My Historical Fiction

I imagined a world where speech was never confounded into languages. Contagions are unheard of. Weapons of mass destruction are obsolete.

Do you prefer our world as it really is? Is it better because people literally cannot understand each other? Are we blessed with illness? Are weapons of mass destruction what make war interesting?

You have the world as it really is. It is so inspiring that its history is legends and propaganda. Its best fiction is about other worlds.

I did not change things to make anything better. It was to make the world more interesting. A character is humanized by its dialog, so I want the reader to understand the dialog. The stories are supposed to be thrilling, so giving them diarrhea or making them bedridden were bad ideas. I fancy warrior prowess so am uninterested in weapons that indefensibly negate it.

The world changes its history, to make it more interesting or to indoctrinate us. I changed history without pretense. Unlike the non-fiction, it is overtly fiction.

The Sorcerer tetralogy is about a world where the Confederacy won the War Between the States and aligns with Nazi Germany. The title character is the villain: a senior leader in the SS who uses magic, technology and armed force to commit atrocities. The mother of his daughter (or son) is the hero, and fights to stop him.

How would language barriers make the stories more interesting? What about disease or nuclear weapons? Do tell… or forever hold your peace.

Unity, Merit and Exceptionalism

Star Wars and Star Trek and Harry Potter and even The Lord of the Rings are turned into crap… and I don’t care. I write and illustrate my own fiction. I can’t match the production value of these franchises, but the stupidity that controls them assures that my work is better regardless.

Capitalism broke my back and left me to rot… so I have no love for capitalism. On the contrary. Marxism is the socialism of the rich, so I am not a Marxist either.

As of today, December 6, 2024, I am free to share what I write and illustrate with the world. I can even sell it. I am sincerely grateful. It is something that makes capitalism better than socialism… until the capitalists take it away from me, one way or another.

I am a white, heterosexual and male gentile, as were most people who wrote the best fiction and rendered the best art. I am being replaced by diversity hires that cannot make anything interesting no matter the budget allotted them. I shall inevitably outlast my replacements.

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Book of the Ages

In reality, lives are phases. We begin as children, grow into adults then fade away as elderly. We all begin as children. Many of us die before adulthood. Many adults die before elderly. The phases are what they are regardless.

In fiction, ages are not phases. They are personality traits. The innocent or ignorant are children. The good or evil are adults. The wise or weary are elderly.

In my novel The Wayward School for Girls most people are children. They are either innocent or ignorant, as most people are in reality. They are small and weak, as most people are in the grand scheme of our actual world.

Most adults are invisible in the Weird World of the novel. They can be heard but not seen. In reality, we make our voices heard but collectively. We are seldom recognized individually.

Authority is visible adulthood. Such individuals are both seen and heard, even if nameless. They are typically evil, no longer children because they lost their innocence.

The elderly are visible. They are either weary children soon to fade away or wise and immortal. In reality, the very old are noticeable. They are either feeble and need help or accomplished and venerable.

Age is not just a number. It is what it is regardless of our attitudes. We are small and weak as children. We do have responsibilities as adults. We are at our best or worst as individuals when elderly. I am mindful of this.

Juice, Wine or Vinegar

Real people grow up then grow old. Fictional characters are different. They seldom grow up. They are adults in every story. They seldom grow old. They are in their prime forever.

Of course characters are sometimes children, like Newt in Aliens. She never grew up, however. She is a child forever. Darth Vader was a child… but after he died an old man.

I write books. I create fictional characters. Each is the age I need it to be for the story. Few of them are ever children. Few of them ever grow old. They are what they are forever.

Ages are phases in real lives. They are personality traits in fictional characters. Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings, for example, looks like “wisdom” as an old man. Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz looks like “innocence” because of her youth. James Bond looks like “virility” because he is in his prime… and stops looking like James Bond as the actor becomes too old.

A fictional character is an idea. Its aspects convey the idea, its meaning. The following are the general meanings that decide the age of a fictional character:

CHILDHOOD: innocence and hope or selfishness and ignorance

ADOLESENCE: discovery and maturity or irresponsibility and immaturity

ADULTHOOD: responsibility and accomplishment or liberty and guilt

ELDERLY: experience and wisdom or weariness and decay

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The Genre of Reality

What genre would our world be if it was fictional?

Action-Adventure? Horror? Romance? Comedy? Science fiction? Fantasy? Mystery? Thriller? Dystopia? Erotica? Young adult?

Our world is all these things… but a genre is not elements within the fiction. It is what defines the fiction. What genre defines our real world in its entirety?

DRAMA.

Everything in our world is with “drama” in mind. The actions, adventures, horrors, love, silliness, science, dreams, mysteries, thrills, politics, sexuality and adolescence are written to tell a story about people interacting with each other as individuals.

I write fiction. My style emphasizes dialog over exposition. The struggles of good against evil are personal rather than social. The big picture is merely a setting for what happens in the lives of individual characters.

The genre of my fiction is usually action-adventure. It is sometimes horror, usually as survival horror. My thematic specialty is sexy girls as the droves of expendable baddies.

DRAMA.

Sexy, scary or adventurous are thrilling… but cheap thrills unless dramatic. I am mindful of this. The stories I write must be about the characters. Everything else, even the stories themselves, must be secondary.

Storytelling on Track

The most difficult thing about writing fiction is continuity. An otherwise good scene can be bad if it contradicts what came before or comes after it. The imaginary reality becomes uncertain if inconsistent. The writer must remember what he wrote to get things right.

I write stories. I write their sequels and prequels. I write stories set in the same universe that are otherwise unrelated.

