Puff Pieces by Adrian: April 2014

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Nervous About Ninjas...

Firstly, I want to mention that I was able to recover most of LA Ninja II: Rise of the Cartel. I did lose a lot of work, but I’m going back through it now. Those are the breaks, I guess. I don’t know how else to look at it. It totally fucking sucks that it happened, but since I do not possess a magic portal that could take me into the past to change things, then there’s nothing I can do. If I did have one, I wouldn’t go back to that point anyways. I’d go way back and change a whole lot of shit. It’s stupid to think about, and it’s a waste of time, but I always think about things I’d change if I had a time machine. But enough of that crap.

Secondly, I saw a trailer for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. I remember being a youngin’ when the first movie came out, way back when, and I thought it was cool at the time. As lame as the kids today might think it is, at that time, the filmmaking of TMNT was cutting edge.

As a ninja fan and a writer of two ninja books, it is both exciting and nervous for me to know that this movie is coming out. I hope that it generates interest in the ninja genre, which may also bring new readers to my stories. I am hopeful and excited for that. But I’m nervous too. What if TMNT generates a new spawn of movies of this genre? What if my story gets remade or told in some version close to mine without it actually being mine? In other words, what if I’m left out to dry?

I guess that is the risk and also the way things go. The truth is that my LA Ninja stories will probably never reach a large scale audience, which in my opinion would suck. I love LA Ninja. The story is so gripping to me, and it is one that I’d love to see made into a screenplay and movie. It is a movie I’d love to see. Fucking eh it is! And as far as that goes, the novel itself continues to be read by many, and even though only a few reviews exist, they are all positive ones. That counts for a lot, and even if we don’t make it to the big time with our tale, at least a few others out there have shared in the story with me. Thanks to all of you! -Adrian

PS. Oh, by the way, if anyone is interested in taking a stab at writing LA Ninja into a screenplay with me, please let me know. I’ve never written one, and although I think I can cut one out, I am so entrenched in the other projects I have going on. Since I don’t have endless time, that means I have to prioritize, which means new novels receive precedence. Anyhow, let me know if you’re out there and wanna a piece of it.

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Total Disaster

Today was the worst day ever. The worst thing that could happen to an e-writer like me, happened. I lost my book. Get this, you won’t believe it. I was on the last few paragraphs of my book. Literally. I had proofed it, edited it three times and got the cover done. It was LA Ninja II. My best work so far. And poof! It’s gone –not totally, but pretty big time.

Sigh…I’ve had a couple of cocktails tonight, in what should have been celebratory, but is now for condolence. It sucks so bad. I lost at least a month of work. Luckily, I have a backup on CD from February, so I’m not totally Fubar, but it’s still bad. I have to go back and rewrite what happens. Maybe I have a chance to better the story and improve it, you might think, but I don’t see it that way. It was perfect to me. I had it right. The story was money.

I truly don’t know how to explain things like this. From a purely technical standpoint, what happened was mere probability. I’ve lost things before. Honestly though, as computers and programs progress, the probability of this type of disaster dwindles. I trusted too much. I knew better, too, which was why I had a backup to begin with, but I got sloppy towards the end. I had my eye on the finish line and I got careless. Fuck. That’s all I can say. Fuck.

Sigh…again. Anyhow, that’s mostly why I haven’t posted much lately. I’ve been rocking that shit out. It was awesome, and now I have to go back. I guess it’s like running a marathon and just before the finish line, you realize that you have to go back 6 miles and change your shoes and finish the race. Or maybe, you go through a pregnancy, and go through the birth and just before you get to see the crazy love child’s face for the first time, God puts you back at month 7. I don’t know. That’s the best I can come up with at this moment.

I will make sense of this disaster and report it out soon. See y’all later, and I hope you’re having better luck than me. Peace out. -A

Revolution of the Soul. A Mission Statement.

I am by default, and through no fault of my own, different. I’m not out cruising the boulevard on the weekends, blasting oldies-but-goodies with the homies. I am also not listening to rock en Espanol, speaking in Spanish-only with my friends. I could fit into either stereotype perfectly though, and to an outsider, I probably appear to be from either or both worlds. I have brown skin, which is pretty much all it takes. It’s not that simple though, as others like me surely understand. I speak some Spanish but I also speak perfect English. I went to college. I love hamburgers and fries, and hip-hop, and alternative music. I have simply integrated into American culture from the start, because I was born here, and because I wanted to.

I’m glad that I’m not still stuck in Mexico somewhere, growing up a third world existence, which statistically would have been the case, had my familia never come here. But I am glad to have come from a country and peoples with such a rich and vibrant history. There are many reasons having such a heritage is a good thing, and I am proud to be a part of it. I am glad to have been born here in America, and happy to be part of this system. I’m happier yet that I didn’t grow up as a cholo gang-banging, tagger, too-cool-for school type of guy, even though I’ve had plenty of chances, given my surroundings. That subculture is not all bad either, depending on the level of involvement and the choices one makes. In other words, you can look the part without being a thug, or a social, or immigrant, or anything else, que no? This is true of all life.

So even though I am different, I am by no means alone, and I know this. The problem for me is that I’m not seeing enough representation out there in the media. I’m not seeing a lot of works written, or filmed, for people like me. It annoys me, too, for a lot of political reasons, because our image is grossly misrepresented. Sure the gangbanger cholos are fun to include in film, because violence sells. However, that only perpetuates a false image. These days, it seems as though everyone in this country sees us either as cholos or as immigrants that refuse to assimilate, legal or not. This angers me because we are so many different things including a multitude of diversity within our own subculture. It’s pretty frickin’ beautiful, if everyone only knew…

Either way, I decided to make the changes I wanted to see, on my own. I’m writing stories for me, for you, and for everyone else, and my main characters are all Latino, and not just Mexican-Latino either. My stories are not about quinceaneras or growing up as a pocho in high school. They are not about crossing the border, or starting any revolutions. The only revolution I write about is the Revolution of the Soul. My stories are meant to entertain and inspire people, and hopefully many of you will relate to them in one way or another, and see yourselves there in them, wherever that may be.