Welcome to Spandex Monkey’s Variety Hour.

For those of you who have known me for a long time, you might recognize Spandex Monkey as the name I’d hoped to use for a) a production company or b) an alternative rock band. As I’ve grown, I realized that ‘Spandex Monkey’ would be better for a punk band so option ‘b’ went out the window. There are still hopes for option ‘a’ but since I live nowhere near L.A. or New York, have no contacts in television, film, or the music industries, odds are I won’t ever have a production company either. What I do have, however, is a fresh new blog that needed a name so I went with what I had.

As for the ‘Variety Show’ part of the name, that is a direct reference to the content of this blog. There may be anything posted here from tips on preparing roast beef to memories of obstinate pygmy goats, roosters with duck fetishes, or stupid dogs named Molly. But mostly, I hope to use this blog as a tool for writing.

I love writing, always have but have never done anything but play with ideas, jot a few notes and occasionally pounded out an unpublishable novel read only by my wife who hates sci-fi.

The things I think when I finish a piece - What if it’s awful? Not just bad but really excruciatingly, teeth-grinding terrible? What if I am so lost and deluded that I can’t recognize the torture I am putting to page? What then? Am I wasting my time? Is it time to get a better hobby? Am I an idiot? And so on until I find myself watching P90X ads at two in the morning.

These thoughts keep me from sharing with as many people as I should and consequently, keep me from improving as a writer.

I need feedback. I need lots of feedback - Good and Bad. Good to keep me writing what works and bad to help me fix what doesn’t. So many of you are wonderful, cuddly, considerate people and are just too nice to tell the whole truth. I appreciate you all for your kind souls but it’s not what I need. If your response to my writing is positive, of course let me know. If it is negative, absolutely LET ME KNOW. If a character is unrealistic, if a logic jump is too great, if dialog sounds like five renditions of the same person arguing with themselves, I need to know.

By the time I think something is ready for others to read, I’ve been through it so many times that I lose perspective. I don’t recognize what’s on the page because I see my thoughts and can’t remember that you don’t see what I see. You have only the words on the page or screen and I need to know what those do for you.

So, basically, this blog is me begging. I am begging for your help. I am begging for your honest opinions. If you don’t want to read science fiction, you don’t have to. Stories and chapters will be posted to the side if you do care to read. If you don’t care for sci-fi, but are curious as to what goes on in my balding head, please read. If you like sci-fi, definitely read.

I need your help and I hope, sincerely hope, that if you take the time to read you will enjoy it. If you don’t, then take pleasure in giving me your honest opinions. I may sulk. I may whimper. But in the end, I will be grateful.

Thank you for your time and please, be honest. Remember, this is for posterity. (Okay, maybe not so much but it seemed like an appropriate quote to end with.)

Dan