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.

The Worst Idea Ever

Dimwits flippantly suggest nuclear strikes. They claim the enemy shall be destroyed or what is left of them shall be terrorized into submission.

Russians threaten to nuke the West. The reality would not be their fantasy. Russia would kill millions, perhaps. The West would survive. Moscow and St. Petersburg would cease to exist... and probably within the hour. There is no “Russia” without them.

Zionists threaten to nuke Islam... and the rest of the world if need be. An old fool claimed Israel has six HUNDRED nukes and can strike anywhere. The reality is, the Israelis have a hundred nukes at most... and their delivery is very limited. The world would not be terrorized into submission... but rather infuriated to a bloody vengeance that would burn the tiny country off the map. The Jews everywhere else would be targeted by mobs and governments for extermination.

It is the defense policy of France to launch a nuclear strike immediately if the country is invaded. To their shame, it is because they are helpless against Germany otherwise.

My countrymen, fellow Americans suggest we nuke our enemies, to put the fear of God in them. They talk about “limited nuclear war” as if wars are not prone to escalate out of hand. In reality, the world would be galvanized against us. Even if the nations surrendered, their populations would resist forever.

Nuclear weapons are often used in science fiction as if they would eventually be normalized. This is usually with the idea that civilization becomes interstellar. In reality, the weapons are earthbound. They are APOCALYPTIC... and hellish accordingly. They are divine wrath in preparation for the end of the world as we know it.

There shall be a nuclear war. It is mentioned by Jesus himself.

SPOILER ALERT!

“For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor shall ever be. And except those days shall be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but the for elect's sake those days shall be shortened.”

Good Fiction

The moral of a story is not its quality.

A character is not a good character just because he is a good person within the fiction. Likewise, a villain is not a bad character because he is bad. A happy ending is not the happiness of the reader unless he is glad he read the story. A tragic ending is a good ending if wonderfully memorable.

The quality of a story can be measured by the INTEREST of its readers, not only in the short term but in the long term. If he is eager to read till the end then the fiction is good. If he remembers what he read long afterwards, then it is very good.

A classic is not always a classic at first.

Originality tends to be a problem because something unexpected cannot be what readers are already looking for. People are disappointed if they expected something else.

Something new may be rejected at first... yet is never forgotten. It is read again and eventually appreciated.

I write fiction. My work is original. Though the genres, archetypes and tropes are familiar... the familiarity is made strange. The aspects are not subverted. On the contrary: I respect convention. They are simply tempered.

My every story is a parable. The morality is not about right or wrong, however. The distinction is excellence or mediocrity. The heroes and villains alike are more important than anyone ordinary.

The superiority of the hero is not righteousness... but rather sincerity. Even if he doubts himself, he does not hesitate in his moment of truth.

The inferiority of the villain is insincerity. Even if he believes in himself, his confidence is pride. He falls short in his moment of truth, as the proud always do.

The quality of my work is not its message, insightful or not. My readers must read eager to continue to the end. The experience must stay with them long afterwards.

Are the stories I write good? They are original... but originality is not quality of itself. What few people read my work usually enjoy it. Most of them remember it long afterwards.

Books on Amazon

Silent and Weird

I am not a gamer but I do play video games. One of my favorite franchises is Silent Hill. It is scary, sexy and adventurous.

Children were nameless baddies in the first game. They lurk in a school and try to kill you while you explore for clues. You kill them to survive. This was the original version of the game and the one released in my country... but it was changed for the rest of the world.

You are a father trying to find your daughter. The children trying to kill you were those who bullied her. You read the insults carved into her desk. You hear her crying in the stall of a restroom.

Nurses are nameless baddies. They lurk in a hospital and try to kill you while you try to find your missing daughter. They are caring for her but not for her sake. They are keeping her alive because her suffering empowers their sinister bosses.

You are tended by one of the nurses. She cares about you and your daughter. She tries to help you... but alas, is already corrupted and becomes like the others.

Silent Hill is scary because it turns the least dangerous people in reality into monsters. It is sexy because it is normalcy as strange and violent. It is adventurous because the protagonist must fight and kill to prevail.

I write and illustrate fiction. My Weird World books are the most like Silent Hill.

From Mind to Pen

As a writer of fiction, I know what it is to be inspired. It takes time and effort to turn what was easy in an instant into a story. Context can be vague in a daydream but there is no plot if it is so in writing. What is understood intuitively should be assumed to be nonsense unless articulated.

As a writer of fiction, I know what it is to be frustrated. The frustration is either a failure to express the inspiration or success but it is unappreciated.

I illustrate the covers and create the title fonts. It is unnecessary for me to do so. I am told my covers are bad and I should let them be designed by “better” artists. Alas, a book is not entirely dear to me unless the cover and font are mine as well.

I am not at liberty to write freely. Even my friends and family would turn against me if I did so. I must temper my work mindful of their sanctimony. I bother to do so because I do not write fiction to keep it to myself.

I enjoy my own fantasies by daydreaming. I write for no other reason than to share what I imagine with others. The version they read is tame to compared to the original.

If I was candid, my social commentary would be deemed extremist. My sexual themes would horrify. The moral of a story would confound rather than enlighten.

I can write what I want as I want it. It is unlikely I would be censored, since my work is unknown. I dislike shocking readers. My fiction is written to entertain, not to change the world. I want people to have fun. I shall write non-fiction if I ever want to teach them anything.