Awaiting the Spotlight

The greatness of art and fiction is decided by very few. When influential people tout something, everyone is interested. When the influential few lose interest, so does everyone else.

I write books and illustrate the covers. My work is not yet noticed by the influential few. If it is, it must interest them… or my work shall languish in obscurity.

I think my fiction is among the best ever written. Whether it is or not, it is not yet popular. It is unknown to those who could tout it to greatness.

Who are these influential few? They can be authors, publishers, critics, actors, producers, politicians, singers, scholars, editorialists, internet influencers or whatever else. They are either famous and influence the public directly or important among those who are famous.

Is my fiction among the best ever written? I think so… but I am not among the influential few. Ultimately, it is for them to decide.

https://www.amazon.com/stores/Shawn-OToole/author/B07C28S75Z?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Apocalypse

The true horror of nuclear weapons is not their destructive power… but rather their lack of it. Though they can kill by the millions in an instant, millions more are left to die slowly. Victims shall languish in agony from burns or they shall starve to death.

People flippantly remark that we should nuke other people. Not everyone is serious when they say such a thing. Everyone who does mean it is evil, regardless of their self-righteous indignation. They are stupid, confident that they can terrorize the world into submission.

A limited nuclear war? Wars do not escalate anymore? Seriously? The mindless brutes are mindless indeed. Their sophistries of apocalypse without consequences demonstrate what Jesus meant when he said, “professing themselves wise, they became fools.”

There shall be a nuclear war. It shall not end the world in an instant. It shall wage for years, the most horrible years ever. There shall never be a worse year afterwards. Humanity shall have its hell on earth… and in vain.

Tightrope Writing

My art and fiction are too extreme for the mainstream… but too tame for the undercurrent of the mainstream. The sexuality and violence are the problem either way.

I write books and illustrate the covers. The stories are usually about comely girls uniformed in alluring costumes as the easy victims of heroic violence. The illustrations are usually these girls.

People dislike that female characters are killed, and by the heroes. Other people are disappointed that the violence does not include sexual assault.

I write and render what I fancy, to be clear. My art, as words and pictures is what I want it to be. I am always trying to share the fun I have daydreaming. The fiction and illustrations are refined versions of my whimsical fantasies.

The sexuality and violence of my art and fiction is how I imagine it for my own pleasure. It is as extreme or tame as I personally prefer.

I am sensitive to the sensibilities of the mainstream. I am mindful of the fancies of the undercurrent. Alas, to oblige the one is to exclude the other and vice versa. I am uninspired lest true to myself, regardless.

https://www.amazon.com/stores/Shawn-OToole/author/B07C28S75Z?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Books Grow on Trees

I have been drawing pictures since my childhood in the 1970s and writing stories since my adolescence in the 1980s. In the 2020s I write books and illustrate the covers, doing both things of my youth as the same project. Then again, I did likewise though differently in the 1980s, when I wrote, drew and colored pages of comic books I never finished.

My reason for creativity is what it was from the beginning. My interests have not changed, though they have matured.

I am supremely confident as an artist. My work is never perfect. On the contrary: It is sometimes inarguably ridiculous. My inspirations are likewise, however. I have yet to read a book or comic book, watch a show or movie or play a video game that cannot be complained about ad nauseam. I have yet to love something not hated by other people.

I do wonder if my work is good or not. Of course some of it is better than others. I create what I want to create and how I want it, but art must inspire other people to be good. I can daydream without writing or rendering what I imagine, so there is no point in writing books and illustrating the covers for me alone.

I have a strong sense that my work is not only good… but very good. My fiction is better than the classics and its covers shall be appreciated as the true vision of the author.

Like Abraham, I grow old waiting for my wish to come true. Likewise, it seems unlikely. My hope is unrealistic and I am deemed a fool for hoping. I believe in myself and my belief is scoffed as a delusion of grandeur.

Judge the tree by the fruit it bears. I am fruitful in my life as a mortal man. I write books and illustrate the covers. I create the title fonts. I have product to show for all my hard work. Getting it to market is difficult, especially since there is no market for what I offer quite yet. My work is different than what the world expects. The difference shall make all the difference, however.

I am a man of the spirit, not a man of the flesh. Though as mortal and only human as anyone else, I am immortal and supernatural at heart. My stories are parables, as they were when Jesus was a storyteller. The themes are worldly but the message is divine.

Style and Message

I write fiction. My style emphasizes dialog and generalizes descriptions. I illustrate the covers and create the title fonts.

My genre is weird fiction, usually as action-adventure. Much of my work is horror but most of this is survival horror.

