Survey

Dusting off the old blog, I figured I would do a survey one of my friends did on her amazing blog, Mason Jar Memories.  She works her ass off on it, and actually posts just about every day.  I don't know why I'm telling you this though, since you're probably the only one reading this, Grace! hahaha

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1. What is your motivation for blogging?

Well, my blog is made to be a test bed for my stories.  Short ones, or pieces of larger ones.  I made it in 2009 for that purpose and only updated it once since I fret that they won't like it, even though I tell myself that's kind of the point.  It was made to show people that I am working on things and not just sitting around playing Fallout, which is closer to the truth nowadays.

2. What do you feel are your strengths and weaknesses as a person? 

Strengths are that I can get people about things they wouldn't talk about with anyone else, and subsequently help them with their problems (usually make them comfortable with them rather than solve them).  I love delving deep into people and really get to know them; for a time I considered being a psychologist.  

Weaknesses are my extreme procrastination and bouts with depression, often due to not doing the things I need to do because of said procrastination.  So it's a shit-cycle that I need the strength to break, which I'm breaking soon.
 

3. What are your dream accomplishments?
 

Write a novel.

Write, pencil and possibly ink, color and letter a limited 12-issue comic book series.

Write, direct and edit a feature film.

Write, direct and animate an animated feature film.

Write, design and possibly program, model and animate a video game.

That's my five things to accomplish before I die.  Working on two of those right now, and have the writing done for all the rest.
 

4. What does your usual breakfast look like?

I sleep odd hours sometimes, so it's often whatever we're supposed to have for dinner.  If not that, it's either a bowl of cereal (Cinnamon Toast Crunch or Corn Flakes with sugar because Frosted Flakes suck) or a potato salad sandwich.

5. One of your most embarrassing stories? 

 I didn't get a belt until I was about 19 or 20 years old.  Before that, I would have to hold up my pants by putting my hands in my pockets.  My mom, like usual, told me some bullshit when I was younger like "you don't need belts, they're just an accessory".  Could have used that accessory when I was walking through the hospital to visit my grandma a few years back and my pants fell to my ankles AS SOON as a fucking cop walked by.  Ok, I'll admit, that's pretty funny. :P

6. The highlight of your life thus far?

Whenever someone tells me they like one of my ideas, those are the highlights of my life.  I don't have any definitive moments.

7. What do you imagine your spirit animal to be?

 
The capybara.  Just look at it.

 

8. What is something you miss?

I miss walking through Toys R Us and seeing the ENTIRE SECTION dedicated to the Nintendo 64.  Will never see so many now-old games, systems and accessories in mint condition in one place anymore.  Thing is, I only went there maybe twice in my whole life.  So yeah, not much that I miss.

9. What is one trend you refuse to follow?

Going from one social network to the next every 6 months.  I'll join Google+ when my Facebook friends never get on, thank you very much.

10. What is your favorite junk T.V. show? 

I don't watch T.V. hardly at all...  But I assume it would be my numerous cartoons I enjoy, like Adventure Time, Regular Show, Superjail, Ugly Americans, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and old classics on Netflix like Rocko's Modern Life, Ren and Stimpy, and X-Men (the mid-90's animated series I grew up with).  If only Netflix had some Looney Tunes...  I'm a animation freak, but  I digress.
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And that's it. Hope you guys get a tad bit of insight into me with that, and that it was enjoyable.  Maybe I'll post a story soon.  Have a better one!

Passages to Nowhere

  Because this is a new incarnation of my old blog and I hadn't posted anything on that thing for over a year, I figured I would just start off clean and put up some passages from things I started writing but never finished.  You see what I did there with the title?  Get it?  Fuck I'm lame.  Without further adieu, here are two excerpts.

