Tag Archives: or something

I Didn’t Procrastinate Today

by Revis Edgewater

I didn’t procrastinate yesterday, either. Over the past two days, I’ve written more than I have in the last six months combined. And, because I didn’t procrastinate, I finished something that I’ve been wanting to finish for a while now. Granted, I still have to edit it, but I finally finished writing the fifth installment of my Declevon Blackmoon series.

This story shouldn’t have taken me as long as it did. I’ve had the story for it in my head since I finished the previous installment. All I had to do was type it up. For whatever reason, I couldn’t do it. When I had some free time, I’d read instead. Or play video games. Or watch something on one of the ten thousand streaming services that it feels like I’m signed up for at the moment. I’ve done a lot of all of those things since I started writing Blackmoon 5 (not the actual title).

Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with doing any of those things. I enjoy doing all those things. However, if I buckled down, like I have the past two days, I’d have finished the story in a month, maybe two, instead of the fifteen months that have past since the fourth installment was published.

Damn. Fifteen months. I can’t believe it took me that long to finish this story. Seriously, I can’t believe it. When I looked up the publication date on Amazon, I had to look a few times because I thought I was seeing it incorrectly. I would have sworn it was less than a year.

Maybe I need to go back to dedicating a certain amount of time each week to writing. It doesn’t necessarily need to be the same story week to week. It just needs to be me writing something, anything. Maybe if I do that, I’ll get back into the flow I had years ago when I wrote almost every day.

I’m Too Sexy For This Post

by Revis Edgewater

Revis Edgewater: Father, husband, author. Model?

A few days ago I saw a new person at work. I asked who it was and they told me it was someone from the corporate safety team. Ok, sure. Don’t know why anyone like that would need to be in with the rest of us at 4 a.m., but if they say so. I go about my business and do my normal routine until an hour or so later, when my supervisor walks up to me and tells me that they want to take pictures of me working.

Ummm…. what???

Apparently they’re putting together a new safety package for people to go over during orientation and they were there to take pictures of employees working. One picture of them doing things the correct way, and another where they’re doing things the incorrect way.

I told him that I don’t care if they take my picture, but I reminded him that I was on a timer. What I do needs to be completed by certain times or we get in trouble. As long as they don’t slow me down to the point where I’m running behind, I don’t care that they take pictures of me working. He says, “Great,” and hands me a waiver that I have to sign that allows them to take my picture. I shake my head and wonder what i gotten myself into.

The answer to that question is that I got myself into a photo shoot. They didn’t take pictures of me working. They took picture of me in poses that they put me into. I had to stand there for ten minutes while the guy and his “photographer” (aka his assistant who took the pictures on his phone) moved my hand around to try to find the perfect position for my hand to be in to present the right and wrong way to hold the handle of a pallet jack. No, I’m not making that up.

Eventually, it got to the point that I had to tell them that I needed to get moving or I was going to be late with my work. They told me that they had what they needed and showed me the picture before they moved on to the next thing. It wasn’t even a picture of me. It was just a picture of my hand on the pallet jack handle.

So, I’m not a regular model. I’m a hand model.

Things I Should Not Be Subjected To: Decorations

by Revis Edgewater

I’ve been trying to come up with an idea for something to post over the past week, but nothing came to me until last night. Our little town had their annual (except for last year when they didn’t have it because of COVID) Christmas parade. Everyone in town turned on their Christmas lights and watched the parade. Then we gathered at the police station for music, hot chocolate, and pictures with Santa. All in all, it was a fun night out with the family.

There was something I saw during the parade that bugged me, however, and that somehow clicked the part of my brain to make me remember this series of posts that my brother used to do way back when on Stuphblog. I think I did one or two of them too, but most of them were his. Still, what bothered me at the parade seemed like a good fit for the “Things I Should Not Be Subjected To” series, so here we go.

The thing I shouldn’t be subjected to is a certain type of Christmas decoration. Specifically, the reindeer antlers and red nose that people put on their cars. I dislike them. I dislike them very much.

I’m not sure why they bother me, but they do. They annoy the crap out of me. Maybe it’s because I, personally, find them to be incredibly stupid looking. Although, now that I think about it, I’m not really a fan of any car decorations. Bumper stickers, flags, antenna toppers? I don’t want any of them on my car. The antlers and nose are the worst, though.

So, if you’re somebody who has these on your car, please do me a favor and don’t drive anywhere near my eyesight. I really don’t want to see them ever again.

