Catching Eyes, or The Utter Silliness

I want to write you endless poems about kissing, dancing, spinning minds and whirlwinds of your fluttering skirts that tease and taunt and catch my eyes. I want to write to impress you, or divest you of your second skin, that I can spread my fingers from your painted toes to your silken tresses, memorizing all the way. Mesmerizing all the way.

I want you to adore me, to restore me to my former glory. Give me starry eyes and I will shower you with light. I want a smile and a fleeting glance, a catch of eyes as if by chance, where I can capture your attention, undivided, for a sliver of a second before I lose you in the crowd. I want to wade through the sea of man until you're in my arms again and laugh until we're drowning in the din.

I want to woo you with a silver tongue that tangles, knots and swells with blood, the moment that your fingers twine with mine. I want to feel a fool and see amusement turn the corners of your mouth up. To catch the glint of innocent laughter in your eyes.

I want to feel you breathe beside me, arms wrapped around my chest, and watch the light of the television dance across your shadowed face. I want your lips to find their way to throat, to jaw, to meet their match and spring their trap. An offer I would never dare refuse. I want your eyes to catch me, like prey trapped in a web, then bare your claws and fangs and have your feast.

I want to rise in threat to overtake your shores and pull you out to sea, then smash your tiny vessel with the gale of my desire. I want to spatter old clichés and turns of phrase until I've made all the blank pages in the world a canvas for you. I want to draw you in and drown you with me, surely I am drowning in this, and the endless ocean's embrace will give you life.

You've caught me at a loss for words, for once, and I am not ashamed.

If I've deranged, or ranged beyond the need for stage and page then I am sincere in the telling, if not always quite compelling. I will sing for you, if you will dance, and if you won't I'll write, perchance, to Chance or fancy.

I've burned in effigy, ephemeral incandescence bursting, evanescent, all my untapped power spent and poured like honey tears. Your eyes are brilliant stars. And such clichés are both a nightmare and a dream. At the risk of sounding silly, I would compile them in compendium and scatter the pages to the wind. Dust, like the ashes of my fathers.

I will glorify you, if nonsensically.

Ebulliently Yours,
-S.R.

Down Where I Am

I can feel myself decaying. A slow, black rot from the inside. Dark moods hang over me like a shroud, and I can taste myself. Rancid, infected, festering. I can almost smell the sick, sweet stink of death. Something is wrong.

I have always flirted with death, always had a sincere fantasy for it. A fascination with the way it would end. I never thought I'd go swiftly. I'm far too strong to die fast. So I fight, clutching at life and death equally, crushing them in my lover's embrace. I will be burned down to ash before they take me and bury me in my grave. I will die hard, and leave a scarred reminder of how I went.

Once, I thought I was bound for greatness. My mind, my strength, my will could somehow change this world. I would do something meaningful. Whether with cunning or storytelling, by seizing power or by writing of those who are powerful. I thought I would be magnificent. I never dreamed of it, because dreams are for those who will live, and death has always been a part of me. But I knew that when I hurled open the gates of Valhalla, I would be welcomed. Now, I feel saddened.

Thoughts of greatness are for the bold, the capable. The infirm, those cursed with this gradual decline and decay, we are no more capable of greatness than the lowest slave. The most base of urges. I will not be welcomed. I will be revolting to my dearest gods.

There is a thinness to my being. Not in flesh or bone, but a thinness nonetheless. The tether that holds me bound to this world, this plane, this realm, is thinning. My body strains through the days, lumbering on in the absence of direction. My sails are in tatters, my rudder is smashed. The ship is taking on water. But it plods on toward shore. Clawing for purchase. Gasping for breath. Labored, straining, and failing.

The land is distant, yet.

Wretchedly Yours,
-S.R.

Obligatory Political Rant

Pay attention, I'm only going to say this shit once. I was going to abstain, honestly, as I have for the last few years. My patience and, frankly my interest, in arguing politics or economics either with idiots or intellectuals has waned until it became nearly non-existent. But, since the current climate is absolutely ruining my social life I feel inclined to just get it all off my chest at once. Like it or not, here we go.

