My Self

I Know Stuff

Author Peter David describes himself as “Writer of Stuff” and he writes a lot of stuff. Comic books, movie novelizations, original novels and short fiction, all across a number of genres. He is one of the relatively few professional writers who make a very good income writing because he’s one of the relatively few professional writers who are very good and very reliable about writing.

Myself, I am self-described as “Knower of Stuff.” (Its even on my calling cards, that and “Gentleman Adventurer”. Take that, Othar Tryggvassen!) After all, it isn’t every nine-year-old who reads and comprehends  his older brothers’ college books (especially “Mythology” by Edith Hamilton, a collection of the primary Western mythologies, particularly Greek-Roman. I still possess that book, too.) and who could run columns (not just ‘Greek Mythology’ but others, as well) watching Jeopardy! before I was 12. That hasn’t much changed in the decades that followed.

Among the stuff I am most proud of knowing about includes:

I Know the English Language

A good craftsman knows their tools. A writer needs to know the language. That means not only knowing grammar and spelling, it means having a large vocabulary and the understanding of words. That means, among other things, knowing the difference between the words there, their and they’re. It means knowing the difference between affect and effect. It means knowing when to use ‘its’ and when to use ‘it’s’. It also helps that my vocabulary is easily two or three times the average. (One time, I completely flabbergasted a co-worker when I used the word “subsumed” to describe what I did with a routine and a subroutine only that routine called. He was just amazed not only that I used the word but also used it correctly.)

I Know How to Code

This means more than just being able string programming elements together, it means knowing how to do it according to best programming practices. Furthermore, I actually understand programming on a fundamental level, one that applies to most every present language.

I Know How to Take Good Pictures

Still or moving, they all involve getting the right lighting, the right poses, the right background, the right “look”. I’ve been shooting pictures since my pre-teen years, when all I had was an Instamatic 126 camera. (An Instamatic camera was a Kodak camera that loaded the film in a cartridge that just dropped into the back of the camera.) Then, when my brother returned home from his tour in Viet Nam, he gave me his Minolta SRT-101 35mm camera, which was my main camera for three decades until I finally switched to digital cameras.

I Know How to Hypnotize People

I had a life-long fascination with the subject of hypnosis. It probably started as a pre-teen with watching one or more of the very stereotypical media presentations of it and then finding a book on the subject at the library Bookmobile. However, this fascination would only have been just a dilettante’s cursory knowledge until I was commissioned to videotape a series of classroom presentations for the Midwest Training Institute of Hypnosis by its founder, Dr. Gisella Zukausky. Since then, I even attended the classes on my own, so I have some training and some experience at hypnotizing people. I’m also one of the few lay people interested in hypnosis actually to read Milton Erickson, the foremost clinical writer on the subject ever.

That said, I also know quite a lot about the topic of hypnosis in general. I know that what most people know about hypnosis is usually wrong: unless they’ve actually experienced hypnosis (and by that I mean in a professional context and not in an entertainment context) then they only know it from media presentations of it and those are almost uniformly not just bad but completely inaccurate.

I Know How to Play the Drums

Taiko drums, that is. Taiko is Japanese for “big drum” and were used for such things as battlefield communication and for enforcing the order of marching, and were used to distinguish the bounds of villages (which was defined as far as the drum could be heard.) Now they are a performance and musical art form, combining percussion and rhythm with movement and style. I learned through the Fort Wayne Taiko Club.

I Know Fonts and Typography

I know the difference between a serif font and a sans-serif font, between monospace fonts and variable spaced fonts. I know what kerning means. I know what is a Unicode character. I collect font files. If I’m asked if something is justified, my first thought is about how text looks on a page. If someone mentions “dingbat” I do not immediately think of Maureen Stapleton and “All In the Family”.

I Know Maps

Even back in my pre-teen years, I loved maps. I loved being able to understand the symbols involved and being able to relate what was shown on the map to what actually existed. Even today, with a good map, I can find my way anywhere.

I Know How to Photoshop

Well, at least enough to produce book covers and the header images on the top of the website pages. I also collect Photoshop brushes, backgrounds and actions.