Justin Pyfrom's Blog, page 20

Happy Holiday to All

Sending holiday joy and love to all of you!!! I pray that you have a wonderful time with your family and mates. As for me, I will be doing the same thing and taking the day off of writing and planning to give them my undivided attention. It’s either that or my brother is not going to let me live it down.

6th Short Story Released

Four young souls from different walks of life enjoy each other’s company as their superior’s having a hard time finding a permanent assignment for them. It’s a good thing they have all the time in the world.

It is available on Amazon Kindle.

A Lie As Old As Time

“What they are hoping that you believe is the oldest, most racist stories in our country. Emmett Till, Scottsboro Boys, Central Park Five…These false accusations all started with the same lie — that [all] black men are wired to attack white women.”

― Annalise Keating, How To Get Away With Murder, 5×07 “I Got Played”

The duality around racism and the darkness behind it all.

Being an African American means that I’m aware that racism is a really big problem in my country. I know that it’s something that has ruined the lives, self-esteem, and the very foundation of so many people. And, yet, people still do it without a second thought and with twisted justification and ratification for their behavior. But I don’t know what’s worse: a closeted racist or an open one. Both of them are horrid but I find that the worst type – for me, anyway – are the ones who know how to weaponize it. This is actually how I came up with the idea for In Our Darkest Hour.

As I have stated before, I’m one of the African Americans that has not been confronted with heaps amount of racism in my earlier life. Colorism was the bane of my existence – still is. I always had to deal with people thinking that I had an easier time because of my light skintone and thus devalue my accomplishment. However, I have seen enough racism in my life where I can understand and empathize with them all.

For the life of me, I can’t understand why racism is the go-to for people who can’t get their way, whether it’s personal, professional, or political. Or, as I’ve been noticed as of late, to make themselves feel good about themselves. This has become abundantly clear after seeing how my former President has use racism to further his plan for chaos among his followers. So, this made writing the story so easy for me to write because I had so many experiences to draw from. But that also made it a little bit of a problem for me because I didn’t want the story to be another “racism story”; I wanted a sci-fi twist to it all.

This is where The Twilight Zone came to rescue as I remembered its fifth season’s episode “I Am the Night – Color Me Black”. I wanted to emphasize the darkness that was plaguing the town due to the citizen’s racism but really zero in on the cause of it all. The darkness is meant to be a product of it all but not the focus – like the episode. Instead, I wanted to focus on the cause thus why I created the antagonist as deplorable as I did. I wanted the reader to see how fast and strong hatred can spread and how dangerous it can really be in the hands of a consciously villainous being in a position of power.

Now, like all my twists, I always wanted to make add very small hints throughout the story. This time around, I made it a tad bit obvious for the Christians reading this story. Especially if you’re a Christian who’s also POC (person of color), one would be able to see where I’m going with this and will probably be able to figure out what the twist will be before it occurs. That way, I make the twist more satisfying than surprising. It also helps with stating my case on what happens to a racist; they will become trapped in their own darkness.

I told my older brother, who’s a minister, that was going to use his likeness and personality for this story and I got my expected response – and an unexpected one. He was happy to hear that and asked for my permission to use it for a future sermon of his after its release. How can I say “No” to that? 

It’s also worth noting that this was the first time that Markus Carter, one of the closest friends, has done a design for a book cover. He has always been a fan of the minimalist approach towards illustration and wanted to give it a shoot for my Short Story Project. We agreed that this approach could be decisive for people as book covers nowadays are flashy and intricate. I think it looks quite nice.

You can buy the book on Amazon. The link is here.

You can also learn about it on Goodreads. The link for it is here.

5th Short Story Released

It’s a dark tale as old as time in our world. But, alas, we keep retelling it with the only difference being the actors.

It is available on Amazon Kindle.

A New Book To Rebrand A Series

“An extensive interview with a veteran that has more than a decade in the adult industry. Learn about the brains behind the brawn as Jaxton Wheeler talks about his past, present, and future.”

-Book Description

It’s been a long time coming. But now that I’m back in the swing of things, I can finally say with great pride and joy that my interview with Jaxton Wheeler has been published and released to the public. Jaxton Wheeler is an incredible human being with an aura of honesty that is sorely lacking in our current generation. I hope you all enjoy the reading. Thank you all for your patience and now it can be purchased on Amazon and Kindle. Please buy and give an honest review as I love learning and improving my craft.

Both Version: https://amzn.to/2WiFoqb

A Flip of The First

“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.”

― Bill Keane 

The duality of limbo and the concept of Heaven and Hell

The Bus Stop was one of those stories that I couldn’t get a clear thought out of how I wanted the story to go. This was one of the Christian Science Fiction stories that could be polarizing if not done respectfully. But that wasn’t my main concern. It was a concern but not the main one. My main concern was that I wanted to do something different for each story and I was running out of ideas as I getting closer to the end of Phase One. It took me a couple of days to figure out how I was going to tell this story and the solution was pretty simple: do what I did in reverse.

See, the first short story I release, A Crack In A Wall, allowed me to take the unreliable narrator approach to storytelling and I found that it worked perfectly. Especially when I added the fact that he didn’t care for the response of the correspondent. So, I thought it would be a good idea to take that and make the narrator not only reliable but genuinely interested in the conversation. Then, things started to come together.

Halfway through the writing, I got the idea to give the narrator the idiolect of my fabulous Aunt Sherry. I’ve always loved her as she was my favorite aunt. She was always candid and never sugarcoated things for you. She also had zero tolerance for foolishness and had no problem calling you on it. But it was always out of love and respect and that’s what I wanted to convey in the narrator.

Now, because I had made that decision, I had to write the story all over again so I fit it to my vision. That part didn’t take long. No, what actually took a while to complete was a timeline of her life before her death because I wanted it to be a reflective piece. A woman looking back on her life as she’s wondering where she’s going to go. And, all of this while comforting and sympathizing with a much younger soul. 

I told my aunt about the story and that the fact that I used her speech pattern for the character. She was ecstatic and honored by the news. I guess she always wanted to be in one of my stories. She didn’t even mind the fact that the character was dead and in limbo. In fact, she found that bit to be fascinating. However, she did ask for an inner of the character’s fate. I didn’t give her an answer; I didn’t even tell her the character’s timeline. I told her that I was going to leave it to the reader’s interpretation. 

As we continued to talk about it, I told her that I was going to be using her likeness for another character for another project. She asked me if she, too, was dead and I assured that the character will be very much alive and very lively. Again, she was ecstatic. She’s always happy to hear about my work. Next to my brother, she’s a big cheerleader of mine.

The story began to write itself as I replayed all the conversations I had with my Aunt Sherry. The character only has her idiolect. Not her past. Not her physical appearance. Just her speech pattern. 

It was so much fun writing this story because it was a story that was harboring a question that was clearly on everybody’s mind, especially mine. Where are you going to go when you die? Heaven or Hell. I’m a gay man. People are telling me that I’m going to Hell but I have other people telling me that I’m a good person so I’m going to Heaven. So, I wrote this story to help me understand the question even more. Honestly, I just have more questions after finishing it.

You can buy the book on Amazon. The link is here.

You can also learn about it on Goodreads. The link for it is here.

4th Short Story Released

The fourth short story of the Short Story Project has been released to the public. Allow me to introduced:

It is available on Amazon Kindle.

My Religion On Full Display

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”

― Albert Einstein

What if I could actually see God’s guiding force?

The question, right there, was after I got the blessing of meeting a Latin family (father and two daughters) while traveling from San Francisco to Philadelphia. We had a pretty good conversation about life and faith while reflecting on the fact that we were living through a transition of life. Granted, it was all through a translating app because my Spanish is very elementary. You know…it’s funny. I’ve dated a lot of Latin men and still haven’t mastered the language.

Anyway, he called me “hombre de Dios” and I had to use the translator to know what he said. (Surprise, surprise!) I was truly honored to hear that. So, it got me thinking about what would happen if that man and his daughter actually met a man of God. You know…like an angel. But the only thing that I had to do was create a scenario where praying is needed the most. And that’s where I got the idea behind Angel of Mine.

You know, now that I’m typing this, I have to admit that this story was actually the easiest for me to write. It’s also the only story that remained unchanged from the outline to the first draft. Furthermore, I didn’t have to do my usual three hours of research on a topic between writing. The only thing I research was Mexican snacks and the patronage saint of safe passage, which took me all of thirty minutes.

