Hello reader. Greetings. Hope all is well.
I truly have been thinking about you and wishing you well.
I currently am going through some hardships. What else is new though?
Life isn't designed to be easy, and if it was, it's not easy for me!
It's definitely been an interesting few months.
Life after Zia Records.
Honestly a lot better than I thought. Despite the challenges I put myself through to get here.
It's nice to be recognized for my talents and experience. My attitude has taken a huge 180.
I am able to approach my work with a sense of worth and pride. I mean I think one thing that helps me is maintaining a professional appearance and attitude. I feel like I am held to a standard that was not set at other jobs.
It's nice to be able to work without having to worry about attitudes and peoples shitty negativity. I have been able to separate myself from the ones who do that here easily. They are few and far between which is really nice.
My only issues with the job was how the company handled the training for the client. It was a piss poor shit show involving a lot of outbursts that are just downright unacceptable in my opinion.
The fact that some of these people made it out and onto the production floor is a shock to me, but I know in the long run they will be weeded out thanks to strong policy enforcement. I take comfort in knowing that. I keep my head down and always approach each call with the mentality of "How would I handle this if I were in their shoes?" And this has worked wonders for empathy and problem solving. Which helps me in my real life. I realized I needed to start thinking about things in my life with that manor of attitude. I need to approach things I love and care about with those thoughts.
I have been writing a lot. I am writing this story for a cartoon and it's been really hard for me.
I'm trying to create something with value and interest. The story gets cool and I'm excited to write for it and then I get this fucking imposter syndrome where all I see is other things that exist already. I beat myself up over it for a while then I get back to writing and rewriting things to make it my own.
Oliver & Monster Butt
I'll give you the premise. Actually if you've been reading for a while you already know what's up.
A boy uses video games to escape his real life. This game he gets is a fantasy RPG.
The show basically begins as he's plugging the game in for the first time.
In the game he meets a monster as the land gets attacked by a new army of spirit warriors.
They team up and feel the need to save the kingdom. The game pulls from fantasy video games and others that are popular. We have parody references to Mario, Sonic, and other pop culture icons.
I haven't quite figured out how to incorporate the real world into the story but so far I've been focusing on the threads of the characters and their interactions throughout the story.
I think the characters I developed so far are real/ly cool and they pull from people Oliver knows in real life. Friends from school basically, he relates these people to characters in the game who end up helping, or hindering him along the way.
It all boils down to a boy and his monster help to restore order to the kingdom after an evil army moves in to take over. The evil army of the game is trying to glitch everything so it has to reset. A rebirth but with the glitches they will be the dominating kingdom instead, plunging it into ruin and chaos.
Oliver learns about himself and gathers items that help build courage to stand up to those who are abusing the kingdom. He is able to make friends and learns what it is to have a crush on someone.
He mirrors things in the game and relates them to real life situations. He becomes friends with a silent boy at school who actually is a bright and open boy, just awkward because of his trauma of losing his family. A girl at school develops a crush on him and that reflects in the game.
The characters found in the game help him develop the relationships in real life.
Thanks to the game, characters and the interactions he is able to stand up for himself and fight back against his real life abuser. He builds self confidence and a sense of worth through the trails of the game and everything he went through.
So far there's about 8 solid episodes that lead up to a fighting tournament that makes fun of Mortal Kombat.
The story ends with everyone coming together and using their strengths to defeat this evil leader who's strong as all heck. The Usurper is a sickness that is extremely hard to fight and after a near loss the band of 4 figure out how to overpower him and succeed in saving the land. Of course right? Things have to be good at the end. But this isn't the end. There are so many other genres of games that Oliver and Monster Butt can go through and this is what is exciting to me. I basically just need to focus on getting this first set of story arcs done and then this could be just season one of a four part series, where they go through 4 different game types. I love the idea of Oliver and Monster Butt doing stuff out in real life as well. I mean Monster Butt is his imaginary friend so they can do what ever, when ever, how ever!
Anyways. I've geeked out enough with that story, I'll leave some to mystery and imagination. I hope you are at least piqued and curious.
On the horizon
Life for me right now is complicated. I was seeing someone for a little bit. We broke up though. Stress the WAS part. I quit my job and found a new one. I have my car now. I'm doing less art but writing more. I care about my job. I am working on fixing myself up and getting well.
But right now at this moment I am trying to be happy despite the garbage that's going on and I think my attitude is helping me get through this hard part.
It's almost always about money when it comes to problems. And in the next few weeks hopefully things get resolved for me so I can focus on living my best life.
I feel like I'm such a fucking wreck. I don't know how I am able to maintain relationships like this.
What's more, is that people are actually trying to be a part of my life. I find that to be odd just because I don't know what makes me worth it. But I'm looking into that for myself.
I know I say it all the time, but damn I am trying to be good. I'm trying to be best me.
I also just want to put it out there that Tuesday, 9/25/18, I was having the most fucking rough morning I have had in a long time. I woke up with the thoughts of, just fucking kill yourself.
Now yes, it's extremely alarming. And to me I was just laying there fighting with myself. I am not the type to give up. So I'm basically like, fighting back this negative monologue in my brain. At this time I'm on the cusp of a sour relationship with my partner, and work is feeling weird because I'm so new. I have little money because the training class was fucked with scheduling. I got paid $200 less then what I needed so I had to skimp on things, and I thought I had things covered but I missed a bill, costing me an extra 100 on what I already owed. So things were just piling up on me. I had these things I was thinking about with relationships of friends I had just made and my mind was making everything so fucking complicated. My trauma and abuse has me thinking that I can't have platonic female friends because I am hungry for that sense of compassion and friendship but when I get it I mix the signals and think their friendship is flirting with me for something more, so I get all fucked up and weird when I know they don't want me as a boy friend, but as a BOY friend. I can be significant to them without having to be their boyfriend. Jesus my brain is fucked about money and my expectations with myself. Expectations with others. I just have to learn to let go. And with all this going on in my head, the negativity is just like fuck it. End it. You've been trying since 2010. It's not working out. No one loves you. Who even gives a shit. The money is just going to get worse. Shit isn't going to get better.
Holy fuck was it really tough for me. But I persevered through it. When I got to work I typed up on my screen a message to myself to focus on helping out the members, and hopefully through helping them I can help myself. Well, everyone that day, whether it was because the universe smiled upon me or what, treated me with kindness, people on the phone complimented me with big ups on how well I'm doing, how great it was that "I" solved their issues, how significant "I" am to the wheels turning. I got people calling me and texting me just checking in on me and saying what's up and all this stuff without me even asking. It was beautiful. I felt like something was right and it was a critical strike to that negative fucking voice inside me.
Phew. I just had to let that out. I mean. I promised the moon I would work on letting go. I told the moon I would let go of things that hold me back. I need to move forward. I need to be happy.
Here I am. Still trying.
