Tag: blog

TCB

Believe it or not I fail a lot of university courses. It probably sounds rather peculiar to hear considering that my debut novel has just hit bookshelves, but my writing style isn’t necessarily what some tutors or lecturers would deem as palatable. For those who know me well it’s no secret that I struggle in my university studies. I’m currently six months into my seventh attempt at obtaining a degree, and it’s taken all of my intestinal fortitude not to throw in the towel again. It turns out that conventional education isn’t designed for a self-assured writer who refers to himself as a wolf and a world eater. I have a nasty habit of enrolling in a course only to quickly lose interest when the realisation that you just can’t teach creativity dawns upon me and I start cussing at anyone who will listen about just how frivolous university is.

Or at least that’s what I tell myself. The truth is that for a long time I just assumed that I was destined to be the John fucking Lennon of literature and that completing a degree was merely something I would do to kill time before achieving superstardom.

Ah, delusions of grandeur. They’re great aren’t they? Why take your education seriously when you can just coast through, fail, then expect to still become something better than your efforts deserve.

The very concept of my thought pattern sound ludicrous. Do nothing: achieve everything. And yet I’ve whittled away time in courses based upon grammatical construction, contemporary literature, and god knows what else waiting for the moment my name hits the best sellers lists. I’ve done little more than the bare minimum and then blamed everyone except myself when I haven’t achieved the grades I know that I am capable of. Then when I have inevitably failed I’ve done the stupidest thing possible and quit.

But quitting is a fool’s decision. What I need to do is learn how to take care of business. When things get tough, you don’t throw in the towel and walk away. You dig deeper, you fight harder, and you transcend beyond the bullshit roadblocks holding you back.

See, I think university for creative writing is bullshit. I genuinely don’t believe that spending time in a classroom studying or writing pieces that are tailored towards achieving a grade is the best use of any creative mind’s time. You can teach someone the basics of narrative, grammar, and the likes. But you can’t expect to create a passion or an urge to push the boundaries of one’s creative potential simply by clicking through a few lecture slides or by prescribing homework. University has its place within the education system. But teaching something as subjective as creativity is fundamentally flawed and virtually impossible. If I had aspirations of being a journalist or writing copy then maybe I would feel a little differently. But I’m a goddamn wolf tearing at the door of the literary industry. If someone stands in my way and tries to preach how conventional education can improve my creative process, they’re going to be savaged.

Nevertheless it’s this aversion to conventional education I battle with every single time I attempt to study that makes the completion of a degree so important to me. I don’t need help trying to cultivate creativity.  I’m fortunate in the fact that I have an extremely overactive imagination and a tongue laced with acid. But the discipline required to apply myself to something other than my creative endeavours will become increasingly important as I continue to grow and develop as a writer.  I once met a world renowned author who told me that the bigger his name became, the less time he actually had to write as he was forced to indulge in a plethora of alternative ventures. Therefore university is imperative to me simply because it’s teaching to expand my mind and struggle through adversity rather than simply giving up.

Immerse yourself. Then swim.

I want to become synonymous with literature. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; writing is my dream and the life I’m fighting for. University is a hurdle that I am choosing to face because I believe that I need to learn how to be resilient and challenge myself at every given opportunity. I want to take care of business and become a name of notoriety, but I can’t do that unless I develop the inner strength to stand up to my weaknesses and learn how to overcome them. Rather than rely on my delusions of grandeur and simply whittle away time until success falls into my lap, I’m chasing it down and pinning it to the floor.

I’m a wolf taking care of business. The literary industry should prepare itself for a new kind of violence, because I’m learning just how great I can be when I simply refuse to quit.

Bragging Rights

Every now and then I’ll branch out and attend a writer’s conference. My reasons for doing so usually stem from a bout of writers block or shear frustration at my own inability to move forward within the industry, so I throw my hands in the air and venture out to see what others are doing to carve out their own success. I become disenchanted with my own abilities and stupidly start to think that the only way to succeed is to emulate, instead of innovate.

Whenever I do show up to an event I have a blast. I meet a bunch of great people, listen to a range of interesting talks, and find a renewed love for what I do. But no matter how much I enjoy myself I never walk away from an event with that piece of elusive information that will see my writing and carer soar to new heights.  Why?

