CDSM #2: Why I'm Afraid and How I Intend to Deal with It

I'll be honest with you guys.

I'm terrified.

Why, you ask?

Most people will tell you straight away they're afraid because they don't have a plan. That scares me too, but I have another, greater fear.

I have a plan.

I have a plan and I'm scared because of it.

I have anxiety problems and because there is so much I want to do, often it triggers the deep fear within that I won't finish what I want to do, or worse, what I'm meant to do. You see, I'm one of those people who has irrational fears out the wazoo, one of them being unable to complete the creative projects I want to because either I just stink at getting things onto the page, or fear of being judged by people who read my work, or because I just die before I finish what I want to (irrational, I know).

Criticism is tough to accept without taking it heart, and I really have to get better about that. For example, I was talking to a friend about an aspect of a story I am working on, and she told me that the story was unoriginal because she had read a book once that had a vaguely similar concept in it.

Being called unoriginal is pretty much the most damning criticism in the artistic world, and after that incident, I have been going through a major dry spell in my ability to write. I can hear the inner critic whispering words in my ears.

"You're not good enough."

"You've never been recognized for your writing."

"You'll never finish anything worth anyone's time and money."

"You're unoriginal."

The voice inside my head won't let me write, or rather, it makes me afraid to write my story, and I keep myself silent.

But I've come to an important realization.

The story that is inside me is important. I can't let fear stop me.

Sure, my story's plot is convoluted, long and complicated, but that doesn't matter. I have to write it. I know I do. I can't let myself be silenced by anyone, most of all myself and my fears and anxieties. It's a feeling deep in my gut. It's an aching pain that seeps into my mind when I'm not working on it. A pain so great it feels like it will crush my spine from on high, and when I do think about it or work on it, it's like a poison being extracted slowly from my system. A wonderful poison, but a poison all the same.

That is how I know my work is worthwhile.

So here's what I'm going to do in my next post: I'm going to tell you a bit about the story and you can tell me what you think. Then I'm going to keep on writing no matter what you say! ;)

But to give you a little preview: I have always been fascinated by the Greek gods, and now I'm combining them with aspects of Plato's philosophy and cosmology and throwing them into a science fiction universe (multiverse) of my own creation.

But something is preying on the gods across the boundaries of time and space...


Let me know what you think, and also if you have had similar experiences of fear of your creative works!

A Bibliophile's Favorite Books

Hi everyone! I have a confession to make, I cannot decide what my favorite books are. I am a book collector in training as it were. One of my goals in life is to have a personal library. :)

I've been trying to come up with a good list, but I have loved so many books I've read that it is really hard, so I'm going to try my best. As with my taste in music, my favorite books often shift to match what I have recently read, or just what I remember of what I've read in the past. I'm a huge fan of Fantasy/Sci-fi, having read mostly fantasy books, but I do like fiction in general. I will list a few books/series that I like a lot, but there are others I either forgot or did not want to make a list that is way too long.

Disclaimer, I have a fairly high tolerance for annoying writing and characters if I like the story. I do have my limits though.

These are in no particular order.

1. The Fault in Our Stars: This one almost doesn't need mentioning, but The Fault in Our Stars is an amazing book. I love it. Right now, this is easily one of my favorite books, if not my favorite book of the current moment. I have already said plenty about this book in my review of the book (link here: http://dmmaster42.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/the-fault-in-our-stars-by-john-green-spoiler-free-review/), so I'm going to move on, but if you haven't read The Fault in Our Stars then you should. You won't regret it.






2. Harry Potter: I'm most definitely a Potterhead. Ever since third grade when I started reading them I have loved them. I don't think I'll ever be able to watch the last movie without crying, but that's another story.

3. Hamlet: Perhaps the greatest piece of literature ever written, at least in my opinion. I might be biased. I love Shakespeare's plays, well most of them. A Midsummer Night's Dream is another of my favorites.









4. The Chronicles of Narnia: I don't remember them two well, but I remember I loved several of them and they were a major influence early in my life to continue reading fantasy books, so I can't leave them off this list. It was not until much later that I realized that the series is the story of the Bible only with a lot more talking animals.

5. Dragonlance: Chronicles Trilogy, Second Generation and Dragonlance: Chronicles Volume 4: Dragons of the Summer Flame/ Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman: The Dragonlance books, especially the ones written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman I have always thought were really good. The Dragonlance: Chronicles was one of the first fantasy series that I read, after the first couple of Harry Potter books, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (which I read when I was way too young for it and did not like the writing style *ducks the flying produce*; I should reread them, I just have not had the chance yet), and The Chronicles of Narnia. I had just gotten into Dungeons and Dragons about a year previously in sixth grade, and the series read like a D&D campaign story. I loved the story, the world and the most of all the characters. One of the characters, Raistlin the mage, is still easily one of my favorite characters I have ever had the pleasure of reading about. If you haven't read the series, I highly recommend it. The series is more than worth the read just for the character Raistlin, and he's just one character of many.


