Fighting

Brandon flexed his hand after wrapping it up with his hand tape, making sure that he hadn't accidentally limited his finger mobility. It had been a long time since he had, but he still routinely checked, just to make sure. He got up and lifted his punching bag, hooking it up to its spot on the ceiling. Once it was free hanging, he patted it down, cleaning the dust off of it and making sure that there were no tears or other unseemly problems.

Satisfied that everything was as it should be, Brandon stepped back and cracked his neck and knuckles, bouncing on his toes and warming himself up. A quick jab lead into two, and then three, until he was throwing long combos of mixed punches into the bag, the dull thumps of taped skin on thick leather reverberating throughout the room. Brandon moved slowly in circles around the bag, coming at it from varying angles, trying to change up his approach with every string, so as to keep himself fresh and not relying too much on any one pattern.

"Hey, Brandon?" a voice came from the door. Brandon didn't respond, continuing to move around the bag and punch away. "Why do you always train on a punching bag like that?" the voice continued. "You're not a fighter. You don't go to tournaments or anything like that. So what's the point?"

Brandon slammed the last punch in his combo into the bag, then grabbed it to stop its swinging. He looked to the door to see his sister, Anna, leaning against the door frame, watching him. Her face clearly displayed her confusion and disapproval. "What's wrong with wanting to be prepared?" he asked her. "You know how in the movies, there's always that moment where the guy has to protect the people around him and uses the skills he's trained his whole life to do it? If and when that moment comes for me, I want to be ready."

"That moment's not gonna come, Brandon," his sister said bitterly. "Moments like those are only ever seen in movies for a reason, bro. They don't happen in real life."

"You can say that all you want, Anna, but the fact remains that I would rather be prepared for something that won't happen, then unprepared and have it come up." Brandon stepped away from the bag and picked up his water bottle and took a long swig of water from it. "Besides," he continued, "it feels good to go in and fight the bag. Gets rid of tension. Keeps me in shape."

"You'd be better off with that if you had a real partner, you know."

"I know. But unless you want to get some gear on and fight me, I'm gonna stick with the bag." Brandon looked at his sister for a moment, challenging her to accept his proposition with his eyes. After a while, she simply shrugged in response.

"I wouldn't be able to keep up in a fight with you," she said.

"That's the goal."

A good book

I've been thinking a lot lately about why it is that I enjoy books. I mean, obviously I do, or I wouldn't want to write them, and I've liked them for as long as I can remember. I've also had the innate ability to, pun intended, judge a book by its cover. I look at things, and I know whether or not I'm going to like them based solely on first impressions. Am I wrong sometimes? Sure. But probably a lot less than you would think.

There are some things that obviously will make me more likely to pick up a book. Being in a genre that I like, being written by an author I'm familiar with, having sword and/or dragons. I'm a simple man. But there's just something that I can see in the titles and covers of books that makes me know whether or not it's going to be something I want to read. Something about the way it catches my eye. And a lot of the time, when other people try to recommend me books, it doesn't work out to well. Not to say that it never does, cause it certainly has and I'm always glad to be proven wrong on that kind of thing, but it just doesn't happen that often.

There are things about the contents of a story I know that I like, though. The one I talk about most often is character development. If a character starts off in one way, and by the end of the story they have gone through a logical and observable evolution into something greater, than it could be about practically anything and I would love it. There's just something magical to me about watching someone grow. I would imagine that anyone who has ever played the role of a teacher or parent can sympathize with me on that one.

Another one I talk about a little less often is hope. You can write the darkest story on earth and I will read it if there is hope to it. That sounds really vague, and it's kind of hard to explain. So let me go through it backwards and see if that helps.

I don't like Game of Thrones. I hate it, in fact. Weird for the medieval guy, I know, but I have my reasons. That book is the penultimate story of no hope. Characters die left and right, and if they're not dying, they're losing everything that they hold dear to them. I managed to read the entirety of the first book, and by the end, there was only one character of easily a dozen who had any hope to her life, and that was only after everything else had been stripped away from her. I didn't want to be in that world. I didn't want to experience a story where you're better off dead than alive, because then you wouldn't have to deal with all the bullshit that was going on in the rest of the story.

Those are probably the two biggest things for me. I mean, obviously I want it to be well written, and to make sense, but development and hope are the building blocks upon which you apply good writing technique if you want me to like your story.

Not that you probably do. It's your story, why the hell should you care what I think?

Happy endings

"I wish people talked more about happy endings."

Melissa looked at her boyfriend, biting sarcasm in her eyes. "Are you kidding me?" she asked him. "You know just as well as I do that if people did that, you would just be jealous that their lives are better than yours."

"That's not true," Mark responded. "You always hear people talking about how shitty everything is, and how terrible life is, and how there's no point in doing anything that you want to do because it will never be appreciated. Can you imagine how many people must be put down by that kind of talk on a daily basis? But if people talked about the people who make it and make a difference in the world, we could inspire an entire generation of people to go out there and make the world a better place."

Melissa blinked, surprised at the depth and sophistication to which Mark was going. He had never been a particularly deep person. "What got you thinking about this?" she asked.

Mark scratched his head, trying to think of just where the thought had come from. "I'm not really sure," he explained. "I guess it's just something that's been festering in my head for a while. I remember being a kid, and having people tell me to put aside my hobbies and make more time for the things that would supposedly really matter further down the line in life. They made me feel like the things I wanted to do weren't worth doing. But then sometimes I would see people more experienced doing the things that I liked doing, and they looked happier than the people trying to tell me to stop. So I stopped listening to those people."

"Sure, but how do you know all people are going to be like that? There are people out there, after all, who will do something just to prove to other people that they can. Some people look at the bad things in life and make a positive change because of that."

Mark nodded, thinking about that. "I guess you're right," he said. "So maybe there needs to be some kind of mix. But I still think that we don't talk about the happy endings enough. They come up in stories and movies all the time, but hardly anyone ever talks about them in real life. It's like those are things that are reserved solely for fairy tales, but that's not really the case."

"Yeah, I see where you're coming from. So why don't you do something about it?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why don't you make a difference? Make your own happy ending, and spread your story. Make people hear about it. Be the person who makes happy endings the more popular thing to talk about."

Mark smiled and chuckled. "Alright," he said. "But you have to help me."

Melissa smiled back at him. "I suppose I can do that. But what do I get out of it?"

Mark chuckled some more. "Your own happy ending."

Music and writing

By some of my earlier writings, you can probably tell that I'm not only a writer, but a musician as well. I love to play my guitar and sing, but I take them much less seriously than I take my writing. I still want to improve in music, but I have no intentions of pursuing it as a profession. But that doesn't mean that I haven't thought about how I can incorporate my music into my writing.

Obviously one of the ways in which I do this is by using music as a plot point in stories. But the more interesting way I thought about doing this when I was younger was by giving my books soundtracks. I remember being young and listening to audio books, specifically those for Harry Potter, and while I stopped doing this as much as I grew up, the concept never left my mind. Eventually, it occurred to me that, theoretically, I could take this one step further. If movies and games could have soundtracks, why not books?

The idea was that I would write music intended to be listened to during particular scenes or chapters in my story. This would probably mean that songs would have to be particularly long, or perhaps be directly mentioned in the story, and of course would be an unnecessary but hopefully cool addition you could get to the book. The problem is that I'm not particularly good at actually writing music. It just so happens to be that writing music and writing stories are two vastly different processes.

Thinking back on that now, I have another problem that would also get in the way of making a soundtrack for my books, that problem being entirely unique to me. I actually do often listen to music while I'm writing, but the music I listen to has a bizarre tendency to be polar opposite to what I am writing. I've written some of my best fight and death scenes, for instance, while listening to very upbeat love music. I can't explain why it happens, but it does. Somehow, I feel like if I tried to swap the two, to write music based on the story set before me, they wouldn't quite line up.

But I still love that idea. I would gladly buy a soundtrack for a book, to listen to specific songs while I read about an author's world. To be taken in more than one sense into that marvelous story, to feel even more as though I am experiencing it, rather than just seeing it from the outside. And then, could you imagine if that soundtrack was then taken in to consideration when a movie is being made from the book? That would be amazing. I would be taken that much more into the movie, because there would be that much more familiar from the book going in.

I feel like the connection between music and writing is one that hasn't been explored enough. There is so much more that we could be doing to connect these two things, but I have yet to see anyone try. And maybe I'm not the guy to be doing, but I would love to see someone else take on my idea one day and make it a reality.

100

I know I've been writing a lot of real talk posts lately, and I know that this is a really self servicing thing to write about, but it has to be said. This is the one hundredth post I've made on this blog. And I've only missed one day, which is honestly better than I had hoped going into this. And somehow, despite not wanting to, despite not knowing what to write a vast majority of the time, I'm still going. And that's pretty amazing.