The advantage of writing a story from scratch is that continuity is established along the way. A universe is not as deep if it begins and ends with one story, however.

The advantage of linking stories to a common universe is greater context. Every tale is part of something greater than itself. The universe itself is expanded from a mere setting to lore.

I write fiction. Continuity is easier when the stories are fantastic. It is harder when they are realistic. My Weird World and White Empires universes for example: Weird World is dreamlike so inconsistencies can be plot elements rather than errors. White Empires is strange but grounded. Inconsistencies must be corrected, whether by explanation or rewrite.

Continuity is important. Fiction is already make-believe, but if inconsistent, it is sheer nonsense.

A good story is immersive. It can be weird or realistic. So long as its rules of cause and effect are clearly understood, the reader can accept them… so long as they are never actually contradicted. A sequence of events is likewise in this regard. The personalities of the characters are likewise in this regard.

Continuity matters. There is no actual story without it.

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Dream Worlds

If you could live in a fictional universe instead of the real one, would you?

Wonderland, Oz, Middle-earth, the Hyborean Age, The Cthulhu Mythos, Dune, Star Trek, Star Wars and Mass Effect are fictional realities very distinct from our own. There are different versions of these various imaginary universes.

The worlds of Rambo and Dirty Harry are very much like our own… but not really. The movie Enemy at the Gates is supposedly historical… but not really.

Which fictional universe would you live in?

The Mass Effect universe is the one mentioned I find the most interesting. It is everything I find interesting in reality but at its best. I would rather live in the Star Trek universe, however, as it was presented in The Next Generation specifically. The utopian nonsense of Star Trek would be wonderful as a reality.

I write fiction. I create universes. My Other Folk is our real history but the Earth is hollow and the fairy folk live there. My Strange Galaxy is a world of many worlds where “advanced” is either technological or magical. My Black Death is about two big and black sisters who serial kill young white women with impunity. They save the world from magical masterminds who command armies of white henchwomen. My Weird World is dreamlike. Children are the normal people and most adults are invisible.

My fictional universes are not wishful thinking. I would rather live here than in any of them. If I did have to move to one of my fictional universes, I would choose Weird World. I would be a child forever and that would be bad… but the aches and pains of my middle age would be over and that would be good. I could thrive in a world where dream logic is the laws of physics.

Stories Heard, Read, Seen and Played

I watch videos, television and movies. I read books and comic books. I play tabletop and video games. I enjoy the fiction of these things.

Movies are short stories, even if based on novels. They are too long otherwise. A show is either a short story or a chapter of a longer story. Everything must be visually interesting, whether appealing or horrifying.

A novel dwells on its themes. It tells more than it shows. It can elaborate on the unseen, describing it as connotations or feelings.

A comic book shows what it tells. It must look interesting to be interesting. The story is supplementary, to give the pictures context and depth.

A tabletop game is interactive. As a role-playing game, the game master is the author but the players are the characters with wills of their own.

A video game is like a show or movie but you play the main character. Sometimes you create the character.

I write books and illustrate the covers. I create the title fonts. My work is with shows, movies, books, comic books, tabletop games and video games in mind. The best fiction lends itself to all of them.

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Immaterial

The supernatural is real. You can disbelieve me… but you do so in ignorance. You can argue that I cannot prove my claim… but nothing you believe was ever actually proven to you. To “trust the science” is to assume strangers with ulterior motives are trustworthy.

I am told that I cannot prove God exists… but I can. My evidence is readily available for anyone smart enough to comprehend what should be obvious.

Everything that actually exists is derivative of the quality of the quantity of one. There are no exceptions, not one. Arguing negatives, fractions and zero is confusing concepts with actuality. Reality is not an idea. If you think it is, you are not in touch with reality.

You are not sentient because of what you think. You are not a person because of what you feel. You are not the source of your own existence. Your every thought and feeling is derivative, every single one. You are not the source of you in any way. Yes, you have free will… but not because of you.

There is only ONE god and he is PERSONAL… or else we could not exist as individuals. It would be impossible. Our source must provide what became us. We are made in the image and likeness of our source.

Where did God come from? If you ask such a question, sincerely or not, it is because God is beyond your comprehension. How is that surprising? You are finite, as are your thoughts. He is infinite. He is smarter than you. How could it be otherwise? The universe itself is beyond your comprehension. This little world among countless worlds is more than you could ever know.

NOTE…

I am smarter than every atheist. They rationalize what suits them and fancy themselves wise for it. They confuse learning with thinking and learn sophistries. I see what I see and hear what I hear whether I like what I see and hear or not. I disbelieve anything I am taught if it contradicts what I see for myself, regardless of the supposed authority of the teacher.

Creative Energy

I write books and illustrate the covers. I create the title fonts. I need energy to do these things. I need physical vitality, of course. I also need inspiration.

I must write what I fancy because my work is fiction. Unlike nonfiction, which can be dry so long as it is factual and articulate, I must entertain my readers. Their interest is to have fun, not to learn what they know is fake.

The best fiction is thrilling. This is why adventure and horror stories have always been the favorites, since the myths and legends. Sexualizing the themes intensifies the thrill. The stories are more fun accordingly. “Positive messaging” has nothing to do with it.

My work is sexual fantasies. The sexuality is seldom pornographic, however. It is usually nuanced, and a matter of context.

My fiction is usually adventure or horror stories, often both as survival horror.

When an idea is sexy to me, I am aroused. I am eager to start. Writing is work, however, and I become tired. I look for things that remind me of the idea, such as pictures, shows or games. I go back to the original inspirations, to remind myself what excited me. I struggle to keep myself energized.

