Though no longer "self-proclaimed" and now actually "bonafide" as an author, let's follow my random life and see just what it is that makes me tick. Together!
Normally when I sit down to write these iterations, or really any blog, I am holed up in a bedroom or my office whilst typing in the dark and listening to moody music that'll inspire me to write something hopefully profound. It's usually later in the evening, I may or may not have had a couple cocktails (to get the thought process flowing, y'know), and the cats are either sleeping on my lap, at my feet, or somewhere in the vicinity playing with a balled up gum wrapper. Annoyingly.
This iteration is different. New location, new sights to behold, and I suppose in many ways, a new me. Thus marks...
THE FOUR YEAR
ANNIVERSARY OF
MUSINGS OF A SELF-PROCLAIMED AUTHOR
Four years of writing these things and I'm still working a day job! Didn't see that one coming. ::cough cough::
It's 82 degrees outside and sunny, and I am sitting on the wood deck/patio/balcony of Mozart's Coffee Roasters in Austin, TX. It's just after one in the afternoon and there is a very gentle and incredibly pleasant breeze blowing off the water of the Colorado river directly beside me. I'm wearing a white tank-top, there is an iced mocha just within my reach and, as of present, there's just a little bit of sweat rolling down the sides of the cup and but not enough to soak into the wood tabletop. I can hear music from an outdoor restaurant on a pier 100 yards away, the idle chatter of people working on projects at the wood picnic tables around me, and of course the squeaks and chortles of the Grackle's that permeate this city. If you aren't sure what a Grackle is, it can be found here.
To say this is a change from years past would be an understatement. Many of you have been with me from the start and for those of you that haven't, you didn't miss too much. But I digress! I live in a place now that grants me the chance to leave the house and go sit outside somewhere in a community that thrives off of creative expression. Sure, the people around me might just be working on school tasks as most seem college aged in a fun, hipster kind of way. But others are a bit older, enthusiastically going over notes for some sort of presentation that will no doubt result in a pulitzer.
Just a guess.
I wrote a mopey blog a couple weeks ago about how hard the move down here was. What was odd about that blog was how once it was written, I didn't necessarily feel any better about my situation. Usually I can write a blog and let go of the feelings that caused me to write it, but this time it stuck around. Only for a few days longer, it turned out. Because once October 1st hit and the "first month" of living here was done, my attitude shifted. Like Banning Sol discovers in Episode III of my book series, you only get so much time to be sad before you have to suck it up and make the most of your situation.
Come to think of it... oddly enough when I started writing the blog four years ago, I was using it as a distraction instead of printing out the first copy of "The Onyxus Chronicles: Episode III" that I needed to start editing. Today I printed out the current incarnation of Episode III and intended on beginning to final edit, but instead started writing this blog. Things come full circle if you choose to pay attention and that's something I've always been a fan of (c:
A lot of things change in a year... the creeptastic thing about the iterations is that I like to write about all of the things that are better for me at that point in my life. Then, by the next year, they seem small in comparison to all of the new things to come along that are better. Last year when I wrote this I didn't see a way out of my living situation, or really my work situation. Not to say either was bad, they just weren't what I wanted. The last thing on my mind was the "love" situation, because I've always had a certain attitude when it comes to love and how many times I've told it to fuck off.
It's true and you know it!
A year ago I was one month away from meeting a man that would change my life forever. Not just in love, but in allowing me to follow my dream of moving to a new city and beginning a career I've had my eyes on for many years. It's funny how things fall into place when you aren't looking. And since things come in threes, the same held true for this last year. I met Derek, I moved to Texas, and in three weeks I start my new job. I suppose I also published my second novel but that's neither here nor there and one mustn't brag.
But I have been published twice before turning 30 and you can alllllll know it.
I've told you before that an iteration means something is continuously building. Getting better, growing stronger, becoming happier, yadda yadda. Basically I look more attractive now than I did in 2011 and that's the goal here, iszhn't it? 12,849 views in four years... 121 blogs written in total. I thought I'd have pumped out more in the last year than just 21, but I've been busy and you can't expect miracles from a busy guy. Life gets in the way, work gets in the way, and I suppose it'd make sense to have shared those road blocks but no one tolerates a Sad Sally for long. Eventually Sad Sally's need to become Happy... Helens? I'm still ironing out the kinks on names.
So what can you expect in the fifth iteration? A new look, I'm certain. Blogger has been a fantastic platform for me to put my work on but I think it's time I launch something a little more official and I think all of you would agree. A little more polished and classy, not so cookie-cutter and "pedestrian." Such a commoner word. But really, the launch of my own website is imminent and as soon as I've made it official, I will be sure to loop everyone in on it.
In closing I'd just like to say thank you to everyone that takes the time to read me. Books or otherwise. I love hearing your thoughts and opinions and feedback, good or bad, and it all helps me to grow in my work. I appreciate you as my family, my friends, and my fans, and I couldn't imagine doing this without any one of you at my side. So here is to another year of musing, and you'll be hearing from me soon. Ciao (c:
In case you wanted you read the iterations of years past:
Wednesday was the first day of autumn, and like I knew I would I have an incredible longing to be back in Wisconsin. I knew going into this cross-country move that, for the first year of anniversaries at least, I'd have a hard time dealing with the things I was going to be missing. The nostalgia that comes with the change of seasons. The first chances to wear hoodies and sweaters, the colors on the leaves changing, and the crisp morning air on the way to work. That's why fall has always been my favorite; fall meant enjoying the best parts of winter without having the full onslaught of frigid weather and snow.
Right now it is 93 degrees outside and humid.
Is it weird to say that I still don't feel like I live in Austin? I'm more than three weeks out from packing up the car and driving down here but it still hasn't sunken in that I live here and I don't know why that is. All of my things are here... the boxes are unpacked and the beds are made, the living room is fully operational and we've watched more than a handful of movies and the entire season of American Horror Story: Coven. I've been working, gone grocery shopping a few times, and set the trash and recycling out for the garbage men to pick up.
But it's not my home yet.
I know things like that take time of course. Wisconsin probably didn't actually start feeling like home until I was almost finished with high school and that was because I still had a resentment and longing to move back to California, unfounded as it was. But that move had not not my choice, and this was... so here's hoping it won't take seven years to get over it! However, there is still a sadness in me that I can't figure out.
It's a sadness that permeates me in a way that I find hard to believe. I'm happy with Derek. I'm happy to be near family still. But I'm also sad. Why do you think that is?
Maybe it's my lament for the things that are now gone. Maybe it's just being a little homesick. I thought I'd cry most of the way down during my move, but I hardly shed any tears. Saying goodbye to my parents was the absolute hardest part, and I somehow managed to keep a stiff upper lip while doing so. Then the driving started and the cats were all over the place and freaking out, which distracted me just enough to not break down. But even once they were locked away in crates and it was only me and my thoughts and the open road... I couldn't cry. In a way I'm still waiting to cry. I know it's in there, and I know it is going to sideswipe me at some random moment when I least expect it, and maybe that's when I'll finally drop it and move on. I don't know.
