Drag your feet
Realize your fears
Empty your soul
Accept your place
Meet your fate
Open your eyes
Forget your plast
Make up your mind
Escape your life
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
Friday, October 20, 2017
Reboot......99%
I've been trying to think of what would engage me as a reader so I can translate that to writing. Problematically I haven't been reading as much so my mind has lost that framework for now and I can feel it.
My novel ideas always stemmed from the fact that I didn't read many books myself because I couldn't find books I enjoyed to spend time reading. The ideas in the contemporary fiction that was put out for my age group never intrigued me or felt geared towards me.
Since then however I've felt myself falling into a world of literary fiction that has engrossed me and I've stepped away from fantasy.
My best writing, according to a few readers, has been my topic of real life issues with characters that are based off myself in some shape or form. That's not hard to understand as one usually writes best about oneself. It does make it hard to translate that effectively to purely made up stories however, when you need to add fantasy elements.
I've been stagnant in my actual writing over the past two days. Last night I attributed it to a creative overload and a much needed break from trying to squeeze my brain of ideas, but I'm not sure that is completely true.
I need to reevaluate my purposes for writing so that when I sit down I have a clear goal as to why I'm sitting down that day. Whether it be to translate a story, to challenge myself with a certain task, or to make something that is marketable and ultimately fruitful monetarily.
These are all challenges I face as of this moment.
My novel ideas always stemmed from the fact that I didn't read many books myself because I couldn't find books I enjoyed to spend time reading. The ideas in the contemporary fiction that was put out for my age group never intrigued me or felt geared towards me.
Since then however I've felt myself falling into a world of literary fiction that has engrossed me and I've stepped away from fantasy.
My best writing, according to a few readers, has been my topic of real life issues with characters that are based off myself in some shape or form. That's not hard to understand as one usually writes best about oneself. It does make it hard to translate that effectively to purely made up stories however, when you need to add fantasy elements.
I've been stagnant in my actual writing over the past two days. Last night I attributed it to a creative overload and a much needed break from trying to squeeze my brain of ideas, but I'm not sure that is completely true.
I need to reevaluate my purposes for writing so that when I sit down I have a clear goal as to why I'm sitting down that day. Whether it be to translate a story, to challenge myself with a certain task, or to make something that is marketable and ultimately fruitful monetarily.
These are all challenges I face as of this moment.
Thursday, October 19, 2017
Cryptic II
Make mistakes
Ask hard questions
Revel in success
Reach new goals
Yearn for greatness
March to your own drum
Enjoy the sunlight
Invent new ideas
Drop old habits
Open new doors
Ask hard questions
Revel in success
Reach new goals
Yearn for greatness
March to your own drum
Enjoy the sunlight
Invent new ideas
Drop old habits
Open new doors
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Draft #105
I realize I write certain things, attempt certain genres, not because I have a story that can only be told in that way but because I want to challenge myself to write that way. I want to have a go at making someone scared as they read, or feel emotional pain, or joy.
I assume that is the purpose of any writing, to have an emotional reaction on the part of the reader. I think in my way I need to break it down and see things more as genre instead of as all encompassing.
I can only be scary in a horror piece. I can only be romantic in a love story. I can only have action in a fantasy novel.
It's hard to parse that kind of thinking and make it integral to my writing as a whole. Writing a piece that has all the elements of the separate genres and in turn can't fall into one specifically.
I think in that way a piece of writing will be too stark in ideas to be coherent as a story. You need to take one or two elements that are prominent in a certain genre so that a combination of which is still digestible and not just a mishmash of ideas.
Finding this road in my own writing is hard. My best pieces deal heavily in depression, and the way people act or feel in that state. There aren't elements of horror, elation or even love. It's simply a dark glimpse.
To find a way to place one of my prominent characters inside an existential horror full of suspense, a yearning to find love in a dark place as a means of salvation and the actions needed to achieve that are extremely hard to put together.
I think for me though being able to write something that is suspenseful and not just emotional or tense and not just dark is the real dig.
