Fake War

In reality, wars are power struggles. They are not good against evil. The guilty are the beneficiaries and the innocent are the victims.

In fiction, wars are either realistic or fantastic. The realism is embellished. The fantasy is usually tempered with acknowledgment of tragedy.

Reality is a fiction written by God. Its characters are alive and have free will but are limited by plot devices meant to assure the intended plot plays out. The author dictates pacing and word count.

Important people do wear plot armor. They cannot die unless a dramatic moment is meant for them or they have outlived their usefulness in the story.

Most people are unimportant characters. They are living props more than anything else. Demographics are more important than individuals... with very few exceptions.

Contrary to what is assumed by the hopeful, God does fancy war. His creation is at its best when people are fighting as groups. He is pleased when people work together, even if to do evil. He enjoys the demonstrations of prowess. He is inspired by the acts of courage.

God is prone to bad ideas. He tends to squander his good ones. His wars are uninspiring. They break people, inside and out.

Nuclear weapons are God's worst idea yet. Sure, they ended World War 2 early. They “kept the peace” for nearly a century. Alas, they negate the relevance of courage and prowess.

The wars of fiction are better than those of history books... unless the history is actually fiction. I am mindful of this as a writer.

Rotating the Crops of a Fertile Imagination

I wrote twelve books in three years. I designed their covers... and the covers for six more. They are the stories of three universes.

White Empires is military science fiction. The setting is an alternate 1930s in the modern day.

Black Death is black comedy action-adventure. The setting is a strange version of our current reality.

Weird World is surreal horror. The setting is a dreamlike version of our world.

Each universe is very distinct... yet teeming with the same themes. They represent different moods of my imagination.

White Empires is my fascination with war, politics and history crafted to be what I find most interesting. Black Death is the sexiness of horror movies as the adventures of antiheroes. Weird World is my interest in dreams, nightmares specifically.

I exhaust an inspiration when I write a book. It regenerates while I focus on something else. Focusing on three universes yet alternating between them allowed me to expand upon ideas without overextending my imagination. It is how I am able to write and illustrate so much so swiftly.

The Kingdom of Heaven Belongs to Such as These

The wicked are obsessed with children... and were from the beginning.

The importance of the world is its plants and animals... not the people born into it. Pets instead of offspring. The innocent are parasites. The young are to blame for the troubles they inherited... and they should provide for those who came before them.

Children are loathsome creatures... yet they should be given a say. They are better in bed than are men or women... in the beds of men.

Children are the favorite food of the wicked witches who eat them. They toil for those who are lazy or greedy. They are the selfless and loyal soldiers of the warmongers who sacrifice them.

Children are humanity as the future. To care for them is to make things better. To neglect them is to forsake the world. To abuse them is to turn them into spooks or monsters.

God is the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

The Father is the old man of the three. He is the maker of the world and the progenitor of its humanity.

The Son is the man in his prime. He is humanity at its best and inherits everything made.

The Holy Ghost is the child of the three. Unlike the Father, who knows everything, he is innocent. Unlike the Son, who made everything, he has nothing but himself. He can do nothing but be himself.

There is only one sin never to be forgiven. It is not against men or women, whether they are young or old. It is not against plants or animals. It is against the spirit that inspired God to create children.

Make Love, Not Peace

Wars in propaganda and fiction are heroic struggles of good against evil.

I write and illustrate fiction.

WAR is a major theme in my work. It is usually about before the war, though. The belligerents skirmish along their shared borders or in disputed territories. Espionage, proxy wars and or counterinsurgency operations are more common.

A total war is hectic. It typically ends as the end of its loser. I hesitate to the destroy the “evil empires” in my fiction. I want to keep them in play for as long as I can, to flaunt their stylish uniforms, sleek weapons and eccentric personalities. I like them to be available as the villains for the next story... and indefinitely.

Normalcy is disrupted by war. The limited actions before a total war allow for long moments of calm. The characters can still live normal lives. They are humanized accordingly. They are simply war machines as people otherwise.