I would like to begin with an assurance. I will not post these thoughts on Facebook. Not individually. I'll link to my blog. Because that's what blogs are for. I don't want to read your thoughts on politics on Facebook, because for some reason, possibly due to the underlying narcissism of the human psyche, posting those ideas on Facebook makes you an arrogant jackass. The next ranting status that the Internet shoves down my throat that starts with something like "Can someone please tell me why...." and goes on to some rhetorical fucking question just hawking your bullshit agenda will make my eyes literally burst out of my skull. If you do that to me, I will find you and I will pull out your spine and feed it to your god damned dog.

If you want to post videos, hell if you want to start a discussion on Facebook or, gods help us, Twitter, feel free. But for fucks sake, please proofread it first. Just make sure you don't sound like an asshole.

Now that we've gotten that unpleasant business out of the way, lets away to the arrogance!

Vote for Obama. Seriously, guys, is this even a thing we need to talk about? We're all functioning alcoholic adults here. Do I really need to go into all of this Romney camp telling women what they can and can't do with their bodies? Or the tax evasion? Or the lies about Medicaid? Or the fact that he hasn't really given us any idea of what his policies are going to be excepting "the opposite of Obama?"

I do? Alright, fine.

Look, Obama caught flak for not making his birth certificate public. Which, by the way, it was. Those things are public record. You could look it up with a little responsible research. I know they didn't immediately release it on Fox News and CNN (although they did, eventually) but, really? Are we that lazy? So, in the interest of fairness I suppose that whole unfortunate business with Romney's taxes had to happen, but I still don't agree with it. I'm firmly against this nosy, busy-body, fucking Gossip Girl society we've become, but I let it go. He eventually made that information public and, to no one's great surprise, we were all right. He wasn't paying fairly.

But why do we care? Look, the President doesn't actually have much influence on economics. If he's cheating on his own taxes, good for him. But that doesn't really impact his ability to do the job. I wouldn't vote for the guy, but I think we can let this one slide.

On the other hand, he clearly misunderstands the way money works. See, the big issue I have with the right-wing in this, and Romney and his ilk specifically, is the way they keep harping on the money we owe China. They want to scare you. "The defecit is huge! It's bigger than ever!" Well, not exactly. See, figuring for global inflation, the deficit isn't that scary, and it isn't that outlandish. The entire world's economy took a hit. Everyone owes everyone money. They try to frighten you with doomsday ideas about China calling us up and being all "Hey, can we get that money back?" like America is everyone's broke friend and the favors have run out. That's just not the case.

Do you know what would happen if China asked for their money back? Our economy would collapse. The immediate consequences of that? China's economy would collapse. Catastrophically. See, China is going through the same modernization process America went through sixty years ago. The difference is that American industry was fairly self-sufficient. We were inventing these things and manufacturing them at the same time. China's economy is mostly manufacturing now, but they aren't inventing anything new. They're making money by building and selling things we already created. They do it cheaper, which means they get the business. The same way contractors bid for jobs.

You see, we're not a manufacturing based economy anymore. We've been edging away from that for thirty years. America is a service based economy. We're buyers and sellers of services, information, technology. We don't need to manufacture because we're spreading the wealth around. That's how capitalism works. It spreads, grows, and advances. We have the power in this case because we're buying the goods. If we played more aggressively, could we buy them cheaper? Probably. But it wouldn't earn us many lasting trade relationships. It's a delicate balance.

Why does this come up in politics though? Economics is decided by companies and people. Not politicians. Legislation affects it, sure, but the bulk of the economy isn't going to change because Romney thinks we should manufacture our own shit. It isn't his call. Guys, Presidents don't do economics. In fact, go ask a politician to explain the economy to you. If he isn't a lying bag of shit, chances are he'll shrug and tell you that, quite frankly, he can't. No one can. Why are we trying to simplify something like that? The balance is delicate. Over simplify and you will risk ruining it. And looking like a total douche.

Let's talk about abortion. Hell, let's do gay marriage and aboriton and sex education and drugs and crime all at once. I've said, for about eight years, that the issue with gay marriage is that gay marriage is an issue at all. Its none of my business. If I, as a straight man, can choose to forego marriage at all, then why can't a gay couple choose for themselves? Let's stop with this sanctity of marriage bullshit too. Marriage has never been a sanctuary. It has never, fucking ever, been universally sacred. If you try to give me an example of a sacred marriage, I will punch you in the dick with ten examples of the opposite. Marriage is wonderful, for those happy few that make the choice and find someone they can truly enter that bond with. It's a beautiful gesture. But that's it. It's a gesture. It's an agreement. A contract. If both partners don't fulfill it, then the whole thing is a wash. Love each other, and do it your own way. Don't let some fuck-off lawmaker tell you any different. It's a free country.

