Halloween story: Shadow the big black Mystery cat and the red coyote

This crazy looking photo is one I took, minutes after I first saw Shadow, the Mystery Cat, late one night, in the southeast part of the San Fernando Valley.  This isn't Shadow, this is a weird photo of the coyote it was fighting, which I now call the "red coyote." #steveemigphotos

I've been in and out of homelessness over the last 20 years, and I managed to do that without using drugs or alcohol.  I wound up a taxi driver living in my cab for the first time in 1999, and have been struggling with making a decent living ever since.  That struggle is a whole series of stories in itself, which I won't get into.

In these years of homelessness, I've seen a lot of wildlife, while living in my taxi, and driving people around late at night, in both California and North Carolina.  In the 5 or so years I've been actually homeless and living in the woods or on the streets, I saw a bunch more.  Many of the critters I've run into are those you'd expect: raccoons, opossums, deer, skunks, snakes, lizards, tortoises, rats, birds, and lots and lots of bugs and spiders.  You want to have a scary Halloween, spend a night on the streets near a dumpster in downtown L.A., there really are rats as big as small cats.  I even had a pencil sized rat snake show up inside my tent in North Carolina.  Not the way you want your morning to start.  

But I've also run into other animals, ones you don't really think of when you think of homeless people.  I've seen coyotes dozens of times, the last encounter with one was four feet away when I poked my head out of my sleeping bag.  That was a couple of weeks ago.  I've had a mouse run up the leg of my shorts while sleeping a couple of times.  I've seen wild turkeys (in NC), foxes, great horned owls, a barn owl, burrowing owls, herons and egrets, a green winged teal (Google that one, they're beautiful birds), many lesser known species of birds, and I almost stepped on a 7-8 foot long python in Orange County.  I'm pretty sure that was a pet someone let go.  I've seen a bobcat in broad daylight, and it stopped, giving a me a good look at it while broadside.  I've had three, maybe four, interactions with wild mountain lions while homeless.  They were young ones, about the size of a German Shepherd.  Obviously, they chose not to eat me, for which I'm grateful.  And if you 're really bored sometime, ask me about how I saved the city of Richmond, Virginia from a nutria infestation.  What's a nutria?  Imagine a huge, long legged water rat the size of a schnauzer.  That's about what a nutria is.

This is the "red coyote," as I call it.  This is a better view of the same coyote that's in the "werewolf" meme above.  It came back through about dawn, and I got this shot.  It had much shorter hair than the other coyotes I've seen in The Valley, and kind of a redish orange tint to it's underfur.  I actually googled "Mexican wolf, to see if that's what it was.  Nope, just an odd looking coyote.  #steveemigphotos.

 I know most of the mammals wandering around at night in urban and rural areas.  But a couple of months ago, I saw a creature that had me stumped.  I sleep without a tent at the moment, on a wide stretch of sidewalk.  I woke to a hissing and growling commotion one night, maybe 2:00 or 3:00 am.  In the fast food restaurant patio area, across the street, I saw a coyote pulling on the end of a trash bag.  There were two coyotes that roamed through my area every night or two, and I usually woke up and saw them once every week or two.  They leave me alone, although they'll sniff around, up close, if a wandering tweeker or someone drops some food nearby.  

What freaked me out that night is that the coyote was fighting a huge black cat for the bag of garbage.  Now there's a black cat that lives in a fenced off area nearby, I call her Momma Cat.  She's raised three litters of kittens since I've been in that area, and she's as street smart as feral cats come, and a good mom, hence the name.  But she's large, but a normal sized black cat.  She disappears when the coyotes roll through.  That's part of the reason she lives in a fenced in area, and comes out to hunt or scavenge.  So it wasn't her. 

