The Anatomy of The Action Scene

I was going to call this post "Five Tips To Write Action Scenes That Will Melt Your Face... And You Won't Believe What Happens Next! What He Does Is So Perfect"but then I remembered I am not the scum of the earth. So no listacles and no clickbait titles here. Just some good old fashioned advice on something near and dear to my heart.

Writing action scenes.

So, I present to you a list of important ideas to keep in mind writing an action scene. You'll never guess number five!

1. Characters

No brainer right? You have to have some characters. Quite often this is a protagonist and an antagonist. Could be your main character and a main villain, or your main character and some villainous henchmen. But, hey, it could be two of your protagonists duking it out over something. But the characters in an action scene might also be a collapsing building, cars on a busy street or your protagonists demon possessed left hand.

You dirty bastards. Give him back his hand!

A character in an action scene is any force that is active, has some independence and is a danger to other characters. If an evil wizard and a stalwart hero are fighting and the wizard casts a spell to bring down huge slabs of stone from the temple ceiling to crush the hero, the ceiling isn't independent. It is being used by the evil wizard. It's a weapon. Is the temple old and the hero's pet zebra has set C4 around its foundations and not its collapsing around everybody? Then it's independent. It isn't aiming at anybody, it's just coming down everywhere and on everyone. It's active in the scene and a threat. The falling temple is a character.

When it comes to using characters in an action scene, there's two things you need to do. Firstly, give them a name. Especially if you've got Zack McHeroPants, the stalwart hero of your story, fighting nameless, throw away gangsters wielding blackjacks. Writing Zack McHeroPants kicks the "gangster in his nads" three times is going to get confusing and dull. So even for throw away goons like these, give them names. They don't have to be actual names. In fact, I'd say it's better if the name is some brief descriptor of that character. Maybe Zack McHeroPants looks at them and they're described as one rotund gangster, one gangster thin as a twig and the other with a nose like a pig's arse. Zack McHero might even remark with a laugh "Okay, so it's Fatso, Twiggy and Pig-Face. Bring it on. I'll beat you all with one eye tied behind my back and my laser gun in my mouth." Or he might not. Either way, you can now refer to Fatso, Twiggy and Pig-Face through the scene and the readers will know who you mean and where everybody is. Also, you've just made it that little bit more vivid for the audience. Go you!

Finally, remember that everybody moves differently. A fighter trained in Muay Thai is not going to fight the same way as somebody trained in Krav Maga, or somebody trained in Ying Jow Pai. A body builder and a couch potato and an Olympic sprinter have different body types and in the heat of the moment, they will move in ways most comfortable and natural to them. By creating a consistent and vivid sense of how a character moves in an action scene, how he faces a physical opposition of some kind, you develop that character further in the reader's mind. This way, an action beat isn't just about page turning, edge of the seat excitement, it says something about the character.

2. Terrain

Sometimes the terrain will be a character, as I said. Sometimes, however, it won't. But that doesn't mean it isn't there and you can't use it. Don't treat you action scenes as though they're happening in an empty white box between a bunch of naked people. While the characters fight, run, climb, shoot, tango, aggressively throw down their poker cards and swig their whiskey, there are things around them, there are doors and tables and walls and chairs and whiskey bottles.

As a very basic example, let's pretend that Zack McHeroPants is asleep in his bed and five red suited ninjas break into his house. Red is the best camouflage, of course, and it helps to distinguish them from the turquoise ninjas he fought in chapter 325. Ooo, too bands of ninjas after Zack McHeroPants? The plot thickens!

