letting Go – Banishing the Shade

Its funny I just wrote a huge post that failed to upload it took me awhile to do and was damn long so I’m gonna keel its replacement short and sweet.

I’m letting go of my fear, doubt, hate, the comparisons people make and of worthlessness. These are my albatrosses, the thingd that prevent me from living instead of surviving. I will release them every day into the wind, any time they threaten to take be back to the prison of my own making.

Some people say I need to grow up when I need to revert to what it was like when I was 22. To take chances, to not be afriad of consequnces and take things as they come.

As I gave voice to the chains I felt free, I walked with a confidence that is as alien to me as a palm tree is to the snow.

I’m gonna go out and meet people, to find fast friends and be someone that they can count out as much as I seek the same. I’m out myself out there to discover intimacy that I long ago locked away in the prison in the shadow of my soul.

I shall take the pain and use it as a lense to reflect and magnify every inspired word, idea and hope that I seek to write. While I’m letting go im also going to take to heart belief that I have worth, live with confidnce, that I can and that my failures are lessons that will bridge the gap to success.

That’s who I choose to be and it sounds simple but I know better. I take on the challenge to be better tomorrow than I am today. To let my age be just a number and nothing more because I’m probably the youngest 30 something you will ever meet.

I will finallt go out and risk it all, date on the road, tred new ground, to smile and talk to anyone and everyone without fear of rejection.

I let go of rejection because it is a Phantom, it isn’t my reality. I will make my own reality, I cant control the world around me but I can control how I respond. I let go of indecisiveness, will take a stand, I want to stand for something. I reject comparisions bceause its our own journey and those that walk with us that matter. I will not fall into the trap that I have to do what someone else is doing.

This is what I choose to live by today, it will change and so shall I for the better, so let’s live like I feel to discover, expereince and to matter to someone out there.

Keeping it nice and simple for 2014

So we are a week into 2014, the winter olympics are round the bend and many of us are already way past due on resolutions. I’m one of them. I created a world now it’s time to play within it, while continuing to nurture its creation. My goal is simple have a story outlined in 2 weeks and then get to writing. I also have several script ideas I need to get back on the saddle for. I’ve wandered 8 countries so far but let’s see if my dream to write can be more than an idea and instead make it a reality. Its not a promise, it’s a mission, a craving, a need that I must follow no matter where I end up. I can’t go home until its done. So l started months ago but let’s make this the year I finish it. So what are you doing this year? How will you make it count. For me it’s about getting further out there and risking it all in search of who I am and for the story. That’s it, nice and simple but that’s usually the hardest thing you can do. I’m gonna have fun through, make it memorable and have a lifetime of adventures to share wherever I land.

Travelling the Bus in India

So this is a short one but when you are on the local or intra city buses in India and have bags that will not fit in the overhead compartments take the seat right before the back door.

There is usually a space that is big enough to fit at most a 55 L backpack. Its also easy to get on or off from there. Make sure you get there early for the busy routes but it’s not a big deal cause those have tons of buses going back and forth.

Take the government run buses if you are going on the cheap cause the deluxe ones while more comfortable are also more than double the price. Most of the buses look like they are held together with glue and ingenuity and you got to hand it to them they run pretty well.

I don’t find AC that necessary on the routes cause everyone has the windows open which keeps the air moving. That can be bad though in areas oh heavy smog ans dust. You develop a thin layer of grim over time just because you can’t not. Its annoying by you get used to it pretty fast.

The intra city buses I’ve been on are green and local buses a brown in Tamil Nadu at least. Take note of the major bus and train hubs so you have an idea of where you need to go to get to your next destination.

So I’m just about in Bangalore, just a few days shy of Christmas I hope I don’t have to spend it in some hotel room but who knows what the next few days have instore, I hope for an experience that forces me outside myself to the person I can see hints of UN those moments when you have no choice but to tackle problems and challenges head on. 

