Lately, I've found my niche in life. Sure I have written in the past but nothing substantial as my book (The Man With 1000 Friends). I have written my own comics before as a little kid. they started off as picture books. Simple drawings of poorly depicted people and creatures that fought each other and, of course, the good guys always won. I still remember my first picture book I made. It was my understanding of the gospel. God made everyone, they sinned, so Jesus had to come down and fight Satan (which looked like a dragon-lizard thing with a scorpion tale). When they fought, it was in a dust cloud that said "WHAM!" on it. first time Jesus was laying there on the ground with one eye open looking at Satan as he celebrated. Then the next page was another "WHAM!" dust cloud and Jesus came out the winner. It ended with him back in heaven getting a crown from Father God. It was very comical as I grew up and looked back on my kindergarten work of art. Throughout the years i drew another 3 comics. this time they were about me and my best friend at the time, Brett. We had superpowers after a horrific accident in a lab (and it was really gruesome for a 3rd grader to draw, now that I look at it). Arms and legs were separated and the only thing I didn't draw was blood, but it was really bad. One of us got decapitated and everything. Anyways in the end, the docs put us back together and we ended up being able to change into anything we wanted. We could fly, lift really heavy things, and run really fast. Often the villains in those comic books were based off of whoever was picking on us the worse at that time. They all ended up in jail and never got out. My last comic I wrote actually was a comic. It was about a kid who made a rubber suit and made it bullet proof. He could jump great distances like a bouncy ball. his opponent was a variation of the green goblin from spider man. It ended with him getting electrocuted because our hero couldn't be. Quite ironic.
I have come up with a number of superhero through my life. In high school, I came up with Lightning. A young man haunted by the son of a criminal whom his father had killed. It was a new type of superhero story because Jack (the villain) had nothing against Michael (the hero). He just wanted to kill him to make Michael's father suffer like he did after his father's death. As the name suggests, Michael's powers evolve around electro-magnetic energy (lightning, static, magnets, that kind of stuff) as where Jack's cane can absorb energy based powers and he can use them from the cane. We had filmed most of it, but before we could get the final shot, we had to leave the park and take every one home because my parents had a dinner reservation for valentines day (2008... thnx guys) and that next week, the girl playing the girlfriend moved to Cali. So, senior year, we decided to rewrite the movie and make the whole thing in one year, better, less cheesy, everything... we never even finished the script. BUT that didn't stop us! Joe and I kept coming up with new ideas, adding movies to the series, making it into an 8 part series. FOR THE RECORD: We do plan on making them but I will be doing it professionally because it is too big and too graphically sophisticated for hand held cameras and cheesy effects.
Now my "after high school" work has consisted of the final touches of the Lightning Saga and my new book The Man With 1000 Friends. I do plan on getting it published but not yet. I am in the middle of rewriting it and adding chapters. I think I will keep rewriting until I am confident and comfortable with how it is written and all the details in the story. It is about a Senior in high school (Nick Rotial) who meets a girl in his class who has a psychotic ex boyfriend who makes his life a living hell. Will Nick be able to stop Robert (the ex) from ruining their lives and keep the girl in the end? Just keep coming back and reading. It's not close to being done.
Some times I wonder if anyone reads my posts. I would love to have a big following but I don't know who is reading, what random people think of my story. My friends all like it and some want to kill me because I'm not answering questions without asking more, but there are no critics and no one who doesn't like me, reading this that has commented on any of my posts. I wish I had more of a following but I'm willing to wait. As far as I am concerned, even if no one is reading it, that blog poses as a back up to my original copy on my computer. If for some reason My computer crashed, I could always get my book back from the blog. nothing lost except for what i had not posted and usually things come out better the second time you try and write than the first time around. I can't wait to be published and see my book in stores. I would just love to see the peoples reaction to it through the years. Maybe someday, a young and up coming film maker will want to make it into a film. I'll be over seeing the script writing for sure but i would love to see it as a film as well. Will that film maker be me? I don't know. For now I'm happy to just let it be a book. Only the future will tell if it becomes as big as I hope it will.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Poem of the year
For today, I end with this
A chapter in life I may dismiss
The past months have been toil and trouble
My debts have done nothing but double
I start anew each week with a promis
That my past will not demolish
Who I am and what I can be
For the future holds more than I can see
A book returned
An ex forgotten
Our history burned
A love begotten
Of fleshly emotion
Forsaked and broken
Lasts no longer
In my devotion
Don't get me wrong
Your daughter's in my prayers
Though you're gone
I care below many layers
Her safety is key
I pray to God, Almighty
Psalms 41:2
I say to you
The Lord will protect her and keep her alive.
And she shall be called blessed upon the earth.
And keep her from the desires of her enemies.
Amen.