Opossum I saw in Long Beach last year, wandering out just before dusk.  #steveemigphotos

 There was a bush blocking my view at first, but then the coyote pulled the bag a few feet, with the black cat pulling on the other end.  It was a HUGE black cat.  It was also dark, though there are several street lights, and I'm 55, my eyes aren't as sharp as they once were.  The cat let go of the bag, and I only saw it for a second or two.  It was so fucking big I thought it might be a black leopard at first.  OK, black leopards aren't native to L.A..  But people do keep them as exotic pets, and the L.A  Zoo is only a few miles away.  So that was possible, if not plausible.  

Seeing what might be a black leopard, a cat big enough to fight with a coyote, made me a bit nervous.  Part of homelessness is going to sleep every night knowing there are about 100 realistic ways you could die before morning.  Crazy people make up most of that list, and weather and disease make up a lot more.  But mountain lions, stray dogs, coyotes, a rattlesnake, and a few other animals are on that list.  An escaped black leopard would add to the list of scary and dangerous creatures out there. 

Luckily for me, the cat was still wandering around, and I got another quick glimpse of it.  It looked like a long haired black cat, except it was freakin' huge, like a bit smaller than a bobcat.  So over the next few days, I looked up every wild cat around the world, so see if it was some obscure exotic cat, someone's pet that got loose.  I couldn't find a match.  

It didn't have the ear tufts or face tufts of a bobcat, and it had along tail.  One idea was that Momma cat got knocked up by a local bobcat, producing a huge black cat.  But nope, that didn't seem to be the case. The closest match I could find was an Ocelot for size, and Momma cat for the black color and long fur.  While an ocelot was about the right size, they have tan fur, light color on their undersides, and spots much like a leopard.  My best guess was that someone's pet ocelot got loose, hooked up with Momma cat, and produced a huge black cat.  But that seemed like a really big long shot.In the couple weeks after that first sighting, I saw the huge black cat again, twice.  I named it "Shadow the Mystery Cat."  

One night I went to take a leak in some bushes, and suddenly these two eyes opened a few feet away.  I just saw the reflected disks of the eyeshine, and it was close enough to get a quick, but good, look at it.  Sitting up straight, with that good posture cats are known for, Shadow was at least two feet high.  And it didn't freak when I walked right up to it to take a leak.  It was just a ginormous black, long haired cat, and it acted like a feral cat, even a pet.  As I finished whizzing, it crept off into the shadows and disappeared again.  I saw it one more time after that, walking along the curb for a while, so I had a good view, and a reference for it's size.  Again, it was a black ca, just twice the size a large black cat should be.  

Then, a few days ago, I was watching YouTube videos about animals.  A video about the history of black cats popped up on the side, so I watched it.  It finally occurred to me that there was one thing I never thought to Google, and that was "Huge black cat."  When I did, I found photos of huge house cats, a breed called Maine Coons.  So I googled, "black Maine coon."  And there it was. 

This is exactly what Shadow, the Mystery Cat of the Studio City area, looks like.  I pulled this pic off the web.  Shadow wasn't a wild exotic pet at all, but probably was/is someone's pet Maine Coon that got out and roamed about for a while.  And just how big are black Main Coon cats?  Check out this photo below.

Yeah.  Main Coons are ginormous.  Freakin' huge.  I borrowed this pic from the web, as well.  So when you're out having fun tonight, in the east end of The Valley this Halloween, know that Shadow, the big, black mystery cat is out there, too.  It seems friendly to humans, but will tangle with a coyote.  So if you see Shadow tonight, don't try to pet it, consider yourself lucky to see the biggest, baddest black cat roaming the Los Angeles area.  Happy Halloween.

One more random critter photo I shot while homeless.  This is a vulture, there were a hundred of more of these that would gather along the might James River in Richmond, Virginia, when I was living there.  #steveemigphotos

 

Poem: Jezebel

Sunset over Palos Verdes, as seen from the north end of Bolsa Chica state beach, in Huntington Beach, California.  This poem is one I wrote about a punker girl I went out with for a little while, named Roberta, near the end of that relationship.  That was in 1989.  Another kind of sunset.  #steveemigphotos

