As I was driving home Friday I suddenly realized I’d started writing parts of Book Three and had to take stock at what I was doing for the ending of Destiny’s story. At the same time I received a call from my wife that she wanted to go pick strawberries and make some homemade preserves. Interestingly enough even though we’d never spoken together about making homemade jam or done it before in our lives, we were in sync once again around the same time with the same idea. Funny how things like that happen between people who love each other.

We ended up picking fresh strawberries that evening and spend the weekend making various batches of jam: strawberry-vanilla, strawberry-banana and of course just straight strawberry. The process is relatively easy and not incredibly time consuming, except for the multiple batches of different combinations I made up, so I had a chance to think about the ending of Destiny and decide “where” the ending should be exactly. I was also able to talk to some friends who are up-to-speed with my story in general to give me some criticism about where the cut-off should be.

Part of the problem is the story has ended up being a long longer than I’d initially thought it would be to get to the point where I wanted to end the story at. I could have bypassed the details in-between of what’s been happening with the characters to a point, but I think that would have taken away from the overall story. Those “little things” can mean so much and there is no need to rush through the story to get to a particular point. I was really tempted to stop where I’m currently at. It would have left a nice cliff hanger that would have been cool and annoying all at the same time, but I decided not to. The reason is simply my writing style for this series is loosely based on “computer gaming principles”. There are bosses at certain points that need to be overcome in each book, which creates a nice climatic ending for each individual story. Also, as one of my friends pointed out, if I ended in the middle of a battle then I would have to bring everyone up to speed enough not to confuse new readers in book three. Seriously though, who starts a book series off in the middle? A good point none the less.

I know exactly how the battle will go. Well maybe not exactly, but I have the flow of the action in my head. Unlike the Wild Elf battle with the Tuonellian, Argus (the Wenci) and a Grey Elf where I had almost punch-by-punch planned out in my head ahead of time. Oh wait, that’s all part of Destiny’s story, so you haven’t read it yet. Heh, too bad, because it rocks, but don’t worry. You’ll get a chance to read it soon enough.

Anyway, doing this epic battle scene is a good amount of writing, but I feel that it’s a good place to stop the story. The climatic action feels right in my head and heart. I think the idea of keeping in line with that whole “boss ending” for this level … or book is what did it for me.

For those of you who are surprised at my homeliness with making jam and cooking in general, don’t be. I enjoy cooking and am quite good at it. It also follows my desire to live a healthy life and to keep away from processed foods and chemical substances as much as possible that are in so much of the food we eat in our modern society. Making it from scratch helps to a point to ensure that I am staying healthy. Although the fresh croissants and homemade jam hasn’t been so good for my diet. One of my wife’s friends were shocked to see me come home and whip up several batches of homemade jam, which made me laugh. I definitely do not subscribe to any type of domestic roles for men and women, like so many people still do in the world.

Anyway, for those of you who are interested I added the pictures below. Hope you enjoy it.  

Being a gamer, writer and a person living through these constantly changing times, the future is very much on my mind. I’m sure my generational plays a major role in this forward looking perspective. For those of you who didn’t know, I’m a generation Xer.

Google’s definition: A member of Generation X (born from the early 1960s to mid 1970s), "as a Generation Xer I have come to the conclusion that the politicians have let a whole generation down".

Wikipedia’s definition: A generation whose worldview is based on change, on the need to combat corruption, dictatorships, abuse, AIDS, a generation in search of human dignity and individual freedom, the need for stability, love, tolerance, and human rights for all.

A very different label than the one we were given by Douglas Coupland in the 80’s when we were called the materialistic, slacker, disenfranchised stereotype youths of America. Not a surprising description when you think about how sensationalism sells. It amazes me that my generation was ever called materialistic, since most of us considered finding a strong wooden stick or the ownership of a rubber ball the same as kids today think about having an iPhone or iPad. Being raised by a grandmother who was a child of the Great American Depression and as a very poor latch key kid, I was one of the lucky ones who was able to surpass my economic situation and work myself out extreme poverty. An experience that makes me focus on surviving in the now, while doing my best to plan for an ever changing and economically chaotic future.

The next ten to twenty years is going to be one of amazing technological breakthroughs in new technologies and a series of terrifying social upheavals. Being raised on Star Trek, I always enjoyed the idea of this semi-perfect future of the human race, where poverty and hunger and prejudice has been wiped out of society like a disease, but from my experiences I know the world will actually look something closer to the world of Star Wars. Sadly enough, I fear that the world of Star Wars is even too nice and pretty of a future. The reality, I fear, will be much worse and something more along the lines of the movie Blade Runner / Johnny Mnemonic / Gattaca / Almost Human and the world from the MMO Anarchy Online. I’ve attached the trailers down below, just ignore the cheesy 80’s graphics and special effects on Blade Runner & Johnny Mnemonic. Oh, completely ignore the electro dolphin, because that shit just didn’t make any sense.

