Mitch McLeod Puts the Death in Death Match

Clockwork Orange House of Fun. New Orleans Street Fight. No Holds Barred. Death Match. Hardcore Rules. In professional wrestling, there are thousands of ways to describe a match having no rules, where the only ways to win are by pinfall or submission. No rules rules, right? Well, as Mitch McLeod found out in a message board wrestling RPG, you still have to work within the limits of the law. You can’t shower your opponent with an AK-47. You can’t strap a dynamite vest to a random audience member to extort your opponent into quitting. You shouldn’t be able to do what Stone Cold Steve Austin did and raise a car that Triple H is in with a forklift before dropping it upside down from twenty feet high. Don’t worry about Trips, though, because he was back on TV the next night with only “contusions” on his medical record. There are lots of ways you can win a Death Match, none of which include murder. You can’t take the world championship to prison with you.

As a side note, Mitch McLeod shouldn’t be confused with Kentucky politician Mitch McConnell. One of them will inflict so much pain on you that you’ll develop an addiction to Oxycontin. The other is a hardcore wrestler. McLeod was OTT Wrestling’s version of Tommy Dreamer: the hardcore heart and soul of the company. Mitch would scramble your brains with a steel chair and deduct a hundred IQ points from your test. He would scissors kick a glass water pitcher over your head and deduct another hundred IQ points from your test. He would put a set of steel stairs over your head and leapfrog over the top rope onto them…there go another hundred IQ points. By the time Mitch McLeod was done fucking with your brain, you’d be more than qualified to vote for that Kentucky politician I mentioned earlier.

Unfortunately, none of those credentials would be enough to earn him a victory in his first OTT match ever against the seven-foot tall behemoth known as Yeti. No, I’m not talking about the toilet paper mummy from WCW in the 90’s. This version of Yeti was a legitimate powerhouse. He towered over everybody and made them look and cry like children. His breath reeked of human flesh and sour blood. His horns gave you the impression that the devil himself was standing across the ring from you. And those muscles…so many fucking muscles, but not the kind that belong on the cover of a cheesy romance novel. If Yeti wanted to hurt you, the National Guard would merely delay the inevitable…by about five seconds. He was the perfect first opponent for Mitch McLeod.

With Yeti already waiting to feast on the walking corpse that awaited him, Mitch McLeod’s music hit and the crowd went ape shit, no pun intended. Then again, how do you not go ape shit when “Wollt Ihr Das Bett En Flammen Sehen?” by Rammstein is blasting out of the speakers? German heavy metal for an American ass-kicker. You would think that Mitch would have all the (literal) tools necessary to beat Yeti like a war drum. But prior to joining OTT, he didn’t know that every match in this organization was contested under hardcore rules. Therefore, he did what every good baby-faced hero did in wrestling and attempted to cheat. What a great guy! Such a role model for the youngsters in the crowd!

The rules of the RPG were simple: each player would post a series of moves to perform in the match and whoever had the best writing and most impressive showing would be declared the victor by the GM/referee. At this point, the only thing that dwarfed Mitch’s opponent was my ego. I didn’t want to lose. I didn’t want to “do the job” as they say in the wrestling industry. Sixteen-year-old me didn’t make sacrifices for the good of the story. I just wanted to see Mitch be undefeated in everything he did, because I believed in my own hype. I was my own “mark”, to use another wrestling term. So when Yeti and Mitch locked up, it was game on, motherfucker.

While I don’t remember the exact choreography of the match, I do know that it started off with some actual wrestling maneuvers. Yeti hit a few body slams, suplexes, and clotheslines, each of them rattling Mitch’s bones like a Haitian earthquake that would surely be referenced in a Max Caster freestyle rap if given the opportunity. Max had already made fun of Simone Biles’s mental health, the Duke LaCrosse rape case, COVID testing, and Julia Hart’s vagina, why not a Haitian earthquake? You know what Max didn’t do, though? Put Yeti in a torture rack before slamming his spine across the knee. Mitch did that. He also spiked Yeti on top of his head with a brainbuster. He also hit a power bomb. And a spinebuster. And any other move that a man with Mitch’s size disadvantage had no right to use. Remember, I wanted to win and make Mitch look good, even at the expense of a much bigger star like Yeti.