Now obviously Zack McHeroPants is going to win. He is faster, stronger, better looking and sleeps in black stealth pyjamas. Now Zack McHeroPants, on hearing the ninjas break in, could stand up and go one by one through the ninjas and punch them in the throat and then go back to sleep. Efficient, but not the most exciting. Or he could wait beside the kitchen door, wait for a ninja to step through, then use his leather belt to grab the ninja around the neck, then kick his legs out so he can't stand and choke the ninja into submission. A silent take down! The next ninja comes through swinging his sword and Zack McHero Pants dodges out of the way behind a chair. Of course! Ninjas are powerless against chairs! While that ninja struggles to overcome the chair, another bursts into the room and throws some shuriken. Zack McHeroPants leaps over his table and upturns it to shield him from the shurkien. Then he uses his Super-Blazing-Phoenix-Kick to slide the upturned table across the room and slam the shurkien ninja into the wall, sandwiched between it and the table. That's two down and one stuck behind a chair, but still two more somewhere. Zack McHeroPants knows that if he fights for too long, he won't be able to make it to the Waffle House by breakfast and without bacon, his heart will stop. (That's right, WITHOUT bacon, Zack McHeroPants has a heart attack and dies. Amazing!) Zack McHeroPants isn't sure where the others are hiding, though, so he grabs the chair stuck ninja by his neck and his crotch, thrusts him high into the air and throws him through the kitchen window. This sets off the alarm and immediately police sirens can be heard in the distance. The police never respond faster than when local legend Zack McHeroPants needs help! Plus, he can now escape through the window and rush to the waffle house for his life saving bacon treatment.

Using the environment to hide, to protect, to attack makes your action scene more interesting and, again, gives the reader a better image of where the characters are and what they're doing.

3. Stakes

A basic action scene will be something like this. Party A wants a thing, Party B wants to keep the thing from Party A. This thing is what is at stake. Now Party A might be the Cult of Mr Whippy, Party B might be Zack McHeroPants and the thing might be Zack's life. Simple. But problematically, this results in a pretty binary result. Either Zack lives or dies. Now binary sometimes works and more often than not you can still use a binary result like that to progress things. Is the story about Zack McHeroPant's escape from the afterlife back to Earth to stop the Cult of Mr Whippy? The the villains winning in this fight and Zack McHeroPants dying is a failure, but it works. Or perhaps this is the first time we've seen the Cult of Mr Whippy. Zack wins and lives but this new knowledge of dangerous ice cream zealots pushes the plot forward. Exposition, new goals, new threats, new mystery.

But what if Zack only thinks they're after his life?  What if what they really want is his pet zebras's third tooth from the right? What if the zebra's tooth is the key to the Fountain Of Youth? While Zack fights to save his life, one Mr Whippy cultist sneaks around him, sedates his zebra and steals its tooth. Zack still wins the fight but he was fighting for the wrong thing and now the cult has the zebra tooth!

Zack's life sure is weird.

Every group in an action scene or (or any scene with conflict, which is the vast majority of scenes) has a goal which is in opposition to one or all other groups in the scene. By making those goals unclear to the POV character (and thus the reader,) by making those goals multitude, by making them farther reaching than that scene and by giving those goals more than one outcome, you open your scene up to more interesting and variable resolutions. What if the cultists got the wrong tooth but nobody knew? What if they couldn't get the tooth out and took the whole zebra? These answers to the scene have potential drama and twists further down the line that you can and should exploit.

4. Escalation

Finally, escalation. Escalation comes in two forms.

First is an escalation of stakes. Why does the Cult of My Whippy want the zebra tooth? To open the gates to the Fountain of Youth so their leader can drink it and become immortal and begin his conquest of all ice cream across the world, soft serve or otherwise. But Zack doesn't know that. When the cult attacks him, the stakes are his life. It sounds big but, honestly, Zack McHeroPants is fighting for his life every other hour. Plus, we know he's usually fine. For this kind of story, the drama is on the low end of the scale. But once the cult takes his zebra buddy so they can extract his tooth, in the following action scenes he is fighting for the life of his best friend in the whole world. Stakes escalated! As we get closer to the story's climax, Zack fights to keep the Fountain of Youth out of the hands of evil. Then, finally, in the ultimate battle of good and evil, Zack McHeroPants fights an immortal cult leader for the very soul of the world's ice cream supply.

This is an escalation of the stakes. It happens with each significant turning point in the story. It creates excitement and gives the reader a growing and changing investment in each action beat. It remains interesting to read when there is more to fight for.