I use these exercises in writing different genre tropes to tease out those elements, become familiar with them, enhance them and ultimately, if things go well, add them to future projects even if just in pieces.
I haven't been that successful yet, having only a few attempts under my sleeve. Writing suspense effectively and getting a real sense of horror or terror on the sheet seems elusive. I hope that in analyzing other work, exposing myself to experiences and trying my best to pen them out will lead to a level of success.
I can only try.
I assume that is the purpose of any writing, to have an emotional reaction on the part of the reader. I think in my way I need to break it down and see things more as genre instead of as all encompassing.
I can only be scary in a horror piece. I can only be romantic in a love story. I can only have action in a fantasy novel.
It's hard to parse that kind of thinking and make it integral to my writing as a whole. Writing a piece that has all the elements of the separate genres and in turn can't fall into one specifically.
I think in that way a piece of writing will be too stark in ideas to be coherent as a story. You need to take one or two elements that are prominent in a certain genre so that a combination of which is still digestible and not just a mishmash of ideas.
Finding this road in my own writing is hard. My best pieces deal heavily in depression, and the way people act or feel in that state. There aren't elements of horror, elation or even love. It's simply a dark glimpse.
To find a way to place one of my prominent characters inside an existential horror full of suspense, a yearning to find love in a dark place as a means of salvation and the actions needed to achieve that are extremely hard to put together.
I think for me though being able to write something that is suspenseful and not just emotional or tense and not just dark is the real dig.
I use these exercises in writing different genre tropes to tease out those elements, become familiar with them, enhance them and ultimately, if things go well, add them to future projects even if just in pieces.
I haven't been that successful yet, having only a few attempts under my sleeve. Writing suspense effectively and getting a real sense of horror or terror on the sheet seems elusive. I hope that in analyzing other work, exposing myself to experiences and trying my best to pen them out will lead to a level of success.
I can only try.
Monday, October 16, 2017
Half-smile
In waking dreams, I see a wedding. It is a simple ceremony
on the coast, on a grassy cliff overlooking the ocean. An outdoor setting, with
only the closest of friends and family. No stragglers, no extras. You stand there,
a small smile on your face, holding tears back in your eyes as the words were
said. No veil, just a simple band around your head with your favorite flower, a
violet.
The
time stands still as the wind wisps past us in the moments leading up to the
bond being made. Your gown flitters gently and the flowers in your hand dance
slowly together, foreshadowing the dance we’d soon share as husband and wife. I
know you can see it as well as I and it gives your love extra strength in that
moment. Since that’s how this all started, on the dance floor.
All I
can do is stare into your longing eyes as all the noise around me dies. The
song, our song, playing softly in my head as I reminisce to that late night in
October. How I watched you dance, all alone on the dance floor waiting for
someone to join you. I took a sip of my drink and obliged. Thankfully for us
both it wasn’t the normal bump and grind, it turned into something more
intimate. Not a slow dance but something more, more beautiful. A song to
accompany your beauty in that moment.
Like
the words of a song once heard in passing on our road trip out west, I knew I
loved you from that moment. I couldn’t tell you then, that took a few months to
emerge but when I did I knew I was right. I was right all along.
As the
waking dream fades to the reality before me, I see you standing in line at the
coffee shop ordering your drink and I pretend we are strangers for an instant.
I see your face light up as you turn to see me staring at you, a smile emerging
on my lips as you come closer. No words need be spoken in that moment. There’s
just a feeling, a notion that I know my dream will come true. That there is no
doubt you feel the same things too.
“I love
you.” I say as you sit. Your face beams from the unexpected declaration. You
lean in for a kiss that lasts a little longer, has a little more feeling than a
kiss from earlier that day.
“I love you.” You repeat. Adding the “too” would lessen it somehow, and we both know it. All that need be said has been now. The days will move forward for us, together. Always together, dreams becoming realities.
“I love you.” You repeat. Adding the “too” would lessen it somehow, and we both know it. All that need be said has been now. The days will move forward for us, together. Always together, dreams becoming realities.
