True Ultimate Evil: A fighting game concept

Wouldn’t it be amazing to have a video game where you have no choice but to play as the most evil characters ever created? A game where no heroes exist…. Well, I had a fun time imagining what that game would be.

TRUE, ULTIMATE EVILLLLLL!!!

Okay, so, take the style of Smash Bros and add the most evil characters ever instead of the Nintendo cast. Tell me it wouldn’t be awesome to fight as the Borg Queen against Frieza from DBZ. Sauron vs. Lord Voldemort. The Wicked Witch of the West vs. Alien.

You don’t have to tell me how impossible this game is. I know. Disney would never make a game with DC, Cartoon Network, Universal, and every other major movie studio combined. I get that. This is just my personal fantasy. So, here goes:

Characters: I know there are a ton of the classic horror movie monsters I didn’t add. However, I didn’t want this game to be overridden by just classic monsters; I wanted a good blend of modern and classic, so I left characters like the Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Mummy out. I also wanted a few cartoony characters to diversify from the realer characters, which is why I picked Mojo Jojo along side of The Joker.

If I left any characters out, if you disagree with me, leave a comment with your own character list!

Starting lineup:
Freddy

Borg Queen
Pennywise the Dancing Clown
Sauron

Darth Vader

Frankenstein’s Monster
The Joker
Ursula the Sea Witch
Exorcist Girl
Frieza

Unlockable:
Voldemort
Alien

Rita Repulsa
Chucky
King Joffrey
The Wicked Witch of the West
Angelica Pickles
Clockwork Orange Guy

Mojo Jojo
Slenderman
Davey Jones (Pirates of the Caribbean)

Exclusive to Nintendo:
Bowser

Exclusive to Sony:

Sweet Tooth from Twisted Metal

Exclusive to Microsoft:
Gruntilda from Banjo-Kazooie

DLC Characters:
Jason Voorhees
Khan
Dracula
Zomboss
Gannon
Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg from 5^th Element

Agent Smith
Magneto
Randall Flagg from SK Novels

The Duck Hunt Dog

The Hamburglar

Diablo

GLaDOS

Zuul from Ghostbusters

Stages:

Earthen Mountains from Dragon Ball Z
The Borg Cube from Star Trek
The Death Star from Star Wars
Under The Sea from The Little Mermaid
Mount Doom from The Lord of the Rings
Elm Street Dreams from Nightmare on Elm Street
The Sewers from It
The House of Laughs from Batman

Unlockable Stages:

The Battle of Hogwarts from Harry Potter
The Toy Store from Chucky
The Iron Throne Room from A Song of Ice and Fire
The Woods from Slender
The Flying Dutchmann from Pirates of the Carribean 
Observatory from Powerpuff Girls
Munchkin Land from The Wizard of Oz

Thanks for stopping by my blog!
UNRAVELSPACE UNRAVELTIME

It Surrounds And Binds Us All, a poem by Harrison Aye

The Poem:
it's the rift from which you came,
it surrounds and binds us all,
it's a drink from the plainer cup,
it's embodied ecstasy.
...life.

it's the bridge from which you came,
it surrounds and binds us all,
it's the taste of sweat and soil,
it has the air of ecstasy.
...love.




This was a poem I wrote a long time ago while getting over someone I loved. I won't say that I still feel the same way as when I wrote it, but I came upon the recorded sung version and decided to make a video out of it. It obviously compares the essence of life to that of love, the similarities and differences. The shared experiences. The way that love and create life, and life creates love.

I always loved the phrase, "it surrounds and binds us all." It's sort of a force/power/magical thought, but also very down to earth. Love is everywhere; life is everywhere.

Harry Potter should have married Hermione Granger

Recent news outlets report that J. K. Rowling is having a few regrets about who-ended-up-with-who. They’re saying that she said that Harry and Hermione should have gotten married, not Hermione and Ron.

I agree, but before I explain why, I should say why I think that J. K. initially chose to join Weasley to Granger. The reason is simple: By marrying Harry to Ginny and Hermione to Ron, Ron became Harry’s brother-in-law and Hermione, his sister-in-law. Also, the rest of the Weasleys, including his new go-to mom Molly, became Harry and Hermione’s in-law family. It was a clean ending, and it gave Harry what he wanted most: family (remember, that is what he saw in the mirror!). 

But, no. Ron and Hermione would have gotten divorced with a few years.

Hermione is a tortoise. Slow and steady. Her decision-making is about well thought out plans using wisdom and logic.

Ron is a jackhammer. Rash. Emotion-based decision-making, rather than logical. He is stubborn. Passive-aggressive.

It would have been a hard marriage with that sort of mix. They had plenty of communication issues throughout, and they would have had more during their marriage.

Harry, on the other hand, is not quite so emotionally charged in his decisions. He leans to emotional, but not in such an extreme as Ron. He’s more of a mix of logic-vs-emotion, imo. Regardless, he was always willing to, at least, listen to Hermione. Ron was far more rash.

the basilisk

Also, Ron, let’s be honest, never seemed all that attracted to Hermione. Other than that one forced moment when he says she has nice skin, Ron pretty much friend-zoned Hermione. He didn’t ask her out to the dance. He didn’t snog her when he could have. Hermione seemed interested, but not him, not until she had a scary experience in the Chamber of Secrets… almost like Ron wouldn’t kiss her unless it was in a Chamber of what he wanted to keep Secret.

Harry, I think he could have been attracted to Hermione, if J. K. had wanted to swing the story that way. Honest truth, I think Harry should have ended up with Luna Lovegood. I really think that he bonded with her weirdness, her understanding of life-and-death, her observations of the world. Ginny started timid, and I don’t feel like Harry would have been attracted to that. She became a little bossy, and I don’t feel like he would have liked that, either. However, I have to give the actress that played Ginny props, she was very good at building tension in the scenes she was in with Harry.  

the end

I just watched the Half-Blood Prince the other day. Harry and Hermione are looking out of the tower. Romantic. They even held hands for a bit.

Ron was sitting off on the stairs.

