Changing your stars

Alright, I have another confession to make.

I love "A Knights Tale."

It's a bit of a guilty pleasure, but it's also one of the most underrated movies of all time. The acting? It's okay. The scope? Not terribly epic. So what is it about this film that makes me sit down and watch it to completion (every time without fail) if I come across as I'm changing channels?

It's entertaining, sure, but that's not it.

It's how I identify with the main characters (William Thatcher, played by the late Heath Ledger) quest to rise above his meager upbringing. As a child, his father instills in him the belief that he can "Change his stars", and it is a belief that he convinces his two friends to go in with in a plan to impersonate a nobleman and compete as a traveling joust champion.

I'm not going to ruin the movie for you, because if you haven't seen it already, I want you to go do it now, I think it's on Netflix. No, seriously, go do it now, and come back.

Okay, now that everyone is on the same page, I'll continue.

The idea that someone can significantly improve their way of life used to go by another name "The American Dream." It's a dream that most people view with skepticism nowadays, but it can still be had. It can be extremely hard to rise above your station and live a better life, because the system seems to like everyone right where they are. There isn't room for everyone at the top, etc. Sometimes, it feels impossible. I mean, it SHOULD be difficult, or else everyone would do it, and the top wouldn't be the top anymore, it would be the new normal, and you wouldn't really be improving your quality of life comparatively to the rest of the population.

That's why the saying, "Change your stars" rings so true. For astronauts to reach the stars, it takes a huge amount of rocket fuel and courage to get there. It takes a leap of faith, and alot of hard work. Much like in life. Surprisingly enough, it's not the hard work that stops most people. We're americans, despite popular opinion around the rest of the world, we know how to work hard when we need to. It's the leap of faith that we have a hard time with.

Hope is in short supply, and without hope there can be no vision. Vision is the ability to see where things are going, or where you want to be. If you don't think it's even possible, you don't even bother to look. I'm rehashing alot of themes here repeatedly, but it's important that everyone understands what I'm talking about before I move on, because I'm about to go off on one of my tangents before I bring it all full circle and explain why I'm even talking about this on my writing blog.

People can get used to oppression. They can be taught that their hope is useless. They can be taught that a life of honest hard work is really the only honest way to live, and they will believe it because that is what everyone else believes. The system is geared to keep you from getting ahead by working harder. It will not let you win, not because it's evil, but because it's just the way things need to be for it all to work.

In order to reach what I call "escape velocity", like the rocket that an astronaut might take to space, you need a transformative event in your life. The most obvious one is winning the lottery. It's popular because the risk you take in playing it is small, usually a dollar or two per ticket, and the potential payoff is usually huge, like the $550 million dollar Powerball payout that someone in Florida recently won.

$550 million dollars will change just about anyone's life, or at least give them the tools to change it for themselves. Not every lottery winner ends up happy though. Often, the money brings out the worst in the people around them, and the worst in themselves. They become petty and narcissistic. It removes the natural tendency we have to earn our way in life, even though some of us work harder than others. I am historically not an extremely hard worker. I tentd to look for the most efficient way to do a job and take it. Some people appreciate that, and some people are angered by it and call it being lazy.

Sometimes, they get REALLY angry that you found a way to do something that works alot easier than the way they did it, and they really would just prefer it if you did the way they understand. Hidden in the back of that fear of the unknown is a small amount of malice for all of the times that they did it the hard way.

And that is another tool of our system that keeps everyone in line, the middle management approach. If you insulate the top from the bottom with enough layers of management, the middle layers will do the job of keeping the lower class down for you, out of their own self preservation. That's the genius of middle management in the first place, and why many times they are left in place by the higher ups even thought it becomes hard to justify the additional levels of bureaucracy. They are good at what they do, even if all they do is prevent the little people from gumming up the works.