My thematic specialty is the foot soldier of villainy archetype, female versions specifically. Their role in the stories is as unimportant characters, more often than not. The erotica is nuanced rather than overt, with few exceptions. The sexiness is generally that the nameless baddies are comely girls uniformed in alluring costumes. The heroes are typically female.

I strive to make my stories immersive. I do so mindful to match the pacing of the read with the experience of the characters. The dialog must be from the perspective of those speaking, even if at the expense of the reader knowing what is being talked about. The motives of the characters must be their own, regardless of the plot.

A good story has a moral and my fiction is never an exception. The meaning is always spiritual, and I do not mean as religious indoctrination. The social commentary is a matter of context, not the actual message. My fiction celebrates personal excellence at the expense of collective mediocrity.

SILENT HILL: Homecoming

Silent Hill is a survival horror franchise. It is video games, movies and comic books. Its style is ambient and its themes emotional, psychological and sexual. The first game, the beginning of the franchise, was inspired by Shadow over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft and Twin Peaks, among other things. The second game, the one that defined the franchise, was especially inspired by Twin Peaks.

I love Silent Hill. I loved Twin Peaks before playing, watching and reading Silent Hill. I write books and illustrate the covers. Much of my work is inspired by these two franchises.

My favorite Silent Hill is the games. The second game is inarguably the best… but my personal favorite is the first. My second favorite is typically hated by Silent Hill fans: Homecoming.

I love everything hated by those who hate Silent Hill: Homecoming. The protagonist is an excellent fighter rather than a normal person fighting desperately as a normal person. The Nurses are ubiquitous and highly sexualized.

People argue that Silent Hill is horror, so playing a warrior is inappropriate. They argue that the sexualized Nurses introduced in the second game were as they were symbolically, thus, without context in Homecoming.

The monsters must represent the psychology of the protagonist? What did the Numb Bodies or the Insane Cancers of Silent Hill 3 represent? What about the Split Heads, Mumblers and Air Screamers of the first game?

The protagonist must be a normal person? SPOILER ALERT: The protagonist of Homecoming was born and raised in a sect of the mysterious religion of Silent Hill. His family was charged with hunting and killing monsters that wandered into the real world from the Otherworld. His being a proficient warrior is given context appropriate to the lore!

Another complaint about Homecoming is that it is Western. Silent Hill is Japanese, though set in the United States of America. Japan already made four games. The franchise already has its Japanese flavor. What is so insufferably wrong about an American company making a game set in America?

The only thing I disliked about Silent Hill: Homecoming is that you cannot get the “good” ending unless you euthanize your mother. Other than that, the final act was much better than they were in previous games. There is a villain and the villainy makes grim sense. As strange as the universe is, it was wonderfully humanized.

My Fantastic Inspirations

The Wizard of Oz (1939) is the greatest movie ever made. No motion picture has had such a profound and lasting influence on culture, not even close.

I write fiction. My stories are books but the greatest movie ever made was based on a book. Though drastic changes were made, no book, no movie.

The Wizard of Oz was strange, adventurous and sometimes scary. Its plot was immersive and its characters endearing. The stakes were life and death. The protagonist was a heroine in the classical sense: She ventured into danger willingly and ultimately slew the villain.

Alice in Wonderland (1951) is inarguably a classic. It is a horror movie, despite its silliness. The protagonist is a little girl who falls into a fairyland of madness. The natives are maniacal and ramble nonsense. They eventually chase the girl, to chop off her head.

The movie was based on two books. I read them. Though the stories were as silly as that of the movie, they were not scary. There was never danger. Though the Queen of Hearts ordered beheadings, the condemned were always pardoned.

I grew up inspired by the adventure that was The Wizard of Oz (1939) and the scariness of Alice in Wonderland (1951). Their strangeness made it all the better. Though they were supposedly ridiculous, I took them seriously. I still do. My own work is better for it.

https://www.deviantart.com/yellowplasma/art/The-Wayward-School-for-Girls-full-cover-1043500403

More Fun than I can Imagine

My sexual fantasies seldom involve me. They are seldom wishful thinking. Most of them would not be recognized as sexual by most people. 

I am an artist. I write books and illustrate the covers. I create the title fonts. I compose music. I was always a daydreamer. I channel my waking dreams into creative projects.

I am uninterested in copulating with other people. The very idea disgusts me, actually. Naked bodies are not the problem. It is the exchange of fluids. I would rather not.

As a man, I am aroused by what I see, first and foremost. Young women are the sexiest thing to me… but not really. The imaginary Imperial Stormtroopers of Star Wars are, but only in context. Their look alone is not enough. It is the idea that they are ordinary human beings turned into robots that arouses me. They are not turned into cyborgs. They are simply indoctrinated and masked. Their names are changed to numbers.