5.5. Dragonlance: Legends: Speaking of Raistlin, he and his twin brother Caramon have their own trilogy, Dragonlance: Legends. Written by the same two authors as Chronicles, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, it is a wonderful story that adds to both the brothers' character and relationships with each other and others around them. This series is just as good as, if not better than, the original Chronicles, but you really have to read Chronicles first to make sense of Legends, so read them both Chronicles first and Legends, and then you can go from there. You won't regret it. If you like antiheroes who have a sarcastic and witty sense of humor, then you will love Raistlin.




6. R.A. Salvatore's books about Drizzt Do'Urden and Artemis Entreri: These books were the high school version of the Dragonlance books in middle school. I read them fervently and I still am reading Salvatore's books about Drizzt. Yes I know there is a stigma about that character, but I don't care. I love the character and the stories. They are epic, not in the sense that Lord of the Rings are epic, but they feel epic especially the description of battle sequences. Salvatore does a really good job working with the world as well.




7. I have mixed feelings about the Sword of Truth series. I loved the first book, Wizard's First Rule. I loved the second and third books too, though Terry Goodkind's writing style is annoyingly repetitive at times and he obviously has a major crush on the main female character Kahlan, but I have heard the series is good until about book nine to twelve. That many books is a lot so it's not that surprising, but I intend to at least try to finish the series at some point now that I have started it. Zedd the old wizard totally makes up for everything.






8. Ophelia Joined the Group Maidens who Don't Float: Classic Lit Signs on to Facebook: One of the funniest books tearing apart classic books, plays and poems I have ever read. It takes apart tons of classics from The Odyssey to Hamlet to Wuthering Heights. Definitely worth it for any classic lit fans. You'll get all the jokes.

9. Eragon: Yes I know the story is basically Star Wars with dragons, but I still love it, and the first book rekindled my love of writing so I owe a debt of gratitude to it and Christopher Paolini.

10. The Great Gatsby: When I originally read it, I hated it. I thought it was a pointless book and I couldn't wait to stop having to go through the torture of having to be taught about it in school. I was young and was convinced I had better things to do, so sue me. I recognize I was wrong about the book, it's a beautifully written book, really the prose is like poetry, and it is a truly American classic. I mean that it is a tale that describes the quintessential American life, at least in the 1920s but it still has value in today's society.





11. Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy: The story is a bit sub-par, but the really great thing about this book is the philosophy within it. It really is a history of philosophy summarizing many different philosophers' points of view and thoughts. The book covers everything from the Pre-Socratics to 19th and 20th century philosophers. For those who are interested in philosophy and want a general overview of the major philosophers, this is the book to look up.






12. Anything written by this man: Carl Sagan. Seriously. Anything. The guy is brilliant and will blow your mind into the next century. In fact, don't stop at the books he wrote. He's got a TV series called Cosmos too and other works as well. Watch, listen to, and read everything he did. You won't regret it. He's one of the best and most poetic scientists of the 20th century. His works are utterly brilliant.




13. Same with this guy: Joseph Campbell. He was a scholar in comparative religion. He writes a lot about the relations of myths, religions, and the power of spirituality as it all affects our daily life. Amazing stuff. I highly recommend all of his works. He also has several video documentary works as well. All great stuff. Check it out.







Oh goodie, as I'm writing this post, the St. Patrick's Day celebratory obnoxiously loud fireworks have begun a few hours early, and likely will continue for the rest of tonight and tomorrow. Huzzah for drunk people! :)

Happy St. Patty's Day everyone!

A Post About Nothing, and Everything (Also a love story))

First of all: 4000 views! Wow!

Yeah... sorry I didn't post last week. I had a 15-20 page research paper on Plato's Demiurge, the Bacchic cults and the Greek gods. It ate my life last week. I'm back now though!

Now, on to my post for last week (my post for this week will be up in a couple of days), which will be about a short story I wrote for my girlfriend around Valentine's Day. Yes, it's a love story, but hopefully it's not too much of a "love story" if you know what I mean. Let me know what you think!

Bits of Stardust

Her leg twitched slightly, brushing up against his. His hand rose and fell with her stomach, the cotton fibers an ocean of purple on which his palm floated. Her arm twitched again and punched his bicep involuntarily. She was a boxer in her sleep. He grinned at the sweet look on her face, her eyes fluttering wildly under the lids and her mouth slightly open. Her body expelled a cloud of deadly carbon dioxide gas through her jungle of bed head hair. His hand sunk into the ocean as her stomach dove.

His body rarely allowed him to sleep in late nowadays. He had woken near dawn, but could not bring himself to wake her. He had contented himself to lie beside her, she in his arms and him in hers.

