It's a Free World

***IT’S A FREE WORLD***

Your writing career can be an amazing time in your life full of magic, adventure, and wonder, not unlike the worlds you create through your craft. But at the same time, it isn’t all rainbows and Skittles. More like Martian death rays and dick. Sooner or later, you as a writer will have to come to terms with the fact that criticism is inevitable, whether it’s constructive feedback from your beta readers or malicious trolling from a faceless bastard. Does it hurt no matter how well-intentioned it is? Always. It’s like saying the sun’s going to come up tomorrow. Everybody knows that. We all feel at least some sensitivity when it comes to what we produce. To be fair, your career won’t rise or fall based on one bad review or even a hundred. How you react to those reviews? That’s a little closer to a career killer if you’re too aggressive.

While I still get anxious feelings in my gut at the thought of being judged, I’m not anywhere close to being as bad at taking criticism as I was all throughout the 2000’s. I was a fucking monster when it came to responding to my critics. That’s part of the reason why I consider the 2000’s to be the hardest decade of my life: because I wouldn’t let anybody teach me how to better myself. I incorrectly assumed my critics were out to play with my brain like silly putty and mold me into something I’m not. Being a soul-dead conformist is bad. Being a better artist and a better person is something we should all strive for. So I guess I would be conforming to commonsense and decency, by that definition.

My first “traumatic episode” with criticism came in 2001, where I attended an anime/sci-fi/fantasy convention called INCON. One of the attractions at this event was having your manuscript critiqued by five different professional authors. What did I submit to this critique session? A Starcraft rip-off known as The Earth Campaign, which sounds more like an eco-terrorist group than a legitimate space opera. The first pro-author’s main complaint was that there weren’t enough visuals in my writing, a.k.a. not enough showing and too much telling. The second pro-author’s complaint was that my characters were making stupid decisions.

Basically, my manuscript TOLD the audience that a space rebel scissor kicked a glass pod and almost broke his ankle rather than opening it a reasonable way, thus he was “thinking with his gonads”. Mild sexism aside, I walked away after the first two authors said their peace and was a teary mess for the rest of the night. I sang Pink Floyd songs on the fire exit for good measure. I had it in my head that the only reason I had fight scenes at all in my book was because of my male organs and not because I genuinely like that stuff. Well-intentioned criticism, but I took it the wrong way and that set the tone for the rest of the 2000’s.

Fast forward to 2004 where I took a creative writing class at Olympic College. Admittedly, this was not a safe, nurturing environment for any author because the students had no limits on the harshness of their criticisms. If they wanted to insult me, they could. If they wanted to destroy my self-esteem, they could go nuts. That’s exactly what happened when I wrote a medieval fantasy story where a witch hunter tried to recruit an acrobatic thief into his guild, to no success whatsoever. The chapter ended with a guerrilla army hiding under a pile of leaves springing to life in an attempt to test the acrobat’s kung fu skills. Yes, those were real errors in my story. Everyone in the class had all criticisms for me and no praise, a stark contrast to other authors who got at least some praise.

The worst of my criticisms came from a guy who simply said my story “sucked”. No context. No reasons. Just that it “sucked”. To be fair to him, it did, anachronisms and telling instead of showing aside. While I regret not taking my criticism in an appropriate way, I wouldn’t have developed my newfound skills as a poet if this didn’t happen. I wrote an insult poem about the guy who said my story sucked, where I detailed all the ways in which I would fuck his female relatives while comparing him to a Lord of the Rings hobbit. The poem was rubbish, but it was good start. Sucking at something is the first step to being sort of good at something.

Whether I was getting bad grades in college or negative comments on Deviant Art, my descent into madness spiraled out of control for the rest of the 2000’s. I screamed at my Deviant Art critics and wrote more angry poetry about them, detailing how I would once again fuck their female relatives while comparing them to people with Down’s Syndrome and sewer mutants. I silently seethed when one of my creative writing teachers gave me a C in her class despite me following her orders not to write R-rated offensiveness. So much anger and rage built up inside of me that taking any sort of mild criticism would result in the tongue-lashing from hell.

