Ten years

It’s been ten years since I first started working on The Primal Age Chronicles. That’s roughly 1/3 of my life. In two more years it could have a high school diploma. This chair has been with me since the beginning.

It’s weird at this moment. After a year away my characters are quiet. I don’t hear them and they aren’t speaking to me. I’m struggling to feel what they feel, and am mildly worried.

But I’ll keep putting words on the page and seeing how long it takes for them to return from their neglect.

Advertisement

Perspective

Remember to keep perspective in times like these. A year ago I wrecked my car and spent months laid up in bed. No tv. No reading. No computer. No working out.

This morning I went for a five mile jog on my treadmill while watching a movie followed by playing with my dog and now writing this on a screen.

I’m not trying to discredit what anyone else is going through at this time. I understand the worries of being without hourly income, or being stuck at home in a bad situation so I’m not trying to say this is all rainbows and sunshine.

Just keep in mind there are positives to every day, quarantine or not.

It’s okay to be afraid

I just wanted to remind everyone in times like these it is okay to be afraid. To be afraid for yourself and to be afraid for others is okay. But acting out of fear is not okay. Acting out of fear is panic and is far more dangerous than any situation. Take a moment, a deep breathe even, process that fear, then find a logical forward motion to commit to.

Coming together

It’s easy to watch the news or social media and see the bad in this situation. And I’m not talking about the obvious bad that Covid-19 is, but the bad in us as humans. Fist fights over toilet paper and what now. But the news always writes the negative and history will write the positive.

The positive is what I look for in all of this. I have haven’t ever seen the world galvanized like this in my life. I can remember 9/11 as a kid and how patriotic we were for a while after but I’ve never seen it on the global front.

History will remember that. It will remember the Chinese medical staff heading to help in Italy. It’ll remember the countless people who have been getting groceries for elderly relatives and neighbors. The amount of classes and content being given away for free to make this solitude a little more bearable. Even the amount of FaceTime hours logged between friends, families and even strangers to make this confinement better.

When you’re letting the news fill you with the negative remember the positive, and if you can’t remember the positive, then it’s time to be the positive.

I guess this means I’m back

So, here we are and here I am. Stay tuned.

So to clarify everyone keeps asking me about the Primal Age and Covid and I’ve reached my John Wick point. If you don’t get the reference here’s a link to help.

What this means is I’ll be returning to daily posts.

Some days you just have to remember

It’s been a long…I’m not sure what time frame works. The car accident was back in March, for those of you following I’m recovering well.

But of late I’ve been working on some projects(back to my roots with some screenplays, still need more brain capacity before returning to the primal age). Tonight it was about 9pm when I sat down to write. With the full time jobs and part time jobs I like to be in bed at a decent hour these days. And I really really really didn’t want to sit down and write.

There’s projects needing done and deadlines looming, but I wasn’t feeling it.

So I did something I hadn’t done in 7 years. I listened to my old prewriting playlist. As that went through I found my way back to that writer version of me.

I can’t promise my words were anything of legacy or legend tonight, but by taking a few minutes to remember who I am I was able to hit my page count.

So, if you’re out there tonight, feeling stressed or tired, thinking more about your mortgage than your goals, take a moment and remember who you are.

The Primal Age

I was thinking a bit tonight while doing some writing. Back to the catalyst of The Primal Age Chronicles.

I was thinking of that week that I had to make the decision of if I was going to pursue fiction or screenwriting for the remainder of my masters. My heart was set on screenwriting(still plan to find my way back before I die) but my head told me to follow fiction. Issue was I hadn’t written any fiction in years. Thank you to two of my Mobies, Dana and Trilby for keeping me off the ledge that Rez.

I had originally mapped Foamers out as a tv show so I adopted those outlines and figured I’d be able to swing it. I am presently sitting here at 31.

I started the first novel nine years ago. I started the tv show eleven years ago. But when I made the tv show I drew characters from all my past projects to create the ensemble that exists today.

I was 21 when Kade and Dame were born, 20 for X, Ashton, and Mick, 19 for Tiny, and 17 for Victoria.

It’s weird to think how long they been fixtures in my life, and how they have changed as I have changed. It some times baffles me the worlds and people who only exist within the confines of my skull.

Writing, man. Nothing like it.

Survival Tip #283

Yeah bet you thought you were done with these! Not so fast.

The thing about writing post-apocalyptic stories is you look to find how far you can push a character and have them still hold onto their humanity. In my series there are two ways it can go…a character can go primal, losing their humanity, or they can become primed finding their end of the world self.

In my younger years I thought this was something that only existed in works of fiction. The older I’ve become the more I see it was a real world trait. The decisions people are faced with every day can change the course of their life.

So this tip is know your line before you get to it.