Writing Woes

by Revis Edgewater

I wrote a post a few weeks ago about how difficult it has been recently for me to get up the energy to do any writing. I wanted to change that. I wanted to get back to a place where writing was easy, where it was fun. Well, that hasn’t really happened yet.

Since that post, I’ve written once for around a half hour. I only got out a few hundred words. It probably would have been more, but I remembered something as I was going along that made me stop. It has also made it harder for me pick it back up. I remembered a question that Baby E asked me a while back. She asked me when I was going to write a book that she could take to school and have it be read.

Now, none of the books that I’ve written have had anything too terrible in them. They aren’t exactly kid friendly either. Not anything I want my 9 year old to read anyway.

There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for my little girl, but this is something that I’m not sure I can do. My writing, for the most part, contains a fair bit of darkness in it. I’m not sure I’d be able to tone it down enough to get through an entire story. Besides, I don’t even know if I could come up with a story that would interest 9-10 year olds. I didn’t read that much back when I was that age and things are a lot different now than they were back then. I don’t know if they’d like the same things I did when I was their age, let alone the things I like now. More than likely, if I attempt this, it will be a huge failure.

I know some of you might be thinking, “She’s your daughter. She’ll be proud of you no matter what,” and you’d probably be right. For now, anyway. She’s quickly approaching the age when parents becoming embarrassing.

Still, if I do this, I want it to be something worth her being proud of.

Here I Am

by Revis Edgewater

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted on this blog with any regularity. There are a few reasons for this.

Life, for one, is the biggest contributor to my lack of posting. Between work and family time, there’s not always enough time to make for writing here. Working an 8 hour shift then coming home to take over teaching duties from Mrs. Revis (along with doing all the other things that need to be done around the house) doesn’t leave much freedom to sit in front of a keyboard. Hell, the only reason I was able to throw my last post together was because it only took me 2 minutes to do it. All I did was use the text predictor on my phone to throw a few random paragraphs together.

Another reason is my offline writing. Almost all of my writing nowadays is on projects that I plan on publishing someday. Most of that writing is done on my phone at work during my breaks and, quite frankly, that takes much longer than it would if I were trying to do it on my computer. You’d think I’d be better at typing on my phone with how much I do it, but I’m still not very good at it.

Since I’m talking about my offline writing, I feel like I should tell you that I am almost finished with the 4th installment of my Declevon Blackmoon series of stories. I’m hoping to have it done and published within the next couple of weeks. I’ll post the details when I know for sure.

Lastly, I’m just not sure what I want to do with this blog. Back when I was posting with some regularity, it was a mix of just about everything: fiction, fandom, sports, life, hypothetical situations, and anything else that invaded my mind. For the past year, or so, it’s mostly been works of fiction with a few other things mixed in here and there. I don’t know if I feel like keeping that trend up, going back to the way it used to be, or maybe trying to think of something new to do.

All I really know for sure is that I’d like to make a point of putting something up here regularly. I don’t know what that’ll be yet, but I’m hoping to be able to carve out enough time to post at least one thing a week. It may not be much, but it will be something. I’ll also do my best to not make a series of nonsensical sentences into a post again like I did a few days ago.

I make no promises, though.

Fantasy Football Finale

by Revis Edgewater

Well, here we are folks. We’ve reached the end of this tale. Matticus and I would very much like to thank all of you who have taken the time to read all, or even some, of this story. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed writing it. Have a great day everyone!

First, there was blackness. Then, there was pain. It was soon followed by an unnerving numbing sensation that started off small, but slowly expanded until it enveloped his whole being. Plex didn’t know which one was worse. None of them seemed to match what he should have been feeling.
He had just killed Lavalandinarial, the dragon overlord whose tyrannical rule over his world led to the deaths of countless innocent people of all races. This should be a time when he was filled with happy feelings, not pain and then numbness. His sister and his teammates should be all around him, jumping for joy, yet here he was all alone. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

In a flash, it all came back to him: his sister being hit by the dragon’s tail, the cuts he sustained from debris flying up when the dragon tried to hit him with her tail, and the wounds in his back from the dragon exploding upon her death.

His first thought was of his sister. Was she alive? Was she dead? For that matter, was he alive? There was nothing around him except a vast empty space. There was light, but not much. Was this the afterlife? The elves had legends of what occurred after you died, but this didn’t match any of them.

“Wake up, damn you!”

