Holly Holm vs. Ronda Rousey

 

IOU

Something unexpected, but not really, though

When it comes to the world, there’s nothing I owe

I gave it everything

Until I couldn’t sing

The world asked for more, well, what do you know?

It’s an abusive romance with a floating rock

She gets all the diamonds, I get a bloody cock

More, more, more

So like a good man whore

I play the cheerleader while she’s fucking a jock

If I go on strike while I’m working this mic

What would there be left to click on and like?

I’m falling behind

In the endless grind

My wheels are spinning like a Kawasaki bike

Here’s an IOU that will never be paid

Here’s a shitty RPG that will never be played

You can be the DM

Until we’re past the PM

Hours of the day, I think my hairs have grayed

That’s all that life is: a game I can’t win

So why am I even going all the way in?

Gamble everything

Lose until it stings

Slam dunk the IOU in the rubbish bin

I owe the world nothing, its people even less

I’ve given all I’ve got and I’m still not the best

Christmas is over

I ain’t being covert

Middle finger to the earth, time for me to rest

Wake me up when you throw a parade

For every sacrifice that I’ve ever made

It’s not ego

I’m not a hero

I’m just full from drinking capitalist Kool-Aid

Creep Street

Streets of darkness, perfect targets
Hoot and holler like a wild man
Call them “hotties”, grab their bodies
Creep Street is in style, man
Get rejected, get defensive
When she tells you to, “Fuck off!”
Alpha male with a baby’s wail
Never ever to be sucked off
Grab her arm, do your harm
Purple circles on her bicep
You entitled little child
You know she doesn’t like it
Throw her down, make her drown
In your disgusting fluids
Traumatize until you realize
You’re nothing but human sewage
Cops do nothing, her brain is numbing
Did you get your hot desires?
So romantic, necromantic
Accuse her of being a liar
Shoot you dead, bullet in your head
That’s what we all should do
There’s no magic in street harassment
Who’s the next victim you choose?
Blond or brunette? Moans or music?
Long legs or ample breasts?
It doesn’t matter, dick gets fatter
She’s face down just like the rest
Creep Street blues, call it fake news
You’ll get away with it this time
But Karma’s a bitch, a scratch to itch
Your life ain’t worth a thin dime

Like Roses

Your shit doesn’t smell like roses

It’s an assault on all of our noses

Yet you do your supermodel poses

While you piss on truth with hoses

Your seed doesn’t grow superheroes

Your sperm count is damn near zero

Skin color doesn’t make you superior

Doesn’t sweeten your ugly interior

No hospital would call you a doctor

No subordinate would be your fodder

A tiny brain in your oversized head

Your generation’s ways are dead

Everybody wants to save the world

With their favorite flags unfurled

Everyone wants to be right all the time

But nobody wants the uphill climb

You reserve the right to be smug

While you’re giving yourself a tug

We reserve the right to call you out

To make you question, make you doubt

To make you feel some discomfort

To make you feel quite humble

You’re not the king of our earth

Not the chosen one since birth

Your prophecy arc was based on lies

Even you pump gas, cook our fries

Let’s see you work for buffalo nickels

My burger doesn’t have enough pickles

But don’t worry, you’re still number one

The platform on which you should run

Maybe your shit really smells like roses

Or you’re high on your own overdoses

Intro: When I Was Young

When I was young, I could tell the world to fuck off with little to no consequences.

I could throw the first punch.

I could bruise the biggest egos.

I could walk among giants.

And then one day…the world fought back.

A shade of purple underneath my eye.

A shade of red in my tunnel vision.

A shade of gray in my foggy mind.

Ever since then, I broke down my own walls just to make others feel comfortable.

I gave you all comfort you didn’t deserve.

You took full advantage of that and more.

The only way you left my life was on your own terms.

Did I give you permission to walk all over me? Don’t answer that.

I don’t care if you think I’m a boring person.

I don’t care if you think I’m an awful writer.

I don’t care if you think I’m too ugly for love.

I stopped caring what you think the minute you haunted my mind like a schizophrenic ghost.