I have exhausted myself while writing. I grind to a halt unless I reinvigorate my interest. A project usually languishes unfinished and fades away. I sometimes come back to it long afterwards. I must be aroused and stay aroused to finish a book.

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Two Heads are Better than One

I am an aficionado of nameless baddies. I fancy them as armed and uniformed conscripts. They all look very much alike, if not entirely identical.

My favorite scenario involving these expendable characters is when they are clueless sentries eliminated with pathetic ease. The idea is especially amusing when there are two of these nonentities… killed simultaneously by one hero.

HEADS KNOCKED TOGETHER: The victims are vigilant yet unaware, facing in the same direction. They are used as the weapons to kill them. They make funny faces and drop limply to the ground.

The scenario and all its connotations are nuanced…

The killing is impersonal and unceremonious. It is grim yet amusing. The victims are stupid while alive yet they die when their brains are smashed.

The foot soldiers of villainy are as anonymous to their bosses as they are to us. They are unimportant in the grand scheme of things, except as a disposable resource. Their deaths are inglorious on every level: It was easy to kill them and no one cares.

Beyond the Pale

Imagination has its limits. Much of them are self-imposed. We fret whether an idea is “ridiculous” or “blasphemous” or “hateful” or “indecent” or whatever else. We are proud and want our thoughts to be intelligent. We are social creatures and hesitant to even imagine what is socially unacceptable.

I write fiction. My craft is all about imagination. I provide it. When people read my books, they are daydreaming what I imagined for them.

My stories are supposedly ridiculous, blasphemous, hateful and indecent.

1^st EXAMPLE:

My novel Sorcerer of the Realm is “ridiculous” because it is an alternate history with magic and the names of places are unfamiliar. It is “blasphemous” because it suffers witches to live. It is “hateful” because the title character is a sympathetic though genocidal Nazi. It is “indecent” because his teenage daughter is in love with him.

2^nd EXAMPLE:

My novella The Black Death of White Women is “ridiculous” because it is about black women who casually murder white women in broad daylight… and get away with it. It is “blasphemous” because the killers go to church and thank God for the endless supply of victims. It is “hateful” because the killings are racially motivated and "indecent" because they are sexually gratifying.

3^rd EXAMPLE:

My novel The Wayward School for Girls is “ridiculous” because it is entirely dreamlike. It is “blasphemous” because mainstream religion in the story is satanic. It is “hateful” because the institutions of the world are vilified. It is “indecent” because the villains rape and murder children. The foot soldiers of villainy are children and they are slaughtered in droves by the protagonists.

My work is imaginative… because I bother to imagine. I do not narrow my thoughts to keep them “sensible” or “clean” or any other such common insincerity. I mean what I write. The stories are not to trick you into believing anything untrue or to turn you against God or society or to vilify anyone real or to pervert or disgust you. They are dreams to be dreamt… for whatever mysterious reason we dream at all.

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The Glory of Fiction

If our reality was a fictional universe, it would not be as it is shown in our actual fiction. The wars would not be good against evil. The heroes would not be heroic. There would never be last minute justice in the courtroom.

Things would not be as bad as it often is in fiction, either. Tragedies would rarely be as tragic. Evil would never triumph, despite it countless victories.

Our reality is not as we perceive it. Even when our views are correct, things are never quite the way we assume. We never fully know those whom we know. We never quite understand ourselves, either.

Our reality is the first fiction. God wrote it. When he said “Let there be light” he illustrated it. The story began and shall end. It is already written. We have only to wait for God to finish reading what he wrote. He is editing as he goes along. The final edition shall be the new heaven and the new earth.

I write fiction. I create universes and populate them with characters. I finish writing stories then read what I wrote, editing as I go along.

Humanity was made in the image and likeness of God. We can write and illustrate fiction because of this. We are capable of an insight beyond the otherwise superior perception of the angels. Like our Father in Heaven, we can edit our reality. This is why our sins can be forgiven.

Jesus is the Word of God. It is because of him that I can imagine and create. I write books and illustrate the covers. I create the title fonts. I love what I do. I love what I make. His father, your Father in Heaven is love. My fiction is divine accordingly.

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Pending Stories of a Weird World

I write books and illustrate the covers… or I illustrate covers then write the books.

My novel THE WAYWARD SCHOOL FOR GIRLS was a short story that became a novel. It was set in a new universe and creating universes is my thing… so I illustrated a cover for the book TALES OF A WEIRD WORLD, to give the universe a name. I then wrote the book, using some older stories in the beginning.

Nameless baddies are my specialty as a writer and illustrator. I consider Wayward Sentry Girls among my best. Not only do I love their look, but they are naturally born conscripts. I generally favor cheap and easily mass-produced clones, but I do fancy the naturally born… if they are indoctrinated normal people, not reprobate hirelings.

I illustrated the cover for the pending book STORIES OF A WEIRD WORLD. I have already begun writing stories for it. The entire project is because nameless baddies are my favorite characters in all fiction. I created my own and these girls are excellent… as incompetent foot soldiers of villainy.

My Questionable Themes

My Black Death series of books is about black women serial killing young white women. My White Empires books are about a white man committing the mass murder of the disabled, homosexuals and other races.

The black women committing murder are the heroines of their story. The white man committing mass murder is arguably the hero of his.

If I was judged by the fiction I wrote, it could be argued that I am hateful. The argument would be sophistry, however.

My characters are not my avatars in the fiction I write. They are their own people. Yes, I craft their dialog and actions, but as an outsider. Their world is not my own.