This is January. This is Sparta (morelike madness, truly).

So, I do two separate blogs at the moment that talk about my month. This one you’re on is about my personal life. If you care more about my writing life, head right over here.

It’s hard to talk about my month without talking about the writing aspect, but I’m going to try.

January was a bad month, but I don’t think February will be. I don’t know why, but all month I’ve been in a funk. I nearly died at the beginning of it, and I mean that literally. I was in a car-sliding-race-to-the-death during the icestorm, traveling home from DC. It was awful and traumatic. I think that started me off wrong.

I’ve been doing nothing but reading for the past week. I’m working on the Song of Ice and Fire series, AKA Game of Thrones. It’s awesome, but I’ve hardly wanted to do anything else. I went out for coffee with a horror photographer, who was way cool but I just don’t feel like I’m in the mood to date anyone right now.

I’ve been teaching myself piano. No, really. I’m getting better! I think I like it because of the challenge. I stopped playing guitar much because I felt like I hit the level of talent I wanted. I didn’t have a care to learn how to be better at it, so the fun of growing in talent left me. Piano is new and I have to learn from the ground up, so it’s fun. I hope to come out knowing a few fun tunes to bust out at parties.

What else? Man, I’m just looking forward to the future.

I’ve decided to go back and get my masters in the fall. I want to work the summer job with Clayton again, and then get back in school. I hope to work an assistanceship, go to grad classes, and then work at the AMC up there by night. That should keep me plenty busy, anyway! I want to move onto campus if possible. Depends on the costs and availability.

I am probably getting a car soon, so hopefully that should make me more mobile. At the moment, I think I’m feeling a little trapped by my situation. But, I have a plan to get myself out of it all! I also need to lose weight… ehhh… Lots to focus on, but I’m serious about the weight thing. Lots of fat people like me say that they want to change, but won’t. I don’t want to be that person.

Anyway, that’s all for January. Good riddance! I plan on having a better year from here on out, though! I hope you have a good year, too.

My List of Favorite Games I Played in 2013 (and my GOTY)

So, this list isn’t a list of my favorite games that came out in 2013… this is a list of my favorite games I played this year. This year has been…

Want to know who won in other years? Here’s the 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, and 2014 list.

THE YEAR OF CATCHING UP!!!

My gaming backlog was pretty heavy coming into 2013, and so I mostly worked on finishing and playing games from before this year. Actually, there weren’t too many games from 2013 I wanted to play, which was sort of nice with so many old games I had yet to beat.

So, without further ado, my 2013 list of favorite plays (in no particular order):

Project M – Smash Bros Brawl

Project M is a mod for Brawl that changes how the game is played. It rebalances characters and speeds them up to be more like Melee for Gamecube. It adds costumes, tournament-ready stages, and extra options. It also added back awesome characters like Mewtwo and Roy. Finally, with 3.0, I can now play as my main, which are the Ice Climbers, so now Project M has become relevant to me. It’s fantastic. The best way to play Smash. You don't even need to install any mods to play it. Find it here: http://projectmgame.com

Infamous 1 + 2 + Festival of Blood

Right after I knew I was getting a divorce, I blasted through the three Infamous games for PS3. I have to say, they were very special to me, because of the difficulty I was going through in my life at that moment. Because of the divorce, I was forced to move away from Seattle back to a cornfield in the middle of Southern Illinois. I missed the city very badly, but the cities from the Infamous games brought me back. That developer is from Seattle-area, and so the worlds in those games feel like walking the streets of Seattle. I got all of the trophies on those games, I loved them so much. Anyway, thank you, Sucker Punch, for making such special, meaningful games. I cannot wait to play Second Son for PS4. It’s the reason why I want PS4 over Xbox One.

Skyrim

I’ve put nearly 200 hours into Skyrim. Let me tell you, when you get divorced, nothing is more satisfying than immersing yourself into a fantasy world with nothing to think about but killing giants and leveling up your blacksmithing. I believe that Bethesda is the best game developer in the world, hands down. I cannot believe how deep I fell into this game. The music. The landscape. The creatures… Everything just comes together to feel like fantasy is reality. I still have so much to do in this game, but I get distracted just running around killing deer. Sometimes I just walk around and explore the fields, no particular mission to do. It’s just so much fun. I haven’t even beaten it yet. I plan on putting another hundred hours into it soon.

Mario 3D Land for 3DS

Note, I do not mean the new Mario 3D World for Wii U. That game looks awesome, but I don’t own a Wii U. I had already beaten 3D Land coming into 2013. In fact, I’m pretty sure I had beaten it in 2011 when it was released, but it’s such an amazing game that I replayed the entire thing again this year. Honestly, I believe that 3D Land is the perfect Mario game. I liked it better than Mario Galaxy, even. Just the way that the foundational mechanics work (shrinking and growing instead of a life meter, flagpole grabbing instead of touching the star, shorter levels rather than giant worlds to explore) makes the game better, overall.

Minecraft

How much did I pay for Minecraft again? 13 bucks? I got it during alpha. This is the one game I’ve spent the most time with more than any other. It’s the best money I’ve ever spent on a game. I used to run a sever, and I made tons of friends with random players from around the world. I can’t even begin to say the amount of crap I’ve built. It’s almost embarrassing. I’m still loving Minecraft in 2014, though less than I used to, it’s still fun. I just love the “go out and do anything” mentality in games like these.

Honorable mentions: (still just games I played in 2013, not necessarily released)

Batman: Arkham City - Great fun, but the hand-to-hand combat is not fun. When your stealth is given up, you lose the fun factor.
Diablo 3 for PS3 - The best Gauntlet Legends-type game, but not the greatest Diablo game
Kid Icarus: Uprising - Hilarious voice acting, amazing Sakurai-style gameplay. Controls aren't the best, though

Little Big Planet 2 - Still the best logic-game toy out there. I hope they make a 3D version so I can make my own Banjo-Kazooie!
Red Dead Redemption - Fantastic western. Best horseback riding ever. I'll probably go back and finish it, but I stopped playing at Mexico.

