Archive for November, 2013

Weekly Exercise #15 (11/26/13)

Posted: November 26, 2013 in Scary Stuff, Weekly Exercises, Writing
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Time again for my Weekly Exercises. These flash fiction pieces are part chance to practice my craft, part chance to hear feedback from readers, and part shameless plug to get you interested in my published fiction. Remember, the Weekly Exercises are dependent on your feedback, so if you like what you’re reading or absolutely hate it, please let me know. Also, if you have an idea for a Weekly Exercise, let me know. You may see your name and idea here on this blog. And finally, if you wish to read any more Weekly Exercises, they can all be found on their own page.

This week’s exercise is in memory of all teens who have been or are currently being cyber-bullied. What you are going through is horrible and you do not deserve it. Be strong. Trust me, it gets better.

~~~

Amber found Edna’s Facebook profile and laughed. There was a picture of the fat bitch with a dog and her younger brother. Well, she wasn’t really fat, she was just a bit rounder than the other girls. But she was still a bitch. A fat, ugly bitch who listened to weird music and sat in front of her computer all day and had flirted with Amber’s boyfriend. Didn’t matter if they were going through a rough patch, the bitch still had to pay for breaking the rules!

On Edna’s status, she’d written the words “Enemies Beware. Be Kind To Others Even If You Don’t Like Them.” What the hell did that mean? Didn’t matter. The bitch was going to get what she deserved. Clicking on the comment space, Amber wrote “Ur a fat, ugly pig. Why don’t u go sterilize urself. Cow.” Amber clicked Enter.

Nothing happened. Confused, Amber clicked Enter again. Still nothing. Now Amber was pissed. How come the damn comment wasn’t showing up? She groaned and tried to refresh. Now she’d have to write the comment all over again.

She clicked the Refresh button and suddenly Edna appeared on the screen. Amber’s eyes widened as Edna waved at her. “Were you planning on doing something?” she asked, glaring at Amber through the screen triumphantly. “Not going to work.”

Amber felt her anger flare. “What the hell are you doing there?” she hissed. “You’re not supposed to be on my computer—”

Suddenly Amber was unable to speak. She felt overwhelming despair come over her, like she’d suddenly been told that everybody hated her. In fact, she was sure that they did. Everybody hated her. She didn’t have a single friend in the world. But just as surely as the feeling had suddenly come, now it was gone. Why had it come? And where had it gone?

Edna only laughed. “Now you know how it feels.” she said. “Don’t do it again if you don’t want to feel it again. That’s the curse I cat: anyone who tries to bully me feels what it’s like to be bullied. Not very fun, is it?”

Edna disappeared. And Amber, for the first time since she was a little girl, cried in shame.

Why Again Did We Let Zimmerman Go?

Posted: November 26, 2013 in Living and Life, Politics and Leadership, Reflections, Social Activism
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Remember George Zimmerman? The guy who shot Trayvon Martin? Guess what he’s done now: he’s threatened his girlfriend with a shotgun and threw her out of the house when she tried to dial 911. When the police searched his car, they found an AR-15, a shotgun, and three handguns. He’s been let free on a $9,000 bond, and he’s entered a plea of not guilty. And this isn’t his first brush with the law since he was let off this summer: he’s been pulled over three times for speeding and assaulted his wife (yeah, he’s still married). The only reason he wasn’t arrested with the last one was because of lack of evidence.

Now, back during the Trayvon Martin trial, those who supported Zimmerman were saying that he was defending himself, that Trayvon was high and unstable and dangerous. They ignored that he had a history of violence before the Martin incident, and they might just try to ignore this situation altogether. But I’m going to repeat what I said back then: that George Zimmerman attacked an unarmed teen and killed him, and got away with it because of lack of witnesses, including the victim who understandably couldn’t speak, and because of a law that makes no sense to me. Yeah, I don’t support Stand Your Ground laws. They basically say I can go into a public setting with a gun, start a fight with any random passerby, and shoot them if I feel threatened.

But the point is, Zimmerman’s proven that he’s more likely to instigate an incident than defend himself. This is his second assault since his acquittal. It’s only the first with enough evidence to actually go to trial. So I’m just going to be the first to say this: Zimmerman should’ve been convicted back in July, because he assaulted Trayvon and killed him. But he didn’t, and then he attacked his wife and girlfriend. Either of those assaults could’ve been avoided, just like Trayvon’s death could’ve easily been avoided, but we allowed them to happen.

I just hope that this time around, Zimmerman gets convicted, because honestly if he keeps getting off like this, his head’s only going to get bigger and he’ll think he’s invincible to prosecution and punishment. And I really don’t want to see the carnage a man like that can leave behind when he believes he’s unstoppable.