Finally, there's escalation of the action itself. If your story begins with a few guys brawling in a bar, it had damn well better end with a big fiery explosion! The scope of the action should not stay where it is. It should build.

Zack's first fight against the Mr Whippy cultists in his home escalates to a car chase in the next scene, and then to a dog fight above a lake full of crocodiles, and then to a fight against the biggest and meanest cultist of them all, while surrounded by watching cultists ready to pounce the moment things go badly for the big mean friend, then to fighting a dragon, then to fighting a crocodile on the back of a dragon while it flies over a lake full of the biggest meanest cultists and finally, at the end, Zack McHeroPants must fight the biggest meanest half-cultist half-crocodile leader of the cult who has achieved immortality and is using his evil magic to bring down the underwater temple in which they're fighting while his zebra friend uses C4 to destroy the dragon because it will arrive any second now with an army of red ninjas and Zack is armed only with his leather belt which means his pants are falling down, plus if doesn't eat bacon in 3.25 seconds he will have a heart attack and all the world's ice cream will be lost!

Wow.

WOW.

That is some fucking escalation right there!

Now, as a caveat, escalating action can have peaks and valleys. In fact, in a full length novel or series, it has to. Escalation that is always going up is hard to sustain as a writer and can be hard to comprehend as a reader. It risks getting farcical. So escalate and escalate until you reach a big scene, an important turning point in the plot, then let it fall again. Take a break from the action, have some low key scenes and then begin to build again with your next action scene. This time peak a little higher, then drop. Do this until you reach the story's climax when you have the highest peak.

And that, my friends, is what you need to know about writing an action scene.

Take care.

See you next time.

I need to go lie down after that...

For those Who Came In Late

Hello all!

Every now and then I like to put a hold on the usual blogs and reintroduce myself for anybody who might be joining us recently. New friends who might have stumbled onto my books or my twitter or my blog and decided to take a seat and join the fun.

So a very friendly hello to you!

My name is Carl, I'm an author of fantasy and mystery, of novels and comics and short stories, and of rambling blogs like this very one you're reading. If you're ever wondering what you should read, might I recommend my last novel, Pilgrimage. It's a lot of fun and excitement with a touch of drama and plenty of fantasy, magic and monsters, all set in modern rural Australia. Come on, when's the last time you read a fantasy novel set in modern rural Australia? Try it out.

If you'd like to try that book or any other, there are links at the side of the blog to their Amazon page or if you scroll up and click on that box that says 'Books by Carl' you can find blurbs for each book and a couple of other links to purchase my books in your preferred store and format. If you're the kind of folk who like to try before you buy, you can click on 'Free Stories N' Stuff'' to find some short stories and some sample chapters from my novels.

Otherwise, feel free to pull up a chair and listen to my random musings and ramblings. My blog is mostly about my thoughts and experience as a writer. I'm sure you'll find it helpful, interesting, or both.

And now, there's something I've been promising to announce on Twitter and Facebook and here it is...

I have a new book coming out!

Summer's End is a hard boiled detective story set in a small Washington town. It has mystery, intrigue, drama, action, excitement and even romance! I am positive that you'll enjoy it!

No release date yet, other than soon. Very soon. Keep watching this space for updates! I'll be bringing you blurbs, samples and proper release dates in the coming weeks.

Until then, friends, I've got plenty of work to do, so I'll see you next time!

How I Published A Short Story

This month a short story I wrote was published in the Australian Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine, Aurealis. I thought it might be interesting to talk about how that happened so, here we are, and here's my story about getting a short story published.

About two years ago now I decided to sell a short story. The wording of that is important. I didn't wake up and say "I'd like to try and sell a short story." I said "I am going to sell a short story." And yes, I more or less did just wake up and make the decision. That decision was birthed from the same thinking that has been responsible for many decisions I've made. I hadn't done it before, I figured I should.

So that's the decision I made. Almost two years ago. It wasn't exactly a quick process.

The first thing I did was look up magazines taking submissions. If you've never done this, let me tell you there are a lot of them. The vast majority are now digital publications and the vast majority are for fantasy and science fiction, with a few for literary, young adult and mystery. Well I'm a fantasy author so no problems there. But I also discovered something else. Most of them don't pay.

