Author: Stephanie Bri

When  I first started what later became this site it really just started out as a directionless blog. It’s gone through a few domain name changes from thespiderslair to theretrowitch to its current state but the core blog underneath has remained the same ever since I was still in college.

I find myself returning to a desire to just blog about random stuff these days rather than trying to maintain any semblence of a purpose. I rebranded it a few times while trying to focus the types of topics I wrote about, yet each time I always ended up using it as a simple blog. So that is what I am doing today. Partially I am wide ass awake at 2:18 in the morning on what is now a Sunday. I am also partially trying to organize and process my thoughts on a few things that have been on my mind lately. I suppose there is also a part of me that is just bored.

I am not sure exactly what I want to write about. Sometimes I have a skeleton plan before I start typing and other times I just start putting down words and see where it goes. This is one of those times. I don’t really have a plan, I just want to be typing, I guess in a way just for the sake of it.

I have tried to maintain some remnants of my training as a professional journalist over the years. I’ve tried to do some newsy type stuff here on this site while also doing some newscast type stuff on my various Youtube channels. Like many bipolar souls out there. I often find myself victim of the racing thoughs. That is to say dozens of random thoughts popping into my brain all at once. I guess this is just as good a way to get them out of my head as any other method. I could be listening to music but that doesn’t appeal to me right now.

I remember one of my ealiest articles I wrote for an earlier version of this site was a passionate retrospective on Code Red Mountain Dew. I remember it well because the news editor I worked for at the time read it and told me he wished I would be as passionate about writing city hall stories as I was writing about soda pop. I eventually did become more invested in that stuff during my time as a professional journalist but these days I have to say my interest in any sort of politics is not what it used to be.

Even though this site has lasted through several domain name changes and rebrandings, going back over a dacade and a half at this point, it’s far from the first online space I tried to make my home for my random thoughts. Let’s just say I have had dozens of blogs, websites and online profiles over the years where I could put down my thoughts. This one has easily lasted longer than any of those and for that reason I guess it holds a special place in my heart.

I made my very first website all the way back in 1999 when I was 16 years old and still in high school. It was a half assed project I coded by hand entirely in html for a Publications class I was taking at the time. Remember back then computers were still just taking off and the web was still fairly new. This was before the infamous dot-com bubble. My high school was offering a class in basic web design because they claimed it was the key to future employment in the changing world. They weren’t entirely correct about that. Sure in the early days of the world wide web it required some knowledge of HTML and computer savvy but it really didn’t take the tech industry long to realize they be better served developing user friendly do-it-yourself low cost webkits rather than paying web designers higher wages to do it professionally. Once local mom and pop shops learned they could make a decent website themselves using these new low cost tools instead of paying freelance web designers like myself, well that market dried up in a hurry.  Sure the larger corporations learned they needed more functionality in their sites than a template could provide, but by and large that lucrative future coding websites I was promised never really materialized. At least not for those who didn’t take the time to learn to code apps instead. Thanks a lot Apple.

Whatever. I never intented to make a career out of making websites. Sure, like countless others my generation who were duped into learning web design I tried to make the next big website. Until the devestating dot-com bubble burst and we all realize that dream was dead on arrival. Oh well, you live and learn as they say. Yet it didn’t take long before I realize I wasn’t making websites in any attempt to turn them into a profitable venture, well except for a couple but those were related to business I was involved offline too. I really always just wanted a place to put down my thoughts while honing my writing skills at the same time. Obviously this served me well as I worked for nearly a decade as a paid writer before leaving the news business behind. One thing it did do was push me to finish writing my first novel until I could get it published. I have since published two more novels so I guess it was a good investment in my time.

I’m not really sure what the purpose of this place is anymore. I have largely turned to vlogging on Youtube as a means of saying the things I want to say these days. Yet as a writer it is hard coded in my DNA to want to put words to paper, even if it is digital paper I suppose. Like this websites own identity changes over the years my own interests change often enough that I don’t really get too invested in any one thing for too long. I guess that is my nature. One of my former editors once said a writers knowledge base runs a mile wide and an inch deep. I think he was right.

I am facing a crossroads in my life I am not entirely sure how to process. I have had a tremendous amount of good times enjoying the comic book and superhero boom in Hollywood for the past few decades yet I am starting to find myself losing near total interest in all upcomig comic book related movies. I know it isn’t a lack of interest in the characters or stories, because I am still reading comics, buying toys of comic book characters and still semi-regularly playing comic book related video games. Yet I find myself at a near complete zero interest in regards to the films these days.

I should point out it isn’t the entire genre, if you wanna call it that, that I have lost nearly all interest in. I still very consistently re-watch my favorite comic book and superhero movies on a regular basis. I just find myself burnt out on keeping up with all the new stuff. Now this isn’t the first time this has happened to me. The decade leading up to the official launch of what became the MCU had an over abundance of comic book related films too. I found myself immediately extremely excited for the constant barrage of new comic based movies getting fed to me all the time. Then right before the actual MCU started I just dropped off and lost nearly all interest. I didn’t watch any of the X-Men or Spider-Man films post those initial trilogies until several years later.

The same things happend with Batman and even the lesser known stuff that was getting released. Sure I saw Daredevil when it was first brought to home media and I even watched Elektra in theaters. But there quickly became far more comic book movies to keep track of than I was reasonably capable of doing so at that time. Then the Dark Knight hit immediately followed by the full on MCU. I was quickly drawn back in. It was right around the time of Avengers Endgame that I started to lose interest again. I watched a few of the DCEU stuff and the first couple of post-Endgame MCU projects before burn out really kicked in.

The thing is I still fully enjoy the comic book movies I watch even after the fact, yet I just can’t seem to bring myself to get excited enough to watch any of them when they are still in theaters or even immediately after coming home. Despite Batman being my favorite superhero and actually enjoying Suicide Squad more than most, I still haven’t brought myself to watch The Batman. I know I would probally really like it, yet I just can’t sit down and put it on even though I have it on DVD and digital in my private collection. Yeah, I own it in two different formats and I still haven’t seen it. I can’t figure out why this is.