I learned how to cope using positive thinking.

And then you gave me permission to feel bad.

I guess I was only just fucking myself.

The day will come when I’m able to rise up and tell the world to fuck off once more.

It won’t be today.

It won’t be tomorrow.

But one day when you’ve pushed enough of my buttons, I will strike.

I held back too many times for fear of fucking everything up.

But when I unleash my full strength…I’ll take every one of you motherfuckers with me to hell.

Why I Love the Author Community

***WHY I LOVE THE AUTHOR COMMUNITY***

I saw so many indie authors online from Jenna Moreci to Hannah Lee Kidder discussing this topic and I thought I should throw my name into the hat. I have a lot to be grateful for when it comes to my writing career and one of those things is the company I keep. The first thing people will tell you is that the author community is like one big family and the stigma about competitiveness is just that: a stigma that needs to be erased. Or as Red Green always says, “I’m pulling for you. We’re all in this together.” I agree with this philosophy one hundred percent. It takes a village to write a novel, whether your villagers are beta readers, editors, audience members, or otherwise.

I must confess that it took a long time for me to allow the author community into my life. When I first started creative writing as a sixteen year old, I had a massive ego and a chip on my shoulder the size of Texas. My filter for constructive or hurtful criticism was so strong that anybody who gave it to me was met with derision. I remember one night in Spokane, Washington in the fall of 2001 where I attended INCON, a sci-fi, fantasy, and anime convention. One of the feature attractions was having a piece of writing critiqued by five different professional authors. After the second one had her turn, I stormed out of the room and spent the rest of my evening crying my fucking eyeballs out. Were the authors using kid gloves? Not at all. But did that mean I had nothing to learn from them? Also a resounding no.

I took this egotistical attitude with me everywhere I went whether it was online or in college. I took my first creative writing class in 2004, though big ego or not, that class was deeply flawed judging from how much leniency was shown towards nasty critics. It got so bad that I wrote a poem about one of my classmates and told him that he looked like Frodo Baggins and that I wanted to impregnate his mother. I will admit that this gave me the confidence I needed to write poetry, but still, all that rage over a “You suck” comment? Ugh…

I would go on to take many more creative writing classes at Western Washington University and just like before, my ego got in the way of a true education. I remember one teacher I had who labeled my use of swear words as “hate speech” and told me I also wasn’t allowed to have gratuitous violence in my stories. What set me off wasn’t that alone, but the fact that I still got a C in her class despite adhering to her rules. My ego got bigger and my walls got higher. It would take a bloody miracle for me to let people in.

Fast forward to the year 2013, where I wanted to embark on an indie author career, but didn’t have anybody to critique my writing. I must have driven all of those people away, but it’s true, if you go long enough without criticism, you’ll be desperate for it when the gatekeepers lock you out. I caved and went to a group on Good Reads affectionately called the WSS (Weekly Short Stories Contest and Company). I’m still a member of that group today. I would enter a short story or novel chapter into the weekly contests, just like the name suggested…and the critiques I received were a complete one-eighty from a lifetime of seething anger.

Everybody was so nice to me that little by little, my walls started to strip away and it was easier to let people in. I got more of an education in this group than I did in school. You can teach people how to show instead of tell, how to keep one narrator, how to use colorful descriptions, how to not pull the trigger too soon when it comes to the climax, and how to make your characters overcome great adversity. People with massive egos never learn these things because they believe in their hearts they’re already good enough. The more you realize how imperfect you are, the more likely you are to improve. Thank you, WSS, for stripping away my oversized ego with your kindness and love.

From that moment, I would go on to meet many wonderful indie authors whom I can learn from and depend on when things get rough. I can’t say enough positive things about Ashley Uzzell/Marie Krepps. She’s honest, she’s funny as hell, she’s wise beyond her years, and she backs it all up with her kick-ass stories. Aurora Styles is every bit as wonderful as her Hollow Hills cohort with her own sense of humor, her own literary wisdom, and her own terrifically-written prose. Jenna Moreci uploads You Tube videos every so often dishing out sagely wisdom of her own whether the topic is writing or marketing. Hannah Lee Kidder is also a You Tuber who’s fun to watch when it comes to giving the world thoughtful advice. Patrick Doran’s cheerful Deviant Art comments give me the fuel I need to carry on during moments of exhaustion. If I’ve left anybody out, I swear it’s an accident. Thank you, writing community, for being my rock and not letting my head over-inflate.