I know this is starting to sound a little militia-ish, and that's not my intent. I merely want to set the stage for what everyone is up against. People don't like change, they like the security and comfort of the status quo. They give up rights that previous generations have died for just to sleep a little better at night. This is a topic that I have been exploring in my current WIP. My main character is caught up in this system, and it is threatening to cost him everything he cares about because he is not an important enough person to move the needle.

When he decides to take matters into his on hands, committing an act that is as illegal in 2037 as it is today, he takes a leap of faith. Now, I'm not recommending that everyone start trying to know off banks. Not everyone is good at crime, and those that are are already going to try.

But everyone has the ability to dream, and whats more, we all used to know that. Somewhere along the way, we've decided that it's too much effort. Just give me my clean sheets and three squares, throw a little television in the corner, and I'm happy, they say. Well that's great, but that's what they give criminals serving time for murder and assault.

Just like the cages that hold our criminals in record numbers, our minds can lock away our ambition, our creativity, and our ability to dream. I used to be one of those people. I had a family, I had a car, a house, and a mortgage, and I was happy. I didn't need any more than that, and if someone else hadn't had either the courage or selfishness to want more for themselves, I might still be in that position.

A funny thing happens to someone who finds themselves having to rediscover who they are at age 31. They have to face themselves in the mirror, and when they do, they realize that the old habits and limitations that they placed on themselves might not apply anymore. Some people do crazy stuff like take up extreme sports or use it as an excuse to ignore those around them and live the elfish, hedonistic life that they feel like they missed out on at some point.

Me? I started writing. I had alot of emotion to process, and I decided that putting it down on paper and working it out that way made alot more sense than any of the alternatives. I put alot of my anger, fear, and spite into the main character of my upcoming novel pre://d.o.mai.n, and it's been hugely cathartic to combine my "moon shot" (writing), with his (stealing millions of dollars from the federal government to fund his mothers cancer cure and save her life).

I think we all need our moon shot, our one direction where we can channel our energy and resources and take a leap of faith.

I have no idea if everyone is going to love this novel as much as I do, but I'm taking that chance. I've devoted a year of my life to seeing it though  and as I near the end of the creative process, I don't regret it for a minute. If you want to understand people, don't listen to what comes out of their mouths, pay attention to what they do. If the height of their existence is to have a cold six pack of beer every night and that their sports teams win everything this year, then our civilization is going no where.

We need to create, we need to dream. Those that say they "Wish I was creative like that", just haven't found their medium yet. Everyone has something to contribute, everyone has that one thing that they can do so well that people will pay them millions of dollars just to see or hear about it. The trick is to DO IT.

Take a chance, go for it and have no regrets. There will always be jobs for you to work for the next 40 years if it doesn't work out, and in most cases, you can even work a day job while creating your dream. Step outside the expectations placed on you by our system and be one of the few able to question whats around you, see how fake most of the limits are and take your leap of faith. Change your stars.

READMORE

The Sessions - June 29th 2013

EDITED- I guess I probably should have introduced this piece, for those of you not privvy to my facebook introduction. I came up with a cool idea to both generate more content for my site (I have been really sucking at posting stuff lately, I have been so busy editing pre://d.o.mai.n that I can't find the time.), as well as to have something to publish once it is all said and done. I just wanted to write something freeform, something that I could spit out a thousand words or so every week and see where it goes, so I'm going to do a mystery as told from a murderers point of view. The mystery isn't going to be who murdered someone, or who they murdered. Those will be obvious very early on. The fun will be in discovering WHY, and also to delve into teh characters motivations and feelings. I'm going to be telling it from a "How I met your mother" type serial approach. There's alot of stuff I need to get off my chest, so it's going to end up here. (No, I'm not going to murder anyone in real life, nor do I have plans to.) I'd love to tell you more, but I'm just going to wing it and see where it takes me, to use it for those times when I just want to write something that isn't my WIP and to get a fresh perspective. So look for it soon ;-)


June 29th, 2013
Session 1


"Why don't we begin by exchanging names."

