Fear in a single word.

Change.

Change is frightening. Its  taking the everyday, the norm and just flipping that bitch out the window. Taking what you're used to and comfortable with and removing it. Its different, its new, its not what you're used to. On some level it sucks.

Change for me is coming and its coming in a gigantic way. I'm moving again about a week after this post.  New town, new bills, new friends. Everything I hold dear is going away for what I perceive as new and unknown. Its scary as hell.

At the same moment though, I'm looking forward to it. The adventure of an all new experience excites me. Who will I meet? What will I walk into? Where will I go after I get there? These are questions that can and will put off a large amount of people. I am not that type of person. I like the mystery of the new too much.  There's too much out in the world to stay idle in one place and not try to see everything I can.

Still, its Change and I will admit it frightens me too. Just not enough to stop me from making it. I will be afraid as the moment comes but I will keep my chin up and look at it for what it is. Something new and exciting that I would not have experienced had I not chosen to move again.

Music.

Music as inspiration is a good thing in most cases. Listening to to what you enjoy and having it spark a thought, an image, a train of thought to lead to anything is pretty great. Except when, at least I feel, that when the lyrics itself influences what you're thinking.

Pure instrumentals have a life of their own. Certain tones and inflections are practically programmed to respond to our minds in a certain way. Attached to lyrics they're practically writing themselves again in a way that isn't the way you've intended. Sad songs are sad. Happy are happy. Energetic are energetic. They almost write themselves.

As for writing, it can be a crutch and sometimes drift you off into somewhere you didn't want to be. As of this exact writing I have Awolnation playing in the background. I have just discovered them based of the song "Sail". I have the album playing and I do enjoy their efforts but not on the lyrical side. They're lyrics are good, don't get me wrong. I really enjoy them. When I hear words I think of what the singer wants me to think but when I want to be personally creative I can't help but absorb the singer's thoughts. I want my own, not his.

Years ago when I was in high school English, a teacher of mine asked the class to listen to a song and write what they thought. I remember it was a Metalllica instrumental. No words, just sound. Unfortunately I don't remember the song but I remember what came to me.

A soldier was running up a hill to claim it for his army. The tempo, bass and rhythm were intense and what I saw was solder storming a position. Moments later the whole song shifted to a much calmer and serene melody. Suddenly the soldier was home. He was on a porch, visiting Grandma, eating heartily and laughing with his family. A good moment. Soon after the intensity of the song came back. The same soldier was back on the hill, dying of a bullet wound. The moment of happiness was him reliving a happy moment upon realizing he was dying. He died surrounded by his brother in arms storming the same hill but living their own separate memories. All this came about by an instrumental without lyrics.

Music is glorious for ideas. It has and will inspire some pretty good and awesome material. As long as you don't focus on lyrics. Lyrics hold the story already. Forgo lyrics and a new universe of experiences will follow.

If you like to listen to music as you write like I often to, try to block out the words. Just the movement of the composition can influence a piece of work that can truly be called your own but remember where the inspiration came from if able.

Keep in mind that when writing, I could be completely fuck off wrong. That's the beauty of writing. My particular interpretation of writing could be so completely wrong from what you feel. If you hear the lyrics and see and feel something completely different from the artist's intended idea then by all means roll with it. I love that about creativity. One person's vision can and most likely will be different  from another's.

Music is once again, awesome. On one level I wish I was as awesome to come up with music. On another side I'm pretty glad I can experience from the listener side. From that side I can be motivated to come up with my own ideas and express them how I'm most capable. At this point in the blog, Awolnation is actually pretty blah. =/

The point in the end, grab your inspiration where ya can. Music helps tremendously and life itself is the best point of inspiration. Take it where it comes. Music still fucking rocks though.

To speak of nightmares.

Recently in my creative mind I have discovered what I feel is an oddity.

I have had nightmares before. Moments in the dead of night where I would wake trembling, sweating and generally fearing my normal day to day occurrences transformed into the surreal.  Regular fears given life, given form, given creepy as fuck smiles and grins. Lately that isn't the case.

Lately my nightmares have turned interactive. Akin to interactive horror movies. Its pretty legit in my mind. I fear, I run , I perceive the horror. Yet on a totally different level I'm taking notes and relishing in the predicament I happen to be in. Two examples follow and I honestly have to say I love both of  the experiences I have been privy to witness.

