Inauguration- Obama in Comics

What a day!

Quite the spectacle going on in Washington, D.C., my old stomping ground. This is a comics blog, so I'll leave the politics aside, but today's inauguration is quite an event.

Clearly, Obama-mania has not escaped the attention of the comics industry. Obama is showing up in comics left and right, and has been since the election. And these issues are flying off the shelves.

Earlier this year, both Obama and McCain's life stories got the comic treatment by IDW. This comic quickly sold out, and a special edition went back to press in December.

Then, in September, Erik Larsen's The Savage Dragon became the first big name comic character to formally endorse Obama for president, in issue #137. Not surprisingly, Larsen's book did sales he hasn't seen in years.

Bet you didn't know Spider-man made the trip down to the inauguration as well? In Amazing Spider-Man #583, Spidey meets Barack, and stops the Vulture from spoiling his big day. This book has done gangbuster sales, lines were around the block at comic shops the Wednesday it came out a few weeks ago. Marvel has announced that they're already on a third printing of the book.

And not to miss out on a chance for a sales boost, Rob Liefeld is marking his return to the interior pages of Youngblood #8 by drawing a short five page story that sees Barack start his administration by choosing the next Youngblood team. Rob's book has featured real presidents in the past, but this is clearly a move to drive sales for the book, which has yet to take off since it's return to the racks from Image comics. Given that Rob is returning to the book as full-time artist with issue #9, there's a good chance this book could start moving up the charts, especially with an Obama tie in.

Too late to get on the band wagon? Ahh, probably not. I'm sure Zombie-Obama books are in the works, and lord knows what else. Is it good for comics? Sure. Anything that brings new readers is good for the industry.

Editing & Critiques #1: Reprisal by Matthew Watkins

In a recent Bolts & Nuts column (must read weekly reading for aspiring comic creators), Steven Forbes tackled the subject of becoming a better writer. One of his suggestions is that comic writers can improve by taking the time to analyze and critique other writer's scripts. Sometimes it's easier to recognize our own mistakes in writing when we see them made by other people. Also, it's training for turning a critical eye towards scripts, that will come in handy during your own re-writes.

I've decided to follow his advice, and found a recently uploaded script over at Penciljack. The script is for a 10-page comic book short story, called Reprisal. It's the story of a hunter's pursuit of a great white wolf, a pursuit that will cost him his hand, and much more.

You can check out the script, and my critique of the script here.

Tears of the Dragon #11: Pin-Up Preview!

Koko Amboro has been hard at work on another Tears of the Dragon pin-up I've commissioned. As we bide our time waiting to hear from publishers regarding TOTD, I thought it'd be worth while to have Koko keep his pencils sharp on a killer pin-up.

I've included just a glimpse of this pin-up. It really is a great piece of art. I'll be getting the fininshed ink version tomorrow, and I think I'm going to color this myself. It's just too gorgeous.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get it colored and produce a big print, to further coax publishers into seeing that Tears is a story they NEED to publish.

ICE #9: Pin Up!

Here's a sneak peak at Damian Couceiro's outstanding cover image for ICE: Interrogation Control Element, my political thriller. I absolutely love it. This WOULD BE the poster to the movie were there to be one, and will likely be the cover to the book when it sees print.

I have the inked version, and it too is gorgeous. I'll be shipping it off to Paul Little, who is excited to try out some new brushes and go with a moodier coloring style on this piece. I can't wait to see what he comes up with.

CounterTERROR #11: Updates

It's been more than a month since my last CounterTERROR update. Let me run down some of the latest news...

• The bad news. Zuda Comics decided to pass on CT, and I found out earlier this month that it "did not meet their editorial needs at this time." Both artist Stefano Cardoselli and I were very shocked at this, believing CT to be a superior submission to both our earlier accepted submissions to Zuda. But what can you do? I thought the fact that Aeon of the Dead won last month's competition boded ill for CT. I mean, how many zombie comics (or twists on zombie comics) can that sight support? Of course, there's a serious flaw in that theory, seeing as this month's current first place contestant IS ANOTHER ZOMBIE COMIC! Oh well. I'll remain convinced that CT would have given all of this month's or any month's Zuda contestants a run for their money, but I wish the other competitors well, and hope to join their ranks again soon with one of my other comic properties.

• So what now for CounterTERROR? Well, Stefano and I identified a small batch of indy publishers who might be interested in publishing CT. Given it's current webcomic format, our scope of publishers are limited. I do have some promising leads, however, and have been putting together submissions packages. Hopefully, I'll have more news to share soon.