It’s the same thing with the new Superman and Fantastic Four movies. From what I have seen, I am sure I’d enjoy them. Yet I just can’t make myself load them up and press play. I am not sure why this is. I know I am burnt out. I also know, from past experience, I will probably rekindle my fire for these sooner or later. I just can’t seem to get excited for things that once brought me so much joy.

As I take a step back and look at everything in my life, I am in my early 40’s at this point, I find there are several other areas of my life I used to have a strong interest in that I find myself just less so these days. I am sure some of that is my approaching middle aged. Yet I still harbor strong feelings of passion for many of these things, including comic books and comic based movies. I don’t get excited for new movies, but I still passionately discuss my favorite comic based films. I even binge the four main Avengers films at least once a month, so I know I still emjoy revisting these outlandish worlds. I guess I am either getting burnt out, or getting older. Either way it’s actually kinda discouraging. I know I want to enjoy things, but I find it is getting harder to do so.

Comic books. Science fiction. Horror. Video games. These are just some of the things I am extremely passionate about. When it comes to these specific interests they are all interconnected. My interests in each goes beyond just their core or base medium as well. I have an interest in comic book video games, toys, action figures, props, movies and more. Same with science fiction and horror. These are my primary overlapping interest though and I kinda see them all as interconnected equally.

Naturally when it comes to video games my interest runs deeper than just the games themselves or even the hardware systems they run on. It also extends into computers in more ways than I can accurately explain. Now these are not my only interest or hobbies but they are by far the most prolific in my liufe. This isn’t about me pin-pointing where these interest came from nor entirely how they intersect. Rather I just wanted to kinda ramble about them for a bit and see where my thoughts go.

Video games I have written about extensively. Despite my disparaging comments in recent times regarding Nintendo and Xbox, I actually don’t have any die hard loyalty, nor disloyalty for that matter, to any company or platform. When it comes to video games my interests are far from complete, to be sure, but they are quite extensive. I am interested in console games, handheld games, computer games, PC games, arcade games and even plug n play TV games. Frankly there are very few video game related products I don’t have at least a passing interest in, if not a down right obsession. This includes movies, comic books, cartoons and toys based on video games. Just like comic books, my interests in video games runs quite deep indeed.

Then there is science fiction. While this one is very similar to the others, it’s also the most unique in some respects. Obviously a significant portion of the video games and comic books I am interest easily fall under the sci fi umbrella in some capacity. When it comes to science fiction movies and TV shows, however, this is where things get complicated.

I have close to zero interest in Star Trek TV shows. I have a much stronger affinity for Star Trek novels and comic books and a slightly stronger interest in some of the films than the shows but overall my interest in Star Trek is rather shallow. I do have a considerably stronger interest in Star Trek toys, vehicles and memorabelia than I do the shows themselves, including video games ironically. I don’t fully know what my aversion to the shows are when I actually am more than fascinated by the mythos itself. I think it comes down to finding most episodes I’ve seen to be rather boring, whereas the anciliarry media is not as boring, especially the novels. While I fall asleep at nearly every attempt to watch more than a single eepisode of any Star Trek tv show, I can get deeply engrossed in the novels without batting an eye. So I know it isn’t the aesthetic or the mythology I am averse. Whatever.

Star Wars is an entirely different beast. Although if I am being completely honest, despite most Star Wars TV shows only coming into existence in the past decade, I guess I similarly have a low interest in Star Wars TV as I do Star Trek. Especially the animated stuff. I did enjoy the first few episodes of the Mandilorian then lost interest rather suddenly. The rest of the Disney+ Star Wars has just flown by me without even registering on my radar. However litereally everything else related to Star Wars, with exceedingly few exceptions, I have an extremely strong interest. Comics, video games, toys, action figures, vehicles, playsets, Lego, Micro Machines, minis, books novels, kids books, story books, computer games and software, role play toys and props, costumes, etc. If I am being completely honest, outside of a severe drought in interest regarding the TV shows, nearly everything else even marginally Star Wars related I am all in. Especially toys, video games and novels.

Now that I think about it I think I am beginning to realize that it’s science fiction TV in general that I have a lacking of interest in. I was passively interest in Doctor Who briefly during the 10th Doctor’s stint then I sort of lost interest rather suddenly. Other than that, I would say there are very few science fiction TV shows I do find interesting. Again, despite a strong lack of interest in, or damn near aversion to, animation in many regards, I think I am more drawn to science fiction cartoons than live action shows, ironically. I am not quite sure why this is. Again it isn’t for lack of interest. By all acounts I should be obsessed with Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, etc. TV shows, yet I more often than not, find them to be boring at best or disinteresting most of the time. Something I never really considered.

Movies on the other hand. Well let’s just say that, again, with a few exceptions, I am very strongly drawn to sci fi films. Not every single sci fi film, mind you, but easily more sci fi movies find their way into my lexicon than nearly any other genre, especially when you take sci fi/horror and sci fi/comedy into account. I mean things like Back to the Future and Men in Back. Naturally I have a fairly strong interest, unhealthily some might say, in comic book based movies and those more often than not are some sort of sci fi or at the very least sci fi adhacent. So I absolutely have an extremely strong interest in science ficiton as a genre and even a concept. It’s just the TV shows I guess I find less compelling for, some reason.

When it comes to comic books I would like to say my interest are quite varied. While I do, as with many comic book fans, fall deeply into the superhero rabit hole, for sure, I also enjoy a large number of non-superhero comics as well. Things like DuckTales, Donald Duck, Archie, Sonic, Scooby Doo, Simpsons, Garfield, Transformers, Star Wars, Star Trek, horror comics, fairy tales, D&D, and frankly too many to list here. Yeah I will admit my comic book consumption does include probably more Marvel and DC superhero fare than anything else, to be sure, but I think my overall interest in comics as a medium is fairly robuts. I even like some romance type comics.