Experience 1.

I'm trapped in a house with a bunch of other extras. They're extras because I can't recall names or faces, they don't matter. I'm walking through a room with a 'patient' on a gurney with one of the extras by my side.  Suddenly a clown bursts forth form the 'patient's' chest.  On one side that's some fucked up shit. You shouldn't see that. On the other side, I loved it. Scared the crap outta me and I honestly woke up smiling. Who expects that crap? I didn't, thus it stuck with me.

Experience 2.

My companion and I, because every good story is never about 1 person, have cornered some fleshy/skeleton zombie thing in a barn about to cleanse it of evil before it takes a little girl's soul. I brand the horror with some kind of runic script and I'm about to relish victory when my accomplice who has remained nameless and faceless declares that it's not the evil I'm vanquishing that's the root of the problem but it's still alive brother which bursts into the unholy form of my nightmare. My accomplice and I run the fuck away and the dream/nightmare ends.

I wake up at the end of both of these and legitimately smiled. They were both frightening in terms of my psyche presenting visuals to fuck me over yet I saw really good story elements in them. I have yet to have a nightmare/dream that has had a plot twist in it. That was simply amazing.  In example 1 I saw what should have been frightening but yet found the scare informative. What I'm afraid of can  be someone else's  fear and that can relate them to me. Relating to the audience is a good thing in most cases. Touching people through writing is truly a work of art and a bit of being psychic, to paraphrase the great Stephen King.

It has come to mind that at the moment my nightmares are what they are. They're interactive horror movies. I may run, hide, fight  and generally experience every emotion that horror brings to the table there is a part of me that is taking notes, studying my reactions and what the evil looks like so I can write it out later for some other audience to experience that same thing.

By they way, that clown looked awesome as hell in my mind. A clown bursting through a person's chests is fucking frightening to a lot of people. To me, it was an eye opener. I try to bring it back quite often but the clown in question has gone on vacation. Oh well. I'm sure plenty of other creeps, oddities, and  malcontents will pop up in my dreams to take note of and learn from. I honestly can't wait till my next 'nightmare'.

You have got to be @*(^%$# me.

I like to feel that I'm different in that I've given up T.V. I don't watch a thing. I was watching Game of Thrones but I bought the books and have blazed past the show already and will watch the series when its over. My replacement for T.V. has arrived in the form of live streams. I frequent Twitch.tv, the irony there is not lost to me, for my eyeball grabbing layabout entertainment of choice.

Twitch is mostly about gaming. Hundreds of people playing hundreds of different titles that sometimes thousands of people watch with the streamer. Its interactive T.V. Really cool but not the subject of the post unfortunately. Among the various channel selections are ads. You can't avoid ads, they're part of life now. One ad in particular has been trying to jump down my throat with its every passing moment. The ad was for Scarlet Blade. I killed it like the plague it was turning into whenever it arose. That was the case until I got curious as I am wont to do.

Holy fuck sticks. A quick Google search followed by Youtube videos and I developed a shame for humanity I wasn't aware of I could feel.

Scarlet Blade is a free MMO from overseas. It was imported to the states because America has done some stupid shit in its game development days, it at least had to modesty to pull back a bit. Scarlet Blade does no such thing. It looked at the line and drove over it going 90 mph playing Cherry Pie by Warrant.

Scarlet Blade is about tits essentially. All of the playable classes are females. All of them make Barbie think she's fat and needs liposuction. I watched a character creation video. I will not link it because I'm already ashamed to admit that. In it were some of the skimpiest "beginner" customizations I have ever seen. Strippers. . .I mean Exotic Dancers, would be embarrassed by this. I've seen more modesty in Renaissance Era paintings. Aphrodite herself would look down from Olympus and tell the girls to put some clothes on.

Granted, I didn't get much farther than the initial "Holy shit. Her tits are literally bigger than her head!?" visuals to delve much deeper into it. I'm sure somewhere back in time a great great great grandmother of mine suddenly feels disappointment in her family and doesn't know quite why. Sorry, great great great grandmother, curiosity got the better of me.

Like all of my close personal friends would do after this discovery, I will share it with them. If I'm going to embarrassed, so must they. I can't wait.

A bit ghoulish.

A number of years ago I had visited Hawaii. It was very nice. Sun a plenty, a constant cool breeze and the occasional sprinkle of rain to add to the cooling atmosphere. As said before, it was pretty nice.