Those were the words my court appointed psychologist chose to begin our relationship. As jumping off points go, it wasn't half bad. I saw the glint of fear in his eyes, and that kept me for going for one of his eyes right off the bat.

Fear is good. Fear breeds respect. While he didn't need my respect, it was good that he felt the need to try for it. That was going to make this easier. The fear wasn't of me attacking him from the opposite side of the table, at any rate. No, the half inch think chains and case hardened handcuffs lashing me to the table would prevent that.

He was fearful because of what he knew. What I knew. Being a psychologist, he prided himself on always knowing more about manipulation and social profiling than his patients. At this point in his career, he had seen alot, dealt with alot of sick and twisted individuals. He thought he knew just about all he needed to, and even if he came across a conversation that strayed into the unknown for him, he could always just fall back in the tried and true prop questions of asking about how something made the patient feel, or any other of a hundred inane questions designed to shift control of the conversation a hundred and eighty degrees.

In short, when you're used to being the smartest person in the room, it's unnerving when you come across someone more intelligent, and as I sat there in silence, I could see it sink into the shrinks eyes. He knew he wouldn't be able to lie to me if he needed to. And at some point, everybody needs to.

They always count on the first few weeks of prison to do their dirty work. That's why they don't meet you at the front door. They want the fear to break you, or another one of the inmates if that doesn't work. By the time your first session rolls around, they expect any shreds of confidence and fight you had coming in to your incarceration to be gone. They expect you to be compliant, helpful, and most of all happy to be safe from sexual assault for your weekly half our talk with the shrink.

I took care of all that on the first day. The other inmates don't bother me anymore, because I hardly ever see any of them. I was placed in solitary confinement less than 24 hours after my arrival here. I'm writing this all down so that they will know. Know why I did what I did. Know why they couldn't break me. And know that they brought it all on themselves.

I started off a happy, normal guy, just trying to live the american dream. I had a wife, a son, and a house. I had a job, a car, and every other little life accessory that society tells us we need to be happy. I had no way of knowing that it wouldn't last, so I had placed all of my eggs in that basket, doubled down, and committed until death do us part.

And look at me now.

Two years ago to the day is when everything started downhill. Like I said, I was happy, or had at least deluded myself into thinking I was. I fawned over my wife, She never had to put gas in her own car, she never had to clean the snow off of it or enter it cold during the winter. I took care of all that. I loved her enough to be her cushion from the real world, I loved her enough to be that buffer she needed. My wife was not someone used to doing things for herself, because I made sure that she didn't have to. I thought that was what love was, to spend every waking moment of your life trying to improve the quality of theirs.

I placed her above myself, and when our son was born, I placed him right beside her. I loved them both, and as long as I had them, it didn't matter if I was overqualified for my job at the garage that I worked at, I had what I needed to be happy. I did, my son did, but she didn't. I know that now, because two years ago she left me. I did not see it coming. I know that's hard to believe, but it was like a light switch being thrown in the dark. Overnight, her personality changed. She had always been ambitious, always wanted more no matter what we had, and always expected me to provide it.

If there was something she wanted, it was my job to get it for her. Me, being the love struck fool that I was, did everything I could to make it happen. At our sons 8th birthday party, she had been acting strangely distant. I tried to include her in the festivities, but there was something reluctant about her. The rest of the family didn't notice it, but I chalk that up to the din of the bowling alley and sensory overload. Maybe I'm fooling myself, maybe they did see it. They didn't say anything though, not then, and not for the year of emotional torture that would follow.

They never really cared for her, but they cared so much for me that they kept us both under the same umbrella. Again, love blinded everyone to the truth. She was going to leave me. There are always better deals to be had, higher rungs on the ladder of success to strive for, and my rung just wasn't ascending fast enough for her. That entire party, I could feel the disappointment in me through her gaze. By then, it was a look I knew well. I was always disappointing her in some fashion.

