Category Archives: General Posts

Sports, relationships, parenting, literature, education, and more. If it catches my interest that day, I’ll write about it.

General Posts

Monday Night Ramblings

4 Comments


I’ve been thinking a lot lately about our country, the economy, the lack of enthusiasm for the upcoming election, democracy, homosexuality, Chik-Fil-A, and all the crap we as Americans deal with on a daily basis.  First and foremost, let me say that this post is not intended to be inflammatory or sensational, so if you get offended, you probably need to grow a thicker skin because I’m not intending to be offensive.

We live in crazy times, an era defined by rampant intolerance.  That intolerance is not restricted to one political party as some would have you believe.  It comes from both sides.  Look at the recent uproar over a fast-food chicken restaurant.  One side wants the company put out of business, while the other created traffic jams to get their unhealthy glob of grease.  It was sheer insanity, a classic example of irrational hate mongering by both extremes.  In America, if you truly want to be free, you have to drop this us versus them mentality.  If you don’t like a company’s policies, simply don’t do business with them.  Soberly and politely encourage your friends who share your values to do the same.  But don’t try to infringe upon that person’s rights to think and believe as they see fit.  That’s not democracy; that’s called fascism.

On the other hand, if you think you’re ordained with an inherent right to dictate to others what is right or wrong because you think your invisible man in the sky told you to, you need to back up.  In this country, we have the right to believe or not believe as we see fit, and you don’t have the right to shove your religion down anyone else’s throat.  You can believe in your guilt-god all you want.  That’s your right.  The moment you start telling me how to live my life based on your beliefs, we’ve got a problem.  I don’t believe it and refuse to live my life based on ancient books written by barbaric peoples and rewritten by feudal kings to control peasants.  Fortunately, based on our Constitution, we each have the right to our individual beliefs.

Our economy is about to collapse.  I really believe that.  We’re too out of balance, and the wealthy are too convinced of their divine right to more for anyone to fix it.  The only way to fix our economy is to fix wages and get more people earning a livable wage.  Everything else is just a photo op.  Until the average worker can once again own homes and save for retirement and afford healthcare, our economy will continue to spiral out of control.  By the end of this year, many of us will be facing hard choices between buying a tank of gas or buying enough food for the week.  That’s not a sustainable economic reality, and it’s about to come crashing down.

This coming election is the biggest farce I’ve ever seen, laughable if not so tragic.  If those two men are the best we can do for the leader of the free world, then we’re already too far gone to save.  Politics has become theater of the grotesque, and I’m done being part of it.  Until we remove money and lobbyists from controlling elections and policy, we have no hope of a government that serves the people.  All we have is a circus sideshow, going through the motions of pretending to govern, closer to a Banana Republic than a functioning democratic republic.

All I can control is my own life.  I will continue to write my books and try to grow my own food and prepare for the New Dark Ages as best I can.  I won’t worry about whatever is coming because I can’t control it.  I won’t worry about who others choose to love because that’s none of my business.  I won’t boycott or support a fast-food joint out of irrational rage at “them.”  I’m simply going to live.  I’m going to work on forgiving those who’ve wronged me and bettering myself as a man.  That’s all I can do.  The rest is just a theater of mass distraction to keep the peasants bickering amongst themselves, while the plunderers finish emptying the coffers.

General Posts

Thursday Afternoon Ramblings

5 Comments


I’ve reached a point with this manuscript where I feel like the story is either coming together perfectly or splintering into something incoherent.  I can’t tell which right now.  Up to this point, I’ve felt pretty good with the focus and direction of the plot points, but right now, as everything compresses together for the climax, it feels unruly, and for the first time in my writing career, I feel like I’ve painted myself into a corner without being certain how to paint myself back out.  Part of that is because of the twist that occurred around chapter nine, one which I kind of anticipated but wasn’t certain would happen.  Once it happened, it has taken on a life of its own and completely changed the ending of this book from what I had envisioned.  From experience, I know that can actually be a good development, but I also know that if I lose control of the natural flow, the ending could disintegrate on me.

It’s a delicate balance between allowing the story to develop naturally and steering it in the proper direction.  On the one hand, I feel like this twist has been pretty powerful and will change the entire complexion of Roskin as the protagonist.  On the other, I don’t want to force the climax to happen in a way that seems contrived.  The biggest obstacle I’ve encountered is making the time of the various plot points come together precisely without relying on some cheap trick to have it work.  Over the next few nights, I have to figure out how to blend it all together or risk losing the tension that’s coming to a head.

This is one half the exhilaration of writing and one half the madness of it.  I love when these surprises happen, and I know my best course of action as a writer is to get out of the way and let the story tell itself.  However, for four books, I’ve been juggling various plot threads to bring them together at this moment, and now that I’m there, it feels as if the threads are unraveling on me.  These next two and a half chapters will determine what quality of writer I am.  If I can make this work, I feel like this will a very good book.  If I can’t, the whole series could implode on me.  And I only have a week and a half before the semester begins.

No pressure.

General Posts

Late Night Ramblings

11 Comments


I’m having one of those “it’s hard not to be bitter” nights.  I’ve been working at this craft since I was 17.  I’ve spent countless hours honing my voice and learning how to pace a scene.  I’m damned proud of each of the books I’ve written, despite their flaws, because I know with each one I poured all of my passion for this craft into them. The first three of the series were written under conditions that were as big of obstacles to creativity as I can imagine, yet somehow I persevered and managed to create three pretty good books.  Despite the quality of my writing, I still feel mired in the muck of obscurity.

Part of what makes me bitter is that piles of horse dung like Twilight make millions, while many writers like myself kill ourselves at day jobs, hoping for a break.  It’s hard not to be bitter.  I’ve worked my ass off this summer to finish book four before school starts back because once the semester begins, I’ll be so overwhelmed with bullshit I won’t have the creative energy to write much new prose.  Night in and night out, I’ve hammered out scene after scene, believing this book is even better than the first three.  Only time will tell if I’m right.

Another aspect of the creeping bitterness is social media.  In this age, it’s absolutely essential to have a social media presence just to be noticed, but everywhere is so inundated with crap, from stupid cat memes to political diatribes to gossip that it’s hard to be heard among the din.  Then, there’s the clusterfuck known as Twitter.  I’m sorry, but I hate Twitter.  It’s just endless noise, barely recognizable as English, and try as I might, I can’t make any sense out of it.

At this point, I feel like the line from “Slow Rollin Low” — “Ain’t that just like a fool / Want to ride on them trains / When them trains is all gone.”  I’m a dinosaur, an antiquated relic.  I feel like all of my hard work has been for nothing.  Usually, what sells in high volumes are the bubblegum shit like Twilight or the smut porn like Fifty Shades of Gray.  It’s hard to sit here and not be bitter when I feel like my talent has been wasted.  And please, before anyone comments about how I’ve touched lives, consider that a whole mountain of good feelings doesn’t pay the electric bill or buy a bag of groceries.  I don’t need wealth, but I do need to make a living at this.  Otherwise, it just seems self-indulgent.