NerdWordApparel and the Folly of Distractions

Hello Lovelies,

I wanted to provide you one last side-note update before I got back into the swing of Little Island Tales and other assorted works. Sometime back, I very briefly mentioned via our Twitter account that I had made a little shirt design out of boredom. Well, fast forward a week or two and I've actually found that making little graphic illustrations for shirts and apparel is actually a lot of fun and might want to make a little side business out of it.

Enter NerdWordApparel.

As all of you veteran readers might imagine, me being me has the tendency of diving head first into projects and such because I'm a horrible person who might actually be a workaholic. That aside, given a number of issues I'm having with the game design for Uncanny Valley, I've decided to redouble my efforts in this area for the time being and am now putting my snark and nerdisms to good use outside of regular writing. With that said, outside of Halloween and Dia de los Muertos, this has been where my energy has been focused for the last week.

I bring this up for three reasons: One, I like to share what I'm doing and where I'm going when it comes to the matter of any of you going "You know, I haven't seen any actual new content...what the hell is Robert doing?" I'm deciding that coming up for breath isn't fun so why not drown in creative works projects. Two, because I know many readers are, by definition, nerds with passions and loves of their own, some of you might actually like the work I'm doing at NerdWordApparel and find some desire to get yourself some fancy/snarky graphic design shirts/mugs/etc. Last, but not least Three: to keep my writing and my graphic design works separate and not antagonize one group or the other, I wanted to do a one-time shout out regarding NerdWordApparel with all relevant links to those that are interested and let you follow them from there (if you so desire).

With that said, here is where you can follow us. Please note, the TeePublic link is the current 'shop' until I set up a more permanent website storefront.

Shop: https://www.teepublic.com/user/nerdwordapparel
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NerdWordApparel/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/nerdwordapparel
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nerdwordapparel/

To those that are interested, just a quick word of note: I intend to release new designs twice a week every Sunday and Thursday (I'm actually going to be releasing one later today, wouldn't ya know). I currently have a few Dungeons and Dragons related items, however designs will not be limited to this and will be all across nerddoms and fandoms. Perfect example, Thursday's launch will be a very cute dinosaur design that is more fun for all ages then perhaps snark about Dragons. I intend to have everything from fantasy to adventure to non-fiction and pretty much anything that makes me fellow nerds' hearts go pitter-patter-pitter. If you like the concept, give me a follow and see if anything catches your eye as the weeks roll on.

Finally, I want to assure everyone that there shouldn't really be any loss in or change of schedule to RBPublishing. The hows and whats for the my creative process for both projects actually mesh pretty well, particularly since a lot of my creative writing is performed when I'm away from home whereas a lot of my designs are done at home. In turn, it more means I'm intentionally shorting myself free time for movies/games/etc. than anything else, but that's self inflicted and is what it is.

I hope you guys enjoy it (if you're interested) and promise that we should have the next Little Island Tales out here shortly.

Love you all,

- RB

Feliz Dia de los Muertos

https://chicho21net.deviantart.com/art/Dia-de-Muertos-568969608

Hello Lovelies,

As is tradition, I'm lazy this week...

No, I'm just kidding. However, I always like to take the day and wish everyone a feliz Dia de los Muertos, (or Happy Day of the Dead). Just as I celebrate and have celebrated Halloween for as long as I remember because of my mom, I now also celebrate Dia de los Muertos because of her as well (although my wife's traditions also help since I didn't really know about the day before I knew her).

For those of you that haven't heard of the day before, Dia de los Muertos is ironically enough two-days, not one, and takes place at the very beginning of November. While some people like to think of it almost as 'Mexican Halloween', it actually serves a different, albeit similar purpose. With Halloween, and Samhain before it, being more of a harvest holiday, there is a focus on the end of summer, the harvest, and then some spooks and specters that wander the night. Dia de los Muertos, on the other hand, is meant as a day of reverence and remembrance. We take the time to honor and remember and think of those that we have loved and lost. We hold them near and dear to our hearts and offer food and drink and warmth to those we can no long hold in our arms.