Jezebel

The words that I want

Well they just aren't around

And I can't look into your eyes

And what we once felt

I don't see anymore

Like a ship when

The fog fills the sky

The moments they come

And the moments they go

But the right moment

Just won't come 'round

I can't go on feeling

Just how I do

But I can't risk 

leaving you down

You're all that I wanted 

Before I knew what I had

And without you

I'd never have known it

You captured what little love

I had inside

Even though I

May not have shown it

So here we are now

In the dark and the grey

Two row boats adrift

In the mist

Maybe our paths

They will cross once again

If not this world

Then in the next 

-The White Bear

 

Poem: Become

This is me (Steve Emig) doing a footplant to 180 on my bike, what skateboarders then called a "No comply."  I rode with skaters at the Huntington Beach Pier nearly every weekend in the late 1980's and early 1990's, and I would often play "SKATE" against them, on my bike.  It's like playing "HORSE" in basketball, so I would have to try to do skate tricks on my bike.  This is one of them, from a 2-Hip Meet the Street contest in La Jolla, California in 1989.  The video is by Eddie Roman, and I did the sketchy TV stills.  This is me, on my way to becoming a mediocre BMX freestyler in the 1980's and 1990's.  The sequence continues below the poem. 

Become

You must risk

If you're to succeed

For when you grow

Sometimes you bleed

Each must climb

Over the fence

For the only cage

Is ignorance

Each Jedi knight

And Shaolin monk

Evolved from

A lowly punk

Don't get caught

In the world's throws

We must become

Our own heroes

-The White Bear 

(written about 1992-93)

 

Poem: AirFireEarthWater

A trail to be followed for those who find it.  Newport Beach Art Park, Newport Beach, California.  #steveemigphotos

AirFireEarthWater

A FEW there be 

That find the path

A FEW there be

That hear the call

A FEW there be

That wake up to

The mystery and wonder

Of it all

-The White Bear

 

Poems: "Play" and "Wondering" haiku

 My personal favorite of all the150+  #sharpiescribblestyle drawings I've done, "Tainted Love" featuring Harley Quinn and The Joker.  I had to sell this one cheap in Richmond, Virginia, to get a motel room, after a 7 night hospital stay because they gave me a drug I was allergic to by accident.  

Play

The world's a stage

Just grand in scale

Drama erupts

Through our travails

It's one great play

Go find your part

Some day you'll realize

The world is art

-The White Bear

"Wondering" haiku

In the grass I lie

Gazing at the blue heavens

I lie wondering

-Steve Emig (me) 

written at age 9

I wrote this for 4th grade when my family lived in a big farmhouse outside of Shiloh, Ohio.  We didn't work the farm, we just rented the house from the farmer who did, though we had to help herd the cows back into the pasture once in a while when they got out.  Since we moved nearly every year, I changed a word or two, and used this same haiku in English class nearly every year up into high school.

This blog is for the writers... and other freaks, geeks, dorks, and weirdos

 I found this photo in vintage public domain photos 2-3 years ago, and drew this with Sharpies.  Now I finally got around to making the meme. 

Daniel Radcliffe interviews Jo Rowling about the Harry Potter series- an author's view of making movies from the most popular children's books of our time

This interview/conversation between Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter in the movies) and Jo ("J.K.") Rowling (author of the Harry Potter books), was shot near the end of the filming of the last Harry Potter movie, Deathly Hallows, part 2.  That came out in 2011, so this interview/conversation probably took place in 2010.  

While I'm a writer, I'm primarily an 1980' zine publisher turned prolific blogger, who has written for  a few magazines in the 80's and 90's.  I've never written much fiction, and never had any published.  But 2,400+ blog posts into my writing life, I've simply done a lot of one form of writing.  Most of the time I was focused on the weird little BMX bike world that was my life for 20 years.  But over the last 2-3 years, I've been watching videos of other writers more, just learning more about the various aspects of writing itself, and particularly how novelists think, an go about their work.

