Steven Mix's Blog, page 6

Book two update...

Two is my current favorite number!

I'm making some grand strides on finishing book two. My new villains, that were featured in the epilogue of book one, have been quite fun to write.

I can't give a good date on book two's completion, but I can say that I'm churning out a good amount of words these days... So, it shouldn't be too long until we push towards editing.

There is a lot going on behind the scenes.

Some fun stuff, some art stuff... I wish I could elaborate but the publisher showed up at my house one night with a rusty, copper knife adorned in various occult symbols. Some choice cuts a few Latin phrases later, he completed the ancient world bloodletting ritual that has bound me to silence.

I will inform everybody of these cool surprise announcements once he gives me the green light.

Knock knock...

So... we have

some pretty strange knock knock joke routines in this house. The stepdaughter used to try and ask me "Knock knock," and I would answer with, "Come in!" then she would get sour faced.

So now our knock knock jokes have become ridiculously strange.

Me: Knock Knock!

Nyla: Who's there?

Me: Banana.

Me: Knock Knock!

Nyla: Come in!

Me: Banana.

Me: Knock Knock!

Nyla: Come in!

Me: Banana.

Me: Knock Knock!

Nyla: COME IN!

At this point I stood up and in the deepest Randy Macho Man Savage voice began screaming: ORRRRRAAAAANNNNNGGGGEEEEEEEE!

Then leapt up onto the couch with the same deep voice screaming: OORRRRRRRRAAANNGGGEEEEEEE!

And at this point jumped a gap from the couch onto the bed where Megan and Nyla were sitting and pointing an accusing 80s wrestler finger down continuing the tirade of: OOOOOORRRRRRAAAANNNNGGGgggEEEEEE!

Nyla couldn't stop laughing. Megan got frustrated and announced I wasn't funny.

Then Nyla said she was going to tell the joke at school while chasing her friend on the playground. I said, "Oh god I can see the note now... 'Nyla was sent home from school today, reason: knock knock jokes that ended with angry oranges... What are you feeding her?'"

So there's magic at the San Jose Fantasy Faire

Honestly, if you want magic you definitely should visit the San Jose Fantasy Faire.

(If my pictures stretched funny, I'm sorry! No idea what happened with my phone!)

The SJ Fantasy Faire is always a good time and I look forward to it every year. They always have a booth that sells great homemade sasparilla, my good friend Alan Carbonaro and his son Cody are always working the event, and you can't really frown on an event where people can purchase swords. That's just awesome.

Turns out my other friend Karl was working security this year so it was nice to see him.

I showed up on Saturday and met up with my friend Alan. He introduced me to a woman named Marti who runs the author table figuring maybe I could sell my books at the next event. She said if I gave her an autographed book, I could sell them on Sunday!

One autograph later I was sitting at the author's table! Hooray!

The night before my wife had picked up a poster for the event that looked nice and I got to meet M. Todd Gallowglas, Davidson L. Haworth, Valerie Frankel, S.L. Gray and A.E. Marlin who are all quite good at pushing their books in person. I've done stand-up comedy, but I still felt sort of out of my element by trying to sell myself as a horror author, at a fantasy faire, surrounded by fantasy authors. Go figure.

All of the authors gave me some great advice. I really appreciated it too!

I also got to meet Jerimiah Slack an admin of g33k-hq.com along with one of his writers. Great people! Go check out their site if you get a chance: http://g33k-hq.com

Writer friend Stephen Shumaker showed up with his family to see me at the table! :)

His daughter seemed like royalty, cruising around in a stroller holding a wand and a sword while wearing sunglasses. Terribly cute.

I sold a few books. Even think I made a fan out of a girl who confessed she doesn't read much zombie stuff but, she asked me who my influences were and seemed pretty enthusiastic about my replies. :)

So where does the magic come in?

I met other witches! My wife (who is sort of Wiccan) wanted to buy a wand from the WillowRoot Wands booth. The women who handle it claim to be witches and are very pleasant. If they are witches, I would certainly believe it. Their wands look amazing and those ladies seemed pretty magical.

