Heartwork

It's been more that 25 years since we last saw each other. I've been told that you died 20 years ago, when we were 16.

I hope that this is not true. I cannot find proof. Neither can I find proof that you even existed.

I hold hope deep within my heart that some day I will find you again. From the moment we met I always felt you in my heart. I hope it would be the same way again, because I don't remember your face.

It is possible that what I recall is an absolutely correct recollection of shared emotion, desire, and connectivity. But what if it isn't? What if you appear in my life to tell me differently. To tell me that I didn't mean as much to you. To tell me that you have had to hide your identity to hide from me. To tell me that I must remove any reference of you from my creation.

This is a morbid fantasy that I hold onto.

What a sick creature I am. I use the imagined romance of my childhood to fuel an equally fantastic idea of perfection. It ruins the possibility of creating new relationships. It destroys any romantic relationship I enter into.

You continue to be my Succubus. But are you of my own design?

I am sure, that if you are real and if you are dead, then you would not wish this upon me. You would want me to find happiness.

And if you are false. . .

Promise me, Kara, that when I die, I will get to see you again. If only for a moment.

I want to say that I miss you. Or that I love you.

But all I can say is that I want you.

I am sorry. No matter how many people I surround myself with, I am still lonely.

Screaming Allowed

The titles to my blog posts are never misspelled.

It is always intentional.

Similar to the title of this blog as well as the story - a double meaning and interpretation.

*                           *                            *

   Beyond the broken glass of the office window and into the darkened cavity that contained the office itself stood Don Mario Rossi. In his hand and just inches away from his face he held firmly to the crowbar that, just moments before, had ruptured the window towards him.

   Forcefully, Mario throws the crowbar into the floor with a loud clang. He peers down onto the warehouse floor room and into the eyes of his aggressor. Without breaking his stare, Don Rossi motions for those in the office to exit.

   Grabbing the edges of the window frame, he calls down to the masked specter, "You dare to come to my party and demand a dance with death? Never one to turn down a beautiful lady, I will oblige you. But I must warn you, reaper: if you fall out of step then it will be your soul that is claimed this night.

*                           *                            *

Ugh.

To tired to go on right now.

Meh, I tried.

Maybe I'll use this title another time.

Emotion Sickness

This.

This here touched that certain part of me that makes me revert to Mr. Sensitivity.

First, I need to say that I have no idea who to credit for the picture. It is not a creation of mine.

Next, I teared up initially at the sight of this.

The more I look at it, the more it grabs my heart and squeezes.
I have even reverted to hiding the image so that I may compose myself.

I imagine this (fictional) scenario:

Soft, gentle, unassuming comfort device who is bravely and confidently squaring off against something that looks to be more than his match.

As an equal.

And without the history associated with these objects, we would assume that it is hopeless. That the bear would assuredly lose.

Yet, if we think for a moment that this could be a possibility - that this may be happening each night, then we  must consider that the bear was victorious.

That with odds such as these stacked against him, we woke up each day. And he was unscathed.

Perfectly fine. His expression unchanged and definitely no worse.

He has either held his own and he will have to do it again tonight or he defeated it.

Wow

I can only hope to instill such a reaction with my own creations.

Commitmentality

Do not take this as some journal logging how I am actively working at page creation and story progression. This is merely my attempt to stay engaged with a life's goal.

I continue to think of this 'project' in the terms of eventuality not definity.

I keep thinking that this will all be finished eventually.

I should be doing.

Definitively.

Continuously.

Kara used to nag me, and not in the ways that frustrate a person.

She was just always there creeping up from my psyche.

She was my muse,

and my succubus.

She would drain me and leave me exhausted but never without also leaving me with a sense of accomplishment.

I speak of her in the past tense not because she is dead, even though that is a fact, but because I have not felt that connection to her recently.

This saddens me.

It fills me with doubt and self loathing.

She has every right. I have not been strong enough.

Not physically.

Not mentally.

Not even my spirit has been enough to keep her tethered to me.

I am just a man with a pretty good idea.

 The story sucks, though.

I need help.

But I am not, nor will I, ask for it.

I do not know what pride is to know if I have too much of it to swallow, but I have been told that my horse is rather tall and I should get down from it.

Unrelated.

At least not directly.

Rediscover Letter

I did not write over the weekend. I did not draw in the same time span either. I will say that it was due to reasserting how old I am.

I had my most immediate children over and spent time wrestling and running with as well as carrying them  and a football around. We also threw the football around... a lot.

I am either beginning to feel how old I actually am, or just how much out of shape I am. Either way I felt it all today. Sore lower back and shoulder are my lingering reminders. Come to think of it, it could really be the post-accident soreness I am feeling. You see, I was dashing to snag a beautiful pass from my son when my foot caught the stem sprinkler and ruined my stride. I half ran into and half collided with the cedar fence. My head received a nice goose egg bruise and my arm (having been in an awkward angle to catch the ball and myself in fall) was very difficult to move for a bit. And me, knowing how impressionable kids can be, muscled through the pain and stiffness.

A father is a child's assessment of what 'men' are supposed to be.

I did draw, if you can call it that, with the picture from my previous post.

Ah, who am I kidding? I erased a majority of the darker lines because the perspective still did not look right. I have sketched it in a bit more to try and find a visually pleasing and personally satisfying concept. These sketches are my primary outlet for drawing, instead of the actually story, because the time I find to do them coincide with time that I am spending with customers to resolve their issues. I will not distract from those I am trying to help by working on something that means so incredibly much to me and that requires my dedicated attention.

I may, when I feel comfortable with the visual character concept, work towards page layouts and storyline pacing while at work.