I'm not a huge Harry Potter fan, by Potter standards.  I read the first book a couple of years ago, and I loved the series of movies.  For some reason though, Jo Rowling, aka "J.K." is one of the novelists I most like to listen to about writing itself.  Her story is fascinating, that's one part of it.  But more than anything, she just talks real openly about the writing process in interviews.  Her thoughts on creating the amazing Harry Potter/Hogwarts world, the logic of the books, and on the various characters, are things I love to watch.  

One thing about this conversation/interview, is how both Jo and Daniel talk about how real the characters become to them, as a writer and as an actor.  Many years ago, I read a really obscure book about a Tibetan mystic concept called tulpas.  Supposedly Tibetan mystics, for some reason, would visualize characters that would ultimately become real people, or semi-real, anyhow.  I'm not buying that.  But the book I read was really interesting, and the writer compared the Tibetan tulpas to Superman, and other comic heroes that were ingrained in the public consciousness.  

When I read that book, one of the Star Wars movies had just come out, and I thought about how "real" Yoda, for example had become to millions of people.  While Yoda is a 2 1/2 foot tall muppet with great wisdom written by George Lucas, and who "acts" thanks to amazing special effects, the result is a character that feels nearly real to a lot of people.  I remember being out riding bikes with years ago, and we'd yell Yoda quotes to a friend, "Do or do not, there is no try."  Yoda's sayings, as a character, were as real to us as something a real person might have said. 

The way Daniel and Jo talk about the characters reminds me of that tulpa idea.  A writer thinks up these completely fictional characters, and they take on a life of their own, in a sense.  When a writer works with these characters for months or years, they begin to feel pretty real.  The fictional characters are nearly as close as real people, to the writer, as she's writing them. If the novel gets really popular, like the Harry Potter books have, those characters live in many people's minds, they take on a type of realness, to large numbers of people, and ultimately influence society in some sense.  There can be a type of reality to purely fictional characters, like the Tibetan tulpas.  

All Tibetan talk aside, this is a great conversation between two people, talking about a series of stories, that most of us know fairly well.  It's a great watch/listen as a writer. 

 

Why you NEED a personal blog and a Pinterest page as a writer, artist, or other creative person

This meme is actually a Pinterest pin for my new blog, The Big Freakin' Transition.  I started the blog on Blogger 11 days ago.  If you Google "The Big Freakin' Transition Pinterest," it comes up first, or near first, in the search results.  11 freakin' days.  I suck at a lot of things, but I'm pretty good at blogging and SEO (Search Engine Optimization).  

Go ahead, google it yourself:  "The Big Freakin' Transition Pinterest."  Upper and lower case, all caps, all lowercase, my Pinterest profile, which has this blog's URL linked in it, comes up first and second for me.  If you put a comma after "Transition," it doesn't come up yet, but that's a matter of time.  But it has only been 11 days, with a brand new blog, on a brand new idea, and it's on page 1 of Google results with the right search phrase.  T

The Big Freakin' Transition idea, for those interested, is that we, as a society, are in an 80 to 90 year transition period between the Industrial Age and the Information Age.  I believe we are not actually in either one.  Because of this, some businesses and organizations, and people, have mostly made the transition into a Information Age model, and many businesses and institutions are still working from Industrial Age models and ideas.  Our world seems so crazy today because it is crazy.  We have old ideas over there, and new ideas over here, and things are all mixed up.  We have all kinds of major social, business, mental, and societal changes happening, on all different levels, all at once.  I believe that Big Picture context of The Big Freakin' Transition concept helps us understand, and cope with, the craziness in today's world.  OK, so that's my idea, that's what that blog is about.  It's a new idea, based on The Third Wave concept by the late futurist Alvin Toffler, and his wife Heidi.  You may agree, or disagree, or not be sure about my concept.  That's fine.  That's not the point of this post.

My point in this post is that I have a Big Idea, and I wanted to use a blog to help promote and share that idea with more people.  You as writers, artists, and other kinds of creative people, have lots of Big Ideas.  Some are amazing, some are pretty cool, some are shit.  The same as everyone.  If you want to share your idea, and get it to spread, then you have to publish it or create the piece of art, film whatever, that conveys that idea.  That's a big part of what art is, a creative work conveying some idea.  

