Kool-aid

Grape drink, or as I always called it, dinosaur slobbers. As a kid (I hate that phrase all of a sudden) my favorite type of Kool-aid was always grape flavored. Not because it stood out as being any better than the rest, but because it had a little purple dinosaur on the packet. It was a brachiosaur or a brontosaurus or something like that, one of the ones with a long neck. He was purple and he had green polka dots on his hide. He was smiling.

It’s funny that I remember all of that, I mean I don’t know if that dinosaur is still hanging around somewhere, or whether or not he’s still on the grape flavored Kool-aid packet. I don’t even know if Kool-aid is still available.

I know that Kool-aid style drink mixes are still hanging around. You can buy them in little packets with tubes to flavor a single bottle of water, or you can get the bigger packets that can make one or two quart jugs just like you did with the Kool-aid packets. Only now they come presweetened. You don’t have to add a small mountain of sugar to make it taste the way it should. Which is good and bad, but that’s a discussion I’ll leave for another day.

Now comes another thing that seems to have become a theme on Thursdays. I’m not talking about anything to do with the blog, but rather with Facebook and Twitter and all those lovely social media sites: Throwback Thursday.

The idea for Throwback Thursday must have spawned from two points. One, Throwback Thursday is alliteration making it fun to hear and fun to say. Two, somebody started uploading their old photos on Facebook on Thursday and it caught on as a trend.

Well, Throwback Thursday caught me at an odd point, as I have been feeling very nostalgic for one reason or another and the Kool-aid thing really brought that to mind.

I miss being a kid. I miss being a ten year old. Things were safe back then, figuratively speaking. I didn’t have to worry about any adult responsibilities. I could do whatever I wanted, be it Sound Effects on the platform or if I was going to stay inside and play Nintendo or Sega (I don’t remember which one I had at the time). The other big question, should I play with my Power Ranger toys or should I play with my Beast Wars Transformers toys. Those are questions I didn’t have answers to back then. And, that’s a lot different than it is now.

Do I pay this bill and not have money for groceries?

Can we afford to pay for internet and television?

Can I afford a mobile phone right now with all the debt piled up over my head?

Those are the questions I don’t have answers to nowadays, and I would trade all of that to go back to being that ten year old boy.

Maybe that’s where my safe place is. That warm earthy smelling platform, like it had just rained, the place where many stories were born, grew old, and died. It was there that I felt safe from everything.

I want to go back to that platform. Back to that year. I want to forget all my adult problems. Alas, things don’t work like that. So, I’ll keep dreaming, and I’ll keep writing, and maybe I’ll find that ten year old again, and he can tell me what it was really like.

Ryan

2-13-14

PS: I put Sound Effects in italics because that’s what I used to call it when I went out to the platform to make up my stories. I would pace across that rough concrete surface, and I would see these wonderful things all of them behind my eyes, and I would make the noises that went alongside the stories. Fighter jet sounds, guns, occasionally the sound of someone else’s voice talking. Something like that. And, that’s a deep enough scab. Lol. Maybe I’ll tell you more about it later. For now. It’s bed time.

Stephen King

First off, if there is a god of literature somewhere out in the cosmos his name is Stephen King, if that’s any indication of what I think of the man. Lol.

Yes, Stephen King is one of my top three favorite writers, and without a doubt he is the best, stylistically speaking, of the three. The stories he weaves with his web of words are above and beyond anything I’ve ever seen. I can only hope to be nearly as good as he is.

And, now, to get my nose out of his crack, I should try and find something new to say about the man.

He’s one of the most prolific authors of our time, publishing at least one book a year every year since Carrie was published in 1974. 1974 was the same year Dungeons and Dragons was first introduced to the world, and both D&D and Carrie are now forty years old. Well… technically, Carrie won’t hit the big four-o until April 5^th. Exactly one month away from the time of this writing.

At one point I had hoped and prayed that my writing career would mirror Stephen King’s. I had hoped to be published the year I turned 24 (King’s age when Carrie sold), and I’ve hoped to be published every year since then. I’ve not really done a lot of work in that direction though. I mean, I’ve got six novels written (first draft at least), but I’ve only got one to the point where I considered it finished. And, I stopped trying to sell that one some time ago.

That’s really my problem too. The reason that I haven’t succeeded thus far is because I haven’t tried. (That’s usually a good reason for not succeeding.) But, in all seriousness I gave it a half hearted attempt what feels like ages ago, and I’ve talked a big game since then. How I’m going to do this, and I’m going to do that, but I’ve put no effort behind it.

I think I’m scared.

I really do.

I think I’m afraid of putting myself out there and finding out that nobody likes it. And, worse, that people will say bad things about it.

I know that’s a damned stupid thing to be afraid of. Everybody has an opinion, and that opinion isn’t always going to agree with what I’m thinking. So, basically, being afraid of hearing other people’s opinions is kind of like not eating because you’re afraid of choking. I saw that on a meme somewhere. Jason David Frank’s facebook page I believe, but where I found it doesn’t matter. I should listen to it. I should stop being afraid of these things and move on with my life. At the rate I’m going I’ll never have the career I want.

So… yeah… That post didn’t go anywhere near where I thought it would go.

As for working Stephen King into my game I have a couple of options. I can use him as an NPC (lol). I could possibly work one of his monsters into an adventure maybe even having it be the primary antagonist (“We all float down here, Georgie. And, when you’re down here, you’ll float too!”). And, then there’s the simplest way to do it. I can use him as an inspiration to move both my life forward and take my Dungeons and Dragons game one or two steps down a much more terrifying flight of stairs.

Ryan

3-5-14