Stop talking about abortion. Just stop it. It's none of your business what she does or doesn't do with her body and her child. If you really want to stop abortions, how about we pass some laws about comprehensive sex education, so kids know what they're getting into? How about we make healthcare affordable enough (thanks, Obama, for already trying that, sorry the American public didn't see it) that those same kids have somewhere to turn that isn't the free fucking clinic?

Then, how about we do something about these skanks that just use abortion as a contraceptive? Those are the ones you should be concerned with. Not the rape victims, or the parents that don't believe in bringing a child into the world that will lead a short, painful life, or the ones that would die during childbirth because of something we could detect early enough to avoid it. Leave those women the fuck alone. The skanks? How about you force them to live with their own mistakes? How about you show them how to be adults, rather than pampered little cum dumpsters? There's a god damned law for you.

Legalize pot. But, do it in such a way that the glamor goes away. I smoke pot. Hell, a lot of people smoke pot. Occasionally. Or often. Or daily. Look, it isn't any worse for you than half the things we're allowed to do already. Besides, if you legalize it, and pass the requisite laws governing the sale and taxation of it, all those douchebags with the the backwards visors and sandals and Bob Marley t-shirts and acoustic guitars will go back into their bedrooms and shut the fuck up. That's all I want. That, and to not be denied a job or thrown in jail because I have a joint's worth of weed in my pocket or my urine. I don't drive drunk, I won't drive high. People like me, with that mentality (read: almost all of us) will be quite alright with legal weed.

Let's stop with mandatory minimums for horeshit crimes. Really, guys, it's getting old. Prisons are crowded, clearly that system isn't working. Let's do something new. Gladiator battles, maybe. Public executions. Something old might work. Or, maybe, take violent criminals and put them in a capsule and launch them into the fucking sun. There's an idea. Rapist? Boom, Sun Cannon. Murderer? Boom, Sun Cannon. Beat your wife and kids? Did they deserve it? Eh, Sun Cannon. At the very least, send them off to Africa where they can die a slow, agonizing AIDS death or be eaten by something horrifying.

Look, altogether, I'm just tired of politics. I'm tired of hearing about it. I don't want to know your opinions. If I did, I'd watch the major news network (or, for some of you, the minor extremist publications and radio stations) that fed it to you. If you're that passionate, read up on your personal issues and get involved in a way that makes a difference. Talk candidly and honestly and, most important, calmly with people that share your views and those that disagree. Form a complete idea before you go spitting nonsense into the Internet. That's my job.

People won't all agree with you. I'm a fairly middle-minded kind of guy, overall. Modest on some things, extreme on others (see the Sun Cannon). Conservative here, liberal there. But if you speak with confidence, with the ability to articulate rather than ramble and scowl and call names and be just a huge twat, you might at the very least get some respect for your opinions.

Until you can do that, please shut the fuck up.

If you'd like to engage me in a conversation, feel free to do so here. If you do so elsewhere, I will come to your house and personally punch you in kidney.

Yours,
-S.R.

Dreaming

She finds me in my dreams, when I'm vulnerable. She slink about in the shadowed nooks of my mind, flitting from sight whenever my thoughts catch her picking locks on doors and peeking into pools of memory. She flees and no matter how I chase her, she always escapes. A phantasmic beauty.

Until I fall asleep.

When I dream she's a warrior, adrift in a maelstrom. The wind batters her on the deck of a ship, certain to dash itself on the crest of a wave and sink. She howls into the storm like some mad pirate, her bow drawn, arrow nocked, as serpentine creatures rise from the roiling sea to snatch at her. She fires, draws, fires again, hurtling insults and arrows into the storm and its monsters. Her clothes cling to her milky skin and rain runs over her in rivulets like unbridled flood water. At first I think she is afraid, that she screams from fear of the monsters and the storm, but I'm wrong. This woman fears nothing. She screams defiance. She screams a challenge and the sea is at her mercy.