My stories are not wishful thinking as prose. I am uninterested in reality, except as the place where I can write fiction. I do enjoy illustrating covers and creating title fonts, but for my own work. The three endeavors are the same projects.

The joy of storytelling is the fun I have daydreaming fantasies. I share the fun. When people comment on what they read, I see what I fantasize from new perspectives. My own imagination expands accordingly.

Why the questionable themes?

Why not? How is keeping our imagination tame a good thing?

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Described as the Mainstream

I write books and illustrate the covers. My work is my own, but people are unfamiliar with it until they read it. They need a basis of comparison to have an idea what my fiction is like.

Using the mainstream…

My novel Agents of the Eye and Ear can be described as The Lord of the Rings as a spy thriller written by Tom Clancy.

My Strange Galaxy series of books can be described as Mass Effect co-written by H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard.

My Black Death series can be described as the movie Natural Born Killers written as a book by William S. Burroughs if he was heterosexual.

My novel The Wayward School for Girls can be described as The Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland as a movie directed by David Lynch based on a book written by Roald Dahl.

My novel Sorcerer of the Realm can be described as Wolfenstein and Arcane as the same story co-written by Ray Bradbury and Philip K. Dick.

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Life is but a Dream

I write fiction. My stories are weird. They are violent and sexual but the violence is seldom gruesome and the sex rarely explicit. There is nuance in the weirdness.

My fiction is like dreams to me. It is the turning of thoughts and feelings into symbols and scenarios. Writing the stories focuses my thoughts and tempers the feelings. I am confused at first but understand after finishing.

Readers are shocked by my themes. My Black Death series is about black women serial killing young white women. My Weird World series has children as the nameless baddies, and they are slaughtered in droves. My White Empires books are about Nazis and Confederates as sympathetic antagonists.

If my fiction is political, then the politics are contradictory. Why would black women be heroes killing white women then Nazis and Confederates be sympathetic for killing black people?

The social commentary in my stories is not propaganda. It is me dreaming about things that affect me in my real life. My society frets racism and fascism and I am made to fret accordingly. I sublimate my anxiety into stories written to be enjoyed.

I imagined little boys as cannibalistic savages and little girls as brainwashed conscripts. I am not worried about little boys eating me or little girls shooting me.

Children are human nature before it is tempered by maturity. In reality I am more likely to be murdered by a man than a woman and a woman is more likely to hate me over politics. These distinctions are exaggerated in my novel The Wayward School for Girls to emphasize them, as if enlarging a picture to make it easier to see.

My fiction is typically weird because they are my waking dreams, quite literally. Like the dreams of my sleep, they make more sense as nonsense.

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Art or Merchandise

Fiction is art… but as publishing it is a business. As art, it is whatever the writer wants to write. As business it is the making of a product that can be sold.

I am an artist. I write fiction. I illustrate the covers and create the title fonts. I sell books but so few my self-publishing cannot be claimed as a business.

If I, by some miracle, became a published author, it is extremely unlikely that my covers or fonts would be used. As an employee, I would have no say in the matter. If my books sold, I would be glad for the money. The income would make my life easier.

I work in fast food and retail. The income pays my bills and gives me spending money. The hours are long and the labor exhausting, but so is the writing of books and the illustrating of covers.

I would rather write books entirely my own way, using the covers I illustrate myself. It is what I am doing already.

I would love to be rich writing books and illustrating the covers… so long as my art is the priority. That can only happen if I am the only one who has a say… and that is not how business works in this world. Then again, the world is uninterested in my work as of yet. Time shall tell what we can only guess.

I shall be busy as an artist in the meantime.

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Fantastic Realism

Fiction is make-believe. The readers or viewers know it is fake… but believe it anyway. A story is “immersive” when what is imagined seems strangely real. The reader or viewer feels as if in the universe of the fiction.

The setting of my novel Sorcerer of the Realm is this planet as a different world. Like Middle-earth (The Lord of the Rings) and the Hyborian Age (Conan), it is historical fiction customized by its author into fantasy. It is not the magic in all these universes that divorces them from history. It is the alternate history itself.

Middle-earth is Europe… but not really. The Hyborean Age is the Dark Ages… but not really. Sorcerer of the Realm is about World War 2… but not really.

J.R.R. Tolkien wanted an alternate history of the Anglo Saxons as a horse culture. Robert E. Howard wanted ancient Egypt and ancient Greece to be contemporaries of the Cossacks, Renaissance Italy, 18^th Century Pirates and the American Wild West. I was fascinated by the idea of the Confederate States of America and the 3^rd Reich as contemporaries in the modern day.

Tolkien and Howard wrote classics. People study their lore as if researching authentic history.

Like in The Lord of the Rings and the Conan stories, the reality that inspired Sorcerer of the Realm is recognized, and the recognition gives the fantasy credibility. The realism must be respected, or the fiction is discredited. The fantastic must be tempered accordingly.

Spirit of Creativity

I am repetitive. I say the same things over and over again. I write fiction, often writing the same scenes for different stories. I have a habit of using the same word too often when I could either use a different word or omit it entirely.

My interests are very specific. Quite often, I am disinterested if even one aspect is not to my personal preferences.

I am an artist. My art is writing books and illustrating the covers. I create the title fonts. I compose music and voice act. I did make toys and costumes. I did design tabletop games.

I annoy people by saying the same things over and over again. I try to be taciturn, to avoid this problem, and when I forget, I am rudely reminded.

Fiction is written to be read. I must consider my readers. A good author does not write the same book over and over again. He minds his words to make them interesting.

