Bonds of fellowship

Tonight a young man died.  His name was Forrest.  He was 19 years old.  He was an actor at the haunted park I help manage.  He took tickets and was an awesome zombie.  And he will be missed.

An impromptu candle-light vigil was held in his honor on the park grounds tonight after news got out.  I left, telling my dad that I was just "going out."  If I told him I was going out to mourn the death of a 19 year old who was hit by a truck on his way home from the job I do in which he (my dad) worries incessantly that I will have the same thing happen to me, I would have had an easier time passing Gandalf in Moria.

Imagine him without the beard and in his underwear.

I was one of the first there.  Because I weigh all of 40 pounds, I was given three winter coats to wear so I wouldn't die while we waited for the rest.  And steadily they came.  Some alone, some in droves, the actors, maintenance, and managers all showed up.  These people who are united once a year by the common cause of scaring small children arrived in less than an hour's notice to honor our lost actor.  Then the candles were passed out and eventually lit.

And then someone said, "Holy shit."

The northern lights are a common occurrence up north and a bit and through Canada.  But living in southeastern Michigan my entire life, I have never seen them.  Ever.  23 years of look up at stars and that was the first time.    It started as a red glow that I thought was a house on fire in the distance but then it grew and stretched eastward across the sky.  The lights danced in a way that I can't describe, drifting over the trees.

Once everyone was used to the spectacle, we moved to the fire pit, and in the open, saw the lights for the majesty they truly are.  Silver and green strands of luminescent ribbons slowly curled and shifted like dragons of the sky, or snakes on a black lake.  And the red, now more like a sharp haze, pulsing around them.

And so there we were - ghouls without makeup.  Vampires without fangs.  Scarecrows void of hay.  Monsters, all of us, mourning our fallen brother beneath a natural light show.  Extraordinary doesn't come close to describing that moment.  He was new.  Some of us had only met him last night.  But we were one around the fire in his memory.

These people are why I do what I do every autumn.  It's not the screams.  It's not the chase.  And it damn well isn't waking up feeling like I was hit by a train.  It's them.  It always has been and always will be.

Rest in peace, Forrest.

Those which bump

I need a muse.

Maybe not a muse.  Maybe a fat guy with a whip.  And a scar below his left eye.  And a computer from 1995 that won't install any program but a word processor.  And a broom closet void of external influences.

Or discipline.

NaNoWriMo is going to kick my ass and yet I am still slothfully underwriting as the days of October tick by.  Excuses, I have them, but what good are they?  What good would they do me to rattle them off like a display of ornate paper walls.  Maybe some are stronger than others, but in the end, they're useless, stupid devices built to make me feel better about a presupposed failure.  I don't want excuses.  I want drive - conviction to charge through and make writing a habit rather than a faint dream I consider on my drive home from work before dwindling the hours of my evening away with nonsense.  

I can do it.  I want to do it.  I need to do it.  Ability, desire, necessity.  What's missing?  Or is there something added on top that's spoiling the mix?   Doubt?  Angst?  Fear?  Laziness?   Perhaps it's just a matter of empowering the positive to diminish the negatives rather than attempt to remove them entirely - to quiet the imp of self-loathing in my head and press on.

I wish I could drink.

Nookage

So it's done.  I've done it.  The process has been completed.

I own an e-Reader.

I know I said I'd never get one.  I know I said it was the literal death of the written word.  I know I vowed that until the day I died I would read no book that wasn't neatly bundled in pages!  But I did it.  And I don't regret it.

My Nook.

The thing is I just don't read enough.  Who can with the instant gratification of video games, sitcoms, haunted houses, family functions, and God knows what else.  But I'm an English major, dammit!  I should be reading.  I'm too far behind my brethren as it is and it's time to get caught up.  So I will read, even it it's written in e-ink.  I will read and absorb and hope my sin will not be frowned upon by the literary gods to whom I give worship.

I'm doing it, I'm doing it!

Shabam!

I've tried this whole blog thing a few times now and maybe it'll stick this time.  Who knows?  Either way, this will be used to keep you (and myself) updated and the general goings-on of the things in my head.  I'd like to hope it will allow a few drops of brilliance to fall, but I make no guarantees and set no expectations.

I'm having a moment that my writing partner, Katie, recently experienced where I'm not sure if I like my main character being a female.  The basis of the story's concept was an incredibly vivid dream I had a few years back and the image of it led me to create a world and structure a story around it.  Now, nearly the entire concept has evolved into something other than originally intended by the influx of inspiration EXCEPT that she's still a she.  The result is that I'm torn.

I feel like a little kid who is trying to cling to something better off to be let go of.  I recognize I'm standing in the way of progress, but I had just envisioned the lead being a she and not a he.  A he would work, but it is not my intention, and thus leaves me sad at the inner battle I have.  I'm sure I'll inevitably change it to a he but this is a rough thing to experience, provided the incredible differences genders bring not only to the reader but also the story.  Maybe I'll let it sit while I work on our new project for NaNoWriMo!  More information on that later.  For now I will resign myself to my day job and hope I can keep this up!