Mitch would do anything to win at this point. Anything, even “accidentally” knocking out the referee so that using weapons (which was already legal) could be a thing in this match. He pulled a fire extinguisher from under the ring, sprayed Yeti in the eyes with it, threw it at his face, and gave him one final brainbuster onto the extinguisher. A normal man would have died from these wounds long before he had the chance to vote for unsavory Kentucky politicians. Not Yeti. He kicked out just as the referee was about to slap the mat for a three count. What kind of military grade weapons would it take to keep Yeti down? A Sherman tank? A nuclear bomb? Space lasers? Mitch could have used them all and Yeti would still no-sell everything and defeat him with a move called “The Heart Slam”, where he literally grabbed Mitch by his heart and slammed him to the mat before pinning him, one, two, three.

That should have been the end of it all. Mitch McLeod should have picked up his own carcass off the mat and gone back to the locker room to shower. It would actually take a lot more effort to do that considering Yeti gave Mitch another Heart Slam after the match was over, that cheeky heel. But instead of swallowing my pride and selling the injuries, I had Mitch throw the fire extinguisher at Yeti again and then lure him backstage with insults. Yeti, being an angry yeti, took the bait and got clobbered with another fire extinguisher for his troubles. Mitch then tied Yeti’s ankles to the back of his car and drove into town while dragging his big ass across the cement. A normal man would have died after thirty feet, the skin on his back shredded like Floydian beef. If that wasn’t bad enough, Mitch drove Yeti to a suspension bridge, tied cement blocks around him, and threw him into the ocean. Isn’t Mitch such a great role model? Dexter Morgan would be so proud of him! Wait a minute…

In the same way that Mitch no-sold everything Yeti did, Yeti in turn no-sold the attempted murder. I say attempted because Yeti was napping during the whole time he was being dragged. He woke up from his nap, jumped out of the water, and destroyed Mitch’s car so badly that it exploded in a climate change-like fireball. Yeti then advised Mitch to keep all the action in the ring, which would only be bad advice if the match was contested under Falls Count Anywhere rules, which is yet another form of no-disqualification rules. My never-ending ego would have taken this murder spree to the ends of the earth if the GM didn’t intervene when he did. He deleted all of the post-match violence and I was half-relieved that he did. Yeti then gave me a congratulatory “Good match” without a hint of irony, which meant we as players were still on good terms.

The one thing I would like to unpack from this story above all else is that good storytelling comes with sacrifices. If Mitch McLeod won all the time against all challengers in brutal apocalyptic fashion, yes, he would be elevated, but the story would be boring and he would be labeled a Gary-Stu. Flawless characters aren’t fun to read about because they’re not relatable to the reader. Even Hulk Hogan and John Cena, as big as their egos are, wouldn’t be able to relate to Mitch McLeod if he was an indestructible Gary-Stu. The role of the characters is to create a cohesive story through teamwork, and teamwork requires sacrifices. If the heroes have to lose every once and a while to make the stakes believable, so be it. If the villains have to look strong until the very last match when they’re finally defeated, such is life.

Mitch McLeod should have had flaws during his time in OTT Wrestling, but those flaws shouldn’t have been evil attempts to make himself an unstoppable god. In other words, he shouldn’t make himself so unlikable that nobody in their right mind would ever cheer for him. Baby-face heroes shouldn’t have “go-away heat”, or the kind of audience anger that isn’t born from good character work, but from a genuine desire to see them disappear forever, even if that means death itself. No-selling an opponent’s offence in wrestling is a big taboo in the industry, because it completely kills the illusion and undermines the team effort in building a narrative. 

After Mitch took his second Heart Slam, he should have stayed down. Let Yeti have his heel heat, let Mitch train harder and grow as a wrestler instead of turning into a whiny serial killer. When Mitch starts to win matches again and develop his skills, then maybe he can have another crack at Yeti and get even closer to victory this time. Mitch would look impressive as a plucky underdog who has to constantly overcome the odds by the skin of his teeth. Beat him down until he has nothing left, so that when he finally earns his big comeback, he will have worked for something he can be proud of. 

That’s what you have to remember not just with wrestling, but with every story you tell: the protagonist has to work for everything he has. Sometimes he has to work so hard that his body and mind fail him when he needs the energy the most. Sometimes he has to work hard enough to bring him to death’s door. But unlike in a capitalist society where unsavory Kentucky politicians hold the brass rings hostage, Mitch McLeod actually has a chance of having his hard work pay off. A theater teacher I had once advised us to, “Throw rocks at our protagonists and make them run up a tree.” In other words, make life difficult enough so that when those difficulties are conquered in a believable way, the protagonist will have something to be proud of. And so will you, fellow writers. So will you.