• In the meantime, I've been updating the CT Production Blog. Recent updates include the first batch of Character Profiles and a vicious new Wallpaper image by Stefano and myself (see above.) So check 'em out!

• CounterTERROR will be featured in the inaugural issue of Tyler James Presents!, a print comic that will feature excerpts from my collaborations over the past year, and serve as a showcase for my talents. More on this to come.
  

• I'll make the commitment, here and now, that if CounterTERROR does not find a publisher in the next four months, I'll self-publish it myself on the web. Stefano and I are really excited to share our work on this title. For those of you who have been interested in CounterTERROR, I really appreciate your patience. Believe me, I want the story out there.

So that's the CT update. Hopefully more good things in store for it.

My Writing Process Part II: Research is Key

Last week, I kicked off a multi-part discussion of my creative writing process by talking about "The Great Idea." I offered that everyone has tons of great ideas, but the rare few ever bother to take the time and energy to turn them into something of value. I introduced the metaphor of the creative soul as a sponge, and offered that the very first step to making something out of that great idea is to squeeze it out of your head and into the world. Now you're ready develop that hungry idea, and to do so, you need to feed it. You feed it with research.

II. Research is Key

So, I had a great idea for a story. The inspiration for it came from a New York Times article about a soft-spoken C.I.A. interrogator who was highly effective at getting imprisoned terrorists to divulge valuable information, without resorting to any of the brutal interrogation techniques that has outraged many Americans, and rightfully so. I thought, "Now that could be a cool character." I envisioned writing a story filled with brilliant interrogation scenes, that would explore some of the ethical dilemmas surrounding waterboarding and prisoners' rights, while a war on terror rages in the background.

I was stoked. However, that article and my excitement was only going to get me so far. Luckily, I took my own advice. I saved that article on my hard-drive, emptied my brain of all the ideas I had so far (all of four sentences), and then I took stock of what I had, and what I needed to get. I had my great idea, and a template from which to build my main protagonist. Beyond that, all I had were a whole lot of questions. It was time to do my research.

Syd Field, a noted screenwriter and scholar wrote the following of research:

Research gives you ideas, a sense of people, situations, and locale. It allows you to gain a degree of confidence so you are always on top of your subjects, operating from choice, not necessity or ignorance.

That's exactly what I was looking for. If I was going to create a story in this world, one very foreign to me, I needed to learn all I could about the people who do such work, and the places they do it. While the connotations of research suggest something less than fun, and having worked for several years as a researcher for a large social services non-profit I tend to agree, in this case it shouldn't be like pulling teeth. You're about to spend some time learning more about a subject you're extremely captivated by...otherwise, you wouldn't recognize it as a great idea and be compelled to write about it in the first place!

Before we get into the hows of research, I want to talk a bit more about the whys. The fact is, all writing for public consumption requires research. It's that simple. And it doesn't matter how intimate with the subject matter you are. Hell, if you were writing your own autobiography, you'd still need to do research. Sure, you could write a good chunk of a book about you with just the stuff in your brain. But eventually, you'd need more if you wanted it to be at all accurate and interesting. You'd interview your parents about what you were like as a kid, go through your old high school yearbooks, or early performance reviews at work, watch old videos, look at pictures from your past...that all counts as research.

But most of us won't be writing stories starring ourselves, because frankly, most of our lives just aren't that exciting. (Sad, but true.) I heard that some movie studios won't even read scripts from amateur writers that feature a writer as the main protagonist. The thought there is that this writer is simply writing himself and was too lazy to do the research to flesh out a protagonist with a cool job. No, most of us will be writing stories featuring characters far more interesting than ourselves. To develop those characters and their worlds accurately, you need to research.

Of course, you could just avoid the whole research part. Lord knows I've done stories without doing any. Some of them, were even pretty okay. If pretty okay is what you're striving for, by all means, just start writing. For me however, the time for just hopping into a story with a loose collection of ideas, is over. I'm investing too much time, effort, (and yes, money) into my projects to do them that disservice.

What does a story that hasn't been researched look like? Generally, it'll take place in a generic world that seems vaguely familiar to two or three settings from popular movies or books you've read. The characters will seem shallow and inconsistent, and as a reader, you just won't care about them, no matter how cool the situations they get into. And it's even worse as a writer. You might get off to a blazing start, but somewhere in the middle, find yourself stuck in a poorly conceived plot point. Chances that you'll abandon the project are very high.