I can't remember the last time I ever did anything for one hundred days straight. I can't remember the last time I did anything for fifty days straight, quite honestly. I've never been particularly good to sticking to something. Especially not something that I would consider to actually be good for me. I get tired of things, or I forget to do them, or any number of things, and I let myself fall off of a path that I am attempting to put myself on.

Despite being something that I have always known I wanted to do, writing has never been a thing I can do consistently. That's part of the reason I didn't make the goal to write fiction every single day. Ideally I would be, but I think it's pretty obvious at this point that I would not be able to pull that off. I would run out of ideas fast, and I would run out of motivation to keep moving. There's a good chance that if you see me writing real talk, then it's because I simply couldn't think of anything fictional to write about. That's not always true, but there's a good chance of it.

If you've never heard of it, I try to always participate in something called National Novel Writing Month. I could go on and explain it, but suffice to say that it is simply setting yourself a goal to write fifty thousand words in thirty days. And I've done that. I've managed to accomplish that twice, which is no mere feat. But even in that, neither time did I do it in thirty days straight. I lost some days, and on my second go, I finished long before I ever hit that thirty day marker.

In these one hundred days I have been writing, I have hit that fifty thousand word marker once again. It wasn't on one continuous topic this time, which is weird for me. I'm used to, in my writing, picking a story and rolling with it for as long as I can, and then not writing again for god only knows how long. But I didn't do that this time. I wrote until a topic was done, and then I picked up another topic and I wrote again. And I did that over and over and over. And I'm going to keep doing that over and over and over. Because I'm trying to teach myself not to stop just because I lose track of where I was going.

I've learned some stuff about my writing in doing this. I've seen some of the things that I do wrong, and I've seen some of the stuff that I do right, and I've started to figure out how to go about bettering what I do. But I still have a long way to go.

I hope that, when I hit a year, that I don't stop. I hope to keep this blog going for as long as I possibly can, because there will always be more for me to learn, more to say. As a good man once told me, this blog should be my playground, where I can experiment and strive to do new and different things. But I also hope to eventually figure out how to balance this with writing privately, making full and long stories that I always dreamed of being able to write. I have tried to do that, but it's harder than you might think. But I'm gonna keep trying, and hopefully eventually figure out how to go about it.

Maybe in my next hundred days, I'll be able to tell you about it.

Vacation

I mentioned before that over the past few days I was traveling out on vacation. I continued to write, but lacking time and a computer, the pieces I wrote are notably shorter than they usually are. I find it doubtful to be honest that any of them actually reached my 500 word goal. But that honestly doesn't concern me. It's the daily part of writing that I am more concerned with. 500 is just a goal to give me something to work towards so that I don't just write down a haiku and call it a day. Daily writing is the thing that will get me going on writing.

But even with having written every day while I was on vacation, coming back from vacation makes me not want to "get back to work" as it were. I mentioned yesterday about how there are days where I just don't want to write. I'd rather just kick back and not really do anything, or play games, or watch youtube, or whatever. Today is a day like that. Coming back from vacation is like that for me. I can't entirely explain why, but it's kind of like I need a vacation from my vacation. And part of that means that I don't particularly want to write.

But again, I know I have to do it anyway. That's kind of a key piece to a lot of my "On writing" posts, and it's something that I truly believe can not be stated enough. Writing, as much as I love it, is a job. And you take anything you love and make a job out of it and it becomes harder to do. That is an unfortunate but true piece to life. It will still be better than taking any other job in the world, but it will be a job all the same. And that means that you have to get used to doing it, day in and day out, and you have to find ways to motivate yourself to push forward no matter how much you don't want to.

That's something I've struggled a lot with in life. A lot of people tell me I need to take more vacations because of it. But my ideas of a vacation is a little different than other people. I've been a lot of places, and done a lot of things. It gives me a lot of inspiration for my writing, and if you've noticed any of my characters doing out there things, that's probably why. But I don't really think of that as a vacation. I think of it as a trip. For most people, those are one and the same. But not really for me.

To me, vacation is being able to kick back and not have to worry. To not have to do things during the day, to be able to just be alone with my thoughts, few as they may be. And when I do that, at the end of the day, I'm ready to get back to my work. I feel rested, and ready to do the things that I need to do. But when I'm out, going places, doing things, I enjoy myself, don't get me wrong. But at the end of the day, I didn't get that break that I need. I didn't get to relax. And so I don't want to sit down to work. I want to not do anything.

I don't know what exactly it is about me that makes me feel this way, but it's more or less always been there. Writing can be a lot more strenuous than it looks from the outside. It drains me mentally. Not that I think that's a bad thing. It drains me and puts everything it took out from me down on to paper. I'm just saying that it's harder to come back to that at the end of a long day of fun and excitement than you might thing.

Cheat days

Have you ever sat down to do something that you really love doing, and you know you do beyond a shadow of a doubt, but you sit down and you just really aren't feeling it? You can't really explain why, but even though you normally love doing it, you just have no desire to at the time?

That happens to me more than I'd like to admit with writing. It's not something that makes me question why I'm writing, though I know that if I ever mention it to someone, that will be the first thing they ask me. Writing makes me happy. It always has. It makes me feel alive, and like I'm actually doing something with my time, whereas most other things make me feel like I'm just wasting away until I get to the next thing of any value. And yet, there are times when I just don't feel any desire to write. In fact, I feel a desire to not be writing. 

That is happening to me right now, as I write this very blog entry. You may be asking yourself, if that's the case, why am I even bothering? Or you may be wondering, if that is something that I previously knew about myself, why did I decide to take it upon myself to write a significant block of text on a daily basis? 

To put it simply, I'm doing it for much the same reason a person goes on a diet. It's something that I feel is necessary for me. It is something through which I want to better myself. And some days it sucks. Some days I want to throw it all aside, say that it's not the end of the world. Take a cheat day, as a dieter might. 

So why don't I?

Because I've taken cheat days before. In other things in my life that I've wanted to better. And it doesn't work for me. I can't just take a cheat day and then come back to it. I have to go full haul, cold turkey, whatever you want to call it. It might as well be 110% or nothing at all. 

So even on days where I hate writing, where I want absolutely nothing to do with the process, I write. Because I know that in the morning I'll be glad I did. 

76268

Number 76268 looked at the wall in front of him, calculating the best means for him to overcome it. There were a variety of options available to him, save a door, which the wall lacked. He supposed he could move straight through the wall, plowing a hole through it, but he was significantly more likely to hurt himself doing that than most other options. He could scale it, digging his metallic fingers and toes into the face, but that faced a similar problem.

As he calculated, his hand detached from his arm and quickly approached the wall, using its fingers to walk. It probed the wall, looking to see the material, sturdiness, density, and so forth. It was a much stronger wall than it appeared. It was likely to have been built that way intentionally, with a very strong core, so as to prevent the experiments from plowing through it, forcing them to calculate their actions. It was also surprisingly smooth and slick, making it difficult to scale. The hand scanned the sides, but there was no reliable end in sight. The simple matter was that it must be overcome, quite literally. 

76268 began separating each piece of himself, each limb and section of his body moving independantly of one another, but all sharing in his one hive mind. The easiest way, it seemed to him, was to go over the wall. Doing so meant that he must be launched, and he was well aware that he did not have the power to move his weight that high and fast through the air. However, by rearranging his body composition, he was capable of constructing a trebuchet that would launch him piece by piece. Starting with his head, the machine made up of himself flung body parts through the air, over the wall, and on to the other side, where a scientist awaited him. 

As the parts arrived, 76268 rearranged himself into the human like figure he had previously held. However, after a while, the trebuchet became less and less effective, resulting in the inability for 76268's left foot and right arm to arrive. He felt misbalanced, and try as he might, he could not fathom a way in which to retrieve the final pieces of his body. 

"Is that all?" the scientist asked, clipboard in hand, writing down information at a constant pace without deigning to look down at his writing. 76268 nodded in silent acknowledgement. "I see. I'm afraid that means you are yet another failure. A pity. I was hoping you would be a success. Your unique ability to work as a unit, each piece functioning on its own, was quite promising. It appears, however, that doing so limited your overall comprehension. Perhaps our technology has not advanced far enough to give you enough computing power to make up for that."

"I will therefore be eradicated, correct?" 76268 replied, voice flat and without tone, more a metallic imitation of a voice than one his own.

"Correct."

"May I be permitted one request before eradication?"

"It is possible, depending on your request."

"I would like to be whole again before I am gone."

"That can be arranged."

"Thank you."

The cave

Conrad looked over the edge of the hole, a flare held in his hand, ready to be lit and dropped. He had come across what he assumed to be the entrance to a cave a week ago, when his foot had slipped into the hole hidden by the brush and nearly dragged the rest of him along with it. On that day, it had scared the crap out of him, and he had had no intentions of returning, but the more he thought about the hole, the more curious he had become. He remembered hearing stories about people who had stumbled across massive cave systems and gaining fame and fortune because of it. 

