Mine eyes have seen the horror of the coming of the End
The Apocalypse is dawning as the flames of Hell ascend
The Beast will rear his ugly head and then he'll eat your friends
Repent or you'll be doomed!

Glory, glory Armageddon!
Glory, glory Armageddon!
Glory, glory Armageddon!
The Devil marches on!

In the course of writing Wedlocked, I've inadvertently created a mini-universe engendered of the place known fondly as Hell, and filled it with as much parodying, satire and smartassery as possible. It's one of the few original concepts that I've taken to a new level, and perhaps the deepest spectrum of creativity I've ever put into an original idea. There's a whole realm of mythology and politics and traditions and "values" and I'm immensely proud of the whole thing. I hope that one day I'll be able to turn this concept into something concrete, and perhaps base my first original literary attempt off of it. It'll either be a hit or the Catholic community will sic the Pope on me.

This latest fic I'm working on, as ridiculous as the title sounds (which might make you think it's just another one of my satire-drenched dark comedies), is turning out to be some of the best creative writing I've done. (Aside from my attempt at 19th century style in my 19th century era Van Helsing fanfic, Father.) In any case, I'm inviting you to read and critique it.

Aside from its deliberate parodying of the film starring Samuel L. Jackson and Christina Ricci, there's no reason why I shouldn't change the title—currently Black Heart Moan—to something original. After all, the setting, characters and plot are different from the movie's, but the basic soul of the story still remains: redemption of the unwilling through sheer force of spirit. Plus I want people to know the similarities were intentional and parodic instead of thinking I'm dry out of ideas—which I'm not. I'm intrigued by stories whose plots involve a drastic change in their characters, evidence by my other Ghost Rider centric fic, Hearts of Fire, in which hate turns into love and demons turn into angels and Antichrists become little sisters, I just eat that shit up. It's what makes a story move, that change. There's nothing I hate more than a character who ends the same way as he or she started. What good was the story then? It might as well have never happened, because in reality, every little thing we do changes us. I don't want to get too philosophical, but you get the picture.

I wish I loved my original characters enough to be inspired by them. I'd be writing novels by now.

Some time ago I caught Black Snake Moan on TV and I actually enjoyed it. It was a good story with symbology to boot (my favorite). Too bad it wasn't a book or I might have loved it. In any case, over the course of the months that passed I fantasized about a parody, since that's the principal function of my brain. My newest fandom fit the bill and won the bid, and last night I wrote the intro while the internet was down. This latest concoction in my queue of Ghost Rider crimes I dub Black Heart Moan. If the title makes you facepalm in utter despair, give me a second chance. It's not as bad as it sounds and I'm working really hard on perfecting (heh, I said 'hard on') my creative narrative. Please give it a read if you like (it's not much yet, though) and tell me your thoughts.

I've been so damned busy for the past two months I've barely had a chance to think an un-school/work related thought, let alone work on art or fiction. (And I haven't updated Wedlocked in over a month. Please punch me in the throat.)

I've got a final coming up this Wednesday (I have the highest grade in my German class, hu hu hu...but then again there's only three people in it) and another one the week after. And then I'll be free for the summer. I've got so much to do... In fact, if you look on my website (or below this entry if you're at my website) you'll see my current To Do List. It hasn't changed since I put it up.  (Another throat-punch please.)

Seriously. This shit's gotta stop. The cut-and-paste garbage. The "I'm a ___ so I must be ___" and the weepy "I told my priest I was a necrophiliac who masturbates to bestiality and child porn and now he said I'm gonna burn in Hell, SYMPATHIZE WITH ME PLZ OK THX" and the quotes made by you and your friends that only you find funny and the rest of us just think you're dumb as a fucking stump. If you're a FF.net user and you've got a working brain in your head, abandon ship, grow a dick (or tits, whatever) and give up the epic 15-scrolls-to-get-through-your-profile nonsense. As for the rest of the losers, just give me time. I'll have some quotes for you to choke on. The lawnmower is officially out of the shed.

And now for the Happy News!

This past weekend I found my GameBoy Color and my old Pokemon Red cartridge, still unfinished. I bet I haven't touched the game since I was a teenager. It's amazing. Three whole colors! And that's why they call it GameBoy Color.

It is going to take me a long time to construct my new domain layout. But it's going to be so damned awesome that it'll be worth it. I've already incorporated an RSS feed of my LJ to be on the main page, so it'll actually look a bit more occupied than a haunted house. I'm still working on getting graphical design ideas pooled, so I haven't even had time to worry about things like a) how I'm going to archive my fics from every fandom, b) how I'm going to archive my art, and c) provide some sort of commenting system where people can leave feedback. I'm thinking about forgetting c though, since it sounds like a recipe for spam-related disaster.

I've been getting comments from people about bringing back my Ronin Warriors fansite. It's going to be a huge task, but I promise that it'll get taken care of. I'm going to need to pull out HTML files from 2002 and vigorously fix the fuck out of them, since those were the days of Frontpage and a Bender who didn't care about sloppy webpage anatomy. Seriously, Dreamweaver is a godsend. I can't imagine trying to create my new site in MS Expression.

