Writing

Well, here goes nothing. About two years ago, I came up with an idea that I wanted to turn into a story. As I sat down with it and "incubated" it, if you will, the strangest thing happened. It began to grow. It grew slowly at first, picking up bits and pieces here and there, but it was consistent. Then it started to stop growing, so I got rid of the constraints of reality, and BAM! It began to explode and morph into this wonderful and huge epic story. I couldn't believe the things I was coming up with, and what was once one small story had become a four or five novel series, and it just wouldn't stop. Over the past year and a half I really tried to get it to take off, trying to find the motivation that I needed in order to just write this thing down, but it kept eluding me. Then, my life pretty much went down the toilet and trivial things like story-writing and blogging became something of a luxury, one which I could hardly afford given the current state of things, so the project was shelved.

Now, after two years of working, brainstorming, plotting, and just running through all of the different scenarios in my head, I think I've finally found the missing piece that was keeping my story from developing. So, from this point on, it is my goal, my dream, my initiative to keep writing this thing out, and one day I will get it all written down, I will make it presentable, and I will get it published, no matter what it takes. This is my reminder, my kick in the pants to get myself going, so that every time that I get on here I'll see this, and it will remind me to keep going, even when it seems tough, and I would greatly encourage any of you out there that may be considering writing a book, a screenplay, a movie, a video game, anything that you can think of, just keep at it. It may not seem like it's worth it at first, but just imagine what it would feel like to finally get your project finished and into somebody else's hands. Imagine them enjoying it, loving it, cherishing it, and you will find the inspiration you need to just keep going.

Good luck to the rest of you out there, and for now I will bid you adieu, because I have a story to write.

The Toy Collector

Customizing

In all the time that I have collected toys, I have never really considered attempting any form of customization on them, simply because I was too afraid to ruin any of my figures. This all changed when I stumbled on to the TRON Legacy figure collection, and watched the movie for the first time. I'm absolutely in love with this franchise, almost more so than Star Wars, and that takes a lot of work, so I'm pretty impressed. The soundtrack was great, the movie was great, and the toys are pretty cool too, but I'm terribly disappointed that the line was cut so short compared to other ones like it. This being said, I've decided to try my hand at customizing some of the existing products as they sit on the clearance shelves and turn them into a collection worth envying. I'll post pictures and reviews of these items when I get the chance, but let me leave you with this: if you haven't seen TRON Legacy yet, you definitely need to, and then you should go buy the soundtrack, because it is one of those rare pieces that actually vastly improves the movie-going experience by accompanying this film.

- The Toy Collector