Last weekend, I posted about sea turtles and there only being 7 species in the world. This got me thinking about other animals. So, I went looking for animals that don’t have the variety one would imagine. I didn’t have much luck, but then I remembered there is a VERY endangered animal out there. One that is awesome and I just wanted to make a post about them.
Click on that for the actual ‘Save the Rhinos’ site. The page lists the 5 species out there with three critically endangered, one vulnerable, and the last near threatened. There’s also the Northern White Rhino, but there are only 2 females left in a Czech zoo. So, that subspecies is ‘functionally extinct’. All because humans wanted their horns and tore down their environment. That’s it. Humans are entirely to blame for this one and there’s no way around it.
So, what are the 5 species?
Black Rhino (Critically Endangered)
Population: 5,366 to 5,627
Sumatran Rhino (Critically Endangered)
Population: <80
Javan Rhino (Critically Endangered)
Population: 75
Indian Rhinoceros aka Greater One-Horned Rhino (Vulnerable)
Population: 3,588
Southern White Rhino (Near Threatened)
Population: 17,212 to 18,915
Northern White Rhino (Functionally Extinct)
Population: 2 Females, which is why they are Functionally Extinct.
I have no writing news because this past week was rough. I feel like I said that last weekend, but it stands again. The stress was high and the fatigue was higher, so I’m just resting up this weekend.
Why was this week trying to kill me? Because it’s nearing the end of the quarter, so work is very busy. Needed to do a lot of juggling and didn’t have much time to gather my thoughts until I left. Of course, I would then come home to all of the schoolwork my son had since he’s nearing the end of the quarter too. Add in his chorus concert and last weekend having a ton of unexpected assignments. I’m genuinely surprised that I didn’t collapse in a hallway.
My appetite was small except for Wednesday night, so I guess the stress was putting me in survival mode. I’m still twitchy too. That’s why I did all of my coursework last night. I need a weekend where I don’t have anything heavy to worry about. Just a little character designing, April blog post prep, video games, and television. Nothing more than gathering my energy for the last week of the quarter. I might print out Slumberlord Chronicles: Darwin & the Fate Bracelet too. Not that I’ll have any time to edit until the following week if then. Might be nice to simply have a manuscript nearby for comfort.
Not being able to write even a little really got to me. It’s still getting to me since I have no projects in the fire. Do I Need to Use a Dragon? (Fantasy Writing Tips) is on the way to get art, but that won’t be ready until the fall or winter. I’m fine with that. My plan was to write and get things ready for next year. Yet, I see no sales have happened in a month. War of Nytefall: Eulogy only sold 6 copies, which is much less than the amount of people who told me they bought a copy. At this point, I know some are lying and I have no audience. I can’t afford promos and have no author group or the time to join one. All dreams and aspirations in this arena have been sealed away because I’ve just entered survival mode:
Don’t starve. Keep clean. Take care of son. Make money. Stay alive.
There aren’t many other urges in me lately and I don’t know how much longer that’s going to go on for. It makes me irritable and numb at the same time. Especially after knowing a few of the things that brought me to this point happened behind my back and beyond my control. This is why positive platitudes and suggestions set me off too. I’m not in any position to just change course because jettisoning my stressors means sacrificing other things that are important to me. I can’t be selfish if it results in causing another type of pain. Of course, there’s no sense of understanding around me, so I’m getting the platitudes and lectures from every corner.
This is why I’m using my weekends to recover. The course I’m taking takes up some time, but not enough that I can’t veg. Maybe I’ll finish the rest of the Phi Beta rivals or just play more Pirate Warriors 3. At the very least, I’ll get through the rest of ‘What We Do in the Shadows’. I’m enjoying that more than expected. I’ll grab another small anime after that like ‘Afro Samurai’ since I never say all 6 episodes. I mean, it’s Samuel L. Jackson voicing a samurai, which was cool when I first saw parts of it. Can’t go wrong there.