Sunday, October 15, 2017
Cryptic
Assert dominance
Shake off doubt
Kill fear
Heal old wounds
Eat good food
Read a new book
Open a door for a stranger
Undone old habits
Take a chance
Shake off doubt
Kill fear
Heal old wounds
Eat good food
Read a new book
Open a door for a stranger
Undone old habits
Take a chance
Right Now - A Chronicle
I'm up late and my sleep cycle has been destroyed. The floor isn't comfortable.
There are two flies zooming around my head. I wish I could catch them.
The song in my ears reminds me of 2003. It also reminds me of camp.
I think I'm dehydrated. I've got a cup with tap water, hopefully that'll help.
My eyes are heavy. They won't let me sleep for more than three hours.
There are two flies zooming around my head. I wish I could catch them.
The song in my ears reminds me of 2003. It also reminds me of camp.
I think I'm dehydrated. I've got a cup with tap water, hopefully that'll help.
My eyes are heavy. They won't let me sleep for more than three hours.
Friday, October 13, 2017
Writing Update: October
Recently I've been interested and inspired by H.P. Lovecraft and have started two shorts in that vein. The first being a tale of a man who travels the world but comes back to his home town, founded by his father, to find the once amiable people cold and distant with a hollowness to them. He finds through the help of his ailing cousin new people have moved into the town and strange things have been happening to them.
The second, which I've only started yesterday, is a ghost story of sorts. A middle aged doctor moves in with his ailing father to help him through the end of his life when they are tormented by a spectral beast. It is still in the earliest stages.
I've also submitted a piece to an online Horror publisher called Solarcide. The piece I submitted is called A Man in the Snow, about a man who buys a painting of a Cossack standing in a snowy field but goes insane upon looking at it.
I hope to hear back from that soon.
With NaNoWriMo around the corner I've decided to work on The Abyss, which for the "contest" I've titled The Elevator, as always that is a working title.
My initial idea is taken from my 2013 novel Orbs, about an underground city where criminals mine the mountain to fuel the city above. It was just a set piece to start the fantasy novel but I've taken that setting and made something more substantial of it.
The Abyss is an underground prison essentially, where criminals are sent from the world above to die. This prison has existed for hundreds of years expanding and falling apart as the mountain is mined away. The world above no longer needs the energy from below so they work in vain but the prison is still run.
The only way into or out of the Abyss is a solitary elevator that transports supplies and new tenants down below. It is guarded by an electrical fence and armed guards. Multiple attempts have been made on the Elevator over the many years of the prison. All unsuccessful, all failed. Yet, with no other recourse the tenants try and try again.
With no sense of time this story has no year setting or world placing. It isn't earth per se but it doesn't have any fantastical elements. It is very dystopian, and sci-fi oriented.
Thematically it deals with isolation and the damage that does to the human psyche, depression, human resolve through terrible circumstances, the tyranny of authority and power struggles.
The story will take place through the eyes of a few different characters. A schizo who writes on his walls, an authority figure with a mechanical arm, and some others. I don't know where I want the story to end but I know it will have an attempt on the elevator. I assume I'll have it fail.
Aside from the horror pieces and my NaNoWriMo novel I've been "working" on my novel Dreams of Machines. I put it in quotes because I haven't touched that specifically for a month or so but It's still relevant.
The second, which I've only started yesterday, is a ghost story of sorts. A middle aged doctor moves in with his ailing father to help him through the end of his life when they are tormented by a spectral beast. It is still in the earliest stages.
I've also submitted a piece to an online Horror publisher called Solarcide. The piece I submitted is called A Man in the Snow, about a man who buys a painting of a Cossack standing in a snowy field but goes insane upon looking at it.
I hope to hear back from that soon.
With NaNoWriMo around the corner I've decided to work on The Abyss, which for the "contest" I've titled The Elevator, as always that is a working title.
My initial idea is taken from my 2013 novel Orbs, about an underground city where criminals mine the mountain to fuel the city above. It was just a set piece to start the fantasy novel but I've taken that setting and made something more substantial of it.
