Wow its almost as if I forgot about this whole thing...I got a new job and haven't been in a decent position to spend too much time writing. On the plus side though I have been collecting some thoughts not only for L.O.T.L but a new idea as well dealing with vamps and history. I plan on working a bit more on these characters and story n the upcoming weeks here when I will be out of town working. So Hopefully you all we keep up with the story and let me know what you think!

Busy Busy Bee...

     Alright so I have been pretty busy with work and what not so there isn't a whole lot to talk about (which sucks ass...) So I have been doing some cool reading of creative writing courses for free online which has lead me to start a journal, which is a lot cooler than I thought it would be. It really seems to be helping me open my mind to new theories and thought processes which is a very cool thing for someone who has no writing background to speak of. I am really hoping to just work on building the world around my characters and more back story as well.

     The biggest thing I have learned so far is how hard it is to find an artist who is in my area who can devote some time to helping me with storyboards without paying them...which I guess goes without saying but is still a bit frustrating. Although the process has helped me learn how to create more detail in my writing so I can move through scenes without it.

     I hope to have more soon and thanks for keeping up and checking my shit out!!!

New Aires- We Are Building A Future.....Out Of Disrepair (More info)

     Alright, so I have been going over this all in my head for a week or so now. How do I build a city...in my mind?? I'm not artist by any stretch of the imagination. Notice the blog has no artwork what so ever... This is something I'm working on, but am having difficulty procuring an artist who isn't currently busy in my area. So this has been my dilemma, how do you build a city that you can pull characters out of when ever you need? Well after about a week of really trying to imagine this world I just began to see it, now I just need someone to put it down for me and let it all take off. Soon enough I'm sure I will find what I am looking for, in the mean time I get to write which is just as fun.

     So a little more on the city of New Aires. I am really thinking more and more about where to go next with the scenes, I really wan to go back and forth with the characters later on in the story. I want the underworld to be almost its own separate entity, imagine Demolition Man(Wesley Snipes/ Sylvester Stalone) meets Resident Evil. There is only a few places around the world that The Alliance has decided to rebuild, and where they have decided is mostly on the major cities around the world not directly destroyed completely by the war. This means they are able to take buildings that were partially destroyed or still in decent shape and use them, but being that most of the cities have been leveled at least partially they have to just cap it off with new foundations leaving an underground perfect for the birth of a rebellion. The narrow streets are lined with cargo container style apartments, mostly consisting of a room and a bathroom. Electricity isn't something readily available to this underworld, so most have to use small fires and candles for light.

     Food and water are not easily accessible either. Water is a very large operation which involves desalinization, because they have to pull the water from the ocean to keep it concealed otherwise the Bureau would immediately shut off the water supply. Food is something they deal with mainly through protein compounds and other manufactured foods they can steal from shipments on the way into New Aires. With The Alliance in complete global domination they have monopolized all forms of manufacturing, including distribution so the prospect of finding a company to pay off or barter with for goods is all but impossible to accomplish.

     There are little shops and whatnot around so people who do go out and scavenge, or hunt and gather,  have a place to trade goods. There are also central markets that set up daily in certain sections for trading and eating. It is very much a community where everyone has no choice but to help in some way or another. With people constantly making their way into the underworld looking for refuge, the population is ever increasing and with only a limited space to fill the desperation is growing constantly. The seed of rebellion and upheaval is on the rise, which is bringing the Leader together to put an end to the tyranny.

     This city to me is where "New Life" will emerge and the whole of the story will mostly take place here and in the city above. The struggles of not only trying to get in and out undetected, due to the secrecy of the entrances, but the fact they have to navigate the city above for a variety of reasons is enough to get you killed.

Squeek- The Orphan bred by despair, fueled by rebellion

     So it's been a while since I have had a good chance to sit down and write. So we have been going over a new character to bring into the novel, a sneaky quite addition that could blossom into something bigger, and deadlier, and we have come up with a young girl around 12-15, who can bring something special to the mix. So here she is and please feel free to let me know what you think!!

     Squeek, is someone who has virtually no formal fighting skills and relies on secrecy to survive. A young girl… an INNOCENT. A conflict savvy, rogue scavenger of the underground by her early age, this silent child is a master of evasion, stealth, and cunning. This child can sneak into a room full of people and lift wallets, and food undetected. After a long while of shadowing the group, the child makes her presence known and is taken under the wing of Azriel. There will become a point in this relationship where Azriel will think of her as a daughter, and will do anything to protect her including training her to become a stealthy assassin.

