I Don’t Live In Fear

I’ll say it, I don’t care, we live in an era of censorship. You look at CISPA being passed by the House, we have the NDAA that’s waiting in the shadows, we have drones ready to take into the skies to watch our every move 24/7, we have proof when Occupy Wall Street was beaten to a pulp, when Aaron Swartz was bullied by people who dealt in censorship and who pushed him to his own death, we have Bradley Manning facing a life sentence for showing the ugly truth of the world, and Juilan Assange held in the Ecuador Embassy, fearful of stepping out, cause he believes the UK and US government will assassinated him on the spot, just because he helped Bradley Manning expose the truth. Look me in the eye and say we don’t live in a time of censorship.

I think the talk about censorship, is something that is always taboo, cause society kind of files it under paranoia, and for artist it’s the subject that can get you blacklisted. I think the industry as a whole doesn’t want artist to speak out about censorship that’s happening around their given nations, you can say how grand your nation is, but the moment you point the ugly side your bashed for it. If you look at any artist personal site, you’ll find everything about writing, sex, jokes, but you’ll never see the subject of censorship. Cause it’s such a bad word among the community, even if we know it’s happening. But if it’s not trending or making money for the industry we’re told to hush up, or you’re collogues turn their back on you. And this goes double for any artist that works with a publisher, there everything you say and do is filtered and reprocessed, where your words are no longer your words, you’re no longer a person, you’re just a product. Design to create what they want, and if you try to play them, they’ll end your career before it gets off the ground.

I think we’ve reached that point in society where we rather let the horror go unspoken about, even when we witness the event in front of our eyes. We do live in a nation ( U.S )where we do have more wiggle room than other countries, but that is being taken away by us at a rapid pace with more insane bills being passed through the House and Senate. And we are aware of this, but everyone seems more wrapped around meaningless issues, that they’re missing the bigger picture.

Will all this come to bite me back. Who knows. Do I really care, not really. Cause someone has to say the truth, even if it does hurt. I don’t want to look back knowing I did nothing, and sold everything.

~ Jesse Abundis

 

Going NC-17

 

When I write, I don’t censor the image, I let it play out. No matter how dark or disturbing the image might become. And I’m told the violence in my work will hurt sales of my book, but honestly that doesn’t bother me one bit. I didn’t set out to write their book, I set out to write my book. I think that train of thought might throw some people off, cause no writer wants to lose sales, cause that’s become part of the game, you make a book and you try to sell a million copies.

A million sounds nice, but I just want to be able to write a book that I can look back on with pride. I don’t care if it’s disturbing or hard to read, but that’s my creation, that’s my baby, I created it with my own bare hands. I can hear the million takes of different people, but I’m not aiming for a tone down story. If I wanted to tone it down, I would have done so in the second draft.

I know with my three novels THE PERFECT WOMAN, DARKLY DREAMING and CHAOS THEORY there will be some uproar cause of the violence depicted in the novel, but that’s something I’m willing to bear. Like I said, I’m aiming for a NC-17 rating, not a PG or PG-13 or even R on those stories, even if it does cost me sales.

Sometimes an artist has to stand by their work of art. If I get a handful of people who are pumped, who like it, who want to read more, than that’s good enough. Sometimes you shouldn’t aim to please everyone, as long as you please yourself, you’ll find the people you are looking for. In the end it doesn’t matter how many sales you made, it’s if the people will still remember when you are long and gone, and that only happens when the art you create speaks to them.

 

Jesse Is Angry: No Shame, I love Kickstarter and IndieGogo !

 

I don’t know what bug bit some critics, but many people have begun to take a bat to Kickstarter and Indiegogo for giving the artist other means in letting project come to life. Most recent news was that Veronica Mars creator was going to do a Kickstarted to launch this fan funded project.  This made a lot of fans happy as hell, and many of the ” IF IT”S NOT FUNDED BY CORPORATIONS, THEN IT SHOULDN’T BE” Which is just utter bullshit. Why should we be held to HOLLYWOOD, we’re in a different age where we can take a different route, one that isn’t run by a friend’s only circle. Haven’t we reached that point in life where we can have both Hollywood and INDIE, isn’t that beauty of art?

If you are a film maker, and you don’t have the big budget, or a budget at ALL, then INDIEGOGO and KICKSTATER can you help you out, even if your dreams are to take to Youtube and that’s the beauty of the internet, you can make  dream come true, you can reach so many people without going through Hollywood, and that’s what they hate. Hollywood doesn’t want to give control to the people, and what’s the downside of letting the small artist step up? Nothing.

So for the people bashing KICKSTARTER and INDIEGOGO I say grow up, take the stick out of your ass, and your vast knowledge of douchebaggery and just accept the fact, every artist can do as they please, who cares if it’s not a 100Million budget, if the story blows my mind, I don’t fucking care!!!!

 

That was my rant, that was my fury, one love!

 

JESSE ABUNDIS

 

Writing something new, not mainstream

There’s always this notion of writing what sells is the best way to go about things, but is it really? Are we taking giant steps back, just to remain in the shadow of mainstream, are Authors refusing to step out and take a bold stance in doing something new, or for that fact, just  being themselves just to keep in line?

Authors around seem focused on one thing today, let’s keep hitting on what sales. This goes for a lot of other fields too, games, music and film. But should it really be the status quo. You keep pumping on that same old well, in the end all you have are readers that just are sick and tired of the same old thing. Is it so taboo to just write a story that takes you into something different, something that you weren’t expecting to see. The golden rule might be, don’t upset the readers, but you have to give your readers more credit than that, you must assume they have a greater mind to take in something different, something new, even if takes them awhile to digest the whole book.

I’m a fan of being told a story that doesn’t just stick to the old good vs evil, but shows us that good and evil are the same, and that in the world there are no villains, just humanity which is deformed in it’s own way when you take the blindfold off. It’s surely not what sells, but isn’t that the beauty of it, it’s different, it takes a jump into an area that not a lot of people would. Cause of that, the author in my eyes earns my respect and reader for life.

Another factor in this trend is sales. Authors do keep themselves in place for the sake of sales. And we know the amount of books you sell is key for the finical living of the artist, the money you make, is the money you can pay the bills with. Now my take is different when it comes to this issue, I rather sell the book I had envisioned , than be force to release a book I know isn’t quite true to what I had planned, cause in the end, it comes down to this ” Will you be able to walk with your head held  high?”

Putting all that aside, you have to remember. You are an artist, you are the creator, you are the one that gave life to this story. You should say, you should create, you should do what feels right to you. Forget being the apple of everyone’s eye, forget about being NY Best Seller, and just be you, just be real. Write the story that isn’t censored and forced into something it never was in the first place. Be true and you’ll see the right people follow you. Cause shouldn’t your happiness be the thing that truly matters in life.

 

Tell me what you think, do you agree, do you disagree. Let me know.
~Jesse Abundis