When I dream she is lost somewhere and I am searching for her, chasing her across lakes and fields or through narrow halls that seem to branch out forever. I find her in a washed out world of greys and blurred scenery, a kind of half-world that exists solely as a backdrop for her. In this dream she isn't a woman at all. She's a tiger. The half-light casts shadows between her shoulderblades as she stalks a circle around me, makes her stripes seem to move and slither along her thick, muscular frame. Her mouth seems massive as she leaps at me, pins me to the ground. A tremendous black hole. Something inescapable. She is powerful, predatory, and exhilarating.

When I dream she is asleep in my bed. The sun drifts in through the window and slips its golden fingers through her hair. She smells sweet, slightly flowery, and I am hesitant to wake her. There is a serenity about this dream, something I very rarely feel, and I am loathe to spoil it, but a touch of my fingertips on one bare shoulder won't hurt. A light kiss on the forehead. Her eyes flutter open, and so do mine.

When I dream we make love with a vicious mix of passion and carnality. There is a dizzying, heady mixture of lust and violence, of desire and destruction. Two predators with claws and teeth and soft, supple lips. Her voice echoes in my head, a series of whispers and screams and deep, throaty moans. Filthy, debaucherous things and bright, mellifluous things. My name hangs on her lips, clawing for purchase as if it wants to force itself back down the throat that uttered it. In the midst of it I am probably screaming unintelligible things, pouring words into her ear and dangling precariously close to falling in myself when she bucks, back arching and drags her nails over my back as if trying to peel me from the spine.

When I'm awake, and alert, she is hidden from me. But when I sleep, there is no escaping her.

Dreamily Yours,
-S.R.

Two Faces

I am the storm as it walks across the desert. I am power uncontained. Unstoppable. Inexorable. Irresistible. I will roll over your home and your city and your body like the apocalypse, burning and pillaging, a great horde of destruction. I am a mass of muscle all tensing at once and lunging forward. I will snatch you by the throat and swallow you. Whole.

I will find you in your darkest hour, while you dangle from the edge of some nightmarish place, neither whimpering or screaming for help. Perhaps you're much too proud. Perhaps you don't know that you need it. Perhaps, you prefer the fall. But I like to wander those vile places, and the pale skin against the ink black depths excite me. I know a way out of here, for you at least. Come, let me show you the way.

Try as you might, there is no escape from me. Struggle, yes! Fight, kick, scream as I engulf you. Punch me in the larynx while I devour you. What's a few bruises to a full belly? Inside me is a world the likes of which you have never seen, and whether it is your tomb or your playground, there will be pleasure and pain beyond your reasoning. I will lash your body to a stone in the storm and I crash over you. Thunder and light. Wind and rain. Whips and ball gags. We're locked in a contest, you and I, and only one of us walks away.

Your hands are shaking. That's normal, rest assured. You've been clinging to the cliffs for so long, that your fingers have forgotten how to stretch. Go ahead, open them, show me your palms. You've a few cuts and bruises, a deep gash that runs along your forearm, some burns littered across your abdomen. Don't worry, we'll fix that. I'll fix everything. Just follow me. It's uphill, I know, and you're tired, but if it gets too steep I'll carry you. Just relax now, you're safe.

You thought you were inside me, until I penetrated you. What gave me away? The snarl? The bared teeth? The sudden fear is such a rush. The widening eyes, the way your hands, bound and scraped and bloody, suddenly turn to claws. The way you fight me anew, rolling and roiling like the boiling sea in hell. Your body heaves into me, thrashing and beating, but I'm so much stronger. You're already so weak from fighting that this is no challenge for me. I've done this for ages and you, poor thing, are no match. The storm crashes down around you and floodwaters rise, threatening to drown you and, at last, submission. Resign yourself to me, and you may yet survive.

There it is, just as I promised. The mouth of a cave. I told you I knew the way out. It wasn't so hard, not when you had help. From here on, you'll have to go alone. My part is to lead you from the dark place, but this is where I stay. You go on, the sun is out and the air is clean. There are dangers out there, but you'll be safe to navigate them now. Just cross the desert and you'll find a sprawling forest full of game and cool, clear water, and people that will take you in. Beware the storms in the desert. Take shelter when they come. Remember me, and what we shared, and you will thrive.

Uncertainly Yours,
-S.R.