If you're going to try and publish a short story in magazine or similar collection, you'll have to face the same kind of decisions I made. The two big questions for me were: Will I give a publication a short story for free? Will I pay for the privilege to submit? My answer to both was no. If I want to give stories away for free, I'll do it here on my blog. I already do that. I also wasn't going to pay to submit. I understand why some publications might charge, but I expected to get a lot of rejections and plenty of editors were willing to reject me for free.

So with this criteria, I collected a list of magazines that had large submissions windows totalling about 10, put them into a spread sheet and went onto the next phase of my master plan.

To sell a short story, I needed to write a short story. If you've been keeping up with me since those long ago days when I was a member of Deviant Art, you'll know I used to write a lot of short stories. But like so many a working author, I realised somewhere along the way and that short stories don't make money. My time is more is better spent writing novels. Yeah, that's mercenary, but a guy has got to eat. So I needed a short story and all I had were old, old, old. I've improved my writing by leaps and bounds since those days and I had to put my best foot forward.

So I sat down and started writing and what I found was... I had forgotten how to write a short story. Well, fortunately, the solution to that was easy. I began reading a lot of short stories. When you want to learn to write anything, the first thing to do is read. The success of others is often the best lesson. So I found myself a bunch of short story magazines and I read them. This not only reminded me how a short story is meant to be written, it gave me a better idea of what the magazines I was submitting to were interested in. My goal was to have three compete and ready to sell stories at any one time that could make the rounds. After a few months I achieved this.

But, to be perfectly honest, I kind of cheated. I had two stories done and ready to go around but I was floundering on getting that third. So I dove back into my most recent (and by recent I mean 12 months+) short stories to see which one sucked the least. I found one that hadn't made it online and wasn't complete pants and I edited the shit out of it. So I had three. Two completely new and one mostly new story ready to go.

And then came the waiting. I had become one of hundreds of hopefuls sending their short stories to editors. I was in the big slush pile and some of those slush piles are three months long. Rejections came in. Mostly form letters, occasionally a personalised comment, occasionally some critique. I checked me e-mails obsessively, I started and scrapped a couple more short stories and then remembered I had a novel I really, desperately needed to finish.

And after about six months, I kind of forgot. I just forgot that I was doing the short story thing and the last few rejections came in and I filed them away in my rejections folder (because all writers have one, right?) and kept on keeping on with my other projects. And I did that for almost a year.

And then one day late last year or early this year - I forget exactly when - I woke up and decided I was going to publish a short story. But, wait a moment, didn't I make that decision already? Oh yeah. Whoops...

Back to step one. I went through and checked the magazines on my list. A couple had folded in that time, a couple had gone on indefinite hiatus from taking submissions. So I dove back into the Googles and found some replacements to pad out my list. I wrote a couple more short stories and I started the process again. But I had a decision to make about those earlier stories. Do I keep sending them around? They never did quite complete the list. It's over a year since I wrote them, it's several years for one of them. I'm better now. Are they worth it?

And then, ladies and gents, I said those two magical words.

Fuck it.

And I sent them off again, along with the new stories. And the rejections started coming in again, like they did before, like I expected.

But then something magical happened. An editor at Aurealis said "Hey, that one. We like it. We'll publish it." And soon after that I had a contract. And soon after that I had some copy editing to approve. And soon after that it was published and there was excitement and rejoicing.

And the story that made it? The story titled 'Why I Hate Tuesday.' It's that oldest story that I almost gave up on. That story that I almost didn't sent out at all. It's that little story from an era and a skill I'd since surpassed. But I rewrote it, and I worked on it again and again to make it the best I could. Because, age aside, it's a fine little story.

And that's my story. It's not an unusual story. I did the work, I followed the rules, I played the game, I received rejection after rejection. And in the end, it all worked out.

So the message? The lesson? The take away from this adventure?

Fuck it. Just do it.