Now this is where I think my previous assumptions are going to fall apart. While science fiction TV in general tends to bore me, comic book based TV shows, live action and animated, quite often get me very excited. I have enjoyed dozens of comic book based shows ranging from Transformers, GI Joe, TMNT, X-Men, Batman, Gotham, The CW DCverse, Riverdale, Lois and Clark the New Adventures of Superman, etc. I think the opposite is true when it comes to tv shows, even animated ones, based on my favorite comics are concerned. I find myself very deeply invested in nearly every comic book based show I dive into. There are, obviously exceptions, but I would say that when it comes to TV shows, if it is based on a comic book property I am interested in, I guess I am more likely to give it a chance than any other science fiction property, for some reason. Of course I watch more sitcoms than anything so it is what it is.

Then there are toys and action figures. Again, on the surface it would be obvious that I have a strong interest in toys, action figures, props and collectibles from movies, video games, sci fi and horror stuff I am already interested in. While this is certainly true, in fact, I also find myself deeply interest in dozens of toys and action figure properties and lines that don’t have any first appearance in those other mediums. For example while yes I am fascinated and deeply interest in collection toys from TMNT, Marvel and DC comics properties, I am also interested in He-Man, Barbie, Monster High, Simpsons, Street Sharks, Skeleton Warriors,. Neca, Funco Pops, and far, far more toylines than I could ever accurately list here. But it goes beyond dolls, action figures, vehicles and playsets. I am also interested in Hot Wheels, Matchbox, Lego, plushies, dolls, stuffed animals, Lite Brite, Easy Bake oven, yoyo, Mr. Potato Head, Simon, board games, card games, Speak N Spell, Etch A Sketch, and many others. I’m even interest in basic stuff like Play Doh, Slinkee, squirt guns and even generic random toys like plastic guns, phones, and the like.

Going a step further there is horror. Like science fiction, my interest goes beyond just horror as a setting or genre. Also, like comic books, for whatever reason I can easy find myself getting deeply invested in  horror TV far easier than sci fi, which is really mind boggling to me because I really do love sci fi. Horror is one of the most prolific though. Like the above stuff, my interest go far beyond just movies and TV shows. I am also fascinated by horror toys, action figures, props and collectibles. Physical copies of movies on VHS, DVD, LaserDisc, VCD, etc., are also something I am strongly interested in. I am also deeply drawn to horror comics, video games, novels, novellas, short stories, etc. Probaly more than maybe anything else if I am being totally honest. In my collection of over 1000 physical DVD’s, over 350 of them abslutely fall into the horror camp. I am not even talking about controversial stuff people argue whether counts as horror or not like The Terminator, Jurassic Park or Silence of the Lambs. I mean legit, undisputed horror stuff like the classic Universal Monsters, the 80s slasher icons Freddy, Jason and Michael, obscure stuff like 976-Evil or Lady in White, etc. Yet I also find myself consuming vast quantities of horror TV. Loads of stuff like Stranger Things, Scream, True Blood, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Twilight Zone, Chucky, Ash vs the Evil Dead, American Horror Story, Lovecraft Country, Scream Queens, and loads more. I guess I am far more likely to become deeply commited to a horror TV show than probably any other type of TV except maybe sitcoms. I can’t state enough how much I enjoy sitcoms. I guess that is a topic for another day.

When I look at the things I spend the vast majority of my time, energy and resources on, these things here are the ones that monopolize my life more than all others. Yes these are also extremely connected and related to each other which makes sense as if you like one, it’s not hard to get into the others as they’re so similar in many respects. I guess at the end of the day I am a die hard nerd. I am okay with that.

I’ve played a lot of video games over the years. Like a lot of kids in the 80s, I started out playing arcade games wherever they could be found and an Atari console in the home. Back then the video game console was like the VCR, it was a family appliance, not a toy just one of us kids got to claim ownership over. The first time this changed for me was the day I got a Sega Genesis for my 12th birthday. Like a lot of kids back then, I dug into the trenches and joined the console war on the side of Sega. It wold be another two years before I picked up my first used Super Nintendo. At that time I just had the Sega and the original NES my parents bought for all of us kids one Christmas long ago.

I have played more video games than I could realistically ever count. Seriously if I tried to list every video game I have played, I couldn’t. I know for a fact there are dozens, maybe tens of dozens, of games I just can’t even remember the name of, or whetheer I even played them or not. I’ve always enjoyed video games.

I never really took sides in any console war or other silly debate after the 16-bit era. I got my N64 and PS1 on the exact same day, my 18th birthday. I stood in line in the cold at a Kmart to be the first person in my town to buy a Nintendo Wii. I also, despite sometimes making jokes online, never really preffered consoles over PC or any other silly arguments either. I basically play whatever I can whenever I get the change. I have played games on old vintage computers from the Atari 8-bit line, the Commodore 64, DOS to Windows. I was even one of the first to download extremely primitive moble games on my Samsung flip phone back in the day.  For me, video games are just video games. I don’t care if they are running on a PC, mobile device, arcade machine or a dedicated gaming console. I just love video games.

I would be a fool to say I have owned most video game systems over the years. Sure I have owned the vast majority of the mainstream consoles at one point or another, but I know enough about video game and computer history to know there’s still dozens upon dozens more I have never even seen in person, let alone played.

I have very few video game regrets. I knew what I was getting when I bought a 32X. I was perfectly satisfied with my GameCube and I was one of the few to defend the Wii U. I can honestly say I have more regrets around the game systems I passed on buying than the ones I did buy. I was even happy with the Sega CD and Sega Saturn. Even though I rag on it a lot, and I still harbor ill feelings towards it, I even got a lot of good use out of that Nintendo Wii.

I think there is something special about video games that is hard to put into words sometimes. Sure gamers like to talk about games with good stories but let’s be real, not every game we sink hundreds of hours into even has a story so that’s only one reason we enjoy games so much. I know for me that can be a part but one of my favorite games of all time is Minecraft and frankly that game has basically no built in story.