There are packs of pirates just roaming through... Occasionally singing sea shanties and hanging out on the FULL SIZE PIRATE BOAT in the middle of the event!

I make jokes about vampires and a vampire shadow government, constantly. They are JUST JOKES! I don't actually believe this sort of thing but... I'm just going to describe what I saw.

At one point at the author's table, a very enthusiastic young man came over to the booth. He was laughing and joking with all the authors and quite full of life. A woman with pale skin, dark hair and dark sunglasses stood about three feet behind him and shadowed his every move. Her clothes didn't look overly goth, just slightly dated and dark themed. Wherever he went she followed and the two of them played off each other's energy with opposite ends of the spectrum. It really seemed eerie in a cool way.

Now look, I'm not saying vampires are real,

she certainly wasn't turning to dust in the daylight I'm just saying, if there's any truth to the legends, even a morsel of truth to it, then I would put my money on her being a vampire. She convinced me of it. Actually scared me a little. I think the moral is that cosplay is epic when someone looks like they aren't trying. I really regret not snapping a picture of that scene.

I'm pretty sure a dragon attacked because there were clouds of smoke off in the distance. (Ok what actually happened was the old KTVU building caught fire and put smoke on the horizon. It looked pretty cool with this giant plume of smoke nearby.) I'm not saying it was dragons... but it COULD have been dragons.

At one point, a jedi and a sith were comparing lightsabers right in front of our booth. Mortal enemies unite at the fantasy faire to compare lightsaber hilts. :)

So there you go.

The San Jose Fantasy Faire is amazing and magical.

If you want to see magic, swords, authors and eat good food and drink, you need to plan to go to the next one.

Here is the link to their site:

http://www.sjfantasy.com/

Keep an eye on it because there's another event in a couple of months that should be popping up on it shortly.

(I of course, can't remember the date of the next event... sorry!)

When did I become... me?

I finished washing dishes after dinner

and leaned against the counter wiping my hands while reflecting on my life. It is a warm evening. For a moment, my kitchen felt alive with the choices that have shaped me into who I am.

In my life, I have been a paratrooper, a writer, a parent and worked more professions than I would care to admit.

My adventures have dipped and weaved. Into broad canyons, past roaring rivers, across war-torn battlefields and through dark forests... sometimes the darkest... often on moonless nights.

I have lost. I have won. I have seen the world undone.

I don't know how I'm still standing. I would be foolish in thinking it was luck. I would be brazen in assuming it was just my actions. Instead, I'll just sit back and continue to sigh, appreciating how remarkable it is that I'm still breathing.

So my advice to anyone who reads this is:

wash the dishes, clean the grill, keep warm on dark nights and create whatever art you love. Even when you're sure no one will see it. You might become a fool like me, who for one minute can reflect and see beyond who he is and appreciate who he once was.

Saying "hi" to my characters before CampNano...

I decided to have a face to face with the three main characters from my book, Goodbye from The Edge of Never.

Why shouldn't I? They're my characters and a writer can meet them if he wants to.

I'm planning on writing a big chunk of book two for CampNanoWrimo, the mid-year novel writing event. It serves as a precursor for the National Novel Writing Month in November.

A dim buzz issued forth from the streetlight as it's amber rays cascaded down in the dark night.

A shuffle of rubber soles on concrete as a dark haired Asian girl stepped out from the darkness and into the light. An aluminum baseball bat strapped across her back, its hilt perching just over her left shoulder.

"How is there a working street light... and why the fuck is it on?" Ashley asked as her eyes searched the edge of the darkness. "Oh. The writer is here."

The darkness seemed to part as a boy wearing a red camouflaged ballistic vest with backpack stepped up. He had appeared behind her and settled on standing, hunched forward a bit, to her right. His eyes held a weary look as if searching for something. Mason reached up and took hold of the hockey mask that perched horizontally over his face. Yanking it down off his head, he set it face down on the concrete and began the process of removing and rummaging through his bag. He produced a bottle of paint and an old fine point paintbrush. Picking the mask back up, he began to dab points of acrylic across its surface.