While I was there I visited Pearl Harbor. There's a lot of propped up information to read about what happened but visually there isn't much aside from the ocean and and the view of the working docks from the tourist side. What struck me as odd was the amount of foreign tourists. Japan is pretty close to Hawaii in terms of travel and Japanese tourists frequently travel for their vacation.  What was odd was that the country that was the cause of the memorial in the first place comes and visits and takes picture while on vacation. On the opposite end of the spectrum American tourists do the same thing to Hiroshima.

It struck me as ghoulish how people in general travel to monuments of wartime horror on their leisurely travels to visit. I get the need to remember the past as not to repeat it in the future. It still strikes  me as odd if a bit ghoulish. Granted, if I get the chance to visit Japan I will take the opportunity to visit Hiroshima and it's memorials and I will feel ghoulish all the while.

Lost in the wagon trains.

"Fell off the wagon." The term for doing something and then suddenly dropping it. Its mostly used in negative contexts. Alcoholics fall off the wagon after long terms of sobriety. Same with any addiction really. I'm going to use it terms of writing this blog. I started it with  many an intention and fell off the wagon.

I wouldn't really say 'fell off the wagon' is really appropriate though. Its more like the wagon parked itself in a terminal. I looked around at other wagons and jumped out of my current to explore the others. After driving way too far in another wagon I was forced to hop out again and walk the long road back. And here I am, back to the wagon I started on. Let's hope I can buckle myself in better this time.

Yarr! A tale of pirates and the search for booty.