Oktoberfest is this weekend back in Wisconsin, something I enjoyed very much over the last several years. I would spend the entire day walking around downtown, meeting with random friends over the course of 9 or so hours and laughing til it hurt, drinking to maintain a pleasant buzz, and taking enough pictures to capture the memories of a great time.
This year I'll be working, struggling to do my absolute best and maintain a positive outlook and spin on things at my current store.
The key might be to just get out and start doing stuff here in the city, something we have not been doing yet. The last year has been spent saving for this move and now that it's out of the way, I still find myself saving as much money as I can out of fear that I am going to run out of it. As a result, Derek and I have only done a couple of things in town here. That's also due large-in-part to how fucking hot it is all the time, but I digress.
There are things to do and see, places to travel to and explore. Museums and theatres and concerts and cities, food and food and food, parks and rivers and lakes and everything outside and inbetween. I just need to get out and do it. I get to share these experiences with Derek which is more than enough... I guess I wish I was able to share them right away with some of my friends back home as well.
It's interesting when you move away from people. You are sort of putting yourself into a forced exile, shuttering away from the friends and family that shaped you into who you are. Willingly or not. Some people my communication increased with, and others it has stopped entirely. I'm unsure as to why that is, which seems to be a common theme in this blog, but there it is. Maybe it's like a break-up period and you need to do things on your own for a while because the hurt is still too fresh. Or maybe it's more of an "out of sight, out of mind" type deal. Whichever.
It makes me feel alone.
The picture at the top of the blog says "We must take adventures in order to know where we truly belong." I'm a firm believer that the answers to life come in the form of time and experience. You live and you learn. This move has taught me that change is always a good thing, but transitions suck balls. The transition is the hardest part, moving from who you were to who you are. Some things will stay the some, bigger things will change, and who will you be when you come out on the other side?
Moving to Texas is still a process for me, it isn't done yet. It won't be done until I am working where I intended to work, doing the things I intended to do, and that's okay for now. No one said it would be easy, but that certainly doesn't mean it has to be hard. It has just been an adjustment.
This is how summer started, with the breaking of a string. The small piece of rope I'd worn for nearly ten years finally bit the big one. I wrote about it once here, and if you want to know the significance of this bracelet I'd recommend reading about it. Regardless of that it was a heartbreaking moment for me. I decided not to put it back on, or to put on a new one, rather. Maybe taking a few months without it while I settled into a weird "limbo" phase of my life would be just what the doctor ordered.
The true end of an era.
With the loss of the bracelet I decided to kick off this new phase of my life by cancelling the monthly updates. That was first and foremost, actually; I decided it when I wrote the May update. What I found by doing the monthly updates was that I was essentially assigning myself a chore and it eventually became a chore I just didn't want to do. Whenever I force myself to write one of my books, whatever I write ends up coming out super shitty. The same can be said about the blogs. When you've got nothing to write about, how can you expect people to want to read it?
The answer is you can't.
So I decided to get back to doing the blogs I actually liked writing. The random ones that could be sprung from an idea rather than a detailed daily recap that no one cared about. I started with the biggest event of June, that being the release of Jurassic World.
In my JP t-shirt,
with lady Rex behind me.
Ever since June of 1993 I've been waiting for a truly satisfying sequel to my favorite movie of all time, Jurassic Park. The Lost World was alright but Jurassic Park III was a festering turd. I wrote about my feelings here in regards to this event, and with that blog I felt the "connection" once more to my work. More on that in a bit.
I saw the movie a total of five times. Which isn't that surprising because I think I saw the third one like three times when it had been in theatres. We do what we do! It was a great way to start the summer and a good way to release my anxiety, or at least leave it at the door every time. Derek and I at this point were starting to pack things up for our move to Austin at the end of August and this was a welcome reprieve from the logistics of that.
It was also going to be a busy summer in general after Jurassic World came out. @klreynol was flying back to visit for a few days, I had a surprise trip to Austin right after, then there would be a trip to Chicago, releasing my second book, the launch party, and then several going-away parties to boot. Aaaaand of course moving time, something that loomed on the horizon like a gathering storm. A storm of emotions and realities and everything else one could imagine.
Thanks Facebook!
However before all of that could come to fruition, on June 26th the Supreme Court ruled to legalize same sex marriage across the country. I wrote a blog about that here, but only shared it once because as per usual, I didn't want to shove my gayness down anyone's throat.
That sounds dirtier than I intended.
It was my half-birthday on that day and it was a great way to spend it, knowing that equality had finally been achieved in a fight that had gone on for just way too long. And again, I was writing a blog that got me thinking about my life in a different way. It had me reaching back to the way I used to be and utilizing the knowledge in a way that was both creative and fresh. What was odd was how foreign it felt to me to write something original.
I'd gotten used to writing the sequels to blogs. The "monthly updates", "new resolutions", "# iterations", "random thoughts", yadda yadda. The series of blogs I spent all of 2012 building into "musings of a self-proclaimed author" had become nothing more than a series of continuations and that meant the fun stories were gone. I didn't realize it at the time, it's only now looking back that I am able to assign meaning to any of this, but there you have it.
Milk on the farm and afternoon joy with Barb at Big Blue.
At the end of the month @klreynol flew to Wisconsin to spend a few days with Derek and I. Safe to say we had a blast during her four days in town. The trip started with the celebration of a coworkers pregnancy in the form of a great BBQ gathering at her parents home. It was a perfectly warm summer afternoon, with great drinks and company to bring it in. After that, @klreynol went back to my apartment with me where she met Derek for the first time.
I wasn't nervous about whether they would get along or not, I knew going into it that they would. Some things are just a given. We went to dinner that night and the next day started out by going to "Sunday on the Farm" in Chilton. I'd never been, neither had they, so we took a drive to see what it was all about.
I guess there was free cheese at some point but I must have missed it. I certainly didn't miss the chance to enjoy some chocolate milk! It was free milk and all you could drink! We saw the cows and a cage of kittens (...) and a small variety of other farm animals, but largely it was just a "walk around this farm, don't step in shit, and then leave." We had brats and burgers that were only a $1 and then the obligatory ice-cream sundaes.
The next day we mostly bummed around and then drove out to Waupaca to visit Barb at her home on the island, Big Blue. Saw the chickens, fed them some tadpoles, and then it was back to Appleton where we had a dinner with our friend Brenda at Carmella's. On Tuesday we drove down to Wisconsin Dells and went to Noah's Ark, riding the waterslides all day and then making the long trek home so I could make my specialty dinner (chicken parmesan and mashed potatoes, yum).
Do you see what I mean when I said it was a busy summer?
@klreynol left that Wednesday, I worked two days, and then it was time to hop on a plane and fly my ass down to Texas.
The little video I made for my brother.
Towards the end of May, my brother's girlfriend Anne reached out to me about surprising Josh for his birthday. He had mentioned (casually) that his birthday tends to get overlooked seeing as it is the day after a major holiday (4th of July). I agreed that it is the story of our lives, with my birthday being the day after Christmas. So she wanted to do something special for him. The video sums all that up, so go ahead and watch it if you aren't familiar with the story.