My Game of the Year for 2013

This is my choice for the best game I played that was released in 2013. This has nothing to do with the list above, since hardly any of those were released in 2013. This is just the best game that was released this year, in my opinion:

Streetpass Mii Plaza’s DLC

No, I’m not joking. In 2013, Nintendo came out with new games for Mii Plaza for 3DS. As someone who frequents conventions and nerdy events, new Streetpass games were exactly what I was craving. The original Puzzle Swap and Find Mii were excellent, and the new games (Mii Force, Warrior’s Way, and Monster Manor) are awesome, too. I love getting “hits” on my 3DS, which get me fun puzzle pieces and fighters for my games. Out of all the games released in 2013 that I played, Mii Plaza’s DLC is my favorite. It doesn’t beat Infamous, but for a Game of the Year, you’ve got to pick one released in the actual year, so Mii Plaza’s DLC gets the gold from me. The one exception is Flower Town. That game is awful. I tried to get into it, but I ended up skipping the dialogue as quickly as possible.

Thanks for stopping by my blog!
UNRAVELSPACE UNRAVELTIME

January Ventablogging – Getting back into the groove

It’s already halfway through January. Weird.

I guess it feels weird because I was out-of-town for the first 6 days of it, add seven more and here we are. That’s not that much, I suppose. I started out the year at MAGfest, which is a video game and music convention. It was awesome, but the last part of the trip was so stressful and taxing that I was burned out in general afterwards. I’m still feeling a little traumaburn from it, honestly. There was some major drama and then a car ride over a sheet of ice that nearly got me killed… fun story… The rest of MAGfest was extremely fun, but man… that last bit took it out of me.

the push

I’ve been trying to force myself back into the groove ever since that vacation. I haven’t worked on my writing / editing / etc. very much since being back. I was also sick, to top it off. I spent an entire day sleeping, just to recover all the sleep I missed. I haven’t felt very artistic.

What little art I have been making has been going into my new YouTube channel. It’s actually a pretty cool thing I’m working on, and I hope that it helps me promote myself as an author. I’m dedicating myself to making a new video every single day. Sometimes it’s a vlog, sometimes a musical poem or a Let’s Draw.

Here’s a few examples from “oxyborb2”:

I also own “oxyborb” without the 2, but that channel is my higher-quality, less quantity channel.

Selling personality AND my book

Making a video every day has forced me to come up with creative ways to think about film. I set out to start video blogging because some of my favorite authors do them, and I really like the way they sell their personalities along with their books. I want to be that kind of author. I want to be personable. I know it’ll help me when it comes time to promote my novel, but I really enjoy talking with people about art.

I’ve always been a good public speaker, but I’ve never felt entirely comfortable in front of a camera. As someone who wants to be in the public eye with his writing, this daily video/vlog thing should help me perfect my camera personality when the time comes. 

 

Think creative

But I’ve been doing other cool things on my new channel. Shorter videos, that I might have otherwise never posted, are getting put up on my second channel. I’m making stop-motion. Doing animation. Reciting my poems and short songs. Learning how to edit film—which might teach me a bit about crafting dialogue! I am enjoying it, for now. I hope I keep it up.

Other than that

I’ve got to get pushing myself. I think one thing about this whole process is how lonely it is to be an unpublished, unknown writer trying to make his first novel a reality. Nobody has read my book, so I have nobody to talk about it with yet. All my friends just think I’m crazy for being so dedicated to something, and I don’t want to pester them with links to my blog and stuff. That’s one thing—I wish more of my friends were readers. I can’t really get my friends to read my book, because none of them really make reading a priority. That just makes writing all the lonelier, I suppose. There will be no gratification or validation for the insane amount of hard work I’m doing until I get an agent and get published… but that’s the way of it, I suppose. You just have to keep pushing. Keep believing.

Belief

That’s what we’ve all got to do, right? Believe in our novels, ourselves. Nobody else is going to believe in you until you’ve proven yourself, sadly. The only way to prove yourself is to get published. Ahhh… Alright, I guess writing this all out has made me feel better. I just needed a reminder that writing will be lonely until I break through into the business and gain actual readers.

One last thing!

I’m still looking for a critique partner. Are you out there? Do you like fantasy for teens? (Big bonus is you happen to live in the St. Louis-area!) Well, I’m looking for a critique partner. Here’s a link to a post all about that: http://unravelreads.blogspot.com/2013/12/now-accepting-applications-for-critique.html

Take care! Drive safe on icy roads! Pussssh!

Game Idea: Super Smash Kart

When I first saw the Smash Bros. trailer that revealed Rosalina as a playable character, I honestly thought it was a Kirby reveal for Mario Kart. And, why not? I thought. Kirby would be a very cool unlockable character for the racer. 

I’m not the first person to say that the concept of Super Smash Bros. should translate to other genres of games, but I really want to expand on the idea here on my blog.

How cool would it be if the various Nintendo franchises in Smash Bros. made up the world for the next Mario Kart-type game?

My ideas for standard weapons:

I think that green koopa shells, bananas, and lightning bolts should remain as is.

Red koopa shells should be replaced by Homing Missiles from the Metroid franchise.

Social Media Wrangling for YA Writers - Part 1 - What You Posted In 8th Grade

New writers (or any position where you’re selling your personality along with your product, for that matter) today have a very different issue to confront when jumping into what they hope will become a successful career: a life-long history of social media.

I’ll admit, kids today will have it even worse than I do now. I mean, the first computer I ever touched was an old Apple Macintosh machine that still used the floppy disk drive (the literally floppy disks, not the hard disks). Social media wasn’t really around until I was in high school, so I have no idea what kids today will have to deal with (I imagine they will be embarrassed about that Jonas Brothers fansite, though).

But, I began blogging in 8^th grade, and I never stopped (imagine that kids today probably start waaaaaay younger!). I used the first social media sites when they came around. I created accounts on everything. I followed the trends.