Captain Mattbeard and the tale of the 42 Wenches

Wenches 5 & 6

The Queen's Legs wasn't the best tavern in Slighport. It also wasn't the cleanest, the friendliest or even the safest. What it lacked  it more than made up for in the quality of the wenches it employed.  They were rumored to be some of the most beautiful women in the world. Everyone was statuesque, full breasted and light of inhibitions. So why did they work in The Queen's Legs? That's what Captain Mattbeard had come to find out.
The night Captain Mattbeard showed up to The Queen's Legs was a typical one for the tavern. It was loud, rowdy, smelly and full of sea men on shore leave.  Drinks were being spilled as they were waved at the wenches who cheerfully bent over just a bit too much to lay the next round down, which of course made sure there was another round. Fights would start up between men who thought they had the sole right to be rejected by the otherworldly beautiful women. The house band would slow their tempo to dodge chairs, drunkards, ogle the women or simply order more drinks. All in all a typical night.
As Captain Mattbeard approached the soon to be legendary tavern, a patron flew out the window and onto the pavement in front of his feet. Cpt. Mattbeard looked down at the poor excuse for a man. Not every seedy bar story has to start this way he thought to himself, oh well, let’s change it up a bit. He leaned down and picked the man up and positioned the fellow like a battering ram and approached the door to The Queen's Legs.  With a loud crack of his impromptu  ram's head smashing open the door, his entrance was made. 
The tavern paused for the 4th time in its history. The first time it paused was when a fight got too rowdy and the ensuing fire burnt it to the ground. The patrons, bar owner and wenches watched somberly as the fire engulfed the ramshackle building. Moments later the whole crowd, needing drinks to get them over the mood, stormed into the nearest tavern and promptly took it over. That tavern is now the current The Queen's Legs.
This current pause in festivities was caused by7 feet of barrel chested pirate,  2 feet of it quite possibly beard alone, standing in the doorway. Cpt. Mattbeard eyed its contents, absorbed the wenches, scoffed at the weakling men he saw and half smiled. He wouldn't get a good fight, but he'd at least get a good woman. He dropped the now bleeding man in his hands and stepped forward. The band, being the kind that's been around this scene for way too long, started playing again and brought life back to the tavern.
Cpt. Mattbeard strode forward and picked a table nearest to the bar. It had 3 men seated and one empty chair. "Is this seat taken?" Capt. Mattbeard rumbled, pointing at the empty chair. "Uh. . .no." one of the men said. Capt. Mattbeard nodded and moved over to one of the seated chairs at the table. He asked the same question. With a looming giant staring down at him inquiring about his chair he looked to his two companions for support before answering that it was, albeit with little confidence. Cpt. Mattbeard nodded, calmly picked the man up by his neck and threw him across the tavern to another table where an elderly sailor picked up his drink so the earthbound man sent flying wouldn't spill his hard earned drink. The two men still seated unwisely stayed seated as they watched their associate learn to fly. Cpt. Mattbeard strode over to the next seated chair and once again repeated his question. The next man stuttered too long and took a free flight lesson from the captain and landed in front of the band which expertly picked up their feet to allow room for a sudden fan to grace their stage. The last man seated at the table had a sudden desire to be a track star and vacated his seat before the captain had time to look his way.
Cpt. Mattbeard now feeling content about the occupants of his table finally sat down and forcibly attracted the nearest wench with the gravitational pull of his captainy eyes.
"4 mugs of the best ale you have." he rumbled.
"Oh, are you expecting company?" the homely wench said without a hint of fear.
"Yes, one mug for myself and 3 to accompany me till I finish the first."
The wench chuckled and left to grab drinks.
Cpt. Mattbeard, now with drinks in hand and waiting, sized up the wenches for prospective plundering.
Samantha was tall, tan skinned, had long black hair and with sparking emerald eyes. She was definitely foreign and the most womenly of all the wenches. She didn't need protecting because she had a knack for bringing out the chivalrous knight in any man. That knight would promptly pummel any trespasses against her character, bludgeon fellow knights tyring to do the same and engage in fisticuffs for ill mannered looks in her direction if there were any.
Jenny was a statuesque blonde who towered over most of the men, except for Cpt. Mattbeard of course, with naturally curly hair and arms that could crush a walnut or a man's hand which she proved the latter on a patron who got too feely.
Elizabeth was a petite, short haired redhead. A contagious laugh, a quick wit matched with quick blade work. If she laughed too hard, usually someone was bleeding. Cpt. Mattbeard nodded to himself on her repeated blade work.  He could respect someone willing to stab and laugh.
Lastly was Genevieve. Long brown hair, stacked  bosom and lacked any decent concealment for said bosom. She enjoyed a laugh with the patrons and had a habit of jovially punching them when the joked. Unfortunately for the patrons, her jovial punch usually knocked a man on his ass.
With a wench to bed and a game plan in mind, Cpt. Mattbeard set into action.  His first task was to win over the whole of the wenches. With all of them in his favor, he could take his pick. He grinned in anticipation of the sport to come ahead.  Finishing his 4th drink he motioned for Jenny to come get his next round.
"More already?" she beamed at him.
"Make that 6 this time." he spoke. "And bring some walnuts."
Jenny dutifully carried out her task and started to walk away when she was beckoned to stay. Usually she would just flash a smile and keep walking but something in the Cpt's voice told her not to.
Without breaking eye contact, Cpt. rolled up his sleeve and slotted in one walnut between his bicep and forearm. He calmly flexed and busted shell dropped forth.
Jenny cocked a non-impressed eye. "That's all ya got?"
"That's just a warm-up." he rumbled.
He pressed 3 walnuts into the groove and flexed again. More shells. Jenny arched an eyebrow.
"Still not too impressive." she said. With that she slotted in 4 walnuts in her arm and flexed with a grin.
"Hrmph. Put the nuts aside and let’s do this for real." With that the Cpt. put his arm down in the time honored stance of the arm wrestle. Jenny chuckled, blushed a little and took a seat opposite the big man. By now the rest of the bar was watching what would be a titanic struggle. They'd never seen Jenny lose so curiosity crawled into everyone present and took control.
Cpt. and Jenny grasped hands and each squeezed to gain the measure of the other. It was like mountains trying to crush the other, neither would budge. Both parties involved grinned. That would be the case for all of 2 seconds until Jenny, with an ounce of mischievousness, threw her strength forward and nearly took the Cpt. by surprise. He nearly hit the table but rallied back to the neutral. From here it was a back and forth of centimeters, neither giving nor taking much ground. With each budge the crowd got closer and closer. Soon they were crowding around the table, all on edge. Cpt. Mattbeard grinned beneath his formidable beard, he had counted on this. With the speed of a snake striking prey, his free hand lashed out and grabbed the nearest man's hand. He brought it to the spot on the table where Jenny's hand would come slamming in moments later. Her hand would be like a meteor slamming into earth, albeit with a fleshy landing pillow. Jenny's hand impacted the other, crushing the poor patron's hand like kindling but leaving Jenny's only slightly bruised.
Jenny and everyone else was shocked. They stared at her hand, the man now rolling and crying on the floor then back at the Cpt.
"I didn't want to damage your working tools." the mighty Cpt. said.
Jenny just stared for a split second until she burst into laughter. It was fierce belly laugh that shook her to her core.
"Well stranger, ya got me. It's been quite some nights afore someone has bested me. What's yer name?"
"Cpt. Mattbeard."
There was a sharp intake of breath across the whole tavern that deprived some mold underneath a nearby seat of enough oxygen to kill it outright. Jenny blushed deeply. The  name of Cpt. Mattbeard being already known to her and now the face too. She stood up, curtsied and then left, as did the crowd leaving the crying man with his hand alone on the floor.
One down, Cpt. Mattbeard thought. 3 to go.

