#moodbeach

[robynhdz]

Un hermoso amanecer en Playa del Carmen ☀️ (📸 by @mireyalarap Loveyou ❤️) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . #posandoando📷 #morningmotivation #moodbeach #ɪɴsᴛᴀᴘɪᴄ #photofashion #hombresguapos #outfits #fashionista #amanecer #playadelcarmen #vacationtimes #posesexy #beards #gaysoltero #gaytravelagency (en Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cf9jn5BLwXr/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[moodbeach]

Earth Population: You

I am one man of the world in the world of one man. You are long gone. Earth population: Me. My friends are in my thoughts but my thoughts are my enemies. What are you holding on for? What are you waiting for? End it. Best not to think. Count your footsteps out loud just to hear something human. So you don’t forget how words sound, how to say them. One. Two. Three. Try to remember the words to your favorite song again. Fail. Back to counting. One. Two. Three. I can’t walk for long. My footsteps begin to sound like ticks of a clock, counting the seconds I’m alive. I don’t need to be reminded. What are you waiting for? Who are you waiting for? En- One. Two. Three.

My hands pull me up to the peak of the mountain. I stumble as I stand. I swallow the view. It seems masochistic to want to see the empty roads, empty fields, empty cities from these great heights just to solidify the loneliness, the sadness, but it’s a sight to see. All the bustling streets and crowded rooms, the hum of life: gone. Oh, how you miss that hum. Almost more than the ones you hummed with. I take a step to the edge. There’s no danger. There’s no one around to hurt me. I stumble slightly and I backup. My feet don’t find solid ground. The unsteady rocks propel my foot forw- I’m hanging from the edge. I scream louder than I ever have and I scream again as I remember what fear feels like. I call out for help but remember: I am one man of the world in the world of one man. You are gone. Earth population: Me. My tears fall fast to foreshadow, lead the way. My thoughts are quelled. Dumbstruck in the presence of what they thought they wanted. My arms grow tired quickly. My grip loosens. I call out again. I don’t care how useless it is. I don’t want this. I don’t want this. The death of the last soul carries the most weight and I feel it pulling me down. The adrenaline dwindles. My muscles shriek. I’m slipping, I’m sli- I’m falling. A yell echoes through the mountains like thunder. It’s not mine. My eyes search for the who. Earth population: 2. I close them tight. Earth population: You.

[fixyourwritinghabits]

I was wondering what you guys had to help with character building.

That’s a pretty broad question, so I can only give broad answers. First, as always, start with the tags. Scroll down for the character section. 

Some people like character sheets, others don’t. Sometimes, they’re useless: “Who's your character’s secret celebrity crush?” and other modern, first world questions can be irrelevant in historical, fantasy and sci-fi stories. Here’s a basic, meat and bones (or beans and grains, if you prefer) version that can get you started. Notice, that it asks you in some places to Do the Google. So, Do the Google. And click the links. And you can conveniently skip sections that don’t fit your setting. 

Don’t get bogged down in the details. Remember, you as the creator have superpowers, but you don’t always have to show them. You can and will probably write a lot more about your babies than you ever put in your finished works. Do I know Katniss Everdeen’s favorite color? No, and I neither want to nor do I care. Does Suzanne Collins know? She just might, but she’s smart enough not to over-describe her characters in a story where the setting and the events play a huge role -- and yet we get plenty of forward-moving character development, too. 

So, those are just some wide-open thoughts. If you start writing and researching and come upon more specific questions, feel free to share! 

[moodbeach]

“He isn’t going to admit anything.” “How about you just stay over there and I’ll take care of this?” The other teen stayed silent in compliance. The other turned back to me, crouching, with a charming smile conquering his face although I stopped trusting it after the fourth or fifth punch. I was a middle man for a big drug guy. I honestly wasn’t anywhere near his level of operation just a small-time dealer he could blame it all on if it went south which it was looking like it had. “$40 million dollars. I don’t even know what I’d do with that kind of money. What are you gonna do with it?” “I don’t have $40 million dollars so I can’t say.” “But you will admit that you had it temporarily?” “Yes.” “But on the way from your hands to your bosses something happened that you can’t explain and now it’s gone.” “Yes. There was another guy th-” “That you didn’t recognize and probably couldn’t point out if asked, am I right?” “Yes.” The sixth punch landed a lot harder than the ones before. He was losing his patience. He stood up and called his friend. “The trunk.” His partner nodded and walked off, flicking his cigarette as he went. “Now the real pain starts.” The police were there before he could even finish the sentence. “We have one apprehended. Looks like he was getting a weapon from his trunk. We’re moving to get another.” was heard being spoken into an intercom. “Fuck.” He turned towards the opening of the alley. I took that opportunity to run.