Because it doesn’t exist. The whole concept of emulating what has worked for someone else and expecting it to yield similar results is flawed. We are all unique and we all approach similar goals and aspirations with our own set of circumstances that impact upon the inevitable outcomes of those dreams. It’s great to listen to someone talk about their pillars of success or foolproof methods of being successful, and many of us are able to draw great inspiration from this. But the truth is that there is no one who can tell you how to be successful, because there is no one who has lived through the same circumstances or developed the same idiosyncrasies as you.

You can draw influence from the successes of others, but if you truly want to achieve you have to create your own path. You have to wake up every single day with a hunger to achieve and be willing to bust your arse to make it happen. We live in a society drowning underneath a never ending sea of instant success stories or celebrities that are born out of a minute amount of talent and damn good timing. But rather than recognise that many modern day successes are born out of unique opportunity and circumstance, we start to criticise ourselves for having to fight tooth and nail for what we want.

We misconstrue the concept of celebrity with success and convince ourselves that the only measure of our accomplishments is our notoriety. If I’m not famous I mustn’t be producing works that are good enough right? Wrong. Some of the most stirring pieces I’ve ever read, watched, listened to or viewed have come from artists virtually unknown amongst their peers. They are men and women who have carved out niches in their chosen fields and although they aren’t instantly recognisable or celebrated within their fields, they are consistently redefining what it means to create wonderful art.

Excellence comes not from the praise of others, but from a continuous honing of one’s talents. Words of affirmation and celebrity within one’s chosen field is nice, however real satisfaction and success comes from knowing that you have created something beautiful and lent a piece of your soul to a work that will live on forever.

Bragging rights don’t equate to shit if you’ve won the praise of your peers for producing second rate work that belies your true potential. We all have the ability to excel at whatever we decide to. But we have to want that excellence with every ounce of our strength.  We have to consistently redevelop and redefine our craft and who we are over and over again until we become who we are born to be. You want to write? Write. You want to make music? Learn to play an instrument. You want to be a ball player? You better lace up those kicks and hit the court.

The very best of us earn our keep and blaze a trail of success that is uniquely ours. We don’t rely on the pseudo-helpful never fail theories of others, and we certainly don’t wait for pure chance to pluck us out of obscurity and hand us our dreams on a silver platter. We reach, we fall, and when we are knocked down we get back up and tell life that it hits like a bitch. This persistence and determination; this unending love for our crafts and passions is what forces us to aspire, create and ultimately achieve.

Bragging rights are earned through grit and determination. Success is achieved through hard work. You can become a legend in your own right; it just takes a lot of hard work.

Five Years

Anyone who has been following this site for a little while will be aware that I’ve undergone a metamorphosis of character over the past twelve months. The aggressively creative arsehole that I used to be has grown up and become a man. I would still call myself aggressive in my creative tendencies; when I get into the zone and start writing I lose all touch with reality and slip back into the mindset of a world eater. But I’ve stopped pushing myself to become a prick and have started trying to be a better person instead. I’ve still got a bucket full of angst and a tongue laced with acid but I’m learning how to channel them into something positive rather than trying to destroy myself.

To be honest I never imagined that I would become someone who could be happy. I had spent so long fuelling the anger within my soul that to suddenly quell my demons and instead aim to inspire surprises me. While there’s been many reasons behind the shift in my mental state and subsequent successes through this page there’s a story that really inspired me to make a change. It made me pull my head out of my arse and realise that I am an extremely fortunate man who has the world in front of him.

It goes like this: There’s this woman I work with. Her name is Gina and she’s incredible. See, Gina is blind. But even though she can’t see she works as a switchboard operator taking inbound calls and redirecting them to the relevant departments within our organisation. Every single day she comes to work with a smile on her face and works harder than anyone else. Inspiring: yes. But that’s not what makes Gina so special. It was a story that Gina told during a training session that really moved me.

Five years ago Gina had a necklace that she loved. Then one day it went missing. She put it down on her bedhead, forgot where it was and it simply disappeared. She searched for it. But when you don’t have the ability to see the world you live in something as simple as locating a necklace you have misplaced becomes quite difficult. So after a while she resided to the fact that the necklace was simply gone and moved on. Then one day she was cleaning her room and managed to work her hand between the bedhead and the wall. Guess what she found? The necklace that she’d lost five years earlier.