I decided to give her her space that afternoon, after the party. I didn't want to be that husband that is always trying to make a crisis out of a bad day, but the entire next day at work it ate at me. I pride myself on my ability to read people. Indeed, as soon as the psychologist sat down, I read the uncertainty in his body language. If you can pull a persons intent from their demeanor, your conversational IQ jumps 30 points immediately with them, and I had this psychologist pegged just as clearly as I knew there was something wrong with my wife.

I came home, gave her a hug and a kiss just like I did every day, and the feeling deepened. You can't spend 13 years with someone and not know the way they do things inside and out, and the kiss and hug that I received had much more in common with the awkward sensation of the birthday party than the previous 13 years.

"Okay, you've been acting a little weird ever since the birthday party. I know there's something wrong, I just don't know what it is. Can we go upstairs and talk about it? Whatever it is, I'll try to fix it."

I was always trying to fix things. It was my job as the man of the house, right? If something wasn't working, I fix it. This time, however, she was taking it upon herself to fix something that had broken.

As I followed her upstairs, this coldness started growing in my stomach. We spoke often upstairs, by ourselves, when our son was playing video games on the downstairs television. He was old enough to left alone for periods like that, and most times didn't even seem to notice. I kissed him on the head, told him we would be right back down, and went after my wife.

She asked me to close the door to our bedroom when we were both insde, and I did, giving it that extra shove that was always necessary to close it all the way. It was an old house, and the combination of decades of paint layers and the settling of the structure had made it stick. By the time I had closed it, the coldness in my stomach had radiated from my kidneys, up my back, and was making my scalp tingle. The only sensation I've ever felt that came close to that feeling was that shitty version of Head and Shoulders that had menthol in it. It felt like washing your hair with liniment.

I sat down, looked her in the eye, and asked again.

"Baby, whats wrong?"

Her eyes started to shake slightly. I've seen that in anime characters before, but never in a human being.

"Whatever it is, we will work it out. We always do."

She took an uneven breath and answered.

"I want a divorce."

My smile lasted a full three seconds before I realized she wasn't joking.

READMORE

That's Amore'

Valentines Day.

I've never written a post pertaining to Valentines day in the two years I've owned this site. There are two reasons for that.

1. I initially threw myself into writing as a productive way to cope with my divorce. I always wanted to give writing a serious shot, and what better time to try than when you feel like you have nothing left to lose. Two years later, I'm still writing, and loving every minute of it. Of course, since then I have yet to find lasting love, and have had no need to spend 45 minutes immortalizing Valentines Day here on the site only to spend it alone. It's not anything anyone needs to pity me for, I don't feel the least bit sad about it. I just have no use for it lately, like a mechanic with a set of wrenches when all the bolts he comes across are screws.

2. I've been kicking around the idea of writing a romance novel since I began writing in earnest a few years ago. It's something that has always been in the back of my mind, and I always thought that Valentines Day would be the best day to announce my plans. While I worked on Covinous, and later pre://d.o.mai.n, I let each V-day pass until I neared the time when I would finally get around to writing it.

So while I haven't made much progress on reason number one, I've finally reached the point where the second reason will have it's time in the sun. I have come up with a compelling idea for a romance story. It's not a typical romance story, but I plan to approach it from an angle wary of it's intended audience. My science fiction work is obviously tailored to a predominantly male audience.

Women read Sci-Fi, just not in as large a number as men do. Romance is the exact opposite, so I thought a palate cleansing experience to write a romance novel between pre://d.o.mai.n and the second novel in the d.o.mai.n series. Each of the novels in this series will be different, the series as a whole not a true "series" in the traditional sense, so I don't think this choice will hurt d.o.mai.n in the least way.

I will be writing these novels under a pen name, a nom de plume, if you will. This isn't because I'm ashamed to be writing a romance novel, or that I worry that if my Sci-Fi work takes off in popularity that it will resurface like a Hollywood starlets porn flick made when they were desperate with bills to pay. I just want it to be easy to tell the genre's apart. I want to classify them simply so that someone picking up a Sci-Fi story of mine won't accidentally grab a romance work expecting something similar to what they just read.