This Too Shall Pass (or, You Shall Not Pass!)

This is the year where hope fails you...


This year has been...less than spectacular so far, I'll admit. Things were working out alright. I was out on my own, with a solid friend and roomate, making good money, doing my thing. In the last six weeks, though, things have taken a pretty ridiculous nosedive. I was suspended over some horseshit accusations, then the company went bottom-up and left my parents, four siblings, my roomate, and myself completely without jobs overnight. It took six weeks to get unemployment to pay me. My sister is back in the hospital. I have to go to a family barbecue next week. Its a nightmare.

Then again, I'm not complaining.

See, I wouldn't trade this for anything. Not all the money in the world, man. No fucking way. My bills are getting paid, at least for the moment, and the money from that job never really mattered to me that much. It was a means to an end. But when I really look at it, that place was taking all the best out of us all. We're intelligent, capable people, why are we wasting time in a place that can't (through no fault of its own, really) appreciate that? Why work 90 hour weeks when we could find something else that paid just fine and only work 40? Because that wasn't an option before. It was always "I'll look at it on my day off....next week" or "This might be great but I can't take a pay cut" or "Gosh, if only I had the time to do this". Well, those aren't issues anymore. We all have time to pursue the things we want to do, rather than settling for what comes up first. We're all in a better place, I think, and I can't imagine better people to be stuck here with.

Speaking of people, I want to thank you.

I'm not, I find, really cut out for a regular life. Nothing about it appeals to me, emotionally or intellectually. Finding a job, settling down, getting married. It seems great and I have some friends that are very happy that way. Russ and Cathryn (whose last names I won't mention but whose initials are absolutely Bauer) are incredible people that found each other, marked their territory, and mated for life. I love them both, more dearly than I know how to say, and I love their bond and their happiness. I hope they live forever that way.

It just isn't for me. I like paying bills. I like having responsibilities to keep me grounded. But I need open roads and blank pages. I need plane tickets and midnight truck stops and strange hotels in strange cities. I need to move and not be constrained. So, sure, I'll pay my rent and my insurance and I'll need some income to do all of these things but, when it comes right down to it, writing and music have always appealed to me so much because I'm just not made to stay static.

So that's what I'm doing. I'm sitting here, getting my unemployment, looking for writing jobs and, in the meantime, planning my adventures. I'm starting a second blog devoted to my writing. I'm starting a novel while I edit two (maybe three) others. I'm tuning up my banjo and singing and, by the fucking gods, I'm living the life I need to live because, for the first time, I feel like I can.

I want to thank you for understanding that even when I didn't. I've been told, never directly or in such detail, by a dozen people over the years that this is what I was meant to do. The writing and the traveling and that life. I need to tell stories. I need it. That's what I'm built for. I'm made to talk and write and make people laugh. I'm here to rely on and be relied on by this group of people that give me more than any partner ever could. My friends, my family, and I have this deep, unbridled love that is exactly what I need to sustain myself. So that's what I'll do.

The thing that I love about my closest friends is the ambiguous relationship we have. People that would be just as comfortable with passionate sex at three in the morning in a hotel room in Cincinnati as they would be borrowing ten bucks for gas during a tight week, or discussing the merits of teaching Shakespeare's comedies rather than the same old Romeo and Juliet fare at every high school in the world over a cup of coffee and a pack of smokes. I don't have platonic relationships because I'm not platonic. Its always just a little bit romantic, a little bit sexual, completely innocent (naturally) but something special. Something not many people share. Thank you for that. Thank you so hard.

What I'm getting at is simply be thankful for what you have and don't let the world get in your way. Things will work out as they will, the wheel weaves as the wheel wills, there will be water if god wills it, the word is the law is ka. That sort of thing. Learn who you are and learn to love it, because this life is pretty fucking awesome, if you ask me.

Ecstatically Yours,
-S.R.

On Writing, or, Nerdgasm Central

I'm a writer. There, I said it. It is somewhat liberating, declaring yourself something other than human. I'm other things, sure, an alchoholic for instance, but none of them are quite as profound or (in a grim, drug-addled sort of way) as romantic as being a writer. Or maybe all of those other things are part of what make me a writer. Alchoholism is certainly prevalent in our collective imaginations of writers. Anyway. The point is, I'm a writer. I didn't need to tell you that, because you probably know me. And if you don't know me, you'd assume I'm a writer because I have a blog and that blog uses clever pop-culture and nerdgasm-inducing literature references and an array of impressive words.  But I didn't say it because you needed to be told, I said it because I needed to be told.

