25 Things That Got Me Through 2024

Well…with every year that passes in the 2020’s, I’m doing fewer and fewer activities, whether it’s creative passions or media engagement. That’s the nature of mental illness in a stressful decade that wouldn’t let up. I’ve described myself as having “negative spoons”, or less energy than a neurotypical person would ordinarily have. August was my favorite month of this fucked up year, because that’s when I’ve completely cut the cord on doom-scrolling and consuming rage-bait. Now that it’s September, I’m all out of mental energy again, because I spent all my spoons in one place. I know 2024 is far from over, but these 25 things have gotten me through it all. There might be more list items between now and January, but this is what I’ve got so far:

1. Adopting Mac & Molli (senior kitties)

2. Booker T’s WCW theme music

3. Brandon Sanderson: “Elantris” (not finished yet)

4. Creative writing (poetry, novelettes, and shower thoughts)

5. Cutting the cord on doom-scrolling

6. Dark Side of the Ring: Season Five (not finished yet)

7. Drowning Pool: “Tearing Away” (single)

8. Fatal Fury arcade soundtrack

9. Final Fight 2 soundtrack: “Bears Are Hiding in the Woods” (Japan theme)

10. Fire From the Gods: “American Sun”

11. Fire From the Gods: “Soul Revolution”

12. Latuda instead of Risperidone

13. Legacy.com’s You Tube channel

14. Lego dragon

15. Mac Lethal: “Tom MacDonald Is a Nazi” (single)

16. Marty Robbins: “Love Is Blue” (cover song)

17. Melatonin

18. Mother Mother: “It’s Alright” (single)

19. Nightcore and Daycore remixes

20. Silent Season: “Hopeless” (single)

21. Summer Farrelly (they/them)

22. The Neurodivergent Rebel a.k.a. Lyric Rivera (they/them)

23. The Punk Rock Autistic a.k.a. Dani Noreen (they/them)

24. The Speech Prof a.k.a. Professor Chesko

25. The Warning: “Breathe” (single)

A Lesson In Literary Marketing

***A LESSON IN LITERARY MARKETING***

Whenever I’ve written a short story or a novel, I wrote it with the idea of doing it for me and me alone. Every character, every plot device, every climax, they were all built around my own personal interests and core values. During these times of self-service, I forget that I’ve often described myself as an island with my interests. Let’s take a look at all of these keywords: liberal politics, professional wrestling, heavy metal music, mental illness, new age music, animal welfare, Dungeons & Dragons-style fantasy, adult Lego fandom, and so many more than I’m often forgetting and often clustering together. Some of these things go great together while others may ruin the witch’s cauldron that is my core values.

As a writer, appealing to yourself will always result in having a fun time. While such individual thinking is encouraged for all forms of art, if you want to get yourself out there, you also have to appeal to people who will actually take an interest in what you do. In other words, you have to know who your audience is.

The example I want to use for this parable is my self-published urban fantasy pro-wrestling novella Occupy Wrestling. Every person who has ever read it from cover to cover has had the same complaint: unfamiliarity with wrestling logic and terminology. The strange lingo, I can understand where they’re coming from. Not everybody knows what the hell a spine-buster is or why being called a jabroni is a particularly humiliating insult.

But even if I were to scrub the novella clean of all wrestling slang, the story would still operate on wrestling logic. Only in wrestling can you justify two guys nearly killing each other over a “stupid” gold encrusted belt. Only in wrestling do you fight one day and come up fresh as a daisy the next day almost injury free. Only in wrestling does doing everything once a week make any sense at all. I can scrub the vocabulary clean, but if I scrubbed the logic clean, it would cease to be a wrestling story. Hell, it wouldn’t be a story at all, for that matter.

Occupy Wrestling is currently sitting pretty at 2.75 stars on Good Reads and Amazon. Even the two people who gave it favorable reviews (Edward Davies and Andy Peloquin) were scratching their heads at the wrestling logic and lingo. My beta reader Marie Krepps was even scratching her head despite watching wrestling during the Attitude Era in the 1990’s.

There’s a lesson to be learned here: if you have a product of any kind, market it to the right people. Do you have a science-fiction story about cute cuddly kitties? Market it to people who make frequent visits to the Humane Society. Do you have an instructional manual about crocheting? That sounds like an activity for an older generation, so market it to them. What’s that? You have a basketball drama? Market it to people who like basketball.

Following this logic, what should I do with Occupy Wrestling? Should I continue to send free copies to English professors, chick-lit lovers, and nonviolent people? Or should I market this book to…(drum roll)…wrestling fans?! Let’s think about this for a minute. Do you know why “YES!” by Daniel Bryan is currently holding a 4.05-star rating on Good Reads? It’s because it’s been marketed to wrestling fans, like me.