I plan to bounce back and forth between the genre's, and maybe include some literary fiction in the "romance" umbrella. I will be creating a separate site for this alternate identity, but will not be expending alot of effort to keep the two divergent. If someone wants to find the connection, I'm not going to stoop to subterfuge or anything like that to keep the link hidden. Who knows, if someone likes my romance work, they may give the Sci-Fi stuff a shot, or if they enjoy the Sc-Fi, they might take a look at the romance stuff.

Who knows. Like I said, I'm not kicking alot of sand over that connection. The pen name that I'm planning to use? Well, Christopher Godsoe is my first and last name, so I think I can use my first and middle name for the other side of my writing. Christopher Earl. I think it works well, seems to fit in with the genre better too. Time will tell.

But since I'm already here, I'd like to elaborate on why I enjoy the romance genre. I don't read bodice-rippers, I don't read Harlequin romance novels. Hell, I usually don't read straight romance novels at all. When someone recommends one to me, my firt question is always, "Aside from the actual romance, what does the story have going for it?"

In my opinion, you could write a romance novel that takes place inside a single windowless room with two people in it, just dialog. (Actually, that's a pretty kick-ass idea for a short story/writing prompt. Feel free to steal it.) But the story needs to (for me, anyways) encompass more than just two people and their love for each other. That's the centerpiece  of course, but there needs to be more. Nicholas Sparks, the current maestro of the romance novel, usually has something more than just that story in his novels. The Notebook had the twist ending, and the reality of the two lovebirds situation. The film that is coming out this week, Safe Haven, is about a woman and her need to hide from trouble in her past. Each of these are great love stories, but they have more to it than that.

I think that's the secret. I had to come by that lesson the hard way, over the past two years since my divorce I had rediscover how to be "me" all over again. I had to realize that in order to make someone else happy, or to be happy with someone else, I needed to be happy by myself. Just like a romance novel needs a good story to build off from, a happy relationship will need two people who truly know who they are in order to make each other happy. They need the confidence that they can be happy alone in order to avoid smothering the person they love, afraid that they will leave them the first second something else comes along.

You need to love yourself, as cliche as it sounds, before you can love someone else the right way. So what  I'd like to leave you with this Valentines Day, it's to love the person you are with, because you never truly understand how special it is to have someone that loves you back until they're gone. Just as importantly, love yourself too. Don't take it to narcissistic lengths, but if you can't understand why you're a good choice for someone else, then how are you ever going to convince them?

READMORE

Unexpected Fiction vs."Based on true events"

Recently in the news, two stories from the sporting world have had everyone's attention. Stick with me for a minute, because this does have something to do with writing. I will get to my point....eventually.

The first is Lance Armstrong's admission of using performance enhancing drugs and doping during his remarkable run of 7 Tour de France titles.

The other, is the death and subsequent reveal of Manti Te'o's fake girlfriend.

(If you have been living under a rock, yeah-Lance cheated, and Manti's was either fooled or fooled everyone.)

My first response was to shrug and continue on about my day, as I usually do when these soap opera type stories consume the national eye. Hey, I've been busy writing, there's even proof!

But as the public outcry grew, I started to get a little annoyed. Why? I wasn't really sure at first, but the more I thought about it the more I realized what was bothering me. It wasn't THAT people were interested in these stories, it was WHY they had such an emotional response. There were plenty of people out there that reacted as if they had been personally affected by the events happening to Lance and Manti. People were taking this stuff way too personally, in my opinion.

Most of them seemed to be using the "I feel lied to. It was such an inspiring, uplifting story, and now I feel like it was all a fraud," line.

Alright.

Let's explore this a little bit. I've got the time.

(The rest of this piece is going to be directed at these people, because that is the most honest way I know to put it down. If you happen to not feel overly offended by these two stories, please just imagine I'm chewing out the person directly behind you, and you're stuck having to watch uncomfortably because one of us is blocking the only exit.)