For now, I am rediscovering my love of the story and character.

Remedial Remedies

I find myself being told to stop worrying about the details and just do it. That the only person who needs to approve my work is myself. I need to just get down to business and create the monster.

Since my plan is to publish after the entire story is completed, I will have time to look back at the beginning pages and modify where necessitated by later ones. I can even work backwards and rearrange. It is all up to me. 

I attempt to excuse myself from excuses by justifying reasons instead.

The truth: I am lazy and creatively distracted.

When I was wrestling over the idea of scripting the complete story, someone I look up to sent me a link to a comic book writer who stated (quite plainly) "You are writing to have your ideas interpreted by your artist."

Since I am one and the same, what excuse do I have now?

I am lazy and creatively distracted.

Excuses. Excuses.

I will attempt to write and draw something everyday.

I make no promises, because I am lazy and creatively distracted.

Hollow Eve

There is a point in your life where you will think to yourself, "Self, Things have gotten out of control. Let's take some time to get it all under control."

One year later, you look back and wonder if you actually accomplished anything.

Is anything different? Is anything really under control?

What have you done with yourself?

This time last year, I expected to be hard at work fighting through the publishing obstacles.This year, I find myself no closer than I was the previous.

Since my last post, I have broken up with my girlfriend due to an aspect of her life that I new about in advance but attempted to deal with and accept/tolerate.I found that I could not. And, frankly, should not have needed to. The creative stimulation was very favorable. The moral torture was not. I put myself 'out there' to be judged and put up for evaluation. I found that I passed the test but the cost to my own moral fiber left me spiritually devastated.

I moved away from the place I had become very comfortable with. I benefited by having more personal freedom and having to take more personal responsibility for my own well  being. I gained the ability to be able to connect more with my children who are closest to me. And,as any parent will tell you, found less time for myself. The plights of a single father removed from his offspring is a whole other rant and I will save you from it (for now).

My 'real job' has been stagnant. The day-to-day grind of helping other people fix their phones gets to me. I find it difficult to empathize with elitists who have entitlement issues. Case in point: A woman is not able to call one number on her contact list and it is returning an error message that all circuits are busy. She feels that our company should reimburse her for the 'good money' she pays the company for service. She is calling in on her cell phone and does not have another number to be reached at. She refuses to perform the most rudimentary troubleshooting and demands that we fix it. 30 minutes into the call is when we realize that the number she is trying to reach is clear across the country in New York. Hurricane stricken - disaster relief efforts in effect - emergency services working around the clock- New York. Eat your humble pie and reevaluate your life.

The company has taken to ranking our success purely based upon the customer's opinion. This has increased the stress levels all around especially for someone who places a lot of value in other people's perceptions. Who cares if I spent an hour reprogramming your service and blatantly going against company policies - do you FEEL that I did good? Do you want to friend me on Facebook now?

This has caused an onset of severe rectal glaucoma. Periods where I wake up and can't see my ass coming into work. There are some days, we can all admit to it, where you don't want to deal with other people's issues. Friends? Sure you will. But faceless American greed? Nah, not today.

And this missing of scheduled work time has lowered me in the rankings despite the fact that upper management wants to promote me. I am tired of the job itself but cannot promote until I buckle down and just do it.

Immediate stress clouds future successes.

This, all combined, has lead to a heavier reliance on immediate gratification. Overspending on hobbies and hours lost with online gaming. I am sorry, Kara... Venge... Friends...

Maybe this will make it up a bit:

I have been playing around with the idea of having the Reaper Blades manifest from the palms of his hands. It has been problematic, but I am happy with the concept.

And I need losts of work with perspective angles. Here is a sketchy bit with some of the concepts integrated.

Maybe I will find myself engaged in this more strictly in the future.

Maybe the zombies will get us first...

Inspiracy

Another month gone by the wayside.

Nothing additional to show for it but the love and affection of another.

It is not that I do not appreciate that sort of attention (quite the contrary), it is just that I do not feel completed yet.

No, not incomplete, just not completed.

My dreams are still only captured images from REM sleep.

My story, the story of Venge, is a haunting, creative tease.

Free time begets play time. Playtime is not productive. Free time is fleeting.

It is fulfilling to claim that I am some sort of aspiring graphic novelist.

I will go on at length about the story to be told.

But this, is delusional.

The church used to sponsor artists to create great works of art.

Today, quantity is more rewarding than quality.

I lack either.

I currently work a job to work towards my goal.

When, in actuality, I work towards maintaining my health (mental and physical).

While my spiritual health is failing.

What I want and what I get are rarely the same.

And what I need is only minimal.

I maintain that I may not be the right guy to create this...

but I'm the only guy who can.

Inspiring Against Me

It's been over a month since I last posted.

Things to note that have prevented me from posting:

Computer caught a nasty virus and locked me out of administrator permissions.

Spending most of my free time with my new girlfriend.

Gaining more responsibilities at work.

Stretching myself across to many hobbies.

But these are the excuses. I know that I control my involvement in each of these.

Things to note that have  moved me closer to my goals:

Created myself a visual/graphic outline of my story. I have charted it out with major plot points per issue as well as the characters involved and for how long. This has given me the greatest amount of satisfaction since the story and it's progression have been the hardest for me to organize.

Watching a massive amount of Anime's on Netflix have given me a collection of inspired costumes.

One of the above mentioned hobbies have also given me inspired costumes as well as the opportunity to exercise my artistic side while painting model figurines.

The later two items have brought about a revamping of SanGwen's look. I have included them both below for your enjoyment. They are sketchy and neither one is something that I am willing to throw my signature (artist tag) onto, yet. The second one is closer to her new look.