Weird. This blog post, title above, popped up on my Facebook because I posted it there nine years ago today, 8/3/2016. Reading it made me realize I had never posted here, just on Medium. It’s trippy to re-read something from an era when we were like, “Welp…I guess he’s the GOP nominee, but no way Spoiled Hitler can win, right?” And here we are today. Jesus Christ. Check this out, venture back in time:

We’ll get the book plugs out of the way. There’s this one. And its sequel. And this free story. And my non-fiction writing.

Okay. Let’s begin.

Wow… trying to be a creative person in an age where movie trailers get mindfucked on the Internet. By lazy people who have shut down the curious parts of their brains because we are in an age of looming fascism.

Wow…

I have a theory that the 1% trained the masses to look away from offshore accounts and rich peoples’ lower tax rates by telling the masses to direct their anger at the art world. Bringing in the movie trailer thought, rich folks own Hollywood and make the decisions, but they positioned creative people to take the heat.

Example: remakes. Hollywood rich people run the numbers, brainstorm lists of actors with maximum box office draw, weigh the nostalgia/kitsch benefits, then decide which part of peoples’ childhoods they will ruin next. The genius here is that rich people call the shots, but real creative people have to carry out their vision while also taking the heat for it.

Hollywood is like rich folks’ approach to capitalism: privatize profits, socialize losses. In entertainment-land, the drill is to privatize box office hits, socialize the duds.

We may be in an age of oligarchy. Finance dildos might have too much authority. Government is possibly a bought-and-paid-for joke. Sociopathic techbros could be ripping us off while delivering inferior products.

But I can’t complain.

While technology allows lazy, scared pinheads to anonymously sling hate towards artistic souls baring a bit of themselves, technology also allowed me to produce three different books and make them available everywhere. The same Internet that some use to attack people from behind a screen allows me to communicate on a grander scale.

(I talk shit on the Internet, too. I just use my own name or a link to my books’ Facebook page, where my name is.)

It’s been a ride since I self-published Fearkiller 1, in 2012. It was cool to finish and be excited to write more books. I started out not putting many expectations on the exercise, only that I wanted to finish, for it to be the best story it could be, and lastly, worthy of its title. It was a nice feeling: finishing, getting friends’ reads, rewriting, feeling like Fearkiller 1 fulfilled the criteria I had set, hiring an editor, having someone design a book cover, making it available — then wanting to do it all over again.

If I ended the book feeling like I crossed an item off the bucket list and never wanted to write another word, that would have been cool as well. But I’m glad I enjoy doing this.

One of the biggest rushes I’ve experienced comes from conversations with readers. Whether it’s people who like my work or people who dislike my work, I feel honored when someone tells me that they’ve read my work.

Years ago, I heard that Herman Wouk wrote well into his nineties. I loved hearing that. Know why? That guy’s 90+ storyteller mind was probably in amazing shape. Fit. Lean. Strong. Full of stamina. Ageless.

Wouk had gone about the process of writing so many times, for however many decades, it didn’t matter that his body was old. Sure, he probably couldn’t write all day (I don’t put pen to paper longer than 3–4 hours). But that experienced mind probably didn’t make the mistakes that a rookie like me makes. He got to the gold quicker and didn’t mess around. An old pro, TCB.

And I’m positive it didn’t feel like it was work to the guy. I am experienced enough to understand that you need to be having tons of fun while you go about being artistic. Even with frustration or the hard work or emotional overload, most of the time a writer and other artists should be enjoying the heck out of themselves as they are cranking out their goodness.

Rare thing these days, people enjoying the heck out of themselves.

Well, people enjoy sports, or bragging about a vision of themselves, or gossiping about someone else’s misfortune. But not many people enjoy their own company.

After finishing my book and trying to be sociable, people freaked me out.

That book was inspired by ugly white-collar white folks — people who live in fear to stay employed and say “thank God I have a job” way too often. 

From my part-time jobs since leaving Corporate America, I’ve learned how much tougher it can be for poorer folks and non-whites — and especially poorer non-whites. But these folks don’t go through life filled with hopelessness like ugly white-collar white people.

That first book was about when a fairly privileged person’s soul turns ugly.

Know what group became sadly annoying after I self-published that first book? 

Ugly white-collar white folks.

And when I say “sadly annoying”, they skew more towards the “sad” side than the “annoying” side.

Though it can be aggravating when a person who has no desire to read my books tries to have a debate with me about them, sooner or later their unhappiness at their own lot in life shows itself.

Along with subjects like fearmongering and panic, I researched willful ignorance while writing Fearkiller 1.

While I was writing the first book, I never ever thought I would meet people who didn’t want to read my story but still wanted to “offer a critique” or “hear the overall story so they could play devil’s advocate for me”.

People who say this type of stuff with serious looks on their faces, like they could contribute something valuable to my writing without actually reading it, I didn’t know these types of people existed — or that I knew so many.

I wonder if writers in past eras dealt with people trying to preach to them that “people don’t read anymore”. Before the Internet, did people say that?

But folks who tell me that phrase the most — as adamant as they are, these folks still want to know my stories. The intrigue is there. The curiosity isn’t dead. If the curiosity no longer existed, I’d have to figure out something else to do with my time.

There is just this idea that they don’t have to read the story.

(Side note: if you write a book, you will receive a new take on people who have binge-watched everything on Netflix but haven’t cracked a book in years. The ones who equate watching lots of TV to earning a Ph.D. in English, yeah. They think you’re supposed to pitch them the story in 10 seconds or less and they’ll tell you if they’ve “seen” it before. And they are 100% serious when they ask you to do this.)

If fascism sinks its meathooks into us for reals, my theory is that curiosity and intrigue will be gone.

At that point, I’ll freak out.

And here we are, nine years later. Jesus Christ. Earlier posts:
• Are you in your twenties and wondering what’s up with your parents?
• A gigantic thank you, from me to Rush Limbaugh.
• The USA will so rock at this fascism thing.
• The 1% need a tax increase. Their souls cry out for it.
• Open letter to a selfie of my drunk-ass self, taken on August 11th, 2001.

I write fiction and have two dark comedies available, Fearkiller (Volume 1) and Notes from Trillionaire Island: Fearkiller (Volume 2), as well as Revolutionizer Alpha, the first book in a sci-fi series. I also wrote a story about God. It was weird, but then I decided to make the story and its sequel free. And all of the sudden, it didn’t seem as weird. Writing about God is much less weird when you write about God without charging money for it. Here’s my professional site, my trade. Follow me on Medium.