A chapter in life I may dismiss
The past months have been toil and trouble
My debts have done nothing but double
I start anew each week with a promis
That my past will not demolish
Who I am and what I can be
For the future holds more than I can see
A book returned
An ex forgotten
Our history burned
A love begotten
Of fleshly emotion
Forsaked and broken
Lasts no longer
In my devotion
Don't get me wrong
Your daughter's in my prayers
Though you're gone
I care below many layers
Her safety is key
I pray to God, Almighty
Psalms 41:2
I say to you
The Lord will protect her and keep her alive.
And she shall be called blessed upon the earth.
And keep her from the desires of her enemies.
Amen.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Why I am doing this?
I guess I should start by explaining why I would put my memoirs on an open blog. I'm a simple man (in style and pleasures alone) with big plans for the future. I decided to start recording the event's of my life so there would be a written history of my past for future generations to read about. Call me conceited. Call me egocentric. I don't care. I know I'm meant for great things and I might as well prepare for it.
My life started in humble beginnings. My parent's weren't rich or well known, just getting by, living paycheck to paycheck, in a small apartment in Phoenix, Arizona. I was 6 weeks when we moved there from Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I was born, and up until today. This is where we have been living and where I have grown up. I have come a long way from living in a small apartment in a (now) rundown part of town to a pretty nice house on the edge of Phoenix and Scottsdale. I had grown up in private school where my mom worked as a preschool teacher (as she still does today) because it was higher education an since she was an employee, my sister and I got to go for free. All throughout school, I was made fun of for being fat, dumb, dorky, you name it. If you didn't have a torturous childhood that may be because you were torturing some poor nice kid. As I have had extensive experience with this, I can honestly say, there is no enemy more malicious than a kid with poor self image bent on knocking down others. Some say bully, I say terrorist. There were days I came home crying as hard as I could because a group of kids would not leave me alone. Now, I'm a big guy. Always have been. I was the tallest in my class all through school (minus high school and 4th grade) and now, at 6'4", I could probably take on any one that crosses me. My only leash that kept me from sending kids to the hospital was my wonderfully kind, caring, and fun loving personality. Now I see it as a blessing but back then I saw it as a curse. All I wanted to do was unleash hell on them all, but, alas, I couldn't bring myself to do it.
It took me 4 years from the time I had left that school in 6th grade, when the school went under financially, to figure out who I was, and to see that I had worth. Even though I had a caring disposition, I still felt it was better to be feared than loved, because that seemed easier to do. My awkward years were these 4 years from 7th grade through sophomore year in high school (Go Trojans!). (One day I will summarize my high school years but for now this has been my life in a nut shell.)
During high school, I was going to an awesome youth group, meeting great friends, and dealing with life drama. Which was nice for a change! My group of friends had expanded from my long time best friend, Brett, since 1st grade and a handful of girls who were nice to me, to 20 to 30 new, different, and in some cases, weird people that liked me because of who I was. My "avoid" group (the people who lived to make my life a living hell) shrunk from an entire class ahead of me and all of the boys in my class, to one (ok maybe like 3 or 4, but only one that I was at odds with), and that one kid is a WHOLE other story (pretty much my high school summary). It was great. Honestly, my years in high school really formed who I am today (as I type this).
I was never really a good student. I learned everything I needed to in class and would pass tests easily. Homework always seemed like a waist of time. The only academic class I passed with a B or higher was my Geometry class, second semester sophomore year. Our teacher was great (minus his overly ridiculous monotone voice). He was funny, to a point, and he never graded homework because he figured if you did it, you would pass the tests. A lot of kids failed that class because they relied to heavily on the homework but I passed the tests like they were nothing. Because my grades were so low, the class schedulers (whoever picks classes for the kids) kept putting me in dumb classes. I got bored, didn't do anything, resulting in low grades... again. "So, what was it?" They probably asked themselves. "Was it that he just got bored or was he needing to be in a lower class than that?"Any papers I turned in showed skills that were above most of the rest of the class, rating my writing skill at a college level. Even my reading was over and above (well the little reading I did at least). My spelling and math were the only skills that were lacking but I would still ace tests so, that begged the question, "why isn't he trying?" To this day I am still not sure if I can correctly answer that question. My parents were at a loss. they tried everything they could think of to motivate me but I would rather think of a new story to write, or draw, or fantasize about girls in my classes than do my homework. My level of caring just wasn't high enough and there was little, if anything short of risk of dropping out, that could change that. it wasn't until my Senior English teacher told me thow bad I was doing in her class, that last semester, that I really felt the hole I had dug my self into. After the last two weeks of after school catch up with past assignments and my teachers having great mercy on me and my grades, I finally passed all of my classes (thank God a D is passing) and the Pride and sense of acoplishment I felt as I walked with my class was so amazing, words fail to describe them.