The fabric of her pajamas ran across leg again, pushing aside his and grazing his leg hairs. He clenched his teeth and desperately tried to keep himself from crying out with laughter and flailing his whole body. He did not want to wake her. He tensed his body until the tickling stopped. God, why did he have to be so ticklish?

His other arm rested behind her head, his fingers just inches from her neck. They begged him to give them free reign on the open fields of skin. He reluctantly held them back, secretly longing to touch her soft skin. Caress the skin, the tiny hairs she hates to admit cover her body. Treat her as if God himself handcrafted her body and gave her to him to keep safe and unblemished. Make love to her skin with his hand.

The pressure of her body on his arm’s arteries caused his arm to scream for air. How could he remove his arm without disturbing her? Carefully, he slipped his arm free of its prison. Inch by inch, more of his arm cried out in thanks as it began to breathe freely again.

He was almost free, his wrist sliding through the tunnel of neck and pillow, when a piece of dust flew up his nose. Pressure built in his nasal cavity. His hand jerked slightly as he plugged his nose with the other. She stirred. For a moment, he sat there, heart pounding like a drum solo. She sighed. He took a short breath. She rolled over onto her side and off his hand. The sneeze faded away.

The boy sat with his book of blank pages and began to write. He wrote every day. Otherwise, his work would never be finished, and would still be unfinished when he returned to the dust of stars that made him.

After finishing, he gazed back over to her, peaceful and quiet. He saw the love in the look of her closed eyes.

He felt the familiar twinge in his chest. He had a headache.

He grabbed a cup and filled it with water from the bathroom sink. He brought it back and stood by the bed. A single ray of morning sunlight broke through the window shades. It crawled up the side of her head, just barely walking across her face. He held the cup too loosely in his hand and water spilled over the edge, onto her shoulder, chest and neck. He froze.

Her eyes blinked open once, twice, three times before she turned and saw him. A smile made of granny-smith apples and maple syrup played across her face.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. She grabbed him by the collar and pulled him to her lips.

Women in charge were hot.

Dust and boxes, that’s all that was in the attic. Her cat meowed at the door. The girl, crippled by time’s embrace as she now was, opened the door to the room of forgotten memories. “What’s in here, Beethoven?”

The cat waltzed into the room as if he owned the place. He ran to a stack of boxes and began to rub his side against one of them. The woman reached for the box, but her hand shook with the effort and the box fell to the ground. “Beethoven, look at what you’ve made me do,” she said sarcastically. She bent to pick up the box, but stopped when Beethoven meowed again, impatiently.

The cat jumped into the hole between the boxes. “Beethoven!” She tried to move some of the boxes to get to the cat, but he jumped back out, an old book clasped in his mouth. “You nearly gave me a heart attack, silly cat!” Beethoven dropped the book at her feet and purred proudly.

The woman picked up the book. She had never seen it before. Curious, she opened to the first page. She recognized the meticulously handwritten print, though she had not seen it in many years. In her mind, she read his words in his deep, slow voice.

“Love is a story of two. Two actors perform on a stage, for all to see, but never know. Two members sit in the audience, whose minds’ council never uttered. No one else can understand their love story. They only see a shadow playing across their eyes and guess at its wonders. For the story contains no words, no great epics nor ballads, only memories of lost moments in a sea of emotion and forgotten dreams. Such is life; life, the story of love.”

The woman sat and read his thoughts from days in their youth, until they parted and he wrote on alone, but always for her. She read without pause, until the final page and the final passage.

“I grow weary, love, though I have enjoyed sharing our memories with you. I can barely write now, I must be growing old. Keep this book of no words. I wrote it for you, us, our memories. I’m moving to a new place soon. It’s considerably smaller than my apartment, but it’s in the country and there’s acres of grass for us to lay in. I would really like to see you. I know many leagues and years separate us, but I would like to see you again. I have missed you all these years.”

The woman choked on her own tears. She had seen him, many times in the past years; the first time on a trip to see her mother.

Hours later she knelt by his home. His tomb was not made of marble or gold, but of earth and the dust of stars. She laid a bit of mistletoe on the stone above him, mistletoe he had given her as a Christmas present so many lifetimes ago.

“Oh, look, love,” she said, “mistletoe.” She bent and kissed him, sucking on his lips until they were red and bruised.

She read the engraving at the bottom of the stone, which he wrote in a notebook of words he never meant to publish. “There is no life in this universe but that of stars, and we, in all our wanderings and pains, are no exception. We are all, every atom, every molecule, and every soul, not but stardust shining in the void of space, and some shine brighter than us all; glittering in every atom there ever was or ever shall be.”

She rose and atoms coalesced around her, embracing her, kissing her, making love to her skin. She melted into his fingers again. Two stars, made one, shining brighter than all the rest. No one but the universe saw them, and no else could understand.

© 2012 Matthew Elkin