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A loud bang stirred me from my sleep. I know its from the water tank thats being demoed outside my neighborhood, perhaps a loose piece from the frame may have broken loose due to the high winds that were shaking the limbs of the trees in my backyard. I’m awake now. Awake and alone with my thoughts in the early hours of the morning. How dreadful. I feel as if I haven’t had nights such as this in a good few years. I sort of forgot about this app and came across it while updating the others and felt it be nice to just make a post for old times sake.

Went through I removed some posts that were depressing. Don’t wish to look back on those times since many years have passed and so much has changed for me. Well, sort of.

I’m still on this cycle of sleeping with multiple women and tossing em to the side when I become bored. Wish I knew why I am this way. I’ve sort of become quite the whore over the years, and don’t admit this with the odd pride that some other fellas have for some reason. It’s a rather lonely lifestyle I seemed to have picked up from my father. It would be nice to settle down with someone and learn to live with that one individual and be faithful. Yet part of me doesn’t believe I have what it takes. Not the being faithful part, the settling down one. I can’t seem to picture myself in such a setting due to wanting to always travel and go to the next place that catches my eye.

On a high note, I’m getting myself into college at the Art Institute for film making. Got real tired of doing construction. It paid well. Very fucking well. I realized though, that I wasn’t exactly happy with it even with the high pay. I was just getting by the whole time just like anyone else in this crazy ass world. So, figured I make some moves to get into something I’d enjoy and hopefully be happy with. That’s what we’re all doing, right? Finding whatever it is that makes us happy? I’ll see how it goes.

I’ll end this off here and leave a song I’m jamming to as I type this down.

[izzarail]

You wot M8

Lately, things have been going great. In fact, I’d say things have gotten better for me, financially and by how much I’ve adjusted myself. I’ve been taking my siblings out doing fun shit and buying them things they could use or need. Good feeling.

I’ve made great bonds with them not only as siblings, but individually too. Make sense? Good feeling.

Despite all that, I thought about dying or killing myself recently.

Odd shit, right?

[izzarail]

Give yourself a big hug for making it through this year.

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Writing Dialogue - What to Leave Out

Dialogue is tricky for many reasons, but a good place to start is knowing what shouldn’t even be in dialogue to begin with. 

Filler Words

While using words like Um, Uh, Like, ect. can do a lot to show a character’s hesitance or nervousness, there are other great ways to show these emotions without those filler words. Add body language, gestures, facial expressions, or pauses to show the character’s anxiety. I’ve seen ellipses used to denote pauses in dialogue, but only do this if you’re stingy with them. 

Also, be economical. Don’t use more words than you need to. When I’m editing my own dialogue, one word I’m always deleting is “that.” If you cut it from the following sentences, they roll off the tongue much easier. 

“I didn’t know that she was there.”

“I found out that he was cheating on me.”

“He said that he’d meet us there.”

Long Explanations

Say you’ve just written this fantastic chapter where your protagonist has been through absolute hell, yet they discovered something crucial to your plot. Then, in the next chapter, your protagonist meets up with another character and needs to catch them up on everything that just happened. It is more than okay to say something like, “Sarah told Bill what happened.” Focus instead on how Bill reacts or what he says in response. Readers  don’t want to hear an explanation of something they just read, so keep that in mind when recapping events between characters.

Greetings

When I answer the telephone, I say hello. When I see someone at work, I say hey and ask how it’s going. That’s realistic dialogue. But despite its authenticity, it has no place in fiction. Have you ever noticed how people on TV never say goodbye when they’re on the phone? Or they tend to just barge into a scene and start talking? We know people usually greet each other appropriately, but we go with it because we don’t want to waste time on trivialities when we’re enjoying a story.

Character Names

Use character names in dialogue sparingly. When two characters are speaking to each other, it’s redundant to use the other’s name.  A general rule of thumb is to only use a character’s name in dialogue when you’re trying to get that character’s attention, or if there are multiple people in the scene and you need to make it clear who she’s speaking to. When in doubt, leave it out!