Let the trial begin!

The 5 Beauties of Horror

Posted: November 24, 2013 in Reflections, Scary Stuff, Writing
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The final article in my series of the various common themes (aka “beauties”) found in science fiction, fantasy, and horror. What started as a discussion in class led to these three posts: The 7 Beauties of Science Fiction, The 7 Beauties of Fantasy, and now the 5 Beauties of Horror.

Now, as to why there are only five beauties in horror, I have an explanation for that: simply, horror often crosses genre. When it features supernatural creatures or monsters from another planet or realm, it’s horror crossing over into fantasy or science fiction. When the story features more human monsters and less of a supernatural aspect, it tends to cross over into the suspense and thriller genres. In that sense, it’s very difficult to get into pure horror, because that’s so difficult to define. So instead, I opted to go into some general themes you find in all forms of horror, no matter what genre they cross over into.

If you have any ideas on how these could be expanded, please let me know. I’d love your opinion on these beauties, since I came up with them on my own (not a lot of horror fans in my science-fiction lit class sadly, or at least not any fans who are as into it as I am).

1. The antagonist–the starting point of the story. Often you can define a horror story by its antagonist. because that’s often what comes first in planning a story and what you use to describe the story: “it’s a story about a murderous ghost”, “it’s a vampire novel”, “there’s a serial killer terrorizing this small farming town”, etc. And in this capacity, I’d like to mention that the antagonist can count as something else if there’s no real human antagonist. For example, in my short story “Addict”, there wasn’t a human or demon up against the narrator. Instead his own addictions were the antagonists of the story. So the antagonist would be more like the evil in the story that wants to do the characters harm or is already doing them harm, I guess.

2. Characters and setting. Usually after I’ve come up with the villain of a story, I start to create the other characters and the setting. The latter can also be a character, such as a haunted house or a forest (if you have trouble believing me on that watch the first season of American Horror Story to see what I’m talking about). I ask myself, who are the characters? Why are they opposite or beside the antagonist? Where is this all happening? What is each character like? All important questions that the author goes into in creating the story.

3. Conflict–there’s going to be one. If there’s a vampire in town, there’s either a vampire hunter or some townsfolk who are going to try and kill the vampire. If someone’s girlfriend has been kidnapped, expect someone’s going to try and get her back. If there’s an evil ghost trying to claim the lives of a family, there might be an exorcist or a paranormal investigator or a really angry mom trying to keep the kids safe from whatever is menacing her family. That conflict is the driving point of the story, and it sets up for the next beauty.

4. Fear. This one seems obvious, but it needs stating anyway. In a horror story, the point is to get the reader or viewer scared silly by telling a story and using the various elements within to terrify. Whether it’s a feeling of being watched, of something out fo the corner of our eyes, of something jumping out, or something just damn strange that we can’t put our fingers on, the whole point of the story is to scare, to create that fear, and it’s up to the storyteller to figure out how to do that and do it well. Otherwise the storyteller has to rely on silly gimmicks like sex or too much blood or watching teens get drunk, stoned, and naked.

5. Rules–there is an MO to what’s happening. Vampires can’t walk in the sun, the killer only goes after people who enter his father’s old prison, the ghost tries to take the souls of children from their parents. There are rules to how the antagonist operates and how it can be taken down. And for the most part, those rules are concrete, or else the story makes no sense and the reader/viewer will lose interest due to disorientation and confusion.

I hope you found these helpful. And once again, if you have any suggestions on how to improve this list, let me know. I do better on this sort of stuff in a group setting sometimes.

Review: The Day of the Doctor (aka The Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special)

Posted: November 23, 2013 in Review
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This was the best way to spend this Saturday.

What can I say about this special? No seriously, what can I say? It was awesome! Amazing! Crazy fun! Mind-blowing! Revealing! Extraordinary! Fantastic! That last one was the Ninth Doctor’s catchphrase.

Now what can I say about the special without giving away any spoilers? As River Song would remind us, we don’t want any spoilers we couldn’t handle. Well, here’s what I can tell you: the Doctor meets up with Impossible Girl Clara for a new slew of fun and adventures…only for UNIT to come by and haul the TARDIS off to the National Gallery (I think that’s what it was, because I don’t know my English landmarks). Something weird is going on at the museum involving the paintings. What happens next is an epic battle between Zygons, Daleks, Time Lords, and everything in between, all culminating in the Eleventh, Tenth, and the new War Doctor coming together for one great purpose.