The Abyss is an underground prison essentially, where criminals are sent from the world above to die. This prison has existed for hundreds of years expanding and falling apart as the mountain is mined away. The world above no longer needs the energy from below so they work in vain but the prison is still run.
The only way into or out of the Abyss is a solitary elevator that transports supplies and new tenants down below. It is guarded by an electrical fence and armed guards. Multiple attempts have been made on the Elevator over the many years of the prison. All unsuccessful, all failed. Yet, with no other recourse the tenants try and try again.
With no sense of time this story has no year setting or world placing. It isn't earth per se but it doesn't have any fantastical elements. It is very dystopian, and sci-fi oriented.
Thematically it deals with isolation and the damage that does to the human psyche, depression, human resolve through terrible circumstances, the tyranny of authority and power struggles.
The story will take place through the eyes of a few different characters. A schizo who writes on his walls, an authority figure with a mechanical arm, and some others. I don't know where I want the story to end but I know it will have an attempt on the elevator. I assume I'll have it fail.
Aside from the horror pieces and my NaNoWriMo novel I've been "working" on my novel Dreams of Machines. I put it in quotes because I haven't touched that specifically for a month or so but It's still relevant.
Monday, October 9, 2017
Pull Back the Bowstring
I step back into the old position I left almost four years ago. I don't see it as taking a step backwards though. I'm hoping that this decision to return to DHL will be fruitful as I've developed and started to nurture new goals that will hopefully take me into the next five to ten years of my life. This is a building block for a road not a wall like it used to be.
In the next year I hope to be living on my own in an apt somewhere in Northern Kentucky, saving up to take my second trip to the UK, looking for where I want to settle myself, be it either the Northwest or East Coast, setting myself up creatively with new equipment and a better computer.
I see myself being able to concentrate on how I should've been these past five years. I know I needed a lot to change for me to be where I am though so I don't regret the valleys I've been in thus far. They've built me up to let me be the person I am right now. A confident, self-assured, no bullshit man who wants to achieve things and knows what to do to get them done.
I'll get to where I need to be.
This is the first step.
In the next year I hope to be living on my own in an apt somewhere in Northern Kentucky, saving up to take my second trip to the UK, looking for where I want to settle myself, be it either the Northwest or East Coast, setting myself up creatively with new equipment and a better computer.
I see myself being able to concentrate on how I should've been these past five years. I know I needed a lot to change for me to be where I am though so I don't regret the valleys I've been in thus far. They've built me up to let me be the person I am right now. A confident, self-assured, no bullshit man who wants to achieve things and knows what to do to get them done.
I'll get to where I need to be.
This is the first step.
Thursday, October 5, 2017
Gloom
I can’t escape these worlds in my head
Spending nights wishing that I was dead
All of this pain that I feel
I can't make these wounds heal
All I wanted was to wake up and have you next to me
I can’t deal
Woke up at five a.m. all alone
Pacing back and forth in my dark room
Pictures on the wall taunting me
Making me hollow
All I wanted was your touch on my shoulder
You’re just haunting me
Fractured in my mind
I blink and then I die
These memories
Won’t escape me
Never take me
Break me down I’m just a bum
Hunt me down and tell me I’m done
Shadows always taking me
Past empty rooms
All I wanted was your kiss on my lips
Taste the gloom
Drifting off to sleep again
I wrap up my soul and then
I take apart my skeleton
To rearrange myself again
Why do I wish for this end
Window To Nowhere
i'm on the outside always looking in cause
i can't make right from all the wrongs and
i wish that i could just fit in but
the world can't see me for who i am with
all these veils around their eyes i
can't escape the truth in lies
this isn't who i really am
this isn't who i really am
i'm on the outside always looking in no
never wishing for an escape from sin tho
wanting to join the group that's pounding
at my front door and trying to pull me
into the front yard now i'm dirty
push me one way pull another
i can't escape all the thunder
I fall apart as i drop farther
i'm on the inside bursting to get out cause
all these days exist in repetition
all this time spent with out attention
to the better things
to the things i really need
to all the better things
to the people i really need now
i'm on the inside
always feeling dim
turn the lights off now
i'm going to bed
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