Sometimes I find myself getting really into a good turn-based JRPG. Other times I want to play a fast-paced action game, run-n-gun or shooter. Sometimes I just wanna get lost in Tetris or passing the time playing Mahjong. I can honestly say if you asked me what types of video games do I enjoy my answer would be pretty much all of them. Sure there are games I can’t get into. Going back to story for a second, probablly my least favorite type of game is the type I refer to as “interactive movies.” I don’t mean those grainy FMV games that clogged up the Sega CD library, I enjoyed those for what they were. I am talking games like The Last of Us where you’re basically playing a movie. I don’t tend to enjoy those too much. That isn’t to say I can’t get deeply engrossed in a good video game story. I was so hooked on Finaly Fantasy 7’s story I have allowed myself to replay that game to 100 percent on multiple occasions across severl different hardwar platforms. I was really drawn to the story in Star Fox Adventures too.  I just don’t need a story to enjoty a video game.

Another aspect of gaming a lot of gamers cite as what draws them to the hobby is the multiplayer aspect. I must admit I was a lot more likely to play multiplayer games back when it was couch local with your close friends. I enjoyed countless hours of multiplayer sessions with friends playing games like Mario Party, Gauntlet, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Super Mario Bros., Doom, Quake, Wii Sports and so many others. Yet, again, for me I kinda stray from the mainstream. While I have enjoyed playing local games in the past with friends. I have learned over the years I just really don’t care for online play. Occassionally I will play an online game with my girlfriend or a close friend who shares my interest, but I have never enjoyed playing competitive online games with strangers, and I know I never will.

I have so many fond memories playing countless games over the years. I find it sometimes difficult to put into words exactly what video games mean to me. I know when I search back into the distant, faded memotries from my early childhood, I think there was a part of it that was the mystique. Back then video games were still fairly new. I was already fascinated with robots and computers and video games go hand in hand with those. I am not 100 percent certain it was my absolute earliest video game experience but the earliest video game memory I can recal is playing Ms. Pac-Man on a cocktail cabinet at a local bar when I was probablly four or five years old. I know I have dusty early childhood memories of playing the Atari 2600, but I can’t quite confirm which experience I had first. Either way I do know  that, for me at least, video games have just always been a part of my life. Even as I am getting into my 40’s I dfon’t see myself ever not playing video games. I know my desire to have the current gen console or latest spec PC to play the hottest new games are over. I also know that as much time as I sink into Minecraft I know it will never become the only game I play.

I don’t feel I have to justify why I like playing video games. I know I enjoy them and that’s more than good enough for me. If someone cares to press the matter I could probably give them some standard stock nerd response about tactile interaction, immersive game play or even great graphics, but honestly I think the truth is I just like video games because I do. I don’t need a reason.

I see this question all the time. Someone will say they want to be a writer. Then they will ask, “How do you become a writer?” The typical responses are usually all over the place. Some will say go to college. Others will say take a creative writing class at your local college. Others will say get a job at a newspaper while others will just blurt out “if you write, then you are a writer.”

Of course all, and none, of those are equally true and equally misleading. Yes it is true, if you write then technically you are a writer. While I never had any legit interest in journalism as a profession, I knew that several famous writers got their starts writing for their local newspaper. So that is what I did. I took a job at a local, small towm community paper. While that worked for me because I had gone to college, that’s not really what these people are asking. They aren’t asking for platitudes, or even encouragement. What they are actually asking for are instructions. You see neurotypical people have an understanding of the world that is foreign to nerudivergents. So what these people are actually asking for is a guide with specicific instructions they can follow.

Here I present a few tips on ways you can hone your craft while also making tangible progress as a writer.

Start small

The first step to learning any new skill is always the same, start small. Here I suggest to the aspiring writer to pick up a notebook, a notepad, and a journal. In the journal start by just recapping something that happened that day that stands out. It can be as simple as, “today I had pizza and I love pizza.” Then as you gradually make it a habit to write in your journal every day, eventually you will find yourself writing more details retellings of the most significant events, maybe even jotting down a fun story or anecdote along the way. The goal is to get used to writing every day so you train your brain. The notebook is used to jot down ideas, write word clusters, make lists of things that interest you, etc. The notepad is for writing down new words you discover. Again, the goal is to write something, anything, every day.

The second step to become a commited writer who completes projects, which is what I believe people are actually looking for, is not so obvious to everyone. Long before you can ever consider becoming a writer you must first do something even more critical to the process: read everytthing. Read books on any and every subject that interests you. Find magazines, websites and blogs that pique your interest and read those. And for the love of GOD, no matter what you think about the news, read your damn local newspaper. When I say read your newspaper I mean read every page. Read the hard news, the obituaries, the sports section, the ad copy, every single word on the page. Read comic books, cook books, coffe table books, encylopedias, etc. Read. Read. Read everything you can get your hands on. Seriously, you will never truly learn how to write effectively unless you study how others have already done so. Trust me. Reading and writing go hand in hand. You can’t have one without the other. Read your damn newspaper!

After you spend some time getting used to writing in your journal, notebooks and notepad every day, after you have consumed every word others have written you can find, then you are ready for the next step. You have to make this decision for yourself. What do you want to write? Do you want to write fun and interesting articles about a topic you love for a publication such as a website, blog or magazine? I can offer you some tips there. Do you want to become a novelist? I have tips for that too. Are you seeking a career as an investigative journalist? I can help with that too. What if you would prefer to write for film and television, music or even plays? Yes I have advice for that too.

Let’s start with the basics. Before you can pursue any of these above mentioned paths you must first start with something else. The next step is to get yourself a blog. It doesn’t have to be one you pay for, there are plenty of great free options. What your goal is here is to hone your craft. The purpose of a blog is to have a place where you can try out your writing style while looking for your own narrative voice. This is also a good way to get something, anything, you have written published in a manner that others can consume. While you could start simple with just bringing your journal to cyberspace, I recommend keeping the two separate. However I suggest you just go nuts. Before you do anyting rash though, never EVER hit publish until after you have proof read what you wrote. Trust me on this. I fail to do so far too often and it always shows.

The goalwith a blog is to get practice writing in your own unique voice. The more you do this, the easier it becomes. No matter if your ultimate goal is to write plays, comic boo,snovels or films, make sure you have a blog where you can just jot down your ideas. I don’t recommend giving away the farm. Use a blog as a space to get extra practice writing where others can see what you wrote. Be prepared for criticism. Now let’s break it down by a few specific paths which I will further elaborate in a future series. For now here are just a few entry points to help get you started.