My Mental Illness Pilgrimage

What's this? Two blog posts in two days? How can it be? Well, yesterday's post was really only half a blog. I talked about how my novel Pilgrimage is a Buddhist parable. But is it really? There's another way you can read Pilgrimage and that's as a story about mental illness. That's what we're going to do now. Again, some spoilers and it will make far more sense if you've read the book. So go do that.

The majority of characters in Pilgrimage suffer from pretty severe mental illness. The only person who doesn't is Griffith. Griffith is kind of a wimp but being afraid of people who want to kill him isn't a mental illness. It's just good sense, really. And to his credit, Griffith shows a lot of determination and bravery in the face of frightening circumstance, so good for him.

Roland, who is really the main character in the story, gets the most development. Everybody gets to see what is going on in his brain and why it's an unpleasant place to be. Roland is an alcoholic but his alcoholism is really just a symptom of his severe self-destructive depression. Roland is addicted to his sadness as he is to alcohol. He utterly loathes the person he has become and that drives every poor choice he makes. The journey that Roland and Griffith takes is a physical counter-part to the emotional journey that Roland makes through the film towards an acceptance of his past and recovery from his depression.

Caia, who joins Roland and Griffith on their journey, is in a similar situation. But her depression takes on a more nihilist than self-destructive angle. Caia is tormented by the sins of her past, like Roland, and even though she hopes to atone for them, she doesn't believe she can ever really make things right again. Caia's depression is explored philosophically in the novel and it's revealed that she no longer believes her life has meaning or that she has any free will. Rather than rage against these ideas, she accepts them with a quiet melancholy.

But mental illness is not just reserved for the heroes of the story.

Lloyd is paranoid. He has also fixated his paranoia on Griffith. Lloyd has nothing but grand designs for his future and the misuse of his power, but is convinced that Griffith is acting against him with every breath. He cannot stop, cannot do anything at all, until he has killed Griffith to keep him from meddling in his plans. Griffith is, of course, only interested in getting as far from Lloyd as possible, but as far as Lloyd is concerned, that's just a part of Griffith's diabolical treachery. Were Pilgrimage told from Lloyd's perspective, it would be a very different and very delusional story. It's also worth noting that Lloyd is a walking plague. It's suggested that while he was never a nice guy, the catalyst for his disturbed state of mind is at least part physical malady. I think this is important because often we still think of mental illness as being all a state of mind, but medicine is showing more and more that mental and physical health are not so separate.

Pentdragon, the would be king and tyrant, is so offended when he meets Griffith and Roland that he decides the most important thing he can do with his time is try and kill them. Why? What do Roland and Griffith do that is so awful? Well mostly they don't care about him. Roland insults him a little but mostly they think he's just full of crap and want nothing to do with him. Pentdragon, having a bad case of narcissism, simply cannot fathom being ignored. That somebody might not see him as the centre of the universe is enraging. He drops everything in a flash to prove just how important and powerful he is to the protagonists.

All these key characters with their severe mental illness orbit around Griffith, the one healthy person amongst them. But not only is Griffith the only healthy one, hiss only desire in the world is to help other people be healthy. His magic is focused on healing wounds. The goal of his journey is to become better at healing others. Griffith tries through-out the novel to help the others and save them malady.

And his efforts do help to heal Roland. Note that I say help. Because what's super duper important in the arc of Roland's depression is that Griffith gives him a hand up and he takes it, but he still climbs out of that pit of despair on his own steam. Griffith can't do all the work for Roland. Roland has to make the choices to be healthy again. But Griffith is integral to that process, enabling Roland to see his problem and address it.

Mental illness is a complicated issue and in a book full of action, adventure and magic, it was never intended to be a serious analysis. But I think the book handles it with the due respect and never makes light of the serious problems these characters face. For Roland, it ends on a happy note, with him beginning to recover. But depression isn't like a switch that gets turned off when you get the right medicine or decide to stop being unhappy. Roland's recovery is a long process that continues even after the novel concludes.

So Pilgrimage is about mental illness?

Or, wait, is it a Buddhist parable?

Can it be both?

Does it have to be either?  Can't it just be a fun little adventure story?