Your logic is that you were lied to, that you cheered for or supported these people and they let you down. They somehow impugned your faith in the character of the human population, forever crippling your ability to trust another sports hero.

If you were able to stop being butt-hurt long enough to take an objective look at things, maybe you'd see how stupid that is. Unless you have a personal stake in either situation, as in you are close enough to either of these people to have been damaged in some legally recognizable way (loss of income, loss of career, having your credibility questioned because you were somehow mixed up in it, etc) by their lies, you are just letting the media tell you how to feel. They tell you how upset and outraged you should feel, so you stand up on the couch and start ranting with the rest of the morons.

People, think about it. These guys gave you a great story, nothing more. The fact that you thought you were reading a non-fiction book and it ended up being fiction is pretty minor. You were lied to, big frigging deal.

It's like the time that James Frey's "A Million Little Pieces" ended up on Oprah's book club. Everyone loved how great a story it was, until they learned that portions of it were fictionalized. Oh, how everyone was offended, and hurt, and disappointed, and lost their faith in humanity...blah, blah blah.

Again, he lied. He also gave them a great story. The story was the thing that they signed up for, the reason they bought the book. Mission accomplished, they got their story. Then it turned out to not be 100% accurate, and everyone in Oprah's sphere of influence lost their fucking mind. She drug him on the show, and proceeded to grill him and run him into the ground until that purple Harpo logo tumbled across the screen and saved him.

You are like Oprah now. No, you're not rich, but you're both trying to save face over something that is ultimately unimportant to you. It's an excuse to bitch, that's it. People like to complain, they like to feel as though they are getting heard. They like to feel significant, and emotion sometimes convinces you that you have a legitimate right to do so when you don't.

Did Oprah have a right to explain that the book that she thought was a 100% true memoir was in fact partially fake? Absolutely. Did it warrant an entire episode? No way. And don't try to tell me that Oprah had to have him on in order to "repair her credibility." Does Oprah look like she's overly worried about her credibility? She recommended the BOOK, not that everyone loan James Frey money or trust him with their kids. Her credibility was tied to the quality of the story in the book, which I have heard is really good (I have access to a copy and will be checking it out soon).

And that brings us to my point. Basically what happened, if I'm to translate this to a literary sense, is that a few books got mislabeled as Non-Fiction when they were actually Fiction. Not the end of the world, and unless you want to personally deconstruct the stories you've already been uplifted by, not even a big deal.

We have gotten to the point where we feel that people we've only ever enjoyed as entertainers owe us something other than to be entertained. As a culture we hero worship the shit out of singers, actors/actresses, athletes, even fictional characters. It's not enough to just enjoy someones art or talent and be content with that. No, we need to feel like they are a part of the family. We need to feel like they are our friend, that they know us personally and that we have an obligation to defend them. Perhaps the problem isn't that you were sold a miscategorized story, it's that you let things get too far out of hand to begin with, and now you have egg on your face.

Why people can't just enjoy the story behind Lance Armstrong's titles, Frey's story, and Te'os performances and move on is beyond me. They showed you what was possible. Nothing more, nothing less. No one reacted like this when they found out that The Blair Witch Project wasn't really discovered footage of a group of friends betting murdered in the woods. No one picked apart the movie Troy or any of these films because they weren't 100% accurate. Just enjoy the story and stop using it as an excuse to be the loudest voice in the room.

We pay good money to be lied to by professional liars. Fiction, by definition, is the telling of a story that never happened, or did not happen the way it's depicted in the story. Stephen King's 11/22/63 reinforces the very real event of John F Kennedy's assassination with a story involving fantastical plot twists and even theoretical devices such as time travel. Nobody is claiming that King is saying that is how it went down, they just enjoy the story.