Ashley seemed immune to his work. Instead turning to her left as a man surged into existence next to her. His black leather duster folding up. The handles of two nickel plated pistols tucked into holsters worn on each of his hips. Another flick of motion and they vanished again beneath the leather.

Ashley shot a sly look in the gunslinger's direction before clearing her throat to continue out loud. "I know we've been through a lot but, don't abandon us now." She sighed before continuing. "Dark days ahead."

Large sheets of mica splintered and scraped.

"Something is happening!" Ashley screamed, reaching up over her shoulder to secure the aluminum baseball bat with her right hand. The ground shook and began drifting down. The sheets of mica warped around Ashley, dragging them with her in a sudden sea of shifting flat crystal. Ashley's started to lose her footing and screaming obscenities. Shifting her weight forward, she juggled the bat to her left hand. Holding on to the bat's barrel and trying to press through the torrent of shuffling minerals that threatened to engulf her. A sudden jolt and the ground fell away out of sight into a dark hole that had appeared below her. Ashley hung in place for a moment as the dark cavern below issued forth a cry of rage. Her breath was shallow and quick as she glanced up past her hand. Somehow she was still holding tight to the barrel of the bat, trying to figure out what stopped her descent. She found the grip of the bat wedged between two pieces of granite. Before this, the granite had been buried by the mica. The knob of the bat held fast, lodged between the two pieces of rock. The granite jutted out just above Ashley, from the edge of a new, almost vertical, concave wall.

"Just don't move!" Donathan shouted from somewhere above.

The shadows below her screeched again as Ash raised up her second hand to take hold of the barrel of the bat and attempt to pull herself up. She felt lightheaded, a whisper of frustration slipped out, "please- just don't-." Another scream from below belted out and the granite let out a grinding sound as one of the rocks fell forward away from the wall. Ashley let out a final scream as she vanished into the darkness below.

The hum of the streetlight augmented the surrounding night's darkness.

Mason let his paintbrush dance across the front face of the hockey mask. His hands moving with a steady intensity.

Ashley asked while facing Mason's direction, "Anything to add?"

Mason looked up for a moment and said, "I'm low on paint." His head motioned again towards his mask, "only gray left."

Ashley added in frustration through clenched teeth, "I mean... something deeper."

Mason shrugged and stood back up, pulling the mask up towards his forehead, gripping the base. After its form was safe on his head, he pulled it down over his face. Revealing a large, strong lettered font with gray paint covering most of the mask. Accenting lines of paint traced up the sides of negative spaced white lettering. It read, "Night falls - Day Breaks."

Pride seemed to spread across Ashley's face as she announced, "We've got a lot of shadows to face and a lot of scrapes to mend but... well..."

Ashley observed the man walking out of the darkness.

His face, corpse-like, shriveled, folds blending into other folds. His complexion was pale and malnourished. His eyes almost completely white and much of his hair gone.

“Dean?” Ashley asked. “Is that- are you Dean?”
Dean nodded his voice strained and cracked, “Dean, yes… I… supplies?”

“No.” Her voice was now strong, unquestioning. “We do not need supplies.”
A look of recognition crossed Dean’s face. He drew in a breath that jilted in spurts as it rushed in. He’d known her.

Donathan patted down one of his chest pockets before producing a lone cigarette and a Zippo lighter.

He raised the cigarette up to his lips and the lighter found itself in his left hand. With a flick, the lighter's metal cap kerchinged open, piercing the night as he huddled forward. His hands around the tip of the cigarette.

Through clenched lips Donathan said, "It's like dear old mom used to say." The sparks from the Zippo ignited the wick, engulfing the tip of the cigarette in flame. For a fraction of a second, an amber glow flashed across his face meshing with the darkness. A sneering mask of light drifted out of view. "Tear this motherfucker... down!"

A flash of light and a thunderclap echoed through the night.

Sparks and shattered glass rained down. Tinkling sounds rang out as the darkness rushed in hiding the trio of friends.

After a moment, Mason asked from the darkness, "Did your mom really say that?"

Donathan grunted before whispering, "No... It just sounds cool."

No one is going to believe in you

I have to believe in myself, because I refuse to believe that anyone else will.