See, I've strayed for some time and that's terrible. I forgot that in addition to all of the fancy poetic ideas like talent and ability, writing also requires more mundane things like work and dedication. I strayed. Then, like a space shuttle without enough fuel to escape the gravity well, I came hurtling back. All is well again. Kinda.

You must understand that I've relied on nicotine to help my process for more than twelve years. I've come to rely on it and, in a self-perpetuating cycle, used writing as an excuse not to give up smoking. As a bit of an aside, don't let that fool you. I genuinely enjoy smoking. However, recent circumstances have thrust it upon me and I've found myself without it. So I sat down to write and, for the first time, came up blank.

What the fuck?

I've used it for so long, smoking and writing fueling one another, that they became somewhat fused in my head. I couldn't do one without the other (this was a two-way street. If you've ever seen me smoke heavily, I was writing. Or drinking. Usually both, although one of them may have been just in my mind.). So I decided to sit down and piece my brain back together because, as I said before, I am a writer and that means I need to write. Its a fundemental function of my continued existence.

I decided to look at what drives me first. What makes me want to write? What fuels that creative muscle? What pushes me to sit for hours and lose myself in a story or a poem or a blog or hate mail? I set smoking aside. Honestly, that idea is old and its somewhat ridiculous. I understand the chemical benefits of nicotine, but that's not what makes me want to write. Once past that roadblock, I came up with some pretty awesome stuff. Shit. Sorry, I went two full paragraphs without inserting any vulgarity. I have a reputation to uphold here, guys. Anyway.

I love to read. I can easily get distracted by television or a movie, and become engrossed in what's happening, but that's a shallow sort of distraction as complete as it might seem. No, what really catches my attention and gets me going is a good novel. Now, I like the classics and I dig the epic poets and playwrights too, but if I want something to really blow me away, something I'll read over and over again just for the pure joy of reading it, I'm going with Fantasy.

There are some exceptions, of course. Of my top ten favorites of all time, only a handful are fantasy (that list is dominated by Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, David Wong's John Dies at the End, Milton's Paradise Lost, and Whitman's Leaves of Grass although I admit I strayed a little from the "novel" criteria there and that is by no means indicative of the rest of the top ten). However, of the hundreds of books I own an overwhelming majority of them are Fantasy. I'll dive into anything from shared worlds like Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms to the epic sagas like Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time or Stephen King's Dark Tower (which I put on equal footing with some of the epic sagas we teach in English Literature classes worldwide) to the old sword-and-sorcerery paperbacks or the new, gritty subgenres filled out by guys like John Marco and Brandon Sanderson.

So it should come as little surprise, I suppose, that I write primarily Fantasy. Other writers, I find, give me that push needed to sit and write, among other things I'll get into later. In fact, I used to scoff at the idea that one could take inspiration to write fantasy from anything but other Fantasy writers. I was, clearly, wrong. Margaret Weiss, for instance, is one of the most successful novelists in the genre and she adamantly doesn't read Fantasy. Perhaps because she feels it would be too easy to lift ideas from other writers in the genre. That's sort of an issue with fantasy. Any review you read of a popular new novel will harp on how it defies the typical genre stereotypes. Fantasy writers have gotten such a bad rap for so long about their voices and their work all sounding the same that, in the last fifteen years or so, the genre has exploded with fresh ideas simply because the novelists are trying explicitly to be different from one another. Stephen King originally started thinking of his Dark Tower novels while reading Tolkien, but set them aside for years, literally, so he wouldn't simply regurgitate what he'd just read.

Alright, so some of it comes from reading but getting everything from reading, even reading a wide variety of things, is dangerous. So what else? What else brings me to that place?

Well, video games. See, games have become this really captivating medium for telling insane stories. They've taken on a breadth and depth that put them on par, I think, with films, plays, and novels. Not all of them, of course, and there are still those that try and fail, but games like Mass Effect or Elder Scrolls or Saints Row have set the stage for things to come. It doesn't matter, the story is what grips me and makes me want to write. That and some of the badass action sequences. My stories are always visceral, I think, filled with physical conflict, and I like to be somewhat cinematic in how I portray that violence. That visual aspect, I think, is lacking from a great deal of written media.