And some last tips!

-Watch movies or television, or listen to an audio book. Part of learning to write great dialogue is hearing it. 

-Find a dialogue heavy scene you enjoy and analyze it! Do some characters speak in only fragments? Do some rarely use contractions? How many simple sentences vs. compound/complex sentences are there? How does the author denote accents or bizarre speaking patterns? 

-Read aloud dialogue you’ve written, either by yourself or with a friend. 

-If you’re writing prose, write the scene in script format first. Don’t worry about anything except the words inside those quotation marks.

Now go put words in people’s mouths!

Other great resources:

How to Write Great Dialogue

The Power of Silence

How to Write Dialogue

Foundation of Dialogue

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How to write a novel

I was talking to a girl at ComicCon, the kind of person who has a million creative projects at the same time. As many people do, she has a story she wants to write, with amazing characters she wants to share with the world, but writing is hard and a first novel can be daunting. Here’s what I told her.

Now, this applies to the people who REALLY want to see their story done. These are the main pillars of the cathedral that is your story. Let’s begin.

1- YOUR GOAL IS TO WRITE A COMPLETE FIRST DRAFT. It will be shit. But it will be complete. You can build on it and rewrite, but the most important thing is to WRITE TILL THE END OF THE STORY.

2- SIT DOWN AND WORK. That’s the difference between writers and the million people who say they have a story that they’ll write someday.

Alright, let’s get technical, and start by the end. 

3- Art is about causing your public to have emotions. Decide right now what emotion you want to leave your readers with when they close your book. Is it happy, sad, bittersweet, hopeful? Pick one. (This can be changed later if you rewrite and find some other ending, but we are working on the first draft.)

— Maybe you have a nice gimmick, a cool idea for a story, like idk, ‘What if you cloned yourself and that clone took over your life’. This is interesting, but it’s not a story in itself. A story needs emotions. If you don’t pick the emotions you want your reader to feel, your idea is just a gimmick. 

4- Now that you have the final emotion, decide your ending in accordance to said emotion. Are characters dying? Is the bad guy defeated? Is everyone splitting up or leaving together as a found family? 

Then we go back to the beginning.

5- You probably have a million characters you all want to write. Pick one to be your protagonist. Yes, just one. Multi-characters stories are harder to write and demand experience and time. We want this novel to exist, and not be stuck in limbo forever. Anyway, people tend to always prefer side characters. Who has heard of someone having a protagonist as a fave?? Your side characters will be loved, no worry. 

How to find your protagonist: It’s the person who makes decisions and makes the plot advance. Simple as that. Not to be mistaken for the leader of a group.  

6- Now that you have your protagonist, you decide what is normal for them. That is your beginning. 

7- And then, you break that normality in some horrible way that will prevent your protagonist to come back to it. That is your inciting incident. 

Then we write the middle

8- You google Three-Act-Structure and get one of these babies. 

(But Talhí, I hear you say, why should I follow this? It’s been overdone, and my story doesn’t follow this, and I have more to write than this… Well, that’s your choice. I’m not the boss of you. I’m just saying that this is a solid model for western storytelling and it’s been proven to work time and time again. You can create outside of this, but again, the main goal here is to get your novel on paper. This is a solid template.)

9- You probably have a general idea of events you want to happen in the story. Place these scenes where you feel they should go on the structure. Like, a confrontation with the main bad guy goes in climax of act three, and the confrontation with the main henchman goes to climax of act two, etc. Be mindful of the rising action and tension: a cute misadventure in the woods would probably go earlier in the story than a fight to the death.

10- Now, a secret: What separates bad writing from good writing? Bad writing is adding a bunch of events in the middle and have the characters go through them like a checklist of scenes. You can often see this in movies. But good writing links the events. Each and every event that happens has to be a result of your character making a decision. Then, an obstacle happens, and your character makes another decision, that leads to your next event/obstacle. 

