My head is bloody, but unbowed's Journal
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My head is bloody, but unbowed's LiveJournal:
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| Thursday, May 28th, 2009 | | 7:23 pm |
i want to write things. first and foremost is this great big godawful THING that i cannot even begin to describe. whenever i do, people's eyes start to cross and they very politely ask me to change the subject. it, naturally, makes me seem like an idiot. those of you longtime followers might have some inkling of what i'm talking about, but the easiest way to describe it is like stephen king and jrr tolkien had some unholy flipper baby and this is what it would write. an epic contemporary fantasy, if you will. i don't know why urban fantasy appeals to me so much, but it always has. even as a kid, living on a steady diet of conan and dragonlance and other staples of fantasy, some of it good, most bad, i always wondered what it would be like to see dudes with swords running around in daily life. shadowrun was a huge influence on me at that time as well, and it's ability to defy genres while remaining planted firmly in as much reality as it could allow is still something i think of as very, very cool. and yet every urban fantasy is nearly identical: apart from magic/supernatural either being on the dl or widely accepted, the protagonists are almost always private eyes or some sort of witch hunter looking for some bit of weirdness; 99 times out of 100 they are vampires or magicians, or both. it's like how all fantasy from the 60s and 70s aped tolkien, only much gayer. fuck that. i can't just write the same old eurocentric fantasy story. and i sure as hell am not writing about some more damn vampires. the story i have keeps centering back on one protagonist. he's a bit cliche, to be sure; he's very much the dark, brooding, mysterious antihero with a shady past. i make little bones about him being a (sometimes very blatant) homage to characters like roland the gunslinger, elric of melnibone, batman, and many other flawed heroes. i know, i know, for someone who wants to fight the typical constraints i sure buy into them. or maybe i'm just using them to tell an old story in a new way, WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THAT? either way, i can't seem to dissect him from the story as a whole, so i guess i should quit trying. there's more, lots more, really - the eternal wars between the forces of law and chaos, abundant conspiracy theories, a big evil corporation, demons, angels, treachery, horror, ordinary people doing extraordinary things, partridges in pear trees, dogs and cats living together... but again, i kind of get ahead of myself. i think i just need to start writing the damn thing instead of trying to worry about every single word being perfect, but i can't help myself, because if there is one story inside of me, it's this one, and i don't want to fuck it up. but there's lots else i want to write in the meantime. i love swashbucklers, but i can't just write about pirates raiding the spanish main, because that's so 18th century. and i love space opera and steampunk and i want to see what else i can mash together. i keep thinking of this weird world, a planet torn apart, with small chunks of land being all that's left, floating through the ether, and airships being the main mode of transport. something like pirates of the caribbean meeting firefly. i love westerns, and i love apocalyptic futures, and so i want to write about the ending of the world, after armageddon, when the dead have risen and satan has been cast down, but his lake of fire is the still burning glow of nuke york city and the last remaining bits of humanity have huddled together to wait out the end, since it's really fucking nigh. that doesn't even count all the weird little ideas that i get for short stories. so instead of being afraid of myself, of my ability, of my talent, of success, of failure, i'm just going to do it. The dying sun burned across a cold steel sky, and only a lone wanderer followed with it... | | Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 | | 7:53 pm |
i've been a bad lj friend, i know. i work long hours (and because my boss is kind of an idiot, we aren't allowed to access the internet unless it's for work purposes), i drive an hour to and fro, and by the time i get home, it's all i can do to simply veg out. combine that with all the crap going on irl that keeps trying to break my will to live, i just haven't had much gumption to do much aside from breathe. but i really want to change that. i figure i hold out for about 3 months, and then see where my fortunes can take me. if i can adapt, awesome; if not, it won't be the first time i've been stuck in dire straits. i feel like i am wasting what little talent i have. life is just too short; if i want to do something with it, i need to do it now. | | Monday, May 4th, 2009 | | 11:45 am |
the eulogy