By my estimate, I have to make it 3 weeks. Next week is the last of the quarter and then a busy weekend. Then, it’s the first week of a new quarter with a day off and meetings. After that, I have a full week, but an important meeting. Then, I’ve got no other heavy things until March, which starts the 6.5 weeks without a break. That might be my editing time and I’ll use the February break to fine tune the next two Slumberlord outlines. If that can even be done since Darwin is so much of an x-factor that my plans fall apart once he takes action. I’m trying so hard to be happy and optimistic here, but the other books just dying and failing has me cynical. Scared to even try to find beta readers due to Darwin’s methods too. I doubt everything I imagine now.
Need to find a way to relax today, so I’ll bring this pity party to an end. Maybe next weekend will be more upbeat, but I’m not holding my breath. I’m in for a rough week and a busy weekend.
Not really on board with the picture just yet, but searching for a divorce meme is rather brutal. It’s either ‘the woman is free’ or some sappy, hallmark-style saying. Both categories felt like they weren’t right for how I’m feeling. Well, I’m writing this in November, so I might not be feeling this way when I get to today. Then again, I’ve been frustrated by this for a while.
I’ve noticed that people have a weird way of jumping to conclusions or simply ignoring divorces. For example, it’s common for people to assume that my ex-wife has full custody of our son while I’m barely in the picture. So, when I show up or start pointing out that I’m involved, I get apologies and confusion. Other situations I’ve run into don’t work with divorced couples at all. It puts us in a position where we have to either work together or one can eliminate the other from participating. Sadly, my ex-wife and I don’t typically fall into that first choice as often as we should. I’m sure many exes are like that too, so it’s frustrating when there isn’t any thought given to divorce.
The truth is that divorce is much more common and co-parenting is gaining more ground as time moves on. It isn’t like the old days where mother gets the kids and father only shows up for a few holidays and the occasional weekend. A big reason for this is because men have become more involved in child-rearing. Back when I was a kid, the concept of a stay-at-home father was a joke or sign that the man was weak. Now, it’s a common practice and shows that men can raise children as well. Of course, I still get strange looks in public and people still talked to my ex-wife as if I wasn’t doing anything, so we still have a long way to go. My point though is that men are more involved in child-rearing, which changes how divorces go. Yet, people always jump to the conclusion that it’s the mother running the show with the father along for the ride or absent.
I think fiction doesn’t help here either. See, I am bringing this back around to writing in some fashion. Divorce with children in fiction typically seems to fall into 2 categories:
Comedy where the newly single parent with the kids is struggling to survive and antics ensue. This makes the whole ordeal feel like a wild adventure full of laughs, which some people take as reality. It may touch on the seriousness at one point, but it doesn’t last long. If it’s a show then the next episode will be back to formula. This is also where you tend to find your single, bumbling father scenarios to push on the idea that men have no idea how to parent.
Drama where you see a few scenarios. Woman is free of bad relationship and is living her life, but evil ex-husband is still lurking. Parent is struggling to hold onto the kids with much less stress and obstacles than you would find in reality. There are more, but this is where you may find the more realistic and varied portrayal of divorce. Still, I do feel that it’s rare to see it shown from the ex-husband father perspective unless they’re the bad guy or need to be shown how they mature.
Touching on that last bit some more. I have become aware that divorce stories do tend to put the blame and negativity on the husband. Either they were too immature or working all the time, but the reason for the divorce does tend to get put on the male’s shoulder. I do see how this happens a lot in the real world, but fiction making this the only scenario results in people thinking it’s always the case. So, people assume and it causes problems when you have a co-parenting situation. For example, the father will be left out of the loop on education or medical information even if they are legally supposed to be included. This can force the father to call and demand such things out of frustration, which makes them come off as unhinged. It can all be avoided if people remember they are dealing with a divorced, joint custody couple and make sure that they include both as long as that is the custody agreement.
Going to the opposite side, there’s also the idea that if parents are co-parenting then they are getting along. Not always the case. It could be that neither parent could be seen as better for the child than the other and it was determined that both are needed. It could be that it was an agreed upon arrangement, but relationships can sour even when the child’s welfare is at stake. You never know how well communication is going, so don’t assume it is amicable. That parent you talk to could be angry at the other for one reason and decide not to share the information you just gave them. It’s immature and selfish, but it’s something that happens.