"The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" by Max Allan Collins

BOOK TITLE: The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

AUTHOR: Max Allan Collins

YEAR: 2008

GENRE: Fiction

SUBGENRE: Urban Fantasy

GRADE: Pass

In the year 200 BC, China’s Dragon Emperor conquered his country with an iron fist and compassion for nobody. Karma would take the form of a sorceress’s curse, which covered him and his army in terra-cotta and banished them in suspended animation for eternity. Fast forward two millenniums and the Dragon Emperor is awakened from his curse by the greedy and zealous General Yang. The globetrotting O’Connell family must now put the mummy back into the ground by stabbing him in the heart with a mystical blade that was guarded for many generations. With an endless supply of firepower and unmatched martial arts skills, the O’Connells truly are the world’s last hope.

Even though this book earned its passing grade (four out of five stars), it’s not without its glaring flaws, particularly in the cheese department. The narrator constantly complimenting the female characters’ beauty, the gratuitous explosions, the sometimes off-color use of similes and metaphors, the instant chemistry between Alex O’Connell (the son) and Lin (Chinese tomb guardian), and the most obvious cheese of all, Alex and his father Rick using penis analogies to describe their submachine guns and pistols. Considering this was once a poorly received movie, I don’t doubt that these cheesy elements turned off plenty of viewers.

But that’s not to say that this book doesn’t deserve the praise it gets. All in all, it’s a fun little book filled with action, adventure, and opportunities for young authors to learn how to write in a fast-paced manner. It turns out that describing every punch and kick within a Jackie Chan-style fight isn’t one hundred percent necessary. In fact, that would take forever and impatient readers like me don’t have forever. We like hard-hitting action. We like hailstorms of bullets. We like tooth and nail struggles that bring the warriors to the edge of death and back again. Although the O’Connell family is blessed with martial arts skills and expensive firearms, they’re no doubt going to earn whatever victories they get. To put it in Rick’s terms, this struggle is going to make them HATE mummies!

The wild imagination of this story is something I also want to praise. Magical elements, bloodthirsty three-headed dragons, barbaric yetis, immortal Chinese warriors, a pool of eternal life, mystical artifacts, this urban fantasy has everything you need in order to get those inner wheels turning. While some of the magical occurrences come off as random at times, they don’t take away from the action or drama of the book and actually make sense in hindsight. Look at it this way: how else is a mere mortal named Rick O’Connell going to beat the crap out of a warrior mummy who won’t stay down? Anybody? Hello? Yes, the dragon dagger comes off as a McGuffin and McGuffins are considered literary sins, but if you’ve got a better way to kill off this seemingly immortal Dragon Emperor, I’d like to hear it.

Sometimes all a reader wants to do is have some fun and you’ll get that with this third installment of The Mummy series. You could also consider seeing the movie this book was adapted from, but diehard readers will want to choose the book instead. The writing style is cinematic in and of itself, so what are you waiting for? Pick up a copy of this four-star book today! Don’t be too turned off by the fact that this story has more cheese than a Domino’s pizza. After all, this kind of cheese would make even a vegan hungry.

Multiple Works-In-Progress

***MULTIPLE WORKS-IN-PROGRESS***

A few months ago, I saw a meme challenge on Face Book where my author friends post the first few lines from three of their works-in-progress. Judging from how many people were doing this challenge, it made me wonder if authors really do like to write three different novels at once (or more). By the time it became my turn to do the challenge, I confessed that I wasn’t working on a novel of any kind, so I just posted the first lines of three Poison Tongue Tales short stories. Seeing so many of my author friends writing novels and getting them done in a timely fashion motivated me to start working on Demon Axe, which I’m halfway done with.

I have Demon Axe planned out from beginning to end, so it’s all a matter of finding the energy to get shit done. American Darkness 2 and Poison Tongue Tales 2 are both anthologies with WSS contest entries as part of the collections, so those are pretty much on a weekly basis. Prophecy is a collection of poems, which will eventually amount to one-hundred since they’re only one page long at best, but I only write poetry when I truly feel like it, no sooner, no later. That leaves me with Demon Axe being the only true WIP I write independently. If I was to do this Face Book meme challenge again, I would only have one paragraph to post (or first seven lines, I forget which one).