He had done his research before returning. He wore a backpack with an assortment of supplies inside. A flashlight, plenty of extra batteries, rope, some food, a first aid kit. He wanted to make sure that if he got lost, he wasn't going to be royally screwed. He wanted to be remembered for his discovery. Not forgotten because of his failure. 

The flare burst to life, and Conrad let it fall into the now widened hole. He watched as the light descended, growing dimmer and dimmer, until it finally bounced to a stop far below, and rolled off to the side where he could barely see it. He was glad he hadn't fallen in before. A part of him had wanted to have had all this preparation be worthless, with only a foot or so of drop with nothing to see. At least then he would know he hadn't been in danger before. But now at least he could take an adventure that might pay off in the end. 

He tied his rope to a nearby tree and let it dangle down into the depths of the hole. With a deep breath, he began his descent. As he slowly maneuvered down the rope, trying to see anything around him in the ever increasing darkness, he realized just how tiring such a descent was. He had never been the strongest person out there, but the fear of dropping kept him firmly on the rope. The further he went, the more his arms shook, but he refused to let go, and climbing back up became less and less of an option. He hoped desperately that this would be worth it, as getting out would prive to be a challenge. 

Every few feet, Conrad would look down to check his flare. He could tell he was slowly getting closer. Eventually, though, he was terrified to notice when he looked down that the flare had run out. He had no idea how close he was. He couldn't get his flashlight out either to check, as he needed both hands on the rope. Although he could look up and see the light, he had gone deep enough that it was no longer illuminating his path. He had no choice but to continue on blindly, and pray that his rope was long enough. 

By the time he reached stone he coukd stand on, Conrad's entire body was shaking, his breath was ragged, and his eyes were closed tightly shut. The impact of stone on his feet was so shocking that he didn't know what to think at first. He stood, feet planted on the ground, his hands still clenched tightly around the rope, until finally it ocurred to him that he had made it. His fingers peeled off of the rope one by one, and he shakingly pulled off his pack and grabbed his flashlight. His hands were shaking so badly he missed the switch for the light several times before finally managing to turn it on. As he swept the light around the cave, he was amazed at what he saw. 

His flare had slowly rolled into a puddle of water, which was why it had extinguished. Long stalactites surrounded him, dripping water all around the floor. The rocks were a shiny, almost glowing white with the light on them, with smooth and almost bubbly appearances. Formations on the walls looked stunningly like jellyfish, and seemed to continue on forever deeper into the cave. In the distance, he could hear a creak flowing, which he assumed was the original source of the cave.

"Wow."

Speed

I'm going to be spending today and the next few days traveling. This doesn't mean I'm taking a break from writing however. Screw that noise. Instead it means that I'm going to be writing these posts on my phone. This isn't the first time I've done this, so I'm already familiar with how to go about it, and what the disadvantages are. The biggest of which being that I have no way of checking how long these posts are, so if any of the next few days' writing seems short, that's why. 

But the other big disadvantage for me is that this means it will take me significantly longer to do my writing. Besides my being limited by the size of my phone's keyboard, I'm also much more likely to make typos, which means more going back to correct them, which is annoying on a phone. 

I've mentioned before that, for me, writing slowly is very frustrating. A good writing streak for me hits 75 words a minute or more, meaning I can theoretically finish my five hundred words in under ten minutes, which I have on multiple occasions. I know that's not exactly a normal thing, and I'm not one to pretend that it is. But that's just how it is for me. My writing is very much a flow thing. Very stream of consciousness, if you will. Slowing down, and especially stopping, are not conducive to me. Lots of people do that frequently while writing, and it's probably a good thing, to stop and think about where you're going and where you've come from. But for me, stopping means losing track or getting stuck. 

If you're a writer, chances are you've had your moments where you stop for long stretches of time, staring blankly at something else, thinking about where your story is going. And if someone interrupts while you're doing that, to ask if you're ok or what you're doing, you probably get mad at them for pulling you out of your writing bubble. Not me, though. The people who know me see me doing that and know that, chances are, I'm trying to think of a word I want. And sometimes they can help me, and it gets me going again.

Going slow makes it easier for me to get distracted, to lose my place. Unfortunately, that's just something I'm going to have to deal with for the next few days. Like many problems I've faced these last few months, however, it's probably a good thing. It's more practice with the hard things. Forcing myself to do things I'm not comfortable with so that I can better my writing.

Like I mentioned at the beginning, I have no way of knowing if this is long enough. I sure hope it is. I know it's a bit denser then a lot of my writing, so I have that going for me. But man, has this taken a while. Hopefully I can keep it up. 

Gods

The god of thunder sat in his throne high above the plains of the world, watching it far below. He watched as the clouds formed and moved, and he systematically sent bolts of lightning through to the surface, reaching deep into the core to supply power. His electricity was the fuel upon which the world he observed ran, though the people below had no idea. He had heard whisperings that they believed it ran on internal power which came from the rotation of the planet or some such nonsense.

He had no idea where they got those kinds of ideas.

He found an odd sense of pleasure in watching his work play out on the small planet. He hardly needed to be there. He had set his works in motion, to be able to control themselves, to sense where power was needed and to send them out. At times, this meant that innocents were placed in the path of his bolts, and they may even be killed. But as far as he was concerned, it was of little worry. There were so many people and animals, and they were hit so infrequently, it hardly inconvenienced their history. They would be fine.

"How is the planet going?" came a voice from behind the god. He recognized the voice immediately. It was the goddess of the seas. She was not a fan of her creations being struck by his lightning. He had tried to explain to her on many occasions that his work was vital, and that casualties were unavoidable. She would hear little of it. Yet, somehow, for some reason, she had still married him.

"It is continuing on as usual," he replied. "The core is fully powered. Everything is still in motion, and is set to be in motion for a few thousand of their years."

"And how many of my fish have you killed?"

The thunder god rolled his eyes. "You should know perfectly well. You keep a good enough count of your creatures. Which means you should also know that far more are created on a daily basis than my lightning kills on a yearly one."

"You keep saying that, but you are still ending the lives of my fish before they are intended."

"There is plenty of space for death on this planet. One day, if we are to let things continue on at your pace, there may be too many of the living creatures on this planet. And then you will regret not having let my thunder kill more of them."

"I find that unlikely. Many things would have to go wrong for that to happen."

"Well, those will certainly not be my fault. My systems are well designed. I am doing my job more efficiently than many of the others are."

"I hear that the people below think your lightning is random, unnecessary, and dangerous."

"The people below are ignorant."

The sea goddess and giggled and laid a hand on her husband's shoulder. "So defensive," she said. "Must you always take things so personally?"

"Says the one who accuses me directly of being the downfall of her creations."

Youth

Brandon rubbed his forehead, thinking about the email he had gotten almost a week prior. He had been best friends with Laura when they were younger, but he hadn't seen her in years. He had practically forgotten about her it had been so long.

Her email had come from virtually nowhere. Supposedly she had recently been looking through her old yearbooks and seen a picture of them together. She had forgotten about him, too, but seeing the picture made her feel like she had been missing something. She tried to contact him, but his old info was long dead. It had taken a lot of searching, a lot of pulling strings. But she was able to find him again. 

Laura. The name felt so heavy on Brandon's tongue. The last time they talked he had been 15. He was 33 now. Eighteen years was a long time. A lot about him had changed. He used to like her. Well, obviously he had liked her. They were best friends. But with time, it had become more than that. He liked her a lot. He wanted to spend every waking moment with her, to wrap himself up in her, to love her. He had feared that she wouldn't share the sentiments. In time, that fear had pushed them apart. It was a fairly typical story as far as he was aware. 

But that had been a long time ago. 

He looked up and saw Laura walking toward him, her classic bright smile on her face. Brandon couldn't help but smile back at her. "It's been a long time, Brandy boy," she teased. "Thanks for coming and meeting up with me. It's been a long time. I wouldn't have blamed you if you hadn't."

Brandon shook his head. "You, Laura?" he asked in reply. "I could hardly say no to you. Please, sit down. Talk to me."

Laura giggled and took a seat. "I don't even know where to start. Eighteen years is so long. So much has happened. I just... I don't know, Brandon. There are so many things I want to ask you."

"I know the feeling."

"What do you do now a days? I hope you didn't give up on all that writing you ised to do."

Brandon smiled and scratched his chin. "No, actually," he responded. "I took your advice. I published my third book last year. It took a long time, a lot of work. I spent several years working as a journalist and blogger. But always writing."

Laura giggled and smiled. "I'm glad you never gave up. You were always so good."

"Thanks. What about you?"

Laura laughed out loud. "I ended up on a different path than I expected. I'm a model now."

"No way."

"Hey now. Are you saying I'm not pretty enough to be a model?"

Brandon felt the blood rush to his face. "N-no, it's not that, I just..."

Laura laughed out loud. "God, I forgot how cute you can be."

Brandon's face got even redder at that. "You are so not helping right now."

"I can't believe I never dated you back then."