Now you have a creative work with an idea... just sitting there.  If you want other people to see it, analyze it, think about it, share it, and hopefully, ultimately, accept it, then you have to promote your idea.  Here's where a lot of writers and artists drop the ball.  We aren't sure about it, our idea.  We LOVE it, but it's scary to put it out for other people to attack and criticize.  It sucks to have someone, especially people you respect, tear your creative work down.  So we hold back, afraid to really put it out there in a big way.  

In addition, most artists aren't natural promoters, that feels like salesperson stuff, marketing, and artists and writers aren't supposed to market their work, according to someone, somewhere, a long time ago. It's like an unwritten rule.  I wasn't a natural promoter, I had to work a long time to get to that point, to promote my own work.  But we want everyone, or a large group, to appreciate our work.  Many writers and creative people want to "be discovered."  Hey, buy a Powerball ticket, the chances are about the same.  In all likelihood, you won't have your screenplay (or whatever) "discovered," unless you actually work on promoting it yourself, first. 

I literally saw a post on Twitter the other day from a young woman in her 20's.  It said, "OK, I wrote a screenplay, I moved to L.A., now what?"  And I know that's the basic plan for thousands of wannabe writers in the Los Angeles area, and New York, and other cities with big media businesses located there.  I told the young woman, "Get a job as a server in an L.A. restaurant or bar," because that's what most wannabe actors, and some writers, and directors, and producers, etc) do.  Then you'll meet some cool new people, and some lame ones.  You'll party in the evenings, hook up now and then, but mostly sit around with other people who are also waiting for their screenplay to get "discovered."  You'll have wonderful conversations about how fucked up Hollywood is, and about that one A-list star who came into your restaurant last Tuesday, but didn't tip well.  After a few years, you'll move back home to _______________, and get a job at Target.  Then you'll tell everyone there about meeting stars and how fucked up Hollywood really is.

OR... you'll realize that this hear internet thing, and all that social media, are FREE platforms to PROMOTE THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF YOUR WORK!!!.  You don't have to be annoying about it.  You just have to start a blog, and a Pinterest page, along with whatever social media you already do.  Then if you are a wannabe writer, write shit.  OK, not only "shit," but write stuff.  That's what makes you a "writer," actually writing stuff.  Something.  And put some of it on your blog.  Then you let everyone on your social media know, "Hey, I wrote a blog post, here's the link."  Don't spam them, just let them know.  

A few people will begin to check it out.  I believe in putting a counter on my blogs, because when people see one, if their are some numbers, they known someone has actually read your blog.  Most people don't put counters on their personal blogs for that reason, almost no one actually reads their blogs.  My Steve Emig: The White Bear blog (not a racist thing, just a nickname, to be clear), has over 128,000 pageviews (in 4 years, 3 months).  I started that blog while living in a tent in the woods in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in June of 2017.  For real.  I didn't know if anyone would read a blog about Old School BMX freestyle, the economy, and Sharpie art.  Guess what, they did.  Not everyone, but a lot of my former BMX follwers, and a few others, read posts.  I wrote about 700 posts in 3 years, and the pageviews add up, and compound, after a while.  I retired that blog in May 2020, with 100,000 page views.  It kept getting quite a few views, just sitting there. 

I did basic, solid SEO (I'd been blogging a while when I started it), which was mostly just 20 backlinks from my other blogs, and then sharing it in Facebook BMX groups.  AND I wrote interesting posts about BMX freestyle in the 80's.  The old guys from that world liked my blog.  I kept writing, and they kept reading.