I’m Garrison Kelly! Even when you feel like dying, keep climbing the mountain!

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“I’ve been alone. Felt abandoned at times. Given into the fall. I can’t forget what it’s like. When I felt numb and so hollow inside, you carried me through it all across the divide. I’ve been lost. Felt ruined inside. Watched it all crumble in the blink of an eye. You were strong and so hopeful inside. Saved this fallen one when I wanted to die. And when I went through it all, you gave me your heart. I learned to forgive. And when I come through it all, I know you’re the one I’ll never forget.”

-Device singing “Through It All”-

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2

MOVIE TITLE: Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2

DIRECTOR: James Gunn

YEAR: 2017

GENRE: Superhero Film

RATING: PG-13 for sci-fi violence and crass humor

GRADE: Pass

The Guardians of the Galaxy, led by Peter Quill, are on the run from bounty hunters yet again after raccoon teammate Rocket steals high energy batteries from the Sovereign race. The golden aliens go so far as to hire Quill’s adoptive father Yondu and his ravager mercenaries to recapture them. The Guardians’ only saving grace comes when Quill’s real father, a celestial god named Ego, rescues them and brings them back to his psychologically crafted home planet. The more time Quill spends with Ego, the more his father’s darkest secrets bubble to the surface and the more danger his crew is in.

When I write this review, I don’t want any of you to think that I’m crapping all over the humorous aspects of this movie. They serve their purpose and are easily the most entertaining part of the movie aside from the violence and the emotional aspects near the end. Having said that, they’re a double edged sword. On the positive side, you’ve got Rocket’s raunchy dialogue, Drax’s socially awkward behavior, Quill’s pop culture references, and Baby Groot’s naïve attitude towards everything. I especially enjoyed what the director has done with the unfortunately named Taserface, whose self-chosen moniker has become the butt end of everyone’s crass insults. And then there’s also Rocket’s dismantling of Yondu’s army in the forest with his gadgets and traps. Rocket is easily the funniest character in the whole movie, bottom line, end of story.

But with every double edged sword, there are negatives to the positives. Marvel movies in particular get this criticism a lot, but nothing seems to change. While humor in and of itself is a major boost to any movie script, there are times when the casual jokes take away from the emotionally charged parts of the film. This descent from emotional highs is called bathos, an antonym for exalted. I would have loved to see some tearjerkers between Quill and Ego, Gamora and her vengeful sister Nebula, and Drax and the empathetic mantis named…well…Mantis. But alas, being funny was more important to the director than being emotionally invested. It must be a guy thing. The only real emotional connection the audience can feel with the movie is in the movie’s conclusion, which I won’t spoil save for that one tidbit. Something needs to change, Marvel. I hope you’re listening.

But don’t let this mild descent into bathos distract from the idea of this movie being entertaining from beginning to end. If you like hardcore sci-fi violence, you’ll certainly get plenty of that. If you like a well-crafted story with quirky characters and occasional lovey-dovey aspects, this movie has that in spades. If you like wild imagination with your sci-fi stories, and really, who doesn’t, buckle up for the ride. For all intents and purposes, this is a damn good movie that deserved to draw in all the money it did. You know that Futurama meme with Fry holding up a wad of cash and yelling, “Shut up and take my money!” That’s the attitude you should have with this movie. A passing grade will go to this fine piece of cinema!