Now that I am in college I hope that this lack of interest has left me and I plan on pursuing my classes with the utmost priority. From once where i was taking classes because I needed to, to now taking classes because I want to, my expectations are higher and my outlook on education has brightened. Even as I type this, I am proud of my writing skills and I enjoy reading what I have written. I look forward to my career as a screenwriter and hope that the future holds new and exciting things for me. I am exhilarated by the fact that this day, I am taking the first steps into my destiny and I embrace every moment of it.
My life started in humble beginnings. My parent's weren't rich or well known, just getting by, living paycheck to paycheck, in a small apartment in Phoenix, Arizona. I was 6 weeks when we moved there from Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I was born, and up until today. This is where we have been living and where I have grown up. I have come a long way from living in a small apartment in a (now) rundown part of town to a pretty nice house on the edge of Phoenix and Scottsdale. I had grown up in private school where my mom worked as a preschool teacher (as she still does today) because it was higher education an since she was an employee, my sister and I got to go for free. All throughout school, I was made fun of for being fat, dumb, dorky, you name it. If you didn't have a torturous childhood that may be because you were torturing some poor nice kid. As I have had extensive experience with this, I can honestly say, there is no enemy more malicious than a kid with poor self image bent on knocking down others. Some say bully, I say terrorist. There were days I came home crying as hard as I could because a group of kids would not leave me alone. Now, I'm a big guy. Always have been. I was the tallest in my class all through school (minus high school and 4th grade) and now, at 6'4", I could probably take on any one that crosses me. My only leash that kept me from sending kids to the hospital was my wonderfully kind, caring, and fun loving personality. Now I see it as a blessing but back then I saw it as a curse. All I wanted to do was unleash hell on them all, but, alas, I couldn't bring myself to do it.
It took me 4 years from the time I had left that school in 6th grade, when the school went under financially, to figure out who I was, and to see that I had worth. Even though I had a caring disposition, I still felt it was better to be feared than loved, because that seemed easier to do. My awkward years were these 4 years from 7th grade through sophomore year in high school (Go Trojans!). (One day I will summarize my high school years but for now this has been my life in a nut shell.)
During high school, I was going to an awesome youth group, meeting great friends, and dealing with life drama. Which was nice for a change! My group of friends had expanded from my long time best friend, Brett, since 1st grade and a handful of girls who were nice to me, to 20 to 30 new, different, and in some cases, weird people that liked me because of who I was. My "avoid" group (the people who lived to make my life a living hell) shrunk from an entire class ahead of me and all of the boys in my class, to one (ok maybe like 3 or 4, but only one that I was at odds with), and that one kid is a WHOLE other story (pretty much my high school summary). It was great. Honestly, my years in high school really formed who I am today (as I type this).
I was never really a good student. I learned everything I needed to in class and would pass tests easily. Homework always seemed like a waist of time. The only academic class I passed with a B or higher was my Geometry class, second semester sophomore year. Our teacher was great (minus his overly ridiculous monotone voice). He was funny, to a point, and he never graded homework because he figured if you did it, you would pass the tests. A lot of kids failed that class because they relied to heavily on the homework but I passed the tests like they were nothing. Because my grades were so low, the class schedulers (whoever picks classes for the kids) kept putting me in dumb classes. I got bored, didn't do anything, resulting in low grades... again. "So, what was it?" They probably asked themselves. "Was it that he just got bored or was he needing to be in a lower class than that?"Any papers I turned in showed skills that were above most of the rest of the class, rating my writing skill at a college level. Even my reading was over and above (well the little reading I did at least). My spelling and math were the only skills that were lacking but I would still ace tests so, that begged the question, "why isn't he trying?" To this day I am still not sure if I can correctly answer that question. My parents were at a loss. they tried everything they could think of to motivate me but I would rather think of a new story to write, or draw, or fantasize about girls in my classes than do my homework. My level of caring just wasn't high enough and there was little, if anything short of risk of dropping out, that could change that. it wasn't until my Senior English teacher told me thow bad I was doing in her class, that last semester, that I really felt the hole I had dug my self into. After the last two weeks of after school catch up with past assignments and my teachers having great mercy on me and my grades, I finally passed all of my classes (thank God a D is passing) and the Pride and sense of acoplishment I felt as I walked with my class was so amazing, words fail to describe them.
Now that I am in college I hope that this lack of interest has left me and I plan on pursuing my classes with the utmost priority. From once where i was taking classes because I needed to, to now taking classes because I want to, my expectations are higher and my outlook on education has brightened. Even as I type this, I am proud of my writing skills and I enjoy reading what I have written. I look forward to my career as a screenwriter and hope that the future holds new and exciting things for me. I am exhilarated by the fact that this day, I am taking the first steps into my destiny and I embrace every moment of it.
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