And then the 2000’s climaxed with the worst of the worst, both in terms of my own crass behavior and also in terms of the criticism I’ve received on Deviant Art. Two days after Christmas in 2009, I opened my inbox to find that several Deviants were angry about a comedic essay I wrote called “Class of ‘13”, named after Green Day lyrics. In this essay, I fantasized about being an autocratic schoolteacher who would whip my students if they talked like “text-messaging queens” in their creative writing projects. I derided an entire generation for growing up with technology, basically condemning myself as a 24-year-old Boomer.

I eventually deleted my essay and apologized, but not before I screamed at my critics to “get in a circle and butt fuck each other”. I also wrote an angry poem about one of these critics where I told him to “drink gasoline”. As one critic so rightfully put it, “Change or die!” From that day on, I decided no online battle was worth fighting because fighting never solved anything. Nobody changed their mind because I told them to “suck a dick” or “eat my shit”. When given the choice to change or die, I chose to change. The battering my mind took wasn’t worth it, but it was just what I needed.

While the 2000’s were the hardest decade of my life, the 2010’s were the easiest. Sure, I had my fair share of shitty moments, but the way I responded to criticism was much better. I knew my writing career was stagnating. Nothing of mine was getting published and why would it? My work was mediocre at best and a dumpster fire at worst. Accepting criticism and sometimes shelling out money for it was the only way out of spinning my wheels. The more people I let in, the happier I was and the stronger my writing became. I’ve made many friends along the way and I wouldn’t trade any of them for the world. I’ve gotten a few shitty reviews on my self-published books, but I’ve also gotten some good ones.

While improvement is a necessary part of one’s writing career, it won’t change the fact that nobody is above criticism despite how far they’ve come. That’s something you’re going to have to be okay with if you want a successful career. It’s 2020 and I’ve learned my lessons. In the end, we don’t just live in a “free country”. We live in a free world. Whether you live in America, Canada, England, or even Saudi Arabia, you have the right to say whatever you want about my writing and I won’t hound you for it.

Bad reviews won’t derail somebody’s career; a lack of humility will. I sincerely believe Norman Boutin could have had a successful career despite Empress Theresa being boring as hell, if only he didn’t lash out at everyone who criticized his work. Hell, if he had accepted criticism gracefully, he probably wouldn’t have a boring book to begin with. Same thing goes for Ann Fishman, Onision (sexual crimes be damned), and whoever wrote My Immortal (the Harry Potter fan fiction, not the Evanescence song).

Does criticism hurt? Absolutely. It always will. But do you have to react poorly to it? Never. Hell, you can flat out ignore the trolling if you want. You can even block some of the trolls if they get to be too much. But the louder you scream, the louder the world screams back at you. Isn’t that right, Donald the Magic Dumbass? I’m Garrison Kelly! Until next time, try to enjoy the daylight!

***INTERNET DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

(Circa 2018)

ASHLEY: Oh my god, Garrison! I need to convince you to get a Pay Pal account!

GARRISON: In the words of that Steven Crowder meme, “Change my mind.”

ASHLEY: Dude, mailing checks is so 1995.

GARRISON: Congratulations, you’ve won.

ASHLEY: Yay!

***POST-SCRIPT***

See what happens when you accept other people’s advice? You get a PayPal account AND a healthy writing career!

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”-

Writing Everyday

***WRITING EVERYDAY***

Lord knows how many times I’ve beaten this topic to death. Every time I logon to Face Book, I see a primordial ocean of memes telling me to write every single day of the week with no excuses. As frustrating as it is sometimes to read those memes, they’re absolutely right. If I could write every single day, I’d be one smiling motherfucker. It’s not like I haven’t been put on that schedule before. You don’t graduate from WWU without writing everyday. Hell, even in 2011 when my schizophrenia was flaring out of control, writing was a daily grind that I embraced.