I’ve thought about tacking on another novel to work on. I often run the scenarios of each novel idea through my head as if they’re actual WIP’s. I for instance have a college romance idea called “Is This Weird?” where I incorporate my strange sexual fetishes into the main relationship of the story. I also have a pro-introvert high school drama called “The Silent Warrior”, which will have to go through a complete overhaul in order to make the main character less angry and more reasonable. If I was to work on a secondary novel alongside Demon Axe, I would want it to be a contemporary drama instead of a sci-fi, fantasy, or horror. I would want it to be the American Darkness to Demon Axe’s Poison Tongue Tales. For some reason contemporary dramas are easier to write.

That leaves me with a novel idea I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. It’s inspired by the movie Clerks as well as my experiences with going to rock concerts and being around drunken idiots. It’s called “Chicken and Fries” and it goes like this:

CHARACTERS:

1. Maxine Bennett, Concessions Clerk
2. Belle Anthony, Slacker
3. Evan Olson, Maxine’s Bouncer Boyfriend
4. Sean Steiner, Straightedge Rocker
5. Nameless Concertgoers
6. Nameless Boss

SYNOPSIS: Maxine started working at the Brown River Arena in order to save up for college. Since being hired, she has been yelled at, sexually harassed, and assaulted by intoxicated customers. When Sean Steiner and his touring band are the main attraction, beer and cigarettes are not for sale, which upsets the already wild fans. Instead of taking another minute of abuse, Maxine begins fighting back against the customers. On what she says is her last day on the job, she burns customers with pizza, splashes soda against them, dips their heads in the deep fryer, and even shoves chicken tenders down a customer’s shorts and burns his crotch. Evan tries to calm Maxine down on several occasions, but she’s unresponsive to his pleas. Things go from bad to worse when Maxine notices Belle, who called in sick earlier that day, partying in the audience and enjoying the music instead of taking her shift like she was supposed to. At the end of this deliciously violent day, the only one with common sense is Sean Steiner, who is the last customer to order chicken and fries for dinner. Sean helps Maxine realize just how much trouble she’s in by telling her a story of a time he smashed up a hotel room in an act of rage.

FUN FACT: The novel is called “Chicken and Fries” because that’s the most common thing the patrons order, just like cigarettes were the most common thing Clerks customers bought.

Nothing is permanent yet. I still don’t even know if writing a second novel alongside Demon Axe is a good idea. Yes, other authors are capable of doing it, but I’m not other authors. I’m not the kind of writer who pours everything onto a page and because of that I only write when I’m mentally and physically one-hundred percent. If I’m taking such a long time writing Demon Axe, I’ll probably take just as long to write Chicken and Fries. This is something I really have to think about before I dive into it. Until I make my decision, I’d like to know everyone else’s take on the subject of working on multiple novels at once. Is it a welcome side project or is it too much work at once? We’ve got ears, say cheers!

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

The new week started this past Wednesday and the theme is appropriately going to be “Christmas Eve”. After today, I have three more days to write my story before the submission deadline. I probably won’t do it tomorrow since it’s going to be Christmas and I’d rather spend time with my family. That leaves me with Monday or Tuesday to get shit done. My story will be called “I Want Presents” and is based on a disturbing dream I once had. Here’s the synopsis:

CHARACTERS:

1.      Glenn Robertson, Mental Patient

2.      Kate Spencer, Head Doctor

PROMPT CONFORMITY: Christmas is getting closer as Glenn’s mental state worsens.

SYNOPSIS: After losing his parents in a plane crash, Glenn regresses into childlike behavior and eventually has to be institutionalized. It’s getting close Christmas and he refuses to say anything else but, “I want presents.” Kate and her staff of nurses and doctors have tried everything in their power to medicate Glenn into a normal state, but he seems to be getting worse every day. In a last ditch effort to make progress, Kate assumes the unlikely role of Glenn’s mother-figure and does something special for the holidays.

***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

This will be the second drawing in a row that features a character from my latest WSS entry “The Theomancer”. It will be of Yeti, a gigantic mummy who serves as the gatekeeper between Krimson and Seven. Yeti is really just a direct copy of the WCW wrestler of the same name, but he’s different enough to avoid a lawsuit. Besides, Yeti gets a better push in “The Theomancer” than he ever did in WCW. After all, it’s hard to push a gigantic mummy when he’s best known for spooning Hulk Hogan and humping him from behind. I’m not kidding, that actually happened. What Culture jokes about it all the time.

***POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“If you take all of the vowels out of Reince Priebus’s name, it says RNC PR BS.”