Not saying another word on that.

Just be aware that the whole cast was awesome, the story was fun and exciting and had be on the edge of my seat for the whole two hours. You’ll laugh, you’ll gasp, and you’ll cry out with excitement with every twist and turn. If you haven’t seen the special, you should go out and see it now. Trust me, your whole Whovian self will be rocked, and your understanding of Doctor Who will forever be changed!

Also, make sure to stick around after the credits. You’ll see a preview of what’s to come for the Christmas special, where Matt Smith turns into Peter Capaldi…and much, much more will occur. Spoilers!

I’m giving The Day of the Doctor a 5 out of 5. Thanks so much for a very fun afternoon…even if at the viewing event I didn’t win the sonic screwdriver in the raffle. Oh well. I got two T-shirts (one from a trivia contest) and I can probably get the sonic through Amazon.

All for now. I’ll write another post later. Allons-y!

The 7 Beauties of Fantasy

Posted: November 22, 2013 in Reflections, Writing
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This is the second in my series of blog posts exploring the general guidelines or common themes that appear in the genres of science fiction, fantasy, and horror (click here to read The 7 Beauties of Science-Fiction). This whole series started in my science-fiction/fantasy literature class this past Wednesday, when we examined the 7 Beauties of Science-Fiction, we also came up with an original list for the 7 Beauties of Fantasy, and I on my own came up with 5 Beauties of Horror. I thought a series of blog posts sharing and examining these various beauties would be helpful and fun to write, especially when you consider how often the three genres intertwine and overlap.

Now without further ado, here are the 7 Beauties of Fantasy, seven themes or motifs that are found in most fantasy stories, as the examples I pick will show.

1. Character–someone through whose eyes we see this mysterious world. Every fantasy story has at least one focal character, someone through whom the world we’ve been introduced is explained and explored. These sort of characters usually end up becoming heroes of some sort and we end up identifying with them very deeply in the course of the story. Examples include Bilbo Baggins and his nephew Frodo in the Lord of the Rings canon, Eragon in the Inheritance Cycle, and Nick Burkhardt in Grimm.

2. Setting and culture–the magical, mysterious world our character explores. If it’s a fantasy novel, there’s almost a 99% garauntee that the world is nothing like the world we live in, and there’s a 100% certainty that something will need to be explained to us. Be it Middle-Earth, Narnia, or Harry Potter’s Wizarding world, there’s a whole realm to explore, with its own cultures, nations, societies, geographies, floras and faunas, and so much more. It’s up to the author, through the narrator’s eyes, that we find out as much as we need to about it.

3. Novums and Neologisms–technology/tools and words/phrases exclusive to the world we are in. Just like in science-fiction, the world of the story in fantasy has words or devices that are exclusive to that world and that we don’t understand entirely. Be it the Invisibility Cloak and Apparation, or the gedwey ignasia and Eldunari, they make no sense in the context of the real world but they make plenty of sense in the context of a fantasy realm.

4. Adventure(s)–you will go on one. Can you think of a single fantasy novel that doesn’t involve some sort of quest or journey or something along those lines? Neither can I. It seems every fantasy story is predicated on the main character going off to save a princess from a dragon or to toss the One Ring into the boiling flames of Mount Doom or find the genie she’s engaged to but who has been kidnapped by an evil sorcerer. Along the way the character fights enormous perils, learns valuable lessons, and grows as a character until he or she becomes the hero or heroine we all long to be on some level.

5. There are things that can’t be explained rationally. How does magic work? Why can a dragon fly when its body is too big for its wings to reasonably lift it off the ground? How come unicorns have magic in their horns? In a science-fiction novel, television show or movie, everything is based on science, and in theory everything can be explained scientificially. Not so with a fantasy story, which are not based on science but on mysterious forces and strange new worlds to explore and are limited only by the author’s own imagination. So don’t ask how come a sword from a water maiden is more powerful than your average sword or how magic can respond to a blood sacrifice, because you’re not likely to find the answer unless the author wants you to.

6. Familiarity–the characters don’t wake up one morning going “what the heck?” The world of the character is the one they gew up in. They know it like the back of their hand, and it would take much to surprise them in this world. In other words, unless they’re a little baby the world isn’t one they are unfamiliar with. It’s the one they know like the real world is the world we know. Not only that, but the world is somewhat familiar to us. You could channel-flip to HBO and might think you’re watching a special on the War of the Roses or on the Norman invasion, and not realize you’re watching Game of Thrones.