The themes of my work are weird and extreme. The weirdness is meaningful. The extremes are thoughtful. Alas, the weirdness alienates those who prefer the familiar. The extremes offend the sanctimonious.

I make the effort to not write the same thing over and over again. I avoid overusing words. It is good that I bother. I am a better writer for it. I cannot write mundane and tame, however. My work must be weird. It must be extreme. I have tried to write realistic and tasteful. I lost interest entirely… until I listened to myself, becoming deaf to everyone else on the matter.

FREEDOM is the spirit of creativity!

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Intellectual Property

The universes of mainstream fiction are dying. Their deaths are unnatural. They were corrupted into shameless propaganda. They were always tainted with the hypocrisy of the rich, but there was always an effort to actually entertain us. Now the de facto plutocracy would rather shame us… because the plutocrats have become overconfident and lazy, I suppose. The incompetence of the diversity hirelings does not help.

I am an artist. My specialty is writing books and illustrating the covers. I create the title fonts. My work is not fan fiction. I create universes.

My FANTASY is traditional… but believable. It has been called “science fiction” because though its characters are magical fairy folk, the stories are not airy fairy.

My SCIENCE FICTION is speculative… yet contrary to what is deemed scientific. The natural is decided by the spiritual.

My EROTICA is sexy… but not in a way that is obvious. There is explicit copulation. There is nudity or alluring costumes. All of these are supplementary, however. The actual sexiness is the impersonal slaying of insignificant people by unceremonious means.

My HORROR is scary… yet adventurous. The stories are about exploring the unknown or battling the mysterious, regardless of the fate of the protagonist.

My DYSTOPIAN work is cynical… yet hopeful. Though it acknowledges that there is no hope for the world, it shows individuals prevailing.

My work is languishing in the mainstream… but so is that of the corporations. I am not making money… but neither are they. Well, the rich have rigged the system to keep themselves rich, but their propaganda is failing. Their entertainment industry used to be a money mill… but now its needs subsidy… just to linger.

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Fictional Morality

As a writer of fiction, I am mindful that my stories should be moral. I do not mean in the terms of reality, which do not apply.

My Black Death series is about black women who serial kill young white women… and get away with it. My Sorcerer trilogy is about a sympathetic Nazi who uses magic, technology and armed force to commit mass-murder. My novel The Wayward School for Girls uses little girls as nameless baddies… and they are slaughtered in droves.

The moral of Black Death is that if you are insignificant, your death shall be inconsequential. The moral of the Sorcerer trilogy is that “fired up for” or “cold against” are righteous in the eyes of the Lord. The moral of The Wayward School for Girls is that learning is not thinking.

The “racism” of Black Death and the “fascism” of the Sorcerer trilogy and the “pedophilia” of The Wayward School for Girls are disturbing, perhaps. I did not write them to be shocking or offensive. I wrote what I wrote in all sincerity, to tell stories as waking dreams.

As a society, we are obsessed with racism, politics and pedophilia… so those are what are on my mind when I write fiction. I sublimate the anxiety into inspiration.

Social commentary is propaganda. Certainty that your politics are inarguably right does not change this. On the contrary: It means your fiction is shameless propaganda, not a good thing.

My stories are waking dreams. I write them to learn from them. I articulate my thoughts and feelings. By doing so I bring order to the chaos. What was muddled becomes clear. I share what I write to inspire as I was inspired.

I am often snubbed because my themes are supposedly immoral… as if the evils of the world can be erased from reality by erasing them from the pages of fiction.

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Eternal Dreams

The movie Raiders of the Lost Ark was an action-adventure set in 1936 about an American archaeologist trying to find the Ark of the Covenant in Egypt. The villains were the Nazis. The movie could have easily been set in 2016, the archaeologist is French and the Ark of the Covenant is in Syria. The villains are the Russians.

The movie Red Dawn was an action-adventure released in 1984 about the Soviet Union and Cuba invading the United States. The heroes are teenagers from an occupied town. The sympathetic antagonist was a Cuban officer. The movie could easily be released in 2024 about the United States and Germany invading Russia. The heroes would be teenagers from an occupied village. The sympathetic antagonist would be a German officer.

An American is to me what a Frenchman is to someone French. The Nazis are to us what NATO is to modern Russia.

The gist of a story is what it truly is. The particulars are costumes and set pieces, not the play itself. The names can be changed without changing anything.

My point is not politics or moral relativism. It is artistic. I am an artist, not a politician or activist. My specialty is writing books and illustrating the covers. I create the title fonts.

FICTION is the waking dreams we dream together, whether by reading, watching, hearing or playing the stories we make believe are real. The particulars customize the stories. The “enemy” of one culture may be “us” to another. The symbols of good or evil and great or common vary according to time and place.

The particulars of a fiction are important, but irrelevant if their context is meaningless. The story is the context. Bad storytelling renders it all bad, even the good parts. A good story is timeless and universal, not merely a product of its time and place. As a writer of fiction, I am mindful of this.

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Man in the Low Castle

The Confederate States of America was evil because of slavery and the 3^rd Reich was evil because of the Holocaust. These two countries lost their wars, and were conquered. Their history was written by the conquerors.

The United States of America was evil because of tyranny and the Final Solution was necessary because the Jews were turning the world into a global plutocracy. Such would be the claims of the Confederacy and 3^rd Reich if they won their wars. They could not conquer their enemies, so history as we know it would still be written.

The Confederacy would reconsider its stance on slavery, in the hope of easing diplomacy and fostering trade. Agitators would cause problems. The world would side with these troublemakers. The Confederacy would not only return to its old ways, but with a murderous vengeance.