As she sat in our training session and told the story of how she had been reunited with her necklace Gina broke into a smile that brightened the whole room. Here was a woman who spent every single day moving through a world that she couldn’t see and she was happier than I was. Why? Because she knew how to take solace and find beauty in every single day. She understood that every day is a gift and that to be anything but happy is to deny ourselves of something truly incredible. Something as small as finding a necklace bought a smile to Gina’s face.

And there I was sitting across from this woman baring fangs at a world that I thought was trying to stamp my face into the dirt. When the training session was over and Gina returned to her desk I couldn’t shake the story. I took it home with me, thought about it over and over and cussed myself out for ever thinking that I was hardly done by. In a moment of complete vulnerability this woman that I worked with broke apart every single preconception that I had about myself and made me want to be a better man.

It turns out that even though I have been through some shit I actually live a very fortunate life. I have two parents who love me; three healthy siblings and a partner who adores me despite my ability to disappear into myself or become an abrasive prick at the drop of a hat. I live in a country without war, and have a roof over my head. I have no reason to be angry; no reason to want to tear myself or anyone else apart.  I’ve never lost a necklace behind a bedhead and spent five years searching to find it, so surely I could find happiness within the life that I live.

Just like that I decided to change. I let go of my hate and set myself free.

I don’t want to be known as an angry child. I want to be known as a man with the capacity to be brilliant. I write because I love. And I love because I write. I haven’t achieved everything I set out to do when I started writing, but as long as I continue to evolve and embrace myself there’s no telling just how wonderful life can be.

Sometimes we need to look beyond ourselves to realise just how fortunate we truly are.

Three Faces

Back in 2011 I won the Heading North Young Writers Competition and a place on panel of up and coming writers at the Byron Bay Writers Festival. At the time it was a pretty big achievement for me. I was twenty three years old and struggling to find my way in this world. I was living away from my family and partner so that I could try to pursue my writing dreams. I was broke, fragile and alone. But somehow a panel of judges managed to see through the muddled tale of woe I’d written and gave me an opportunity to shine. I was thrilled with the opportunity and told myself that this was my big break; that I was ready to take on the literary world…

…It was a definitely a break. Unfortunately it would be one that I’d fail to fully embrace before slipping into a harrowing low that saw me abandon writing altogether for a number a months. It was case of opportunity and talent colliding with sadness and sorrow. Unfortunately for me sadness and sorrow won.

So there I was sitting before an impressively large audience who had turned out to see me and two other writers interviewed on stage in a showcase to highlight the next big things in the local scene. I was trying my hardest to seem accomplished in my craft, but I couldn’t help but wonder just how the fuck I’d managed to win when an audience member asked if I had ever thought about starting a blog. Until that point I had never once considered running my own site, and promptly responded that I hadn’t because a blog was a very personal thing and I wasn’t prepared to expose myself like that. In hindsight the response was idiotic. You could see as much on the faces of those in the audience. I had this crazy idea that my writing life could be kept separate from my private life; when in reality the two were so intertwined that if I wanted to truly succeed as a writer I would need to learn to embrace both.

Why am I telling you this? Well, to make a long story short, I screwed up. I missed opportunities and thought that I could create success with nothing more than arrogance and a sliver of talent. It would take another four years before I’d actually see my debut novel put into print; and it would take a broken mind, bloody knuckles, and eventually acceptance of self before I could even begin to achieve. I’m only just beginning to make up for lost time and make a name for myself as a writer. And while many of my friends, family and followers believe that I have achieved a great deal as of late, the truth is that I have been busting my arse for nearly a decade just to get here. I have invested a great deal of time to my craft, and will continue to do so for years to come.

But I’ll let you in on a secret: the reason that I have managed to gain so much momentum as of late is because I finally figured out how to be a great writer. It turns out that it’s actually quite simple…

…You have to be naked.

Peel back the layers of your outer self and expose the vulnerability within. Remove your inhibitions, cut out your insecurities, be naked and set yourself free.

There’s an ancient Japanese proverb that says you have three faces. The first face, you show to the world. The second face, you show to your close friends and family. The third face, you never show anyone. It is the truest reflection of who you are. For the general public this adage holds true. We put on a façade and move through life leading the world to believe what we want it to. Then we choose to let a few select friends and family members inside our circles of trust and allow them see our second face. The face that we reserve for those that we trust contains blemishes and insecurities, but as we grow comfortable with our loved ones we afford them the opportunity to glimpse the minor fragilities of this intricate canvas of ourselves. But it’s the third face, the one that we shield from the world that we really need to embrace if we are to be truly free.