No More

Your macho bullshit doesn’t work anymore

Check your massive ego at the front door

Before you tell anybody to suck it up

Take your own advice, then shut it up

The twentieth century is gone forever

The day you’ll get it back is fucking never

No more beatings with a leather strap

No more secretaries sitting on your lap

No more black people doing your chores

No more Indians getting killed in wars

No more drill instructors shouting in ears

No more suppressing our flooding tears

You can’t blame it all on a whole generation

Unless you yearn for the days of segregation

Unless you’re living in the Middle Ages

Unless cave paintings are your only pages

Self-esteem is what we need to survive

Happiness is what makes us feel alive

Just because you’re dead on the inside

Doesn’t mean you have to tan our hides

Just because you can’t use a computer

Doesn’t mean you can stop the future

If you’re really that angry and bitter

Maybe I should hire you a babysitter

Maybe that’s why your kind wears diapers

Not because you’ve eaten too much fiber

No more bigotry, no more agony

No more screaming, no more insanity!

Balls

CHORUS

You don’t have the balls to shoot me down!

Balls! Balls! Balls! Balls!

You don’t have the balls to watch me drown!

Balls! Balls! Balls! Balls!

VERSE 1

You talk forever like it’s a real exercise

Working your jaw muscles by telling lies

That shit’s got to be made out of iron

You think you’ve got balls the size of tires?

You’re shaking and shivering like it’s winter

Your only true pain is like a wooden splinter

You’re no different from the rest of the chickens

Running away when it’s time for ass-kickings

EXTENDED CHORUS

You don’t have the balls to shoot me down!

Balls! Balls! Balls! Balls!

You don’t have the balls to watch me drown!

Balls! Balls! Balls! Balls!

You don’t have the balls to run this town!

Balls! Balls! Balls! Balls!

Cacophony is your greatest sound!

Ugh!

VERSE 2

You’ve got your AK-47 locked and loaded

Your hair trigger temper has all but exploded

You’ve got a belt of grenades around your waist

You rush into battle with a zealot’s kind of haste

You throw your life away over temporary anger

Throw yourself in front of unnecessary danger

You’ve got some shrinkage and it’s not laundry

You can’t axe your way out of your own quandary

EXTENDED CHORUS 2

You don’t have the balls to shoot me down!

Balls! Balls! Balls! Balls!

You don’t have the balls to watch me drown!

Balls! Balls! Balls! Balls!

You don’t have the balls to ground and pound!

Balls! Balls! Balls! Balls!

Check for your nuts in the lost and found!

Rah!

BRIDGE

You don’t wear the pants, but you wear the G-string

Cutting your ass off until you’re no longer breathing

You don’t wear the colors, because they run

Shutting you up will be a lot of fucking fun!

Balls! Balls! Balls! BALLS!

Author Cooperation

***AUTHOR COOPERATION***

The key to having a successful community of any kind is cooperation among its members. Competition is what tears us apart, but teamwork and friendship is what brings us together. That’s part of the reason why I chose to be an independently published author: the sense of community. We critique each other, we honestly review each other’s books, we promote each other, and we’re there for each other when it desperately counts. When you’re a part of this community, there is no stepping over each other because there’s room for everybody at the top of the mountain. It takes a village to write a novel, sometimes even a capitol city. Nobody becomes a legend on their own.

My own journey to where I am today was marred with resistance to criticism. In 2001, I went to an anime/sci-fi/fantasy convention called INCON and had a piece of writing critiqued by five different professional authors, all of which had decades of experience and wisdom. Because of their somewhat harsh demeanors, I walked away after the first two authors got their words in. Maybe I was intimidated by the fact that I had so much work ahead of me to make my writing immaculate. Maybe I believed “potential” was an empty word when the first two authors told me I had it. Maybe it was my massive teenage ego that shoved everybody out of my circle who didn’t worship at the Temple of Garrison.

Whatever the case was, this over-inflated ego carried over throughout high school and college. I wrote a violent and sexually explicit poem about a classmate who said my writing sucked and he was hardly the only target of these rants and raves. Online folk, geology teachers, real life strangers, they all felt my fiery poetic wrath in one way or another. The more I reflect on this, the more I think that the reason I don’t have many Deviant Art followers is because of my past behavior and tendency to lash out.