That doesn't mean that people won't take chances on me. I think I have some talent. I love to write. Hell, my mom even tells me I "have a way with words."

The bad news is, mom's faith doesn't mean dick to the rest of the world. She's a great gal and a wonderful mother but unless she comes into wealth and influence to make this happen, I'm on my own. Besides, she raised me to stand this tall.

There are people in this world who win the lottery, but so far, I'm not one of them.

We all want to believe that someone, out of the blue, is going to walk up to us, shake our hands and agree to make our dreams come true. I think a lot of this stems from the fact that if we had enough finances we would be the ones jetsetting around the earth, making people happy. I have to believe this about myself.

If you want a better life you have to see goals as being within reach.

Before Apollo 11, some ridiculous dreamers looked up at the stars and decided that mankind could touch the face of the moon.

Imagine the elation they felt when we did! What must that have felt like? Each heartbeat must have been like an explosion of excitement and relief as they hyperventilated to a new level of madness.

Now realize that unless you want to walk on the moon, any goal you set for yourself is easier to meet.

I have my own goals. I want to raise a happy family. I want to become a spectacular writer. I want to own a cozy writer's cabin in Tahoe. I want to help people.

All those goals are attainable. I'm the captain of my family's happiness and it's my job to try and steer it in the proper direction. Sure, sometimes we sail into maritime storms. Lately, we're getting much closer to calm turquoise waters and white sandy beaches. I already work a job that allows me to help people, in my off hours I write. I wouldn't say I'm Hemingway (punch any asshole that would ever say they are Hemingway!) but I believe if I write long enough, one day something I pen might charge you up. Your heartbeat might even feel like an explosion of excitement and relief as you hyperventilate to a new level of madness.

As for the cabin in Tahoe, I can already see it. The smell of cedar hanging in the air. A ladder leading to a comfortable loft overlooking a small room with a tiny wood stove. A faded green couch in the center of the room. Not far from there will be a thick wooden desk and a comfortable black leather desk chair. The walls lined with bookshelves. The carpet will be thick. So thick it will make your feet ache to walk barefoot across it. A large bay window will drink up the scene beyond the overhanging front porch. A forest of trees will lie beyond it, look mystical when blanketed in monolithic amounts of fresh powder.



(This might sound like a tiny shack to you, but believe me... that dream is a writer's paradise.)

You have to believe in your dreams. No one else is going to believe in your dreams for you.

You have to see them, feel them and seek that moment where excitement will threaten to burst from your veins when they become real. We all want to believe that someone will walk up to us and tell us they want to take a chance on us but why would they? What incentive would they have to do that if we weren't already sprinting towards them? Most people do not want to take a chance on someone who can not believe in themselves.

That does not mean you don't seek the unattainable. Always try for the moon.

When I was six years old,

I started writing a list of life goals. I was only exposed to a few things when I was six: baseball, star wars and comic books. The first life goal I ever wrote was "Beat Superman."

Why would I write "Beat Superman?" That seems sinister for a six year old. Was I trying to be Lex Luthor? No... And yes.

I did not want to hurt someone who helps people. Superman helps people. I did not want to ruin that. I just felt like, well... Superman has too many powers. He farts and new powers appear. He has ice powers, heat vision, x-ray vision, super strength, his only real weakness is an allergy to a super rare rock. He has won the lottery. He has tons of super powers and few weaknesses. I don't have any powers... but I bet if I want it bad enough, I could beat him in a fight. I believe the same thing Lex Luthor believed. A normal human with enough determination can beat anything. My belief... is my superpower.

So I wrote down this goal. Even with an overdose level of comics and video game in my personal history, I have never come close to feeling like I beat Superman in a fight.

...

It just occurred to me that I could write this out and hire an artist to draw it... DC Comics would never endorse it, but at least I'd have my closure.

... !!

It sounds cheesy, but you have to visualize your goals. You have to be able to smell the wood, see the cottage or picture a person walking on the moon...

It is the only way you're ever going to beat Superman.

Check out this action figure... I said to my Facebook account.