I was a curious kid (I’m still a very explorative person, imo), and so I put myself out there. I said things hoping to prod new understanding out of the world. I wrote rants on the Internet that I definitely don’t still believe today. I used to debate hot issues with friends.

the facebook cowboy

So, I can say that there was a bunch of work involved in wrangling in all of my social media accounts to attempt to harmonize the image of the person I want to be known as versus all of the snapshots of the person I was each moment in my life.

I want to be a writer. I want to write books for teens and children. I want everyone to buy my books, no matter what their opinion of the Kardashians is. I want potential publishers and agents to consider me with a clean slate, a man with the ability to sell books to everyone and anyone.

I don’t want the public—potential readers of my works—to think that I am still the person I was in high school (nobody would). I wasn’t a bad kid, but everyone matures with age. I don’t want readers to think that whatever political idea I had a billion years ago should stand in the way of them picking my book off of the shelf and escaping into the fantasy world I’ve created.

quick aside: imagine future elections

Isn’t it true that when you were in second grade that you said on twitter that English class was for losers? You must be anti-educational reform!

I can see it now—future Presidential Debates, where they are scrutinized for the stuff they posted onto facebook when they were really young. We’ve never had to deal with that, since there were no social media websites way back when, but soon… We’ll have campaign commercials featuring Myspace profiles from the candidate’s elementary school years. Yikes. I can totally see people scanning for any snippet of opinion over a person’s Internet lifespan, just to tear them down. So, get it under control now!

the professional writer

I just think there comes a point where if a writer wants to get serious about jumping into the public eye, they need to furiously focus their messaging.

For political writers, perhaps they can get away with more divisive opinions. Gossip writers can spout off more random stuff about celebs. Critics can get away with bashing others.

For me, I want to write fiction for children. That means the parents have to like me—the whole package—and trust me with their kid’s attention. That means I can’t just say anything ever without understanding that kids will Google my name and see the other stuff I’ve said. I can’t have a massive amount of cursing (luckily, I’ve never had the dirtiest mouth). I can’t say crazy stuff without alienating potential readers.

That also means I can’t critique other books, because I want to create bonds with other writers. I see unpublished writer-hopefuls bashing other books in reviews on their blog all the time—it makes me cringe. If you’re reviewing books and you hope to be published, stop! You’re only making enemies by bashing others!

understanding evolves

But, that’s only half of it. I also have formulated new opinions on how we as a society can best grow together, and I don’t believe it is through impersonal Internet conversations/debates. I don’t regret anything I’ve written (I’m a better writer/thinker for it), and I don’t regret the conversations I’ve had (I’ve learned from people, especially those I’ve disagreed with).

I still have opinions, everyone does, but I think I’d rather talk in-person about them, rather than faceless facebook debating. Everyone has opinions—what we need more of is understanding.

Besides that, I just don’t have time for philosophical / political stuff anymore. I look at a recent controversy in the news, and I have this internal conversation: “Now, I could spend three hours reading this political article, thinking it through, writing a response, and then defending myself from the feedback, or…. I could spend the next three hours researching interesting stuff for my next novel, editing on my novel, or writing new words to my novel.” The choice is always clear to me.

“Jack of All Trades, Master of None”

I realized something about that little phrase: It’s true. If I wanted to become a moneymaking, professional novelist, I needed to master writing. Everything else needed to be put on the sidelines.

I think many artists have this problem. They like doing EVERYTHING EVER. Artists are big-brained people. Artists are the types of people who are the most easily distracted. Artists often crave variety. We see other art and want to try it. Dabble.

I love writing music, painting, drawing, sculpting, acting, directing, thinking about philosophy, and about everything else that has to do with art. I could jump from artistic genre to genre and never get bored… but I’d never master one that way.

Writing was the one thing I decided I could incorporate the most parts of my being, it was the one artistic project I could never strip from myself even if I wanted to. So, I focused. I picked writing and I pointed all the beams of light toward it.

sharpening the point

…and by focused, I meant I cut almost all of my hobbies besides writing. Every spare second I get, I write. Although, many of the other things I love are easily used along side of my writing—song writing has become poetic language for my prose, drawing is sketching character and critters for my novels, acting is me standing up and reciting the dialogue…

I am a writer. That simple sentence has become my most important sentence. Everything I have built, everything I am has been focused on that singular point. If it doesn’t fit that bill, it’s out.

I believe that is what it takes.

Thanks for reading, click here for a numbered list of specific things that I did / am still doing to wrangle in my social media. It’s sort of a companion piece to this post

If you've found this useful, please give me a +1 on Google Plus. It will help my search engine results. :-) 

Social Media Wrangling - Part 2 - The Checklist

This is everything I’ve been checking to make sure my social media is shiny and sparkling before I attempt to gain the public’s eye with my Young Adult novel. I wrote this list so that other writers might benefit from the work I’ve been doing for myself. I wrote a pretty extensive blog post aboutwhat I called Social Media Wrangling, which you can find by clicking on thissentence.

1. YouTube subscriptions:
-----People will see the list of people you’re subscribed to on YouTube, and they will think your list of subscriptions represents your opinions. Are you subscribed to FartDancer380? People will think you enjoy his work.

2. Who you follow on Twitter:
-----Same with YouTube. If you’re following ILovePot_29, people will think you are a pothead (FYI, I’ve never done a non-medical drug in my life, but I wanted to use that example). Will parents want their children reading books from a person they think is a pothead? No!

3. Facebook groups/pages/Notes Application.

4. Google Plus pages/communities/posts.

5. Tumblr, Myspace, Blogger, Livejournal, Xanga, etc.
-----Find those blog posts that you wouldn’t want your mother to read, and delete them. Also, for YA writers like myself, consider axing out any vulgar language.

6. Google all of the screen names you’ve ever used.

-----Find out where you’ve made a profile. If you’ve got an account on an embarrassing website, it might be time to delete it. Yes, that might mean deleting your My Little Brony account, the Miley Cyrus Forever Fanclub blog, or even that good old Club Penguin profile. Look for these smaller, fansites. This is where embarrassment lives forever, lol.