11- Another secret: A character will gain power, money, weapons and allies through the story. In videogames, this is useful to defeat the bad guy. But storytelling is not videogames. Having a superpowerful hero at the end is boring. What we want is keeping the reader in suspense. So you’ll have to take everything from them. Leave them powerless and alone. And then, break their leg. I mean, not literally, although you can do that too, but have them super disadvantaged. And then they can use the personal growth they got in the adventure to prevail. (What is more interesting: a character fleeing from a facility but with weapons and kickass moves, or a character fleeing the same facility without weapons or shoes and with a broken arm? Who do you root for?)

Other tricks

The rest of the crew: I go with what Pixar does for characters: Main character gets three or more characteristics. That’s your Woody. Second tier character gets two characteristics. That’s your Buzz. Third tier characters get one characteristic, like Rex and Mister Potato Head. Keep control of your character tiers and never give too much time to the lower tiers ones, it doesn’t help your story.  

Herd your cats: Characters will want to wander in every direction, and you’ll want to follow them. Keep them in groups, and even though you can follow a side character for a scene or two, focus 80 to 90% of your story on your protagonist. 

DND is not a novel: I’m pretty sure your campaign is super fun, but you can’t just put it on paper and call it a novel. It needs a narrative arc and serious editing. You can use a campaign as a base, but it needs to be worked as a novel, because you’re changing mediums, and a novel has different requirements. 

That’s pretty much what I can remember for now. This should help you with the bones of your novel, and you can add the meat on that. I hope it helps. But honestly, the best advice I can give you is 

SIT DOWN AND DO THE THING. 

[izzarail]

I don’t know if this has been done before but oh well.

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Safety blankets, a place outside of time, two faces never bruised //

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This winter I promise to love myself a little more and think about others a little less.

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L'appel du Vide

My existence dates back to the dawn of man. When Adam drew his first breath, I was awoken from my slumber. Before that day, your world was so desolate of your kind. Filled only with its natural beauty and the living creatures that frolicked upon its lands and swam in the depths of the blue waters that surrounds your world. I watched as the world rotated time after time like a top until the day you finally came. The birth of man was quite a sight, I must say. Far more than the great giant beasts that once roamed the very ground you piss on. A being capable of thoughts and emotions. To speak words to help express themselves. I watched you come out of your caves and build civilization from rock and wood, towers that stretched towards the skies. Pyramids built upon the backs of the slaves for their masters as just a over large monumental tombstone. I gazed upon your savior as he was nailed to a stake and bled for you, his so called children. I watched war after war, battle after battle, fights over belief of religion and of expansion of ones kingdom. I was there for it all and continue to watch you go on day by day, living without a care of your own mortality and inevitable end. Many have seen me and heard my voice. Some are able to ignore me, while others, like the old philosopher Empedocles listened to my voice as he threw himself into the Sicilian volcano to be transmogrified in his death. So he believed. My voice, it echoes in the minds of those who open themselves to me in their dire moments when they've come to finally realize that there is a home for them with me. Yes, there is a home for every one of you if you wish to answer my call. Nowadays my voice is fought. Stopped by your meddling therapies and studies. "The aim of all life, is death". Your Sigmund stated that and still you fight me. There is no escape. Can you not see that I am calling you now only to quickly end your pain? The world, not your world, for you did not do enough in aiding it, is coming to a end. You've killed the once beautiful creatures that existed before you into extinction, you've used up much of what the land has offered with your greedy hands and poke at it still as it dies before you. There is no saving man-kind. You'll see the bitter end one day, but til then, come. Come with me now and I promise to take it all away. Hear my call and answer.

[izzarail]

Fear of heights

I remember when I first discovered my fear of heights. It was at the Kemah boardwalk. I was young at the time and with my family. My cousin and I went on a ferris wheel together. We were at the tippity top of the darn thing and it stopped. I remember it being windy that particular night so the thing we were in (cart or whatever) was rocking back and forth. Scary moment that was.