I love it myself, but let’s face it, Mr. Bryan writes like a celebrity. His memoir style is nowhere near as polished as Alison Bechdel, James Frey, or Elizabeth Wurtzel. Then again, people love “YES!” because they love wrestling and they love Daniel Bryan. Could I possibly do the insane thing and slip copies of Occupy Wrestling to the Dave Meltzers, Vince McMahons, Stephanie McMahons, and Eric Bischoffs of the world? Imagine that: giving people what they like instead of what you think they should like. Who would’ve thunk it?

Remember, boys and girls: you may get knocked down and it may hurt for a long period of time. Everybody experiences failure at least one point in their lives. It’s our ability to get back up, dust ourselves off, and go back to the drawing board to alter our strategies that makes us immortal in the end. Nobody thought The Beatles would be as big as they’ve been over the past half-century. Michael Jordan locked himself in his room and cried his eyes out when his high school basketball tryouts went up in smoke. There are people who still think Daniel Bryan is a B+ player despite everything he’s been through. None of these famous people gave up and neither should you. They changed their approach to life and I’m changing mine as well. Now I just have to figure out how to reach the wrestling fans in a way that they can relate to my novella. We’ve got ears, say cheers!

　

***CURRENT AND FUTURE PUBLICATIONS***

As of today, I have three defunct publications and three active ones. The active ones are Confessions of a Schizophrenic Savage (poetry and song anthology), American Darkness (contemporary drama anthology), and Occupy Wrestling (urban fantasy novella). Though self-publishing these three active books hasn’t earned me a great deal of fame or fortune, I’m still grateful that they’re out there and in the public eye. I don’t write because I want to be greater than JK Rowling or Stephen King. I write because I love to create beautiful things. You can call it artistic passion, the creative urge, or just plain autistic tendencies. Either way, there will be other self-published books to come and no matter how tough things get, there will be no giving up. Here’s a look at those future publications:

　

American Darkness 2: Black State (contemporary drama anthology)

Blood Brawl (Dungeons & Dragons-style fantasy novel)

Filter Feeder (environmental fantasy novel)

Necrograph (dark poetry and heavy metal song anthology, almost a sequel to Confessions of a Schizophrenic Savage)

Poison Tongue Tales (science-fiction, fantasy, and horror anthology)

Watch You Burn (psychological fantasy novel)

　

***FACE BOOK POST OF THE DAY***

“Coincidence is killing an oversized house spider with a paperback copy of ‘Silence of the Lambs‘. Irony is using a Carl Hiaasen novel instead.”

-Me-

Mittens

NAME: Mittens
AGE: 4
OCCUPATION: Domestic Cat
CANON: Deviant Art Role-Plays


This question is strictly for people who currently have or used to have a Deviant Art account. When you have a lengthy conversation with a fellow member and that member has a sweet disposition, do you oftentimes find yourself in little role-plays? I’m not talking about a controlled environment like Dungeons & Dragons. I’m talking about free-form role-plays where it’s not uncommon to take the role of a kitty the artist has a picture of or a barbarian the artist drew himself. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about:


DEVIANT A: Aww! Cute kitty! I want to pet him!
DEVIANT B: Be my guest!
DEVIANT A: (Scratches the kitty under the chin.)
DEVIANT B: (While taking the role of said kitty) Purrs and rolls over.
DEVIANT A: Would you like some treats, little kitty?
DEVIANT B: Meow!


Role-playing is frowned upon by the elite members of Deviant Art, but I actually find it to my liking. I think it’s cute and cuddly. Of course, it can also be badass and violent like the role-plays I have with my friend Zero while using a Lego ogre I have named Sage Thunderbreath. Sage is supposed to be an intimidating hammer fighter, but he ends up being used for comic relief. Funny how that works out.

This post isn’t about Sage or any of the other characters I’ve used. This post is about a cute and snuggly kitty named Mittens, who was played by me, but named by the cutesy and bouncy girl I was role-playing with, Yasmin. I can’t remember exactly what the occasion was where I used Mittens, but my first guess was a welcome back gesture after Yasmin had been gone for so long from Deviant Art. She would scratch the kitty behind the ears and Mittens would roll over on his back for belly rubs. Yasmin would also give the kitty a ball of yarn to play with as well as a whole cherry pie to eat. Not only did Mittens purr, play, roll over, eat pie, and do all of those other cute things. He also talked. Do you know what Mittens’ first words were? “I wuv you, Yasmin!”