7. Check the YouTube videos you’ve personally uploaded.

-----Anything you’ve said that is not apart of your authorial message? Have you vlogged about anything so overtly political that it would keep someone from purchasing your book?

8. Remember, especially for YA-childrens-teen authors, kids will see the stuff you write online when they Google your name.
-----If you write Harry Potter but then write something awful online, kids will be listening/mirroring your awfulness.

9. Watch your vulgarity.
-----Nobody buys a book for a kid from a potty mouth.

10. Check all of your Tweets.
-----You might consider privatizing or deleting your old profile and making an entirely new one once you’re a published author. However, if you’re under 100 tweets, you might be able to go back and delete the bad ones.

11. Remember, just because you’ve privatized social media, doesn’t make it private.
-----Truth. If you become a famous author, your friends might sell access to your personal facebook profile. If over a hundred people can see what you’ve made “private,” then it’s not really all that private. Making your profile for “Friends only” is not keeping your facebook truly private.

12. Reviews/critiques of other novels and stories.
-----Your Amazon account. Your Goodreads. Your blog. Have you ever slammed another author / publishing house / etc. over a particular book you didn’t like? Have you gone on Amazon and given 1 star to another author’s work? If so, what do you think that more-famous-than-you author is going to do to your book? Do you think they’re going to give you a positive cover-quote? If you meet them at a party, will they kindly help you promote your book? Will a publishing house that you’ve deeply criticized publish your book? No, no, no… If you’re a aiming to become a known creator, you cannot start out by being a critic. You need friends, not enemies. Sure, Stephen King can say whatever he wants about whoever, but you? You need whoever you can keep! Be positive. Keep your positive reviews! Delete your negativity! Unless you’re famous already, being a downer is not going to make you any friends!

13. Check your favorites lists and quotes.
-----Do you want the public to know about your passion for the movie, “Jack’s Drug-Induced Adventure Through Stonerland?” No? Then take it out of your favorite movies list. Your favorites list indicates something about you. Check everything you’ve “liked” on facebook. Look at your interests page. Delete the stupid stuff. Check your quotes, too. Don’t leave terrible quotes you and your fraternity brothers made up one drunken night. Don’t quote world leaders that will incite anger because you didn’t know that they were evil—know who the people who quote are and the context surrounding the quote. Just because someone says one good thing does not mean that that person was a good person.

14. Check the other things you have written and published online.
-----If you’ve written erotica in the past (I have not, it’s just an example), you’re going to have to deal with that before becoming a children’s writer. Same goes for weird fandom lit.

15. Check your browser’s bookmarks.
-----Bookmarks are a great way to find a bunch of embarrassing things you’ve left on the Net.

16. Check your OKCupid and other dating website accounts.

Thank you for reading. I hope this helps you reach your goals. I will be adding to this list as I think of more things I can do to improve it. If you have more ideas, PLEASE share them in the comments. I will add your ideas and link to your blog/twitter.

Click here for a companion blog post about social media wrangling.



If you've found this useful, please give me a +1 on Google Plus. It will help my search engine results. :-)

Like_youknow

My thoughts on this video:

By making fun of teenagers, this guy has successfully marketed the idea that people should speak without a hint of skeptical modestly. As if "conviction" meant blasting messages loudly and proudly without caring if there is any truth behind the words.

Staying open-minded to being wrong about our beliefs is not something we should mock people for.

If only MORE people were willing to say that they could be wrong, willing to accept that there could be a flaw in our own logic, we might live in a society more prone to compromise, to listening, to trying to understand one another.

The message he's sending is one of aesthetics. He feeds you his message by making you agree that the way people speak sounds bad. It doesn't please the ear, therefore his audience agrees that he must be right about his message. The real message, folks, is about advocating divisiveness.

When two people with different views speak loudly and confidently, when they blast each other without acknowledging that there could be other opinions, those two people will argue, not converse. They will fight, not find any sense of mutual understanding.

What we need is MORE people willing to admit when they get something wrong. More people open-minded to the fact that they might not be correct. Sure, the way teenagers often use wish-washy speech sounds bad, but it's not a bad thing to speak with modesty rather than bluntness.

Pokemon Idea... Pumpkaboo + Litwick

Litwick and Pumpkaboo (real pokemon)

I drew this idea for new Pokemon, and I honestly cannot believe that Nintendo didn’t come up with this on their own. 

Some Pokemon, like Escavalier and Shelmet, evolve by swapping parts of themselves with other species of Pokemon as they are traded. Sort of a symbiotic thing.

Anyway, there’s a candle monster, called Litwick, and a pumpkin one, called Pumkaboo. They each have separate evolution lines, but I had an idea. What if they evolved in that armor-swapping way?

I envisioned the ghost part of the pumpkin escaping and evolving into Flygeist, as if it were a ghost flying away from the pumpkin it escaped from.

Then, a different ghost, Litwick, gets trapped in the jack-o’-lantern and becomes Pyrepatch, a fire / grass type. I drew all of these pictures, by the way.

 
How cool is this idea? Nintendo, if you’re listening, please take my idea and use it (no permission, reward, or acknowledgement required! Just use my idea!)

Now Accepting Applications for Critique Partners (St. Louis-area priority)

OK, just joking about the applications part. There’s no application, but I do really wish I had more writer friends to swap criticism with.

I dream of finding that perfect friend who also takes writing as seriously as I do, and who provides fantastic feedback (and wants feedback in return). So, just for fun, I think I’m going to put this into words. What would my perfect crit partner be like?

Rosy cheeks, no warts. Play games, all sorts.

OK, srsly. A good sense of humor. Someone I can be friends with irl.

The ability to take criticism is fundamental, as is the ability to provide it. If you tear up at the mention of a misplaced comma, then this application is not for you. I have an iron gut for criticism, and I don’t like being buttered up as much as given an honest review. I believe all criticism is useful, no matter how fierce or nerve-touching (although, I don’t consider myself to be a harsh critic, I love it when others are harsh critics to me). Even if I disagree with you, I will still respect your opinion of my work and will consider it genuinely. Often times, it seems like if I let particularly harsh criticism sit with me overnight, I come out seeing it from a different perspective.