Personal life? Not much happening. I mean it. I've been so busy with homework and being sick this past month that I haven't touched any of my fics. And with this website business distracting me, I'm beginning to get that what-if-this-story-becomes-like-all-the-others-I-haven't-finished anxiety. I feel like I'm standing on the side of the road and watching the last bus to Vegas slowly pull away, and I want to run after it but my left hand is cuffed to the busstop bench and I've got a hacksaw in my right hand . . . get the picture?

I'd planned to start redesigning my main domain site, but I never got around to it this weekend. It's been deliriously busy, but I've been kerchunking my way through my priorities . . . except the most important ones, of course. Like that math homework I keep saying I'm going to start in 5 minutes and has eluded me like 9000 times already. But I've gotten a lot accomplished, so I feel awesome.

Stuff I've done

• 2 new arts completed
• 1 old fic edited
• 1 new fic finished and posted
• finished posting Metal fics at FF.net
• replied to reviews on FF.net
• other stuff I can't remember but am pretty sure is huge and awesome

Stuff I haven't done

• work on Wedlocked
• homework
• design new domain site

This weekend gets 4.5 chainsaws. And I've had my streaming radio station to keep me company. Maybe when I add some more songs to it I'll share it with you guys. Then you can all have another reason to hate me.

Hearts of Fire...I finished it. My first 10+ chapter fanfic. In all fourteen years of writing fanfic, I have never completed a story greater than ten chapters. I've started stories that ended up greater than ten chapters (and even one that has twenty) but they're all incomplete or terminated indefinitely, the likely culprit being my loss of interest in them. However, Hearts of Fire is the first novel-sized fanfic I've ever completed (15 chapters, 77334 words). I feel good. Really, really good.

And you know what this means: if I'm capable of finishing a novel-sized fanfic, I'm capable of finishing a novel-sized original work. But the only way that's going to happen is if I get rid of my internet first, because I can't concentrate on anything original with all these fandoms distracting me.

I've got two more years before my first high school reunion, and I'd like to be able to brag my guts out any way I can, because I'm a ruthless shithead who enjoys watching my peers squirm with envy. ("What've I been up to? Oh, not much. Just finished my first novel and got it published. I'm working on a screenplay for a film-adaptation of one of my short stories, too. Yeah, Quentin Tarantino and I spend quite a lot of time on the phone these days, almost more than me and Anthony Hopkins. Personally I'd like to see him play the lead role in this film, but Sir Ian McKellan is another hopeful. What about you? How's the kid? Oh, three of them now? Er, congratulations. By the way, I'm so sorry to hear about your divorce and depressive illness. Don't worry, I'm sure in another few months those forty extra pounds will just melt off. It was SO good to see you again...")

See, this is what happens when you're a loser in high school. It turns you a vindictive, cocky asshole who lives to see your former-rivals suffer.

But in any case. I'm gonna break into the merlot tonight. This calls for a celebration.

The new profile setup for LJ blows on ice. Speaking of ice, my hands are.

For the first time in a long time I think I'm nearing the completion (1 more chapter to go) of a 10+ chapter fanfiction, something I haven't done in...uh...damn...you're not gonna believe this...

Ever.

I'm ashamed. In all my years of writing, this in inexcusable. What kind of a slacker author am I? All of my fanfictions that are greater than ten chapters are still unfinished. Six total. The oldest is from 2002, back in my days of Ronin fandom. I still occasionally get reviews and death threats for that one.

This piques my interest. What is it about this particular story that prompted me to complete it so soon (and at all)? A solid month of feverish writing fueled by fandom obsession alone? Come on. I've never loved anything that violently before in my life. And of all the silly ass-backward fandoms I could get into, mine had to be the one inspired by the godawful worst film ever created (not The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, either). I just don't get it, Verne.

Adobe Premiere CS3 is upsetting my karma. It keeps crashing and I have to go through all these gyrations to prevent it from locking up every time I try to render and save a project, and since I've been making movies, I've probably wasted about 18 hours total just fucking waiting on this program to do its thing. I'm not getting stuff done because I can't run any other programs or else Premiere crashes. I've got three Ghost Rider fanfics I'm working on and I've got a deadline for one of them, and every 30 minutes I spend sitting around and twiddling my thumbs while Premiere renders and then promptly crashes, losing everything and leaving me back at square effin' one, is 30 minutes I could have spent being productive. I really hope Premiere CS4 won't pull this shit. If it does, me and my zombie posse are going to rally a mob and storm the Adobe Systems fortress with pitchforks and torches, and have us a good ol' lynching.

And trying to upload a 850 MB file to YouTube is destroying my sanity (and patience). It's not my fault; these fucking codecs...

I apologize for my ranting. I had to file the quarterly taxes and wage and withholding reports today at work, so I'm not in the best of moods. Luckily I got to loosen up a little by going for a scooter ride this afternoon. It was cold. My fingers were so numb you could have dropped a sledge hammer on them and I'd have been deadpan.

Was feeling nostalgic tonight and finally got my cuckoo clock mounted, hung and operating. I bought it in Rothenburg ob der Tauber last summer, and I was sick of it just sitting in a box. I wanna see those euros put to good use.

Guess I'm gonna go fuck with Premiere some more. This is war.