyline the writers are pursuing with Hiro. For me, the entire scene was implausible and fell flat.

Unfortunately, however, this season of Heroes so far is just the same.

I saw the premiere episode of Flash Forward last night.

Actually, I half-watched, but I saw enough to get the gist of what was going on. And I must say, I liked what I saw.

I'm very much surprised to see Joseph Fiennes on network television. Truthfully, I thought that in itself might not bode well for the show. This is not to say that Joseph Fiennes is not a good actor, because he is. But there's a reason why big screen actors stay away from the small screen. Their agents.

I was gmail chatting with a friend last night and she said she was pleased to see that "Harold" was part of the cast. So am I. John Cho is slowly becoming one of my favorite actors. Actually, both he and Kumar (Kal Penn). Both are showing their versatility in ways that I can't help but respect their craft. Just one thing I did notice, though: John Cho seemed to be overacting just a tad in his opening scene with Joseph Fiennes. Other than that he was badass fierce and cool as hell.

Very happy to see Penny Widmore (better known as Sonya Walger), too. You Lost fans know who I'm talking about. I don't know what it is about her lips, but if I ever meet her in person, I'm just going to run my fingers over her lips. I don't want to kiss them; I just want to stroke them with the tips of my fingers, as if I were blind and they were Braille.

Anyway, speaking of Lost, Flash Forward is trying to be Lost's little brother. Which isn't a bad thing. Unless your big brother is the star QB homecoming king valedictorian in a small town where the most important night of the week is Friday night because that's when the football games are played. Which Lost isn't quite that, but almost.

I'm not going to give anything away (at least now) about Flash Forward, other than Dominic Monaghan is slated to appear in future episodes and Alex Kingston (ER) and her lovely accent appeared last night (and hopefully often in the future), but if you're like me and you don't mind spoilers, check out the Wikipedia entry for the Flash Forward novel, which the series is based on.

Then go buy it. I am.

Oh yeah, one last thing. It was also nice to see The Famous Jett Jackson (yeah, I watched Nickelodeon back in the day) and Courtney B. Vance. Should be interesting to see if they explore any sort of relationship between The Famous Jett Jackson and Alex Kingston, though, since they shared flash forwards. Talk about May December relationship. But the good kind. For both involved, if you ask me.

One last thing for real now: I really liked the subtle humor of the show with Courtney B. Vance recounting the "meeting" he saw in his "flash forward."

Talk about doing some business.

Expanded Horizons recently published my short story "blurred edges" here in their July 2009 issue. It's a reprint of a story that was originally published by the webzine Underground Voices back in 2005.

"blurred edges" was an easy story to write because so much of me went into it. I know writers say things like that all the time, but a few of the story's elements are based on my personal experiences. That being said, I must stress that the story is entirely a work of fiction--I did not know a girl whose father murdered her in a drunken rage because he mistook her for a cheap prostitute.

Some of my (sparse) readers who know me personally will recognize the Cherry Lane Motel and Transformers references. There is an actual Cherry Lane Motel, and my godbrother and me loved to watch Transformers (and Go Bots!) when we were growing up. Sadly, he died in a motorcycle accident last fall. I'm not sure there was a bigger ten-year-old Transformers fan than him.

Woke up this morning after a fitful night of sleep to the email below:

Dear six blocks east of mars,

Thank you for your submission to Expanded Horizons. I have read your story, "Blurred Edges," and I like it. We have decided to include it in our upcoming July issue. Congratulations!

Please "sign" the contract at the bottom like I did and return it with a short bio as you would like it to appear on our website. Please also send me your PayPal address or the address where you would like me to
send the check, and take a moment to join our Livejournal community at exp_horizons, or our Facebook community.

Again, congratulations, and thank you for this story!

Dash
Editor

A great way to wake up, if I may say so myself. "blurred edges" is a reprint that was originally published by Underground Voices back in the fall of 2005. I'll post a link to Expanded Horizons and the story once it goes live.

It's been far too long since I've posted, but there has been good and bad news in the meantime.

The good news is that I'm no longer anxious. The story I submitted back in January was accepted after a request for a rewrite. I'll post more about that in the future as details firm up. The bad news is that I haven't written much of anything since that rewrite.

I've felt a bit drained mentally and creatively the past two months, most of it due to things going on in my life. During the much needed and much anticipated free time I have, I don't write because I find myself needing to unwind in other ways. I haven't stopped thinking about writing, though, but I realize thinking about writing and writing are not the same thing.

Since I first started writing, which was way back in middle school, I've fallen into these periods of hestitancy. I know what I want to write, I know how I want to write it, but I can't bring myself to begin the actual writing process.

Sometimes, my hesitancy is just a matter of me wanting the writing to marinate a little more. More often than not, it's a matter of fear.

Fear of what, you ask?

Fear of imperfection. Fear of incompletion. Fear of disliking the prose.

Fear never wrote stories though, right? Or maybe it did.

Today, my plan is to push past my hesitancy and just write.

Back in January, I submitted a short story to a print magazine I've come to respect very much the past few months. The magazine is high-quality, has engaging content and is ambitious in a way I haven't seen before. I won't name the magazine here because I'm afraid I may jinx myself.

Jinx yourself?

Yeah, jinx myself.

I'm a superstitious person when it comes to certain things, including writing, hence the jinx if I mention the name of the mag. So this is where my anxiousness comes in. I've discovered that stories have been accepted for the particular issue my January submission is (was?) being considered for.

That submission I sent in January got lost in the shuffle, which happens. Two months later, I politely reminded the editor of my submission. The editor promptly responded. The story would be tracked down.

In the meantime, I've submitted another story to the same magazine. I really, really like the mag. The editor promptly responded acknowledged receipt of the story. I have yet to hear about the status of my previously submitted story, though. Editors are busy, especially this particular one.

In my previous experience, editors who have misplaced my stories and then found them later didn't accept them. I suspect that's partly because the particular issue I'd submitted for had been filled by the time I queried about my story. I also realize that my story just wasn't to their liking.

Superstition is telling me this January submission has all but been rejected. However, pessimism aside, I think my most recent submission to the mag will have a very good chance of being published. And, for the most part, that's the source of my anxiety. I think these two stories are my best writing to date, and for someone else to recognize that would be validation that makes writing worthwhile.

Now that I'm done talking vague nonsense, it should be interesting to find out what actually happens.

A good friend of mine sent me an email yesterday about my Star Trek post, suggesting I view the original series as television show that was groundbreaking for its diversity during a time when civil rights were at the forefront. Mary Anne Mohanraj (one of the creators of Strange Horizons and a South Asian speculative fiction writer) discusses (in part) the same thing here. I'm somewhat ashamed that I didn't praise Star Trek for this.

But again, as I said in my previous post, I think my disinterest in the original series might have a little to do with generation. Now, neither my good friend nor Mary Anne are that much older than me, but both (I think) would have been seniors in high school when I was a freshman. That's not the ten-year difference my sister and I have, but those four years put them closer to the 60's and the civil rights era than me.

I was born smack in the middle of the 70's and grew up on the South Side of Chicago in the 80's. And even though, I remember singing "Young, Gifted and Black" in school, and the "I'm Black and I'm Proud" slogan being everywhere, obvious products of the civil rights ra, I'm a child of the 80's through and through. I watched MTV often, and I had both a Rubik's Cube and an Atari 2600.

What am I trying to say? I think I'm trying to say that for the children of the 70's Star Trek is viewed as a result of the strong, determined voices of the civil rights era, and for children of the 80's Star Trek gets lost in new-fangled gadgets, Voltron and Transformers.

But then again, maybe my view on the series is severely narrow.