That said, it’s also important that crit partners generally enjoy each other’s writing (and are near each other in skill level, so I don’t get jealous if you’re better than me or vice versa). I suppose that would come on a read-for-read basis. If you happen to read this and want to trade examples of writing, email me (oxyborb@gmail.com). We can swap chapter 1s, and then either say “yes” and continue or “No, we’re not a match” with no hard feelings. I generally write fantasy and horror for young adults, and that’s also what I generally read.

My perfect critique partner would be working on a longer, novel-length project. I generally write novels, so I would feel bad asking for advice on something longer if you’ve only given me a piece of flash-fiction.

I would love it if my crit partner lived in the St. Louis-area. I live in Belleville, IL, which is across the river (but I could still drive out to STL). I would prefer someone that I could actually meet and chat with at a café than a faceless person over the Internet.

My perfect crit partner would produce a great deal of content, regularly. I write heaps of stuff, so it’d be nice to find someone who throws just as much stuff back at me. I often feel like I ask too much of people, because nobody else is as crazy about writing as I am. It’d be cool to find someone who shares my compulsion for constantly working on new projects.

Also, my novel, The Unraveler, is a teen fantasy. You can read about it by clicking here, but I'll just say that my style is aiming to be somewhere between Stephen King and JK Rowling, not that I'm comparing myself to them, but that's the kind of feel I am working toward. Something creepy, yet with light-hearted, goofy moments. For teens. I love horror, disturbing, scary moments, but I also love the feeling of exploration you get from first setting foot into Hogwarts. Get it ? The Unraveler aims to be like that, with a touch of Lord of the Rings, A Song of Ice and Fire, and a little Pirates of the Caribbean, too. If all those books were blended, it would be The Unraveler.

That’s what I’m looking for. If you seem to fit any of that, you should leave a comment or email me.

Trimming Down Your Novel, Promotional Spam, and Making ALL the Things... my Accountabiliblog Holiday Spectacular

Thanksgiving is over, so I’m going on a diet. Literarily speaking, that is.

Cutting the fat

a new selfie, showing off my awesome holiday hat

For the month that ends the year, it has begun with destroying a beginning. Namely, the beginning of my novel… and I haven’t destroyed it as much as made it freaking awesome. My goal in life is to make a novel so good that it would be impossible not to publish. No, really. OK, momentary sidetrack:

Lately, I’ve been joining a bunch of random online groups for writing. It’s been my desire to find some magical perfect person to become my critique partner in crime. Someone who takes writing as seriously as I do. Someone that lives nearby. Someone with a willingness to edit and be edited…

SPAM MACHINE, ENGAGE!

But all these online writing groups seem to be nothing more than promotional vomit for self-publish authors (*and I’m not talking about the good ones, see below). My facebook feed has recently been bloated with a billion authors who post “Please, PLEASE, PLEEEEEAAAASE buy this” twice a day, usually to each of the ten groups I’ve recently joined. It’s spam. This blog once made a fantastic term for what these people are wishing will happen when they post spammy links to Amazon: a book-sales button. It’s like they think that if they just spam enough, people will buy the book. 

Think I’m exaggerating? Look at the screen capture on the side of this paragraph. It was my facebook newsfeed. This is real, only edited to delete the dude’s identification, and, you know what? It was only as much as would fit on my screen. I had about twelve posts from him on my newsfeed, all in a row. This guy posted like 10 times a day, spamming his books (I had to block him), but it wasn't just him. It's a ton of others. Spammers. Throwing links out onto writer's groups as if they'll find the secret magic to sales.

The formula:
Post spam on random facebook group
???
Profit

But that’s not how that works! Social media needs to be about making connections with other people. You know, being social. The best authors can get me to buy their book, based solely on the personalities they present through social media. Well, who’s going to fall in love with the personality of a telemarketer? Nobody! Spam is not going to work! Build real, personal connections, not a list of people blocking you!

Forget the Twitter Numbers!

For a while I thought it was all about trying to get a certain number of Twitter followers by Tuesday, but I had an epiphany: Quality is better than quantity. Why would I follow a thousand FollowBack spam accounts? To get my numbers up? Pish! I would take a hundred people who are actually interested in The Unraveler (and willing to recommend it to friends) over a thousand spam accounts following me (who don’t care whatsoever, except that you’re following back).

When my book gets published, then I’ll get followers the natural way. From people who actually care about what I have to say because they’ve read my novel and want to know more.   

Make it shimmer

So, I went off on that sidetrack because so many of these self-publish spammers have had, “Free, limited download offer” as promotion to their book. Just to see what these sorts of books were like, I downloaded a bunch. I read bits and pieces, but I realized something: Many of them had spelling errors on the first page. Many were formatted strangely. Many were littered with very simple problems that would have been caught if it were edited. So many of these authors claimed to be “fed up” with querying, and so decided to self-publish.

And that brings me back to my philosophy: When I finally decide to submit my novel to agents, I want my manuscript to be as near ready-for-print as possible. I think that’s the dedication it takes to find success. So many authors want it all now, like Veruca Salt. They think they’ve gotten the golden egg, but it melts in theirs hands. I guess what I mean is that they don’t put in that extra effort.

*I don’t mean to sound arrogant (that sentence always sounds arrogant, haha). I completely respect self-published types, and I’m not talking about all of them. I’m saying that there are those who just want to turn text directly into profit. Those that don’t take the time to make a product that is worth purchasing. If you write a poem on Saturday, don’t sell it on Sunday. Iron that thing out! Make it snappy. Fix the simple spelling errors. Use quotation marks for dialogue. Those sorts of things. Don’t blame the agents for hating your work if you’re not willing to make your work shine!