It’s this face that you need to be prepared to show the world if you want to succeed as a great writer. This face is completely naked, vulnerable, and utterly beautiful. But for some bizarre reason it’s one that so many of us are afraid to reveal. It was this face that I was so afraid of exposing to the world when I said that blogging was too personal and that I wanted to differentiate my private life from my public one. It was this face that I would ultimately learn to be proud of and use to start finding momentum in my quest to create a career out of my passions.

So why are we so afraid to be vulnerable? Is it that we are scared of the judgement of our peers? Or is it that we are simply afraid to be free? We are so used to concealing the purest incarnations of our nature and desires that allowing ourselves the opportunity to be liberated from the faces we create to satisfy strangers appears daring and dangerous. But it is this art of removal, this art of extreme vulnerability that allows a writer, artist, man or woman to transcend beyond their inhibitions and be beautiful.  Look at any successful man or woman within the creative industries and every single one of them has one thing in common: they’re comfortable in their vulnerability. They can stand naked before the world and accept their imperfections as well as embrace their strengths.

So here I am standing before you, vulnerable and exposed in my nakedness. This blog allows me to remove the two faces that I have created for my family, friends and peers and be uncovered for all to see. You can see my strengths and flaws, and through embracing them I have become a far better writer than I ever dreamed possible. I’m naked, I’m vulnerable and I’m free. And you can be too. All you have to do is free your mind, remove your inhibitions and allow the world to experience the beauty of your soul stripped bare.

Be naked. Be beautiful. And be you. And if you do decide to open your soul for the world to see make sure you let me know. I’d love to meet the truest reflection of you.

I

‘Here I am with all my insecurities, all my imperfections, crying out to a world that just won’t listen’

-Adrian Fitipaldes

Someone recently told me that ‘I’ve changed.’ The comment was meant in jest; the individual in question was referencing the self-destructive Chris Nicholas of days gone by who was so bitterly angry that he’d cut off his nose to spite his face. Delivered by an old acquaintance with a cheeky smirk and a chink of beer glasses, they never could have imagined just how devastating their words would be. I’ve been feeling flat lately and the comment hit a lot closer to home than intended. In the days that followed I spent a great deal of time mulling over the idea in my head. I asked myself over and over if I have changed, and if so when this metamorphosis took place.

So have I?

You better believe I have. You only have to take a look at this site to see the shift.

In July 2012 I started this site as a means of confronting the mounting depression that had overtaken my existence. I was struggling with family illness, low self-esteem, being broke and away from those that I loved. So I wrote shamelessly; cutting open my chest and offering the small audience who read my first few posts a piece of my heart. From there I transitioned into an arrogant child who preached my narcissism and willingness to maim and self-destruct. I became wayward in what I was trying to achieve and my writing suffered greatly as a result. For the longest of times I was stuck in a cycle of frustration and self-deceit. Recently however, I’ve managed to get my shit together, produce some better quality work and actually start to make a name for myself in this industry.

I’ve come a long way from the teenager who struggled so much with his English studies that his parents forced him to undergo tutoring. And even further from the lost soul who cried out to the world for help on July 17th 2012. But no matter how far I reach, how much I achieve, or how wonderful my life is, I will forever have to live with my insecurities and imperfections; namely depression. For a long time I tried to deny this. I tried to tell myself that I had overcome the demons inside my mind and that I was cured. I mistook my arrogance and aggression as overcoming my illness rather than recognizing that it was just another phase of self-loathing. I foolishly thought that if I didn’t feel down anymore I was normal once again. But there is no such thing as normal.

The truth is that it’s alright to not be OK.

The shift in this site’s content, my success as an author, and my life in general came when I began to accept that I will never be normal. I will always have a flaw in the biological makeup of my brain that makes me feel insecure or down at times. But that flaw is chemistry, not character. No one should ever feel ashamed about suffering from depression or mental health. It takes so much bravery and strength to stand up and tell the world that you need help, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for anyone courageous enough to do so.

I’m not OK, I never will be. But it’s my insecurities and imperfections are what make my life so beautiful and worth living. It’s through embracing these weaknesses (and I say the word loosely) that I am able to write and thus reach out and connect with you the reader. No one is infallible, no one is perfect, and at some point in our lives we all feel low. I’ve just been fortunate enough to learn how to use this site to turn those negative thoughts into something greater than I.

