The New Normal?

  I thought that I would discuss something that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I feel like I missed something sometimes. It’s almost like my way of thinking got left behind a long time ago. Maybe I never grew up, or maybe most people are just too jaded to take joy in the things that are supposed to entertain us. You’re probably wondering what I’m talking about right now, and it’s really not that complicated. I love music, movies, video games, and football more than just about anything. I’m a big fan of #AFI, and I’ve noticed some bad reviews of their new album that cite the fact that their music is emotional. Now that would be a valid opinion, but here’s the thing. AFI’s music has been emotional since the nineties. Odds are that the reviewers knew that and were just spreading hate because they had a bad day. When their music is in the emo genre, it’s a safe bet to say that it’s going to be emotional. It’s not just music that I’m noticing this in either. I went to see the movie Gravity a while back, and I had to listen to some guy comment on everything that he thought was unrealistic about the movie through the whole thing. I stayed quiet, but I wanted to say this to him. “It’s fiction, man! If you don’t think that Sandra Bullock could survive in space, well that makes two of us, but you need to realize something. You’re watching a fictional movie and not a documentary for NASA.” A lot of video game communities have started to grow toxic, too. I love a game called Final Fantasy, and in recent years, people have started to complain more and more about the new games coming out. In fact, I’ve heard complaints about how unrealistic the stories are and even that the new games are too Japanese. The fact is that the game is made in Japan and the people who make it have their home market in mind when they make it. Complaining about that is just stupid, and then there is the realism factor. IT’S A GAME!!! It’s not supposed to be realistic. I could go on about other things, but I won’t. Instead, I’ll just get to the point. I still look forward to when a new movie or album comes out like I did when I was a kid. I don’t ever think of reasons that it’s bad. I always try to find the good in the things I love, and I’m not much of a critic. I guess that I just don’t understand where our growing need to complain in this country is coming from. You can look further than entertainment to see what I’m talking about. Think about the most watched news shows. They’re not shows that give you information. They’re shows that pit two opposing people against each other in a political debate. The two of them will go on and on about how everything in this country is either a Democrat or a Republican’s fault, and everyday people eat it up. Not me, though. I feel like the new normal and the new entertainment is to complain. I can’t buy into that mindset, however. I want to be able to look forward to new things, and I don’t want to turn on my television only to see two idiots arguing with each other. Most of all, I don’t want to get caught up in the trap that I see many people falling into. They get an image in their head of how things should be, and then they hate anything that isn’t that way. I’ve seen it with books, movies, and music. Honestly, I’m tired of it. I don’t want realism or complaints in my entertainment. I have enough real things to worry about in my real life.

   When I’m entertained, I want to truly experience something that takes me to somewhere that I could never visit in real life. That, within itself, is the beauty of fiction. That’s why I love the things I do, and that’s why I write. So I just have to ask. Is this the new normal? Are we just a society full of people who complain, or are there still a lot of people out there like me who want to enjoy their movie without some guy pointing out how he thinks it’s unrealistic? I hope there are a lot of people who love that some things aren’t realistic and that they’re not perfect because this is what Gravity would have been like if it was completely realistic. Sandra Bullock’s character would have died within five minutes, and then we would have all had to go home feeling cheated by a film with no imagination or real substance.      

   All right, now that I’ve got all that out there, I’m going to go back to editing my very unrealistic, but certainly imaginative fictional books. Thanks for reading.

Halloween!

   Halloween is coming up, and I’m very excited about it. Most people don’t know this about me, but Halloween is my favorite holiday. It’s not about the candy or even the element of horror that comes with the day. For me, Halloween is the perfect holiday for totally different reasons. On Christmas, you have to go to a bunch of different locations and buy an insane amount of gifts. Sure, you probably want to buy gifts for the people you care about, but do you really want to buy a gift for what’s-his-name’s new baby? I don’t. On Valentine’s Day, if you don’t have someone special, it absolutely sucks, and honestly, even if you have someone special, it seems like a useless holiday. You should be showing someone that you love them year round and not on one day a year. Then there are the many other holidays that I won’t get into. The point is that we’re all forced to do things we don’t want to do on every holiday, and we’re supposed to smile about it. Well, guess what? Halloween is the one holiday that none of that applies. Do you want to go out and party like it’s your last night on earth? There will be plenty of places to do that. Maybe you want to simply sit at home and consume more candy than you’ve eaten over the last month. That’s acceptable, too. Even vandalism is perfectly acceptable on this one night. It’s the one night that you can literally do anything short of killing someone and get away with it, or decide to do nothing at all. You see, Halloween has no expectations like Christmas or Valentine’s Day, and because of that, it can never be anything but a pleasant surprise.