I am an artist as a storyteller. What I write and render is to tell stories. What I compose is with the fiction in mind.

My life is wholesome and uneventful and I like it that way. I am uninterested in living the lives of my fictional characters. I would rather do what I am doing than save the world or rape and kill. I am having more fun than they are.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/477393

DefeatedArmy1989

I am a storyteller. I tell my stories by writing them and illustrating the covers. I create the title fonts. My thematic specialty is the foot soldier of villainy archetype, female versions specifically.

I look at art for inspiration. I found pictures about gypsies defeating armies of blonde women with pathetic ease. The victims are invaders. The gypsies strip them and pile the bodies.

The artist sent me a picture of Imperial Stormtroopers being easily surprised and killed by Chewbacca. Such is my very favorite theme, inspired by a comic book from 1983. The artist made a change: the Stormtroopers were female. My specialty is women as the nameless baddies.

The artist was unaware that I was already a fan of his. He mentioned that he was a fan of my work. He illustrated the Concubine Sentinels of my Strange Galaxy universe. He expanded my ideas with wonderful ideas of his own.

I wrote my Black Death books and illustrated the covers. The artist, now calling himself DefeatedArmy1989 rendered his own versions of the universe… and inspired me greatly.

Art inspires art and inspires art yet again. I was blessed by the work of DefeatedArmy1989 and am eternally grateful. I am still inspired.

https://www.deviantart.com/esercitosconfitto/art/another-ambush-133463954

Showing by Telling

As a writer of fiction, my priority is to make what is unseen easy to visualize. I do so by simplifying the concepts and generalizing the descriptions.

What things look like is important. This is a problem as words, however. Elaborate descriptions are inappropriate. An illustration should be provided if the exact details are so important. The story is brought to a halt otherwise.

Some ideas cannot be illustrated. They are matters of preference. For example: “The most beautiful woman in the world” can be contradicted by a picture, no matter the picture. If a subjective concept is important, what is visualized should be left to the imagination of the reader.

Pacing is especially important in action scenes. The gist of what is happening should be described, not the details. The emotions and sensations of the characters involved are what make action in prose dramatic. Exact measurements and positioning are generally irrelevant. No one in such a situation would mind such things anyway, instead acting reflexively or intuitively.

Less is more in reading or writing prose. The gist is what makes everything imaginable. Generalizations give the feel that makes things seem as they are. If a detail is mentioned, it should be important, such as to hint at significance. Extraneous details should be omitted entirely. The mind of the reader should not be overwhelmed by irrelevancy.

A picture speaks a thousand words, yes, but using a thousand words to draw a picture is not only inefficient, it is too much. A book should never be longer than its actual story.

https://www.amazon.com/stores/Shawn-OToole/author/B07C28S75Z?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Saint Christopher

Late in the night of January 13, 2025… or in the wee hours of January 14th, I was adjusting my sheets and mattress when something strange happened: The tip of the middle finger of my left hand was bent backwards. It did not hurt. It did not discolor or swell. It simply looked quite odd. I massaged it and felt no pain. I was confused. I turned on my computer and investigated. I learned that what I have is called “mallet finger” and is treatable. I went to bed and slept soundly. 

I went to stores the next morning and bought a splint and other things. I had not been using glucosamine chondroitin because I ran out, so resupplied. I hurt my left hand on Christmas Eve 2024 by swinging my little nieces around, but in the palm and wrist, not my fingers.

I went to the doctor on January 14th. Dr. Wilson was friendly and helpful. He wrapped my finger after hyperextending it. I must wait 8 weeks for it to fully heal. I shall have a checkup on January 30^th.

I have been washing my laundry by hand for months. My washer stopped working but my dryer still works. I cannot wash my laundry by hand for 8 weeks. I asked my friend Chris Buffaloe for help. He is on the road and has been for months.

I went to work on January 14th. I have two jobs. My evening job is at a grocery store called Food Lion. It was difficult to do with less than two hands, but I managed it. I came home early because of plumbing problems at the store.

I came home to a big surprise. My washer was in the backyard. A new washer was already installed. I called my friend Chris Buffaloe. He hurried from Fayetteville NC to Newport NC to do what he did then he hurried back to Fayetteville. His wife Anna chose a machine and had it ready for him to pick up.

NOTE: Fayetteville is over a 150 miles from Newport, where I live. It is over two and a half hours away. My friend acting above and beyond for my sake… and asked for NOTHING in return. I wept.

I have been cynical for a while. People are always annoyed with me or simply disinterested. I write books and illustrate the covers but no one cares to read them. I was very sad, not angry. I was tired emotionally and psychologically. Chris Buffaloe, my friend, rid me of my cynicism in a single day. He gave me hope. I am no longer sad, because of him.