There’s not on particular thing that contributed to my ability to write everyday in the past. It was more like a multitude of happenings. I was younger, so I had more energy. I drank cans of Red Bull and Amp Lightning like there was no tomorrow. I also was a proud practitioner of the Atkins Diet, which resulted in my minimum weight being somewhere around 240 lbs. But just like with all good things in life, these temporary fixes were just that: temporary. Being young doesn’t last forever, as evidenced by my induction into the dirty thirties. The energy drinks were making my heart race, so I had to stop drinking them at the risk of having a heart attack. The Atkins Diet, just like with all fad diets, was never meant to be permanent, so now I’m back up to 300 lbs.

Now that I’m older, heavier, and caffeine-free, it seems as though I spend most of my time walking around like a zombie and napping with Smokey. Napping with Smokey is a wonderful activity, but it doesn’t result in creative bursts. Because of this newfound tiredness, my head isn’t as clear as it once was and when your head’s fogged up, you can’t concentrate. When you can’t concentrate, your writing turns to shit. Sure, first drafts are never meant to be perfect, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have an obligation to at least try to make them that way.

One of the things I’m currently doing to remedy this problem of mental exhaustion is using a CPAP every night. It’s an oxygen machine designed to counteract sleep apnea, a disease where you stop breathing in your sleep and wake up tired the next day. Sleep apnea can be caused by a number of things, weight gain, a large neck, and antipsychotic medications among them. Even though I use my CPAP every night, it’s not a surefire guarantee that I’ll be alert and ready to go for that particular day. Some days I can knock it out of the park, other days I just want to lay in bed and do jack shit. That’s part of the reason why I get a lot of creative work done in the nighttime: because I spend most of the morning and afternoon trying to wake the fuck up.

I admit that a lot of my mental exhaustion is my fault. The Atkins Diet failed because I love carbs too much. I especially like foods from Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, KFC, and Quizno’s. The most I do for exercise is walking two miles every day in the frigid weather, but it’s only a matter of time before the rain, snow, and wind come rolling through and going outside is no longer an option. I have a gym membership, but no car, so I can’t go whenever I want. If I had the chance to exercise everyday at an intense rate without gassing out in the first few seconds, my food addiction might not even be an issue. And yes, that’s what it is, folks: an addiction to food. Sugar, salt, and fats are all more addictive than cocaine. They’re designed to be that way, because the food industry needs repeat customers. Mission accomplished. It’s not a copout; it’s the truth.

If I could write every single day without worrying about mental energy, you’re damn right I would. I’m self-motivated, I’m hardworking, and every supervisor I’ve ever had admired my work ethic. Throughout my college days, both at Olympic and Western Washington, I’ve only had five C’s and two D’s. The two D’s were in the same subject: physics. The one C at Olympic College was for a sociology class taught by a former Harvard professor. The other four C’s happened at WWU, where everything is by design harder than anything taught at a community college like Olympic. More often than not, I’ve had either an A or a B in whatever class I took at the two colleges. That’s a lot of fucking classes and only a handful of times have I been unsatisfied with my grades.

I listed those credentials not to toot my own horn, but to prove that I’m capable of finishing any project I set my mind to. It’s all a matter of having an endless supply of mental energy that day. If not today, then tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the day after that. Or the day after that. Or the day after that. The easy solution for me would be to eat better, exercise harder, and keep a positive mindset. But the truth is, if it was that easy, I’d be a middleweight by now with novels out the yin-yang. Being healthy is a skill. That’s why we have entire competitions and games dedicated to being a skillful athlete: hockey, wrestling, basketball, football, or whatever. It’s not a skill that can be perfected right away. It’s one that has to be crafted and learned over time, just like writing.

For those of you out there who post memes suggesting that I should write everyday, know that I’m listening with both ears wide open. Not only do I listen, but I also agree. I’ve done it before and I can do it again. The ability to work hard doesn’t just go away because you’re done with school. And whatever you do, don’t let anybody tell you that you’re lazy just because you were born in a certain time period where technology was readily available. That’s just a dickish statement made by bitter people who gave up on their dreams a long time ago. I may be mentally fogged up, but I’m not down for the count! Not even close! In fact, just when I was certain I wouldn’t get any creative work done today, I wrote this blog! Take that, motherfuckers! We’ve got ears, say cheers!