After that little excursion of watching the bats at sunset (in which they did not come out while there was still light) we went to dinner at a little cafe type thing and then went home to sleep. The next day was arguably the funnest because we went tubing down the river in San Marcos for the 4th. It was a bit of a nightmare getting on the river though. We waited in traffic for more than an hour trying to get in just to park, and then we stood out in a field of rocks for another 45 minutes with the scorching sun murdering us.
The sunscreen I had put on my face (Anne can attest, she'd done the same) kept running in my eyes and burning them like you wouldn't believe.
We were also surrounded by hundreds of college-age jocks and their girlfriends, hootin' and hollerin' and slamming beers and anything else in arms reach. It was like being in hell. Or at least my own personal hell. It was almost too much to take by the time we got on the bus that would drive us to the water. Everyone but Josh and I got on the first bus, so he and I waited for the second and then when we got on, I had to sit in this weird sort of crouched position the duration of the drive and that was AGONY on my knees.
My river wounds.
By the time we got into the water it was the best feeling I had experienced in a very long time. The water was spring-fed and practically glowing blue. It was moving a bit fast but that was alright...ish. Until we hit the rapids. Now I'm going to go ahead and say that I am not a fan of tubing down the river and actually staying in the tube. I like to swim around and be in the water and all that jazz. A few wounds are a given. However, when we got to the rapids I was unable to get back in the raft fast enough and got FUCKING ANNIHILATED on the rocks. Look at my feet! It's been two months and the gash on my right leg is still there (obviously healed over but still clearly visible) and you can't see the chunk I took out of my knee. I could go on.
That night we all went downtown to watch the Austin fireworks from a bridge that runs over the Colorado river. The show was kinda "meh" but it was neat to be downtown with the insane amount of people and to see how Austin celebrates the 4th (always one of my favorite holidays).
For Josh's birthday on the 5th we had a little gathering at Anne's home,with her family and a couple of friends to ring in the occasion. We played some fun games courtesy of Josh's friend Andrew and eventually the day wound to a close. Anne got locked out of her house and I had an early flight home, so it was a stressful evening but one that rounded out a pretty great trip (c:
At Ravinia in Chicago with Derek and @jillybean
Mid July saw Derek and I driving down to Chicago to visit my lady love @jillybean. Ravinia is just north of the city and hosts these really fun "event" nights (check the place out here). It's a beautiful park that is meticulously maintained and you can bring in basically whatever food and drink you want to enjoy during the show. This one in particular was "Danny Elfman's Music from the Movies of Tim Burton," performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
The basic rundown is that they had arranged 13 suites of music from 13 Tim Burton and Danny Elfman collaborations, put to a combination of both concept drawings of the movies and then actual clips as well. It was fucking freezing that night, as evidenced by the blanket and the people wearing jackets that we neglected to bring. For mid July it was annoying. But we absolutely had a wonderful time with @jillybean and ate to our hearts content that evening.
The next day we headed home and stopped at Ikea (my first visit since I was a kid). All I have to say is 1.) wow, and 2.) I know where I'll be shopping frequently in Austin.
EAA with this guy.
Another first for me was towards the end of July when Derek and I went to EAA in Oshkosh. EAA is a crazy event up here, it's world famous, and I know people have a good time but I've just never gotten the nerve to go. Someone likened it to "a comic convention but for airplane enthusiasts." Someone else compared it to typical Wisconsin festivals, except no one is drunk and there really isn't any white trash walking around. The people at EAA come from all over the world, most flying their own planes in, and they want to see what the latest and greatest technology is as well as the old planes that are still around. And they can afford the steep ticket price to get in (we lucked out with free tickets, natch).
Derek was in his element and it was nice to see because we are usually doing stuff I want to do. He has a knowledge and adoration for planes and things that fly in general that it just amazes me. He can rattle off information down to the most minute detail at the drop of a hat and I think that's very impressive about him. I knew he could do it with cars and assumed the same held true in this regard, but still... I was impressed.
Now let's address the big elephant in the room. My hair ::tosses hair, realizes it's gone::
Fuckin' animal on the floor there.
I suppose the big event on August 14th, aside from the book launch (below), was the cutting of the hair. It was heartbreaking, yes, and I miss it very much. I'm also kind of relieved it's gone and I'll tell you why.
I chose to start growing my hair out in July of 2013. I'd just gotten out of my relationship with Scout and was having a really hard time bouncing back. I was also seven months out of the Golden Year and couldn't rally myself to a point of having a purpose. So I gave myself a dumb goal and decided to grow my hair out. I had one last cut before I went to Austin to visit my brother, and from then on it was just trims and getting it colored.
After a year I was going strong. I knew a lot of people didn't like it but I wasn't growing it out for them, I was growing it out for me. I had my good days and my bad days with it. I had fights with humidity. By the time November rolled around I was able to get most of it pulled back in a bun and after that, I typically wore it in a bun every day. It helped when I met Derek that he liked my hair. I am habitually the kind of person that becomes hyper aware in new relationships and if a person says one too many times that they'd like me with short hair, I'll do it.
Guilty as charged.
But he always commented on how much he liked it, and at one point when I casually mentioned cutting it off, he urged me not to. That's a keeper right there! At the end of July I decided I wanted to color my hair brown in lieu of moving to Texas because I didn't want to worry about keeping up with the blond it had been and wanted it colored closer to my natural tone.
Long story short, it didn't work out. And after three attempts by a friend to fix it, it still wasn't working out. My hair was suffering as a consequence and after a "come to Jesus" talk with my stylist, I decided to cut it off. Lifting the color after so many treatments was going to destroy my hair and I was going to end up hating it even more. So we chopped it.
I admit the first cut was difficult to watch but then it was a relief to see the rest go. Yes it was two years of work to grow it out but it was also two years I spent after moving out on my own to test the waters of life. When I moved out in 2013 I did so with the curiosity of "can I do this on my own? If I can, can I also move away in a couple years?" Clearly that time is now. So I go forward after cutting off two years of memories, shedding the past as I embark on a new adventure. I'll let the color grow out and rediscover my natural color (I have no idea what that even is anymore (I'm not kidding either)). Already I can see that my hair is much MUCH wavier than it had been two years ago. Not complaining... not happy about it either.
Maybe in a few months I'll start the process all over again, albeit with no faux colors this time. Let's find out how many grey hairs I have, together!
With my mom and dad celebrating the event (c:
The other big event on August 14th was that I held the release/launch party for my second novel, "The Onyxus Chronicles: Episode II." I wrote about publishing for a second time here, though it was largely the same experience as the first time around.
I'd be lying if I said it went better than the first book.
I think the hard part I had of coming out with the sequel was getting people to care. Sure, my family and friends did, but not all of them even bought it. The excitement of "SEAN PUBLISHED A BOOK!" had magically dropped away and I think people just reacted to this mostly with an "oh, neat," kind of mentality. And it's not that I can blame them, it just kind of sucked. The attendance was much lower for this party than for the first book, and sales through Amazon have been much softer as well. I am of course thankful to the people that did come, and also to those that bought a copy. INCREDIBLY thankful to those that read the book already and loved it.