-Jim Cornette-

The Theomancer

Krimson hated the way the masked snowmen were looking at him. Each of them were lined up on either side of the Frigid Highlands with skeletal masks that glowed an eerie shade of purple. The red ninja balled up his cannonball fist and knocked one of the snowmen’s block off. Underneath the shattered head revealed the dead body of one of his brethren. Members of the proud Raven Strike Society were buried underneath the guise of snowmen. The thought made Krimson sick to his stomach.

This was no time for such a weak reaction. With his red ninja gear, steel boots and gloves, demonic mask, and straw triangle hat, Krimson was dressed for battle. He stomped his way up the snowy hill, glaring with electrified eyes at each of the snowmen. Such disrespectful desecration, Krimson thought to himself. His blue-skinned muscles and bright green aura brought out his deathly side, which he would need for this upcoming battle.

The top of the hill was book-ended by the tallest snowman of all with his bladed mouth, cross-decorated black pope’s hat, and purple cloak that blew in the frosty winds. Krimson folded his arms like he was the true giant and spoke callously to the creature before him. “You must be the one they call The Theomancer. Seven is obviously to cowardly to come greet me himself, so he sends this popsicle to do his bidding. Seven is just like any other god: too afraid to come out of hiding when he’s needed the most. I intend to beat the answers I want out of him and you’re in my way, Theomancer. Are you ready to get your skull cracked in?” That last line was accented with Krimson cracking his bumpy knuckles.

The snowman’s eyes glowed with each piece of dialogue. “You claim followers of Sevenism are delusional, yet here you are thinking you can simply beat answers out of our lord and prophet. Even if you were to somehow have contact with him, the foundation of our religion has already been laid. No money-hungry king or bloodthirsty queen will ever give up their faith just because you’re foolish enough to venture to these sacred lands looking for a fight. Each of these snowmen contains the spirits of those who were even stupider than you. What makes you so special, human?”

“You want to talk about deities? You’re looking at one. I am Krimson, the God of Vengeance. I associate with the Raven Strike Society not because of their heretical beliefs, but because a world under their leadership will thrive while a world under Sevenism will crumble into dust. You’re standing in the way of that goal and for that you will pay.” Krimson held his steel fists up in a boxing stance while electrical and fiery energy flowed through them.

“If you want to complete your kamikaze mission so badly, be my guest. But know this: you’re not fighting with any mere mortal. You’re not even fighting with the Theomancer. Yeti is what I’m called. With Seven as my witness, I shall rip your heart from your chest and feast on it like a barbaric meal!” Cracks began to form in Yeti’s snowy shell, each of them glowing with a brilliant yellow light. The shell continued to crack until an explosive storm of ice and snow showered upon Krimson, who kept his arms in his face to block the assaulting weather.

No more was the Theomancer. In his place was a seven-foot tall mummy with slimy green skin, glowing yellow eyes, and razor-sharp fangs with maggots crawling around them. Yeti flexed his muscles and cracked his own neck before getting in a defensive stance and waving for Krimson to come at him.

“Let’s do this!” roared the God of Vengeance, whose chilling glare never erased from his face. Krimson rushed into battle with a flying kick that sent an aftershock of pain throughout Yeti’s body, yet the mighty mummy never moved. The red ninja continued throwing rapid fire punches and kicks around Yeti’s legs while the hulking creature tried swatting around the smaller opponent’s head.

Krimson dodged every swipe by ducking and rolling on the frostbitten ground. He could not avoid having both of Yeti’s hands grab his throat and hoist him in the air. Yeti glared at the God of Vengeance with a piercing gaze and rancid shit breath. Krimson broke free from the chokehold by placing a hard knee into Yeti’s elbow. The mummy growled in pain as his arm bent in a direction it wasn’t supposed to go. He grabbed himself by the wrist and popped it back into place, much to the disgust of Krimson, who had a hard time catching his breath.

While the red ninja was on the ground clutching his chest and wheezing, Yeti threw a hard soccer kick only to have Krimson cartwheel out of the way. The God of Vengeance launched his thick head into Yeti’s knee before throwing an uppercut to the giant’s groin. Yeti hauled back and screamed to the sky in unbearable pain, but only for a short while. He ducked his head down to meet Krimson’s gaze.

The red ninja felt queasy after smelling his opponent’s breath so many times in this fight. He clutched his stomach and resisted the urge to puke his guts out all over the snow. This time Yeti threw a kick and knocked the ninja backwards, rolling him down the hill and causing him to lose his lunch along the way. He sprayed a few snowmen with his stomach acids and melted their faces.