When I wrote it, I definitely intended it to be about Roland's recovery through his friendship with Griffith. I always knew that Roland would be suffering when the story began. Those themes were there from the initial concept. It wasn't until I completed the book that I realised it works as a Buddhist parable. But I have a long standing interest in Buddhism so that didn't surprise me.

But the truth is, when you pick up Pilgrimage and you read it, Pilgrimage becomes your story. The Pilgrimage you read to yourself will always be unique and that's as it should be. If it speaks to you as a story about depression or as a story about Buddhism or as something else, that's wonderful.

All I hope is that you enjoy it.

My Buddhist Pilgrimage

This post will make a lot more sense if you've read my novel Pilgrimage. This post is not spoiler free. I minimalise the spoilers, but spoilers are still present. I strongly recommend you go and read Pilgrimage and then come back and read this. Failing that, I suggest you read this and then go and read Pilgrimage. Failing that, I suggest you skip this and go and read Pilgrimage. Pilgrimage is good and you should read it.

Pilgrimage is a Buddhist parable. No, seriously, it is. What's that? What does a story about an alcoholic and a apprentice sorcerer walking across rural Australia pursued by a megalomaniac and a disease wizard to find protection from a legendary master of life and death have to do with Buddhism? Well you see...

Pilgrimage is full of allusions to Buddhist ideas. Rebirth, from a perspective of transformation, is seen in action all through the book. Caia is the obvious example. Her magic is focused on transforming herself. She takes a variety of forms through the novel, mostly animal. When she does, her body is renewed and sometimes physically altered in the details. The villain Lloyd also undergoes rebirth, defined by his anger and rage, he becomes inhuman, a walking disease. Less obvious but most important is Roland. By the end of the novel, Roland is reborn physically by Griffith's magic and reborn mentally through his experiences and his friendship with Griffith. All these changes reflect the cycle of reincarnation in Buddhism.

We can also see in these transformations the effect of karma. This is simple. Those who are defined by vice, by their attachment to their lives, or by their earthly desires meet only disaster and destruction. Only Roland, who is able to learn to live in the present and let go of his grief, is reborn into a better life.

Another major obstacle that the characters must face in their journey to enlightenment is the tyrannical sorcerer Pentdragon. Pentdragon is a magical force to be reckoned with and many of the most blatant displays of his powers is the creation of magical illusions. Several times our heroes Griffith, Caia and Roland must face and overcome his illusions to progress. There is much discussion in Buddhism on the illusory nature of reality and our world. What exactly that means and how that illusion forms and how we interact it is a discussion worthy of a thesis in itself and we won't go into it here, but illusion is the word used and it describes the emptiness of this world and the threat of distracting or misleading us on the path to enlightenment. Pentdragon's magical illusions are a very literal representation of this threat of illusion. Not only that, but his influence and political power, even much of his wealth is suggested to be an illusion he has created for himself.

Pentdragon also represents the threat of desire. It's because of his desires for power and wealth that he comes into opposition with the heroes. At Pentdragon's party, Roland speaks with a young boy working the bar and discovers that Pentdragon keeps others loyal to him by playing on their desires. The boy desires a shred of the power Pentdragon holds. The guests desire to share in Pentdragon's apparent high social standing.

Finally we come to that journey to enlightenment. Up until now we've focused on the imagery and the events that act as a kind of figurative nod to ideas in Buddhism. They are symbols of a sort to sign post what Pilgrimage is secretly about. But in looking at the novel's plot and the journey the characters take, we see clearly the parable being told.

Pilgrimage is a journey both physically and mentally for the protagonists. The wise master Yasu who awaits them promises salvation and Yasu is described as a master over life and death. There is, undeniably, something Buddha like about Yasu. This isn't subtle in any way, either. She lives an ascetic life and uses Buddhist language. Griffith is on a journey to meet Yasu and is in the final stages of that journey. He believes he is ready to transcend the life he has been living. But in these final stages he must help Roland, whose journey only begins. In this way, Griffith is like a Bodhisatva, one who is close to enlightenment or has foregone enlightenment to help another on their journey. In some schools of Buddhism, this is an integral part of the journey to nirvana. By the story's end, Griffith's journey ends but Roland is reborn and his journey continues. There is more he must do before he can complete his journey as Griffith did.

