Broken promises. Today I want to talk about broken promises. As an amateur writer, one who is not beholden to anything other than your own will, you find yourself making and breaking promises to yourself. Or at least I do. That’s what today’s edition of “Tales From a Roving Mind” is about. Let’s get to it.




Last year, last New Years to be exact, I made a promise (resolution) to myself. I decided that before the year was over, I would write 4 four issue (Comic Book) miniseries. These would be my first step to getting my writing back on track. That didn’t go too well. I finished one of those series. A came close to finishing another but I can’t even remember if that was one of the four or one I did earlier. It doesn’t really matter since I never finished that one anyway.

I can’t even remember what the four series were supposed to be. I can recall two, the one I finished the first draft of and a second wrestling based series. The completed series is called either “Johnny Reb Will Eat Your Brain!” or “The South Will Rise Again, FROM THE GRAVE!”. It’s a confederate zombie story.

I’m a huge fan of the Cinema Snob (Brad Jones). Years ago he did a review of a move called “Curse of the Cannibal Confederates“, which was a remake of a movie he later reviewed called “Night of Horror”. Both of these movies, neither of which were any good, had to do with a zombie Confederate Soldiers rising from the grave and attacking modern, 1970’s, people.

The idea, Confederate Zombies, is a good one. But the execution was lacking. These two bland, boring, slow, uninteresting films would have been better served as Blaxploitation movies. Which is sort of where my idea came in.

Look, I’m going to be brutally honest. That idea was kicking around in my head, but the thing that actually caused me to write the scripts was one line of dialog. A line that is both offensive and hilarious. A line that is so good, I wrote almost 90 pages of comic book action just so that I could type it. What is that line you ask? Well, since no one is going to read this post, and the chances of that story being published anytime soon, or ever, are pretty much non existent, I have no problem telling you what it is.

Allow me to set the scene.

After 4 issues of blood and guts, after an entire cast of multiracial 20 something’s have been killed and a horde of the worst the Confederacy has to offer ( revived by a voodoo curse) have been taken apart we’re left with two ‘survivors’. On the one side is a young black woman who has seen her brother, boyfriend, and best friend killed. On the other side the young son of a racist, voodoo zombie Confederate Soldier (who was a rapist and murderer) and just as evil as his daddy ever was.

The woman is beaten, hurt, and is barely able to walk. All of a sudden the kid appears. The two tussle and he gets the upper hand. He is sitting on her chest, his teeth bared, and he hisses. She is about to give up. Having seen too much death to fight on. That is until he says the line.

“Brains! NIGGER BRAINS!”

And that’s when she snaps. She flings him off of her chest, grabs a rock and crushes his head to nothing.

I won’t go into anything more, the story goes on a little after that.  But that is what spurred me on to finish that series. That one line. It’s silly. I know. But sometimes you find yourself writing page after page just so you can get to the one part you’re been dreaming about.  I know some people write out of order. They do those parts first and then go back and string them together. I don’t. Other wise, what would I have to look forward to?

OK, so I was talking about Broken Promises right? What does that story have to do with the theme of this post? It was the part of the promise I kept. One of four. What about the other four? What stories did I leave to wallow in the dark pit of my mind?

That’s a hard question to answer. There are so many things kicking around in my head, so many ideas, that I lost more of them than I retain.

I can only ‘clearly’ remember one of the other stories. I’m a huge wrestling fan, you may have figured that out by me saying it repeatedly in multiple posts, so of course I wanted to write something to do with Professional Wrestling.

My idea was simple. Monsters Wrestling. There was a movie, it came out  a few years ago, that did something similar. Well, not similar. It did that exactly. It was crap. You can find out more about it here. Anyway, I wanted to go in a different way. My story wouldn’t be about Monsters fighting to the death, it would be about Monsters in the world of real Professional Wrestling.

What does ‘Real Professional Wrestling’ mean? It means fake, or if you prefer a work. Wrestling is predetermined. You know that and I know that. It’s also incredibly dangerous, and  one of the most interesting industries in the world. If you’ve ever read a Wrestling Biography you know that Wrestlers live more interesting, dramatic, and sad lives than any other type of athlete or entertainer.

That’s what I wanted to explore. That aspect of it. My story, which I titled “TranslyMania” (Clever. No?), would be in that vein. It would show both what you see and what you don’t when it comes to Wrestling. The in ring action and the backstage drama would both be represented, and how the two things effect each other. For instance maybe one wrestler would do something to another and this would result in the ‘match’ getting out of hand, and one of the characters ‘shooting’ on (legitimately trying to hurt) the other. Or we could see someone politic their way into a better position, which would lead to a change in the storyline.