It had been a long and tiring roll to the bottom of the hill. Krimson laid there weak and helpless while Yeti was tromping down the hill looking to end this fight. The ninja’s vision was blurry at best and dark at worst. He was sure he’d join these snowmen in this blatant disrespect for the dead. And that was when he saw the faces of those he threw up on. The stomach acid ate the snow off their faces and caused the masks to drop.

Men, women, children, animals, all of them represented by these mummified snowmen. The markings on some of the adults’ uniforms suggested they were priests and took a vow of pacifism. They came to this sacred ground just to negotiate and bring peace to an otherwise violent world. They did nothing wrong. They were just innocents caught up in the crossfire. They were somebody’s son or daughter. They were somebody’s wife or husband. The dog corpses sickened Krimson to where he’d want to throw up again. The dogs had less at stake than the priests and they were viciously murdered and desecrated anyways.

Krimson felt a clawed hand reach for the back of his uniform and hold him up high. There it was again: that sewage-like smell. It was the feeling of eating rotten fruit that had been urinated on. It was the feeling of performing oral sex on a diseased phallus with open sores. That breath. That horrible Yeti’s breath. The red ninja didn’t think he had anymore food left in his stomach after smelling something like that. Instead he blew out naked stomach acid all over Yeti’s face.

The mummy’s eyes burned to where he had to release his grip of Krimson’s uniform. The red ninja plummeted on the soft snow below while his adversary danced around in pain like his face was on fire. Feeling weak himself, the red ninja didn’t think he could make it back to his feet. But slowly and with every last ounce of strength left, he was standing tall and striking his deadly pose yet again, renewed by the anger of his lost brethren.

“Seven! I’m coming for you, you sick son of a bitch!” shouted Krimson before throwing several haymakers and roundhouse kicks at Yeti’s breaking body. Cracks formed in his skin like broken pottery. Blood oozed out of him like spoiled fruit juice. Punches and kicks to the head, chest, arms, and legs, all of them with brutal speed and ursine strength. The assault ended when Yeti crumbled to the ground and bled all over the snow, his body nothing more than a pile of wrappings.

“Where are you, Seven?! Show yourself! Answer for your sins, you disgusting pig!” Krimson shouted to the sky, huffing and puffing after such an exhausting battle, not to mention the heavy vomiting that saved his life as well as weakened him. He dropped to one knee and glared harshly at the pile of wrappings. A victory well-earned, he thought to himself.

Out of the mummy bandages emerged a mere mortal of a man dressed in a black trench coat and black hat, both of which contrasted with his pasty white skin. Krimson stared at him in shock and then looked again at the mummy wrappings to see that the cracks and “blood” were all just part of a metal costume. “What the hell is the meaning of this?!” Krimson demanded.

“You called out the name of Seven. Now you’ve found him,” said the pasty individual with a wicked grin. “There was never any paradise. There was never any hope at salvation. Sevenism is a business model and nothing more. Just like any religion, it was a business model for controlling the masses. And they fell for it hook, line, and sinker. You can call me a prophet if you want, but I’m really just a salesman with too much time on his hands.”

Krimson pointed a nervous finger at Seven and said, “You…you son of a bitch…what have you done?! I’ll kill you!”

“Go ahead! Take your best shot!” dared Seven. “But what will killing me prove? Like I’ve told you before, the foundations of Sevenism are already in place. If you kill me, there will be another prophet slash salesman to represent my created religion. And another. And another. And another. Somebody is always willing to go down for the cause. And our cause is business! Business is booming!”

“This isn’t happening! No!” shouted Krimson.

“Oh, it is happening, my friend. I’m sure you’ll want to tell all of your friends about it, even those at the Raven Strike Society. Those atheistic fools are already set in their ways. But what about the rest of us who need Sevenism to get through our days? Will they be so trusting? Sure, why wouldn’t they trust the God of Vengeance? I’ll tell you why. Because you’re no god. You’re just a prophet like me and everyone who represents my religion.”

“You bastard!” shouted Krimson as he charged toward Seven, only to get a knife to his stomach by the false prophet. The ninja’s stomach was already aching from vomiting so much, and now his innards were spilling all over the snow as Seven gutted him alive. The ninja dropped to his knees and fell on his face in a slow and gory death.

Seven looked down at him, shook his head, and laughed like the super villain he was. “Time to make another snowman!” he said before licking the blood off of his knife in a lustful manner.

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.