The person who told me that I have changed did so because I told them that Midas had been put into print. Whenever I tell people about my proudest achievement to date they inevitably do the same thing. They congratulate me for the success, purse their lips and ask ‘do you mind if I ask how much money you’re making from it?’

While I’d love to tell them that since the book was released in February I have become a millionaire it simply isn’t the case. I’ve sold a few copies (hopefully enough to please Meizius Publishing) but financial gain doesn’t mean a thing to me at this point in my writing career. Right now I just want to reach out and connect with readers so that once they put complete my novel, or finish reading my posts they are grateful for the experience we have shared together. While in my days of anger and frustration I used to brag about how much money I could make when I became published and tried to base my emotions on fiscal gain, the truth is that I’m not doing this to become a millionaire.

I’m doing this because I, Chris Nicholas am a depressive person who has the ability to see both great beauty and despair in the world around me. I’m doing this because I want to share my experiences and my love with readers. And I’m doing this because through writing I have learned that it’s perfectly normal to feel fractured, broken, down or low. I have learned that it’s alright to not be OK.

So after a great deal of thought I’ve decided that I have changed. But I’ve done so for the better. The boy I was three years ago when Renegade Press isn’t shit compared to the man I am today. I am Chris Nicholas; writer, man wolf and world eater. I’m not perfect and I never will be. But that’s what makes what I do so damn beautiful.

Wolf at the Door

‘There was whiskey in the devils blood; and there was blood in my cup.’

-Keith Buckley

I used to think that I was really intelligent; that I was this supreme thinker who was going to redefine what it meant to be a writer in the modern day. I thought that my opinions were always well educated and justified. I cussed at conventional wisdom and dished out advice to anyone foolish enough to listen. I was the proverbial blind leading the blind. And I was leading myself and anyone who followed off of a precipice. I genuinely thought that I was better than others. I told myself that I didn’t need university, or advice from those who had achieved before me, or anyone at all. I shut out the world by trying to prematurely transcend beyond it.

In reality I wasn’t nearly as smart as I thought and I wasn’t better than my peers. And I wasn’t ever going to achieve anything or find happiness with the arrogant mindset of a child. What I was though was bitter, irrational, and so damn angry at myself for failing to actually live up to my own obscure ideals that the anger began to manifest itself in depression and anxiety. I told myself that I wanted to be successful; that I damn well deserved to be. But I wasn’t really willing to put in the work to make my dreams a reality. I was so blinded by my own inflated ego that I’d forgotten to produce anything worth reading.

I wanted to dance with the devil. But whenever the bastard rose to meet me I realised that I wasn’t ready for the challenge. Here I was trying to move with the best of them when I hadn’t even learned how to crawl.

I was screwing up every opportunity afforded me. I was too arrogant to bother studying and began failing subjects; too self-absorbed to realise that I was posting rants and dribbling bullshit that I started haemorrhaging readers. And too concerned with stroking my own ego that I couldn’t see just how far my head was stuck up my arse.

At my most arrogant I wrote a post on this site where I expressed a yearning to dethrone all those who had achieved before me. I wanted to drag down the literary greats and take my place as a God. Press my foot against their neck and watch them cower in fear. The idea was noble, but incredibly naïve. I wasn’t the wolf at the door I claimed to be; I was a boy trapped in a cage, pounding at the glass while others mocked my dreams of being free.

When I finally realised that I wasn’t the man I thought I was, or the man I wanted to be, I decided to start over. I took the first character I had ever created, a soldier by the name of Jason Dark, and I started writing a story worth telling. For the first time in years I was producing something that wasn’t just an egotistical wank; instead I wrote a story that I myself would actually like to read. Then I expanded and I started doing the same thing here at Renegade Press. If I stumbled across a site curated by a callous writer spruiking his ego in poorly written postings I would be embarrassed for them. Yet I was doing exactly that.

So I changed. As hard as it was I changed. I tore down the idea of who I thought I was and gave up on being a prick and started focusing on being a writer instead.

I have started studying properly. Well, kind of. I still have to force myself to prioritise university over my more creative endeavours, but I’m getting there. I’m learning to listen to the advice of those who have achieved before me rather than attempting to prove them wrong. And I have started reaching out to the artists, writers, and musicians that inspired me in an effort to let them know just how beautiful their works really were. I still want to dance with the devil, so I’ve taught myself to crawl. Now with my debut novel now in print I’m starting to walk. I still have a hell of a lot to learn before I can move like him, but I’m prepared to bust my arse to make it happen.