Today, I tend to think of two people in particular: my mother and my brother. Both of them were desperately important to me and have had a huge influence on my life and in becoming the man I am today. My mother for her kindness, empathy, and insight that showed me the paths around the broken channels. My brother for his sullen yet kind demeanor and an unstoppable personality that couldn't be abated.

So, when all is said and done, I want to wish you a very Happy Day of the Dead and ask you: who's in your thoughts tonight?

Love you all.

- RB

Happy Halloween!

Hello Lovelies,

As I am want to do this time of year, I wanted to take a moment and just wish everyone:

Happy Halloween!

I know some of you don't celebrate it whether by accident of birthplace or simply not being a fan of the holiday overall; however I want you to have a good day all the same. Halloween has always been a good day for me and while I was raised with the fun of trick-or-treating and candy, it also had a much deeper meaning for my mother and I. We did (and I still do) celebrate the harvest aspects of the holiday's origin as well as the spiritual background. If anything, it's one of the days I feel closest to the spooky old witch. Now, with my wife involved, it also means that this is the precursor to Dia de Los Muertos which makes the entire rest of the week a fun event!

I hope you all enjoy your day and check back soon. I had thought I'd have my 'Ghost Story' along with another chapter of Little Island Tales ready, but obviously missed a little on that. You should hopefully see them later this week if not early next week at the latest.

Have a wonderful day and a Happy Halloween!

- RB

Musical Inspiration

Hello Lovelies,

In trying to work on the next entry for Little Island Tales, I ran into a bit of an issue. What issue you ask? Well...I HAVE NO INSPIRATION!!!

At least, not at the moment.

Ok, maybe it's not THAT bad. While I know where I want to go with the story and the steps that are being taken to get there, I'm recovering from one of my normal medical procedures and therefore my brain is just a bit muddy on the uptake (gotta love all them painkillers...buh). I currently can't quite put the sentences together (at least not with impact in a form I like) and so I wanted to take a more human moment to discuss writing and the processes behind it rather than leave you in the hard-vacuum of silence that I have had a bad tendency of doing the last couple months.

I've talked about inspiration before on this site and about the little things that help to push me (and theoretically other writers) to make the things they do. Everything from a wildly overactive imagination to the types of books and movies they read; just about anything in the world can serve as inspiration for the next tale or story. Everyone has their own thing that works at least sometimes to get their blood boiling and get the words flowing.

As such, today I wanted to address music and its role in my own inspirational process. For any of my regular readers, you know my biggest rock tends to be fear and horror. The things that scare me most are the ones that fascinate me the deepest. Monsters, creatures, cryptids, myths, aliens, etc. all lend their own unique touch to the things I create and this is something that is plainly seen in my works; so it raises the question of how does music provide inspiration?

Well, at least for me, music is a much stranger beast than reading a story or watching a movie. Whereas exposure to other general forms of inspiration give me an idea for content and story progression, music provides me a much more ethereal inspiration. I often find that it gives me a sense of emotion, tone, and environment more than anything else. In other words, it gives me a 'feeling' for the world at large in my writing. The music that I find really inspires me varies from day to day and week to week, however will often maintain a similar overall tone.

So what do I listen to?

Well, the common default that I often go back to when actively writing is Rock. There's a wide range here, so depending on the who and what, it may or may not contribute to the tone of any given story. I've often found that more Psychadelic Rock like The Doors tends to work well but, even more commonly, variations within the Metal genre are very effective too (particularly when writing hard action). Artists like Rob Zombie and Powerman 5000 have contributed to some of the more tense or chilling moments throughout my pieces. One artist in particular, Jonathon Young, has proven really entertaining for his Rock/Metal remixes of a number of different songs which have provided me a great deal of new depth to old pieces.

On the flipside, occasionally I need something more atmospheric; something I can hear and listen to but maybe with a deeper tone outside of rock songs. You need something more folky or ambient, something with less hit and more punch. More overall feeling behind it. I've found YouTube has been particularly wonderful for this because you can find a wide range on there. Some of my favorites include old folk songs like 'O Death' (which I've featured before) or 'Misty Mountains Cold' (from Lord of the Rings), Cajun inspired beats such as Kaleo's 'Way Down we Go' and Rag'n'Bone Man's 'Human', or even classical tunes such as Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata'. If I'm feeling particularly off, dark ambient music such as ones produced by JediMaster or Two Steps from Hell (Featured above) serve wonderfully to get me the ether mixing.