Guess what, now I'm known as a solid, working (if still broke) Sharpie artist, and as a hardcore blogger.  That's what writing a blog (or doing a VLOG, a video blog), does for you.  It establishes you as an expert in whatever you're blogging about.  You know, like this blog here, about writing.  I haven't been paid to write since 1998.  But I have been writing and self-publishing for 36 years now, I have written for 7 worldwide BMX magazines BITD, and my plethora of blogs have pulled in over 438,000 total page views.  I've made almost no money writing, but I've written thousands of blog posts of the stuff I wanted to write.  And it got read by quite a few people.  A lot of people get paid to write stuff, but often stuff they're not really into, and sometimes pure garbage.  I prefer to write what I'm interested in, and get it read.  I do want to write to earn money again, but only doing work I'm passionate about. 

So I can't tell you exactly how to sell your screenplay.  But I do know how to publish a decent blog, promote that blog, and establish yourself online as a solid writer.  Yes, all my current blogs are on Blogger, not Wordpress, because I'm still a tard technically, and Blogger is easy and less of a hassle.  Wordpress is great, if you're a bit more tech savy than I am.  Either one is fine.  Just start a blog, and put something out 2-3 times a week.  If you don't have any other websites, start a second blog.  Do 20 posts of ANYTHING.  By anything, I mean "here are 20 photos of my dog," and write a post for each one.  Just a photo and a sentence or two.  Whatever.  Then link each post from blog #2 to your main blog.  That gives you 20 backlinks, and the search engines see backlinks as vote for your blog, basically.  That's all, just do 20.  Then every time you do a blog post, link to it from your social media pages.  That's it.  That gets the search engines to start noticing your blog.  That's the first part of what I did on The Big Freakin' Transition blog. 

Now, for the second part, let's talk about Pinterest.  If you don't have a Pinterest page, start a personal one (you can always change it to a business one, if you want).  It's easy, 5 minutes, just like signing up for anything else online.  There's an info section that comes up when people find your page, and you can link one website to it.  Put a link to your personal blog.  That's it.  The search engines LOVE Pinterest.  It's the 4th biggest social media site there is, I believe.  

But Pinterest is different.  You create "boards," like a old school bulletin board you would put on your wall.  Then you collect photos (and videos now) to each board.  Every board has a theme.  The theme can be anything you want, you create the boards, it's up to you.  It can be islands you want to visit, hot fudge sundaes, vegan recipes, cool cars, aardvark photos, whatever.  Check out my Pinterest page, as an example, and check out other people's pages.  

Basically, Pinterest is the online "bucket" for your Bucket List.  It's interests, ideas, things you want to do, things you want to buy, places you want to go, but in photos.  It's not about followers, though you'll get some after a while.  It's about your interests.  When you have a few minutes, get on Pinterest, and "collect" a few photos on one board or another.  Check out a YouTube how-to video to learn the details on Pinterest, if you've never done it before.  But just start a page, and build a cool Pinterest page over time.  And have your personal blog link in the info.  It will help strangers find your blog, and it is great for lazy SEO.  Just building your Pinterest page, a bit now and then, helps slowly build your blog's SEO, and your own web presence.  

Oh yeah, guess how producers, directors, and people looking for writers find each other these days... on the internet and on social media.  Yes, AND word of mouth.  But today's word of mouth often starts online.  In internet marketing terms, with a personal blog and a decent Pinterest page, in addition to whatever else you do on social media, you are building your online presence, and "your personal brand."  If that sounds to markety, it builds your "reputation"... as a writer, or artist, or director, or whatever.  

I have a board of my #sharpiescribblestyle drawings, 170 of them.  I've sold 90 or so originals in 5 years (the drawings take 40-45 hours each, or I would have sold a lot more), because of my BMX blogs, my Facebook, and more recently Pinterest.  You just have to spend a little time every day or two, to put something on your blog and on Pinterest, which tells the online world, "Hey, I'm here, I'm a writer (or whatever), here's some of my stuff.  Build your reputation as a writer (or whatever), as you go along.  Network as your normally would, meeting people online and in the real world.  When you meet someone in person, give them a card or flyer of your work, with your personal blog URL.  This  greatly increases your standing as an actual, working writer (or whatever).  You online presence, these days, IS your resume'.