***AMERICAN DARKNESS 3***

Looking back at the short story synopses I wrote back in 2013 and 2014, it’s noticeable how little detail I put into them judging from how short they are. Such is the case with “Dark Skills” (holy shit, that’s a lot of darkness!). The WSS has a new contest going with “Signature” as their main theme. So, here’s how everything fits together:

CHARACTERS:

1.      Matt Singleton, Serial Killer

2.      Carl Howard, Serial Killer

3.      Michelle Woods, Victim

PROMPT CONFORMITY: Carl is in the process of tattooing Michelle’s lower back with his indecipherable signature when Matt breaks into the apartment.

SYNOPSIS: Matt and Carl are rival serial killers who want the same victim. Michelle is all alone in her apartment and ripe for the picking. The two killers use different entrances to gain access to the apartment and argue with each other over who gets the kill.

***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

Another thing I’ve noticed is that there are two synopses in my archives that revolve around the Spanish word “Comegente”, which translates into English as “cannibal” or “human eater”. One of those synopses is titled Los Comegentes and features a seven foot tall Mexican gangster named Patrick Ortiz whose weapon of choice is a chainsaw. Great stuff, huh? Guess what? Patrick is going to be the next Dark Fantasy Warrior.

***MOVIE DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

DANTE: I can’t believe you. I finally get my shit together. I’m hours away from getting out of here and really starting my life and you somehow manage to obliterate all of that and reduce me to a convict!

RANDAL: Oh yeah, it’s my fault your life’s fucked up. I’m the engaged guy who knocked up my boss.

JAY: You knocked up the guy who owns Mooby’s? Ew!

-Clerks 2-

Dark Identity

***DARK IDENTITY***

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times (actually, that number is pretty accurate, to say the least): creative fuel can come from anywhere, and I do mean anywhere. There’s a fucking movie about emojis, for shit’s sake (which is also accurate considering there’s a poop emoji as one of the main characters). Back in the year 2004, a different kind of creative fuel flooded my mind: an X-Box game called Unreal Championship. It’s a first person shooter featuring sci-fi creatures, clowns, robots, giants, the works. The female aliens and clowns had raspy voices that reminded me somehow of Starscream from the Transformers cartoons in the 80’s. Thus, the seeds are sown for a one chapter novel idea slash pencil and paper RPG called Dark Identity.

Keep in mind, this was the year 2004, so I was five years away from being a serious reader and even further away from being a semi-pro. In a world of genetic engineering and stratified warriors, you had a badass motherfucker named Dujak Heil (nice last name; not racist at all). He went to a peaceful town armed to the tooth and got arrested for vagrancy in a scene laced with profanity and anti-Nazi references (from a guy whose last name was Heil).

This was the second and final story I submitted to my creative writing class at Olympic College (the same one where I went berserk after a kid named Patrick said my writing sucked). This second outing was much better than the Raggyd presentation. I had students tell me my story should be on Adult Swim. That’s a fucking compliment if I’ve ever heard one! And then I had a bearded troll named Alex tell me he wants Dujak to die a nasty horrible death. The feeling was mutual at the time.

Could Dark Identity have been something more than a one chapter cluster fuck? With some research on genetic engineering and serious commitment to the story, yes, it could have. Do I want to recreate this concept in the year 2017? Probably not. This whole story was centered around Unreal Championship fandom and hearing female clowns yell, “Enemy flag carrier is here!”

I officially beat Unreal Championship in February 2005 (just days after I was suspended from college for writing a nasty poem about my geology teacher). I’ve played it a handful of times with friends since then and that’s about it. So I guess it’s safe to say I’ve outgrown that game. I’d definitely consider playing it again to refresh my memory, but I must confess, the thumb stick sensitivity in that game makes it next to impossible to aim properly with anything but an automatic rifle.