"Laura!"

The stories of dreams

I go through phases of having a million ideas for stories I want to write down, and not a single thought for what I could possibly be writing. I think most people in any profession would know that sentiment to some extent, so I don't think I need to elaborate too much on that. For the purpose of this discussion, suffice to say that, for me, these phases are a lot like how I dream. And that's a lot more relevant to my writing than it probably sounds.

I don't dream a whole lot. I can have multiple dreams in one night, vivid dreams of both amazing events and terrifying horrors. It's probably a side effect of being a writer. Or maybe being a writer is a side effect of that? Who knows. Point is, when my imagination wants to, it can make some pretty insane and incredible things. But I don't have dreams all that often. I can have a week or two of dream after dream, and then go months without anything but black while I sleep.

In a way, I'm ok with that. Some of the dreams I have are absolutely terrifying. My whole life, I have experienced nightmares that leave me feeling ice cold when I wake up, heart pounding, eyes wide and unsure of where I am or what I should be doing. I have no idea why I have these nightmares. I don't know where they come from, but they have given me fears that I legitimately never had before I dreamed of them.

But I have good dreams, too. I've had some amazing dreams. Dreams of achieving goals I have a thousand fold, dreams of being able to do things no human ever could. I have had dreams that, when I wake up, make me feel more alive, and like I can accomplish things that I never previously thought possible.

And when I have those dreams, I try to write them down. I would say that at least, if not more than half of my story ideas come from dreams. Some of my favorites stories, too. Some of which I've even written down on this blog. One that comes to mind is Wings. That was a dream I had many years ago, and has sat with me for a long time. I never really wrote it down until now, though, at least not as an actual attempt at a story. Not because I didn't want to, but because I wasn't sure that I could do my dream justice.

I wouldn't say that Wings was one of my best works I've done on here. But it was certainly one of my favorites. And it's one that, with more time and refining, I could easily see myself making a full book out of.

In many ways, writing for me is like dreaming. It's not easy to make myself do it every day. Some times it comes out pretty terribly, but sometimes it feels amazing. It comes from places that sometimes I don't fully understand, and yet it is there like it couldn't possibly be anywhere else. I guess it's fitting that writing is my dream.

The benefits of a time limit

We all hate time limits. We don't like being told that we have a certain amount of time to do something, and that if we run out, then that's it. We wish we had an unlimited amount of time, and we tell ourselves that if we did, then we would use it to do all sorts of things.

The thing that no ones wants to acknowledge is that, yeah, we'd do everything - after we slept for a while, and watched some tv, and played some games, and got some more sleep...

Time limits suck. It's true, and it's undeniable. But they are also incredibly useful. Yesterday was my 90th one of these blog posts. I wouldn't have gotten out 90 of these in such short time if I didn't have a time limit. It's a simple one - I have to get this out by the end of the day. And damn if that's not hard sometimes. But that time limit keeps me in check. It makes sure that I keep thinking about it throughout the day, and that I get something out at some point. It may hold back the quality at times, but you can always add polish to something later on down the road. The hardest part is getting it out in the first place.

The reason this time limit works for me is because it's small and simple. I have to get something out by the end of the day - no ifs ands or buts about it. It also means that I end up writing most of my stuff at the end of the day. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that. Would it work better if I had an earlier end time? Maybe. But I'd have a lot harder time sticking to that time. It's just part of how I think.

Obviously a daily, midnight goal is not going to work for everyone. Some people need a week. Some need a month. It depends on what you're doing, and how long it's going to take you. I can write fast. Like, really, really fast. Especially in short bursts. It's why part of my goal is five hundred words. I know that if I push myself, I can fairly easily get that out in ten minutes. That gives me space to make clutch, last minute posts. And I have, many times. I won't deny that. It's a thing that I do. It's how I am. Rather than change it, I'm going to make myself learn to use it to my advantage.

Finding a time limit for that is really important. I got lucky to have had this work out on my first try. Well, for the most part. I missed a day, but I've already talked about that. The fact that I'm still here writing nearly a month later goes to show that there is something to what I've been doing.

Having to work at the last minute is part of what makes time limits important, believe it or not. When you have less time to think, it forces you to be more creative. To grasp the smaller, more available straws. To take that one word instant prompt that you have no idea where it will go, rather than trying to make a whole plan out before you get going. Sometimes it doesn't work out, and you end up with something incredibly awkward. But it's not like that doesn't sometimes happen even when you have the full plan.

This is something that I know how to do. Work fast and at the last minute. I do it with all kinds of things. There are some people, though, that use their time limits differently. Some want that time limit so they can finish it early and have free time where they can relax, knowing their work is done. And that's awesome.

If there's something that you want to do, I suggest you look at how to set your time limits. Make them just as much time as you need, and try to make it something repeatable. I think you might find, like I have, that it's far more helpful than it sounds like it would be.

Hunting

Maya kneeled down beside the monster she had just knocked out cold from the tree. The ape like figure had recently stolen into town and broken and stolen several valuables from the people, and Maya had been tasked with dealing with it. She had tracked it down to its nest, which she had taken note of so she could return later and retrieve the stolen goods, and then waited patiently for it to come out where she could more easily hunt it. One solid blow to the back of the head with a rock as it was traversing the trees had knocked it to the ground.

She slipped her knife free from its sheath on her belt and slit the monster's throat, ensuring that it would not be bothering it anymore. From there, she quickly set to work, skinning it and taking anything that she could use or sell. She took some tools from her pouch to clean the pieces of the monster she had taken, and placed them in a separate pouch which she carried explicitly for the parts of monsters that she collected, before standing up and heading back to the creature's nest to retrieve the stolen goods.

Maya crawled her way through the tightly woven trees to reach the creature's nest, outfitted haphazardly with the town's stolen goods. Pushing herself inside, she began to lift them and place them carefully in the bag on her back. She considered that it would become more difficult for her to get out with these on hand, but she had a duty to return the people's belongings.

Lifting the bag back onto her shoulders, Maya made herself climb to the top of the trees so that she might have an easier time exiting. As she climbed, the items in her bag clanged against each other. Although she knew the monster that had originally stolen them was now dead, she hoped that it would not attract the attention of any others who might be in the vicinity. Doing so would not only put her in danger, but the items that she had gone through the effort of retrieving. The townsfolk would certainly not be pleased if she returned with broken belongings.

In the higher treetops, she was able to move out to thinner areas, where she slid back down to the ground. Back on ground, she dusted herself and looked around, making sure that no new monsters had arrived after her travels. Satisfied that she was safe, she began her journey back to town.

The girl

Damian sat back in my seat, waiting for the girl he was supposed to meet. She had told him what she was going to be wearing, but he found it unlikely that it would be overly helpful. He had never met her before, despite his repeated attempts, but today was supposed to finally be the day. He had no choice but to rely on the information she had given him. He sighed to himself, thinking back over the list of identifiers she had given him. He couldn't imagine that it would be enough, that he wouldn't somehow end up approaching the wrong girl, but he didn't have much choice.

His eyes wandered around the mall, briefly stopping on any girl who seemed similar to the description he had been given. They all seemed to be short of features, though. Damian was never sure what to do on the girls who seemed very close. Had she changed her mind about something? Forgotten what exactly she had said? She had given him quite the list, but it seemed like it would be fairly simple to miss a piece or two. He was never sure if he should approach them or not. By the time he had decided one way or the other, they had disappeared. As time passed, he was losing hope.

But then, a wave of dirty blonde hair caught his attention. It was smooth and long, beginning to curl as it reached the end, and framed her soft, round face. Her eyes were a deep brown and had a curious look to them. As her hair bounced as she walked, he could see that she had long, crystal like earrings dangling from her ears.

Around her neck, she wore a simple, triangular shaped necklace that he couldn't fully see from where he sat, though he assumed it was the celtic knot that she had described. It sat between her knitted vest with alternating white and brown colors that hung loosely over her simple black blouse. Looking down to her arms, he could see that she wore a hair scrunchie on her right wrist, and two bronze rings on her middle and ring fingers.

Following her legs down, she wore simple blue jeans down to her brown moccasin styled shoes. Her entire figure was thin, yet somehow shapely, and he found that he couldn't look away from her. She caught his stare and grinned at him, walking towards him. Quickly he ran through the list in his head, and found that she had managed to match exactly what she had said she would.

"Well hey there, big fella," she called out as she approached. "Am I everything you dreamed of?"

Damian looked her up and down once more, taking her in. He had always had it in his head that she would be pretty, but... She had exceeded every expectation. She wasn't just pretty. She was beautiful.

"No," he responded after a moment. The girl pouted cutely, and Damian immediately shook his hands as if to tell her not to. "You are far more than I had dreamed."

She giggled and smiled. "Well aren't you just a charmer."