Fast foward some years, I'm doing Ironwork which involves you getting pretty god damn high. I was working for a company that builds these huge furnace houses. Every time I was up on a structure and found myself close to the edge looking down, I'd always get a unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach. See the thing is I no longer feared heights. In fact I always want to get high when doing my work. I'd rather be up there then on the ground. No, I wasn't unsettled by the height I was at. Every time I looked over that edge, I wanted to jump. Unhook my lanyards from where they were tied-off and just jump off the structure. It would be so easy. Everyone would think it was a accident, not a suicide act. And its funny too cause I don't think of killing myself at all. But like I said, every time I was at the edge, I wanted to jump.

I have a new reason to fear heights.

[izzarail]

Nightly Torments

I feel it's presence, slowly creeping it's way into my thoughts as I attempt to sleep. It ushers me into the dark where light is nonexistent, a dominion that I can not describe in any words besides other worldly. I am in my room, but outside, outside is not the world I know. There is a void out there. Lifeless. But in my room, it chooses to dwell if only for a moment. For a moment to torment my sleepless nights with visions and sounds. Sometimes, I hear it breath. It does this purposely, for it knows that I am aware and defenseless against it's attacks. "Not tonight", I say. "Let me sleep", I beg. But my words fall upon deaf ears, for it cares not for my wishes but only to feed off my already tired and vulnerable mind. Just this once, I'd like to sleep without paranoia's floodgates opening and washing over my head. It's too late, for I have already felt its presence. And even after typing this all down, the nightly torment, will go on. I am only prolonging the inevitable. My night terror, begins now.

[izzarail]

[izzarail]

Me: *Buys a new book*

My stacks of unread books:

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Purpose

I think the true reason of me having a Tumblr account and posting these sad and mopey texts is in the hope of having some type of therapeutic feeling burst within me. After typing that out I realize how silly that sounds cause writing itself can be therapeutic. Perhaps its the idea of having an audience that I cannot see? Now, I'm not even sure what I think.

I'm content with having this account. I don't deal with people and no one bothers me on here. Plus I'm not interested in lurking on here like I would on facebook or instagram. Half the shit on here I can see off of reddit.

It's been a long day. I wish for a drink, alcohol of course, to keep me warm and put my mind at ease. Decided to attempt some new habit which is sleeping in early to be up at 5am.

And for myself I'll post on here if I can't sleep and have shit on my mind.

Go fuck yourselves. Good night.

[izzarail]

Drunk

I feel my body sway through the alcohol's gentle waves.

A warm feeling overtakes my head.

My body spins, as the room stands still.

A smile is on my face. A smile that is genuine even in the darkest of times.

I do not hear the voices any more for I am unable to focus on them. It's just me, floating on the currents of my drunken state.

At this moment, I feel at peace with myself. I hope to feel like this every day.

[izzarail]

Charles Bukowski

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A conversation between a man and his son

Setting: a man and his son meet at a park at noon, sitting at a bench that overlooks a great lake. The day is grey and chilly, both dressed appropriately for the weather. Minutes have passee and neither have spoken a word. The son, in his mid-twenties, pulls out an old fashion and light it. He takes a drag and exhales.

Man: "You know, that's the shit that makes you think and act slow. Perhaps that's why you have the problems you have today. You do shit like that and all it's done is ruin you."

Son: he smirks and the man's words and takes another drag. He inhales deeply and thinks about the words the man said. He exhales. "So, now you want to play parenthood? You're years late on that. This, this is not ruining me. I know who I am, what I've done, and know the choices I'd make in a situation before it happens. You problem is, that you don't even know me."

Man: the man scoffs at his words and sits up, straightening out his back and puffs his chest out to show he is the authoritative figure. "Oh what you think cause you're older now you can disrespect me and talk to me with an attitude? Let me tell you something-"

Son: he turns his body, facing the man. A look of annoyance mixed with anger is expressed. "No damnit, let ME tell you something. We both agreed to meet here and talk. TALK. I didn't come here to be scolded like a child living under your roof. So how about you check your temper before I leave and all of this becomes nothing but a waste of our time."