Admit it, animal lovers: you want to own a talking, playing kitty just like Mittens. You want to have long conversations with him while the two of you watch Baby Looney Tunes or Muppet Babies together. Maybe you’ll talk about how you want Baby Bugs Bunny or Baby Kermit the Frog to leap out of the TV and join you two in a big ol’ cuddle-puddle. On a cold winter night when the rain is pouring and the wind is blowing, you’ll all get together under a big warm blankey and snooze away with “The Dreams of Children” by Shadowfax playing on a stereo somewhere.

Cuteness overload? When I’m using Mittens, I’m just getting started, buddy. If it’s at all possible to die of too much cuteness, Mittens will be the one who puts you in a box and sends you to heaven. Or the Rainbow Bridge to see the other animals you’ve had in your long lifetime. When I eventually introduce him into a literary capacity, the story itself will be of TV-Y proportions. Cuteness overloads from top to bottom, even more so than in a short story I wrote called “Sitka the Nose Biter”. No violence of any kind except for cartoon-style slapstick. No swearing unless they’re watered down to children’s level words like “darn” and “heck”. Sexual content? Fucking forget it! Oops, I’ve already violated the TV-Y standards! Oh well! Some things never change! Hehe!

　

***WRESTLING DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

“Say no to negativity.”

-Jerry Lawler-

Lego Ogre with a Tooth Hammer

Toys continue to be a part of my life even now that I’m well into adulthood and technically “too old” for them. While I don’t actually get them out and play with them like I did as a kid, I do have aspirations of using them as characters in either my short stories or my novels. My Lego ogre with a tooth hammer isn’t any different. He may look like dots and studs to you, but to me, he’s a hulking, destructive, demonic, badass fucking giant with a spike hammer that can drive telephone poles into the ground like nails. You’re damn right he’s going to be a villain one day.

I found this devilish beauty while vacationing in Canada as part of my WWU graduation celebration. Canada is already a lovely country to live in, but add to that a toy store with an affinity for Legos and I’m in heaven. The Lego set itself was $50 and came from the Creator series. If you’re not familiar it, every set in that series can be one of three different things. In the case of the one I bought, it could have been either an Asian dragon, a European dragon, or the one I chose, a big fucking ogre with a mountain-crushing hammer. Guess which one I chose.

I don’t have an official first and last name for this character, but he was at one point a protagonist in the first act of an all-dialogue novel called Toy Story Extreme. At the time, his name was Jinn Malakian and he was a finalist in a fighting tournament that took place all over Port Orchard, Washington from my bedroom to Quizno’s to the convenience store. The whole point of Jinn’s character was that he was being forced to fight for his master’s sick pleasure (at the risk of being sold to Goodwill or Ross). The master eventually went to jail for vandalizing all of the “battlefields” and Jinn Malakian quietly disappeared from the story.

As an artist, I’m my own worst critic. Nobody will ever be more critical of me than I am of me. You can thank Dave Batista for that sound byte. It’s because of my self-toughness that Toy Story Extreme will never be allowed to see publication on my Smash Words, Amazon, or Lulu accounts. The all-dialogue format sounds good on paper, but when my bread and butter happens to be hyperbolic descriptions mostly used by WWE commentators, then the novel suffers horribly, so much so it’s irreparable.

Because of a foolish writing style on my part, the ogre formerly known as Jinn Malakian is unemployed yet again. He’s my favorite toy. I’d even dare say he’s the face of whatever story he’s a part of (despite that face being hideous to look at with the elongated teeth and dense jawbone). In a strange way, I see a little bit of Diablo 2’s barbarian class in my Lego ogre. They’re both vicious, raging warriors who prefer the thrill of toe-to-toe combat over cowardly striking from afar.

Then again, anybody who went up against this monster could be considered a coward. An intelligent and wise coward, but a coward nonetheless. Someday he’ll be part of a story. I’m even considering using him in my current dark fantasy novel Fireball Nightmare, the same novel that stars Deus Shadowheart and Dr. Scott Cain. That’s how much he means to me.

　

***WRESTLING QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“If I hadn’t left the WWE, nobody would know who John Cena was. He would have been buying boxes of Fruity Pebbles and eating them at home instead of getting paid to eat them.”