Novel trimming

That said, I’ve returned to the beginning. This must be the twelfth time I’ve read my novel in full. I think, with my last draft completed, my structure is refined. My characters are individuals. My plot is perfected. So, this new draft is going to be about cutting the fat. I feel like I was better about this as I wrote, so working through my first chapter has been a fun challenge. I’ve been tearing out hundreds of words from it. Oiling the transitions. Making sure that the excitement builds from the get-go. Making my writing snappy yet flowing. Removing any data dumping or details that are irrelevant to the plot.

And it’s been good. Really good. I’ve never been more confident in my beginning. I look at it and see intriguing part after intriguing part, with no fat in between (and it wasn’t always this way). It’s hard to cut the fatty parts you love. Little details that are unneeded yet loved. Breaks your heart, but breaking it is the only way to heal. Haha. It’s been extremely hard work. 

Side Projects. I do them

Beyond that, with all my friends in town for Christmas (that’s how the Midwest works, everyone goes away and comes back for the holidays), I’ve been shooting YouTube videos on the side. 

my stop-motion puppet, Woolo the Walker

I’m actually writing a movie script, which I hope to film this month. I also plan on doing some stop-motion animation and make some new music videos! Doing other things helps me be refreshed enough to continue the editing, so it’s great! Over New Years, I’m going to be traveling to DC for MAGfest, which I’m really excited about. I have so much going on, it’s great. I love keeping busy.

Anyway, you’re great. Really. If you’ve read to this point, consider me your number-one fan. Please, since you’ve cared so much about me, leave a comment and tell me about you! I would love to see who is reading this and check out your projects or blogs (or, if you’re in St. Louis-area, I still have open roles for my movie, you should join up).

That’s all for now! Keep being awesome!

Random Facts About Me: A Facebook Trend (now blogged)

My number was Six Hundred Thousand and Twenty-two. I repeat, the number that was given to me was 600,022.

1. I like ice cream

2. I sleep with my toes covered

3. I have a very large freckle under my left knee

4. I prefer Colgate toothpaste

5. The reason I prefer Colgate is not for the taste, but the highly functional lid on the tube

6. For several months of my college dorm life, I slept halfway in my closet to save space

7. I own a very, very short Christmas tree

8. I am actually Andy Kaufman

9. I know how to yoyo

10. I'm currently in a rap feud with Dr. Dre

11. I know how to spell "definitely"

12. I have buried over 5 dead animals on a single hill in my backyard

13. I was rejected from joining the Xmen because they didn't think the power to instantaneously laminate any object was particularly useful

OKK THIS IS HARD. I hope this was interesting for you. I'll try to work on doing the next 600,009 tomorrow or something

Just post if you want your number given

Mowing The Lawn - Corporate and Class Suppression, the conversation

"I hate lawns. I feel like they're just another tool for suppression."

*Laughter* “That’s rich. You’ve really gone off the deep end with this one.”

“Don’t laugh at me, you don’t know my reasoning.”

“Lay it on me.” *Laughs again*

“Who gets paid when you mow the lawn? Lawn mower companies. Retail stores. You have to buy oil and gasoline, gotta remember the Oil Gods, right? Filters for the air compressor. Bags, if you use them. New chains when those break, and they’re bound to because lawn mowers are built to break. You can prove that to yourself by visiting the lawn mower isle at the hardware store. Thousands of stupid parts that should never break. Wheels. Gears. Blades. Pullies. Motors. Then there’s hedge trimmers. Hedge trimmer plastic lines. Don’t forget the yard waste disposal. Yard waste bins. New grass seed. Soil fertilizer. Mole traps. Lots of junk just to have a lawn. So, you have that corporate end, they’re all getting paid. Then, you’ve got the Neighborhood Council pricks sitting up on their thrones deciding what is and what isn’t aesthetically appeasing. Why do they care if your lawn is an inch above their regulated line? I’ll tell you. To keep out people they don’t want. People that can’t afford to pay for all the mowing junk or someone to mow. A single mother working two minimum wage jobs does not have the money or the time to adhere to all the little stupid regulations of the Neighborhood Council. So, she won’t be allowed to live there. And, if somehow she does manage to get a house in a nice neighborhood, her rich prick neighbors are going to have all the fodder they need to harass her to keep up with stupid aesthetic regulations. She might have two crying babies, but her neighbors are still going to report her for having paint chipping off the side of her house. All of that, and a mowed lawn isn’t even that great. I understand not wanting a jungle in front of anyone’s house… snakes and mice sucks and all, but weekly fucking mowing is absolutely ridiculous. But, that’s how they get you. You have to mow every single week, or else it all goes back to the way it was. The upkeep for a lawn is a struggle that is unrelenting until winter hits (then you pay for heating). You could keep out the pests by only mowing monthly, but you won’t keep back the regulations. And many neighborhoods regulate against rock-lawns or yards that are completely covered in gardens just for aesthetic reasons. Well, they claim aesthetics, but I’d call it suppression.”

“I like the look of freshly cut lawns.”

“How nice.”

I don’t understand the appeal of FPP (first-person, present tense).

I’ve just started reading a new book, and it uses this FPP style that is apparently a trending fad in teen fiction novel writing. I have to say this: it’s hard to read this way. I don’t know who or why anyone would enjoy this perspective.

It’s my understanding that books for children today have to be snappy and action-packed. We live in a world where YouTube is too long to watch; we need 7 (or less) second long Vines. Calling on the phone takes too long; we simply text. You can hardly find a website or blog that doesn’t use the “Top 10” formatting, highlighting bullet points over the actual meat of the article, to allow for ease of skimming for points rather than proofs.

This is our society today. We have no attention spans. I get that.

So, perhaps it’s arguable that first-person present is a culmination of that. Cut out the past-clinging words. Everything happens RIGHT NOW! Chapters are short. Action is heavy. Dialogue is simple (or non-existent).  

But reading that way is awful, friends. Simply awful.

In some ways, perhaps I feel this way because of it’s not what I’m used to. I mean, you’re looking at a guy who does a bi-yearly read of the Lord of the Rings. I love fiction that allows for pauses, description, and dialogue that carries a depth of interesting logic.

