Now that you’ve read the above definition, forget it.

Forget you ever saw it. The words after it, too.

Back to reality. October, 2014.

(Or 2018, if you are reading the updated version.)

We just heard this “fearkiller” word. Let’s think about this word.

Cue dramatic music. That guy who does all the trailers that need his moody, throaty voice starts to speak.

“In a world full of men of color and females of all races gaining seats at the decision-making table… there he was…

First… they destroyed his job. Then… they executed his truck. Then… they murdered his house. Now…

Fearkiller is getting his revenge.”

We cast some white guy, handsome-ish. Stockyish.

“Will he use the trusty axe that was once his father’s axe, or will Fearkiller stalk the bad guys with his fireball-shooting bazooka? Only Fearkiller knows…”

His ex-wife—the one who will take him back after she sees that Fearkiller’s brand of manhood is irreplacable—we’ll make her around his age. Maybe—maybe since this is 2014—we cast a Hispanic or Asian—

Nope. Just got a call from the Finance guys. Need the actress to be white, too.

(Also: the Finance guys are thinking that, maybe, the fireball-shooting bazooka isn’t quite right. What if Fearkiller stalks the socialists using a Rocket Propelled Grenade launcher that Fearkiller took off the body of a terrorist back when he was in the Special Forces? This is the same terrorist that killed his Special Forces buddy, Chainsaw—we know we’re adding another character/plot point, but the studio’s parent company’s stock had a good quarter. Budget got increased—hey, new thought—maybe every time Fearkiller executes a baddie he whispers, “This is for you, Chainsaw”—what do you think?)

Can’t you just see that story?

Put some CGI in this rat bastard, along with some high-adrenaline, radio-friendly music—

And now…

I gotta say something:

I wish I lived in a world where the first definition would be the one that naturally came to everyone’s mind instead of the second movie idea.

The average person in this world would hear the word “fearkiller” and think of, say a doctor or a teacher.

Getting touchy-feely here, but I like the idea of a world where you could hear something like, “Seven-year-old Billy jumped off the diving board for the first time today. He was a real fearkiller.”

A person would hear another say this, and not feel a temptation to be snarky and biting with a response. (Snark is a defense mechanism of the fearful.)

Basically, a world where fear doesn’t live in the collective headspace like it does right now.

That’s my driver for writing the Fearkiller series.

The word itself is about taking negatives and turning them into a positive—not a super-charged negative.

Fearkiller (Volume 1) is, partially, about a guy who begins the story in the frame of mind that would embrace the second fearkiller idea, then he learns that the first concept is more accurate.

Unfortunately, he committed the unforgivable sin as the first step towards learning this fact. Which was a good character for helping arrive at the positive meaning. He gets to tell the reader everything from the point of view of a true outsider.

All of us are inside the circle, he isn’t any longer. He can look in a window and see all of us from points of view we can’t see.

(I’m not giving anything away. The murder is early.)

Since I put the book out, people have asked me why this guy had to be a killer and the reason is that I needed an outsider to look back at that decade and its unique strain of fear.

As I was writing the first draft of Volume 1 back in April–May 2010, the Tea Party was in its infancy. The ugly energy that swept the GOP to win big in 2010 was ramping up. (They won that election by deploying an insidious, racist, sexist, awful strain of fear.) This was back when Donald Trump still had plenty of listeners when he questioned our president’s birth certificate.

Plus, our defense mechanisms to fight all of this weren’t as built up as they are now.

This was back when we all still went to bed shocked about the events of the day.

On top of all of the ugly energy from the world stage, we were stressed about jobs and earning money. That energy brought out all sorts of ugliness from people back then.

When I began Fearkiller (Volume 1), all I had was a word that wasn’t the word it appeared to be on the surface. I wanted to dig for the meaning. And here we are, I just put the sequel out.

Time flies.

I want to say more and blog more about both Fearkiller (Volume 1) and Notes from Trillionaire Island: Fearkiller (Volume 2) in the next few weeks.

**2018 update: The Fearkiller Two Volume Set is now available. Get both books in one Kindle. I am donating $.50 from each purchase to Rock the Vote.

But thanks for listening to this post. I’ve been wanting to say this thought about the word fearkiller for a while.

Long story short:

The world has enough negative words.

This word “fearkiller” isn’t one of them.