Bhagwan @ Large

In the wee dark hours of the now

This last weekend I was in Las Vegas, getting to know and experience the culture of Horror writers. Not horror fandom, that I know all to well. But instead the creative methods and disciplines of those who purvey and portray that which goes bump in the night.

Why, you might ask? You’re a science fiction guy, you proclaim. You make video games, get back in your box!

Alas, I cannot. My fiction has been described as dark far too often, and some of my closest friends do not want to read my words on a regular basis. I have been known to say “I don’t write happy,” and it’s true that even the more uplifting of my short fiction has a serious edge to it.

Horror was the original category of storytelling. It’s one of the reasons I believe we evolved language in the first place, to express concepts besides basic hierarchical needs. It’s all well and good to relate the size and appearance of the bear, but to get across why you should be afraid of it takes art and imagination.

(You should, by the way. Because though most bears are pleasant, simple denizens of the wild places, they in no way recognize homo sapiens sapiens as a dominant omnivore. In fact, the only animal that instinctively hunts humans is a bear. The most efficient non-dinosaur predator of prehistory was a bear, and I’m still not positive that one’s not going to eat me as I walk to the bus.)

But I digress (seriously, BEARS). The markets I’m submitting to like my prose, but can’t really find a place for it among their standard offerings. Broadening my portfolio can only help get the words out, and in truth I’m relieved to find more monsters in spirit roaming the halls of conventions. Mind you, I’ll never stop writing about superheroes and spaceships, but now I can relax and let the darkness flow.

There are several such stories germinating in the festering madness of my mind right now. Tales so stark and uncompromising they threaten to chase away the two books I should be finishing when I sit down not to write. I’m afraid of one, and amused by the other. As I prep for next month’s big fiction gathering, I feel I’ll have a lot more to talk about than before last weekend.

Of course, imagine how much more productive a trip it would be if I could just finish the damn books.

Time to make video games. I’m fairly sure there are no bears in my office today.

They mostly come out at night. Mostly.

A view from on high

I’m looking out over the city of my childhood, marveling at the industry and spectacle it’s become.

I don’t see this metropolis with wide-eyed wonder, or even the eyes of a child. Every street corner shows me darkness and corruption. Every vacant lot tells me a story of broken dreams and lost promise.

Some people come here for a weekend where they can forget inhibitions. I come here to work, and instead of a hilarious buddy movie I see episodes of CSI.

I’m sitting on the 107th floor of an edifice undreamed of in my youth, tapping away on a device more fiction than science. The future came to this place faster than anywhere else in America, but LV steadfastly refuses to give up the past.

Should I abandon my prejudice? Blind myself to the very real darkness around me? Or should I embrace the lie and take comfort in its soothing tones of neon

The lights have cone on in Vegas. Armor against the pain screamed from every soul on the streets below. I am safe in a tower, looking out over it all and shielded from the worst of it.

But I won’t forget, and neither should you. Always question, always see with your whole being. Choose what feels right rather than what looks good.

Mahalo for now