Sources

Growing up knowing I wanted to be a writer, I listened to a lot of the things that writers have said about writing. One of the most common things I heard about it was that you should read. And I get that, and I agree with it. The more read, the more you know about what you like to read, the more you know about how you should write. It's not necessarily a conscious thing, but it's there. You read and you read and you read and you write and you read and you write some more. It's an endless cycle, and that's a good thing.

I also grew up in a world of distractions and accusations. Not necessarily directly at me, but they were all definitely there. You should be reading instead of playing games. You should be doing homework instead of watching tv. You should be doing something active instead of reading. What do you think you're gonna do with your life when you grow up? Playing all those games isn't gonna help you get there. You need to get up and apply yourself.

I can't really disagree with any of these things. I do, however, think that most people grossly misvalue things. There are most certainly pathways in life in which all of these things which people around you say are worthless are not only useful, but nearly vital. In fact, I would argue that most positions out there can be aided by playing games or watching tv or reading. You just have to play, watch, or read the right things. Or be able to look at and understand these things in ways you wouldn't normally think of.

As a writer, having grown up in both of these worlds simultaneously, I know understand this on a level I think a lot of people don't. I'm not trying to brag or make myself out to be better in some way in saying this. The fact is simply that I look at things differently, and so I understand things in a different way. Being a writer, there is nothing you can do that you can't take from. Everything has a story behind it. A writer's job is simply to find that story and to tell it.

But personally, I don't think it's just writer's that have this advantage. If you've ever had a friend who wanted to do something just because they say it in a tv show or a movie, you probably thought they were an idiot. And a lot of times, you were probably right. But think about it. What they saw inspired them. It made them think about the world differently. As they pursue that path, they may find it was not what they initially expected. But that's not a bad thing. They learned from that. And if it worked out, then they gained a key part of themselves because of it.

I've said before that a writer writes based on what they know. They put their heart and soul into what they write, and they produce something based on life. If someone comes along and sees that, and is inspired by that, and goes on to try and live that life, then that writer has done something amazing for them. And it doesn't matter what life they write.

A great example is the show Star Trek. If you've ever seen the original series, you know how cheesy and old it is. But think about it for a minute. There are tons of things that were on that show that didn't exist in the real world at the time. And now, some of them do, and some of them are even outdated. Their communicators were small boxes with a flip up cover that answered calls when it was opened. Ten years ago, flip phones were all the rage. And the people who invented those got the idea from Star Trek, and tried to make what they saw a reality.

So, while you should keep your game playing and tv watching in check to make sure they don't fall out of moderation, don't write them off as useless. Somewhere down the road, you may just find that they are worth more to you than you could ever know.

Painting

Susan picked her paintbrush up as she walked out to the deck. The sun was shining brightly, and she had a blank canvas prepared for the day. It had been sitting there for as long as she could remember. It wasn't that she didn't enjoy painting, or that she didn't paint everyday. It wasn't even that she didn't paint on this canvas everyday. It was just always made ready for her by the time she came back to it.

Susan sat down in front of the canvas, twirling the paintbrush between her fingers as she thought about what to paint. She watched the skyline, spotted with trees, and tried to imagine what kinds of wonderful things she would wish to see among them. She liked to paint wondrous things. Things of great beauty and imagination, that one would love to see, but knew they never would. That was what she wanted to fill her life with. Incredible, beautiful things.

As she set to paint, brief thoughts about her life flitted through her mind. She had a wonderful house, out on her own, with plenty of space for her to be. But she had no one else to live with her. She was an only child, and her parents had passed away a long time ago, and she had never found a husband. She didn't mind being alone. She remembered back when she bought the house, how people questioned why she needed so much space for her self. But she just smiled and did as she pleased. She knew what would make her happy, and she worked towards that.

Her brush danced across the page before her in long, graceful strokes, hardly needing her attention. She had been painting for as long as she could remember. She could hardly remember a time when she had had to focus on her art. She knew there was a time when she had. But now a days, she could practically have her eyes close, and she knew that her art would shine through. It was a part of her that could never be removed.

She knew to an on looker, her art would appear strange. Not the images themselves, but simply the way in which she created it. Her brush glided along the canvas, never leaving a mark behind, as she never dipped the brush in paint. And yet she could see the image so clearly. In the distance, far beyond her canvas on her deck, light twisted and turned in the air, stretching and contorting to her will. Her painting came to life, in more ways then one, as she commanded the colors themselves to do her bidding.

She looked up from her canvas and watched the skyline once more. She saw the images in her mind more clearly now. Birds climbed from the trees to meet great and powerful beasts of the sky. Mythical creatures danced along the treetops, leaping easily from branch to branch. The stars themselves began to swirl together to form bodies that moved and talked, and came to interact with the other beings that Susan created. She smiled to herself as she watched them dance together, knowing that she was the one who created these things.

As her brush came to rest, slowly the things she created faded away, though she could still see them in her mind's eye. She had painted the day away yet again without even realizing it. She stood up and stretched, only just realizing how hungry she was.

"I'll be back tomorrow," she whispered to her canvas, and walked inside to get dinner.

Brother

"You ever look in the mirror and not like what you see?"

Jack chuckled at the question as Johann stared into the mirror on the wall. The two had long been criminals, scouring the roads and taking what they wanted. They broke what needed to be broken in order to do that. They left people beside the beaten path, left to be saved... or not. They didn't need the help of any foolish man, woman, or child. Just their belongings.

"Every day," Jack replied. "Just as you do. We both know the answer to that question."

"You ever think about doing something about it?"

"I do. That's why I try to get better clothes."

Johann spit at Jack. "You know what I mean, you ugly bastard."

"That's no kind thing for you to call your twin."

Johann waved the statement off. He sat in his chair with a loud thump, tossing his legs casually up and onto the table. The things that they owned, if they could call it that, were of an assorted quality. Their home was a mish mash of furniture and vanity items. Things of bronze, steel, gold and silver. Simple trinkets and precious antiques. They had more than enough to survive and comfort for a generation. Had for a long while, in fact. And yet they kept at their work, strong and steady.

"One of these days we're going to get caught, Jack."

"And when that day comes, Johann, what do you suppose we'll do?"

"Attempt to steal our freedom back and be killed in the process."

"Yes, I suppose you're probably right."

Jack leaned against the wall, and the two sat in silence for a long moment, each looking at their own corner of the room. It was a conversation they had had many times.

"I don't want to die, Jack."

"Neither do I, Johann. But it's a bit late for that decision, don't you think?"

"What if we turned ourselves in?"

"I hardly think that would change a thing."

"You're probably right."

Jack sighed and walked to the table, putting both hands on it as he leaned over to look at Johann. His brother looked back at him, his eyes as cold and dead as ever. It had been a long time since Jack had seen anything but fear in his brother's eyes. The thrill of the fight had long passed. Jack supposed his own eyes must look similar. He didn't look in the mirror as Johann did.

"Why are you still here, brother?" he asked. "Why are you still with me? You don't enjoy this life. You fear the consequences it brings. So why do you stay? Why not leave, and forge a new life? Where of which you can be proud, and feel that you have a future to you."

"Because, brother," Johann replied. "That would mean leaving you behind to rot."

Jack smiled coyly. "That's what we do for a living, brother."

"It is," Johann replied, his face and tone as flat as ever. "But doing so on the way out would be defeating the point, don't you think?"

"Yes, brother... You're probably right."

Looking back

We've all looked back on something we've done in the past, something we were proud of at the time, and think to ourselves "...Really? I was proud of that?" We feel ashamed, or embarassed, and we try to hide that something in our past. We don't want others to see where we came from, where we failed. We want them to see where we are, or where we're going. And there's nothing wrong with wanting that. It's human. But we shouldn't be ashamed of where we came from. It is our past that we grow from, that teaches us the vital lessons that allow us to move forward.

For instance. I've written a lot, and I mean a lot of absolutely terrible stories. They make me cringe just thinking about them, and reading them... Damn. It's painful. But I do it anyway. Not often, hell no. But I do it. Because I understand that at some point those stories seemed good to me, and I want to know why. If I thought they were good, for any reason, then there must be some nugget of goodness to them. Even if it's just the idea itself behind the writing, there is something in them that influenced my writing, and shaped my trade. Hell, I may even find that there is something in there that I still want to use. 

It's easy to look at the old flaws and simply disregard the whole as useless. But think about some of your favorite things. Chances are, they aren't the newest and shiniest. You hold nostalgia for the things that have passed, and when new things come out, despite their improvements, we can't help but look back at the things that they came from. Perhaps because they are simpler, perhaps because the new versions are missing some function that we appreciated. But we long for the days of old.

We forget these things when the old isn't immediately seen as good. I'm not saying that there aren't old things that are just plain bad. Of course there are. But even those can be learned from. If you can see and understand why things are bad, then you can avoid making those mistakes.