Now, I want to make it clear that I’m not saying these scenarios are what I’ve gone through. I have dealt with people assuming I’m an absent father since the divorce and I’ve had to fight to be included in things. That’s what brought on this post, including a few situations that were fine for married people, but a power struggle for anyone co-parenting a child. So, I’m frustrated and wishing more people would think about divorce when they create these systems. That and vary up how you portray them in fiction because that’s where people get their ideas of divorce being the same across the board.
(The stories we tell children to explain things can be funny. I thought about how you can explain a lot with giants. Nice to see I had some positive and goofy poems in the mix.)
This may be a rough post, but we’ll see where things go. It comes from a lot of stress and talking with people who are in similar situations. Pretty sure I might regret this once comments start, but I couldn’t get this off my mind.
I find it difficult to muster the energy and will to continue. This isn’t me claiming to be suicidal, but there are people I know like that. I will admit that there are days where I wonder why I exist and if my purpose is to suffer. Nothing is exciting and stressful events strike when I’m already low. This is when people simply trying to blindly help with cheerfulness and positive speeches pop up to make me feel worse. I get the sense that these things are done because the other person doesn’t want me to feel sad for their own benefit. It isn’t to make me feel better, but to make themselves feel either helpful or they have a low tolerance for people suffering. Think I’m getting off track here.
The real target of the question is my writing and really anything that involves a sense of ambition. I don’t sell books because I lack the time and money to do any types of promotions that would work. My notebooks gather dust because I end every day collapsing on the bed. The dream of being a full-time author never appears in my mind, which has been a problem for around 2 years. It’s all about my son, struggling to survive, and the overall state of the world. The stress is crushing and I can no longer carve out enough time to write my worries away. Even when I don’t have anything to do, I get bombarded by enough unexpected events that I get very little done. It just adds to the anxiety and . . .
I’m rather lonely most days. It isn’t a relationship thing because the thought of dating gives me panic attacks. Feel like I’m far too damaged and my situation is too messy to subject someone else to it. So, I just sit around by myself. Being around single people who are ready to date makes me feel uncomfortable. Being around married couples without my son around makes me feel a little sad. Think the big thing is that I spent most of my life with someone I could bounce ideas off of at any moment and just hang out. I don’t have that any more and I still haven’t been able to function enough that I trust my own creative instincts. At least not entirely.
Takes me months to write a book and that’s being generous. Takes me years to outline a single series even when I have all of the notes scattered about. I used to be able to write a ton and get things done even with a job and a social life. Now, I’m just plain exhausted, but it’s a mental one instead of physical. My body can have energy while I just don’t have the will to do more than television and jigsaw puzzles. Probably doesn’t help that I’m always in my room because being anywhere else makes me feel exposed. Winter means no outside and we have to wear masks in the library. Spend most of my weekdays wearing them at work, so I don’t like the idea of wearing them while writing.
Could it be an effect of the pandemic, which won’t freaking end? I will admit that it didn’t do me any favors even though I was able to write the last 3 War of Nytefall books while the quarantine was going on. That might have started this whole thing, especially since I wrote Do I Need to Use a Dragon? (Fantasy Writing Tips) and Slumberlord Chronicles: Darwin & the Fate Bracelet. I had a big run of productivity and then it suddenly stopped along with my will to continue. There’s a flicker there, but I have the sensation of being in a ravine and the walls are too slick to climb out. Seems to get worse every time I hear something along the lines of ‘be patient’ or ‘you will get the time eventually’. Can’t help but think of how many people were told that, believed it, and then died in a freak accident.
This whole rant comes down to me wondering why I should continue. I mean, where am I going here? People keep telling me what I should do even if I don’t have the time and money to do so. People keep telling me to give up on other things. I might just be stuck in place for now and I can’t even access the one thing that always gave me a good shot of serotonin. That’s the happy stuff, right? To be clear, I’m not talking about drugs or alcohol here. Never touched the former and the latter has been limited because I can only have it when I’m feeling good. Otherwise, it just enhances the bad and I don’t like that road.