The 3^rd Reich would deny the Holocaust… but the evidence would prove overwhelming. The Nazis would eventually admit their crimes, but as an argument against their victims. The admission would make them more comfortable doing such things.

In our real history, had the Confederate States of America won the War Between the States and maintained its independence, it would radicalize rather than reform.

In our real history, if the 3^rd Reich was able to secure its Living Space, it would turn Germany into a bigger and stronger country. Foreigners in their realm would be enslaved, exterminated or assimilated. The availability of land would encourage “Aryans” from abroad to immigrate.

Both the Confederate States of America and the Greater German Realm would be white supremacist military powers. The Confederates would champion most people of European decent, accepting the whites of Latin America as brethren. The Nazis would favor Germanic peoples, but the need for population was already broadening their sense of race.

The United States of America would be weaker than in our reality… but still stronger than the Confederacy. The British Empire would still be powerful had it not exhausted itself trying to defeat Hitler. The Confederates and the Nazis would never be able to conquer the world, even if they joined forces. The Yankees and the Brits would still have the strength to conquer them, though with much more difficulty.

I did not forget about the Soviet Union! A Confederate States victory would mean a weakened United States. Without the vast amount of supplies and weapons shipped to Russia, the USSR falls and quickly. It may linger in Siberia for a while… or indefinitely… but Russia west of the Urals becomes Germany.

I think about our world as it is today. I imagine what it would be like if the Confederate States of America and the Thousand-Year Realm were still around. I am amused to consider that the me of this other world would write about them being conquered instead.

Better than the Best

My novel Agents of the Eye and Ear is medieval fantasy. The characters are elves, dwarves, orcs, gnomes, goblins, trolls and ogres. There are also humans and a half-elf. The weapons are swords, daggers, bows and arrows. Magic is common.

It can be assumed that Agents of the Eye and Ear is just another fantasy novel, an inferior derivative of The Lord of the Rings. By the sum of its parts, it is.

My Strange Galaxy stories are science fiction fantasy. The characters are humans, space aliens and androids. The weapons are guns and swords. The technology is advanced but there is also magic.

It can be assumed that Strange Galaxy is just another “space opera” series, an inferior derivative of Star Wars. By the sum of its parts, it is.

***************

Agents of the Eye and Ear is better than The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien’s elves have their own languages, but how does that distinguish them from human cultures? Aragorn, a human being learned their language. He learned their ways. My fairy folk are not human beings. They are different species, distinct by nature. Their language is speech, not their own gibberish. Their ways are natural, their cultures primal accordingly, no matter their sophistication.

My fairy folk are otherworldly. Tolkien’s are exotic, but as… humans.

Strange Galaxy is better than Star Wars. Lucas’ space aliens look weird and ramble in strange gibberish, but not as people. Chewbacca is a character more like the hero’s dog or horse than his actual friend. Lucas’s politics are the morality of the universe. My space aliens are very alien, but as people, though strangely so. The morality of my universe is seemingly ambiguous, since I sympathize with every side in a struggle.

My galaxy is a world that defines itself. The galaxy far, far away is defined by whimsy and politics.

*************** 

I love The Lord of the Rings. I love Star Wars. They inspired me. They were inspired by things before them. My work is not inferior. I dare say it is better. I do so in all sincerity.

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

Wisely Ridiculous

I write books, illustrate the covers and create the title fonts. My latest project is one I have been working on for years. I have already written tens of thousands of words, illustrated the covers and created the font. I am close to finishing the first and second book.

The settings of my fiction are imaginary. I prefer a universe I customize to the uninspiring reality we live in.

The pending books are about an SS officer and his teenage daughter as the villains. The girl’s mother and half-sister are the heroes.

The Nazis are the baddies but so are the Confederates. They are contemporaries as thriving empires. The setting is the 1930s but as the modern day. Speech was never confounded into languages and weapons of mass-destruction are obsolete.

I could have set the stories in authentic history. It would be easy to substitute the Confederacy with the Empire of Japan. The adventures in Latin America would be in East Asia instead, no problem. The characters would speak whatever languages they were required to know. The 1930s would be as they actually were, no problem. The atomic bomb was not ready until the 1940s, so there is nothing for me to change about that.

The SS officer is a sorcerer. His daughter is an enchantress. The girl’s mother and half-sister are both psychic. I could tell their stories without including magic and psychic powers. They still use guns, knives and technology, so no problem.

I could easily have written these pending books as historical fiction. They could be entirely realistic without changing much. Still, I would be uninterested. I want the supposedly ridiculous aspects. The reality is uninteresting to me without it.

If my preferences are faulty then stories better than mine prove it, especially if better for the very things I dislike. Alas, countless realistic stories have been written. Endless volumes of authentic history have been written. How would my work be better for being what we already have ad nauseam?

https://www.deviantart.com/yellowplasma/journal/Worlds-of-My-Making-2-1060632082

Like God

It takes me longer to create a world than it did God. It took me fifty days to craft Weird World compared to the five days it took him to make our world, so he’s ten times faster than me.

I write fiction. My ability to create worlds and people is because of my soul, the very breath of God. My impulse to do so is also from him. I understand the meaning of life accordingly.

Our reality is the physics and continuity of the story that God wrote. He finished the book, though we are still reading what he wrote.

Honestly: I am disappointed in reality. The setting is messy, the story is uninspiring and the characters unlikeable. The cover art is attractive and some of the illustrations gorgeous, but otherwise the universe is a waste of paper.

I may be wrong. I am not yet finished reading what the Author has written. The beginning was good. The end may be better.