I once wrote a story about a conflict between two nations, one of light and one of darkness. My main character, the leading fighter of the dark nation, was an angry, bitter man, who viciously slaughtered any who stood in his way. He was a fun character to write for his power alone, but I made some very strange decisions with him. It's been a while, so I don't remember the exact phrasing, but in an attempt to distract his opponents with confusion, I had him say something along the lives of, "I can't go to Ohio. It's Missouri in there!"

I was young. At the time, it was hilarious. Now, it's just weird. It doesn't make any sense, it doesn't fit the character, and it's just not funny. But the fact remains that I did it. I'm not going to hide that. It's stupid and terrible, but it also is a reminder of exactly what I shouldn't do when I'm writing. And in that way, it's important to remember.

A loss of will

Suffice to say, I'm not the academic type. I never have been, and while I enjoy learning, I probably never will be. There's just something about school that takes the fun and enjoyment out of things. I don't know what it is. The time limit, the judgements. There's just something about it that takes the things you enjoy, and wrings the fun out of them.

For me, one of the most obvious examples of this has always been English class. I'm a writer. I love writing. And I love reading. These are things that just come with the territory. But damn, if reading books for English classes didn't always drive me crazy. It probably didn't help that, to me, the books they had us reading were always boring and the kinds of books that I would never have an interest in in the first place. But even some books that I would have otherwise found enjoyable, I had no interest in reading while I was in school. Perhaps it was the attitude of trying to dig deeper into the meaning of a book that I simply didn't agree with. Or maybe it was just that we were being told to do it.

That's the thing. Being told that you have to do something always makes it worse. No matter how much you enjoy doing something, if someone tells you that you have to do it, you are going to enjoy it less. I don't know why that is, but it is. We all want to be in control of our own lives, and it can be hard to accept that at times we have to let other people be the leader. We fight it, try to avoid those moments, or try to twist them so that we can be the ones in control. It's just nature. But the fact of the matter is, we can't always be in control.

That loss of control doesn't just affect that one aspect of our lives, though. It starts to trickle into the other parts where we still do have control. It becomes harder to enjoy the things we do for fun when we feel like we don't have as much time for them as we want, because someone is telling us that we have to do other things.

I know that feeling all too well. I almost didn't write this blog post tonight, because I have written well over 2000 words already today in papers that I have to write for school. And the worst part is, I'm not even done writing them. So thinking about writing this post was not an enticing one. I considered just not doing it. I've written well over my 500 word daily goal. Why should I keep writing?

Because I have to remind myself that there are things out there that I enjoy, and writing is top among them. Just not academic writing. "But no one likes academic writing," I hear you say. Well, someone has to. Otherwise there wouldn't be so many damn things that I have to make citations of.

Choosing what to write 2

It hasn't been all that long since I last wrote about choosing what to write about. But really, it's always worth talking about. No matter how long you write, you're never going to stop asking yourself "what do I write next?" It's a real issue, one that I find non-writers have a hard time understanding. It's what we do for a living, right? So why should it be hard to come up with new ideas? You've had ideas in the past that you haven't used, or haven't used fully. Why not just use one of those? Surely you have plenty of those!

Well, yeah. I do. But it's really not that easy. The thing about writing is that you can't just go out and do it. I mean, you have to. But you can't. It's hard to explain, and it doesn't make any sense, I know. But it's true. You have to be struck by a mood. You have to let the words carry you. So chances are, what each day is suited for as far as writing goes changes.

But the thing that I think a lot of writers forget is that there is inspiration all around you. It can be hard to see, I understand, but it's always there. Think about the things you talk about with your friends, the things you enjoy reading about, the things that you want to do. Then think about the things you hate to talk about, or read, or do. Both of those are important. Writing isn't just about finding the good things, as much as I wish it were. Because the good things wouldn't be nearly as good without the bad.

Because of this, writing can be an emotional roller coaster. You feel what your characters feel. You see what they see. Because, like it or not, they are you. And so you're biggest arsenal of writing prompts are your life.

I've said it many times throughout my life, and I'll say it again. If you are a writer, every thing is a valuable resource to you. No matter how much you may not enjoy something, it is worth learning. The fact that you don't enjoy it is even a valuable thing worth learning. The more you know, the more you can write about, and the more you understand your emotions towards the things that you learn, the more your characters will be able to react to things organically.

That last bit is especially important. Organic characters are hard to come across, and there's a reason for that. We all want our characters to be ideal. We want them to be what we wish we could be. And there's nothing wrong with that. But there's a good chance that in writing that, we will take it too far. We make our characters all powerful, completely unstoppable. I'm not saying you should make your characters lose the fight. In fact, I would argue that you should never do that. But you should make them struggle to do so.

No one goes through life without pain. If you think you can, you're either delusional, or too young. So why write a character that does that? It makes a reader bitter, because this character is so much better than they are. You may want them to wish they could be that character, and that's fine. But remember that if that's your goal, make it possible. It may take years of training, years of hardship, but it should be possible. And if a person would have to do that, shouldn't your character?

So learn. Learn what feels good and learn what feels good. Internalize that. Be willing to ask people for help, and in doing so, remember that sometimes your character will have to do the same. You can't make it entirely on your own, and neither can your character.

See the world. Experience it. And put it on paper. No matter what the inspiration, no matter what the story, you can make it work. Just keep yourself open to the possibilities, and you'll get there.

Glitched

Robin paused on his walk down the street when he caught something out of the corner of his eye. Looking down the alleyway he was passing, it seemed to him as though there was something sticking out of the ground that shouldn't be there. Curious, he approached it. He had only just caught it out of his eye, as it was a small thing, just barely poking out of the ground. As he came towards it and kneeled down, it seemed to shift in color, making it even harder to see. It also seemed to make the smallest of twitching motions seemingly at random.

Robin looked at the object, trying to determine what it was, and suddenly it occurred to him that the color of it had seemed to change because it had become shaded as he grew close. But that didn't make any sense. The angle of the sun hadn't changed, and there were no other sources of light that could reach it where it was. In fact, it was in direct view of the sun. Robin scratched his head, confused. It was almost as though its shadows had been inverted from what they were supposed to do.

He reached out a hand and tried to pick it up, but it was steadfastly stuck. The texture was flat and smooth, impossibly so. It made it hard for Robin to get a grip on it. It was also ice cold to the touch, making his hand feel as though it were frozen, and yet when he pulled away from it, instantly his hand's temperature returned to normal.

Robin sat down, looking at the object, trying to determine what was happening. The only thing that he could think of were the glitches that occasionally happened in video games when an object collided with another in a way that wasn't accounted for. But that couldn't be possible, could it? This was the real world.

He reached out once again, and this time tried to push on the object. Immediately it sunk down further into the ground, and this time pulled his hand with it. Panicked, he tried to pull his hand out of the ground, but it was steadfastly stuck. His eyes widened in fear, and he looked back towards the street where he had come from, but could see no one. He didn't know how they would help him, anyway. It seemed to him that the only possibility was to amputate his hand, and he'd rather not have to do that.

Seeing no other option, he slowly and gently pushed his hand deeper into the ground. It went in easily, meeting no resistance, all the way up to his shoulder. Giving in, he kept going, and a moment later his head was completely submerged. However, he wasn't surrounded in stone. He could see a thick layer of pitch black beneath him, seemingly made of the same material which he had seen poking out of the ground.

It wasn't long before he feel beneath the solid ground he had been standing on only moments before, and Robin found himself standing on the smooth, icy substance that he couldn't explain. He looked back up at the space where he had come from, and he could see up through the ground easily, as if it wasn't there. Carefully, he walked back towards the street, and before long he found another person. They seemed to be floating above him, walking on nothing.

"Hello!" he called out.

But the person didn't hear him.

He reached his hand up, and though he couldn't see the ground, he could feel it. It was solid again, and he wasn't going to be able to make it back up to the surface. He had glitched himself out of the world. And unfortunately for him, Robin had no reset button.

Saving lives

I took a deep breath as I watched the train approach. My mind had been made up, but that didn't mean that this would be easy. In about twenty seconds it would arrive where I was. It wouldn't have enough time to stop. That's what I was counting on. My legs moved almost automatically, taking me towards the edge of the platform as the horn of the train blared loudly.

Just as I reached the edge, with about ten seconds before the train's arrival, and my foot left the solidity of ground, a hand wrapped roughly around my arm, and I felt myself fall back and hit the ground hard. The air rushed from my lungs, and I saw the train rush by in front of me. I had missed my chance.

My vision of the train was blocked as the man who had pulled me away from the edge dropped on my chest, knocking the little air I had gotten back into my lungs back out of my chest. His eyes burned with anger, and he had one hand raised in a fist behind his head. "The hell's wrong with you, you stupid fuck?" he called out to me. I blinked, confused. "Did you really think you were gonna just step out there in front of the train? Let it run you over? Were you gonna just throw your life away like that idiot?"

I tried to push myself away from the man, but he used his other hand to push me down against the pavement. "What's it to you?" I asked him in return. "Why the hell should you care? It's not like anyone else does."

