random – Sam Stark

“The Future Belongs to Those Who Believe in the Beauty of Their Dreams” – Eleanor Roosevelt

I %100 did not meet my goal of getting a journal post up last week. Oops. I have a good excuse though, promise.

Okay, so, first thing’s first: I have now finished two novel narrations. The first is past the author/publisher’s checks and now it’s on to Audible approval. I should hear back (hopefully) soon. I’ll put the link to it up here, but it’s the billionaire romance so I don’t expect anyone that follows me to actually read (listen to) it. It’s cool, don’t worry about it.

The second is an urban fantasy and that one was really fun to narrate. I got to try out some silly accents, it had a nice range of emotions and style choices, and bonus! The story is kind of fun! It got a little harry there for about a week because I got behind and didn’t have the time I thought I would to record. Well, actually, recording is the easy part. After I record all the chapters, I have to go back through and cut out all my bloopers and that takes FOREVER. Then I have to do a third pass, reading along as I listen to make sure it’s accurate to the actual text. If I’ve messed up a phrase, or flubbed a word or something, I have to go back, record that piece again, and then splice it into the final cut. Waaahh, such a long process! But I did it. I turned it in on the due date and it’s waiting approval now.

I’m trying not to be nervous about it, but there is so much in there, and so many voices and accents they might not like? Bluuuh. Oh well, nothing to do but turn my energies on the next one. This third novel is a drama/military/tragedy and wooaaa it’s heavy. I also have to do it all in a southern accent. It’s not actually that hard, the hardest part is going back to talking normal once I’ve left the studio haha.

All in all I’m loving it. There are so many weird things I wouldn’t have thought of before starting this whole thing. Like, for example, I think Rule Number One of audio narration should be ALWAYS HAVE CHAPSTICK ON HAND. It’s a must, otherwise when your mouth begins to dry up – and it will – your lips start to click and it’s Super Loud on the microphone. Random huh? But good to know.

Also, Jesus Christ AIRPLANES. I forgot I live next to an airport! How many freaking planes fly over my house per hour?? SIX! SIX PLANES AN HOUR!! …It’s cool though, it’s cool. It’s only in the afternoon. Someday I’ll live somewhere quiet and I’ll have an actual studio office with soundproofing…. … someday.

In other news, I’ve also submitted my writing for the Norwescon Writer’s Workshop. I almost didn’t, having had a not-so-great-experience last year. (Maybe I’ll talk about that later bluh.) However, the workshop is where I met my current writer’s group, and I’ve already made so many good connections through the process that it would be irresponsible of me not to try and do it again. I submitted the first chapter of my horror/thriller+superheros novel, so that should be fun. If I make it in, I hope everyone gives me the “superhero trend is dying out” speech so I can punch them. Not really. But maybe.

Okay, I think that’s all the major things that have happened in the past few months. I hope everyone is doing well, and that things are looking up for you in this new year. If you ever feel lonely or need someone to talk to about… well, anything, but mostly nerdy stuff, hit me up. I am down for feelings jams, especially if we get to scream about anime or awesome tv shows or something.

Love your pets, be nice to people, and have a good one!

“I have never met a vampire personally, but I don’t know what might happen tomorrow.” – Béla Lugosi

Uncategorized

I’ve been having some nerdy thoughts about supernatural lore. (Not the tv show, otherwise I would have capitalized it, obviously.) Well, now that I think about it Supernatural would be included, but it’s not what I’m focusing on. I’m thinking more generalized lore.

Let me preface this with a little backstory: I’ve been reading a lot (please read that as “shit ton”) of urban fantasy lately, which I admit goes a little off brand for me as I kind of hate most of the UF out there. I hate a lot of the tropes – i.e. the young and gorgeous heroin doesn’t have any self worth until she finds her true love because self worth is apparently wrapped up in how the boy sees her, OR the young and beautiful hero/heroin is special and the only one in the universe that can save the world and that somehow makes them a total twat about everything. The wining, winging, complaining, and crippling self-doubt finally turns them into a big enough asshole that I don’t want to read the rest of the story. Let it all burn because I just want the protagonist to die is not a great feeling to have three quarters of the way through a book.

However, there is a contingent of UF out in the universe that is just. fucking. great. I’ve noticed that it’s mostly queer, and that’s cool, sort of weird that’s a correlation but whatever. UF usually has amazing universes and some have really cool plot devices, so if the characters are cool, the books/series/show is usually cool too.

I fell down a deep, dark werewolf/shifter hole last month and couldn’t climb out for a few weeks. Werewolf stuff is pretty cool because there’s so much going on with pack and smell and bonds so there’s a lot of stuff you can do with miscommunication. Found family stories and stories with strong familial bonds are my jam anyway. Straight dudes rubbing up on other straight dudes because they’re basically canines is also my jam too but I digress.