So, hopefully, I've swayed you to the merits of research. But what now? Where do you go from here? Maybe high school or college was a long time ago, and it's been a while since you've done any research. Here are some ways to get you started.

1. Start with yourself.

Before you go whole hog into this research project, first take a mental inventory of the resources you already have that you can apply to your great idea. After all, this great idea probably was inspired in some part by the things you've read, places you've been, or people you've known. Spend a little time doing a self-assessment of anything in your life that might be applicable. Writing a fantasy story? Pull out the fantasy books on your shelves, and movies from your DVD collection. Writing a police drama? Flip through your address book and see if you know any cops. Imagining a big scene taking place in China? Time to dust off that photo album of your trip to Beijing. Trust me, no matter the story, it's in your head for a reason. Spend a little time figuring out why, and pulling out those materials that will help you develop it further.

In developing my idea about the interrogator, I rifled through my back issues of Time Magazine, and pulled out several relevant articles to interrogation and the war on terror written over the past year. I also took note of the people I know who had some relevant experience, including a federal agent who's conducted many interrogations, and a friend who works in national security.

2. The library is your friend.

I'm sure many of you never stepped foot in the library while in college. To suggest heading there of your own free will might seem a sacrilidge. But the library is a tremendous resource. I'd recommend hitting it prior to doing internet research, even, because there's a power to walking out with a stack of books that clicking links and saving pages just doesn't have.

Before walking into a library, I recommend taking two steps. First, write down a series of questions you don't know the answer to that you feel would better inform your story. For my story, I had plenty. (Who was in charge of interrogating Al Qaeda- the CIA, the military, FBI, all three? How does one become an interrogator? What was GITMO really like? How can you tell when someone is lying to you?, etc.) Once you have a decent sized list, your next step is to boil that list down to some key words (interrogator, interrogation techniques, body language, etc.) Now you're ready to head to your library.

I fully realize that, for whatever reason, there are many of you who will adamently resist taking this step. You do it all on the computer these days. You watch your TV shows, download your music and movies, keep in touch with your friends, hell, you haven't made an actual new friend in years but you've added plenty on MySpace. So, why the hell wouldn't you do all your research on the net, too? If this is you, then humor me. What I want you to do is find your locale library's website. Search their catalog online and pump in all your keywords. Flag the books that look like they could help answer your questions. If you happen to have a library card, you can put in a request for all those book. This is what I do. I find all the books I want to check out online, put in a request, and a few days later, I get an email telling me they're ready to pick up at the front desk. I'm in and out of the library in a minute with all the books I need. Now I'm free to head back to my computer, and skim them, while watching YouTube videos, of course.

3.) Yes, the internet is your friend, too.

We live in an incredible age. Today, it is far more valuable to be someone who can find the answers, than someone who knows the answers. The internet is the reason for that. Don't get me wrong, you COULD do all your research for most of the stories you want to tell entirely on the net. I just don't think it's the most efficient way. It bears repeating, there's some psychological effect to a stack of books on your desk about a subject you've committed to studying. It's a visual reminder that says, "Hey, you should be reading," that your computer will never provide. The books also are more thoroughly researched and probably better organized and index than the World Wide Web.

But the Web is awesome. Hell, in most cases, half your research could be done exclusively on Wikipedia, which is, despite it's many drawbacks, the most comprehensive and most accurate, encyclopedia on the planet. Most newspapers have extensive online catalogs of their articles. You can Google anything. But I'd encourage you to go even deeper, as the web can give you access to communities you'd never have entry to in real life.

Case in point, the upcoming fourth issue of Super Seed features a character who is a surrogate mother with post-pardem depression. I located a few message boards and forums for both surrogate mothers and intended parents to really get a strong sense of what some of these women were like, and what kind of emotional issues they were going through. For my comic about the interrogator, I subscribed to several blogs that discuss related issues, including one kept by an interrogator. The net can be a tremendous resource for adding truth to your work.


I'm going to stop with three research resources. There are plenty of others, but again, this is a series on MY writing process, not the ideal one. I should read one or more newspapers cover to cover everyday, but I don't. I should identify strangers with a strong knowledge of the subject matter I'm interested in and bug them for interviews, but I haven't. (I do plan on talking to a few small press publishers at New York Comic Con as research for a character in one of my stories that I'm having trouble fleshing out, however. I'll let you know how that goes.) But I guarantee you, if you spend 2-3 weeks doing these three things, taking a mental inventory of resources you already have, hitting your library to make this project official, and working the web, you'll be flush with material to soak up that will help that great idea grow.