So there you go. Pilgrimage. Contemporary fantasy, adventure, drama, Buddhist parable. My secret agenda has been revealed. The truth is at last clear for all to see.

Or is it?

Because as convincing as all this seems, Pilgrimage is actually about something else. Something we'll cover next time.

Until then!

It's Now Or Never

In less than a month, Alan Rickman, David Bowie and Lemmy have all died of cancer. Seriously, fuck cancer.

Celebrity death is a weird thing. So many people mourning for somebody they don't know. I've never been much impacted by celebrity death with the exception of David Bowie. I know that the deaths of Lemmy and Alan Rickman will have impacted others in a similar way, though. The death of Robin Williams had a similar impact at the time and from time to time I still hear people speak of it. The fans will speak of it and mourn for the rest of their lives. Mourn a man they never knew.

Strange, but it does make sense. While a celebrity's fans can't generally say they know the celebrity personally, celebrities put themselves out there and create these strange one way relationships with their audience. Their fans know about them, sometimes in frightening detail, and feel connected to them while acknowledging that it will not be reciprocated with the same devotion. Thus when one dies, it's like millions of people have lost a close friend that never knew they existed.

There's another reason, I think, that certain celebrity deaths hit so hard. Sometimes a person appears to be or gives the impression of being larger than life and more than human. Somebody so popular, so talented, so loved simply can not die because dying is so mundane. Or perhaps their presence in the world, in our minds and hearts, is so constant and so irreplaceable that imagining a world without them is an insane notion. They are so close to the centre of our world that they must be near the centre of the world and without them, the world would not turn.

But it's not true. Death is the great equalizer, it comes at any time, any place and doesn't care about wealth and fame and fans and love.

And yet...

And yet it's so easy to fall for the illusion of immortality. All it takes is to not think about death for us to begin to think we never will die. It's understandable. Imagining a world without us is like imagining a new colour. The act of imagining that world is the act of perceiving something that we cannot perceive. We will not see a world without us and to try and see that world, even in our mind, is a contradiction. Trying to comprehend our death and trying to comprehend death's apathy to us is, needless to say, uncomfortable. So we brush it aside and go on with the notion that we are eternal for as long as we can.

But the older one gets, the harder it is to maintain ignorance. Everytime somebody around us dies, it's a shock to the system. It thrusts a very personal death into our faces and makes us acknowledge our own mortality. Surely if a cultural giant and living legend like David Bowie can die, then little old me must die too, in my time.

And I will.

And you will.

Be certain now that your time is running out. You may live another hundred years from this day, but the clock is ticking and you will die.

And perhaps while death is so much on our minds, we should really try to remember that our death is coming. Let's not slip back into that illusion of immortality. Let's not pretend we are going to be the exception to the rule.

Writing takes a long time. It takes a long time to learn, it takes a long time to get good at it and it takes a long time to produce a work. Personally, I take far too long to write a book. It can also take a long time for your work to find an audience, for it to make you any money, for it to earn out its advance or turn a profit over its expenses. It takes a long time to build a career. The sooner you start work on any of these things, the sooner you will complete them and the sooner you can achieve your goals.

Do not wait. Do not procrastinate. Decide what you want to do in life, decide what you want to achieve and then do it. Make it happen. Strive for it and do not stop until you're there. Do not watch one more video on YouTube, refresh your Twitter feed one more time, or play one more match of League of Legends.

Stop making excuses and make time. Stop thinking about it and do it. Stop imagining you're there and get moving.

Take this time now, when confronted with the cold truth of mortality, and be motivated by it. Everything you want to do with your life is limited by time and none of us know when time will be up.

And then watch another YouTube video, check your Twitter feed and play a game of League of Legends. You should enjoy your life, you should have fun and be distracted by simple amusements. You don't want to burn out. If you've only got one life, you should enjoy it. It's okay to do something just for the joy of it and not to accomplish more.