The voice came from all around him. It was a deep voice, and one he recognized. There was a slight accent to it. For a moment, he couldn’t place it, but he finally recognized the accent as being dwarven. That was odd. The only dwarf that was coming to mind was Frukeld. This voice didn’t sound like the old dwarf, though. Who could it be?

“I said wake up, damn you!”

This time the voice was followed by a warm feeling all around him. It flowed over, under, and then finally through him. As the warmth built within him, Plex saw the area he was in begin to brighten. It was no longer an empty void. He was in the sky, surrounded by stars. Below him, clouds drifted lazily by. At the very bottom of his vision, there was a tiny dot, barely visible. Somehow, he knew that the dot was where he really was.

“I’m only going to tell you to wake up one more time before I start smacking you!”

The warmth filled him until he felt like he would explode. With one giant burst, it shot out of him in every direction. Plex felt himself falling. Looking down, he saw the dot growing bigger and bigger. Up above, the stars became smaller and smaller. His gaze drifted back down, towards his destination. It didn’t take long for him to recognize it as it came into view.

It was the arena where he had played football.

Plex’s eyes shot open as his floating form crashed into his body, which had been placed on the fifty yard line. He finally got a glimpse of the dwarf behind the voice. It was Kalant, the linebacker from his football team. Plex raised up to greet his teammate and, as soon as he did, the arena around him erupted in cheers. His jaw dropped open when he saw that the seats were filled to capacity.

“Don’t you dare pass out now,” Kalant grumbled while offering a steadying hand.

Plex gladly took it and took a moment to make sure his feet were steady under him before sweeping his gaze across the crowd. The stadium wasn’t just at capacity. It was beyond. Everyone was packed in, standing shoulder to shoulder, and extra space along the sidelines had been cleared for even more spectators. The other football teams rimmed the edge of the field. In his quick glance, he recognized many faces but the numbers were too overwhelming, the sound was too overwhelming.

Every person in that packed stadium was cheering and stomping and clapping. The sound was jubilant and somewhat terrifying.

“What is everyone cheering for?”

Plex could barely hear his own question. Kalant somehow heard it though and chuckled before replying, “For you, of course. They would have celebrated you either way but it is far better to celebrate the living.”

“Me? I didn’t do anything.”

This time Kalant laughed rather than chuckled. “Didn’t do anything? Didn’t do anything?”

Plex spun in a circle, feeling more himself, feeling stronger, he wanted to take in the whole stadium again. He wanted to see the rest of his team. He wanted to see his sister.
While he looked, Plex said, “No. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t come up with any of the plans. I didn’t gather any of the troops. I didn’t create the weapon.”

“You threw it though and you threw it true,” Kalant interrupted.

Then, before Plex could argue, Kalant went on, “You rose to the occasion and you stood against the beast, mentally and physically, when too few had the courage or resolve to do so. You inspired loyalty and you led people against the dragon. It may not have gone according to the plans Frukeld and the others had drawn up, but so what of that? Those plans were never more than an idea. And the purpose of that idea was to find someone inspiring he could take the beast down when the moment arrived.

“You, Plex. You were that champion and you did wonderfully. Not only did you just throw the spear and slay the beast but you helped create the opportunity to do so. You stood against her. You refused to let anyone else needlessly suffer. You showed us all how foolish we had been to cower before her for as long as we did.

“So, yes, they are cheering for you and I cheer for you too.”

With that, Kalant took two steps away from Plex and clapped toward the elf. Then adding his voice to the rest of the cacophony, Kalant cried out with triumph towards the sky.

Plex stared dumbfounded at the dwarf. His vision began to swim and he felt his legs go numb again. Gritting his teeth he forced himself to stand there and take in the applause he still felt he didn’t deserve.  When he felt like he couldn’t take anymore, he pushed the noise aside as best he could, banishing it from his mind, and forced his concentration on seeking out Gilania.

Why wasn’t she standing there with him? He couldn’t have done it without her. She’d found the spear and gotten it into his hands, putting herself directly at risk in doing so. His heart sank as his search continued to be fruitless. The certainty that she wasn’t alive began to sink in. Otherwise, she would have been out there with him already.

“My sister?” Plex asked, afraid of the answer.

Kalant’s face turned somber. “She lives,” he began, “but she’s in bad shape. Frukeld and his most powerful healers are doing everything they can for her as we speak. The old man seemed convinced that he could heal her, but her injuries looked pretty serious to me.”

“I’ve got to go check on her.”

“That won’t be necessary,” came a voice from behind them.

