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On February 10th, my mother passed away from a combination of sepsis and a weakened immune system, among other things. She was 71. My siblings and I knew it was coming, but for it to happen over the span of a few weeks is both jarring and numbing. I’m still trying to process it and get used to the sight of her not being there anymore. At least, she won’t be in pain anymore. That still doesn’t mean I won’t miss her. So, all I can say is; treasure your loved ones, please. And thank you. 

​Few people somehow do not get taken up in the wave of nostalgia these days. Which is a shame, because, in my opinion in which I speak for none but myself, nostalgia is overrated. The rose-tinted glasses we wear have a bad habit of drowning out the flaws in the things we loved in our younger days. As fond as I am of Star Wars, the series as a whole has a problem with presentation of everyone that isn’t white, male, and straight. (While I am aware it has gotten better as of late, everything that came after The Rise of Skywalker has not held my interest at all.) And, really, it’s not hard to find other space operas about plucky rebels taking on much larger galactic empires with suspiciously similar white, straight, male leads who gets the girl at the end. It’s just frustrating that it took this long to acknowledge these flaws and course correct well after my interest as died out and I searched for more interesting speculative fiction by the likes of N.K. Jemisen and Benjanun Sriduangkaew. More specifically, searching out works by queer and or non-white perspectives that are often passed over in the mainstream. Part of the fun of reading something new is getting situations one is not familiar with. Putting ourselves in the shoes of another, to put it simply without belaboring the point too much.  

​One of the largest obstacles that prevented me from starting to write original stuff was the mindset that I couldn’t hope to create the kinds of worlds that made people want to enter into it and stay there for the ride. I was so used to writing fanfiction and using the characters and worlds of others that I never had the kind of confidence in my own creativity to come up with something original. I say original with quotation marks around it because to be truly original is impossible. However, as far as interpretations go, the sky’s the limit and that was how I was able to come up with these stories of my own and on my own. To put it a simpler way, I wanted a story setting, characters, and plot that I liked. In a future post, I may go into detail as to how I came up with the details of the Epoch of Living Memory, but for now, just take a story that you like and rewrite it to suit your tastes. For example; if I were to rewrite any North American superhero comic book hero, i.e. Superman, I’d emphasize his immigrant status, use his powers to assist in the organization of the poor, and work with activists to give them the leverage they need against modern day supervillains, i.e. CEOs and conservative politicians. I do not fear sharing this idea because no two people will create the same story using the same prompt. As an example; the bible inspired both Paradise Lost and Dante’s Inferno. If John Milton and Dante Alighieri were able to create their own stories from scripture, then it is entirely possible to come up with worlds, people, and stories of one’s own. 

For the sake of disclosure, I’ve been writing fanfiction for a long time. Back in the ancient days when the only internet we had was America Online and it costed an absurd amount of money that my poor parents often berated my siblings and I for overusing, but I digress. What drew me to fanfiction was the chance to use the characters in the stories that I liked and put them in situations or relationships that I personally favored, whether it worked alongside or against canon. Time passed and eventually, it came to the point where I wanted to add to the canon with my own ideas, filling in the gaps that the primary source of media that did not have the details there due to constraints imposed upon the source material. And the older I got, the more dissatisfied I became with the endings of stories that, I felt, did not satisfy me in the least and popular opinions that read more akin to conspiracy theories did not interest me in the least. Eventually, my dissatisfaction grew to the point where after watching a popular science fiction movie did I tell myself that I could do better, or at the very least, create something that would satisfy me. It comes with the caveat that I may be the only one it satisfies, but ultimately, perhaps that’s all we can hope for, let alone other people liking it as well. If you try to please everyone, you’ll end up pleasing no one, and conversely, if you stick to a vision that pleases you, those who will be pleased by it, will be. 

I’m not a fan of what is considered the ‘YOLO’ mindset. I could be wrong, but it feels like a reckless action for the sake of being reckless. However, there is something to be said about taking a brave leap into the unknown, unsure whether or not you will succeed. There was a time where I thought I could never be a writer because mostly what I did was simply a hobby and nothing more. As time went on, I grew increasingly dissatisfied with what I was exposed to and felt that even though my writing was far from professional, I could do better. Or at least, write something that I would be satisfied with. Over the past few years, it’s taken me a significant amount of time and money, with what little I have left, to relearn how to write, take criticism, and work with others to create something, I feel, is worth the time and money of people who are looking for something they might like. Regardless if this succeeds or fails spectacularly, this was a journey I’m glad I undertook.