And then get back to work. Time is short, after all.

What I'm saying is take control of your life. Do the things you want to do, but whatever you do, don't be idle and don't let your dreams slip away. When you look back at your life from your death bed, will you be satisfied to say "I binge watched six seasons of Supernatural every month," or do you want to say "I had a book to write and I wrote it."

Decide now.

When I woke up this morning, death was in the news again. As I do every morning, I put on some music to listen to as I began my day. Today the most appropriate song came courtesy of Bon Jovi. I'd like to leave you with a few lines from that song. Take them, think them, decide and act.

"It's my life, it's now or never. I ain't gonna live forever. I just want to live while I'm alive."

Ashes to Ashes, Funk to Funky

I promise to go back to talking about writing soon. Next blog, for sure. But for now I just want to think out loud again. Forgive me for my self-indulgence and if you're not interested, no worries, see you in a few days.

I just began doing some editing today when I heard.

David Bowie died.

At first I was certain it was a hoax. I went straight to the Googles and looked it up and, yep, a couple of pages confirmed it was a hoax. I felt relieved and a little miffed that the official David Bowie accounts on Twitter and Facebook were spreading rumours and not checking their facts. They should be more like me! They should consult random tabloid websites that confirm their desperate wishful thinking! Haha, QED, he boasted.

About half an hour later, my sister called me. She'd just heard the news and thought of me, wanted to make sure I'd heard. I voiced my discovery that it was a hoax but since she clearly was getting news from more legitimate sources, I did a second Googling of the matter. What a difference 30 minutes makes.

No denying it this time. No amount of stubborn wishful thinking could alter the facts.

David Bowie died.

Okay, so why all the melodrama? A celebrity died, clearly I was a fan, so were lots of other people. People die all the time. Is it really worth blogging about? Is it really worth the dramatic retelling?

I'm only a young man, but I've been listening to David Bowie for almost 20 years. I've been listening to David Bowie almost as long as I can make complete sentences. David Bowie has been at the core of the soundtrack to my life for as long as I can remember.

So, yeah, this has hit me hard. I am absolutely gutted by the news of his passing. And I wanted to express that. Hence, a blog, dedicated to David Bowie and how much he has impacted my life.

Because I've listened to David Bowie when I've been happy. I've listened to David Bowie when I was sad. I've listened to David Bowie as I fell in love and I've listened to David Bowie while my heart ached. A love of David Bowie has been the basis of some friendships. I've listened to David Bowie while writing. He's inspired my writing. I've listened to David Bowie when I've had trouble sleeping. I have childhood memories that can not be separated from particular David Bowie songs. I've made many friends suffer through my karaoke renditions of all David Bowie's hits.

I can listen to David Bowie at any time. He has created such a vast library of music in so many styles and forms that I can always find something from David Bowie to listen to no matter what mood I'm in, where I am or what I'm doing.

Only a few days ago, David Bowie released a new album. I, of course, listened to it and I loved every moment of it. There's not a single track on Blackstar that I don't enjoy and there are many albums like that. Ziggy Stardust, Low, Hunky Dory, Heathen, Outside, Hours, all of them albums that I can happily listen to again and again, from beginning to end. I'm not going to pretend that I love every song David Bowie has ever written or performed. But there are few albums that I can say I love every song on and no other artist is responsible for as many of those albums as David Bowie.

It is helpful, I think, that David Bowie almost became a genre unto himself. Perhaps only Pink Floyd has been so wildly popular with the mainstream while being so experimental, so versatile and always changing, and so committed to the art of music and willing to cross genres just to try something different. And David Bowie's passion for art extended into the music videos he did, which are as weird and wonderful as the music.

But I'm going to stop now. If you've bothered to read all this, then well done and thanks, I guess, for sticking with me as I ranted incoherently about how much I like David Bowie.

I finish by saying: Thank you, David Bowie. Thank you for all that your music has meant to me over the years and for all that it will continue to mean to me in the years to come. May you rest in peace, knowing that you have touched the lives of millions like me.

You were a hero, every day.