Everyone is Important

            Earlier this week, a friend of Facebook shared an image that said, in essence, “Remember that everyone you encounter changes your life in some way.” The next day, a friend with no connection to the first shared an image saying, “Remember that you change the lives of everyone you meet.” Both say the same thing from opposite perspectives and that coincidence must have lodged in my subconscious, because look what I’m blogging about today!

            This is a view on life I’ve had from a very young age. Everyone effects everyone around them, perhaps in small ways, but even the smallest influence can be significant.

            For me, one of my best examples goes back to when I was writing my first book (not including the picture book I wrote when I was six) – around age eleven or twelve. At this point in time, I was still at the stage where I imitated other writers – in this case Brian Jacques with his anthropomorphic animal characters.

            My brother, in his first year of highschool, had a friend a few years older who was also writing a book. My brother arranged for me to swap books with this friend so we could give each other feedback. The feedback I received from this person I’d never met yet took me a huge leap forward – he gave me the confidence to stop imitating and become my own author.

            In addition, this same friend lent my brother R.A. Salvatore books, which I started reading as well. He became one of my favourite authors and those books had a huge impact on my views of the world. There are some philosophies in the books that, rereading them recently, I discovered I’d been expressing to other people almost word for word without knowing it.

            It is amazing for me to think that someone with so loose a connection to me and who I only met once (at that point in time – a decade later he started working in the same plaza as the pizza place I worked. We started chatting, realized our past connection, became friends and, eventually, my wife and I shared an apartment with him for two years) could so influence my entire life thereafter. That’s all it takes, though! Most people never realize how the most insignificant seeming thing can change the lives of people around them.

            A lot of people also wonder about their importance in the world and weather they make a difference. The answer is yes. You are important. I am important. Everyone is important. Just because you can’t see how far your reach spreads doesn’t mean you make no difference.

            Everyone’s lives are made up of a myriad of connections. Even a slight tug on a tread of their lives can cause ripples that carry on forever. So, remember that the next time you feel insignificant. Without you, the world would be an entirely different place.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Heat Wave

            I don’t know about the rest of you, but we just had a terrible heat wave over the last week. Luckily I didn't have to deal with the heat itself all that much, but it did get in the way of the usual running of life.

            Colleen and I had just started getting into our new routine – we actually had a work schedule set up for ourselves and it was already improving our productivity – when this smouldering heat comes along, intent on hanging about all week. It came along and spoiled everything.

            See, our home is set up like this: we have one room downstairs which serves as dining room, living room and kitchen, while upstairs we have our bedroom, workroom and bathroom. Only the downstairs is air-conditioned.

            To further this, our workroom contains a lot of electronics which produce heat, particularly when they’re being use. While we make chainmaille, we always have a movie or show playing because – let’s face it – no matter how much patience you have, if you’re making as much chainmaille as we do, you need something else going on to keep your brain from melting.

            So, we had two choices: work upstairs in the sweltering heat, adding more heat to the point where it would be impossible to sleep at night, or move downstairs while lowering productivity. Unsurprisingly, we chose the latter.

            But we’re nothing if not adaptable. I often read to Colleen while she’s doing various chores or tasks, so that’s what much of the days went to for me. We finished Take a Thief (Mercedes Lackey), went through the whole of Homeland and most of Exile (R.A. Salvatore). Meanwhile, extra housework got done, a little chainmaille was completed and, while I wasn't reading, a lot more writing work got done than usual.

            Finally a thunderstorm came along and broke the heat. Usually “it never rains but it pours” is a negative saying, but in this case it was delightful. Now we can get back to work as usual. Although, I must admit – as sore as my throat has gotten at times, I'm going to miss reading so much.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Inspiration

Something that, at some point in time, always gets asked of an author is, “What are your sources of inspiration?” For some, it’s a simple answer. For me... well, it’s a rather long one.

            You see, for me, inspiration comes from all over the place – quite literally. For as long as I can remember, I've been an observer. Some of my most vivid childhood memories (I can place the one of the earliest at age four) are of standing apart from the other kids and watching. Just watching. I didn't want to join them; I wasn't lonely. I was perfectly content to stand aside and observe how they interacted with each other.

            I didn't know it at the time, but somewhere in the subconscious of my brain, a file was opened. I started to log away information and, I believe, from then on everything I've observed has gotten sorted in there, to be taken out when needed – completely on a subconscious level, of course. Nevertheless, when I read my own work, I'm fascinated to see how many bits and pieces have come out of things I've observed.

            Beyond that, there are, of course, other authors I've read. The most influential ones for me have been Terry Pratchett, J.K. Rowling, Margaret Weis, Brian Jacques, Anne McCaffrey, R.A. Salvatore, and, of course, J.R.R. Tolkien. There have been many others, some of which I've been re-reading recently and discovering similarities to my writing, and I look forwards to discovering more!

            There are also countless movies and TV shows that have bits that stick in my mind and show up in my books – sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. Games, too! The concept of my series’ overarching plot was inspired by a video game and, currently, I'm working on adding creatures to my encyclopedia of my world by looking through a D&D Monster Manual, cross-referencing the information with mythology and deciding what my version the creature will be like.

            As I said, inspiration comes from everywhere! I even have creatures and plots that came from dreams. Imagination is a wonderful and amazing thing. It’s almost as if it takes everything you've seen and experienced in your life, mashes it all together into dough and hands you something new.

            There, I've probably gone on long enough for this week. Now I get to hope that next week’s blog will be more inspired.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.