The struggle of good against evil is the most important theme of my work. The wars themselves are not the struggle, however. The sides have impersonal reasons. The individuals have personal reasons. There are “good guys” and they are the side to win... but the goodness is not their cause. It is the heroes themselves... and sometimes the villains too. Their excellence is the goodness.

My greatest WAR STORY is the Sorcerer books of my White Empires universe. The hero is compassionate yet the villain is righteous. Their struggle is ultimately the love that binds them. The triumph of good against evil is when the villain sacrifices himself.

Playing With Reality

If I wrote reality as fiction, disease would be unheard of, speech would not be languages and weapons of mass-destruction would be obsolete.

Would reality be better for it?

Disease is history's greatest population control. Languages assured distinct cultures. Weapons of mass-destruction discourage war.

Disease causes misery and destroys livestock. Most cultures are hopelessly dysfunctional. Warrior prowess is strategically negated.

I can only imagine how reality would be different if its particulars were different. I can only assume changes would make things better.

There shall be a new heaven and a new earth. Disease, languages and weapons shall not be in this next phase of reality. This is touted as improvements. It seems God agrees with me.

Still...

Perfection is the end of a story as a happy ending. It is not the story itself.

Exotic locales are settings in fiction. They are amazing to visit because they are strange to behold. In reality they are disease and squalor.

Dialog is the poetry of prose. In reality it is vulgarity and usually gibberish.

Poison gas and artificial plagues are dramatic horrors. Nukes are apocalyptic. Alas, none of these weapons inspired toys any boy cares to play with.

Cinema

My childhood was during the 1970s and my adolescence during the 1980s. Movies, television shows, books, comic books and tabletop role-playing games were my formative inspirations.

Video games are significant now. I do mean as fiction. The video games of my youth were games and nothing more.

Movies were the fiction that dominated. Video games now rival them... and may replace them. Television shows as streaming programs may diminish cinema all the more.

I grew up wanting to write, direct and star in movies. I wanted to compose the musical scores. Alas, my dream was for something that is now fading away.

I may be wrong. Movies may be something that never goes away. During the 1980s, my father told me home videos made cinema obsolete. It is now the 2020s and theaters are still in business, though struggling.

Movies were and are my favorite medium of fiction. I enjoy them most when watching them in a theater.

My art is writing books and illustrating the covers. I compose synthetic music. I think of movies while writing, rendering and composing. I imagine what I make as cinema.

Books are the best medium for articulating thoughts. What is too long as a video is ideal for prose. Comic books show rather than tell but seeing is irrelevant when the topic is the unseen. Games tabletop or video are interaction rather than outright storytelling.

Movies can be as long as books as a series. Sound effects and music can express the unseen. The motion picture is storytelling. Movies are the perfect medium for me as an artist. Alas, it is the one I am least capable of making... and it may be fading away regardless.

Wonderfully Out of Place

Why is now now? It was the future. It is the past.

Why am I who I am? There are other people, now, before and afterwards. Why am I not one of these countless others instead?

Why am I male? Why am I racially white? These are not things I chose... yet they are defining aspects of my being.

Why is anyone good or evil? Even if it is a matter of free will, why do we choose what we choose? Yes, we have genetic inclinations and can be swayed by circumstances... but are they happenstance?

There is something strange about me. I am not merely a different version of the same thing. I am profoundly distinct.

My race, sex and circumstances are entirely normal. My moment in time is the most crowded of all time. My success in life is minimal: not a failure but going nowhere.

I write and illustrate fiction. Reality is what it is regardless.

My sincerity is the only thing exceptional about me. It is the spirit of everything I do... but nothing comes of it. My tree bears fruit but in a grove of countless and fruitful trees.

Am I special? Not really. Then again, reality is pointless. The insincerity is the failure of everything. It is why goodness is fake in the world. Everyone is ultimately cynical accordingly.

I am not what is wrong with the world... and that is the only thing special about me.