Two warnings when it comes to research:

1.) Set a limit. The amount of information out there is limitless. Even the most obscure topics could be researched from now until the end of your days. This will not help you write your story. So set a limit for yourself. Give yourself three weeks or so to research your topic. Determine to read two books on your subject, and subscribe to two relevant blogs and a message board. This will not be the end of your research for the duration of the project. The more you know, the more you'll want to know. The goal of this first research phase is not to become a PhD in your subject, but to familiarize yourself with it. At the end of the day, your goal is not to become an expert, but to write a damn good story that an actual expert could pick up and think, "Nice. This guy got that right."

2.) Research can't replace creativity. I can't stress this enough. Sometimes when you start researching things, you'll be tempted to turn your story into a series of facts and figures, you know, to prove you did your homework. That's not the goal of research. That's just annoying and bad storytelling. Research is not a substitute for creativity, rather it is fuel for it.

Here's an illustration. In researching the interrogation story, I was captivated reading about a daring prison break in Afghanistan that released more than a hundred Taliban soldiers being held by the Afghani military in June, 2008. I thought that would be a perfect way to introduce my main antagonist, and that perhaps in my story, releasing him was one of the main reasons for the prison break. So, I did more research, found out how the attackers freed the prisoners (truck bomb that blew open the gate, and an attacking force on motorcycles with machine guns.) Now that's some visual and creative fuel. It gave me a start, but the rest of the scene, I wrote to satisfy the needs of my story, not the facts.

So, that's my take on research. After completing your initial research, you'll find you're a full sponge of ideas once more. You're going to wring that sponge again, only this time in a more focused way, and that'll be the focus of my next article in this series.

NEXT: III. A Killer Pitch

Events, Appearances, Promotions #7- Webcomics Reviews & Interviews Podcast

As I mentioned previously, on January 1, I was interviewed by Jamais Jochim, host of Webcomics Reviews & Interviews, a live internet radio show. It was a fun interview. I got to chat with Jamais about my various comic projects, as well as the comics classes I'm teaching. It was a positive first experience hitting the internet radio circuit, and I hope to do more shows in the future.

Anyway, the live interview has now been edited and uploaded into podcast form, so if you missed it, check out the interview at your leisure. A direct link to the interview is here. If you prefer to get it through itunes, just search for Webcomics Reviews & Interviews in the Podcast section of iTunes, and subscribe to Jamais' show. My interview is his most recent.

My Writing Process Part I: The Great Idea

I've had several conversations recently regarding the process of storytelling and writing. Through those conversations, I've been able to reflect a fair amount on my own process, and thought I'd share it here.

First, a disclaimer. My writing "process" is constantly evolving. The way I'm approaching telling a story today, for comics or other media, is not the same approach I employed a year ago. And I expect my process will be somewhat different a year from now, as I hope to continue to evolve and develop as a story teller.

The current metaphor I've been toying with for my writing habits is that a writer needs to be a sponge. (Trust me. I'll explain.) So, over the next few weeks, I'm going to be outlining my writing process here on my blog. Writing these articles is helping me distill all of the things I've learned about writing over the past year. But I certainly hope some of this is helpful to you, my readers, as well. Shall we proceed?

I. The Great Idea

Really, all creative writing has to start with a great idea, that germ of a thought that makes you think, "You know someone really ought to write a story about this." All my projects started with a great idea. (And at this point, it's okay if your great idea isn't even all that great...as long as it interests you enough to pursue, that's a good start, and fits my definition of great here.)

All of my creative projects started with a great idea. For CounterTERROR, the great idea was simply, wow, "Breakfast at Tiffany's would be a good name for a chapter of a Zombie book that takes place in New York." I was watching the movie at the time, clearly paying a lot of attention to Audrey Hepburn. For Super Seed, the great idea was, "If people are willing to pay thousands for sperm from Ivy League grads or Olympic athletes, how much would they pay for sperm from super powered donors?" I'm guessing a whole lot. And all of the rest of my projects started similarly.

Here's the thing about great ideas...Everyone has them. And very few act on them. As a result, a great idea, in and of itself, to most people, is worthless. Ah, but to those with the drive to see it through, a great idea could be worth billions.

Let me illustrate.