this has been a tough thing for me to write. i want to do my nephew justice, but if i had a million years, i still probably wouldn't find the right words. so this is what i've been able to come up with. please tell me if there's something i need to change; i have until tomorrow. thanks. I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge - that myth is more potent than history - dreams are more powerful than facts - hope always triumphs over experience - laughter is the cure for grief - and love always conquers death. If only the good die young then JD would have lived to be about a hundred and seventeen. He was always getting into trouble - some of it big, most of it not - but it always something you could count on with him. He had a hard time listening - maybe it was from always playing his music so loud. He had this bad habit of borrowing things that weren't his and then forgetting to tell you about it until later. He didn't always know where the line of talking too much and pressing your buttons was drawn and so he crossed it. Often. And when he was caught, which was also often, he could find his way out of any punishment, by hook or crook. Let's face it, sometimes he could be kind of bad. But he wasn't a bad kid. Mischievous, sure, but he was a joker, a clown, more than anything. You could always count on him for a smart-mouthed remark - whether or not it was appropriate. But you could also always count on him for an 'I love you' or a hug. He was one of the most loving children you'd ever meet, a trait he would carry with him always. He was the only seventeen year old I knew that would be affectionate to his family in public. Sometimes the world was hard on JD. Sometimes it was easy to dismiss him or give up on him, but he wasn't one to quit easily. When he focused on doing something, he would find a way to make it work. And he would always do it with that smile on his face. The hardest part of all this, for me at least, has been making sense of the senseless. Kahlil Gibran said, "For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one...And what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?" I know, with my brain, my reason, that JD is gone. But in my heart, my spirit, I feel him nearby everyday, and so I'm not here to mourn him. I want to celebrate his life and remember him as the little blond boy with big twinkling eyes and an infectious smile, or as the lanky teen who couldn't wait to show me the new song he was plucking out on his guitar or the new video game he was playing. I want to remember how he would never leave your company until he gave you a hug goodbye. I want to remember that JD was a lot of things - a son and a brother, a cousin and a nephew, a friend and a little buddy, a guitar hero and player two. Mostly, he was a shooting star, the kind that shines the shortest but burns the brightest. Know that he was 'The lovely bud, so young, so fair/Called off by earthly doom/Just came to show how sweet a flower/In paradise could bloom.' So join me, not in tears, but in joy. Tell the people close to you that you love them and give them a big hug, and on your way home, play your music as loud as you can. It's just what JD would have wanted. | | Friday, May 1st, 2009 | | 11:41 pm |
| | Monday, April 27th, 2009 | | 9:36 am |
not very much into talking about things but i guess i should say something. some of you coasters may have heard about it on the news. my nephew drowned saturday, we just recovered the body a few hours ago. i'm too busy worrying about my dad, who was with him at the beach when he was lost and so blames himself, to grieve much on my own. maybe i'll have something more substantial later. maybe not. i really wish i could hug caden right now. | | Wednesday, April 8th, 2009 | | 10:41 am |
| | Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 | | 6:00 pm |
Writer's Block: No Foolin'
learning that my ex got married and her husband has started parading my kid around like it was his own. oh wait, that wasn't a joke. | | Saturday, March 7th, 2009 | | 6:15 pm |
| | Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 | | 5:04 pm |
so i'm back semi-regularlyish. not much to say at the moment - i am bartending at work, which is fun. court got pushed back to this friday, hopefully something gets resolved. i turn 28 on sunday, and i feel very old. 8 years is a long ass time to keep a blog. BACK IN MY DAY THEY DIDN'T EVEN KNOW WHAT A BLOG WAS. hope all is well with all of you. | | Monday, February 16th, 2009 | | 11:52 pm |
been a rough weekend. i needed a pick me up. thankfully, the internet can provide more than stale recycled 4chan jokes. | | Friday, February 6th, 2009 | | 7:54 am |
| | Wednesday, January 21st, 2009 | | 2:41 pm |
| | Monday, January 12th, 2009 | | 7:20 pm |
| | Monday, January 5th, 2009 | | 2:50 pm |
my life has gotten well past the point of ridiculous and is now entering the ludicrous zone. at this point, all i can do is shrug about it and laugh. nose, meet grindstone. | | Thursday, January 1st, 2009 | | 12:06 pm |
| | Wednesday, December 10th, 2008 | | 4:00 am |
it's some combination of stress, work, and general inclination, but it's always funny to see how quickly i will slip into staying awake for days at a time when i don't have something to naturally regulate me. times like these i wish i smoked. then i could stand outside and act pensive. instead i'm just sitting here looking up crap on youtube. one of these nights i'll kill the thing in my brain that prevents me from doing what i love. but it will not be this day. | | Thursday, December 4th, 2008 | | 4:05 am |
Post a picture in my comments of what you think describes me when you think about what/who I am. Give no written explanation. Just an image. | | 2:38 am |
who is the best dad ever?
 i would have committed any number of mortal sins to get ahold of a toy this sweet when i was a kid. caden gets it just because, lucky bastard. | | Thursday, November 27th, 2008 | | 2:43 pm |
| | 1:46 pm |
haven't done this in years
Leave me a comment and I will reply with why I like you. If I don't know you, I'll either make something up or tell you why I like your LiveJournal. You must pay for the privilege by posting a message like this one on your LiveJournal. |
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