I felt his fist make contact with my face. It stung, and and combined impact of his fist and the ground beneath my head made me dizzy. "Don't you give me that shit, fucker," he spit bitterly at me. "Just because no one says it to your face doesn't mean people don't care. When you die, people will cry. People will be pained. They may even follow in your footsteps. Do you really want to be responsible for that?"

I tried to push him off, but he pinned my arm to the ground. "No one will cry for me. No one ever even talks to me! How can someone cry over someone they've never known?"

"Because they will never have the chance to get to know that person!"

For some reason, those words hit me. From somewhere deep in the back of my mind, I remembered when my mother died when I was a child. I had hardly ever seen her, because she had been in the hospital so much, and yet I cried at her funeral. I hadn't thought about her in a long time.

Almost immediately, the man stood up off of my chest and held a hand out to me. Hesitantly I took it, and he lifted me back up to my feet. "Promise me you aren't going to attempt some stupid shit like that again." I nodded silently at him. "Good boy. Don't ever let me catch you even thinking about something like that. I'll get back on you and beat the ever loving shit out of you."

With that, the man simply walked away. I watched him, unsure of what had happened, but was distracted when I heard the train's horn blow again as it pulled away from the station. When I looked back, the man was gone.

Embarrasment

James sat awkwardly as Joanna stared intently at him. He didn't know what to do with himself, but Joanna had specifically told him not to move. He could feel his face blaring up, and he wanted to turn away and hide himself, but he knew perfectly well that if he did so Joanna would slap him and make him keep sitting there.

"Joanna?" he asked quietly. "What are you doing? Why do I have to sit here like this?"

"I'm looking at your eyes," Joanna said flatly. "Now be quiet. This is important."

"But why the hell are you staring at my eyes?" he asked, desperate now. He could feel his cheeks blazing harder at her words. He felt even shier about himself now that he knew exactly what she was doing. He didn't want to admit it, but he had liked her for a long time. He never said anything about it, though, because he was afraid of how she might respond. He didn't want to have to face her rejection.

"Would you just be quiet?" she retorted. "Is it not enough of an answer for you that this is important to me? You always help me out when things are important."

"Yeah, but this is so weird. Staring into people's eyes isn't something that you just... do. That's a thing that, like... couples do." James could feel his face burning even hotter at his own words. He had to imagine that his face was as red as a tomato. He didn't think that he could blush any harder, but knowing Joanna, she would find a way to do it.

"Because they're pretty," she stated matter of factly. "When I look into them, they make me feel like I'm flying through space, and seeing wonders that no one else has ever seen. And they're making me think about things I want to do, and things I want to say, and I want to experience that. So be quiet and let me focus on them."

James could hear an inexplicable noise escaping his lips as she spoke, and he felt like his entire head was on fire. Before he could think about what he was doing, he pulled his head away violently and covered his face with his hands. Almost immediately, he could feel Joanna's hand making contact with the side of his head.

"James!" she cried out. "What are you doing? I told you this was important to me!"

"Yeah, but..." James replied pathetically. "It's so embarassing and..."

Joanna pulled his head back to face her, and pulled his hands away from her face. Before he could say anything, her lips were pressed hard against his in a kiss. His eyes flew wide open, but in only a moment he had melted into it and practically fallen against her. Slowly she pulled away from him, and he looked into her eyes, both confused and joyful.

Joanna smiled at him. "Good. Now stay that way."

"Yes, ma'am," he replied quietly.

Writing fields

I've been a gamer for pretty much my entire life, and it has its advantages and disadvantages. I get to experience stories in a way that no book, tv show, or move could ever convey them. But games also take significantly longer to tell their stories, and so I don't get to experience as many. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. I've learned to pick the games that I know I'll enjoy, and I've found key ways of telling early on the quality of a game's story. I'd try to explain them, but it's really more of a feeling kind of thing than anything else. Sorry about that.

When I was younger, I thought for a while about making my own games. I even went to a camp that taught you how to make them. Turns out, I'm really bad at game design. So I kinda stopped thinking about that, and I turned to books, which I had always enjoyed, and had even tried to write my own. I approached them with more concentration, more focus.

But I've found with time that my connection to games is too heavy. I want to write my books with the aspects of some of the things from games that make my love them so much. This is especially true when it comes to fight scenes, which is one of my more favorable scenes. It can be difficult to portray what exactly is going on without visuals. I want certain things to happen, and being able to see them makes that easy. But being constrained by words makes it significantly more challenging. It's not that it's not possible, it's just that I have trouble finding the words. They say a picture's worth a thousand words, after all, and in some cases you simply have to agree.

Every once in a while, my mind drifts back to that childhood concept of making games. As I've grown older, I've started realizing that I'm not actually interested in making the game itself. Rather, I want to tell a game's story. I would love to write the script for a game, have an input on how things happen, and why. The problem with that is that I've spent all of my life focusing my writing on a novel style. There's nothing wrong with that, and I love writing books. But it does make that concept of writing for a game, which has been part of me for a long time, difficult to attain.

I don't know if that is ever something that I would truly pursue. Would I love for it to? Certainly. The thought of my story being translated into picture, and then further into something that a person actively has to take part in, is amazing and enticing. However, if it were going to happen, it would be much more likely to be dependent on a book I write being made into a movie, and then that movie being made into a game. And if you've ever seen something like that happen, you know it isn't pretty. There's just so much that can be, and is, lost in translation. You lose so much meaning as you try to move from one medium to another.

Sometimes I imagine being the person that makes it work. It's not like it hasn't before. The Lord of the Ring is an excellent example. Sure, not all of the games made for that series are great, or even good, but there are some stand out titles. I don't think that I could ever reach the heights of Lord of the Ring, nor do I particularly want to. But thinking that I could write something that could go down that path is invigorating.

It takes a lot of time and effort and skill to be able to write, regardless of what field you are writing in. And those fields aren't necessarily going to be able to cross over in to each other. It's unfortunate, but it's true. I'd love to work with people who write in different fields, see their thought processes, try to understand what their goals are and how they're attaining them. I feel like I could learn a lot from them, and hopefully they could learn from me. And maybe then we could take what we've learned, and each be able to make our own writings stronger. I think that would be pretty cool.

Why I write what I write

It's probably not much of a surprise for me to say that I prefer to write stories with happy endings. I know it's cliche, and expected, but to be frank, I don't care. Call it cliche all you want, but look at all of the stories out there that get recognition. How many of them have happy endings? I mean really. From the books that are taught in schools to the ones that get made into movies, how many of them have happy endings? Especially in more recent years. I'd say lately, sad endings have become far more cliche than happy endings.

And I think that's bullshit. I think the world needs happy stories. There's too much sadness, too much anger, and too much fear. Those stories need to be told too, surely, but not to the frequency that they have been as of late. I fear for the day a story having a happy ending is considered the bold choice. And lately it seems like we're getting closer and closer to that day.

Even stories that do have supposed happy endings are really more bittersweet than anything. I understand that people have a desire to write stories that are true to life. As a writer, I know that my own experiences are where I draw the vast majority of my inspiration from. But I also know that I read stories to get away from the real world far more often than I do it to try and emulate it. I'm not interested in reading stories that I could believe myself being in. I want to read stories in which I wish I was in.

When I was a kid, everyone read fiction. No one ever though to themselves, man, I wish this book were more realistic. Why would we? True stories were boring. They didn't tickle our brains the way these imaginative fantasies could. We would run around the playgrounds, pretending we were characters in books we had read or shows we had seen. No one ever wanted to be the villain, so we made up our own in our heads, and they were huge, and powerful, greater than anything the real world could contain. And it was fantastic.

As I grew older, I saw the people around me start to stray away from these things, start to focus more on what they could see and touch, and I didn't understand. Nothing about what we had done had become any less fun. It had just become too "childish."

So I learned to contain it. I didn't want to, but I didn't have much choice. Playing pretend wasn't a thing I was "allowed" to do anymore. So I found new ways to get it out. And I wrote. It was something I had done before, but not with the new vigor that came from this lack of fun in my daily life. I poured the joy from the games I had played into my writing. And no one would ever want to play as the guy who lost, so why would I write that character? We wanted to beat the bad guy. We wanted to be victorious. And just before I became "too old" to play my games, we started to realize that we wanted to get the girl. So I decided that was what I wanted to write.

In my adult life, limited though it may be, most people I have talked to say that they remember these days. And a lot of them miss them. The miss the simpler days, when we could play and have fun and not feel restricted by responsibilities. That's what I want to tap into. I want my stories to make readers happy. I want my readers to imagine themselves in the position of my characters, and think about how fun and cool it would be. There's downsides, sure. There always are. Even as kids we knew that you had to lose against the bad guy at least once before you could beat them in the end. It wasn't as fun if it was too easy.