Suppose you want to write comic books. Great. But what do you do about the art work? Well if you lack that skill, which most writers do, then you will eventually need to partner up with a skilled artist. That comes later. First I recommend two solid approaches. First get a notebook that is JUST for writing your comic book ideas. Divide it into sections. I suggest using a 5 subject, college ruled notebook for this. Section one needs to be words. Just write down a two, to three paragraph elevator pitch for any comic book ideas you might have. Try to challenge yourself to make a mixture of existing characters you can write fan fiction stories along side as many of your own original creations as you can.

The second section should be just lists of every character archetype, genre and subgenre, as well as any settings you think you might enjoy. For example list things like demigod type, superhero, antihero, snow, dessert, Mars, etc. Just fill this section with words. This will help inspire you to come up with ideas. The last three sections sould be short stories you would love to develop into comics. Write them as you would any other fictional story. Get a second notebook and repeat this process. The goal here is to organize your thoughts and, practice, practice and practice some more. I can’t offer advice into how to get a job with Marvel or DC, for that you will have to seek guiadance elsewhere. I  am merely helping you hone your craft with tips, not rules, that you could implement if you so choose. The idea is to challenge yourself to write often. You can replace any notebook or notepad I discuss with computer word documents, if you prefer.

How do you write a novel? This I can assure you I have full confidence in my advice as I am a published auther of three books. Long before you set out to write a novel start small. Again get a series of notebooks, or create  a series of Word documents, whatever you are most comfortable with. I suggest starting with short stories first because it is easier to write a complete story which will be far more satisfying than writing six chapters of your novel only to fall off becaue you didn’t understand how involved of a proces it really is.

Once you have challenged yourself to write a few, five to seven should suffice, short stories, then you are reasy to move on to your first novel. There are a few approaches you can take. You can write an outline of what you want the book to be about. You can try word clusters if you hit a brick wall coming up with ideas. You can also do the wing it and just see where the words take you method. Regardless of which method you attempt, make sure you have at least a list of your characters with their names and a two-sentence description. Trust me you don’t want to spend 15,000 words telling the tales of Dave the onboxious only to write the next 10,00 words calling him Buster because you forgot his name was Dave and whoops. This happened to me with the first novel I wrote. It is embarrasing but it can happen.

This is where I will tell you, again, to start small. Set realistic goals such as writing 500 words a day, or 4 full pages a day or just write as much as you can for a set timeframe such as 10 minutes a day. Be sure to set realistic goals. Then do everything you can, life permitting, to stick to the plan. The goal is to write every day but to do it in small chuncks. Trust me if you set a goal of, say, fifteen minutes a day, I promise there will come that day where the lightbulb goes off and you get so inspired you find yourself writing for the hours solid. If you have the time and the patience to dedicate to this tas, oyou will be okay, Remember do not rush it. You don’t have to write a 75,000 word novel in a weeks time. just stick with it.

Stay tuned for the next article in this series soon.

Before I dive into what will surely become an emotional tribute to a filmmaker who’s life was tragically taken from us, I have to take a look back at my own journey to becoming a professional writer.

Every writer has that moment where the lightbulb went off and they just knew putting words to keyboard was going to be their entire life. I have a few different moments in my childhood where I thought, if they can do it, so can I. One of the first instances of an ordinary person getting a typerwiter and launching their writying career that I remember from my early TV watching days was John Boy on the Walton’s. Yeah, I know, simple farm kid gets a typewriter and becomes a writer is cliche today, but it still had an impact on me as a kid. However, that was just a spark. There was something else that really set me on the path of become a wordsmith by trade; watching  the Rob Reiner directed adaptation of the Stephen King novel, Stand By me. That film changed my life.

As far back as I can remember I was always writing something. My bedroom was littered with toys, NES carts and dozens upon dozens of notebooks filled with as many words as I could cram into them. When I was 12 years old I wrote my first article that got published in the school paper. Unlike most kids my age who cried at the inclusion of an essay portion on a test, I was the rare kid who became elated at the opportunity to use my words to prove I had learned the materials. I was born to be a writer.

Going back to age 12, that was the first time I watched the movie, Stand By Me. Yes, I was very enamored by the beatuful representation of the age-old, coming-of-age story as depicted in that film. To this day it is a reguler re-watch of mine. I even loosely modeled my own narrative style off the tone the writer in that film used. I always wanted my own writings to be as personal as that film. It was shortly after I begged my parents to buy me my own typewriter. Considering I had previously been harassing them, to no avail, for a computer that was absolutely could not afford, they saw this as a sign of relief for them. I could finally put my thoughts to paper without having to resort to the sloppy chicken scratch that was my hand writting in those countless college ruled notebooks. I wrote my first novel entirely by hand in a notebook that I have lost to time ages ago. Getting a typewriter was like getting a gift from the Heavens.

Of course I said I was going to talk about Rob Reiner. Unbeknownst to me his impact on my life would go far beyond that film he so beatufully directed that changed my life for certain. Yeah, I also knew him as Meathead from All in the Family due to reruns that aired on the, then, newly launched cable TV network TV Land, previously spun off from Nick at Nite. So yeah there was obviously that. Then there was the long list of absolutely stunning, cinematic masterpieces he brought us. I should mention that while I was studying film in college, his works were very much a major part of the curriculum. There is hardly a creative working today that hasn’t been impacted by his works in some form or another. He truly was a legend in his time, and his memory will live on in the legendary works he gave us.

I didn’t wanna focus too much on All in the Family, however, as a transwoman in a technically same-sex relationship, I should mention I am absolutely in awe over how hard he fought for civil rights, including gay rights. He was an ally for us to be sure. That alone commands respect. He was a massively vocal critic of the Trump regime while also creating works that would delve into revealing the things Trump and his goons were involved in. He stood up for us, so I shall remember him fondly for that.