It wasn’t until 2012 that I realized I needed help. I gathered up some money and went over to Writer’s Digest’s website to use their Second Draft critique services. For a moderate sum of money, you can have a famous author critique your work, but it’s only for a one time deal and there’s no guarantee you’ll get published. Given my verbally violent past, I was terrified to go through with this.

But sure enough, the piece of writing I wanted critiqued was a memoir about my experiences with getting bullied in my freshman year of high school. My intention was to circulate this essay to various literary magazines with the hopes of getting picked up. My editor was an author named Carolyn Walker, a nonfiction author, champion for the mentally disabled, and cordial human being. Her biggest critique for my essay was that it sounded too angry and that I hadn’t been descriptive enough to earn my ending. I ended up scrapping my own essay because that’s a part of my life I want to leave buried forever and I regretted writing about it.

As scary as taking that next step was, I would happily use Second Draft again, this time with a short fantasy story called Beauty and the Barbarian. In this story, Sonya Jade’s boyfriend is turned into a hideous monster by a witch and she wants to sneak into her castle to get the antidote. My hired beta reader, named Kathy Giorgio (if I remember correctly), said that the story felt incomplete and that it should be an entire novel or longer short story. I took her advice and expanded it to ten pages of single spaced text. It made it onto a short story collection I published in 2013 called Dragon Machinegun. Unfortunately, due to my dissatisfaction with how those stories were written, I took Dragon Machinegun off the market and it’s no longer available.

The third and final time I went to Second Draft was when I wrote a story called Dick Tater, which is about a homecoming prince with a bloodthirsty monster for a penis. This time, my beta reader was a military fiction author named Stephen Mertz, who said my story was marketable, weird, and kinky. He also said that it needed dialogue to show instead of tell (my story had absolutely none). As a token of my appreciation for his services, I bought a novel he wrote under the penname Jim Case called Cody’s Army and gave it a glowing review after reading it.

I didn’t completely come out of my shell until I joined the Good Reads group Weekly Short Story Contests and Company. With all of the friendly people who helped me through the rough drafts, whether it’s Edward Davies, Ryan Stone, Leslie Onus, Melissa Andres, and many others, my writing improved greatly and my fear of being critiqued was non-existent. When I got in touch with Marie Krepps in 2015, she became my permanent beta reader and I trust her with everything. She’s honest, she’s smart, and she’s funny as hell. She’s also a damn good writer who has earned every ounce of praise I’ve given her in my reviews for her books.

It was a good thing that I had calmed down over the years and learned not to take everything personally, because in June 2014, I may have just submitted the most offensive short story to the WSS during that time. It was a PG-13 bondage erotica called Tainted Love where Marilyn Elkins is kidnapped by a handsome stranger and duct taped to a hotel bed. She enjoys the kisses and sexual attention she’s getting to the point where she helps her kidnapper fight off her abusive husband. I wrote this story strictly for entertainment, but it ended up offending many people at the WSS and gave them the false idea that I was a sexist. As a token of apology, I took down the story from all of my social media sites and dropped out of the contest for that week. I spent the next week hurting like hell, but I took pride in the fact that I handled it like a champ instead of a raging lunatic.

That just happens to be my story. Everybody’s path to success is different, but nobody does it alone. Wisdom comes from experience and experience comes from the best the writing world has to offer. Don’t push these people away. They’re just as much a part of your inner circle as your friends and family. They want you to be successful. They want you to be happy. They want you to be the best damn writer you can possibly be. The more you listen to their critiques, the less it hurts. You may have to read their comments more than once to ease the sting, but if you take what you’ve learned to heart, you’ll do just fine in this world. In the words of Red Green, “I’m pulling for you; we’re all in this together.”

***WEEKLY SHORT STORY CONTESTS AND COMPANY***

As long as we’re on the topic of sensitive gender issues, this week I’m going to tackle a topic that’s hotly debated in pro-wrestling and MMA alike. I hope I can handle this topic with class, unlike Tainted Love from 2014. The prompt is “Dazed” and my story is called “Gender Blind”. It goes like this:

CHARACTERS:

1.      Sting Masters, Mixed-Martial Artist (Lightweight)

2.      Rachel Gustafson, Mixed-Martial Artist (Lightweight)

3.      Bill Dash, Referee (Heavyweight)

4.      Raymond Katz, CEO of Battle Born Promotions

PROMPT CONFORMITY: Being dazed is a normal part of an MMA contest since one of the ways to win is by KO.

