Control: Same Story, Redux

I, Dalton Lewis, tell the same stories in my head, over and over, day after day, year after year. I don’t know what to do or say about it — I have the same problems and worries that I always have had. I worry about death all the time, and I worry about being separated from friends and family. I worry about being framed for various crimes and locked up. I worry about travel times and being far away from people.

I sit in my room, listening to Tupac and music from twenty years ago. I have my phone and my Kindle and my wargaming miniatures, partially assembled and partially forgotten. I need to start a new novel, not knowing how this novel will be different than the last two. I am considering switching 40k armies again. It’s been a couple of months with chaos, and that’s about when I usually switch to something else.

I want to start writing a new novel, but I don’t know what it will be about. I am considering the ending of Game of Thrones. I can say that the executive producers made some surprising decisions towards the end of the series. The ending looks like something that was designed to be unexpected and effective. I can say that I didn’t expect it, but I don’t think the story should have ended that way. I don’t know.

Storytelling seems crushing in its difficulty. Not even George R. R. Martin and the show’s producers can create an ending which excites the fans and provides them with closure. I mean that Shakespeare often just killed pretty much every character because he felt that there was drama in a tragedy. I don’t understand how so many stories try to have happy endings nowadays. It doesn’t seem earned or realistic.

I understand that predicting an audience’s reaction can be difficult. I don’t know how an audience will feel about many of my scenes. I know that writing involves using one’s demons and manifesting them on paper in the form of novels. I know that I worry about the same stupid stuff, day after day, year after year. I know that these worries — traveling the galaxy in the far future, being framed for rape or racism — are very unlikely. No one seems to care that I am mentally ill. No one mistreats or abuses me or frames me.

Is something going to change? Are the X-Men right? Are we destined to fight the same problems, over and over, year after year? Can we learn to change and do things differently?

My life is much the same as it was ten years ago. I play strategy games. I watch movies and television shows. I play the same old video games over and over. I read the same genres of books over and over. Nothing new seems to happen. I don’t know how to change, to do something different, something revolutionary. No, evolutionary. I want to evolve, not revolve.

So I have a new plan — I want to write a blog entry every day. I want to read a novel a week and write a fan fiction story every week. I think that working a regular schedule will help me to write more effectively and express myself more intelligently.