You make me want to keep writing more than you'll ever know.
I will say I had a very successful marketing campaign for a free copy of the first book in digital form, and that went over resoundingly well. Celebrate your victories! I haven't really had a fire lit under my ass to get moving on the final edit of Episode III, but I know it's coming soon. Once all of this hoo-ha with the move is done I will have the headspace to work on it a little bit more. Until then I can sleep soundly knowing that I publishing two books in two years and that ain't bad by a 29 year old guy.
So if you haven't bought it yet and intended to, prove me wrong and buy it now. Come on, don't be a shit. Just do it.
And I suppose that's where I leave you? Always here and gone in a flash... summer, that is. A few blissful months in Wisconsin where you hope for low humidity, awesome storms, and a few days on the rivers and lakes before the wind gets colder and the leaves start falling off the trees before you're ready. There's never much of a lead up to summer here, at least not for the last few years. It's winter, and then it's spring for a couple days, and then it's hot. This summer in particular it was hot. The last week has been interesting and it's been kind of chilly.
Maybe it was the state's way of sending me off with a glimpse of the fall that I am going to miss so much?
In the end, I guess the rope snapping on my bracelet at the start of summer signified the end of my life here in Wisconsin. Or my adult life, as it were. I put it on when I had just turned 19, a few months shy of holding down my first full-time job at Express, and wore it ever since. Relationships, babies, moving back and forth, new jobs, old loves, new loves, new cars, sad goodbyes, bitter hellos... that's what it boils down to.
SO, as I always have ended this (and why stop now), what else happened this summer? I started saying goodbye. Drove by the old houses, drove by friends houses, called a lot of people I hadn't in a long time and did it all in three months. Let go of control of a few events, took control of some others. Continued falling more and more in love with Derek. Spent two months neatly packing my life away, finally updated the cats with their shots, and consolidated my debt. Rode on a jetski for the first time in years, kayaked for the first time in years, and became a little more accepting of things I didn't think I could. Learned to appreciate people for who they are at the core. Learned to write people off that didn't earn that appreciation. Had a job, got a new job, lost a new job, still hoping for a great result and I'll let you know. I enjoyed a final three months in Wisconsin after 18 great years and I did it solely because I want to remember this great state at its best.
We don't have much time on this earth and what little time we do have, we need to make it count. It's time for me to spread my wings and move on to something bigger, maybe better, and I plan on taking you all with me. For now I leave you with the theme song to 26 Golden Things and subsequently the best year of my life. It was the first thing you heard in what became a great story... I don't see why history can't repeat itself here. I'll see you in Texas.
"For what it's worth: it's never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be.
There's no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing.
We can make the best of the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you.
I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view.
I hope you live a life you're proud of.
If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again."
-Benjamin Button
When I saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in 2008 I knew within minutes it was going to be one of the more profound moments in my life that had to do with a movie. You might scoff at that, I know I would if I was reading it coming from someone else, but I've always loved movies in a way people might find surprising. They make me run through a whole range of emotions I don't get to experience on a daily basis. Certainly not that I can experience at the drop of a hat, and there's something fantastic about that. Benjamin Button made me cry a whole bunch (big surprise) and it made me think a lot about my life. That quote directly above, in particular, made me think a lot about my life.
I wasn't proud of it in 2008.
I'm not proud of my life today seven years later. I mean, I am... but I'm not. A big part of me has always feared I'd never be content with the people and places and things I've met, seen and done. That no home is ever going to scratch the hidden itch in my mind of a greater place, or that no friend is ever going to say the one perfect thing I've waited an eternity for a friend to say. Maybe that's the thing about people like me? The dreamers, that is. We are always coming up with bigger and better scenarios than what we've already seen, and we look forward to them because they are going to satisfy us. They are supposed to satisfy us.
I believe that's a large part of why I write books; I can change and bend the story to my every whim and desire. What was once a great fight scene might not be so great in five years when I've seen countless movies with better fights. Might as well rewrite it! In the moment of a character's death, I write certain dialogue to invoke the sadness that is appropriate. Come back a year later and that dialogue feels melodramatic. Might as well rewrite it! I am always improving the story but not having to suffer the consequences.
In real life, there are consequences when you change things. Sometimes they are for the better and sometimes for the worse. That's what has kept me here in Wisconsin with my feet firmly planted on the ground, for better or for worse. What if I moved away and lost my job? Ran out of money? Got in a car accident? Got robbed? Lost all of my belongings? Couldn't pay my bills? Someone died right after I moved? Someone got sick and I had to move back? What if I just couldn't afford it?
What if? What if? WHAT IF?!
Not that I haven't wanted to leave. I just... couldn't. I have always had a reason as to why, also. I didn't have enough money or I didn't have someone to go with me or someone backed out of moving or I got a new job. Yadda yadda yadda. I started to realize over the last few years that if you are waiting for the timing to be perfect, it never will be. Eventually you just have to settle on an idea and commit yourself to it, planning the best you can and, just a little bit, hoping for the best. Two years ago I decided while on a trip to Austin that I would move there before I turned 30. And if you know me (as most of you do) and if you've ever read my "new resolution" blogs (as I assume you have), you know I fulfill my goals.
If there is one person I hate letting down it's myself, and I think that is a mentality everyone should hold themselves to. It works wonders for your self-esteem. In a world made of people trying to please everyone else, I've learned a valuable lesson in that you can't always please those around you, and wasting your time and energy on it is a fruitless mission. Aim for yourself, and after that you can worry about everyone else.
When I met Derek, someone equally driven to move away, I met my match in a person. I met my challenge. Here was someone who could (and would) hold me accountable for my statement of fact that I'd be moving in 2015, if not to Austin then to somewhere else in the country. He didn't want to be living in Appleton, and I feared that if I were to back out of moving away, I'd be backing out of a future with him. That isn't to say I am moving because of him, that is entirely inaccurate. This plan was in motion long before he entered the picture. He just held me to my word.
Luckily after our visit in March, Austin worked out for us as a place to live. Having someone like Derek at my side has been wonderful. Someone that not necessarily combats all of my potential excuses, so much as someone who provides a workaround for them that helps me through. Someone that holds my hand when the stress is overwhelming, someone that listens without having to give an opinion. Someone to tell me it's going to be alright when I drive away and can hardly see through the tears as I do so.
I think there was always this misconception from people about why I'd choose to move away from here. "Oh, Sean hates it here." "Sean just can't wait to get away from this place." "Sean thinks it's so miserable here." It all boils down to pretty much the same sentiment, that being Wisconsin is a horrible, horrible place and I'll only find my happiness by moving away to see if the grass truly is greener on the other side.
That's not it. That's not true now and it never was at all.
If anything, the grass is almost certainly never greener on the other side. I've learned that lesson a few times by now and I'm sure I'll learn it several more times over the course of my life. That's the thing about lessons: they're never over.
