Tag Archives: Dylan is horribly insecure

September 28, 2011 · 11:48 pm

And then I Found Five Dollars

I saw five dollars on the floor of a Dunkin Donuts today and I spent a good couple of minutes deciding if I should pick it up or not.

On the one hand, I just found twenty dollars the other day, which seems like I’ve found my fair share of money for this month already. I should let someone else find the money to rebalance my karmic wheel.

On the other hand, I don’t believe in karma and I just recently lost my job, so I kind of need all the money I can get, even five dollars of floor money.

On the other hand, if I need five dollars THAT badly, I could just not get an iced coffee and thereby save just about that amount.

Then there’s the fact that someone will see me pick up the money. Maybe they’ll think I’m just trying to steal someone else’s money. Maybe it’s their money and they’ll be angry that they see me picking it up. Or worse, it’s NOT their money, but they’ll claim it is and then I won’t have a leg to stand on.

So if I do pick up the money off of the floor, I need to make sure no one sees me, because otherwise I might be called a thief and have to give up the money and leave the Dunkin Donuts with my head hanging in shame while all the other customers glare at me in righteous indignation.

And while I’m thinking all this, a young woman with a baby carriage picks up the five dollars and I council myself that a woman with a baby needs five dollars more than me and I made the right decision.

Dylan Charles

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April 2, 2011 · 12:59 pm

Reader Awareness

I’m always extremely aware of the people who will be reading my blog. I’m always worried that if I just write willy-nilly about whatever I want, I’m going to end up upsetting someone.

There haven’t been too many times when I’ve completely nixed a blog entry because of this, but there have been several times when I’ve just changed my tack completely or dropped certain words or danced around what I actually wanted to talk about to make my point in a roundabout way.

And I don’t see this going away anytime soon. If anything, if things go well for me, it’s only going to get worse. I’m already reaching a slightly broader audience than I was this time last year. Which is good. More people reading is obviously a good thing. But more people means more chances to step on toes. Or more chances just embarrass myself with a poorly thought out point.

Knowing me, I’ll eventually get to a point where I become paralyzed with doubts. I’ll just write entries that state purely objective facts; “Right now, the temperature was 95 degrees.”

Luckily, the solution to this problem is very simple. I’ll just affect an air of insolent stubbornness every time someone complains or points out I make a mistake: “Maybe YOU use periods at the end of your sentences, but I’m not some fascist who sticks to the rules of grammar EVERY time”

Fun times ahead!

Dylan Charles

Dylan Charles

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February 28, 2011 · 10:37 pm

The Crutch of the Matter

Since I’ve started working on my series of short stories, writing has become much easier for me. Not necessarily blog entries, since that’s a whole other process, but I’ve now written four or five stories (I lost count), all of which take place in that same world.

While I’m digging the ease of writing, but I’m getting a little spooked. It’s so easy to let this character and his world take over a lot of my heavy lifting. I make up new settings, but those settings follow the rules of this world. I create new characters, but, once again, they follow the rules of the world.

The rules are a large part of what makes writing challenging. They rules determine what is and what isn’t possible. They determine how people will react to events. They can determine atmosphere. And now, all of that is more or less settled for me.

Every time I get a new idea, I immediately try and see how it will fit in the confines of this world. “Ah-ha!” I’ll think, “A death hospital staffed by werewolves! How can I use that?” And instead of doing something new with it, I’ll paw at it and work it until it fits into the series.

While it seems soon to be worrying about this, I hope I’m not falling into some kind of rut. On the other hand, maybe I should just quit my whining and just keep plugging away. Writing is better than not writing. Plus I’ve got another idea that could be gangbusters.

Dylan Charles

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January 24, 2011 · 8:02 pm

Don’t Know the Words

Today I rang someone up at the register. He bought a book about grief. He told me that he had lost his son. And I didn’t know what to say.

And I still don’t know what to say.

That’s always been my problem. It doesn’t matter how well I can write. It doesn’t matter if I can find the words when I’m sitting in front of a keyboard. When I talk, the words fail me time and time again. I feel awkward and clunky and out of place. It’s like trying to swim while wearing steel-toed boots.

I never the right thing or the proper thing or the decent thing to say, so I flounder for anything that might work and usually end up missing the mark. So I stick to scripts constructed from trial and error conversations. Any deviation is bound to lead to nothing, but trouble.

But I don’t have scripts for certain situations. I’m forced to rely on my quick-thinking, improvisational wordsmithing. Unfortunately, I don’t have this skill. All I can manage is a mumbled mouthful of gibberish.

All I wish is that, occasionally, I can summon up the ability to say something that fits the moment. I wish I could say something that comforts and informs and lets the other person know that they haven’t been dismissed or disregarded. Unfortunately, that’s not something that I’ve learned yet.

Dylan Charles

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January 20, 2011 · 12:28 am

Loss of Control

So…a few years ago I wrote a story called “The Song and Dance Man.” I submitted it to Ichor Falls, this nifty horror story website, they posted it and then I promptly forgot about it.

Today, on a whim, I googled “The Song and Dance Man” and my name together to see what would bounce back. I was a little startled. I saw it popping up, here and there, in places I had never put it. Then I googled the story without my name and I saw it pop up a few MORE places. I saw references to it, as though the story was some dark legend that should never be talked about and, if you had to mention it, whisper it.

The internet had stolen my godamn story.

It was on gaming forums and “creepy pasta” sites. I didn’t even know what a creepy pasta was until tonight, which made me feel old. And I was a little shellshocked. “My story!,” I cried, loudly and repeatedly until Emily had to check on me.

To hell with the fact that people found it good enough to repost. To hell with the fact that there was plenty of good feedback about it. Actually…that’s all pretty cool. I do like the fact that it’s bouncing around. I do like the fact that it’s making the rounds. I wish I got credit for it. I wish people would say, “That Dylan Charles, I wish I could give him five hundred dollars for permission to publish his story.”

If you want it on your blog, go crazy. Post it a dozen times. You haven’t affected my profit margins one iota, because my profits have been 0 up to this point.

But, throw me a bone, put my name on there somewhere. “That Dylan Charles sure is a hack. Look at what he wrote”. Or, conversely, “That Dylan Charles is a goddamn genius. Here is his well recognized work:”

Either way is good.

Dylan Charles

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August 9, 2010 · 7:25 pm

Welcome

I’ve noticed recently that there are quite a few people coming here from places where my stories are posted, namely Ichor Falls and Tales of the Zombie War.

As I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, I always feel a bit odd because I’m worried that folks come over to my blog expecting more horror and zombies and vampires and demons and evil pizzas. And, instead, they get politics, music rants and my mindless ramblings about daisy farms.

At my old blog, I did post stories. And for three years, I even did something called 31 Days of Horror, where I wrote one horror story a day for the entire month of October. And while that was a hell of a lot of fun (and stress), I always felt on edge about just posting rough draft stories. If my stuff is going to be out there, it should be polished and nice and not filled with typos and spelling errors.

I was also worried that someone would consider posting a story on a blog as being “previously published” and that would lead to complications. So I decided to avoid all of that and instead I just write my nonsensical blog entries and save my fiction for other places.

But, for those of you looking for horror, just head on over to Dylan on the Web to see links to places where my stories are currently posted. And there will be more there at some point.

And then you can come back here and see what I REALLY think about those goddamn daisy farms.

Dylan Charles

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