Man: he stares at the son for a moment. Frustration and annoyancs fixated upon his gaze towards him. He sits back and looks ahead. Sighing.

Son: the son reaches his hand down into a cooler he brought filled with beer. He grabs one and cracks it opened. He grabs another and offers it to the the man, but he refuses it. The son shrugs and sips on his beer and looks ahead at the lake. He takes a deep breath.

The two sit in silence once again. Both waiting on the other to say something, anything. The son hangs his head and sighs, realizing that he has to be the one to speak first. He takes a long sip of the beer then rests the can between his palms.

Son: "Y'know, this place reminds me a bit of that battleship you were stationed on, whatever the terminology is in the military. When you and mom first got together. There was a park some yards out that she and I would sit at as we waited for you to get off so we can go back home. Remember it?"

Man: he nodded as the memories played through his head. "Yeah, I remember. She always packed lunch for us all when I'd make it there and wouldn't eat til I arrived. You'd already finish your food and run off to climb that damn tree you fell out of once when she and I ate."

Son: he chuckles. "Yeah, fucking tree was one hell of a climb. I'd make a goal each time I was there to climb higher or make it to a certain branch."

Man: "Yeah, up until you stepped on a weak limb and fell. Luckily your shirt was caught by a branch and you hung there til I got you down."

Son: laughs and takes another long sip of his beer. "Yeah, bet that must have been a rather funny sight to see. Despite the circumstance."

Man: "It was actually."

They both laugh at the thought.

Man: "What beer do you have in there?"

Son: "Shiner and Tecate."

Man: "Pass me a Tecate."

The son passes the man a beer. The man cracks it open and takes a long sip of the cold beer. He looks at the lake. A fog is floating above its surfaceb making it hard to see the wooden bridge that was built in the middle of the lake as a crossing.

Man: "Why did you call me and invite me over here?"

The young man drinks the rest of his beer and crushes the can, tossing it in the cooler.

Son: "I'm 25 now. I'm not old, still young. But I've realized that many people have a moment in their life when they try to make amends with a.. A struggle that has weighed them down. Could take them decades to do so. Perhaps even at an age older than me. I thought to myself, 'Well, what could go wrong? Better now than later while it's on my mind'. So, I gave you a call and you answered. You accepted the invitation and.. Here we are."

Man: "That doesn't answer my question."

Son: noticing the joint he brought has gone out, he puts in the fold of his ear at the side of his head. "No, in a way I answered it. You just didn't catch is all."

The man looks over at the son and studies him. He thinks about his words for a moment then shakes his head.

Man: "I'm some type of struggle in your life? Is this your way of talking to me about how you were raised living with me? Have you not grown and accepted that the punishments you received were out of discipline?"

Son: "No, you're not a struggle. More like a thought. A 'what if'. I didn't ask you to come so I can berate you on your, 'discipline' skills. We're here to talk, and hopefully put away the past and move on as men with a different perspective on each other."

The man looks down at his beer then brings it up to his mouth finishing the rest of it. He crushes it and hands it to the young man who tosses it into the cooler. The son pulls out another beer and pops the tab. A satisfying hiss noise breaks the momentary silence.

Man: "You drink a lot, y'know?"

Son: "I've been told that, yes." He takes a long sip of the beverage.

Man: "Drinking at a rate like that will sure enough finish you off and put you in a early grave."

Son: "Yeah well, til then. Let the good times roll, right?"

The man smirks, the son takes another sip.

Man: "What is that you want to say to me?"

The son leans back in the bench and takes a deep breath. Sighing heavily as he exhales.

Son: "You never been one to listen. Always have to have the first and last word. Will that happen at all?"

Man: "Well if you act or say something stupid I have to put you in your place. You need to know when you are in the wrong. And when I say something, you best thing to do is to shut up and listen."