When all is said and done, music is less about showing us something to inspire us and helping us find that which is resting beneath the surface. It helps us pull up and out, rather than to internalize, those forces and things that would fill our minds to the brim until they overflow.

So, with that said...

What music inspires YOU most?

Little Island Tales - Part 7

    The children spent a good twenty minutes staring at the boot-print in the sand. While there had been some initial awe over the size of the clawmark from the aka-akua that the print rested within, they quickly abandoned it in favor of, what they considered, a greater myster. Trying to figure out who had made the boot-prints, where they were going, and where they had come from.
    Ka'lani had seen aka-akua tracks before and Diego and Tamah simply accepted their clawmarks as just being 'one of those things'. Monsters were real. They knew it and they knew they'd be back in a month anyway if they really wanted to examine the things.
    The oddity was in some unknown person being on their island.
    Initially, there was some fascination as to why this stranger was going to the mountains. After all, they knew it had to be a stranger. The tracks weren't coming from the village, they were coming from the beach front. And, while they had passed nearby the village...well...near the fireline anyway; there was no sign they'd ever entered it. Just passed on by, moving smoothly in and out the clawed out holes that the aka-akua had left from the night prior. However, they quickly abandoned that train of thought in favor of the more obvious.
    So the question began: how'd they come from the beach?
    While boats were uncommon they were hardly unheard of. The village fishermen had a 'fleet' of a half dozen little two man boats that they would paddle out in order to set traps or fish the reef. The only real rule was that they didn't go further than than the reef and they needed to get back before the sun set.
    Diego wasn't sure about that last rule, but felt it undoubtedly had to do with the aka-akua. He'd always thought that maybe they hid in the dark at the bottom of the sea when the moon was out. It's not like any of them truly knew where the shadow demons hid or even if they existed outside of the darkness of night.
    But there was no boat. There was no sign of how or where the booted person had come from. It was like they had simply walked out of the surf and onto dry land. Like the ocean had just spit them out.
    The trio had followed the prints as far as they could and, while most of the tracks had been washed out in the surf or blown away in the soft sand, they couldn't figure out where the tracks had led from. Everything pointed that they came from the ocean.
    "They'll figure it out." Tamah finally offered reassuringly.
    "I suppose." Diego said with a shrug.
    "No." she retorted, seemingly rejecting his insincerity. "They will. We'll get the trackers and find whoever it is out in the mountains."
    Diego gave a little nod.
    "Yea. And then we'll drag them back here and demand to know how they got on the island and..."
    TUNK
    Ka'lani gave him a sideways glance but Diego was too focused on rubbing the knot on his head from where she'd just hit him with her flute.
    "What was that for?!" he demanded.
    "No reason." she admitted. "Just felt you deserved it."
    Diego glowered at her, but she continued before he could get a word in.
    "Still, we can't just presume that anyone who's on the island needs to be dragged anywhere."
    "But who are they?"
    Ka'lani shrugged, but seemed distracted. Thoughtful.
    "We won't know until we find them. Just because we don't know who they are doesn't mean they deserve violence."
    Diego, a fire burning in his belly from getting smacked with a flute, turned on her.
    "Yea?! And what if they're here to do something bad? What if they want to hurt us? Or hurt you?! Huh?!"
    "Yea!" added Tamah, building on Diego's energy. "What if they're working with the aka-akua?"
    "The aka-akua don't work with humans, Tamah." Ka'lani said evenly, addressing her sister. "They're demons."
    "What if they aren't human?!" Tamah retorted.
    "Demons don't wear boots, Tamah." her sister replied again, poking Tamah in the head with her half finished flute. "Even weird ones."
    "Weird demons or weird boots?" Tamah asked.
    "Yes." Ka'lani said with a reassuring smile.
    "That doesn't stop them from being a threat." Diego said sternly as thoughts of evil men sneaking into huts at night peppered his thoughts. "I won't let them hurt you."
    Tunk
    "Ow! And what was THAT one for?"
    "For getting my little sister excited." Ka'lani responded coolly. " Now both of you. Enough. You're getting way too worked up over this."
    "How aren't you?" Diego demanded, rubbing the second, albeit smaller lump on his head.
    "Because I trust that we'll find them and figure out why they're here. It's not like we live on a big island. Not only that, they can only stay in hiding for a month at most."
    While Diego thought to respond to that, the rather disturbing point Ka'lani had made stuck the words in his throat like a glue. Depending on the state of the moon, there was always a chance their would be an aka-akua wandering about in the darkness. If their visitor lasted an entire month, there was zero chance they'd make it through a moonless night.
    The children exchanged a knowing, albeit sickened glance with each other but said nothing more on the subject.
    "I guess you're right." Diego admitted.
    Ka'lani smiled in agreement.
    "Either way, I need to go work on this." she said, waving the half-finished flute. "Wanna come?"
    "Oh!" Tamah said in surprise, as if only just noticing the flute despite having watching Diego get hit with it several times. "Is that the one you're making for-"
    Ka'lani cut her off sharply with a hard poke to her forehead and a threatening glare. Tamah knew better than to proceed.
    "Who's it for?" Diego asked again, continuing the same line of questioning he'd given up on a couple days prior.
    Ka'lani shrugged and started walking away.
    To Diego's surprise, he felt his guts twist into a knot. It must have been obvious on his face because Tamah glanced up at him.
    "Are you ok, Diego?"
    "Yea." he said with a little nod. "Just gonna go do some stuff."
    "Can I come with you?" she asked with a smile.
    "Not right now. Why don't you hang out with your sister?" he said and turned to walk back into the village.
    Diego left Tamah standing there. She watched as her sister walked away towards a small thicket of coconut trees and as Diego walked back past the fireline towards the village center. Beneath her feet, the remains of one of the tracks that had so thoroughly enraptured them a matter of moments earlier, began to fade away with the bubbling, incoming tide.