7. Internal history–there’s a history to this fantasyland. This is similar to the “historical extrapolation” beauty in science-fiction, but very different. Sci-fi is what could be possible with our world, so the history is the same for the most part. In fantasy though, the world has a very different history than ours. Different nations, different wars, different cultures, different creatures. This world we are visiting through the story likely has its own history that has its own unique players and events. And probably the one person who knows the full extent of that history is the author of the story his/herself (or sometimes not even then: half the time I’m not sure the writers of Once Upon a Time know where there story is going, let alone the entire history of each and every character).

No matter what, fantasy is always a strange and new exploration of new territory. It’s fun to look into and it’s fun to inhabit. And in some cases, it can even become a phenomena lasting years after the new world has entered ours. Knowing how to examine and analyze such places don’t detract from the story, but they make them all the more fun, all the more beautiful.

At least, I think so. Hope you liked the post and be on the lookout for the 5 Beauties of Horror, coming soon.

I’m Writing Again!!!

Posted: November 21, 2013 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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Good evening, Followers of Fear. How are you this evening? I don’t know about you, but I’m doing great! I just finished Chapter 20 of Video Rage, after working on it on-and-off for the past six or so days. This officially puts an end to my hiatus that kept me from doing any major writing, and puts me back on track to possibly finishing this novel by the end of this year or the end of January (one or the other, most likely).

It’s been over a month since I had to stop writing because of how busy I was with school and work. I just had way too much on my plate to devote any time to actually writing, but now that my schedule’s eased up a little, thanks to the semester ending soon and Thanksgiving coming even sooner, I can actually afford to sit down for hours at a time and just churn out stories. It’s a wonderful feeling.

Actually, the truth is not being able to write might’ve actually contributed to my stress levels getting worse rather than better. But being able to write these past couple of days has been just wonderful. I feel freer than I have since I began my hiatus, and now that I’ve gotten another chapter under my belt, I’m on a little bit of a writing high. In fact, the writing high made me write a longer chapter than I normally would’ve. Not that I mind though. I think the chapter the way it is right now is pretty awesome. It was a huge fight sequence, which I’m not normally good at writing. But I managed to extend it from what might’ve been a six-page chapter to a ten-page chapter, and it looks better than what I had originally planned, so it’s kind of a win-win situation.

I’ve also decided that working on two novels at once is not the best idea for me. One moment I’m yearning to work on one project but I have to work on the other, next moment I’m working on project number two but I want to work on the first project. It’s a little bit annoying. So for now I think I’ll stick to finished Video Rage, which has only seventeen chapters left in the first draft, and then I’ll get back to working on my other work-in-progress, Laura Horn. After that’s all done…well, who knows? Maybe some short stories, a new novel, some editing work. All depends on what’s on my schedule and what I feel like doing at the moment.

But to sum it all up, I’m really happy at the moment, and I look forward to finishing the first draft of Video Rage.

And while I have your attention, I also want to extend a hearty congratulations to fellow author, colleague, and good friend Angela Misri, whose Portia Adams novel Jewel of the Thames has just been accepted for publication by Fierce Ink Press. Mazel tov Angela, I’m so excited for you and I cannot wait to read all of Portia’s amazing adventures this coming spring. Keep me posted on the news, okay? Also, if your books get made into movies, who do you want to play Portia? Because from what I know of the character, I think Natalie Portman or Eve Myles would be a great early call.

All for now, everybody. Good night!

The 7 Beauties of Science Fiction

Posted: November 20, 2013 in ideas, Living and Life, Reflections, Writing
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In his book The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction, Istvan Csicery-Ronay Jr. explains some of the most common themes of science fiction. He did this in order to examine how these themes could apply and impact our lives as we navigate a world that relies increasingly on technology and information. However, they also make great guidelines for examining science fiction and for writing your own stories that take place somewhere far off in time and space.