Son: "Yeah, that's what I'd expect you to say. Except, when you've made your point, you never listen to reason."

Man: "Ain't no reason to listen. I've made my point, and that should be the end of it."

Son: "Yeah, cause you're always right and anything I say is wrong."

Man: "Well maybe if you didn't do the shit you would do to cause me to get on your ass, you wouldn't have to deal with hearing me speak in the first place."

The young man frowns at this as he sips on his beer.

Son: "Constructive criticism is needed. Advice is needed. But being rebuked with no alleged way of being shown what could have been different in my action through advice can put one under the impression that the mistake that was made can not be fixed and therefore should not be repeated or mentioned again."

Man: "That's bullshit. Mistakes are learned from. Discipline corrects and points out the cause. Its up to you to see the problem and correct it in the manner that is appropriate."

Son: he chuckles at the mans words. "Shit, you're right about that. That's just an excuse. Good catch."

Man: "I didn't discipline you to make you weak. I did it so you could learn your faults and not repeat them."

Son: "Hm, yeah. No, you're right. That's what discipline is for. But, the comments. The threats. The mental and emotional abuse. What do you call that? Is that you at your best? Is it out of.. is it your way of showing love?"

Man: "You needed to learn to be a man when you were young. Not be soft from words tossed at you. You had no reason to be scared if you just-"

Son: "No, you see that's where you're wrong. You used fear. Fear, worked against me and made me timid. Yeah, perhaps I could have overcome it and brushed it off. But not when it was an everyday thing that stayed locked up in my head when you'd punish me and send me to my room in isolation. There was never reconciliation. Just, rebuke, anger, punishment. Repeat."

Silence fell over the two. A cold wind blew towards them but neither flinched from it. The young man finished his beer and tossed it with the others. He grabbed another and handed it to the man who took it.

Man: "I tried with you. But you never learned. You were hard headed."

Son: laughs at words the man said. "Tried? No. You didn't try anything. That was your attempt. That was what you chose as a way of.. As a way of trying with me."

Man: "Well I raised you how my dad did. I'm sorry that was how I knew to be a father to you."

Son: "You aren't my dad. You're not even a father figure. We don't talk, hang out. I'm not sure what to call you. But you're not a dad."

The man looks at the son. Anger fills his body like steam in a hot kettle. He opens his mouth to say something, but decides against it. Instead he takes a long sip of his beer.

Man: "So I am here just to be called and asshole. Go figure. At least now you have the guts to say it to my face like a man."

Son: "No, that's not what I'm doing. But you definitely are one."

Man: "So why are we here? What is it that you want to say to me?"

Son: "I forgive you. I'm done holding in all this hate and anger that you've given me. The luggage has become too heavy to carry even at my young age. I'm putting it behind me. Can you do the same? Can you put it behind you and finally learn along with me, to get along?"

The man looks over at the young man. An unknown expression is on his face. He sighs heavily as he turns his head downwards and stares at the beer can.

Son: "Be to them what you weren't to me."

The man looks up at the young man.

Man: "Be what to who?

Son: "A father, to your kids. A loving one. Don't treat them how you treated me. Be better. Learn from your mistake and become a better ypu. For their sake. Can't imagine you'd want all your children to grow up hating you."

The man nods as he looks at the son. He reaches out and claspse his hand on the sons shoulder. The young man begins to laugh.

Man: "What's so funny?"

Son: "This. This is funny. This whole conversation."

Man: "And why is that?"

Son: "Cause you're not really here. I never called you. You're at home and I'm here drinking by myself at a park."

The young man laughs a bit more, then looks over to where the man was sitting. He only sees an empty seat in the bench. His shoulders slump, he lowers himself in the bench. He grabs the joint from his ear and lights it up, taking a long drag off of it and inhaling deeply before exhaling. Tears now streaming from his eyes. The young man is alone at the park. Over looking the great lake before him. Time passes. He stands up and grabs his belongings, walking away in a drunken state.

End scene.