That’s the very broad brush strokes. Let me get a little more detailed. The story was going to take place about 2 months before the big yearly show. The champion, who the promoter doesn’t like, is working to make the show better. He wants to showcase the best the business can offer. The Promoter has a different idea as to what the ‘best’ is. This leads to the two butting heads. And eventually to what I like to call the “Transylvania Screwjob”. Every wrestling fan reading this knows exactly what that means. For those who don’t, look up the words Montreal Screwjob. It’ll only take a second.

There would be other stories going on as well. Having to do with the under card wrestlers, older legends fighting past injuries, and the female wrestlers trying to gain the respect they deserve. I actually had a lot planned for this. I saw, and still see, it as my franchise. My Ninja Turtles, or Power Rangers. This is the thing I’m going to sell to a big studio and make an assload of money off of.

The only issue was when I started to write it, I hit a wall immediately. The script format is very difficult for me. I find it very restricting. It’s hard for me to structure my thoughts in a way that allows me to get the words out. I think in a narrative, free flowing way. A script is way too rigid for me. I’ve been able to do a bit of scripting but it’s never easy.

I’m going to have to get over that, because ‘TranslyMania’ really only works as a comic. As a book it won’t have the visual impact necessary to grab people’s attention.

That’s half of the broken promise. The other two series have mixed up with all of my un-produced ideas, and I couldn’t pick them out of a lineup at this point. So let’s move on.

Broken promises. The above is just what I  left unfinished because of breaking a promise to myself. I wanted to write this post to talk about how wasteful this is and why it happens.

Why do we break promises to ourselves? It’s simple really. No matter what you do there is always one person who will forgive you. One person who will welcome you back with open arms and overlook all the bad, stupid shit you’ve done. You. I have forgiven myself for everything thing I’ve ever done.

Here’s an example. I’m obese. Over the last 2 years I’ve lost a good amount of weight. I don’t know how much because I’m too heavy, or I was, for common scales. I know I’ve lost about 8 to 10 inches and feel remarkably better. I can walk, climb stairs, and do a lot more than I was able to before.  I did this by fasting. At first my fast days were me going through an entire day and eating nothing. Soon that grew 500 calories, and now I’m lucky if I can keep it under 1,000. More often than I’d like, I find myself messing up. I’ll promise myself I’ll do a day where I eat nothing and end up somewhere around 1,500 calories. Take today for instance. I wanted to do 0 today but I’m right under 1,000.

Broken Promises.

I feel bad about it, I’m upset with myself. But I know it’s fleeting. You can never really hold a grudge with yourself. If you could, you would be in serious trouble. Imagine how hard life would be if you weren’t able to forgive yourself. You know all of your dark, dirty secrets. The little random thoughts that make you shake your head and feel terrible, those alone could drive you to suicide if you didn’t forgive yourself.

Since you do, and you know you do, there are “no” consequences to breaking those promises. You might notice that I put quotes around the word ‘no‘. There’s a reason for that. There are consequences. The thing is these aren’t being paraded around in front of you by someone else or they’re so far in the future you’re able to wave them off.

The consequence of me not writing those comics is that I’ve lost two good ideas. Maybe I’ll remember them, but by the time I do they won’t be the same as when I set that goal. As for my fasting, that’s an easy one. I’m bigger than I could be. If I had not screwed up as many times as I’ve had, I would have already lost all the weight I wanted to. Instead I still have a long way to go.

On the flip side, I’ve been keeping a promise. Since I started working on my detective story I set a goal. I want to write at least 1,000 words a day and have the thing finished and published by the end of the year. I have yet to miss that goal.

Thanks to this, I’m up to 38,238 words, which is 67 pages. More than I’ve ever written before. This story is progressing along well. I’m happy with it and I know I’m going to finish it.

Of course, if I’ve broken every other promise I’ve made to myself, why would this be any different? It’s not because I’ve changed, my food issue proves that. To be honest I have no way of knowing that I won’t fuck this up too. Which is the point of this post.

We all break promises to ourselves. It’s natural. The unnatural thing is when you stop making those promises. When you decide to not even try. If you wake up one morning and look at yourself in the mirror and say “No more. Today I’m not even going to try.” you’re in trouble. Set those goal, make those promises and move forward. Even if you fuck up time and time again keep going.

You never know, one of those times might be the one that sticks. Look at me. I’m doing better than I ever have, and I promise to stick at it. If I break that promise, I’ll just make another one and work at that one. Can’t just rest on your laurels.

So make a promise to yourself. Don’t worry if you can’t keep it, you’ll forgive yourself.