What people get wrong about me is thinking that I've been hating my life in Wisconsin. That I've been chomping at the bit to get out of here. It could not be farther from the truth.
I love my life here.
I have my friends and my family here... I have nearly 19 years worth of memories here. I became a teenager in Appleton, followed closely by becoming a man. This is where I fell in love for the first time... it's where I fell in love for a second time. I lost all of my grandparents while living here, I lost pets, I lost friends. No "place" is ever going to take the spot in my heart of where I was when certain events happened. It just won't.
But to stay in one place solely because of the past that attaches you to it... that's just not fair. It's not fair to me when I want to see what else there is in the world, consequences and all. It's not fair to the people around me when I'd keep thinking about a bigger life with different, not necessarily more, but different opportunities for me. It would be doing a disservice to my friends and family.
When my family and I moved to Wisconsin in March of 1997, I was torn from a world I knew. The only one I'd ever really known. Wisconsin was as different from Southern California as milk is from soda. But together with my family I learned and adapted. Now I am faced with another opportunity of the same magnitude and it is one I've been waiting a very long time for.
Toward the end of June I had a guest in Pottery Barn named Lois, a gal I'd never had the pleasure of helping before but one I'd seen in the store more than a few times. We chatted for a few minutes while I was helping her return some items, and she let me know that she had just turned 82 the day before. She'd never been married, hadn't had kids, just loved her friends and her siblings and her books. Lois told me she loves to read more than anything else and her eyes absolutely lit up when I told her I was an author. She was happy with her life from the bottom to the top. When our short chat ended, she started walking away and turned to me and said "Getting old isn't so bad, Sean." I asked her what the secret was and she paused and looked at the ceiling for a second. Lois turned to me with a certain glint in her eye and said "Always stay excited for things to come. Don't let yourself get bored."
It's funny how as the date to move got closer, it became harder and harder to talk about leaving. With @klreynol moving to Arizona I was on the other end of the situation, so I could just block it out until it was right in front of me. That's the side I have always been on... the one where I watch people leave. The one where I write a letter of goodbye and watch them fade in the sunset. But with this scenario I have to think about it. The logistics, the cost, the time and all of that hoo-ha. You can't put something out of your mind when you are the planner, thinker and executioner of said thing. But all the same, you keep it safe towards the back of your mind until the magnetics of what is right in front of you draws it out.
Friends start stopping by work to say hello, knowing full-well it is going to be the last time you see them for a long time. In driving past my old house, the one I moved to when we left California, I realize I'm finally putting my life, the one I felt had become stagnant, into motion. Living by my own rules, or rather, a new set of rules.
I can't help but look back on all of the things I've done while I've lived in Wisconsin and reminisce on them. There was so much great stuff that happened here. There was so much sad stuff. Bad stuff. Thrilling stuff. Emotional stuff. Every feeling that could be felt... it happened.
When I got sick as a 12 year old and missed two months of school because of my bad gallbladder, and having to deal with the doctors that didn't believe me. The fallout of that event and not having any friends by the time I came back to school, effectively being the "new kid" once more. The first time I kissed a girl.
The first time I kissed a boy.
The first time I sat down to write a "serious" story, one that I never stopped writing. When I came out to my parents and weathered a storm that was not as turbulent as I thought it'd be but not entirely as comfortable as I'd have preferred. The first time I found out I was being cheated on in a relationship, and drove home through a snowstorm at night with so much hurt and anger that I started screaming at the tops of my lungs. The first time I moved out of the house. The first pets I ever owned, named, and raised in my babies Paolo and Sophia; two ridiculous cats I bottle fed and kept on a heating blanket until they could take care of themselves.
The time I realized I was a fool to hope my three-year relationship was going to work out and the only thing I could think of to do was scream at the tops of my lungs in my living room as the fractures in my world finally splintered and the walls came down. When I realized the actual key to my happiness was to set a series of goals for myself, culminating in a year of 26 new and exciting things that would take me so far from where I started that I wouldn't recognize myself when it was all done.
The day I published my first book.
And then the day I walked into the same Starbucks I'd been going to for 10 years to write my said books and met the love of my life without any intention of doing so.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf once wrote "if your dreams don't scare you then they aren't big enough." My dreams were always a little too big... maybe just a little too grand for them to be applicable to a life like mine. I think what I needed to do was scale them back a bit until they were just barely attainable, and then go for it full-force. Never set a goal for yourself that you are going to reach with no problem. Where's the fun in that? Where's the sense of fulfillment that comes with that?
Do what I did.
Decide to move across the country and don't change your mind even when you are a month out with no job lined up, then three weeks out with no home lined up, then two weeks out with (yet again) no job lines up. Trust, as I did, that everything that is supposed to fall into place will, and all you've got to do is have a little hope.
I've never before had someone in my life that hated me. I'm not saying that with any sort of ego... I just never had that experience. Maybe I have and just didn't know it, with ignorance being bliss and all that... but in this instance there is one sole person that feels this way toward me. It's a weird feeling. I don't consider myself the most charming person in the world but I've always felt charming enough to get people to at least feel neutral about me. Ya don't love me, ya don't hate me. And because I'm a trusting person, I tend to put that faith into everybody and it remains there until they have done me wrong so many times I finally learned my lesson.
I also feel that for people to hate you, with honestly and truly no good reason to do so, there is something inherently wrong with them. Whatever issues they have with you are a direct reflection of whatever is going on inside their own mind. It took a while for me to realize how that is nothing I can help, nothing I can fix. Particularly because you can't fix something that doesn't want to be fixed... and maybe doesn't even know it needs to be fixed. People would tell me "he's just jealous," but eventually I want to scream "JEALOUS OF WHAT!?" I could spout out a few theories but they would be cruel and unnecessary. So I shan't.
It sucks to always be ice-skating uphill with a person. That for every kindness you show them there is an equally negative reaction they throw in your face. It is an exhausting endeavour meant solely to tear you down as a human being and it's unfair. They share something so you share something in turn, and they walk away without a reaction because anything you could possibly have to say bears no importance or meaning to them. They take your response to a story ("Oh really? That's neat.") as payment for sharing, yet do not return the same kindness.
There's something to be said about people like me. The ones that like to laugh and make others laugh with them. That wear their hearts on their sleeves. The ones that can cry at the drop of a hat when they watch a sad movie or feel immense empathy when a dear friend is having a bad day. Even if that bad day is just an anniversary of a bad day in their life. Because people like me that show all of that on the outside are quite hard on the inside. Strong, resilient, and mostly silent in their deepest feelings because, often, it is the deepest feelings that would cut the deepest if revealed.
Then there are the other people. The ones who like to speak loudly and too often. That don't share so much as scream their opinions in the faces of others, with an air of confidence that is both disgusting and entrancing with all of its flaws. Noses so high in the air they'd drown if it rained. They are the ones that know everything about everything, the right and the wrong way and how you are only ever doing it the wrong way. People like that, who show such stubbornness and arrogance on the outside are quite soft on the inside. Cowards... losers at their own game. Unloved by anyone because who could love someone so thoroughly ugly in every aspect of life?