I can empathize with God… because I know what it is like to have an idea and bother to make it work. It becomes work to do so. Nothing goes according to plan, even when it does. Bringing it all to a satisfying conclusion is the hardest part.

My writing is a labor of love. It does not pay my bills or buy my groceries. I would like it to, but that is irrelevant. I do what I do because I want to, not because I must. I illustrate the covers and create the title fonts, though it would be easier to commission someone else to do such things. My craft makes my life harder, not easier… but that is all right. When “it is finished” I am exhausted… but the joy that follows makes it all worth it.

God gave me the ability to imagine and create. In doing so, he gave me the ability to understand him. I am amazed. When I hold a book I wrote and stare at the cover I illustrated, I am in awe. I hold what I made to my bosom and give thanks.

Namesake

I wrote a novel in fifty days. It was 66,265 words worth of story set in a universe created from scratch. I illustrated the cover and created the title font only days afterwards.

As a writer of fiction, I create universes. I name them. “Other Folk” is fantasy. “Strange Galaxy” is science fiction. “Black Death” is action-adventure. “White Empires” is dystopia

The new novel was entitled The Wayward School for Girls. The name of its universe could not be derived from the title since “Wayward” is a secondary villain, though the main antagonist.

I named the universe “Weird World” for two reasons. First of all, it describes the dreamlike atmosphere succinctly. Secondly, it is like a terrestrial version of the “Strange Galaxy” name of the interstellar setting.

The name “Weird World” is never mentioned in the novel. Since it is neither in the title nor in the story, I needed to make an extra effort. I decided to write another book. I entitled it Tales of a Weird World and illustrated its cover.

I repurposed old stories and wrote new ones for no other reason than to give the new cover a book. I only made the new cover to give a name to the universe of my latest novel.

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

Making a Better World

As a writer of fiction, I am uninterested in disease, languages and weapons of mass-destruction.

DISEASE: A hero can fight monsters… but he is either immune to a contagion or not. He is not heroic for being vaccinated.

LANGUAGES: Groups are more important that individuals when personalities are secondary to cultures. Dialog is not a battle of wits if literally gibberish.

WEAPONS OF MASS-DESTRUCTION: Everything bad about war is all there is if courage and prowess are rendered irrelevant.

Our reality is never the setting of my fiction. Disease is unheard of, speech was never cofounded into languages and weapons of mass-destruction are obsolete. I never mention these particulars in the stories. It is all taken for granted.

Well, I do show humans trying to nuke extraterrestrial races, only to be confused by the impotence of the weapons.

Many people whine about my preferences. They claim that disease, languages and weapons of mass-destruction make our world more interesting… even though everyone who makes this claim whines about the world as it is. I guess their idea of “interesting” is “frustrating” because if you are frustrated you are not… bored, maybe.

Stephen King wrote The Stand and it is about a plague that sweeps across the world. The story ends with a blast from a nuclear weapon. J.R.R. Tolkien created Elven languages and wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Frank Herbert wrote Dune and incorporated atomic weapons into its universe.

I have read Stephen King, J.R.R. Tolkien and Frank Herbert. I bear witness that they have earned their fame. Their works are genuine classics.

Still…

My novel The Wayward School for Girls is much shorter but much deeper than The Stand. The elves of my novel Agents of the Eye and Ear are more exotic than they are in The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. The war in my book Empires of a Strange Galaxy is more imaginative than the one in Dune, and just as believable.

I have proven, by my own hand, that my disinterest in disease, languages and weapons of mass-destruction is justified. I can make the world interesting without them. I make it more interesting, actually.

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

The Message

I write fiction. The genre is either adventure or horror as either science fiction or fantasy. My style emphasizes dialog over exposition. 

I illustrate the covers and create the title fonts. The illustrations are minimalist. The fonts are thematic but very simple.

My fiction began as childhood daydreams. I imagined scenarios and muttered the dialog of the characters. People heard me talking to “myself” and thought I was weird. I eventually wrote what I daydreamed.

My illustrations began as childhood drawings. I wrote and rendered scenes of comic books I never finished.

I create my own fonts as an afterthought. I was fond of the ones already available… but wanted the entire cover to be of my own making.

My fiction is always weird, violent and sexual. The weirdness may be subtle, the violence may be implied and the sexuality nuanced, but they are what they are, and always all three.

The killing is the sexiest aspect of my work. It is quite often the only one. The fancy is not death itself, mind you. The sexiness is in context. The victims are ordinary and insignificant. The slaying is impersonal and effortless. The killer is usually a hero and his victim a nameless foot soldier of villainy.

My work is allegorical. Main characters, heroes or villains are INDIVIDUALITY. All the other characters, regardless of faction, are SOCIETY. To understand this is to understand the recurring theme of a hero slaughtering droves of nameless baddies with pathetic ease.

The message is loud and clear.

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

Dreamlike

I write weird fiction. I do mean as the subgenre of speculative fiction, supernatural horror specifically. Even the action-adventure stories are such, though as survival horror.

My latest work in this category is the novel The Wayward School for Girls. The premise is “Dorothy” of The Wizard of Oz and “Alice” of Alice in Wonderland as girls in the modern day. They are in the gifted program of the same school. Unbeknownst to the public, the principal is a warlock and the teachers his coven of witches. They indoctrinate their students to become selfless, loyal and obedient thralls. The gifted girls are groomed to become teachers. The “special needs” students are buried alive and used as batteries to power magical devices. The average girls are trained for use as labor or soldiers.

The school is an institution of those in power. Telling anyone its secret is pointless.

