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

Little Island Tales - Part 6

    The remainder of the ceremony was spent as many moonless nights were: eating, drinking, dancing, and just celebrating life.
    Diego dedicated a large chunk of the initial evening feasting upon a massive suckling pig that the hunters had captured two days prior. Ka'lani, in turn, wiled away a great deal of time with Koula once the elder had been freed from her duties. They spoke at length regarding the spells that had been performed that night and Ka'lani even showed off the flute she was working on. And, at the end of the night, when the sun was cracking over the horizon, they both danced with Tamah and Fetu in a massive group with the rest of the village in final reverence of another month of safety.
    Only as the sun rose high past the edge of the sea did anyone finally stop for the night and retire.
    Retreating to their respective homes, the villagers would spend the remainder of the day resting. Some would be nursing headaches from the ceremonial wines and spirits. Many would simply be exhausted from the terror and festivities to do anything more than recoup themselves through the hottest part of the day.
    No one worked. Most didn't even leave their house until night, and, even then, they didn't venture further than the village circle for food and to help clean up from the prior evening.
    It was for that reason that it wasn't until a day and a half later than anyone stepped out past the fireline.
    Diego had just woken up an hour earlier and had already eaten a light breakfast of a few pieces of fruit and a husk of bread when he ventured out into the bright morning's sun. People were milling about, beginning to do their jobs but still in a slight stupor as everyone continued to regain their composure. Being younger, he had no specific tasks he had to complete, so he set off to find Ka'lani.
    He started by checking her family's hut but no one was there. He came across Tamah in the village center a few minutes later who told him that Ka'lani had gone to Koula's the night prior.
    "I think she said something about going there to work on her flute?" Tamah offered.
    "Her flute? Why would Grammy Koula know anything about flutes? She's not a wood worker."
    "I dunno." she admitted before shouting with exuberance. "Let's go find out!"
    Despite his best efforts, Diego couldn't dissuade the younger girl from joining him and, soon enough, they were both standing on Koula's meager porch knocking on the driftwood door.
    "Grammy Koula?" he called to no avail when she didn't answer. "Are you home?"
    "Maybe they went somewhere?" Tamah suggested.
    "Maybe. But why?" Diego asked, glancing towards the beach and the bubbling waves.
    The pair knocked a few times more but soon abandoned the little hut in favor of looking around. It didn't take long though, as a matter of minutes later Tamah noticed Ka'lani and Koula standing at the fireline with two of the village warriors. They were all staring at something in the sand.
    "Grammy Koula! Grammy Koula!" Tamah yelled happily as she ran up to the group.
    Koula offered her a friendly smile and a gentle hug, but seemed extremely distracted by whatever it was they had found. Ka'lani was as well.
    "Hey Ka'lani!" Diego said with a wave as he approached.
    "Hey." she replied dismissively, her attention on the ground and the two warriors.
    Both men, clad in heavy set leathers and brandishing sharpened blades, were muttering to each other.
    "So you're sure no one was out here?"
    "Who would leave the village on the morrow of the ceremony? Especially without us knowing?"
    "One of the hunters?"
    "And the boot prints? They're odd..."
    "What's going on?" Diego interjected.
    "Shh. Shh. Quiet, honey." Koula said to Diego with a soft pat on his shoulder.
    He frowned, but said nothing more.
    "We're not sure." one of the hunters commented. He was a big man by the name of Joun. He was bald with a scar that ran the length of his right arm; effectively dividing his Mālama tattoo in half.
    "Did you see anyone leave the village yesterday?" the second man asked. William was smaller and peppered with pockmarks and mangy brown hair.
    Diego shook his head.
    "No. But I was in my hut all day." he replied.
    "Same." Tamah said quickly, her normally joyous expression darkening slightly.
    "I don't remember anyone passing by." Koula admitted. "But I certainly wasn't looking for anyone either."
    Examining the sandy beach, Diego was able to vaguely make out what they were talking about. He could see a footprint of some kind. It looked a bit large and strangely shaped but definitely the sole some kind of shoe. The bottom of it had ridges in a weird design that had somehow still remained despite the softness of the sand.
    Several of the boot-prints could be seen moving from the beach in the direction of the mountains.
    "It has to be one of the hunters, right?" Ka'lani asked.
    "Maybe."
    "Could it have been one of the aka-akua?" Diego asked thoughtfully.
    William laughed but Joun simply shook his head.
    "No." he said shortly.
    "Well, why not?"
    "For one, they don't wear boots." William shot back.
    "For two, why don't you back up and take a second look."
    Diego glanced at Tamah, who simply shrugged her shoulders. Ka'lani had a mischievous look but said nothing.
    They backed up.
    "Ok?" he asked impatiently.
    "Do you see it?" William asked.
    Diego didn't. All he saw was sand and a vague boot-print.
    Ka'lani, same mischievous look plastered across her face, started to point something out. She highlighted a space that he'd actually been standing on when he walked up. It consisted of three, massive clawlike impressions and some sort of fourth dent near the 'back'. The bootprint was actually firmly inside of it and the clawmark was a good three or four times larger in comparison.
    He hadn't seen it because it was just too big initially to recognize as anything more than just a natural groove in the sand.
    "Yep." Ka'lani said with a growing smile at Diego and Tamah's gaping mouths.
    "We'll gather a few volunteers from the hunters." Joun said to Koula, ignoring the children's reaction. "See if we can find anything in the mountains. Maybe track them."
    "Of course." Koula agreed. "And I'll ask around the village. See if I can figure out if anyone was out and about."
    "Thank you." William said with a deep bow. "Let us know what you find."
    The adults exchanged their prayers and formalities and soon went their separate ways. Koula offered to allow Ka'lani and the others to accompany her, but they elected to stay on the beach. They were too fascinated with what had been left behind; both by the monster and by the man.