Ok so I really want that action figure. I posted about it on facebook. In the thread a good friend asked me, "How much does that equipment weigh?"

The rant that followed seemed blogworthy. So here goes.

Oh god.

It is hard to remember. I think the regulation ruck on your front weighed 45 to 65 pounds depending on if you were weapon's squad. I can't remember what the t10 delta and reserve weighed. A 240 bravo machine gun was 27.6 pounds...

Let's just say, "damn heavy."

You waddled out of the pack shed because the ruck was so heavy and so low you couldn't move your legs to walk. The complete kit pulled down on your shoulders so your spine hurt as you moved. You maybe had an inch or two of free movement on your legs. That is a big maybe.

So when you saw how far the bird was when you walked out of the shed, you hated your life. It would take about a thousand baby steps to get even halfway there.

The whole time your spine is screaming. Your knees are bruising. Your center of balance feels like you're an avalanche waiting to happen. Somehow some fucking part of the ruck keeps smashing against one of your ankles as you step.

It is so awkward... But after you leap into the blue and are shotgunned out the door, leaving a roar of sound behind... Trees appear below your feet and you dangle between life and infinity for 2 minutes (if you're lucky)...

It all seems worth it.

Then of course the ground rushes towards you as a freeway wall... You smash so hard that the world falls out below you and you swear you can taste your own spinal fluid.

...

I swear to God I miss it.

You name your own demons.

Up until recently, I was pretty cynical.

Everywhere I looked, the demon of negativity would creep up. His skin pockmarked and yellowing, his eyes hollow and wanting. Everything he buried his claws into would erupt with rage and sickness. I could feel him tearing at my skull. When frustrated, I could feel his fists pounding on the backs of my eyes, begging for me to unleash him. Sometimes as I exhaled I could hear his doubt infecting my actions.

I was stuck in a rut.

Most things upset me on most days.

I believed other people were creating my problems. I assumed most people were trying to goad me into fights... When I did let the demon free anyone who stepped in front of his claws, had it coming.

I'm not saying my only problems were internal. That would be idiotic. The world is overcrowding. If you dance in it long enough, someone is going to try and trip you. You will get bruised, and you might even scrape a knee.

Someone is going to take advantage of you.

Someone will even hurt you.

Most likely it will be more than once...

and I'm being completely honest in saying:

you should never make it easy for them.

I don't know if demons are real.

I don't know if they're hideous monsters that snarl and clack their teeth in the shadows. I don't know if they take forms of negativity, rage, doubt and fear. But I do know,

Mankind chose to give demons a name.

Before that they were nameless. They were problems that tripped us up. That doesn't mean they were any less dangerous. People still die from falls. They just seemed less tangible.

Sometimes our falls are traumatic events. Sometimes they are problems. They can even be our own imagined fears.

We give them enough power to become real demons. Creatures that consume us. Make us hate instead of love, desire more instead of being content, fear instead of wonder.

I'm not going to tell you some self-help bullshit

about how "I fixed all my problems by letting my demons go."

My problems didn't go away.

I also don't want to convince you that this thought process will make sinister things, disappear. Evil still exists. The world still suffers from rape, murder and politics.

But me? I stepped back and began trying to be less cynical. Attempting to force out the bad thoughts of doubt, fear and negativity.

I couldn't passively do it either.

Most of us try to do it passively.

People will donate to charities around the holidays because "there are so many needy people." But then assume that if we give cash to a homeless person they will "only buy booze with it."

People will try to be polite to one another but then wish death upon each other while driving down the freeway.

Some of us take people we love for granted.

To distance ourselves from the demons we've named, we have to make a conscious effort to try and think better things. Convince yourself that things are somehow better. Those assholes that try to trip you and those demons that try to eat you from the inside aren't everywhere. They exist less than you think they do.

I did this recently and surprise...

I started to believe it.

My problems didn't vanish.

They're still there attempting to wear me out on a daily basis. They aren't controlling me though. I find myself trying to find positive things with people that get under my skin. I refuse to doubt myself. I try to avoid thinking of insults or excuses for others bad behavior.... or my own... and when it does happen, I accept that I must keep trying.