In many ways many of these are being seen in our current lives. Blade Runner where companies use human-like robots off earth to mine minerals in asteroids or for are sold to people for entertainment purposes. There are discussions about the use of robot control space craft and drones making more sense to send for exploration to other planets then sending humans. Not to mention the idea of AI running amok. Johnny Mnemonic, where people enhance their body functions with technology by assisting their memory, making them stronger and quicker, or improving their vision, all of which is happening now. Also, how international companies grow too large until they begin to control parts of the government, which allows them to enforce their own desired regulations that hurt the citizens. Gattaca, where companies want to know a person’s genes to help reduce cost for health insurance and as a guarantee how smart an employee is and will become. Almost Human, because the technology is right around the corner. The ideas of robots that are basically human. The technology crimes that normal people are facing. I feel like they really hit this right on the mark. Ignore the whole Buck Rodgers sealed off city thing from the mutant humans, that’s just off the wall, but everything else I would say is right on the mark. Anarchy Online, where a large international corporation nearly controls all aspects of the government and use this control to abuse their employees.

I’m not saying this small list is every good movie or MMO showing the concerns of a possible dark future for us, but this is my immediate list of futuristic films and MMO’s that depicts things we are starting to see coming to pass right now. I guys if you took a piece of each of these films and mixed them together into one world, I fear this could be the future we will find ourselves living in.

The sad part is that we are really nearing a point in human evolution and technology where hunger and poverty and discrimination could be eliminated, but unfortunately the intrinsic nature and focus of our current materialistic society cannot allow that to come about without major changes to our current societal focus. I’m not saying having cool tech and technology to improve our lives is a bad thing, but the focus on stuff at its current levels is definitely not healthy. To be honest, I would have even taken the Star Wars ideology even if that meant overcoming some terrible Empire or even working for the Empire. Think of Corran Horn in the Rogue Squadron Series http://www.amazon.com/Rogue-Squadron-Star-X-Wing-Legends-ebook/dp/B00513HXBA/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1434224057&sr=1-1&keywords=x-wing+rogue+squadron  I love how Michael A. Stackpole had his hero start out as working for the Empire as a TIE Fighter, before he became part of the Republic.

The sad part, one that I didn’t cover, is that in every book, movie or game that I think does a great job in predicting a very possible real future if we keep going down the road we’re headed down always has a Third World War that humanity must face before things gets better. Lately when I watch everything going on in the world today. Russia’s recent invasion of the Ukraine and their subsequent increase in troop build-up and flexing their military might around the world. China’s aggressive military and economical stance over their claims for the Senkaku Islands, their push to become the new monetary and their disregards for human rights in general. It makes me wonder how close we really are to this possible Third World War. Five years ago I would have said that such a fear was insane, but the invasion of the Ukraine with conventional forces by Russia made me say “WTF, how could something like that happen in today’s day and age.” Unfortunately you know what they say. It always gets worse before it gets better. I hope my fears of a possible World War Three is just an overreaction to the events I see happening around, but none the less I find it very much on my mind as I see the strained economic chaos happening around the world. Desperate people do desperate things in desperate times.

Anyway, I am slowly solidifying an idea of a near futuristic society for a new book series where I put all of these ideas together. It’s been churning around in the back of my mind for a while and the pressure is growing stronger and stronger to begin working on the story, but first I need to finish the four books I have planned for The Last Paladin Series.

By now, for most of you that enjoy keeping up with my blog, you know that sometimes I have to take time out to deal with IRL stuff that pops up from time to time. For you Indie Writers who have a full time job that has nothing to do with writing and a family on top of that to boot, you know what I’m talking about. At that same time, an old colleague called me yesterday about working on a writing idea that he had and reminded me how much he enjoyed keeping up with my blog, which again reminded me of the importance of not letting “headquarter consolidations” keep me from making my regular updates. Sometimes we all need that reminder. Yea “Headquarter Consolidations”, it’s exactly what it sounds like and is the reason I’ve been preoccupied of late, but enough of that.

 I was talking with my daughter the other day and giving her a hard time about taking her phone away until she got her homework finished up, when she surprised me by saying it was a pretty good idea. The conversation ended up with “shocked me” holding two phones, while she went to study for her exams. Later when I talked to her about it, she explained to me that she knows that she needs to get ready for her college entrance exams, but sometimes it’s just so hard to focus.

This is something I think many of us share in common. I know for myself it’s something that I’ve had to fight my entire life. I was always interested in learning stuff, but I rarely found school particularly interesting, let alone confusing social interactions and clicks that made life miserable on a daily basis. Another thing I always found amazing was how even the stuff I was interested in could be made boring and a chore. Even worse, I’m one of those people who need to see the connection of why learning something theoretical is useful and practical. My resistance to this has gotten better as I’ve grown older, but that doesn’t mean that I agree with the structure that is “modern education”. Interestingly enough, I recently saw a video that proves I’m not the only one who thinks this way. Check out the attached “RSA Animate” video. It validates this feeling I’ve had over the years in so many ways!