I've been into Pinterest for about 3 years, I think, maybe 4.  My page is pretty solid, although I've revamped with more writing stuff lately.  But putting my new blog's URL on my already established Pinterest page (URL in the info section), and that is why it's coming up in a Google search, only 11 days and about 5 posts into the blog.  That and 20 backlinks.  That's it.  Free.  A couple of hours work, no money, on a sketchy, 6 year old laptop (with an epic sticker collection on top).  These two things, a personal blog and a cool Pinterest page, can do an incredible amount to promote you as a writer, artist, or whatever, in the online world.  That promotes you in the physical world.  What is everybody doing all day everyday?  Looking at their phones.  So give them something of yours to look at.  It's easy, it's free, and just takes a little bit of time on a regular basis.  Promoting yourself is a key part of any creative work in today's world.  So those are my two big suggestions, a personal blog, and a cool Pinterest page. 

Now get your blog going, and start a Pinterest page.  Got it?

The Spawn of Todd McFarlane: How he created a new superhero, a new comic imprint, and a new toy company

While I'm not a huge comic book fan, I have read a few of the classic graphic novels, Like Watchman, V for Vendetta, Sandman, and a series called Seekers into the Mystery, along with issues of several other 90's comics. I first checked out Spawn in the mid 90's a few times.  As a writer and artist, Todd's story is far more fascinating to me.  This 45 minute interview gives a great look at how Todd McFarlane went from a wannabe comic artist, to building an empire in comics and toys.  

As I'll mention over and over in this blog, I came from the early days of BMX freestyle, when it was just turning into a actual sport in the mid-1980's.  My first creative work was a zine.  BMX, skateboarding, and other 1980's action sports, were entrenched with the DIY- Do It Yourself- mantra of hardcore punk rock.  So I've always been a fan of self-publishing, when others aren't interested in publishing you.

Todd McFarlane is probably the best example of that spirit in the comic world.  In his 20's, he worked his way into Marvel as an artist, and eventually drew issues of classic characters like Spiderman and Batman.  But the time came to go out on his own, with a few other artists, they formed Image Comics.  There Todd brought a teenage idea, a character named Spawn, to life. With his own company, and full creative control, Spawn went on to outsell the classic characters issues he had worked on earlier.  He later took Spawn to Hollywood, for a couple of series.  When he couldn't find the right partner to make toys for Spawn and other Image characters, he started his own toy company.  Todd's continued work of breaking new ground usually started with a simple question, "Can we make this look cooler?" 

Why do you write?

In 1985, I bought an old, Royal, manual typewriter, much like the one in this video, for $15 at the San Jose Swap Meet.  I had just moved there from Boise, Idaho, and the weird, new little sport of BMX freestyle was my life.  I used that typewriter to start a zine about BMX freestyle, as a way to meet the other riders in the Bay Area.  That was the start of my writing "career."  In less than a year my zine landed me a magazine job in Southern California.  I had no idea that would happen, and it definitely wasn't my goal.  But that zine, San Jose Stylin', changed the entire course of my life.

Why do you write?  Do you just have something to say to the world?  Do you want to be a bestselling author or novelist some day?  Do you want to write a script for Hollywood and win an Oscar?  Do you want to become a famous writer?  Do you just want to be a "working writer?"  Do you think being a writer will get you laid?  Do you just love torture?  Do you want to make a fortune writing stuff that impresses that asshole professor in college who told you that you didn't have what it takes to "make it" was a professional writer?  Or do you see yourself as a conduit of information from some unknown source that needs to come into our physical world as books, movies or some other written form?  Or are you someone who has been writing for years, and you're just going to keep doing it, money or no money involved, because it's who you are?

There are a lot of reasons to want to write.  If money, fame and glory are your main reasons, you probably won't stick with it long enough to find any of those.  But if you have something to say to the world, or you keep coming up with ideas that seem like they should be part of a book or movie, you may be in it for the long haul.  