I can feel light peeking through the darkened skies.

A few doors opened up. My back doesn't feel as sore. I'm definitely happier. Perhaps the biggest improvement is I have hope again. I can see it on the edge of my vision.

I'm starting to create solutions, instead of demons. I feel as though I can solve problems. I feel better.

I hope it will last.

photo credit Aman Deshmukh (flickr)

Accidental romance is best romance.

Date night.

The wife and I had to pick a movie. Her choice? Need for speed. My choice? The new 300.

They aren't particularly romantic movies, but when you have two kids, you take what you can get.

It wasn't that I didn't want to see Need For Speed but, Paul Walker just died a few months ago. I imagine racing movies are going to flop for awhile because of the "Too Soon?" factor.

The wife wound up caving in. We bought tickets for 300. Such a nice wife huh? We went to get a caption bar (because my wife is deaf.) It turns out that the movie theater wasn't offering captioning services on the movie 300. We were both annoyed by this, so we switched our tickets to Need For Speed.

The movie had some goofy acting which felt right for a movie based on a cheesy (but good) car racing game. There were also silly one liners, gorgeous cars and some pretty spectacular racing scenes. I enjoyed it quite a bit. I liked the arcadey feel of the video game series and this movie felt pretty damn close to it.

Then the movie cut to a scene in San Francisco. Two of the main characters are coming to terms with their present and confronting their past... and... hey...

I know that night...

We know that night!?

April 15th of 2013 was beautiful. There is a restaurant that is almost under the Bay Bridge called the WaterBar. It's tagline is that it has the most beautiful view in S.F., and it does. The bay bridge is glowing with L.E.D nights in the early evening. You can see light dancing across the waves.

San Francisco is usually pretty cold. That night was no exception. It was chilly. The wind had a strange static in the air. As if the city was anxious and just aching to whisper "Summer."

That night the wind burst in off the ocean and sprinted through the streets between tall buildings. It sounded like dry linen sheets hung outside too long, on an ancient clothes line at sunset.

The city streets seemed strangely empty that night. Each of the buildings seemed to glow. It was haunting and alluring. Everything felt ethereal... otherworldly. Two people left The Waterbar and strolled down the street. Hand in hand, trying to make their way to their car. A police officer motioning them over, informed them that they, "Couldn't cross the street yet." The reason? "Movie filming."

They had been filming in Northern California since April 3rd 2013. Currently they were filming a pinnacle scene on April 15th, right next to the Waterbar.

That was our wedding night. I remember every single detail about that night. The weather, the view, the sights, and how gorgeous my wife looked.

So we saw Need For Speed tonight, even though we set out to see 300. We weren't expecting romance, just fast cars and cheesy one liners. We wound up seeing the city on our wedding night... on the silver screen. Reliving, for a brief moment, just how beautiful and ethereal SF was that evening. Somehow a racing movie, Need For Speed, became the most romantic date night ever.

First kiss (or how I knew I found my wife)

Man, woman, gay or straight...

you're going to look at this video and gasp when you watch it. It's so sweet and moving.

So they asked 20 strangers to kiss for the first time.

It's so awkward and sweet. I miss my wife so much right now.

This video reminds me of how awkward our first kiss began. We were out at a club dancing, standing near the bathroom of all places. It was teeming with people. It was sweaty. There was too many people. I blinked and leaned forward, without the intention of kissing my wife for the first time (at least not then... I was still too nervous), she took it as a clue and leaned in and kissed me deep.

Somehow the bassy music blurred from sound into streaks of color as the entire room spun around me.

Colors and sound intensified and then overwhelmed me.

Her beauty and sudden confidence was so intoxicating that I almost blacked out.

Someone might tell you it was overwhelming and because I was kissing my future wife... The science of the situation might tell you that my blood was flooding with chemicals. My heart couldn't pump enough oxygen to my brain... Her kiss was too sweet.

When she pulled away from me and looked up into my eyes, I swear... I saw the world snap back into place. Like some DJ had finally lifted his hand off an old school piece of vinyl and the world began belting out a beat again.