I’ll outdance him before his peers, leave him stunned and speechless. Then I’ll tap his veins, fill my cup with his blood and become the man who did the unthinkable. I’ll break out of the cage of ignorance I built for myself, and become a wolf tearing down the door.

It turns out that I’m not as intelligent as I once chose to believe. And I’m perfectly fine with that. In fact, I prefer it that way. I still have so much to learn in this industry and even though I’m now a published author, I’m still no better or important than someone spilling their thoughts onto a page for the very first time. I’m still arrogant; at times I encourage myself to bare my fangs. I want to be aggressive; I want to be vicious and unafraid. But I want to do be more cerebral when doing so. There’s nothing gained from savaging oneself or others in the pursuit of success. There’s nothing gained from believing you are too good to crawl. If you don’t start at the bottom you’ll never truly appreciate the view from the top.

You can’t be a wolf at the door if you’re still trapped inside a cage.

Thanatophobia

‘This is hell. You bought a candle to burn?’
-Keith Buckley.

I’ve been thinking about my own morality a lot lately. I’ve had a pretty frustrating case of writers block and whenever I do I start to contemplate the space in time I’ll occupy between birth and death. I get caught up in a mindset of frustration and start thinking about the choices I’ve made, opportunities I’ve missed, and how I will spend the moments I’m still yet to experience. To be frank, I hate when I get like this. I’m fucking petrified of growing older and knowing that I’ll one day kick the bucket causes my anxiety levels to skyrocket until my heart is hammering in my chest and I become short of breath.

I guess a large part of the anxiety I experience comes from the fact that I feel as though I still have so much I want to accomplish in my life. I am forever working against my biological clock to achieve my goals before death wraps his talons around my heart and squeezes until it becomes still. I want to be successful writer and make a career out of what I do. I want to see the world. I want to be loved, loathed and revered. And I want to know that when I’m a rickety old man with a busted hip, gruff tone and permanent scowl, that I’ve lived a good life and made a positive impact on those that I leave behind.

I’m trying to leave a legacy of words. Through my writing I want to create something worthwhile that allows me to reach out and connect with people. In reality I’m a pretty emotionally stunted individual. I keep even my closest friends at a safe distance, and while I’ll protect those that I care about till the bitter end, I rarely feel the need to reach out for their help. But through writing I can be vulnerable and I can be beautiful. In a weird kind of way I’m liberated in my madness through writing. Even my closest friends tell me that they read this site on the regular as a way of understanding me.

So I’m frightened of death. It’s occupying my thoughts and stressing me out. I’m suffering from writers block and stuck in a hellish state of frustration. So what can a writer do when they’re in hell? Bring a candle to burn. Turn up the heat ever so slightly and make the inferno their own.

Yep, after a brief hiatus from the world of my character Jason Dark, I’ve started penning my way through a follow up to Midas. It’s a tale that will undoubtedly focus on the idea of death. Ruin and woe are central themes that I’m trying to explore quite heavily in the four book story-arch and having the ability to do so allows me to further immerse myself into a mindset that both troubles and inspires me. I’m afraid of dying. It’s my hell. So why not create a story that gives me the ability to really engage with the concept and overcome the hell within me?

The way I see it is this: I’m pretty lucky. Every single person on this earth has some form of fear or phobia that has the ability to leave them crippled with anxiety or worse. The fact that I fear growing old and failing to carve my name into the sands of this earth seem to fail on comparison to the afflictions of others. I have a unique opportunity to use my fear to create not only wonderful art, but a beautiful life. I can use my fear to propel myself towards success.

Fear is hell. But fear is also easily overcome; you’ve just got to be prepared to embrace it. If you’re stuck in hell make sure you’ve got a candle to burn. Take ownership of the very place designed to break you and make your hell a place you can thrive in.

If you’re afraid of death; explore it.
If you’re afraid of change; embrace it.
And if you’re afraid of fire; light and candle and learn to control the fear that binds you.

If you do that you can set yourself free. For me right now that freedom comes from my newfound lease on life and from shaking off this frigging writers block and get back to what I do best: writing. I have the ability to create hell through my literature and I take solace in knowing that my protagonist is arrogant enough to embrace it, light a candle and turn up the heat ever so slightly. And if a product of my imagination can be so brazen, surely I can too.