Aside from outgrowing a popular X-Box game, maybe there was some truth to what Alex said about Dujak being a hate-worthy character. He betrayed his tribe, he brought weapons into a peaceful town, and he made wisecracks at the guards for trying to arrest him. Unless there’s some mustard behind those remarks, those aren’t likeable qualities in a main character. The best kinds of protagonists are the ones we can sympathize with. That’s why we have a lot of heroes as protagonists rather than villains: because most of us can relate to being good people with hearts of gold. Mitch McLeod needed a massive overhaul in his character in order to make Occupy Wrestling as polished as it is today.

Dark Identity is just another potentially good idea that got lost in the shuffle of other projects. It hasn’t aged well since 2004/2005, so it won’t be made into a novel or short story. The lesson of the day: not everything you touch will turn to gold. Knowing the difference between diamonds and coal is something all writers need to do. I once heard an internet personality call it a “crap detector”. We all think our crap detectors are strong until we’re proven otherwise, but even then some authors will fight that uphill battle until the end. Listening to your peers (the helpful ones) is paramount to success as an author. We’ve got ears, say cheers!

***CREATIVE OUTPUT AND BOREDOM***

These days, I can’t really decide between having a lot of projects to do and having a small amount. I’m either bored out of my mind or overwhelmed to the point of chaos. I need to find a middle ground, but I’m no closer to finding it now than I was the past few weeks, where I had so little to do that I got bored easily. One of my solutions to this boredom is to write short stories for American Darkness 2 and Poison Tongue Tales 2 outside of the WSS. I did that for the first Poison Tongue Tales book back in 2015 during NaNoWriMo and it was a massive success. Perhaps I could do it again this time around, provided I have the energy for it. It turns out, though, that the next AD2 story I plan on writing fits in with the WSS prompt for the week, which is “Searing”.

***AMERICAN DARKNESS 2: WE ARE THE MACHINE***

Yes, you’ll notice that both American Darkness 2 and Poison Tongue Tales 2 have different subtitles than what I originally gave them. In the case of AD2, Black State could have so many different meanings that it could be misinterpreted. Now it’s called We Are the Machine. It sounds cool and nobody’s reading too much into its intended meaning. For this collection, the next story will be called “Street Warriors” (another title I’m considering changing) and it goes like this:

CHARACTERS:

1. Samir the Skull Crusher, Indian Street Brawler
2. Crackers the Clown, Evil Clown
3. Kristen Miranda, Runaway Teen

PROMPT CONFORMITY: Kristen starts the story by searching for shelter.

SYNOPSIS: Kristen runs away from home and finds herself in the darkest, dankest part of Paulson City. When she tries to warm up next to a garbage can fire, she’s confronted by Crackers the Clown, who claims that she doesn’t belong in these streets and needs to get the hell out. The only way Crackers will let Kristen stay is if she agrees to have sex with him, to which Samir the Skull Crusher intervenes, claiming to be the one who gets to have her. The two scary characters brawl while Kristen is cowering in the corner wishing she was home right now.

***POISON TONGUE TALES 2: THE RIGHT TO REMAIN PSYCHOTIC***

Here’s the story I plan on working on independently. It’s called “Mine All Mine” and it goes like this:

CHARACTERS:

1. Chris Buyatt, Capoeira Fighter
2. Michael Tyoni, Pyromancer
3. Nina Thomas, Politician

PROMPT CONFORMITY: To be announced.

SYNOPSIS: Chris and Michael’s race against each other leads them to the Black Dust Salt Mine, where videotaped evidence against Nina’s corruption is being secretly kept. Chris wants to bring the evidence to light while Michael wants to use his pyromancy to burn it and save Nina from embarrassment. The warrior and the wizard battle it out with Mayor Thomas watching in the background with a shotgun in hand.

***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

With new characters come new drawings. The first on the barbecue rack is Chris Buyatt from Mine All Mine. He was previously used in my Final Fantasy videogame idea from 2002-2005 as Gail Reinhold’s ex-boyfriend, but has since been scrapped until now. Gail is now a part of the Poison Tongue Tales story “Zombie” and Chris will make his official debut in “Mine All Mine”.