Self-discipline is not easy. It’s something that I’ve always had to work at, but it’s really the only way to get things done. It took me a long time to learn this. Unbelievably I learned this from one of my greatest distractions in my entire life: MMO’s and computer gaming. I’d tried to get into computers before joining the Army, but I was too poor to have the equipment I needed for it to hold my attention. At that time the only thing I could afford was a tape drive for saving data, which made five and a quarter floppy drives look like “light speed”! It wasn’t until I got out of the Army and back into computers that the technology really become affordable and once it did my life was forever changed.

Computer gaming made computers fun and it was primitive enough that you had to actually learn a lot of hardware, software and networking to be able to game. In this way it made learning fun. I didn’t mind pouring over book of data, of learning about interrupts for motherboards and peripherals and how they interacted with the operating system. Whatever I needed to get my games to run and play multiplayer with other gamers was all that was important.

Over the years my addition to gaming lessoned, but the things I learned had forever changed my life and given me a career in System Administration. One was crafting in Anarchy Online and other MMO’s. Crafting is one of those parts of the game that’s not for everyone, but in Anarchy Online and even in the beginning days of World of Warcraft it was needed to access the higher content of the game. Without a fully functional guide or enough characters with specialized skills it was impossible to reach certain game content. Usually this meant months of leveling up a character and the required skills needed to get to this point. I cannot even begin to tell you the months upon months of crafting I did online. Studying any information I could find on how to access these areas and the steps needed to craft what was needed. Of watching my online character’s hands make a twisting humping movement that is the universal symbol for crafting in MMO’s. Sometimes it was just boring shit. Making the same thing over and over until your skills were high enough to get to the next level, because that was the only way to get the special key or amulet made that would allow you into this super-secret dungeon.

I don’t know when it happened. I don’t know when I made the connection between doing this online and doing this IRL, but suddenly I realized I could do the same thing in my own life to make it better. I could level up. Yea, I know just how nerdy that sounds, but none the less it’s the truth. At the time it was an incredible concept and something I started doing consciously. Something so profound that even now when I’m studying for a new certificate or learning a new language, in the back of my mind I’m standing in some virtual world with my hands twisting to craft this new item or skill.

Although it sounds cliché so say this, during this epiphany time period in my life after I’d been doing this RL translation, I came across a movie in 2011 that changed my perspective on this even further. The name of the movie was called Limitless. If you haven’t seen it, it’s definitely worth checking out the video below. Not so much that the movie itself is so incredible, but the idea that you could take a pill and overnight have access to your mind’s full potential grabbed my imagination. Although the main character in the film happens to start out as a failed writer, the film itself wasn’t what made me want to write. I’d always had the desire, but never seemed to get around to doing it.

At this point in my life the thought that hit me was that why couldn’t I do this without a pill? Why couldn’t I just learn what I wanted to do? I mean, really what was stopping me, the work of learning how to do something in and of itself? Just a few years before watching this video I’d learned German and was starting on Polish, I dropped thirty-five to forty pounds, I’d finished a college degree, picked up about thirty certifications for Information Technology and moved to Europe. Basically all of these accomplishments had been purely based on motivation and the belief that I could make my life whatever I wanted it to be. It was at this point in my life I wrote my first book Flight.

Surprisingly enough while I was getting the links for this blog on the movie Limitless, I ran into something even more interesting than the movie. It’s an IRL “Limitless Style” drug that the news is starting to talk about. The youtube video was posted March 22nd, 2015. Supposedly the drug is called Provigil (modafinil). For those of you who are interested I just linked the news article below. I had heard of biohacking. Many of us do this to an extent. If you think about it biohacking can be as simple as taking vitamins or eating healthy all the way to taking specific drugs to enhance muscle and endurance, but the articles on this drug is pretty crazy. Who knows, maybe there is a drug that can help you be a “better you”. Just remember, no matter what, bio-enhance drugs or not, it’s your choice. You really can do anything you set your mind to do.

Anyway, there will always be new and exciting things that pull your attention and distract you from things that you need to do for yourself and your family. I mean, look at the up and coming future of gaming with Magic Leap’s “Alternate Reality” glasses. The possibilities this creates for gaming are sick! While Magic Leap is not out yet, Microsoft’s Holodeck will be here soon. Soon as in possibly the end this year or the beginning of next and integrates with Windows 10! Check this article out: http://www.howtogeek.com/214395/head-mounted-displays-whats-the-difference-between-augmented-and-virtual-reality/