We went over these seven beauties early in the semester in my SF/Fantasy literature course, but today we went over them again. It was an optional class today that focused more on fantasy than science-fiction, and we came up with our own seven beauties of fantasy because the two genres overlap and are entwined in so many way. After class, I came up with my own list the horror, but could only come up with five beauties. Oh well.

Anyway, I thought I’d do a trilogy of posts that focused on the different beauties for each genre, because they are related genres and because they overlap in so many ways, so it’s interesting to examine some of the mores and common themes of these three genres. First, I’d like to start with the seven beauties of science fiction, because that’s what I learned first and it’s from these that my class created the seven beauties of fantasy, and I created the five beauties of horror.

With each beauty, I give a definition and an example, some from books and movies I’ve read/watched, some from my own work, and some that I’ve just heard about. If you have any examples, please let me know. I may just add them into the list.

1. Neologisms–new words or phrases that are exclusive to the world of the story. Every term that refers to something that only exists in that world, that’s a neologism. Consider the term twanking from the short story Mr. Boy, or warp in Star Trek. Those terms are a part of the story, and outside the story don’t have any relevance (unless, for the latter term, you’re a theoretical physicist trying to figure out how to warp something from one end of the room to the other).

2. Novums–technology or inventions that exist only in the story of the world. Take the ansible from Ender’s Game, or the lightsaber, or the TARDIS. These are technologies years ahead of us, only existing in stories and as imitations we see sometimes at comic book conventions. One can consider the flying saucer a novum, because as far as we know, real flying saucers don’t exist.

3. Historical extrapolation–referring to events that happened in the past in order to explain the world as it is now. You know how in Episode IV of Star Wars Obi-Wan explains how the Empire rose and the Jedi Order was destroyed thanks to Darth Vader? That’s historical extrapolation. It’s referring to events not always seen in the actual story to explain how the world we are in came to be. Other examples include how the first invasion of the Buggers in Ender’s Game creates Ender’s world and the aliens coming to Japan during the Meiji era in GinTama.

4. Oxymoron–implausibility or absurdities that only work in the story. An example of this would be crossing a human with a housefly to get a man-fly or radiation causing the dead to rise, like in the original Night of the Living Dead. Another way to look at this would be the idea that the human species develops in other regions of the universe at the same time, and when all the species come together, they find out they are all similar. It’s not likely, is it? Yet we see it in science-fiction and we don’t question it.

5. Scientific Impertinence–when laws that are deemed “unbreakable” by science are broken. Travelling at light-speed without expanding your mass to incredible sizes or traveling through time and space all in the course of a second without any aftershocks or side-effects might count as this. Scientifically, they can’t happen, but they do in these stories.

6. Sublime chronotopes– the space/time of the story. A science-fiction story is our world with added elements of scientific nature. Therefore, Star Trek and everything in its franchise are technically taking place in this world, but in the future and on other planets or in the void of space. Therefore, defining the sublime chronotopes of a story is defining its time and space relative to yours.

7. Parable–what’s the story about? Most sci-fi stories, we will find, is a parable that explores a certain issue. District 9 is about apartheid and racism. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? explores what it means to be human. 2001: A Space Odyssey is about mankind’s dependence on technology. And A.I. Artificial Intelligence explores what could happen if robots and humans learned to bond with each other.

Whether you agree or disagree with these 7 Beauties of Science Fiction, they are useful in exploring the genre. And sometimes you can even use them as a tool in the endless debates that seem to come from popular franchises and stories.

Thanks for reading. I hope to have the 7 Beauties of Fantasy and the 5 Beauties of Horror up soon.

What do you think of the 7 Beauties listed here? Do you agree or disagree? Why? Do you have any examples?

Weekly Exercise #14 (11/19/13)

Posted: November 19, 2013 in Scary Stuff, Weekly Exercises, Writing
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Time again for my Weekly Exercises! These flash-fiction pieces are part chance for me to practice my craft, part chance for the readers of my blog to let me know how I’m doing as a writer, and part shameless plug to get people interested in my published fiction. Remember that the Weekly Exercises are dependent on reader feedback, so if you have any thoughts, let me know.

If you would like to check out other Weekly Exercises, please check out their page. And if you have an idea for a Weekly Exercise, let me know. You might see one based on your idea here with your name on it.

That’s all right now. Enjoy.