Thanks

Hello Lovelies,

Nothing substantial (given this is out of my regular schedule, I'm sure you could probably guess that). I just wanted to take a moment and say thank you for the insight that you all offered me yesterday with regards to Wattpad.

I'm still on the fence on whether or not I want to use it, but I think I'm leaning away from it overall. The service seems more inclined towards younger users and I'm really just not sure how much it will actually contribute to the cause. Not to mention, the more spread out it is, the more I have to worry about things like ownership and control...and that's not really a fight I want to do.

Thank you again for all of your help. Don't forget to check in tomorrow for the next entry to Little Island Tales! It'll be up around 5am PST. ;)

Love you guys.

- RB

Wattpad?

Hello Lovelies,

Today I wanted to take a moment and reach out to you. As many of my readers are not only consistent, recurrent individuals but also writers themselves, I figured it would be best to raise the question to the table and see what kind of response I got.

Do any of you know what 'Wattpad' is?

I had this website recommended to me on my last post. They recommended it as a means of increasing visibility of my works as it seems that some writers have been discovered through Wattpad for both book and movie deals. On further review via their Wikipedia entry, it seems they've been around for about 11 years and are a primarily mobile site. Further inspection reveals that they've probably got a couple million readers that are flipping through the respective pages.

So the question that immediately occurs to me: Should I trust them?

At its face, the idea of being available to a great number of readers that are out to READ my works is incredibly enticing. At the same time, I have nothing more at the moment than a simple recommendation.

As it stands, I accept that my stuff is improving but still needs work. Yet, at the same time, the ideas I have are my own and, even if I might royally screw up something here or there, it's my writing that I have the right to alter and correct. I'm immediately worried about the idea of submitting and posting my works on this random website under the guise my intellectual property might be forfeit because of the medium that it's being provided. In other words, I don't want to create copyright and ownership heart aches in the future.

With that said, I intend to investigate them further, however I trust your opinions and would like to add any first hand accounts to my consideration. Do any of you have experience with or exposure to Wattpad? Good stories? Bad stories? I want to know if it's worth it to work with this site.

Thank you.

- RB