If I could say one word to describe Rob Reiner I can’t, but I can sum him up in a single sentence. He was literally a gift from the Gods and we all took him for granted. Rest in Peace, Rob Reiner. You should know you will be remembered as a good man, beloved by more people than you will ever know.

I’ve been wondering about the state of the gaming industry as a whole lately and there’s been one major news development that has been getting a lot of discussion lately that I really wanted to process in my own way.

It’s not a big secret that Xbox has been porting several of their heavy franchises to competing systems. Considering Xbox was born out of putting a dedicated compact gaming PC in the living room, getting high profile xbox games on PC has always been the norm. While console makers have all dabbled in putting some of their franchises or IP on competing consoles, especially console makers putting games on competing companies handhelds has been a common practice, I am never that surprised when a big game from Microsoft or Sony gets a PC port. Nintendo is the last hold out who generally refuses to put their games on PC, even if they have been putting more games on mobile than you would expect from them. Still, I have vivid memories of the system chock I experienced the first time I played a Sonic game on a Nintendo console. So when I hear Halo, the flagship Xbox exclusive that made the brand viable in the first place is now coming to Playstation forever I was a bit taken aback.

The first issue I want to tackle is the dangerous amount of consolidation that has been taking place in the gaming industry, not to mention entertainment as a whole. We all know that the biggest cancer in capitalism is the religious practice of putting profits first. However we’re gonna accept that as reality for now and focus on why less competition is always bad for everyone. The obvious first negative is less competition means higher prices for everyone. In technology driven fields like gaming, it’s even worse because it also means less innovations and less effort put into making everything the best it can be. Instead the industry as a whole has settled into the lowest common denominator as the norm. Back in the early days of gaming you had tremendous competition.

Back in the 80s and early 90s if you were a gamer you had far more choices for gaming devices that we could fathom today. Sure we have PC, Mac, Android and iOS on the PC side and we have Nintendo, Xbox and Playstation on the console side. However we used to have dozens of competing home computer platforms, dozens of competing dedicated gaming consoles and countless competing arcade machines. If you wanted to play every game you either had to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars on buying multiple gaming computers, consoles and either owning arcade machines or dropping countless quarters into arcade machines at the local 7-11, etc. And this was a better world because there was so much innovation. Even though the Turbografx-16/PC Engine was not a tremendous success worldwide out the gate, NEC took a huge risk developing a CD Rom attachment for it to enhance the gameplay possibilities. While this didn’t pay off for them, it absolutely was beneficial for gamers because it forced developers to make the best games they could. If you weren’t satisfied with the simplistic 8 bit pixal art of the NES, then you could choose to invest in a Turbo CD unit and get enhanced multimedia focused story driven games with enhanced, at the time, cinematics. Even if not everyone bought it everyone beneffited from developers going out of their way to make the most out of it. Not just because those games would eventually get ported to more successful CD based systems like Sega CD and eventually Playstation, the fact they were developed at a time when the industry standard was Mega Man and Super Mario Bros is a huge deal.

Today you have the hindsight of which consoles and PC’s reached mainstream success and which ones were left in the dust. Looking back on the 80s you wouldn’t be blamed if all you think of is Atari 2600, NES and Commodore. Those were by far the most successful platforms. Except you still can’t discount the other systems just because they didn’t achieve the same sales figures. The fact the Colecovision and Intellivision existed at all still forced Atari to make better games to squeeze the absolute most out of the 2600 even if it outsold more powerful hardware. Some of those truly impressive Atari games never would have been as impressive if Atari didn’t have to innovate to be competitive. Same thing for Nintendo. Sure in North America and Europe the Famicom Disk System is just an oddity that we vaguely knew about but had no first hand experience with it never would have existed in Japan at all if NEC hadn’t already been bringing larger disk storage to consoles with their CD Rom upgrade. Nintendo wasn’t ready to invest into CD Rom quite yet but they were willing to roll the dice on the industry standard and much cheaper to develop floppy disk technology. While they did develop a proprietary floppy disk  for the FDS, it was still based on and depended on pre-existing floppy diskette technology for its development in the first place. Technology that itself only existed in its inexpensive and mass market penetration form in the first place because there was so much competition in the PC market. Again everyone remembers the standard 1.44mb floppy and the 502kb larger floppy that preceeded it from their Apple 2 days, there were dozens of other storage technologies being developed at the time that allowed those two form factors to find their footing as a result of direct competition. Today in the PC space, we don’t have that. We’ve settle on flash storage as the sole technology. It’s used in Flash cards, flash drives and SSD’s. There are no competing tech companies trying to push the envelop by developing a new tech that could theoretically be superior to flash, we’ve just been focused exclusively on increasing read speeds, durability and storage sizes of flash devices. No innovation, just incremental forward progress. While in the PC world there is a need for some industry standard universal tech that doesn’t need to innovate, like USB that is a tech that we can be grateful took off so we don’t have to worry about PINS and cable types. The old serial/parallel/PS/2 days for peripherals was a nightmare, but the days of zip, cd rom and compact flash trying to dethrone the floppy as the go to for portable storage were all huge innovations that while they didn’t all find mass market success, they absolutely did force the development that did eventually lead to flash becoming the standard. That never would have happened if there wasn’t competition.

Today we do have some competition in PCs in the fact we have different companies ma,king components and prebuilt computers but they’re all running Windows, all using flash storage, all use WIFI for networking and all rely on USB for peripherals and devices. There’s nobody trying to find a better storage tech than flash because there’s no incentive to. The entire industry has just settled on flash and nobody is going to go against that. This is bad for everyone but we’ve just accepted it.