~~~

Josef Mengele woke up with a start. He was strapped down to a metal chair in his kitchen and someone had placed a gag in his mouth. He tried to call out, but a voice said in his ear, “Nobody’s coming to save you.” From behind him appeared two men and a woman. Mengele didn’t recognize either of them.

“We’ve been looking a very long time for you, Josef Mengele.” said the woman, speaking German with a Polish accent tinged with some American. “Almost ten years, in fact.”

“Do you know who we are?” asked one of the men, whose voice sounded like the one Mengele had heard only a moment before. He was dark-eyed and he had a long, scraggly beard. Mengele shook his head, which made all three intruders smile humorlessly. “We guess you wouldn’t. After all, you caused so much pain for so many. How can you expect to remember three prisoners?”

Mengele’s eyes widened. His three captors pulled up their shirt-sleeves, revealing strings of numbers appearing on their arms. Survivors of the camps, and they had him tied up and at their mercy! How did this happen?

“We’ve been tracking you for a while, Mengele.” said the second man, young and curly-haired. “We and so many of your former patients. We formed a little group after the war, you know. All to find the killers who had escaped justice. You’re the latest find out of twenty-three former Nazis. Yes, twenty-three. We made sure they suffered before they all died too.”

“Do you have anything to say for yourself?” said the bearded man, removing the gag from Mengele’s mouth.

Mengele coughed and spluttered before speaking. “Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” he said. “I was an innocent lamb. I had no idea what I was doing, I was just following orders—!”

The woman slapped him. “No lies!” she hissed, her eyes ablaze with anger. “No more lies! You separated me from my husband and son! They died in the gas chambers and never received a grave. And you put me through hell, making me work and then cutting me open and then sewing me back up. And you had no problem with your lab assistants having fun with me! Don’t claim that you’re a little lamb! My husband and son were lambs! You’re a wolf!”

“The courts will vindicate me.” said Mengele. “You’ll be punished for this ludicrous behavior. But if you untie me now, I’ll forget this ever happened—”

The three captors laughed, shocking Mengele into silence. “You think we’ll give you to the courts?” said the curly-haired youth. “That’ll take too long. You’ll commit suicide before anyone can punish you. No, we’ve got something better planned for you.”

Suddenly a black shape appeared in the kitchen, floating just above the kitchen table. Mengele stared as a monstrous face emerged from the black shape, its eyes fiery red like hot coals. “What is that?” asked Mengele, terrified.

“The Angel of Death.” said the bearded man. “You know, the namesake for your nickname? He decided to help us punish the Nazis we track down. He gets your soul while you’re still alive, and we give him ourselves over to him ten years early.”

“You’d make such a deal?” said Mengele, not taking his eyes off the Angel of Death. “Why would you give up your lives after surviving the camps?”

“Because it’s worth it.” said the woman. “I’ve been only living a half-life since I left the camp anyways. Giving myself over to Death early makes the nightmares quiet, because I know I’m getting the retribution I seek. And whatever’s on the other side, it’s better than what you’ll ever get, even if I never see my husband and son again.

“Have fun in Hell.” said the bearded man. “It’s your turn to feel unending misery and terror.”

