territorialoak

in multiple ways i've been feeling a whole lot better about a lot of things. Just got back from a five day camping trip up in the mountains and it was completely stress free, relaxing and theraputic and just really fucking nice in general. Most of ashli's immediate family came out as well as my mom and brother, it was a string of birthdays so there was a lot of gift giving and booze drinking in celebration.

the site was called house rock and it was incredible, waterfalls and twisting winding trails, rock pools and caves of various sizes. Everyone drank, everyone had fun, everyone relaxed.

its always good to see my mom and brother, we're on a sort of every three months or so schedule for visits, which is not nearly enough, but i had plenty of time to catch up and laugh with them and enjoy their company.

i've come out of a bit of a funk with my writing as well, introducing the computer to my life was supposed to make the writing process easier, but it was a bit of a deal with the devil, downloading terabytes of grindcore and japanese powerviolence has taken precedence lately, and also having access to every snes game known to man through emulators has been infintely distracting... but i wrote a good 30 pages while camping and came back to find that greg had finished the 4th composition book's transfer to computer, very good news. this has all inspired me to get back to the nitty gritty again and stop surfing the net so much.

another note, i was talking with my brother about the fact that when i was writing out a certain scene in my story, i was nearly brought to tears by the intensity of it, it is an especially heart wrenching scene, but anyway, I realized that i have become so attatched to my characters within the story that it broke my heart when i had to write out this tragic scene, this made me get to thinking, that i have been on the recieving side of this multiple times before, where i had played video games or seen movies that had endings that brought me to tears, and now i may actually be creating such a story, that i will have my readers tearing up when so and so leaves, or if their favorite character dies. it was a really overwhelming feeling, to realize that if i can actually get this book out, that i know for certain that people will tear up in some of the same spots i did...

hopefully that didnt sound pretentious, but i am confident that i can make my readers cry haha

thats enough for now, hopefully ill write the next entry quickly

no i'm not kidding. I went to Guapo Comics tonight for a get together and reading, bumped elbows with a bunch of local portland comic dudes and dudettes and drank a bunch of free mactarnahans beer! Whoah! It never fails to amaze me how easy it is to stick your nose into a new community in portland. starting to get into comics? here, here's some free beer, oh you like Bone? this is the author, go say hi! I love this town!

i've been revelling in this whole computer buisness, neopets, myspace, downloading music, last fm, talking to my friends in jerz. it really is quite nice. I've been working dilligently wih rough draft, getting my stuff onto the computer and beginning to sort through ideas and scenes and whatnot, scenes will be coming soon so stay on the lookout, my current three or four livejournal friends!

in other news, the wankers from england are heading out tomorrow, they have trips to italy to take and specials reunion shows to go to, just kidding about the wanker remark, theyre actually quite wonderful, i just wanted to be british for a moment, but yes, they will be missed, but hopefully now ill have a couch to sleep on when i travel to england!

thats all for tonight, i have to sober up and go be the dairy manager at my bumfuck job.

SAVE FUCKWAY!

oh and i purchased "The Blot" by Tom Neely, it's a wonderfully dark and depressing comic about the horrors of romance and ink splatters killing an octopus eating dog, for fucks sake check it out because it's really cool

A statement about my story, which I am currently calling Infinity.

    Infinity is an adventure story, an epic tale about taking on the daunting task of fighting for what you believe in. This is the biggest project that I have ever taken on, and I have already put in so many hours, and so much blood, sweat and tears into this, that I know it will be something wonderful, that the world has never seen before, when it is finally finished.

    The complete and utter destruction of both heaven and hell, so that mankind may finally manifest it’s own destiny. Tearing down both the righteous above and the demonic below, to finally put and end to the celestial hierarchies that rule our lives. Taking my real life fears of heaven and hell, and weaving them into a story of a group of revolutionaries that must take on the impossible. My heroes are the ones I’ve dreamed of for years, my references are to those that I love and respect. The characters’ loves and fears are linked to my own, their confusion and lust for life are tied in with mine.

    It is trapped somewhere between a fantasy epic and a series of graphic novels. I hope to utilize fully illustrated segments of comic book style action scenes that will add a breath of life to my text. This controls the imagination of the reader to some degree, allowing them to visualize some aspects of the story on their own, while I directly show them other scenes using animated sequences. This way, the reader can see the exact vision I have of the idea down on paper.

    My very first set of rules that I set for myself, which I follow rigidly is.... No Elves. No Dragons. No Dwarves. Much respect to Tolkien and the pantheon of greater fantasy writers, but I am trying to do something different. I want to fabricate my own exotic locales, fearsome fiends and lovable characters. It will be dark, gritty and violent, with adult themes and elements of horror, yet not without heart and a good sense of humor, cheap jokes at my expense should be expected. I strive to make my characters, good, evil, and even those in between, multi faceted and realistic, in that they can not be summed up in just a sentence or two.

    I am absolutely in love with this story, and I hope that shows in some form as I begin to show people my writing. I’m a bit nervous to begin unveiling this whole project. So be kind with your criticisms, but please be honest, and tell me what you like or don’t like. As I work through this process, I will be posting various snippets and scenes and ideas on my livejournal. Enjoy..

Also, I am looking for an artist, your background is not important whatsoever, just as long as you like drawing and think you could work with me haha, if you or anyone you know is looking for a big project to work on with a laid back and open writer, please contact me.

Thanks for reading! I plan to edit this more and maybe use part of it, or all of it, as a calling card of some sort... Opinions?!

So I suppose this is my introduction to my livejournal. I plan on using it quite often, getting hooked on it and updating regularly, don't hold me to that though. I am thoroughly engrossed in a massive writing project right now, so i'm hoping that this will be some sort of springboard opportunity for that. To finally get some of my stuff edited and online for other people to see. I'm new to this site so any feedback would be helpful, comments are always nice too.