He knows who he is, and because I don't name names in my blogs, I won't reveal it.
But he knows who he is.
He's reading this right now.
He likes to read my blogs for anything juicy I might have to say so that he can spread it and try to get me in trouble with the powers that be. And he might be thinking "I don't hate him... why would Sean say that?" but when actions speak louder than words, and the words he has shared behind my back extend for several years, it is the only logical explanation.
Right now, in this moment, I don't mind sharing this. There wasn't a day that went by while knowing him when he didn't have something negative to say about me. How wrong I was in my actions, how I was faking it when I was too sick to work. How I was no good at my job, how I was going to get the store shut down, how much trouble I would be in if "only someone knew what Sean was doing here." How I'm an "okay" person but the worst manager. It was all unfounded, of course. Never mind that he was the only person to feel this way, it sure as hell didn't stop him from trying to convince others that it was how they should feel as well.
Only come to find that people inherently know how big words from a small man rarely carry any clout. They certainly didn't with me.
But what eventually became hysterical was that he had no clue I was aware of what he was saying the whole time. The whole, entire, sweet time. He was blinded by a false sense of invincibility, that no one would share with me his dirty thoughts about what kind of person I was. And I'd see him, very often, and look him in the eye and listen to his stories and just bite my tongue on anything I wanted to share. I knew how anything and everything I could say would immediately be twisted and turned into some god awful statement taken completely out of context and tone as it was shared with everyone else.
Bottom line, did his words hurt me? Sure; I'm not so brazen as to claim they didn't. Razors of any sharpness will hurt when slung often enough. That being said, did I let it get to me? Nope.
Yet bitches are gonna bitch.
Listen, I can absolutely tolerate not being liked by everyone. That's the nature of life and I'll deal with it without any qualms. You can't win all the time, I know this. It confused me for the longest time as to how he could be so mean... so utterly and completely rotten. And it took me a very long time to come to terms with the fact that I just wasn't going to win him over. No matter how nice I was or how many opportunities I gave him to turn it around. Some things are too lost from the start for there to be any hope. The few times he was confronted he would default to the herd mentality of "I only said it because so-and-so said it first," which is such a spineless tactic bullies resort to in the hopes of justifying their shit behavior.
Eventually I knew I'd be moving away knowing I'd never have to deal with him again, leaving him behind with the leftover bits of trash and debris from my life in Wisconsin that I didn't care enough to pack up and take with me. A subpar human being that did more talking than doing but somehow always felt I didn't know how to do my own job despite the numbers I produced to the contrary. A gossiping, spiteful, vindictive, backstabbing curmudgeon that actually asked how much money I was going to be getting a couple days after my grandfather died. A primadonna, borderline sociopath hell bent on hurting anyone around him that could be happy, only because he didn't understand how to attain it.
I don't think you know how to be happy... what's worse is that I don't think you care to be happy.
But maybe you already know that? I just want to make sure.
Of course I also want to make sure you know that I've used my words to write you this letter. My words, which to me are my most sacred and treasured possession. I know you'll roll your eyes at that but I'm okay with it. Until now my words have been used to write books that you no-doubt trash-talked up the wall, because hell, if you yourself didn't write it then it's obviously awful, right? My words have been used to write my blogs in the hopes that maybe they would affect someone in a positive way, but any positive message I've ever penned obviously would have gone right over your head because you wouldn't be willing to absorb it.
Lastly, my words have been used to write letters to my closest friends. The people that made a difference in my life, from friends to family to the people at the store that I loved seeing every day. The people that made me who I am and that I will miss the most when I'm gone.
Decidedly, this letter is the first time I've written out of pity. This letter oozes in pity, and I hope that was not lost on you. Because I pity you; hating you would take too much effort and you just don't deserve it. You don't deserve my time. Not now, not ever. To spend my time and effort on you would be like squeezing blood from a stone.
So go on with your life, try to humiliate more people to make yourself feel better, and keep looking at yourself in the mirror, knowing what lies behind your eyes. Understand that everyone knows all about you and what makes you tick, and know that you weren't so clever as to get away with any of it. Most of us have better things to do than worry about your opinion. Most of us have people in our lives that love and adore us, every second spent with us, and they are the people that deserve our attention. Not you.
To you I say good riddance.
As for the rest of you? See you tomorrow with another blog. Ciao (c:
It was a very frustrating, aggravating day in April of 2012. I was working at Express in Green Bay and things just weren't going well for me. The store hadn't done well in the year I'd been there which meant I also hadn't done well on my review. No raise for Sean. I'd been with the company for 8 years and still wasn't making enough money to support living on my own, let alone to also pay for the brand new car I'd purchased. I was walking to the food court for my lunch break and my phone started ringing with a number I didn't know, so I silenced it. After about a minute or so the phone buzzed that I had a voicemail.
It was a woman named Courtney; she was the General Manager at Pottery Barn in the Fox River Mall. She had heard from a coworker of hers that I knew (my former landlady and now great friend, Brenda) that I might be a good candidate for a position in the store as the Associate Store Manager. No pressure, just wondering if I wanted to swing by sometime soon and have a chat about it.
I figured what the hell, I had nothing to lose, right? It couldn't be any worse than my current situation. So I called her back and set up a time to meet a few days later when she'd have her District Manager in town and I could sit down with the both of them. And I did. The best thing about talking (re: interviewing) when you already have a job is that the pressure is not really on you. Despite how I felt about my performance at Express, I knew my stuff. I knew all of the correct answers to questions, I knew how to interview properly without botching it. I was in the middle of filming "26 Golden Things," which was a huge endeavour and one I used to promote myself as a go-getter, and I had also just finished writing The Onyxus Chronicles: Episode III.
I was pleasantly surprised, pleasantly shocked, a day or two later when Courtney called and said she wanted to move forward with checking references, and if I could please fill out an actual application. Suddenly I felt like I had something to lose and the panic set in. They actually wanted me for the job? Oh shit... now what?
So the background check started and more interviews started. I had the worst interview of my life when I had to talk on the phone to the Regional Vice President as she was driving down the Pacific Coast Highway with the TOP DOWN. At one point I asked her to repeat the question five times, and that was plain humiliating. And of course she told the District Manager she wasn't sure I'd be the right fit for the job (I agreed, based on that interview, yikes). So a conference call or two later and a lot of convincing on Courtney's behalf, she gave me a call and asked if I could meet her at Starbucks by the mall.
It had been about three weeks at this point and I felt like maybe I was coming in for a second interview. But no, Courtney had a folder on the table and we chatted for a bit and then she said they wanted to offer me the position. So she opened the folder and turned it to me and showed me what my offer was for a salary and all of that. And I can remember my eyes misting over because it was a very substantial increase over what Express paid me. Same amount of vacation, more sick time, better benefits all around. And I accepted.
I gave Express three weeks notice because I felt guilty, as if I owed them something. In hindsight I wish I had just given a normal two weeks and said "see ya." But that's not in my character and I would never be so bold as to burn a professional bridge. You never know when you'll have to eat your words! I started with Pottery Barn on June 3rd, 2012, and I still remember going in to work on that Monday (in a three-piece suit (first and last time that happened)) and thinking I had made a mistake.