     I want to have her hidden throughout different scenes, where you will only be able to see her after it is explained later on in the story. This way we can introduce her later but have a different perspective on some major events in the story prior to having her as a well known character. She won't speak to anyone at all at first until her and Azriel get more comfortable and build their relationship, and then she still will only speak to him.

       She has had her fair share of run-ins with The Bureau throughout the years on the street. Which has toughened her up a bit but when it comes down to it she is still only a child, and her nights are always filled with tears for the parents she will never have, along with the parents she has had. She is a very angry child who was brought up as an orphan moving from foster family to foster family after her parents were killed in a bombing raid during the war. This has left her broken and scarred from the sick and neglectful impostor parents she had to deal with until she ran away and began a life on the streets of New Aires. Where she had to learn and perfect the art of stealth, in order to steal her food and other necessities to survive on the streets.Once she gets into her training she will be as deadly as any member on the team with her blade and silenced  .9 mm pistol that she and Azriel train with everyday.

     This should help with added content to the all around story. I am hoping that when we do find out what happened to her in the past there will be a great story in that, and so on. I think she will add a real family dynamic to the group as we move her in more, from how she helps out the group with little things like cleaning up and food here and there. To eventually this small caretaker feel comes from Azriel as he takes her under his wing and creates a vital cog in the L.O.T.L. rebellion. Which is something I really want to slip into this dark and apocalyptic world. I think the we will need a ray of hope from somewhere.

New Aires- The city beneath a city with a dream....

     New Aires, where the western world goes to die. This is the biggest city that The Bureau/Alliance still lends its economical hand to. This is the city they hope to start the rebuilding process for the western world. The area to the north, which is the southern portion of America, is what we refer to as the "Outlands" which is where society has completely broken down and they just live to live and have to go about getting provisions and whatever they need any way possible. I really want to focus on the way people have reverted to hunting and scavenging by any means necessary. I was thinking after Damien wakes up from his dream  and is in the woods with the rain pouring down on him lighting up his smoke he heads back out on the trail to wander the trek to New Aires. There will be a decent portion of the story played out here in the Outlands so we can really set the mood for how dark and hostile the lands can really be. There will be some mutations I plan on bring to the table...so be ready for some sweet beasts.
     Back to New Aires, This is a very dark place, a place where the rich can get anything they want at the snap of their fingers, and the poor struggle to eat scraps. This is a place where a revolution must be born, where the voice of the people will rise like a tidal wave that will one day envelope The Alliance and bring it crumbling down. The city at its core is a busseling metropolis(well as much as it can be for the time being) but the further you get away from the center, which is where the main nuclear power source is, it gets worse and worse.
     Buildings are constructed from the foundation of the ruins of a city destroyed by the world war and pretty much shanty towns built on top of it for the people on the outskirts.Electricity is not something easy to come by in these areas unless they somehow hack into the power grid for a day or two, which is something that is not an easy task to accomplish so they try not to waste the opportunity unless they can use it to a strategic advantage.Day and night aren't really distinguishable in the bigger cities due to the pollution that pours out of the oil/coal powered grids and other forms of power generators that the upper class get to use, unless you are a couple miles out of town. Which will also have some effect on the weather, which will consist of acid rains and other hardships people must face due to not only the pollution but the nuclear fallout that still has a slight affect on the world around them.
     Now when it comes to the layout and accessibility of the city it depends on the region of the city you are in. When you are in the heart of the city, where the money is funneling into, it looks very much like a normal metropolitan area with skyscrapers and beautiful architecture. These sections of the cities have weather simulators so they can control the weather and make their lives more habitable. Which in turn creates more pollution and other adverse side effects to the surrounding areas. The outer areas where the poor and downtrodden are forced to claw their way through life are very inhabitable on the outside, but underneath the rebellion has given birth to a new form of society. Where there is still democracy by elected officials for the good of the people. This however is constantly attacked and beginning to crumble, people are eating less and they are running out of room. They have started heading underground and have been building there, but without the numbers and supplies these things are getting harder and harder to do. This is where the Leaders come in and are looking for new answers, new ways to create order in this world of chaos by bringing down The Alliance at whatever cost necessary.