***MOVIE DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

CRAZY K: Sensory what?!

DR. CUSHING: Sensory deprivation chamber. You will see nothing, you will hear nothing. Your mind will have nothing to feed upon but itself. It’s a tiny meal indeed. Hahahahaha!

-Tales From the Hood: Hardcore Convert-

Raggyd

***RAGGYD***

What do you get when you combine minimal reading experience, a massive ego, and four fantasy characters who have no earthly business being together? The answer is Raggyd, a medieval fantasy novel idea I had in 2004 when I took a creative writing class at Olympic College. As horrible as it ended up being, it was also the launching pad for my poetry skills. Ergo, if it wasn’t for Raggyd in 2004, I wouldn’t have published Confessions of a Schizophrenic Savage in 2013 nor Necrograph in 2016. I’m halfway through another book of poetry called Prophecy, so that’s in my near future.

With an underdeveloped plot, Raggyd was little more than an excuse to use four characters I really had an affinity for. There was the pit fighting barbarian Graf Lunge, the gothic samurai Eron Putris, the acrobatic thief Baby, and the witch hunter zealot Futez Mysida. Somehow these four characters were going to come together to fight a super powerful enemy named…are you ready for this…Vine Wielders. That’s his name, folks. Vine fucking Wielders. Sounds threatening, doesn’t it?

The first chapter I wrote for Raggyd was an interaction between Baby and Futez. Futez wanted Baby to join his religious organization and Baby declined by making a smart-ass remark about how the only thing Futez plans on stealing is the altar boy’s virginity. Naturally, the witch hunter was less than pleased and sicked an entire squadron of ball and chain-wielding soldiers upon his would-be charge.

As much as the class enjoyed Baby’s dig about fucking altar boys, Raggyd was a critical flop among the students. They had all criticisms for me and no compliments. Other students had compliments for their stories, but I didn’t and that put a huge dent in my massive ego. What really set me off was when a fellow student named Patrick flat out said the story sucked. You know you have a hair trigger temper when the words “it sucked” causes you to blow a major gasket. Of course, I didn’t actually explode in the classroom, but I was boiling over on the inside. I needed some kind of revenge on Patrick in the worst way. Beating the piss out of him would land me in jail, so I needed something a little more…legal.

Around this time in my life, I was watching a lot of WWE (surprise, surprise). Since this was the autumn of 2004, John Cena was still over with the crowd during his white rapper gimmick. I’ll always tell people that hip-hop was the catalyst for my poetry career, but what a lot of people don’t know is that John Cena’s battle raps were the biggest source of inspiration for me. From those TV-14 insults, my revenge poem against Patrick was formulated. I would go on a lengthy diatribe about how I would impregnate Patrick’s mother, sodomize him, and give him up to the orcish horde (because he looked like Frodo Baggins). I would have read this out loud during creative writing class, but Patrick made a face turn and started being nicer to the class, so I pulled back at the last minute.

As far as Raggyd goes, just for the sake of spiting my critics, I wrote a 130-page movie script detailing the exploits of Graf Lunge and Baby. Had I continued this series, there would have been a script dedicated to Eron and Futez and there would have been another one after that dedicated to the final battle with Vine Wielders. For the time being, Graf Lunge’s story was about him getting kidnapped at an early age and forced to train as a pit fighter under drill instructor-style conditions. Baby’s story was about him being sick of his religious upbringing and joining the thieves’ guild, where his training was much nicer by comparison.

Raggyd had a lot of potential to be something big, but I eventually lost interest in continuing it due to the silence of my critics and a growing interest in other movie scripts. That means Graf Lunge, Baby, Futez Mysida, and Eron Putris are all orphaned characters. They’ll be used in other stories, no doubt, but what stories and when? I particularly grew fond of Graf Lunge because of his name (believe it or not) and his barbarian gimmick (naturally). And now that I think about it, Baby and Eron have different incarnations in other published stories. Over a decade later, Baby would become a child’s doll come to life in “Nail Bomb” and Eron would take the role of Floyd the sparring android from “The New Trainer”. Both of those stories will be published in Poison Tongue Tales. That leaves Graf and Futez without a home.