There I was, a freshman in college. I'd met my new roommate and a ton of people on my floor, as well as a host of other new names and faces. Those first days were all pretty much a blur. But, then I got it. The Facebook! There, for my perusal (and later intense scrutiny and hours of study) was a neatly alphabetized album containing the pictures (mostly high school yearbook shots, but the occasional one of a guy posing with his tuba or a chick riding a horse) of all my new classmates. Along with the pictures, it listed their names, hometowns, and two interests. Pretty basic stuff. Still, from that point on, it was the ultimate reference guide to who I know and who I wanted to get to know. I recognized the value of this book quickly, as shortly after receiving it, a senior asked to borrow my copy and have a looksy at the new freshmen crop of ladies. To this day, I'm surprised I got it back.

Anyway, long story short, I remember sitting in my dorm room with a bunch of people and saying aloud, "They really should put this thing online, let you search people, and contact them through email. And you should be able to change your interests if you want." (I believe my interests were listed as football and personal training. Personal training? Yeah, very douchy. No offense to you personal trainers, of course.) I had that great idea, and I recognized it then as a great idea. This was 1997. And what did I do with this idea? Not a damn thing. And guess how many other people had this same idea? Not a clue, but probably a whole bunch.

But seven years later, a Harvard guy with a little more drive took that same basic germ of an idea and turned it into a company now valued at over a billion dollars, Facebook. Maybe you've heard of it.

So back to writing. You have your great idea. Sure, it's of no real value, but it is a big first step. You won't be writing a thing until you have a basic idea of what your story is about. So, you've got your idea. Now what.

(This is the sponge part.)

You need to get that idea out of your head and onto paper (or a computer screen, if that's how you roll.) There is tremendous value in getting things out of your head and into the world. Think about how much more likely you are to get something done if you write it down (pick up the dry-cleaning, buy more toilet paper, etc.) Studies have found that only 3% of people actually commit their life goals to paper. And guess what? Those 3% usually end up being far more successful than the 97% who keep their goals to themselves and in their head.

So, treat your brain like a sponge, block out a short period of time, and squeeze that great idea out of your head and into written form. If you've already started thinking of characters, or scenes, or plot points, or a line of dialogue, or whatever, yeah, get all of that stuff out there, too. Just get it all out, until you've got nothing left swirling around that brain of yours.

At this point, maybe you'll have filled up a notebook. Most likely you'll have a single page with a few words and a lot of white space. Either way, is okay. Take a deep breath, you've completeled the first step to telling your story.

Is taking this first step the hardest part. Hell, no. Like I said before, ideas are cheap. God has blessed us all with amazing minds. It's not unreasonable to think that every person on this planet might have at least one great idea every day of their lives. For you to write one down on paper shouldn't be that hard.

Nope, this first part is easy. But it's very important. You need to walk before you can run as the cliche goes, and the fact that you've gotten to this point is worth a small pat on the back. Because you've already done what 97% of the people in the world don't do. And that's honor your great idea enough to put it into words. Out of your head. Into the world. And the ball is rolling...

And guess what? The next step in the process is also very easy. At this point, you're now a dry sponge, ready to absorb some juice for your story. I'll talk about finding the juice and what to do with it next time.

NEXT: II. Research is Key

Tears of the Dragon #10: Submitted!

Okay, Tears of the Dragon has been submitted to my first choice of publishers. And now the waiting game begins...

The fact that I was able to answer the receipt of a rejection of one of my comic projects with a submission of a new project THE VERY NEXT DAY, is validation that I made a good decision to work on multiple projects at once. To continue my theme of seeing life as a series of big victories and little defeats, I've taken the little defeat of one project's rejection, and responded by throwing an even better submission back out into the world.

Since the submission process is an important part of breaking into the comics game, and pitching is a skill you need to develop if you ever expect anyone else to invest in your ideas (and a skill I've been trying hard this year to hone), I'll share with you my current two-sentence quick pitch of Tears of the Dragon:


A well-traveled old man and his young grandchildren make a pilgrimage to return the ashes of their grandmother to her homeland. To pass the time, the old man spins an epic tale of love, murder, magic, revenge, and redemption.

What's next for TOTD while I play the waiting game? Well, here are some things to look forward to...

• Koko Amboro is working on another Pin-Up for Tears of the Dragon, which I hope to use as a promo piece. Really looking forward to receiving that.
• A logo! I need to block a time to work on a dynamic TOTD logo, or consult with a good logo designer.
  
