So… Man of Steel.

I liked it. I didn’t love it, but I liked it a lot.

First, the non-spoilery stuff:

I liked pretty much every casting choice. I think a few people were wasted, but hopefully they’ll have bigger parts in future movies. Henry Caville is Superman, AFAIAC. Nobody’ll ever replace Christopher Reeve for me, but I’m happy to have Caville do any number of these.

I disagree, strongly, with the people who say it’s soulless. It lacks the whimsy of the Reeve movies, but then, it also lacks the problematic slapstick. There are several scenes of joy/excitement, however. Maybe not as many as there could/should have been, but the movie is hardly dreary through and through.

I felt that some of the action sequences went too far. There’s only so much destruction you can wreak on a city before–even in a comic book movie–it becomes unbelievable. The Avengers pushed up against that line. Man of Steel… Well, leapt across it in a single bound.

And I do think it was lacking in terms of seeing Superman, well, protect people. There seemed very little effort made to acknowledge the bystanders in any of the massive throwdowns.

But in the final analysis, it felt like a Superman movie. I bought Caville as Clark, Amy Adams as Lois, etc. Wasn’t quite as happy with Zod, but that’s just because I have a fixed image of Zod in my head, and this wasn’t quite it. It didn’t not work for me.

The other stuff I want to discuss requires spoilers, so…

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1) Every piece of writing advice you will ever read, no matter who wrote it, is wrong.

Oh, it may not be wrong for you. But it’s wrong for someone. There’s not a path, a rule, a method, or a technique out there that’s universally applicable. If you follow anyone’s writing advice slavishly, you’re not going to succeed.

2) You’re not special. You have to work to become a good writer. Maybe a little, maybe a lot; natural talent enters into it, certainly. But you’re not going to start off at a professional level. You’re just not.

3) You will be wrong. Sometimes suggestions and revisions and so-called “mistakes” are purely matters of taste. Sometimes they’re not, and the suggestion is flat-out incorrect. But sometimes, the problem is yours. An editor or a fan or a reader or a friend will point out a problem with your book that actually has merit, and no matter how much you argue, or love the way you wrote it, it will still have merit. Your book is not perfect as you envisioned it.

4) You need an editor. Always. Whoever you are. No matter how precise or attentive you are. No matter how long you give yourself between writing and rewriting. You will always, always, always miss things that a new pair of eyes would spot.

5) Publishing a book, even e-publishing one, isn’t free. If you’re publishing traditionally, the publisher pays those costs. If you’re self-publishing, you’re going to have to. But they must be paid. You must have editors, both content and copy. You must have a halfway decent cover. You must have non-eye-bleeding layout and formatting.

If you can’t afford to acquire an editor and the other necessary professionals, you cannot afford to self-publish, no matter how long you’ve been working on your book or how good you’re certain it is. Save. Work extra. Do what you must, until you can afford to do it right. Or don’t do it.

6) Every rule has exceptions. Including, but not limited to, these. You will always be able to find an outlier. Someone who produced a fantastic book without an editor. Someone who made a zillion dollars on their first book. Someone did work for “exposure” that actually got exposure. These are all serious long-shots, but they do happen.

These exceptions don’t make the rules invalid. They’re still rules. They’re still necessary. They’re still true 99.99999999repeating % of the time. Choosing not to follow them because exceptions exist is like choosing not to look before running across the freeway. It’s possible you’ll make it, but the odds are not in your favor.

There are exceptions. You are not going to be one of them. Suck it up and work.

Partly because I felt like it.

Partly because I decided it was time to make a counterstrike against the encroaching hair loss I’ve been bitching about for years. If it’s a battle I have to lose, I decided to lose it on my own terms.

And yes, I did have to include the sunglasses.

Well, another con season has come and gone. For me, that meant ArmadilloCon, GenCon, and CopperCon. For many of you, it also meant DragonCon, World Fantasy, or PAX.

It was, overall, a positive experience for me, and for most of the people I’ve spoken to. And I really wish that was the entirety of the takeaway, all that we had to focus on. Unfortunately, it’s not; because, like every con season, it came with its share of horror stories.

I cannot believe that, in 2012, we still have to talk about this crap, but here it is. Fellow gamer/fandom guys? “No means no” applies across the board. It has no exceptions. It has no windows. It has no loopholes.

And it isn’t just about sex. It’s about any sort of social interaction. If a woman tells you to back off, back the hell off. She tells you she’s not interested, she’s not playing hard to get; she’s not fucking interested. You want to know when there are exceptions to this rule? Here, I’ll list them.

This concludes our list.

It doesn’t matter how friendly she’s been. It doesn’t matter what she’s wearing. It doesn’t matter what you’ve heard about her. “No”–or any of its variants, such as “I’m not interested” or “Leave me alone” or “Please stop staring at my chest”–trumps everything. It trumps any “signals” you think she’s giving you.

And by the way? “Oh, [I'm/he's] just socially awkward” is not a God damn excuse. It’s a handwave. It’s saying “Oh, I disapprove of this sort of behavior unless it’s me or someone I know, in which case it’s fine.” Social awkwardness might explain an initial approach that makes someone uncomfortable; but the instant it becomes recurring, it goes beyond “awkward” to “I’m choosing not to listen.”

Also by the way? Spreading rumors with the intent of destroying a relationship because you want someone in that relationship to be available? Completely counts as sexual harassment. Just to be crystal clear.

Some of this is even coming from guys who work in the industry; guys who work alongside these women, and should know better even more than most people should know better.

I shouldn’t have to say this. Nobody should have to say this. Nobody should have to think about saying this. This should be as self-evident as the idea that you don’t want up to a complete stranger at a con and punch him in the jaw for no better reason than that you felt like it. This is not okay. The fact that it’s “just words” or “just a suggestion” or “just a touch” or “look at that costume!” or “she’s acting so friendly”… It’s still not okay.

Cut it. The fuck. Out.

In a comic book world, what happened last night in Aurora, Colorado, would itself prove to be a superhero origin. A tragic crime, during the showing of a movie about a masked crimefighter? Heck, it almost is the Batman origin story, on a larger scale.

But we don’t live in a comic book world. The terror, the grief, the pain in our world is real. Real people, going through a real experience that those of us fortunate enough not have been touched by violence can’t even begin to imagine. In the real world, good doesn’t always rise triumphantly from the ashes of this sort of evil; and even when it does, it’s rarely as direct or obvious a path as it is in the comic books.

Here’s the thing, though. Here, in the real world, even if there’s no good to be found in something like this? We can, at least, avoid making it worse.

We can choose not to politicize it. We can choose not to make it about “us vs. them.”

We can choose not to view it as nationality vs. nationality; religion vs. religion; Left vs. Right. Even if it turns out the gunman did see it that way–and we don’t know yet; we might never–it doesn’t mean that we have to. The people who were taken, the people left behind to suffer, aren’t confined to one ethnicity, one religion, one political party.

Some politicians are already politicizing this. Don’t. Don’t do it; don’t let them do it.

This isn’t about “us vs. them.” Because today, “us” is everyone.