The World – Let the Hunt Begin (Again)

Should the world come before the story or the story give rise to the world? I think the easiest way to think about it for me is the story creates the world but as a gamer I think the process can be done either way. So is it possible to do it either way. My friend Tony told me that it’s the story that creates the world when I’m actually doing the opposite. Now that’s a bitch cause as I work at it I can see any numbers of stories that take place in the RIFT, as I’m calling the universe now.

So what to do how to do it and where to start if I’m going backwards, trying to think of the story to introduce the world. What I started out doing was creating small stories of characters within the world to find who I gravitated towards. I stopped doing this a while ago and now I feel I need to get back on the wagon and start creating characters that I want to write about, no matter the form the story takes. I think I have to start over, not with my world building but with the characters.

I must go back and live and breathe with these characters until they are as real to me as any person out here now. I feel like that’s just what I need to do to find the story. Most of what I think of and put to page will never make it into the story but it does help give anyone that dares to look beyond the superficial a feeling that you thought about how things work not just how something sounds on the page or looks like if it were on a screen, any screen.

I think stories are the hardest things to create out of nothing, they have no form until we can give it. They have nothing but an idea, a concept, a voice until it is on the page or is put on the screen, heard a loud or given some form be it permanent or transitory. Any storyteller wishes to give their idea substance, an audience that will look deep and see the world in ways even the writers can’t imagine as they create it.

I’ve always believed that we all have many stories to tell, those that we create in our lives or in the lives of others to those that come out of our experiences and from the land where creativity sings its song. I’ve never thought of myself as a storyteller, not really. I guess for me personally this is the journey I’m on, the path I seek, the way forward for whatever comes. That has to be the way, if it isn’t then I don’t know why I’m here.

So let’s dive into this world I created and find the story within the pages, within my imagination, the news I see, the experiences I’ve had and heard from friends. Let’s see if I can give this world in my head, form and function to live beyond my imagination.

Let’s Build a World – callsign RIFT

The world building has focused on transit through space and how that differs from traditional science fiction. In reality it isn’t that much different than what you would expect to find in shows like star trek where they break the laws of physics by transiting into another dimension.

In this universe FTL functions the same way except in the energy requirements needed to breach the veil.

So you’ve been focusing on the world building element but not the story. What kind of story makes sense for this world?

What I really was thinking about when I was building the world was how FTL worked and wanting to bring the age of colonialism back into the story. There is a wealth of history in colonialism through many countries that caused damage to countless indigenous populations. In this case the damage will not occur since habitable planets are rare and ones with life let alone intelligent life will be even rarer.

This means that the story should take place at least 2 generations after colonialism has begun when the colonies are on the verge or in the process of independence. They become the indigenous populations and will not want to be ruled by a government that is light years away. This is similar to Halo in that respect. You want to create a universe of discovery where new resources, science and technology can be developed. Like the game Mass Effect where the world felt so large, so big that you had a universe of possibilities to explore.

As the series went on it lost that feeling of discovery and the scope of the games contracted so by Mass Effect 3 you felt like you were going down a straight and narrow path with no real meaningful chance to wander and discover something different.

You want to do the opposite, you want a world that feels like it is alive, that’s always the dream.

I thought I could do it as a script but I am still searching for the story. You can get so focused on the details of the world you miss the story and that’s what I’ve felt I’ve done. I have pages scattered on how the world works and of different characters but I need to laser in on the format and before I can even attempt to do that I need the story.

I have to go back to basics and find something that works, does it need to be complicated, no but the complexity also depends on the format. As a movie script I would need it to be relatively simple, at least in structure. If it’s a novel I can add more layers and subplots because I’ll have more time to work on it. I think an ebook makes the most sense at this point because it gives me time to work the story out but doing that piece by piece without having an idea of where it’s going or what the ending is will be like flying blind.

Here I am in India and all I can think about is a world that doesn’t exist, that I’ve tried to write but I can’t because I’m searching for a door that can introduce the world when I have to focus on the story first, not the universe that it takes place in. So that’s the challenge I face now. Every day I can, I gotta write, that’s just what I have to do or there is no moving forward, there will be me stuck frozen in place.