   I haven’t exactly figured out what I want to do on Halloween yet, but I know one thing. It won’t involve buying gifts for people I don’t even know, and it definitely won’t involve pretending to love some girl I just met . . . well . . . unless she’s incredibly attractive. Then I can make an exception. It’s just going to be an awesome day and an even better night.

Guest Blogger, LaTorre Mays!

I have a new guest blogger today. His name is LaTorre Mays, and he is the author of Darkened Soul. I asked him to write about any subject he chose, and here is his post!

Man on a Ledge

            It was a tale as old as time.

            Or as old as 1998.

            I used to frequent (and at one point worked as a Host at) Perkins Family Restaurant. At the time, Jonesboro, Arkansas was a small college town. Perkins was twenty four hours, great for college students to study. It also had the most lively smoking section I have ever encounter before I went to college and since. There used to be a wait to sit in smoking, like waiting to get entry to a popular nightclub. As a writer, I found it fascinating and ripe for story ideas. While I did not smoke, I still sat in that section, observed, and wrote.

            And that night I was working on a novel.

            It was a novel about four seniors in high school and their misadventures. There was Robin the girl who did not know what she wanted to do with her life, but loved to write. There was Doug, her best friend with a secret. There was Eugene who was a playboy, learning to love for the first time. Finally, there was Nick who would do anything to be popular, even hurt his friends.

            There had been a house party. Robin had run into her crush, football player Matt. Eugene's playboy ways had caught up with him almost. Nick had found out Doug's secret in a shocking way.

            I was figuring out what my next move from there was when an image popped into my mind's eye. It was man on a ledge, looking down at the world below. I shook it out of my head and kept writing.

            But it kept coming back. This man was on a ledge. All he wanted was to end his life. But...why?

            Finally...I put my teen novel aside. My curiosity over what this man would be doing on a ledge had grown to the point it was all I could think about. It also became easier to focus on it due to a case of writer's block on my teen novel.

            I found out that his name was Daniel. The year was 3055. Oh, and while it was not spelled out to me, Daniel was a vampire.

            Whoa.

            He waited. He waited for the sun to come out of the clouds so he could kill himelf. The only thing standing in his way was another of his kind...Jared. Judging from the tense conversation they were having, something had occurred in California which was a futuristic city-state a la Blade Runner. What was it? What had happened that Daniel wanted to kill himself?

            And that was the first five pages.

            Thus, Darkened Soul was born. My novel of Nosferatus (my name for vampires), a world that was a mixture of futuristic structures with a dystopia tip, and prophecies full of danger was interesting to write. It was fantasy, horror, and sci-fi mixed into one. And there was action and romance in the form of a triangle of sorts on top of that.

            There was also time jumping. 1997. California circa 3053. London. Paris in 2048. I would think of the time jumping in Kill Bill, but without getting tooo lost.

            There were themes. There was love in all of its forms. Pure first love. Obsessive love. Passionate love. Dark love. Identity came into play due to what role the prophecy played upon Daniel and Jared's life. The meaning of what it was like to be isolated, whether it was literal or just the sense of feeling alone in a crowded room. Then...there was the essence of dark and how it played out throughout the novel, leading to the unexpected ending that so far readers had mentioned to me they did not see coming.

            And that was only the beginning.

            I put the pencil down. I had finished writing Darkened Soul. I had been spent. I had traveled through Smalltown USA in 1997, danced at a Goth club in 3053 London, gasped at the blood and mayhem in 2048 Paris, and finally came back to how it had all began. Daniel on a ledge, sun about to appear.

            I never thought I would return to the Darkenverse again.

            Two more book ideas, a novella in progress, and short stories (that can be found at www.facebook.com/darkenverse) later, I should have known better. The need to want to play and explore this fully realized dystopia proved to be too much to resist. Whether it was Daniel dealing with his new responsibilities, the witch Angela Hillworth wanting the best for her children, or the deliciously wickedness of my villain Ursula, I hoped there was plenty for readers to like and enjoy. And all of it began with a man on a ledge many years ago.

            Won't you come and explore?