So, I’ve been thinking about supernatural creatures with regenerative properties verses healing properties. I noticed in all the werewolf and shifter stories I read, the werewolves get injured like shot or stabbed or whatever, and unless the wound was inflicted by something silver, they heal over, gone without a trace. This is the same for all the vampire stuff I’ve seen too, wounds heal and disappear like there was never anything there.

Vampires I can understand. They’re kind of demonic I guess? Undead in their own special way? Or something? So I assume complete regeneration would be in the cards for them. (I’m not going to think too hard because there’s zombies and revenants and other undead things that are reanimated and they don’t heal – omg my brain.)

But werewolves and shifters are interesting. Do they regenerate? Or are they super healing? I guess it depends on the lore. Are they basically humans sharing a body with an animal soul? Or is it more curse/magic based and they, like vampires, regenerate?

I think this all kicked off when I was thinking about if a werewolf could get a tattoo. Would the body regen to the point where it pushed the ink out? Or would they just super heal as the tattoo was being drawn? (Man, wouldn’t that be awesome?)

I probably need to make the differences clear. Regeneration is when the wound or injury would reverse. Like it would go back in time or un-injure. A knife wound would close backwards, leaving no marks because the skin and tissue completely regenerates. All cells and blood and everything is restored. Supernatural healing is pretty self explanatory: the would heals haha. Everything works the same as it would with a regular human, it’s just sped up. The tissue and muscle and all that would knit back together and it would leave a mark/scar. And it would be tender for a while.

Now, why do werewolves and shifters heal without a trace in most media? To me it doesn’t seem right that they regenerate, since I don’t feel like shifters are in the same supernatural category as a vampire. Shouldn’t they have super healing? Shouldn’t shifters and werewolves heal real fast and then be left with a badass scar? Why isn’t this a thing? Is it a thing? Why isn’t this a thing more often?

I think werewolves should have scars and tattoos. Is that just me?

Hope everyone is having a w o n d e r f u l election season. Pet your animals, love your family and friends unless they’re terrible assholes, then love them anyway but stay away from them. Be kind. Have a good week.

“I Became Insane, With Long Intervals of Horrible Sanity.”

life

My dear friends, it has been a rough couple of weeks.

Some of you may know I have a twelve (almost thirteen) year-old daughter. She is wonderful and hilarious and loves horror movies and is basically everything one could want in a daughter.

On February 17th, we had a small kitchen fire that blackened our walls/ceiling, and melted a lot of plastic stuff. It started when a bit of oil splashed out of a pan, caught on the element, and built from there. My daughter was burned pretty badly trying to put it out. She had oil burns from fingertips to elbows on both arms, and second degree patches on her right thumb, wrist, and ring finger. I don’t know if any of you have ever experienced second degree burns, so let me tell you: they are terrible. They are very painful, and take forever to heal. My daughter has been a trooper the past few weeks through pain, open blisters, excruciating anxiety attacks, and a bunch of skin shedding. I’m not exaggerating when I say that her right arm looks like the fiji mermaid from The X-Files.

It’s been a long, slow, agonizing few weeks.

We are very thankful that her injuries are only second degree. They could have been a lot worse. She doesn’t need any kind of surgery, or skin graphs or anything like that, and none of the bad burns are deep enough to worry about movement or motor function. So let me say again, we are very lucky, all things considered, and we are very thankful.

That doesn’t make it any fucking easier to deal with though.

Understandably, this whole event has left my daughter with a little PTSD. It took a little while to manifest but it’s there, and it’s hard to communicate with her sometimes because I have no frame of reference. I’m just doing the best I can by cleaning and dressing the wounds, staying up with her when she needs it, comforting her when she breaks down–just being there.

There’s a lot of anxiety and underlying tension in the house right now. The baby (okay she’s not really a “baby” she’s a toddler) can feel it too so she’s turned into a tantrum monster. No seriously she screams at everything including routine diaper changes.

So, long story short: I am tired. I don’t like to complain about all this because I wasn’t the one that was injured, I’m not the one that’s in pain, but I really am ready to just crawl in a hole and sleep forever.

Hopefully you all are doing better than me and mine. I’m going to go home today and finish the second season of Altered Carbon (Omg Anthony Mackie is fucking great, but you know who’s better? Chris Conner. Seriously, just watch season 2 for Poe).

Image result for altered carbon poe and kovacs

Remember to pet your pets. Hug people you care about and will allow that sort of contact, and drink water. Have a great rest of your week everyone.

