I sometimes wonder if I'm too relaxed about things. I grew up thinking that anger is an emotion that should never have a home. I rarely get mad about things. I just don't see a point. "God give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

I think it's naive to truly believe that the world can be changed drastically by one person. I do believe, however, that one person can truly make a difference on a smaller scale. There have been too many people who have done just that for me to believe otherwise. I think about them sometimes.

I guess the person I think about the most is Martin Luther King Jr. He was known as a pacifist. He wanted to change things through peaceful protests. I think his goal was to show that we as Black Americans were more than the animals that some White Americans believed us to be. That being said, I wonder how often he got angry. Did he ever punch a hole in his wall in the sheer frustration of the circumstances in which he was in? Did he quietly step into his bedroom, sit down on his bed, and bury his face in his hands, shuddering with every muffled sob? Did one of the greatest leaders of the Civil Rights movement ever snap at his wife after a long day of marching that ended in getting drenched in water or attacked by dogs?

He may have. Does that make it right? Just because it's human? Maybe.

The root

Driving for four hours on a pretty straight shot leaves your mind open to ponder things that you don't usually ponder. I admit that I spend most of my time listening to the songs that play, attempting to find the meaning that the writer intended or the meaning that I take from it.

Today I pondered about the world at large. I suppose that's unusual, but whatever. I'm sure everyone knows about the Madoff thing. Apparently this guy took off with 50 billion dollars, wiping out several investors all across the world.

Today, one of the investors committed suicide. He was found in his office with his wrists slit and a bottle of pills were near him.

Money is a necessary evil. There are people who say they aren't religious, but I call bullshit. You can worship anything you want, and there are plenty of people who follow strict rules for the way they do things. You can worship your car, you can worship your computer, you can worship a game...you can worship money. Which, I guess, is my point.

Too many people depend on money. Money cannot make you happy. Money cannot solve all your problems. Money cannot redeem all of your selfish acts, nor can it be used to make amends to wronging someone in the past. Money cannot be used to make up for being a bad parent. Money cannot be used to make up for the way you treat your friend. Get it?

Money causes problems. Always. It's the reason so many people get divorced (and, apparently, more people are staying together because it's cheaper), and it's the reason many people are driven to kill.

Why is money so important to you?

Christ, time really does go by fucking fast. I'm so tired of being at home doing nothing. I think the guys at Wingzone are punishing me because of the days off that I request, so they're not allowing me to work at all during the week. It's not like I'm requesting days off on the weekend to go fuck around at some party. I've got important things to do, and I explain them. I don't ask for every weekend off. In fact, I only ask them off when I can't accomplish any of the tasks I need to do during the week. I wish they'd give me a fucking break.

I feel like I'm going nowhere with my writing. I don't know what I should do. I have ideas, but they just seem to fall apart. I used to think I was getting distracted, but here I am, with the the television off, iTunes playing wordless soft music, and the WoW servers down, and I'm still writing in a damned blog I haven't touched in months instead of attempting to bang out anything. Maybe I'm not cut out for this sort of thing? Maybe I should cut my losses and find a fucking labor job, or something, I dunno. Hopefully the fact that people are hiring for Christmas will help me. Who knows?

That's the damned negativity talking right there. I know I'm good at writing, and I enjoy it, I feel it within my veins. So I just have to put the pen to paper and get started. Although as soon as the Moon Guard server comes up I'm back to crushing skulls for a while. New talents and all.

Later.

P.S. Misery Business is my new pet project now.

Brother's Keeper

I'm not very far with this story, but I've got a lot down, and here's a summary of it so far.

Our main character, still tentatively named Edward, works at a Library.  He used to work at a bookstore, but got out of it because of what a scene the place had become.  He found the quiet atmosphere soothing, and almost hypnotic monotony of organizing the books gave him a lot of time to think.

He ends up closing for Cassandra, the supervisor/head librarian.  Queue up sexual tension, please.   As he's locking up for the night, he notices an odd package that's marked for The Keeper.  Not having any idea who that is, but having already locked the library and armed the security system, Edward decides to take it home with him for the night.  Along the way, he's ambushed by...well, something.  He gets an odd feeling from the box, best described as a surge of energy.  He gets a quick physical blow at the thing, which knocks it several feet away, to his surprise.  The surge quickly left him, and as the monstrous creature approached him, he thought he was toast.  Luckily, he was saved by someone.  He sorta blacked out.

Edward woke up to find a young woman peering at him from behind sunglasses (Corey Hart, anyone?)  After a bit of banter, she reveals herself to be a vampire.  After a little more banter, Edward (maybe) reveals that he's an agnostic, but after seeing what he just saw, his views might be changing.  Any more banter is cut off by the sound of a scream of a woman.  Fred (the vampire girl) goes off to check it out, and after a very brief hesitation Edward follows.  They find a troll in an apartment.  The woman was already dead, and the troll had a large pouch strapped to its shoulder.  The troll gets the jump on Fred, but she recovers.  After being he victim of a cheap shot, Fred loses her bearings for a moment, and just when it seems like she's going to be smashed with the club, Ed steps in and catches the club, crushing it in his hand.  Startled, the troll decides to run, scooping up the package labeled Keeper.

That surmises the first few chapters.  More later.  I'm out

J.L. Maxxe

Continued from the previous

To finish my last blog, I'll list the final story.

Misery Business - Enter, Stage Left, Felicia Moore, Student.  She's  trying her damnedest to get through college, majoring in Theology with a minor in Psychology.  Her school work is constantly being usurped however, by wandering ghosts and restless spirits.  Enter, Stage Left, Felicia Moore, Valkyrie.  Armed with her sharp tongue, a variety of old (really, really old) school weapons, and a few allies, she's the newest and youngest recruit of the Valkyries, charged with helping the souls of fallen soldiers find their way into Valhalla.  Easy enough, right?  But when Odin calls upon her to hunt down and stop the Remnants of the Trickster, she finds that things get a little more complicated.  Can she really stop a war amongst the gods?  Or worse, when will she find the time to study for her mid-terms?

Haha, I think I kinda like that Synopsis, or whatever you'd call it.

I've got a few major stories so far. The Ballad of Fallen Angels, Brother's Keeper, and Misery Business. Go me and naming my stories after songs. I'm cool like that.

The Ballad of Fallen Angels is about three races: The humans, the Magellan, and the Angels. The Magellan are second class citizens, with most having some sort of deformation, ranging from small to large. The Angels are flawless Magellan, usually taken at an early age to a place of schooling. There are other plot points that I won't give away here, but it's gets interesting as we start off with our main character, Emeron, an Angel who's trying to find his father, Julian. This was my first official story. I started writing it at 14 or 15.


Brother's Keeper is closer to a modern day thing. It's about a guy, Edward. His life could easily be described as agnostic until he gets attacked by a demon and rescued by vampire. Once again, plot points that won't be revealed just yet, but I have high hopes for this one.

I'm too sleepy at this point to finish this, so I'll post the last one later. Night!

This is mostly just going to be for me and my work. It's easier for me to find my notes if they're here than random places on my computer, not to mention on the off chance that something happens to my files and backups and such, I'll have this to look at.

First, to explain the title. The first time I listened to a song by the Foo Fighters, called "The Pretender," I noticed a portion of the lyrics. Grohl states, "I'm what's left. I'm what's right. I'm the enemy." After listening to the rest of the song (the video helps too) the double entendre becomes obvious. I felt that it fits here.

Okay. First blog. Now, I'll probably update this again tonight, since I'm in Dothan.

- J.L. Maxxe