..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

Cut to the Core:
A Geek Responds to John Rogers...

Thanks, John. Thanks a bunch.

Everything was just fine before you ran your "geek manifesto" on MCGeek the
other day. Birds were singing, the sky was clear, and I could comfortably
rationalize my way out of sitting down and actually getting some writing done,
yet again. I could work a little extra tomorrow, or the weekend even, sure,
there's plenty of time. And I've got dvds to watch, after all, gotta get through them before the 30-day return policy is up, just in case they're defective.

But noooooooo. You had to come along and remind me of priorities.

I mean, do you get off on making people feel guilty? Honestly, I could have spent a nice, quiet evening listening to the cast commentary on the extended cut Fellowship of the Ring dvd, or maybe watched a few episodes of Coupling or Fawlty Towers, but no, that just wouldn't do. No sir, you marched in and started going on about passion and chasing your dreams and damn if that didn't ruin my plans. I'll have you know, instead of spending three hours flipping back and forth between Trading Spaces and Cheers reruns on Nick at Nite, I was forced to--nay, MANIPULATED into--parking my ass in front of the computer and busting out five pages of the comic script I'm working on. And it's good, damn it! And it's all your fault!

Ahem. This is my overly theatrical way of saying thanks, and that I loved your "geek manifesto" column. As I told Den from MCGeek, I'm a young freelance writer, and your essay was a real kick to the head. I've found it's way too easy to let the nights just slip by, to rely on the false promise of tomorrow, and then you look up, six months have gone by, and you haven't gotten anything worthwhile done. God knows I've fallen into the "watching dvds is research" trap more times than I care to recall...

I'm a guy who's been on this road since I was a kid, and I'm just starting to see the fruit of my labor, selling stuff, getting published more frequently and with more ease. Nothing huge yet, but consisent sales, and that's just insanely thrilling. It was great to hear from a kindred spirit further on down the road, somebody who has found success and is able to do what he loves for a living. You so perfectly captured that contagious passion that geek culture-- and that creativity, a life of the mind--is all about. Your essay made me excited again for all the things I want to do, all the stories in my head, just waiting to find purchase in scripts or novels or stories or plays. And for that, I wanted to say thanks.

Here's hoping I reach your point in the road someday, and that by the time I
get there, you're even further along.

I've got my own copy of the ULTRAVIOLET dvd, a Superman t-shirt, and a
European variant edition of J. Michael Straczynski's MIDNIGHT NATION #1.

Let's ride.

John Rogers: It's A Geek World

David Michael Wharton's grandparents were once extras in an episode of Dallas,
which doesn't rank very highly as a claim to fame, but does make
Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon that much easier.

.