And the Experiment Continues!

I'm really looking forward to seeing how my mood on a given day affects my writing, even within the same story. The fact that I'm not planning ahead leaves this story subject to my mood swings and life circumstances; even the weather. This could be exciting. Let's get back to it.

Smells have a funny way of sticking with you. Like how the smell of cookies can instantly transport you to your grandmother's kitchen. Only this smell was not like that. It was vile, almost malicious, and filled my heart with dread. Like a weight upon my tiny soul. It was almost more than I could bear as I struggled to maintain my consciousness.

It was fear that carried me through in the end. Fear of what an encounter with something that could cause such oppression from afar would do to me if it found me. I held onto that thought and stumbled back towards my house.

My world appeared, on the surface, to be remarkably the same. The cottonwood seeds still littered my yard, dancing in the wind gusts. My basketball still sat in the grass, sunbathing where I had left it days earlier. But I knew something was wrong now. My flight response had left my heart pounding in my chest, each beat like a hammer strike.

My mother was at work and wouldn't be home for several more hours. So I continued to fly, past my house, spilling into the street. "I'll go to Derek's house," I thought, "His older brother is always roaming around in those woods. He'll know what it is."

Now Derek's house was over a mile away, but in my heightened state I managed to cover the distance in record time. World record, it seemed to me, though it surely was a laughable notion. But it's a worthless exercise to try to convince a frightened child of such things.

I will once again make mention of the odd nature of memory, as this detail has always stuck with me. Perhaps it was the adrenaline. But the insignificant details that rally to recollection when summoned once more in old age never cease to astonish me. As I ran, I recall being struck once more by the seeming normalcy of the neighborhood. There was Mrs. Johnson's dog Baxter chasing a squirrel across the lawn. It struck me that he had caught one once years ago, and had sulked for days to have lost his "playmate". Dogs are dumb.

And so I arrived at Derek's front door.

Things I Write When I Should be Sleeping

This is gonna be a slightly experimental exercise so bear with me a little. An exercise in BS. I'm gonna try writing a story here, a couple paragraphs at a time, with no forethought or planning, and see how it comes out. I'll just be making it up as I go along. One sentence at a time, not sure where the next sentence will bring me. I don't know how long the story is gonna be, but I'll try to write often and keep the story moving so you aren't all caught up in suspense. Now...

How did it start? I've been asked that dozens of times over the years. And I don't think I have any better understanding of it today than I did when it happened. It's just one of those things that happens sometimes. In a universe full of a billion, billion things, everything has to happen somewhere right? But I am avoiding the question. I guess I'll just tell you what I've told all those curious people over the years: it started at the beginning...

When I was a young man I never cared much for socializing. I was a social pariah, though few would believe me, by choice. Other people were little more than an amusement, a curiosity to be observed from a distance. I guess I was always a scientist at heart. Who was I to contaminate the experiment?

All this time to myself didn't go to waste though. I would spend hours playing in my own imaginary world, alone in the woods behind my mother's house. My father had abandoned us when I was born. Or drank himself to death, or joined a traveling circus. I could never get a real answer out of my mother. She never talked about him much. Or at least she didn't sober.

But in those woods, I was safe. They went on for miles, one of the last untamed pieces of land left in New America. I would fight dragons and warlocks. I would rescue princesses and discover hidden treasure. I'd stay out there for hours and then I'd come home and write it all down, reliving every exciting moment all over again.

I don't remember the specific day it happened; what I had for breakfast, what clothes I was wearing and the like. It's strange how we spend so much energy worrying about trivial things like food and clothes when it's the seemingly trivial things that linger in your mind the longest. And what are we if not a collection of memories?

I remember the way the cottonwood seeds hung in the air that morning, like the slowest snowfall you've ever seen. I remember seeing the tracks of some wild animal that I still have never identified. And I remember the smell. I think, in some small way, it has never truly left my nostrils in all this time.

Been slacking off

Apologies for the more than a week that I've not written my blog. I think I'm more or less past the "30 days" that I had originally set out for, but I still would like to be writing every other day or so if I can. And if there's one thing I have in abundance right now, it's time to write.

There isn't much to say in the way of news. Super Apartment Bros. didn't get into the Machinima Festival, but odds are you either knew that already or you figured it out when I didn't post about it. Oh, and the "Locked In" thing fell through because the production dates got pushed back and I'll be in Minnesota for Christmas by then. So that sucks. Out $90 and I don't get to do what sounded like a legitimately awesome time. In other news, I'm planning an epic hike up a big mountain north of Glendale for January 1st. It's kind of intimidating but it will help keep me working out while I'm at home. At least a few times. I've been hiking as much as I can the last couple weeks to help prepare for it. Treadmills and stationary bikes are fine, but they aren't the same as an actual hike as far as actual strain on the muscles (and as far as aesthetic for that matter).

But back to Super Apartment Bros. It has been challenging lately. You work and work and work and hope things will pay off, but nothing happens and nothing happens some more. Sure we're up to over 50,000 views and we should be surpassing 1,000 subscribers within the next day or two. But we've worked our butt off to get those numbers. And they're still just a fraction of what we feel this series deserves. 50,000 views doesn't mean what it used to on youtube (Eric's "Wheatley vs Guilty Spark" video had more than double that in a single week, where it's taken us 5 months and 20+ videos)

I don't mean to sound ungrateful because we've more than tripled our subscriber base in the last 50 days. I am very appreciative of every subscriber we get. It's been such a struggle, just shouting out into the void of the internet, so even the few drips from this faucet are very satisfying. It's just frustrating to work so hard, and hope that your hard work will finally be rewarded, only to have nothing happen and have to face the reality of returning to the long fruitless grind with no end in sight.

Anyways, we're hoping to have the final two episodes (our two part finale) done within the next month or so. They are going to be epic, on a scope that we haven't come close to attempting before now, so I hope they live up to my expectations. We've got plans to spam some big video game blogs and really make a big stink about the finale so stay tuned for that and how you can help out on that front. We are hopeful that we will have more success on that front now that our channel has many more views and subscribers than the last time we tried to contact blogs. With a coordinated blitzkrieg, we think we can break through the fluff and maybe get some posts.

But again, that's not until the episodes are finished which may not be until January at the rate we're moving (we also need to raise some more money to cover the cost of the finale, so if you want to help with that, shoot me an email).

Anyways, not my best blog post. Sorry about that. Just kind of scattered today I guess.