-Brock Lesnar-

Laser Rocket Bomb

Childhood is a time when imaginations run wild and people are free to be their silly selves. I certainly was no exception when I was growing up in the early 1990’s in California. My favorite way of exercising my imagination was playing with Legos. I had one Lego piece that was a rod attached to a five-studded single block. The side studs had switches on them and the top stud had a long red laser pole. These pieces obviously came from a space adventure set I had (in case you didn’t already guess from the laser pole). What kind of thing could I imagine this Lego piece to be? How about a weapon that can blow shit up like Hiroshima? How about I call this Lego piece…a Laser Rocket Bomb. I shit you not. My creativity was wild, but my vocabulary was minimal. Then again, in the early 90’s I was only a fucking kid, give me a break. Seeing as how I was a kid, I didn’t know how serious nuclear war was. There was even a time when I thought dead people could be brought back to life by CPR. Naturally, I wanted the Laser Rocket Bomb to be a real weapon I could use on people. I often imagined it being used to blow up my school so I didn’t have to go anymore. That’s pretty sadistic, but being young and naïve has that effect on a child. Imagine if I actually tried to build this weapon out of raw materials. I would need three light switches, a small rocket engine, a light saber (from Star Wars fame), and a grenade in the middle of the whole contraption. I ran this idea by my older brother James and he had enough wisdom to tell me that I would die while making it. Pulling a pin on a grenade will set it off whether the light saber handle is stuck in the hole or not. I’ll be the first to admit that the Laser Rocket Bomb isn’t a very practical military weapon. What exactly would the point of the light saber be? Doesn’t the grenade and rocket engine do enough damage? Do we really need that extra amount of overkill? And why are grenades and rocket engines paired together in the first place? Come to think of it, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this weapon was used during the Bush administration during the Iraq War. In fact, if George W. Bush attempted to build the Laser Rocket Bomb himself, we probably wouldn’t have an Iraq War. Let this be a lesson to everyone who wants to exercise their imagination. Get it out of your system when you’re a kid and don’t know how the world works yet. When you’re older and it all makes sense, it won’t be so fun anymore.

　

***COMEDIC QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“Politicians are like a box of chocolates: the democrats are soft and gooey on the inside and the republican party just has a bunch of nuts in it.”

-Bill Maher-

Time Cruisers and Time Twisters

I’ll be the first to admit that history wasn’t always my favorite subject in school. I always thought literature from the middle ages was supposed to be like a Dungeons & Dragons adventure. I also thought the 1800’s were supposed to be a wild west adventure complete with gun slinging and steam punk paraphernalia. I was sorely disappointed when I found out these things were false. I have the C’s on my report card to prove it. With the Time Cruisers and Time Twisters Lego sets and a big imagination, I didn’t have to conform to the history books. The middle ages didn’t have Bat Knights you say? The future doesn’t have Insectoid robots? Fuck that shit! If Dr. Cyber and Tim are a part of my playtime, I say make it so. No teacher screaming in my ear is going to tell me otherwise. This was all back in 1996 and 1997 when these particular Lego sets were popular. Dr. Cyber and Tim, better known as the Time Cruisers, had these creative-looking vehicles with dragon wings, fire engines, and hypnotic disks. Tony Twister and Professor Millennium, better known as the villainous Time Twisters, also had fun-looking vehicles, but this time the hypnotic disks were black and blue and each set came with bat wings, skeletons, chains, god knows what else. The Time Cruisers and Time Twisters would always butt heads in the magical Dark Forest, the mysterious reaches of the moon, the gun slinging bloodbath of the Wild West, or anywhere else my imagination could take me. But as I said, this was during the sixth grade, which was between 1996 and 1997. After those wonderful years of badass time travel, Lego decided to pull the plug on those two series. Ever since then, Dr. Cyber, Tim, Tony Twister, and Professor Millennium have been without work and were only remembered by a select few Generation Y members who actually wanted to bring their creativity to life. I say it’s time we resurrect their legacy from the bowels of forgotten Lego lore. But how are we going to do that other than buy their sets on eBay (the only place they can be found these days)? Could we write fan fiction about them? Maybe the Lego corporation has enough amnesia they wouldn’t notice if somebody breached their copyright clause. Are you willing to take that risk? Is there anybody out there who would gladly take this chance? Yes, fan fiction is an accepted art form on various websites, but what about the real world? Could we actually see a paperback novel about the Time Cruisers and Time Twisters on Barnes & Noble’s bookshelves? It seems to me that’s the best way to bring attention back to these underrated chronomancers. If not, then I guess we’ll just have to keep them alive in our hearts and memories. But you have to admit, hearts and memories can be lonely places at times, not at all unlike solitary confinement.

　

***COMEDIC QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“When I was a kid and I got sick, I would go to a doctor who would take me to the hospital to be treated by other doctors. Now I go to a family practitioner who’s part of a health maintenance organization which sends me to a wellness center to be treated by healthcare delivery professionals.”

-George Carlin-