If you spend your whole life fearing death, you may as well already be dead. Step into the inferno you fear and set it alight. Set yourself free.

Question Everything

The hardest part about being a writer is that you move through every day acutely aware that you have been blessed with a curse. You have been drawn to a lifestyle that will bring you great joy, and harrowing sorrow. In moments of great inspiration you will feel as though you have been touched with the hand of God; that something magical is alive and breathing inside of you. Your mind will operate with a euphoric mixture of imagination and passion, and your fingers will dance effortlessly across a keyboard as you produce the kind of prose that leaves a reader with an unending admiration for what you have produced.

Then the writer’s block kicks in and that hand of God turns into the devil’s talons piercing your flesh as he squeezes your heart until you feel faint. Words and phrases become caught in your head, and you move through life completely unaware of anything except your own inability to create.

You see the world differently to others. When you first start out putting pen to paper you begin to notice cracks in the fabric of society and small discrepancies in the stories that people tell. It’s like you suddenly find yourself in a room that looks almost perfect. The furniture is perfectly selected, the light fittings polished and the carpets unusually clean. But the wallpaper has started to fray ever so slightly at the cornices. At first the slight oddity doesn’t bother you. You can live with knowing that things aren’t quite right. It doesn’t matter that things aren’t perfect.

But then curiosity gets the better of you and you start picking at the wallpaper, peeling small strips from the walls. And the more you peel, the more curiosity eats away at your soul. Before you know it the walls are bare and you’re stripping back the carpet. You’re questioning everything about the integrity of the room. You want to see the walls stripped bare. You need to see the foundations. You can’t bear to stand not being able to reshape, redesign and rebuild. It’s not until you’ve torn back every inch of floor and wall coverings that you find yourself standing in a cold, lonely cell.

You’re blessed with a curse. Blessed with the gift of writing, of wanting to learn, to break down and rebuild. But you’re cursed with a desire to question everything and anything. You question the way people live. The bullshit stories they tell. The mistakes they make. The mediums they consume. The lies they tell themselves in order to sleep peaceably in their bed at night. But if you’re lucky, you find yourself asking the right questions too.

You start asking why we live in a world where killing is still common practice. Or why degradation of our fellow brethren occurs based on the colour of someone’s skin, their gender, or their beliefs. You start questioning why we are willing to accept a soul black as night and laced with glass over one of sheer beauty, just because the later isn’t as aesthetically pleasing on the surface. But the question that plagues you more than any other, the question that keeps you awake at night, is why the fuck can’t anyone else see just how misguided we have become?

You’ve pulled back the wallpaper of your room to find yourself alone in a prison cell, and you’re staring through the bars at the blissfully ignorant as they sit inside their own cages with a smile on their face believing that they are free. They claim that they question everything too, but they chose to do so from the safety of their comfort zones, their lack of true passion mocking everything that you believe in. They take to social media to post statuses on what they believe in, to click a like button to support a cause, but they do so because it’s easy. Because they are sheep, desperate for the approval of the herd. Because it is easier to question everything from the safety of a screen; only the bravest of us have the balls to take our beliefs to the streets.

So you write and you write, desperate to be heard. You want to grab a hold of people and scream in their ignorant faces ‘open your fucking eyes, peel back the wallpaper of your cell and let’s start a goddamn revolution.’ You know that if people would just turn down their televisions, unplug their earbuds, and give real literature a chance that you could change the world. You could teach them to ask not why someone should be allowed to wear a headdress in public, but why we as a society are so close minded that we feel the right to judge them for their beliefs? Or to ask why we accept war in foreign lands in the name of democracy, while we are so venomously opposed to those very ideals in our own land? Or why we have turned our backs on one another in pursuit of or own selfish wants and needs? When did we become a society of individuals so capable of stamping one another into the dirt to better ourselves? And why, Jesus, why the fuck isn’t anyone listening?

Then you realise that people are. That your readership may be small, but that with persistence it will grow, unfurling like a beautiful rose. You realise that with every article you write, every story you tell, you are helping those bold enough to listen to peel back the layers of their own comfort zones so that they too can begin to question everything. You’re helping them to identify and understand when they are being sold emotional placebos by snake oil peddlers so that they can tear down the superficial beauty of their worlds in order to create something truly exquisite through their own brevity.