• Tears of the Dragon Production Blog...because maintaining two blogs is just not enough! But seriously, TOTD is going to need a home on the web, so I'll be putting together a production blog similar to the one for CounterTerror. I have a ton of great character sketches and designs done by Koko Amboro that have yet to be published, and a production blog would be the perfect spot for them.
  

Those are the big things I'll be working on as I wait and see what kind of response I get to TOTD from the first publisher. I do have some other things planned to help promote this book, and I plan on doing a hard sell to the publisher at NY Comic Con if I don't hear from them regarding Tears before then.

Big Victories, Little Defeats

Today was almost an outstanding day. As it stands now, it looks like it will end up just a really good day. And that right there is life for you.

A bit more on what happened. Today was the first day back-to-work for everybody at the office (I work for a video game development company) since the Christmas holiday. Soon after I arrived to work, I learned the tremendous news that a proposal for a game development project that our company had been waiting for months to hear yay or nay on was going to get funded. This was very big for the whole company. I had a huge hand in the proposal, as well as a lead design role in creating the prototype game that accompanied the proposal. And the timing could not be better, as this award is a nice feather in my cap as I prepare for annual performance reviews in the next couple of weeks.

So, I was on cloud nine all day and the whole office was energized, a hell of a way to kick off the new year. But then, right before shutting down my Dell and heading to the gym this evening, I got an email informing me that one of my comic submissions had been passed on by the first publisher I sent it to. Major bummer. My mood swiftly soured.

For a moment I got bitter. I was positive my submission was kick-ass, commercial, and would do very well for the publisher, and almost succumbed to the temptation of mentally trashing other people's work that had been accepted previously as inferior to my own. But, as I've discovered (or re-discovered) in my personal life, putting down others to make you feel better does the exact opposite. My submission was not accepted. All that is, is a little defeat.

One publisher that receives thousands of submissions each year decided my submission did not meet their editorial needs at this time. One publisher. That's it. Now, it would have been nice to receive a little more feedback as to why they were rejecting my work, rather than the standard form letter I received. To be honest, I had a sneaking submission I was out of luck, simply because that publisher has been getting a reputation for oversaturation with zombie comics, and my submission was, unfortunately, a twist on zombies.

But as I said...little defeat.

However, human psychology is funny thing. We tend to take set-backs far harder than we enjoy achievements. Today was a case in point. My great mood from winning a huge contract at work was nearly canceled completely by this one rejection of my comic. Pretty ridiculous, if you think about it. I mean, the contract my company won today has basically ensured that everyone at my company's job, including my own, is safe in this troubled economy. That is a big victory. It's a big deal to a whole lot of people. Whereas this comic...I still have it. There are plenty of publishers out there that might still be interested, I could self publish, or worst case scenario, I chalk it up as a great first experience of collaborating with a good artist and a really nice guy to make a comic I enjoyed making. Boo hoo.

So, to put on my preacher hat for a second, I'd encourage any readers to consider that my day today is just a microcosm of life in general. Life is a series of big victories and little defeats.

And sure, it's hard to see that when you're right in the middle of one or the other. Those big victories don't always seem so grand at the time, and those little defeats certainly don't seem so little when you're facing them.

Case in point, losing someone you love. Unfortunately, most of us have had this experience. And when it's happening, and you're caught up totally in the sadness and grief of a major loss, it can seem like the biggest thing, the only thing, in your world. But the truth of the matter is, losing someone you love...that's the small defeat. The big victory was having someone to love, and love you, in the first place.

There's an old saying that comedy is tragedy plus time. Think about the stories you tell the most...I'm willing to bet a good deal of them seemed like absolutely awful experiences at the time. Hell, one of the most frequent stories that comes up when my friends and I recount are middle school days involved me getting jumped and knocked out by a gang of kids after school one insane day. At the time, that was probably the worst thing that ever happened to me. I wasn't seriously injured, but it was scary and awful. Yet, even that was a little defeat. The big victory was heading back to school with my bandaged head up high, finishing out the school year, and graduating with the highest grade point average in the whole damn school. (Okay, I'm bragging a bit, but humor me, I just admitted to getting my ass kicked.)

My point is, I wouldn't be able to laugh off that story or any of the other stories I enjoy telling that involve the crap I've gone through in my life if they were anything but little defeats. Being able to laugh at those moments, to tell those stories knowing full well that you're okay now...that right there is what I'd call a big victory.