This job was going to be about walking around with teapots and pillows, moving in circles through a slow store with nothing to do at all. It was going to be boring, boring, boooooooooring.
I was very wrong. And, truth be told, it did not take very long at all for Pottery Barn to become my favorite place.
Obviously my locker ::tosses hair::
At the end of the first week and after working 5 days in a row, I went home and fuckin' crashed. I had never been so exhausted in my life from working. Because it wasn't walking around with pillows and moving in circles through a slow store, it was work. Unloading trucks in the morning full of 100 boxes of heavy shipment. Boxes of candles, of chairs, of coffee tables. Going up and down the stairs in the back several times a day. Climbing ladders, filling shelves. And that was just the operations side! There was serious work involved in maintaining the Pottery Barn selling model, greeting every guest and actively uncovering what they came to the store for.
Of course the biggest part would be the actual sales.
I would be ecstatic at Express if I had a sale over $500. That was big money when it came to clothing, particularly because everyone had a coupon. But at Pottery Barn that's a somewhat average sale. It's when you get it over a few thousand that you start to get excited. I had the worst sticker shock when I started there, and even more so because people would buy this stuff without even flinching. It was pretty fast that I bought in to the company and what it stood for and that was a wonderful feeling. Liking where you worked, liking the people you worked with, all of it.
My first closing shift on a Sunday when Courtney was out of town.
The window exploded. Neat.
It did take me a good month to totally understand the computer system. It took a little longer to totally understand the way in which we get our merchandise from one of five different options. But eventually I got the hang of it and things only got better from there. We hired my best @klreynol as the visual manager that fall. I won the "Catch the Spirit" award (kind of like employee of the month) for our store and then went on to win it for the District. I actually got a bonus in my paycheck for the first time in my life (not because of Catch the Spirit though).
Pottery Barn was just a different form of life, one where going to work didn't actually feel like going to work. I was going to hang out with people that I loved being around, that made me feel comfortable and happy and at ease. Working at a job where they put the reigns in your hands and said "What do you need from us to make your job easier? What can we do to help you grow your business?" I'd never had that before. The associates were not all 18 years old and drinking every night. A large portion were moms (not necessarily old or young, just moms) and they always made me feel content. They made my job easy in always being willing to help.
Working an "In-Home Trunk Show Party" with the always wonderful
(and one of my very favorite people in the world) Barb.
What surprised me about the store was the interaction with our guests (we choose not to call 'em customers). At Express you had the regulars of course, and you'd remember the name only after you looked at their credit card. But here you had regulars that actively wanted to talk to you. To share with you. You met each of the three Susan's that came in on a weekly basis, the Mary's and the Heather's. I was writing my book one day at Starbucks and had one of my favorite guests come inside because she saw me through the window, call me out by name (despite no nametag), and tell me she "just wanted to say hi real quick, have a great day!"
It's the little things like that where you feel appreciated. It means more than I can really describe, actually.
At a Wedding Event thrown at Lawrence University with Courtney, Melissa and Barb.
When I interviewed for the job, I told them my goal was to move to Austin, TX in the next several years with an eye on West Elm, a sister company under the Williams Sonoma corporate umbrella. While it was in my plan from the beginning, that didn't necessarily make it easier when the time came to act on those plans.
I'm leaving behind a store I've worked at for just over three years. I've won CTS for the store and District three times, I've been an acting General Manager, and I've learned my paces. I've sold more and more each consecutive year, I've met several amazing people along the way, and I've worked with the best boss a person could ask for.
The time I set this up for Courtney to discover in the morning when she opened the office door,
effectively scaring the shit out of her. Best scare ever.
I knew I'd get along with Courtney from the first day I worked with her. Outwardly proper and correct but sassy on the inside. Something I saw often enough in private but that she managed to downplay with most of the staff. For the most part, at least. I like to think that with my foul mouth and dirty jokes I loosened her up a bit. Courtney, a person who could diffuse a tough situation in the blink of an eye and a person that wanted me to be happy. Always helpful, never angry, always understanding, never arrogant, and always sympathetic.
Courtney and I sittin' on Santa's lap.
She became one of my closest friends and allies, teaching me what a partnership between a General Manager and an Associate Store Manager really looked like. What respect amongst peers meant, how to lead effectively, and how to enjoy your job. A perfect partnership. Looking back on three years, I feel like I'm leaving behind a friend more than anything else. I think back on the heart to hearts, some of the tears, and a lot of the laughs. The random songs we broke out into, the silly inside jokes and one-liners that we used on each other. The side eyes, the knowing glances, and all of the exaggerated sighs.
I'm just really going to miss her a lot.
I'm going to miss the bulk of my staff a lot.
Most of the people I work with have been there since I started, some of them well before. They are my friends. They've laughed with me, some have cried with me. A couple made my life miserable for a little while, the others outweighed their negativity. They pushed me to new levels in my career, and they listened to me. I know I am going to meet a whole new staff when I move to Austin and I know they are going to be as equally great as those at store #736, Fox River. But they'll never be the same. I leave knowing that I am not just leaving coworkers behind, but friends.
I'll be back to visit them and I will keep up with most of them through Facebook. I'll even be able to enjoy the company of a few of them when they come down to visit me. It's not the same, but it's not the end of the world. I'm honored to have made the connections that I have through Pottery Barn and to have forged the relationships that I'll take with me. It was the best job I've ever had and I will forever be indebted with gratitude for everyone and everything that made it so.
And at the end of the day, I'm not too far away. Austin is, after all, just a little south by southwest.
I'll leave you with my favorite song from the Pottery Barn soundtrack. The bulk of our music has stayed the same over the last three years (annoyingly), but this song never got old.
The very first cover. Yikes, what a snooze. Mountains? Really?
Who cares?
Episode I was not originally what it was called. Did I ever tell you that? The first book in my series (The Originality Series, at that time) carried the moniker of "The Beginning." I think at the time I felt by calling it something as elusive as "The Beginning," it implied the story was only the start of bigger and badder things to come.
Trouble was I didn't know what was to come. Like... at all.
In the original manuscript, the first two books were combined. "The Journey," or what would eventually be called Episode II, was supposed to just be the second part of a single book. I knew at some point there would be "The Adventure," or Episode III, though I didn't even know what was supposed to happen in the middle chapter of all this so how could I devise the plans for that one? I dunno. And I didn't.
In the first incarnation of the book, Banning and Bryna were best friends. When the first story ended, the second portion was to pick up five years later (which is still what happens) and both had gone to college and finished as Marine Biologists. Yep. Now keep in mind back then, this book dealt with certain Witch-like powers, with spells thrown into the mix as well. So "The Journey" picked up five years later and very quickly after an "incident" at a SeaWorld-esque place they worked at, Banning and Bryna decide to take a tropical vacation. Blah blah blah, the plane gets blown apart and they crash/wash up ashore an island.
And then it ended because I never finished it.