But, the logic of a book holds a place in my head. Why was this book written? Who is the narrator? Who is the narrator trying to reach by the narration? When was this narrated? These are questions that fill my head when I read, and FPP really boggles that up for me. Is the narrator of a FPP holding a flipcam up to their heads as they progress through the story? Is that why it’s being told as if it is happening right now? I suppose the trend of FPP in YA fiction and the increasing popularity of vlogs (video blogs) have a connection. FPP sort of reads like a vlog, doesn’t it? Only, when the narrator isn’t constantly holding a camera—say it’s set in medieval times—I feel pulled out of the text. The Hunger Games works in FPP, I’ll admit. But HG is a reality TV show narrative. It makes sense to have a FPP when the cameras are literally always on Katniss. There’s a logic to that. However, most other FPP narratives I’ve noticed don’t work whatsoever. If your FPP is set in a fantastic world, a farm, or a desolation without technology, then I would bet 9 times out of 10 that FPP is going to be a jarring way to experience your world.

The last thing I want to say about FPP is that it’s sort of a false way to make a book snappy and intense. I believe that intensity should come from what sort of events take place in a novel, not what perspective they are told in. If I’m feeling tense by reading about a character who is baking an apple pie, then there’s something wrong with how the story is being told. The best fiction knows how to create tension, yet give the reader places to breathe. FPP, by inception, is always intense. Everything happens NOW. Baking apple pie becomes something not warm and soul-refreshing, but snappy and jarring. FPP doesn’t allow the reader to take in the moments where I should be allowed to enjoy the surroundings, the environment, the character’s thoughts. FPP too often pushes past any would-be tender moment to get to the next action sequence.

EDIT: I just came up with a new observation. Using past-tense creates a natural reading identifier between prose and dialogue, since people speak from the first-person and in the tense of their moment. I've noticed myself eying the prose as dialogue while reading in the FPP, and I realized its because when the book's perspective is FPP, the natural indicator of dialogue is missing. This goes for gender tags, too. FPP limits being able to easily identify characters using the "he says" "she says" because the narrator uses "I say." This is especially confusing in works where there is more than one narrator.

Thoughts? Tell me what you think in the comments!

Dime A Dozen, a poem

We're all just like candles,
we sit on the tables,
we light up,
we burn down,
we die.
We're all paranoid, yes,
we're all just pretending,
we're all just a grain in the rye.
We all need to rise up again, to seek what
we all need to keep in our minds. Forever
we learn or forever doth bring.
We're all for each other or no one at all.
We're dime a dozen.

Song Version
(written by me, performed with Brian Wood and Scott Weber)

oxyborb · Dime a Dozen

Nintendo has an Imagination Problem

My favorite video game company hasn’t sold me on its new system, and that is a serious problem.

Why? Because I am the biggest Nintendo fan in the world. However, I never spend money without major justification, and so far, the Wii U isn’t a worthwhile purchase. You’re looking at someone who bought a Gamecube over the PS2. The Wii instead of the HD systems. The DS over the PSP. The Gameboy over the Gamegear. N64 over PS1. The SNES over Genesis. The NES over Atari.

I have them all… except the Wii U. 

This next generation, I am craving only to play the Playstation 4.

Nintendo, this is a serious problem. Take this seriously! I am THE BIGGEST Nintendo fan I know. I am one of the only people in my group of friends to own either a Wii or a 3DS. My friends all own PS3s and 360s. I am your diehard supporter. Your most loyal customer. I am become death for you, Nintendo!

It all started a year or so after buying my Wii. I enjoyed it, don’t get my wrong, but I really wanted to play a little game called Oblivion. All my friends had played it, and I felt left out. So, I got a PS3.

No Vom Bre – Geno Cosplay, Halllow-hallow-ween, and David Ortiz

So, I went as Geno from Super Mario RPG for Halloween. Only a handful of people at the party knew who I was, but I had wanted to make this costume since I went to PAX Prime so I’m happy to have made it.

Super Mario… R! P! G! It is the only game just for me!

This was a great Halloween season, in general. I got to decorate the heck outof the yard, I went on hikes, went to three parties, finished editing the seconddraft of my novel, and went on a ghost-story telling tour with an old friend.

Life has been very good, actually. I’ve been enjoying the bachelor lifestyle. Playing video games without guilt. Spending no money whatsoever. Taking hikes. Horror movie marathons. Back in that post I wrote about divorce and stuff, I said I was excited about getting to date again. Well, to update on that, I have lost all excitement. I dated one girl for a while, and then I was done. I forgot how much work it takes to date someone, and, only being divorced a month now, I believe I have a right to enjoy a period of relaxed singledom. I disabled my OKcupid account, lol. I kept getting into conversation with girls that had a lot to offer and seemed to click with me, but I just had no follow-through whatsoever because I think I’m going through my apathetic phase. I just want to play Diablo 3 and have guy-type fun like that. I’m sure I’ll get over this, but… yeah. That’s the update on that account. 

We only got one group of trick-or-treators on Halloween. It was raining, so, it sucked. I had set up laser light machines and everything! Instead, I took the candy bowl to my neighbor’s house and offered her some M&Ms, which she took. Then she came out and handed me a little fun prize-bag filled with goodies. So, in that way, at age 27, I got to trick-or-treat. I realized that I hadn’t eaten a candy bar in a very long time. It was so good, especially after watching the movie Trick ‘R Treat (one of the best movies of all time). 

The worst part about moving back to Belleville was watching the Cardinals lose the World Series. How %$!%#$ sad! But, David Ortiz was absolutely amazing (he’s a Red Sox player, and his post-season batting average was like .799 or something). He would get on base and yell at his team to get them motivated. He smashed the crap out of almost every pitch thrown at him. What an excellent player. Even as a Cardinals fan, I have to give it up to him for being such a talented, spirited player. I wish he were on my team. But, the Sox outplayed us in the end. I have to admit that. They were on, and we were falling for their amazing pitching lineup.

Anyway, that’s my life for the past few months. Keep rocking!

Thanks for stopping by my blog!
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