Surviving Halloween

Well, boys and girls, it looks like I’ve managed to make it through another Halloween Weekend (for the time being at least). At this point, it really has become a tale of survival for me: Imagine a video game, or any kind of game really, where the objective is to have as much fun as possible. The more fun you have, the higher your score, and in turn the more proudly and confidently you can speak the words “Yeah, I just fucking won Halloween, brah, get at me,” or something along those lines. Now imagine that the only ways to increase the amount of fun you’re having are to consume immense quantities of alcohol (decreasing your health points), get ogled by a member of the opposite sex with a revealing costume (decreasing your self-respect points), or get some laughs from your friends with an absolutely ridiculous costume (decreasing your give-a-fuck points). This is the game. You have to have fun, but you have to survive. If you die, you lose (clearly). If you go to the hospital or to jail, while the stories may be worth it, you generally lose. If your actions bring you a level of shame you never thought possible, you definitely lose (especially with my friends; we’ll literally make fun of you for shit you did fifteen years ago). 

This year we had the added challenge of a freak October snow storm. And by freak I mean a “the snow was so heavy and the wind so strong that trees were literally getting ripped in half” kind of storm. The kind where you get woken up at five in the morning to shovel snow and saw down branches so your mom can go to work. The kind where your two year old black lab looks like a severed head floating through the yard when he tries to run around outside. That kind of freak storm. But still, I made it, and hopefully all of you did too.

Getting back to Halloween for a second, all joking aside, I do hope everyone had a safe and fun filled weekend. It’s important to have a couple days like this every year, times when you can just kind of let it all go, have some fun, and forget about the stresses of life. Times when you can be silly, (or sexy if you prefer…I chose both clearly), and just enjoy yourself and the company of your friends. That’s what it’s really all about, right?

Find joy in the joy of others. Don’t be afraid to make fun of yourself. Life’s short people.

Happy Halloween,

Nate

Day 1: Yup, finally sacked up and went through with this.

First post! Ah, it feels good to get that off my chest. I’ve been planning on starting this bad boy for a couple months now, but between work, the gym, and my reckless binge drinking, I just haven’t been able to find the time. Today’s the day, though, and an appropriate one at that, as it marks the two year anniversary of the day I first started writing my novel, The Darkener.

The Darkener began as a sort of stress relief exercise for me, a way to basically express myself metaphorically since I’m not always able to do it literally, and in time it grew into a story that I felt needed to be shared with the world (a synopsis and sample chapters are included below). What makes the book so special to me is the fact that it’s so personal, that it contains so much of my life, spun and exaggerated in different ways so that even the people closest to me wouldn’t catch on to it all. And that’s just the beauty of it: I get to share myself with others without them even realizing it. Literary espionage. Subliminal Nizz. No awkward introductions, no “so tell me about yourself” conversations, just me suddenly up inside of you (minds out of the gutter people…okay, you’re right, that was clearly intentional).

So, as a tribute to my (maybe someday) writing career, I’ve decided to share with you of all the first two chapters to my story. Hopefully the handful of you that made it this far will take the time to read through them, as well as the book synopsis I’ve included at the end of the post. I encourage you all to stop back frequently, as (barring bouts of debilitating lethargy) I plan to update this blog fairly often.

Thing’s to look forward to include:
-General thoughts and ideas
-Samples of my writing
-Letters to my future self
-And more…

Thanks for coming by! Read the rest after the jump!