I remember way back in college, I realized that I get depressed and angry if I don’t do real writing at least once every three days. Maybe things have built up since I barely get time to write. I may go weeks without doing anything and this year is looking like it will be slim in terms of releases. Again, I find myself wondering what to do. Do I continue or finally call it a day?
Clearly, War of Nytefall: Eulogyis a tough book to do action teasers for. The fight scenes are pretty revealing. All the massacres are the same. It’s wearing on some of the characters. One in particular is having a rough time in the finale.
This storyline might be fairly niche, but it’s caught my attention. In fact, I think it’s turned up more often than I realize. ‘The Seven Deadly Sins’ and ‘Red’ come to mind. Both have a reunion plot where most of the characters already know each other. They have a lengthy history and possibly some fame. I’ve got a few tips for this, so let’s see what we have.
The heroes don’t need a getting to know you stage. This can take up a lot of time and patience, especially with a large group. In a Reunion Story, they don’t have to be introduced to each other. This connection can be used to introduce them at a faster pace to the audience too. For example, I was able to show a lot more characters in War of Nytefall since they were already connected than in Legends of Windemere where they were meeting each other for the first time.
With heroes already knowing each other, you will inevitably have some shared stories. This can be interesting and make for amusing scenes, but there is a temptation to do it a lot. Your mind can connect to stories that make your established heroes appear larger than life and you may try to top each one as you proceed. This can overshadow the current story and make the audience wonder why they aren’t reading about the cooler adventures. While every character can share parts of their past, you can’t have it take the spotlight.
The heroes are established and aware of the world, so they won’t need a guide or mentor. Of course, there will be some things they are in the dark about since they’re coming out of some form of retirement. Maybe it’s a new city that appeared after they were traveling or a new creature that they never encountered. These things will take center stage since the characters will not have to explore the areas that they already know or learn skills from the ground up. You still have to introduce these things, but you don’t have to draw out an exploration.
Power levels of heroes may be over the top at the beginning. This is really hard to master with fantasy because magic is involved. These heroes need to first appear as very powerful and intimidating since they are established. If they’re legendary like the ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ then they’re downright frightening at first. This can cause a problem with making the audience question if they will succeed. It’s tempting to keep them at this level too, but then there isn’t much threat. All solutions are tricky from making insanely powerful villains to revealing limits that didn’t seem to appear at the beginning. So, you have to be careful here.
You don’t have to introduce all of the characters at once. Since you can skip the ‘who are you?’ part, you can have the first one that you show go about gathering the others. It can be a casual encounter or real hunt to figure out where everyone has disappeared to. This also doesn’t mean everyone will agree. A character may not want to get back on the road, which creates conflict within the established group. (I’ll get to this in a second.) The point is that you can speed up the arrivals, which gives you more time for other things.
No harm in having one of the old heroes be the villain. The reunion doesn’t have to include all former members. Some could be angry about a slight that reveals why the team disbanded. They could be corrupted by an evil force. The point is that they don’t always have to return as heroes and friends.
This is probably the BIGGEST TIP! I saved it for last in the hopes that people will reach it and it wouldn’t get mixed in with the others. YOU NEED AN OUTSIDER CHARACTER! Okay, maybe not all the time, but you do need a vessel for the audience who are meeting these heroes for the first time. In ‘The Seven Deadly Sins’ this would be Elizabeth Liones who set out to gather the Sins and is being introduced to them for the first time. Her meeting them and learning about them is what allows us to do the same. Otherwise, the established heroes meet and any revelations of their past or abilities may come off as forced. If there is one new face then they’re more inclined to explain themselves. Yes, this is an introduction, but it is a very limited and low key one that won’t waste as much time as a big, nobody knows each other thing. Consider how much easier it is to meet a new person that a friend is introducing you to when compared to a blind date. See? Much easier and more relaxing.
Legends of Windemere 