I live in a world of a lot of sadness and darkness. I see and hear about people on a near daily basis who have problems, who are closer to death than I can imagine, who have lost hope. I don't like that world. So I choose to make my own. I choose to make worlds in which hope is the leading factor. Where happiness is attainable. I feel like people have forgotten that that's an option, and I want to remind them of that. I want people to read my writings and smile.

So call me cliche all you want. But if at any point you read something that I wrote, and it makes you even the tiniest bit happy, then I win.

The long game

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about my future. There's a lot of reasons for that, but suffice to say that I'm reaching a point where I find that it's something that I really have to sit down and do. This isn't normally a thing that I would write about, much less post publicly, but I sit here looking at this blank page, at this blog in general, and I think that it's something relevant to talk about.

It seems like a lot of the things that I'm interested in, that I want to do, are things that I have to play the long game for. Things that you can't just go out and do and expect to be successful. I understand that that's just a thing in life, that you really can't pick any one thing and expect to immediately be rolling in the dough for it. But I would think that most things you can at least expect some payback for right off the bat. But the things that I'm interested in pretty much start off at zero.

The most obvious of these is my writing. It's my biggest passion, the thing that makes me happiest, and it is entirely dependent upon luck. Not only do you have to put a significant amount of time into writing, and editing, and more writing, and more editing, even once it's finally complete and out on the market you can't be sure that you'll get anything from back from it. Somehow you have to get the word about it to spread, and even then it has to be something people want to read. And honestly, I don't really know how to do that.

I don't really understand the long game. Not objectively speaking, but personally. I can't wrap my head around doing something over and over, trying to make it better, until it actually becomes successful. If things don't happen for me quickly, I find it difficult to continue doing them. It's not that I don't want to. I just have trouble comprehending it. It's incredibly disconcerting when you put tons of effort into something, and you see little in return. To be honest, this blog is a good example of that.

I hear people say this all the time, so I'm not breaking any new grounds here saying this. But it's something that I'm becoming increasingly more aware of as I go. You have to do something because you enjoy it. You have to push on it, improve it, and enjoy every piece of it. And eventually you enjoy it so much, that people can't help but look upon it and enjoy it too.

But god damn if it isn't hard. I don't know what I would do if, someday, it didn't pay off. Writing is truly my passion. I'm not exaggerating when I say that my writing is my life. It truly feels like I'm pouring my heart and soul into my stories. I understand that it may not look like it at times, and I have a long way to go. But this is what I want, and somehow I have to get there. I'm trying to learn the long game. I just don't know what all the steps are yet.

Relax

Reanna sat on the pier, letting her legs dangle over the water as she watched the sunset. It had been a long day. Well, a long week, really. A long week that had been part of a long month. Well... It had all been long. But the point was, it seemed to finally be coming to an end. For the first time in as long as she could remember, Reanna felt that she could just lay back and relax. And she planned on doing just that.

As the sun slipped past the horizon and the sky grew dark, Reanna laid back onto the pier and looked at the sky. Before long, stars slowly began to appear, and she smiled to herself as she tried to recognize the constellations. She remembered trying to learn them when she was a child, but that was a long time ago. Some of the shapes seemed vaguely familiar, and she still had some of the names floating around in her head, but she had trouble making the connections between them.

Eventually it started to get too cold for Reanna to be laying on a beach pier, so she got up and started walking. She didn't particularly have a destination in mind. She was just walking. Going along her way, seeing if she could find a place to be next. In the distance she could see the lights of town turning on as it got darker, and she could hear the buzz of the night life as it came out.

Several people passed her by, but she paid them no mind, and they her. Each person had their own plans, their own destinations. And Reanna, not knowing what her own were, found little need to talk with them or accompany them. Besides. She had spent a lot of her life around other people, and she had learned with time that finding those she appreciated, and who appreciated her, was a small chance. She found it easier to let things happen naturally. If there was someone out there who needed her, or who she needed, they would find her. Somehow they always had.

As she found herself entering the town, she noticed a small store off the beaten path. It seemed to call to her, and she approached it. Inside was a collection of antiques and toys that reminded her of her childhood. She smiled as she looked through them, reliving memories of simpler times, before the rush of life had come to her. The price tags on them were reasonable, but if she bought each thing that caught her eye, that reminded her of the past, she knew she would soon be broke.

Somewhat reluctantly, she decided that now was not the time to be making these purchases. But as she left, she looked back and memorized the store. It's name, it's location, and it's contents. Someday she would come back to it. Deep down, she could feel that she must. It held something special for her, and she would need to take that specialness home with her. So she would be back. Sooner or later, she'd make it back.

Training

"Why do you train so much every day? It's not like you're getting stronger. You've gotten as strong as you're gonna get, at least as long as you keep doing the same exercises everyday. So what's the point?"

Dylan slowly lowered himself down from the handstand that he had been holding for about two minutes. His daily training was an hour long, and consisted of a number of high intensity strength drills interspersed with held endurance positions. "Because I'm not interested in getting stronger," he explained to his younger sister. "I've already become as strong as I want to be. But I want to make sure that I don't lose that strength, so I keep working everyday."

"But doesn't it get boring doing the same thing day after day? It looks boring. I don't know how you had the patience to get where you are, much less to try and maintain it."

Dylan chuckled to himself as he threw his rope over the tree branch. He tied the hanging ends together, and then rotated the rope around the branch, so that the knot was above the wood, rather than under his hands. "It may seem boring to you," he explained, repeating the process with a second rope, "but I enjoy it. It's good for me, and it gives me time to think."

"What do you think about, though? You seem engrossed in your exercises most of the time, I find it hard to believe that you're thinking about something. Except maybe for what you're doing. But that seems like it would be boring to think about."

Dylan smiled and tested his rope loops. He knew they would hold him, as they always did, but he made it a habit to test them anyway. He didn't want to be taken by surprise. He positioned himself between the ropes and slipped his hands into the loops, pushing down on them to lift his feet off of the ground. Slowly he lifted his legs in front of him until they were parallel to the ground. And like with his handstand, he held it. "I think about a lot of things," he answered. "I think about what I want to do. Where I want to go. The work I have to do. What I'll get to do once I finish my work."

"Those things sound boring."

"Sometimes they are, yeah. But sometimes I think about fantastical things. I'll think about how I can use my training to save the world, or how I could challenge a dragon."

His sister giggled at that. "Those things won't happen, though. That's just in your head."

"I know it is. But does that ever stop you from thinking about those things?"

"No."

"And do you think about stuff like that to help you get through boring things?"

"Sometimes."

"Well, there you go."

"Hey brother?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think I could ever be as strong as you are."

Dylan chuckled and let himself down. "Maybe. But you'd have to train like I do."

"There's no other way?"

"Not really, no."

"Darn."

Fork in the road

I came across a fork in the road, given two options upon where to go with my life, and found it difficult to choose. To my left lay the road of familiarity. When I looked upon it, I knew precisely what to expect. There were no secrets, no hidden plans. But as I looked upon it, I felt dread in my heart. Knowing the path upon which it would lead me, I saw little to look forward to. I could not see myself making great strides in my life, or achieving dreams which I had held. But I knew that I would get by. I knew that that path would give me the tools to be able to live to some extent. But what was life if one did not take chances?

To my right lay the road of uncertainty. It was shrouded in darkness, and spread far and wide. Far in the distance on the road I could see a light, and from it I felt warmth. I could feel greatness calling out to me, but as I tried to pinpoint where exactly it came from, I found that I could not. I could feel that besides the light there were many darkness, cold and unwelcoming. A single wrong turn could potentially lead to my demise. And yet, I found the light so powerful, so calling. I could not deny that I wanted to reach it.

I turned around to see where I had come from, and along came another man, who looked much like me, but older, wiser. In his eyes I could see a distance which I had yet to experience. "Who are you?" I asked this man.

"I believe you should know better than I," the man replied.

"If you are who I think you are, I do not see how I could know who you are better than you. For if you are who I think, that would make you me, but from far in the future. Far past this fork, having already made your decision. Yet, when I look at you, I cannot fathom which road you may have taken."

"You are right in that I am you. But do not let appearances fool you. Just because I come from ahead, does not make me wiser than you. We are one in the same, my old friend. I often look back upon my decisions, as will you, and contemplate what I might have become had I made the other choice. You will ask me for advice, but I can not give it to you. Only you can decide, my child. For only you can decide what man I am."

I looked away from this man and back once more at the roads before me. "I am scared," I mused aloud. "I feel as though whichever road I choose, I will fail."

"You will not fail," my future self told me. "Failure is but a concept which we use to scare ourselves away from what we need. You do not fail. You learn. And you grow. And you will continue to be scared, and you will look back upon your decisions, and you will become me. And only then will you truly understand how powerful we are, for we made a decision, and as much as it scared us, we moved onward."

I did not fully understand his words at the time, but they resonated with me. Somewhere, deep inside, I knew that he was right, and that it was time. Almost as if on their own, my feet began to move forward, toward the path I knew that I must take.

And I was scared.

And I felt weak.

But I moved forward.