Time Frame.

It is said that hard work and determination are required for success. No one tells you how long that hard work and determination has to be done to be successful. The sooner the better is obviously the best possible answer but what if sooner is still a long time away? Sooner could still be years away. 5 years is going to happen sooner than 10. 10 sooner than 20.

This realization mustn't be discouraging. If you love to do something, then time really shouldn't matter now should it? I realize that everything I'm jotting down, scribbling on piles on Post-It notes, quick typing on word or taking a note on my phone may not bear fruit for years, if ever. I couldn't care. I would like to be a successful author but I'm not going to let some imaginary time frame stall my efforts. I will write, I will improve and hopefully one day it will get me somewhere.

Until then I will hold childish fancies of being the next big thing to come out of nowhere and impress millions of fans and create long lasting characters. I will also work hard every day in an attempt to make that happen. Some of it is going to be bad. Some of it is going to be good. I may even come to hate some of the stuff I come up with and take a hard look at but that's OK too. I will still be doing what I love to do.

You mustn't focus on the immediate future either. That's a pitfall. If you expect some piece of brilliance to fall onto your lap within a short time frame, you just might be putting on too much unneeded pressure to perform and not everyone excels under pressure. You could be putting out garbage with the illusion of grandeur while racing a clock that no one really sees but yourself.

Hard work and determination make are required for success. Once you care not about how soon that happens, the hard work and determination will make bigger strides toward success than worrying about when's, dates or years.

Where it starts.

Every story starts with an idea. Some spark that's lights up enough of a picture for you to work with. Occasionally the spark fades out too quickly for something real to take hold of. Other times its so bright that nearly the entire picture is given in one moment. Those are my favorite.

Lately I've been having lots of little sparks firing off constantly. Glimpses of could be's, maybes, what ifs etc. etc. etc. Nothing huge has come about. Normally I would complain of writer's block and not having a good enough idea. That's not the case. I'm rather thankful. They're ideas for the future. Tales that have potential to grow into something larger once I decide to shine a bright enough light on them. For now, they wait on a notepad with all the others. A holding pen of potential lives, moments and mysteries, that notepad.

One such spark of came today during an unfortunate moment that will not be gotten into but a spark does not let you decide most of the time when it wants to appear. It'll just appear.

This spark is about the human soul Beliefs around the world see the soul moving on to a Heaven or a Hell. We're going to look at the Heaven perspective. An adult dies and goes to Heaven. They're image of themselves while there is what they want it to be because they've had time to learn about the world and shape themselves how they want to. What about a child? Will they forever remain a child in the after life? Can they shape their image into a grown body but still maintain a child's thoughts?

Which brings us back to the spark. If a child gets to Heaven, will they continue to grow into an adult while they are there?

I think its an interesting idea if done right. Unfortunately for it, it goes to my holding pen of ideas to graze with parasitic puppies, a camper, a literal bump in the night and a few stragglers that have been there longer than they care to admit. Its got odd company for the subject matter it came with but it'll be treated like a good friend nonetheless.

Now where will the next spark come from?

Hello! Welcome to one man's ambitious goal to become a professional author. Like the title suggests its going to be a long process for sure. It won't happen overnight nor the night after but hopefully one day I'll get there. Hard work and determination right?

I will be sharing my steps and efforts to get a printed work out to the world. Trials and tribulations, ups and downs, lefts and rights along with all the human emotion contained herein. It should be fun.

Among those thoughts I'll be sharing numerous other things that come to mind. Movies, books, games and locale reviews because why not? Everything in the world has something to offer so we'll look at those when the time arises.

Updates should be Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. That schedule will most likely change but its a starting a point for now.