Villainous Humanity

I write fiction. My thematic specialty is ordinary people as antagonists. Their hostility is impersonal. Their villainy is unwilling. Their lives are not their own, however, and neither are their thoughts.

HUMANITY AS THE ENEMY is not uncommon in fiction, especially nowadays. My version of the idea is unusual, however. It is not misanthropic. On the contrary: It celebrates humanity asserting itself against the will of inhuman entities.

Devils are real, and I do mean literal devils. Evil angels and their demonic offspring rule the world. Their underlings are humanity itself. Women are the cannon-fodder of the Enemy, and have been since the beginning. Men are the captains of wickedness, and have been since the beginning.

Humanity is the willing slave race of false gods.

Atheism is a satanic doctrine meant to empty hearts and minds, to be clear. Unlike false religions, it purges belief entirely. It is easier for the Father of Lies to deceive from scratch than to change what is already believed.

The world is a democracy, and has been since the beginning. The hell on earth is because we are governed by the supermajority. Every tyrant is elected by the will of the people, one way or another.

Satan is the God of this World… but this is a world of fakery. Its god is false. There is still a yearning for truth in the world, however. There is still a sense of justice. The few sometimes inspire the many… and that is really what my fiction is all about.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/528774

Somewhat Talented

Very few people are excellent. Very few people are pathetic. The vast majority of people are simply… average… in every way.

Some ordinary people are better than others… but still ordinary. They are smarter but not geniuses or stronger but not strong or faster but not fast. They may be prettier but not gorgeous or richer but not rich or popular but not famous.

I write fiction. My genre is usually action-adventure. The stories are about heroes and villains. A hero is not merely someone who is brave or virtuous. He is superhuman, one way or another. His excellence may not be obvious at first, but is revealed by his adventure.

A fiction does not prove its hero is extraordinary by having him outmatch fantastic baddies. On the contrary: If everyone is fantastic then the setting is simply ridiculous.

The foot soldiers of villainy set the standard of ordinary. The hero’s excellence is measured by his effectiveness against them. Some of these nameless baddies are better than others, however. Though hopelessly outmatched by the hero, it takes fewer of them to give him trouble.

NOTE: A type of soldier twice as formidable as a common soldier is indeed elite. He is still slaughtered in droves by a hero who kills common soldiers by the hundreds, however. The ordinary is still ordinary. The best of the insignificant are still insignificant.

The Man of Every Year

NOT AS BAD is not a measure of goodness.

Sincerity is immeasurable. It is insincere otherwise. Every evil is but a partial goodness, for evil is a lack and “pure” evil would be nothing at all, thus, pure indeed.

The sins of others do not justify your own. You do right or not and shall be judged accordingly, regardless of your reasons.

“To have loved but lost” is not better than “to never have loved at all.” The sacrifice of Jesus was meaningless till he rose again. What is lost must be found… or it is gone.

Most people are “not as bad” and this is their supposed goodness. They assume evil always wins because they confuse lukewarm as better than cold against.

The evils of the world are not inequality or inequity or racism or sexism or homophobia or any other of the countless things deemed sins by the sinners themselves. Those who make excuses for themselves are unworthy to judge others. Their social commentary is insincere.

The best of the world are NOT AS BAD as most everyone else. They are not good. They are evil, as evil as anyone else.

A good man is not of the world. His love is not lust. His fear is not cowardice. His wealth is not money. His power is not control. He is sincere. He prevails by his sincerity. His every failing is a success. His every defeat a victory. Jesus conquered death accordingly.

Innocence

I live in a world of sin. It is assumed I am a sinner too, since I look like everyone else. I am as powerless as everyone else.

People are annoyed by my quirks. Am I a sinner because I annoy them? People expect of me. Am I a sinner because I have my own priorities? I am accused of hate because I judge people. Is it hate if my judgments are sound? I am accused of profanity because my speech is sometimes colorful. What of it? I am accused of perversion because I fancy strange ideas. Am I a pervert if my life is wholesome?

I judge a tree by the fruit is bears. I judge myself accordingly, first and foremost.

I do not deem people sinners because their quirks annoy me… or I expect them to abide by my agenda… or because they discriminate… or they have weird fantasies. Sin is actual sins, not matters of opinion or convenience. It is indifference and malevolence. The self-righteous rationalize their sins… but they are not righteous. They are indifferent and malevolent. They are sinners.

I am sacrificed by the wicked for the sake of others, themselves specifically. I am accused of being selfish when I resist being expended. Sacrifice yourself if need be. I am not your lamb and shall not be gathered to the slaughter.

https://www.deviantart.com/yellowplasma