This is even worse in the video game space. In the 80s, yes they didn’t all achieve mass market status, they still existed and impacted the gaming industry and somebody still bought them, we had atari 2600, 5200 anf 7800; we had Intellivision, Colecovision, Odyssee 2, SMS, NES, C64 GS, XEGS, Astrocade, FDS, TG16/PCEngine, Genesis, PC CD Rom/Turbo CD. ALL of these had their place in the industry. Each one sold to someone, had someone making games for it trying to be competitive. Someone was seeing what they were doing and trying to make their own products better. Even though the vast majority of those systems failed to reach mass market doesn’t mean they weren’t viable in their time even if it was only briefly. Also we absolutely know the companies that were successful were so because they were forced to innovate and experiment trying to make their own games the BEST, their own controllers the BEST, their own add ons the BEST. This is so much better than today where we have 3 competing companies. We see this most obviously in the Playstation and Xbox dynamic as those two machines, since their inception, have been so close together in terms of tech and specs that their basically the same prtoduct, so yeah it makes sense to put Xbox games on Playstation because there’s no distringuishing factor that gives XBox the edge over Playstation other than it’s exclusives. From a company stand point, Microsoft can’t keep losing money on Xbox forever and GamePass is a great product, it’s not paying the bills either. So from a Microsoft perspective it makes sense to sacrifice the potential future Xbox hardware sales to maximize software sales by getting them on as many platforms as possible.

Here is the problem. We know that Sony and NIntendo cannot follow this practice. Sure Sony can absolutely afford to put some of their games on PC to get more sales but they knows thats because PC gamers aren’t interested in consoles so there’s no risk of lost hardware sales for them as those gamers aren’t even potential console gamers anyways. But everyone who buys and Xbox is one less person buying a Playstation and with all the consolidations everyone else in the tech and entertainment world, Sony cannot afford to lose hardware sales because Playstation in the cornerstone of their entire business. If it fails, they fail. If xbox fails Microsoft writes it off on their taxes and moves on, no hard done for them. It’s even more prominent regarding Nintendo because their just a gaming company if their hardware fails, they’re truly done for and that’s it we’re left with JUST Playstation and that is the nightmare scenario NOBODY should want.

Whenever someone talks about the desire to have all games on a single platform the example they bring up is movies. They argue that there was a time when everything was just VHS and there was nothing else. This is very not true. Again while they didn’t have the highest sales as VHS, BetaMax, LaserDisc, CED, CD Video, Video CD, CD DV, Movie CD, Video8 and a few I am sure I forgot, did exist, did achieve their own sales and absolutely forced innovation in VCR hardware makers forcing them to constantly improve the VHS technology. Same thing with DVD. It didn’t just arrive and replace everying in a vaccuum. It was still competing against, briefly, DIVX, Movie CD, Super Video CD, and Digital VHS before HD-DVD and Blu Ray even came on the scene. Yeah today we have countless streaming services but even that isn’t new. Again competitions is GOOD for everyone. Yes we ALL just want to pay for Netflix and they have everything because it means we get everything in one place. But if everyone else goes out of business then we have fewer movies and TV shows to watch as then we’re stuck with just whatever Netflix produces and they’re not going to make the best TV and movies they can if they don’t have anyone to compete against. I’m not going to get into the problems with dozens of streaming services because I’ve beaten that dead worse into dust by now. But it’s still better in the long run because YOU get to CHOOSE which service you invest in, ideally the one that has the content you desire the most. Plus, because they ALL have monthly plans you just cycle one to another each month and you get access to everything for roughly one monthly fee anyways, ya know if you’re smart and stop bitching about a non problem you’ve just made up in your mind just to have something to bitch about.

Is it GOOD for gamers that Xbox puts their games on Playstation, yes and no. It’s good for the gamer that doesn’t want to buy 2 machines to get all the games. I’ts bad for gamers that want innovation that competition facilitates and we’re already facing near monopolies in the industry as is with so much consolidation. So no a ONE machine that plays everything has NEVER existed EVER in any media in any decade. We’re getting dangerously close to that but Sony isn’t going to innovate based on what Nintendo is doing, their two different markets the have no reason to because the gamers buying the Nintendo system are not the same as those buying Playstation/Xbox anyways. But they absolutey do pay attention to what Xbox is doing and if they no longer have to even bother worrying about Xbox that means they can just stagnate even further than they already have and then the PS6 is going to be the most useless “upgrade” of all time. The PS5 is already a disappointment compared to PS4 because of the lack of competition. If they don’t have to even care what Xbox does then there’s no incentive for them to invest in pushing technology, they’re just going to cheap out and go the easiesr route which is BAD for gamers in the long run. So yeah getting Halo on Playstation looks good, today, but it’s a domino falling over that’s going to lead to a worse world in the near future, and THAT is why we should be worried about it, not celebrating it.

I don’t normally write about trains. I suppose there are a few reason for this. Partlly the fact I don’t have that much knowledge of them, mostly because my interest isn’t what you might expect. Then there is the stigma.

There is this stereotype that trains, especially or including model trains, are a common special interest of neurodivergent individuals and so part of me wants to distance myself from that. Not because I don’t want people to know I am neurodivergent, that’s fine if they know. Rather it’s what specifically interests me about the hobby of model trains that I wanted to discuss. You see it has very little to do with the trains themselves.

As long as I can remember I have had an obsession not with trains, but towns. Specifically the makeup and layout of towns. This partially fueled my desire to enthusiastically volunteer for the city beat when it became available at my last newspaper job. I wasn’t interested in the prestige of covering City Hall nor was I that interested in having discussions with politicians, police chiefs or city leaders.

What I was most excited for was attending P&Z meetings, Economic Development Board meetings, and yes even School District meetings. I was especially excited to cover school districts that were planning to build new facilities. This is what sparked my interest in the HO scale Model Train hobby.

I was in first grade the first time I saw the film Beetlejuice by Tim Burton. While I was absolutely fascinated by the macabre story, the gothic lead character and the supernatural misadventures of the mischievous title character himself, the one aspect of the movie that really got my attention was the model of the town.

You see I didn’t initially go into “model trails” with any interest in trains whatsoever. Even today I have no more than a passing interest in them as a piece of Americana, not so much machines of industry. No, I started my journey on the path of model trails simply so I, too, could build my own model town as seen in that movie.

For the first half of my childhood I thought it was a pipedream. I cobbled together simple houses out of cardboard and dressed them with paper mache as seen in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors. I lived in a very rural part of Kansas with no access to hobby or toy stores. The entire existence of Model Trains and the accompanying model kits was beyond my kid brains comprehension.