Alice and Dorothy escape the school. They are “gifted” and have special powers they were trained to use. They slaughter the brainwashed ordinary girls sent after them.

The setting is Weird World, a dreamlike version of our world. Most adults are invisible, though children can see and hear them like they do imaginary friends. What grownups are clearly visible are either elderly (“second childhood”) or agents of the secret rulers of the world.

The next book is Tales of a Weird World. It is not about Alice and Dorothy. It is a collection of short stories about other people who live in the same universe. The Wayward School for Girls is one of several antagonist factions.

I created a dreamlike universe before. It was the setting of my novel The Goddess of Self. It was very similar to Weird World… but with a stark distinction. The Goddess of Self was about a girl from the real world finding herself in a surreal world. The surreal is the reality of Weird World. Everyone in it is from it.

The weirdness of a weird setting is normalized as it becomes familiar. To offset this in The Goddess of Self I often had the protagonist return to our reality. I did no such thing with Weird World. The point is for the weirdness to be normalized.

A dream makes sense while dreamt. The weirdness is normal. I did not want to “awaken” the reader of Weird World. The point is complete immersion. I wanted the stories to be “dreams” as literally as I could make them.

Not a Drop to Drink

A multicultural society is a society without a culture. It is corrupted by its diversity, not enriched. It is not a community. It is fractured into groups that can only tolerate each other at best. They need a common enemy to come together… and that is an alliance, not friendship. Such allies turn on each other when the enemy is vanquished. 

Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, Afghanistan and South Africa are multicultural societies. None of these are strengthened by their diversity. On the contrary. The Walloons and Flemish dislike each other. The English speaking and French speaking citizens of Canada dislike each other. The ethnicities of Switzerland keep to their own, though they are generally civil when they interact. The diversity is hatred and genocidal violence in Afghanistan and South Africa.

Japan and South Korea are countries that are also their cultures. Though many people in lands with few resources, they thrive. Their factions are trying to change their communities, not live apart from them.

Unity is strength. Diversity is weakness. The “sameness” of homogeneity is an actual culture.

Multicultural is to a society what the ocean is for someone in a raft dying of thirst: Everywhere but not a drop to drink.

I am Storyteller

Fiction is not about reality. It is about us. It is our thoughts and feelings as stories. The realism is to provide a common basis of comparison. A story is gibberish without it.

I write fiction. It is always weird, to varying degrees. The weirdness is to convey my intuitive sense of things. Our feelings of themselves are invisible. Articulating them in a way that can be visualized brings order to the chaos that is our emotions.

FLOW and BALANCE.

Fantasy is flow. Reality is balance. Fantastic is imaginative. Realistic is meaningful. The best fiction is both, as one and the same.

We are not amazed by the unbelievable. On the contrary: We dismiss it as ridiculous.

We are not amazed by the believable. On the contrary: We accept it as ordinary.

We are amazed when made to believe the unbelievable. Our small minds grow and our narrow thoughts broaden.

As a writer of fiction, I strive to inspire people to make believe the unbelievable.

We are indoctrinated by every faction in this world to learn rather than think. We are shamed as ignorant if we question. We are praised as educated if mindless. Our pride is used against us, to brainwash us.

My fiction is not the propaganda of any faction. It is my own thoughts and feelings. It is written to be a playground of the mind. It is an amusement park and every story is a ride. My thoughts provide the themes. My feelings provide momentum, twists and turns. It is all meant to be enjoyed.

https://www.deviantart.com/yellowplasma

My Pending Masterpiece

I am writing what may be my best book. It is becoming three books, actually. Its greatness is not its idea, though it is a good one. It is my rendering of the idea.

The story is many stories as one. I know how it begins and ends, and have for a long time. I have not changed my mind in the meantime, though many ideas within the gist have.

I was trying to decide whether I should write about Confederates in a steampunk story or Nazis in an alternate history. I wondered how World War Two would be different if the Confederacy won the War Between the States. I was fascinated by the idea of the 3^rd Reich and the CSA as allies. It was especially interesting if in a modern or futuristic setting.

I imagined a Confederate officer as the main antagonist of a story I would eventually write. The Confederacy lost the war but he is still fighting, using arcane technology to do it. He evolved into an SS officer I eventually named Arnold Kess. The steampunk setting became an alternate version of the modern day.

Senior Leader Kess is the Sorcerer. He commands the 13^th SS Air Assault Battalion. His daughter is his apprentice. She is the Enchantress and serves at his side as Junior Assault Leader Kess. They use magic, technology and armed forces to cleanse the world of undesirables.

The Confederacy is a world power and is sympathetic to the Nazi cause. Their enemies are the United States and the Albish (British) Empire. The Empire of Dawn (Japan) is neutral but considering joining forces with the Nazis and Confederates.

Mary Ziegler is the hero of the story. She is a freedom fighter with psychic powers, as is her part black daughter. They travel across the world to defeat the Nazis and Confederates. Mary was the lover of Senior Leader Kess. She is the mother of his daughter.

The drama of the story is about a broken family. Arnold and Mary still love each other. Their daughter thinks she is in love with her father and hates her mother out of jealousy. The girl’s half-sister still loves Arnold as the only father she ever knew… and he does care about her.

I am still going to create that Confederate officer I imagined. Though he evolved into the Sorcerer of the Realm he shall also become the Wizard of the Confederacy. His story shall be in the same universe and at the same time. His cause shall not be the Lost Cause, however. His skills shall serve a thriving empire. He may have a cameo in the books of his twin.

https://www.deviantart.com/yellowplasma