Worldeater

“I roam across the land. I wish to seek and understand the truth about life. And about who I really am…”
-Adrian Fitipaldes

Today I learned that one of my favourite lyricist/vocalists Adrian Fitipaldes has stood down as the front man of Sydney Metalcore outfit Northlane. For those of you who have been following my blog for a little while the name probably rings a bell; I’ve drawn attention to Fitipaldes’ work numerous times throughout the history of this site. The man’s brutally honest, intricate, and often raw verses form in my humble opinion, some of the most beautifully constructed pieces produced within the last decade of hardcore and metal music.

Big call. But totally justified.

Fitipaldes and the rest of Northlane completely redefined how I view music, my writing, and the world at large with their 2013 release Singularity (Yep. That’s where I first learned of the concept I consistently bang on about). Through the album’s rolling crescendos, melodic break downs and guttural vocals, the band delivered a message of positivity and ambition that captivated this struggling author and showed me that with unrelenting passion and determination I could become the architect of my own destiny. Sadly though, citing mental and physical exhaustion suffered through his art, Fitipaldes will no longer be continuing to produce the mind altering music that inspired more than a handful of posts on this site.

While I’m shattered to hear that he will no longer be fronting the metalcore outfit, I know that with a mind as chaotically creative as his, he will bounce back soon enough. Fitipaldes will return to the world of music in some capacity. You can mark my word. But his departure has got me thinking about the correlation of art and life, and how far an author, artist, lyricist, or musician can push themselves before their passion begins to become their detriment. How much suffering can one endure in the name of art? And at the end of the day is it all worth it?

The question of suffering is a moot point. Look at some of the greatest artistic minds in history and the suffering that they endured to push themselves and their respective fields forward. Vincent Van Gogh cut off his own ear and eventually killed himself. Hemmingway took his own life with a shotgun. Beethovan was condemned to a prison of silence that robbed him of hearing the beauty of his own work. The lists are endless and the point is that in this life we all suffer. But the best of us take that suffering and turn it into something beautiful and unique.

So is it worth it? Is suffering for your art really worth the hassle? You can bet your fucking arse it is. There is no better feeling in this life then seeing the joy that your words, paintings, music, thoughts, feelings and actions has on another man or woman. There is something so selfless and so intimate in reaching out to stroke the chords of a loved one or fan’s heart. There is something so humbling in being afforded the opportunity to take their hand and lead them along a path of self-discovery and enlightenment that makes all the suffering and all the torment so worthwhile. That’s why artists do what they do. They push themselves harder and harder not because they want to break (although I will occasionally do this), but so that they can have that impact on the lives of those they are fortunate enough to touch. A man like Fitipaldes quite literally exhausted his body and soul so that he could deliver a message of hope to his fans.

It’s a commendable act and one that sometimes isn’t always recognised within our modern day society. We have come to view ourselves as consumers of art rather than fans, and as such we expect and demand that level of self-sacrifice and dedication from our artists. We expect them to produce until they falter and fall, sometimes forgetting just how much enrichment they have bought into our lives before we simply discard their now fractured works in search of something new to captivate us.

I know that all of this must sound rather frivolous coming from a man who hasn’t yet had the opportunity to touch the hearts and minds of as many people that he believes he can. But I truly believe that there is something to be learned from an artist’s sacrifice and willingness to self-implode.

No successful artist has ever achieved without first experiencing some form of hardship. Be it through rejections, depression, lack of determination, or whatever else, every single one of us suffers at some point. Not because we want to, but because we have to. You can’t have a heaven without a hell. You can’t have black without white. And you can’t have the elation of success without the lows of failure or exhaustion. But the successful artists, the Hemmingway’s, the Van Gogh’s, the Fitipaldes’, they make a conscious decision to succeed. In those moments where they are stretching beyond their limits and pushing themselves to breaking point they are faced with a decision; rise up and be something. Or give up on everything you ever dreamed of. So they rise; no matter how hard they have fallen, or how insurmountable a task that may seem.

Right now, the lyricist that has inspired this author beyond all conventional measure is exhausted and stepping down from the limelight. But with a talent as bright as his, and a desire to alter the world for the better, it’s only a matter of time before Adrian Fitipaldes returns. And this author cannot wait to see what he produces when he does.

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