I think that we would all be a lot more content in life if we just accepted the good stories around us and stopped trying to find the fault in everything, especially when the people involved really don't owe us anything. All of these people sacrificed something to get you a great story. Unless you are personally affected by a lie, just enjoy the story and move on. Make the media tell you something new instead of getting two weeks worth of material from one story.

If you can enjoy a great story from the fiction section of life, you should be able to enjoy a story from the "based on actual events" just as much. They're both just stories, and the entertainment is the same regardless.

Stories inspire, and if you let yourself believe then it really doesn't matter if it's a true story or not. "Forrest Gump" is an inspiring story, but not true. "Rocky" is inspirational, but also not true. Fiction can inspire just as much as true events. You just have to stop trying to poke holes in the world and enjoy whats in front of you for a change.

READMORE

pre://d.o.mai.n First Draft Complete!

Welcome to my first post of 2013!

(Cue the confetti)

Alright, now that I have that out of the way, I suppose I should just get my big announcement out of the way-

pre://d.o.mai.n is finished!

I finished the first draft about a week ago, and have already made some decent headway on my first round of edits. I know you guys are going to really like it when its ready, I'm really happy with the way that it came together in the end. Almost like I planned it that way ;-)

As I'm sure everyone knows, this is the first part in my d.o.mai.n series, a pretty ambitious science fiction tale that I'm really excited to get into your hands. In the meantime, just know that the reason I haven't had alot to say on this site is because I've been cranking at a roughly 3600 word/day clip for the past week or so to get it done. (My friends on facebook will already know this) Alright, I planned on writing a bigger post on another topic, but the more I thought about it I thought this deserved it's own post.

Alright, I'm off to write post numero dos for the day!

READMORE

The Obligatory end of 2012 post!

Damn.....

I was really hoping to be able to say that I had finished the first draft of pre://d.o.mai.n in this post.

Alas, I came up a little short.

I currently stand at 70183 words, and by my best estimations I am just under 10,000 words short of finishing. Once I finish editing, It should finish around the mystical 75k mark. It is coming together better than I thought it would, which is why I decided to take my time and let it breathe rather than rush it for the big reveal in this post.

I decided to spend the time I wasn't writing on redesigning this site for the new year. It was getting a little stale, a little complicated. I wanted to go with something a little more eloquent, a little more clean. The previous design had become too complex, like a poorly laid out amusement park. It had alot to look at, alot of distractions.

In many ways, the redesign of this site mirrors my evolving philosophy towards my writing. I've allowed myself to be distracted by alot of things that I should have prioritized better. I lost sight of what is truly important. I've been putting the cart before the horse, making movie trailers, planning my next move, etc. I needed to, as <a href="http://www.terribleminds.com/">Chuck Wendig</a> likes to say, "Finish your shit."

So that is my plan for 2013. To finish pre://d.o.mai.n, and to minimize distractions. I have made enough plans, came up with enough ideas for my next book (which is not likely to be the second book in the d.o.mai.n series) to hold me over.

I will finish pre://d.o.mai.n, and following that, I will be writing something that will flow a little easier. Either a romance novel, or a Literary Fiction piece that will be pretty ambitious. Those are on the back burner, and I will do my very best to avoid sparing them a second thought until I "Finish my shit."

So I will get to them, eventually. Call it "job security". I've played around a little with writing a blurb for pre://d.o.mai.n, and I will paste it below to close this post.

-What would you do, to save someone you love from death? Miles Torvalds never expected to have to answer that question, but that is exactly where he finds himself. His mother is dying of cancer, which isn't quite the death sentence it would have been a generation before, but in order to save her, Miles will need to decide how far he is willing to go. In the days that follow, Miles will find the answer to that question, and where that answer takes him will shape the person he is to become.

It still needs some work, but there's time for that, once I have a draft that I feel confident in.

I would like to thank you all for your support this year. This site has grown in leaps and bounds from where it began the year. With your help, alot of hard work, and a fair bit of luck, the trend will continue in 2013.

READMORE