When I look back on the origins of Raggyd and the hurtful environment from which it came, a part of me wishes Olympic College wouldn’t have allowed that format to go on for any creative writing class. Apparently, this is a common occurrence for a lot of schools, not just OC. You read your story or poem out loud to the class and stay silent while the other students judge your piece. The other students can be as harsh or as nasty as they want with no consequence. It’s always been my understanding that school was supposed to be a place where students could grow and mature, not be taken down. But hey, I’ve watched Pink Floyd the Wall millions of times before, so I should have known better.

If I didn’t attend that class, I wouldn’t have written that battle rap about Patrick and therefore, I would have no poetry career. While I admit that my angry poetry got me in trouble more than once, I have no regrets about any of it, because I’d like to think I’ve improved since then. Maybe that’s why “Confessions of a Schizophrenic Savage” holds a four-star rating on Good Reads and Necrograph holds a five-star rating on the same website.

The lesson of this blog entry is to live your life with no regrets, because if you change just one part of your personal history, the rest of your life will be completely different. Without the negative experiences of your past, you wouldn’t appreciate the positive ones you have now. Raggyd will see the light of day again sometime in the near future. When that is, I have no idea. Until then, adios, amigos! Thanks for reading!

***JOKE OF THE DAY***

Q: What do you call someone who masturbates to Maid Marian while watching through her window?

A: Rubbin’ Hood.

Rap Roots

While I didn’t say “Yo, yo, yo!” or the N-word a lot from 2005-2007, rap music was still very important to me in those times. It all began in early 2005, only a few months removed from George W. Bush’s electoral victory over John Kerry. Just when the republican junk was getting too much to bear, my brother James puts a CD in the stereo from a guy named Immortal Technique. My first Immortal Technique song was “Freedom of Speech” from the album Revolutionary, Vol. 2. When the words were flowing from his mouth like a raging river of lava and angst, I was immediately enthralled. I wanted to get the entire CD and hear more of this wise sage’s words. It didn’t stop there. I eventually started digging into the music of A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, and Busta Rhymes as well. Just like Technique, these bands didn’t disappoint. They were my go-to rappers whenever the world became a colder place than it used to be. What do these rappers have to do with writing? Well, it’s because of these people that I started to get into poetry more often than I used to. Actually, my first poem came in the autumn of 2004, months before listening to my first Immortal Technique song. In a way, though, this first poem could be interpreted as a battle rap of sorts. I was taking a creative writing class at Olympic College and there was a student who was a huge asshole critic to the other authors. So I wrote a poem about him that insulted him, his mother, and pretty much every other family member he held dear to him. This poem, then called “Ode to Patrick”, gave me the confidence I needed to continue with the battle rap genre. Listening to Immortal Technique and other rappers gave me even more confidence to continue with poetry. I had a good base in 2004, but listening to rap music kept the ball rolling in the right direction. Ever since then, the ball rolled over my victims like a massive snowball filled with sharp crystals. But this was in 2005-2007. After that period in my life, I was strictly a heavy metal fanatic with bands like Nightwish and Soulfly assaulting my senses. I’m still a heavy metal fanatic to this day with bands like All That Remains, Disturbed, and Five Finger Death Punch doing even more for my fucked up brain. As far as the battle raps are concerned, I’ve stopped doing them since 2010, but I still write poetry of other kinds to once again keep the ball rolling. So I guess what I’m trying to say is, thank you, Immortal Technique, for fighting the good fight and standing up for the little guy. Keep putting out those records of yours, because I’ll keep buying them!

　

***SKIT TRACK OF THE DAY***

“There’s more to life than how many women you have sex with. There’s more to life than how many girls you have on the side. There’s more to life than all that stupid shit. In the end, honestly, what matters most is the love between people and how much somebody cares about you.”

-Immortal Technique’s ex-girlfriend reciting “Truth’s Razors”-