Grocery Line Epiphanies

Thoughts

Stories are everywhere.

I met an old man in line at the grocery store yesterday. He was friendly and from what I could tell, he was kind. He acquiesced his place in line to a mother with two kids and a cart full of stuff, even though I think he had gotten there first and he had maybe five items in his basket. Someone who gives up a spot in line at the busy hour, to someone who has at least two hundred dollars worth of stuff to ring up, is probably a saint.

I was curious so I stepped in behind him and struck up a conversation. I have experience with the elderly from my time working geriatric care, and I’m pretty confident in my ability to engage. He really was extremely friendly, and funny. I discovered that he had lived in one of the big houses down the street from my parents while I was growing up. Crazy coincidence. He and his wife had nine children, and are right now expecting their twelfth great grandchild.

It took four minutes to get to know the basics of this man’s life. He remembered his last three addresses, all the way back to the 1940’s. He could tell me about machine shops during the war, about his kids swimming at the lake on hot days, and all the names of every dog he had ever owned. It was amazing.

Only when he had finished paying for his small bag of groceries and started to head out, turning to give me a little wave and a sweet smile, did I realize I never asked his name.

I have no idea what the point of this musing is, not really. I was just thinking about how every person you pass on the street, or say “excuse me” to on the bus, or stand behind in line at the grocery store has a life, and a story. Not every person is going to be a nice old man that likes ice cream and telling stories about his kids–most are probably shit bags actually, but the whole thing just got me thinking.

I love discovering bits and pieces of lives like that, it’s very inspiring. I highly recommend taking some time to just listen to people once in a while. Ask questions. Collect characters and ideas from real situations. It makes it more authentic and believable, immersive.

Again, I have no idea what the point of this post is. I’m 190,000 words into the novel and my brain is starting to function on some strange plane between exhausted and teetering on the edge of a fourth dimensional epiphany. Or psychosis. One of those.

I hope everyone is having a good week.

Backlog Post #3

life

Originally Posted 07/31/19

I’ve been playing too much Merge Dragons.

What is Merge Dragons? It’s a mobile game where you can merge three eggs and make a cute dragon. Then merge three dragons to make a bigger dragon, and so on and so on. You can actually merge three of anything in the game to make something better or bigger or whatever. The point is, it’s cute, it’s addictive, and it unfortunately makes me want to spend real money.

It also gives me nightmares, apparently.

Last night I dreamed my mother (not my real mother, just a faceless mother in a dream) was dying in a big hospital and I was having difficulty managing my time doing regular life things and spending time with her. The reason I was having difficulty, was because I was apparently an Arrow/Robin Hood type of superhero. My mom would want to talk about things and make sure I was paying all my bills and stuff, but then something terrible would happen and I would have to leave and go be a super hero. It was depressing and sad and a little stressful.

The reason why I think Merge Dragons had a hand in this nightmare, was because the last week or so I’ve been obsessed with merging enough mushrooms to get one of the ultimate level 8 mushrooms – the Alien Shrooms.

If you’ve ever played a mobile game that you really liked, you understand how it sucks you in. You’ll play for hours just doing random silly shit like farming grass or picking corn or catching fairies for nothing more than a reward of 10 jewels so you can get the Blue Cow! Or the Special Butterfly! Or the goddamn Apple Tree! And after too many hours and too many days wasted trying so hard to create or buy this stupid thing, you start to look at the money system in the game and wonder if maybe you should just drop $35 and buy 1000 jewels. Fuck!

So that’s where I was last night right before I went to bed. I want that goddamn, stupid, mushroom. I don’t know why, maybe my dragons will be able to harvest something cool from it like fungus balls I can sell for money. Surly it can’t be just because I want one in my garden, right?

Okay, back to the dream.

I hear something out the window of my mom’s hospital room, and there’s a flash of light and screaming so, of course, super hero time. I kiss my mom, run out, and then I’m outside in my super hero outfit because dream logic.

And there it is. It’s a fucking gigantic alien mushroom monster. It sort of looks like the one in the game, but it’s got another level to it, like it’s taller, and all those little things at the bottom are skulls. Granted, the thing is still kind of cute, but then it manifests a hammer on it’s head and starts smashing buildings. I do my Arrow/Robin Hood thing and fight off all the people that are–I guess–mind controlled by this thing, and then swing into the air like Spiderman for some reason and do cool heart-attack inducing aerial battle for like five seconds, but then it manages to knock me away and smashes the hospital where my mom is staying…

I woke up.

I haven’t played Merge Dragons yet today. I’m not sure I want to. Do I still want the mushroom? I don’t know.