I started a zine when I'd only heard of them in a FREESTYLIN' (BMX) magazine article.  I'd never seen an actual zine.  I wanted an excuse to meet the pro BMX freestylers of the San Francisco Bay Area.  BMX freestyle, which was largely unknown to normal people in 1985, was my life.  I was 19-years-old, and couldn't afford to go to college.  I didn't really have a drive towards anything that needed a degree, so I worked at a Pizza Hut, and spent nights creating a really ugly, but pretty solid zine.  Less than a year later, FREESTYLIN' magazine (and sister mag BMX Action) offered me a job.  I didn't consider myself a writer then, I wanted to be a pro rider, a BMX freestyler, not a writer.  I didn't really click with the staff there, and got laid off after a few months (and replaced by 18-year-oldBMX/skater kid Spike Jonze).  

My next job was a year as writer/editor/photographer for a BMX freestyle newsletter.  Near the end of that, I was beginning to enjoy writing, and starting to feel like a "writer."  In the 33 years since, I've only been paid to write for two months, another short-lived BMX magazine, in 1998.  But I've written and published 40+ zines, including three of poetry.  And since 2008, I've tried 25-35 blog ideas, and written well over 2,400 blog posts.  I did that for free, writing things I, personally, wanted to write about.  Those posts pulled in over 435,000 total page views, so much of what I've written has actually been read by some people.  Along the way, over 36 years, I've become much more aware of my creative process, how I work, and how I write. 

I don't get writer's block really.  On the contrary, I'm usually exploding with far more ideas than I can sit down and write.  If I don't have a ready idea for one blog or piece, I usually have an idea for another, so I'll work on that.  Part of our influence in the 1980's BMX freestyle scene was punk rock, with it's DIY (Do It Yourself) attitude.  So self-publishing, in zines, blogs, and one ebook, made sense to me.  I've never given myself one rejection letter.  I've never really tried to get a book published by a traditional publisher, I cranked out one ebook last year, and sold a few copies.  Most of my blogging, since 2008, has been about my life in the early days of 1980's BMX freestyle.  I became an industry guy, a video producer, and knew all the pros and industry people of the first wave of what is now a worldwide sport.  So I had a lot of weird, little insider stories from that world.

Over the 36 years I've been writing pretty consistently, my reasons for writing have changed.  I consume a lot of information, and then think about it, like most avid readers do.  There came a point where I realized I needed to write my thoughts on different subjects, to let what I've learned flow back out into the world.  If I just read, I would be like a big lake with a river flowing into it, just filling up more and more and more.  But to really flow, like life itself, I needed to let my thoughts flow back out of the lake, producing my own river of content.  I'm not saying that's a good metaphor for everyone, but it works for me.  I write a lot more than I read these days, but I spent the 1990's and 2000's reading 250 or 300 books, and listening to 150 more on audiotape.  

I write because, as an organism, I get curious, I read and learn, and then think about what I've learned.  Then I pretty much NEED to write something, to put my take on that subject back out into the world.  That's what works for me, and why I will self-publish in blogs or zines, even with no money coming back, much of the time.  

That said, I've been struggling with homelessness, in and out of it, since I became a taxi driver in 1999, and I need to start making a decent living again.  I plan to do that primarily by writing, and with the unique Sharpie marker art I do, (#sharpiescribblestyle) as another creative outlet. So that's why I write.  I'm just geared to take in info, ponder about it, and write my take on this subject or that one, mostly with non-fiction, but now with some fiction as well.

So I'll ask again, why to you write?  When you find the deep reason for it, a lot of daily writing issues seem to fade away, at least to some degree.  When you figure out your own process, and work with it, a lot of the torture aspect goes away as well, at least in my experience. 

How "Fight Club" was written by Chuck Palahniuk and screenwriter Jim Uhls

I just stumbled across this one this afternoon.  Personally, I thought the Fight Club movie was one of the most original, brilliant, intense, fucked up movies I've ever seen.  Years later, I learned these was actually a book, and read that, too.  This 13 minute video gets into the nuts and bolts of how the original story, and then the movie was written.  Good stuff.  That's all I'm going to say.