Transcendence

Written 02/27/10

Inspired by listening to "Transcendence" from Oskoreien's Illusions EP

  I imagined sheets silhouetting the curves of a body.  I felt that warmth press hard against my ribs from the inside, and the sadness of knowing that I must eventually leave.  Then I am at a battlefield.  A combatant on the losing side, fighting beside too many with too little time to care about any of them, and against a faceless enemy who owns my full attention.  Selfish survival is the only thing in this place of burning bodies and crying voices worth working for.  Then I am alone there, hiding from my fate while remembering the silhouette under the sheets, but still unable to feel anything more than the survival, and the sadness of knowing that I must eventually leave.

Indifference

Written sometime in late 2009 and edited today

Inspired by "Vitamins" in Raymond Carver's "Cathedral", a hospital visit, and personal conflict.

 The artificial odor of apples and cinnamon ran high in the air. The chair he sat in felt as if it once had been the failed attempt at a roll cage of an automobile and crudely fashioned into a seat.  The sickening pale green of the walls were enough to make him vomit just from their sight out of his peripheral vision.  The magazine he held had little effect on his disgust, and in fact, intensified it.  "Women experiencing involuntary vaginal seepage should consult a doctor as it may be a sign of infection which could lead to kidney failure."  No shit.  They have such boring fucking magazines in these places.  He felt sweat bead off of the edge of hair at the top of his forehead.  His boredom was excruciating.
  "Mr. Hughes." said the nurse.  He looked up at her.  "Please come with me."  He followed her.  He tried his best to ignore the sterility of the halls.  Her face and breasts were not exceptional, but her body was great.  Given these circumstances, he could hardly feel physical attraction.  She led him into a small office. "Please sit down." He sat down. She sat across the desk from him. "Mr. Hughes, there were complications during the surgery.  Your wife has passed away."  He looked at her indifferent.  "Mr. Hughes, I am deeply sorry for your loss.  Please believe we did everything we could to resuscitate your wife."  He felt relieved.  "If you need someone to speak with you, we have a priest, Father Bradshaw, on hand."  He nodded.  "Thank you, but that's fine."
  He walked out of the hospital alone.  He drove home past the beauty parlor, the grocery store and the steakhouse.  He thought about how much loved his wife.  Was it enough?

Sorry For This

(( Re-posted from my previous blogspot, which uses a email address I don't use and can't change...))

This is not a story. To those new to this blog (if you're reading this and you're not me, you're a newcomer since literally nobody at all read this blog before), on February 15th, 2009 I began to see if I could write a short story every day of the year, hopefully leading to me wanting to write a new story every single day for the rest of my life. No, I did not delete the stories. There never were any posted. You see, I'm a lazy son of a bitch so the whole project failed. Yeah, I began a few stories, but only about the opening paragraph. Most days, I didn't write a damn thing. I wanted to, I really did. But I felt I was a failure if I couldn't create a 12+ page short story in a single day that was worth half a damn, and I knew I could not write even 10 pages of anything that I wouldn't just call absolute garbage and throw out. I basically ended up throwing away a lot of really good ideas that were buried in rubbish prose.

I have now realized something that I thought I knew long before I started the blog: being a good writer hardly, if at all, involves how much and how fast you can write. It's absurd. Why did I even begin to think that would work? Well, probably my involvement with a screenplay for about a year and a half at that point had something to do with it. I felt I didn't have the time to focus on other ideas while writing that screenplay, it was too important. All that time, every idea I had was strictly for the screenplay. So I put it on hiatus and felt free. Felt like I could, in fact, write entirely new stories with new characters and have them all with a deep symbolic meaning every single day. That, and I always do shit like this to myself. I attempt to do things I know for a fact I can't do but it's like what-the-fuck-ever, I'm doing it anyway! And I don't realize my mistake until waaay later.

But what is to become of this blog? Hmm, well, I haven't stopped writing by any means; it's still my favorite thing to do. I will post short stories on here if they can be read in a short sitting and I feel they are plenty good enough at the small length they will be. This blog will not be updated daily. Probably only updated once in a blue moon. But hopefully what you see will be good enough to read multiple times over and still get the same emotional effect each time. Hopefully.

Until the first story,
-Casey Cannon, hack writer.