(Until now, and you can buy the book right here if ya want.)
So let's take a little trip back to the spring of 2005 when I started skipping college to go and write at Barnes & Noble, in a land called "Sean Used to be Super Irresponsible."
The college experience for me was one that I hated, and in the end one I didn't take seriously. I used to tell people that when I dropped out it was after talking to an English professor who said "College won't teach you how to tell a good story, only you can come up with an idea." Which I felt was very Smokey the Bear "only you can prevent forest fires" in its logic. The truth of the matter was that I missed my first English class and was subsequently bumped from it. I read that quote online somewhere and took it to heart and used it as an excuse to justify leaving school behind. So the spring of 2005 saw me getting my first laptop, a Dell, and as soon as I had it I installed Microsoft Word and started spending my days at the Starbucks in Barnes & Noble in Appleton.
The first few weeks were spent tinkering and not really making outlines but mostly writing down ideas and branching them out. I didn't know how helpful outlines would actually be at that point and though you can argue that's the same as an outline, it was different. It was just a series of disjointed ideas I was going to have to somehow string together cohesively. By April I had moved on to actually writing the second book, having made the decision to split this series out of "parts" and into "episodes." The original prologue is still dated in my computer as April 15th, 2005. It's also super bad to read and gives me a good chuckle to do so.
The story was written over the course of a few weeks, coming in at a total of eight chapters and 165 pages. At the time I thought that was pretty hot shit and it still kind of is because it's the bulk of a story "mostly" fleshed out. But it wasn't good. @klreynol can testify to the silly nature of it.
Let's begin with the basics:
The story took place on "The Island of Myth," which is a genius name, and it exists in the "Originality Domain." You heard it here first, folks. On Myth, five species of creatures ran the place: humans, elves, mermaids, fairies, and goblins. Yes! Banning gets there, he makes a few friends in the elves Saphrinity and her brother Cale, loses the ring Onyxus, becomes an enemy of Queen Selena of the humans, and then he leaves. That was pretty much it.
Subsequent rewrites changed all of this. As you can see by buying the book here.
First order of business, the "Island of Myth" became the "IslandDagrún," which means Day of Secret Lore in Old Norse. And it was moved out of the "Originality Domain" into the "Örjan Domain." The humans became the manu, elves became ailill, mermaids became enki, fairies the tien, and goblins the usha. By resolving the issue of using species people were familiar with already, I could move on to the characters. Queen Selena became Queen Themis Juniparius. Saphrinity survived the rewrite but her brother became Tristan, with the aforementioned "Cale" relegated to supporting-character status. Another character came to life as well, Aurora Genesis, the daughter of the tien (fairy) leader. The book has always started the same and it has always ended the same, with several large plot points throughout remaining the same as well. It wasn't until the big "hold on to your butts, this bitch is getting a complete re-working" in 2011 that the story became what it is now. What was once 165 pages transformed into 685. Yes, you read that correctly. The Onyxus Chronicles: Episode II sits at 685 pages. (Don't worry, it's only 456 pages in printed-book-form.) As the book became what it now is, I had to again start thinking about a synopsis and it took me a while to get around to making one that was decent. Even then, I had to send it to @klreynol and my brother to polish and toss ideas back as to what should change. Because writing a synopsis sucks. But here she is:
When I started re-writing Episode II, I was going through a tremendous transitional period in my life. My relationship had failed with my ex right in the middle of it, which is interesting for one simple fact: the book feels like two stories that are split at Chapter Five. It used to bug me, but you know what? It makes sense now. In the context of the story, it makes sense why you the reader should feel such a shift in things, and I am totally fine with that.
The book starts in a very sad place, both dark and brooding and with little light at the end of the tunnel. But then it shifts around and transforms itself into something better. The characters we follow become something better than they once were. I can't help but see how this mirrored my life at the time.
When the relationship was over and I moved back in with my parents, it was a chance for me to rediscover who I was because at that point I was a shell. And damaged, and sad and a million other things I hope to never have to feel again. As the summer went on and time went on and I could start seeing the world in a different way, let alone myself, it came out in my writing. My best @markstyleme went through a breakup just a few months before I did and we spent a lot of time together because of it. I think when the world crumbles around you, it says a lot about you based on the people you turn to for support. And he was certainly one of them.
He ended up finding a new and better love that spring, and it was through their relationship that I could see a light at the end of my own tunnel. I wasn't ready to date anyone, certainly I wasn't ready to love, but it was a fantastic thing to see and think about. Hope.
I've known @markstyleme for a very long time, he being one of the first friends I made after high school had ended. One of the things that brought us together was our love for pop culture and cinema. Not just cinema, but television in particular. Will&Grace and The Simple Life more than anything else. The inside jokes, the little short sentences that eventually could send us into hysterics. You begin building a history and a camaraderie with a person through these things and he gently, and slowly, became the best guy friend I've ever had. Not to discount my friendships with any others, but he has just been there non-stop for the last 11 years and I still appreciate it to this day.
For his birthday in 2011, I decided to give him a gift and show my appreciation. I took him out one day in August and had a series of cards made out to him. On the front of each card was a line from a movie or television show, ones that we quoted all the time, and then the card would direct us where next to go. We started at the old Parker Family house, where I gave him the first-ever printed copy of Episode II (in a huge binder). We went to a movie and out to lunch and ice-cream and then finally drinks. Eventually the day wound down to a close and I took him home, where we went upstairs and I handed him the final gift of the day.
It was a large framed picture of the book cover, only it was slightly different from the cover the binder had because this one had the dedication.
The second version of the cover.
It's a hard thing to dedicate your work to someone. He and I had fights before the dedication, we've certainly had fights after the dedication, but do those matter in the end? The answer is no, they do not. I find that dedicating a book is something you do in the moment, thinking back on what was going on during the creation of the work and what it would be applicable to. And for Episode II it is @markstyleme. What was great about it was that he never ended up even reading the book, so now as I go to publish it, I'm sure there will be several of you who read it before he does despite his four-year head start. I had to get that one dig in, Silly (c; So when all's said and done, the pages are written and the stage is effectively set, you're left with the juicy meat of the Onyxus Chronicles. Episode II's job was to create the lore behind The Onyxus Chronicles, making Dagrún aptly named. A sense of history has been injected with this portion of the story and instead of becoming the weird bastard middle child of a trilogy, it stands quite effectively on its own. With a couple show-stopper battles that still get my blood pumping.
The final Episode II cover.
I'm so excited to release this book. So many people read Episode I before I had ever published it, but Episode II has only been read by five people. Five! That's it! So when you pick up your copy just know you are right with the rest of the world in finding out what happened in Quillsberg, what will happen on Dagrún, and eventually where all of this leads in Episode III. Go ahead and buy it here. Thank you all for being with me so far and especially thank you to the people that donated to my gofundme campaign to help offset the cost of publication. Remember, the launch party is Friday August 14th in Appleton, you can find the event here, and I want to see any and ALL of you! I listened to this song over and over again when I was writing the book and I'm thrilled to remember that detail so that I can share it with you too. See you in a month (c:
