Dylan Charles's Blog, page 8

Pushing Back the Boundaries

Lately, it’s been important for me to push my boundaries more and more; specifically with regard to things that give me the jibblies. I’m not talking about scary movies and horror comics; I’m talking about social anxieties and the fact that I would cheerfully be a shut-in if I let myself.

A long time ago, I learned that anxieties are insidiously hard to deal with. When you back away from the things that frighten you, it becomes easier and easier to back away every time you face something that...

Downtime

At some point, the weekend stopped being about sitting around and being lazy. I could go all weekend without accomplishing a single thing, save getting a lot of tv watched and lot of sitting accomplished.

Now I spend my weekends cleaning or learning a new skillset or building something or, at the very least, reading a book. It is very rare that I don’t get something accomplished with my free time. It justfeels wrong to sit around, like I ought to be doing something, anything, as long it accomp...

Keeping Calm (Part II)

A few days I promised that I would not go Halloween crazy and I would do my best not to go overboard about Halloween before September. I think that promise might be a little more difficult to keep than I originally thought. I can’t stop watching horror movies. I’ve been eyeballing pumpkin ales every time I go to the grocery store. I hear whispering from the closet where I keep the spider.

We’re so close, but I’ll try to maintain a measure of control.

(Watch The Conjuring)

-D-

A Quick and Easy Guide on How to Hell Raise

There are a lot of horror film franchises that have let me down. Scream, Friday the Thirteenth, Nightmare on Elm Street; They have all devolved into pointless, mindless and, to be frank, stupid repetitions of the same old song and dance. There was one franchise that disappoints more than any other and that’s the Hellraiser series.

I have watched all nine movies, all the way through, and if ever there was a squandered and lost opportunity, it would be Hellraiser. While Friday the Thirteenth was...

Adventuring

It is a simple fact that any adventure you have is not fun in the doing, but great in the retelling. The more miserable you are at the time, the better the story you will have to tell.

I’ve been threatened by street performers, bled on by customers, ridden on busses with convicts and attacked by a raccoon.

I’m pretty I didn’t enjoy any of that at the time, but those are stories I love to tell now.

I want more stories to tell.

-D-

Keeping Calm

In the past, I think it would be fair to say that I would overindulge in the Halloween spirit. I would be dragging the giant spider out of the closet in September, chugging pumpkin spice beers in August and handing out candy to strange children in the middle of July.

But, as a result, I would really be down on Halloween by October 1st. There’s only so many horror movies and horror themed beverages one can consume before one really wants it to be Christmas instead.

So, while I would normally be...

Good Horror Needs Your Help

One of my favorite webcomics is Broodhollow, written and drawn by Kris Straub (Starslip, Chainsawsuit, Checkerboard Nightmare). It follows Wadsworth Zane, a strange little guy with a couple of complexes who arrives in the small town of Broodhollow where he is thrown into a mystery that surrounds, involves and has embedded itself into Broodshollow and its inhabitants. He, along with Doctor Angstrom and Iris Bellweather, are slowly working out just what’s going wrong with the town, while being...

Obligations (Part II)

I haven’t written anything of any substance in a long time and that is, partly, why I think it’s so important for me to keep up this blogging resolution. If I wrote nothing at all, it would be as though I had completely given up any and all ambitions to be a writer, which is not the case, believe it or not.

The ambition is there. Unfortunately, it can be likened more to a guttering candle more than some solar apoplexy of inspiration and brilliance. I have to keep it going, even in these little...

Obligations

There are times when I regret my resolution to write two blog entries a week. And, believe it or not, I have stuck with this resolution throughout the year, ya’ll just might not have noticed because I have a second blog.

It is the obligation of the thing that drives em crazy. I force myself to write when I do not want to and have nothing to write about it.

This leads to weird or crazy blog entries that are poorly and hurriedly written.

I would say this is a time for change or re-evaluation excep...

Departure

My landlord has lived in this building since the late 1940′s. He and his brother-in-law bought the house using funds from the G.I. Bill. He raised his children here. He has lost his wife here. 50 years, he’s been here, his sister on the ground floor.

I don’t want that. I don’t want it at all.

I don’t want to be in the same place for five years, much less ten years, much less fifty years.

I want to travel and see and experience. I want to be uncomfortable and unaware and out of my element. I want...