[moodbeach]

3

I feel like there's too much pressure on everyone to find someone to be with. Romance is in everything. But there's not much effort put into promoting solitude. Maybe because solitude doesn't sell as much. No one's going to be buying chocolate, flowers, and giant teddy bears for themselves. Not many anyway. Maybe people should though. I feel like people don't treat themselves enough. You really don't need a reason to buy a cake or some other type of luxury. No one is going to look out for you better than you. No one is going to know exactly what you need. But sometimes not even you know. And it honestly sucks knowing there's something wrong but the solution is too elusive or unachievable to reach. What is there really to do at a point like that? I really just try to let it pass. What other way is there to fight something like that? It's so immobilizing. I'm having trouble even writing this. It's probably something you should talk about with someone but I don't have the luxury of an open ear. You think people are there for you but it turns out to be the opposite. It's a hard blow when you realize your level of friendship with someone isn't as mutual as you thought. And it's even harder because it gets to a point when you just want to tell them all to fuck off but you don't want to be even more alone. It's almost like a drug. The high's nice but it leaves you broken and yearning. They fill the hole they themselves create. I need a new way to fill that hole. I need to learn to find that feeling on my own. But it's hard because like I said we're so pressured to find someone to be with. But it's not as easy as the movies will make it seem and it'll crush you even more because you see other people find love so easy while you continue to struggle. It's not long before you wonder if the problem is you. And you can't really change you. So you spend long nights trying to be productive and trying to prove your worth as you fight the fear that maybe this is it for you and you're all you have to hold for the rest of your life. And maybe that wouldn't be so bad if all the lovey dovey stuff could just let up.

[moodbeach]

2

What is love anyway? The weight of someone else resting on top of you? Feeling another human being breathe in? Opening up a previously locked and guarded door to someone you feel has the potential of owning a key?

Do people want to love someone or do they just want to be loved? The latter is probably the cynical choice. Interacting with someone just to gain something from someone, picking the lowest hanging fruit for better chances.

But I don’t really want to be cynical. I’d love to love someone and to be loved. It seems like a natural thing to want. People want to be accepted. But sometimes it’s hard to tell what feeling is driving your actions. If you’re alone for long enough the urge to be loved grows stronger. It gets to a point where you have to ask yourself if it’s love your feeling towards this person or just loneliness pushing you to find a way out.

I’ve had to ask myself that question plenty of times.

The real question is do we really even need love. Are we wasting time and money trying to grow a vestigial appendage? What if the goal in life is to learn to find what we’re searching for in ourselves? It’s hard to consider it an option when there’s so much romance in nearly everything we watch.

But maybe that’s just a manipulation. You know, romance sells, mass brainwashing, cynicism, cynicism, cynicism. That’s not really where I was trying to go with this but it honestly keeps popping up. I’m just trying to explore various ideas.

But what if we don’t need love? If you could come home after a long day to an empty house and it not be such a bad thing. I feel like there’s plenty of people who prefer that but being alone is looked down on so a lot of people don’t entertain the idea. We need to realize that it’s fine to be alone and to not let other people get it into our heads that we need someone when we know we don’t.

But also it’s nice to have someone caring for you. It’s definitely a confidence boost. Just knowing that a complete stranger is capable of feeling such strong emotion towards you. That someone would put you before them.

You want to feel what you see those thousands of fictional characters feel. I know I do. I did briefly. But that turned out to be not as mutual as originally thought. Once you experience love it’s hard to live without it. You felt complete before and now you don’t.

[moodbeach]

Current

I’m a leaf in an ocean. Floating unstable and being pulled by a stronger force without any say in the matter. But unlike the normal leaf I have arms and legs and energy to fight the current. So should I fight it? I was gifted with a certain power but the current was gifted with more. Should that knowledge be my motivation or my discouragement? Why give me the ability to fight if only to have me succumb to a greater being? Is my only purpose defeat? Was I molded together just to be a whipping boy? I don’t think God could be that cruel but I’ve been given little evidence in the contrary.

It’s been a year since I graduated high school, about to become two, and I’m caught in the headlights of the future. Despite how much I like myself currently I’m going to go through a possibly drastic change and I guide that change whether it be consciously or otherwise. But my suffering is due to the question of what road is the road best taken and even those roads have their own cosmic forks.

I could (again) seek to rekindle an old relationship but can I handle another rejection, and is getting back together going to do me the good I’m assuming and hoping it will? How heartbreaking it would be to find what you were begging for wasn’t what you needed.

Maybe I stay alone and risk permanent isolation from the world. Maybe not everyone was meant to fall in love. Or maybe love doesn’t exist and we’re all just looking for the shiniest object we can get our hands on like the cynics say. Cruel jokers the perpetuators of romance would be.

It just feels like at a moment where I’m doing everything I can to make a move, everything is trying to keep me still. And I can’t tell whose the enemy, me or the current.