SYNOPSIS: Battle Born Promotions is making history by sanctioning its first ever inter-gender mixed-martial arts fight in the lightweight division (155 lbs.). This upcoming main event match between Sting and Rachel has sparked a lot of debate and controversy among media outlets and MMA fans. Some people think it pairs men and women as equals while others are sickened by seeing a man beating up a woman. When the pay-per-view actually takes place, there are excited audience members in the building and protesters outside. Raymond Katz has a lot of explaining to do and a lot of security detail to hire.

***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

Okay, so he’s technically part of a modern day drama and not a dark fantasy story, but I’m going to draw Sting Masters anyways. I’ve drawn MMA badasses in the past whether it’s Edward Glass from Molly-Dolly or Christina McKenzie from Gates of Hell. Sting Masters is a lightweight fighter from England and I want my drawing of him to reflect those things (not stereotypically, of course). Wish me luck!

***YOU TUBE QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“Hi, I’m an attractive woman on the internet. You are somebody who comments on my videos or articles, though what you say isn’t always pleasant. But honestly, that’s not what we’re here to talk about. Though yes, you are awful. Even more alarming is those of you who think you’re being complimentary. While I’m flattered that you’re trying to express a fondness for what I do, you’re doing it wrong. If you like one of my videos, screaming, “TITS!” is wrong. Providing the phonetic representation of the sound of a man masturbating is incredibly wrong. Unless you’ve just typed in credit card information, telling a woman you’ve never met that you just masturbated to her comedy video, it’ll never be the right thing to do, honestly. I don’t know, maybe you’re confused because there are videos on the internet where the women explicitly tell you to masturbate. Yeah, I’m not making those. If you like what I do, say that. And if you like masturbating to things, go do that, just don’t tell me about it. Thank you for your time. I’ve been a woman of the internet. I didn’t ask to see your genitals, so don’t ask to see mine. And please stop telling me how you masturbate!”

-The women of Cracked.com-

Perfectionism vs. Word Vomit

***PERFECTIONISM VS. WORD VOMIT***

If you’re a budding author, you’ve probably heard this piece of advice before: “Write every day. It doesn’t matter if it’s carefully chiseled out or the worst thing written in the history of the world. Let the editors take care of your mistakes.” A lot of professional authors say this and for a lot of rookies this advice works. This is just my preference, but this particular piece of advice doesn’t work for me.

If I write something, I want it to be golden from the start. While it’s true that no first draft is perfect the first time around, I at least want to try to make it into the best thing I can. This is why I don’t write everyday: because there are some days where my brain is so foggy that I can’t produce that perfect piece of writing. To my way of thinking, if I can’t be good at what I do, then what’s the point? Do my editors really want to go through the nightmare of cleaning up my messes?

If you’ve ever seen my drawings before, you would ask why I don’t take the perfectionism route with them given their weird quality. Yes, it’s true that my drawings don’t always look like golden goose eggs. But that doesn’t mean I don’t try. That’s the important thing for me: while I’ll never be 100% perfect, I at least have to try my hardest. Editing will be much easier if I actually make an effort to produce a good piece of art.

But like I said earlier, this approach to art doesn’t work for everybody, but it works for me. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I used to have a huge ego back in my college days. It’s true: even the smallest criticisms would make me retreat into my safe place, and this was in my late teens and early twenties. When my creative nonfiction teacher asked the class, “How many people here don’t think their own writing sucks?” I was the only person who raised my hand. Of course, my big ego didn’t match up with my writing skills at the time, because I wasn’t a diehard reader yet. Instead of having high self-esteem, I was arrogant, both of which are two separate things.