The opening scene-Welcome to our world...

     The scene opens up with Damien sleeping, then we jump into his dream. Its the night his mother and sister were murdered by Bureau Agents.His older sister got him out through the trapdoor in his mother's room beneath her bed. The trapdoor is for the nuclear fallout shelter they had installed a year before the bombs were dropped on the 8 major cities in the United Sates among other sites around the globe that were against the Alliance in the end all war.
     As the Agents kick the door down and subdue his mother and sister, we are informed that they were "warned to get the Fuck out!!" The lead Agent, Jackson, comes walking in after the commotion settles down and they have his sister tied and gagged, and his mother cuffed standing in the middle of the room trying to stand tall telling Jackson "Fuck You...My husband built this house with his bare hands, who are you to tell us to leave?!" "We arent hurting anyone way out here why do you insist on forcing us out? We aren't going to be forced out by the scum of the earth looking for total control for your "New World""  As Jackson cirlces he begins to chuckle to himself," You were told to leave...you want to play games bitch? Well games are starting tonight...and you wont be enjoying our games, especially when your daughter gets front row seats to what will surely be a grisly string of events leading up to her own slow end." His mother standing there eyes wide knowing the true hell she is about to face begins to beg for her daughters life," Please don't hurt her, she hasn't done anything she is just a child!" "She looks plenty grown up to me", chimes in an Agent who is laying next to her on the bed, stroking her hair and wiping away her tears. "We warned you too many times Patricia, you should have listened...for your family's sake." says Jackson as he walks around Damien's mother smelling her hair and running his hand across her neck. "Get the fuck off of me you piece of shit!, I will never leave my home because of some FUCK HEAD, who thinks he can just force people out of their homes!" Jackson looks her in the eye and says," If only more of you would just leave...we wouldn't have to force anything." "But, because you are all so goddamn proud we have to do things...well the hard way as it were." As he snaps his fingers and points to his men," You two take the girl, and you to take care of this unpleasant woman...after your done searching the place.....burn it down." Patricia and Damien's sister Jenny begin to kick and scream, but to no avail they were going to die here tonight...going to be forgotten by the land, forgotten by the world....but not by Damien. He will never forget this night as he peaks out from under the trapdoor to see his mother and sister beaten, raped, and left for dead while they search the home and farm. After about an hour of searching and Damien trying to get the courage to step out of the bunker and see if his family was still alive. He hears JoJo, Jackson's second in command give the order to"Burn it down, make sure it looks like an accident...We were never here!!", he shouts.
     After hearing this Damien squeezes out of the trapdoor trying to gather his bloody and broken mother and sister into the trap door before the whole house comes crashing down. He at the last second gets his sister into the bunker as the house caves in, He sits and rocks back and forth as he holds the bodies of his sister and mother until he finally falls asleep.
     So I don't really know how I want this to all play out, I don't know if I want this to be something we come back to here and there giving readers only a glimpse at a time and over the breadth of the novel they learn the truth, not only about what happened to his family, but what drives his insatiable quest for Jackson. I am hoping to make this whole series of dreams very vivid, very cruel and heartbreaking. I want this to be the egg I drop into your brain and make you start to hate The Alliance/Bureau.

Opening Scene

     So I started writing the opening scene tonight and I am really pumped! I think this is going to be a very integral part to getting people on the side of Damien, getting them to see and feel his hatred and passion for bringing down The Alliance/Bureau. Which in essence is the whole point of this blog....I want you to get a feel for these character, I want you to know why Damien became himself, why he is such a loner out roaming  for months on end until he finds New Aires and "The Leaders". I think the best part about it all so far is how intense the scene is, how brutal and raw the events are that are taking his family away.
     /on some other great news I think I have found my illustrator for the time being...My guy Dean is gonna take a look at the script and hopefully we can get a storyboard rockin and get you guys some sample artwork to get your chops tingling! I m also in the process of writing a new character...Thanks Nate! and should have her somewhat rounded out here in the next couple of days. I think she will be an addition a little deeper into the story of Damien, I am hoping I can sneak her in as a somewhat tail for him, like an orphan on the street who has done all she could, good or bad, to stay alive. She should be ready soon so hopefully you all can get excited about that!! Well thanks again for taking a peek into my world and tell you friends to fucking get on this shit its only getting better!!!!!