Mengele screamed as the Angel of Death wrapped itself around him. Then he was falling through a tunnel, before crashing on the shore of a sea of fire. In the sea of flames, being poked with pitchforks by ghastly monsters were Nazis of all ranks and branches and ages. Some of them Mengele even recognized. There was Goebbels and his wife, and there was his assistant at Auschwitz, and there was a corporal he’d known in Berlin, and—was that the Fuhrer being ripped apart by hooks in his skin as demons tried to reel him in from all sides like a fish?

Before he could even process that the same fate awaited him, something kicked him into the sea of flames.

A “Phantom” of an Idea

Posted: November 19, 2013 in ideas, Novel, Scary Stuff, Writing
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As you will see, there’s a really bad pun in the title of this post.

You ever have that song stuck in your head, and you can’t get it out of your head but you really don’t want it to become unstuck? And for those writers out there, do you ever wish that you could find some way to connect that song to your writing? Both happened to me today. And here’s the kicker: the songs in my head were from the musical The Phantom of the Opera, based on the novel by Gaston Leroux (you see why I said there was a bad pun in the title?). What’s worse was that I wanted to write a story written around The Phantom of the Opera.

Sometimes ideas come to me quickly when the inspiration strikes. Today it didn’t. I had to actually spend all day thinking about this story before I came up with something. The story for it was there, I just couldn’t get quite the grasp on it. And it wasn’t until I read some poetry by a friend and stepped out of the shower this evening that this idea for a POTO-based story came to me. I literally started jumping up and down in the bathroom with excitement. I was so happy to have this idea before I went to bed.

Now I’ve written the idea down and I’m writing it here because I wanted to share it with you. It just seemed like the sort of story in my life that I wanted to share here on my blog. The idea involves magic, some familiar characters from the novel and the musical, and a supernatural war playing out in Ohio, New York, Washington DC and Paris, all in the course of at least three books (I love how my mind works. It just comes up with the strangest elements to add to my stories). There’s darkness, there’s intrigue, there’s even a little forbidden love involved. If I ever get the chance to write it, it’ll be awesome.

Of course, I’ve got a pretty full schedule, so I’m not sure when I’ll be able to write it. Hopefully some time soon, right?

Well, I’m going to sign off now (first time I’ve ever said “signed off” in over two years of blogging. How’s that for random?). It’s late, and who knows? I’ve gotten some great ideas from sleeping and dreaming. If anything comes up, I might just let you know. So goodnight, Followers of Fear. See you in the morning.

An Update to My Article On Hypnosis

Posted: November 16, 2013 in Living and Life
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A little bit back I wrote an article about the truths and myths of hypnosis. In that article I mentioned that you can’t use hypnosis to kill someone, because you can’t force someone to do something they wouldn’t normally do, such as murder someone.

Turns out I was wrong. Apparently it is technically possible to make people commit crimes, including kill someone, through hypnosis.

I found this out through a special by Derren Brown, a British entertainer who regularly uses hypnosis in his acts. His shows are usually devoted to testing the limits of the abilities and techniques he uses in his acts, including hypnosis. This special, along with the rest in The Experiments series, aimed to look at the limitations of hypnosis and tried to see what you could or couldn’t really do with hypnosis. The special in question, which I embedded below, was devoted to seeing if it was possible to brainwash someone to become a killer, like it’s said often in the chat rooms of conspiracy theorists.

If you don’t have the time to sit down and watch a fifty-minute video, I’ll summarize the video below.

Okay, for those of you who didn’t watch it, the video detailed how basic hypnosis works, followed by searching for the perfect subject to be a hypnotized assassin, and then trained him to assassinate a certain celebrity (who agreed to be part of the production as the target), and then watched to see if the subject would assassinate the target, who had a bulletproof vest on. The subject did fire the gun.

So I was wrong. As much as I hate to admit it, hypnosis can be used to get someone to kill, even if they don’t realize what they are doing. However, it is extremely difficult to pull  off, requiring months of training with the perfect subject and with the right hypnosis techniques. And even if you can pull this off, I wouldn’t recommend doing this sort of thing if you have any morals at all. Murder is murder, no matter what.

Now if you’ll need me, I’ll be writing and possibly thinking up some way to incorporate this terrible information into my views of hypnosis. With any luck I’ll be able to put this into a story I’ll write someday, which will most likely mean that I’ve accepted this new fact, and I’m not going to try to shut it out.

Until next time, Followers of Fear.

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