The plot came to me during the pitstop in Pheonix, AZ. That was in 2018. The actual thought process came later and it was the first one that I picked for this project. Finally, the actual storyline came the fastest out of all the other stories because it was the easiest to formulate. A weary father looking to the Lord for guidance and safe passage, then, everything started to form together. Putting the Mexican cartel in there was something to hold the urgency of prayer.

It’s pretty obvious that I don’t know anything about the Mexican cartel. But, luckily, it’s science fiction so I had a little bit of an excuse to take some liberties. Some very small liberties. For one, I only made them an antagonistic force – not an actual character – which made it a lot easier for me because I wanted to focus heavily on the relationship between man and God.

This was my first attempt at Christian Science Fiction and I went all in for it. But, when writing, I knew that I wanted to revisit the idea of using angels so I made sure that each group of angels had a set of powers. Then, I made sure that all angels had the same basic powers especially omnilingualism but, of course, with a twist. Like angels, God has the ability to limit their power.

I have to admit that I wanted to have a straightforward happy ending with my usual twist ending/big reveal. You know…this is the only Christian Science Fiction story that I’ve completely enjoyed writing from beginning to end for one major reason: the deserving soul got the Lord’s protection. It’s definitely in my Top Ten and it’s definitely a story I want to expand upon in the future.

You can buy the book on Amazon. The link is here.

You can also learn about it on Goodreads. The link for it is here.

3rd Short Story Released

The second short story of the Short Story Project has been released to the public. Allow me to introduced:

It is available on Amazon Kindle.

Art Imitating Life With Some Fun

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

― Maya Angelou

What if my friend followed through with his plan towards our boss?

So, as I’ve stated before, all of my short stories have a “What If” scenario that I’m playing out in my head. Some of them are a bit…far off. And then, there are some that work better when it’s grounded in reality. Revenge or Justice? is one of the stories.

I got the idea after my real-life experience working with an actual genius who wanted to take a break from a “thinking job” and work as a salesman. I even gave him the nickname “DeVoe” because of his genuine intellect. Everything that I wrote in the story about him was actually true. The only different thing is his actual actions towards his plan. He doesn’t actually go through with it because he got a six-figure salary job but what he taught me has stayed with me. This! This is what gave me the inspiration for this story.

The theme of this story plays on the idea that nerds should be feared because their intellect is something that can be weaponized. Usually, nerds become a beacon of progression as they used their knowledge and willingness to learn as a way to move the world forward. However, some embrace the darkness that others have cast on them, and I wanted to show that in this story. 

But, as I was writing the story, I was losing my theme of duality as I was making the “Nicholas” character into an actual DeVoe which wasn’t working for me. See, Nicholas was nothing like the supervillain.  He was kind and educational to others and worked to make me a better sociable person while sticking to my core personality.  Plus, I already had one villain, who was also based on a real person but dialed up to an eleven, in the story; I didn’t need two. So, though I’m usually against this practice, I put myself in the story to show the real duality of intellect.

Now, normally, I put one thing about myself in everything I write but never my actual self because I found it a bit too cliche. But, I broke this rule to have a character be on the outside looking in. An innocent viewer, if you will. I gave the character my name and personality but changed his ethnicity. My favorite thing is that we hate wearing suits, which is so fucking true for the same reason that I stated in the story. It worked for me and made the story move along quite nicely.

The story was always meant to be read as a diary with breaks in-between. That part was always a no-brainer for me. But the interesting part of it was remember everything he told that he was going to do while adding the things between it all. He only told me what he wanted to do. He never actually followed through with it so I only had his endgame to work it. But I think I did a pretty good job with what I had to work with. It gave my editor the chills.

The only thing that I wish I could have done was to add more journal entries to the diary. I feel that I could have added more weight to the evitably of the climax but had to be reminded that too much can be a bad thing, especially for a short story. But I feel that I should return to this story in the future. Maybe as an Audible or something like that; I can’t picture it as a novel.

You can buy the book on Amazon. The link is here.

You can also learn about it on Goodreads. The link for it is here.