As I got older, I realized that being overly arrogant was a terrible approach to writing, because I desperately needed to let my critics into my inner circle in order to get better. That’s when I reached out to Second Draft Critique Services (a subdivision of Writer’s Digest) for help. Of course, their services were quite expensive, so I could only submit short stories. I was nervous at first, but when I actually read their critiques, I was confident that I could make chicken salad out of chicken shit. That’s the difference between arrogance and self-esteem: arrogance means you’re the king of the world and self-esteem means you believe you can grow from anything.

But if it’s true that I don’t have a massively inflated ego anymore, why do I still feel the need to be a perfectionist? I guess the easy answer would be that old habits die hard. Then again, if I didn’t believe in myself at least a little, I wouldn’t be writing in today’s world. I’ve had my fair share of evil criticisms and it would have been easy to give into those people. But being stubborn and full of fire got me through those hard times. Only years later did I realize that positivity and kindness were the answers, not hatred and anger.

So it stands to reason that if I write word vomit as opposed to the perfect product, I would have sufficient self-esteem to believe that I can fix it and make it shine. I’ll grant you that, but consider this: if I write the perfect product, I won’t have nearly as much work to do when the time comes to edit. Editing can either mean a few grammar corrections or a complete overhaul of the story. To make the process less intimidating either way, I take the perfectionist approach to my writing.

I know full well that first drafts will always have mistakes. The current first draft versions of “Watch You Burn” and “Filter Feeder” read like acid trips. While being on drugs may or may not be a heavenly experience (I wouldn’t know), that’s not the feeling I want to give my readers. It may work for Pink Floyd’s music, but not me. I’m not Roger Waters or David Gilmour no matter how hard I try to be.

There’s another thing that I try to practice: not using other artists’ transgressions as excuses to do them myself. I watched Pulp Fiction as a teenager, so my very first movie script “Pumping Filter” had a bunch of swearing, violence, and racial slurs, all of which didn’t need to be there. Because it could never have been perfect, I abandoned the script altogether. Another example would be me listening to Immortal Technique’s music and thinking it’s okay to use homophobic slurs in my poetry. If you want to use creative fuel, make sure you analyze it first and run it through your mental filters. Because I couldn’t do that just yet, many of my hateful poems are no longer in my archives. Thank god.

So now the question of the day is, are you a perfectionist yourself or do you allow your writing to truly be a first draft? I’d love to hear other opinions on this subject whether you agree with me or not. We’ve got ears, say cheers!

***WEEKLY SHORT STORY CONTESTS AND COMPANY***

When my brain finally agrees to cooperate with me, I’ll write something for the “snow man” prompt called “The Theomancer”. It goes like this:

CHARACTERS:

1. Krimson, Red Ninja
2. Yeti, Mummy Giant
3. Seven, Prophet of Sevenism

PROMPT CONFORMITY: There are snowmen all over The Frigid Highlands, each of them with creepy decorations.

SYNOPSIS: The true identity of Krimson is unknown, but he is believed to be an emissary of the Raven Strike Society. They are a secret organization of atheists dedicated to disproving the beliefs of Sevenism, the religion of choice for oppressive authority figures in this dystopian fantasy world. Krimson ventures to the Frigid Highlands to assassinate Yeti, the gatekeeper to Seven’s paradise. The battle between these two warriors is fierce and intense, but Krimson is determined to get answers and revenge from Lord Seven himself. The red ninja is believed to be a deity in human form, which is why he’s having moderate success against Yeti in the first place.

FUN FACT: This story draws inspiration from the Mortal Kombat and WCW franchises from the 1990’s. Krimson is a red palette swap of MK ninjas Sub-Zero and Scorpion while Yeti is the direct theft of a WCW wrestler of the same name. Seven is also taken from a former WCW wrestler, this time one of the alter egos of Dustin Rhodes. All I needed was an excuse to use the title “Theomancer” and now I have a reasonable story idea.

***TWITTER WAR OF THE DAY***

TWITTER TROLL: You’re a professional wrestler. Lift some weights or do sit-ups. Good God!

BARON CORBIN: It’s your girl’s fault. She keeps bringing cookies over late at night.