Okay, good, so you can throw films in there as well. Athough, honestly, mostly science fiction films. I'm not sure why, but they really get me moving. Now, as I was having these epiphanies I started wading through some of my writing, trying to focus on where I could start to try and organize things, put them on a track for success. I also read through Stephen King's On Writing. If you haven't, I strongly suggest you pick it up. Writer or not, its a fantastic read and it includes all manner of really awesome information. Such as some very useful tips on keeping yourself disciplined, organized, and how to come back to writing after you;ve been away (in King's case because of a nearly-fatal car crash and, years prior, kicking some insane drug addiction-in my case, lack of ciggarettes).

So what else? What other nuggets of wisdom did I glean?

Dr. David Bell, Novelist Extraordinaire, (one day I'm going to talk him into paying me for referring to him that way) taught me two very important things. Well, actually a series of very important things but a number of those had to do with re-enacting various 80s kung-fu montages and they're neither here nor there. What he taught me about writing, though, cannot be understated. I've heard it from a thousand places but for some reason when he said it, it stuck: Write what you know.

That doesn't mean don't branch out and learn. I'm constantly researching horses and sailing and sub-atomic physics for my writing. It means write what you know and expand upon it. The other extremely important thing he taught me, by the way (and this is in all seriousness, I still have the e-mails to prove it) was that if I could just "learn how to punctuate the fucking dialogue [I'd] have a career in writing"(I'm paraphrasing, and I'm not doing it using MLA format because I'm a grown-up and I don't have to). Sound advice, and something I look back on frequently to keep myself grounded.

So what do I know? What's the final thing that gets me writing?

Fucking metal.

Look, I love music. I'm a big fan of tons of genres, tons of styles. I keep an open mind on things, and if its really music I can at least respect what an artist is doing, even if I don't particularly enjoy it. That said, as much as I respect and enjoy, say, Eminem, I can't write it. Metal though, holy fuck.

I think metal and fantasy have this really amazing relationship, for one thing. Both are composed of literally dozens of fractured subgenres all trying to gain ground and stand on their own, while being simultaneously united by a common thread, or as critics are fond of calling them, tropes and stereotypes. Both metal and fantasy, first and foremost, owe their real genesis to aged (or dead) men from England decades ago, and fuck you if you don't think that's the truth.

Both have expanded dramatically in popularity in the last two decades, as well as broadening in scope. Both have distinct subgroups, and both have groups among them that are intensely dark (black/death/viking/blackened death metal vs. gritty, bloody fantasy like Brian Ruckley's Godless World Trilogy), while also retaining their lighter sides (Edguy, for example. Kender, for another).

Also, has anyone ever looked into how many metal bands have written songs about fantasy novels, characters, short stories, ideas, or wet dreams? Fucking all of them. Seriously. Look into it. Bands like Rhapsody (or Rhapsody of Fire, I guess, I'm not sure which one they go by now) have created their own fantasy universe specifically to write songs about it. Nightwish's entire brilliant career has been all about Tuomas Holopainen's fascination with Tolkien, Dragonlance, Disney, and hot scandanavian women (only poetically, of course).

I am the opposite. Rather than the fantasy obsesssed metal musician, I'm a metal-obsessed fantasy writer. In fact, every major piece of fiction I've written (and most of my poems that aren't influenced by either vaginas or alchohol, honestly) has been, to some degree or another, insipred directly by the lyrics, artwork, or general atmosphere of a metal song. I have playlists on my media player that I listen to while I write, organized by the type of scene I'm working on. Seriously. I'm writing an entire novel based on a handful of lyrics from Blind Guardian and Amon Amarth and a dream I had about my dear friend Courtney (who has, through her work and mine, taught me some incredible things about writing) where she totally killed the fuck out of a sea-monster. Fucking metal.

So what I'm saying is simply: I'm back from the dead, assholes. *laser sounds*

Serendipitously Yours,
-S.R.

P.S,- I thought of including lists of my favorite books, albums, and games here (both because I'm a narcicist and because I have this wierd compulsion to list things that my parents will absolutely vouche for) so if anyone would like to indulge me, go ahead and let me know. I'll add it in edits.