Plex whipped his head around to look at the speaker and immediately felt a wave of dizziness wash over him. He steadied himself and blinked until his vision returned to normal. When it did, he saw that it was Frukeld standing there, not Gilania. “My sister?”

“Is resting comfortably,” the old dwarf answered. “We were able to heal most of her injuries, but some of them were too great to heal completely. Her back, in particular, was bad. We managed to put her spine back together, but not before it was permanently damaged. She will likely walk with a limp for the rest of her life.”

Plex let loose a huge sigh of relief. While walking with a limp wasn’t something that anyone would want to do, it was certainly better than the alternative. “What about my injuries?” Plex asked. “If all the healers were with Gilania, who healed me?”

“I said that all of Frukeld’s healers were with her,” Kalant responded. “Not all the healers in the world.”

“When you killed the dragon,” Frukeld explained after seeing the confusion on Plex’s face, “her magical hold over people was broken. Once free from her dominance, some of the healers who were under her
thrall came to your aid.”

“And you trusted them? They could’ve been faking to get close enough to kill me.”

“We had guards there to ensure your safety. Besides, you trusted your fellow elf, didn’t you?”

Plex couldn’t argue with that. He did trust an elven woman after he broke the dragon’s hold over her. Wait, he thought. What had happened to her? And Coach Sprout? And Baclem? And everyone else that had gone through this journey with him? “Where are the others?”

“Things are still very chaotic right now,” Frukeld answered. “Even though you killed the dragon, some of her people remain loyal to her after death. They’re putting up some resistance and a few of your friends and teammates are fighting still. We’ve managed to drive them out of the city. They’re scattered, for the moment, but they’ll regroup and be a problem for us down the road.”

Plex looked around the cheering crowd. The sight of all the races mingling and standing together gave him hope. “What do we do now?”

“We build a better world.”

Looking Back: Traditions

by Revis Edgewater

I was reading through some old Calvin and Hobbes strips recently when I came across the one that inspired this image (which I found at actionthisday.deviantart.com)

Like most Calvin and Hobbes strips, it was funny, but this one had a point too.

In the first panel of the strip, Calvin says, “The more you think about things, the weirder they seem.” The picture above shows you his example of this. But, if you, yourself, stop to think about it, you’ll probably be able to come up with your own.

The first one that came to my mind (while singing at someone’s party) was putting candles on birthday cakes. How did that start? Why is that a thing?

Was someone sitting around a long time ago thinking: “I made them this cake for their birthday, but it’s not enough. It seems kind of boring. What can I do to make this cake more exciting? I know! I’ll light it on fire!”

So, the party comes and they pour some liquor on top and light it to make a cake flambe. Then, as the flames start burning out of control, the guest of honor screams, “I really wish you’d put the fire out.” Everyone runs into the street. The fire brigade shows up, but it’s too late. Once the flames burn out, the house is nothing but stone and ash.

That’s when the town asshole, from the back of the crowd, chimes in, “It looks like your birthday wish came true.”

Then the town chandler walks up and says, “I think, I think, that candles would be easier to put out.” He’ll look around for a moment before asking, “Could that house be any more burnt down?”

(Sorry. I actually wasn’t planning the Friends joke, but according to Google, chandler is the technical term for someone who makes and sells candles and I couldn’t help myself.)

Ok, that may be a little over the top, but that’s how I picture it in my head. There’s probably a logical reason behind the start of putting candles on birthday cakes. Or, at least, one that made sense at the time it all started.

Take saying “God bless you,” when someone sneezes, for example. At the time this practice was invented, it was thought that a person only sneezed when they were trying to eject a demon that had invaded their body. So, you would say, “God bless you,” to encourage them in their fight against Satan. It makes sense when you use that logic.

Fast forward to now.

We know that sneezing has nothing to do with demons, yet a lot of people still say this when someone sneezes. Or they at least say the shortened, “Bless you,” when someone does it.

But, why? The reasoning behind the tradition no longer makes sense. Still, we continue to do it anyway.

I suppose the argument could be made that we keep it going because it’s seen as being polite. Personally, the only thing hearing someone say, “Bless you,” does for me is remind me that I sneezed. That’s something I didn’t need to be reminded of. I’m not rude about it. I will take the time (usually) to thank someone who says it to me. To be honest, though, I’d rather you didn’t say anything at all.

But, that’s just me.

What about you? Are there any things or traditions that you can think of that just don’t make sense once you stop to think about them?