At first I got my town building fix by way of the PC video game Sim City which I played obsessively after school in our then state-of-the-art computer lab. It was the early 90s and computers weren’t quite commonplace in every school yet.

So I would spend hours in that lab designing my own cities using the primitive game software that was available to me at the time. I always stayed until the staff were kicking me out to lock the doors for the night. To call it an obsession would be an understatement.

Two years later I was able to take my city building dreams to a new level. I was finally able to buy myself a Super Nintendo game console, along with a copy of the SNES game cartridge version of the Sim City game. Now I could build my cities well into the wee hours of the night. While it was a fine distraction for the time, it was still not going to satisfy my true desire to build my own model town.

Over the years I began another unrelated but comparable obsession. The infamous board game Monopoly. While I wasn’t that attracted to the fighting that playing the game with my sisters always led to nor the core game play of trading property and paying rent. No, what really appealed to me was simple buying a Monopoly just so I could build houses and hotels.

My goal was never to win the game. My sisters figured this out as I would often mortgage properties or make the dumbest trades just to get a monopoly to build on. Usually I would end up losing the game just a few short rounds later. I never cared about playing the game on its own merits. It was simply a primitive method to get my building houses fix.

Then my world changed. It was my 13th birthday. My parents took me to a department store I had never been to before. It was a 2 story building that had the standard clothes and houseware on the ground floor. Down the stairs to the basement level suddenly you entered a massive toy and hobby area. Bikes, Super Soakers, action figures, dolls and every other item that would interest a kid was there. In the very back of the store was the hobby section.

While at first glance it was just the standard bottle rockets, yarn, Ertle Models and the like, in the furthest corner was a section that caught my eye. Sitting on the shelf among model train cars, trees, tracks and other terrain products was a whole host of building. Everything from farm houses, churches, police stations, and more. My eyes glossed over as I finally found what I had spent my whole childhood dreaming about. I could finally start building my model town.

It didn’t take long to discover this new found hobby was known colloquially as model railroading.  My first clue was the clerk dressed like  train conductor. I could have probably over looked that if not for the Model Railroad magazines and product catalogs lining the end caps of those aisles. I knew I wasn’t interested in the trains side of things, just the layout side.

Yeah I would pick up a few trains and tracks along the way but for no other reason than to add flare to my town, not because the trains were important to me. In fact over the years I made it a point to keep the trains at the edge of town, never allowing them to become the focus. I wasn’t even that interested in the locomotives. I just wanted to finally have that scaled down miniature town in my life, loosely inspired by Beetlejuice.

Today I write this as a way to remember that while I do, in fact, partake in a hobby that resembles Model Railroading to outsiders, the truth is as with so many things in my life, I walked along my own path just adjacent to the more popular path. Once again I found myself interested in something close to what others were interested in but just slightly different for my own reasons.

My obsession with city building lives on. I play other games beyond just Sim City. various Roblox Tycoon games, The Sims family and I even have a Minecraft Creative Mode world save dedicated just to building my own city. I never gave a crap about trains. I just explored the model railroad hobby only as much as I needed to satisfy my true desire.

I’ve been through quite an evolution as a person over the years. I started life out growing up in the very conservative rural state of Kansas. Don’t get me wrong politics aside I love the simple life the people in the Great Plains strive for. I miss it sometimes but not enough to go back. 

Needless to say I grew up in America with a pretty limited world view. I never travelled outside of the Us once. I didn’t even start interacting with people from other places until high school when we had some foreign exchange students. But even that was nothing like getting online and meeting people from all over the world. This brings me to the newest chapter in my life. 

I was in college at the age of 31 before I started to recognize despite living in poverty I still benefitted from White Privilege. Sure I forfeited some of that when I came out gay and trans but I still have it easier than my non white friends. 

The first person who really opened my eyes is my multiracial girlfriend. I don’t go the “I’m color blind” route, I asked my girlfriend to enlighten me on her experiences and what people of color go through. I knew some growing up in  a Hispanic majority town where I was the only white kid in my class but even that was limited. 

Then I met my friend Rey. I wanna talk about how amazing of a person Rey is. I don’t wanna go into their personal struggles because that’s not my place. The first thing I learned about them was they live in the Philippines. Our earliest interactions were just tweeting at each other about PC gaming and things. Eventually we started talking daily via discord and even started playing video games online together.

I try to accommodate my friend by playing the games they wanna play but sometimes the time zone difference along with life’s complications get in the way. That doesn’t stop me from going out of my way to try to check in with my friend often. 

Rey and I started getting into political discussions once the Palestinian genocide became the focal point of internet discussions. I must admit I was coming at it from the perspective of someone who absolutely benefitted from American Colonization. That was the first thing Rey helped me see. At first I’ll admit I unfairly pushed back because I was defensive. I didn’t wanna expand my world view because I knew there wasn’t a lot I could do so I preferred to just avoid it.

I can’t do that anymore. I deeply care about Rey. They’ve become one of the people I look forward to hearing from every day. Most days we just chat about music, video games or nerd things. But sometimes we get into heated political discussions. I want to take a moment to thank Rey for challenging me to re-evaluate everything I knew about colonization and how it affects those communities who have been on the boot end of it. It breaks my heart hearing my friend’s country is affected by my nation being a bully. They also really got me to think long and hard about the genocide in Gaza. I still have more to learn but I really want Rey, and everyone else, to know I am going to do some more thinking, learning and try to find a path forward towards being a better person. I don’t know where it will lead me nor do I know what I even can do about it but I am gonna try to do more. 

But let’s also take a minute to give Rey mad props for not only being an unrelenting outspoken advocate for people who are suffering in ways beyond our limited scope, but also I wanna say Rey is a dope ass gamer. They know their PC gaming better than anyone I’ve ever met. I don’t get to play games with Rey often but when I do those are some of the best experiences for me. Rey if you read this I think you are a great person and I am eternally grateful I met you. I know I have hurt you before and we’ve reconciled but I still wanna learn more. I’m not perfect and I don’t strive to be but I do desire to try to make the world a better place in any way I can. Thank you Rey for everything you do.